RELIGION ENSURES SOCIAL FITNESS 553 



of conflict whicli are necessary to the development of a society 

 and to the subsequent maintenance of the social ejEBciency 

 attained under these conditions ; what is equally necessary is 

 that indiAridual life, which is staked in the conflict, should possess 

 an inherent value sufficient to stimulate the individual to the 

 further effort which all conflict implies. The Socialist system 

 suppresses one of the fundamental conditions of social progress, 

 that of conflict ; but the Capitalist system, as we know it to-day, 

 suppresses the other fundamental condition — ^namely, the value 

 of individual life. 



It is only by means of a combination of these two conditions 

 that social progress can be realised and subsequently maintained. 

 It is because of the conditions of existence that conffict is the 

 law of aU development, whether biological or social ; but in the 

 social sphere, where we are dealing with creatures possessed of 

 reason, it is necessary that this conffict should possess an adequate 

 sanction. Otherwise we risk one of two things : either the 

 suppression of the conditions of conffict, and the introduction 

 of a Socialistic regime ; or else the maintenance of the social 

 anarchy existing at the present moment ; and neither solution can 

 be anything but the precursor of degeneracy and decay. Even 

 if our Western civiUsation, thus lowered in tone by the mis- 

 direction of its evolution, does not succumb to a foreign civilisa- 

 tion which has not been subjected to the same unhealthy condi- 

 tions ; nevertheless, it will finally succumb as the result of 

 internal decay, repeating on a larger scale the history of Turkey. 

 Thus, in whatever light we look at the question, we come to 

 the same conclusion as to the necessity for a spiritual organisation 

 assuring the integration and stability of society. If the spiritual 

 organisation, even in rudimentary tribes, be but an expression 

 of that tribe's need of expansion and power of expansion, which, 

 in turn, is attributable to organic superiority ; nevertheless, 

 this organic superiority can manifest itself only on condition 

 that the tribe be strongly integrated by adherence to a common 



