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VOL. XIV
SOCIAL ADAPTATION
A STUDY IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE
DOCTRINE OF ADAPTATION AS A THEORY
OF SOCIAL PROGRESS
BY
LUCIUS MOODY BRISTOL, Pu.D.
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF SOCIOLOGY IN
WEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSITY
WITH A PREFACE BY
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AWARDED THE DAVID A. WELLS PRIZE FOR
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First Impression, January, 1916
Second Impression, December, 1919
Third Impression, July, 1921
TO MY WIFE
CONTENTS
Sh Rig Saree tak as aaa ek He San ale Se ix
PART I
ENTRODUCTION « G4 4a ae ke ee we ee 3
CHAPTER I
Avcuste ComTE. Comte’s Positive Philosophy a Prolegomenon to
Sociology ...... Ch, He ehtle «Ee iv Rvenan Eu tea 12
CHAPTER II
HERBERT SPENCER. Cosmic Evolution ............, 29
CHAPTER III
SoctoLtocicaL METHODOLOGY:
L. A. J. Quételet. The Statistical Method. .......2.~, 43
Paul Von Lilienfeld. The Analogical Method. . . 47
Guillaume De Greef. Classification as a Method of Sociological
KO Wed G62 6 ce Sessa ae ese bods od Sa we ew Ow 49
PART II
PASSIVE PHYSICAL AND PHYSIO-SOCIAL ADAPTATION
CHAPTER IV
BIoLocicaL EvoLutTion:
Jean Baptiste de Lamarck. Use-Inheritance. ........ 56
Charles Darwin. Natural Selection. ee. Geass). S58
August Weismann. Continuity of the Germ- Plasm i! Seva dese ¥ 68
Hugo de Vries. Mutations. ©... ©. ....... 70
Johann Gregor Mendel. Independent Unit Characters Re Be oge
CHAPTER V
NeEo-DARWINIAN SOCIOLOGISTS:
Friedrich Nietzsche. Evolution of the Super-Man ...... 80
Benjamin Kidd. Religion and Social Progress ....... 85
Galton and Pearson. National Eugenics. .......... 92
Vacher de Lapouge. Societal Selections... ........ 99
Vv
vi CONTENTS
CHAPTER VI
THE ENVIRONMENTAL SCHOOL OF SOCIOLOGISTS:
Karl Marx. Economic Determinism .. .........
Henry Thomas Buckle. Intellect and Environment. .....
Ratzel—Semple. Anthropo-Geography. ..........
William Z. Ripley. Race and Environment ....... a
PART III
PASSIVE SPIRITUAL ADAPTATION
CHAPTER VII
DEVELOPMENT OF THE CONCEPT OF SOCIETY AS AN ORGANISM:
Albert Schaéffle. The Social Organism... .........
J. S. Mackenzie. An Idealistic Interpretation of Social Progress
Gustav Le Bon. The Psychology of Peoples. ........
Emile Durkheim. Social Realism... ........2..
CHAPTER VIII
THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIOLOGISTS:
William G. Sumner. Folkways. ..........4846-4
Franz Boas. Opportunity and Race Progress ........
Westermarck, Hobhouse, Thomas. ..........4...
CHAPTER Ix
Tue HisTorIcaL SOCIOLOGISTS:
Ludwig Gumplowicz. Progress by Inter-Group Conflict... .
Gustav Ratzenhofer. Interests. ..............
Walter Bagehot. Discussion and Animated Moderation... .
CHAPTER X
SoctoLocists EmpHasiziInc One ALi-ImpoRTANT FORMULA OR
PRINCIPLE:
Henry Drummond. Struggle for the Life of Others
Franklin H. Giddings. Consciousness of Kind
CHAPTER XI
TRANSITION FROM Passive TO ACTIVE ADAPTATION:
The Problem and Attempts at Solution .. 2... 2... 0.4.4;
The Sociological Significance of the Free-Will Controversy . . .
John Fiske. The Prolongation of Infancy
123
128
CONTENTS vil
PART IV
ACTIVE MATERIAL ADAPTATION
CHAPTER XII
INVENTION AND PRODUCTION:
Lester Frank Ward. Material as the Basis of Spiritual Achieve-
ment Be > oo ine SAD eee SD de> cap aw Adie ag ake “ad Gas Sas Gar Gag ier, wh 221
Simon N. Patten. Pain-Pleasure-Creative Economy .... . 236
CHAPTER XIII
INVENTION AND PRODUCTION (continued):
Thomas Nixon Carver. The Super-Group.......... 245
PART V
ACTIVE SPIRITUAL ADAPTATION
CHAPTER XIV
ACTIVE SoctaL ADAPTATION:
Jacques Novicow. Social Progress by Cultural Attraction and
Expansion: <. o a:4: #806 8 # FUR eee eo Bae 268
CHAPTER XV
ACTIVE SoctaL ADAPTATION (continued):
Thomas Carlyle. The Réle of the Great Man ........ 283
William James. The Energiesof Men. .......... 286
Edward Alsworth Ross. The Psychology of Social Control. . . 291
CHAPTER XVI
IDEALIZATION AND RELIGION:
According to Comte. . 2. 6 6 6 ee ee ee 209
According to-Ros8. 2. 6.0. ee see OR RE HE Hw 301
According to Baldwin... . B Sot ada lerromcirsmty ae 304
CHAPTER XVII
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION . 2. 1. eee ee ee ee ee es 313
BIBLIOGRAPHY 2 .aocp eee OR BLA Gee ae 4 333
PREFACE
THE doctrine of biological evolution did not originate with
Darwin or with any other modern scientist. It is as old as human
speculation. Darwin’s supreme contribution was his positive
proof that the method of evolution was the method of natural
selection, of trial and rejection, of extermination and survival.
Since his day biological evolution has meant a definite process
capable of being studied in detail, tested and verified. Before
his time it was only a generalization, a guess as to how things
might very well have been, without any definite proof that they
were actually so.
