< Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 6.djvu
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SOCIAL EVOLUTION.

various essays on this subject, is Mr. Spencer's theory of social evolution. The practical effect of such a doctrine on all engaged in helping forward, according to the measure of their strength, the cause of human well-being, it is not difficult to perceive; nor does Mr. Spencer altogether blink this aspect of the case. In the last two pages of his recent work he has the following remarks:

"If, as seems likely, some should propose to draw the seemingly awkward corollary, that it matters not what we believe, or what we teach, since the process of social evolution will take its own course in spite of us; I reply that, while this corollary is in one sense true, it is in another sense untrue. Doubtless, from all that has been said, it follows that, supposing surrounding conditions continue the same, the evolution of a society cannot be in any essential way diverted from its general course; though it also follows (and here the corollary is at fault) that the thoughts and actions of individuals, being natural factors that arise in the course of the evolution itself, and aid in further advancing it, cannot be dispensed with, but must be severally valued as increments of the aggregate force producing change."

Whether this explanation will be satisfactory to those who draw the "seemingly awkward corollary," may, perhaps, be doubted. Mr. Spencer apparently does not rely much on the practical efficacy of his answer, for he at once proceeds to supplement it as follows:

"Though the process of social evolution is, in its general character, so far predetermined that its successive stages cannot be antedated, and that hence no teaching or policy can advance it beyond a certain normal rate, which is limited by the rate of organic modification in human beings, yet it is quite possible to perturb, to retard, or to disorder the process. The analogy of individual development again serves us. The unfolding of an organism after its special type has its approximately-uniform course, taking its tolerably-definite time, and no treatment that may be devised will fundamentally change or greatly accelerate these; the best that can be done is to maintain the required favorable conditions. But it is quite easy to adopt a treatment which shall dwarf, or deform, or otherwise injure; the processes of growth and development may be, and very often are, hindered and deranged, though they cannot be artificially bettered. Similarly with the social organism."

If I am not mistaken, however, the case of the social organism is not similar. The favorable conditions which it is important to maintain with reference to the individual organism are conditions external to the organism; whereas that condition of social development, the efficacy of which forms the question in dispute, consists in efforts after social improvement made by the units composing the organism. The analogy, therefore, of individual development completely fails us here, unless, indeed, Mr. Spencer supposes the objectors he is addressing to be standing outside the social organism, and proposing to experiment upon it as upon a foreign body. But, not to dwell on this point, the conclusion arrived at is that, "by maintaining favorable conditions, there cannot be more good done than that of letting social progress go on unhindered;" whereas "an immensity of mischief may be

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