its leaves; its flower, its fruit, its roots, so as to protect its life. The animal bows to the same necessity. This adaptation may be the result of something akin to what we call consciousness, it may be merely a mechanical adjustment between thing and circumstance; but the result is the same—variations which are economies in life. So, superfluous organs atrophy and disappear. No organism can flourish hampered by useless or clumsy organs.
Now, when the Socialist searches society for evidence of the operations of this law of adjustment he discovers it all round him in the form of gropings after more co-operation and more organisation. He finds law controlling economic power and imposing social responsibilities upon individual ownership. He finds the common will and the common well-being putting a bridle on the neck of the individual will and the individual interest. Thus he sees society beginning to assert itself again as a personality of all the persons, absorbing and transforming individual advantage into common advantage. The weak are no longer left unprotected against the strong. Children are educated, and steps are being taken to vindicate their right to food, clothing, medical attendance, play. These steps are hesitating and they have not been well considered; but they indicate the existence of a social will working for a common advantage. The same is true regarding women, whose physiology and psychology make them economically weaker than men; it is true of the aged; it is becoming true of the