The concept of social evolution has gone through, or is going
through, a similar course of development. This concept also is
as old as human speculation. It has generally been, however,
only a vague speculation, a guess as to how things socially might
conceivably have come about, a vague idea of an unfolding
process. A little more definiteness has come into the theory by
the attempt to trace the successive stages of evolution. A
treatise on this subject, however, is rather a book of social genesis
than a book on social evolution. Until some one is able to
point out the factors and forces which bring about social evolu-
tion, to show the method and the process, it will not have become
a scientific concept.
In fact, Comte’s three stages of mental development are beauti-
fully illustrated in the development of the concept of social evolu-
tion. The theological stage is represented by the doctrine of a
divine providence moulding human history and leading mankind
along by a preordained path. The metaphysical stage is repre-
sented by most current theories of social evolution which only
point out that society, like a biological organism, grows, and that
its growth presumably is the result of some impersonal force or
principle, rather than the personal interference of a supernatural
being.
x PREFACE
The world was prepared to believe much more easily in Dar-
win’s theory of biological evolution than it is today prepared to
believe in a similarly definite doctrine of social evolution. It is
true that Darwin’s theory ran counter to certain traditional
theological beliefs of that day. The real concept of social evolu-
tion will run counter to much deeper currents of belief and tradi-
tion that still persist in the world in this twentieth century. It
will necessitate a complete reorganization of our theories of
morals, and of most of the ideals of the cultured classes. When
it is stated, for example, by a great biological evolutionist, that
nature is non-moral, or that one is not able to discern a moral
order of the universe, the issue is pretty squarely drawn and the
fundamental conflict of ideas is very clearly presented. It liter-
ally means that the person who makes such a remark is not yet
prepared to apply the method of evolution to morals, social ideals
and religious concepts.
The method of evolution is not simply a recognition that things
go through certain processes of development. Many people
imagine themselves to be moral evolutionists when they admit
that moral ideals change and develop. They are not real evolu-
tionists until they are willing to recognize that the processes of
natural selection, of trial and rejection, of extermination and
survival apply to moral principles and social ideals as well as to
biological forms. To say that nature is non-moral is merely to
say that one is not able to see that nature recognizes what one
has been taught to believe to be moral. To say that one cannot
discern a moral order of the universe, is merely to say that one
cannot perceive that the order of the universe harmonizes with
what one has believed to be moral. Until one is prepared to face
about and say that nature is moral and that if it does not har-
monize with what we have previously believed to be moral, that
is a demonstration that our ideas of morality have been wrong,
or that if he cannot discern a harmony between the order of the
universe and his system of morals, that is a demonstration that
his system of morals is wrong, he is not a true evolutionist. In
other words, one must admit that whatever the order of the
universe is, that is the moral order. This will prepare him for
PREFACE Xi
the application of natural selection to moral codes and social
ideals. That moral code which works best, which fits the people
who follow it to survive by making them strong and efficient is
per se the best moral code. Whether we like it or not, such
people will rule the earth and crowd out of existence other people
who follow different codes which make for less efficiency. As the
present writer has said elsewhere, one might as well say that he
is unable to perceive a hygienic order of the universe merely
because what he has believed to be hygienic practice does not
secure him good health, or that he does not discover a harmony
between the order of the universe and his supposedly hygienic
practices. If morality is social hygiene, then we must apply the
same test to our moral practices and beliefs that we are compelled
to apply to our hygienic practices and beliefs. If our hygienic
beliefs do not seem to work in matters of health, we will, if we
are wise, change our beliefs, rather than try to change the uni-
verse. Similarly, if our moral practices and beliefs do not seem
to work, we must change our moral practices and beliefs rather
than try to change the universe.
It will require a much greater mental revolution to adjust our-
selves to this new doctrine of social evolution than it ever took
to adjust ourselves to a biological doctrine of evolution. The
beliefs that were involved then were only traditional beliefs
regarding the Creation. These beliefs were never very deep-
seated, and a single generation was sufficient to bring about the
discarding of the old and the adoption of the new; but our
fundamental notions of right and wrong are very much older
than the Biblical story of the Creation, and very much more
deep-seated. To have to give up, for example, a cherished belief
regarding democracy, or socialism, or individualism, or culture,
or gentlemanly conduct, or as to what constitutes virtue, in order
to square ourselves with the facts of the universe, will involve
such a mental struggle that very few can be expected to come
through it very successfully in any single generation. Neverthe-
less, the process is going on. They will rule the world who are
best fitted to rule the world by virtue of their strength and effi-
ciency, not by virtue of the assumed beauty or persuasive power of
xil PREFACE
their ideals. They who are unfitted will perish as certainly as did
the dinosaur or the mastodon, regardless of their apparent bigness
or assumed attractiveness. It will be well with any people which
undergoes this mental revolution early, and begins first to study
how it may adjust itself, its moral practices, its social ideals,
to the hard conditions of universal law. To do so is to prove
itself to be the superior race or chosen people. To refuse to do
so is to elect extermination rather than survival, death rather
than life.
Dr. Bristol has done a notable service in tracing the develop-
ment of this concept of social evolution or progress. From the
formidable list of authorities quoted, and the volume of his quo-
tations and citations, it is apparent that this topic has received
large attention from students of social life. This laborious com-
pilation together with Dr. Bristol’s keen analysis and criticism
will go far toward making clear a subject which has hitherto
been obscure.
T. N. Carver.
PART I
INTRODUCTION
The Meaning of Progress. — Progress is a word frequently used
though not always with critical precision. The nineteenth cen-
tury was an era of marvelous increase in the production of wealth,
in the acquirement of knowledge intensively and extensively, in
methods of social reform and in agencies for the betterment of
unfortunate man. But is this the essence of social progress ?
Ask the meditative Brahman or the static celestial! Is movement
always forward movement ? Is mere increase a sign of pros-
perity ? Dr. Watkinson ! speaks aptly of the fallacy of bigness.
The boulder is vastly bigger than the diamond. Enlargement of
the human body is often a sign of disease. Many feel that
Carlyle did well to inveigh against the gospel of Mammonism
and ridicule the theory of the leisure class of his day; that John
Ruskin’s prophetic voice rang true when he summoned econo-
mists to a different evaluation of wealth than that of mere inter-
changeable goods.
