Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/196

Rh flict with the elemental forces of our being, which will subdue us in spite of our struggles.

Nevertheless, Dühring continues, though life is essentially good, there is real evil in it, and one condition of its good is that we shall rise to higher good by the spring from overcoming the evil: the world makes itself better through us as channels. In this fact we pass from theory to practice, finding in it the basis of ethics. The first principle of ethics follows from the law that contributes so much to the excellence of the Actual — the Law of the Whole. The highest practical precept is, Act with supreme reference to the Whole. But inasmuch as we are members not only of the Absolute Whole, but of the lesser whole called society, we can only act in and through that. Accordingly, first in the order of his practical theories comes Dühring’s sociology.

His writings in this field are voluminous, especially in political economy, in which he adopts and develops the views of our countryman Carey. Carey, he thinks, has revolutionised this subject. The doctrines involved in the free-trade view, especially the principle of unrestricted competition, he considers a deification of mean self-interest. They strike at the foundation of rational ethics — the supreme moral authority of the Whole. Away with them, then, and substitute instead the doctrines of benignant coöperation! This sentiment is carried