NEW CONCEPTION OF SOCIETY.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 267, 4 August 1908, Page 8

NEW CONCEPTION OF SOCIETY.

THE HERBERT SPENCER LECTURE. -Wo'are witnessing, thinks Mr. Benjamin Kidd, a gradual and genoral movement of the social mind towards - a more organic conception of' society. Tho Herbert .Spencer lecture, which . Mr. Kidd, delivered' Recently-in the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford, ' gave the famous thinker an-, opportunity -of discussifi'g this new and broader' v,iew of. society. ."Nothing can be, more significant,". said Mr. Kidd, " than the'effect which the more organic, conception. of, society may-be seen to be producing on the doctrine of evolution itsolf.an its applications to social theories. What we see is that in society; the moaning of evolution can centre only in . a 'secondary sense in tho struggle • for existence between individuals. The ■ struggle ■ in'''the primitive stage is for the present life; But as integration continues, tho difference between the Erimitive , and' the more evolved- -consists _ irgely in the poweT' of subordinating' the impulses of the ; present to the more organic needs' in which the welfare of the future :is included.' The' history of the world is not simply a history; of the struggle: for life. It 'is -to- a never-increasing degree, a history of the struggle for the life of tho'futuro.' THE QUALITY THAT WILL PREVAIL.

" Beneath all tho extreme views of- the time in many, countries there is a fact which must always. be kept in'roind.. There is one condition alone upon which, any institutions, can ultimately, prevail.' 1 They will have to win out in' the stern. stress. of tho world solely in respect of ono quality—their efficiency. We'are living, it must be'remembered, in .'.-.tho. days- of organisation. Tho _ nations . who understand ■; the meaning of what Spencer called the long sequences in the social process have .tho power, of producing results never before possible.. In the ..rivalry of nations.and. peoplesit is'often as in the rivalry between individual forms .of life.' When • a -new environment, arises, natural- selection , often- finds the most suitable basis for adaptation in forms which wore peculiar to earlier types. It - is ofton'',overlooked, for instance,- in the case of-the great'success of modern Germany,,how much-,she'owesto>the fact that,, in the current age of organisation and-long "sequence's,-the institutions of .an earlier order of society ,_ largely directed through the State, have survived'more completely thanvin Eng-, land. ' : •THE EMERGENCE' OF - AN EASTERN" . . ' - PEOPLE. ." The case of Japan is a still more striking example. A. generation or two ago tho peculiar methods of work in that country were counted-as no more than an interesting survival from an early age of social institutions. Gangs of Japanese navvies, for ■ instance', in working used their picks in unison, and struck their blows to the sound of some rhythmic measure. But when/in the ; preseut age, organisation in- its 'deeper sense has become a ruling principle of the world; when we see Western-, arts, armaments,' science, and' industry adopted by the' Japanese' people, and the results : directed through tho nation , as-a whole with similar organic unisor. of purpose to'thought-out ends in -which there is; a clear conception' of tbo' subordination of the present to the future, we have the surprising speptacle. of/an..Eastern people' in a deeado of two emerging from tho condition of mediaeval Europo ' and almost suddenly taking its place among the nations! as one of tho first Powers of the; world.

THE GERMANISATION OF THE WORLD,

. T^.e^ e '?> however, a deep and truo sense I in which the nest age will probably be also the age of tho Gormanisation of the world For it is,those.lessons of which the first stages have been •. displayed in. tho: history lof modern Prussia which are likely to be' worked out: in their.fuller applications by successful States in .the "future. 'It is in I this connection; that the larger meaning' of our own history, including the meaning 'of our individualism, in the past will probably bo visible. On the ovic hand it seems clear that we arc moving towards, organisation iii its larger applications, and - are,' therefore, reaching the 'time when, the meaning of the interests of society in long sequences will be: consistently. applied to conceptions of national policy abroad' and of social • policy a.t home as they have never' been applied before.' . TWO. OPPOSING, PRINCIPLES. "This is the solution'which, under the institutions of, party government, wo have found for the'problem of political democracy. It seems to me likely that it is this'principle of efficiency which has enabled us thus to solve tho transition of the modem world to political democracy that wo are about to carry into tho next and greater era of transition in which our problems 'will be economic rather than political. On the ono side wo ■ see now a conviction strongly intrenched in all the institutions of our,- time of tho superiority of private' enterprise under voluntary co-operation as applied to all tho affairs of tho world. On tho other sido wo see largely held aii opposing conviction that tho necessity is developing for greatly extended corporate action on tho part p'f tho State, and that tho corporate consciousness, acting through tho State, can alone carry through those long'sequences of the public weal in which the present riiust bo subordinate to. the future.' Wo have here two counter-principles which tho.impotus of tho meaning of our history-will, it seems to me, drive us to embody in two normally antagonised policies in the future. Probably in no other way can each policy bo trusted to develop its full meaning' and its full efficiency."