40 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS 



diminishes social welfare and the competition that tends to de- 

 velop and encourage the multiplication of the most efficient men 

 and methods and increases social welfare. The one should be 

 prevented, the other encouraged by social control. 1 



5. Spencer failed to appreciate the function of intelligence in 

 "short circuiting" the normal processes of nature. 2 Intelligence 

 has as one of its chief functions the economizing of time and 

 energy. Man by " art " abridges the slow process of passive 

 adjustment. 



6. Finally his failure to appreciate the functions of social con- 

 trol was due in large measure to his extreme individualism, ex- 

 pressed in religion in non-conformity and free- thought; in 

 economics by laissez /aire doctrines; in ethics by over-emphasis 

 on egoism; in government, in his theory of decentralization and 

 " negative regulation." " Liberty, equality, justice and fra- 

 ternity," — these ideals were for him the interpreters of the social 

 process in its final stages. This point of view led him to see only 

 those acts of Parliament that were over-paternalistic and had 

 proven a failure, and blinded him to the many successful meas- 

 ures that had been passed. Despite these short-comings, how- 

 ever, his doctrine of passive adaptation as developed in Social 

 Statics and illustrated in his Principles of Sociology stands as one 

 of the great principles of social progress, a process which was 

 destined to be analyzed by more keenly analytic students in- 

 spired by the more strictly scientific methods of men like Darwin. 



1 For development of this distinction see discussion of Professor Carver's 

 social philosophy. 



2 Cf. however, note 5, p. 38. 



