368 THE GRAMMAR OF SCIENCE 



there is, indeed, no argument by which it can be shown 

 that it is always to his own profit or pleasure to do so. 

 Whether an individual takes pleasure in social action or 

 not will depend upon his character (pp. 47, 125) — that 

 product of inherited instincts and past experience — and 

 the extent to which the " tribal conscience " has been 

 developed by early training. If the struggle for existence 

 has not led to the dominant portion of a given community 

 having strong social instincts, then that community, if not 

 already in a decadent condition, is wanting in the chief 

 element of permanent stability. Where this element 

 exists, there society will itself repress those whose conduct 

 is anti-social and develop by training the social instincts 

 of its younger members. Herein lies the only method in 

 which a strong and efficient society, capable of holding 

 its own in the struggle for life, can be built up. It is the 

 prevalence of social instinct in the dominant portion of a 

 given community which is the sole and yet perfectly 

 efficient sanction to the observance of social, that is moral, 

 lines of conduct. 



Besides the individualistic and socialistic factors of 

 evolution there remains what we have termed the human- 

 istic factor. Like the socialistic it has been occasionally 

 overlooked, but at the same time occasionally overrated, 

 as, for example, in the formal statements of Positivism. 

 We have always to remember that, hidden beneath 

 diplomacy, trade, adventure, there is a struggle raging 

 between modern nations, which is none the less real if it 

 does not take the form of open warfare. The individualistic 

 instinct may be as strong or stronger than the socialistic, 

 but the latter is always far stronger than any feeling 

 towards humanity as a whole. Indeed the "solidarity 

 of humanity," so far as it is real, is felt to exist rather 

 between civilised men of European race in the presence 

 of nature and of human barbarism, than between all men 

 on all occasions.^ 



1 The feeling of European to Kaffir is liardly the same as that of European 

 to European. The philosopher may tell us it "ought" to be, but the fact 

 that it is not is the important element in history. 



