Why, finally, if we are to consider the amount and the character of this indemnity, should this indemnity be _total_ and _absolute_? Why, even under present conditions, if a landowner, for various reasons, such as cherished memories connected with the land, values it at a sentimental price, he would be forced under the right of eminent domain to accept the market value, without any extra payment for his affection or sentiment. It would be just the same in the case of the collective appropriation which would, moreover, be facilitated by the progressive concentration of the land in the hands of a few great landed proprietors. If we were to assure these proprietors, _for the term of the natural lives_, a comfortable and tranquil life, it would suffice to make the indemnity meet all the requirements of the most rigorous equity. [54] LORIA, _La Teoria economica della constituzione politica_, Turin, 1886. p. 141. The second edition of this work has appeared in French, considerably enlarged: _Les bases economiques de la constitution sociale_, Paris, 1893. (This has also been translated into English.--Tr.) This law of apparent retrogression alone overthrows the greater part of the far too superficial criticisms that Guyot makes upon socialism in _La Tyrannie socialiste_, Paris, 1893 (published in English, by Swan Sonnenschein, London,) and in _Les Principes de 1789 et le Socialisme_, Paris, 1894. XI. THE SOCIAL EVOLUTION AND INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY. The conclusion of the preceding chapter will be of use to us in the examination of the second contradiction that, it is pretended, exists between socialism and the theory of evolution. It is asserted and repeated in all possible tones that socialism constitutes a tyranny under a new form which will destroy all the blessings of liberty won with such toil and difficulty in our century, at the cost of so many sacrifices and of so many martyrs. I have already shown, in speaking of anthropological inequalities, that socialism will, on the contrary, assure to all individuals the conditions of a human existence and the possibility of developing with the utmost freedom and completeness their own respective individualities. It is sufficient here for me to refer to another law, which the scientific theory of evolution has established, to demonstrate (since I cannot in this monograph enter into details) that it is an error to assume that the advent of socialism would result in the suppression of the vital and vitalizing part of personal and political liberty. It is a law of natural evolution, set forth and illustrated with remarkable clearness by M. Ardigo[55], that each succeeding phase of the natural and social evolution does not destroy the vital and life-giving manifestations of the preceding phases, but that, on the contrary, it preserves their existence in so far as they are vital and only eliminates their pathological manifestations.