FUNDAMENTAL CONDITIONS OF LIFE 379 



insatiability, be the law of life, these must of necessity embrace 

 in their sphere the evolution of human life, and consequently of 

 the human race. It follows that the interests of the majority and 

 the interests of future generations are both included in the same 

 conditions which govern all organic evolution. The present 

 system may be abolished, and a new system, based on the 

 teachings of Socialism, nay, of Anarchism, may be introduced ; 

 but not all the artificial protection of the feeble, not all the 

 artificial attempts to suppress the conflict which has as its result 

 the victory of the stronger, can prevent human nature from 

 manifesting itself. Wherever life is, there must also be expansion, 

 and expansion implies both conflict and insatiability. So that 

 the conflict must ever arise anew in response to new desires, 

 which, in turn, are but forms of expansion. 



And if, at any given moment, the oppressed majority do not 

 rise in revolt and do away with the prevailing conditions of 

 existence, this is solely because the expansive force of that 

 majority has not attained to a sufficient degree of power to be 

 able to cope with that of the dominant party. Certainly we are 

 in favour of the conditions of social evolution being such, that 

 the greatest liberty possible be afforded to all the contending 

 forces to attain their maximum of expansion ; and our criticism 

 of the existing state of things is based precisely on the fact that 

 it thwarts the expansion of forces whose development would be 

 of benefit to the social organism as a whole. But for any 

 majority to attempt to alter the fundamental laws to which all 

 human evolution is subject would be folly. The sanction for 

 conflict may not be rational ; it is neither rational nor ultra- 

 rational : it is a sanction which is contained in the unalterable 

 and fundamental conditions of existence itself. 



Thus, it will appear that our view of the function of religious 

 beliefs in social evolution is not that of Mr. Kidd. We do not 

 regard these behefs as an ultrarational sanction for conditions 

 implied in the conditions of life itself — conditions whose very 



