'And are you not afraid,' I interposed, 'that this absence of care will eventually put an end to that upon which you rely--that is, to progress? Hitherto at least want and care have been the strongest incentives to human activity; if these incentives are weakened, if the torturing anxiety about to-morrow ceases, then will progress be slackened, stagnation and then degeneration will follow, and together with the consequent inevitable impoverishment want and care will come again. I must admit that none of this has so far shown itself among you; but this does not remove my fears. For at present you in Freeland are enjoying the fruits of the progress of others. What has been thought out and invented under the pressure of the want and sorrow of unnumbered centuries, what is still being thought out and invented under the pressure of the want and sorrow of untold millions outside the boundaries of your own country--it is all this which makes your present happiness possible. But how will it be when what you are striving after has happened, when the whole human race shall have been converted to your principles? Do you believe that want can completely disappear from off the face of the earth without taking progress with it?' 'We not only believe that,' was his answer, 'but we know it; and everyone who does not allow obsolete prejudices to distort his judgment of facts must agree with us. To struggle for existence is the inexorable command, upon the observance of which nature has made progress--nay, the very being of every living thing--to depend: this we understand better than any other people in the world. But that this struggle must necessarily be prompted by hunger we deny; and we deny also that it is necessarily a struggle between individuals of the same species. Even we have to struggle for existence; for what we require does not fall into our lap without effort and labour. Yet not _opposed_ but _side by side_ do we stand in our struggle; and it is on this very account that the result is never doubtful to us. When we are referred to the conflict to be found everywhere in the animal world, we can appeal to the fact that man possesses other means of struggling than do his fellow-creatures which stand on a lower level, and can work out his evolution in a different manner. But to plead this would be to resort to a poor and unnecessary subterfuge, for in reality the reverse is the case. Want and material care are--with very rare exceptions--no natural stimulants to fight in the competitive struggle for existence. By far the larger number of animals never suffer lack, never feel any anxiety whatever about the morrow; and yet from the beginning all things have been subjected to the great and universal law of progress. Very rarely in the animal world is there the struggle of antagonism between members of the same species; the individuals live together in peace and generally without antagonism,