8 The Philosophy of Force 



philosophers of all countries how universal is the 

 belief that war is the cause of social progress. 

 Thus Herbert Spencer,^ writing in 1876, has 

 developed his sociology on the basis of the struggle 

 for existence: 



As carried on throughout the animate world at 

 large, the struggle for existence has been an indis- 

 pensable means to evolution. Not simply do we see 

 that, in the competition among individuals of the 

 same kind, survival of the fittest has from the begin- 

 ning furthered the production of a higher type ; but we 

 see that to the unceasing warfare between species is 

 mainly due both growth and organization. Without 

 universal conflict there would have been no develop- 

 ment of the active powers. . . . 



Similarly with social organisms. We must recog- 

 nize the truth that the struggles for existence between 

 societies has been instrumental to their evolution. 

 Neither the consolidation and re-consolidation of 

 small groups into large ones ; nor the organization of 

 such compound and doubly compound groups ; nor the 

 concomitant developments of those aids to a higher life 

 which civilization has brought ; would have been possi- 

 ble without inter-tribal and inter-national conflicts. 

 Social co-operation is initiated by joint defence and 

 offence; and from the co-operation thus initiated all 

 kinds of co-operations have arisen. Inconceivable as 

 have been the horrors caused by the universal an- 

 tagonism which, beginning with the chronic hostilities 

 of small hordes tens of thousands of years ago, has 



' Principles of Sociology, vol. ii., part 5, "Political Institutions," 

 p. 241. 



