190 



HABIT AND INTELLIGENCE. 



[chap. 



Political 

 progress 

 due to con- 

 quest. 



Ulti- 

 mately, 

 war ceases 

 to be an 

 agency of 

 progress. 



Peaceful 

 progress 

 due to 

 competi- 

 tion and 

 natural 

 selection. 



Justifica- 

 tion of 

 freedom. 



jugated, what is the effect of this on the entire species? 

 This is not a question for merely historic or prehistoric 

 research, but one of the deepest political interest and 

 importance. The answer to it is, T think, on the whole 

 satisfactory. Eaces which become dominant, whether 

 through innate force of character or through favouring 

 circumstances promoting their advancement in civilization, 

 appear to have a power of raising the conquered races 

 to their own level. The best instance of this probably 

 is to be found in the results of the Eoman conquest 

 of Western Europe. 



But when nations, as distinguished from mere empires, 

 are consolidated, it ceases to be possible for conquest to be 

 any longer an agency of improvement ; and thenceforward 

 historical progress must be almost exclusively due to the 

 arts of peace, industrial as well as political. But progress is 

 still due to a process of natural selection, though natural 

 selection is now applied, not to races of men, but to insti- 

 tutions and to ideas. In the peaceful strife of our modern 

 times, however, as in the warlike strife of the ancient, the 

 principle to which progress is due is still the same — 

 namely, free competition and the victory and preservation 

 of the best. It is only on this principle that freedom can 

 be justified. The ever-repeated argument against freedom 

 is, that the mass of mankind, when they have attained it, 

 ■do not knoAV what to do with it. This may be true ; but, 

 even if it were proved to be true, freedom would be none 

 the less a means of good. It is a law of the organic world 

 that many more seeds must be produced than can possibly 

 mature their products ; and it is a law of the human 

 world that an immensely large proportion of effort shall 

 be wasted. But it is only by permitting freedom of effort 

 in all directions, with its unavoidable concomitant of 

 waste, that any valuable results can be achieved. Where 

 careers are open, many men will struggle into positions for 

 which they are unfit. Where industry and commerce are 

 uncontrolled, many disastrous blunders will be made by 

 men in the exercise of their freedom. Where the expres- 

 sion of thought is free, much will be published that is 



