IX HUMAN SOCIETY 211 



Our customers naturally seek to get the most and 

 the best in exchange for their produce. If our 

 goods are inferior to those of our competitors, there 

 is no ground, compatible with the sanity of the 

 buyers, which can be alleged, why they should not 

 prefer the latter. And, if that result should ever 

 take place on a large and general scale, five or six 

 millions of us would soon have nothing to eat. 

 We know what the cotton famine was ; and we 

 can therefore form some notion of what a dearth 

 of customers would be. 



Judged by an ethical standard, nothing can be 

 less satisfactory than the position in which we find 

 ourselves. In a real, though incomplete, degree 

 we have attained the condition of peace which is 

 the main object of social organization ; and, for 

 argument s sake, it may be assumed that we 

 desire nothing but that which is in itself innocent 

 and praiseworthy namely, the enjoyment of the 

 fruits of honest industry. And lo I in spite of 

 ourselves, we are in reality engaged in an inter 

 necine struggle for existence with our presumably 

 no less peaceful and well-meaning neighbours. 

 We seek peace and we do not ensue it. The 

 moral nature in us asks for no more than is com 

 patible with the general good ; the non-moral 

 nature proclaims and acts upon that fine old 

 Scottish family motto, &quot; Thou shalt starve ere I 

 want.&quot; Let us be under no illusions, then. So 

 long as unlimited multiplication goes on, no social 

 organization which has ever been devised, or is 



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