even the adoption of a system of living which would
enable the idle and the good-for-nothing to survive. The progress of
civilisation depends, I should say, on the extension of the sense of
duty which each man owes to society at large. That involves such a
constitution of society that, although we abandon the old methods of
hanging and flogging and shooting down--methods which corrupted the
inflicters of punishment by diminishing their own sense of
responsibility--may give an advantage to the prudent and industrious,
and make it more probable that they will be the ancestors of the next
generation. A system which should equalise the advantages of the
energetic and the helpless would begin by demoralising, and would very
soon lead to an unprecedented intensification of the struggle for
existence. The probable result of a ruthless socialism would be the
adoption of very severe means for suppressing those who did not
contribute their share of work. But, in any case, as it seems, we never
get away or break away from the inevitable fact. If individual ends
could be suppressed, if every man worked for the good of society as
energetically as for his own, we should still feel the absolute
necessity of proportioning the whole body to the whole supplies
obtainable from the planet, and to preserve the equilibrium of mankind
relatively to the rest of nature. That day is probably distant; but
even upon that hypothesis the struggle for existence would still be
with us, and there would be the same necessity for preserving the
fittest and killing out, as gently as might be, those who were unfit.

***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOCIAL RIGHTS AND DUTIES, VOLUME I
(OF 2)***

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