Friendship and Equality I NOW REALIZED that Darwin's feelings had to be considered. He had become my constant companion, my friend, and in its noblest form, friendship requires equality, that Holy Grail of Western civilization. The American colonies, in declaring themselves independent of England, even went so far as to contend that "all men are created equal." A civil war, a hundred years of resentment, and a less-than-civil movement later, the concept of "men" was remodeled to include all human beings. And what has this to do with Darwin? It has to do with the peck order, or dominance hierarchy, first noted in the behavior of the chicken, and taken to supreme complexity and refinement in the human being. The peck order has its roots in the limbic system of the brain, also known as the reptilian complex. In the course of evolution, the mammals arose from the reptiles, and as the mammals evolved, the cerebrum region at the front (or top) of the reptilian brain expanded and expanded and folded back over itself, forming another layer that completely covered the section from which it arose.
