To conclude that human obsession with the acquisition of social status and material possessions is unrelated to the animal instincts for dominance and territory would be to press notions of special creation to the breaking point. To conclude that the loyalties or animosities of tribes or nations are other than the human expression of the profound territorial instinct would be to push reason over the cliff. The contemporary revolution in the natural sciences points inexorably to the proposition that man's soul is not unique. Man's nature, like his body, is the product of evolution. Any animal with a capacity for hunger must in part be dominated by economic motives.
Man is a predator with an instinct to kill and a genetic cultural affinity for the weapon.
If the contest exists between individuals only, then qualities of mercy and altruism will contribute nothing to a competitor's fortune. But it is the other side of the territorial coin that may provide the foundations for a philosophical revolution. The command to love is as deeply buried in our nature as the command to hate. The human being in the most fundamental aspects of his soul and body is nature's last if temporary work on the subject of the armed predator. Weapons preceded man.