quite well be the agency that gives this type of society the victory over a simpler type, where the unity more resembles what Hegel called "a unity identical with itself," than an integration of differences. This may be re

garded as Darwinism in its higher form, where absolute extinction of the unfit is not a necessary consequence of natural selection, and where variations, whether spontaneous or artificial, may be transmitted from one generation to another. What has been frequently called in these pages "sponte acta" can from the nature of the case be never purely spontaneous. As the education of a child is never left to itself even when its guardians (on the principles of Rousseau's Emile) desire so to leave it, in the same way the utmost spontaneity of the individual cannot imply his total detachment from the influences of society. The thoughts and actions of every individual within the social group are never those of the single individual unit as if he were a new creation, but are those of a member inheriting the ideas and feelings of the group. What Locke says of generation1 may be taken of industrial production with an equally profound significance. To produce is not to create, but simply to occasion. The tentative character of industrial improvement brings it under the Darwinian formula; and it is a character attested by all experience. Whether an invention be a happy accident or deliberately planned and endowed with every presumption of usefulness, we still count it wise to say no more of it than "it must have a fair trial"; and we wait to see whether it works well or ill, and whether it displaces rivals. It may lie unused for reasons either economically sound or the reverse. As a rule such a "variation as an invention, if it adds economical strength, will enjoy economical survival. But the dependence of some nations more than others on the

1 "Can any man say he formed the parts that are necessary to the life of his child? Or can he suppose himself to give the life, and yet not know what subject is fit to receive it nor what actions or organs are necessary for its reception or preservation?" . . . "If any one thinks himself an artist in this, let him number up the parts of his child's body which he hath made, tell me their uses and operations, and when the living and rational soul began to inhabit this curious structure." "Those who desire and design children are but the occasions of their being," etc.

Civil Govt., 52-54. Compare above, page 249.

immediate present will cause that to be to them economically unfit which to another with larger resources and powers of waiting would be true economy. The growth and distribution of wealth and capital are thus an element in the question; and, so far as these are affected by laws and institutions, it might be argued that economical fitness depends partly on political causes.

Whatever be the causes that help or hinder success, the success itself is worked out in the minds and habits of the members of a society by a tentative sifting analogous to "natural selection." This was the gradual improvement of complicated tools and machines, which Marx had in mind, when he desired to "Darwinize " industrial history. After saying (Kap., I. 352) that "the Manufacturing period simplifies, improves, and multiplies the working tools by adapting them to the exclusive special functions of sub-divided work," he quotes in a note what Darwin says of the natural organs of plants and animals: "As long as the same part has to perform diversified work, we can perhaps see why it should remain variable, that is, why natural selection should not have preserved or rejected each little deviation of form so carefully as when the part has to serve for some one special purpose; in the same way that a knife which has to cut all sorts of things may be of almost any shape, whilst a tool for some particular purpose must be of some particular shape" (Origin of Species, chap. v. pp. 118, 119, pop. ed.). In a later note (Kap., I. 385) Marx goes on to say: "Darwin has awakened interest in the history of natural technology, i.e. the growth of the organs of plants and animals as instruments of production for the life of plants and animals. Does not the history of the growth of the productive organs of men in society, i.e. the material basis of every separate social organization, not deserve the same attention? And would this not be more easily furnished since, as Vico says, human history is distinguished from natural history by our having made the one, and not having made the other? Technology displays the active relations of man to nature, the

1 It is to be observed that Marx accepts Darwin while he rejects Malthus on whom Darwin has built.

direct movement of production that goes on in his life, and therewith the movement that goes on in the social relations of his life and in the ideas derived from them. Even the history of religion when it abstracts from this material basis is uncritical. It is in fact much easier to find by analysis the earthly kernel of the religious nebulosities than conversely to develope the sublimated forms out of the corresponding conditions of actual life. But the latter is the only materialistic and therefore the only scientific method. The weak points of the materialism of abstract physical science when it excludes the historical movement may be seen in the abstract and ideological conceptions of its spokesmen, whenever they venture beyond their special study." Without adopting this materialistic view of history, we may recognize that industrial development on its mechanical side has been largely Darwinian. The question whether invention is more often due to the actual workers or to onlookers is still debated. But, whether inventions are accidental or contrived variations, occurring casually to the workmen or excogitated by an "inventor," they are submitted to the ordeal of selection by practice; and it is through the results of this selection that progress is made. But industrial development implies inheritance of ideas by successive generations in the social group concerned; and this inheritance may at once preserve an invention and hinder its further improvement. A plough and a ship may differ little now from their Homeric counterparts, for the sound technical reason that the conditions do not admit wide variation. In regard to most implements the success of a variation is hindered by mere custom, if there be no struggle, even of commercial competition, or none sufficiently keen to turn every little advantage into a great one. In the case of one tool, money, the tool of exchange, the greatest part of the efficiency of the tool depends on custom itself; and the variation whether from religious, æsthetic, or political causes must never be so great as to break the continuity of custom, which determines the power of coins to pass current among all classes of the people. It has been shown that no

