This assertion that people should continue to live as they have
done throughout past ages rather than as their reason and
conscience indicate, is what 'science' calls 'the historic law'.
A further 'scientific' justification lies in the statement that
as among plants and wild beasts there is a constant struggle for
existence which always results in the survival of the fittest, a
similar struggle should be carried on among human beings--beings,
that is, who are gifted with intelligence and love; faculties
lacking in the creatures subject to the struggle for existence
and survival of the fittest. Such is the second 'scientific'
justification.

The third, most important, and unfortunately most widespread
justification is, at bottom, the age-old religious one just a
little altered: that in public life the suppression of some for
the protection of the majority cannot be avoided--so that coercion
is unavoidable however desirable reliance on love alone might be
in human intercourse. The only difference in this justification
by pseudo-science consists in the fact that, to the question why
such and such people and not others have the right to decide
against whom violence may and must be used, pseudo-science now
gives a different reply to that given by religion--which declared
that the right to decide was valid because it was pronounced by
persons possessed of divine power. 'Science' says that these
decisions represent the will of the people, which under a
constitutional form of government is supposed to find expression
in all the decisions and actions of those who are at the helm at
the moment.

Such are the scientific justifications of the principle of