468 HEREDITY AND SELECTION IN SOCIOLOGY 



A fulther scrutiny reveals the fact that, in the wonderful economy 

 of Nature, the continuance of this conflict, so indispensable to 

 progress, is ensured by the most fundamental tendency of hfe 

 itself — the tendency to expand. Under conditions which result 

 in a greater number of individuals being born than can survive, 

 expansion necessarily implies conflict ; and thus the continuance 

 of the condition imder which alone life, as we know it, is possible 

 is assured by the very fact of life, which is synonymous with 

 expansion. 



Turning our attention more particularly to social evolution, 

 we endeavoured, by a study of certain phenomena of social 

 pathology, to ascertain the nature of the particular forces 

 underlying this evolution and shaping its ultimate developments. 

 While fully recognising the tendency which manifests itself 

 to-day in a greater degree of humanitarianism, we saw that 

 this altruistic tendency is confined to a very limited sphere of 

 our social legislation ; and that, even within these narrow limits, 

 the altruistic tendency has mainly mistaken its aim, and resulted 

 in the creation of an artificial process of counter-selection ; and 

 this, far from securing the admission of an ever greater number 

 of capable individuals into the sphere of competition on equal 

 terms, very often causes the capable members of the community 

 to be sacrificed to the incapable, and immediate sufiering to be 

 relieved at the cost of greater future sufEering. And we saw, 

 further, that the greater part of the field of social evolution 

 has not been afiected by the altruistic tendency, and that the 

 conflict is marked by the predominance of excessive individualism, 

 a phenomenon particularly noticeable in the universal and con- 

 stant augmentation of the rate of suicide. We saw that altruism 

 is, properly speaking, incompatible with the idea of conflict, 

 which implies the clashing of individually antagonistic interests ; 

 but that, on the other hand, the progress of the race is dependent 

 on a widening of the sphere of competition on equal terms, and, 

 consequently, on a removal of the obstacles set up by our 



