sire for gain would of itself ensure adequate regulation of industry is certainly not true under existing conditions. Natural law is not, as he assumed, always beneficent in its operation. It is just as liable to produce harm as benefit unless it is regulated, controlled and directed by appropriate human agencies. It needs no argument to convince one that this is true so far as the forces of the physical world are concerned. Gravitation, steam and electricity contributed nothing to human progress until man discovered the means whereby they could be harnessed and controlled. Material civilization means nothing else but the development of control over and the consequent utilization of the materials and forces of the physical world. The important part played by mere human agencies is the only feature that distinguishes civilization from barbarism. Everything which in any way contributes to material progress augments the power of man to control, modify and adapt his environment. And though it may not be so obvious, this general principle is just as true in the moral and spiritual world as in the physical. All progress, material and moral, consists in the due subordination of natural to human agencies. Laws, institutions and systems of government are in a sense artificial creations, and must be judged in relation to the ends which they have in view. They are good or bad according as they are well or poorly adapted to social needs. Civilization in its highest sense means much more than the mere mastery of mind over inanimate nature; it implies a more or less effective social control over individual conduct. Certain impulses, instincts and tendencies must be repressed; others must be encouraged, strengthened, and developed. It is a mistake to suppose that the unrestrained play of mere natural forces ensures progress. Occasional advance is the outcome, but so also is frequent retrogression. There is no scientific basis for the belief in a natural order that everywhere and always makes for progress. Competition or the struggle for existence ensures at most merely the survival of the fittest; but survival of the fittest does not always mean survival of the best. Competition is nature's means of adapting life to its environment. If the environment is such as to give the more highly organized individuals the advantage, progress is the result. But if it is such as to place them at a disadvantage, retrogression, not progress, is the outcome. higher types of character, no less than the higher organic forms, presuppose external conditions favorable to their development. Competition is merely the means through which conformity to these external conditions is enforced. It eliminates alike that which is better than the environment and that which is worse. It is indifferent to good or bad, to high or low. The It simply picks out, preserves and perpetuates those types best suited to environing conditions. Both progress and retrogression are a process of adaptation, and their cause must be sought, not in the principle of competition itself, but in the general external conditions to which it enforces conformity. Success, then, is a matter of adaptation to the environment, or the power to use it for individual ends-not the power to improve and enrich it. The power to take from, is nature's sole test of fitness to live; but the power to enrich is a higher test, and one which society must enforce through appropriate legislation. Laws, institutions and methods of trade which make it possible for the individual to take from more than he adds to the general resources of society tend inevitably toward general social deterioration. Competition is wholesome only when all our social arrangements are such as to discourage and repress all individual activities not in harmony with the general interests of society. This is the point of view from which all social and industrial questions must be studied. The problem which democracy has to solve is the problem of so organizing the environment as to assure progress through the success and survival of the best. INDEX Alien and sedition laws, 166. federation, 57; Australia, 62; constitutions after 1787, 12. American government, aristo- cratic, 79, 103, 126. See American revolution, change in Articles of Confederation, demo- cratic tendency of, 25, 57; Baldwin, Simeon E., on the of the charter of, 321. ratification of the last three Budget. See House of Repre- sentatives. Burgess, John W., on the diffi- Calhoun, John C., on popular Channing, Edward, on removal of Checks and balances, American exten- Common law, influence of the ruling class upon, II. century to of of, 3; relation to democracy, 3. President, Senate, Supreme Contracts, laws impairing the ob- Cooley, T. M., on the difference |