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48 HENRY RUTGERS MARSHALL : civilisation. It seems probable, then, that if we study these causes with a view to the discovery of some means by which their evil effects may be counteracted, we are not unlikely to gain some notion of the nature of the governing instinct which, if it exist, would function in this same direction. 9. In our stud} 7 of these influences and conditions we first noted that this tendency to the emphasis of elemental variance and to the subordination of the ethical impulses was involved in the very fact that these higher impulses are determined by the existence of social aggregates which are of a low quasi -organic form, in which we individuals are elements, and elements which are very lightly bound to- gether, very loosely integrated. For in our earlier study we had seen that in the lower individual organisms in which the parts are very loosely bound together, and with which the quasi-social organism is to be compared, a tendency to action of the elements for themselves, and without regard to the efficiency of the organism as a whole, will appear under anything but the most ordinary stimulation of the parts affected by environ- mental conditions. If this weak integration tend to emphasise variation, tend to invert the established order of instinct emphasis, if it be a cause of the subordination of the ethical impulses to those of earlier formation, to the individualistic and sexual, then our hypothetical governing instinct might be expected to contend against the results of this lack of integration. It is evident, I think, that this tendency to disintegrative action, this tendency to the separate functioning of indi- viduals as though they were no longer elements of the social aggregate, may be overcome in one of two ways : either by the acquisition of habits which will concentrate attention upon the social bonds which do exist, upon the community of interests, and upon the necessities of mutual aid ; or else by the reduction of the stimuli to individualistic action through temporary separation from those surroundings in which non-ethical impulses are developed, or through volun- tary restraint of the non-ethical impulses when they arise within us. 10. If we turn to the consideration of the next point made above, we recall that we there argued that for many reasons the mere complexity of our modern civilisation tends to bring into existence that emphasis of the variant in-