extent that
is clearly true. But the individualist insists that there are definite
limits to its truth. Even in the most favourable environment nearly
every ill that the Socialist seeks to remove is found. Inevitably, the
Individualist declares, because we do not spring out of our environment,
but out of our ancestral stocks. Against the stress on environment, the
Individualist lays the stress on the ascertained facts of heredity. It
is the individual that counts, and for good or for ill the individual
brought his fate with him at birth. Ensure the production of sound
individuals, and you may set at naught the environment. You will,
indeed, secure results incomparably better than even the most anxious
care expended on environment alone can ever hope to secure.

Such are the respective attitudes of Socialism and Individualism. So far
as I can see, they are both absolutely right. Nor is it even clear that
they are really opposed; for, as happens in every field, while the
affirmations of each are sound, their denials are unsound. Certainly,
along each line we may be carried to absurdity. The Individualism of Max
Stirner is not far from the ultimate frontier of sanity, and possibly
even on the other side of it;[254] while the Socialism of the Oneida
Community involved a self-subordination which it would be idle to expect
from the majority of men and women. But there is a perfect division of
labour between Socialism and Individualism. We cannot have too much of
either of them. We have only to remember that the field of each is
distinct. No one needs Individualism in his water supply, and no one
needs Socialism in his religion. All human affairs sort themselves out
as coming within the province of Socialism or of Individualism, and each
may be pushed to its furthest extreme.[255]

It so happens, however, that the capacity of the human brain is limited,
and a single brain is not made to hold together the idea of Socialism
and the idea of Individualism. Ordinary people have, it is true, no
practical difficulty whatever in acting concurrently in accordance with
the ideas of Socialism and of Individualism. But it is different with
the men of ideas; they must either be Socialists or Individualists; they
cannot be both. The tendency in one or the other direction is probably
inborn in these men of ideas.

We need not regret this inevitable division of labour. On the contrary,
it is difficult to see how the right result could othe