assumed to be either inevitable or automatic. The struggle for existence and natural selection operated in the animal kingdom until the gradual development of the human mind was able to produce sufficient mental advantages and compensations to overcome the physical handicaps. Until these mental advantages were sufficient to compensate for weakened physical powers, a stronger and more brutal civilization was liable to wipe out a more cultured one. Such a danger was only averted when mental evolution had reached such a stage that it could control all the vital conditions of its life. "Now it seemed to me that it is precisely on this line that modern civilization has made its chief advance, that through science it is beginning to control the physical conditions of life, and that on the side of ethics and religion it is forming those ideas of the unity of the race, and of the subordination of law, morals, and social constitutions generally to the need of human development which are the conditions of the control that is required." The similarity of this thesis to Lester F. Ward's main contribution to sociology is obvious, but Hobhouse's originality is vindicated by his divergence from Ward on many points and by the numerous scholarly volumes in which he develops this doctrine in detail. Moreover, Hobhouse's far greater command of the data of social and cultural evolution allows him to speak with greater exactness and authority. Evolution, thus, according to Hobhouse, may be viewed as the stages in the development of consciousness and self-consciousness and the resultant control of mind over the conditions of life." Hobhouse admits the similarity of this doctrine to that of Hegel and holds that he accepts the element of truth advanced by Hegel while rejecting his metaphysical vagaries and his contention that reality is entirely spiritual. His system may, then, be regarded * Development and Purpose, Introduction, pp. xx-xxii; cf. Social Evolution and Political Theory, chaps. ii, iv, vii; Democracy and Reaction, chap. iv; Morals in Evolution (ed. of 1915), p. 637. 1 Development and Purpose, Introduction, pp. xix-xxiii, and 364. 3 Ibid., pp. xxvii, 154-55. Hobhouse's qualified acceptance of Hegel's evolutionary formula does not by any means imply that he accepts the Hegelian theory of the state. This he repudiates and severely criticizes. See The Metaphysical Theory of the State, pp. 6, 23-24, 137. as an attempt to harmonize the valuable parts of the systems of Spencer and Hegel, in other words to effect a scientific reconciliation of evolutionary materialism and metaphysical idealism. Spencer's attempt to explain reality by a purely mechanical and materialistic system and Hegel's insistence upon spiritual reality are rejected, while Spencer's conception of evolution as a synthesis is combined with Hegel's doctrine of the development of consciousness and purpose as the vital factor in progress. If the growth of conscious control over the conditions of life is the essential element in the study of the evolutionary process, then there must be some way provided for measuring the growth of consciousness, if the investigation is to have any scientific interest or validity. This standard of measurement Hobhouse finds in the principle of correlation. "I came to take the correlation which is effected in consciousness between different portions of our experience or between different acts and purposes as the basis of classification. . . . . It is by correlation that the mind introduces order and establishes control." The principle of correlation is particularly useful, since it will serve for measuring the elementary mental states of lower organisms, as well as the higher mental processes of man.2 As a result both of a detailed inductive study of the evolutionary process, taking the growth of consciousness as measured by correlation as the central theme, and a philosophical analysis of the conception of evolution, thus considered, Hobhouse was led to accept the view of evolution as a purposive process. "It is submitted as a sound working hypothesis that the evolutionary process can best be understood as the effect of a purpose slowly working itself out under the limiting conditions which it brings successively under control." While at first opposed to a teleological view of the evolutionary process, Hobhouse was compelled by his detailed empirical studies to accept this conclusion. This purposive element, thus revealed, may be summarized as "a development of organic harmony through the extension of control by mind operating under mechanical conditions which it comes 1 Development and Purpose, Introduction, p. xxiii. 2 Ibid., pp. xxiii-xxiv. 3 Ibid., p. xxvi. 4 Ibid., pp. xxv-xxvi. by degrees to master." "In the higher organisms the work of establishing new correlations, and therefore in particular the work of adapting the organism to a higher synthesis, is the function of mind, and in particular of that union of mind-functions which constitutes consciousness. The growth of harmony becomes, if not from the first, identical with the growth of mind." This vital principle of harmony which reveals the universal purpose he defines briefly as "mutual support between two or more elements of a whole." A harmonious system is, then, one in which the parts work in coherence and co-operation, and progress may be regarded as the evolution of harmony, measured by the increase of the co-ordination and correlation between the parts of the whole.4 In the development of this harmoniously organized system, which is the core of the evolutionary process, reason comes to play a dominating part. Hobhouse thus takes a stand against the prevalent anti-intellectualistic attitude of present-day psychological sociology. He says: Reason is a principle of harmony pervading experience and working it into an organic whole. So understood, reason is supreme