MAJORITY CONTROL 245 



lation, so it is likewise difficult to read in higlil}' specialized organisms 

 the leading of this great governing principle of biogenesis. If we do 

 trip and fall among the entanglements of the statutes, the difficult mech- 

 anism of our present community life, let us remember that also back even 

 of the bewildering, confusing, interlocking webs of the physiological 

 mechanism of evolution lies, outspoken and luminant, the simpler ex- 

 pressions of the basic law on which rests the whole superstructure of 

 evolution, whether of the individual or of the State. 



d It is well for us, well for the State, that we read aright the teaching 

 of the greater past upon the doctrine of majority control, for whatever 

 enduring virtue it has takes its roots in these past procedures of life 

 when laying the foundations of its phyla. Over and over again the domi- 

 nant race has started on its career as an insignificant minority struggling 

 for its existence against an overburden of mechanical and vital obstacles, 

 armed only with specific virtues which have little by little fought their 

 way into the foreground, and by so doing consummated their upward 

 purpose. If I refer to the geological history of the phylum to w^hich we 

 belong, the Mammalia, it may stand for the oft-repeated procedure which 

 has in various forms come under the notice of every paleontologist. The 

 Prototheria, or the first of all mammals, appeared on the scene in the 

 Jurassic, diminutive, mouselike creatures even yet retaining from rep- 

 tilian ancestors the function of ovulation, possibly having already devel- 

 oped a marsupial pouch for their nurslings, insectivorous in dentition, 

 creeping inconspicuously through sheltered places of the forests or among 

 the crevices of the earth, their minute but agile brains by which they 

 were steering their course, tremendously exceeding in proportion the 

 brains of the giant reptiles whose variant forms constituted the majority 

 and made them masters of earth and air and sea — whose gigantic physique 

 and fleshly lusts had outstripped the early promise of their cephalic 

 ganglia and left them hopelessly decephalized. Insignificant in size and 

 number, but equipped with the vigor of phyletic youth, agile adaptability, 

 locomotive independence left unimpaired through excessive food supply, 

 with such equipment, good balance between cephalic and motor nerve 

 centers, these inconspicuous and feeble folk started on their career of 

 triumph over an overwhelming majority. Time passed and the deed was 

 done. The agile-witted founders of the race had spread abroad through 

 the earth. They grew vast in number and variety, adapted to all media 

 of earth and air and sea. To them at last came the temptations of the 

 flesh pots; they grew great in bulk, slow in body, weaker in locomotion, 

 and feebler in proportion. They, too, had met their impasse and there 



