,transcriber's ,note3 ,italic text is enclosed in underscores1 boldface in equals signs4 ,,evolution ,,social ,,and ,,organic ,,by ,,arthur ,m4 ,,lewis ,,third ,,edition ,,chicago ,,charles ,h4 ,,kerr ,,company #aijh ,,contents ,page ,i ,,thales ,,to ,,linnaeus #g ,,ii ,,linnaeus ,,to ,,lamarck #bd ,,iii ,,darwin',s 8,,natural ,,selection0 #ch ,,iv ,,weismann',s ,,theory ,,of ,,heredity #fj ,v ,,de ,,vries' 8,,mutation0 #ha ,,vi ,,kropotkin',s 8,,mutual ,,aid0 #ig ,,vii ,a ,,reply ,,to ,,haeckel #aae ,,viii ,,spencer',s 8,,social ,,organism0 #acc ,,ix ,,spencer',s ,,individualism #adi ,x ,,civilization--,,ward ,,and ,,dietzgen #afh ,,preface4 ,the contents of this volume consist of the first ten lectures of the thirty-five in the ,winter course of #aijg-jh4 ,they were delivered in the ,garrick ,theater1 ,chicago1 on ,sunday mornings to crowded houses4 ,on several occasions half as many people were turned away as managed to get in4 ,if these lectures meet with as warm a reception when read as they did when heard1 ,i shall be more than satisfied4 ,for a fuller discussion of the ,greek period1 briefly dealt with in the first lecture1 see ,edward ,clodd's 8,pioneers of ,evolution0 to which work the early part of this lecture is greatly indebted4 ,every lecture proceeds on the assumption1 that a knowledge of the natural sciences1 and especially the great revolutionizing generalizations which they have revealed1 is indispensable to a modern education4 ,this position is by no means new4 ,it pervades the classic literature of ,socialism throughout4 ,liebknecht1 speaking of ,marx and himself says3 8,soon we were on the field of ,natural ,science1 and ,marx ridiculed the victorious reaction in ,europe that fancied it had smothered the revolution and did not suspect that ,natural ,science was preparing a new revolution40 ,the only thing ,i have succeeded in doing which is at all new1 is presenting these so-called heavy subjects in a way that attracts and retains a large and enthusiastic audience ,sunday after ,sunday eight months of the year4 ,these lectures1 nothwithstanding their phenomenal success1 have aroused some opposition1 in certain quarters among ,socialists4 ,this opposition arises almost wholly from the fact that the ,socialists in question have yet to learn what their own standard literature contains4 ,when they make that discovery they will be obliged to do one of two things1 reject the ,socialist philosophy or cease opposing its public presentation4 ,a second thought will show that they may do neither4 ,there is a type of brain the specimens of which are very numerous1 which seems to possess the faculty of keeping different kinds of knowledge and contradictory ideas1 in separate1 water-tight compartments4 ,thus1 as these ideas never come together there is no collision4 ,the most conspicuous example of this is the man who accepts and openly proclaims the truth of the materialistic conception of history--the theory that1 among other things1 explains the origin1 functions1 and changes of religion1 just as it does those of law--yet the very man who boasts of his concurrence in this epoch-making theory1 using one lobe of his brain1 will1 while using the other lobe1 and with still greater fervency1 maintain that the ,socialist philosophy has nothing to do with religion at all1 but is an 8economic0 question only4 ,the left lobe knows not what the right lobe is doing4 ,dietzgen described these ,comrades as 8dangerous muddle-heads40 ,he might have omitted the adjective4 ,a brain of this order renders its possessor harmless4 ,these well-meaning friends have offered a great deal of advice as to how to conduct our meeting without 8driving people away40 ,yet strangely enough our audience grew by leaps and bounds1 until from seventy-five at the first lecture we are now crowding and often overcrowding one of the largest and finest theaters inside the loop4 ,meanwhile they followed their own advice and saw what was at the beginning a fine audience of five hundred grow less and less until it is less than fifty and sometimes falls below thirty4 ,this does not seem to justify the cry that the working class is hungering for ,christian ,socialism4 ,further volumes of these lectures will carry the theories of ,socialism into yet other fields of science and philosophy4 ,in conclusion let me ask a certain type of correspondents to save my time and their own4 ,they say they agree with my views entirely2 there is no question but ,i am right4 ,and the lectures would be in place if delivered before university men4 ,but workingmen 7my top-lofty correspondents not included of course7 have so many ignorant prejudices that fearless scientific teaching is not acceptable to them4 ,the size of my audience is sufficient disproof of the last statement4 ,as to the rest1 it is just the existence of ignorant prejudices that makes the fearless teaching of science necessary4 ,again1 ,i have yet to be convinced that there is any kind of knowledge which is good for university men1 but unfit for workingmen4 ,moreover1 ,i positively refuse to have one kind of knowledge for myself1 and another to give out to my audience4 ,this is the fundamental principle of priestcraft1 and the working class has had far too much of it already4 ,on this ground--that there is nothing higher than reality1 that ,socialism is in harmony with all reality and that in the end reality must triumph--the future lectures of these courses will stand or fall4 ,arthur ,m4 ,lewis4 ,chicago1 ,dec4 #bg1 '#jg4 ,,evolution1 ,,social ,,and ,,organic ,i4 ,,thales ,,to ,,linnaeus4 8,early ideas10 says ,herbert ,spencer1 8are usually vague adumbrations of the truth10 and however numerous may be the exceptions1 this was undoubtedly the case with the evolutionary speculations of the ancient ,greeks4 ,the greatness of that remarkable republic finds one of its most striking manifestations in the fact that so many great modern ideas trace their ancestry back to ,greece4 ,sir ,henry ,maine1 the historical jurist1 said that1 8except the blind forces of nature1 nothing moves that is not ,greek in its origin40 ,compared with her dreamy oriental neighbors1 ,greece shone like a meteor in a moonless night4 ,as ,professor ,burnet says1 8,they left off telling tales4 ,they gave up the hopeless task of describing what was1 when as yet there was nothing1 and asked instead what all things really are now10 while the ,oriental shrunk from the search after causes1 looking1 as ,professor ,butcher aptly remarks 8on each fresh gain of earth as so much robbery of heaven40 ,the ,greeks very largely discarded the theological mind1 peopled with its pious phantasms1 and sought to probe into the nature of the material universe4 ,this is why we discover a fairly distinct1 and sometimes startlingly clear 8adumbration0 of the theory of evolution running like a chain of gold through the immortal fragments of their greatest thinkers4 ,what is it that really is1 and what that only seems to be8 ,what is real1 and what is only apparent8 ,this is the theme which ,greek philosophy has in common with modern thought1 and this is why the remnants of ,greek literature are so precious in the twentieth century4 ,thales1 of ,miletus1 in ,asia ,minor1 is conceded to have been the founder of ,greek philosophy4 8,he asserted water to be the principle of all things10 says ,diogenes ,laertius1 and he regarded all life as coming from water1 a position by no means foreign to modern science4 ,anaximander1 also a ,milesian and a younger contemporary of ,thales1 who like him flourished between #ejj and #fjj ,b4 ,c41 said that the material cause of all things was the ,infinite4 8,it is neither water nor any other of what are now called the elements1 but a substance different from them which is infinite1 from which arise all the heavens and the worlds within them40 8,man10 he boldly asserts1 8is like another animal1 namely1 a fish1 in the beginning10 a shrewd guess which is now an established fact4 ,anaximenes1 the third and last of the ,milesian philosophers1 while following his predecessors closely in time1 disagreed with them as to the raw material of the universe4 ,he declares it to be air which1 8when it is dilated so as to be rarer becomes fire while winds1 on the other hand1 are condensed air1 ,cloud is formed from air by #8felting' and this1 still further condensed1 becomes water4 ,water1 condensed still more1 turns to earth2 and when condensed as much as it can be1 to stones40 ,all of which proves that ,anaximenes had a very fertile brain4 ,herakleitos1 one of the greatest of all ,greek thinkers1 lived for a time at ,ephesus and expressed the following forceful opinion of his fellow citizens3 8,the ,ephesians would do well to hang themselves1 every grown man of them1 and leave the city to beardless youths2 for they have cast out ,hermodoros1 the best man among them1 saying3 #8,we will have none who is best among us2 if there be any such1 let him be so elsewhere and among others4'0 ,according to him everything comes from and returns to fire and 8all things are in a state of flux like a river40 ,here is the intellectual ancestor of ,hegel with his great saying4 8,nothing is1 everything is becoming40 ,herakleitos sagaciously observed3 8,you cannot step twice into the same rivers1 for fresh waters are ever flowing in upon you40 ,parmenides1 born at ,elea about #eae ,b4 ,c41 was poet and philosopher both1 and insisted in his hexameter verse that the universe is a unity1 which neither came out of nothing1 nor could1 in any degree1 pass away1 thus anticipating by over #b1jjj years ,lavoisier's doctrine of the permanence of matter4 ,empedocles1 of ,akragas in ,sicily1 about the same time1 stated this great truth with still greater force and clearness3 8,fools6--for they have no far-reaching thoughts--who deem that what before was not1 comes into being or that aught can perish and be utterly destroyed4 ,for it cannot be that aught can arise from what in no way is1 and it is impossible and unheard of that what is should perish2 for it will always be1 wherever one may keep putting it40 ,he also endeavored to combine and reconcile the ideas of some of his predecessors1 teaching that all things come from four roots--water1 air1 fire and earth4 ,anaxagoras1 born about #ejj ,b4 ,c41 was the first ,greek to suffer for science4 ,he was brought to trial for asserting the sun to be a red hot stone1 and it would have probably gone hard with him had not the mighty ,pericles been his friend4 ,if the sun was merely a fiery ball1 what became of the religion founded on the worship of ,apollo8 ,nearly a half a century earlier ,xenophanes1 of ,colophon1 had ventilated ideas much more obnoxious to the priests4 ,he had done for his age what ,feuerbach did to the ,nineteenth century--he had explained the origin of the gods by ,anthropomorphism4 ,said he3 8,if oxen or lions had hands1 and could paint with their hands and produce works of art as men do1 horses would paint the forms of the gods like horses and oxen like oxen4 ,each would represent them with bodies according to the form of each4 ,so the ,ethiopians make their gods black and snubnosed2 the ,thracians give theirs red hair and blue eyes40 ,had ,xenophanes lived at ,athens1 where a religious revival had just taken place1 he would have shared the fate which later overtook the impious ,socrates4 ,luckily for ,xenophanes1 in the colony where he lived 8the gods were left to take care of themselves40 ,anaxagoras was the first to determine what causes the eclipses and the illumination of the moon3--8,the moon has not a light of her own but gets it from the sun4 ,the moon is eclipsed by the earth screening the sun's light from it4 ,the sun is eclipsed at the new moon1 when the moon screens it from us40 ,the ,pythagoreans who must be distinguished from the medicine man ,pythagoras1 from whom they only take their name indirectly1 and not as disciples1 believed the reality of the universe was to be found in numbers4 ,they were deceived into this absurdity by the exactness of mathematical conclusions4 ,this was excusable among the ,greeks to whom arithmetical combinations were as wonderful as electrical phenomena are to us1 but its revival in our day by astrologers and theosophists has no such justification4 ,socrates1 born about #dgj ,b4 ,c41 at ,athens1 is described as 8pug-nosed1 thick-lipped1 big-bellied and bulging-eyed0--the very opposite of the ,greek ideal of beauty4 ,he believed that knowledge itself would bring virtue1 and sought to discover the true ground of knowledge4 ,his search brought him into conflict with the religious bigotry of his day and he was finally sentenced to death and died from drinking hemlock in #cii ,b4 ,c4 ,he wrote nothing and his work is preserved mainly through his influence on ,plato4 ,leukippos and ,demokritos are linked together through their statements of the atomic theory1 made more than twenty centuries before ,dalton4 ,they placed the permanent reality of things in numberless atoms1 of which ,leukippos said 8there are an infinite number of them1 and they are invisible owing to the smallness of their bulk40 ,plato we shall pass by2 his metaphysical doctrine of ideas contributed little of value to the solution of the riddle of the universe4 ,we now come to the great ,stagirite1 ,aristotle1 founder of the experimental school and father of natural history4 ,born in #chd ,b4 ,c41 he entered the ,academy under ,plato when a boy of eighteen4 ,when he was thirty-six ,plato died1 and ,aristotle then left ,athens4 ,at forty-one he became the teacher of ,alexander the ,great4 ,he was the greatest of all the ,greeks1 and his studies took a wider range than had been embraced by any previous thinker4 ,stageira1 where he spent his boyhood1 was on the ,strynomid gulf1 and here he observed the variations and gradations between marine plants and animals4 ,it is an evidence of his keen insight that he classified the sponge as an animal4 ,compare this with ,agassiz1 the opponent of ,darwinism1 who1 in the #aith century1 declared the sponge to be a vegetable4 ,aristotle insisted on observation and experience as the foundation of knowledge4 8,we must not accept a general principle from logic only1 but must prove its application to each fact4 ,for it is in facts we must seek general principles1 and these must always accord with facts40 ,he repudiated the idea of purpose in nature1 saying1 8,jupiter rains not that corn may be increased1 but from necessity40 ,he came very near ,von ,mohl's protoplasm when he said1 8,germs should have been first produced1 and not immediately animals2 and that soft mass which first subsisted was the germ40 ,passing over the much misrepresented ,epicurus we come two centuries later to the illustrious ,roman poet philosopher1 ,lucretius4 ,in this last century preceeding the ,christian era1 ,greece had fallen from her high estate and become a ,roman province4 ,but while ,rome had annexed ,greece1 ,greek learning had conquered the ,roman mind4 ,lucretius in his poem1 8,the ,system of ,nature10 expounds1 with great force1 the atomic theory of his ,greek forerunners4 ,the first anthropologist1 he comes so near to ,spencer and ,tylor that his ideas1 and sometimes even his sentences smack of the #aith century4 8,the past history of man0 he asserts1 8lies in no heroic or golden age1 but in one struggle out of savagery40 ,of the origin of language he says1 8,nature impelled them to utter the various sounds of the tongue1 and use struck out the names of things40 ,of the early struggles of primitive men he says1 8,man's first arms were hands1 nails and teeth and stones and boughs broken off from the forests1 and flame and fire1 as soon as they had become known4 ,afterward the force of iron and copper was discovered1 and the use of copper was known before that of iron1 as its nature is easier to work1 and it is found in greater quantity4 ,with copper they would labor the soil of the earth and stir up the billows of war4 ,then by slow steps the sword of iron gained ground and the make of the copper sickle became a byword40 ,the name of ,lucretius closes the long line of the evolutionary pioneers of the ancient world4 ,there the golden vein ceases so far as thinking is concerned1 not to reappear until many centuries have passed4 ,with the decline and fall of the ,roman empire1 and the rise to power of ,christianity1 learning was driven from ,europe and found refuge among the ,arabians4 ,this brings us to the dark or middle ages4 ,it is in the interpretation of the phenomena of this period1 that bourgeois free thinkers like ,clodd and ,draper break down4 ,they tacitly assume that in ,europe evolution was suspended for over a thousand years2 and all because of the ,christian church4 ,they fail to recognize that deeper cause1 the medieval form of wealth production1 which gave the church its power to repress learning in the interest of the lords of the land1 among which the church herself was greatest2 owning as she did one-third of the soil of ,europe4 ,the bourgeois radical cannot perceive that during this period social processes were being gradually transformed and that an economic foundation was being laid that would make possible the renaissance and put science in an impregnable position1 and make the progressive acceptance of evolution inevitable4 ,engels says3 8,the ,middle ,ages were reckoned as a mere interruption of history by a thousand years of barbarism4 ,the great advances of the ,middle ,ages--the broadening of ,european learning1 the bringing into existence of great nations1 which arose1 one after the other1 and finally the enormous technical advances of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries--all this no one saw04 ,but it cannot be denied that this was a terrible period for any thinker who had the misfortune to be born in it4 ,all that was great and noble in the thought of ,greece and ,rome was rigorously suppressed4 ,the 8perfecting principle0 of ,aristotle was wrested to theological uses4 ,an emaciated form of his philosophy1 and a literal interpretation of the scriptures1 constituted the only permissible studies4 ,outside this dilution of ,aristotle1 the only thing in ,greek thought which appealed to the medieval mind was the ,pythagorean mystical use of numbers4 ,the conclusions reached by that method were truly remarkable1 especially when we remember that they engaged such notable men as ,augustine1 the celebrated ,bishop of ,hippo4 ,these are examples3 ,because there are three persons in the trinity1 ,father1 ,son1 and ,holy ,ghost1 three orders in the church1 bishops priests and deacons2 three degrees of attainment1 light1 purity and knowledge2 three virtues1 faith1 hope and charity1 and three eyes in a honeybee2 therefore1 there can only be three colors1 red1 yellow and blue4 ,because there were seven churches in the apocalypse1 seven golden candlesticks1 seven cardinal virtues1 seven deadly sins and seven sacraments2 therefore1 there could only be seven planets and seven metals4 ,because there were seventy-two disciples and seventy-two interpreters of the old testament and seventy-two mystical names of ,god2 therefore there must be no more and no less than seventy-two joints in the human body4 ,during this period1 ,european cities had no paving or lighting1 and one could not step from a doorway in ,london or ,paris without plunging ankle deep in mud4 ,they had practically no drainage and they were1 at frequent intervals devastated by the plague4 ,but the cities of ,andalusia1 built and governed by the ,moors in ,spain1 were drained1 well lighted and solidly paved4 ,they had public libraries and public schools4 ,from their medical colleges ,europe obtained the only doctors it had4 ,in the cities of ,christian ,europe these enlightened people were treated like dogs1 while in their wonderful cities1 visiting ,christians were met with a hospitality and broad toleration wholly exceptional in the middle ages4 ,in ,europe1 even toward the close of this period1 broad1 scientific thinking was impossible4 ,nicholas ,copernicus1 in the #afth century1 afraid of the faggot1 carried as a secret locked in his own bosom1 that heliocentric theory which is the foundation of modern astronomy4 ,his great disciple ,giordano ,bruno1 for expounding that theory with rare ability1 after it was revealed by the great ,prussian1 was hunted through ,europe like a wild animal and finally burned at the stake4 ,for the same reason1 the third person in the trinity of the #afth century's greatest thinkers1 ,galileo1 was harassed and humiliated1 and at last died a prisoner in his own house4 ,but all through this period1 despite its intellectual stagnation1 economic evolution proceeded1 laying the foundation for a new intellectual superstructure4 ,that evolution manifested itself chiefly in the rise and growth of a trading class4 ,to the existence of such a class in its society1 the ,arabians owed their greater liberality1 and scientific spirit4 ,when ,vasca ,da ,gama sailed down the west coast of ,africa and around the ,cape of ,good ,hope into the ,indian ,ocean1 trusting to chance for the outcome of his voyage1 he found the ,arabians directing their vessels by a strange instrument which we now call the mariner's compass4 ,the merchants of ,genoa and of ,spain discovered that orthodox superstitions did not help but did seriously injure1 their commerce4 ,as captains for their ships they preferred for purely economic reasons1 men who had become infected with the ideas of navigation of the pagan ,arabians1 to men who took their ideas of the universe from the city bishop or the village priest and kept their ships close to land1 afraid lest they should sail off the edge of the world1 or into that great hole where the angels put the sun at night1 after they had finished rolling it across the sky4 ,it was the growth and final triumph of this trading class1 with economic interests and a mode of wealth production that demanded the liberation of science1 that abolished the thumbscrew and the stake4 ,voltaire1 ,rousseau1 and the encyclopaedists were obnoxious to the feudal regime1 lay and clerical1 because they were the prophets and mouthpieces of the rising bourgeoisie4 ,this class1 by the emancipation of science1 performed a lasting service to the human race4 ,the society in which it predominated1 at once produced a prolific crop of great thinkers4 ,sweden had ,linnaeus1 ,england had ,lyell1 ,germany had ,goethe2 but the palm fell to ,france4 ,in the revolution ,france had suppressed the ,sorbonne1 that theological institution which had always shown itself the official and bitter enemy of science1 and she soon after equipped scientific expeditions1 which gave her the greatest thinkers of that day--,cuvier1 ,st4 ,hilaire1 and1 most illustrious of all that courageous pioneer of modern evolution1 ,jean ,lamarck4 ,the position of the capitalist class of a hundred years ago was very different from that of today4 ,then it was the harbinger of progress2 now it is the stronghold of reaction4 ,its interests then were very different from its interests now4 ,then it was called upon by destiny to steer society into new waters2 now destiny bids it1 since its task is done1 to step aside that a new hand may grip the wheel4 ,then it fought a social order which had had its day1 now it is in the midst of social forces which it cannot administer4 ,that was its lusty youth2 this is its doddering old age4 ,when the ,bourgeoisie released science from feudal chains1 it let loose a force that carried it to victory1 but1 at that moment1 it planted the germs of its own future destruction4 ,today it reverses its attitude and would fain suppress science or at least prevent its reaching the proletarian brain4 ,but alas1 it is in the grip of evolutionary processes of which it is merely a part1 and it is bound1 more securely than ,prometheus to the rock1 to a mode of production which makes the education of the proletariat a relentless necessity4 ,the nation which keeps its working class in semi-feudal darkness is ground to pieces by the industrial competition of its neighbors--it goes to the wall in the struggle for existence4 ,thus1 in the language of ,marx1 it is obliged by present necessity to dig its own future grave4 ,the same inscrutable power that called it forth to lead society to a new triumph1 now relegates it to the rear and enthrones in its place a new class1 a propertyless working class1 the child of the wage system1 destined to emancipate itself and1 by the same stroke1 the whole human race4 ,if this be not the mission of the working class1 as an instrument of social evolution1 the press and platform of the ,socialist movement is a useless dissipation of energy4 ,but this is precisely what ,marx proved when he laid the foundation of the ,socialist philosophy4 ,every year brings its quota of evidence that the working class is gathering the political capacity and the social intelligence necessary to equip it for this tremendous task4 ,norway grew weary of ,swedish dominance and decided to achieve national independence4 ,at once the ,swedish ,bourgeoisie began to gird up its loins for a bloody dynastic war4 ,the pampered sons of its aristocracy1 unable to do anything useful1 were to have glory thrust upon them1 commanding1 from the rear1 regiments of ,swedish workers to slaughter and be slaughtered by their exploited ,norwegian brothers4 ,but while these sinister preparations were in full blast1 a vast army of ,norwegians crossed the boundary line into ,sweden and met a ,swedish army of the same proportions4 ,there was no blood-shedding for both armies were unarmed4 ,in place of bayonets and needle guns they had their wives and children4 ,they fraternized2 they clasped hands2 they tossed each other's babies in their arms4 ,from that moment war was impossible4 ,they carried neither the national banner of ,sweden nor of ,norway4 ,over both those great armies1 now become one1 singing their songs of working class solidarity1 there floated the red flag of the social revolution4 ,,ii4 ,,linnaeus ,,to ,,lamarck4 ,for a hundred years the word 8progress0 has been a word to conjure with4 ,no proposal is too reactionary to be put forward in its name and the self-admitted conservative explains that he only wishes to 8conserve0 the good things which progress has bestowed upon us4 ,it has been invoked on all sides of all questions1 and no superstition was so ancient or absurd1 no theory so exploded1 but it could be revived under a new name and presented to the world as an infallible sign of the progress of the age4 ,but during the last century men have arisen1 who were dissatisfied with a term that covered everything and meant nothing1 and who were determined to find out what constituted progress and whether it had any existence in the world of reality4 ,more has been accomplished in this respect during that century than in all the combined previous existence of the human race4 ,the conception or idea of progress is the mental reflection of the process of evolution1 which operates everywhere to the remotest niche or cranny in the material universe4 ,the only difference between progress and evolution is that evolution is a more inclusive term1 including as it does phenomena which we should call retrogressive4 ,the men who laid the foundations of modern knowledge1 and imparted sense and force to hitherto meaningless terms1 were they who threw aside theological phantasms and metaphysical speculations and set themselves the task of gathering the facts and ascertaining the laws of the real--the material--world4 ,this is the method of science1 and it is to this method that we owe all our knowledge of world problems4 ,for more than a thousand years this method was practically suspended4 ,any attempt1 during that period1 to make use of it was rigorously suppressed1 except among the pagan ,arabians4 ,biological science stood still1 scarcely even marking time4 ,says ,packard 8,after ,aristotle1 no epoch-making zoologist arose until ,linnaeus was born10 a yawning chasm of thirteen hundred years4 ,linnaeus1 born #agjg1 in ,sweden1 was the greatest naturalist of his time and might have done greater things for evolutionary ideas had it not been for the theological influences which restrained him4 ,but1 hindered as he was1 he accomplished enough to entitle him to a place among the immortals4 8,he found botany a chaos10 says ,prof4 ,thatcher1 8and left it a unity40 ,his contribution to science consists mainly in his system of classification and nomenclature4 ,before ,linnaeus nobody had been able1 though many had tried1 to group and name animal and vegetable forms in such a manner as to rescue them from utter confusion4 ,this is precisely what ,linnaeus