CHAP, xx SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 287 



organism ; and Mr. Spencer, with difficulties to face 

 from the materialistic cast of his own philosophy (in 

 its spirit, if not in its letter), suggests that the uni- 

 verse is an organism. These views will receive 

 authoritative support if we accept the idealist evolu- 

 tionism. It will no longer be a mere assertion, it 

 will be part of a great and subtle system of thought, 

 if we now assert that society is an organism ; that 

 its interests are paramount to those of the individ- 

 ual ; that in its good the individual finds his own. 

 Even the bold description of the universe as an 

 organism will be justified. The universe will be 

 revealed on deeper and fuller study as a system, not 

 a chance aggregation of disconnected parts, but a 

 cosmos. Chaos and chance will be banished to the 

 region of bad dreams. Reality will be viewed as the 

 creation and the image of thought. The relation 

 between man and nature will also be conceived as 

 necessary or organic. Everywhere will be traced 

 such a priority of the whole to the parts as organisms 

 display to us. For the true and beau-ideal organism 

 is that which is more than an organism, self-conscious 

 reason. 



Secondly, we cannot fail to observe a suggestion 

 of a different kind pressed upon us by the study 

 of nature, the suggestion of the importance, nay 

 more, of the indispensableness of struggle. Of 

 course, it is possible, or even probable, that the 

 doctrine of natural selection is not the whole truth, 

 even in the region of biology. Therefore it may 

 be the case that the evolutionary study of nature, 

 as conducted by our scientific leaders, hands on to 

 sociology a stronger recommendation in favour of 



