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vegetables to animals, from animals to men, 

 and among men themselves from the primitive 

 to the most advanced races. 



And as socialism represents a more advanced 

 phase of progress in the life of humanity it is 

 still less allowable to urge against it as 

 an objection such a gross and inexact inter- 

 pretation of the Darwinian law. 



It is certain that the opponents of socialism 

 have misused the Darwinian law, or rather 

 have misused the " brutal " interpretation of 

 it, to justify the modern individualistic com- 

 petition which is too often a disguised form 

 of cannibalism, and which has made the 

 proverb homo homini lupus (man a wolf to man) 

 a characteristic of our time, whereas Hobbes 

 only laid it down in the " state of nature " 

 era of humanity before the Social Contract. 



But we cannot consider a principle to be 

 false because it has been misused ; that often 

 serves as a stimulus to specify more exactly 

 its nature and terms, so that we can make a 

 more exact practical application of it ; this 

 will be the result of my demonstration of the 

 perfect harmony that exists between Darwin- 

 ism and socialism. 



Already in the first edition of my work 

 Socialismo e criminalita (pages 179, etc.), I 

 maintained that the struggle for existence is 

 a law inherent in humanity as in all living 

 beings, although its forms are continually 

 changing, and although it gets weaker. 



This is still my opinion, and on this point 

 I do not agree with certain socialists who have 



