302 Darwin's Theory of Social Progress 



the bounds of the moral law, — the federation of the 

 world, — becomes, therefore, in the true Darwinian 

 theory, the ultimate goal of human evolution. The 

 federation of the human race under a system 

 of justice and law will lead to the highest morality 

 and will mark the greatest advance ever made in 

 social progress. 



V Darwin's theory of social progress, approaching 

 the problem from the point of view of biology, 

 is in striking agreement with the newer school 

 of history^ which finds the key to evolution in the 

 extension of the limits of association to include 

 all humanity. It furnishes the scientific founda- 

 tion for Kant's theory of universal history as the 

 growth of a world community, reconciling the free- 

 dom of individuals and of individual nations with 

 the accomplishment of a common aim for mankind 

 as a whole. In the Darwinian theory of social 

 progress, freed from the distortions of the philo- 

 sophy of force, we have the clear guiding principle 

 which seems to offer for the social sciences, some- 

 thing of the vitalizing organization and system 

 which the discovery of the Newtonian law of gravi- 

 tation gave to the physical sciences in the seven- 

 teenth century. The growth of a common 

 humanity — this is the key to the synthesis of 

 the humanities, whether we approach them from 

 the science of biology, from history, from eco- 

 ,nomics, from politial science, from ethics, or from 

 sociology. 



' See supra, p. 237. 



