It is no adequate answer to our antagonists to say, indeed it is a mere
tu quoque to say, that the existing system does not present such a
correlation, that it puts a premium on secretiveness and self-seeking
and a discount on many most necessary forms of social service. That is a
mere temporary argument for a delay in judgment.
The whole history of humanity seems to me to present a spectacle of this
organizing specialization of competition, this replacement of the
indiscriminate and collectively blind struggle for life by an organized
and collectively intelligent development of life. We see a secular
replacement of brute conflict by the law, a secular replacement of
indiscriminate brute lust by marriage and sexual taboos, and now with
the development of Socialistic ideas and methods, the steady replacement
of blind industrial competition by public economic organization. And
moreover there is going on a great educational process bringing a
greater and greater proportion of the minds of the community into
relations of understanding and interchange.
Just as this process of organization proceeds, the violent and chaotic
conflict of individuals and presently of groups of individuals
disappears, personal violence, private war, cut-throat competition,
local war, each in turn is replaced by a more efficient and more
economical method of survival, a method of survival giving constantly
and selecting always more accurately a finer type of survivor.
Pages:
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219