io6 NATURAL SELECTION AND 



secondly, the well-being of society, as the 

 ethical end, is substituted for the individualist 

 conception of a balance of pleasures and pains. 

 " Happiness," says Professor Clifford, " is not 

 the end of right action. My happiness is of no 

 use to the community, except in so far as it 

 makes me a more efficient citizen ; that is to 

 say, it is rightly desired as a means and not as 

 an end." 1 



Natural selection can be likewise applied to 

 the explanation of the origin and development 

 of social and political institutions, provided that 

 sufficient account be taken of imitation and re- 

 flection, as produced by natural selection and 

 yet counteracting the merely animal struggle 

 for existence ; provided also it be recognised 

 that an idea or institution may supplant 

 another without the individuals concerned 

 being necessarily killed off in the process. 

 Natural selection operates in the highest types 

 of human society as well as in the rest of the 

 organic realm ; but it passes into a higher form 

 of itself, in which the conflict of ideas and 

 institutions takes the place of the struggle for 

 existence between individuals and races. 

 1 Lectures and Essays, ii. p. 173. 



