of the many by the few-which constitutes its chief merit in the eyes of writers like Mr. Mallock is what all democratic thinkers consider its chief vice. Under such a system success or failure is no longer proof of natural fitness or unfitness. Where every advantage that wealth and influence afford is enjoyed by the few and denied to the many an essential condition of progress is lacking. Many of the ablest, best, and socially fittest are hopelessly handicapped by lack of opportunity, while their inferiors equipped with every artificial advantage easily defeat them in the competitive struggle. This lack of a just distribution of opportunity under existing industrial arrangements, the defenders of the established social order persistently ignore. Taking no account of the unequal conditions under which the competitive struggle is carried on in human society, they would make success proof of fitness to survive and failure evidence of unfitness. This is treating the complex problem of social adjustment as if it were simply a question of mere animal struggle for existence. Writers of this class naturally accept the Malthusian doctrine of population, and ascribe misery and want to purely natural causes, viz., the pressure of population on the means of subsistence. Not only is this pressure with its attendant evils unavoidable, they tell us, but, regarded from the standpoint of the highest in terests of the race it is desirable and beneficent in that it is the method of evolution-the means which nature makes use of to produce, through the continual elimination of the weak, a higher human type. To relieve this pressure through social arrangements would arrest by artificial contrivances the progress which the free play of natural forces tends to bring about. If progress is made only through the selection of the fit and the rejection of the unfit, it would follow that the keener the struggle for existence and the more rapid and relentless the elimination of the weak, the greater would be the progress made. This is exactly the contention of Kidd in his Social Evolution. He claims that if the pressure of population on the means of subsistence were arrested, and all individuals were allowed equally to propagate their kind, the human race would not only not progress, but actually retrograde.1 If we accept this as true, it would follow that a high birth rate and a high death rate are necessary in order that the process of selection and rejection may go on. This is indeed a pleasant prospect for all except the fortunate few. But the question, of course, is not whether this is pleasant to contemplate or unpleasant, but whether it is true. Is the evolution of a higher human type the same kind of a process as that of a higher animal or vegetable type? Is progress achieved only 1 Social Evolution, p. 39. through the preservation of the fit and the elimination of the unfit? If it could be shown that this is the case, then certainly the conditions under which this struggle to the death is carried on would be a matter of supreme importance. Are our social adjustments such as to facilitate, or at least not interfere with it? Do they make the question of success or failure, survival or elimination, depend upon individual fitness or unfitness? This, as we have seen, is not the case, though the partisans of the biological theory of human progress have constantly assumed it. Mr. Mallock takes even a more extreme position than most writers of this class, and actually says "that the social conditions of a time are the same for all, but that it is only exceptional men who can make exceptional use of them." The unequal distribution of wealth he seeks to justify on the ground that "the ordinary man's talents as a producer have not appreciably increased in the course of two thousand years and have certainly not increased within the past three generations."2 "In the domain of modern industrial activity the many" . . . he tells us, "produce only an insignificant portion of the total, . . . and in the domain of intellectual and speculative progress the many produce or achieve nothing." If we 1 Aristocracy and Evolution, p. 105. "Ibid p. 218. 8 Ibid p. 219. accept his premises, we must agree with his conclusion that democracy's indictment of our modern industrial system falls to the ground. This view of the matter is acceptable, of course, to those who are satisfied with present social arrangements. It furnishes a justification for the system under which they have prospered while others have failed. It relieves their conscience of any misgiving and soothes them with the assurance that only through the poverty and misery of the unfit can a higher civilization be evolved. This largely explains the popularity among the well-to-do classes of such books as Malthus' Principle of Population and Kidd's Social Evolution. Such a treatment of the social problem, however, will not bear the test of analysis, since it assumes that the present distribution of opportunity is just. To ignore or treat as unimportant the influence of social arrangements upon the struggle for existence between individuals, as apologists for the existing social order are too much inclined to do, is like ignoring the modern battle-ship as a factor in the efficiency of the modern navy. But while this biological theory of evolution has been made to serve the purpose of defending existing social arrangements, it is in reality no adequate explanation of human progress. Selection and rejection do not, as a matter of fact, play any important part in the progress of civilized communities. Here the struggle for existence has assumed the form of a struggle for domination. The vanquished are no longer eliminated as a result of the competitive struggle; for, as Mr. Spencer says, social institutions preserve the incapables.1 Not only are the unsuccessful not eliminated but, as sociological students well know, they increase more rapidly than the successful few. If, then, we accept the biological theory of social evolution, we are forced to the conclusion that the human race, instead of advancing, is really retrograding. Seeing that this is not a satisfactory explanation of human progress, Mr. Mallock supplements it with a new factor which he describes as "the unintended results of the intentions of great men." But, like all of these writers, he makes progress depend entirely on the biological struggle for existence or the industrial struggle for supremacy, not recognizing the allimportant part which social ideals and conscious social choice play in human evolution. There is, then, as we have seen, ample justification for the hostility to privilege which the democratic movement everywhere exhibits. In making equality of opportunity a feature of the new social order, the advocates of reform are proceeding in harmony with the teaching of modern science. Such changes must be brought 1 Principles of Biology, Vol. I, p. 469. |