ARISTOTLE AS A BIOLOGIST 9 



and not reason is the essential thing. All conservation 

 implies evolution, and individuality is developed by the 

 inevitable changes of a changing world. 1 So Spencer 

 labours, but perhaps in vain, to make the best of the 

 bellum omnium contra omnes, to find in the biological 

 process of adjustment a continual tendency to happiness, 

 and in sociological evolution a tendency to ultimate 

 harmony ; in the which a somewhat complacent altruism 

 shall satisfy the egoist, and pleasure will consist in actions 

 which are salutary to the individual and the race. All 

 very much as Mr. Bridges puts it : 



For Nature did not idly spend 

 Pleasure ; she ruled it should attend 

 On every act that doth amend 

 Our life's condition ; 

 Tis therefore not well-being's end 

 But its fruition. 



So through all the circle of the sciences, Spencer tried 

 to satisfy that craving inherent in mankind for 

 a constructive system, which shall, in a single unity, 

 frame all the phenomena of the world : for such a unifica- 

 tion as in Aristotle's hands had endured unshaken for 

 nigh two thousand years. To bring the world of fact and 

 the world of Intelligence into the unity of a system is the 

 task which all philosophers essay, in the light of the 

 knowledge and the spirit of their time ; but as knowledge 

 grows, and men's ways and circumstances change, so does 

 Philosophy itself, like all else in the world, undergo its 

 own inevitable and endless evolution giving place, if 

 not to the better, to the new. 2 



1 ' C'est la 1'idee capitale qu'il ajoute aux doctrines de Zenon, de 

 Spinoza et de Volney : ' Guyau, La Morale anglaise contemporaine, 

 1885, p. 268. 



* The last words are quoted from Alden, A Study of Death (1895), 

 P- J 76; cf. North Amer. Review, January 1913. 

 B 



