Association is Exaltation of Life 313 



jDut also the increase of intelligence and of wealth 

 will be in proportion to the extent of the associa- 

 tion. As long as man is a member of a small tribe, 

 consisting of a score of individuals, the increase in 

 his intelligence and his fortune must be slow. 

 When the whole human race shall form a single 

 organized group, the increase of the intelligence 

 and the riches of each inhabitant of the world will 

 be the most rapid possible. The problem of 

 extending the limits of the moral law until it in- 

 cludes all humanity becomes therefore the central 

 problem of all social progress. 



Association and the intensification of life are -J 

 identical facts. We can trace the process from 

 the lowest to the highest ranges of life. In the 

 vegetable and animal kingdom, cellules associate 

 themselves into organisms. Then animals asso- 

 ciate themselves into groups of varying extent. 

 The biological and sociological processes are of 

 exactly the same nature. One is the continuation 

 of the other without the least trace of a break. One 

 of the most difficult questions which the naturalist 

 has to solve is to determine in certain cases whether 

 a living organism is an individual or a collection of 

 individuals, i. e., a colony. The question of indi- 

 viduality is widely recognized as one of the most 

 difficult in biology. However, all these phe- 

 nomena which take on such extraordinarily com- 

 plex forms are the resultants of a single effort and 

 a single tendency: the exaltation of the vital 

 intensity of the units which make up the associa- 



