606 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



are in no degree, or at all events in quite an insignificant degree, the 

 consequence of efforts put forth by those who compose it to improve 

 their social condition, but mainly, if not exclusively, the result of ac- 

 tions undertaken with quite other ends in view. A favorite illustra- 

 tion, accordingly, with Mr. Spencer of the process by which society 

 undergoes development is the growth of language : 



"Not only has it been natural from the beginning, but it has been spontane- 

 ous. No language is a cunningly-devised scheme of a ruler or body of legisla- 

 tors. There is no council of savages to invent the parts of speech, and decide 

 on what principles they should be used. Nay, more. Going on without any 

 authority or appointed regulation, this natural process went on without any man 

 observing that it was going on. Solely under pressure of the need for commu- 

 nicating their ideas and feelings, solely in pursuit of their personal interests, men 

 little by little developed speech in absolute unconsciousness that they were doing 

 any thing more than pursuing their personal interests." (Essays, vol. hi., p. 129.) 



And this is given as a typical specimen of the "workings-out of so- 

 ciological processes " of the marvelous results " indirectly and unin- 

 tentionally achieved by the cooperation of men who are severally pur- 

 suing their private ends." The numerous and complex arrangements 

 which, under the stimulus of individual self-interest, have arisen in 

 this and other civilized countries for the distribution of wealth, and 

 the growth from small beginnings of our vast system of credit and 

 banking, serve as an illustration of the same principle. " When it is 

 questioned," he remarks, " whether the spontaneous cooperation of 

 men in pursuit of personal benefits will adequately work out the gen- 

 eral good, we may get guidance for judgment by comparing the re- 

 sults ; " and he proceeds to give examples which could only lead to an 

 affirmative conclusion. 



The nature of social development is thus, according to Mr. Spencer, 

 essentially identical with that of development in the animal kingdom ; 

 and it is a necessary corollary from this that the course of both should 

 lie along parallel lines. Thus, when we find the individual animal 

 growing from birth to maturity, developing its structure and functions 

 according to a regular scheme ; and, similarly, the several species of 

 animals constantly tending, under the influence of the struggle for 

 existence, to adapt themselves more and more perfectly to the con- 

 ditions of their environment, and so to rise into a higher and higher 

 order of being ; when we find all this, and perceive that the processes 

 by which society is developed are exactly analogous, the conclusion 

 seems inevitable that so it must be also with social evolution that 

 here, too, progress and improvement arise by way of spontaneous 

 growth in the natural order of things, and that consequently efforts to 

 advance the common interest are superfluous much more likely, in 

 effect, to impede and disturb than to assist the harmonious order of 

 human development. 



Such, so far as I have been able to extract his meaning from his 



