t a process of self-assertion on the basis of these traits of
predatory human nature. In the sophisticated form in which they enter
into the modern, peaceable emulation, the possession of these traits
in some measure is almost a necessary of life to the civilized man. But
while they are indispensable to the competitive individual, they are
not directly serviceable to the community. So far as regards the
serviceability of the individual for the purposes of the collective
life, emulative efficiency is of use only indirectly if at all. Ferocity
and cunning are of no use to the community except in its hostile
dealings with other communities; and they are useful to the individual
only because there is so large a proportion of the same traits actively
present in the human environment to which he is exposed. Any individual
who enters the competitive struggle without the due endowment of these
traits is at a disadvantage, somewhat as a hornless steer would find
himself at a disadvantage in a drove of horned cattle.

The possession and the cultivation of the predatory traits of character
may, of course, be desirable on other than economic grounds. There is a
prevalent aesthetic or ethical predilection for the barbarian aptitudes,
and the traits in question minister so effectively to this predilection
that their serviceability in the aesthetic or ethical respect probably
offsets any economic unserviceability which they may give. But for the
present purpose that is beside the point. Therefore nothing is said here
as to the desirability or advisability of sports on the whole, or as to
their value on other than economic grounds.

In popular apprehension there is much that is admirable in the type
of manhood which the life of sport fosters. There is self-reliance and
good-fellowship, so termed in the somewhat loose colloquial use of
the words. From a different point of view the qualities currently so
characterized might be described as truculence and clannishness. The
reason for the current approval and admiration of these manly qualities,
as well as for their being called manly, is the same as the reason for
their usefulness to the individual. The members of the community, and
especially that class of the community which sets the pace in canons of
taste, are endowed with this range of propensities in sufficient measure
to make their absence in others felt as a shortcoming, and to make
their possession in an exceptional degree apprec