Principles of western civilisation

86 WESTERN CIVILISATION CHAP.

of the present and the rule of the past.’ The theory of social progress, accordingly, becomes the theory of progress towards a social state in which the ascendency of the present in the evolutionary process is to be at last complete. And the ideal towards which it is assumed that political effort should be directed is, therefore, the same as J. S. Mill held before the minds of English Liberalism in the middle decades of the nineteenth century ;—namely, a fixed social state in which the interest of the individual and of society, hitherto at variance, shall at last become one and identical in an era of the complete ascendency of the present.”

Finally, as we follow Mr. Spencer into his Prznciples of Ethics we have all the culminating phases of this conception in sight. In his view of political society, and in his theory of conduct, we see Mr. Spencer, like the old French Encyclopedists, contemplating the progress of the world towards an ideal where, to use his own words, he beholds a “ conciliation taking place between the interest of each citizen and the interests of citizens at large—tending ever towards a state in which the two become merged into one, and in which the feelings answering to them respectively fall into complete concord.” * Like John Stuart Mill, that is to say, he is regarding our social progress as progress towards a future social state in which the interests of every individual shall be at last completely harmonised with the interests of the whole.t Like Bentham he is, in reality, in this respect carrying the science of

Cf. Principles of Sociology, 88 434-581. Cf. Principles of Ethics, S§ 48-55:

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3 Principles of Ethics, $923 see also S$ 48-55. 4 Utilitarianism, p. 25.

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