The Lessons of History

by Will Durant

So the first biological lesson of history is that life is competition.

capture another feast. War is a nation’s way of eating. It promotes co-operation because it is the ultimate

form of competition.

the average in economic ability desires equality; those who are conscious of superior ability desire freedom; and in the end superior ability has its way.

“As long as there is poverty there will be gods.”

Agriculture becomes an industry, and soon the farmer must choose between being the employee of a capitalist and being the employee of a state.

We conclude that the concentration of wealth is natural and inevitable, and is periodically alleviated by violent or peaceable partial redistribution. In this view all economic history is the slow heartbeat of the social organism, a vast systole and diastole of concentrating wealth and compulsive recirculation.

Since men love freedom, and the freedom of individuals in society requires some regulation of conduct, the first condition of freedom is its limitation; make it absolute and it dies in chaos.

brought to Italy to serve as slaves on the latifundia;

that though men cannot be equal, their access to education and opportunity can be made more nearly equal. The rights of man are not rights to office and power, but the rights of entry into every avenue that may nourish and test a man’s fitness for office and power.

If our economy of freedom fails to distribute wealth as ably as it has created it, the road to dictatorship will be open to any man who can persuasively promise security to all; and a martial government, under whatever charming phrases, will engulf the democratic world.

The state itself acknowledges no substantial restraints, either because it is strong enough to defy any interference with its will or because there is no superstate to offer it basic protection, and no international law or moral code wielding effective force.

Perhaps we are now restlessly moving toward that higher plateau of competition; we may make contact with ambitious species on other planets or stars; soon thereafter there will be interplanetary war. Then, and only then, will we of this earth be one.”

A dangerous tension between rulers and ruled might raise intellectual and emotional activity above the daily drift of primitive tribes. Further stimulation to growth could come from any challenging change in the surroundings,71 such as external invasion or a continuing shortage of rain—challenges that might be met by military improvements or the construction of irrigation canals.

Our problem is whether the average man has increased his ability to control the conditions of his life.