THE PAGAN ETHIC 85 



primeval times the biological justification of Ger- 

 many's world policy. It was Bateson who put 

 forward in England the same doctrine as the bio- 

 logical justification for casting the whole set of 

 ideas upon which Western democracy rests upon the 

 rubbish-heap of time. 



Down to the time in which we are living a great 

 part had been played in the theories of society of 

 nearly every school of thought in the West by the 

 doctrine of Altruism that is to say, of the service 

 or the love of others as an evolutionary force in civil- 

 ization. Mr. Bateson proceeded in this lecture to 

 sweep aside all views of civilization founded on this 

 conception. They were, he said, biologically false. 

 The only instinct, he asserted, which is sufficiently 

 universal to supply the motive for exertion in 

 civilization is the desire to accumulate property 

 in the competitive struggle. Other instincts, among 

 which he puts the altruistic emotions, might, he 

 said, be strongly developed in some. " But," he con- 

 tinues, " they are permanent in very few individuals. 

 They are apt to weaken after adolescence, and to 

 disappear as middle age supervenes." l 



In the light of this biological generalization Mr. 

 Bateson proceeded with his own remarkable pro- 

 posals for the improvement and reconstruction of 



1 Biological fact and the Structure of Society, p. 26. 



