GREAT PAGAN RETROGRESSION 45 



reached the springs of that heredity born of the 

 unmeasured ages of conquest out of which the 

 Western mind has come. Within half a century 

 the Origin of Species had become the bible of the 

 doctrine of the omnipotence of force. 



The hold which the theories of the Origin of 

 Species obtained on the popular mind in the West 

 is one of the most remarkable incidents in the 

 history of human thought. The first effect of this 

 presentation of the existing world as the result 

 of selection through struggle and merciless war 

 was immediate. Everywhere throughout civiliza- 

 tion an almost inconceivable influence was given 

 to the doctrine of force as the basis of legal 

 authority. 



This effect had two deeply marked phases. 

 In countries like England and the United States 

 the striking resemblance which the doctrine of 

 the survival of the fittest in the war for exist- 

 ence bore to those doctrines of political economy 

 which had come to prevail in business and com- 

 merce was immediately recognized. Almost every 

 argument of the Origin of Species appeared to 

 represent a generalized conception of the effec- 

 tiveness of the war of competition. The condi- 

 tions of the social war which Maurice, Ruskin, 

 and a crowd of writers had condemned, but 



