52 Social Environment 



capitalism has enjoyed the greatest freedom, 

 is beginning to swing toward social legislation. 



10. German Interpretations of Evolution 



The evolutionary point of view began its 

 development in Germany as early as in Eng- 

 land, but it lacked the incentive of an imme- 

 diate practical application. In its earlier phases 

 it appeared more conspicuously in theories of 

 pedagogy than in social theories. Kant, to 

 whom modern Germany looks as practically 

 the founder of its working philosophy, shows 

 little resemblance to the evolutionists, yet he 

 has laid down a principle as to the place of 

 materialistic science which is fundamental in 

 evaluating the evolutionary theory. He in- 

 sisted that the world in which scientific thought 

 moves — the world of cause and effect, and 

 hence of evolutionary processes — is a lower 

 world that must be dominated by, instead of 

 dominating, man's inner moral nature. Though 

 he spoke subjectively and not in a way that 

 fits into our present wider knowledge, yet the 

 principle is a basic one, and the failure to per- 

 ceive it is the prime reason for the unsocial 

 tendencies of English thought. Kant, with his 

 international outlook and his insistence on the 



