INTRODUCTION 



good deal that is characteristic of his own think- 

 ing processes. 



24. Chapter xix., " Illustrations and Criti- 

 cisms," contains, in the main, a continuation of 

 the polemic against Comte, which is here joined 

 with a cordial recognition of Comte's services 

 in defining progress as including the passage 

 from military to industrial conditions. Fiske 

 asserts, however, that this passage needs a " ra- 

 tional explanation," which Comte fails to give. 

 What Fiske thinks himself able to prove, as to 

 this point, is that : " The exigencies of self- 

 protection entailed by the primitive state of 

 universal warfare furnished of themselves the 

 conditions for the rise of industry," while " In- 

 dustry — the offspring of slavery, itself the off- 

 spring of warfare — has all along, by aiding the 

 differentiation and integration of society, been 

 draining the vitality out of its primeval parent." 

 Chapter xx., " Conditions of Progress," sup- 

 plements the general formula of the law of pro- 

 gress by contrasting the conditions under which 

 progress takes place with the conditions which 

 determine stagnation or retrogression in the so- 

 cial order. Fiske here lays great stress upon 

 the view that the working of natural selection 

 amongst primitive communities tended, from 

 the start, to favour, in the more progressive 

 communities, that obedience, conservatism, and 

 l^i^xiii 



