554 HEREDITY AND SELECTION IN SOCIOLOGY 



sanction, as Bagehot long since pointed out ; and adherence to 

 a common sanction is synonymous witli spiritual organisation. 

 The power of expansion is thus rendered possible only by strong 

 social integration by means of a spiritual organisation ; and, if 

 this be the case, we are justified in seeing in this social integra- 

 tion a corollary of the conditions of conflict so indispensable to 

 social progress. In other words, the conditions of conflict, so 

 necessary, not only to all social evolution, but to the mainten- 

 ance of the standard already attained, can have their highest 

 potency only if social integration be at the same time realised. 



Therefore, if biology has indeed shown us that " every quality 

 of life can be kept in a state of efiiciency and prevented from 

 retrograding only by the continued and never-relaxed strain of 

 selection," it has, at the same time, shown us that this indis- 

 pensable conflict impKes, as a concurrent condition, adequate 

 social integration ; and this latter can be attained only through 

 spiritual organisation. 



Without recapitulating what we have said in previous chapters, 

 we may say, therefore, that a supra-rational ideal is necessary 

 for the individual and also for society. The very notion of a 

 spiritual organisation imphes such an ideal. We ourselves stand 

 respectfully on the border-land ; it is not permitted to us to cross 

 the frontier which marks ofE the domain of science from the 

 domain of faith. But we are, none the less, conscious of the 

 immense importance of the latter, both for social life and for the 

 life of the individual ; and the conclusion we have arrived at 

 as to the imperative necessity of rehgion in social Ufe may, 

 perhaps, by reason of this fact, be regarded as the more im- 

 partial. The sociologist must above all things convince him- 

 self of this fundamental fact : the study of the action of natural 

 selection in social hfe cannot be separated from the study of 

 the spiritual organisation of society. For it is not conflict alone, 

 but conflict and integration, which are the essential requisites 

 for social life ; and if conflict is unceasingly brought about by 



