for life," transferred from individuals to aggregates of 

 individuals? 



Besides, every individual, every class or social group, 

 struggles for its existence. And just as the bourgeoisie 

 has struggled against the clergy and the aristocracy and 

 has triumphed in the French Revolution, so to-day the 

 international proletariat struggles, not by violence, as we 

 are always being accused of doing, but by propaganda 

 and association, for its economic and moral existence, 

 which at present is ill secured and so grievously oppressed. 



As for the theory of evolution, how can one not notice 

 that it gives the most striking contradiction to the classi- 

 cal theories of a political economy which sees in the 

 bases of the present economic organisation eternal and 

 immutable laws? 



Socialism, on the contrary, maintains that economic 

 institutions, juridical and political institutions, are only 

 the historical product of an epoch, and that, consequently, 

 they are variable, since they are in continuous evolution 

 through which the present differs from the past just as 

 the future will be different from the present. 



Herbert Spencer believes that universal evolution rules 

 all orders of phenomena with the exception of the organi- 

 sation of property, which he declares is destined to exist 

 eternally in its individualistic form. Socialists, on the 

 contrary, believe that the organisation of property will 

 itself also undergo a radical transformation, and, taking 

 into consideration past transformations, assert that eco- 

 nomic evolution is represented and will be represented 

 more and more after the excesses of individual concen- 

 tration in an increasing and complete socialisation of 

 the means of production, which constitute the physical 

 basis of social and collective life, and which ought not 

 to, and, therefore, cannot, remain in the hands of a few 

 individuals. 



Between these two doctrines it is not difficult to decide 

 which is most in accord with the scientific theory of 

 physical and social evolution. 



At any rate, and with all the respect due to our intel- 

 lectual father, Herbert Spencer, but also with all the pride 

 to which my studies and my scientific conscience give 

 me a right, it is sufficient for me to have repelled the 

 anathema which Herbert Spencer, without having read my 

 book, and on information indirect and not very straight- 

 forward, has thought he could fling in such a dogmatic 

 tone against a scientific thesis which I have not solely 

 affirmed with an ipse dixit (which has served its time), but 

 which I have studied and maintained with arguments 

 which have till now vainly awaited a scientific contradic- 

 tion. 



ENRICO FERRI. 

 Rome, June, 1895. 



