Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 33.djvu/793

Rh in generalizing all the conditions until a more complete knowledge of them enables us to make our volitions count as a factor in determining the result. In other words, simplifying the problem in the latter case does not lead to true conceptions, as in the former, for the reason that in the social organism the interdependence of all the parts makes it essential that we study them in combination, as by the elimination of any that are important we get another organism, and not the one we are studying.

In the physical sciences, also, exact prevision is possible, because the forces considered are permanent and reliable, and never self-directing or animated by a conscious purpose. But, in the social sciences, some of the forces concerned are, within limits, self-directing and self-conditioned. Hence, exact prevision becomes impossible; but what we lose in this way is in part counterbalanced by our own ability to modify phenomena through volition and by an exact knowledge of other conditions, so as to bring about a desired result.

We have next to note a difference in the meaning we should ascribe to the "survival of the fittest" when we use the phrase in connection with social growth. It is apparent that what we should now have in mind is the survival of the socially fit. Adaptation of organism to environment means harmony with the conditions of life which surround it, and social growth is made possible only by the development of those qualities of mind and body which are both a cause and a consequence of living in society. It is obvious that such traits of character as are the outcome of a fierce struggle for individual existence would necessarily hinder, if not entirely prevent, social development, and that the fact that society is the prevailing form of human organization indicates that along with the fierceness, the intelligence, and the skill which past struggles have produced in man, there have also grown up certain moral traits which must have been even more powerful in determining the character of the social organism, than their opposites.

For the purpose in hand, we desire to call attention to the necessity of basing our political economy on moral rather than on selfish instincts. Powerful though the latter be, they are more or less anti-social in their nature, and therefore would not, of themselves, favor economic growth. That depends for its development on social growth, and it is only when the selfish instincts are held in due check and subordination to the higher impulses that the latter is possible. Strength, keenness, and shrewdness are important factors in determining the survival of the individual, and, in so far as they do this, they favor also the survival of the race. But of more importance still are those traits which, by enabling men to live together in peace, render possible the