surrendered the prejudice, and who does not hide that fact.' It is
illegitimate compromise to say:--'I cannot persuade you to accept my
truth; therefore I will pretend to accept your falsehood.'
That this distinction is as sound on the evolutional theory of society
as on any other is quite evident. It would be odd if the theory which
makes progress depend on modification forbade us to attempt to modify.
When it is said that the various successive changes in thought and
institution present and consummate themselves spontaneously, no one
means by spontaneity that they come to pass independently of human
effort and volition. On the contrary, this energy of the members of the
society is one of the spontaneous elements. It is quite as
indispensable as any other of them, if indeed it be not more so.
Progress depends upon tendencies and forces in a community. But of these
tendencies and forces, the organs and representatives must plainly be
found among the men and women of the community, and cannot possibly be
found anywhere else. Progress is not automatic, in the sense that if we
were all to be cast into a deep slumber for the space of a generation,
we should awake to find ourselves in a greatly improved social state.
The world only grows better, even in the moderate degree in which it
does grow better, because people wish that it should, and take the right
steps to make it better. Evolution is not a force, but a process; not a
cause, but a law. It explains the source, and marks the immovable
limitations, of social energy. But social energy itself can never be
superseded either by evolution or by anything else.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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