did when1 by a happy idea1 he adopted what is called the 8binary nomenclature40 ,this great advance was by no means far-fetched2 it is simply an application of the double naming everywhere in use1 as in the case of ,tom ,smith1 ,fred ,smith1 ,james ,smith1 in which ,smith is used to denote the general or family name and ,fred or ,tom the particular or personal4 ,in the application of this system to species1 ,linnaeus reversed the order as we do when we enter the names of persons on an alphabetical list1 as ,smith1 ,fred and ,smith1 ,james4 ,as illustrations we will take the two cases1 one from the animal and one from the plant world1 selected by ,haeckel for the same purpose4 ,the generic name for cat is ,felis4 ,the common cat is ,felis domestica2 the wildcat1 ,felis catus2 the panther1 ,felis pardus2 the jaguar1 ,felis onca2 the tiger1 ,felis tigris2 the lion1 ,felis leo4 ,all these second names are the names of the six species of the one genus--,felis4 ,as an example in botany take the genus pine4 ,according to ,linnaeus the pine is ,pinus abies2 the fir1 ,pinus picea2 the larch1 ,pinus larix2 the ,italian pine1 ,pinus pinea2 the ,siberian stone pine ,pinus cembra2 the knee timber1 ,pinus mughus2 the common pine1 ,pinus silvestris4 ,the seven second names apply to the seven species of the genus ,pinus4 ,but this is not all4 ,besides grouping the species into genera1 ,linnaeus classified certain genera as belonging to the same 8order40 ,again he arranged these 8orders0 in 8classes10 all these classes belonged to one of the two great 8kingdoms10 vegetable and animal4 ,not only was all this of great practical value but its theoretical influence has been incalculable4 ,linnaeus never saw1 and probably would not have dared to proclaim if he had1 that the resemblances which made his grouping possible1 indicated a relationship based on descent from common ancestors4 ,this was left for men of greater penetration and courage living in a less theological age4 ,prelates who smiled on the obscene debaucheries of ,louis the ,,xv4 had ,linnaeus' writings prohibited from papal states1 because they proved the existence of sex in plants4 ,linnaeus not only proved sex in plants but made it the foundation of his classification4 ,he also reminds us that plants were known to be of both sexes by oriental people in early days4 ,living as they did on the fruit of the date-palms they found it necessary to plant male trees among the females4 ,their enemies in war time struck a terrible blow when they cut down the male trees1 thereby reducing them to famine4 ,sometimes the inhabitants themselves destroyed the male trees during impending invasion1 so that the enemy should find no sustenance in their country2 a war measure similar to that of ,russians who burned ,moscow in the face of ,napoleon4 ,in the same year that ,sweden produced ,linnaeus1 ,france gave birth to ,buffon4 ,rich and independent1 he chose to devote a long life to the study of natural history4 ,he had remarkable powers of research and displayed genius in presenting the results of his investigation4 ,but alas6 he had less courage than ,linnaeus and he lived nearer that terrible enemy of eighteenth century science1 the theological department of the ,university of ,paris--the dreaded ,sorbonne4 ,as long as he confined himself to the mere description of animals he was a pet of the church1 which seems to have pleased him1 but when he began to draw evolutionary conclusions of real philosophical import and value1 the ,sorbonne at once opened its batteries4 ,on these occasions ,buffon's retreat was prompt and unprotesting4 ,it might be remembered as some mitigation of his cowardice that while the reign of the stake and faggot did not extend into the #ahth century and there was no danger of the fate of the fearless ,bruno1 yet so strong was religious bigotry even in this period that ,rousseau was hunted out of ,france1 his books burned by the public executioner1 and ,diderot went to jail4 8,hardly a single man of letters of that time escaped arbitrary imprisonment10 says ,john ,morley in his 8,rousseau40 ,this was all very repugnant to the pride and vanity of ,buffon and led him to adopt a style of writing much in vogue a century earlier when the theological hand was heavy as death4 ,this method was to put forward the new idea as a heresy or a mere fancy1 explain it1 and then proceed with great show of earnestness to demolish it in favor of the orthodox view4 ,this method succeeded admirably until it broke through the thick skulls of religious bigots that the case presented for the 8heresy0 was more convincing than the pretended reply4 ,a fine example of this appears in the fourth volume of ,buffon's 8,natural ,history40 8,if we once admit0 says he1 8that the ass belongs to the horse family1 and that it only differs from it because it has been modified1 we may likewise say that the monkey is of the same family as man1 that it is a modified man1 that man and the monkey have had a common origin like the horse and ass1 that each family has had but a single source1 and even that all the animals have come from a single animal1 which in the succession of ages has produced1 while perfecting and modifying itself1 all the races of other animals4444 ,if it were known that in the animals there had been1 ,i do not say several species1 but a single one which had been produced by modification from another species2 if it were true that the ass is only a modified horse1 there would be no limit to the power of nature1 and we would not be wrong in supposing that from a single being she has known how to derive1 with time1 all the other organized beings40 ,there is no such clear statement of the evolutionary theory in the 8,system of ,nature0 of ,linnaeus1 and if ,buffon had proclaimed these views as his own and courageously defended them1 he would have made his name the greatest of the #ahth century1 and clothed himself with immortality4 ,but the stuff of martyrs did not enter into his composition1 and the very next passage to the one above1 translated reads--8,but no6 ,it is certain from revelation that all animals have alike been favored with the grace of an act of direct creation1 and that the first pair of every species issued fully formed from the hands of the creator40 ,when the ,sorbonne thought it was being fooled it compelled ,buffon to recant publicly and have his recantation printed4 ,in that recantation he announced1 8,i abandon everything in my book respecting the formation of the earth and generally all which may be contrary to the narrative of ,moses40 ,the impression we get from reading ,buffon1 is that he did not realize the importance of those great evolutionary ideas which he stated so well and repudiated as regularly4 ,had he done so and stood by them1 he would have been the ,darwin of his day1 but he would in all likelihood have spent the latter part of his life in the ,bastile4 ,not until forty years later do we meet the real and valiant precursor of ,darwin1 albeit a countryman of ,buffon's1 but with a more profoundly philosophical mind and without his fear4 ,this was ,jean ,baptiste ,lamarck1 born at ,bazentin1 ,france1 #agdd1 and educated at the college of the ,jesuits at ,amiens4 ,he served in the seven years war and then occupied himself studying medicine and science at ,paris4 ,he died1 poor and blind1 in #ahbi4 ,lamarck boldly proclaimed his unshakable faith in the doctrine of the transformation of species1 and defended it against the strong tide of popular disfavor and the overwhelming opposition provoked by the antagonism of the great zoologist ,cuvier4 ,cuvier's opposition would have crushed a weaker man but ,lamarck bore bravely up and calmly left his case for the future to decide4 ,cuvier held species to be constant1 as was consonant with current and orthodox ideas4 ,this made him a social favorite and the pet of the church1 and honors were showered profusely upon him to the end of his days4 ,not so ,lamarck2 although born #be years earlier1 his theories were half a century in advance of ,cuvier's1 and he paid the penalty that has so often overtaken those pioneers whose vision anticipated the future4 8,attacked on all sides10 says his friend and colleague1 ,geoffroy ,st4 ,hilaire1 8injured likewise by odious ridicule1 ,lamarck1 too indignant to answer these cutting epigrams1 submitted to the indignity with a sorrowful patience4444 ,lamarck lived a long while poor1 blind1 and forsaken1 but not by me2 ,i shall ever love and venerate him40 ,another writer of that period exclaims1 8,lamarck1 thy abandonment1 sad as it was in thy old age1 is better than the ephemeral glory of men who maintain their reputation by sharing in the errors of their time40 ,as to ,cuvier1 the one stain on his career is his unworthy attitude toward his celebrated opponent and fellow worker4 ,lamarck had1 with his usual generosity1 aided and favored him when he first came to the ,museum of ,natural ,history at ,paris1 allowing him to hold1 in addition to his own chair1 which was in ,vertebrate ,zoology1 the chair of ,molluscs1 which was in ,lamarck's special field1 where he had no equal1 and which was properly his4 ,but ,lamarck opposed1 with great politeness and without mentioning his name the attempt made by ,cuvier to harmonize science with the orthodox theology of his day by means of that theory of 8cataclysms0 which in spite of its being strenuously defended by so recent a thinker as ,agassiz1 has been relegated to the limbo of exploded theories4 ,when ,lamarck died1 ,cuvier as his most notable contemporary was called upon to pronounce his eulogy4 ,what a miserable and unworthy performance it was6 ,even after death1 religious antipathy--that ever-flowing fountain of meanness--survived in ,cuvier's breast1 and ,de ,blainville records that 8the ,academy did not even allow it to be printed in the form in which it was pronounced10 and it is said that portions of it had to be omitted as unfit for publication4 ,haeckel1 speaking of ,lamarck's great book1 8,zoological ,philosophy10 complains that 8,cuvier1 ,lamarck's greatest opponent1 in his #8,report on the ,progress of ,natural ,science1' in which the most unimportant anatomical investigations are enumerated1 does not devote a single word to this work1 which forms an epoch in science40 ,but history has reversed the scales and posterity has repaired the wrong4 ,that theory of biological evolution1 which was despised and rejected by the builders of his day has become the corner-stone of modern knowledge1 while ,cuvier's fantastic 8,theory of the ,earth0 has gone to the museum of curiosities4 ,lamarck's immortality is secured by his assertion and defense of the theory of descent1 alone4 ,this theory is1 that all existing species have descended from ancestors who were in a vast number of cases1 and ultimately in all1 very different from their present representatives2 that this difference is due1 not to the total extinction of the previous species by 8cataclysms10 and the divine creation of new ones1 as ,cuvier maintained1 but because previous species changed in adapting themselves to a changed environment4 ,but ,lamarck has another claim to a niche in the ,pantheon of ,science4 ,as the conviction gained ground that species were not fixed and immutable as they came from the hands of an alleged creator1 but were the products of an evolutionary development extending through immense periods of time1 another question arose and called for an answer4 ,that question was--8,by what process80 ,charles ,darwin is the most illustrious of all the sons of science because he answered that question4 ,lamarck gave an answer1 and the question as to whether that answer is entitled to be incorporated in the answer of ,darwin1 as a supplementary amendment is sometimes made a part of the motion1 still divides the biological world into two camps4 ,but in that controversy between the ,weismannians and the ,neo-,lamarckians1 aptly called 8,the ,battle of the ,darwinians10 no matter what becomes of the ,lamarckian factor1 all are agreed that the 8,natural ,selection0 of ,darwin is impregnable4 ,lamarck's theory may be summed up as follows-- 7#a47 ,every change in the environment of animals creates for them new needs4 7#b47 ,these new needs will compel these animals to adopt new habits and discard some old ones1 and these needs and habits will produce and develop new organs4 7#c47 ,the development or disappearance of organs depends on their use or disuse4 7#d47 ,the effects of use or disuse1 acquired by animals1 are transmitted by heredity to their offspring4 ,this fourth factor has split the biological world since ,weismann repudiated it in #ahhc4 ,as a typical case of the operation of his theory1 ,lamarck gives the following3 8,the serpents having taken up the habit of gliding along the ground1 and of concealing themselves in the grass1 their body1 owing to continually repeated efforts to elongate itself so as to pass through narrow spaces1 has acquired a considerable length disproportionate to its size4 ,moreover limbs would have been very useless to these animals1 and consequently would not have been employed because long legs would have interfered with their need of gliding1 and very short legs1 not being more than four in number1 would have been incapable of moving their body4 ,hence the lack of use of these parts having been constant in the races of these animals1 has caused the total disappearance of these same parts1 although really included in the plan of organization of animals of their class40 ,the idea of the serpent getting its long body1 or the giraffe its long neck1 or shore birds their long legs by 8stretching10 has brought a good deal of ridicule upon ,lamarck's theory1 and that part of it has never been taken very seriously4 ,this mistake however1 will no more affect ,lamarck's title to a place among the immortals1 than will the equally unfortunate theory of 8pangenesis0 endanger the status of his still greater successor--,darwin4 ,lamarck's glory is that he boldly proclaimed and largely proved the general theory of descent--biological evolution4 ,we shall now proceed to a consideration of the efforts of the great savants who have succeeded him1 to ascertain its processes4 ,,iii4 ,,darwin',s ,,natural ,,selection4 ,in the year #aijf1 the paper which has the largest circulation among ,english ,socialists1 8,the ,clarion10 took a vote of its readers as to whom they considered to be the greatest man1 the man who had contributed most to the progress of the race1 which ,england had produced4 ,by an overwhelming majority the place of honor went to ,charles ,darwin4 ,that vote was as much a vindication of ,english ,socialists as it was of the man whose name has become almost a synonym for 8modern science40 ,liebknecht1 in his 8,biographical ,memoirs of ,karl ,marx01 speaking of ,marx and himself1 says3 0,when ,darwin drew the consequences of his investigations and presented them to the public1 we spoke for months of nothing else but ,darwin and the revolutionizing power of his scientific conquests40 ,leopold ,jacoby writes thus3 8,the same year in which appeared ,darwin's book 7#ahei7 and coming from a quite different direction1 an identical impulse was given to a very important development of social science by a work which long passed unnoticed1 and which bore the title3 8,critique of ,political ,economy0 by ,karl ,marx--it was the forerunner of ,capital4 ,what ,darwin's book on the 8,origin of ,species0 is on the subject of the genesis and evolution of organic life from non-sentient nature up to ,man1 the work of ,marx is on the subject of the genesis and evolution of association among human beings1 of ,states1 and the social forms of humanity40 ,commenting on this passage of ,jacoby's ,enrico ,ferri says3 8,and this is why ,germany1 which has been the most fruitful field for the development of the ,darwinian theories1 is also the most fruitful field for the intelligent1 systematic propaganda of socialist ideas4 ,and it is precisely for this reason that in ,berlin1 in the windows of the book-stores of the socialist propaganda1 the works of ,charles ,darwin occupy the place of honor beside those of ,karl ,marx40 ,frederick ,engels1 in his reply to ,duehring1 speaks of ,darwin as follows3 8,he dealt the metaphysical conception of nature the heaviest blow by his proof that all organic beings1 plants1 animals1 and man himself1 are the products of a process of evolution going on through millions of years4 ,in this connection ,darwin must be named before all others40 ,again1 in the preface to the 8,communist ,manifesto0 speaking of the materialistic conception of history1 he says3 8,this proposition1 in my opinion1 is destined to do for history what ,darwin's theory has done for biology40 ,and speaking at the grave-side of his illustrious colleague--,marx1 he said3 8,just as ,darwin discovered the law of development in organic nature1 so ,marx discovered the law of development in human society40 ,says ,august ,bebel1 in 8,woman10 8,marx1 ,darwin1 ,buckle1 have all three1 each in his own way1 been of the greatest significance for modern development and the future form and growth of human society will1 to an extreme degree1 be shaped and guided by their teaching and discoveries40 ,and ,kautsky in his work on ethics declares that ,darwin's discoveries 8belong to the greatest and most fruitful of the human intellect1 and enable us to develop a new critique of knowledge40 ,ernest ,untermann1 in his latest work 8,marxian ,economics10 well says3 8,marx discovered the specific laws of social development among human beings4 99 99 99 ,but while doing this1 it never occurred to him to disregard the results of ,darwin's work4 ,on the contrary1 he knew the art of combining ,darwin's results with his own1 without doing violence to either40 ,this evidence of the general consensus of opinion among ,socialist scholars as to the value of ,darwin's work and its special importance for ,socialism could easily be enlarged indefinitely4 ,but enough has been cited to show that a comprehensive grasp of the ,socialist philosophy implies a knowledge of ,darwinian theories4 ,the greatness of ,darwin's work has two aspects2 the immense impetus he gave to the general theory of evolution1 and1 his discovery of its main process1 8natural selection40 ,in the popular mind this distinction is lost in confusion and a great army of popular but ill-informed expounders have added to the muddle4 ,the two things although closely related--cause and effect--are yet quite distinct1 and a clearer understanding of ,darwin's work is made possible by the distinction being kept in mind4 ,the honor of having discovered 8natural selection0 ,darwin shares with ,wallace only2 as a contributor to the theory of evolution1 he is one of a long and illustrious line4 ,but even here he is the greatest of them all precisely because of his specific discovery which1 by explaining how evolution works--at least among living things1 7biology7--has made the general theory impregnable4 ,before proceeding to that specific theory let us clearly understand that evolution has ceased to be a theory merely1 it is also a well established fact4 ,anyone who denies this has no part or lot in the intellectual life of the last half century4 ,such a one1 as ,professor ,giddings recently said1 8inhabits a world of intellectual shades4 ,he cannot grasp the earthly interests of the twentieth century40 ,every science in the biological hierarchy has contributed its quota to the establishment of the theory of evolution1 and that theory in return has1 in one department after another1 produced order and system where before nothing existed but a conglomerate mass of apparently unrelated facts4 ,so thoroughly has the theory impregnated every branch of science that an intelligent dentist must be an evolutionist4 ,the chief honors fall to the two sciences ,ontogeny and ,phylogeny4 ,ontogeny deals with the history of the germ from its beginning as an egg to its full fruition as a fully developed individual or as ,haeckel defines it1 8the history of the evolution of individual human organisms40 ,phylogeny is defined by the same authority as1 8the history of the evolution of the descent of man1 that is1 of the evolution of the various animal forms through which1 in the course of countless ages1 mankind has gradually passed to its present form40 ,i mention these two sciences together because it is by comparing them that their chief significance appears4 ,it is one of the most astonishing discoveries of science and at the same time one of the most convincing proofs of evolution1 that the whole process of the development of the human race from the lowest or simplest forms1 which constitutes the subject-matter of phylogeny1 is reproduced in brief in the development of the embryo of the individual4 ,this remarkable fact ,haeckel named 8the biogenetic principle40 ,darwin's chief claim however to a pedestal in the hall of fame rests on his discovery of 8natural selection40 ,during his memorable voyage on 8,the ,beagle0 he observed that there was no essential connection between a species' reproductive powers and the number of its population4 ,as this discovery plays an important part in his theory we will let him speak for himself4 ,in his 8,journal of ,researches0 he gives the following case1 with his conclusion3 8,i was surprised to find1 on counting the eggs of a large white ,doris 7a kind of sea slug7 how extraordinarily numerous they were4 ,from two to five eggs 7each three thousandths of an inch in diameter7 were contained in a spherical little case4 ,these were arranged two deep in transverse rows forming a ribbon4 ,the ribbon adhered to the rock in an oval sphere4 ,one which ,i found1 measured nearly twenty inches in length and half inch in breadth4 ,by counting how many balls were contained in a tenth of an inch in the row1 and how many rows in an equal length of the ribbon1 on the most moderate computation there were six hundred thousand eggs4 ,yet this ,doris was certainly not very common3 although ,i was often searching under the stones ,i saw only seven individuals4 ,no fallacy is more common among naturalists1 than that the numbers of an individual species depend on its powers of propagation40 ,this instance is moderate compared with multitudes of others4 ,the question then arises as to why1 of such a numerous progeny1 only a sufficient number reach adult stage as will replace the parent stock so that population remains practically stationary4 ,here ,darwin became indebted to ,dr4 ,malthus who1 but for that indebtedness would have been forgotten ere this4 ,in his 8,essay on ,population0 ,malthus points out various 8checks0 to the increase of population4 ,his main theory was that the population tends to increase more rapidly than the food supply4 ,the ,reverend ,doctor1 having begotten twelve children of his own1 felt 8called0 to point out to ,british parents the desirability and even necessity of limiting their families in the interest of society4 ,malthus applied his theory to human society where it is palpably false4 ,darwin transferred it to the natural world where it proved to be a great truth4 ,the obvious explanation of this paradox is3 that man1 by agriculture and industry1 can increase his food supply to a greater proportion than any probable or even possible increase of population4 ,animals cannot2 their food supply is beyond their control2 they have no power to artificially increase the supply4 ,this difference totally destroyed the value of ,malthus' book as a treatise on political economy4 ,his immortality is assured solely because he accidentally contributed a link to ,darwin's chain4 ,and now ,darwin has travelled on his great journey thus far3 ,animals propagate enormously but their population generally does not increase4 ,the main reason for this1 though there are others1 is1 that their number is limited by the amount of food available4 ,therefore1 if two parents produce ten thousand only two or three individuals will reach maturity3 the rest will perish4 ,the remainder of the problem1 which still remained for ,darwin to solve1 was3 first1 is there any law which determines which shall survive and which shall be destroyed2 and second1 if there is such a law1 will that law explain and thus1 at the same time1 prove1 the origin of new species8 ,it is precisely because ,darwin solved both points of this tremendous problem with a clear and irrefutable affirmative that he occupies the foremost place in the annals of science4 ,professor ,john ,fiske said3 8,there is one thing which a man of original scientific or philosophical genius in a rightly ordered world should never be called upon to do4 ,he should never be called upon to earn a living2 for that is a wretched waste of energy1 in which the highest intellectual power is sure to suffer serious detriment1 and runs the risk of being frittered away into hopeless ruin40 ,whether ,fiske was right or wrong the only pertinent point here is that ,darwin was spared that necessity4 ,to his great task he brought a patience that is almost without parallel4 ,one of his biographers1 ,grant ,allen1 tells us that3 8,his uncle and father-in-law1 ,josiah ,wedgwood1 suggested to him that the apparent sinking of stones on the surface might really be due to earthworm castings4 ,so1 as soon as he had some land of his own to experiment upon1 he began in #ahdb1 to spread broken chalk over a field at ,down1 in which1 twenty-nine years later in #ahga1 a trench was dug to test the results4 8,what other naturalist10 asks ,allen1 ever waited so long and so patiently to discover the upshot of a single experiment8 ,is it wonderful that a man who worked like that should succeed1 not by faith but by logical power1 in removing mountains80 ,darwin studied domestic animals4 ,he observed how many1 and how widely different1 races there are of horses1 dogs1 swine1 poultry in general and pigeons in particular4 ,in each instance the many varieties are derived from an original common stock1 as domestic fowls from the ,indian jungle fowl1 and pigeons from the old-world rock-dove4 8,derived10 but how--by what process8 ,in the case of domestic creatures this was not difficult to answer4 ,it is accomplished by breeders 8selecting0 the individuals to be bred from4 ,in the case of pigeons1 which ,darwin laid particular stress on the fancier seemed to be able to obtain almost any kind of a bird by selecting as parents those pigeons which had the desired characteristics developed to the most pronounced degree1 and then again selecting in the same way from their progeny4 ,in this way were produced birds so different from each other and their ancestors as the tumbler1 the fantail1 the pouter1 and about a hundred and fifty other varieties4 ,the same with horses4 ,if the breeder desired draught horses1 he selected for parents those animals with massive shoulders and sturdy limbs4 ,when a racer wins a 8classic0 race1 it is at once sent to the stud-farm4 ,although in the zenith of its powers it races no more2 it is 8selected0 for another and more important role--the reproduction and1 it is hoped1 the accentuation of the characteristics which enabled it to outrun its competitors4 ,all this impressed on ,darwin's mind the importance of the word 8selection10 which appears in the title of his theory and the subtitle of his epoch-making book4 ,could it be possible that nature contained some principle or combination of principles1 which performed among wild animals a part analogous to that of the breeder1 among domestic animals8 ,darwin discovered that this is precisely what takes place4 ,his famous theory may be formulated under the three following heads3 7#a7 ,heredity4 7#b7 ,variation4 7#c7 ,the struggle for existence1 with its resultant1 survival of the fittest4 ,darwin requires very little of heredity1 and what he does ask is beyond dispute4 ,it is enough for his theory if like begets like and 8figs do not grow on thistles40 ,similarly with variation1 the demands of his hypothesis are very slight4 ,if it be conceded that variation is a fact1 that offspring do vary from their parents and each other1 it is enough4 ,and who will dispute this in a world where no two creatures are exactly and in all particulars alike8 ,the apparent contradiction that1 heredity demands likeness1 while variation requires difference1 is confined to the surface--it is not real4 ,the likeness is general while the difference is particular4 ,a sheep may be born with shorter or longer legs1 by variation2 but it will be a sheep and not a horse1 by heredity4 ,as an example of the working of the theory let us take ,lamarck's piece de resistance1 the giraffe4 ,lamarck says3 8,we know that this