204 THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE v 



the hyaena, whose lives were spent in the same 

 way; and they were no more to be praised or 

 blamed, on moral grounds, than their less erect 

 and more hairy compatriots. 



As among these, so among primitive men, the 

 weakest and stupidest went to the wall, while 

 the toughest and shrewdest, those who were best 

 fitted to cope with their circumstances, but not 

 the best in any other sense, survived. Life was a 

 continual free fight, and beyond the limited and 

 temporary relations of the family, the Hobbesian 

 war of each against all was the normal state 

 of existence. The human species, like others, 

 plashed and floundered amid the general stream 

 of evolution, keeping its head above water as it 

 best might, and thinking neither of whence nor 

 whither. 



The history of civilization that is, of society 

 on the other hand, is the record of the attempts 

 which the human race has made to escape from 

 this position. The first men who substituted the 

 state of mutual peace for that of mutual war, 

 whatever the motive which impelled them to 

 take that step, created society. But, in establish 

 ing peace, they obviously put a limit upon the 

 struggle for existence. Between the members of 

 that society, at any rate, it was not to be 

 pursued a outran ce. And of all the successive 

 shapes which society has taken, that most nearly 

 approaches perfection in which the war of indi 

 vidual against individual is most strictly limited. 



