AXD SOCIAL DEMOCRACY. 91 



Yirchow brings against the doctrine of evolution, he- 

 takes good care in no way to touch the kernel of the 

 matter. How, indeed, would it have been possible 

 without arriving at conclusions wholly opposed to 

 those which he has declared ? For the theory of 

 descent proclaims more clearly than any other scientific 

 theory, that that equality of individuals which socialism 

 strives after is an impossibility, that it stands, in fact, 

 in irreconcilable contradiction to the inevitable in- 

 equality of individuals which actually and everywhere 

 subsists. Socialism demands equal rights, equal duties, 

 equal possessions, equal enjoyments for every citizen 

 alike ; the theory of descent proves, in exact opposition 

 to this, that the realisation of this demand is a pure 

 impossibility, and that in the constitutionally organised 

 communities of men, as of the lower animals, neither 

 rights nor duties, neither possessions nor enjoyments 

 have ever been equal for all the members alike nor 

 ever can be. Throughout the evolutionist theory, as 

 in its biological branch, the theory of descent the 

 great law of specialisation or differentiation teaches 

 us that a multiplicity of phenomena is developed from 

 original unity, heterogeneity from original similarity, 

 and the composite organism from original simplicity. 

 The conditions of existence are dissimilar for each 

 individual from the beginning of its existence ; even 

 the inherited qualities, the natural " disposition," are 



