(7) There can be little doubt that there exists a certain degree of antagonism between the development of strong and permanent ties within the family and the development of those sentiments and feelings which bind the individual to the larger social groups, such as the tribe or nation, or those which make him a prominent, useful and agreeable member of society--in that family affections conflict in some degree with gregariousness. This antagonism can be observed in society to-day in such cases as those in which dependence on, and attachment to, the family will prevent an individual from easily adapting himself to the wider environment of school, college or club life, or from becoming "at home" in the circle of his business, sporting or professional acquaintances. Similarly, undue concentration of interest or affection on the family will very frequently prevent the formation of those wider sublimations, some of which we studied in Chapter XIII, sublimations upon which the successful working of a large community may often depend. The individual who finds the satisfaction of all his emotions and desires within the circle of his family is unlikely to develop to the full those wider interests in his fellow men and in the social conditions of his age and place, without which all higher political progress and development become impossible. At an earlier stage of human society the conflict was very possibly much more acute. Man, as we have seen, was probably in origin a family, rather than a social, animal; nevertheless it is the gregariousness of man which is responsible for the most characteristic features of the progress in culture which has led to civilisation. Gregariousness has therefore proved itself a very precious biological possession and natural selection would be likely to ensure its retention and development in the human mind, thus affording a strong influence in favour of the repression of those family affections which might threaten it. It is to some extent in this way perhaps that there came about that great revulsion against the monogamic family which is manifested in the totemic age--an age in which the ties connecting the individual with other members of a larger social group were developed at the expense of those which attached him to his family, and an age which elaborated the most complex, far-reaching and intense barriers against the incest tendencies which are shown in the various systems of exogamy.