CHAPTER XI 



VARIABLE ORGANIZATION 



Mankind is thus found to be grouped and partially united 

 in racial and national aggregates, which often lack com- 

 munity of interest, and are divided themselves by differences 

 of purpose, which may arise in many ways, but which when 

 no other cause exists will develop in the unavoidably un- 

 equal wisdom of individuals. 



It can therefore be said that these inequalities are neces- 

 sary conditions of the system as it exists, and not mere 

 removable incidents in opposition to it. External opposition 

 when overcome could be ended, but this internal opposition 

 continually reappears. And as this opposition frequently 

 imposes new forms upon the older ones, it evidently denotes 

 an experimental variation of conduct in these greater units, 

 with possibly the same functions as pertain to the variation 

 perceived in individual conduct. These aggregates are thus 

 in process of comparison just as the lesser ones are, and 

 the fittest are surviving, in natural preference over the 

 others. Here too the process of selection is becoming less 

 destructive, in that altruistic contact invites change by con- 

 version to its methods, and conduct is purposed as well as 

 experimental. Yet it remains true as before that in the 



absence of adaptation the old law of consequence still solves 



208 