animal1 the tallest of mammals1 inhabits the interior of ,africa1 and that it lives in localities where the earth1 almost always arid and destitute of herbage1 obliges it to browse on the foliage of trees and to make continual efforts to reach it4 ,it has resulted from this habit1 maintained for a long period in all the individuals of its race1 that its forelegs have become longer than the hinder ones1 and that its neck is so elongated that the giraffe1 without standing on its hind legs1 raises its head and reaches six meters in height 7almost twenty feet740 ,lamarck thought this length of neck was acquired by 8continual efforts to reach10 or1 as ,alfred ,russell ,wallace puts it in his criticism of ,lamarck--8stretching40 ,many critics ventilated their wit on this theory of ,lamarck's1 under the impression that they were lampooning ,darwin's idea4 ,they made a blunder similar to that of those critics of ,utopian ,socialism who labor under the pleasing delusion that they are riddling the theories of ,marx4 ,professor ,ritchie has preserved a couple of stanzas by a witty ,scotch judge who aimed his poem at ,darwin1 but hit ,lamarck4 8,a deer with a neck that was longer by half ,than the rest of his family1 try not to laugh1 ,by stretching and stretching became a giraffe ,which nobody can deny4 ,that four-footed beast which we now call a whale1 ,held his hind-legs so close that they grew to a tail1 ,which he uses for threshing the sea1 like a flail1 ,which nobody can deny40 ,but ,darwin's theory is altogether independent of the 8stretching0 idea4 ,the causes and origin of heredity and variation are up to this moment1 alike wrapped in mystery4 ,but when science succeeds in penetrating those secrets1 it is extremely unlikely that ,darwin's theory will be seriously weakened1 no matter what the causes may prove to be4 ,now about the giraffe4 ,we will suppose1 for the sake of illustration1 two giraffes1 a male and a female1 whose necks are precisely five feet long4 ,we will confine our illustration to the question of the neck alone4 ,we will suppose this particular pair to give birth to a family of three4 ,first comes heredity4 ,all we ask of heredity is that the young shall be giraffes1 not camels or any other species2 and this heredity guarantees4 ,now comes variation4 ,as this is an ideal case for the purpose of illustrating the theory1 we will have one of the three shorter-necked than the parents1 another the same length1 while the third has a longer neck--over five feet4 ,now comes the struggle for existence4 ,when this family of giraffes is fairly grown and the new-comers are approaching breeding age--mark the importance of this matter of 8breeding age10 for the problem is to find out how nature determines which shall be bred from--they are obliged to forage for themselves4 ,there is no pasture to graze2 they live in what is almost a desert4 ,there are few shrubs2 scarcely anything but fairly high trees--from ten to twenty feet4 ,if a giraffe breeder had this matter in hand and he wished to increase the length of the giraffe's neck1 the problem would be simple4 ,he would select number three with the longest neck1 pair it with the longest necked member of the opposite sex in some other family and the trick would be done4 ,but this is in ,central ,africa1 where there is no breeder to interfere1 and the question is3 can nature accomplish the same result without his help8 ,this is what happens4 ,first the leaves are eaten from all the lower branches as they are reached with the least effort4 ,then they go higher and still higher until the point is reached where number one with the shortest neck cannot reach any further and the terrible struggle for existence begins4 ,number two sees no danger as yet and number three has things all his own way4 ,but with short-necked number one1 a tragedy has begun4 ,every day now sees the food further out of his reach and even number two is obliged to reach out for his supply4 ,the breeding time is approaching but the longer necked and therefore well-fed and vigourous females will have nothing to do with this wobbley starving creature1 and the longer necked1 well-fed males shun the short-necked starving females4 ,if the starving ones mate1 the mother dies before giving birth to offspring1 or she cannot get nourishment enough to rear her progeny2 in either case there is no effective succession4 ,so the longer-necked are the fittest and they survive4 ,thus does nature 8select0 one by the negative process of destroying the rest1 in about the same way as a man 8selects0 one puppy in a litter by drowning the rest4 ,in the case of the puppies we may say 8artificial selection20 in the case of the giraffe it is 8natural selection40 ,and this theory1 simple as it may seem here1 revolutionized ,biology4 ,it is worthy of note that 8natural0 selection has many advantages over 8artificial0 selection4 ,the breeder may be mistaken2 he may select the wrong puppy and drown its superior4 ,the horse that won the great race may have had a fleeter-footed companion in the same stable had the trainer known how to develop his possibilities4 ,the gardener may have passed the best root or stem through carelessness4 ,but nature makes no such mistakes1 or if she does she eventually redeems them4 ,her method1 while it is wholly fortuitous and unintelligent1 is practically infallible4 ,the condition of survival is1 adaptation to environment4 ,the very process of selection is1 in itself1 a sure test of fitness4 ,true1 moral considerations are eliminated--at least in the non-social world--yet nature offers something like a fair field and no favors4 ,when we speak of nature's favorites1 we simply mean those who are best fitted to meet her hard conditions4 ,take a row of celery plants1 from which future seedlings are to be 8selected40 ,in this instance1 let us suppose1 the quality desired is ability to resist frost4 ,how is the gardener to know which of fifty plants are the 8best0 in this respect4 ,he has no method of finding out with any degree of certainty4 ,but nature comes along some night with a sharp frost and 8selects0 ten by killing forty4 ,and the very act of this 8natural0 selection proves that these ten are better able to withstand the frost than their fellows4 ,breeders of white sheep who supply the white wool market have a very tangible guide--they kill every lamb that shows the least tinge of black4 ,but even here1 nature is not to be out-done4 ,in ,virginia there is--or at least was in ,darwin's day--a wild hog of pure black4 ,one of its staple foods was known as the 8paint-root40 ,any hog with the least speck of white on its body was poisoned by this root while its all-black brothers found it a health-sustaining and succulent food4 ,in an environment which remained constant and where a species of animals had reached a population which strained the limits of subsistence--food supply--those offspring which most closely resemble their parents1 who had won out in that environment1 would again succeed and be selected4 ,while if the environment changed--became warmer or colder for example--those descendants which happened to vary in a direction making them better able to cope with the new conditions would be selected for survival as against those who resembled their parents1 which parents had survived in their day because they were adapted to the prior environment4 ,for example1 a country is well supplied with water and it is as a consequence fertile and 8green40 ,in such a country green insects and green reptiles will be selected1 because a green background will render them almost invisible to their enemies4 ,individuals of other colors will make their appearance by variation1 but they will be such plain targets to their enemies1 they will be devoured before they reach breeding age and have a chance to reproduce the variation4 ,but suppose desiccation 7drying up7 sets in4 ,the country loses its water supply1 as ,krapotkin has shown to have been the case in ,north-,west ,mongolia and ,east ,turkestan1 leading to the enforced exodus of the barbarians4 ,now green will disappear and brown or yellow--say brown--takes its place4 ,while this change will not1 so far as we know1 cause insects and lizards to breed brown instead of green1 it will ensure the survival or 8selection0 of such as are born brown and the destruction of those who breed true to their green ancestors4 ,now every atavistic return to green will be mercilessly weeded out1 just as1 when the country was well-watered and green1 every sporadic production of brown was done to death4 ,this is the biological foundation of that environment philosophy which now pervades all our thinking4 ,change the physical environment1 says the biologist1 and the species will be transformed4 ,change the economic environment1 says the ,socialist1 and1 if you make the right change1 the race will be redeemed4 ,both statements rest on the same fundamental laws4 ,as the many and highly important implications of this theory1 are fully dealt with in subsequent lectures most of them will be passed here4 ,we may note however1 that whenever any nation in the modern world1 produces1 in the development of its industry1 a ,socialistic variation1 that new feature at once proves its utility and is 8selected0 in the ,darwinian sense1 because it constitutes an advantage over the previous form of social organization1 in that particular4 ,this is the reason why the trust--which is socialistic and revolutionary in its essential tendences--is always victorious1 in spite of the foolish ravings of the ,hearst newspapers and the antediluvian twaddle of ,william ,jennings ,bryan4 ,but ,darwin's crowning achievement is that he made the general theory of evolution impregnable by thoroughly and conclusively demonstrating it in his own field as a naturalist4 ,from then on it was only a question of time as to when its application would be universal4 ,socialism may be defined as the application of the theory of evolution to the phenomena of society4 ,this is precisely what ,marx and ,engels accomplished1 and this why their work is so fundamentally opposed to the conventional theories and theological superstitious current in their time1 and so fully in harmony with all the latest achievements in the scientific world4 ,history ceases to be a meaningless mass of war and famine1 bloodshed and cruelty4 ,it becomes a panorama presenting the development of society according to laws which may be understood and with a future that may be measurably predicted4 ,it develops by the operation of forces that no man or class can wholly stay or hinder4 ,the power of those forces and the direction in which they are now making has been well set forth by ,victor ,hugo by a very striking simile in the following passage3 8,we are in ,russia4 ,the ,neva is frozen4 ,heavy carriages roll upon its surface4 ,they improvise a city4 ,they lay out streets4 ,they build houses4 ,they buy4 ,they sell4 ,they laugh4 ,they dance4 ,they permit themselves anything4 ,they even light fires on this water become granite4 ,there is winter1 there is ice and they shall last forever4 ,a gleam pale and wan spreads over the sky and one would say that the sun is dead4 ,but no1 thou art not dead1 oh ,liberty6 ,at an hour when they have most profoundly forgotten thee2 at a moment when they least expect thee1 thou shall arise1 oh1 dazzling sight6 ,thou shalt shoot thy bright and burning rays1 thy heat1 thy life1 on all this mass of ice become hideous and dead4 ,do you hear that dull thud1 that crackling1 deep and dreadful8 ',tis the ,neva tearing loose4 ,you said it was granite4 ,see it splits like glass4 ',tis the breaking of the ice1 ,i tell you4 ',tis the water alive1 joyous and terrible4 ,progress recommences4 ',tis humanity again beginning its march4 ',tis the river which retakes its course1 uproots1 mangles1 strikes together1 crushes and drowns in its waves not only the empire of upstart ,czar ,nicholas1 but all of the relics of ancient and modern despotism4 ,that trestle work floating away8 ,it is the throne4 ,that other trestle8 ,it is the scaffold4 ,that old book1 half sunk8 ,it is the old code of capitalist laws and morals4 ,that old rookery just sinking8 ,it is a tenement house in which wage slaves lived4 ,see these all pass by2 passing by never more to return2 and for this immense engulfing1 for this supreme victory of life over death1 what has been the power necessary8 ,one of thy looks1 oh1 sun6 ,one stroke of thy strong arm1 oh1 labor60 ,,iv4 ,,weismann',s ,,theory ,,of ,,heredity4 ,the weak1 untrained brain must have a conclusion4 ,it cannot reserve its decision or render an open verdict4 ,it is completely at sea in the scientific world where the most profound savant is often obliged to say1 8,i don't know40 ,in a crowded courtroom1 ninety per cent of the spectators have made up their minds that the prisoner is innocent or guilty before the first witness is called or a line of the evidence has been read4 ,he has a square jaw1 or bushy eyebrows1 or thick lips1 or he shifts uneasily from one foot to the other1 any or all which proves to the simpletons back of the rail1 that he must be guilty no matter what the crime is1 or what the evidence may be4 ,if he has blue eyes and fair hair and mustache1 or a pleasant manner1 or pretty hands and the onlookers were to decide the matter1 they would hardly convict him on his own confession4 ,in ,england1 a judge is not placed on the bench because he 8stands in0 with a ward boss1 but because of his wide scholarship and systematic training1 and the reason advanced for this method is1 that only a scientific scholar can reserve his opinion until all the evidence is in and then1 if the case demands it1 render an open verdict4 ,with the vexed problem of heredity1 which has been so much to the fore in science for the last twenty-four years1 while many great thinkers have distinctly taken sides1 it must be remembered that in many points of great importance1 the only possible verdict on the contentions of either side1 is one of 8not proven40 ,but although this controversy has split the evolutionists into two camps1 it in no way compromises the evolution theory itself4 ,the controversy is based on the admission of all the parties to it1 that evolution is granted1 and the question at issue involves only a difference as to how the acknowledged results are accomplished4 ,evolution is no longer merely a theory1 it is an established fact1 and is recognized as such by all who live in an intellectual atmosphere belonging to this side of #ahei1 the year of the publication of the 8,origin of ,species40 ,neither does the result of this discussion threaten1 in any way1 the validity of the ,darwinian theory of 8,natural ,selection40 ,all the disputants are avowed ,darwinians1 and disagree only as to whether ,darwin's theory is alone sufficient to account for the origin of new species4 ,professor ,packard1 ,lamarck's biographer1 and one of his warmest admirers1 at the close of his chapter devoted to the denial of 8pure0 ,darwinism says3 8,we must never forget or under-estimate1 however1 the inestimable value of the services rendered by ,darwin1 who by his patience1 industry1 and rare genius for observation and experiment1 and his powers of lucid exposition1 convinced the world of the truth of evolution1 with the result that it has transformed the philosophy of our day4 ,we are all evolutionists1 though we may differ as to the nature of the efficient causes40 ,there are now three possible positions4 7#a7 ,that of the ,lamarckians1 pure and simple1 who maintain that ,lamarck's theory in itself explains all the phenomena1 and that ,darwin's principle of selection is not only invalid but superfluous4 ,this school is practically extinct1 though ,packard often sails to its very edge in his efforts to defend his subject1 as is the manner of biographers4 7#b7 ,the ,neo- 7,new7- ,lamarckians who develop ,lamarck's theory and add to it ,darwin's selective principle as of greater1 equal1 or secondary importance1 according as they lean the more strongly to ,darwin or ,lamarck4 ,this position held the field almost alone1 until ,weismann fired his opening gun in #ahhc4 ,he founded 7#c7 the ,neo-,darwinian school which repudiates altogether the ,lamarckian factor of the hereditary transmission of acquired characters1 and maintains that ,darwin's theory is able to dispense with ,lamarckian ideas of use and disuse4 ,as ,weismann is the storm center of the controversy we will now examine his theory4 ,in #ahhc ,weismann became the pro-,rector of the ,university of ,freiburg and in the hall of the ,university1 in ,june of that year1 he publicly delivered his inaugural lecture 8,on ,heredity40 ,this lecture is generally regarded as the first broadside in that war which filled with its reverberations the scientific magazines of the world for the next thirteen years4 ,as one writer aptly says1 8,the warring scientists splashed like irate cuttle-fishes in clouds of their own ink40 ,about #ahif however1 the public grew tired of the never-ending flood of biological lore on what looked to the lay mind like an insoluble problem4 ,the editors1 with their fingers on the public pulse1 cried1 8,a plague on both your houses10 and sent the savants to seek in their laboratories the victories denied to their pens4 ,as a matter of fact however1 the coming struggle was foreshadowed in a paper read by ,weismann at the meeting of the ,association of the ,german ,naturalists at ,salzburg1 two years earlier1 in #ahha4 ,this paper was entitled 8,the ,duration of ,life10 and the subject was still further developed in an academic lecture1 in #ahhc1 on 8,life and ,death40 ,these two biological contributions not only indicated the foundations of ,weismann's theory1 but they threw a very brilliant light in certain very dark places4 ,weismann not only took up1 but he solved the hitherto obscure question of the origin of death4 ,johannes ,muller had1 as early as #ahdj1 rejected the prevailing hypothesis which held the death of animals to be due to 8the influences of the organic environment1 which gradually wear away the life of the individual40 ,muller argued that if this were so 8the organic energy of an individual would steadily decrease from the beginning40 ,everybody knows1 however1 that in spite of the wear and tear caused by the 8environment10 be it organic or inorganic1 the volume of life increases1 until a certain stage is reached in all animals4 ,but ,muller had failed to fill the gap his criticism had created4 ,this problem ,weismann solved by analysing the methods of reproduction among animals4 ,these generally speaking are two2 sexual1 and non-sexual or1 as it is sometimes termed1 a-sexual4 ,this latter form is the mode that prevails at the bottom of the organic scale--among the protozoa1 animals consisting of a single cell4 ,this method has a variety of forms which are classified by ,haeckel as 7#a7 self-division2 7#b7 formation of buds2 7#c7 the formation of germ-cells or spores4 ,we shall here deal only with the first1 self-division1 or fission1 which is the most universal of all methods of propagation1 being the progress by which the individual cells which compose all the higher animals multiply themselves4 ,this is the method vital to ,weismann's theory and the other two are no more than distinct modifications of fission4 ,when a ,moneron or an ,amoeba reaches a certain size1 it begins to pinch in the middle like a tightly-laced corset4 ,this increases until the creature divides into two equal halves4 ,each of these halves becomes a complete individual which continues to thrive until the next division takes place4 ,what ,weismann observed as the most significant thing about this was that in this process and among these unicellular 7single celled7 organisms there is no such thing as natural death4 ,accidental death is wholesale in its proportions1 but no ,moneron ever dies of old age4 ,astounding as it may seem to the layman1 the race-old1 world-wide idea that death is 8essential to the very nature of life itself0 is here totally and indisputably overthrown4 8,i pointed out10 says ,weismann1 in the second lecture and referring to the first 8that we could not speak of natural death among unicellular animals1 for their growth has no termination which is comparable with death4 ,the origin of new individuals is not connected with the death of the old2 but increase by division takes place in such a way that the two parts into which an organism separates are exactly equivalent to one another1 and neither of them is older or younger than the other4 ,in this way countless numbers of individuals arise1 each of which is as old as the species itself1 while each possesses the capability of living on indefinitely1 by means of divisions40 ,among the ,metazoa1 i4 e41 multicellular or many celled animals1 this immortality of the individual disappears4 8,here1 also10 says ,weismann1 8reproduction takes place by means of cell-division1 but every cell does not possess the power of reproducing the whole organism4 ,the cells of the organism are differentiated into two essentially different groups1 the reproductive cells--ova or spermatozoa--and the somatic cells1 or cells of the body4 ,the immortality of the unicellular organism has passed over to the former--the reproductive cells--the others must die1 and since the body of the individual is chiefly composed of them1 it must die also40 ,and so death came into the world1 not by sin1 as the ,genesis legend reports1 but through sex2 a most astonishing conclusion1 it may be1 but one from which there is apparently no escape4 ,immortality still remains1 it is true1 but it is not the immortality of the conscious self4 ,positive science1 nothwithstanding all its glorious gifts1 has dealt a terrible blow to those gorgeous dreams of primitive men and modern mystics2 those hopes and longings which have sustained millions of our race in hours of supreme sorrow2 a blow which not even the bravest has been able to receive without flinching4 ,the only immortality of which science has any surety is that of these unconscious single cells1 which make possible the reproduction of the species4 ,weismann1 then1 divides the cells which compose the bodies of the higher animals1 including man1 into two distinct kinds2 the somatic1 or body cells and the germ1 or reproductive cells4 ,these germ cells are1 so to speak1 batteries in which are stored a substance which ,weismann calls germ-plasm4 ,a minutely small portion of this germ-plasm from an individual of one sex1 mixed with a similar portion from an individual of the other will produce a new individual4 ,but--and here comes the keystone of ,weismann's arch--only a portion of the mixed germ-plasm is used up in the composition of the new individual2 the rest is stored away in the germ-cells of the new individual for further reproduction when the time arrives4 ,the only relation that this reserved germ-plasm has with the body cells of the new individual is that it is provided by them with room and board4 ,thus1 according to ,weismann1 from generation to generation1 there is an unbroken stream of germ-plasm1 and this constitutes his celebrated theory of 8,the ,continuity of ,germ-,plasm40 ,granted this theory as a premise1 and ,weismann's conclusions cannot be gainsaid4 ,this germ-plasm being the sole 8carrier of heredity10 nothing that happens to the somatic or body cells can be transmitted to the progeny4 ,darwin had put forward a theory of heredity which he called 8,pangenesis10 which made out a good case for the admission of the ,lamarckian factor4 ,according to this theory all the somatic or body cells give forth still smaller cells which he calls 8gemmules40 ,these gemmules are collected1 by some process not explained1 in the reproductive organs4 ,here they are in packets1 and these 8packets of gemmules0 are 8the carriers of heredity40 ,one can easily see how by this process the effects of use and disuse would be transmissible for an organ shrunk by disuse would not be capably represented by an efficient delegation of gemmules at the reproductive headquarters4 ,speaking of this theory1 ,grant ,allen in his biography of ,darwin says1 8,let not the love of the biographer deceive us4 ,not to mince matters1 it was his one conspicuous failure1 and is now pretty universally admitted as such40 ,it must be remembered however1 that ,darwin was fully aware of its purely speculative character and with his usual caution entitled it the 8,provisional ,hypothesis of ,pangenesis40 ,romanes1 one of ,weismann's ablest critics1 compares ,weismann's theory with ,darwin's1 and while he refuses to defend ,pangenesis against ,weismann's charge that it is a wholly unsupported speculation1 he replies by contending that the germ-plasm theory lives in precisely the same kind of a glass house4 ,however that may be1 it is quite clear that the germ-plasm theory completely shuts out the ,lamarckian factor of evolution in all cases where propagation is sexual4 8,but10 say the ,neo-,lamarckians1 8,darwinism in itself1 merely assumes variations without attempting to explain their origin4 ,natural selection only explains the survival of the fittest2 it tells us nothing of what ,prof4 ,cope calls the #8,origin of the ,fittest4' ,there must be variation before selection1 whence then1 comes this variation80 ,to this question ,weismann has a ready reply4 8,variation is due to the blending of two wholly different kinds of germ-plasm at conception1 producing at birth a result that is not1 and cannot be1 wholly like the contributor of either40 ,and now1 at last1 the great ,german is in a corner4 ,if all variations are due to congenital characters only1 and these1 of course1 are only possible because of the combinations secured by sexual reproduction1 how do variations arise among non-sexual organisms where such combinations cannot exist8 ,this is indeed1 a poser4 ,but any rejoicing by ,weismann's opponents is quite premature4 ,the sagacity which set those opponents by the ears is still available4 ,there is no attempt to untie that knot2 ,weismann cuts it with a knife4 ,he empties his antagonist's sails by a smiling and gracious surrender4 ,below the sexually reproducing animals1 he concedes the operation of the ,lamarckian factor4 ,in that unicellular world it is not a special cell that is passed on but the individual itself is continued1 and of course any character acquired by the individual will be preserved along with the individual4 ,thus then the region of controversy is limited to sexually reproducing organisms and we come to the field where the fiercest fight was made4 ,do these organisms transmit by heredity those characters or peculiarities acquired by the individual during its own life-time8 ,to this question the ,neo-,lamarckians gave a positive affirmative1 which ,weismann met with an unwavering denial4 ,weismann challenged his opponents to produce a single demonstration of such a transmission4 ,here let us be clear as to what is meant by an acquired character4 ,for illustration1 let us suppose a father leaves his son an estate of a thousand acres4 ,that is inheritance4 ,if the son leaves his son the same one thousand acres1 that is still inheritance4 ,but if that son increases the estate1 during his life-time to two thousand1 the second thousand is an 8acquired character0 of a property nature4 ,there the analogy ceases for there is no dispute as to his ability to transmit both thousands to his heirs by inheritance4 ,but with 8acquired characters0 of a biological nature1 ,weismann maintains this to be impossible4 ,many specific instances were put forward in refutation of this contention4 ,herbert ,spencer cited the case of the supposed degeneration of the little toe in civilized man as a result of the shoe wearing habit4 ,this it was urged could only have occurred through the transmission of acquired characters and not by natural selection as this diminished toe could not be of any value in the struggle for existence4 ,but it was shown by measuring the feet of savages1 who do not wear shoes1 and whose ancestors never wore them1 that the small toes of savages had degenerated quite as much4 ,then ,cesare ,lombroso entered the arena leading a camel4 ,according to the ,italian criminologist1 the camel's hump had been first acquired by bearing loads and then transmitted by heredity4 ,from the fact that the camel and the llama1 which is smooth backed1 have something in common1 he concludes that camels are really llamas that have recently acquired a hump in the performance of their labors4 ,lombroso also supported his hump theory by some statements about ,hottentot women having developed callouses on their hips by carrying their children on their