CHAPTER IV THE GREAT MAN AS DISTINGUISHED FROM THE PHYSIOLOGICALLY FITTEST SURVIVOR
The two objections to which reference has just been made are connected with two doctrines, neither of which has thus far been submitted to any detailed examination, and one of which has indeed been hardly so much as alluded to, but which are both intimately associated, in the estimation of the world at large, with contemporary science, and more especially with contemporary sociology. One of these doctrines is that of the survival of the fittest. The other is that which, more or less distinctly, is suggested at the present time by the much-abused word “evolution.” When the reader thinks of the doctrine of the survival of the fittest, when he reflects on the fact that Mr. Spencer is an avowed disciple of Darwin, and that Mr. Spencer’s own disciples are constantly making allusion to “the rivalry of existence” and the “successfuls and the unsuccessfuls,” he may be tempted to ask himself if it can be really true that Mr. Spencer has eliminated the great man from his system after all. On the other hand, when the reader thinks of evolution, {90} which, whatever it may mean, at all events means a progress essentially different from the achievements of particular individuals, he may wonder in what way the doctrine of evolution can be reconciled with any doctrine which has the achievements of individuals for its basis.
We will take these two points in order. With regard to the survival of the fittest in the competitive struggle for existence, the great fact which it is necessary to make clear is as follows; and it is one which our contemporary sociologists have altogether failed to perceive. In the evolution of societies, just as in the evolution of species—in the evolution of man as a social being, as in the evolution of man as an animal—the struggle for existence has played an important part; but in social evolution the part played by it is very far from being that which is popularly supposed, nor does the survival of the fittest in any way correspond with the position and influence claimed for the great man. Certain of the phenomena of progress are no doubt produced by it, but they are as different from those which the great or exceptional man produces, as is the movement of the earth round the sun from its movement round its own axis. In order to understand this, let us first consider carefully how progress, as the result of the struggle for existence, is explained by our contemporary sociologists. The matter is put succinctly and very clearly in the following passage from Mr. Kidd’s Social Evolution.
“Progress everywhere,” he says, “from the {91} beginning of life, has been effected in the same way, and is possible in no other way. It is the result of selection and rejection. In the human species, as in every other species which has ever existed, no two individuals of a generation are alike in all respects; there is infinite variation within certain narrow limits. Some are slightly above the average in a particular direction, as others are slightly below it; and it is only when the conditions prevail that are favourable to the preponderating reproduction of the former, that advance in any direction becomes possible. To formulate this as the immutable law of progress since the beginning of life has been one of the principal results of the biological science of the nineteenth century. . . . To put it in words used by Professor Flower in speaking of human society, ‘Progress has been due to the opportunity of those individuals who are a little superior in some respects to their fellows of asserting their superiority, and of continuing to live, and of promulgating as an inheritance that superiority’.”
The entire Spencerian position as regards the social struggle for existence is here given us in a nutshell. The competitive struggle is a process which produces progress by means of the manner in which it affects men in general. In any community the means of subsistence are being constantly appropriated by the members who are a little stronger than the rest, whilst those who are weaker have an insufficient portion left them. The latter therefore die early themselves; or breed no children; {92} or breed children who die early; whilst the former live long, and breed children who live likewise; and of these children there is always a certain percentage in whom are reproduced the superior qualities of their parents. Thus the weaker members of the community are always dying out, whilst stronger members not only become more numerous, but more efficient as individuals also. In other words, the Darwinian struggle for existence produces progress by raising the general average of efficiency. It has nothing to do with a few men towering over the rest. It works by producing a simultaneous rise of all. The superior “assert their authority” not by commanding their inferiors, but merely by “continuing to live” and having children as superior as themselves. In this way, to quote an illustration from Mr. Spencer, the progressive races of Europe have reached a stage of development which makes possible amongst them the appearance of men like Laplace or Newton, an event which could not occur amongst the Hottentots or the Andaman islanders. It will thus at once be clear that the theory of the survival of the fittest explains progress by reference to an order of facts totally distinct from those involved in the influence claimed for the great man. Whilst the theory of survival is illustrated by the superiority of Europeans to Hottentots, the great-man theory is illustrated by, and depends on, the superiority of men like Newton to the great mass of Europeans.
