LAW AS A DISTURBER OF SOCIAL ORDER. 635 



manufacturers, labor legislation for workingmen, land grants for 

 railroads, interstate commerce bills for shippers, subsidies for 

 sliip-builders, and oleomargarine bills for farmers — and yat the 

 conflict rages, cries are raised against the arrogance and grinding 

 avarice of monopolies, while bitter complaints are made of the 

 domineering independence and unsteadiness of labor. Is it not 

 evident that, if these selfish elements continue to repel forces 

 which should be mutually attracted, the continued and increasing 

 strain must result in violent and acrimonious rupture ? 



Most writers upon social science fail to grasp the fundamental 

 principles underlying social growth. They seize upon half truths 

 only, and according to their impressions they attach more or less 

 importance to the egoistic or individual forces of character or to 

 the tribal or social forces, as the case may be. Thus Mr. Leslie, 

 in his introduction to De Lavelaye's " Primitive Property," 

 claims to see nothing but strife and contention in the universal 

 desire for individual property, and he urges with much spirit 

 that it is not strange that all should desire to possess ; but, says he, 

 " what needs to be explained is that such warring elements, each 

 desiring the same objects, should permit peaceful possession by 

 others." Mr. Leslie fails to realize that such contentious forces 

 must find some common base of action to escape from internecine 

 strife ; this is true not only of man, but of all gregarious animals. 

 Even Mr. Clifford, in his " Scientific Basis of Morality," is dis- 

 posed to view the social or tribal characteristics of man as the 

 more essential to survival ; but carried to its extreme, this submis- 

 sion to the wills of others results in the inaction of physical tor- 

 por, even as the extreme development of the individual traits of 

 aggression result in the inaction of equal forces in conflict. Hence 

 the two forces are correlated, and if they are separated by friction 

 this civilization will perish, as its predecessors have done. 



An analysis clearly shows that in the absence of extraneous 

 interferences the reactive effect of individual aggression is resist- 

 ance and social union, for which we find many forms of ex- 

 pression. Individual force is made manifest in the declaration of 

 " I will do," " I will not do," while the reactive or social form 

 finds expression in " I will or will not permit to be done," In the 

 individual traits are found those activities which reside in pur- 

 pose or in free will ; in the social group we mark the modifica- 

 tions of environment sometimes called destiny or foreordination. 

 Thus each individual is at the same time acting upon others and 

 being acted upon by others, and, as action and reaction are equal 

 and opposite, the aggressive force of all individuals is just equal 

 to the resisting force of society in the aggregate. When these two 

 forces develop in the same individual, we find law-abiding, just, ■ 

 and energetic characters ; but when separated by friction, there 