backs4 ,unfortunately all ,lombroso's ingenuity was wasted for we happen to possess the geological record of the camel in good condition1 and from this history we know that the 8ship of the desert0 had his hump before the human race appeared when according to ,lombroso he should have been a smooth-backed llama4 ,disappointed as ,weismann's critics were it was hardly feasible to argue that the camel had gotten his hump in those early times by placing loads on his own back4 ,it was clearly seen that if a case of the transmission of a mutilation could be established1 ,weismann's theory would be thereby demolished4 ,a remarkable attempt was made in this direction in #ahhg at the meeting of the ,association of the ,german ,naturalists at ,wiesbaden4 ,to that dignified gathering came ,dr4 ,zacharias with a number of tailless cats4 ,it was asserted that these cats had no tails because their mother had lost her tail through having it run over by a cart wheel4 ,the examination of these specimens proved an entertaining diversion from the regular proceedings1 and ,prof4 ,eimer took them seriously enough to refer to them in a later work as 8a valuable instance of the transmission of mutilations40 ,weismann1 however1 refused to be put down4 ,he insisted that in the absence of absolute certainty as to the cart wheel incident1 they did not fulfill the first condition of scientific evidence1 and ,dr4 ,zacharias wisely admitted later1 that this point was well taken4 ,prof4 ,poulton had described certain cats with extra toes which he had kept under surveillance for seven generations4 8,it would be equally justifiable10 says ,weismann1 8to derive cats with extra toes from an ancestor whose toes had been trodden on1 as to derive the tailless cats of the ,isle of ,man from an ancestor of which the tail had been cut off by a cart passing over it1 and thus to regard the existence of the race as a proof of the transmission of mutilations40 ,again ,weismann points out that the absence of a tail may not be owing to the mutilation of the mother but to the inherent taillessness of an unknown father4 ,he proceeds to relate how during the year that ,dr4 ,zacharias came with his collection1 8,my friend1 ,prof4 ,schottlius brought me a kitten with an innate rudimentary tail1 which he had accidentally discovered as one of a family of kittens at ,waldkirch1 a small town in the southern part of the ,black ,forest4 ,a closer investigation resulted in the following rather unexpected discovery4 ,for some time past1 tailless kittens have frequently appeared in the families of many different mother cats at ,waldkirch1 and this fact is explained in the following manner4 ,a clergyman1 who lived for some time at ,waldkirch had married an ,english lady who possessed a tailless male ,manx cat4 ,the probability that all the tailless cats in ,waldkirch are more or less distant descendants of that male cat amounts almost to certainty4 ,since a male ,manx cat has reached the ,black ,forest1 it might equally well arrive at some other place40 ,this very same year a popular scientific journal came to the rescue of the transmission theory with the following incident purporting to have taken place #bb years before1 in #ahfd4 8,a pregnant merino sheep broke its right foreleg about two inches above the knee-joint2 the limb was put in splints and healed a long time before the following ,march1 when the animal produced young4 ,the lamb possessed a ring of black wool from two to three inches in breadth round the place at which the mother's leg had been broken1 and upon the same leg40 ,when this incident was related to ,weismann1 he replied1 8,it is a pity that the black wool was not arranged in the form of the inscription #8to the memory of the fractured leg of my dear mother4'0 ,writing in the following year ,weismann says1 8,furthermore1 the mutilations of certain parts of the human body1 as practised by different nations from time immemorial1 have not in a single instance1 led to the malformation or reduction of the parts in question4 ,such hereditary effects have been produced neither by circumcision nor the removal of the front teeth1 nor the boring of holes in the lips or nose1 nor the extraordinary artificial crushing and crippling of the feet of ,chinese women4 ,no child among any of the nations referred to possesses the slightest trace of these mutilations when born2 they have to be acquired anew in each generation40 ,while it is undoubtedly true that much in ,weismann's position lacks experimental demonstration1 it is equally true that when the heat of the discussion somewhat subsided1 his theories were well to the fore1 and they have since secured a wide acceptance among competent authorities4 ,it is hardly to be expected that his two greatest critics1 ,spencer and ,haeckel1 would look with much favor on a theory the acceptance of which would make necessary the re-writing of those many volumes which constitute their lifework4 ,lankester1 himself no mean authority1 in translating ,haeckel's 8,history of ,creation10 feels constrained to say in the preface1 8,i feel it due to myself to state that ,i do not agree with him as to a very large part of his views on classification1 and as to his belief in the necessity of assuming the #8transmissibility of acquired characters4' ,readers who have gained an interest in these questions from the brief statements of the present work must1 without assuming that ,professor ,haeckel's judgment is final1 go on to study for themselves the works of ,weismann and others which are mentioned with perfect fairness in these pages40 ,and ,joseph ,mc,cabe1 the translator of his 8,riddle of the ,universe10 and 8,last ,words on ,evolution10 has this to say in his introduction to the latter1 written two years ago1 8,to closer students1 who are at times impatient of the ,lamarckian phraseology of ,haeckel--to all1 in fact1 who would like to see how the same evolutionary truths are expressed without reliance on the inheritance of acquired characters1--,i may take the opportunity to say that ,i have translated for the same publishers1 ,professor ,guenther's 8,darwinism and the ,problems of ,life10 which will shortly be in their hands40 ,it must be admitted that the older view is much less favorable to the ,socialist position in sociology than the later theory of ,weismann4 ,it is a matter of some satisfaction that so great a critic as ,romanes concedes the feasibility of ,weismann's theory while rejecting some of the conclusions which he draws from it4 8,if ,weismann's theory is true10 says ,prof4 ,david ,starr-,jordan1 8the whole literature of sociology will have to be rewritten60 ,and another writer insisted that ,weismann had reopened the case for ,socialism4 ,if it were true that the terrible results of the degrading conditions forced upon the dwellers in the slums were transmitted to their children by heredity1 until in a few generations they became fixed characters1 the hopes of ,socialists for a regenerated society would be much more difficult to realize4 ,in that case these unfortunate creatures would continue to act in the same discouraging way for several generations1 no matter how their environment had been transformed by the corporate action of society4 ,this much at any rate1 ,weismann has done for us1 he has scientifically destroyed that lie4 ,in this respect1 independent sociological experiments and investigations have arrived at the same conclusions as ,weismann4 ,prof4 ,john ,r4 ,commons by careful study1 reached the following conclusions3 ,that #a4ge per cent of the population of the ,united ,states are congenital defectives2 that #c4be per cent are induced defectives1 that is1 they have not inherited their deficiency2 that #b per cent are possessed of genius and will make their way under the hardest conditions2 that #b per cent are below the ,aryan brain level2 and that the remaining #ia per cent are normal persons who are neither good nor bad1 brilliant nor stupid1 criminal nor virtuous1 and whose future is entirely decided by the environment which surrounds them during the first fifteen years of their life4 ,herman ,whittaker1 a magazine contributor1 states that during eight years in ,canada #b1jjj boys taken from the ,london slums by ,dr4 ,barnado passed under his observation on a farm colony4 ,and although most of them had served terms in jail1 not more than one per cent reverted to their own former habits1 or the habits of their parents4 ,when it is charged that a transformed social environment will not solve the problem presented by the slum1 the sweatshop and the jail1 as ,socialists assert1 we are justified in nailing the statement as false1 and a libel on human nature4 ,and in so doing1 we are not sentimental dreamers of dreams1 crying for the moon1 but rigid analysts and investigators1 and1 as ,lassalle once proudly said1 8,we have behind us the science and the learning of our day40 ,v4 ,,de ,,vries' 8,,mutation40 ,orthodoxy received the most stunning blow ever given it1 at the hands of ,charles ,darwin1 and it is ever on the lookout for an opportunity to make reprisals4 ,it is only necessary for some fledgling to challenge ,darwin's theory of the origin of coral reefs and offer some grotesque assumption in its place1 and it is at once announced from a thousand pulpits that ,darwinism1--that enemy of ,god and man--is dead4 ,hugo ,de,vries1 however1 could hardly be called a fledgling1 and the supporters of ,darwin had real cause for apprehension1 it would seem1 when the rumor gained ground that no less a person than the ,amsterdam professor had overthrown ,darwin's theory1 and substituted one of his own4 ,alas1 this latest 8death of ,darwinism0 was no more fatal than its numerous predecessors1 as the following quotation from ,de,vries himself will show3 8,my work claims to be in full accord with the principles laid down by ,darwin40 ,and again1 8,to ,darwin was reserved the task of bringing the theory of common descent to its present high rank in scientific and social philosophy40 ,and1 8,notwithstanding all these apparently unsurmountable difficulties1 7absence of experimental evidence since gathered7 ,darwin discovered the great principle which rules the evolution of organisms4 ,it is the principle of natural selection4 ,it is the sifting out of all organisms of minor worth through the struggle for life40 ,the greater part of the adverse criticism1 aimed at ,darwinism applies only to the extravagant claims put forward by his overenthusiastic disciples2 claims not to be found in the works of ,darwin himself4 ,as we shall see later1 one of the greatest offenders in this respect was no less a person than the co-discoverer of the selection theory--,alfred ,russell ,wallace4 ,of all the mischievous misconceptions of ,darwin's theory none have worked so much harm as that which regards natural selection as the active and efficient cause of evolution4 ,although evolution is an established fact1 our knowledge of its processes are incomplete and must always remain so until we have solved that most vexed of all biological problems1 the 8causes of variation40 ,as to the nature of these causes1 natural selection is dumb4 ,for its purpose1 variation is simply assumed to be a fact1 and ,darwin's acknowledged ignorance as to how variation is brought about is expressed in the term 8spontaneous variation40 ,until variation has played its part by producing new and various forms1 selection has no function or office to perform4 ,then it simply decides which forms shall survive by destroying the rest4 ,as ,wigand has pointed out1 selection does not do more than determine the survival of what is offered to it1 and does not create anything new4 ,as ,de,vries very strikingly puts it1 8,it is only a sieve1 and not a force of nature1 no direct cause of improvement1 as many of ,darwin's adversaries1 and unfortunately many of his followers also1 have so often asserted4 ,it is only a sieve which decides which is to live and which is to die4444 ,with the single steps of evolution it has nothing to do4 ,only after the step has been taken1 the sieve acts1 eliminating the unfit40 ,thus ,prof4 ,cope's point that ,darwin's theory does not explain the 8origin0 of the fittest1 is well taken1 or as ,mr4 ,arthur ,harris puts it1 8,natural selection may explain the survival of the fittest1 but it cannot explain the arrival of the fittest40 ,it was around this question of the 8causes0 of variation that the ,neo-,lamarckians and the ,weismannians fought their battle1 the former insisting1 as we have seen1 that variation was caused by the hereditary transmission of acquired characters1 while ,weismann maintained that variation arose solely through the combining of two portions of differing germ-plasm contributed by two different individuals1 and producing a new individual unlike either1--a 8variation0 from both4 ,while whatever there was of victory fell to ,weismann1 neither side has experimentally proven its case1 and we are still in the dark as to the 8causes of variation40 ,our ignorance is still cloaked in the convenient word 8spontaneous20 to ,darwin's 8spontaneous variation0 we now add ,de,vries' 8spontaneous mutation40 ,it is another tribute to ,darwin's caution and insight that he recognized the possibility of variations arising either suddenly1 as ,de,vries asserts they do1 or gradually as ,de,vries denies4 ,not only did ,alfred ,russell ,wallace seek to limit the operation of natural selection in certain fields1 in order to make room for his spiritualist theories--an adventure which failed dismally--but he denied the sudden appearance of new species or sub-species1 thereby restricting ,darwinism1 as he understood it1 to the origin of new species by the gradual accumulation of those almost imperceptible variations usually described as 8fluctuations40 ,whatever conflict there may be between ,darwinism and mutation must be ascribed to ,wallace4 ,as ,de,vries clearly recognizes1 ,darwin is in no way responsible4 8,darwin10 says ,de,vries1 8recognized both lines of evolution40 ,the difference between 8fluctuations0 and 8mutation0 is illustrated by ,de,vries recalling ,galton's simile of a polyhedron--an example of which is a solid piece of glass covered with many small flat faces4 ,when it comes to rest on any particular face1 it is in stable equilibrium4 ,small disturbances may make it oscillate1 but it returns always to the same face4 ,these oscillations are like fluctuating variations4 ,a greater disturbance may cause the polyhedron to roll over on to a new face1 where it comes to rest again1 only showing the ever present fluctuations around the new center4 ,the new position corresponds to a mutation4 ,one of the disabilities of this illustration is that some fluctuations represent a greater disturbance from the given position than some mutations4 ,the essential difference is that in the fluctuation it rocks back again while in the mutation it remains on a new base4 ,everybody has heard something of the famous evening primrose which gave ,de,vries his first and most conclusive evidence of mutation4 ,at ,hilversum near ,amsterdam1 he discovered a large number of the plants of the evening primrose1 named ,lamarckiana after ,lamarck4 ,it is an ,american plant imported to ,europe4 ,it often escapes from cultivation and in this case ,de,vries says it had escaped from a park4 ,it had run wild ten years4 ,a year after first noticing them ,de,vries observed two new forms which he at once recognized as two new elementary species4 ,in the test conditions of his own garden1 in an experiment covering thirteen years1 he observed over fifty thousand of the ,lamarckiana spread over eight generations and of these eight hundred were mutations divided among seven new elementary species4 ,these mutations1 when self-fertilized1 or fertilized from plants like themselves1 bred true to themselves1 thus answering the test of a real species4 ,de,vries also watched the field from which his original forms were taken1 and saw that similar mutations occurred there so that they were not in any way due to cultivation4 ,thus has the modest mutating primrose contributed its quota to the solution of that riddle of the universe which1 until it is solved1 will always command a paramount position in the thoughts of men4 ,de,vries discourages the notion that mutations are always occurring everywhere1 which might seem to be one of the inferences from his theory1 and his twenty-fourth lecture of the series1 delivered before the ,university of ,california is entitled 8,the ,hypothesis of ,periodic ,mutations40 ,the common primrose1 he says1 seems to be immutable at present1 and argues that it must have had a mutatory period sometime in the past1 when1 perhaps1 the evening primrose was not mutating4 ,he says3 8,all the facts point to the conclusion that these periods1 of stability and mutability1 alternate more or less regularly with one another40 ,he deals the ,neo-,lamarckians a heavy blow by his denial of 8direct0 adaptation1 and he greatly strengthens their opponents when he asserts that mutation takes place1 not only in useful directions1 but in all directions1 leaving natural selection to destroy the unfit4 ,this is a restatement of ,darwin's conception1 followed by ,weismann1 of 8fortuitous0 variations1 and is contrary to the notion of ,spencer and ,haeckel1 that variations are mainly in the direction of adaptation to environment1 as a result of animals exerting themselves in that direction4 ,this point is well stated by ,de,vries in the following passage1--8,this failure of a large part of the productions of nature deserves to be considered at some length4 ,it may be elevated to a principle1 and may be made use of to explain many difficult points of the theory of descent4 ,if in order to secure one good novelty nature must produce ten or twenty or perhaps more bad ones at the same time1 the possibility of improvements coming by pure chance must be granted at once4 ,all hypotheses concerning the direct causes of adaptation at once become superfluous1 and the great principle enunciated by ,darwin once more reigns supreme40 ,another difficulty which ,de,vries claims to have solved by his theory1 is the supposed contradiction between the physicist and the biologist as to the time allowed by the former and the time required by the latter1 for the evolution of animals4 ,lord ,kelvin asserted the age of the earth to be between twenty and forty million years4 ,george ,darwin estimates the separation of the moon from the earth as having taken place some fifty-six million years ago4 ,gekie estimated the existence of the solid crust of the earth as at most hundred million years4 ,joly1 by calculating the amount of dissolved salts1 and ,dubois by the amount of lime1 estimated the age of the rivers1 ,joly giving as probable fifty-five and ,dubois thirty-six millions of years4 8,all in all10 concludes ,de,vries1 8it seems evident that the duration of life does not comply with the demands of the conception of very slow and continuous evolution40 ,mutation1 with its sudden leaps1 has no such difficulty1 and1--8,the demands of the biologists and the results of the physicists are harmonized on the ground of the theory of mutation40 ,in order properly to estimate the sociological significance of ,de,vries' theory it will be necessary to go back more than a century1 and observe the sociological import of the leading biological ideas of that period4 ,and here let us remark1 that nobody knows better than we do the danger of transplanting1 without criticism1 biological theories into the field of sociology4 ,nevertheless1 our opponents have never lost an opportunity to twist and distort science1 if perchance by any possibility it could be made to contradict anything that had so much as the semblance of ,socialism4 ,we1 however1 have always insisted on the weakness of reasoning by mere analogy and have kept to those general laws which have been worked out separately in sociology4 ,the principle now about to be applied belongs to this latter class4 ,it is the most luminous principle ever employed in the interpretation of the phenomena of society4 ,this principle is that the intellectual life of a people is determined by its mode of wealth production and the social classes arising therefrom4 ,jean ,lamarck1 the first great modern apostle of evolution1 died in poverty because he advocated a theory that appeared to contradict the interests of the ruling class of his time4 ,he had against him all that survived of feudal interests1 which was intensely theological1 and although his theory really favored the bourgeoisie1 that class was not yet aware of it4 ,cuvier was the lion of that day1 for he managed the remarkable feat of adapting science to the ideas1 not only of the increasing bourgeoisie1 but also of the diminishing feudal power4 ,he pleased the feudal regime1 such of it as remained1 by denying evolution1 and endorsing its theology4 ,this made his theories welcome also among those shrewd early capitalists1 as the ,english1 who realized more quickly than their fellows1 that religious belief might constitute as great a prop for one ruling class at it had already been for another4 ,but in his capacity of scientific reflection of the class interest of his masters1 ,cuvier's masterpiece was his 8cataclysmic theory40 ,according to this theory1 organisms were not the result of evolution1 but they were now just as when they issued from the hands of the ,creator4 ,the difference between existing forms1 and those creatures whose story is preserved in the rocks1 was explained by a series of cataclysms or catastrophes by which1 at certain widely separated periods1 all living forms were destroyed1 and a completely new stock was created to take their places4 ,it would be impossible to conceive a better scientific justification of the ,french revolution than ,cuvier's theory presented4 ,for many decades before that event these rising commercialists had groaned under the yoke of feudal dues and feudal restraints of trade4 ,nothing could be more to their wishes than a sudden social 8cataclysm0 that would destroy the feudal system with its trade despising and plundering nobility1 and exalt its own trading class to fill the vacancy4 ,and when this had been accomplished1 and that same nobility had been sent to the guillotine1 it was great consolation to have on ,cuvier's authority1 that this method of sudden violence had no less a precedent than the methods of the ,almighty in suddenly destroying the living things in his own universe4 ,cuvier's theory however1 almost died with him1 for the violent desires of the bourgeoisie were short lived4 ,when it realized the completeness of its own victory1 and that the next 8cataclysm0 would mean its own overthrow and the enthronement of some successor1 cataclysms lost favor and were frowned down4 ,preachers of sudden and violent changes were now regarded as the enemies of society1 and ,cuvier's once lauded theory of cataclysms was sneered at as a relic of the dark ages4 ,what the capitalist class wanted now was peace1 and long life1 and above all1 no disturbances4 ,and it was just at this point that ,darwin came forward with a theory that seemed made to order4 ,true this theory spoke of evolution and change1 but the change was so slow it was impossible to notice it4 ,a million years was as ten minutes to this theory1 and if it took as long for one class in society to displace another1 or for one social regime to succeed another1 as it does for one species to develop from another1 the capitalists and their heirs had nothing to apprehend for a thousand generations4 ,there was nothing sudden about this theory1 quite the contrary4 ,in fact the real difficulty was to see how anything managed to change at all4 ,as for that part of it which spoke of the survival of the fittest1 what could be clearer than that these self-made men were themselves the fittest4 ,it was1 of course equally clear that the degraded working class1 lacking the cleverness to rise1 was destined to be eliminated as unfit1 by the laws of nature4 ,for half a century this argument of slow evolution has done valiant service as an antidote for ,socialism1 and the present ruling class would like to retain it forever4 ,but no ruling class ever was or ever can be wholly omnipotent4 ,the capitalists of to-day can no more hinder the process of social evolution1 with its resulting march of ideas1 than they can intercept gravitation or divert the tides4 ,they are being driven blindly to their fate by social forces which are beyond their command4 ,they are in the midst of social powers which mock their puny efforts to administer4 ,contradictions arise which cannot continue4 ,as soon as a capitalist country is over-stocked with wealth1 poverty prepares to stalk abroad4 ,but amid all this confusion1 something moves on1 a something which we sometimes call the spirit of the age4 ,society grows restless and instinctively anticipates a coming change4 ,a new class rises into prominence and begins to realize its strength and develop its intelligence4 ,the ruling class still proclaims its will1 but cannot always execute it4 ,colorado1 ,idaho1 and ,haywood are proof of that4 ,the mental development of this new class has reached the point where it has become an intellectual factor in the national life4 ,its voice is listened to by publishers of books4 ,it establishes its own press4 ,it publishes a literature of its own4 ,it creates its own platform4 ,it reaches into the future and demands control of its own destiny4 ,and now see how all this is reflected in the scientific world4 ,it is no longer true that species require thousands of years for the simplest change4 ,we are now informed that change takes place by sudden leaps4 ,at one single step a new species appears and begins its existence4 ,there is therefore1 no longer anything in biological science to contradict the ,socialist position that a new society may be born of a sudden revolution4 ,mutation1 the savants tell us1 runs in periods1 alternating with periods of apparent stability4 ,then if we are not supported we are at any rate not contradicted1 when we assert that in social development1 periods of economic evolution1 with apparent social stability1 are followed by periods of social revolution when the entire social superstructure is transformed4 ,it is no longer necessary to assume countless millions of years for the evolution of living forms4 ,a plant enjoys a period of apparent stability1 then it reaches a point where it 8explodes0 and gives birth to new species4 ,if a plant1 why not a society8 ,at least there is nothing in the example of the plant that will furnish an argument against such an idea4 ,if the history of biological science for the last half a century were to be written by a ,socialist1 who had no scruples about wresting the record so as to support his ,socialist theories1 he would have nothing to gain by changing a single line4 ,there is nothing in that history to contradict us when we assert the probability or the certainty1 of a social revolution4 ,who1 that looks about him1 can fail to see that death is plainly branded in the brow of the existing social order8 ,its legal1 political1 and financial institutions are tied together with rotten thread4 ,it is already outliving its usefulness1 and when it goes it will have few mourners4 ,but millions will hail with joy that social mutation which will kindle the fires of human liberty1 and create1 if not a new ,heaven1 at least1 a new earth4 ,,vi4 ,,kropotkin',s 8,,mutual ,,aid40 ,lamarck was the first to present the theory of ,evolution in a thoroughly scientific manner4 ,then ,darwin discovered 8the great principle which rules the evolution of organisms02 the principle of 8natural selection40 ,then ,weismann repudiated current ideas as to how the fittest 8arrived10 or 8originated10 and presented in their place a theory of his own1 which is still under discussion4 ,de,vries raised the question as to whether new species 8arrive0 by a gradual accumulation of tiny changes1 or by sudden leaps--mutations--and demonstrated the latter by his experiments with the evening primrose4 ,and now comes ,kropotkin with the question1 8,who are the fittest80 ,what constitutes the fitness1 which makes for survival8 ,are those organisms the fittest which are constantly waging a war of extermination against every other organism in the struggle for existence1 or1 are those the fittest which co-operate with each other in the preservation of the common life of all8 ,the raising of this question brings to light another striking instance of the influence of class interests on scientific thought4 ,it is a matter of common observation that any class1 struggling for