Aristocracy & Evolution / A Study of the Rights, the Origin, and the Social Functions of the Wealthier Classes

by W. H. Mallock

And now let us consider what the nature of those conclusions is. We shall find that they are, one and all of them, conclusions with regard to aggregates. All the phenomena with which they deal are phenomena not of individuals, not of different classes, but of masses of men, communities, races, nations, {40} the units of which are regarded as being virtually so similar, that what is true of one is virtually true of all. This similarity certainly is not imputed to all mankind. Men are recognised as having been different in one epoch from what they become in another, and one race and the inhabitants of one climate as being different from other men differently born and circumstanced. The primitive millions who could hardly walk upright, and whose sexual relations resembled those of the animals, are distinguished from their erect successors who married and lived in families; and the strong and energetic races are distinguished from their weaker contemporaries. But each of these aggregates is regarded as a unit in itself. The conquering race which has grown vigorous in dry regions, and the inferior race enslaved by it, which has lost its strength in moist regions, are contrasted sharply with each other; but neither is made the subject of any internal division, nor treated as though the units composing it were not virtually similar. Mr. Spencer of course admits (for this is one of the fundamental parts of his philosophy) that these wholes, these aggregates, progress through a constant differentiation of their parts, different functions being performed by an increasing number of groups; but the units who compose these groups, and whom he calls the “internal factors,” are regarded by him as being congenitally each a counterpart of the others; and their different functions and their different acquired aptitudes are {41} regarded as the result of different external circumstances which press into different moulds one and the same material. Thus when the single group from which the nation originally springs undergoes, as it becomes more numerous, what Mr. Spencer calls the process of “fission,” and spreads itself in search of food over an ever-extending area, new groups separate not because they have different appetites, but because, having the same appetites, they must satisfy them in different places by the exercise of the same faculties. Division of labour, as we have seen, he explains in the same way; and not its origin only, but its latest and most elaborate developments. Of the manufacturing businesses of to-day, for instance, with their promoters, managers, capitalists, and multitudes of various workmen, not only is each business treated by him as a single unit, but each of these units, or ganglia, is a unit which differs from the rest for accidental reasons only, as a gardener who happens to be digging may differ from a gardener who happens to be raking a walk; and he describes the whole as “a plexus of ganglia connected by an internuncial system.”

The use of this last phrase, and the physiological analogy suggested by it, illustrate yet more clearly the fact here insisted on—namely, that for Mr. Spencer the sociologist’s true unit of interest is the social aggregate, as a whole, to the exclusion of the individual or of the class. The latter are merely the ganglia, or veins, or nerves, which are nothing {42} except as connected with the organism to which they belong. Each social aggregate, in fact, is a single animal; and whatever is achieved or suffered by any class or individual within it, is really achieved or suffered, in the eye of the Spencerian sociologist, not by the class or the individual, but by that corporate animal, the community.

Now a study of these phenomena of aggregates is, as has been said already, valuable for speculative purposes. It has led those who have pursued it to a variety of important conclusions which have largely revolutionised our conception of human history, and of the conditions that engender civilisations or else preclude their possibility. It has shown us human life as a great unfolding drama, but it has hardly given us any help at all in dealing with the practical problems that belong to our own day; and the reason of this, which has already been stated generally, must be apparent the moment we consider what these practical problems are. Their general character is sufficiently indicated by such familiar antitheses as aristocracy and democracy, the few and the many, rich and poor, capital and labour, or, as Mr. Kidd puts it, collectivists and the opponents of collectivism. In other words, the social problems of to-day—like the social problems of most other periods—are problems which arise out of the differences between class and class. That is to say, they depend on, and derive their sole meaning from phenomena which are not referable to the social aggregate as a whole, but which {43} are manifested severally by distinct and independent parts. The social aggregate, when regarded from this standpoint, is no longer a single animal, whose pains or pleasures reveal themselves in a single consciousness. It is a litter of animals, each of which has a consciousness of its own, and, together with its consciousness, interests of its own also, which are opposed to those of the others, instead of coinciding with them.

And now let us consider more closely out of what this opposition arises. Mr. Spencer, as we have seen, in our rapid survey of his arguments, lays great stress on the fact that as men rise into aggregates, they do so only on condition of submitting themselves to governors, military in the first place, and at a later stage civil. The truth, however, which he thus elaborates, whatever may be its speculative importance, fails to have any bearing on any practical problem, because it is not a truth about which there has ever been any practical disagreement. Aristocrat, democrat, and socialist all agree that there must be orderly government of some sort, and official governors to administer to it. The point at issue between them is not whether some must govern and others submit to be governed, but how the individuals who perform the work of government shall be chosen, and what, apart from their official superiority and authority, shall be their position with regard to the rest of the community. Why should they enjoy any special social advantage? Or if they are to enjoy it, why should they be usually {44} drawn from a small privileged class, and not from the masses of the community, sinking to the general level again when their tenure of office terminates? Such are the questions proposed by one party; whilst the other party replies by contending that the limited class in question can alone supply governors of the required talents and character. Of this clash of opinions and interests, which is as old as civilisation itself, though in each age it assumes some different form, Mr. Spencer’s social science necessarily takes no cognisance, because the parts of each social aggregate have for him no separate existence.

