CHAPTER III 



THE CULMINATING PHASE OF THE PAGAN 

 ETHIC IN THE WEST 



IN England the development of the pagan 

 revival progressed with extreme rapidity, and 

 on every side it continued to give rise to 

 similar phases of extravagance. 



Darwin had kept mainly to the purely biological 

 aspect of his own subject. He attempted no com- 

 prehensive or systematic study of social affairs or of 

 political society. But in a few chapters of the Descent 

 of Man he raised the veil for a moment, sufficient to 

 disclose to the world the true nature of the hopeless im- 

 passe towards which that movement in thought receiv- 

 ing its impetus from Darwinism, so forcibly described 

 by Sir William Huggins, was carrying the world. 



Now the significance of the true application of the 

 law of natural selection in society consists in this. 

 The first step in understanding what lies beyond 

 Darwinism is to recognize in all its far-reaching 

 import that the human evolution which is proceeding 



in civilization is a social, not an individual integra- 

 te 



