Note 70 — Chapter VII · THE SPIRITUAL ROOTS OF THE SETTLEMENT
Reading edition
Bertrand Russell: Principles of Social Reconstruction.
Mr. Trotter in Instincts of the Herd in War and Peace, says:—
‘We see one instinct producing manifestations directly hostile to each other—prompting to ever-advancing developments of altruism while it necessarily leads to any new product of advance being attacked. It shows, moreover ... that a gregarious species rapidly developing a complex society can be saved from inextricable confusion only by the appearance of reason and the application of it to life. (p. 46.)
... ‘The conscious direction of man’s destiny is plainly indicated by Nature as the only mechanism by which the social life of so complex an animal can be guaranteed against disaster and brought to yield its full possibilities, (p. 162.)
... ‘Such a directing intelligence or group of intelligences would take into account before all things the biological character of man.... It would discover when natural inclinations in man must be indulged, and would make them respectable, what inclinations in him must be controlled for the advantage of the species, and make them insignificant.’ (p. 162-3.)