EVOLUTION 235 



always find that the Socialist, while aiming in the first place 

 at securing the solidarity of society, professes a wish to 

 preserve the individuality of its members ; and that the 

 Individualist, while desiring above all to protect the free- 

 dom of the members, desires also to preserve the unity of 

 society. That is to say, both parties alike seek both indi- 

 vidual and social welfare ; and it is sufficiently obvious to 

 both parties that neither of these forms of good can be 

 secured where either individual freedom or social order is 

 allowed to perish. Thus, the abstract principle of the 

 coincidence of private and general good is denied by no 

 one. But it is one matter to acknowledge a great principle 

 and quite another to apply it consciously, and with faith- 

 fulness and consistency, to the details of theory and practice. 

 I take it that in this matter of the relation of the individual 

 to society we have gained very little more than a general 

 hypothesis. So far, we have done very little to explicate 

 the contents of this hypothesis, or to show its practical 

 application to the social problems that irritate and excite us. 

 The principle of the essential coincidence of individual 

 and social welfare occupies in the moral sphere a place 

 analogous to the conception of the uniformity of nature 

 using the term ' ' nature " in its broadest sense in the 

 sphere of knowledge. This latter conception has attained 

 the rank of a universal postulate only in comparatively 

 recent times. There are some who would still limit the 

 conception to the infra-human sphere, and who would fain 

 provide, in the region of man's spiritual activities, room 

 for absolute new beginnings and surprises. But, on the 

 whole, reflective persons, unless they have fallen into the 

 error of thinking that man's freedom must have in it an 

 element of chance, agree in regarding the order of reality, 



