Struggle for Existence 473 



intellectual influences, suffice to stimulate progress : the processes 

 which these admit are, in the actual state of civilisation, the only 

 ones which attain their end without waste, the only ones logical. 

 From one end to the other of the ladder of life, struggle is the order 

 of the day ; but more and more as the higher rungs are reached, it 

 takes on characters which are proportionately more " humane." 



Reflections of this kind permit the introduction into the economic 

 order of limitations to the doctrine of " laisser faire, laisser passer." 

 This appeals, it is said, to the example of nature where creatures, left 

 to themselves, struggle without truce and without mercy ; but the 

 fact is forgotten that upon industrial battlefields the conditions are 

 different. The competitors here are not left simply to their natural 

 energies : they are variously handicapped. A rich store of artificial 

 resources exists in which some participate and others do not. The 

 sides then are unequal ; and as a consequence the result of the struggle 

 is falsified. " In the animal world," said De Laveleye 1 , criticising 

 Spencer, " the fate of each creature is determined by its individual 

 qualities ; whereas in civilised societies a man may obtain the highest 

 position and the most beautiful wife because he is rich and well-born, 

 although he may be ugly, idle or improvident ; and then it is he who 

 will perpetuate the species. The wealthy man, ill constituted, in- 

 capable, sickly, enjoys his riches and establishes his stock under the 

 protection of the laws." Haycraft in England and Jentsch in Germany 

 have strongly emphasised these "anomalies," which nevertheless are 

 the rule. That is to say that even from a Darwinian point of view 

 all social reforms can readily be justified which aim at diminishing, 

 as Wallace said, inequalities at the start. 



But we can go further still. Whence comes the idea that all 

 measures inspired by the sentiment of solidarity are contrary to 

 Nature's trend ? Observe her carefully, and she will not give lessons 

 only in individualism. Side by side with the struggle for existence 

 do we not find in operation what Lanessan calls "association for 

 existence." Long ago, Espinas had drawn attention to "societies of 

 animals," temporary or permanent, and to the kind of morality that 

 arose in them. Since then, naturalists have often insisted upon the 

 importance of various forms of symbiosis. Kropotkin in Mutual 

 Aid has chosen to enumerate many examples of altruism furnished 

 by animals to mankind. Geddes and Thomson went so far as to main- 

 tain that " Each of the greater steps of progress is in fact associated 

 with an increased measure of subordination of individual competition 

 to reproductive or social ends, and of interspecific competition to 

 co-operative association 2 ." Experience shows, according to Geddes, 



1 Le socialisme contemporain, p. 384 (6th edit.), Paris, 1891. 



2 Geddes and Thomson, The Evolution of Sex, p. 311, London, 1889. 



