SUGGESTIONS OF SOCIOLOGY. 499 



(2) Herbert Spencer, on the other hand, ap- 

 proached the subject as an evolutionist, and al- 

 though his first book was called Social Statics 

 (1850), he consistently regarded man and his so- 

 cial institutions as products, as the results of long 

 processes of change, and as still subject to 

 change. Whether the problem be that of the 

 transition from militarism to industrialism, or 

 the status of women, or the development of law, 

 he showed that the facts were illumined by the 

 light of the evolution-idea. Through the ages man 

 has been adapting himself to the physical environ- 

 ment, becoming more and more its master as he 

 became its more skilled interpreter, and likewise 

 adapting himself to his social environment which is 

 his truest discipline of character. From the antag- 

 onism of small groups competing for the means of 

 subsistence to the co-operation of nations in a 

 " Friedenspiel" there is a long evolution, but the 

 steps, through pain to further progress, through 

 struggle to greater sociality, are still in part discern- 

 ible for our guidance; and it is part of the 

 sociologist's task to make them clear. 



The central ideas of Spencer's sociological work 

 are thus summed up by Prof. F. H. Giddings, 



" Mr. Spencer's propositions could be arranged in 

 the following order : (1) Society is an organism ; (2) in 

 the struggle of social organisms for existence and their 

 consequent differentiation, fear of both the living and 

 the dead arises, and for countless ages is a controlling 

 emotion; (3) dominated by fear, men for ages are habit- 

 ually engaged in military activities; (4) the transition 

 from militarism to industrialism, made possible by the 

 consolidation of small social groups into large ones, 

 which war accomplishes, to its own ultimate decline, 



