Her conception of the organic social life of the race is one of great value.  It led her to believe in the possibility of a social organization in the future based on science, and better capable of meeting all the wants of mankind than the more personal and competitive methods have done.  This belief in the organic unity of the race is not necessarily positivist in its character, for Hegel entertained it as fully as does Herbert Spencer.  The larger social life will come, however, as individuals are moved to lead the way, and not alone as the result of a general evolutionary process.  On its mental side, her social theory is to be regarded with grave suspicions, for it brings all minds to the same level.  No mind of commanding influence is to be found in her books.  No powerful intellect gives greatness to any of her plots.  Her Felix Holt is not a man of original and positive thought.  We accept, but do not enthusiastically admire him.  Deronda is a noble character, but he in no sense represents the largest things of which a social leader is capable.  He disappoints and is weak, and he has no power to create the highest kind of leadership.  In other words, he is not a great man.  The world’s reformers have been of another temper and mettle.  He is no Mazzini, no Luther.  George Eliot’s social theories loft no room for such men.  They were superfluous in her social system.  The man not to be explained by heredity and tradition had no place in her books; and no genius, no great man, can ever be explained by heredity and tradition alone.

George Eliot evidently desired to destroy individualism as a social force.  The individual, according to her teaching, is to renounce himself for the sake of the race.  He is to live, not as a personal being, but as a member of the social organization; to develop his altruistic nature, not to perfect his personal character.  The finer flavor of personality is brushed mercilessly away by this method.

Reason needs to be justified in opposition to her excessive praise of feeling.  Meanwhile, the capacity of man to live a life higher than that of his social state is to be asserted.  He is indeed a member of humanity, but humanity does not absorb him to the cost of his personality.  Life is strong in those ages in which the individual is able to assert his own personality, in opposition to what is imperfect and untrue in the life of his time.  This failure to recognize the worth and capacity of the individual is a most serious defect in George Eliot’s work, and mars it in many directions.  A very competent critic has shown how serious is the limitation arising in this manner, and permeating her books with a false conception of life.