xx SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 267 



have constrained those who rise in the world to modify 

 their scale of expenses. Therefore the foolish prosper- 

 ous man will tell the artisan that though richer he is 

 no better off not a bit always on the wrong side of 

 the account ; and what to do with the boys ! A dis- 

 tribution of society into separate compartments tends 

 thus to intensify struggle and to increase the total 

 output. 



The very fact that biology offers social science this 

 second suggestion, in favour of struggle, shows in a 

 crucial instance the unreliableness and self-contradictori- 

 ness of the biological lawgiving. If society is an organism, 

 man ought to live for the general good. If struggle for 

 existence is the true law of moral and social advance, 

 then it is our duty to fight " for our own hands " with 

 all our might. Which view is authoritative ? Both 

 cannot be ; yet both are " the teaching of biology." 



It may seem that any attempt to make room for 

 struggle is equally inconsistent with that higher evolu- 

 tionism based on reason, to which we have pointed. If 

 reason promulgates a doctrine of the social organism, 

 must not reason too feel nonplussed by the assertion 

 that nature teaches the necessity of struggle ? Yet, at 

 the least, the philosopher's study of reason has prepared 

 him to hear of an intenser struggle where conscious life 

 prevails. He sees how self-consciousness draws a more 

 definite line round the individual, making each organism 

 a universe in itself, a microcosm, as no irrational creature 

 is or could be. He perceives that the requirement some- 

 times addressed to man is foolishness, that he should 

 behave as a mere part in a larger social organism. It 

 is idle to talk of such things. Self-consciousness puts 

 an end to acquiescence in the mere suppression of the 

 individual. But, if the first and lowest work of reason 



