vival of the fittest as to the fitting of as many as possible to survive. It repudiates the gladiatoral theory of existence."

It is a vast change from the "gladiatorial theory" to that of "mutual helpfulness." Call it a revolution, if you will. Revolutions are not unheard of in the history of the animal kingdom any more than in human history. We have seen, first, digestion and reproduction on the throne of animal organization, then muscle, and finally brain. Each of these changes is in one sense a revolution.

A little before the summer solstice the earth is whizzing away from the sun; a few weeks later it is whizzing with equal rapidity in almost the opposite direction. In the very nature of things it could not be otherwise. But so silently and gradually does it come about that we never feel the reversal of the engine; indeed the engine has not been reversed at all. Very similar is the change of the struggle of brute against brute to that of man for man. Indeed human development seems now to be almost at such a solstice where the power that makes for love is almost exhausted in opposing the tendency toward selfishness. We shall not always stay at the solstice; soon we shall make more rapid progress. And unselfishness like the family relation is firmly rooted in mammalian structure.

And man owes almost everything to family life. First the child gains the advantage of the parent's experience. He is educated by the parent. In a few formative and receptive years he gains from the parent the results of centuries of human experience. The process is thus cumulative, the investment bears compound interest. And yet this is peculiar to man only

in degree. Have you never watched a cat train her kittens? And the education of the child in the savage family is very incomplete.

The family is the first and fundamental of all higher social and political unities. And without the persistence of the family the larger social unit would become an inert mass. All the individual ambition, all desire for family advancement, must be retained as still a motive for energetic advance. And all the training which social life can give reaches the individual most effectively, or solely, through the family. Society without the family would be like an army without company or regimental organization. Thus the very existence, not only of training in love and mutual helpfulness, but even of society itself as a mere organization, depends upon the existence and improvement of family life. And as so much depended upon and resulted from it, it could not but be fostered and improved by natural selection. The tribe or race with the best family life has apparently survived. But all social animals have some means of communicating very simple thoughts or perceptions. The simplest illustrations of this are the calls and warning cries of mammals and birds. It is not impossible that the higher mammals have something worthy of the name of language. But man alone, with his better brain and better anatomical structure of throat and mouth, and the closer interdependence with his fellows, has attained to articulate speech. And this again has become the bond to a still closer union.

Now our only question is, How does social life enable and aid man to conform to environment? We are interested not so much in his happiness as in his progress.

It helps and improves the body by giving him a better and more constant supply of more suitable food, and better protection from inclemency of the weather, and in many other ways. Baths and gymnasia are built, and medical science prolongs life. Yet make the items as many as you can, and what a long list of disadvantages to man physically you must set over against these. Many of these evils will doubtless disappear as society becomes better organized, but some will always remain to plague us. We pamper or abuse our stomachs, and dyspepsia results. We live in hot-houses, and a host of diseases are fostered by them. Indeed it would be hard to count up the diseases for which social life is directly or indirectly responsible. Social life becomes more and more complicated, and our nervous systems cannot bear the strain. Medical science saves alive thousands who would otherwise die, and these grow up to bear children as weak as themselves. We are looking now at the physical side alone; and from this standpoint the survival of the invalid is a sore evil. Now society will and must become healthier; we shall not always abuse our bodies as sinfully as we now do. Still, viewed from the standpoint of the body alone, the best, as it seems to me, which we can claim, is that social life does no more harm than good.

What has social life done for man intellectually? Much. It gives him schools and colleges. But are our systems of education an unmixed good? How many of our schools and colleges are places where men are stuffed with facts until they have no time nor inclination to think? They may turn out learned men ; do they produce thinkers? And how about the spread of knowledge? Is it not a spread of informa

tion? And most of what goes forth from the press is not worthy of even that name, or is information which a man had better be without. We are proud of being a nation of readers. And reading is good, if a man thinks about what he reads; otherwise it is like undigested food in the stomach, an injury and a curse. A dyspeptic gourmand is helped by "cutting down his rations." In our mental disease we need the same course of treatment. Let us read fewer books and papers and think more about what we do read.

Society may foster original thinking; it is none the less opposed to it.

"Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look,

He thinks too much; such men are dangerous."

This is the motto of all great parties in Church and State. Still social life has undoubtedly fostered thought. We think vastly more and better than primitive man; still we have much to learn. Society puts the experience of centuries at the service of every individual. Poor and unsatisfactory as are our modes of education, they are a great blessing intellectually and will become more helpful. And, after all, the friction of mind against mind in social life-provided social intercourse is this, and not the commingling of two vacua—is a continual education of inestimable advantage. And all these advantages would without language have been absolutely impossible. Intellectually our debt to society is inestimable.

And how does social life aid man morally? I cannot help believing that primitive society was the first school of the human conscience. It was a rude school, but it taught man some grand lessons.

The primitive clan would seem to have existed as a rude army for the defence of its members and for of fensive operations against enemies. Individual responsibility on the part of its members was slight for offences against individuals of other clans, or against the gods. For any such offence of one of its members the whole clan was held, or held itself, largely responsible. If one man sinned, the clan suffered. It could not therefore afford to pardon wilful disobedience to regulations made by it or its leaders. Its very existence. depended on this strict discipline. And much the same stern discipline has to be maintained in our modern armies or they become utterly worthless.

now.

Furthermore, man, as a social being, is very ready to accept the estimate of his actions placed upon them by his fellows. It is not easy to resist public opinion The tie of class or professional feeling is a tremendous power for good and evil. It must have been almost irresistible in that primitive army, which summarily outlawed or killed the obstinately disobedient. But all obedience was lauded and rewarded. It had to be so. And if the tribe was worthy to survive, because its regulations were better than those of its rivals, or perhaps as nearly just and right as were well possible, it was altogether best and right it should be so. The voice of the people was, in a very rude, stammering way, the voice of God. And those who survived became more and more obedient, and found themselves, when disobedient, feeling debased, and mean, and unworthy, as their fellows considered them. And all this feeling tended to develop a conscience in the individual answering to the estimates and regulations of the community.