40 MARXISM AND DARWINISM. 



The sociable animals are in a position to beat those 

 that carry on the struggle individually. This so-called 

 degenerating and deteriorating race carries off the vic- 

 tory and practically proves itself to be the most skilful 

 and best. 



Here we first see fully how near sighted, narrow 



and unscientific are the claims and arguments of the 



bourgeois Darwinists. Their natural laws and their 



conceptions of what is natural are derived from a part 



of the animal world, from those which man r6sembles 



least, while those animals that practically live under 



the same circumstances as man are left unobserved. 



The reason for this can be found in the bourgeoise's 



, own circumstances; they themselves belong to a class 



I where each competes individually against the other; 



I therefore, they see among animals only that form of 



I the struggle for existence. It is for this reason that 



I they overlook those forms of the struggle that are of 



t greatest importance to men. 



It is true that these bourgeois Darwinists are 

 aware of the fact that man is not ruled by mere egoism 

 without regard for his neighbors. The bourgeois 

 scientists say very often that every man is possessed 

 of two feelings, the egotistical, or self-love, and the 

 altruistic, the love of others. But as they do not know 

 the social origin of this altruism, they cannot under- 

 stand its limitations and conditions. Altruism in their 

 mouths becomes a very indistinct idea which they 

 don't know how to handle. 



Everything that applies to the social animals ap- 

 plies also to man. Our ape-like ancestors and the 

 primitive men developing from them were all defense- 

 less, weak animals who, as almost all apes do, lived in 

 tribes. Here the same social motives and instincts 



