mmunity; and a good
Parliament is one in which the parties answering to these
respective interests are so balanced that their united legislation
concedes to each class as much as consists with the claims of the
rest.

The error of regarding society merely as an aggregate is here clearly
shown, for if the "parties" in Parliament were based on class
delegation, as assumed, social progress would be blocked. The only real
foundation for the resemblance between society and an organism is this:
that unless the individual units composing society reduce themselves to
unity of action in a definite direction, society as a whole cannot
progress; or, in other words, that the principles of organization and
leadership are essential to progress. Yet Mr. Spencer denies that there
is any sphere of collective action for the operation of these
principles!

+Benjamin Kidd.+--The "social organism" theory is also the foundation of
the theory of social progress with which Mr. Benjamin Kidd startled the
scientific world a few years ago in "Social Evolution." While
appreciating the importance of the factor of individual reason, he
contended that self-restraint by the individual in the interests of
society is impossible without an ultra-rational sanction; that, in
fact, without this the reason is the most anti-social and
anti-evolutionary of all human qualities. The central fact therefore
with which we are confronted in our progressive societies is stated as
follows:--"_The interests of the social organism and those of the
individuals comprising it at any particular time are actually
antagonistic; they can never be reconciled; they are inherently and
essentially irreconcilable._" What becomes of this extraordinary
proposition if it is clearly established that the amount of
reconciliation depends on the extent to which the principles of
organization and responsible leadership are given effect to by
representative machinery?

+Past Progress.+--The question will naturally be raised: If a
representative body is now the indispensable agent of social progress,
how can progress previous to the introduction of representation be
explained? The answer is that the same principles were operative, but in
different forms, more suited to the stage of social development. Indeed,
we may say that, from the time that man emerged from the brute stage and
became a social animal, the types of society which have survived in the
struggle for ex