IX. 

 SPENCER'S INDIVIDUALISM. 



Individualism is dead. 



As a theory, it has gone with Stahl's "Phlo- 

 giston," Cuvier's "Cataclysms," and Goethe's 

 "Theory of Colors" to the museum of history. 

 The revolution in philosophy, which covers 

 the nineteenth century and reaches back into 

 the closing decades of the eighteenth, has met 

 and overthrown it at every point. Today it 

 lingers in the world of thought a reminiscence 

 of a prior stage of social development, as the 

 imperfect remnant of the "third eyelid" re- 

 mains in our bodies a surviving rudiment, a 

 legacy that links us with our extinct ancestors 

 of the Silurian age. 



The greatest name ever thrown into the 

 scales for Individualism and against Socialism 

 is that of Herbert Spencer. He has the repu- 

 tation of having been the greatest Individualist 

 of all times. 



Many people, including Socialists, who are 

 not familiar with the works of Spencer won- 

 der how it comes to pass that the. great evolu- 

 tionary philosopher could defend a theory so 



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