Evolution; Knowledge, Theory of; Philosophy and religion
uniform must gravitate with increasing rapidity into the multiform. And
so supremacy and subordination must establish themselves, as we see they
do, throughout the whole structure of a society, from the great
class-divisions pervading its entire body, down to village cliques, and
even down to every posse of school-boys. Probably it will be
objected that such changes result, not from the homogeneity of the
original aggregations, but from their non-homogeneity—from certain
slight differences existing among their units at the outset. This is
doubtless the proximate cause. In strictness, such changes must be
regarded as transformations of the relatively homogeneous into the
relatively heterogeneous. But it is abundantly clear that an aggregation
of men, absolutely alike in their endowments, would eventually undergo a
similar transformation. For in the absence of perfect uniformity in the
lives severally led by them—in their occupations, physical conditions,
domestic relations, and trains of thought and feeling—there must arise
differences among them; and these must finally initiate social
differentiations. Even inequalities of health caused by accidents, must,
by entailing inequalities of physical and mental power, disturb the
exact balance of mutual influences among the units; and the balance once
disturbed, must inevitably be lost. Whence, indeed, besides seeing that
a body of men absolutely homogeneous in their governmental relations,
must, like all other homogeneous bodies, become heterogeneous, we also
see that it must do this from the same ultimate cause—unequal exposure
of its parts to incident forces.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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