66 THE SCIENCE OF POWER 



feature of the social organism of human society, 

 as Spencer described it, was that it is an organism 

 in which the interests of the individuals com- 

 prising it can never be subordinated to any 

 supposed interest of the whole. Extraordinary as 

 the fact may seem, this conception is actually put 

 forward by Spencer in all seriousness. It is the 

 leading idea in his system of Synthetic Philosophy. 

 Yet the mind staggers and boggles at the conception. 

 For how could there be such a thing as a social 

 organism while the interests of the individual in it 

 were supreme over every good of the whole organism ! 

 Even the arrogance of Nietzsche's superman did not 

 reach that of Spencer's individual as thus conceived. 



In ages to come, as men watch the phenomenon 

 of the passing at this time to gigantic catastrophe 

 in history of the whole system of the knowledge 

 of the West which is founded on force, interest 

 will centre in the extraordinary intellectual position 

 thus being developed in England by Spencer side 

 by side with the political development taking place 

 in Germany. 



At the time when Spencer wrote the German 

 people were being rapidly enveloped in those theories 

 of the absolute State aiming at world power and 

 resting on militarism which had been placed on 

 the anvil by Frederick the Great of Prussia long 



