CHAPTER XII 



DARWINISM IN POLITICS I BAGEHOT 



Applies Darwinism by analogy Evolution transforms imperceptibly 

 By nerve tissue in our case ; but nothing depends on this assertion 

 of use-inheritance by Bagehot; it is a mere illustration ~NQl ethno- 

 logical, but political questions Problems both of progress and of 

 differentiation ist, Custom as the remedy for primitive wildness 

 in the " fit " Criticism 2nd, Customs winnowed by the test of 

 war 3rd, Free discussion Race blending, etc., as minor factors 

 Three limitations on the Darwinian principle in Bagehot's appli- 

 cation of it. 



[Note B. On Professor Ritchie's Darwinism and Politics Incon- 

 sistency between the different essays One interesting hint] 



THE next important application of Darwinian 

 notions to social questions is found in Walter Bage- 

 hot's Physics and Politics -, a little book full of 

 interest on every page, and still alive with sugges- 

 tions after twenty-five years. It is or seeks to be 

 truly Darwinian, dealing, as the title-page tells us, 

 with "inheritance" and " natural selection," and 

 trying to "apply them to political society." 



The author is profoundly impressed, first of all, 

 with the transforming power which science attributes 

 to evolutionary change. Things become absolutely 

 different from what they were. Nay more ; this is 

 true not merely of some things but of all. Every- 

 thing is in motion. And therefore everything has 



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