172 SUPER-ORGANIC EVOLUTION 



society. Those who have applied it to sociology 

 have been guilty of a false interpretation. 



Nature has a logical mode of procedure which 

 gives regularity to phenomena, and therefore it is 

 possible, by examining a series of facts that form 

 a system, to establish a law. The struggle for life 

 is inspired or inferred from a chain of observations 

 of Nature, and therefore is only applicable to 

 natural causes, but not to present society, in 

 obedience to an organisation that turns or evolves 

 entirely upon one base, recognising no law or 

 natural principle, but an arbitrary principle, 

 contrary to natural law, as is the case with 

 capital. 



In saying this, and not recognising as a natural 

 right the right of private property, I am very far 

 from saying with Proudhon that property is robbery. 

 I think that, in view of present social organisation, 

 humanity could not be otherwise than it is, but 

 that of necessity it must be selfish, a conception 

 required by the possession of property. Property 

 is absurd, though it be not robbery ; and legal, 

 though it be not legitimate. Humanity, that has 

 for ages accepted private property as natural, 

 believes in this conception as an article of faith. 

 Religions, philosophies change, are modified, or 

 disappear whenever new ideas, fairer or more 

 logical, can take their place, and this is the 



