28 Causes of its Success 



of force enlisted in its service the highest aspira- 

 tions of the human soul, man's passionate desire 

 for justice and perfection. "Man has an inex- 

 tinguishable thirst for justice," says Novikov; 

 "it could not be otherwise, because justice is life; 

 injustice death." 



On the other hand, Darwin's biological theories 

 were applied to human society in an intellectual 

 world dominated by individualistic scientists like 

 Spencer and by conservative lawyers like Sir 

 Henry Maine. 



One of the chief influences in the rise of the 

 philosophy of force was the contribution of Spen- 

 cer's social philosophy. As early as 1 851 we find 

 him recognizing, in Social Statics, the 



stern discipline of nature which eliminates the unfit 

 and results in the maintenance of a constitution com- 

 pletely adapted to the surrounding conditions. 



And we find a prophecy of the modern "social 

 Darwinism" in the fact that Spencer attacked the 

 system of poor relief in the name of this discipline. 

 Spencer never became a Darwinian. The first 

 draft of his Synthetic Philosophy was made in the 

 beginning of 1858, a few months before Darwin 

 published his first paper, and no essential change 

 was made on account of the pubHcation of the 

 Darwinian theory. Whenever biological principles 

 were needed for his sociology, Spencer adapted to 

 his system the principles which had been suggested 

 by Lamarck as early as 1800. Lamarck had held, 



