Struggle for Existence 473 
intellectual influences, suffice to stimulate progress: the processes 
which these admit are, in the actual state of civilisation, the only 
ones which attain their end without waste, the only ones logical. 
From one end to the other of the ladder of life, struggle is the order 
of the day ; but more and more as the higher rungs are reached, it 
takes on characters which are proportionately more “humane.” 
Reflections of this kind permit the introduction into the economic 
order of limitations to the doctrine of “laisser faire, laisser passer.” 
This appeals, it is said, to the example of nature where creatures, left 
to themselves, struggle without truce and without mercy; but the 
fact is forgotten that upon industrial battlefields the conditions are 
different. The competitors here are not left simply to their natural 
energies : they are variously handicapped. A rich store of artificial 
resources exists in which some participate and others do not. The 
sides then are unequal; and as a consequence the result of the struggle 
is falsified. “In the animal world,” said De Laveleye’, criticising 
Spencer, “the fate of each creature is determined by its individual 
qualities ; whereas in civilised societies a man may obtain the highest 
position and the most beautiful wife because he is rich and well-born, 
although he may be ugly, idle or improvident ; and then it is he who 
will perpetuate the species. The wealthy man, ill constituted, in- 
capable, sickly, enjoys his riches and establishes his stock under the 
protection of the laws.” Haycraft in England and Jentsch in Germany 
have strongly emphasised these “anomalies,” which nevertheless are 
the rule. That is to say that even from a Darwinian point of view 
all social reforms can readily be justified which aim at diminishing, 
as Wallace said, inequalities at the start. 
But we can go further still. Whence comes the idea that all 
Measures inspired by the sentiment of solidarity are contrary to 
Nature’s trend? Observe her carefully, and she will not give lessons 
only in individualism. Side by side with the struggle for existence 
do we not find in operation what Lanessan calls “association for 
existence.” Long ago, Espinas had drawn attention to “societies of 
animals,” temporary or permanent, and to the kind of morality that 
arose in them. Since then, naturalists have often insisted upon the 
importance of various forms of symbiosis. Kropotkin in Mutual 
Aid has chosen to enumerate many examples of altruism furnished 
by animals to mankind. Geddes and Thomson went so far as to main- 
tain that “Each of the greater steps of progress is in fact associated 
with an increased measure of subordination of individual competition 
to reproductive or social ends, and of interspecific competition to 
co-operative association.” Experience shows, according to Geddes, 
1 Le socialisme contemporain, p. 384 (6th edit.), Paris, 1891. 
2 Geddes and Thomson, The Evolution of Sex, p. 311, London, 1889. 
