[20] Malthus himself recognised this in a later edition of his book. [21] _Cf._ in this connection W. F. Ogburn, _Social Change_, _passim_, but particularly Part IV, I, on “The Hypothesis of Cultural Lag.” [22] However, the controversy over gun elevation demonstrates how difficult it is to maintain an equilibrium of force where so many factors are variable. [23] Gustav Cassel, _A Theory of Social Economy_, Chapter I. [24] _Ibid._, p. 7. Chapter VIII SOCIAL CONTRACTS 1 It is impossible to imagine in the universe a harmony of all things, each with all the others. The only harmonies we know or can conceive, outside of what Mr. Santayana calls the realm of essences, are partial adjustments which sacrifice to some one end all purposes which conflict with it. That the tree may bear fruit for us, we readily kill the insects that eat the fruit. So the fruit will ripen for us, we take no account of the disharmony we create for innumerable flies. In the light of eternity it may be wholly unimportant whether the harmonies on this earth are suited to men or to insects. For in the light of eternity and from the point of view of the universe as a whole nothing can be what we call good or bad, better or worse. All ideas of value are measurements of some part of this universe with some other part, and it is no more possible to value the universe as a whole than it is to weigh it as a whole. For all scales of value and of weight are contained within it. To judge the whole universe you must, like a god, be outside of it, a point of view no mortal mind can adopt. Unfortunately for the fly, therefore, we are bound to judge him by human values. In so far as we have power over him, he must submit to the harmonies we seek to establish. We may as a sporting matter admit his theoretical right to establish his own harmonies against us if he can, and to call them better if he likes, but for us that only is good which is good for man. Our universe consists of all that it contains, not as such, not as the fly knows it, but in its relation to us. From any other point of view but man’s, his conception of the universe is askew. It has an emphasis and a perspective, it is shaped to a design which is altogether human. The very forms, colors, odors and sound of things are dependent for their quality upon our sense organs. Their relations are seen and understood against the background of our necessities. In the realm of man’s interests and purposes and desires, the perspectives are even narrower. There is no human point of view here, but only the points of view of men. None is valid for all human beings, none for all of human history, none for all corners of the globe. An opinion of the right and the wrong, the good and the bad, the pleasant and the unpleasant, is dated, is localized, is relative. It applies only to some men at some time in some place under some circumstances. 2