26 



thought that they had completely conquered 

 the objection raised against them in the name 

 of Darwinism, by affirming that in human 

 society the " struggle for existence " is a law 

 which ought to lose its meaning and applic- 

 ability when the social transformation which 

 socialism aims at shall have been realised. * 



It is a law which governs tyrannically all 

 living beings, microbes as well as anthropoid 

 apes, and should it cease to act and fall inert 

 at the feet of man as if he were not an indis- 

 soluble link in the great biological chain ? 



I maintained, and I maintain still, that the 

 struggle for existence is a law inseparable from 

 life, and consequently from humanity itself ; 

 but that, whilst remaining an immanent and 

 continuous law, it is transformed by degrees 

 in its extent, and is attenuated in its forms. 



In primitive humanity the struggle for 

 existence is scarcely to be distinguished from 

 that which obtains among other animals ; it 

 is the brutal struggle for daily food or for the 

 female hunger and love are, in fact, the two 



* Labusquiere in Rivista internazionale del socialismo, 

 Milan, 1880. No. 3. Lanessan, La lutte pour I' existence 

 el I'association pour la lutte, Paris, 1881. Loria, Discorso 

 su Carlo Darwin, Siena, 1882, p. 17, and following, and 

 Darwin e I'economia politica in Riv. di filosofia scientifica, 

 June, 1884. Colajanni, // socialismo, Catania, 1884, etc. 



M. Colajanni recognised from this moment (note i, p. 

 58), that the basis of my thought was "more socialistic 

 than is that of many other persons who imagine themselves 

 to be socialists, and who are persecuted as such." 'My 

 book, in fact,Socialismo e criminalitd, only made criticisms 

 on the revolutionary method of the Italian socialism of 

 that time, still stamped with nebulous romanticism. The 

 import of my criticisms was exaggerated, not without 



