Justice in Death 95 



ficient, and seek the preservation of lineage by superiority of 

 quality, and not by merely numerical strength. 



Then the adaptation to closer association, by cultivation 

 of its peculiar methods of cooperative life, will enable a con- 

 tinued increase, by reducing the evils of crowding and 

 developing its benefits. 



Thus association begins to appear as a constructive force, 

 while the mere competition by numbers for survival of the 

 fittest, is a form of destructive contest. 



It is evident therefore that although failure in the primi- 

 tive contest for racial improvement by an abundant increase 

 and severe selection from that increase, is a weakness in face 

 of the greater vitality of other races, and will entail conse- 

 quences toward extinction in the comparison when primitive 

 conditions govern, yet there is a limit of value in this method. 

 This limit appears when outer hostility becomes less im- 

 portant than the crowded condition which destroys oppor- 

 tunity. Then nature lessens the demand for productiveness 

 and imposes a demand for progress in quality. 



The superiority of man to the rest of creation does not 

 remove or exempt man from the operation of these processes 

 by which all nature is ruled. On the contrary, for him it adds 

 to these a great number of higher demands and ordinances. 

 As will appear from mature study, the addition of the al- 

 truistic motive, and those of conscious reasoning, to the 

 impulses of conduct in man, still further impels him to avoid 

 needless sacrifices to death, and urges upon him more than 

 upon other animals, a preference for that phase of life 

 which seeks to maintain itself by organization in mutual 

 support, rather than that resting upon competition for sur- 



