244 THE GOSPEL, AND THE SOCIAL CEEED OF SCIENCE. 



never be wholly dispensed with without producing stag- 

 nation or retrogression. In fact, it is impossible to 

 conceive it wholly abolished, being, as it is, the deepest, 

 most universal law of life when many units live in a 

 state of social aggregation. Amongst communities of 

 ants some competition exists ; even in a socialistic com- 

 munity it could not be done away with. There would 

 still be competition, if not for property, yet for things 

 which could not be divided, and which all could not 

 have ; if not for divisible and material, yet for immaterial 

 things power, fame, excellence ; or if not for self, there 

 would be competition to do the most good for all or for 

 others. Competition, in short, is the necessary and 

 eternal means adopted by Nature, wiser than we, to 

 perfect all the species of animals, and the human species 

 conspicuously ; and competition, in its nobler and more 

 justifiable forms, is the generous desire to surpass, the 

 source of all that is great in human endeavour, and of all 

 that is excellent in human achievement. It is the quick 

 spur to merit and virtue, quite as much as the external 

 prize of wealth or fame, and men can never dispense with 

 it, as the best men will never be without it. In its 

 lower form, however, in the shape in which it so often 

 manifests itself of the selfish desire to amass together 

 the greatest possible amount of wealth, or of the material 

 means to happiness, it deserves no such high commenda- 

 tion as we have bestowed upon it ; though even in this 

 form it is on the whole beneficial, and its excess is far 

 preferable to its absence. In the present state of civilized 

 communities, competition on the whole, including its 

 coarser forms, works beneficially, and works also towards 

 the production of the superior future society. It selects 

 the brain and nerves best adapted to the changed con- 

 ditions of modern social and industrial life, of which the 



