There may be
many different kinds of competition: it will be sufficient here to
consider the three following:--
First, there is the competition between individuals for individual
life and success. Now, so far as we are dealing with this competition,
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.
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