HERBERT SPENCER 39 



1. His whole system is formal, abstract and logical. Bergson 

 characterizes his evolution theory as false because it " consists in 

 cutting up present reality already evolved, into little bits no less 

 evolved, and then recomposing it with these fragments, thus 

 positing in advance everything that is to be explained." x Pro- 

 fessor Bowne delighted to speak of his method of confusing logical 

 classification with genetic order, as the ' ' fallacy of the universal. ' ' 2 



2. His explanation is essentially mechanistic. He endeavors 

 to interpret the complexities of psychical and social life in 

 terms adequate to describe only movements of lifeless matter. 

 Mackintosh shows how inadequate is his theory to explain or- 

 ganization, consciousness and history, 3 and Sir Arthur Thomson, 

 while recognizing that Spencer was using mere symbols to express 

 the workings of the unknown reality, points out that these 

 symbols are entirely inadequate to represent the genesis of life 

 and mind. " No one can doubt," he says, " that development is 

 progressive differentiation, but it is rather a realization of a com- 

 plex inheritance of materialized potentialities than a change from 

 an incoherent, indefinite homogeneity to a coherent, definite 

 heterogeneity." 4 The mechanical laws of multiplication of 

 effects, of rhythm 6 and of the tendency to equilibrium are thus 

 entirely inadequate to explain social evolution. 



3. Spencer's assumption of an inherent tendency to develop- 

 ment in the cosmos together with his belief in use-inheritance and 

 natural selection, render his explanation much easier than is 

 really the case. The first assumption is hyper-scientific, the 

 second has been all but disproven and the third has been ques- 

 tioned so seriously in its application to social progress that his 

 general theory has been greatly weakened. 



4. His emphasis on the importance of economic factors has 

 been accentuated since; but he failed to appreciate the distinc- 

 tion between uneconomic and economic competition; i. e., 

 between the competition that is destructive of human energy and 



1 Creative Evolution, pp. xiii, xiv. Cf. also pp. 364-391. 



2 Class Lectures. 3 Op. cit., p. 91. 



4 Herbert Spencer, p. 115. Cf. also pp. 103, 140, 211, 212. 

 6 For criticism of his use of law of rhythm, see Schiller, "Herbert Spencer,'' 

 Encyclopedia Brit., xiii ed. 



