The Intellectual Struggle 189 



have appeared is also the order in which they are 

 most effective. Since the intellectual forces are 

 the most powerful, the struggle for existence has 

 resulted in the survival and dominance of the 

 most intelligent. The economic processes pro- 

 duce a more rapid adaptation of the physical 

 environment than the physiological or alimentary 

 processes; the political processes result in a more 

 rapid adaptation than the economic processes; 

 and finally the intellectual processes result in a 

 more rapid adaptation than the political pro- 

 cesses. The effectiveness of an instrument is 

 in proportion to the rapidity with which it enables 

 us to accomplish our object, i. e., the adaptation 

 of the universe, so that the abandonment of the 

 lower for the higher forms of struggle is equivalent 

 to the abandonment of slower for more rapid and 

 effective processes. 



The explanation of the declining economic, 

 social, and moral effectiveness of force is found to a 

 large extent in this progress of civilization, which 

 has changed the struggle between human associa- 

 tions from its lowest phase, the physiological 

 struggle, to its highest, the intellectual struggle. 

 Physical force becomes increasingly ineffective 

 as we rise in this scale until, when we reach the 

 stage of intellectual struggle, we find that physical 

 force is an absolutely futile instrument with which 

 to try to change intellectual convictions. 



The causes for the futility of force are to be found 

 largely in two factors: (i) the resistance of the 



