186 SOCIAL HEREDITY AND SOCIAL EVOLUTION 



Freedom must necessarily disappear with organ- 

 ization. Every advance in centralization makes the 

 individual more dependent, and every law enacted by 

 the nations undermines further his independence. 

 The anarchist demands the abolition of law in order 

 to restore primitive freedom. But there is another 

 side of the individual's relation to society. Though 

 the man becomes less free with the growth of organi- 

 zation, the breadth of his life becomes greater. 

 Among Oriental nations the idea of the value of indi- 

 vidual life seems hardly to have dawned, even to the 

 present day, as is proved by the cheapness of life 

 among the Chinese and Turks. But among the West- 

 ern nations the individual has refused to allow him- 

 self to be swallowed up by the glory of the organized 

 nation. His refusal thus to submit may perhaps be 

 traced to the influence of the communal system ; but, 

 at all events, it has been the stimulus that has pro- 

 duced the restless organization and reorganization of 

 the European peoples. We can easily trace this idea 

 through the history of the last two thousand years, 

 and we l^arn that the advance in civilization has been 

 confined to those nations where the value of man has 

 been most clearly recognized. European civilization 

 has been dominated by the principle of liberty, and 

 liberty means simply the right of the individual in 

 contradistinction to the rights of the society or the 

 king. Throughout the whole history of Western civ- 

 ilization the individual has ever been refusing to 

 sacrifice himself to the central organization, and it is 

 this refusal that has been the cause of the ceaseless 

 disintegration and organization which have char- 

 acterized European history for the last two millen- 

 niums. 



