go ARISTOCRA C Y AND E VOL UTION 



Book i which, whatever it may mean, at all events means 



ha P ter 4 a p rO g ress essentially different from the achieve- 



it may be ments of particular individuals, he may wonder in 



oXe? hand? 6 what way the doctrine of evolution can be reconciled 



what place the w j t [ 1 anv doctrine which has the achievements of 



great man has 



in an excius- individuals for its basis. 



ively evolution- . . 



ary theory of We will take these two points in order. With 

 regard to the survival of the fittest in the competi- 

 tive struggle for existence, the great fact which it is 

 necessary to make clear is as follows ; and it is one 

 which our contemporary sociologists have altogether 



The fittest sur- failed to perceive. In the evolution of societies, 



vivor is not the . , , . r . , . . 



same as the just as in the evolution ot species m the evolution 

 iar " of man as a social being, as in the evolution of man 

 as an animal the struggle for existence has played 

 an important part ; but in social evolution the part 

 played by it is very far from being that which is 

 popularly supposed, nor does the survival of the 

 fittest in any way correspond with the position and 

 influence claimed for the great man. Certain of the 

 He piays a phenomena of progress are no doubt produced by 

 gress! n butnot it. but they are as different from those which the 

 the same part. g reat or exceptional man produces, as is the move- 

 ment of the earth round the sun from its movement 

 round its own axis. In order to understand this, 

 let us first consider carefully how progress, as the 

 result of the struggle for existence, is explained by 

 our contemporary sociologists. The matter is put 

 succinctly and very clearly in the following passage 

 from Mr. Kidd's Social Evolution. 



"Progress everywhere" he says, "from the begin- 



