35 



It is not true to affirm that the struggle for 

 life is the only supreme law in nature and 

 society, just as it is false to claim that this law 

 does not apply to human society. The real 

 truth is that even in human society the 

 struggle for life is an eternal law which 

 weakens progressively in its forms and rises in 

 its ideals ; but beside it we find a law whose 

 action is progressively more efficacious in 

 social evolution, the law of solidarity or of 

 co-operation among living beings. 



Even in societies of animals mutual help 

 against natural forces or against living species 

 is constantly manifested, and in all the more 

 intense fashion when we come to the human 

 species, even to savage tribes. It is found 

 especially among tribes which, in consequence 

 of favourable conditions of environment or 

 in consequence of assured and abundant 

 food, enter into the industrial and pacific 

 stage. The military or warlike type which 

 ^unhappily rules (in consequence of insecurity 

 and insufficiency of food) among primitive 

 mankind, and in the reactionary phases of 

 civilisation, offers us less frequent examples. 

 The industrial type tends constantly, more- 

 over, as Spencer has shown, *to take the place 

 of the warlike type.* 



* See in this sense the celebrated writings of Kropot- 

 kin, Mutual Aid among the Savages, in the Nineteenth 

 Century, gih April, 1891, and Among the Barbarians, 

 ibid., January, 1892 [published in Mutual Aid : a factor of 

 evolution, 1902. ED.], and also two recent articles 

 signed "A Professor," appearing in the Revue socialiste 

 of Paris, Ma"y and June, 1894, under the title Lutte ou 

 accord pour la vie. 



