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 principles of evolution,
by which alone they can be reasonably interpreted. It has been unjust in a
sense to ignore completely the importance of the organic relations of a
social nature to which we are now to turn, because no individual can exist
without having its life directly influenced, not only by other kinds of
organisms, but even more intimately by other members of its own species.
In a single day's activity we who are citizens of a great metropolis are
forced into contact with almost countless other lives, glancing off from
one and another after influencing them to some degree, and gaining
ourselves some impetus and stimulus from our longer or shorter intercourse
with each of them. Our varied social relations are so many and obvious
that it is quite superfluous to specify them as essential things in human
life.
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