24-2 POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS. 



But now observe that the inter-social -struggle for exist* 

 ence which has been indispensable in evolving societies, will 

 not necessarily play in the future a part like that which it has 

 played in the past. Eecognizing our indebtedness to war for 

 forming great communities and developing their structures, 

 we may yet infer that the acquired powers, available for other 

 activities, will lose their original activities. While conceding 

 that without these perpetual bloody strifes, civilized societies 

 could not have arisen, and that an adapted form of human 

 nature, fierce as well as intelligent, was a needful concomitant ; 

 we may at the same time hold that such societies having been 

 produced, the brutality of nature in their units which was 

 necessitated by the process, ceasing to be necessary with the 

 cessation of the process, will disappear. While the benefits 

 achieved during the predatory period remain a permanent 

 inheritance, the evils entailed by it will decrease and slowly 

 die out. 



Thus, then, contemplating social structures and actions 

 from the evolution point of view, we may preserve that 

 calmness which is needful for scientific interpretation of them, 

 without losing our powers of feeling moral reprobation or 

 approbation. 



439. To these preliminary remarks respecting the mental 

 attitude to be preserved by the student of political institu 

 tions, a few briefer ones must be added respecting the subject- 

 matters he has to deal with. 



. If societies were all of the same species and differed only 

 in their stages of growth and structure, comparisons would 

 disclose clearly the course of evolution ; but unlikenesses 

 of type among them, here great and there small, obscure the 

 results of such comparisons. 



Again, if each society grew and unfolded itself without the 

 intrusion of additional factors, interpretation would be rela 

 tively easy; but the complicated processes of development 

 are frequently re-complicated by changes in the gets of 