Increase of knowledge is not always advantageous either to the
individual or to society. Walter Bagehot in praising the virtues
of stupidity says that nations, just as individuals, may be too
clever to be practical and not dull enough to be free. “‘ Knowledge
puffeth up,’”’ — sometimes to a man’s eternal damnation. A
strong prejudice against college education for the young man of
only average ability prevails among a certain class of men of
affairs and it is true that there are many whose superior education
has unfitted them, apparently, to adapt themselves to life condi-
tions. Nor do all agree that it is a sure sign of progress that our
enlarged sympathy has built almshouses, asylums and orphanages
to prolong the lives of the weak and unfortunate and apparently
thwart nature’s plan of eliminating the unfit in the struggle for
existence.
1 The great Wesleyan preacher in his book The Education of the Heart.
3
4 INTRODUCTION
“Each of us,”’ says Ross, ‘considers a change progressive
when it advances society toward his ideal. But one man’s ideal
is freedom, while another’s is order; one man borrows from biol-
ogy the criterion of differentiation, while another imports from
psychology the idea of harmony; one man’s touchstone is the
happiness of the many, while another’s is the perfecting of the
superior few. It is, therefore, hopeless as yet to look for a test of
progress that shall be objective and valid for all. Since change is
a matter of observation, whereas progress is a matter of judgment
involving the application of a subjective standard, those who
desire to see sociology a true science are justified in insisting that
social dynamics deal with the factors and manner, not of social
progress merely, but of social change.” ! This is very true for
sociology as a science which deals with facts and laws, but sociol-
ogy is also a philosophy which evaluates. Social science observes
and systematizes social phenomena and their relations; but social
philosophy seeks to understand these phenomena not merely in
their relations of co-existence and sequence but as a system, —a
causal order.
It is nearly a hundred years since Auguste Comte gave the
world his Positive Philosophy as a theory of social progress, first as
lectures, later in published form. Since then many have followed
in his footsteps and many more, without pretending to think
social phenomena as a whole, have contributed to social science
by the discovery and formulation of social laws.
In the history of social science and social philosophy, if I
observe correctly, one word, or the principle of which it is the
symbol, stands out with ever increasing prominence, — that of
adaptation. It is the main purpose of this book to trace the
development of this doctrine as a theory of social progress.
The Value of Social Philosophy.— Our discussion will lead us to
consider such questions concerning the social group, large and
small, as have ever perplexed thoughtful souls concerning their
own existence, whence, how, whither, and why ?* But as con-
sideration of such ultimate questions is tabooed by so many in
1 Foundations of Sociology, p. 186.
2 Cf. Ward, Applied Sociology, p. 3.
INTRODUCTION 5
this hyper-utilitarian age and nation, such an investigation may
call for justification.
One such justification has been mentioned in that we persist in
using the term progress despite the fact that we are warned that it
hasnocommon meaning. We hear the query raised from time to
time as to whether the world is growing better or worse. We
Americans are proverbially boastful of our superiority as a nation,
and concerning the progress we have made since the venture of
76. But all such queries and all such boasting is vain unless we
have a common standard.!
Such a study, then, should aid in clear and consistent thinking
and that is always desirable. To think logically on this subject,
may, perchance, help us to clear thinking concerning matters
pertaining to bread and butter.
Again, this is an age of social Utopias and of all sorts of schemes
looking toward social amelioration. Every state legislature is
trying to usher in the millennium by force of statutes, for the most
part making sorry work of its task. The yellow press and
maroon magazine as well as high-grade periodicals fill columns
with plans for social reconstruction. Writers in educational
journals as well as in the penny press are criticizing our present
educational system and trying to formulate a “ get-culture-
quick ” device to correspond to the “ get-rich-quick ’’ schemes
that have been so fruitful, — to their promoters, — during the
past quarter century.
The one supreme need of this hour is sanity and scientifically
worked out policies of social amelioration, and one requisite is an
attempt to “see life steadily and see it whole,” to climb some
height from whose summit the complexities and confusions and
contradictions of life may, perchance, seem to form one co-ordinate
whole, in which disharmonies enter into the production of a
higher harmony. If the view does not thus yield harmony, it
does at least yield perspective and a degree of unity not possible
in the view that we get from a study of mere details. Such an
outlook on life should yield an inner consistency, purpose and
power not to be obtained by partial views. It may be, indeed,
1 Cf, Fiske, Cosmic Evolution, ii, pp. 193 ff.
6 INTRODUCTION
that our philosophy will be pessimistic, but even so it will enter
the lists to contend with those of different cast, and the attain-
ment of truth, if this is a rational universe, must be the ultimate
outcome, and with truth, increased well-being. A second justi-
fication for such an investigation is thus to provide a critique of
current social theories and of schemes for social regeneration.
Social philosophy has a third function. Advance in science is
dependent very largely on the possession of a scientific imagina-
tion, — the power to jump at conclusions which become working
hypotheses to be verified, repudiated or corrected ‘in the light of
inductive study. The western world is interested today as never
before in the increase of human well-being. But social ameliora-
tion is as truly a science as physics or geology though infinitely
more complex. Sane advance in this science must be guided by
sane philosophy. The latter will furnish the background for the
formulation of laws and methods of social advance and these
should prove far more workable than unsophisticated guesses.
Spencer in his Study of Sociology says that if you give a man
who does not understand metal work a sheet of metal with a dint
in it and ask him to flatten it out, he will take a hammer and
knock the dint flat only to find that it has appeared elsewhere.
He tries to flatten these other dints but with like result.!. Thus it
is with much social legislation not based on the laws of social
change.
A final justification is analogous to Comte’s praise of the crude
beliefs of primitive times. As those common beliefs in spirits
that animated and controlled the phenomena of nature provided
a unity of thought as the necessary background for unity of
action, so a generally accepted theory of social progress would
provide an educational aim that could be put into practice; a
common principle of legislation that would make enforcement
easy; a common goal of endeavor which might make possible a
social reconstruction in the interest both of the group as a whole
and of the constituent members.
