CHAPTER V 



CONFLICT AND PROGRESS 



Mr. Benjamin Kidd, in a very remarkable work, has observed 

 that there is in social evolution no rational sanction for progress ; 

 and, indeed, when the observer who has previously noted the 

 progress constantly being made in the organic realm inferior to 

 human society casts his eye on the conditions of things prevalent 

 in that society in its highest forms of development, he cannot 

 fail to note the contrast which exists. In the whole realm of 

 Nature, below man, selection works unremittingly and in- 

 defatigably, eliminating the less well adapted, ensuring the 

 reproduction of the better adapted ; and in its less developed 

 stages human society is as much subject to this iron law as any 

 other part of organic nature. The state of perpetual feud and 

 conflict at present existing between contemporaneous savage 

 tribes in Africa helps us, if dimly, to realise the conditions of 

 primitive man, as he slowly emerged from the brute stage, and, 

 in face of enormous difficulties and through countless genera- 

 tions, made the fixst halting steps along the pathway of civilisa- 

 tion. In this primitive state of mankind natural selection is 

 necessarily fuUy operative ; there are no artificial measures pro- 

 tecting the less fit, who are pitilessly eliminated. And the 

 result is that a race of men and women, hardy, strong, courageous, 

 and vigorous, is produced and constantly maintained ; for the 

 tribe whose organic value, as made up of the biological fitness 

 of its individual members, begins to diminish, however slightly, 



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