ng and have worked themselves
into a mad rage before their head puts in an appearance, it may go hard
with him; they know him no longer and all he can do is to join in the
fray; then if the fighters turn on him he may be so injured that his
power is gone and the next best dog in the pack takes his place. The
hottest contests are always between dogs that are well matched; neither
will give place to the other and so they fight it out; but from the
foremost in power down to the weakest there is a gradation of authority;
each one knows just how far he can go, which companion he can bully when
he is in a bad temper or wishes to assert himself, and to which he must
humbly yield in his turn. In such a state the weakest one must yield to
all the others and cast himself down, seeming to call himself a slave
and worshiper of any other member of the pack that chances to snarl at
him or command him to give up his bone with good grace.

This masterful or domineering temper, so common among social mammals, is
the cause of the persecution of the sick and weakly. When an animal
begins to ail he can no longer hold his own; he ceases to resent the
occasional ill-natured attacks made on him; his non-combative condition
is quickly discovered, and he at once drops down to a place below the
lowest; it is common knowledge in the herd that he may be buffeted with
impunity by all, even by those that have hitherto suffered buffets but
have given none. But judging from my own observation, this persecution
is not, as a rule, severe, and is seldom fatal.

2. The Rivalry of Social Groups[213]

Conflict, competition, and rivalry are the chief causes which force
human beings into groups and largely determine what goes on within them.
Conflicts, like wars, revolutions, riots, still persist, but possibly
they may be thought of as gradually yielding to competitions which are
chiefly economic. Many of these strivings seem almost wholly individual,
but most of them on careful analysis turn out to be intimately related
to group competition. A third form, rivalry, describes struggle for
status, for social prestige, for the approval of inclusive publics which
form the spectators for such contests. The nation is an arena of
competition and rivalry.

Much of this emulation is of a concealed sort. Beneath the union
services of churches there is an element, for the most part unconscious,
of rivalry to secure the approval of a public which in these days
dema