PROBLEMS OF ETHICS 407 



seems here also to be in advance, at least, so far as European 

 movements of thought are concerned; and that they are in the 

 condition to compensate for their departure from the teachings of 

 the master by an appeal to the main thoughts of his system, con- 

 cerns me just here. Doubtless socialistic thought is on the whole 

 in advance when compared with liberal and individualistic thought. 

 And, under these circumstances, the inference for every disciple of 

 Darwin's theory of evolution is simple; that here again is a case 

 of survival of the fittest; that socialistic ideals represent a higher 

 form of adjustment; that just by the fact of their victory the ne- 

 cessity and justification of this victory is placed beyond doubt. It 

 helped little that the venerable thinker himself in the last years of 

 his rich and active life descended into the arena of the contest and 

 warned his beloved England against the dangers of this socialistic 

 tendency. It was inconsistent that he tried to brand these thoughts 

 as a retrograde movement, as a step backward, since his own system 

 with its powerful optimism affords no possibility for victorious 

 retrograde movements. Even imperfection and evil has for Spencer 

 only the significance of an imperfect progress; and the thought 

 that imperfection could even win the victory over the perfect, that 

 must be warned against it, could only be nonsense in connection 

 with his system. For him, as for Hegel, the final formula, obtained 

 it is true by a very different way, is the thesis: The actual is 

 rational. 



But just this reference to Hegel's system makes clear to us the 

 opposition which Herbert Spencer's system found in Germany, 

 first of all, but also in wide circles in England and in America. If 

 it could be objected against Hegel that the activity of the individual, 

 in contrast to the might of the developing process of the logical idea, 

 is reduced to insignificance, this consideration returns with doubled 

 force in contrast to the concept of the thought of development, which 

 is found in the modern theory of evolution of Spencer. For here 

 it is not teleological necessities which prevail, but causal. To have 

 proved evolution by the laws of nature is precisely his system's title 

 to fame. The question must then be raised whether an obligation 

 to any definite practical action can be deduced from the proof of the 

 necessity of any event. If the development is necessary, it will be 

 completed whether I cooperate with it or not. If it needs my coopera- 

 tion, it need not be regarded as a law of nature. It is exactly the 

 same difficulty which beset the Stoics, when they tried to harmon- 

 ize the determinism of world events with the demands which their 

 ethics put upon the moral resolves of the individual. It is absurd 

 to will any necessary event of the laws of nature; I can suspend my 

 action so that I count upon the occurrence of such an incident, but 

 I cannot make this incident the object of my will. I can decide that 



