universal economy of Nature. The weaker succumb. This struggle is
regulated and restrained by the unconscious sway of biological laws and
by the interplay of opposite forces. In the plant world and the animal
world this process is worked out in unconscious tragedy. In the human
race it is consciously carried out, and regulated by social ordinances.
The man of strong will and strong intellect tries by every means to
assert himself, the ambitious strive to rise, and in this effort the
individual is far from being guided merely by the consciousness of
right. The life-work and the life-struggle of many men are determined,
doubtless, by unselfish and ideal motives, but to a far greater extent
the less noble passions--craving for possessions, enjoyment and honour,
envy and the thirst for revenge--determine men's actions. Still more
often, perhaps, it is the need to live which brings down even natures of
a higher mould into the universal struggle for existence and enjoyment.

There can be no doubt on this point. The nation is made up of
individuals, the State of communities. The motive which influences each
member is prominent in the whole body. It is a persistent struggle for
possessions, power, and sovereignty, which primarily governs the
relations of one nation to another, and right is respected so far only
as it is compatible with advantage. So long as there are men who have
human feelings and aspirations, so long as there are nations who strive
for an enlarged sphere of activity, so long will conflicting interests
come into being and occasions for making war arise.

"The natural law, to which all laws of Nature can be reduced, is the law
of struggle. All intrasocial property, all thoughts, inventions, and
institutions, as, indeed, the social system itself, are a result of the
intrasocial struggle, in which one survives and another is cast out. The
extrasocial, the supersocial, struggle which guides the external