what it conceives to be its own emancipation1 looks to the past for justification and precedent4 ,in the ,english speaking world there is a widely prevailing opinion that the ,magna ,charta1 extorted from ,king ,john at ,runnymede1 is the foundation of modern liberty4 ,the ,french bourgeoisie1 struggling to overthrow the feudal monarchy1 sought its justification in that 8state of nature0 which a despotic monarchy was said to contravene4 ,thus writers like ,rousseau idealized nature1 representing it as comparatively perfect1 and declared that a restoration of 8natural rights0 was essential to liberty4 ,but when this same bourgeoisie had won its victory and enthroned itself1 and instead of increasing the liberty1 had in many respects1 deepened the degradation of the mass of the ,french people1 its ideas about the 8state of nature0 underwent a radical change4 ,and this happened not only in ,france but wherever the bourgeoisie triumphed4 ,now the 8state of nature0 was one of constant carnage2 nature was 8red in tooth and claw40 ,and this chamber of horrors was supposed to support the exploitation of labor1 and countenance a brutalization of childhood that constitutes the blackest stain on human history4 ,so strong was the swirl that ,huxley was swept into it2 but1 although he maintained the 8gladiatorial0 view of nature1 he repudiated the social atrocities which capitalist apologists such as ,spencer sought to deduce from it4 ,in later years1 ,spencer partially abandoned his premise as to the animal world but1 strangely enough1 kept it intact for primitive man4 ,for this view of nature as full of nothing but darkness and cruelty1 where1 as ,hobbes had put it1 there waged 8the war of every one against everybody10 the great authority of ,darwin was invoked4 ,in fact1 ,darwin was supposed to be almost solely responsible for the theory1 and its overthrow by ,kropotkin was heralded by the uninformed as another of those 8death-blows0 of which ,darwinism is thought to have received so many during the last quarter of a century4 ,kropotkin1 however1 in his introduction1 claims that the idea of mutual aid is 8in reality1 nothing but a further development of the ideas expressed by ,darwin in the #8,descent of ,man'04 ,darwin said3 8,those communities which included the greatest number of sympathetic members would flourish best1 and rear the greatest number of offspring40 ,kropotkin complains that ,darwin did not sufficiently develop this idea1 but over-emphasized the idea of 8competition0 for life1 and this error1 he insists1 was further accentuated by his disciples4 8,it happened with ,darwin's theory10 he says1 8as it always happens with theories having any bearing upon human relations4 ,instead of widening it according to his own hints1 his followers narrowed it still more40 ,it is a mistake to suppose that ,kropotkin denies the ,darwinian principle of mutual struggle4 8,it is evident10 says he1 8that no review of evolution can be complete unless these two dominant currents are analyzed4 99 99 99 ,the struggles between these two forces make1 in fact1 the substance of history40 ,he anticipates the objection that his work only emphasizes the principle of mutual aid by insisting that the principle of struggle has 8already been analyzed1 described1 and glorified from time immemorial4 ,in fact1 up to the present time1 this current alone has received attention from the epical poet1 the annalist1 the historian1 and the sociologist40 ,the main body of his book is a solid mass of evidence of the existence of mutual aid everywhere in the living world1 from the lowest insects to the highest mammals2 and from the first stone age to the twentieth century4 ,it consists of eight chapters1 the first two of which are devoted to 8,mutual ,aid among ,animals40 ,here1 the theory of the human origin of society is utterly demolished4 ,complex social arrangements1 popularly supposed to be limited to ants and bees1 are shown to flourish everywhere1 especially among birds4 ,with the parrot mutual aid is developed to such an extent that ,kropotkin places it 8at the very top of the whole feathered world for the development of its intelligence40 ,the white cockatoos of ,australia1 in raiding a crop1 mutually aid each other so shrewdly as to 8baffle all stratagems0 to thwart them4 8,before starting to plunder a cornfield1 they first send out a reconnoitering party which occupies the highest trees in the vicinity of the field1 while other scouts perch upon the intermediate trees between the field and the forest and transmit signals4 ,if the report runs #8all right1' a score of cockatoos will separate from the bulk of the band1 take a flight in the air1 and then fly towards the trees nearest to the field4 ,they also will scrutinize the neighborhood for a long while1 and only then will give the signal for general advance1 after which the whole band starts at once and plunders the field in no time40 ,mutual aid is very conspicuous among pelicans4 8,they always go fishing in numerous bands and after having chosen an appropriate bay1 they form a wide half circle in face of the shore1 and narrow it by paddling towards the shore1 catching all the fish that happen to be enclosed in the circle4 ,on narrow rivers and canals they even divide into two parties1 each of which draws up on a half circle1 and both paddle to meet each other1 just as if two parties of men dragging two long nets should advance to capture all the fish taken between the nets when both parties come to meet40 ,our familiar friend1 the house sparrow1 is not overlooked and is said to have practiced mutual aid to such an extent as to be recognized even by the ancient ,greeks4 ,kropotkin quotes from memory1 the ,greek ,orator who exclaimed3 8,while ,i am speaking to you a sparrow has come to tell other sparrows that a slave has dropped on the floor a sack of corn1 and they all go there to feed on the grain40 ,sparrows also maintain social discipline3 8,if a lazy sparrow intends appropriating the nest a comrade is building1 or even steals from it a few sprays of straw1 the group interferes against the lazy comrade40 ,kropotkin presents a number of well authenticated observations of the great compassion and sympathy prevailing among those wild creatures1 which are popularly supposed to be always flying at each others' throats3 ,j4 ,c4 ,woods' narrative 8of a weasel which came to pick up and carry away an injured comrade20 ,brehm1 who 8himself saw two crows feeding in a hollow tree a third crow which had a wound several weeks old40 ,captain ,stansbury1 on his journey to ,utah1 as quoted by ,darwin1 8saw a blind pelican which was fed1 and well fed1 by other pelicans upon fishes which had to be brought a distance of thirty miles40 ,from these and a multitude of similar cases ,kropotkin concludes that while 8no naturalist will doubt that the idea of a struggle for life1 carried on through organic nature1 is the greatest generalization of our century1 that struggle is very often collective1 against adverse circumstances40 ,kropotkin in concluding his consideration of animals1 immensely strengthens his position by pointing out various methods by which new species may develop or old ones disappear1 without the operation of a deadly competition between individuals4 8,the squirrels1 for instance1 when there is a scarcity of cones in the larch forests1 remove to the fir-tree forests1 and this change of food has certain well known physiological effects on squirrels4 ,if this change of habits does not last--if next year the cones are again plentiful in the dark larch wood--no new variety of squirrels will evidently arise from this cause4 ,but if part of the wide area occupied by the squirrels begins to have its physical characters altered--in consequence of1 let us say1 a milder climate or desiccation1 7drying up7 which both bring about an increase of the pine forests in proportion to the larch woods--and if some other conditions occur to induce squirrels to dwell on the outskirts of the desiccating region--we shall then have a new1 i4 e41 an incipient new species of squirrels4 ,a larger proportion of squirrels of the new1 better-adapted variety would survive each year1 and the intermediate links would die in the course of time1 without having been starved out by ,malthusian competitors40 ,again3 8,if we take the horses and cattle which are grazing all the winter through in the ,steppes of ,transbaikalia1 we find them very lean and exhausted at the end of the winter4 ,but they grow exhausted not because there is not enough food for all of them--the grass buried under a thin sheet of snow is everywhere in abundance--but because of the difficulty of getting it from beneath the snow and this difficulty is the same for all horses alike4 99 99 99 ,we can safely say that their number are not kept down by competition2 that at no time of the year they need struggle1 for food and that if they never reach anything1 approaching over-population1 the cause is in the climate1 and not in competition40 ,after citing the rodents that combine to store food for the winter1 or fall asleep about the time competition should set in2 and the buffaloes which form immense herds to migrate across a continent to where food is plentiful2 and beavers1 which when they grow numerous1 divide into two parties1 and go1 the old ones down the river1 and the young ones up the river and avoid competition2 after citing these and many others1 he declares the mandate of nature to be3 8,don't compete6--competition is always injurious to the species1 and you have plenty of resources to avoid it6 99 99 99 ,therefore combine--practice mutual aid6 ,that is the surest means for giving to each and to all the greatest safety1 the best guarantee of existence and progress1 bodily1 intellectually1 and morally40 ,the third chapter deals with 8,mutual ,aid ,among ,savages40 ,here we meet the question as to whether the family is an ancient institution1 antedating the tribe and clan or whether it appeared at a much later date as an outgrowth of the clan4 ,kropotkin takes the latter view as advocated by ,morgan1 ,bachofen1 ,maine1 ,lubbock and ,tylor1 and rejects the former as presented by ,starcke and ,westermarck4 ,the savage of anthropological research is shown to be a very different creature from the blood-thirsty monster of popular tradition4 8,sometimes he is a cannibal1 it is true1 but not often1 and then it is closely associated with economic necessity1 and is abandoned when food becomes plentiful40 ,the custom of leaving old men in the woods to die1 is bad enough1 but not so bad as supposed4 ,they usually carry the old man with them in their migrations until he himself grows tired of being a burden and begs to be killed4 ,when this point is reached1 he is given more than his share of food1 and left in the woods to die1 because no one has the heart to kill him4 ,infanticide is practiced from the same motive which induces savages to take all kinds of measures for diminishing the birth-rate--they cannot rear all of their children4 ,in times of plenty it disappears4 ,it was when these customs were enveloped in a religious halo and preserved as sacred ceremonies1 after all necessity for them had disappeared1 that they attained their most revolting characters4 ,he believed in revenge but it was to be strictly measured by the offense4 ,it must be an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth2 not a head for an eye1 or an eye for a tooth4 ,he only killed his enemies1 and he always1 at all costs1 defended the members of his own tribe4 8,within the tribe everything is shared in common2 every morsel of food is divided among all present2 and if the savage is alone in the woods1 he does not begin his meal until he has loudly shouted thrice an invitation to any one who may hear his voice to share his meal40444 8,if he infringes one of the smaller tribal rules1 he is prosecuted by the mockeries of the women40 8,when he enters his neighbors' territory he must loudly announce his coming1 and if he enters a house he must deposit his hatchet at the entrance4 ,if one shows greediness when spoil is divided all the others give him their share to shame him40 ,scolding and scorning are greatly condemned4 ,their children are not very quarrelsome and very rarely fight4 ,the most they may say1 is1 8,your mother does not know sewing10 or 8,your father is blind of one eye40 ,the savage identified his interests with those of his tribe2 he was no individualist1 and under no circumstances would he have consented to child labor4 ,when we reach the barbarians1 who are considered in the fourth chapter1 we enter the historical period4 ,at first sight1 mutual aid seems to be non-existent at this period4 ,here there seems to be nothing but battle and bloodshed4 ,but the reason is not far to seek2 it is because1 until recently historians regaled us exclusively with what has been aptly called1 8drum and trumpet history40 8,they hand down to posterity the most minute descriptions of every war1 every battle and skirmish1 every contest and act of violence1 every kind of individual suffering2 but they hardly give any trace of the countless acts of mutual support and devotion which every one of us knows from his own experience 99 99 99 ,the annalists of old never failed to chronicle the petty wars and calamities which harrassed their contemporaries but they paid no attention whatever to the life of the masses1 although the masses chiefly used to toil peacefully while the few indulged in fighting40 ,but ,sir ,henry ,maine in his work on the 8,origin of ,international ,law10 has fully proved that 8,man has never been so ferocious or so stupid as to submit to such an evil as war without some kind of an effort to prevent it40 ,and he has shown how exceedingly great is 8the number of ancient institutions which bear the marks of a design to stand in the way of war1 or to provide an alternative to it40 ,a pregnant suggestion is offered as to the causes of that great migration of barbarians which resulted in the overthrow of the ,roman empire4 8,it is desiccation1 a quite recent desiccation continued still at a speed which we formerly were not prepared to admit4 ,against it man was powerless4 ,when the inhabitants of ,north-,west ,mongolia and ,east ,turkestan saw that water was abandoning them they had no course open to them but to move down the broad valleys leading to the lowlands1 and to thrust westward the inhabitants of the plains40 ,and so the one great war recorded of the barbarians1 was thrust upon them by absolute physical necessity4 ,the barbarians had no social problem1 for that private property in the means of life which constitutes the foundation of modern individualism1 and from which the degradation and poverty of modern civilization results1 was unknown among them4 ,they were communists4 ,the interest of one was the care of all4 ,nothing was owned privately until it reached the very point of consumption and not always then1 as food was largely eaten at communal meals4 ,this social form still survives especially in ,russia1 and ,kropotkin says3 8,the sight of a ,russian commune mowing a meadow--the men rivalling each other in their advance with the scythe1 while the women turn the grass over and throw it up into heaps--is one of the most inspiring sights2 it shows what human work might be and ought to be4 ,the hay1 in such case1 is divided among the separate households1 and it is evident that no one has the right of taking hay from a neighbor's stack without his permission2 but the limitation of this last rule among the ,caucasian ,ossetes is most noteworthy4 ,when the cuckoo cries and announces that spring is coming1 and that the meadows will soon be clothed again with grass1 every one in need has the right of taking from a neighbor's stack the hay he wants for his cattle4 ,the old communal rights are thus reasserted1 as if to prove how contrary unbridled individualism is to human nature40 ,when the early ,christians 8had all things in common10 they were not reaching forward to modern ,socialism2 they were harking back to this primitive communism which shed its joy and plenty on the sons and daughters of men for a thousand generations4 ,these barbarian communists were thorough democrats1 and their folkmotes1 where everybody gathered and had their say1 were the only semblance of government they possessed1 and so thoroughly were its decisions respected that no officers were needed to enforce them4 ,they were also our superiors not only in refusing to work their children1 but also in scorning to beat them4 ,they said3 8,the body of the child reddens from the stroke1 but the face of him who strikes reddens from shame40 ,the two chapters on 8,mutual ,aid in the ,medieval ,city0 treat the guild as the chief manifestation of the principle during this period4 ,a picture is presented1 in some detail of the struggle of the free cities against the increasing encroachments of the centralizing states4 ,the medieval cities are finally defeated1 the guilds destroyed1 but the indestructible principle of mutual aid takes on new forms and accommodates itself to new conditions4 ,this brings us to the closing chapters on 8,mutual ,aid ,among ,ourselves40 ,the first of these two chapters is devoted almost entirely to the mutual aid habits and institutions which still survive in the present day villages of ,russia1 ,switzerland1 ,france and ,germany4 ,the last chapter takes up really modern instances of the principle1 the first and most important are the ,labor unions and their strikes1 ,co-operative societies1 ,life-boat associations1 ,charitable organizations4 ,the illustration of this principle which is cited first after the ,labor union is the ,socialist movement4 ,kropotkin presents his conception of the ,socialist movement as a manifestation of mutual aid in existing society in the following eloquent passage3 8,every experienced politician knows that all great political movements were fought upon large and often distant issues1 and that those of them were the strongest which provoked most disinterested enthusiasm4 ,all great historical movements have had this character1 and for our own generation ,socialism stands in that case4 #8,paid agitators1' is1 no doubt1 the favorite refrain of those who know nothing about it4 ,the truth however1 is that--to speak only of what ,i know personally--if ,i had kept a diary for the last twenty-four years1 the reader of such a diary would have had the word #8heroism' constantly on his lips4 ,but the men ,i would have spoken of were not heroes2 they were average men1 inspired by a grand idea4 ,every ,socialist newspaper--and there are hundreds of them in ,europe alone--has the same history of years of sacrifice without any hope of reward1 and1 in the overwhelming majority of cases1 even without any personal ambition4 ,i have seen families living without knowing what would be their food tomorrow1 the husband boycotted all round in his little town for his part in the paper1 and the wife supporting the family by sewing1 and such a situation lasting for years1 until the family would retire1 without a word of reproach1 simply saying3 #8,continue2 we can hold out no more6' ,i have seen men1 dying from consumption1 and knowing it1 and yet knocking about in snow and fog to prepare meetings within a few weeks from death1 and only then retiring to the hospital with the words3 #8,now friends ,i am done2 the doctors say ,i have but a few weeks to live4 ,tell the comrades ,i shall be happy if they come to see me4' ,i have seen facts that would be described as #8idealization' if ,i told them in this place2 and the very names of these men1 hardly known outside a narrow circle of friends1 will soon be forgotten when the friends too have passed away4 ,in fact1 ,i don't know myself which most to admire1 the unbounded devotion of these few or the sum total of petty acts of devotion of the great number4 ,every quire of a penny paper sold1 every meeting1 every hundred votes which are won at a ,socialist election1 represent an amount of energy and sacrifices of which no outsider has the faintest idea4 ,and what is now done by ,socialists has been done by every popular and advanced party1 political and religious1 in the past4 ,all past progress has been promoted by like men and by a like devotion40 ,,vii4 ,a ,,reply ,,to ,,haeckel4 ,the revolt against 8authority0 has been carried to ridiculous extremes4 ,the ,manchester school individualist1 ,herbert ,spencer1 and the metaphysical egoist1 ,max ,stirner1 would alike agree to the reduction of all authority to the smallest possible residue4 ,the most reckless of their disciples1 having shut out from their thoughts all communication with the world of reality1 would make it impossible for six men to pull effectively on a rope because five of them would be obliged to recognize the authority of the sixth1 when he1 at the proper moment1 should call 8,heave1 ho40 ,to thinkers of this order1 music would be impossible4 ,who could imagine a radical individualist bowing to a waved stick and recognizing the highly centralized authority of the 8leader40 ,the music of the logical1 authority-repudiating individualist1 would be the haphazard beating of the tom-tom of the ,east ,indian1 and not the highly regulated strains of a modern orchestra4 ,this folly is equalled1 if not out-done1 by those who refuse to recognize authority in science and thought4 ,when a man claims to have a new and fundamental discovery in astronomy1 and at the same time speaks slightingly of the researches of physicists such as ,newton1 ,kant1 and ,laplace1 it is fairly safe to conclude that you are listening to a fool who has nothing to say worthy of a second thought4 ,not until one has trodden every rung of the ladder which has been previously trodden1 is he able to mount a step higher4 ,and it is the performance of this task1 wholly1 or at least in the first part1 that constitutes the one so doing an 8authority40 ,how often does one hear an addle-brained1 know-nothing say3 8,i recognize no authority2 ,i think for myself40 ,how shall one think without ideas8 ,and how is it possible to obtain ideas apart from the acquisition of knowledge8 ,and where can knowledge be obtained except from those who have it8 ,all 8authority0 in science and thought is founded on knowledge of the subject in question4 ,socialists quote ,karl ,marx as an authority on political economy1 because his writings prove that he knew more about the production and distribution of wealth than any man of his century4 ,lavoisier is an authority in chemistry1 because he know more about the composition of substances than any three of his contemporaries4 ,but much confusion has been wrought1 by men of undisputed authority in their own field1 pronouncing positive verdicts in departments where their opinions had no value4 ,what a great composer has to say about the value of a certain note must be respectfully considered as being of importance1 but1 unless he has studied geology1 his opinions on the probable origin or age of the ,rocky ,mountains will have no more value1 and may have less than those of the policeman on the nearest corner4 ,an excellent example of the confusion which may arise in this way1 was given to the world in #ahgg1 at the ,congress of ,naturalists held at ,munich in ,september of that year4 ,at that time the naturalists of ,europe were divided into two opposing camps1 one accepting and the other rejecting the ,darwinian theory of 8natural selection40 ,the leaders of both divisions were ,germans1 though a preponderance of the ,germans favored ,darwin1 whilst the ,french1 still under the influence of1 or agreeing with1 ,flourens1 although he had been dead a decade1 were almost unanimously opposed4 ,the honors of leading the fight for ,darwinism1 at the ,munich ,congress1 fell to ,haeckel1 and on the #ahth of ,september he threw down the gage in a brilliant address in which he defended the ideas of the great ,englishman4 ,haeckel also advocated the teaching of evolution in the schools4 ,the battle raged back and forth between the two armies1 until ,virchow1 the great pathologist1 dropped a bombshell in the ,congress by boldly asserting3 8,darwinism leads directly to ,socialism40 ,here biological arguments ceased4 ,the only thing in order was to clear the skirts of ,darwinism of the terrible charge of being socialistic4 ,of course this task fell to ,haeckel1 and he was loyally assisted by ,oscar ,schmidt4 ,writing in 8,ausland0 two months later ,schmidt said3 8,if the ,socialists were prudent they would do their utmost to kill by silent neglect1 the theory of descent1 for that theory most emphatically proclaims that the ,socialist ideas are impracticable40 ,haeckel replied to ,virchow at some length1 and as that reply is rather difficult to obtain ,i will give it here in full as quoted by ,ferri1 and translated by ,robert ,rives ,la ,monte3 8,as a matter of fact1 there is no scientific doctrine which proclaims more openly than the theory of descent1 that the equality of individuals1 toward which ,socialism tends1 is an impossibility1 that this chimerical equality is in absolute contradiction with the necessary and1 in fact1 universal inequality of individuals4 8,socialism demands for all citizens equal rights1 equal duties1 equal possessions and equal enjoyments2 the theory of descent establishes1 on the contrary1 that the realization of these hopes is purely and simply impossible2 that in human societies1 as in animal societies1 neither the rights1 nor the duties1 nor the possessions1 nor the enjoyments of all the members of a society are or ever can be equal4 8,the great law of variation teaches--both in the general theory of evolution and in the smaller field of biology where it becomes the theory of descent--that the variety of phenomena flows from an original unity1 the diversity of functions from a primitive identity1 and the complexity of organization from a primordial simplicity4 ,the conditions of existence for all individuals are1 from their very birth1 unequal4 ,there must also be taken into consideration the inherited qualities and the innate tendencies1 which also vary more or less widely4 ,in view of all this1 how can the work and the reward be equal for all8 8,the more highly the social life is developed1 the more important becomes the great principle of the division of labor1 the more requisite it becomes for the stable existence of the state as a whole that its members should distribute among themselves the multifarious tasks of life1 each performing a single function2 and as the labor which must be performed by the individuals1 as well as the expenditure of strength1 talent1 money1 etc41 which it necessitates1 differs more and more1 it is natural that the remuneration of this labor must also vary widely4 ,these are facts so simple and so obvious that it seems to me every intelligent and enlightened statesman ought to be an advocate of the theory of descent and the general doctrine of evolution as the best antidote for the absurd equalitarian1 utopian notions of the ,socialists4 8,and it was ,darwinism1 the theory of selection1 that ,virchow1 in his denunciation1 had in mind1 rather than the mere metamorphic development1 the theory of descent1 with which it is always confused6 ,darwinism is anything rather than socialistic4 8,if one wishes to attribute a political tendency to this ,english theory--which is quite permissible--this tendency can be nothing but aristocratic2 by no means can it be democratic1 still less socialistic4 8,the theory of selection teaches that in the life of mankind1 as in that of plants and animals1 it is always and everywhere a small and privileged minority alone which succeeds in living and developing itself2 the immense majority1 on the contrary suffer and succumb more or less prematurely4 ,countless are the seeds and eggs of every species of plants and animals1 and the young individuals who issue from them4 ,but the number of those who have the good fortune to reach fully developed maturity and to attain the goal of their existence is relatively insignificant4 8,the cruel and pitiless #8struggle for existence' which rages everywhere through animated nature1 and which in the nature of things must rage1 this eternal and inexorable competition between all living beings is an undeniable fact4 ,only a small picked number of the strongest or fittest is able to come forth victoriously from this battle of competition4 ,the great majority of their unfortunate competitors are inevitably destined to perish4 ,it is well enough to deplore this tragic fatality1 but one cannot deny or change it4 #8,many are called1 but few are chosen6' 8,the selection1 the #8election' of these #8elect' is