Comte claimed this virtue for his system but the vagaries of
his Polity did much to retard the spread of his theory. Since
1 Quoted by Hobhouse, Social Evolution and Political Theory, p. 5.
INTRODUCTION 7
his day great advance has been made and the leaders of thought
and life in the western world are coming to agreement as never
before on fundamental principles of life and progress.
During the last quarter of the nineteenth century evolution
was the open sesame to the interpretation of all phases of life, but
this term has proven too vague. More and more that general
concept is being analyzed, narrowed, defined. Its place, as we
shall see, is being usurped by the more definite concept of adap-
tation, which has already obtained a foremost place in educational
philosophy, even in that narrower and more conservative sphere
of education which is concerned primarily with the religious phase
of life, and is invading, too, the domain of political science. A
second purpose of this thesis, then, will be to indicate the utility
of this concept of adaptation in interpreting various phases of
social endeavor.
Method.—Our subject naturally calls for an analysis of systems
of social philosophy with the one special aim of showing the con-
tribution of each to this doctrine of adaptation. It will be in our
province, also, to investigate the writings of others outside the
sphere of sociology proper who have contributed to the develop-
ment of this doctrine. We shall not attempt, however, to trace
this development back in its several root forms to early ages.
Such a task would be too great and of too little value. Indeed
this field has been cultivated already to a considerable extent.
Professor Osborn has traced the development of the doctrine of
adaptation as a theory of biological evolution back to the early
Greek physicists, especially to Empedocles,! and Professor
Flint’s Philosophy of History contains abundant material for the
study of the use of this concept among early social philosophers.
Modern sociology is generally conceded to take its rise from
Auguste Comte, so our investigation may well begin with him,
although reference will be made to some who lived in an earlier
age.
Several methods of procedure are open to us. The subject
suggests a historical method, but inasmuch as the period covered
is less than a century such a method presents many difficulties.
1 From the Greeks to Darwin.
8 INTRODUCTION
Two other methods are suggested in Professor Carver’s Sociol-
ogy and Social Progress. In the Introduction he analyzes
adaptation as passive and active material and passive and
active social. We might, then, trace the development of each
form of adaptation from Comte to the present. The difficulty
here is that several authors have made contributions bearing on
each of these four divisions, and such a method would make
impossible the study of the social theory of an author as a whole.
A third method might follow the outline in the book referred to,
and discuss the development of the doctrine from the side of
biology, economics, psychology and the social sciences including
religion. But our chief interest is to study social theories rather
than the writings of economists and social scientists except as
they bear directly on the subject in hand, and here, again, as in
the previous case, some authors have contributed along several
different lines.
It seems best, therefore, to discuss the social theories of the
writers who have been most influential in the development of this
doctrine of adaptation or whose contributions are most important
in a constructive social philosophy built around this concept, and
in an order which shall be, so far as possible, both historical and
logical. In the treatment of some writers attention will be given
only to their specific contribution to our subject while in the case
of others a brief outline of their general social philosophy will be
necessary as a background for a due appreciation of that contri-
bution. The work as a whole will thus furnish an approach toa
constructive social philosophy by a review of the systems of many
writers not only in English but also in German and French.
Definition of Terms.— Adaptation may be considered as a state
or as a process.1. By the former is meant such relationship be-
tween an organism, species, social group or institution as is
favorable to existence and growth; by the latter is meant the
process by which such a unity becomes and continues in favorable
relation to its environment. There are two general classes of
environment, physical or material, and spiritual, including social,
and two general classes of adaptation, passive and active. By
1 Cf. Haeckel, The Last Link, pp. 84, 117 f.
INTRODUCTION 9
passive adaptation as a process is meant the non-purposeful
modification of an organism, species, social group or institution
to suit it to its environment. If we differentiate the process
further, as above, passive physical adaptation will comprise the
process of biological evolution including permanent somatic
differences in ethnic groups whereas passive spiritual adaptation
will comprise the evolution of all psychic factors in the individual
and race, and the expression of these in language, mores, laws and
social institutions (so far as the process is non-purposeful). It
thus comprises nearly the whole process of education, including
moral and religious, and much of social control. By active
adaptation is meant the purposeful modification of any organic
or quasi-organic unity to suit it to its environment or the purpose-
ful modification of the environment to make it favorable to the
unity. If we differentiate further, active material adaptation
will include the process of industrial development while active
spiritual adaptation will comprise the purposeful adjustment of
the individual to his spiritual environment, social, ideal and
transcendental, the work of true teachers and social reformers and
purposeful social control.
Of course there are no hard and fast lines between these divi-
sions, but the above classification will prove useful in the general
discussion of the subject and may be represented by the following
scheme: —
Kind oF ENVIRONMENT
MopDE oF >
ADAPTATION Physical or Material Spiritual (including Social)
¢ Biological evolution including Evolution of psychic and social fac-
relatively permanent differ- tors and of their expression in
ences in somatic characteris- language, mores, laws and other
Passive 4 tics of individuals in different social institutions.
races, and development of Process of education (including
brain and nervous system in- moral and religious).
cluding instincts. Genetic social control.
f Telic adjustment of the individual
to his spiritual (including social)
Active Industrial development. environment.
Work of true teachers and moral
reformers.
( Telic social control.
Io INTRODUCTION
The complexity of the task of social philosophy and of the
social problems to be solved by the theory of adaptation is illus-
trated by the following diagram: —
Let S, S’, and S” represent three social cides oh in three different environments, E, E’, and E”
tively. Let P, P’, and P”, represent political parties, C, C’ and C” church organizations
ant F. F’ and F” family’ groups, the individuals in each case being represented by I, I’ and I’.
