The process of absorption of smaller groups and their unification into larger ones, when carried out completely in any land, tends to arrest all further growth, not simply because there is no further room for expansion by the absorption of other divergent tribes, but also because the “cake of custom” is apt to become so hard, the uniformity enforced on all the individuals is liable to become so binding, that fruitful variation from within is effectually cut off.  The evolution of relatively isolated or segregated groups necessarily produces variety; and the process whereby these divergent types of life and thought and organization are gradually brought together into one large community provides wide elements of variation, in the selection and general adoption of which the evolution of the whole community may be secured.  But let the divergent elements of the lesser groups once be entirely absorbed by the composite community and let the “cake of custom” become so rigid that every individual who varies from it is branded as a heretic and a traitor, and the progressive evolution of that community must cease.

The great problem, therefore, which then confronts man and seems to threaten all further progress is, how to break the bondage of custom so as to secure local or individual variations.  This can be done only through some form of individualism.  The individual must be free to think and act as experience or fancy may suggest, without fear of being branded as a traitor, or at least he must have the courage to do so in spite of such fears.  And to produce an effect on the community he must also be more or less protected in his idiosyncrasies by popular toleration.

He must be allowed to live and work out his theories, proving whether they are valuable or not.  But since individualism is just what all previous communal development has been most assiduous in crushing out, how is the rise of individualism possible, or even desirable?  If the first and continued development of man depended on the attainment and the maintenance of the communal principle, we may be sure that his further progress will not consist in the reversal of that principle.  If, therfore, individualism must be developed, it must manifestly be of a variety which does not conflict with or abrogate communalism.  Only as the individualistic includes the communal principle will it be a source of strength; otherwise it can only be a source of weakness to the community.  But is not this an impossible condition to satisfy?  Certainly, before the event, it would seem to be so.  The rarity with which this step in human evolution has been taken would seem to show that it is far more difficult to accomplish than any of the previous steps.  To give it a name we may call it communo-individualism.  What this variety of individualism is, how this forward step was first actually taken, and how it is maintained and extended to-day, we shall consider in a later chapter.  In the present place its importance for