Science in the Magazines

Abstract

With an article on “The Evolution of the Professions,” Mr. Herbert Spencer concludes the series of papers on professional institutions which he has been contributing to the Contemporary for some months. The fact which the whole of the papers have aimed at showing, and which is illustrated by the present article, is that society is a growth, and not a manufacture, and has its laws of evolution. “From Prime Ministers down to ploughboys,” we read, “there is either ignorance or disregard of the truth that nations acquire their vital structures by natural processes and not by artificial devices. If the belief is not that social arrangements have been divinely ordered thus or thus, then it is that they have been made thus or thus by kings, or if not by kings then by parliaments. That they have come about by small accumulated changes not contemplated by rulers is an open secret which only of late has been recognised by a few and is still unperceived by the many—educated as well as uneducated.” In support of this law of the evolution of society, Mr. Spencer cites numerous instances drawn from agriculture, manufactures, commerce, and various professional institutions where advancement has been achieved by spontaneous co-operation of citizens, and not by legislative direction. We have “knowledge developing into science, which has become so vast in mass that no man can grasp a tithe of it, and which now guides productive activities at large, has resulted from the workings of individuals prompted not by the ruling agency but by their own inclinations.” So, and in like manner, it is held that the unprompted workings of humanity, and not timeserving legislation, are responsible for real social progress.