EVOLUTION AND SOCIETY 



has not followed this course. It has broken away ab- 

 solutely from physics and biology; the path of human 

 progress cannot be determined; and no reason can be 

 advanced why different stocks develop different types 

 of society. As for the future, we cannot decide on a 

 goal to work towards nor devise any methods to con- 

 strain society to move in any direction. As Huxley 

 once wisely said, the points of a short-horn cow are 

 easier to determine than are the points of a good cit- 

 izen, and by the time evil traits show themselves the 

 evil has been done and the unfit have produced their 

 progeny. Nor do I see any prospect of a goal of per- 

 fection, admitting we know what that means; so far 

 as we can see from history the essentials of human 

 character have not changed since man attained self- 

 consciousness and, unless they do change, it is difficult 

 to understand how we can accomplish more than to 

 make more generally followed the precepts for right 

 living which have been abundantly given us by men 

 of the past. 



The doctrine of progress and eugenics was begun 

 by biological evolutionists; from the principles of 

 their own science how can we draw any assurance that 

 society, from laws of its own nature, will or can tend 

 to a future perfection? Spencer often writes as if the 

 law of progress is merely to pass further and further 

 from homogeneity to heterogeneity. If such be the 

 goal of the human species, merely to create a greater 

 complexity of social life, we have all the warning nec- 



C 341 1 



