GENERAL INTRODUCTION xi 



" logic ' in the life of societies is best realized. The logical 

 factor is explanatory in the deepest sense of the word. It is 

 what gives to evolution its real continuity, its inner law ; it is 

 from their connexion with it and exactly to the degree in which 

 they either serve or contradict logic that contingent happenings 

 derive their actual value. They lead to others : but it is the logical 

 factor which alone produces new events : it alone is creative. 

 The principle from which all logic proceeds, the real motive force 

 of history — as of life — can only be discovered, it seems to us, in 

 the tendency of a human being to maintain and expand his 

 Personality. Life is not a passive and empty thing. It is 

 tendency and memory. When sticcessful it retains the means 

 that led to its success. Logic, strictly speaking, is the profitable 

 use of mind ; in the broader sense, however, it is that activity 

 which conforms to the fundamental tendencies of the being who 

 employs appropriate means. Springing from the inner core of 

 life the logical activity ends by both in co-operation and in struggle, 

 but expands more in the form of social instinct than as egotism ; 

 in short it creates society itself. 



Once society has been formed and endowed with specific laws, 

 the principle that gave it birth continues to aid in its development. 

 The same logic that laid the foundation for the social organism 

 produces in large measure the inner phenomena of crisis and 

 reform, of political, juridico-moral and economic evolution. It 

 manifests itself in the external activity of social groups and 

 in inter-social connexions by means of various phenomena, all of 

 vital historical interest. There is, for instance, the phenomenon 

 of " migration ", to explain which it is not enough to give an 

 account of the pressure of geographical surroundings, but which 

 through a " Will to Change " , gives expression to that restlessness 

 which craves for a better existence, to the desire for a habitat 

 favourable to life, and, undoubtedly also, to an ambition to 

 enlarge the sphere of the known and to secure a larger possession 

 of the earth. There is the phenomenon of " Imperialism " — 

 which tends, by a " Will to Growth " , to seize possession, for 

 divers purposes, of a larger or smaller part of humanity. It has, 

 moreover, various types, some more violent, others of a more 

 assimilative nature. There are finally the phenomena of 

 " receptivity ", of " renaissance ", of international " co-opera- 

 tion " — which, by a " Will to Culture ", tend to unite societies, 

 across space and time, in order that they may conquer nature and 



