THE STORY OF PHILOSOPHY2 The Lives and Opinions

HERBERT SPENCER 287
love of one's country rather than a hatred of every other. 62 Peace at home
becomes the first need of prosperity, and as capital becomes international,
and a thousand investments cross every frontier, international peace becomes
a necessity as well. As foreign war diminishes, domestic brutality
decreases; monogamy replaces polygamy because the life-tenure of men
becomes almost equal to that of women; the status of women rises, and
the "emancipation of women" becomes a matter of course. 63
Superstitious
religions give way to liberal creeds whose focus of effort is the amelioration
and ennoblement of human life and character on this earth. The
mechanisms of industry teach men the mechanisms of the universe, and
the notion of invariable sequences in cause and effect; exact investigation
of natural causes replaces the easy resort to supernatural explanation. 64
History begins to study the people at work rather than the kings at war;
it ceases to be a record of personalities and becomes the history of great
inventions and new ideas. The power of government is lessened, and the
power of productive groups within the state increases; there is a passage
"from status to contract," from equality in subordination to freedom in
initiative, from compulsory cooperation to cooperation in liberty. The
contrast between the militant and the industrial types of society is in-
dicated by "inversion of the belief that individuals exist for the benefit of
the State into the belief that the State exists for the benefit of the
individuals." 65
While protesting vigorously against the growth of an imperialistic
militarism in England, Spencer chose his country as a type of approach to
the industrial society, and pointed to France and Germany as instances of
the militant state.
From time to time newspapers remind us of the competition between Germany
and France in their military developments. The body politic, in either
case, expends most of its energies in growths of teeth and claws every increase
on the one side prompting an increase on the other. . . . Recently
the French Minister for Foreign Affairs, referring to Tunis, Tongking, the
Congo, and Madagascar, enlarged on the need there had been for com-
peting in political burglaries with other nations; and held that, by taking
forcible possession of territories owned by inferior peoples, Trance has regained
a certain portion of the glory which so many noble enterprises during
previous centuries has insured her.' . . . Hence we see why, in France,
as in Germany, a scheme of social re-organization under which each citizen,
while maintained by the community, is to labor for the community, has obtained
so wide an adhesion as to create a formidable political body why
among the French, St. Simon, Fourier, Proudhon, Cabet, Louis Blanc, Pierre
Leroux, now by word and now by deed, have sought to bring about some
form of communistic working and , . .
living. Verification by contrast
meets us on observing that in England, where the extent of ownership by
others has been less than in France and Germany, alike under its military
"II, 634-5- I, 681. "II, 599- % 575-