Part 18 (1/2)

M. Garofalo's book, which was announced as an a.s.sault of science upon socialism, has been, even from this point of view, a complete disappointment, as even the Italian anti-socialists have confessed in several of the most orthodox Reviews.

It now remains for me to reply briefly to his observations--and they are few and far between--on the relations which exist between contemporary socialism and the general trend and tendency of thought in the exact sciences.

Disregarding the arguments which I had developed on this subject by pointing out that there is an essential connection between economic and social trans.m.u.tation (Marx) and the theories of biological trans.m.u.tation (Darwin) and of universal trans.m.u.tation (Spencer), M. Garofalo has thought it prudent to take up for consideration only ”the struggle for existence” and the relations between ”evolution and revolution.”

As to the first, five pages (96-100) are enough to enable him to declare, without supporting his declaration by any positive argument which is not merely a different verbal expression of the same idea, that the Darwinian law of the struggle for existence has not undergone and can not undergo any transformation except that which will change the violent struggle into compet.i.tion (the struggle of skill and intelligence) and that this law is irreconcilable with socialism; for it necessarily requires the sacrifice of the conquered, while socialism ”would guarantee to all men their material existence, so they would have no cause for anxiety.”

But my friend, the Baron Garofalo, quietly and completely ignores the fundamental argument that the socialists oppose to the individualist interpretation that has. .h.i.therto been given of the struggle for life and which still affects the minds of some socialists so far as to make them think that the law of the struggle for life is not true and that Darwinism is irreconcilable with socialism.

The socialists, in fact, think that the laws of life are the following, and that they are concurrent and inseparable: _the struggle for existence_ and _solidarity in the struggle against natural forces_. If the first law is in spirit individualist, the second is essentially socialistic.

Now, not to repeat what I have written elsewhere, it is sufficient here for me to establish this positive fact that all human evolution is effected through the constantly increasing predominance of the law of solidarity over the law of the struggle for existence.

The forms of the struggle are transformed and grow milder, as I showed as long ago as 1883, and M. Garofalo accepts this way of looking at the matter when he recognizes that the muscular struggle is ever tending to become an intellectual struggle. But he has in view only the formal evolution; he wholly disregards the progressive decrease in the importance of the struggling function under the action of the other parallel law of solidarity in the struggle.

Here comes in that constant principle in sociology, that the social forms and forces co-exist always, but that their relative importance changes from epoch to epoch and from place to place.

Just as in the individual egoism and altruism co-exist and will co-exist always--for egoism is the basis of personal existence--but with a continuous and progressive restriction and transformation of egoism, corresponding to the expansion of altruism, in pa.s.sing from the fierce egoism of savage humanity to the less brutal egoism of the present epoch, and finally to the more fraternal egoism of the coming society; in the same way in the social organism, for example, the military type and the industrial type always co-exist, but with a progressively increasing predominance of the latter over the former.

The same truth applies to the different forms of the family, and also to many other inst.i.tutions, of which Spencerian sociology had given only the _descriptive_ evolution and of which the Marxian theory of economic determinism has given the _genetic_ evolution, by explaining that the religious and juridical customs and inst.i.tutions, the social types, the forms of the family, etc., are only the reflex of the economic structure which differs in varying localities (on islands or continents, according to the abundance or scarcity of food) and also varies from epoch to epoch. And--to complete the Marxian theory--this economic structure is, in the case of each social group, the resultant of its race energies developing themselves in such or such a physical environment, at I have said elsewhere.

The same rule holds in the case of the two co-existing laws of the _struggle for existence_ and of _solidarity in the struggle_, the first of which predominates where the economic conditions are more difficult; while the second predominates with the growth of the economic security of the majority. But while this security will become complete under the regime of socialism, which will a.s.sure to every man who works the material means of life, this will not exclude the intellectual forms of the struggle for existence which M. Tchisch recently said should be interpreted not only in the sense of a _struggle for life_, but also in the sense of a _struggle for the enrichment of life_.[95]

In fact, when once the material life of every one is a.s.sured, together with the duty of labor for _all_ the members of society, man will continue always to struggle _for the enrichment of life_, that is to say, for the fuller development of his physical and moral individuality.

And it is only under the regime of socialism that, the predominance of the law of solidarity being decisive, the struggle for existence will change its form and substance, while persisting as an eternal striving toward a better life in the _solidaire_ development of the individual and the collectivity.

But M. Garofalo devotes more attention to the practical (?) relations between socialism and the law of evolution. And in _substance_, once more making use of the objection already so often raised against Marxism and its tactics, he formulates his indictment thus:

”The new socialists who, on the one hand, pretend to speak in the name of sociological science and of the natural laws of evolution, declare themselves politically, on the other hand, as revolutionists. Now, evidently science has nothing to do with their political action.

Although they take pains to say that by ”revolution” they do not mean either a riot or a revolt--an explanation also contained in the dictionary[96]--this fact always remains, _viz._: that they are unwilling to await the _spontaneous_ organization of society under the new economic arrangement foreseen by them in a more or less remote future. For if they should thus quietly await its coming, who among them would survive to prove to the incredulous the truth of their predictions?

It is a question then of an evolution _artificially hastened_, that is to say, in other words, of the _use of force_ to transform society in accordance with their wishes.” (p. 30.)

”The socialists of the Marxian school do not expect the transformation to be effected by a slow evolution, but by a _revolution of the people_, and they even fix the epoch of its occurence.” (p. 53.)

”Henceforth the socialists must make a decision and take one horn of the dilemma or the other.

”Either they must be _theoretical evolutionists_, WHO WAIT PATIENTLY until the time shall be ripe;

Or, on the contrary, they must be _revolutionary democrats_; and if they take this horn, it is nonsense to talk of evolution, acc.u.mulation, spontaneous concentration, etc. ACCOMPLISH THEN THIS REVOLUTION, IF YOU HAVE THE POWER.” (p. 151.)

I do not wish to dwell on this curious ”instigation to civil war” by such an orthodox conservative as the Baron Garofalo, although he might be suspected of the not specially Christian wish to see this ”revolution of the people” break out at once, while the people are still disorganized and weak and while it would be easier for the dominant cla.s.s to bleed them copiously....

Let us try rather to deliver M. Garofalo from another trouble; for on page 119 he exclaims pathetically: ”I declare on my honor I do not understand how a sincere socialist can to-day be a revolutionist. I would be sincerely grateful to anyone who would explain this to me, for to me this is an enigma, so great is the contradiction between the theory and the methods of the socialists.”

Well then, console yourself, my excellent friend! Just as in the case of the relations.h.i.+p between collective owners.h.i.+p and human degeneration, which seemed so ”enigmatical” to this same Baron Garofalo--and although he has not offered his grat.i.tude for the solution of this enigma to the socialist Oedipus who explained it to him--here also, in the case of this other enigma, the explanation is very simple.

On the subject of the social question the att.i.tudes a.s.sumed in the domain of science, or on the field of politics, are the following: