LIFE -:,67 



knowledge and invention has led some of our foremost 

 biologists to see in individualism the sole factor of 

 evolution, and they have accordingly propounded a social 

 policy which would place us in the position of the farmer 

 who spends all his energies in producing prize specimens 

 of fat cattle, forgetting that his object should be to 

 improve his stock all round.^ 



I fancy science will ultimately balance the individualistic 

 and socialistic tendencies in evolution better than Haeckel 

 and Spencer seem to have done. The power of the 

 individualistic formula to describe human growth has been 

 overrated, and the evolutionary origin of the socialistic 

 instinct has been too frequently overlooked." In the face 

 of the severe struggle, physical and commercial, the fight 

 for land, for food, and for mineral wealth between existing 

 nations, we have every need to strengthen by training the 

 partially dormant socialistic spirit, if we as a nation are to 

 be among the surviving fit. The importance of organising 

 society, of making the individual subservient to the whole, 

 grows with the intensity of the struggle. We shall need 

 all our clearness of vision, all our reasoned insight into 

 human growth and social efficiency in order to discipline 

 the powers of labour, to train and educate the powers of 

 mind. This organisation and this education must largely 

 proceed from the state, for it is in the battle of society 

 with society, rather than of individual with individual, 

 that these weapons are of service. Here it is that science 

 relentlessly proclaims : A nation needs not only a few 

 prize individuals ; it needs a finely regulated social system 

 — of which the members as a whole respond to each 

 external stress by organised reaction — if it is to survive 

 in the struggle for existence." 



If the individual asks : Why should I act socially ? 



1 R. H. Newton : Social Studies, p. 365. 



2 It may be rash to prophesy, but the socialistic and individualistic 

 tendencies seem the only clear and reasonable lines upon which parliamentary 

 parties will be able in the future to differentiate themselves. The due balance 

 of these tendencies seems the essential condition for healthy social development. 



•^ See "Socialism and Natural Selection," The Chances of Death and 

 other Studies in Evolution, vol. i. London, 1897. 



