92 The Biological Errors 



piece of sophistry to maintain that collective 

 homicide, in the case in which it is followed by 

 progress, is the cause of that progress. In science 

 one phenomenon is held to be the cause of the 

 second only when it is always and everywhere 

 followed by the second. Since collective homicide 

 does not always and everywhere precede progress, 

 collective homicide is not the cause of progress. 

 On the contrary, since more perfect political 

 institutions always precede progress, it is the 

 more perfect political institutions which are the 

 cause of progress. But political institutions are 

 the result of certain cerebral movements ; therefore 

 it is these cerebral movements and not the muscu- 

 lar movements in the process of collective homi- 

 cide, which assure progress. 



The roundabout way by which the philosophy 

 of force seeks to escape this conclusion is familiar. 

 It is impossible to affirm that collective homicide 

 is the direct cause of progress. In the evening 

 after a battle when a hundred thousand men lie 

 upon the ground, some of them killed, the others 

 groaning in agony, it is difficult to pretend at that 

 very moment that the slaughter and the suffering 

 produces progress. Even the distorted "social 

 Darwinism" does not sustain such a preposterous 

 proposition, but the "social Darwinists" affirm 

 that it is the preparation for this savagery which 

 furthers progress, because the people which are the 

 better prepared obtain the victory. The prepara- 

 tion for war, it is contended, requires a series of 



