Darwinism and Modern Socialism

F.W. Headley

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317275930
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

An adamant fan of Darwin, F.W. Headley attempts to argue the difficulties of believing in Socialism and Darwinism simultaneously and highlights issues which could prevent Socialism from being put into practice. Originally published in 1909, this study uses examples of communities in countries such as England and India to illustrate Headley's key belief that societies only function well if they do not interfere with the fight for existence and natural selection. This title will be of interest to students of Philosophy, Sociology and Anthropology.

DARWINISM AND MODERN SOCIALISM

CHAPTER I

SOCIETIES ANIMAL AND HUMAN

THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE—ASSOCIATIONS AMONG ANIMALS—EVIDENCE OF THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE—THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE AMONG MEN—INDIVIDUALISM—TRADE-UNIONISM AND SOCIALISM—DEFINITIONS—SOCIALISM AND THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE

THE struggle for existence goes on throughout the organic world. Through it plants and animals have become what they are. The feeble, the sickly, the unadaptable are weeded out. To the environment as it changes slowly or rapidly every individual must somehow adjust himself or else submit to elimination. Without adaptability and without vigour there is no possibility of surviving. Hence the exuberant strength of wild animals and plants, hence the joy of mere living that characterises the higher species. When variations arise which through lucky coincidence turn out to be adaptations, new species are formed. Hence the multitudes of highly specialised forms of animal and plant life which people the world, each filling its place, each having been moulded by the changing environment as the ages rolled on.

This is the Darwinian theory, a theory that is simple enough and yet one that is frequently misunderstood. Indeed, the mere simple statement of it leaves us quite in the dark about some matters which we very much want to understand. To begin with—of what nature is the struggle for existence? Against whom or what do the combatants fight? Against the inanimate environment or against one another? And does each individual fight for himself, or do troops do battle against troops, associations against associations? To this latter question we cannot give an answer in one sentence, cannot formulate a principle that is absolutely true for all plants and animals. The life history of each requires special study. But if for the moment we leave the human race out of sight, we find but few exceptions to the rule that living organisms must be able as individuals, each by the help of his own physiological endowment, to stand whatever strain the inanimate environment in the shape of cold or heat or drought or flood may put upon them. Against disease also the individual plant or animal fights unaided. Man alone is able, by sympathy and skill, to help his associates in the struggle against disease.

But when we look further into the matter, we find no approach to uniformity. A plant plays for its own hand, so to speak. A forest tree struggles against its neighbours, tries to get some share of light. A small plant is no less individualist and makes efforts not to be overrun by small vigorous rivals, and among most of the invertebrate animals and even many vertebrates we find an almost unqualified individualism. The herring scatters her eggs in the sea, leaving the young to take their chance. Each embryo has a little food provided for him in the egg. Save for this (poor minute individualist!) he must trust to his own resources.

But among the higher animals we never see a purely individualist system maintained from the beginning to the end of life. Either permanently or at intervals they form associations, small or great, and fight the battle of life in combination. The smallest and by far the most important association is the family, in the narrow sense. Two birds, for instance, pair together for one season or in some cases for life. They share pleasure and pain, for all the hopes of both of them are centred in the same nest, the same eggs and, soon, the same little nestlings. To the feeding and the defence of these nestlings both devote all their days. Sometimes such families exist within a larger group. Rook pairs with rook, and a great number of such pairs go to make up a rookery. Their large numbers enable them to beat off such enemies as falcons. The bird of prey must look out for stragglers, for he dare not invade the clanging populous rookery. But often in the animal world we find large groups formed not of pairs, as in the case of rooks, but of individuals. Deer and antelopes form herds, among which a polygamous system prevails. The does form the harem of the lord of the herd. But even here there is for a time an incomplete and rudimentary family. The young fawn is not only suckled by his mother, but looks to her for protection if they happen to get separated from the herd. If a danger in the shape of man or beast of prey appears, she encourages the enemy to pursue her, while her young fawn, perhaps at some signal from his mother, drops and disappears in the long grass or brushwood.