Sociology has as its scope to describe and if possible explain the following: (1) the physical
and psychical differences that characterize the individuals of the three groups as determined
by use of the normal frequency curve; (2) the socio-psychical differences between the groups
considered as unities; (3) the reciprocal relations between each group and its physical en-
vironment, i. e., between S and E, S’ and E’, S’ and E”; (4) the reciprocal relations between
each gro up and its constituent social organizations, i. e., between S and P, C and F, S' and P’,
C’ and F’ and S” and P”, C” and F”; (5) the rec: rocal relations between each group and its
constituent members, i. e., between § and I, S’ ee I’, S’ and I”; (6) the reciprocal relations
between the organizations in each society, i. e., between P and Gc Cand F, P and F, etc.; (7)
the reciprocal relations between each organization and its constituent members, i. e., between
PandI,CandI,andF andI,etc. But each group has its super-organic environment, that is,
S is in relation with S’ and S’, etc. This complicates the problem further as follows: Each
social organization is in reciprocal relations with similar organizations in each of the other
groups, each individual in one group is subject to influences from a: ay individual in another
group, and, indeed, one group as a unit may conceivably be modified by an individual from
another group. This complication, however, is even less important than one arising from the
fact that the intra-group organizations overlap, as indicated by the intersecting circles, so an
individual may belong to two or more organizations. At times there is conflict of interests
between the individual and the organization to which he belongs or between the organizations
as unities.
Social philosophy as before suggested has as its task to see the
whole social process as a unity, if possible, and out of the chaos of
INTRODUCTION Il
these inter-relations and conflict of interests find an underlying
harmony. It must not only interpret the past, but in the light of
this forecast the future, and if possible point the way of larger life
to every thinking individual and purposeful group, — the way of
more complete adaptation both passive and active.
The purpose of this book is thus to show how the doctrine of
adaptation is coming more and more to be considered as the key
to social philosophy and its manifold problems, and how this
doctrine has evolved until at present it is being applied to the
process by which man and social groups, by taking thought,
transform their material and spiritual environment, and to the
process by which they become conformed into more or less agree-
ment with their ideals and with the WorLp ALL or Gop.
CHAPTER I
AUGUSTE COMTE (1798-1857)
ComTeE’s POSITIVE PHILOSOPHY A PROLEGOMENON TO
SocroLoey !
Short as is our life, and feeble as is our reason we cannot emancipate ourselves
from the influence of our environment. Even the wildest dreamers reflect in their
dreams the contemporary social state. — Positive Philosophy, ii, p. 11.
AuGUSTE ComTE in his life and philosophy is a striking confirma-
tion of the doctrine of relativity expressed in the above quotation,
— a doctrine which forms such an important part of his teaching
and one which is closely related to the doctrine of adaptation.
His relation to his age, to his race, to his generation, to his local
environment may be discerned with a good deal of clearness, and °
hereditary traits and the experiences of his personal life are re-
flected in his system of philosophy and in the theory of social
reconstruction elaborated in his Polity.?
1 Owing to the controversy among the students of Comte as to the unity of
his writings, our analysis will be confined almost entirely to the Cours with quota-
tions from the well-known English summary by Miss Martineau. The Cours
was the making of Comte’s reputation and on it is based almost exclusively his.
influence on sociology. His romantic love experience with Clotilda de Vaux had
a profound effect on his life and thought, and ever after that the “ heart” was
given a place of pre-eminence over the intellect. The Polity adds little else essential
to social philosophy except the exposition of idealism and religion which we will
discuss in a later chapter. See Flint, Philosophy of History, pp. 259 £.
For the influence of Clotilda de Vaux see Systéme, Preface; also A General View
(Bridges), pp. 242 f.
2 “ Comte was the son of a revolutionary epoch, — a time full of jarring opposi-
tions, full of unsolved problems. For this reason, he who attempts at any time to
penetrate deeper into the peculiarity of his doctrines and of his personality that
he may make real to himself the things which the great world taught Comte to know
in later life, should never forget under what conditions and under the influence
of what teachers the youth grew to manhood. He must know the pictures that
met his gaze, the words that filled his ears, the problems that pressed ceaselessly
upon his mind.” Waentig, A. Comte und seine Bedeutung fiir die Entwickelung der
Socialwissenschaft, p. 43; cf., however, ibid., p. 207, where Waentig claims that
Comte’s philosophy was essentially “‘ unfrench.” cs
12
AUGUSTE COMTE 13
“A Frenchman of the south, warm-blooded, impulsive, senti-
mental yet withal practical; drilled in early youth under the
educational ideal of his day with special emphasis on mathematics
and logic; taught to seek in all things system and unity; breath-
ing from earliest years the spirit of revolt from all external
authority; so influenced by his social environment and especially
by one master that his rebellious nature found expression at
fourteen years of age by turning from the catholic-royalistic
principles of his parents to become a free-thinking republican;
steeping his young precocious mind in the French philosophical
writings of the eighteenth century which were grossly material-
istic, together with the writings of Hume and the English econo-
mists; conscious of the failure of Rousseau and his followers to
regenerate society, and of the failure, too, of the retrogressive
theory of de Maistre and the sentimental schemes of Owen,
LeBlanc, Fourier and Saint-Simon, Comte saw at last the possi-
bilities of the scientific method applied to social phenomena and
wrought out that system of social philosophy which in broad
outline stands as the foundation of the prevailing theories of
social progress today.t-
It has been said that all the elements in the Positive Philosophy
may be found in earlier systems.2 Comte devotes one whole
chapter to a review and criticism of the methods and conclusions
of some of his most illustrious predecessors in the field of social
philosophy including Aristotle, Montesquieu, Condorcet and
Adam Smith whom he praises as an exception to the economists
for whom otherwise he has little use. He omits all mention of
Saint-Simon, however, doubtless owing to his pique against the
one whom he recognized as master till their break in 1834,
although he was indebted to Saint-Simon more than to any one
else not only for his enthusiasm for social regeneration but also for
some of the most important principles of his Positive Philosophy.‘
1 Cf. Lévy-Briihl, History of Modern Philosophy in France, pp. 394-396. Waen-
tig, op. cit., pp. 221 ff., 387 ff. Mill, Auguste Comte and Positivism, p. 52.
2 For catalogue of sources of Comte’s philosophy, see Defourney, La Sociologie
Positive, pp. 352 ff.
3 Positive Philosophy, ii, pp. 61 f.
4 For an able discussion of the controversy as to the dependence of Comte on
14 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
Comte was not so much an original thinker as a system builder,
but so well did he do his task that social philosophy since his day
has done little more than to fill in his outline and correct and sup-
plement his method. Thus the Positive Philosophy may not in-
aptly be termed a prolegomenon to sociology, and the more so
as the conscious aim of his work was introductory rather than
exhaustive or even technically scientific.
