256 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 



The more this question is studied the more does the problem of 

 the paramountcy of the species grow in importance. All other in- 

 stincts even that of self-preservation, much lauded as it has been in 

 popular opinion and in the deeper currents of biological and ethical 

 discussion, are seen to play a subservient role."^ The many attempts 

 which have been made by venturesome thinkers to reduce all in- 

 stincts and social acts to a fundamental instinct, viz., sexual love, 

 have had more regard to the dramatic and striking facts of life than 

 to the more essential underlying laws. Sexual love is a means not 

 an end. It is instrumental in securing the propagation of the race. 

 The phrase, "and they lived happy ever after," is a very liglit and 

 airy way of saying that the goal of life has been reached, the perpet- 

 uation and better education of the species, parental care. The 

 Roman mind, so truly and profoundly great in matters of law and 

 government, summed up in a few words the social aspect of the most 

 fundamental of organic laws — salus reipublicce esto suprema lex. 



Weismann's argument in reference to the duration of life and 

 the problem of old age, decay and death may be applied to other 

 problems as well, and to this problem of future specific and social 

 efficiency especia'ly. Writers pre\ious to Weismann had tried to 

 show that the age of an animal is determined by its size. This, 

 however, cannot be the main determining agency because instances 

 may be cited in opposition to such a theory, such as the fact that the 

 pike and carp live as long as the elephant (200 years). Neither can 

 the complexity of structure and function be regarded as the chief 

 cause of length of life. Here the argument is a physiological one: 

 the length of life being determined by the rate at which the animal 

 lives, the rapidity with which assimilation and the other vital 



(1) Geddes and Thompson, The Evolution of Sex, Chap. XX; Laws of Multiplication, Chap. 

 XXI; The Reproductive Factors in Evolution. " PhysioIo=rists and evolutionists are 

 coming to see the most complex lives, in Poster's plirase, as ' but the by-play of ovum- 

 bearing organisms.' " Darwin's " residual explanations " of sexual selection, corre- 

 lation of growth, etc., are coming to be regarded as primary laws, competition or the 

 struggle for existence and the all-sufficiency of the individual being properly subor- 

 dinated to the larger and more important needs of the species and social group. 



Skin for skin, all that a man has will he give for his life— a sentiment of doubtful value as 

 an ultimate truth, and one which the Ancient who wrote the Book of Job puts it into 

 the mouth of the Devil. 



