I PROLEGOMENA. 43 



XV. 



To return, once more, to the parallel of horti- 

 culture. In the modern world;, the gardening of 

 men by themselves is practically restricted to the 

 performance, not of selection, but of that other 

 function of the gardener, the creation of condi- 

 tions more favourable than those of the state of 

 nature; to the end of facilitating the free ex- 

 pansion of the innate faculties of the citizen, so 

 far as it is consistent with the general good. And 

 the business of the moral and political philoso- 

 pher appears to me to be the ascertainment, by 

 the same method of observation, experiment, and 

 ratiocination, as is practised in other kinds of sci- 

 entific work, of the course of conduct which will 

 best conduce to that end. 



But, supposing this course of conduct to be 

 scientifically determined and carefully followed 

 out, it cannot put an end to the struggle for ex-, 

 istence in the state of nature; and it will not so 

 much as tend, in any way, to the adaptation of 

 man to that state. Even should the whole human 

 race be absorbed in one vast polity, within which 

 " absolute political justice " reigns, the struggle 

 for existence with the state of nature outside it, 

 and the tendency to the return to the struggle 

 within, in consequence of over-multiplication, will 

 remain; and, unless men's inheritance from the 

 ancestors who fought a good fight in the state of 



