SERVICE IN EVOLUTION 195
compulsory service^ there was evolved a voluntary service; minute in kind and amount at firsts it has finally come in the nobler members of mankind to dwarf the former by comparison into insignificance. Pre- Paleozoic time and the long Paleozoic era stand for low types of 00m- pnlBory service; the Mesozoic for higher kinds of compulsory service with a definite beginning of voluntary service, while during the Ceno- 2oic this latter lype increased in amount until at present in man it far overshadows the service of compulsion.
Evolution as we see it upon this earth has thus occurred through
each successively higher group, taking more and more from others,
especially from parents, and giving more and more in return, especially
to ofbpring; the service rendered is passed on, not returned. When,
however, a plant or animal group takes more and more from others
without giving aditional service in return, we have parasitism, and
parasites are not now, nor were they in the distant past, in evolving
lines. Parasites whether plant, beast or human are degenerate; the
individuals become weaker and weaker and finally the life ends in death.
The trend of evolution has thus been from compulsory service to
voluntary, from an enforced aid to others to help given because of love
for others. Those lives develop most rapidly and nobly which most
nearly conform to this trend.
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