the dependents, the defectives, and the delinquents, and a foreign
policy toward immigrant races and foreign peoples, on the general
conception that the chief aim of society and the state is to preserve
the germ plasm of the Nordic race.[331] For Spencer, however, the
conception that all values were in the organism was modified by the
conviction that all life was involved in an irreversible process called
evolution which would eventually purge the race and society of the weak,
the wicked, and the unfit.

In contrast, both with the views of Spencer and of the eugenists,
Hobhouse, voicing a conviction that was first expressed by Huxley,[332]
believes that man is bound to intervene in the beneficent law of natural
selection. He insists, in fact, that social development is something
quite distinct and relatively independent of the organic changes in the
individual. It is, in other words, a sociological rather than a
biological product. It is an effect of the interaction of individuals
and is best represented by organized society and by the social tradition
in which that organization is handed on from earlier to later
generations.

b) _Progress and science._--In contrast with other conceptions of
progress is that of Dewey, who emphasizes science and social control,
or, as he puts it, the "problem of discovering the needs and capacities
of collective human nature as we find it aggregated in racial or
national groups on the surface of the globe." The distinction between
Hobhouse and Dewey is less in substance than in point of view. Hobhouse,
looking backward, is interested in progress itself rather than in its
methods and processes. Dewey, on the other hand, looking forward, is
interested in a present program and in the application of scientific
method to the problems of social welfare and world-organization.

Arthur James Balfour, the most intellectual of the elder statesmen of
England, looking at progress through the experience of a politician,
speaks in a less prophetic and authoritative tone, but with a wisdom
born of long experience with men. For him, as for many other thoughtful
minds, the future of the race is "encompassed with darkness," and the
wise man is he who is content to act in "a sober and a cautious spirit,"
seeking to deal with problems as they arise.

c) _Progress and human nature._--Progress, which is much a matter of
interpretation, is also very largely a matter of temperament. The
purpose of the mate