CH. XIX.] ILLUSTRATIONS AND CRITICISMS, 246 



And even with all three formulas before us, we need some- 

 thing more before we can say that we have obtained the Law 

 of Progress. These formulas are historical generalizations of 

 great value ; but as thus announced, they are too isolated 

 with respect to each other. The progress of society is not 

 moral progress, or intellectual progress, or material progress ; 

 but it is the combination of all the three. Our tliree for- 

 mulas, therefore, must be integrated in a single formula. And 

 this is done, and satisfactorily done, when it is shown that 

 they are all involved in that law of adaptation or adjustment 

 which underlies sociology, as well as psychology and biology. 

 That the progress from egoism to altruism is involved in 

 that fundamental law, was proved in the preceding chapter, 

 and has been illustrated throughout the whole of this dis- 

 cussion. But the law of adaptation equally involves the 

 progress from Anthropomorphism, not to Positivism, but to 

 Cosmism, as a necessary corollary. For what does that 

 progress depend upon ? What is the underlying process of 

 which it is the necessary symptom and result ? Why is it 

 that men begin by investing the unknown causes of pheno- 

 mena with quasi-human attributes and end by recognizing a 

 single Cause which is inscrutable ? In treating of deanthro- 

 pomorphization (Part I. chap, vii.) we examined this point. 

 We perceived the primitive anthropomorphism to be a corol- 

 lary from the relativity of all knowledge. We saw that, to 

 interpret phenomena at all, men must interpret them in 

 terms of their own consciousness. We saw that before the 

 dawn of science, when events seemed isolated and capri- 

 cious, the phenomenon itself was by a natural inference — 

 M'hich only the progress of science has taught us to correct — 

 endowed with a quasi-human personality. We traced the 

 manner in which, as phenomena become generalized iu wider 

 ind wider groups, the causes of phenomena become con- 

 ceived as more and more abstract, and become stripped by 

 Blow degrees of their anthropomorphic vestments. Until 