by absolute necessity bound up with the rejection or destruction of the vast multitude of beings whom they survived4 ,and so another learned ,englishman has called the fundamental principle of ,darwinism #8the survival of the fittest1 the victory of the best4' 8,at all events the principle of selection is not in the slightest degree democratic2 it is1 on the contrary1 thoroughly aristocratic4 ,if then1 ,darwinism1 carried out to its ultimate logical consequences1 has1 according to ,virchow1 for the statesman #8an extraordinarily dangerous side' the danger is doubtless that it favors aristocratic aspirations40 ,and now let us turn to the closing pages of the second volume of ,haeckel's valuable work1 8,the ,history of ,creation40 ,we shall find it interesting and instructive to observe the nature of the argument which he there uses with great effect against ,virchow4 ,virchow had delivered his celebrated address at ,berlin1 which closed as follows3 8,it is absolutely certain that ,man is not descended from apes40 ,haeckel takes this up1 gives a resum of the facts known to zoology on this point1 and then winds up with the following3 8,in view of this state of affairs1 we zoologists1 recognized as authorities on the subject1 may surely ask1 ,how can many so-called anthropologists still maintain that there exists no sort of actual proofs of the #8,derivation of ,man from ,apes'8 ,how can ,virchow1 ,ranke1 and others1 who are not zoologists1 in the speeches they annually deliver at anthropological and other congresses1 continue to declare that this #8,pithecoid thesis' is an empty hypothesis1 an unproved assertion1 and a mere dream of the philosophers of nature8 ,how can these anthropologists still continue to ask for #8certain proofs' of this thesis when proofs with all the clearness that could be desired lie before them1 and are unanimously recognized by all zoologists8 ,as regards ,virchow's often quoted declarations against the ,pithecoid thesis1 they have obtained great favor in wide circles1 only because of the high authority this famous naturalist enjoys in an entirely different domain of science4 ,his #8cellular pathology1' his ingenious application of the cell-theory to the whole province of medicine1 introduced a grand advance in that branch of science thirty years ago4 ,this great and lasting service rendered by him has1 however1 no connection whatever with the unyielding and negative position which1 unfortunately1 ,virchow persists in assuming towards the doctrine of evolution40 ,it probably never occurred to ,haeckel that the argument which he here uses to meet ,virchow's opposition to evolution1 would serve quite as effectively as a reply to his own opposition to ,socialism4 ,as regards ,haeckel's 8often quoted declarations against0 ,socialism1 8they have obtained great favor in wide circles1 only because of the high authority which this famous naturalist enjoys in an entirely different domain of science4 ,his biogenetic principle1 discovered in embryology1 8introduced a grand advance in that science thirty years ago4 ,this great and lasting service rendered by him has1 however no connection whatever with the unyielding and negative position which1 unfortunately10 ,haeckel 8persists in assuming towards the doctrine of0 ,socialism4 ,haeckel's complaint that ,virchow could not judge the merits of evolution because he was not a zoologist1 is well taken4 ,but the ,socialist has as good or better right to assert that ,haeckel was incapable of estimating the relationship of ,socialism to ,darwinism1 for he certainly knew a good deal less about ,socialism than ,virchow knew of zoology4 ,this is precisely the trouble with ,haeckel's criticism of what he calls ,socialism4 ,of the theories of ,karl ,marx and the modern scientific ,socialists1 he knew absolutely nothing4 ,the ,socialism he condemned had been abandoned by the ,socialists themselves1 nearly thirty years before his criticism was made4 8,absurd equalitarian notions10 granted2 but they were not even the sole property of the utopian ,socialists4 ,they borrowed them from the bourgeois revolutionists of #aghi4 ,it was they who boasted of the equality they would set up4 ,that equality1 which1 as ,engels says1 only 8materialized in bourgeois equality before the law40--8,the equality before the law of all commodity-owners40 ,it was this struggling bourgeoisie that adopted as its catch-words1 8liberty1 fraternity1 equality10 and applied them to a typical bourgeois use when they inscribed them above the entrances to ,french prisons4 ,a significant clause in the second sentence of ,haeckel's criticism is1 8in human societies as in animal societies10 the duties1 etc41 of the members cannot be 8equal40 ,the only possible point this could have as a criticism of ,socialism1 would be its use to deny the possibility of abolishing social class divisions4 ,there is nothing to show whether ,haeckel intended it to have such a specific application1 but as any other application it might have could be in no way opposed to the ,socialist position1 ,i need only show its failure in that regard4 8,bee0 society may be said to have class divisions1 and it must be conceded that these classes cannot be abolished by anything that could1 by any stretch of the imagination1 be called 8bee socialism40 ,but the reason for this is not far to seek and1 when found1 it makes any argument by analogy1 against ,socialism1 impossible4 ,bee workers are 8physiologically0 incapable of discharging any other function in bee society4 ,they are females1 incapable of maternity4 ,as a result of this the queen bee is obliged to shoulder the whole burden of the reproduction of the species1 and she is specialized in this direction to such an extent1 that she could not possibly be a worker4 ,the drone1 as the male breeder1 is in the same fix1 and the popular notion that they are useless loafers1 has its origin in the bee custom of applying the boot1 or something worse1 to all superfluous members of the drone class4 8,a hive of bees10 says ,prof4 ,huxley1 8is an organic polity1 a society in which the part played by each member is determined by organic necessities4 ,queens1 workers1 and drones are1 so to speak1 castes divided from one another by marked physical barriers40 ,says ,ernest ,untermann in his fine chapter on this question1 in 8,marxian ,economics03 8,every textbook on natural history describes the different orders4 ,for instance1 the societies of bees are #8monarchies'1 those of ants #8republics'4 ,but in either case1 biological variation determines the form of these societies4 ,queen bees1 drones1 and workers are of organically different structure and equipped with different specialized organs4 ,the queen bee is equipped only for the duties of conception and the laying of eggs4 ,the drone cannot perform any other function but that of fertilizing the queen4 ,the worker alone has organs for gathering flower dust1 honey1 and manufacturing wax40 ,class divisions in bee society are therefore 8biological0 and not economic4 ,but ,haeckel's comparison ignores this vital distinction4 ,before this argument can be used against the ,socialist advocacy of class abolition1 it must be shown that a queen cannot wash clothes with starvation as an alternative1 and that a pleb woman could not wear a coronet1 should her father invest in a busted duke4 ,true there are other animal societies which have no such biological division4 ,but these have no private property in the means of life1 and therefore no classes4 ,pelicans and crows recognize only three grounds as justification for idleness--infancy1 old age and sickness or accident4 ,a recent ,socialist writer said3 8,take two babies together--the worker's baby and the parasite's baby4 ,there they are1 both of them1 out of the great mystery4 ,examine their soft little bodies4 ,do you see spurs on the one and a saddle on the other8 ,and yet1 one is to grow up a profligate loafer1 and the other a starved and beaten worker4 ,one to rot at the top2 the other to be stunted and oppressed at the bottom40 ,of course these two babies would not be equal1 either actually or potentially1 but is that any reason why they should be given an unequal start8 ,how are we to find out which is the best in any sense1 if a multitude of opportunities open to the one are to be closed to the other8 ,and here ,haeckel's implied parallel breaks down once more4 ,in nature the strong and capable survive in the struggle for existence2 nature gives something like a fair field and no favor4 ,but in capitalist society1 a puling son of a rich father is coddled to maturity1 and reproduces others of his kind2 while the lusty child of a worker is murdered by poisonous milk1 or debarred from marriage by low wages4 ,in nature1 8fittest0 does not mean best in any moral sense1 except indirectly1 as that the practice of certain moral principles in animal societies may constitute1 or add to1 fitness4 ,but in present society in a vast number of instances1 fitness does not mean 8best0 even to the extent that such a word may be used in the natural world4 ,a real estate 8shark0 is a libel on the fish4 ,an indispensable qualification in business is to have few scruples and be a first-class liar4 ,honesty and suicide are synonymous terms4 ,the statement that natural selection 8favors aristocratic aspirations10 involves the same fallacy4 ,it assumes that aristocrats are on top because of fitness to be there4 ,recent revelations in ,berlin indicate that the aristocrats of ,haeckel's own country are 8fittest0 for the garbage can4 ,haeckel's main position is that 8the struggle for existence0 in nature is a justification for 8competition0 in society4 ,to begin with1 ,kropotkin has shown that ,haeckel grossly misrepresents nature when he speaks of 8the cruel1 pitiless #8struggle for existence' which rages everywhere throughout animated nature0 and 8between all living beings40 ,when this is used as a defense of present society1 it is equal to saying that human society should seek its models among the lowest forms of organic life rather than the highest4 ,haeckel's position was taken by ,spencer and received the following clever reply from ,prof4 ,ritchie3 8,the struggle among plants and the lower animals is mainly between members of the same species2 and the individual competition between human beings1 which is so much admired by ,mr4 ,spencer1 is of this primitive kind40 ,kropotkin says3 8,if we ask nature #8who are the fittest1 those who are continually at war with each other1 or those who support one another8' we at once see that those animals which acquire habits of mutual aid are undoubtedly the fittest40 ,as to the desirability of that 8pitiless struggle10 ,huxley pertinently says3 8,of all the shapes which society has taken1 that most nearly approaches perfection in which the war of the individual against the individual is most strictly limited40 ,whatever may be the truth among the protozoa1 we are safe in applying to society the statement of ,ruskin3 8,co-operation is always and everywhere the law of life2 competition is always and everywhere the law of death40 ,human society eventually reaches a point of development where nature's haphazard ways are interfered with1 and man arranges means to an end4 ,professor ,schiaparelli thought he saw canals on ,mars1 and inferred intelligent inhabitants4 ,the difference in water-ways1 between blind nature and a designing intelligence1 is the difference between a rambling river and a straight canal4 ,now human society has arrived at a stage where its consciousness of itself and the possibility of self-arrangement1 becomes a factor4 ,this is a tremendous step forward1 and its future possibilities seem to be illimitable4 ,before this can be largely effective1 however1 it will be necessary to thoroughly understand all fundamental social laws4 ,we had no rod to rule the lightning until we knew the laws of its movement4 ,there will be no real airship until we master the laws of aerial flight4 ,socialism solves the social problem1 not because it has1 but because it is1 an explanation of the laws of social development in general1 and of existing society in particular4 ,on these laws our faith is founded4 ,by consciously arranging the social institutions which so profoundly affect our lives1 in harmony with these laws1 we shall cease to be the slaves of a blind necessity4 ,as ,engels has well said3 8,man's social organization1 hitherto confronting him as a necessity imposed by ,nature and history1 now becomes the result of his own free action4 ,the extraneous objective forces1 that have hitherto governed history1 pass under the control of man himself4 ,only from that time will man himself more and more consciously1 make his own history--only from that time will the social causes set in motion by him have1 in the main and in a constantly growing measure1 the results intended by him4 ,it is the ascent of man from the kingdom of necessity to the kingdom of freedom40 ,,viii4 ,,spencer',s 8,,social ,,organism40 ,the crowning generalization of modern thought is that which presents the ,universe as a unity1 inter-related in all its parts4 ,by it1 the defenders of dualism are discredited1 and their theological1 metaphysical philosophy is thrown aside4 ,it is no longer ,god and ,man1 nor even ,man and ,god1 but ,man only1 with ,god an anthropomorphic shadow1 related to man not as his creator1 but as created by him4 ,god and ,man are not 8two10 but in reality 8one40 ,modern science has reversed the order of their appearance1 and also the order of their dependence4 ,that which seemed to our primitive ancestors a living reality1 a separate and independent being1 proves1 when submitted to the tests of anthropology and psychology1 to have been a creature of their own dreams4 ,and thus1 as a result of scientific research into the origin of dualism and the nature of dreams1 as ,professor ,clifford says3 8,the dim and shadowy outline of the superhuman deity fades slowly from before us2 and as the mist of his presence floats aside1 we perceive with greater and greater clearness1 the shape of a yet grander and nobler figure--the figure of him who made all ,gods and shall unmake them4 ,from the dim dawn of history1 and from the inmost depths of every soul1 the face of our father man looks out upon us1 with the fire of eternal youth in his eyes1 and says3 #8,before ,jehovah was1 ,i am4'0 ,the thinker who would expand his intellectual wings in this monistic atmosphere1 must possess not only a 8discriminating0 mind1 but also1 as ,marcus ,hitch suggests1 a 8unifying0 mind4 ,there are two errors he must avoid2 the creation of distinctions that do not exist and the ignoring of distinctions that do4 ,the chief sinner against this first canon of dialectical thinking is our old friend the theologian4 ,when the evolutionary naturalists demonstrated the hopeless untruth of his 8revealed0 legends about the origin of men and things1 he sought refuge in the ingenious theory that these fables while scientifically indefensible were1 notwithstanding1 spiritually true4 ,in short1 scientific truth and spiritual truth were so distinct as to have no vital relations4 ,these 8artful dodgers0 have relieved controversial literature of much of its wonted heaviness and contributed generally to the gaiety of the nations4 ,socialists have always been among the first to enjoy these entertaining performances1 and it seems like divine retribution when these same theological and 8,reverend0 persons tumble over into the ,socialist camp and bring their obsolete methods of thinking with them4 ,they dub themselves 8,christian0 ,socialists and proceed to show that 8,socialism is a philosophy concerning the social and economic life of man1 and not the religious at all40 ,when ,marx declared that political and legal and other social institutions and ideas were the result of economic conditions and class interests1 religious institutions and ideas were1 of course1 exempt4 ,after a mental contortion like that1 what is to prevent a reconciliation between the #agth century twaddle of the methodist pulpit and the materialist conception of history8 ,those who break the second canon given1 are not all theologians4 ,among those who ignore distinctions that do exist1 the biological sociologist is entitled to conspicuous mention4 ,august ,comte1 who 8attempted to make of sociology a sort of transcendental biology10 had at least this excuse that he wrote his positivist philosophy before ,darwin published his 8,origin of ,species0 and1 therefore1 while biology was yet in long clothes and sociology was unborn4 ,although ,comte is generally regarded as the founder of sociology1 these limitations made it impossible to do little more than invent the name and foresee its possibility4 ,these excuses1 however1 can scarcely be invoked for ,haeckel1 who1 as we have already seen1 wholly ignored in his inferences1 fundamental differences between the division of labor in animal societies and that division in human societies4 ,haeckel's biological sociology conveniently overlooks the rather important fact that while a working bee can not by any possibility act as a drone1 the working man has at least no physical disabilities to prevent him from doing anything that pertains to the role of a prince4 ,reasoning by analogy is always dangerous1 especially when the analogy itself breaks down4 ,while it is well to keep these rules in mind1 it must be conceded that their critical application is somewhat limited when we come to ,spencer's famous analogy between animal organisms and human societies4 ,the 8synthetic0 philosopher was much ,haeckel's superior in sociology1 and he possessed an immense fund of biological lore that was unavailable to ,comte writing a quarter of a century earlier4 ,thus ,spencer seems to recognize that his essay on 8,the ,social ,organism0 is largely an ingenious analogy1 from which conclusions must be drawn with caution4 ,not that bourgeois scientists have always exhibited a very scientific temper in this regard4 ,on the contrary they have1 on every possible occasion1 proclaimed that certain alleged truths in physics or biology were in irreconcilable contradiction to certain ,socialist conclusions in sociology4 ,but we may find a key to ,spencer's chariness in the matter of drawing conclusions in the rather surprising fact1 which will appear presently1 that the one legitimate conclusion which the analogy will thoroughly sustain1 is an exact contradiction to all that ,spencer had ever proclaimed on social questions4 ,the essay itself1 like a great deal of ,spencer's writing1 is prolix and wearisome1 so we shall select only his most important and striking comparisons4 ,the introduction is excellent and has for its text ,sir ,james ,mackintosh's great saying--great in his non-evolutionary age though very common-place today--8,constitutions are not made1 but grow40 ,he then declares 8the central idea of ,plato's model republic0 to be 8the correspondence between the parts of a society and the faculties of the human mind40 ,hobbes1 the philosopher of ,malmesbury1 comes next with his celebrated 8,leviathan40 ,hobbes sought to establish a still more definite parallelism2 not1 however between a society and the mind1 but between a society and the human body4 ,hobbes' 8,leviathan0 was the ,commonwealth and he 8carries this comparison so far as to actually give a drawing of the ,leviathan--a vast human-shaped figure1 whose body and limbs are made up of multitudes of men40 ,spencer criticizes these analogies of ,plato and ,hobbes in detail1 but finds the chief error of both writers to consist in the assumption by both 8that the organization of a society is comparable1 not simply to the organization of a living body in general1 but to the organization of a human body in particular4 ,there is no warrant whatever for assuming this4 ,it is in no way implied by the evidence2 and is simply one of those fancies which we commonly find mixed up with the truths of early speculation40 ,but1 insists ,spencer3 8,the untenableness of the particular parallelisms above instanced1 is no ground for denying an essential parallelism2 since early ideas are usually but vague adumbrations of the truth40 ,lacking the great generalizations of biology1 it was1 as we have said1 8impossible to trace out the real relations of special organizations to organizations of another order40 ,therefore he proposes 8to show what are the analogies which modern science discloses40 ,spencer then discovers four points in which an individual organism and a society agree1 and four in which they differ4 ,the points of agreement are3 7#a47 8,that commencing as small aggregations1 they insensibly augment in mass2 some of them eventually reaching ten thousand times what they originally were40 7#b47 8,that while at first so simple in structure as to be considered structureless1 they assume in the course of their growth a continually increasing complexity of structure40 7#c47 8,that though in their early1 undeveloped states1 there exists in them scarcely any mutual dependence of parts1 their parts gradually acquire a mutual dependence2 which becomes at last so great1 that the activity and life of each part is made possible only by the activity and life of the rest40 7#d47 8,that the life of a society is independent of1 and far more prolonged than the lives of any of its component units2 who are severally born1 grow1 work1 reproduce1 and die1 while the body politic composed of them survives generation after generation1 increasing in mass1 in completeness of structure1 and in functional activity40 ,the four points of difference are3 7#a47 8,that societies have no specific external forms40 7#b47 8,that though the living tissue whereof an individual organism consists1 forms a continuous mass1 the living elements of a society do not form a continuous mass2 but are more or less widely dispersed over some portion of the earth's surface40 7#c47 8,that while the ultimate living elements of an individual organism are mostly fixed in their relative positions1 those of the social organism are capable of moving from place to place40 7#d47 8,the last and perhaps the most important distinction is1 that while in the body of an animal only a special tissue is endowed with feeling1 in a society all the members are endowed with feeling40 ,it is worthy of note that1 while ,spencer finds the parallelisms to increase in significance the more they are examined1 the differences tend to break down when they are worked out in detail4 ,the advantage which ,spencer had over ,plato and ,hobbes is very clearly seen in the first and fourth parallelisms1 neither of which could have been made until twenty-one years before1 when in #ahci1 ,theodore ,schwann developed his great theory that the body is an organized society of interconnected cells4 8,the importance of this theory10 says ,professor ,thatcher1 8can hardly be estimated4 ,it gave an entirely new view to animal and vegetable life40 ,at any rate1 it served ,spencer greatly in this essay4 ,the next ten pages are devoted to organic development from the protozoa1 the lowest tiny animal forms1 to crustacea--crabs etc41--which are materially higher in the animal scale4 ,this development is marked by increasing mutual dependence of parts and a growing division of labor4 ,it is compared to the development of society from primitive ,bushmen to the early ,anglo-,saxons1 during which corresponding phenomena are traced4 ,he escapes ,haeckel's blunder at least to the extent of calling the two divisions of labor by their proper names4 ,among animals it is the 8physiological0 division of labor2 in society1 the 8economical0 division of labor4 ,whether he would have been able to still perceive that distinction in dealing with those ant and bee communities where ,haeckel got lost1 there is nothing to show4 ,spencer's middle-class predilections come out strongly1 and a very pretty physiological justification is provided for that wholly admirable section of the community4 ,the first step in the development of an embryo is its division into two main layers of cells--the mucous layer and the serous layer4 ,the mucous layer1 that fine inside skin of the body so to speak1 absorbs nutriment4 ,but that nutriment must be transferred to the serous layer which builds up the nerves and muscles4 ,presently there arises between these two a third--the vascular layer4 ,out of this third layer the chief blood vessels are developed and these vessels serve to transport the nutriment from the inner or mucous layer1 which gathers it1 to the outer or serous layer1 which uses it for the whole organization's upbuilding4 8,well10 says ,spencer1 8may we not trace a parallel step in social progress8 ,between the governing and the governed1 there at first exists no intermediate class2 and even in some societies that have reached considerable size1 there are scarcely any but the nobles and their kindred on the one hand1 and their serfs on the other2 the social structure being such that transfer of commodities takes place directly from slaves to their masters4 ,but in societies of a higher type1 there grows up1 between these two primitive classes1 another--the trading or middle class4 ,equally at first as now1 we may see that1 speaking generally1 this middle class is the analogue of the middle layer in the embryo40 ,it is a pity to disturb this serene complacency1 by pointing out that the real transporters of commodities are not the members of the middle class who1 as a rule1 do little and live well1 but that section of the working class which mans freight trains1 drives teams and shoves trucks4 ,as for that 8higher0 class of cells which receives these commodities and consumes them while usefully engaged in building up the nervous and muscular system2 such comparison could only apply to society's brain workers1 and it contains no justification for the useless parasitic type represented by such charming persons as ,harry ,thaw and ,reggie ,vanderbilt4 ,another very interesting point is ,spencer's physiological vindication of profit4 ,the limbs1 glands1 or other members of an animal are developed by exercise4 ,but in order 8that any organ in a living being may grow by exercise1 there needs to be a due supply of blood40 ,all action implies waste2 blood brings the materials for repair2 and before there can be growth1 the quantity of blood supplied must be more than is requisite for repair4 8,in a society it is the same4 ,if to some district which elaborates for the community particular commodities--say the woolens of ,yorkshire--there comes an augmented demand2 and if in fulfillment of this demand1 a certain expenditure and wear and tear of the manufacturing organization are incurred2 and if1 in payment for the extra quantity of woolens sent away there comes back only such quantity of commodities as replaces the expenditure1 and makes good the waste of life and machinery2 there can clearly be no growth4 ,that there may be growth1 the commodities obtained in return must be more than sufficient for these ends2 and just in proportion as the surplus is great will the growth be rapid4 ,whence it is manifest that what in commercial affairs we call profit1 answers to the excess of nutrition over waste in a living body40 ,this is 8physiological0 political economy with a vengeance and shows to what straits bourgeois apologists are reduced to find a justification of that exploitation of labor which is the only source of profit4 ,in concluding this point ,spencer seems to satirize his own position and at the same time gives something that looks very much like a socialist explanation of panics4 ,he says3 8,and if in the body politic some part has been stimulated into great productivity1 and afterwards can not get paid for all its produce1 certain of its members become bankrupt1 and it decreases in size40 ,the truth of the whole matter is that ,spencer is wholly at sea the moment he touches political economy1 and in place of some elementary knowledge on that subject1 we have the obsolete theories of the ,manchester ,school proclaimed in the name of physiology4 ,then follows a series of very ingenious comparisons4 ,following ,liebig1 he compares coins to blood corpuscles calling the later blood-discs to enhance the analogy and concludes3 8throughout extensive divisions of the lower animals1 the blood contains no corpuscles2 and in societies of low civilization1 there is no money40 ,then the development of blood vessels in lower animals is compared to the development of roads in primitive societies2 their greater perfection in higher animals comparing with the railroads which more effectively convey food stuffs to the centers of population4 ,amid much that is fantastic