466 HEREDITY AND SELECTION IN SOCIOLOGY 



If, on the other hand, Liberalism is to remain true to the 

 doctrine of free competition and to its consequences — ^the victory 

 of the economically stronger, and the elimination of the economi- 

 cally weaker — then it must definitely dissociate itself from any 

 ethical elements which limit the liberty of the individual. But 

 in this case, hkewise, Liberalism ceases to be Liberalism ; it adopts 

 the creed of individualist Anarchism, based on the rights of the 

 stronger ; and its masters will be, in this case, not so much Adam 

 Smith or Ricardo, Mill or Spencer, who tempered their glorifica- 

 tion of unrestricted competition by a more or less diluted injunc- 

 tion to respect the rights of others, or by dissertations on the 

 harmony of individual and social interests, as Max Stimer and 

 Friedrich Nietzsche, the apostles of the Super-Man, of egoism, of 

 the triumph of the strong, and of the ruthless elimination of the 

 weak. In both cases Liberalism, as a theory, wiU have pro- 

 claimed its inefEectiveness ; in either case it will be the bank- 

 ruptcy of Liberalism. 



