THE ELEMENTS OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION. 95 
dom worth having. Mutual help in society has brought 
about mutual dependence. It has at the same time 
brought a security and strength which must be forever 
impossible under purely individualistic conditions. The 
tendency for organisms to join together for mutual aid 
is therefore one of the primal tendencies of life. It is 
involved in the very definition of life itself. It can 
never become outworn or exhausted. It must in greater 
and greater degree rule the hearts of men, as men be- 
come wiser, purer, stronger in the progress of evolution. 
“In the very nature of things God has made this law of 
mutual aid so strong that he has impressed and stamped 
it on the life of everything that breathes.” 
As the cell is related to the tissue, so is the individual 
man connected with society. The essential difference 
is the obvious one that the individual man moves, lives, 
and dies as an individual, while the individual cell is 
confined to its place by physical limitations. 
In recognising the fact that the parallelism exists, 
it is not necessary to push it too far. From the aggre- 
gation of cells results specialization of parts, division of 
labour among organs, progress, and adaptation; and 
ultimately from the same source springs the necessity 
for organic death. Being bound together by physical 
bonds, the wearing out of one organ means the decay 
of the whole. In like manner, from the altruism of the 
individual results the strength of the state, the division 
of labour among men, and the consequent increase of 
effectiveness, the progress of knowledge, and the ameni- 
ties of life. Wedo not need to say that a society or a 
nation must die for like reasons, for its units are bound 
not by physical bonds, but by invisible forces, and the 
wearing out of one organ could not necessarily destroy 
the whole. But the complex animal and the complex 
society are alike manifestations of the law of altruism, 
8 