and tedious1 he says3 8,and in railways we also see1 for the first time in the social organism1 a system of double channels conveying currents in opposite directions as do the arteries and veins of a well-developed animal40 8,we come at length10 says ,spencer1 8to the nervous system40 ,this is by far the most interesting item in ,spencer's catalogue1 because it is here that the evolutionary philosopher and the ,manchester ,school politician come into open contradiction4 8,we have now to compare the appliances by which a society as a whole1 is regulated1 with those by which the movements of an individual creature are regulated40 ,beginning with the nervous systems of lower animals he discovers their inferiority to lie in the absence of a controlling center4 ,the lower ,annulosa is composed of a series of ring-like segments4 ,each ring has its own nerve ganglia linked by connecting nerves1 but 8very incompletely dependent on any general controlling power4 ,hence it results that when the body is cut in two1 the hinder part continues to move forward under the propulsion of its numerous legs2 and that when the chain of ganglia has been divided without severing the body1 the hind limbs may be seen trying to propel the body in one direction1 while the fore limbs are trying to propel it in another40 ,as we move up in the animal world the nervous system culminates in a centralized brain1 and similarly as society becomes more complex1 government appears4 ,and now the great apostle of the non-interference of government with the life of society is driven into the glaring contradiction of contending that the highest animal organization is that in which the brain1 which he compares to government in society1 interferes and controls most effectively4 8,strange as the assertion will be thought10 he says1 8our ,houses of ,parliament discharge1 in the social economy1 functions which are in sundry respects comparable to those discharged by the cerebral masses in a vertebrate animal40 ,strange indeed6 ,especially to ,mr4 ,spencer's disciples4 ,then ,mr4 ,spencer discovers that the kind of brain activity displayed by the highest animals best compares with that form of government called 8representative40 ,he says3 8,it is the nature of those great and latest-developed ganglia which distinguish the higher animals1 to interpret and combine the multiplied and varied impressions conveyed to them from all parts of the system1 and to regulate the actions in such a way as duly to regard them all2 so it is in the nature of those great and latest-developed legislative bodies which distinguish the most advanced societies1 to interpret and combine the wishes of all classes and localities and to make laws in harmony with the general wants40 ,it would seem from this that1 a society whose government represents only the interests of a handful of the community while the great majority are uncared for1 is suffering from social paralysis4 ,before we pass to the next chapter where we shall examine the position presented in 8,the ,man ,versus ,the ,state0 we will observe one break in ,spencer's analogy which he fails to notice4 ,when the brain of an animal is wrecked the animal dies2 it has no choice4 ,but when the brain of a society fails to represent the interests of the mass of the people who compose that society1 or when the social brain runs amuck and invites disaster1 society may take its choice1 it may elect to die or--it may get a new brain4 ,,ix4 ,,spencer',s ,,individualism4 ,individualism is dead4 ,as a theory1 it has gone with ,stahl's 8,phlogiston10 ,cuvier's 8,cataclysms10 and ,goethe's 8,theory of ,colors0 to the museum of history4 ,the revolution in philosophy1 which covers the nineteenth century and reaches back into the closing decades of the eighteenth1 has met and overthrown it at every point4 ,today it lingers in the world of thought a reminiscence of a prior stage of social development1 as the imperfect remnant of the 8third eyelid0 remains in our bodies a surviving rudiment1 a legacy that links us with our extinct ancestors of the silurian age4 ,the greatest name ever thrown into the scales for ,individualism and against ,socialism is that of ,herbert ,spencer4 ,he has the reputation of having been the greatest ,individualist of all times4 ,many people1 including ,socialists1 who are not familiar with the works of ,spencer wonder how it comes to pass that the great evolutionary philosopher could defend a theory so obsolete and anti-evolutionary as ,individualism4 ,with this problem solved1 ,individualism is practically disposed of--at least1 its greatest prop is gone4 ,all careful students of the works of the 8,synthetic0 philosopher1 eventually recognize the dual personality of ,mr4 ,spencer2 the 8,dr4 ,jekyll0 of evolution1 and the 8,mr4 ,hyde0 of ,individualism4 ,the last chapter dealt mainly with the former2 this chapter will treat chiefly of the latter4 ,mr4 ,spencer's chief utterances against what he conceived to be ,socialism and in favor of ,individualism are to be found in a volume of four essays entitled1 8,the ,man ,versus the ,state40 ,in this book ,mr4 ,spencer complains bitterly of the rapid extension of government interference in the ,england of his day4 ,he declares these 8,acts of ,parliament0 to be a greater and greater restriction of the individual rights of the citizen4 ,here are a few of the ,acts which ,spencer denounced3 ,an ,act directing the ,board of ,trade to record the draught of sea-going vessels leaving port1 and another to fix the number of life-boats and the life-saving appliances such vessels should carry4 ,an ,act making illegal a mine with a single shaft3 ,the inspection of white lead works to compel the owners to provide overalls1 respirators1 baths1 acidulated drinks1 etc41 for the workmen3 ,providing for the inspection of gas works3 ,making compulsory regulations for extinguishing fires in ,london2 ,taxing the locality for local drainage2 ,that bake-houses should have a periodical lime washing1 and a cleaning with soap and hot water at least once in six months2 ,to secure decent lodgings for persons picking fruit and vegetables for public consumption2 ,to provide free compulsory education and public schools2 ,the ,public ,libraries ,act2 ,all the ,factory ,acts limiting child labor or enforcing the protection of dangerous machinery2 ,the ,preservation of ,seabirds ,act2 ,the establishment of state telegraphy2 ,proposals to feed children2 ,government endowment of scientific research2 etc4 ,all these measures1 and many others of similar nature1 excited the indignation of the greatest prophet of ,individualism because1 forsooth1 they modified somebody's right to do as he pleased about something4 ,luckily for ,england1 ,mr4 ,spencer and a handful of his individualist disciples stood alone1 while the electorate carried these laws through their highest tribunals4 ,one can imagine the 8joy of living0 in an individualist arcadia fashioned after ,mr4 ,spencer's own heart4 ,a working man would be able to take up the occupation of a sailor4 ,he could embark on the rotten old tub of some greedy shipowner1 insured for many times its value1 loaded to the gunwales and sure to sink when it got out of sight of land to where the water was a little rougher than plate glass4 ,of course he would be living under a system of 8voluntary co-operation0 and 8freedom of contract0 and if he didn't wish to go to sea he could stay at home and--starve4 ,there would be very little work in port unloading ships1 as so many of them would never return to be unloaded4 ,when the insurance money was paid the shipowner could give a banquet and hold forth on the individual right of the sailor to get drowned in the interests of commerce without the government meddling about life boats and other expensive and nonsensical appliances4 ,if he preferred to work on 8terra firma0 he might get a job in a mine with only one shaft which in case of firedamp would be converted into a furnace4 ,then as there would be no way to get out1 no socialistically inclined person would be able to dispute his individual right to stay in4 ,if he preferred the white lead industry he might 8get in0 there1 and there being no respirators1 baths1 or acidulated drinks he could be a physical wreck in a year and a corpse in two4 ,or he might try the gasworks and1 there being no inspectors1 there would be nothing to interfere with his individual right to be asphyxiated in an oven or roasted in a retort4 ,as wages would be small1 unions not being individualist institutions1 he might get a cheap room in the top of an hotel without fire escapes1 in a town with no fire engines4 ,he could live cheaply on bread from bakehouses that never knew lime washings and had not seen hot water or soap for over six months1 and eat fruit and vegetables handled by people who were not troubled with decent1 let alone sanitary1 lodgings4 ,he would have the liberty to stay at manual labor as there would be no public schools or libraries to assist him to qualify for any profession such as1 for instance1 journalism4 ,this would1 no doubt1 be a blessing in disguise1 for if he became a writer1 instead of following the brilliant example of ,mr4 ,spencer1 he might misuse his powers to the detriment of the race by advocating the limitation1 or even the abolition1 of child labor4 ,if he married he might be at liberty to sew on his own buttons1 his wife having left her fingers among the cogs of uncovered machinery4 ,such would be the social heaven1 operated on the principles of the 8,manchester0 school of politics1 which mark the high-water of ,individualism1 and of which ,herbert ,spencer was the chief apostle4 ,compare this attitude of mind with that of the ,utopian ,socialist1 ,robert ,owen1 over whom ,spencer had the advantage of the lapse of a period of seventy years4 ,in #ahae ,owen convened a large number of cotton manufacturers at ,glasgow1 ,scotland1 to consider the state of the cotton trade which was then in great distress4 ,to that conference he presented two proposals2 one to help the masters1 the other to benefit the workers4 ,the first was that they should petition parliament for the repeal of the tariff on raw cotton2 the second that they should request parliament to shorten the working hours1 and otherwise improve the conditions of workers in the mills4 ,the first proposal carried unanimously1 but the one on which ,owen's heart was set1 was not even seconded4 ,knowing as he did the terrible condition of the ,english working class of that period1 the callous brutality of these rapacious masters roused him to irony and defiance4 ,he delivered an address to the conference which he had printed and spread broadcast in every corner of the country4 ,this is how the lion turned on the jackals3 8,true indeed it is that the main pillar and prop of the political greatness and prosperity of our country is manufacture1 which1 as now carried on1 is destructive of the health1 morals1 and social comfort of the mass of people engaged in it4 ,it is only since the introduction of the cotton trade that children1 at an age before they have acquired strength or mental instruction1 have been forced into the cotton mills--those receptacles1 in too many instances1 for living1 human skeletons1 almost disrobed of intellect1 where1 as the business is often now conducted1 they linger out a few years of miserable existence1 acquiring every bad habit which they may disseminate throughout society4 ,it is only since the introduction of this trade that children and even grown people were required to labor more than twelve hours in a day1 not including the time allotted for meals4 ,it is only since the introduction of this trade that the sole recreation of the laborer is to be found in the pothouse or ginshop1 it is only since the introduction of this baneful trade that poverty1 crime1 and misery have made rapid and fearful strides throughout the community4 8,shall we then go unblushingly1 and ask the legislators of our country to pass legislative acts to sanction and increase this trade--to sign the death warrants of the strength1 morals1 and happiness of our fellow-creatures1 and not attempt to propose corrections for the evils which it creates8 ,if such be your determination1 ,i1 for one1 will not join in the application--no1 ,i will1 with all the faculties ,i possess1 oppose every attempt made to extend the trade that1 except in name1 is more injurious to those employed in it than is the slavery of the poor negroes in the ,west ,indies1 for deeply as ,i am interested in the cotton manufacture1 highly as ,i value the extended political power of my country1 yet knowing as ,i do1 from long experience both here and in ,england1 the miseries which this trade1 as it is now conducted1 inflicts on those to whom it gives employment1 ,i do not hesitate to say3 ,perish the cotton trade1 perish even the political superiority of our country1 if it depends on the cotton trade1 rather than that they shall be upheld by the sacrifice of everything valuable in life40 ,compare these noble utterances of the great-souled utopian ,socialist with the sneers at the most unfortunate element of the working class which disfigure the pages of 8,the ,man ,versus the ,state0 and let the ,individualist take whatever satisfaction he can get from the contrast4 ,but ,spencer's reactionary views did not stop with opposition to every attempt to alleviate the condition of the wealth producers of his day4 ,as an individualist1 he would tolerate no 8government interference0 with the rights of individuals who wished to shoot sea-birds which they could not get1 but which usually flew out to sea1 and died floating1 with a broken wing4 ,why should these lofty minded people be interfered with8 ,were they not the prototypes of our own ,roosevelt1 who is always ready to manifest his love of nature by killing everything in sight8 ,what a pity these individualists were not allowed to have the ,british telegraph system managed by a gang of financial pirates like the owners of the 8,western ,union0 and the 8,postal0 of this country4 ,state repression of knowledge having proved such a bad thing in the middle ages1 state encouragement of learning must of course1 needs be equally bad in the nineteenth century4 8,government endowment of research10 indeed6 ,not for the individualist champion4 ,and yet ,england holds the world's honors in biology1 because of ,darwin1 whose opportunity came through the government exploration of 8,the ,beagle10 and ,huxley1 who began his brilliant career with the government expedition of the 8,rattlesnake40 ,as ,england led the world in the middle of the century so ,france had held first place during its first quarter1 and that because the ,french government sent out scientific expeditions to the tropics1 which1 on their return loaded down the shelves of the 8,jardin des ,plantes0 with specimens which made possible those greatest of her thinkers1 ,lamarck1 ,cuvier and ,geoffrey ,st4 ,hilaire4 ,when the feeding of school children is thrown as a charge against ,socialism1 we are proud to plead guilty4 ,it is our glory that the only cities in the world that have no starving children behind school benches are those cities such as ,lille1 ,ivry1 ,montlucon1 etc41 with a ,socialist majority in the town councils1 which removed the disgrace4 ,such then were the arguments of this flag bearer of ,individualism1 who has supplied the opponents of ,socialism with objections these thirty years4 ,his individualist philosophy is now so thoroughly discredited as to call for no answer were it not for the fact pointed out by ,huxley1 that erroneous ideas do not die just simply because they have been killed4 ,it is not necessary to wheel into position the heavy artillery of ,marx to overthrow this house of cards4 ,spencer is a sufficient reply to ,spencer4 ,here is the great contradiction4 ,spencer1 the great biologist1 says the brain is to the animal what the ,government is to a society4 7#a7 ,the more effectively and completely the brain controls the members composing the animal body1 the higher its place in the organic scale4 7#b7 ,the less effectively and completely the ,government controls the members of the body politic the better will be the society4 ,sociological literature has failed to produce any individualist champion able to reconcile this astonishing contradiction4 ,and so there it stands plainly before the eyes of ,mr4 ,spencer's readers4 8,suppose10 says ,professor ,huxley1 8that1 in accordance with this view1 each muscle were to maintain that the nervous system had no right to interfere with its contraction except to prevent it from hindering the contraction of another muscle2 or each gland1 that it had a right to secrete1 so long as its secretion interfered with no other2 suppose every separate cell were left free to follow its own 8interest0 and laissez-faire lord of all1 what would come of the body physiological8 ,the fact is that the sovereign power of the body thinks for the physiological organism1 acts for it1 and rules the individual components with a rod of iron4 ,even the blood corpuscles can't hold a public meeting without being accused of 8congestion0--and the brain1 like other despots whom we have known1 calls out at once for the use of sharp steel against them40 ,this is the rock upon which ,spencerian ,individualism struck and went to pieces1 independently of those great forces1 which ,i shall point out1 that made for its disintegration4 ,these two contradictory positions are the upper and nether millstones between which the individualistic philosophy of ,anarchism is ground to powder4 ,socialists are not stupid enough to argue that because society can get along without a king therefore an orchestra should have 8no head40 ,we are also able to distinguish between 8the state0 which ,socialism will abolish1 and the 8administration of industry0 which it will establish4 ,every step forward in modern thought has emphasized the importance of that factor called 8environment40 ,the evolution philosophy is an environment philosophy4 ,lamarck1 the greatest pioneer of modern science1 makes a change of environment the prime necessity of organic development4 ,darwin makes environment the selective factor in 8,natural ,selection0 and in this he is supported by every living biologist of note4 ,karl ,marx paralleled these great advances by discovering that every political philosophy takes its origin in some particular economic environment4 ,this is true of ,socialism and ,individualism alike4 ,and so if we wish to understand the historic significance of ,individualism we must go back to the period of its birth and examine the social processes of production of that day4 ,this takes us back to the early years of the #aith century4 ,in the closing half of the #ahth century1 laborers individually owned the small and crude tools by which they made their living4 ,in this stage of social development the laborer owning the tools he used1 appropriated the result4 ,there was here no contradiction and whatever notion of justice is supposed to inhere in the 8individual ownership of the means of production0 derives its whole force from the economic status of the worker of this period4 ,if that status had remained unchanged1 ,socialism would never have been heard of4 ,but in the process of evolution the truth and justice of the #ahth century became a lie and a social wrong in the #aith4 ,this transformation was wrought by the development of machinery4 ,it was impossible for every individual worker to own a large machine1 and so some men became toolless wage laborers employed by the owners of machinery4 ,this is the beginning of the present labor problem and here arises the struggle in the world of ideas between the philosophy of ,individualism and that of ,socialism4 ,let us examine the vital change which had taken place even before we reach the middle of the last century4 ,now1 one man uses the tools1 but another owns them and appropriates the result4 ,and this is the economic foundation of the class war between the exploited wage worker and the exploiting capitalist4 ,but the individualist theories proper to the #ahth century1 and its mode of wealth production1 passed over into the #aith where their economic justification had ceased4 ,as the fortunate individual owners of machinery found themselves growing rich at a great rate apart from their own individual efforts1 they became enthusiastic supporters of 8,individualism0 and eventually founded the 8,manchester0 school of politics1 which had ,herbert ,spencer as its chief mouth-piece and ,henry ,george as a somewhat belated trumpeter4 ,in this heyday of ,individualism the 8rate of profit0 was at its highest1 one ,lancashire cotton spinner boasting of one thousand per cent4 ,but the social hell in which the ,english working class of this period lived is without parallel in modern times4 ,its system of child labor1 as recorded in the government blue books as well as already shown by ,owen1 was indescribably horrible1 but the manufacturers were opposed to 8government interference0 and the individualist philosophy and its bogey of 8paternalism0 was their craven plea4 ,with the grouping of the workers in factories production became socialized1 and now came this contradiction1 production was social while ownership and appropriation were individual4 ,the ,socialists of that period rightly maintained that society should either go back in production to the individual form so as to be in harmony with the existing individual form of ownership and appropriation1 or it should adopt social ownership and social appropriation to harmonize with the already existing social production4 ,but the wheel of history never revolves backward1 and the latter solution is destined ultimately to prevail4 ,social evolution has already carried us far in that direction4 ,with the organization of capital individual ownership disappeared and class ownership has taken its place4 ,the struggle of the #bjth century is not a struggle between individuals1 it is a struggle between classes1 and so ,individualism has lost its meaning--it is defunct4 ,with the disappearance of the economic foundation of ,individualism1 and the overthrow of the philosophic superstructure erected thereon1 all its watchwords have lost their power to charm4 ,free trade1 free labor1 free contract1 free competition2 all these are the lingering and belated echoes of a day that is gone4 8,free trade0 was the protest of the rising capitalist class against the trammels placed upon its commerce by the feudal regime4 ,now it appears in a new role2 it is the cry of the small capitalist against those 8predatory trusts0 which discovered that competition is not the life but the death of trade1 and are using protection to destroy their weaker fellow-robbers4 8,free labor0 was the demand of the capitalist that the serf should be released from the soil in the country so that he might be available for exploitation in the factory1 in the city4 ,in ,england an attempt has been made to give this defunct phrase a new lease of life by the 8,free ,labor ,association0 an organization which had this in common with our 8,citizen's ,alliance0 that it sought to encourage the dear good workingman to keep out of the 8tyrannical0 labor unions4 8,freedom of contract0 or1 as it is sometimes called 8,voluntary ,co-operation0 never existed in capitalist society and has never been anything but a grim joke or a plain lie4 ,where is the freedom or voluntaryism of the worker who must work for what he can get or starve like a dog in the street8 ,the effects of 8free ,competition0 in ,england in the early days of capitalism1 where it was most free1 were such that none but a fiend would wish them recalled4 ,the 8might have been0 halo with which present day individualists seek to surround this principle1 is a midsummer night's dream that never had any existence in the world of reality and can never be realized1 except in the phantasmogoria of their own ideological imaginations4 ,individualism in all its forms has become an anachronism4 ,the deified ego of ,max ,stirner1 which imagines itself sitting enthroned on the pinnacle of the universe1 directing the motions of the planet ,jupiter by crooking its little finger1 is an ideological phantasm1 which has no connection with the solid earth4 ,the flowery exhortations of ,emerson1 to live a noble life in ignoble surroundings1 is an invitation to attempt what is1 for the mass1 impossible4 ,any philosophy which proposes to save the individual without transforming his social environment stands condemned by modern science4 ,if1 with a society more highly organized than any known to history1 we still have anarchy in the production and distribution of our wealth1 the remedy is1 not less social organization1 but more4 ,if with all our dental science toothache still exists1 the cure is not fewer dentists1 but more dentistry4 ,the need of to-day is not less society1 but more social organization4 ,there is no hope in going back to the small production of sixty years ago as ,hearst and ,bryan desire4 ,increasing the number of bandits in any society is not the concern of their victims4 ,the golden age of labor is not in the past but in the future4 ,the labor problem cannot be solved by going back to the scramble of the hog-pen or the methods of the jungle4 ,there is no succour in flying at each other's throats in the name of business4 ,freedom cannot live in a society rent by class wars4 ,her conquests are only possible with a humanity united to subdue the cosmic world by which it is interprenetrated and surrounded4 ,happily for us1 society evolves independently of anybody's opinion4 ,our opinions follow blindly and gropingly in the rear4 ,the opinions of individualists do not manufacture social laws1 according to certain ethical requirements2 they interpret and explain those laws which they discover in operation4 ,the fundamental question is not1 8is ,individualism better than ,socialism80 but 8,is society moving in the direction of the one or the other80 ,to answer this question it is only necessary to compare the world of to-day with that of ten or even five years ago4 ,america moves steadily toward ,socialism1 while ,europe advances in great leaps4 ,every civilized country tells the same story1 and the recent development of ,finland and ,austria astonished the world4 ,society moves forward1 as irresistibly as the ocean tides1 and it moves in a direction predicted by those greatest thinkers of this or any age--the men who linked their lives with the blood and the tears and the struggles of half a century in the greatest cause that ever throbbed in the brain of man--the cause of ,socialism4 ,x4 ,,civilization--,,ward ,,and ,,dietzgen ,one of the darkest curses that has fallen on the working class is its being shut out of the wondrous world of modern thought4 ,the great gates of the ,temple of ,science are clanged in its face1 and its mind is fed on the theological garbage of the ,middle ,ages4 ,in the school1 the press1 and especially the pulpit1 ideas are gravely presented as serious truths1 which are known by all university men to be thoroughly exploded lies4 ,a twentieth century newspaper will brazenly devote a whole page to presenting1 with pictorial illustrations1 alleged recently discovered proofs of the truth of that ,genesis legend which has done such loyal service to the ruling class by stultifying the brains of its victims4 ,these hypocritical displays are never publicly contradicted1 although every man with the least smattering of scientific knowledge1 including the editors1 knows how utterly false they are4 ,these worthies indulge in a sly grin and lower one eyelid1 for it is generally understood among them that the great donkey--the working class--will only consent to carry everybody's burdens in addition to its own1 just so long as it is kept in childish ignorance of everything it ought to know4 ,and this is not all4 ,now that a great body of workingmen are discarding these ancient lies1 and groping for those great truths that contain the germs of their redemption1 the official savants1 true servants of the ruling class1 twist and warp their own science in order to make it contradict every working class idea4 ,this attitude of the time serving intellectual lackeys of the professorial chairs has brought with it another blighting curse--it has made a considerable number of working men suspicious of modern science itself4 ,it is an old-time tragedy1 this breaking with one's best friend because of the groundless calumnies of an interested enemy4 ,this terribly mistaken antagonism to science has unfortunately found its way1 in some measure1 into the ,socialist movement1 though