When the association is only temporary, only for the breeding season, it is often replaced by a new grouping for the rest of the year. Starlings, for instance, break up into pairs when the nesting time comes, but as soon as their young are reared, they go about in flocks. And so it is with many other birds. When you see them in flocks, you find in it a reminder that the summer is far advanced. It is to be noticed that we do not find the great carnivora living together in communities. They are nearly all monogamous, though in some cases—the wolves are a well-known example—they hunt in packs.

But the associations which we find existing so commonly among the higher animals do not relieve the individual of the necessity of defending himself on occasion. He must be efficient not only as a member of an association, but as an individual. For the rook to belong to a rookery is much, but it does not mean freedom from all danger. The bird of prey finds his opportunities. As to pairing and bringing up a family, the individual bird gains nothing, materially speaking, by it. On the contrary, motherhood, and even fatherhood, brings with it a heavy tax. It is the young who profit. But the parent birds have their consolations, for their life becomes more intense when they are devoting themselves to the rearing of their offspring. Their altruism is an expansion of their individualism. As with men—a large proportion of them, I mean; certainly not all—the intensity of the individual life finds expression in sympathy with others. Nature has nothing more wonderful to show than a linnet sitting long days and nights on her eggs, or putting her whole heart into the feeding of her young. Unconsciously she is sacrificing herself for the good of the species. But here, as in other cases, the self-sacrifice being absolutely whole-hearted is not felt as a sacrifice.

This seems the proper place to answer the question, why it is that in some species pairing is the invariable rule, whereas in others polygamy prevails. The cock thrush works as hard as his partner to supply his young with food. The greater carnivora pair, and father and mother both help in the rearing of their young—the lion with his two or three wives is an exception though not a very glaring one—whereas among deer and antelopes polygamy on a large scale prevails, and the father never troubles about his offspring. They are to him simply members of the herd. It may be urged that the vigorous life of the larger group, the herd, naturally tends to reduce the smaller group, the family, to unimportance. But this argument will hardly hold water, since rooks and jackdaws are, both of them, pairing species and at the same time they live in flocks. Beyond a doubt the true explanation is this: pairing takes place in those species whose habits render the help of both parents necessary for the support of the young. It is not easy to catch food for a young tiger, and, therefore, both parents go hunting for the benefit of their common family. When one parent is killed, the survivor may under favourable circumstances succeed in doing the work of both, but such cases are rare. Recently I have heard on good authority of a cock blackbird who lost his mate, but succeeded single-handed in rearing a nest full of young. As a general rule, we may say that where the energies of both parents are not required for the nurture of the young, polygamy tends to make its appearance. Young magpies are voracious and their food has to be carried to their nest high aloft. Hence magpies pair. Young pheasants, very soon after they are hatched, pick up food for themselves. The young antelope, as soon as he is weaned, can find his own food. Hence we find polygamy among pheasants and antelopes. No doubt there are some cases which are difficult of explanation. I cannot myself explain why the Red grouse pair while the Black grouse do not. But a small number of doubtful cases cannot be set against an enormous mass in which the explanation is clear and indisputable. The man who cannot see the wood for the trees is not likely to solve biological problems. Monogamy has its origin in the helplessness of the young. Of human kind this is true as it is of other animals. To the helplessness of the young we must look for the origin of the family, that unique social institution on which civilisation has been built up.

Letusnowreturn to the larger associations of animals. As I have said above, their raison d’être is, as a rule, mutual defence. For this purpose mainly they exist, for example among monkeys, pigs, deer, antelopes, birds. Among insects, we find much more highly organised associations, the object of which is co-operative labour quite as much as mutual defence. Every one is familiar with the communities of bees and ants. Among them we find special work allotted to different classes of individuals whose structure is specially modified for its performance. There are, the queen bees, whose sole duty is to lay eggs and populate the hive; the drones, whose function is sexual only. Then there are the workers, in whom the sexual organs are suppressed. Thus there is an anatomical and physiological specialisation beyond anything we find in the human race. Among the members of any human community are many who can be fitted by education for any work that is likely to be demanded of them, whereas among slave-keeping ants, to take an extreme case, we find a soldier caste, that are incapable of anything but fighting. They cannot even eat without the help of slaves to put the food into their mouths. Any human community whose members had to such an extent lost their plasticity, would obviously soon cease to exist. Quite apart from the question of anatomical specialisation, bees and ants are better suited for living a corporate life than men, for, guided as they are mainly by instinct, it is possible for them to dispense with individuality and become the slaves of the spirit of the hive, to use Maeterlinck’s expressive term, or the nest. A man who has no personality of his own is comparatively useless to the community to which he belongs, since it is essential that its component units should have among them a great variety of character and attainment.

