206 THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE v 



has been spontaneously and ex animo obeyed by 

 the great majority of the human race. But, in 

 civilized society, the inevitable result of such 

 obedience is the re-establishment, in all its inten- 

 sity, of that struggle for existence the war of 

 each against all the mitigation or abolition of 

 which was the chief end of social organisation. 

 It is conceivable that, at some period in the 

 history of the fabled Atlantis, the production of 

 food should have been exactly sufficient to meet 

 the wants of the population, that the makers 

 of the commodities of the artificer should have 

 amounted to just the number supportable by 

 the surplus food of the agriculturists. And, as 

 there is no harm in adding another monstrous 

 supposition to the foregoing, let it be imagined 

 that every man, woman, and child was perfectly 

 virtuous, and aimed at the good of all as the 

 highest personal good. In that happy land, the 

 natural man would have been finally put down 

 by the ethical man. There would have been 

 no competition, but the industry of each would 

 have been serviceable to all ; nobody being vain 

 and nobody avaricious, there would have been 

 no rivalries; the struggle for existence would 

 have been abolished, and the millennium would 

 have finally set in. But it is obvious that this 

 state of things could have been permanent only 

 with a stationary population. Add ten fresh 

 mouths ; and as, by the supposition, there was 



