Variable Organization 209 



the problem by the destruction of the unfit. We may see 

 in this chaotic mixture of activities, an evolution which is 

 still proceeding by law, and that law is the same as was 

 visible in smaller things. Here also becomes apparent a 

 constitutional difference in capacity. Two natures, equally 

 impelled by the competitive advance, may be seen, one capa- 

 ble of elevation and the other only of destruction. In long 

 established, persistent heredity, one may have latent 

 tendencies toward the higher life, which circumstances have 

 restrained ; and the other may have its character based upon 

 a persistent and hitherto successful use of the predatory, or 

 of some other methods which are obsolete. So a race of 

 mild, pacific savagery, despite its abject backwardness, en- 

 joys some degree of opportunity because of its pacifism, and 

 to some extent secures a share in the succession, as we see in 

 the case of the negroes in America, while the war-loving, 

 barbaric nation, refusing to participate in what it despises — 

 the warrior Indian — goes down into oblivion. The situation 

 is still that of survival of the fittest, but it is according to 

 some law of fitness which changes and has changed, and 

 which is not declared in any permanent standard code. All 

 the standards and codes which exist to aid and control 

 the individual stop short of assumption of authority over 

 the world units. And moreover great efforts to extend the 

 influence of the stronger codes have not succeeded in making 

 them universal. The imperfect successes of these efforts 

 show, that universality of standard is as impossible as 

 permanence of standard. What is right at one time may be 

 wrong at another, is an obvious truth paralleled by the other, 



that what is right at one place may be wrong at another. It 

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