Physics and Politics, or, Thoughts on the application of the principles of "natural selection" and "inheritance" to political society

I do not of course mean that this strange condition of mind as it seems to us was the sole source of early customs. On the contrary, man might be described as a custom-making an...

A curious fact indicates the same thing probably, if not certainly. Savages waste away before modern civilisation; they seem to have held their ground before the ancient. There...

It may be objected that this principle is like saying that men walk when they do walk, and sit when they do sit. The problem, is, why do men progress? And the answer suggested s...

In the last essay I endeavoured to show that in the early age of man--the 'fighting age' I called it--there was a considerable, though not certain, tendency towards progress. Th...

Even in commerce, which is now the main occupation of mankind, and one in which there is a ready test of success and failure wanting in many higher pursuits, the same dispositio...

This principle will, I think, help us in trying to solve the question why so few nations have progressed, though to us progress seems so natural-what is the cause or set of caus...

We cannot yet explain--I am sure, at least, I cannot attempt to explain--all the singular phenomena of national character: how completely and perfectly they seem to be at first...

'"They have neither assemblies for consultation nor THEMISTES, but everyone exercises jurisdiction over his wives and his children, and they pay no regard to one another."' And...

In Judaea there was exactly the same opposition as elsewhere. All that is new comes from the prophets; all which is old is retained by the priests. But the peculiarity of Judaea...

The same argument applies to religion. There are, indeed, many points of the greatest obscurity, both in the present savage religions and in the scanty vestiges of pre-historic...

To this question history gives a very clear and very remarkable answer. It is that the change from the age of status to the age of choice was first made in states where the gove...

I am, I know, very long and tedious in setting out this; but I want to bring home to others what every new observation of society brings more and more freshly to myself--that th...

One peculiarity of this age is the sudden acquisition of much physical knowledge. There is scarcely a department of science or art which is the same, or at all the same, as it w...

That result is, or seems to me to be, if I may sum it up in my own words, that the modern pre-historic men--those of whom we have collected so many remains, and to whom are due...

In a complete investigation of all the conditions of 'verifiable progress,' much else would have to be set out; for example, science has secrets of her own. Nature does not wear...