I do not see how he is to resist an argument in favour of Votes for Oysters. An adherent of
evolution may maintain that not only the doctrine of the equality of all men, but also that of the
rights of man, must be condemned as unbiological, since it makes too emphatic a distinction
between men and other animals.
There is, however, another aspect of liberalism which was greatly strengthened by the doctrine of
evolution, namely the belief in progress. So long as the state of the world allowed optimism,
evolution was welcomed by liberals, both on this ground and because it gave new arguments
against orthodox theology. Marx himself, though his. doctrines are in some respects pre-
Darwinian, wished to dedicate his book to Darwin.
The prestige of biology caused men whose thinking was influenced by science to apply biological
rather than mechanistic categories to the world. Everything was supposed to be evolving, and it
was easy to imagine an immanent goal. In spite of Darwin, many men considered that evolution
justified a belief in cosmic purpose. The conception of organism came to be thought the key to
both scientific and philosophical explanations of natural laws, and the atomic thinking of the
eighteenth century came to be regarded as out of date. This point of view has at last influenced
even theoretical physics. In politics it leads naturally to emphasis upon the community as opposed
to the individual. This is in harmony with the growing power of the State; also with nationalism,
which can appeal to the Darwinian doctrine of survival of the fittest applied, not to individuals,
but to nations. But here we are passing into the region of extra-scientific views suggested to a
large public by scientific doctrines imperfectly understood.
While biology has militated against a mechanistic view of the world, modern economic technique
has had an opposite effect. Until about the end of the eighteenth century, scientific technique, as
opposed to scientific doctrines, had no important effect upon opinion. It was only with the rise of
industrialism that technique began to affect men's thought. And even then, for a long time, the
effect was more or less indirect. Men who produce philosophical theories are, as a rule, brought
into very little contact with machinery. The romantics noticed and hated the ugliness that
industrialism was producing in places hitherto beautiful, and the vulgarity (as they considered it)
of those who had made money in "trade." This led them into an