limits to their own power and to that of their friends and partizans. The government--or the State, if you will--as judge, moderator of social strife, impartial administrator of the public interests, is a lie. It is an illusion, a Utopia, never realized and never realizable. If in truth, the interests of men must always be contrary to one another; if indeed, the strife between mankind has made laws necessary to human society, and the liberty of the individual must be limited by the liberty of other individuals; then each one would always seek to make his interests triumph over those of others. Each would strive to enlarge his own liberty at the cost of the liberty of others, and there would be government. Not simply because it was more or less useful to the totality of the members of society to have a government, but because the conquerors would wish to secure to themselves the fruits of victory. They would wish effectually to subject the vanquished, and relieve themselves of the trouble of being always on the defensive, and they would appoint men, specially adapted to the business, to act as police. Were this indeed actually the case, then humanity would be destined to perish amidst periodical contests between the tyranny of the dominators and the rebellion of the conquered. But fortunately the future of humanity is a happier one, because the law which governs it is milder. This law is the law of _solidarity_. -------------------- I. Man has two necessary fundamental characteristics, _the instinct of his own preservation_, without which no being could exist, and _the instinct of the preservation of his species_, without which no species could have been formed or have continued to exist. He is naturally driven to defend his own existence and well-being and that of his offspring against every danger. In nature, living beings find two ways of securing their existence, and rendering it pleasanter. The one is in individual strife with the elements, and with other individuals of the same or different species; the other is _mutual support_, or _co-operation_, which might also be described as association for strife against all natural factors, destructive to existence, or to the development and well-being of the associated. We do not need to investigate in these pages--and we cannot for lack of space--what respective proportions in the evolution of the organic world these two principles of strife and co-operation take. It will suffice to note how co-operation among men (whether forced or voluntary) has become the sole means of progress, of improvement or of securing safety; and how strife--relic of an earlier stage of existence--has become thoroughly unsuitable as a means of securing the well-being of individuals, and produces instead injury to all, both the conquerors and the conquered.