I will now recall the main facts that I have tried to make clear. There is a struggle for existence for all plants and animals. None can be merely onlookers. Each individual has to hold his own against disease, heat, cold, and enemies. There is also a struggle between group and group. Associations of individuals exist for mutual defence. But each individual must be vigorous and, according to the standard of the species, alert and intelligent. The incapable are got rid of by natural selection, or, more strictly speaking, by the environment, quite as effectively as if no association existed. There is no room for the inefficient, since combination protects only the strong and capable. Insect associations are different in that they exist for co-operation in work as much or even more than for mutual defence. The family, as an association, stands by itself since the two individuals who join in partnership gain nothing except greater intensity of life. It is the species that benefits.

Now we may go on to meet a possible objection. If there is really a struggle for existence for each individual and for each group, it seems curious on first thoughts that so little sign of it becomes visible to the casual observer. He looks for the red tooth and claw that Tennyson has sung of, and fails to see them. In spite of this he must know what is going on. He has read or heard what Darwin says about elephants in his Origin of Species. If none were eliminated, the whole world would, before many centuries have passed, become crowded with elephants, and this in spite of the fact that elephants reproduce their kind but slowly. There must then be some check to the growth of the elephant population. The same line of argument is, if possible, still more convincing if we think of that proverbially rapid breeder, the rabbit, or the herring and the cod, compared with whom the rabbit is miserably infertile. Convinced by these Darwinian commonplaces, the casual observer wonders, if he has the energy to wonder, that he sees so little of the working of the Darwinian system. The fact is that the struggle goes on at crises only. The rabbit struggles only when a stoat or a goshawk suddenly appears, when a ferret invades his burrow, when a man with a gun comes within range, or when a drought leaves him without food. Between these times he is free from danger and, what is perhaps more important, free from anxiety. He is always more or less on the alert, but he has not the human faculty of looking before and after. And so he is able to enjoy to the full the interspaces between the times of struggle. Among civilised men, too, the struggle goes on, but, except for the poorest, it is mainly, but not entirely, a struggle against disease. Softened as it has been by civilisation, it still remains a very real struggle, as may be judged from the fact that not far short of 50 per cent, of our population are eliminated before they reach the age of twenty-five.¹

As among animals generally so among men we find associations. For all there is a struggle for existence. To begin with, each man fights, mainly as an individual, against disease, and, in primitive times, for all and each there were not seldom enemies against whom they had occasionally as individuals to hold their own or else perish. But all human beings are in their early years members of an association, either a family or some institution which takes its place. No infant can be a thorough-going individualist, however much he may wish to be his own master. In ancient days there was hardly a human being who was not throughout life a member of a closely knit community larger than the family; hardly a man, and still less a woman, who was not a member of a tribe or a communal village. An outcast from one of these communities must either get admitted to another or else lead a very precarious existence as an Ishmaelite, for no one could stand alone in such lawless times. And so the tribe and, later, the village community, grew strong. But it is remarkable how the institution of the family developed and throve within these larger associations. The strong bond between tribesmen did not weaken the bond between kinsmen. It is true that there is a shadowy prehistoric time, when according to some high authorities the tribe consisted not of families but of individuals, a time when there was nothing that we can dignify with the name of marriage. Either such a state of things existed or an approximation to it, for even now we find in not a few tribes an almost unrestrained licentiousness. Still even in such cases there is family life of a kind. Children are cared for by women whom they look upon as their mothers, and in most cases are owned by men who, at any rate to some extent, recognise the duties of fatherhood. Later on we find the patriarchal system firmly established among the great mass of the human race. Monogamy is the general rule, and the husband is the ruler of the family, having among many peoples almost despotic power. This power is, as a rule, founded on religion. Firm on this basis it still stands unshaken among the Hindoos and Chinese. They worship their ancestors, who, they believe, are still alive in as true a sense as they themselves are, and this worship can be carried on only by a male descendant. How it came about that this idea established itself as a fundamental part of the religion of so many peoples, we need not now enquire.

