l
antagonism, is the cause of political crises. All social phaenomena
are produced by the totality of human emotions and beliefs, of
which the emotions are mainly predetermined, while the beliefs are
mainly post-determined. Men's desires are chiefly inherited; but
their beliefs are chiefly acquired, and depend on surrounding
conditions; and the most important surrounding conditions depend on
the social state which the prevalent desires have produced. The
social state at any time existing, is the resultant of all the
ambitions, self-interests, fears, reverences, indignations,
sympathies, &c., of ancestral citizens and existing citizens. The
ideas current in this social state must, on the average, lie
congruous with the feelings of citizens, and therefore, on the
average, with the social state these feelings have produced. Ideas
wholly foreign to this social state cannot be evolved, and if
introduced from without, cannot get accepted--or, if accepted, die
out when the temporary phase of feeling which caused their
acceptance ends. Hence, though advanced ideas, when once
established, act upon society and aid its further advance, yet the
establishment of such ideas depends on the fitness of society for
receiving them. Practically, the popular character and the social
state determine what ideas shall be current; instead of the current
ideas determining the social state and the character. The
modification of men's moral natures, caused by the continuous
discipline of social life, which adapts them more and more to
social relations, is therefore the chief proximate cause of social
progress."[17]
#/

A great part of these statements would have been acknowledged as true by
M. Comte, and belong as much to his theory as to Mr Spencer's. The
re-action of all other mental and social elements upon the intellectual
not only is fully recognized by him, but his philosophy of history makes
great use of it, pointing out that the principal intellectual changes
could not have taken place unless changes in other elements of society
had preceded; but also showing that these were themselves consequences
of prior intellectual changes. It will not be found, on a fair
examination of what M. Comte has written, that he has overlooked any of
the truth that there is in Mr Spencer's theory. He would not indeed have
said (w