Principles of western civilisation

I THE CLOSE OF AN ERA i

ledge—have, we see, moved within the circle of an idea inherited from the past which is no longer tenable. The ruling conception which dominated nearly all theories of our social development in the nineteenth century was that the central feature of our social progress consisted in the struggle between the present and the past. This is the conception which expressed itself with such emphasis in the social writings of the English Utilitarians in the middle decades of the nineteenth century. But it was also the central principle around which Mr. Herbert Spencer, as an early exponent of the doctrine of evolution, constructed the theory of social and political development set forth in his Synthetic Philosophy.’ It is the leading idea which expresses itself in Mr. Spencer’s conception of the modern development towards industrial democracy.? It is the idea, continually reiterated, which underlies his theory of ecclesiastical institutions as forms through which the rule of the past expresses itself? It is the fundamental conception upon which he has built his principles of psychology, in which Hume's idea‘

1 Spencer’s dispute with the Utilitarians (cf. Prezciples of Ethics, §§ 21-110) never included any difference on this account. It was, in effect, only a difference between that Utilitarianism (as represented by James and J. S. Mill) ‘‘ which recognises only the principles of conduct reached by induction,” and the Utilitarianism (as represented by Spencer) ‘‘ which deduces these principles from the processes of life as carried on under established conditions of existence” (Principles of Ethics, § 21). Spencer’s theory of social development remained throughout, even on its ethical side, simply a theory of movement towards ‘‘an associated state,” where ‘‘ the lives of each and all may be the greatest possible in length and breadth” (§ 48). It was, that is to say, a theory of the realisation of the interests of the ascendant present, contemplating an eventual state of social order in which there should be no social claims at variance with the claims of the individual (cf. § 49, Prevczples of Ethics).

2 Cf. Principles of Sociology, §§ 434-582. 3 Cf. Lbed. §§ 583-660.

4 Treatise on Human Nature, i. and iii.