86 THE SCIENCE OF POWER 



the world. They were proposals which involved a 

 direct challenge to the most fundamental of all the 

 principles associated with the life of Western civiliza- 

 tion. In Social Evolution I had previously summar- 

 ized the central principle of the world development 

 which the West represented in the phrase equality 

 of opportunity}- The phrase as expressing a clearly 

 defined and fundamental ideal was immediately 

 taken into currency in British politics, and soon 

 after into world politics, being permanently regis- 

 tered as representing an international aim in the 

 Anglo-Japanese Alliance of 1905. It was against 

 this central ideal underlying all forms of social and 

 political progress in the West for centuries that Mr. 

 Bateson' s challenge was principally directed. 



The main proposals in his lecture 2 were in 

 principle reducible to three, which may be briefly 

 stated as follows : 



(1) Civilization was not founded on altruism. 

 The only instinct, Mr. Bateson asserted, which is 

 sufficiently universal to supply the motive for 

 civilization, and without which the whole com- 

 munity would slacken and decay, is the desire to 

 accumulate property. 



(2) In civilization so constituted Mr. Bateson 



1 Social Evolution, chap. vi. pp. 150-155, etc. 

 1 Biological Pact and the Structure of Society. 



