ROLE OP THE INDIVIDUAL IN SOCIAL EVOLUTION 183 



different. Had Napoleon not arisen, the destinies of France 

 after 1796 might have been entirely different to what they were ; 

 and had a Napoleon, or some far-seeing statesman, been the 

 heir to the throne of France in 1872, the monarchy would have 

 been re-established, and the ominous clouds which now darken 

 the French horizon would not be there ; for it is known that the 

 Comte de Chambord only missed becoming King because, with 

 short-sighted obstinacy, he decUned to accept the tricolour flag 

 as his emblem.^ But this golden opportunity of bringing 

 France back to her traditions was lost, and events have since 

 then pursued their inevitable course ; for once the circumstances 

 of a critical moment have been missed, the possibihty of indi- 

 vidual intervention is gone also. If the circumstances of a 

 moment are favourable, a strong personality may be capable 

 of utilising them so as to shape the future destinies of a nation ; 

 but if no such personality arises, the forces which social evolu- 

 tion has called into action do not wait, but continue to develop 

 in virtue of a necessity which the individual is incapable of 

 controlling. 



We therefore assume the autonomy of sociology as our 

 starting-point. The individual who, taking advantage of 

 certain circimistances which result from the convergence of a 

 number of social forces at a given point, is able to give a new 

 impulse to these forces, so as to set them working in a fixed 

 direction ; is himself a product of the social forces which he 

 finds at his disposition, and which have evolved and moulded 

 the individual himself without his intervention. Social evolu- 

 tion is like a roUing ball which, having been set in motion down 

 a slope, continues its way ; at places the slope may be less steep, 

 and at this very spot an individual may be standing, ready to 

 check the further progress of the ball, and to give it a kick in 



1 Vide A. Debidour, L'Eglise catholique et I'Etat sous la troisieme Be- 

 fuhlique (Paris, Aloan, 1906), for an interesting account of the events which 

 followed the establishment of the Republic in 1871 — interesting even for 

 those who entirely disagree with the author's political views. 



