AN AUSTRIAN APPRECIATION OF LESTER F. WARD 647
Thus by the circuitous route of the organic comparison, Ward arrives at a brilliant refutation of Spencer's individualism, and at the > most roseate optimism that one can imagine. All the multiplying civic limitations of the individual, which fill the individualistic Spen- cer with anxiety and despair, and which cause him to foretell the " coming slavery," inspire Ward with eager hopes ; for in his view all these "necessary" limitations are only the separate acts of the) v great collectivistic integration which has no other ultimate end than the utmost possible freedom and happiness of the individual.
He succeeds in his argument in support of this view only by being able to oppose to the schematic conception of the process of nature, according to which it proceeds always and everywhere in the same form, a pro founder conception of the process, according to which the ' process is consistent, not in its form, but in its essence when the form ' is changed ; and accordingly when we judge the process we must attend to its meaning and purpose, not to the ways and means by which the purpose is gained.
Ward says : " To be sure, the essence of the process of nature., the evolution, remains always the same ; but we must seek this essence in the purpose toward which the process is tending, not in the / form. If we criticise the process of nature, i. e., evolution, from this point of view, we discover that its aim in the case of organisms and in the case of society is the same, namely, the utility of the whole, and this is its essence, which remains the same in both cases. In accord- ance with the variety of the things, however, in which the process is carried out, it must take various forms: the severe and relentless subordination and suppression of the parts in the case of the organ- ism, the utmost freedom and welfare of the individual in the case of society."
After Ward had supported these arguments in a debate that lasted for hours, I had to acknowledge myself defeated. To be sure, I have never been an individualist, and I have never supported the view that the historical process depended simply and solely upon the freedom of the individual. On the other hand, I have never looked for very con- siderable results from any sort of collectivism. I have never given myself over to hope that collectivism could bring freedom and happi- ness to mankind. I have had no share in that sort of optimism. Before Ward's arguments, however, I was obliged to lay down my arms. While I was formerly of the opinion that the process of nature in its social division could bring us neither progress nor regress, but
