evil than benefit, is it not really a kindness to him to do so? If we are firmly convinced, for example, that the failure to accept a certain doctrine will doom the recusant to an eternity of awful torment, and if we are equally sure that coercion will be able to secure the saving acceptance, and without causing an amount of suffering anywhere near as great as that from which the coerced one is to be rescued, can we hesitate to declare that such coercion should be applied? Have we not, in fact, abandoned intolerance, where we have abandoned it, either because we have changed our minds either as to the desirability of the end sought, or our faith in the efficiency of compulsion to reach it, or to reach it at a not disproportionate expense?

In taking this ground we emphasize the fact that coercion being in itself painful, the one exercising it is morally bound first to convince himself that the conditions that we have mentioned are certainly present. No one is justified in intolerance, however slight, until he has informed himself by all means within his power as to the rightfulness of his opinion, and until he has taken into careful consideration all the effects, immediate and remote, of an exercise of coercion on his part. When such conditions are strictly observed it will be found, we think, that the doctrine will secure a considerably greater tolerance, individual, social, and political, than now actually obtains in any modern society.

The bearing which the discussion that has gone before has upon the proper attitude of the so-called

higher nations to the lower, less civilized races, is obvious. It can not but be held that, just as there is a duty on the part of a parent or guardian to educate, even with the collateral use of compulsion if necessary, the undeveloped faculties of the child, so it lies within the legitimate province of an enlightened nation to compel - if compulsion be the only and the best means available- the less civilized races to enter into that better social and political life the advantages of which their own ignorance either prevents them from seeing, or securing if seen.

There must be emphasized, however, the conditions under which alone the assumption of such a task by a superior nation is justifiable. In the first place the motive must be an absolutely disinterested one. The work must be undertaken because of the advantage which will accrue to the coerced race, or to humanity. The possibility of incidental advantages to the superior race is not excluded, but cannot properly furnish the motive. In the second place the superior nation should be absolutely sure, not simply that the civilization which it is endeavoring to impress upon the inferior nation is intrinsically better than that which it is to supplant, but that it will be better as related to the peculiar needs and characteristics of the people in question. Finally it should be made manifest that the desired results can better be obtained by compulsion than by any other mode. In this connection there must be taken into consideration all possible consequences, proximate and remote, not only as regards the nations immediately concerned, but as

regards the fact that a compulsion conscientiously undertaken by one nation may furnish a pretext or alleged precedent for a "criminal aggression" on the part of a less conscientious people. Bearing in mind these qualifications, we may accept the language of Professor Burgess when he says:

"No one can question that it is in the interest of the world's best civilization that law and order and the true liberty consistent therewith shall reign everywhere upon the globe. A permanent inability on the part of any State or semi-State to secure this status is a threat to civilization everywhere. Both for the sake of the half-barbarous State and in the interest of the rest of the world, a State or States, endowed with the capacity for political organization, may righteously assume sovereignty over and undertake to create state order for, such a politically incompetent population. The civilized States should not, of course, act with undue haste in seizing power, and they should never exercise the power, once assumed, for any other purpose than that for which the assumption may be righteously made, viz. for the civilization of the subjected population; but they are under no obligation to await invitation from those claiming power and government in the insufficient organization, nor from those subject to the same. The civilized States themselves are the best organs which have yet appeared in the history of the world for determining the proper time and occasion for intervening in the affairs of the unorganized or insufficiently organized populations, for the execution of

their great world-duty. Indifference on the part of the Teutonic States to the political civilization of the rest of the world is, then, not only mistaken policy, but disregard of duty, and mistaken policy because disregard of duty. In the study of general political science we must be able to find a standpoint from which the harmony of duty and policy may appear. History and ethnology offer us this elevated ground, and they teach us that the Teutonic nations are the political nations of the modern era; that, in the economy of history, the duty has fallen upon them of organizing the world politically; and that, if true to their mission, they must follow the line of this duty as one of their chief practical policies." 1

1 Political Science and Comparative Constitutional Law, Vol. I, p. 47 (published in 1893).

CHAPTER IX

THE ETHICS OF THE COMPETITIVE PROCESS

THE result of the argument, as carried on in the preceding chapter, has been to show that no absolute or a priori principle can be established regarding the proper sphere of social or political control, but that in every case conditions of fact should govern. It has been alleged by some, however, that, starting from such a purely empiric basis, it can be established as a general principle that the coercive power of the State should be kept within the closest limits possible. It is asserted, in short, that this is the lesson taught by a study of the conditions of life generally in the biological world. In the sub-human world, it is said, continued progress and development have been rendered possible solely by the fact that individuals have been forced to bear the consequences which necessarily come from unrestricted competition with the members of their own and other species. By a like competitive process, it is argued, the improvement of the human race may best be secured. The present chapter will be devoted to a consideration of the validity of this position.

The chief exponent of this theory is Mr. Herbert Spencer. The latest and probably final statement of