the human mode of adaptation is thus mental, and that it is also social; that the measure of human adaptation is the degree of civilization attained; that the story of human evolution thus becomes the story of the evolution of civilization in human society; and that the law of population must receive characteristic modifications when it is applied to man. The brain becomes the organ of adaptation. Looked at in one way it secures adaptation for man by transforming his environment; but in a broader and truer sense, by learning the laws of nature and devising ways of conformation to them. But the details of this new phase and mode of adaptation are no longer matters of biology; the reactions of the individual are cerebral and psychical. However, these reactions do not remain individual and isolated, but . . . they become societal and so fall into the domain of sociological study." 4

What we really have, according to Keller, is the change from habits, folkways, into group-customs or mores. These are selected only in part on rational grounds, mainly on emotional. Some of them are better than others, the mores of one group may be much better than those of another. In times of trial the group with weak mores either discovers its weakness or, in extreme cases, is destroyed because of them. This revelation of weakness Keller thinks has always been one of the chief services of war.

A different application of biological principles, real or alleged, to social questions is to be found in a large number of writers, philosophers and statesmen who are advocating what they call "social Darwinism." Speaking in simplest terms, it is the application of the law 4 KELLER, A. G. o. c., pp. 39-41.

of struggle to human relations, particularly in international affairs. The stronger, abler race will survive, the weaker be destroyed. You may be sorry for the weaker but it has no claim to a place on earth unless it chances to accord with your own interests. Military necessity overrides all other considerations.

The first thing to attract our attention in this philosophy is that it was not held by Darwin, Wallace, Huxley and Kropotkin. Darwin believed in coöperation, not war. He wrote to Wallace that "the struggle between the races of man depended entirely upon intellectual and moral qualities." 5 The ablest writer from this standpoint in recent years has been the Russian, Novicow, (to use the French form of his name). Into the merits of the controversy we need not go. It is sufficient to indicate the fact that some of the ablest natural scientists disown the very popular doctrine of force which political scientists have claimed as one of their cardinal beliefs. The object of man's struggles, say the former, should be the conquest of nature, not the overthrow of fellow man. In this struggle there should be division of labor and not ruthless competition. The enemies of man are not fellow men but the forms of life which live at his expense.

Whatever the final decision in these matters, there are certain dangers in the attempt to apply the laws of one science to the phenomena of another, of which one of the best living natural scientists, Professor J. A. Thomson, of Aberdeen, has written:

"The fallacy of regarding sociology as no more than a recondite branch of biology is not merely verbal, implying differences of opinion on the tedious question of the best definitions of these two sciences; it involves a mis

5 Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, p. 271.

conception of what human society is, a misconception which is discredited by the facts of history and experience. No one doubts that the life of a social group is made up of a complex of activities of individual persons - but these are integrated, harmonised, and regulated in a manner as far beyond present biological analysis as the integration, harmonization and regulation of the chemical and physical processes in the individual organisms are at present beyond mechanical analysis.

"To keep to the concept of selection for a moment; it was applied to plants and animals, it was illustrated, justified if not demonstrated and formulated; and now with the imprimatur of biology it comes back to sociology as a great law of life. That it is so we take for granted, but it is surely evident that in social affairs, from which it emanated as a suggestion to biology, it must be reverified and precisely tested. . . . In any case, a formula borrowed from another science and applied to a new order of facts even to those in which it first arose as a suggestion must be rigorously tested. Otherwise, both organic and social sciences resolve themselves into sociomorphic illusions.” 6

Personally, I have no doubt that we shall develop a science of society. This will involve the collection of much more and more accurate data than we now have. When that time comes, we shall be better able perhaps to compare the relative importance of the forces influencing society than is now possible, for all our explanations today are but guesses. The significant thing is that we are coming to believe in cause and effect in the social realm and to ask for evidence rather than dogma.

This development of a science of society is quite cer6 THOMSON, J. A. Heredity, pp. 510-512.

tain to compel the surrender of many hoary beliefs and prejudices. We have seen that it is no more natural for animals to serve as food for man than for man to act in the same capacity for animals. Disease and death are as natural as life. Indeed, a vague recognition of this fact has led to the notion that nations like individuals had their foreordained period of growth and maturity to be followed by decline and downfall. All that is here desired is to recognize that evolution and progress are not synonymous terms.

In spite of the fact that a learned historian like Mommsen despaired of ever determining the causes of the downfall of the Roman Empire, in the effort to explain why the leadership of the world has removed from one area to another, from one group to another, the favored answer of the historian has been: race superiority and moral decay. The leading races were obviously superior races. Of this attitude Emil Reich has written: "The most ingenious books have been written endeavoring to apply the theory of race to the explanation of the rise of the intellect among nations. But the racial theory has been ridden to death. After a long struggle, it is now being eventually abandoned by its most fanatical adherents in the ranks of modern historians. But the average man still pins his faith to it. The ordinary Englishman still attributes, and will continue to attribute, the success of his nation to the predominance of the AngloSaxon stock; there is something extremely flattering to national pride in the notion. It also permits of a rapid and complete annihilation of the so-called Latin races. The Frenchman is also fired by a kindred admiration for all that has issued from the Gallo-Roman blood, a theory which also allows the equally rapid and complete dis

posal of all that is Teutonic and Anglo-Saxon. We have already shown how absolutely impossible and inapplicable such theories are in the scientific study of history. Race is quite impossible of identification, and where we can to some extent follow out the lines of ethnographical demarcation, it does not in any way correspond with the national frontier." 7

Reibmayr would modify the racial theory by saying that civilization is only attained by a people which has remained isolated long enough to have completely absorbed all the various strains that may have entered into its makeup, and then, by keeping others out, has developed along the lines of its own genius. The ancient Israelites were confident that they succeeded when they followed the commands of God, and moralists have not failed to suggest the same reason as regards other peoples. Reich would have it that the "initiators of great intellectual progress have been border nations. Situated upon the confines of some great empire, they have also been, on the whole, comparatively insignificant nations on the score of numbers. But it may be laid down as a principle that progress of intellect has always been manifested in response to some external stimulus. Let us consider for a moment the conditions of existence of border nations. Their numbers will not permit them to sustain a struggle of main force against their more powerful neighbors; they must seek for some efficient weapon with which to ward off the onslaught of their outnumbering foes. The only such weapon is to be found in a superior intelligence; directly intelligence stands at a premium it begins to appear.

7 REICH, EMIL. Success among Nations, pp. 115–116.

8 Ibid., pp. 116–117.