180 EVOLUTION, SOCIAL AND ORGANIC 



position was taken by Spencer and received 

 the following clever reply from Prof. Ritchie: 

 "The struggle among plants and the lower 

 animals is mainly between members of the 

 same species; and the individual competition 

 between human beings, which is so much ad- 

 mired by Mr . Spencer, is of this primitive 

 kind." 



Kropotkin says : "If we ask nature 'who are 

 the fittest, those who are continually at war 

 with each other, or those who support one 

 another?' we at once see that those animals 

 which acquire habits of mutual aid are un- 

 doubtedly the fittest." 



As to the desirability of that "pitiless strug- 

 gle," Huxley pertinently says: "Of all the 

 shapes which society has taken, that most 

 nearly approaches perfection in which the war 

 of the individual against the individual is most 

 strictly limited." 



Whatever may be the truth among the 

 protozoa, we are safe in applying to society the 

 statement of Ruskin : "Co-operation is always 

 and everywhere the law of life ; competition is 

 always and everywhere the law of death." 



Human society eventually reaches a point of 

 development where nature's haphazard ways 

 arc interfered with, and man arranges means 

 to an end. Professor Schiaparelli thought he 



