DEVELOPMENT AND THE RACE 25 



both in size and complexity ; and so imperious is this 

 demand for development that, to satisfy it and give 

 material for elaboration, the very tissues of an animal 

 may be sacrificed, and remoulded by a process to 

 which it passively submits. 



Fresh impulses fit to guide this altered self are 

 developed in it, and are evoked perfectly at the first 

 trial, or after a few failures. If this experience leads to 

 a wider range of activity, the animal rises in the scale 

 of being ; if it leads to a narrow range or fixed habit, 

 development becomes retrograde. As the responses 

 govern the behaviour of an animal and give it character, 

 so this advance or retreat of the individual is governed 

 by the supreme factor of racial welfare. 



The welfare of the race is the end to which indi- 

 vidual well-being is subjected and often sacrificed. 

 It is rather a motive that possesses animals than is 

 possessed by them. It determines the formation and 

 policy of hives, the building of nests, the colours of 

 eggs, the care of the young. It transmutes inactive 

 fish and beasts into vigilant and ferocious defenders 

 of their young. It is the highest motive that governs 

 individual and national conduct, and has produced 

 that heritage of freedom and social stability which we 

 enjoy as we inherit the physical and psychical organi- 

 sation that constitutes our being. 



REFERENCES 



Past history of animals : Sir Ray Lankester, ' Extinct 

 Animals.' 



Blood-relationship : Nultatt, ' Blood-immunity and Blood- 

 relationship ' 