The vigour of family life did not interfere with the life of the tribe or of the village. Closely bound as a man was to all members of his family, he could never forget what he owed to his tribe or his village. There were enemies all around, rival tribes or rival villages, and it was only by banding themselves together in larger groups that families could hope to escape destruction. The necessity for mutual defence is the bond which holds the tribe or the village together. Co-operative labour and the holding of property in common are minor matters. The tribe has land on which the cattle owned by the tribesmen graze, and private property in land does not as yet exist. After a time, when tillage comes in, some part of the tribal land is divided among families. Every year there is a redivision. But this annual distribution gives much trouble, and the system is modified, the land being re-distributed at longer intervals. Each year when the crops have been gathered the land again becomes common land, and is used by all members of the tribe for grazing their cattle, and even in the matter of tillage there are rules which all alike must follow. After a time villages develop. Agriculture under the purely tribal system had been extremely rudimentary. Now permanent settlements are formed and it makes progress. Certain families we must think of as settling in certain parts of the tribe’s domain, and each group of families forms a village—such seems to have been the usual process. The land belongs to the village, but the arable is allotted to families and in process of time the practice of re-division tends to disappear, though it still survives in Russia. But that part of the grass land which was reserved for hay long continued to be annually re-distributed in European countries, and examples of the practice were to be found in England in quite recent times. In most cases in England and Western Europe generally the meadow-land, like the arable, became private property. The waste land, on which the cattle of the villagers grazed and with which we are still familiar as common land, in many places escaped enclosure longer, and not a few commons still survive as vestiges of an economic system that has passed away. When there was no longer any danger from without, since the law was becoming strong, when the men of energy and enterprise were hastening to cut themselves free from associates who loved nothing so much as the old rut of custom and tradition, such little communities began to disintegrate. There were many who kicked against the intolerable fetters put upon them by the village system, which obliged all to grow the same crop and cut it at the same time. They longed for private property that they could make the most of. And Parliament, siding with the individualists, passed many hundreds of bills authorising the enclosure of open land and its transference from the village to private owners. Compensation sometimes adequate, but often very inadequate, was paid to those who had the right of commonage, and so a system, out of which the life had departed or was departing, was hurried out of existence by the Legislature.

Individualism had, of course, never been absolutely crushed even at times and places where socialistic institutions seemed to make the man only a component unit of a community. But individualism was now to be dominant. When the change in our land system was being completed, towards the end of the 18th century, mechanical inventions came thick and fast, bringing about a social revolution. Notable among them were the spinning jenny and the power loom. There followed soon the steam engine with its endless applications. Instead of working in their cottages at spinning and weaving, and breaking the monotony of their work with gardening and such things, men were massed together in factories. The age of rapid progress, of wealth, of strain and stress, had begun. Huge fortunes were piled up, and at the bottom of the social scale men lived in greater misery than the poorest of former times, and, what made matters worse, lived in sight of almost boundless wealth.

Individualism, suddenly full blown and utterly reckless, was oppressive and produced misery that beggars description. Naturally the oppressed resorted to combination in order to resist the strong. When it was found that machine-breaking was of no avail, they turned to trade-unionism. For when men cannot hold their own as individuals, they, as a matter of course, try the only alternative. On the one side was capital ever amassing more wealth and, except in the case of high-minded individuals, ready to use any means, however oppressive, to get money. On the other were the workers, who felt that they had a right to a far larger share or even to all the wealth produced. As the communal village in ancient times was strong because it had to resist the neighbouring villages or the extortions of some feudal baron or some rajah, so trade-unionism derives its strength from the fact that capitalism is oppressive. If the workers were guaranteed a fair share of profits and were not liable to dismissal at short notice, the trade-union would melt away.

But since the trade-union is only partially successful, since capital is s...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• PART I.—INTRODUCTORY
• PART II.—SOCIALISM IN THE PAST
• PART III.—THE GROWTH OF INDIVIDUALISM
• PART IV.—MODERN SOCIAL PROBLEMS