CHAPTER II

FIRST PRINCIPLES

13. In the Beginning.-Until recently it has been the custom of thoughtful people to account for the coming into existence of the earth and of all forms of life and of all social institutions on the earth-by assuming that in the beginning some force or forces were at work which are no longer acting, or at least, are not acting as subject to the natural laws now known to be in operation. It was formerly supposed that only by making some such assumption could the main facts of life be reasonably explained.

But it is now quite generally agreed by all thoughtful students of nature that we may look upon and directly study all of the forces and processes necessary to give a rational explanation of all of the main facts of life, including the process by which man himself came to his present perfect physical form.

14. The Struggle for Existence. It is true, throughout all nature, that no form of life can long exist except it struggles for existence. It is true that the very struggle develops the organs used for that struggle. It is true that any individual peculiarity which may make the struggle a successful one by enabling its possessor to survive, will also survive. It is

plain that, any individual peculiarity which may make the struggle fail, by causing its possessor to disappear, such peculiarity would also disappear. Now, every form of life is constantly acted upon by all the forces and conditions which surround it. Is it not clear that those individuals whose organs are best fitted to the conditions or forces acting upon them, or that are able to use those organs in a way best fitted to the conditions or forces acting upon them, are the most likely to survive in their struggle for existence as against changing or adverse conditions and in the face of destructive natural forces?1

15. The Collective Struggle.-In the same way, those great groups of individuals whose members are born one from another, and have the same organs and the same general bodily functions-those groups, in their struggle against all other groups, would be most likely to survive which were found in the actual struggle to be best equipped for the purposes of the struggle. In the same way, those groups best able and most disposed to guard each other in the struggle with other groups and to help each other to survive within their own groups, by making joint provisions against adverse conditions and destructive natural forces, would be most likely to survive.2

16. Constant Changes and Survivals.-Now, all nature is in the process of constant change. Any changes in any of the forms of life which place the new forms of life at a disadvantage in the struggle for existence, mean that the new forms will cease to exist. Any

1. Darwin: Origin of Species, Chapter III.

2.

"The change that has been made in the point of view of economics by the present generation is * * due to the discovery that man himself is in a great measure a creature of circumstances and changes with them; and the importance of this discovery has been accentuated by the fact that the growth of knowledge and earnestness has recently made and is making deep and rapid changes in human nature."-Marshall: Present Position of Economics (Inaugural Lecture, Cambridge University, 1885), pp. 12-13.

changes which place the new forms at a better advantage mean that the new forms will survive and that a new form has thus appeared as a new form in nature. Continue this process long enough, change the conditions often enough, follow the forms of life up from the sea, up from the soil, down from the trees, into the erect position, into the development of new tools for new tasks rather than new organs for new tasks, into the more effective struggle for existence by creating organized groups, tribes, nations, rather than attempting a further and impossible improvement in the organic structure of the individual, and you have accounted for man's existence and have discovered the method of his advance.3

17. The Higher from the Lower Forms.-You have not accounted for the natural forces, but you have not been obliged to assume the existence of any force.

3.

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The creation of man was by no means the creation of a perfect being. The most essential feature of man is his improvableness, and since his first appearance on the earth the changes that have gone on in him have been enormous, though they have continued to run along in lines that were then marked out. The changes have been so great that in many respects the interval between the the highest and the lowest men far surpasses quantatively the interval between the lowest men and the highest apes. If we take into account the creasing of the cerebral surface, the brain of a Shakespeare and that of an Australian savage would doubtless be fifty times greater than the difference between the Australian's brain and that of an orangoutang. In mathematical capacity the Australian, who cannot tell the number of fingers on his two hands, is much nearer to a lion or a wolf than he is to Sir Rowan Hamilton, who invented the method of quaternions. In moral development this same Australian, whose language contains no word for justice and benevolence, is less remote from dogs and baboons than from a Howard or a Garrison. The Australian is more teachable than the ape, but his limit is nevertheless very quickly reached. All the distinctive attributes of man, in short, have been developed to an enormous extent through the long ages of social evolution.

"This psychical development of man is destined to go on in the future as it has gone on in the past. The creative energy which has been at work through this bygone eternity is not going to become quiescent tomorrow. From what has already gone on during the historic period of man's existence, we can safely predict a change that will by and by distinguish him from all other creatures even more widely and more fundamentally than he is distinguished today."-Fiske: Destiny of Man, pp. 71-73.

which you cannot now see in existence. You have not accounted for the constant changes in all forms of life, but you can see such changes going on all around you. You have explained the development of the higher forms of life from the lower forms of life, and you have done so by simply extending through long periods of time, the action of the forces which you see now in operation. All this results from the struggle for existence, the individual struggling against other individuals as well as against adverse natural conditions and forces, and the members of the same groups struggling for each other and against all other groups as well as against adverse natural conditions and forces. This is found by actual observation to be the process of all organic physical development, and, as we shall see further on, of all social progress.

18. Argument for the Theory of Development.That we may see the full force of this truth and be better able to follow the arguments of all succeeding pages, consider some of the proofs, not that this is a possible and rational explanation, but that it is, in all likelihood, the real and the only possible explanation of the method of development:

19. The Human Embryo.-1. This whole theory of development was first suggested by the study of the

4. "In life and in history every man suffers whatever fate is conditioned by his natural constitution. Yet his natural constitution depends not on him, but, as we have seen, upon the social medium fron which he emerges. This is to blame if individual fates are so seldom proportional to individual merits. For fate strikes the individual in proportion to the merits of the species, so to speak. His own merits may be different. Historical development cares nothing for that. The course and events of history are commensurate with the character and conditions of the social media; and this we must recognize as historical justice. There is none other in history or even in nature.

*

"Hence the alpha and omega of sociology, its highest perception and final word is: human history a natural process; * * * it preaches most impressively man's renunciatory subordination to the laws of nature which alone rule history."-Gumplowicz: Outlines of Sociology, p. 213.

growth of the human embryo. It was noticed that the embryo of a child, forming in its mother's womb, begins with the simplest known form of life, and by a constant shifting of forms, from the simpler to the more perfect forms, it assumes every possible simpler form, fish, amphibian, reptile and mammal, until at last it reaches the form of man.5

It is held that this is so, because the race has passed through all these simpler forms before reaching the form of man. This order of development is equally true of the embryo of all lower forms of life. They all pass through all lower forms before reaching their own. A human embryo, of a certain growth, has a tail longer than its legs; at another and later growth it has a complete covering of hair; at birth it sometimes has the "blow-holes" of a fish still open in its neck, and always at birth the strongly developed grip in its hands which indicates an earlier stage of human development when clinging to the boughs of trees was the habit of the race. The theory of development explains all this. No other explanation is possible.

20. Rudimentary Survivals.-2. There are numerous organs in the body for which man has now no use, but which are of service in the simpler forms of life. They are believed to be survivals from those simpler forms of life. The muscles for whipping the ears, for shaking the scalp, for using the tail, the three to five bony joints of the tail still found at the base of the back, though overgrown; the vermiform appendix, which in grass-eating animals is of great size and of great service, but which in man shrivels after birth, and, while it performs no known function in the human economy, it remains always a point of danger,are instances of such survivals. It is claimed that not

5. Ward: Dynamic Sociology, Vol. I., p. 340.

6. Alfred Russell Wallace: Malay Archipelago, p. 53.