n give you only this very condensed and incomplete abstract of
Mr. John Fiske's argument; you must read it for yourself in his
"Destiny of Man." And as he has there shown, this can have but one
result, and that is the family life of man. And we may yet very
possibly have to acknowledge that family life of a very low grade
is just as truly characteristic of the higher apes as of lower man.
And thus the family life of man is the physiological result of, and
rooted in, mammalian structure.

And the benefits of family life are too great and numerous to even
enumerate. First of all the family is the school of unselfishness.
All the love of the parent is drawn out for the helpless and
dependent child, and grows as the parent works and thinks for it.
And the child returns a fraction of his parents' love. Within the
close bond of the family the struggle for place and opportunity is
replaced by mutual helpfulness; and this doing and burden-bearing
with and for each other is a constant exercise in the practice of
love. And with out this mutual love and helpfulness the family
cannot exist.

And slowly man begins to apply the lessons learned in the family to
other relations with partners, neighbors, and friends. Slowly he
discovers that an entirely selfish life defeats its own ends. A
voice within him tells him continually that love is better than
selfishness and ministering better than being ministered unto. It
dawns upon him that it is against the nature of things that other
people should be so selfish and grasping; a few begin to apply the
moral to themselves, and a few of these to act accordingly.

And what a change the few steps which man has taken in this
direction have wrought in his life. Says Professor Huxley: "In place
of ruthless self-assertion it demands self-restraint, in place of
thrusting aside or treading down all competitors, it requires that
the individual shall not merely respect, but shall help his fellows;
its influence is directed not so much to the survival of the
fittest as to the fitting of as many as possible to survive. It
repudiates the gladiatoral theory of existence."

It is a vast change from the "gladiatorial theory" to that of
"mutual helpfulness." Call it a revolution, if you will. Revolutions
are not unheard of in the history of the animal kingdom any more
than in human history. We have seen, first, digestion and
reproduction on the throne of animal organization, then muscle, and
finally bra