Under the preceding heads, I have endeavoured to represent in broad,
but I hope faithful, outlines the essential features of the state of
nature and of that cosmic process of which it is the outcome, so far
as was needful for my argument; I have contrasted with the state of
nature the state of art, produced by human intelligence and energy, as
it is exemplified by a garden; and I have shown that the state of art,
here and elsewhere, can be maintained only by the constant
counteraction of the hostile influences of the state of nature.
Further, I have pointed out that the "horticultural process," which
thus sets itself against the "cosmic process" is opposed to the latter
in principle, in so far as it tends to arrest the struggle for
existence, by restraining the multiplication which is one of the chief
causes of that struggle, and by creating artificial conditions of
life, better adapted to the cultivated plants than are the conditions
of the state of nature. And I have dwelt upon the fact that, though
the progressive modification, which is the consequence of the struggle
for existence in the state of nature, is at an end, such modification
may still be effected [34] by that selection, in view of an ideal of
usefulness, or of pleasantness, to man, of which the state of nature
knows nothing.
I have proceeded to show that a colony, set down in a country in the
state of nature, presents close analogies with a garden; and I have
indicated the course of action which an administrator, able and
willing to carry out horticultural principles, would adopt, in order
to secure the success of such a newly formed polity, supposing it to
be capable of indefinite expansion. In the contrary case, I have shown
that difficulties must arise; that the unlimited increase of the
population over a limited area must, sooner or later, reintroduce into
the colony that struggle for the means of existence between the
colonists, which it was the primary object of the administrator to
exclude, insomuch as it is fatal to the mutual peace which is the
prime condition of the union of men in society.
I have briefly described the nature of the only radical cure, known to
me, for the disease which would thus threaten the existence of the
colony; and, however regretfully, I have been obliged to admit that
this rigorously scientific method of applying the principles of
evolution to human society hardly comes within the region of practical
politics; not for want of will on the part of a great many people; but
because, for one reason, there is no hope that mere human beings will
ever possess enough intelligence to select the fittest. And I [35]
have adduced other grounds for arriving at the same conclusion.
I have pointed out that human society took its rise in the organic
necessities expressed by imitation and by the sympathetic emotions;
and that, in the struggle for existence with the state of nature and
with other societies, as part of it, those in which men were thus led
to close co-operation had a great advantage.* But, since each man
retained more or less of the faculties common to all the rest, and
especially a full share of the desire for unlimited
self-gratification, the struggle for existence within society could
only be gradually eliminated. So long as any of it remained, society
continued to be an imperfect instrument of the struggle for existence
and, consequently, was improvable by the selective influence of that
struggle. Other things being alike, the tribe of savages in which
order was best maintained; in which there was most security within the
tribe and the most loyal mutual support outside it, would be the
survivors.
* Collected Essays, vol. v., Prologue, p. 52.
I have termed this gradual strengthening of the social bond, which,
though it arrest the struggle for existence inside society, up to a
certain point improves the chances of society, as a corporate whole,
in the cosmic struggle--the ethical process. I have endeavoured to
show that, when the ethical process has advanced so far as to secure
[36] every member of the society in the possession of the means of
existence, the struggle for existence, as between man and man, within
that society is, ipso facto, at an end. And, as it is undeniable that
the most highly civilized societies have substantially reached this
position, it follows that, so far as they are concerned, the struggle
for existence can play no important part within them.* In other words,
the kind of evolution which is brought about in the state of nature
cannot take place.
* Whether the struggle for existence with the state of nature
and with other societies, so far as they stand in the relation
of the state of nature with it, exerts a selective influence
upon modern society, and in what direction, are questions not
easy to answer. The problem of the effect of military and
industrial warfare upon those who wage it is very complicated.
I have further shown cause for the belief that direct selection, after
the fashion of the horticulturist and the breeder, neither has played,
nor can play, any important part in the evolution of society; apart
from other reasons, because I do not see how such selection could be
practised without a serious weakening, it may be the destruction, of
the bonds which hold society together. It strikes me that men who are
accustomed to contemplate the active or passive extirpation of the
weak, the unfortunate, and the superfluous; who justify that conduct
on the ground that it has the sanction of the cosmic process, and is
the only way of ensuring the progress of the race; who, if [37] they
are consistent, must rank medicine among the black arts and count the
physician a mischievous preserver of the unfit; on whose matrimonial
undertakings the principles of the stud have the chief influence;
whose whole lives, therefore, are an education in the noble art of
suppressing natural affection and sympathy, are not likely to have any
large stock of these commodities left. But, without them, there is no
conscience, nor any restraint on the conduct of men, except the
calculation of self-interest, the balancing of certain present
gratifications against doubtful future pains; and experience tells us
how much that is worth. Every day, we see firm believers in the hell
of the theologians commit acts by which, as they believe when cool,
they risk eternal punishment; while they hold back from those which are
opposed to the sympathies of their associates.