24 The Scope and Principles 



II. In urging the study of jVEau in his historical rela- 

 tions, however, evolutionists do not claim that society 

 should take no forward step, or that man should simply 

 imitate or repeat the past. An able student of social and 

 economic problems, Prof. Wm. G. Sumner, a gentleman 

 whose abilities I admire and with many of whose conclu- 

 sions I agree, in an article entitled '' What is Civil Lib- 

 erty ?" in a recent number of the Fopulur Science Monthly, 

 makes the remarkable statement that the doctrine of man's 

 natural liberty is a "dogma," of purely metaphysical origin, 

 and asserts, in italicised phrase, that ''that dogma has never 

 had an historical foundatio7i, but is the purest example that 

 could be brought forward of an out and out a priori dogma." 

 "The doctrine of evolution," he adds, "instead of support- 

 ing the natural equality of all men, would give a demon- 

 stration of their inequality ; and the doctrine of the strug- 

 gle for existence would divorce liberty and equality as 

 incompatible with each other." " Civil liberty," he says 

 elsewliere, " is not a scientific fact. It is not in the order 

 of nature " ; and all these startling assertions he makes in 

 defense of the doctrine, the natural foundations of which 

 he arbitrarily endeavors to undermine. 



To the evolutionist it is quite evident that if the learned 

 Professor was as well instructed in biology as he is in the- 

 ology, metaphysics and the a pjriori discussions of political 

 economy, he would quite otherwise interpret the sociologi- 

 cal teachings of Evolution. He is but a poor student of 

 natural science, indeed, who would simply content himself 

 with learning facts, without endeavoring to trace their re- 

 lations, to study their causal connections, and therefrom to 

 draw prophetic inferences to guide his future investiga- 

 tions, to interpret underlying laws, and thus enable him to 

 push forward to new discoveries. * To say that Evolution 

 " does not point toward civil liberty " because communities 

 of men have never existed completely under its beneficent 

 sway, is to cut away from scientific research tliat very 

 synthetizing and prophetic quality which is its noblest and 



* If the doctrine of man's natural liberty is only a "dojrnia," as the I'ro- 

 fessor declares, a mere speculative ideal, and notliinj; more, then it is idle 

 to pursue such a chima-ra. or to liase ui)on it a social jihilosophy. J5at if it is 

 a condition of social eciuilibrinm, towar<l the realization of wliich man lias 

 l>een working thrr)u;ihout all the stajres of social develojiment. Then, like the 

 moral law, it is :liscoveral)le tliroufili exi)erience and historical investifration, 

 and is strictly " iu the order of nature," though not as a completely realized 

 ideal in society. 



