underlying order of facts to which moral epithets cannot be properly
applied. It denotes a condition of which the moralist has to take
account, and to which morality has to be adapted; but which, just
because it is a "cosmic process," cannot be altered, however much we
may alter the conduct which it dictates. Under all conceivable
circumstances, the race has to adapt itself to the environment, and
that necessarily implies a conflict as well as an alliance. The
preservation of the fittest, which is surely a good thing, is merely
another aspect of the dying out of the unfit, which is hardly a bad
thing. The feast which Nature spreads before us, according to Malthus's
metaphor, is only sufficient for a limited number of guests, and the
one question is how to select them. The tendency of morality is to
humanise the struggle, to minimise the suffering of those who lose the
game; and to offer the prizes to the qualities which are advantageous
to all, rather than to those which increase and intensify the
bitterness of the conflict. This implies the growth of foresight, which
is an extension of the earlier instinct, and enables men to adapt
themselves to the future and to learn from the past, as well as to act
up to immediate impulse of present events. It implies still more the
development of the sympathy which makes every man feel for the hurts of
all, and which, as social organisation is closer, and the dependence of
each constituent atom upon the whole organisation is more vividly
realised, extends the range of a man's interests beyond his own private
needs. In that sense, again, it must stimulate "collectivism" at the
expense of a crude individualism, and condemns the doctrine which, as
Professor Huxley puts it, would forbid us to restrain the member of a
community from doing his best to destroy it. To restrain such conduct
is surely to carry on the conflict against all anti-social agents or
tendencies. For I should certainly hold any form of collectivism to be
immoral which denied the essential doctrine of the abused
individualist, the necessity, that is, for individual responsibility.
We have surely to suppress the murderer, as our ancestors suppressed
the wolf. We have to suppress both the external enemies, the noxious
animals whose existence is incompatible with our own, and the internal
enemies which are injurious elements in the society itself. That is, we
have to work for the same end of eliminating the least fit. Our methods
are changed; we desire to suppress poverty, not to extirpate the poor
man. We give inferior races a chance of taking whatever place they are
fit for, and try to supplant them with the least possible severity if
they are unfit for any place. But the suppression of poverty supposes
not the confiscation of wealth, which would hardly suppress poverty in
the long run, nor even the adoption of a system of living which would
enable the idle and the good-for-nothing to survive. The progress of
civilisation depends, I should say, on the extension of the sense of
duty which each man owes to society at large. That involves such a
constitution of society that, although we abandon the old methods of
hanging and flogging and shooting down--methods which corrupted the
inflicters of punishment by diminishing their own sense of
responsibility--may give an advantage to the prudent and industrious,
and make it more probable that they will be the ancestors of the next
generation. A system which should equalise the advantages of the
energetic and the helpless would begin by demoralising, and would very
soon lead to an unprecedented intensification of the struggle for
existence. The probable result of a ruthless socialism would be the
adoption of very severe means for suppressing those who did not
contribute their share of work. But, in any case, as it seems, we never
get away or break away from the inevitable fact. If individual ends
could be suppressed, if every man worked for the good of society as
energetically as for his own, we should still feel the absolute
necessity of proportioning the whole body to the whole supplies
obtainable from the planet, and to preserve the equilibrium of mankind
relatively to the rest of nature. That day is probably distant; but
even upon that hypothesis the struggle for existence would still be
with us, and there would be the same necessity for preserving the
fittest and killing out, as gently as might be, those who were unfit.