The same criticism applies to his treatment of economic production. He explains, as we have seen, the origin of the division of labour, showing how “unlikeness between the products of different districts” inevitably led to “the localisation of industries,” turning one set of savages—to use his own example—into potters, another into makers of baskets. But here again we have a truth which, whatever its speculative interest, has no bearing on any practical problem; for no one denies that division of labour is necessary, nor do any of the difficulties of to-day turn upon its remote origin. Socialists and individualists are alike ready to admit that different men must follow different industries. The point at issue is why, within the limits of the same industry, different men pursue it on different levels, some being masters and capitalists, some being labourers and subordinates. Here, just as in the sphere of political and military government, {45} we have one class defending its existing position and privileges, and another class attacking or questioning them; and it is out of circumstances such as these, thus briefly indicated, that the practical social problems of the present day arise.

Now the question at the bottom of these can be reduced to very simple terms. If all members of the community were content with existing social arrangements, it is needless to say there would be no social problems at all. Such problems are due entirely to the existence of persons who are not contented, and who desire that certain of these arrangements should be changed. It will be seen, accordingly, that the great and fundamental question which, as a practical guide, the sociologist is asked to answer, is whether or how far the changes desired by the discontented are practicable; and the first step towards ascertaining how far the arrangements in question can be turned into something which they are not, is to ascertain precisely how they have come to be what they are.

But this way of putting the case is still not sufficiently definite. Mr. Spencer himself has put it in somewhat similar language; and yet in doing so he has missed the heart of the problem. Mr. Spencer’s speculative gaze, travelling over the past and present, sees one generation melting like a cloud into another, and takes no note of the individuals that compose each. The practical sociologist must adopt a very different method of observation. He must remember that practical problems arise {46} and become practical, not in virtue of their relation to mankind generally, but in virtue of their relation to each particular generation that is confronted by them; and a particular generation in any given community, and the different classes into which the community is divided, are made up respectively of particular men and women. In asking, therefore, how the social arrangements we have been considering have come to be what they are, we must not ask in vague and general terms why a portion of the social aggregate occupies a position which contents it, and another portion a position which exasperates it; but we must consider the individuals of which each portion, at any given time, is composed, and begin the inquiry at the point at which they begin it themselves. “Why am I—Tom or Dick or Harry—included in that portion of the aggregate which occupies an inferior position? And why are these men—William or James or George—more fortunate than I, and included in the portion of the aggregate which occupies a superior position?” To this question there are but three possible answers. The inferior position of Tom or Dick or Harry is due to his differing from William or James or George in external circumstances, which theoretically, at all events, might all be equalised—such, for example, as his education; or it is due to his differing from them in certain congenital faculties, with respect to which men can never be made equal—as, for example, in his brain power or his physical energy; or it is due to his differing {47} from them in external circumstances which have arisen naturally from differences in the congenital faculties of others, and which, if they could be equalised at all, could never be equalised with anything like completeness—such, for example, as the possession by William and James and George of leisured and intellectual homes secured for them by gifted fathers, and the want of such homes and fathers on the part of Tom and Dick and Harry.

The first question, accordingly, which we have to ask is as follows. Taking Tom or Dick or Harry as a type of those classes who happen to occupy an inferior position in the aggregate, and comparing him with others who happen to occupy superior positions, we have to ask how far he is condemned to the inferior position which he resents by such external circumstances as conceivably could be equalised by legislation, and how far by some congenital inferiority of his own, or circumstances naturally arising out of the congenital inferiority of others. Or we may put the question conversely, and ask how William and George and James have come to occupy the positions which Tom, Dick, and Harry envy. Do they owe their positions solely to unjust and arbitrary legislation, which a genuinely democratic parliament could and would undo? Or to exceptional abilities of their own, of which no parliament could deprive them? Or to advantages secured for them by the exceptional abilities of their fathers, which no parliament could interfere with, or, at all events, could abolish, without {48} entering on a conflict with the instincts of human nature, and interfering with the springs of all human action?

Now that external circumstances of a kind, easily alterable by legislation, have been, and often are, responsible for many social inequalities, is a fact which we may here assume without particularly discussing it. The inquiry, therefore, narrows itself still further, and resolves itself into this: Do the congenital superiorities or inferiorities of the persons, or of parents of the persons, who at any given time are occupying in the social aggregate superior and inferior positions, play any part in the production of these social inequalities at all?

This question must plainly be the practical sociologist’s starting-point; for if social inequalities are due wholly to alterable and artificial circumstances, social conditions are capable, theoretically, at all events, of being equalised; but if, on the other hand, inferior and superior positions are partly, at all events, the result of the congenital inequalities of individuals, over which no legislation can exercise the least control, then a natural limit is set to the possibilities of the levelling process; and it is the business of the sociologist, if he aspires to be a practical guide, to begin with ascertaining what these limits are. Are, then, the congenital inequalities of men a factor in the production of social inequalities, or are they not?