in the mind simply as that which embraces every element of experience, interconnects every feeling and thought, takes account impartially of every suggestion and every impulse, and weaves of them all a tissue which is never ossified but always plastic and recipient. It is the conscious expression of that impulse to harmony which dominates the entire evolution of mind, and the rationality of the process is the best guaranty of its ultimate success.5 While Hobhouse lays stress upon mental development as the vital aspect of the evolutionary process, he disclaims any support of a spiritualistic monism. He simply maintains that the spiritual element becomes increasingly prominent as evolution proceeds. "There is a spiritual element integral to the structure and movement of reality, and evolution is the process by which this principle makes itself master of the residual conditions which at first dominate its life and thwart its efforts. " 5 Ibid., p. xxix; cf. also Democracy and Reaction, chap. iii. Professor Hobhouse has developed this system of thought in four large and scholarly works which consumed twenty-six years in preparation. They form successive stages in the development of his system. The foundations and presuppositions requisite for the subsequent construction of any valid system of thought were laid down in The Theory of Knowledge, published in 1896. The evolution of animal consciousness and its transition into human mentality was set forth in Mind in Evolution, published in 1901. The evolution of human and social consciousness is analyzed at great length in Morals in Evolution, published in 1906.2 Finally, the results of the empirical studies carried on in Mind in Evolution and Morals in Evolution are reconciled with the philosophical analysis of the problem of evolution in Development and Purpose, published in 1913. In that work the process of evolution is set forth as a purposive development expressing itself in the working out of a harmonious and rational system.3 While the writer could by no means assume to pass a competent technical judgment on any of these works, with the exception of Morals in Evolution, the almost unanimous praise of their high quality by a large number of specialists whose reviews have been consulted, as well as their comprehensive scope, would seem to accord Hobhouse the supreme place as a constructive philosopher among modern sociologists. Of course, his rank at present as a productive sociologist would be much lower, but if a preliminary judgment may be formed on the basis of his harbinger in this field, Social Evolution and Political Theory, there is little reason to doubt 1 Reviewed by H. H. Bawden in the Psychological Review (1902), pp. 508-24. 2 Third and revised edition, 1915. Reviewed by Norman Wilde in the Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods (1907), pp. 183-86, and by James Seth in International Journal of Ethics (1907-8), pp. 375-81. This work is probably the most notable single contribution to the study of the mental and cultural evolution of humanity. This estimate is made in full knowledge of the bulky volumes of Frazer's Golden Bough and Westermark's Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas. The former is no longer taken seriously in its theoretical aspects by any scientific student of ethnology, and the latter, while infinitely better, partakes of many of the faults of classical anthropology and manifests a far less subtle insight into the nature of human cultural evolution than Hobhouse's volumes. 3 This work is reviewed by H. A. Overstreet in the Philosophical Review (1914), PP. 342-48. that if he sees fit to develop a detailed system of sociology it will demand recognition as one of the most erudite, up-to-date, and logical of its kind. 3. The general nature of his social philosophy.-Hobhouse carries his general evolutionary doctrines over consistently into his sociological system as a means of interpreting social processes. His sociological doctrines are to be found mainly in his suggestive little work on Social Evolution and Political Theory, which might be said to bear much the same relation to Spencer's Study of Sociology that Hobhouse's volumes on the philosophy of evolution do to the Synthetic Philosophy. This volume summarizes the sociological generalizations developed in Hobhouse's works dealing with his evolutionary system, as well as those put forth in two other works on political theory, Democracy and Reaction and Liberalism. In the first place, as to the general field or scope of sociology, Hobhouse holds that it may be regarded chiefly as the science of human progress. He says: To form by a philosophic analysis a just conception of human progress, to trace this progress in its manifold complexity in the course of history, to test its reality by careful classification and searching comparisons, to ascertain its conditions, and if possible to forecast the future-this is the comprehensive problem towards which all sociological science converges and on the solution of which reasoned sociological effort must finally depend." The fundamental element in the social process which issues as the central subject of social evolution is the interplay of human motives and the interaction of individuals. "The interplay of human motives and the interaction of human beings is the fundamental fact of social life, and the influence which it exercises upon the individuals who take part in it constitutes the fundamental fact of social evolution. "3 This social progress, which is the prime object of sociological study, is not synonymous with social evolution. The latter term is the wider and may include retrogression as well as advance. "By evolution I mean any sort of growth; by social progress, Reviewed by Professor Small, American Journal of Sociology (1912), pp. 546–48. 3 Social Evolution and Political Theory, p. 33. |