Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 6.djvu/627

Rh to test Mr. Spencer's doctrine. Thus there cannot be much doubt that certain nations have, during certain centuries of their history, made rather rapid progress in civilization, but have afterward suffered an arrest, which has, in some instances, been followed by temporary or permanent decline; while, on the other hand, others, and these by far the more numerous, have continued for thousands of years in a condition almost, if not altogether, stationary. In his work on "Ancient Law," Sir H. Maine does not hesitate to say that—

Again, it is a point upon which, I suppose, it may be said, historians are agreed, that, even in Europe for many centuries—starting, let us say, from the age of the Antonines, and ending with the eleventh or twelfth century—the movement in human affairs was on the whole steadily backward; the state of things existing at the latter date being, according to all the main tests of human well-being, far in arrear of the condition attained in the former epoch. It may be that these generalizations are superficial, that the learning of the world is here at fault, and that history better understood would support Mr. Spencer's view; or it may be that the current beliefs on the points in question are capable of being reconciled with the new doctrine. Be this as it may, it is not the less true that the verdict of history, as now understood by its most competent interpreters, is distinctly opposed to the theory of social evolution enunciated by Mr. Spencer. Now, this is a fact which has been completely ignored by that distinguished writer; he has simply passed it by as not concerning his argument; and in doing so has, as I contend, set at naught one of the best-understood canons of the inductive method—the canon that requires that hypotheses, before being accepted as laws of Nature, or made the bases of confident deduction, should be carefully verified by comparison with all available facts pertinent to the question in hand. M. Comte, who, as regards the particular point under consideration—the necessarily progressive character of human evolution—is at one with Mr. Spencer, understood otherwise the claims of the positive philosophy, and does, in fact, fairly attempt to grapple with the historical difficulties to which I have referred. It is true, indeed, his argument is by no means successful—at least so it seems to me—in establishing the required conclusion; but it is, at least, more satisfactory than total silence.

It follows, then, that Mr. Spencer's theory of social evolution can only be regarded, as matters now stand, as an unverified hypothesis,