200 SOCIAL HEREDITY AND SOCIAL EVOLUTION 



political doctrine is advocated as a means of putting 

 all men more upon the par of equal opportunity. 

 This feeling lies at the base of modern Socialism, 

 which tries to institute a system of government 

 which shall be compelled to care for the welfare 

 of each individual. In all the seething and turmoil 

 of to-day we see this principle ever coming up 

 afresh. Underlying all political agitation of the 

 present time is the feeling that the interests of the 

 individual are suffering because of centralization, 

 and everywhere the individual is demanding that 

 legislation should be devised which shall produce a 

 condition of things in which all will have an equal 

 opportunity, an equality which shall be actual and 

 not merely political fiction. The goal toward which 

 society is tending is to furnish equal opportunities 

 for all. 



There is, thus, no contradiction in the advance of 

 both centralization and individualism. Each devel- 

 ops to a higher and higher grade as the centuries 

 pass. It has been the special significance of modern 

 history, particularly since the Reformation, to 

 reconcile the advanced value of the individual with 

 the increasing organization of society. Each century 

 sees greater centralization and each century sees the 

 value of the individual raised higher. In the life of 

 the primitive savage each individual was almost com- 

 pletely independent and free. With the development 

 of the family and society he became successively sub- 

 ordinated to the commands of some central author- 

 ity — a chieftain, a prince, a king, an emperor, or a 

 church. Centralization, as it advanced, changed the 

 individual more and more completely, until his loss 

 of independence was entire. Then began a period of 



of 

 oror 



