THE VALUE 01" SOCIALIST IDEALS 477 



necessary to glance at the future in which Elisee Reclus so firmly 

 heUeved. 



The very idea of life, as we have said, implies expansion ; and 

 as the conditions of hfe are such that more are bom than can 

 survive, this expansion entails conflict ; and, in its turn, conflict 

 is the condition of all progress, and the means by which a level, 

 once attained, can be maintained. It is thus in the nature of 

 things that life should expand ; and conflict is one of the chief 

 forms of expansion adopted by hfe for the fulfilment of this pri- 

 mordial law. If we suppress conflict, we not only suppress the 

 means by which progress is achieved and by which progress alone 

 can be maintained, but we suppress one of the chief outlets for 

 the expansion of life. We restrict the sphere of life by restrict- 

 ing the sphere of its expansion. We thus render life poorer ; 

 we reduce its vitality, and greatly limit its possibiUties of 

 evolution. 



But this is an ideal which renders hfe poorer, which reduces 

 its vitality. Is it not the faith of a pessimist, of one whose beUef 

 in the value of life is not sufficiently great to tempt him to 

 reahse the possibilities of hfe ? For one who beUeves in Ufe, 

 who beheves that Ufe possesses a value, the great object wiU be 

 to reahse the maximum amount of hfe possible. The lover of 

 hfe, the behever in hfe, wiU seek the greatest possible expansion 

 of life ; for him hfe is worth a conflict ; for him strife and suffering 

 are in themselves beautiful in so far as they serve to beautify 

 and strengthen hfe, to pass it through the flame from which it 

 shall emerge as molten gold ! But he who shrinks from conffict 

 shrinJks from one of the main conditions of vital expansion ; he 

 is content to lead a Ufe which shall entail no effort. For him 

 Ufe is not worth fighting for ; it is not worth suffering for ; it is 

 not worth the effort which strife imphes ! In one of his most 

 eloquent passages Nietzsche has vehemently protested against 

 the SociaUst ideal of the greatest happiness of the greatest 

 number : 



