ARISTOCRA C Y AND E VOL UTION 



Book I 

 Chapter 2 



But, as has 

 been said 

 already, the 

 social prob- 

 lems of to- 

 day arise out 

 of a conflict 

 between 

 different parts 

 of the same 

 aggregate ; 

 therefore the 

 phenomena of 

 the aggregates 

 as a whole do 

 not help us. 



except as connected with the organism to which 

 they belong. Each social aggregate, in fact, is a 

 single animal ; and whatever is achieved or suffered 

 by any class or individual within it, is really achieved 

 or suffered, in the eye of the Spencerian sociologist, 

 not by the class or the individual, but by that 

 corporate animal, the community. 



Now a study of these phenomena of aggregates 

 is, as has been said already, valuable for speculative 

 purposes. It has led those who have pursued it 

 to a variety of important conclusions which have 

 largely revolutionised our conception of human 

 history, and of the conditions that engender civil- 

 isations or else preclude their possibility. It has 

 shown us human life as a great unfolding drama, 

 but it has hardly given us any help at all in dealing 

 with the practical problems that belong to our own 

 day ; and the reason of this, which has already been 

 stated generally, must be apparent the moment we 

 consider what these practical problems are. Their 

 general character is sufficiently indicated by such 

 familiar antitheses as aristocracy and democracy, the 

 few and the many, rich and poor, capital and labour, 

 or, as Mr. Kidd puts it, collectivists and the 

 opponents of collectivism. In other words, the 

 social problems of to-day like the social problems 

 of most other periods are problems which arise 

 out of the differences between class and class. 

 That is to say, they depend on, and derive their 

 sole meaning from phenomena which are not refer- 

 able to the social aggregate as a whole, but which 



