What is the most influential（有影响的） factor in any human society? In man's early days, competition with other creatures（生物） must have been critical（决定性的）, but this phase（月相） of our development is now finished. Indeed, we lack practice and experience nowadays（现今） in dealing with primitive conditions. I am sure that, without modern weapons, I would make a very poor show of disputing（争论） the ownership（所有权） of a cave（山洞） with a bear, and in this I do not think that I stand alone. The last creature to compete with man was the Mosquito, but even the Mosquito has been subdued（征服） by attention to drainage（排水） and by chemical sprays. Competition between ourselves, person against person, community against community still persists（坚持）, however, and it is as fierce（凶猛的） as it ever was.

  But the competition of man against man is not the simple process envisioned（想象） in biology. It is not a simple competition for a fixed amount of food determined by the physical environment, because the environment that determines our evolution（演变） is no longer essentially（ 本质上） physical. Our environment is chiefly（主要地） conditioned by the things we believe. Morocco and California（加利福尼亚） are bits of the earth in very similar latitudes（纬度）, both on the west coasts of continents with similar climates, and probably with rather similar natural resources.