132 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS 
Here, then, we seem at last to have found out what the true nature of 
man’s end is; and we see that that end is by its very nature a social one. It 
is clear, too, that the end which we have now defined includes everything 
which “we divine” as belonging to the highest good. It includes, indeed, 
every one of the ends which have been previously enumerated. It includes 
what we have described as the objective ends, — the realization of reason, 
order and beauty in the world; for the realization of them is part of our work 
in making our world intelligible and clear to ourselves. It includes also the 
realization of life; for it is the fulfilment of that towards which our lives as 
rational beings strive; and in the fulfilment of this for ourselves, there is 
involved also the realization of the lives of other intelligent beings; since it 
is only in the fulfilment of their intelligent nature that our own can receive 
fulfilment. 
The social problem, as he sees it, is to discover the form of social 
union in which, under given conditions, the progress will be most 
rapid and most secure towards that good which we must regard 
as the ultimate end.2. He holds that, though diversity of inter- 
ests leads to conflict, ultimately the good of the individual and 
society are identical. 
In his practical program of meliorism, Mackenzie emphasizes 
individual culture, the conquest of nature and right social rela- 
tions, all these introducing what we have termed active adapia- 
tion.4 
The need of social control is due to the fact that 
progress towards a more complete mastery of nature is not necessarily a 
progress towards more complete happiness for the following reasons: (1) As 
the means of material well-being increase, population also increases, and the 
struggle for existence becomes keener; (2) Human nature is not sufficiently 
plastic to adapt itself continuously to the changing conditions of existence; 
(3) Industrial progress brings with it an increasing freedom of competition, 
and this adds to the keenness of the struggle; (4) Industrial progress tends 
to reduce the working classes more and more to the condition of a prole- 
tariate, and in that way militates directly against the happiness of the great 
mass of population. 
by the lives of our fellow-men and in the works which they perform. . . . No 
attainment of the ideal of our rational nature is conceivable, except by our being 
able to see the world as a system of intelligent beings who are mutually worlds 
for each other. . . . It is only in the lives of other human beings that we find a 
world in which we can be at home. The society of other human beings is not 
merely a means of bringing our own rational nature to clearness, but it is the only 
object in relation to which such clearness can be attained,” ibid., pp. 231-233. 
1 Introduction to Social Philosophy, p. 234. 2 Tbid., p. 237. 
3 [bid., p. 236. 4 Ibid., p. 241. 5 Ibid., p. 307. 
