324 Mutual Aid as a Law of Nature 



and let the world see the antagonism which really 

 exists. What is the way out of this apparently 

 flat contradiction? 



The explanation is very simple. There is no 

 opposition of interests between the individual and 

 society. The opposition is solely between that 

 which appears to be the interest of the individual 

 and that which is really his interest. It seems to 

 us that there is an antagonism between the individ- 

 ual and society because we see falsely. If we 

 could see the truth, this imaginary antagonism 

 would disappear immediately. The opposition 

 is not between interests ; the opposition, in the last 

 analysis, is between error and truth. When an 

 elementary knowledge of social science becomes 

 the common possession of all men, when the ad- 

 vantages of association and the object of the 

 moral law as the basis for the expansion of the life 

 of the individual are generally understood, the 

 identity of the interests of the individual and of 

 society will be universally realized and the way 

 will be open for the greatest advance in the history 

 of the human race. 



The same reasoning concerning the relations 

 between the individual and the collectivity holds 

 for the relations between individuals. This fol- 

 lows from the fact that the relations between the 

 individual and the collectivity reduce themselves to 

 the relation between the individual and a great 

 number of his own kind. A real antagonism is 

 established between two men, Peter and Paul, 



