Page:Prophets of dissent essays on Maeterlinck, Strindberg, Nietzsche and Tolstoy (1918).djvu/138

Prophets of Dissent the struggle between individuals of the same species would give way to pacific equilibrium as soon as the bare subsistence were no longer in question. Yet we know that the struggle is unending. The creature appetites are not appeased by a normal sufficiency; on the contrary, "l'appetit vient en mangeant" ; the possessive instinct, if not quite insatiable, is at least coextensive with its opportu- nities for gratification. Whether or not it be true — as Carlyle claims — that, after all, the fundamental question between any two human beings is, "Can I kill thee, or canst thou kill me?" — at any rate in civilized human society the contest is not waged merely for the naked existence, but mainly for life's increments in the form of comforts, pleasures, luxuries, and the accumulation of power and influence; and the excess of acquisition over immediate need goes as a residuum into the structure of civilization. In plain words, then, social progress is pushed on by individual greed and ambition. At this point Rolph rests the case, without entering into the moral implicates of the subject, which would seem to obtrude themselves upon the attention.

Now to a believer in progressive evolution with a strong ethical bent such a theory brings home