that bring
this about are not on the same plane with the hereditary determining
factors which operate among insects. Therefore the scale of human
communities proves to be only a part of the wider range of organic
associations in general--a part which can be definitely placed in such a
wider scheme and so become more intelligible in itself.

In all departments of social evolution, progress is made by the twofold
process of combination and differentiation. We have dealt with detailed
instances, and now it is profitable to treat the process in a larger way,
with a view toward the possibilities of the future. The Thirteen Colonies,
somewhat similar in their earlier economic activities, united for mutual
support much as wolves combine to form a pack. Later, as circumstances
directed, they differentiated into farming or manufacturing or commercial
organs of the body politic, each to some degree freeing itself of the
functions undertaken by others, and becoming thereby more dependent than
before upon those that specialized in different ways. As in the history of
the insects in a growing wasp community and of savages evolving into
barbarians, the original condition of relative independence passed into a
state of interdependence and cooperation. In like manner, if nature
remains the same, as there is every reason to believe it will, nations now
separate will unite to make more complex combinations that will be
veritable empires of world-wide scope. Countries on opposite sides of an
ocean are now more closely connected by lines of communication and means
of travel than were the Carolinas and New England a century ago.
Diplomatic activities give many signs of a growing appreciation of the
value of reciprocal agreements for mutual advantage, and the Hague
Conference is a concrete manifestation of a continuing process of social
evolution that finds its beginnings and its interpretation far below human
history in lower organic nature.

But perhaps the most important result of this whole discussion is the
lesson of social service that it teaches. We are members of a vast
community whose complex total life seems far removed from anything going
on in an ant-colony, and our daily tasks vary greatly in specific
character and degree when compared with those of lower communal organisms.
It seems scarcely credible that any principles of social relationship,
however general, can hold true for us and for them. But when the
rock-bottom foundat