446 HEREDITY AND SELECTION IN SOCIOLOGY 



ages of heroism and chivalry and piety which have added lustre 

 to the fame of human society that the future can never dim or 

 tarnish. But the balance of power within the social organism 

 has shifted since those bygone days ; and it is the duty of the soci- 

 ologist, not only to investigate the law of the evolution of nations 

 in the past, but to apply these laws to the evolution of society 

 to-day and in the future. Class legislation has had its uses ; it 

 was doubtless indispensable in an age in which the industrial 

 system of to-day did not exist. But to-day class legislation 

 means waste of social strength. If brutally carried out in the 

 interests of a tyrannical majority, it has as its natural efEect the 

 relaxation of the ties which bind the oppressed minority to the 

 society as a whole ; and such aUenation of a part of the social 

 organism is like the loss of a limb by the individual organism. 

 The society which thus alienates a part of its members will neces- 

 sarily be greatly weakened, and will necessarily succumb sooner 

 or later to a nation which has preserved its patrimony intact. 

 Discord is as fruitful a cause of the extinction of societies as 

 concord is a strong guarantee for their survival. " Union is 

 strength," says the proverb, and this proverb expresses a truth 

 often illustrated in the annals of social evolution. Russia is the 

 latest, but not the least striking, example of the coxmter-truth 

 that discord is weakness.^ 



^ The progress of Socialism during the latter half of the nineteenth 

 century affords a most remarkable example of the truth of the proverb 

 " Union is strength." The unity of the proletariat was the war-cry of 

 the celebrated Communist Manifesto issued by Karl Marx; and the unity 

 of aim and purpose which has characterised the action of the SociaUst 

 party in all countries has contributed much to overcoming the difficulty 

 raised by the numerical strength of the proletariat. The evolution of 

 capitalist production has greatly aided the Socialist party in this particular 

 task ; but none the less must the discipline of the party be admired, and 

 discipliue, of course, is only possible where unity of aim has been pre- 

 viously assured. As M. Eugenio Eignano, in a noteworthy book, has 

 remarked : " The inconvenience of great numbers can be counterbalanced, 

 and sometimes even done away with, by the imity of the aim to be realised. 

 Community of interests does not only facilitate the concerted action of a 



