1 1 2 ARISTOCRA C Y AND E VOL UTION 



Book ii help us ; for this remarkable writer, though he fails 

 to recognise what he is doing, not only appeals on 

 many critical occasions to the great - man theory 

 as an explanation of the most important social 

 phenomena, but he is repeatedly calling attention 

 throughout his sociological writings to those facts of 

 human nature of which the great-man theory is the 

 expression. It will be sufficient to quote a few 

 passages only. 



Mr. spencer Let us turn, then, to the opening pages of Mr. 

 r'genSu 115 Spencer's Study of Sociology and consider what is 

 definition of it. conta j ne( j j n t h errL We shall find that they are 



entirely devoted to describing the abject mental 

 condition of by far the largest portion of all classes 

 of English society, from the labourer, the farmer, 

 and the Nonconformist minister with his Bible, up 

 to "men called educated" and the most illustrious 

 of our historians and philosophers. All of them, 

 says Mr. Spencer, " are slaves to unwarranted 

 opinions" ; "proximate causes" are all that the 

 majority of them are able to understand. Nor does 

 he represent this as some accidental result, due to 

 prejudices or deficiencies in education peculiar to 

 our own country. He represents it as an inevitable 

 result of the character of the human race. In his 

 " Postscript" to the same volume he takes care to 

 make his meaning plain. "Most people" he says, 

 "conclude quickly from small evidence" and are 

 incapable " of comprehending in their totality 

 assembled propositions" Indeed, those whose 

 mental constitution is such that they can take a 



