256 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. II. No. 35. 



not civilization itself, with all that it has 

 accomplished, the result of man's not let- 

 ting things alone, of his not letting nature 

 take its course?"* 



In other words, the whole dilierence be- 

 tween civiKzation and other forms of nat- 

 ural progress is that it is a product of art, 

 of artful cooperation; and this co5peration 

 has been coerced rather than voluntarj^, 

 coerced first by the few, and, as intellec- 

 tual and moral forces developed, by the 

 many. 



And now we are asked to give up the ad- 

 vantage of this cooperation, laboriously de- 

 veloped, to return to the beginning as far 

 as that is possible; and for what? — to ex- 

 periment, and see whether the individual 

 if left alone to the laws of competition 

 would not again develop cooperation, which 

 after all even the individualist admits with 

 chagrin is preferable to competition. 



To quote Ward again : " Competition not 

 only involves the enormous waste, which 

 has been described, but it prevents the 

 maximum development, since the best that 

 can be obtained under its influence is far 

 inferior to that which is easily obtained by 

 the artificial, i. e., the rational and intelli- 

 gent removal of that influence. Hard as it 

 sefcms to be for modern philosophers to un- 

 derstand this, it was one of the first truths 

 that dawned upon the human intellect. 

 Consciously or unconsciously, it was felt 

 from the very outset that the mission of 

 mind was to grapple with the law of compe- 

 tition and, as far as possible, to resist and 

 defeat it. The iron law of nature, as it may 

 be appropriately called, was everywhere 

 found to lie athwart the path of human 

 progress ; and the whole upward struggle of 

 rational man, whether physical, social or 

 moral, has been with this tyrant of nature — 

 the law of competiton — and in so far as he 

 has progressed at all beyond the purely ani- 

 mal stage he has done so triumphing little 



* Psychic Factors, Ward, p. 286. 



by little over this law and gaining some- 

 what the mastery ia the struggle."* 



The individualists who expect better suc- 

 cess from the purely animal method have 

 been led by the undeniable fact that, in 

 many respects, governments have failed to 

 perform their functions well, although even 

 in this respect fair investigation will show 

 that, considering the conditions and the gen- 

 eral limitations of men, this stricture can- 

 not be sustained to the degree that may at 

 first glance appear to the casual observer. 

 Now, instead of improving the methods of 

 government, they propose to curtail the 

 fiinctions ; instead of giving direction to the 

 social forces — which will not be downed— 

 they propose to neglect them, to substitute 

 the biologic forces. 



Just as the chemists, who are attemptiug 

 to determine dietaries and construct uni- 

 versal soups by chemical synthesis, overlook 

 the existence and claims of the palate, 

 catering alone to the stomach, so the Lu- 

 dividualists and many economists deal with 

 man as a machine of a given physiological 

 construction and put in motion by phj^sio- 

 logical fofces, overlooking that psychological 

 forces are his main motive power, ' that he 

 is to be_ lured, not pushed, in the way of pro- 

 ductive effort,' or, at least, that however far 

 for his animal development the laws of 

 animal biology, the laws of nature, may be 

 allowed to prevail for his truly human de- 

 velopment, the laws of mind, and especially 

 of heart, must and will interfere. In this 

 development, not competition, but coopera- 

 tion, is a necessity. 



This rather lengthy reference to that 

 school of sociologists whose motto is the 

 reduction of the functions of government, 

 who have so strongly influenced and still 

 continue to influence, not only thought, but 

 government activitj^, appears necessary, 

 whenever we desire to discuss government 

 functions, for whether we subscribe to the 



* Psychic Forces, Ward, p. 261. 