happily1 increasing acquaintance with ,socialism's classic literature is breaking it down4 ,in this connection the following passage from the pen of ,isador ,ladoff is very pertinent3 8,rationalistic modern ,socialism is based1 not exclusively on certain economic theories and maxims1 as some narrow-minded #8,socialists pure and simple' think and would fain make us believe1 but on the broad foundation of modern science and thought4 ,the economic theories peculiar to modern ,socialism are derived from the application of the results of the achievements of modern knowledge and philosophy to the field of social economics4 ,the trouble with the #8,socialists pure and simple' is in the extreme limitation of their mental horizon4 ,they happen to know1 or rather imagine they have mastered ,marxian economics1 while modern science and philosophy remains to them a sealed letter4 ,that is why they get irritated whenever and wherever they meet in the socialistic press an article containing something else than the everlasting parrot-like repetitions of pseudo-socialistic commonplaces and shibboleths4 ,every attempt to present to the attention of the readers of socialistic publications1 glimpses of the radiant world of science and philosophy1 leading up to socialistic ideas and ideals in all their world-redeeming significance1 appears to the simpleminded and superstitious simon-pure ,socialists as an attack on somebody or something1 as a heresy and heterodoxy of some kind4 ,to such people the religion of science is the religion of ignorance and vice versa1 ignorance is their religion and science40 ,the use of science and philosophy by the ruling class as a pretence for the appropriation of the lion's share of the wealth produced by labor does not prove that workingmen should abandon philosophy as useless to their cause4 ,on the contrary1 as ,dietzgen says3 8,philosophy is a subject which closely concerns the working class10 and he adds3 8,this1 of course1 does by no means imply that every workingman should try to become acquainted with philosophy and study the relation between the idea and matter4 ,from the fact that we all eat bread does not follow that we must all understand milling and baking4 ,but just as we need millers and bakers1 so does the working class stand in need of keen scholars who can follow up the tortuous ways of the false priests and lay bare the inanity of their tricks40 ,it is quite clear that working men1 instead of underestimating the value of mental training1 should remember what a terrible weapon it has proved in the hands of their enemies4 ,it is precisely because the workers have lacked this weapon1 that in spite of their overwhelming numbers and physical strength1 they have always been outwitted4 8,the emancipation of the working classes10 concludes ,dietzgen1 8requires that they should lay hold on the science of the century40 ,lester ,f4 ,ward1 whose theories we shall now examine1 warns us against the erroneous supposition 8formerly quite prevalent10 that 8science consists in the discovery of facts40 ,he maintains that 8there is not a single science of which this is true1 and a much more nearly correct definition would be that science consists in reasoning about facts40 ,we may recall here that learned body which sneered at ,darwin as 8a mere theorizer0 and conferred its honors upon an unknown man who had collected some facts about butterflies but had carefully avoided 8reasoning about them40 ,of course the value of this reasoning is that it leads to the discovery of those laws or generalizations which reveal the relation of the facts to each other1 and thus enables us to appreciate their real significance4 ,therefore we might venture to push the matter a little further and define science as the discovery of laws4 ,but for the uniformity and invariability of physical phenomena1 astronomy would be impossible4 ,the discovery of evolution laid the foundations of modern biology4 ,dalton's theory of atoms and ,lavoisier's permanence of matter emancipated chemistry from the superstitions of alchemy4 ,ward is therefore on solid ground when he maintains that 8the indispensable foundation of all economic and social science0 consists in the fact that 8all human activities and all social phenomena are rigidly subject to natural law40 ,it is just the difficulty of discerning uniform laws amidst the highly complex phenomena of society that delays the proper development of sociology1 although1 as we have seen1 this difficulty is materially augmented by the class interests at stake4 ,again1 just as biology was hindered in its growth by the doctrine of special creations and1 still earlier1 ,copernican astronomy was checked by the geocentric theory1 so now the progress of sociology is restrained by the doctrine of divine providence4 ,believers in divine providence are well represented by the ,hindoo who in his lesson on ,english composition spoke of his father as having 8died according to the caprice of ,god which passeth all understanding40 ,it is precisely because 8caprice0 can not be understood and cannot therefore1 be made the basis of prevision1 that it can not be admitted into the domain of science4 ,science1 as ,starcke well said1 is founded on 8faith in the universality of causation40 ,if the activities of men and the policies of nations are not ruled by cause and effect a science of society is impossible4 ,and yet1 contends ,ward1 it was the very adoption of this 8altogether sound abstract principle0 that 8led to the greatest and most fundamental of all economic errors1 an error which has found its way into the heart of modern scientific philosophy1 widely influencing public opinion1 and offering a stubborn resistance to all efforts to dislodge it40 ,and now we come to the keynote of ,ward's whole system and at the same time to the point where he completely breaks with the biological sociologists4 ,the error1 which ,ward attributes to them all1 the refutation of which is the main object of his work1 is described as follows3 8,this error consists in practically ignoring the existence of a rational faculty in man1 which1 while it does not render his actions any less subject to natural laws1 so enormously complicates them that they can no longer be brought within the simple formulas that suffice in the calculus of mere animal motives4 ,this element creeps stealthily in between the child and the adult1 and all unnoticed puts the best laid schemes of economists and philosophers altogether aglee4 ,a great psychic factor has been left out of the account1 the intellectual or rational factor1 and this factor is so stupendous that there is no room for astonishment in contemplating the magnitude of the error which its omission has caused40 ,this is the foundation stone of ,ward's sociology4 ,with great care he elaborates the vital difference between the economy of nature with its blind forces1 and the economy of society with its mental arrangement of means to ends4 ,he marshals that well-known array of facts which prove the tremendous waste continually going on in the natural world4 ,according to ,m4 ,quatrefages1 two successive generations of a single plant-louse would cover eight acres4 ,a large chestnut tree in ,june contains as much as a ton of pollen4 ,considering the size of pollen-grain the number on such a tree would be next to inconceivable4 ,burst a puff-ball and there arises from it a cloud that fills the air for some distance around4 ,this cloud consists of an almost infinite number of exceedingly minute spores1 each of which should it by the rarest chance fall upon a favorable spot1 is capable of reproducing the fungus to which it belongs4 ,and yet in spite of all this enormous reproductivity the population of these species remains practically stationary4 ,ward objects very strongly to this insane waste of nature being set up as a model for human society1 and he is entitled to the sympathy of ,socialists who have always protested against the planless anarchy of capitalist production1 which however1 bad as it is1 can hardly be considered a circumstance compared with the random waste of nature4 8,the waste of being10 says ,asa ,gray1 8is enormous1 far beyond the common apprehension4 ,seeds1 eggs1 and other germs1 are designed to be plants and animals1 but not one of a thousand or a million achieves its destiny40 ,and ,gray quotes with approval from an article in the ,westminster ,review3 8,when we find that the sowing is a scattering at random1 and that for one being provided for and living1 ten thousand perish unprovided for1 we must allow that the existing order would be considered the worst disorder in any human sphere of action40 ,ward1 of course1 takes the same view3 8,no one will object to having nature's methods fully explained and exposed1 and thoroughly taught as a great truth of science4 ,it is only when it is held up as a model to be followed by man and all are forbidden to #8meddle' with its operations that it becomes necessary to protest4 ,i shall endeavor still further to show that it is wholly at variance with anything that a rational being would ever conceive of1 and that if a being supposed to be rational were to adopt it he would be looked upon as insane40 8,such10 says ,ward1 8is nature's economy4 ,how different the economy of a rational being6 ,he prepares the ground1 clearing it of its vegetable competitors1 then he carefully plants the seeds at the proper intervals so that they shall not crowd one another1 and after they have sprouted he keeps off their enemies whether vegetable or animal1 supplies water if needed1 even supplies the lack of chemical constituents of the soil1 if he knows what they are1 and thus secures1 as nearly as possible1 the vigorous growth and fruition of every seed planted4 ,this is the economy of mind40 ,and now ,ward presents a truth that is very familiar to all ,socialists--that the difference between an animal living in a state of nature and man living in human society1 is that man is a tool using animal4 ,this use and development of tools is due to that application of reason called the inventive faculty1 which no other animal possesses4 8,the beaver indeed1 builds dams by felling trees1 but its tools are its teeth1 and no further advantage is taken than that which results from the way the muscles are attached to its jaws4 ,the warfare of animals is waged literally with tooth and nail1 with horn and hoof1 with claw and spur1 with tusk and trunk1 with fang and sting--always with organic1 never with mechanical weapons40 ,and because man can invent tools and improve them he has an immense advantage over other animals4 ,it is this advantage which the biological sociologists have overlooked4 ,but this advantage makes an incalculable difference4 ,the fundamental difference is1 that 8the environment transforms the animal1 while man transforms the environment40 ,what1 then1 is civilization8 ,it is human development beyond the animal stage4 ,what it its chief factor8 ,it is psychic--the application of 8mind0 to the problems of life4 ,now we see still further how ,ward is irresistibly driven1 by the logic of his position1 to ,socialist conclusions4 ,he sees that another striking difference between irrational nature and rational society is that nature is competitive1 while society is increasingly co-operative4 ,and this co-operation is due to the greater development of that psychic factor1 which is the chief instrument of civilization and leads men to avoid waste4 ,turning now to 8,pure ,sociology10 we are told that the subject-matter of sociology is 8human achievement40 ,when we ask1 in what does this achievement consist1 we are informed that3 8,achievement does not consist in wealth4 ,wealth is fleeting and ephemeral4 ,achievement is permanent and eternal40 ,again the sum total of the things which constitute achievement may be summed up in the one word 8inventions40 ,achievement with ,ward is another name for civilization4 ,page after page is given to an enumeration of its particulars1--music1 painting1 poetry1 exploration1 industry and many other things which we have not space even to mention4 ,the one thing that is vital here is that 8achievement10 while it does not include perishable wealth1 nor yet the actual1 perishable machinery by which the wealth has been produced1 does nevertheless undoubtedly include that something described by ,socialists as the 8process of production40 ,this is of prime importance because now when we turn to ,ward's 8,applied ,sociology10 we find that not only achievement1 but 8improvement0 is the theme of that branch of the science4 ,and now listen to this great ,american sociologist1 who has so far outstripped all his contemporaries as to be practically without a rival1 this thinker whose monumental works have gained him an international reputation2 listen and compare what follows with the hocus-pocus that usually comes from the official chairs3 8,the purpose of applied sociology is to harmonize achievement with improvement4 ,if all this achievement which constitutes civilization has really been wrought without producing any improvement in the condition of the human race1 it is time that the reason for this was investigated4 ,applied sociology includes among its main purposes the investigation of this question4 ,the difficulty lies in the fact that achievement is not socialized4 ,the problem1 therefore1 is that of the socialization of achievement4 8,we are told that no scheme for the equalization of men can succeed2 that at first it was physical strength that determined the inequalities2 that this at length gave way to the power of cunning1 and that still later it became intelligence in general that determined the place of individuals in society4 ,this last1 it is maintained is now1 in the long run1 in the most civilized races and the most enlightened communities1 the true reason why some occupy lower and others higher positions in the natural strata of society4 ,this1 it is said1 is the natural state and is as it should be4 ,it is moreover affirmed that being natural there is no possibility of altering it4 8,of course all this falls to the ground on the least analysis4 ,for example1 starting from the standpoint of achievement1 it would naturally be held that there would be great injustice in robbing those who by their superior wisdom had achieved the great results upon which civilization rests and distributing the natural rewards among inferior persons who had achieved nothing4 ,all would assent to this4 ,and yet this is in fact practically what has been done4 ,the whole history of the world shows that those who have achieved have received no reward4 ,the rewards for their achievement have fallen to persons who have achieved nothing4 ,they have simply for the most part profited by some accident of position in a complex1 badly organized society1 whereby they have been permitted to claim and appropriate the fruits of the achievements of others4 ,but no one would insist that these fruits should all go to those who had made them possible4 ,the fruits of achievement are incalculable in amount and endure forever4 ,their authors are few in number and soon pass away4 ,they would be the last to claim an undue share4 ,they work for all mankind and for all time1 and all they ask is that all mankind shall forever benefit by their work40 ,and so ,ward's conclusion is that the greatness of the present consists in that mass of achievements called civilization1 among which are those inventions which have so wonderfully increased the capacity of social labor in its production of wealth4 ,and the hope of the future lies in the socialization of those achievements so as to make their rich fruits the common heritage of all mankind4 ,there are no ,socialists who will quarrel with these conclusions4 ,we will now briefly compare this position with that of the great ,german thinker1 ,joseph ,dietzgen1 who at the international congress at ,the ,hague1 in #ahgb1 was introduced by ,karl ,marx to the assembled delegates with these words3 8,here is our philosopher40 ,of course we shall only deal with his theories here as they relate to the conclusions reached by ,ward4 8,all exertion and struggle in human history0 says ,dietzgen1 8all aspirations and researches of science find their common aim in the freedom of man1 in the subjection of nature to the sway of his mind40 ,this is1 as we have seen1 precisely ,ward's idea of what constitutes the substance of civilization4 8,man1 to be sure10 says ,dietzgen1 8is still dependent on nature4 ,her tribulations are not yet all overcome4 ,culture has yet a good deal to do2 aye1 its work is endless4 ,but we have so far mastered the dragon1 that we finally succeeded in forging the weapon with which it can be subdued2 we know the way to tame the beast into a useful domestic animal40 ,what is this 8weapon0 which humanity has forged and which constitutes the possibility of its salvation8 8,this salvation10 says ,dietzgen1 8was neither invented nor revealed1 it has grown of the accumulated labor of history4 ,it consists in the wealth of to-day which arose glorious and dazzling in the light of science1 out of human flesh and blood1 to save humanity4 ,this wealth in all its palpable reality1 is the solid foundation of the hope of social-democracy40 ,and here lest there should seem to be a plain contradiction between ,dietzgen and ,ward1 we will go further and see that ,dietzgen1 like ,ward1 does not mean merely those items of wealth which happen to be in existence in the shape of tangible commodities4 8,the wealth of to-day does not consist in the superb mansions1 inhabited by the privileged of society1 nor does it consist in their costly apparel1 or in the gold and precious stones of their jewelry1 or in the heaps of goods peeping through the show windows of our great cities4 ,all that as well as the coin and bullion in the trunks and safes form but an appendix or1 so to speak1 the tassels and tufts1 behind which is concealed that great and real wealth--the rock on which our hope is built4 8,what authorizes the people to believe in the salvation from long ages of torture--nay1 not only to believe in1 but to see it1 and actively strive for1 is the fairy-like productive power1 the prodigious fertility of human labor4 ,in the secrets which have been wrung from nature2 in the magic formulas by which we force her to do our wishes and to yield her bounties almost without any painful work on our part2 in the constantly increasing improvement of the methods of production--in this ,i say consists the wealth which can accomplish what no redeemer ever could40 ,and ,dietzgen1 like ,ward1 protests against this great legacy of history1 this vast accumulation of the results of the combined social labor of a hundred generations1 being the sole property of those 8who never achieved anything60 ,dietzgen1 like ,ward1 sees that the great problem which confronts the race is to break down those intolerable bars which prevent humanity from entering into its just inheritance4 ,to this great and culminating task man must bend all the powers of his mind4 ,now he has reached the point where the gates of liberty begin to yield and with one grand1 united effort may be thrown wide open so that all the sons and daughters of men may finish the long centuries of misery and freely enter in4 ,to continue this senseless oppression longer would be the summit of stupidity4 8,consider the frugal needs of our people and at the same time the fertility of labor1 and ask yourselves if mere instinct alone would not be sufficient to teach us how to supply adequately our needs with the help of the existing means of production80 ,to make these 8means of production the property of society0 is then the problem of ,ward's applied sociology and ,dietzgen's social democracy alike4 ,according to both1 this emancipation of the mass of the people from the last form of slavery is the one consuming task of civilization4 ,and the psychic factor1 the consciously reasoning brain of man is1 according to both1 to be more than ever the instrument of 8achievement40 ,to ,dietzgen especially1 the time is rotten-ripe for the great change4 8,the salvation of humanity is involved in this question4 ,it is so great and sublime that all other problems which time may bear in its folds must wait in silence4 ,the whole of old ,europe is waiting with bated breath the fulfilling of the things which are coming4 8,oh1 ye short-sighted and narrow-minded1 who can not give up the fad of moderate1 slow1 organic progress6 ,do you not perceive that all your great liberal passions sink to the level of mere trifling1 because the great question of social salvation is on the order of the day8 ,the calm precedes the tempest4 ,history stands still1 because she gathers force for a great catastrophe40 ,,the ,,lewis ,,lectures4 ,this book1 ,evolution1 ,social and ,organic1 is the first volume of a series of lectures to which we expect to make notable additions in the future4 ,we can at this time definitely promise two volumes1 which will be made up from the lectures delivered by ,mr4 ,lewis at the ,garrick ,theater during the winter and spring of #aijh4 ,ten ,blind ,leaders of the ,blind4 ,this will in all probability be the second volume of the ,lewis ,lectures1 and we expect to publish it in ,may or ,june4 ,it will consist of critical studies of the theories of such reformers1 philosophers and moralists as ,benjamin ,kidd1 ,henry ,george1 ,dr4 ,schaeffle1 ,thomas ,carlyle1 ,auguste ,comte and ,immanuel ,kant4 ,it must not be imagined that ,mr4 ,lewis in these lectures is merely attempting to refute these thinkers1 nor that he would disparage the service that each in his time has rendered4 ,on the contrary his aim is to give the reader as clear a comprehension as possible of what each of these men has achieved4 ,and he furthermore shows how the outlook of each was limited by the economic environment from which flowed the mental atmosphere in which he lived1 so that it would have been unreasonable for us to expect from these writers any other conclusions than those at which they actually arrived4 ,understanding these conditions we can better understand how to meet the arguments of those still influenced by the outgrown ideas which are perhaps best stated in the writings of the leaders here considered4 ,socialism and ,modern ,thought4 ,this is planned for the third volume of the series1 and will probably be ready in the summer or fall of #aijh4 ,it will be a direct supplement to this present volume1 ,evolution1 ,social and ,organic1 which explains the scientific basis on which socialism rests4 ,the second volume1 as we have shown1 is taken up with an examination of rival theories4 ,the third volume will restate the principles of socialism and show how they are applied to the pressing problems of today4 ,a lecture on 8,the ,economic ,interpretation of ,history0 will show how ,marx's historical method throws a search-light on the darkest places in which sociological students have hitherto groped4 ,one on 8,the ,positive ,school of ,criminology0 will tell how the socialist scholars of ,italy have revolutionized the once hopeless science of crimes and punishments1 and have established certain very definite and very fruitful propositions1 showing all the while that crime must last while capitalism lasts4 ,in 8,the ,latest ,word of ,science and ,philosophy--,monism10 ,mr4 ,lewis will show how the clearest thinkers in the modern socialist movement have arrived at a conception of the universe that is broad enough to take in all reality1 and to show the relation of the facts of mind to the facts of matter4 ,we have room to mention here but one more lecture1 and that shall be 8,the ,inevitability of the ,triumph of ,socialism40 ,each of these volumes will be uniform with the present one2 advance orders are solicited4 ,the price1 postage included1 will be fifty cents each4 ,the ,art of ,lecturing4 ,mr4 ,lewis had persistently been urged to teach a class in the art of lecturing1 but the many demands on his time made this quite out of the question1 and as the best way to satisfy his friends1 he wrote a series of brief articles for the ,chicago ,daily ,socialist1 each article containing some practical suggestions for young socialist speakers1 each suggestion the direct fruit of the author's personal experience4 ,these articles at once attracted wide attention1 and long before they had all appeared1 there was an unmistakable demand for their publication in book form4 ,that is why this book is issued4 ,there is nothing else quite so helpful for the young man or woman who expects to lecture on the socialist platform4 ,and many others who have no thought of lecturing will enjoy reading the book1 because it brings the reader into such close touch with the personality of a man worth knowing4 ,paper1 #be;c1 postpaid4 ,the ,standard ,socialist ,series4 ,this volume is a fair sample of the twenty-five socialist books already published in this library4 ,in their selection1 the object of the publishers has been in so far as possible to include all the greatest works by ,european and ,american socialists that could possibly be brought within the limits of a fifty-cent volume4 ,of course the series includes the ,communist ,manifesto1 by ,marx and ,engels4 ,this1 by the way1 is published in two editions1 in one of which is also printed ,liebknecht's work on socialist tactics entitled ,no ,compromise1 while the other includes a version of the ,manifesto in ,esperanto1 the new international language1 as well as the ,english version4 ,the ,standard ,socialist ,series also includes ,marx's ,revolution and ,counter-,revolution1 and three of the most important works of ,frederick ,engels1 ,socialism3 ,utopian and ,scientific1 ,the ,origin of the ,family1 ,private ,property and the ,state1 and ,feuerbach3 ,the ,roots of the ,socialist ,philosophy4 ,as for living socialist writers1 ,france is represented in this library by ,lafargue's ,social and ,philosophical ,studies and ,the ,right to ,be ,lazy and ,other ,studies1 ,germany by ,kautsky's ,the ,social ,revolution and ,ethics and the ,materialist ,conception of ,history1 ,italy by ,ferri's ,the ,positive ,school of ,criminology1 ,russia by ,plechanoff's ,anarchism and ,socialism1 ,belgium by ,vandervelde's ,collectivism and ,industrial ,evolution1 ,england by ,blatchford's ,britain for the ,british1 and ,america by the writings of ,isador ,ladoff1 ,roberts ,rives ,la,monte1 ,a4 ,m4 ,simons1 ,john ,spargo1 ,ernest ,untermann1 ,john ,m4 ,work and others4 ,full descriptions of all these books1 together with an account of our other books at higher and lower prices and suggestions as to the choice of books1 together with some interesting propaganda matter1 will be found in the current issue of the ,socialist ,book ,bulletin1 mailed free to any one requesting it4 ,how to ,get ,books at ,cost4 ,this ,bulletin also explains our co-operative plan for supplying books at cost4 ,the publishing house which issues this volume is not owned by any capitalist4 ,it is owned by #a1ijj socialist working people1 each of whom has subscribed ten dollars to help publish more socialist books4 ,no dividends are paid2 the advantage to the stockholder is that instead of paying fifty cents for a book like this one he pays twenty-five cents if he calls at our office for it1 or thirty cents if it is mailed to him4 ,more stockholders are needed to provide the capital for publishing more books1 and readers of this book are urged to co-operate with us to the extent of buying a share at ten dollars4 ,we do not care to sell more than one share to one subscriber1 but any one having more than ten dollars to invest can get four per cent interest on it and have the money returned to him at any time on thirty days' notice4 ,these terms are better than are offered by ,chicago banks1 and the lender has the satisfaction of knowing that his money is used for the interests of the working class and not against them4 ,charles ,h4 ,kerr ,company 7,co-operative7 #bfd ,kinzie ,street1 ,chicago ,transcriber's ,notes ,punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in this book2 otherwise they were not changed4 ,simple typographical errors were corrected2 occasional unbalanced quotation marks repaired4 ,inconsistent hyphenation has not been changed4 ,on nine pages1 there was extra space between paragraphs1 but these appeared to be the way the printer setup the text1 rather than content breaks intended by the author1 so they have been ignored in this e,book4 ,the last six pages summarize other volumes in the ,series of which this book is a part4 ,those pages originally were numbered #a-f but are numbered here as #bja-bjf4 ,page #ai3 8,vasca ,da ,gama0 was printed that way4