CONCLUSION. 



319 



community receives benefit from the custom. 

 Thus supposing the Hfe of a rabbit is threatened 

 twenty times a- year (a very modest estimate) 

 through his rendering himself specially visible, 

 he receives more than twenty warnings from 

 the caudal danger-signals of his fellow -citizens 

 of the presence of dangerous foes which might 

 otherwise kill him. The result, as I have said, 

 is very much like what one finds in civilised 

 human communities. We pay out of our means 

 of livelihood so much a -year to the Govern- 

 ment (which represents the community) in rates 

 and taxes. When one comes to examine the 

 part which money really plays in the economy 

 of life, one finds that it must be placed amongst 

 the means of subsistence; for it is merely a 

 kind of substitute for such necessaries as food, 

 raiment, and covering. If such things are taken 

 from those of us who have only a bare com- 

 petence (and it must be remembered that this 

 is all we are naturally entitled to, for Nature 

 does not give any of her children any surplus 

 income as a general rule), our chances of life 

 are thereby to some extent lessened. Thus, 

 broadly speaking, money stands to us in the 

 same relation as any other influence which tends 



