424 HEREDITY AND SELECTION IN SOCIOLOGY 



the soma alone is specialised for the needs of the individual life, 

 and is destructible ; hence a greater individual difEerentiation and 

 development is possible, greater variety, greater adaptability. 

 But the germ specialised for the reproduction of the species is 

 biologically immortal — at any rate in potentia. The individual 

 is sacrificed to the reproduction of the species. 



Thus, the maintenance and progress of the whole is only 

 obtained at the expense of much sufEering on the part of the 

 components of the whole. Suffering is a law of organic Nature, 

 and it may truly be said that without suffering there is no Ufe. 

 Our brief remarks concerning the antagonism of Individuation 

 and Genesis sufficiently prove this. That suffering is a law of 

 Nature, and that the only hope of attaining the goal of relative 

 perfection is through much suffering, is an axiom which we are apt 

 to lose sight of. " The greatest happiness of the greatest 

 number " is the avowed doctrine of an entire poUtical school, 

 and of a very influential one. Yet on closer examination we 

 shall perhaps find this doctrine less solidly established than its 

 advocates think. For, in the fijst place, the concept of happiness 

 is so vague, it varies so greatly with each individual nature, that 

 sociology, if it remains true to its scientific constitution, can take 

 no cognisance of it. And, in the second place, is it so certain 

 that happiness be an aim in itself ? Do we, when contemplating 

 the world of Nature, see any example which justifies the affirma- 

 tion that happiness is the aim of life ? In truth, it seems rather 

 as if the contrary were the case ; and, as far as we can speak of 

 an " aim " in Nature — and it is dangerous to do so, for we risk 

 falling into the teleological error of considering Nature as a 

 mysterious entity in itself, of ascribing to it, with our habitual 

 anthropomorphism, a sort of personality — ^in as far, we say, as we 

 can discern an aim, that aim is not the happiness of living crea- 

 tures, but rather, as we have said, the multiphcation of life with 

 a view to its ever greater adaptability and perfection — ^perfection 

 being understood in the sense of the greatest possible expansion. 



