MR. SPENCER'S FALSE ASSUMPTION 5 1 



blind over the biographies of all the great rulers Book i 

 on record, down to Frederick the Greedy and 

 Napoleon the Treacherous." 



But Mr. Spencer, in rejecting the great "ruler 

 and legislator" as a factor in social evolution un- 

 worthy of the attention of the sociologist, is really l r e moval of all 



rejecting a great deal else besides. He is really cong f nital f in ~ 



J * equalities from 



rejecting every inequality in capacity by which a hisfieldof 

 certain number of men are differentiated from, and 

 raised above others. In order to show that such is 

 the case, we will avail ourselves of his own words. 

 We will, then, start with one casual remark out of 

 many, in which Mr. Spencer, forgetting his own 

 theories, slips into a method of observation truer than 

 the one he advocates. " Men" he writes in his Study 

 of Sociology, "who have aptitudes for accumulating 

 observations are rarely men given to generalising ; 

 whilst men given to generalising are commonly 

 men who, mostly using the observation of others, 

 observe for themselves less from love of particular 

 facts than from the desire to put such facts to use." 

 Nothing can be clearer than the distinction here 

 drawn. It is one of great importance in the 

 elucidation of many social problems ; and it deals not 

 with the likeness, but with a congenital difference, 

 which exists between men belonging to the same 

 social aggregate. But now let us compare this 

 with another passage, in which Mr. Spencer, re- 

 turning again to his theory, explains how members 

 of the same aggregate are to be treated by any 

 sociologist who would claim to be a man of science. 



