at least, appear to have afforded any suggestion for the treatment of the social self as more and greater, in a positive sense, than the self which is less bound up with social obligations. As for the denying spirits in Plato’s _Republic_, so for both Mr. Spencer and Mr. Huxley, “nature” is essentially self-assertion, and “society” self-restraint. [5] Here again we touch the same limitation which met us in Mr. Spencer’s term “super-organic,” and we feel that a different point of view must be brought to bear. [1] _Sociology_, vol. I., ch. i. [2] _Evolution and Ethics_, p. 82. [3] Geddes, in _Encyclo. Brit_., vol. xviii. 253a: “Further details of the process of retrograde metamorphosis and of the enormously important phenomena of degeneration cannot here be attempted; it must suffice if the general dependence of such changes upon simplification of environment--freedom from danger, abundant alimentation and complete repose, etc. (in short, the conditions commonly considered those of complete material well-being)--has been rendered clearer.” [4] Cf. _Sutherland, Origin and Growth of the Moral Instinct_, vol. I., pp. 28, 29. [5] Huxley, _Evolution and Ethics_, p. 31; Spencer, _Man v. State_, p. 98. iii. Political Economy existed before modern Sociology was born, and is still the only part of it which is obviously and indisputably successful as a science of explanation. The triumphant development of this theory reacted even upon Hegel’s political philosophy, by suggesting to him the distinction between “Bourgeois Society” and “The {28} State.” _A fortiori_, it could not but have a serious influence on the growing science of sociology itself, the ideal of which might not unfairly be regarded as the extension to society as a whole of that type of investigation which had proved so successful in economic matter. From this influence has arisen the tendency in sociological research which has been called by the name of the economic or materialist view of history and consequently of society. Primarily connected with the name of Marx, it may also be illustrated by many contentions of Buckle and Le Play, and has become, indeed, the formula of a school. In sum, the point of view amounts to this: that the fundamental structure of civilisation, the type of the family, for example, and the order relations and development of classes in society, have been and must be determined by the primary necessities of human existence, and the conditions of climate and nutrition under which these necessities are met. Economic facts alone, it is suggested, are real and causal; everything else is an appearance and an effect.