A brief survey of his social philosophy is necessary for an appre-
ciation of his place as the founder of the new science and of his
contribution to the doctrine of adaptation as a theory of social
progress.
Of first importance is Comte’s emphasis on the necessity of a
social philosophy as the basis of social reorganization.? This was
the natural outcome of the reaction of such a character on such an
age. It was a period, as he well observed, of intellectual, moral
and social anarchy,’ and he felt that these were vitally related
and that for social adjustment and moral vigor there must be
Saint-Simon, see Barth, Philosophie der Geschichte als Sociologie, pp. 56, 57. He
mentions the following contributions of Saint-Simon to social philosophy, most of
which were made use of by Comte: (1) Politics is a positive science, i. c., a science
depending on observations as positive as those of physics. (2) The total condition
of society and not merely the constitution of the state is its object. (3) The
process of the development of the human mind follows a fixed direction parallel with
the philosophy of life, — from theology through metaphysics more and more to
positive science, and in practical life from militarism to industrialism. [Though
this thought is found in Turgot, Whittaker, Comte and Mill, p. 14, claims it was an
independent discovery on the part of Comte.] (4) Each philosophical system is
bound up with a political system which is grounded upon it, at every stage of the
process of this spiritual development. But besides this every political system
rests also on a certain arrangement (Ordnung) of property rights and method of
production which results in a definite class formation. (5) He gives for the first
time a sketch of the history of this class formation in which he confines himself to
France with side glances to England. (6) He desires thus to raise history from
literature to science. ‘“‘ Almost every one of these items,” says Barth, ‘‘ became a
suggestion to new thoughts and investigations for Saint-Simon’s scholar, A. Comte,
who endeavored to build up the science proposed by Saint-Simon, and to carry out
to complete unity what flitted before the mind of the other in merest outline.” The
last part of (4) and (5) which were fundamental with Saint-Simon were almost
ignored by Comte. Cf. also, Ferras, Etude sur la Philosophie, pp. 313 ff.
1 Positive Philosophy, i, ch. II.
2 Tbid., i, pp. 14, 16; ii, pp. 31, 41 ff., 165, 489-522. A General View, ch. II.
3 Positive Philosophy, ii, pp. 9, 30, 31-
AUGUSTE COMTE 15
unity of thought and conviction. His philosophical training
made acceptable the suggestion of a scientific interpretation of
social phenomena such as had already been attempted by
Montesquieu, Condorcet and Saint-Simon. It remained for him
to work out a complete system in outline which he felt sure would
be so convincing as to win speedy and wide-spread acceptance
and make social regeneration possible.! The fact that the scien-
tific method had reached the domain of social phenomena was
proof to him that it offered the only possible workable basis for
practical politics? He could not but admire the organization of
the Roman Catholic church and the power it possessed * but he
could not agree with de Maistre that it had potency for social
reform because it stood for a theological interpretation of life,
i.e., a belief in personality as the mainspring of action rather
than natural laws. He could not agree any better, however,
with the social philosophers of his day who following Rousseau
believed in a “‘return to nature’? which seemed to him a denial
of social evolution. The metaphysicians had performed their
task by destroying the faith of the people in the teachings of
theology, but with this had come a destruction of moral authority
and a decay in personal and social life which Comte would bring
back. “ The object of all my labor,” he wrote in 1825, “has
been to re-establish in society something spiritual that is
capable of counterbalancing the influence of the ignoble ma-
terialism in which we are at present submerged.” 4 Catholicism
stood for order but was incapable of inspiring progress. The
destruction of Catholicism seemed necessary for progress but
such a movement had led to anarchy. Comte’s task was to
synthesize order and progress and thus destroy the condition of
anarchy in morals and politics which reigned in his day, and his
method was by an appeal to science.
Comte’s belief that the intellect always and of necessity led in
social progress was further reason for his emphasis on the need of
a thorough-going social philosophy as the basis for social recon-
1 By the time he wrote the Polity he had experienced disappointment.
2 Positive Philosophy, ii, p. 14.
3 Ibid., ii, pp. 261 ff.; Lévy-Briihl, of. cit., p. 363.
4 Lévy-Briihl, op. cit., p. 361.
16 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
struction.! In his earlier investigations he seems to have sought
a principle of unity in social phenomena as all-comprehensive as
the law of gravitation in physics? but he failed and later repu-
diated the idea insisting only on unity of thought,’ unity of feel-
ing,‘ unity of purpose > and unity of method.§
Comte’s philosophy of history of which he makes large use as a
support to his social philosophy is based primarily on the law of
the three stages,’ but in a lesser degree on the phenomenalism
of Hume and some of the French materialists, on Pascal’s fiction
of all humanity from earliest times to the present conceived as a
living, learning personality,’ on Condorcet’s device of consider-
ing all nations and peoples as forming one society,?and on Hobbes’
conception of humanity as a gigantic organism. It is thus
largely deductive, logical and abstract rather than inductive and
scientific, although Comte advocates the scientific methods of
observation, experiment and comparison supplemented by the
historic, with the expression of hope of large future contributions
from biology. He combines the deductive and inductive
methods most ingeniously yet not in a way to satisfy the de-
mands of science today. Indeed he is accused by Barth of dis-
torting facts to fit his theory.”
The law of the three stages, suggested by Turgot and Saint-
Simon, becomes fundamental with Comte. He makes use of it to
prove that the time is ripe for a reorganization of society based on
science; that this science of social phenomena which he calls
1 Positive Philosophy, i, ch. 1; ii, pp. 51, 157 £., 495-497. Barth, of. cit., p. 26;
A General View, pp. 23, 79 f.; cf., however, his emphasis on “ heart ” and “ love”
in his Polity.
2 Positive Philosophy, i, pp. 3, 16; cf. Lévy-Briihl, op. cit., pp. 378, 379.
3 Positive Philosophy, ii, pp. 504, 511, 521. 4 A General View, p. 13.
5 Positive Philosophy, ii, pp. 498, 521; A General View, p. 26.
® Positive Philosophy, i, p. 17.
