Principles of western civilisation

II THE POSITION IN MODERN THOUGHT 87

society back to the point at which it left the hand of the Greek theorist, where the science of ‘the associated state” and the science of the interests of the individuals comprising it were considered to be one and the same.

In the later part of his career Mr. Spencer has been anxious to refute the charge that his principles gave support to the theories of society which find expression in German social-democracy. Yet in this respect his critics have been quite consistent. For, as in the case of Mill, we see that he really has in view, like the Marxian socialists, a state of society in which the sphere of law, of morality, and of economic action are necessarily coincident and coextensive, and in which, in consequence, just as Marx imagined, the requirements of the existing State must, in the end, overrun every domain of human activity. Mr. Spencer's work represents, in other words, the endeavour to represent our social evolution in terms of the interests of the individuals comprised within the limits of political consciousness. Of the profound antagonism involved between the principles governing the lives and welfare of ail the individuals included in these limits, and those governing the life and welfare of the race in process of evolution; and of the nature of the resulting phenomena accompanying a process of stress and subordination infinite in its reach,—there is no conception in his writings.’

1 Answer may be made here to any disciple of Mr. Spencer who feels prompted to question this view on the strength of isolated passages in the Synthetic Philosophy, in which it is acknowledged that the interests of the species or of the organism must prevail over those of the individual, where the two come into conflict (2g. Data of Ethics, pp. 133-34, and Principles of Ethics, vol. ii. p- 6). The principle involved here is the subordination of the present to the