1 By Mr. C. F. Keary, "Morphology of Coins," in Numismatic Chronicle, V. (3rd series) 165-198, VI. 41-95.

descendants so demonstrably resemble their remote ancestors and have so slowly adopted their actual variations from these, as is the case with coins.

It may be allowed then that in Production Darwinism has an indisputable place. There is on the whole continuous change by means of the selection (through competition) of variations, however much this process may be arrested or delayed by special causes in special cases. The same may be said of Distribution.

In regard to the third (Society and State) the question is less easily answered. The early development of societies before the existence of the State, in the sense of a central administrative government, was in all probability Darwinian; and after the formation of States the struggle of States against States was (and to some extent still is) Darwinian. But it is open to any philosopher to attempt to go below the fact of variation to a supposed "inner logic" which would explain the varia

tion itself.1

The question too still remains-is all favourable variation (that gives one State victory over another) economical variation, and is all history a record of the effects of economical causes? If it were so, then, as the tendency of industrial development seems to be towards centralization, the aim of political reformers would seem naturally to be to give conscious political expression to that industrial tendency, and (more than that) to make the whole work of the State economical. The latter is actually the claim of some socialists, and it seems to be logically implied in the proposition that the only potent cause of historical charge is the economical-in other words, all causes but this are superficial.

The position has some resemblance to that of Buckle in regard to morals. All progress, he said, was intellectual; there were no discoveries in ethics. Among the intellectual discoveries Buckle ranked those of certain economists as of high importance. Material progress

and the intellectual aids to it seemed to him to be civi

lization itself-all else being superficial. But some

1 Such an "inner logic " was attempted by Hegel; development in his sense would explain not only the selection but the variation.

socialists speak as if the intellectual elements were created by the economical, going thus a step beyond Buckle. The very Reformation is ascribed to an economical cause; Peter's pence proved too oppressive.1 The Thirty Years' War owed its length to the existence of a country proletariate in Germany which supplied troops without limit. The Crusades were largely due to the "land hunger" of the barons." The Jesuits formed a great commercial company, and their State in Paraguay was simply an organization of the non-producing classes. Marx himself connects the Animal Psychology of Descartes with the growth of the Manufacturing system; "animals are machines" could not have occurred to a mediæval writer. Engels by the aid of Lewis Morgan's Ancient Society proves to his own satisfaction that the growth of the family both in prehistoric and historic times is essentually due to economic causes. (Urspr. der Fam., etc., 4th ed. 1892).

It would be very nearly as easy to prove that every historical event (whatever else on the surface) was essentially due to religious and moral causes; this was, roughly speaking, the view of Carlyle. Historical economists in Germany and in England, instead of saying that all history is economical, maintain that all economics is in essence historical, relative, and subordinate. In point of fact, historians have shown the presence, in all events, of economical, religious, artistic, and political elements. The question which of them all is at any given time the most potent efficient cause cannot be settled a priori by any dogma, laying down absolutely that one is always or invariably the most potent cause. The historians try to tell us how the various causes act on each other and with each other. In prehistoric or very early historic times and among savages the economical cause will usually be dominant; the struggle for bare subsistence will be in full force. At some epochs (as in the Crusades or the spread of Mohammedanism)

Kautsky, More und seine 2 Ibid., p. 32 note. 5 Das Kapital, I. p. 406.

Utopie (1888), p. 41 seq., 66, etc., cf. 76. 3 Ibid., 56. 4 Ibid., p. 91 note. For remarks on this passage and generally on the view now discussed, see Dr. Paul Barth, Geschichts-philosophie Hegel's, etc. (1890).