Further on, he repeats:
"Let us understand, once for all, that the ethical progress of society depends, not on imitating the cosmic process, still less in running away from it, but in combating it."[212]
And later on:
"I see no limit to the extent to which intelligence and will, guided by sound principles of investigation, and organized in a common effort, may modify the conditions of existence, for a period longer than that now covered by history. And much may be done to change the nature of man himself. The intelligence which has converted the brother of the wolf into the faithful guardian of the flock ought to be able to do something towards curbing the instincts of savagery in civilized men."[213]
And in a note Huxley emphasizes the extent to which human nature has been already modified by pointing to the fact that sexual instinct has been suppressed between near relations.[214]
Huxley's demonstrations that the happiness of man can only be attained by the limitation of competition, by deliberate institutions to that effect, and by conscious efforts to create an environment that will tend to develop the ethical qualities of men, put an end to the last serious occasion for conflict between Science and Religion; for it results in the same theories of human responsibility, and the same appeals to human effort, that it has been the rôle of the church to preach from the beginning.
I have quoted from "Evolution and Ethics" because to my mind this essay and its prolegomena make Huxley the founder of Scientific and Ethical Socialism. It is true that he himself repudiates this. To him Socialism is impossible because of what he describes as "the mighty instinct of reproduction."[215] He points out that we cannot apply to superfluous or defective human beings the system of extirpation which gardeners apply to superfluous and defective vegetables and weeds.
I have already answered the objection to Socialism on the ground of overproduction.[216] But Huxley never had presented to him the modern idea of Socialism herein described. He speaks of the "elimination of competition." It never occurred to him that the evils of competition could be eliminated without eliminating competition. Candor, however, compels me to admit that I do not think any presentation of the most modern form of Socialism would at all have converted Professor Huxley. There were two subjects upon which he could not speak without getting into a temper: Gladstone and Socialism.
When I met him, I was not myself a Socialist. Indeed, I did not become a Socialist until after Huxley died. My impressions, therefore, of him were not affected by a prejudice in favor of Socialism. On the contrary, I still regarded Socialism as impractical; I still believed it to be absurd. It was only after months of labor in attempting to utilize the "considerable fragments of a constructive creed"[217] which Professor Ritchie found in Professor Huxley's pages, that I was driven to a study of the Socialism to which I was utterly opposed, and found in it the only solution to the contradictions which blurred even the lucid pages of Huxley's works. And the contradictions in Huxley are not difficult to find. Nothing could be more pessimistic than what seems to be the climax of his argument in "Evolution and Ethics":
"The theory of evolution encourages no millennial anticipations. If, for millions of years, our globe has taken the upward road, yet, some time, the summit will be reached and the downward route will be commenced. The most daring imagination will hardly venture upon the suggestion that the power and the intelligence of man can ever arrest the procession of the great year."[218]