WHAT IS SOCIAL EVOLUTION? 35 



WHAT IS SOCIAL EVOLUTION? 



By HERBERT SPENCER. 



THOUGH to Mr. Mallock the matter will doubtless seem other- 

 wise, to most it will seem that he is not prudent in returning 

 to the question he has raised; since the result must be to show again 

 how unwarranted is the interpretation he has given of my views. 

 Let me dispose of the personal question before passing to the imper- 

 sonal one. 



He says that I, declining to take any notice of those other pas- 

 sages which he has quoted from me, treat his criticism as though it 

 were " founded exclusively on the particular passage which " I deal 

 with, " or at all events to rest on that passage as its principal founda- 

 tion and justification." * It would be a sufficient reply that in a 

 letter to a newspaper numerous extracts are inadmissible; but there 

 is the further reply that I had his own warrant for regarding the 

 passage in question as conclusively showing the truth of his repre- 

 sentations. He writes: — 



Should any doubt as to the matter still remain in the reader's mind, it 

 will be dispelled by the quotation of one further passage. U A true social 

 aggregate" he says [" as distinct from a mere large family], is a union of 

 like individuals, independent of one another in parentage, and approxi- 

 mately equal in capacities." \ 



I do not see how, having small liberty of quotation, I could do 

 better than take, as summarizing his meaning, this sentence which 

 he gives as dissipating " any doubt." But now let me repeat the 

 paragraph in which I have pointed out how distorted is Mr. Mal- 

 lock's interpretation of this sentence. 



Every reader will assume that this extract is from some passage treating 

 of human societies. He will be wrong, however. It forms part of a sec- 

 tion describing Super-Organic Evolution at large ("Principles of Sociol- 

 ogy," sec. 3), and treating, more especially, of the social insects ; the pur- 

 pose of the section heing to exclude these from consideration. It is implied 

 that the inquiry about to be entered upon concerns societies formed of like 

 units, and not societies formed of units extremely unlike. It is pointed out 

 that among the Termites there are six unlike forms, and among the Sauba 

 ants, besides the two sexually-developed forms, there are three classes of 

 workers — one indoor and two outdoor. The members of such communities 

 — queens, males, soldiers, workers — differ widely in their structures, in- 

 stincts, and powers. These communities formed of units extremely unequal 

 in their capacities are contrasted with communities formed of units ap- 

 proximately equal in their capacities — the human communities about to be 



* Nineteenth Century, p. 316. 



•f- Aristocracy and Evolution, pp. 52, 53. The italics are his. 



