THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE : A PROGRAMME. 737 



principle of non-moral evolution, and to found a kingdom of Man, 

 governed upon the principle of moral evolution. For society not only 

 has a moral end, but in its perfection, social life, is embodied morality. 



But the effort of ethical man to work toward a moral end by no 

 means abolished, perhaps has hardly modified, the deep-seated organic 

 impulses which impel the natural man to follow his non-moral course. 

 One of the most essential conditions, if not the chief cause, of the 

 struggle for existence, is the tendency to multiply without limit, 

 which man shares with all living things. It is notable that " increase 

 and multiply " is a commandment traditionally much older than the 

 ten, and that it is, perhaps, the only one which has been spontaneously 

 and ex animo obeyed by the great majority of the human race. But, 

 in civilized society, the inevitable result of such obedience is the re- 

 establishment, in all its intensity, of that struggle for existence — the 

 war of each against all — the mitigation or abolition of which was the 

 chief end of social organization. 



It is conceivable that, at some period in the history of the fabled 

 Atlantis, the production of food should have been exactly sufficient 

 to meet the wants of the population, that the makers of artificial com- 

 modities should have amounted to just the number supportable by the 

 surplus food of the agriculturists. And, as there is no harm in adding 

 another monstrous supposition to the foregoing, let it be imagined that 

 every man, woman, and child was perfectly virtuous, and aimed at the 

 good of all as the highest personal good. In that happy land, the 

 natural man would have been finally put down by the ethical man. 

 There would have been no com^^etition, but the industry of each would 

 have been serviceable to all ; nobody being vain and nobody avari- 

 cious, there would have been no rivalries ; the struggle for existence 

 would have been abolished, and the millennium would have finally set 

 in. But it is obvious that this state of things could have been per- 

 manent only with a stationary population. Add ten fresh mouths ; 

 and as, by the supposition, there was only exactly enough before, 

 somebody must go on short rations. The Atlantis society might have 

 been a heaven upon earth, the whole nation might have consisted of 

 just men, needing no repentance, and yet somebody must starve. 

 Reckless Istar, non-moral Nature, would have riven the social fabric. 

 I was once talking with a very eminent physician about the vis medi- 

 catrix naturce. " Stuff ! " said he ; " nine times out of ten Nature does 

 not want to cure the man ; she wants to put him in his coffin." And 

 Istar-Nature appears to have equally little sympathy with the needs of 

 society. " Stuff ! she wants nothing but a fair field and free play for 

 her darling the strongest." 



Our Atlantis may be an impossible figment, but the antagonistic 

 tendencies which the fable adumbrates have existed in every society 

 which was ever established, and, to all appearance, must strive for the 

 victory in all that will be. Historians point to the greed and ambi- 



TOL. XXXII. — 47 



