...lines and degree of its own development. Here Hobhouse is giving his assent to Ward's major thesis. The turning-point in the evolution of thought, as...the sum of human purpose in all its manifold variety Progress has consisted in the realization of the conditions of full social co-operation and in the...

...passage from Hobhouse's Social Evolution and Political Theory which supplies the key. The turning point in the evolution of thought, as I conceive it, is...consciousness as the directing principle of human endeavour ... In particular, it can be seen to be the conception necessary to give consistency and...

...products of evolutionary processes. Ethical thought was thus seen as evolving. As Hobhouse argued, 'The turning-point in the evolution of thought, as...consciousness as the directing principle of human endeavour.'" Ritchie extended this idea by arguing that the process by which ideas evolved was also...

...development of humanity enters into explicit consciousness as the directing principle of human endeavour, and, in proportion as the phrase is adequately understood,...sum of human purpose in all its manifold variety. Although Spencer's idea of the social organism is well known it was not the only way in which he interpreted...

...co . . . " (Hobhouse, 1911, p. 156). For Hobhouse: the turning-point in the evolution of thought ... is reached when the conception of the development...consciousness as the directing principle of human endeavour . . . (Hobhouse, 1911, p. 155) Social science conceived in this manner could become an instrument...