PSYCHOGENESIS 373 



(and, what is more, will do so quite willingly if his " brother " 

 is really the better man, though frequently but a semblance of 

 superior or erstwhile value be left), but the "brother" will 

 nevertheless refrain from exploiting Witless, and will, on the 

 contrary, do his best to render him adequate counter services 

 and to raise his condition. It seems that Huxley could not rid 

 his mind of the prejudice that the law of service also involves, 

 at least to a considerable extent, a law of exploitation; i.e., 

 that it justifies a state of permanent and one-sided exploitation 

 of one group by another, such as instanced in Nature by those 

 numerous phases of parasitic exploitation, which, according to 

 a corollary of the theory of Natural Selection, he is unfortu- 

 nately constrained to regard as normal, but which, on the 

 syrnbiogenetic view of evolution, we must emphatically set 

 down as abnormal phases of life. Human society may quite 

 justly put a premium on skill, intelligence and talent to 

 encourage their growth; but the moment the man who "can" 

 uses his " cunning " to claim more than his deserts, or to 

 refrain from adequately serving his less fortunate brethren, 

 his presence really defeats the objects of society, and, more- 

 over, he, and frequently his progeny, too, become impediments 

 who will suffer the consequences of surfeit. 



Noblesse oblige. The highest dignitary of a State should 

 be the first servant of the State. There is, therefore, plenty of 

 scope for the political equality of men in the nobility of 

 discharging their respective obligations to the State each 

 according to his own station in life, each according to his 

 indispensable specialisation. 



Democracy is by no means irreconcileable with the law of 

 service according to status or values. On the contrary, what 

 true democracy seeks is, precisely, values. No true 

 democrat, no Rousseau, Ruskin or Tolstoy, would for a 

 moment consider that a vicious man is equal to a virtuous, 

 or a stupid equal to a wise man. It is, however, certain 

 that democracy, unlike other systems, does in the long run 

 assure the best mutual accommodation of men; i.e., according 



