more significant for the explanation of human development than natural
selection. Darwin himself was conscious that his principles had only
a very restricted application in this sphere, as is evident from his
cautious and tentative remarks in the 5th chapter of his "Descent of
Man". He applied natural selection to the growth of the intellectual
faculties and of the fundamental social instincts, and also to the
differentiation of the great races or "sub-species" (Caucasian, African,
etc.) which differ in anthropological character. (Darwinian formulae may
be suggestive by way of analogy. For instance, it is characteristic of
social advance that a multitude of inventions, schemes and plans are
framed which are never carried out, similar to, or designed for the same
end as, an invention or plan which is actually adopted because it has
chanced to suit better the particular conditions of the hour (just as
the works accomplished by an individual statesman, artist or savant are
usually only a residue of the numerous projects conceived by his brain).
This process in which so much abortive production occurs is analogous to
elimination by natural selection.)

16. But if it is admitted that the governing factors which concern
the student of social development are of the psychical order, the
preliminary success of natural science in explaining organic evolution
by general principles encouraged sociologists to hope that social
evolution could be explained on general principles also. The idea of
Condorcet, Buckle, and others, that history could be assimilated to
the natural sciences was powerfully reinforced, and the notion that the
actual historical process, and every social movement involved in it, can
be accounted for by sociological generalisations, so-called "laws," is
still entertained by many, in one form or another. Dissentients from
this view do not deny that the generalisations at which the sociologist
arrives by the comparative method, by the analysis of social factors,
and by psychological deduction may be an aid to the historian; but they
deny that such uniformities are laws or contain an explanation of the
phenomena. They can point to the element of chance coincidence. This
element must have played a part in the events of organic evolution, but
it has probably in a larger measure helped to determine events in social
evolution. The collision of two unconnected sequences may be fraught
with great results. The sudden death o