MR. SPENCER'S FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 25 



hardly necessary to say that the thinker thus referred Book i 

 to is Mr. Herbert Spencer. Chapter2 



We will then follow Mr. Spencer's reasoning as a short 



r .... - , . . . summary of 



irom the beginning, as set forth in his works ; and his sociological 

 before consulting his monumental Principles 



Sociology we will turn to his Study of Sociology, a 

 smaller and preparatory treatise, in which the 

 methods adopted by him in his main inquiry are 

 explained. He opens this treatise with declaring 

 that until recent years any scientific treatment of 

 social phenomena was impossible ; and it was im- 

 possible, he says, for two definite reasons. These 

 were the prevalence of two utterly false theories, 

 both of which precluded the idea that anything like 

 law or order of a calculable kind were prevalent in 

 the social sphere. One of these theories was " the 

 theocratic theory" the other what he calls ''the 

 great-man theory." 



The theocratic theory is that which explains all Mr. spencer 

 social change by reference to the direct and arbitrary LyingThat the 

 interference of a Deity ; and if this be adopted; Mr. 



Spencer has no difficulty in showing that anything science is th 



* Jo prevalence of 



like a social science must be necessarily looked on the great-man 

 as impossible : for the only thread by which social 

 phenomena are connected will in that case be 

 hidden in the will of an inscrutable Being, which 

 may indeed be made known to us by revelation, but 

 which is not susceptible of being either observed or 

 calculated. This theory, however, in its cruder 

 form, at all events, is, says Mr. Spencer, being fast 

 discarded by everybody even by the theologically 



