standpoint to be those forms of conduct which conduce to social harmony,
to social efficiency, and so to the survival of the group. Groups,
however, as we have already pointed out, cannot do as they please. They
are always hard-pressed in competition by other groups and have to meet
the standards of efficiency which nature imposes. Morality, therefore,
is not anything arbitrarily designed by the group, but is a standard of
conduct which necessities of social survival require. In other words,
the right, from the point of view of natural science, is that which
ultimately conduces to survival, not of the individual, but of the group
or of the species. This is looking at morality, of course, from the
sociological point of view, and in no way denies the religious and
metaphysical view of morality, which may be equally valid from a
different standpoint.

Finally, we need to note that natural selection does not necessitate in
any mechanical sense certain conduct on the part of individuals or
groups. Rather, natural selection marks the limits of variation which
nature permits, and within those limits of variation there is a large
amount of freedom of choice, both to individuals and to groups. Human
societies, therefore, may be conceivably free to take one of several
paths of development at any particular point. But in the long run they
must conform to the ultimate conditions of survival; and this probably
means that the goal of their evolution is largely fixed for them. Human
groups are free only in the sense that they may go either backward or
forward on the path which the conditions of survival mark out for them.
They are free to progress or to perish. But social evolution in any
case, in the sense of social change either toward higher or toward lower
social adaptation, is a necessity that cannot be escaped. Sociology and
all social science is, therefore, a study not of what human groups would
like to do, but of what they must do in order to survive, that is, how