36 



Referring to human society alone, we may 

 put it this way : whilst in the first stages of 

 social evolution the law of the struggle for 

 existence takes precedence of the law of 

 solidarity, the more the division of labour 

 and in consequence the connection between 

 the individuals of the social organism grows, 

 the more does the law of co-operation or 

 solidarity acquire a force progressively more 

 intense and extended, and that for the funda- 

 mental reason which Marx has indicated and 

 which constitutes his grand scientific dis- 

 covery, because the conditions of existence, 

 and primarily food, are or are not assured. 



In the life of individuals, as in that of 

 societies, when food, that is to say the physical 

 basis of existence, is assured, the law of 

 solidarity takes precedence of the law of the 

 struggle for existence, and the inverse of this 

 also holds good. Among savages, infanticide 

 and parricide are acts not only permitted, but 

 obligatory, and sanctified by religion, if the 

 tribe lives on an island where food is scanty 

 (for example in Polynesia), and they con- 

 stitute immoral and criminal acts on conti- 

 nents where food is more abundant and more 

 sure.* 



In the same way in our present society, the 

 majority of individuals not being sure of 

 their daily bread, the struggle for life, ,or 

 " free competition," as individualists call it, 

 takes more cruel and more brutal forms. 



As soon as, with collective property, each 



* Enrico Ferri, Omicidio nell' antropologia crimincile. 

 Introduction, Turin, 1894. 



