538 Darwinism and History 



evolution by general principles encouraged sociologists to hope that 

 social evolution could be explained on general principles also. The 

 idea of Condorcet, Buckle, and others, that history could be assimi- 

 lated to the natural sciences was powerfully reinforced, and the 

 notion that the actual historical process, and every social movement 

 involved in it, can be accounted for by sociological generalisations, 

 so-called " laws," is still entertained by many, in one form or another. 

 Dissentients from this view do not deny that the generalisations at 

 which the sociologist arrives by the comparative method, by the 

 analysis of social factors, and by psychological deduction may be an 

 aid to the historian ; but they deny that such uniformities are laws 

 or contain an explanation of the phenomena. They can point to the 

 element of chance coincidence. This element must have played a 

 part in the events of organic evolution, but it has probably in a larger 

 measure helped to determine events in social evolution. The collision 

 of two unconnected sequences may be fraught with great results. 

 The sudden death of a leader or a marriage without issue, to take 

 simple cases, has again and again led to permanent political con- 

 sequences. More emphasis is laid on the decisive actions of individuals, 

 which cannot be reduced under generalisations and which deflect the 

 course of events. If the significance of the individual will had been 

 exaggerated to the neglect of the collective activity of the social 

 aggregate before Condorcet, his doctrine tended to eliminate as 

 unimportant the roles of prominent men, and by means of this elimi- 

 nation it was possible to found sociology. But it may be urged that 

 it is patent on the face of history that its course has constantly been 

 shaped and modified by the wills of individuals 1 , which are by no 

 means always the expression of the collective will ; and that the 

 appearance of such personalities at the given moments is not a 

 necessary outcome of the conditions and cannot be deduced. Nor is 

 there any proof that, if such and such an individual had not been 

 born, some one else would have arisen to do what he did. In some 

 cases there is no reason to think that what happened need ever have 

 come to pass. In other cases, it seems evident that the actual change 

 was inevitable, but in default of the man who initiated and guided it, 

 it might have been postponed, and, postponed or not, might have 

 borne a different cachet. I may illustrate by an instance which has 

 just come under my notice. Modern painting was founded by Giotto, 

 and the Italian expedition of Charles VIII, near the close of the six- 

 teenth century, introduced into France the fashion of imitating Italian 



1 We can ignore here the metaphysical question of freewill and determinism. For the 

 character of the individual's brain depends in any case on ante-natal accidents and coin- 

 cidences, and so it may be said that the role of individuals ultimately depends on chance, — 

 the accidental coincidence of independent sequences. 



