EVOL UTION AND SOCIOL OG Y. 49 



precept. There is none in Nature. There is none in 

 Reason. Nature can only point him to a strenuous 

 rivalry as the one condition of continued progress; 

 Reason can only endorse the verdict. Hence he breaks 

 at once with reason and with Nature, and seeks an 

 "ultra-rational sanction" for the future course of 

 social progress. 



Here, in his own words, is the situation. "The 

 teaching of reason to the individual must always be 

 that the present time and his own interests therein 

 are all-important to him. That the forces which are 

 working out our development are primarily concerned 

 not with those interests of the individual, but with 

 those widely different interests of a social organism 

 subject to quite other conditions and possessed of an 

 indefinitely longer life. . . . The central fact with 

 which we are confronted in our progressive societies 

 is, therefore, that the interests of the social organism 

 and those of the individuals comprising it at any time 

 are actually antagonistic; they can never be recon- 

 ciled; they are inherently and essentially irreconcil- 

 able." l Observe the extraordinary dilemma. Reason 

 not only has no help for the further progress of 

 Society, but Society can only go on upon a principle 

 which is an affront to it. As Man can only attain his 

 highest development hi Society, his individual in- 

 terests must more and more subordinate themselves 

 to the welfare of a wider whole. " How is the posses- 

 sion of reason ever to be rendered compatible with the 

 will to submit the conditions of existence so onerous, 

 requiring the effective and continual subordination of 

 the individual's welfare to the progress of a develop- 



1 Op. cit., p. 78- 

 4 



