2 9 



of those who survive is always diminishing, 

 but also that the " struggle for existence " 

 itself changes its extent, and is weakened in 

 its processes with every successive phase of 

 biological and social evolution. 



Socialism can then affirm that conditions 

 of human existence ought to be assured to all 

 men in exchange for work performed for the 

 community without thereby contradicting 

 the Darwinian law of the survival of the 

 victors in the struggle for existence, since this 

 Darwinian law ought to be comprised in, and 

 applied to (according to its different mani- 

 festation), the law of human progress. 



Socialism, understood in the scientific 

 sense, does not deny and cannot deny that 

 there are always among men some " losers " 

 in the struggle for existence. 



This question is more directly concerned 

 with the connection that exists between 

 socialism and crime, because those who claim 

 that the struggle for existence is a law which 

 does not apply to human society, affirm in 

 consequence that crime (an abnormal and 

 anti-social form of the struggle for life as work 

 in its normal and social form) ought to dis- 

 appear. They think likewise that they find a 

 certain contradiction between socialism and 

 the doctrines of criminal anthropology on the 

 born criminal, doctrines which are themselves 

 derived from Darwinism. 



* I regret to state here that M. Loria, usually so deep 

 and penetrating, has allowed himself to be swayed by 

 appearances. He has pointed out this so-called contra- 

 diction in his Economic Basis oj Society. He has been 



