NEED OF A SOCIAL PRINCIPLE 471 



an ever-increasing number of persons, cannot be spoken of as 

 wholly beneficial in its nature. True, the tendency of such a 

 development to widen the sphere of conflict, and thus to bring 

 a larger number of persons under the operation of the law of 

 selection, is in itself most excellent ; but any development which 

 tends to increase conflict must needs be accompanied by corre- 

 sponding developments in other directions which must counter- 

 balance it. The development of Western civihsation since the 

 French Revolution has tended to increase conflict, without 

 increasing the value of the individual life staked in that conflict ; 

 and its results may be seen in those phenomena of social pathology 

 which we have studied. The question before us is, therefore, 

 What force is best adapted to increasing the actual tendency to widen 

 the sphere of conflict, while increasing at the same time the value of life ? 



LiberaUsm, which gave birth to the French Revolution, and 

 of which the actual regime of competition is the outcome, has 

 proved itself a faUure. The evolution of society has outgrown 

 the doctrines of the Liberal economists, as well as those of the 

 doctrinaire philosophers of the Rousseau school. The intellectual 

 products of these schools, suited to a former phase of evolution, 

 cannot be assimilated by society in its present condition. And 

 this bankruptcy of Liberalism is not surprising considering the 

 whoUy contradictory nature of the maxims on which it was 

 founded — on the one hand, the maxims of the Rechtsstaat ; on 

 the other, the maxims of unlimited competition and the victory 

 of the stronger. Liberalism has proved during its reign that 

 it is not the great social force of which we spoke. 



In its stead we are offered a new doctrine, which, we are 

 assured, results necessarily from the action of the very forces 

 which determine social evolution. For Karl Marx and Mr. Kidd 

 seem to be in agreement as to the inevitable nature of the 

 coming transformation. True, Marx foresees the advent of 

 Socialism as the result of the action of purely economic forces ; 

 whereas Mr. Kidd foresees its advent as the result of the action 



