The Theory of Evolution 41 



ment. Obsessed with the fixity of natural law, 

 he held any serious endeavor to control com- 

 petition in the market to be childish, and he 

 found the highest wisdom in allowing nature 

 to run its course. 



The phase of Darwinian evolution that most 

 demands attention from the social point of 

 view is the central idea of competition and 

 the resulting destruction of the weak as the 

 cause of progress — practically the exaltation 

 of natural selection to the place of the creative 

 principle itself. It may be said in passing that 

 this emphasis is much lessened in present-day 

 opinion, according to which the creative power 

 in nature is an unexplainable life energy to 

 which the survival of the fittest is secondary. 

 With Darwin and his followers, however, sur- 

 plus population, competition, elimination of 

 the weak, and the survival of the fittest in an 

 entirely unmoral sense, was nature's law of 

 progress. 



6. The Application of Darwinism 



The possibility of applying the Darwinian 

 hypotheses in support of laissez-faire society 

 was quickly seen, and the details of that appli- 

 cation have been worked out in large part by 



