Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 6.djvu/175

 ETHICS OF THE COMPETITIVE PROCESS l6l

peculiar character that, though modifiable, they are modifiable only for the worse ?

As a matter of fact, when traced to its source, it is found that Mr. Spencer everywhere betrays in his writings what may be called a personal hostility toward governments. Though at times he speaks of government as subject in its life and develop- ment to cosmic evolutionary laws, he nevertheless, when treating its other than pure police functions, uniformly considers it as something unnatural, artificial, existing apart from nature, as having interests necessarily different from, if not absolutely antagonistic to, those of its subjects, and as using them but as means for the realization of its own and necessarily evil ends. The attitude of mind of Mr. Spencer is of course explainable by the fact that in his study of past conditions he has for the most part discovered governments controlled by oligarchies and administered selfishly in the interests of those in power. We reply, however, that such conditions, though they may serve to show why in the past evil results have so often followed govern- mental action, have no power whatever to show that such will inevitably be the outcome in the future. Not only this, but we may without conceit declare ourselves freed from much of the ignorance under which our ancestors labored. Also we may point to the fact that no longer is political power in the hands of the minority, nor exercised in its behalf, but that in theory wholly, and in practice in large part, government by the people and for the people as a whole is a realized fact.

The criticism just made of Mr. Spencer's theories will serve as a basis upon which to make an estimate of the value of much of the reasoning of Mr. Kidd as contained in his Social Evolution. Like Spencer, Kidd accepts unreservedly the application of the purely biological laws of evolution to social man, and, as a neces- sary consequence, condemns as ill-advised all efforts directed to the checking of their operation. 1 Upon this ground he

1 Mr. Kidd's views in this respect are rendered still more radical by the fact that he accepts the views of Weismann and his school that " acquired characteristics " are not inherited. The effect of this is, of course, to throw the entire burden of progress upon natural selection as secured by the competitive process. He is thus necessarily