xx GOVERNMENT 427 



problem of government may be stated to be, 

 What ought to be done and what to be left 

 undone by society, as a whole, in order to bring 

 about as much welfare of its members as is com- 

 patible with the natural order of things ? and I 

 do not think men will ever solve this problem 

 unless they clear their minds, not merely of the 

 notion that it can be solved a, priori ; but unless 

 they face the fact that the natural order of things 

 the order, that is to say, as unmodified byi 

 human effort does not tend to bring about what! 

 we understand as welfare. On the contrary, the 

 natural order tends to the maintenance, in one 

 shape or another, of the war of each against all, 

 the result of which is not the survival of the 

 morally or even the physically highest, but of that 

 form of humanity, the mortality of which is least 

 under the conditions. The pressure of a constant 

 increase of population upon the means of support 

 must keep up the stmo-gle far pYJ^tpnpp, whatever 

 form of social organisation may be adopted. In 

 fact, it is hard to say whether the state of 

 anarchy or that of extreme regimentation would 

 be the more rapidly effective in bringing any 

 society which multiplies without limit to a 

 crisis. 



The cardinal defect of all socialistic schemes ap- 

 pears to me to be, that they either ignore this 

 difficulty or try to evade it by nonsensical sup- 

 positions about increasing the production of vital 



