iv MODERN E VOL UTION \ ^ i 



fold forms of progress going on around us are 

 uniformly significant of this tendency.' 



Homo sum : humani nihil a me alienum puto : l I 

 am a man and nothing human is foreign to me.' 

 This oft- quoted saying of the old farmer in the Self- 

 Tormentor of Terence might be affixed as motto 

 to Herbert Spencer's writings from the tractate on 

 the Proper Sphere of Government to the concluding 

 volume of the Principles of Sociology. For thought 

 of human interests everywhere pervades them ; 

 social and ethical questions are kept in the van 

 throughout. Philosophy is brought from her high 

 seat to mix in the sweet amenities of home, in the 

 discipline of camp, in the rivalry of market ; and 

 linked to conduct. Conduct is defined as ' acts 

 adjusted to ends,' the perfecting of the adjustment 

 being the highest aim, so that 'the greatest totality 

 of life in self, in offspring, and in fellow-men ' is 

 secured, the limit of evolution of conduct not 

 being reached ' until, beyond avoidance of direct 

 and indirect injuries to others, there are spontaneous 

 efforts to further the welfare of others.' Emerson 

 puts this ideal into crisp form when he speaks of 

 the time in which a man shall care more that he 

 wrongs not his neighbour than that his neighbour 

 wrongs him ; then will his ' market-cart become a 

 chariot of the sun.' 



That humanity is the pivot round which Mr. 

 Spencer's philosophic system revolves is seen in the 

 earliest Essays, and notably in his making mental 

 evolution the subject of the first instalment of his 

 Synthetic Philosophy. For, in the Principles of 

 Psychology, published in 1855, he limits feeling or 



