Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 6.djvu/625

Rh 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:

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:

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