What relation, then, do these two explanations {93} bear to each other? In a direct way they are not related at all. They neither conflict with each other nor overlap each other. They are both of them true; but true as explaining different sets of phenomena. One of the great errors of which our modern sociologists are guilty consists in their failure to perceive that social progress is not a single movement but the joint result of two, which differ from each other—to repeat what was said just now—quite as much as do the two movements of the earth. The difference between them will become instantly clear to us if we will turn our attention merely to the single obvious fact that the two take place at different rates of speed, the one set of changes being slow, like the succession of years; the other set of changes being rapid, like the succession of days. The general rise in capacity which distinguishes the modern civilised nations from primitive man, or from the lowest savages of to-day, and which has been due to what Mr. Kidd calls “the preponderating reproduction of individuals slightly above the average,” has been the work of an incalculable number of centuries. It has been so slow that, in many respects at all events, it has been indistinguishable during the course of several thousand years. The great thinkers amongst the ancient Egyptians were not congenitally inferior to the great thinkers of to-day. The brain of Aristotle was equal to the brain of Newton; whilst the masons whose hands constructed the Coliseum and the Parthenon knew as much of their craft as those who {94} constructed the Imperial Institute. But with this slowness in the rise of the general level of capacity let us compare the progressive results achieved within some short period. We cannot do better than take the past hundred years, and consider the progress made in the material arts of life. How the whole spectacle changes! Within that short period, at all events, no one will venture to maintain that the average congenital capacities of our own countrymen have been enlarged. We are not wittier than Horace Walpole, more polite than Lord Chesterfield, more shrewd and sensible than Dr. Johnson; whilst it is easy to see by reference to those trades, such as the building trade, which science and invention have done comparatively little to alter, that the natural efficiency of the average workman is no greater now than in the days of our great-great-grandfathers. And yet during that short period what an astounding progress has taken place! To sum it up in a bald economic formula, whilst the capacities of the average Englishman have remained altogether stationary, the economic productivity per head of the population of this country has during the past century trebled, and more than trebled itself.
This remarkable comparison between the rapidity of actual progress and the extreme slowness of the biological development resulting from the survival of the fittest in the Darwinian struggle for existence, will be enough to show anybody that progress is not one movement but two; and whilst the survival of {95} the fittest explains the slow and almost imperceptible movement, the rapid and perceptible movement is explained by the leadership of the greatest. It is with the rapid movement alone that the practical sociologist is concerned; and hence for him the great man, not the fittest, is the important factor.
Let us now consider what is meant by the process called social evolution, regarded as something distinct from those intentional advances made and maintained by the genius of great men. To understand this, we must consider what is meant by evolution generally. Mr. Spencer defines it in terms of “the homogenous” and “the heterogenous”; and from his own point of view we may accept his definition as correct. But facts have many aspects; and according to the purpose with which we deal with them they will require different definitions, which, though none of them are incompatible with the others, will have between themselves no apparent resemblance. Thus the biologist’s definition of a man will be quite distinct from the theologian’s; and the dangerous illness of a great party leader will be one phenomenon for his followers, and quite another for his doctor. In the same way Mr. Spencer’s definition of evolution, however admirable it may be from a certain point of view, is not exhaustive. It entirely leaves out of sight those characteristics of the process which it is necessary before all things that the practical sociologist should understand.
To reach a definition that will include these {96} let us begin by fixing our attention on that order of facts which formed the special study of Darwin, and in connection with which the theory of evolution became first known to the world; and let us ask what was the greatest and the most notorious effect produced by Darwinism on human thought generally. Its greatest and most notorious effect was to disprove, or rather render superfluous, the old theory which explained the varieties of organic life by referring them to the design of some quasi-human intelligence. According to the old theory, every species of living thing, from the lowest to the highest, was produced by the power and purpose of one supreme Mind, who adapted the frame and faculties of each to a prearranged set of circumstances and the fulfilment of certain needs. According to the theory of evolution, associated with the name of Darwin, these results were accomplished by purpose and intelligent power likewise, only not by the power and purpose of one supreme external Mind, but by the power and purpose of the living things themselves. Each living thing chose its mates, reproduced its kind, hunted for food, fought with rivals, and either conquered or was conquered by them, in obedience to the promptings of its own instinctive purposes. These were the motive power of the whole evolutionary process. The variety and development of organic life, as we know it, did not result indeed from one great intention, but it did result from an infinity of little intentions. {97}
Now so far the theory of design and the theory of evolution very closely resemble each other; but here we come to the point of essential difference between them. According to the theory of design, the varieties and gradations of organic life were not only the result of intention in the supreme Mind, but were also themselves the exact result intended. According to the evolutionary theory, although they were the result of an infinity of intentions, not one of the living things, from whose intention they resulted, intended them. They were the by-product of actions undertaken for entirely different ends—that is to say, for the benefit of the individual creatures who undertook them. This is the essential and this is the peculiar character with which the theory of evolution invested them. It presented to the mind the extraordinary phenomenon of a single series of actions producing a double series of results—the intended and the unintended, the latter of which, though entirely different from the former, was equally orderly, equally reasonable and coherent. Evolution, in fact, as revealed to us in the physiological world, is, for the philosopher, neither more nor less than this—the reasonable sequence of the unintended.