476 HEREDITY AND SELECTION IN SOCIOLOGY 



world, in which we shall be able to fraternise with each other 

 and satisfy freely all our aspirations. ... It is then that each 

 one will be able to follow his own path without let or hindrance ; 

 the worker will accomplish the task which is most suited to his 

 tastes ; the student will pursue his researches without any after- 

 thought ; the artist will no longer sell his ideal of beauty for 

 money ; and all of us, henceforth friends, can rmite for the realisa- 

 tion of the great things which have been sung by the poets." ^ 



Such being the ideal of Socialism, what is its value judged ac- 

 cording to the criterion we have proposed 1 In the first place, 

 it is obvious that it is not a force adapted to increasing the actual 

 tendency to widen the sphere of conflict, seeing that the object 

 of the communist State is to suppress conflict. From this first 

 point of view, therefore, Socialism does not satisfy us. But, on 

 the other hand, it may be asked, if SociaHsm suppresses the 

 action of the developmental forces of every phase of social evolu- 

 tion up till the present, does it thereby increase the value of Ufe ? 



The reply cannot be other than negative. The ideal of com- 

 mujiism is essentially the resultant of an ideal which is still more 

 fundamental — that of the natural goodness of man. Take up 

 any work of a communist theorist, be he a Social Democrat 

 Hke Kautsky, or an Anarchist like Reclus or Kropotkine, 

 and we find this fundamental idea at the root of every 

 dream of social reorganisation, of every conception of the com- 

 munist society of to-morrow. But this idea of the natural 

 goodness of man is not founded in biology ; still less is it founded 

 in the history of human evolution, whose blood-stained spec- 

 tacle unveils itself before us in the annals of history. And, 

 although the faith of Reclus in the future is, in many respects, 

 a very admirable faith, it is, nevertheless, the faith of a pessimist. 

 It may sound strange to speak of pessimism in connection with 

 one known for his optimism with regard to the future ; but it is 



1 EKs^e Reclus in the Preface to La Conquete du Pain, by P. Kropotkine. 

 Paris, Stock, 1902. 



