HERBERT SPENCER CV 
a formal or structural test whereas increasing adaptation is a life 
test. This point has weighty moral and religious implications. 
The summum bonum of individual and group life should be re- 
vealed by a study of cosmic and especially of social evolution, and 
if we are theists we may believe that God’s will is there revealed. 
Now if increasing differentiation and integration is the one all- 
inclusive formula of life and progress, every individual should 
seek to hasten this process in his own life, so, too, should each 
group, though it lead to destruction. To theists, this would be 
God’s will. If, on the contrary, progressive adaptation is the law 
of life, every individual should seek to further the process in his 
own life, so, too, should every group, though it call for a return to 
a simpler form, — which Spencer terms retrogression. In this case 
retrogression would mean progression for it would mean increased 
adaptation to a change in the environment requiring such simpli- 
fication for survival. Whether or not such simplification is 
possible for a group is a mooted question but it certainly is pos- 
sible for an individual. 
In his Principles of Ethics adaptation again comes to the front 
as the test of the good. Moral conduct is there defined in two 
ways: as “acts adjusted to ends” and as “ the adjustment of 
acts to ends.” Spencer does not seem to have appreciated the 
significance of the difference in these two statements but they 
may be interpreted very differently, the first signifying merely 
passive adaptation, the second, active adaptation, because the 
process issues from intelligent purpose. With him the distinction 
is merely between emphasis on the formed body of acts or on the 
form alone.! 
Spencer does give some place to purpose, to be sure, in his dis- 
cussion of conduct, but nowhere does he bring out the contrast 
between conduct that happens to be adjusted and conduct that is 
purposely adjusted. This is shown by the following quotations: 
“‘ We are able to furnish no other test of perfection than that of 
complete power in all the organs to fulfil their respective func- 
tions.”? ‘‘The perfection of man considered as an agent means the 
being constituted for effecting complete adjustment of acts to 
1 Data of Ethics, p. 4. 2 Tbid., p. 36. 
