ETHICS AND THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE. 237 



them. The use of morality is to humanize the struggle ; to mini- 

 mize the suffering of those who lose the game ; and to offer the 

 prizes to the qualities which are advantageous to all rather than 

 to those which serve to intensify the bitterness of the conflict. 

 This implies the growth of foresight, which is an extension of the 

 earlier instinct, and enables men to adapt themselves to the 

 future, and to learn from the past, as well as to act upon the 

 immediate impulse of present events. It implies still more the 

 development of the sympathy which makes every man feel for 

 the sufferings of all, and which, as social organization becomes 

 closer, and the dependence of each constituent atom upon the 

 whole organization is more vividly realized, extends the range of 

 a man's interests beyond his own private needs. In that sense, 

 again, it must stimulate " collectivism " at the expense of a crude 

 individualism, and condemns the doctrine which, as Prof. Huxley 

 puts it, would forbid us to restrain the member of a community 

 from doing his best to destroy it. If it be right to restrain such 

 conduct, it is right to carry on the conflict against all anti-social 

 agents or tendencies. I should certainly hold any form of col- 

 lectivism to be immoral which denied the essential doctrine of 

 the abused individualist, the necessity, that is, for individual re- 

 sponsibility. We have surely to suppress the murderer as our 

 ancestors suppressed the wolf. We have to suppress both the 

 external enemies, the noxious animals whose existence is incom- 

 patible with our own, and the internal enemies which are inju- 

 rious elements in the society itself. That is, we have to work 

 for the same end of eliminating the least fit. Our methods are 

 changed ; we desire to suppress poverty, not to extirpate the poor 

 man. We give inferior races a chance of taking whatever place 

 they are fit for, and try to supplant them with the least possible 

 severity if they are unfit for any place. But the suppression of 

 poverty supposes not the confiscation of wealth, which would 

 hardly suppress poverty in the long run, nor even the adoption 

 of a system of living which would make it easier for the idle and 

 the good-for-nothing to survive. The progress of civilization de- 

 pends, I should say, on the extension of the sense of duty which 

 each man owes to society at large. That involves a constitution 

 of society which, although we abandon the old methods of hang- 

 ing, and flogging, and shooting down methods which corrupted 

 the inflicters of punishment by diminishing their own sense of 

 responsibility may give an advantage to the prudent and indus- 

 trious and make it more probable that they will be the ancestors 

 of the next generation. A system which should equalize the 

 advantages of the energetic and the helpless would begin by de- 

 moralizing, and would very soon lead to an unprecedented intensi- 

 fication of the struggle for existence. The probable result of a 



