l PROLEGOMENA 27 



Among mankind, on the contrary, there is no 

 such predestination to a sharply defined place in / 

 tin- social organism. However much men may [ / 

 ditVer in the quality of their intellects, the in- / 

 tensity of their passions, and the delicacy of their 

 sensations, it cannot be said that one is fitted by 

 his organ i/at ion to be an agricultural labourer and I 

 nothing else, and another to be a landowner ami 

 nntliing <!<> Moreover, with all their enormous 

 differences in natural endowment, men agree in 

 one tiling, and that is their innate desire to fiij<\ 

 the pleasures and \ escape l he pains of lite; and, 

 in short, to do nothing but that which it pleases 

 them to do, without the least reference to the 

 welfare of the society into which they are born. 

 That is their inheritance (i\u- reality at the bottom 

 of the doctrine of origina] ain^ from the long series 

 of ancegtorSy-human- and semi-human and brutal, 

 in whom the strength of this tendency to 



self-assertion was the condition of victory in the 

 struggle for existence. That is the reason of the 

 aviditas vitcc J the insatiable hunger for enjoy- 

 ment of all mankind, which is one of the essen- 

 tial conditions of success in the war with the state 

 of nature outside ; and yet the sure agent of the 

 destruction of society if allowed free play within. 



The check upon this free play of self-assertion, 

 or natural liberty, which is the necessary condition 

 for the origin of human society, is the product ' 

 1 See below. Romanes" Lecture, note 7. 



