374 HEREDITY AND SELECTION IN SOCIOLOGY 



safeguard this evolution. If a rational sanction of sucli con- 

 ditions be impossible, why should an ultrarational sanction be 

 sought for to cover the deficit ? 



The primordial condition of life in this present phase of evolu- 

 tion is conflict — conflict which is necessitated by the constant 

 tendency of organic beings to produce more life than the con- 

 ditions of existence will support. This primordial condition of 

 life is at the same time the expression of a law more fundamental 

 still — that of expansion. Expansion begets conflict ; and this 

 conflict is to be seen, under other forms perhaps, but with equal 

 intensity, among the civilised races of to-day, as much as among 

 the uncivilised races of former ages. Social evolution, as we 

 have seen, is but the manifestation of this universal law of 

 expansion ; individual life having reached a certain stage of 

 development, its further expansion can no longer be confined 

 within the narrow limits of the individual. Whether any of the 

 primitive tribes existing to-day possess, or do not possess, re- 

 ligious beliefs in one shape or another is still a matter of contro- 

 versy among ethnologists. But, whatever be the issue of this 

 somewhat sterile controversy, the point which we maintain is 

 this : that religious bdief is the outcome of the expansion of indi- 

 vidual life, which, unable any longer to confine itsdf to individual 

 limits, seeks expression in an ideal which transcends the individual. 

 And what holds good of religious belief holds good of social 

 evolution generally, and of all the traditions and institutions 

 which are the fruits of that evolution. 



The white races of the West, in their irresistible expansion, 

 have absorbed many of the inferior races, such as the Red 

 Indians, the Maoris of New Zealand, the Aborigines of AustraUa 

 and Tasmania, whose power of expansion was less effective. 

 The same phenomenon is witnessed among the negroes of the 

 Southern States of North America ; where, in spite of the pseudo- 

 abolition of slavery on alleged ethical grounds, this degenerate 

 race is dwindling before the energetic expansion of its superior 



