EDITOR'S TABLE. 



61 7 



ment of a species." Again, be admits 

 that. " each stage in human progress is 

 the outcome and result of the stage 

 which has immediately preceded it, 

 and that the whole series of stages, be- 

 ginning with savage life and ending 

 with the most advanced existing civili- 

 zation, represents a connected chain, 

 of which the links are bound together 

 as sequences in precisely the same way 

 as in the instances of causation pre- 

 sented by other departments of Na- 

 ture. Some such assumption as this 

 must necessarily form the basis of all 

 attempts at a rational interpretation of 

 history." But if Prof. Cairnes (without 

 damping his reformatory ardor) can 

 bold that society is bound in the chains 

 of causation like "other departments 

 of Nature," why should other laborers 

 in the field of human improvement be 

 paralyzed? If the holding of a belief 

 in the utmost fatalism of law in social 

 affairs is not sufficient to clip the wings 

 or trip the heels of Prof. Cairnes's 

 philanthropy, wherefore should Mr. 

 Spencer be depressed, who avows no 

 such extreme views? The effect, in- 

 deed, ought to be rather the contrary, for 

 Prof. Oairnes maintains that his chain 

 of causation, which is dragging the 

 world's events along, is not raising or 

 improving them, which would seem to 

 be rather a gloomy reflection ; while, 

 on the other band, Mr. Spencer holds 

 that the great and irresistible tendency 

 of things is toward a higher and better 

 state, a view which is fitted to inspire 

 something like the joy of a religious 

 hope in a happier future. But, how- 

 ever that may be, Prof. Cairnes brings to 

 the discussion of the subject his preju- 

 dices as a politician, or an English- 

 man, or some other perversity, and, as 

 we are now to see, they blind him to 

 the truth of the subject he has taken up. 

 Prof. Cairnes, as we have said, ei- 

 ther does not understand Spencer, or 

 he culpably misrepresents him. Every- 

 body knows, or, at least, every one 

 who writes upon the subject ought to 



know, that Mr. Spencer's labors for the 

 last fifteen years have been only prepar- 

 atory to the elucidation of the principles 

 of sociology. He has but just entered 

 upon that work which will occupy him, 

 if he lives, for the next five or six years. 

 The doctrine of social evolution he has 

 not yet developed ; and by that alone 

 can he be fairly judged as a sociologist. 

 Prof. Cairnes condemns him before he 

 begins. His article is a review of the 

 "Study of Sociology" which he as- 

 sumes to embody " the elementary doc- 

 trines of the new science." But that 

 work attempts no such thing; it, in 

 fact, carefully avoids the consideration 

 of the principles or science of the sub- 

 ject. It discusses outlying questions, 

 which have, indeed, a bearing upon the 

 general subject, but it is neither an ex- 

 position nor a defense of its elementary 

 doctrines. 



But, although Mr. Spencer's views 

 upon sociology have hitherto only 

 been put forth partially and incident- 

 ally, there is no excuse for such erro- 

 neous conceptions of them as Prof. 

 Cairnes entertains. He goes back to 

 an old essay on the " Social Organ- 

 ism," in which Mr. Spencer, nearly 

 twenty years ago, pointed out some 

 analogies between the structure and ac- 

 tions of the body politic and those of 

 individual organisms, and says that 

 Spencer's doctrine of social evolution 

 is based upon this analogy. He asserts 

 that Spencer's theory of social evolution 

 " represents a speculation transferred 

 from the domain of physiology and zo- 

 ology into that of social inquiry, and 

 the speculation so transferred is applied 

 without question or scruple to the in- 

 terpretation of human affairs ; " and, 

 again, he speaks of " that analogy be- 

 tween the social and animal organisms 

 on which the whole speculation is built 

 up." We cannot conceive a grosser 

 misapprehension than this. Mr. Spen- 

 cer maintains that the law of evolution 

 is universal because the evidence of it 

 is found in each of the great divisions 



