242 DOCTRINE OF EVOLUTION 



If now this, new field is actually to be included within 

 the scope of the laws controlling the rest of nature's 

 evolution, two general conclusions must be established. 

 Although no formal order need be followed, it must at 

 some time be shown that human social relations are 

 biological relations, to be best explained only through 

 their comparison with the far simpler modes of asso- 

 ciation found by the biologist among lower orders of 

 beings; and in the second place it must be demon- 

 strated that identical biological laws, uniform in their 

 operation everywhere in the organic world, have con- 

 trolled the origin and establishment of even the most 

 complex societies of men. So far no reason has been 

 discovered by science for believing that evolution has 

 been discontinuous, holding true only for the merely 

 physical characteristics of humanity as a whole; and 

 furthermore, the impersonal student of nature finds 

 ample positive evidences showing that the basic laws of 

 associations of whatever grade are exactly the same. 

 For these laws we are to seek. 



Heretofore the doctrine of organic evolution has 

 been discussed with reference to the single individual 

 organism viewed as a natural object whose history 

 and vital relations require elucidation. Both in the 

 general arguments of the first few chapters and in the 

 fifth and sixth chapters dealing with the single case of 

 the human species, the proof has been given that all of 

 the structural and physiological characters of any and 

 every organic type fall within the scope of the prin- 

 ciples of evolution, by which alone they can be reason- 

 ably interpreted. It has been unjust in a sense to 

 ignore completely the importance of the organic rela- 



