SPENCER'S INDIVIDUALISM I59 



by Huxley, that erroneous ideas do not die 

 just simply because they have been killed. 



It is not necessary to v/heel into position 

 the heavy artillery of Marx to overthrow this 

 house of cards. Spencer is a sufficient reply 

 to Spencer. 



Here is the great contradiction. Spencer, 

 the great biologist, says the brain is to the 

 animal what the Government is to a society, 

 (i) The more effective^ and completely the 

 brain controls the members composing the 

 animal body, the higher its place in the or- 

 ganic scale. (2) The less effectively and com- 

 pletely the Government controls the members 

 of the body politic the better will be the so- 

 ciety. 



Sociological literature has failed to produce 

 any individualist champion able to reconcile 

 this astonishing contradiction. And so there 

 it stands plainly before the eyes of Mr. Spen- 

 cer's readers. 



"Suppose," says Professor Huxley, "that, in 

 accordance with this view, each muscle were 

 to maintain that the nervous system had no 

 right to interfere with its contraction except 

 to prevent it from hindering the contraction 

 of another muscle; or each gland, that it had 

 a right to secrete, so long as its secretion in- 

 terfered with no other; suppose every separate 



