2 6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



as laws of social development, natural processes of rectification in so- 

 ciety, and an adaptation of man to the conditions of social life. The 

 scientific point of view was thus early assumed, and society was re- 

 garded not as a manufacture but as a growth. These letters were 

 revised and published in a pamphlet in 1843. 



The argument, however, was unsatisfactory from its want of depth 

 and scientific precision, and Mr. Spencer decided in 1846 to write a 

 work in which the leading doctrine of his pamphlet should be affiliated 

 upon general moral principles. By reading various books upon moral 

 philosophy he had become dissatisfied with the basis of morality which 

 they adopt ; and it became clear to him that the question of the proper 

 sphere of government could be dealt with only by tracing ethical prin- 

 ciples to their roots. The plan of this work was formed while Mr. 

 Spencer was still a civil-engineer; and it was commenced in 1848, be- 

 fore he abandoned engineering and accepted the position of sub-editor 

 of the Economist. It was issued, under the title of " Social Statics," 

 at the close of 1850. In this work various developments of the ideas 

 contained in the pamphlet above named are noticeable. It will be 

 seen that the conception that there is an adaptation going on between 

 human nature and the social state has become dominant. There is the 

 idea that all social evils result from the want of this adaptation, and 

 are in process of disappearance as the adaptation progresses. There 

 is the notion that all morality consists in conformity to such principles 

 of conduct as allow of the life of each individual being fulfilled, to the 

 uttermost, consistently with the fulfillment of the lives of other individ- 

 uals ; and that the vital activities of the social human being are gradu- 

 ally being moulded into such form that they may be realized to the 

 uttermost without mutual hindrance. Social progress is in fact viewed 

 as a natural evolution, in which human beings are moulded into fitness 

 for the social state, and society adjusted into fitness for the natures 

 of men the units and the aggregate perpetually acting and reacting, 

 until equilibrium is reached. There is recognized not only the process 

 of continual direct adaptation of men to their circumstances by the in- 

 herited modifications of habit, but there is also recognized the process 

 of the dying out of the unfit and the survival of the fit. And these 

 changes are regarded as parts of a process of general evolution, tacitly 

 affirmed as running through all animate Nature, tending ever to pro- 

 duce a more complete and self-sufficing individuality, and ending in 

 the highest type of man as the most complete individual. 



After finishing " Social Statics " Mr. Spencer's thoughts were more 

 strongly attracted in the directions of biology and psychology sciences 

 which he saw were most intimately related with the progress of social 

 questions ; and one result reached at this time was significant. As he 

 states in the essay on the "Laws of Organic Form," published in 1859 

 in the Medico- Chirurgical Review, it was in the autumn of 1851, during 

 a country ramble with Mr. George Henry Lewes, that the germinal 