7 [bid., i, ch. I; ii, pp. 158 ff. Cf. Flint, op. cit., i, pp. 267 f.
8 Positive Philosophy, ii, pp. 54, 95; A General View, p. 372. This figure was
used by Perrault, Fontennelle, Abbé de St. Pierre, as well as by Saint-Simon and
Littré-Flint, History of the Philosophy of History, pp. 213 f.
® Positive Philosophy, ii, pp. 58, 83. 10 Tbid., ii, p. 509.
1 [bid., ii, pp. 96 ff.
2 Barth, op. cit., p. 26; cf. Mill, op. cit., p. 60; Mackintosh, From Comte to
Benjamin Kidd, p. 41.
AUGUSTE COMTE 17
social physics or sociology, forms the climax of all the sciences
which he arranges in a hierarchy based on filiation,! increasing
complexity,? decreasing perfection in the sense of quantitative
exactitude,’ and on the order of development of the sciences to
that condition which might be termed positive. This classifica-
tion, repudiated by Spencer, has been adopted with some modi-
fications and explanations by Mill, Ward,‘ Giddings, De Greef and
many others.
This law of the three stages was incorporated into Mill’s
logical doctrine as the “inverse deductive method.”® It assumes
that the general human mind has developed the same as the
individual mind. Experience showed Comte that the child is
imaginative with a personal-causal explanation of phenomena
whereas the adult, at least the one schooled in the scientific
method, interprets phenomena by reference to natural laws.®
The period of youth had been with Comte a transition period, a
period of storm and stress, of intellectual and moral anarchy and
this he saw was characteristic of youth. Comte found stages of
civilization that corresponded to these periods; primitive
societies imaginative with a personal explanation of phenomena,
the five nations of western Europe in the centuries just preceding
his time corresponding to the anarchic stage of youth, and the era
dawning with its emphasis on law like unto the mature mind of
cultured man.” He shows also that each science in its develop-
ment has passed through these stages.
One other item is worthy of consideration before passing to the
discussion of his specific social doctrines, — his conception of law.
In this he seems to have followed Hume. Not only does he repu-
diate the effort to discover the final cause of change, but it would
seem that he fails to recognize, also, efficient cause in the system
itself. He seeks only laws of similitude and succession among
phenomena. The former make possible his scheme of logical
1 Positive Philosophy, i, p. 28; cf. Ward, Pure Sociology, ch. V.
2 Positive Philosophy, i, ch. II. 4 Pure Sociology, pp. 65 f.
3 Tbid., i, pp. 29, 223. 5 Whittaker, Comte and Mill, p. 23.
& Positive Philosophy, i, p. 3.
7 Ibid., ii, chs. VII-XI. Lévy-Brihl, of. cit., p. 364.
8 Positive Philosophy, i, pp. §, 12, 217, 221, 225 f., 515.
18 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
classification and the latter forms the basis of his ‘“ explana-
tions’; but, as Mill has justly remarked, “ There are two kinds
of uniformities, the one conditional [as the succession of day and
night], the other conditional on the first [as the dependence of
this succession on the revolution of the earth]; laws of causation,
and other successions dependent on those laws.” !
Comte repudiates all hypotheses not capable of verification
such as those of luminiferous ether and chemical affinities as
being metaphysical,? yet he does not always keep clear of such
assumptions, as when he assumes a “‘ tendency to development ”
in man,? and when he admits that his biological classification is
purely subjective, i. e., is logical rather than genetic. This last
point is of such importance as to warrant the giving of a few
quotations in its support. In discussing biological evolution he
justifies the use of scientific fictions to fill up the gaps in the
evolutionary process. ‘‘ The process,” he says, ‘‘ would be to
intercalate among different known organisms, certain purely
fictitious organisms, so imagined as to facilitate their compari-
son, by rendering the biological series more homogeneous and
continuous: and it might be that several might hereafter meet
with more or less of a realization among organisms hitherto unex-
plored.” 4 ‘ In forming the animal series, it (our encyclopedia) ,
—|i.e., of positivism] — takes as its continual guide the true
object of that formation, — a logical rather than a scientific object.
As we only study the animals to gain a sounder knowledge of man
by tracing through them his connections with plants, we are fully
authorized to exclude from our hierarchy all the species which
disturb it.” He goes on to show that the same method is justifi-
able in social evolution; i.e., the creation of certain races and
introduction of them into the logical series to make it complete.®
That his synthesis is consciously and purposely subjective and
logical rather than objective is proven by these words: ‘“ Not
merely is it true, that no organic existence ever sprung from
1 Mill, op. cit., p. 58. 3 Ibid., ii, pp. 83, 88. Cf. ii, p. 147.
® Positive Philosophy, i, pp. 225 f., 301. 4 Ibid., i, p. 380.
5 The Catechism of Positivism, pp. 222, 224. Cf. Positive Philosophy, ii, pp. 520,
521; also A General View, pp. 34 f., 369.
AUGUSTE COMTE 19
inorganic nature; but further, no species of any kind can spring
from a different kind, either inferior or superior. The limits of
the exception to this rule are very narrow, and are as yet but little
known. ‘There is then a really impassible gulf between the worlds
of life and of matter, and, even though less broad, between dif-
ferent forms of vitality. This view strengthens our position
that any simply objective synthesis is impossible. But it in no
way impairs the subjective synthesis, in every case the result of a
very gradual ascent towards the type of man.”’ This subjective
synthesis, then, as we have noted above, is merely a logical classi-
fication according to a pre-determined plan, although based on
scientific observation, and does not necessarily represent a his-
torical order of development, much less a real causal order.
Comte does not always hold to the above distinction, to be sure,
and in places seems to hold that the subjective order represents
the objective.!
Comte considers that society is an organism but further that it
is the reality whereas the mere individual is an abstraction.?
