Social evolution and political theory / by Leonard T. Hobhouse.

  • Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse
Date:
1911
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Social evolution and political theory / by Leonard T. Hobhouse. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    viewed at a safe distance. Whereas the discomforts, the ugliness, and the squalor of the present afflict us with all the insistence of grim reality, the corresponding ele¬ ments in the past are either forgotten or are softened and transfigured by the haze of time. Hence it is that our view of historical change tends to be distorted in the direction of pessimism, and in any attempt at a scientific measure of social progress we must be on our guard against this bias of social memory. Those who are most zealous for social improvement will indeed be the last to minimize the evils that exist. But without yielding to any such temptation there is, I would suggest, one compensatory element of which the prevalence of a somewhat pessimistic criticism is itself the proof. There was probably never a time at which among civi¬ lized peoples there was so much diffused sensitiveness to any form of social ailment. If we were briefed to defend our own time, the line to take would surely be, not that its evils are few or small, but rather that every evil calls forth a strong and persistent effort to cure it. Such effort is not indeed new, but it may be fairly main¬ tained that it persists and grows in volume and serious¬ ness, that it enlists an increasing proportion of human effort and ability, and that as it gathers strength and substance it is less content to deal with symptoms and effects, and becomes more intent on the discovery and eradication of causes. In every civilized country there is an army of men and women at work, some trusting to voluntary effort and mutual aid, others pinning their faith to governments and agitating for legislative re¬ forms, and yet others content for the time to investigate facts, examine into causes, and pave the way for a more
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