the only qualities which natural selection will favour are of course
the qualities which lead to the continuance and efficiency of the
individual organism. The qualities 'selected' in this process are
therefore only the self-assertive qualities,--the qualities of
strength, of courage, of prudence, and also of temperance.

But in the second place there is also, as I have already indicated and
as was seen by Darwin (though he did not draw this distinction), a
second kind of competition, the competition between groups. Now the
group competition has as its end the continuance and efficiency of
the group, be it horde or tribe or nation, or be it one of those
subsidiary groups which enter into national life. In this competition
between groups it is clear that those qualities will be favoured by
natural selection which contribute to the efficiency of the group; and
the qualities which contribute to the efficiency of the group are not
those only which contribute to the efficiency of the individual, but
also qualities implying self-restraint and even self-sacrifice on the
part of one member of the group for the sake of other members of the
group or of the group as a whole. The habit of obedience, for example,
obedience to the authority of the group or its representative, may be
of fundamental importance in maintaining the existence of the group
as a group, although that habit of obedience has no place at all in
promoting the interests of the individual when he is competing with
other individuals.

Thirdly, there is still another kind of competition which is a little
more difficult to make quite clear, because it is not on the plane of
individual life and it is not to be identified with the life of
the community. It is a competition on the intellectual level, the
competition between ideas, and with this one may also couple (so far