422 HEREDITY AND SELECTION IN SOCIOLOGY 



both direct and indirect. Direct, in that multiplication always 

 stands in direct ratio to the risk of destruction attending 

 on the young individuals of the species ; indirect, in that a 

 species, if it is to maintain itself, must be adaptable in the 

 highest possible degree ; for, as we saw in the chapter on the 

 origin and extinction of species, those species unable to adapt 

 themselves rapidly enough to rapidly changing conditions 

 succumb ; and adaptation of the species as a whole can only be 

 secured if that species presents a sufficiently large number of 

 individuals for natural selection to act upon. Thus multiplica- 

 tion of life La the interests of the preservation of life appears to 

 be the tendency of organic evolution. 



But this tendency to an ever greater multiplication of life 

 is not without producing a certain antagonism between Individua- 

 tion and Genesis — ^between the iadividual and the species. On 

 the one hand, the interest of the species is necessarily paramoimt 

 and superior to individual interests ; for if the species ceased to 

 exist, the individuals composing it would also cease to exist ; 

 and thus the individual is interested in. the maintenance of the 

 species. On the other hand, the continuity of the species is 

 accompanied by a more or less vast sacrifice of iadividual Hfe. 

 For instance, an adult individual, the single survivor of a hundred 

 thousand germs, may itself be almost whoUy sacrificed individu- 

 ally in the production of germs equally numerous ; La which case 

 the species is maintained, but at enormous cost both to adults 

 and young. Or the adult, devoting but a moderate portion of 

 its substance to the production of multitudinous germs, may 

 enjoy a considerable amount of life, in which case the cost of 

 maintaining the species is shown in a great mortaUty of the 

 young. Or the adult, sacrificing its substance almost entirely, 

 may produce a moderate number of ova, aU well provided with 

 nutriment and well protected, among which the mortality is not 

 so great ; and in this case the cost of maintainiag the species falls 

 more on the adult and less on the young. " And thus," con- 