His doctrine of society is developed under the two-fold aspect of
static and dynamic, the former corresponding to order, the latter
to progress. By static he seems to mean a cross-section of social
evolution showing the “ consensus,” “‘ interconnections,” “‘ con-
currence,” ‘‘ harmony,” “ co-operation ” of the parts under the
laws of co-existence. By dynamic he means the same phe-
nomena viewed as a process of development under the laws of
antecedents and consequents. The one is a sort of social anat-
omy, the other a sort of social physiology.‘
Comte’s conception of all humanity as a developing organism
is, as we have noted, a logical fiction, yet with sufficient basis in
fact to form a suggestive working hypothesis. It corresponds to
the figure used by Hildebrand,® of nations in relays carrying
forward the torch of progress; but Comte seems to consider also
1 Positive Philosophy, ii, pp. 520, 521. Cf. Barth, op. cit., pp. 25-27.
2 Positive Philosophy, i, p. 363; ii, pp. 508-509; A General View, p. 370. The
general mind is regarded as prior to the individual mind, and the latter can be
understood only by reference to the former.
3 Positive Philosophy, ii, pp. 74-84. 4 Tbid., ii, pp. 84-89.
5 German Thought, Lecture I.
20 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
that specific groups form “‘ societies ”’ characterized by a certain
community of thought and life. This conception, developed by
Spencer, Le Bon, Durkheim and others, approaches much more
nearly to concrete reality.t
Comte’s law of the three periods, together with his fiction of
all humanity as a developing organism, is the basis of his doctrine
of relativism which is, perhaps, his most important contribution
to social philosophy.2 By relativism he has in mind not only the
relativity of knowledge emphasized by Spencer, but even more
the relativity of social phenomena to the stage of development of
the organism. That is, there is no absolutely right form of
government, or religion, or set of moral principles, — or at least
not until developed by positivism. A certain form is appropriate
to society in the theological stage, another when it has reached the
metaphysical and still another when all life is interpreted and
organized in accordance with science.
The dynamic study of society gives rise to the problem of prog-
ress. The one phrase used most by our author, especially in
the Polity is the development of order,’ though he also uses that of
increasing differentiation and integration,’ a growing preponder-
ance of cultural over organic phases of life,? and an enlargement
of man’s powers over the forces of nature. In particular, we
have as proof of material progress the fact that though there has
been great increase in population there has been, also, an increase
in the satisfaction of wants.1? Intellectual development is shown
by an increase in the aptitude for mental combinations and
abstract thinking." Moral progress is marked by the develop-
ment of the social faculties and by the expression of these in in-
dustrial co-operation and efforts toward social amelioration.!2
1 Positive Philosophy, ii, pp. 132, 491 ff.
? Ibid., li, pp. 77, 92 ff. Cf. Small, General Sociology, pp. 68 ff.
3 Positive Philosophy, ii, pp. 517 f.
4 Ibid., ii, pp. 14-16. Cf. Mill, op. cit., pp. 177 ff.
® Positive Philosophy, ii, pp. 84-89; Mill, p. 100; A General View, p. 117.
§ Ibid., p. 116. 7 Positive Philosophy, i, p. 120; ii, p. 140.
8 [bid., ii, pp. 89, 129, 150 ff.
® Ibid., i, p. 361; ii, pp. 88, 118 £., 129, 150, 250.
10 Jbid., ii, pp. 88 f. 1 See above, note 8.
2 Positive Philosophy, ii, pp. 131 £., 288, 554 ff.
AUGUSTE COMTE 21
The impelling factor in progress according to our author is the
affectional nature or heart including the appetites, passions and
sentiments ! or about what Ward? means by desires and Ratzen-
hofer * and Small‘ by interests; the guiding factor, however, is
the intellect going through the three stages of development both
in the individual and in civilization as a whole. Although there
is in the individual and society a tendency to development,
there are certain accelerating factors such as ennui, duration of
life and increase of population.® Race and climate are factors to
be reckoned with and also, within narrow limits, political action.®
A consideration of the last gives occasion for the exposition of his
doctrine of political opportunism, an exceedingly suggestive and
valuable contribution to political economy. This is a corollary
of his general theories of social evolution and relativism, and
signifies merely that society cannot be radically changed by
legislation which is the expression of the will of an individ-
ual or of collective individuals. Comte holds that the aim of
legislation should be rather to accelerate the general movement of
evolution. All laws to be effective must be in harmony with the
social life and traditions of the people.
After this brief survey we are prepared to consider Comte’s
contribution to the development of the doctrine of adaptation as
a theory of social progress. To be sure Comte did not use the
phrase or analyze the doctrine as have later writers but we find
with him the kernel which has come to such rich fruitage since.
Passive Physical Adaptation.—Before Comte’s time Montes-
quieu, Lamarck and others had emphasized the influence of the
material environment on the organism and on society. Comte,
though not going so far as some, yet recognized this factor.’
“Tt is plain that society, as well as individual beings,” he says,
“is affected by the circumstances of the earth’s daily rotation and
1 Positive Philosophy, ii, pp. 83, 128-130, 156, 257; Catechism, p. 234. In the
Polity heart equals sympathy plus energy. Cf. A General View, pp. 119 f.
2 Pure Sociology, pp. tor f. 4 General Sociology, chs. XXXI, XXXII.
3 Infra, ch. IX. 5 Positive Philosophy, ii, pp. 152 ff.
6 Tbid., ii, pp. 90-92. Public opinion is given prominence in the Polity. Cf,
A General View, ch. III.
7 Positive Philosophy, ii, pp. 57, 116 f.
22. ° ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
annual movement; and by the states of heat, moisture and
electricity in the surrounding medium; and by the chemical con-
ditions of the atmosphere, the waters, the soil, etc. I need only
observe that the effect of these influences is even more marked in
sociology than in biology, not only because the organism is more
complex, and its phenomena of a higher order, but because the
social organism is regarded as susceptible of infinite duration, so
as to render sensible many gradual modifications which would be
disguised from our notice by the brevity of individual life.” !
Comte, as we have noted, did not accept Lamarck’s theory of the
development of species as a result of the response of the organism
to environmental influences, and in social evolution he believed
that inherent race qualities and the general forces behind the
evolutionary process were vastly more potent.?
Active Material Adaptation.— Man’s ability to control the
forces of nature in the interest of his well-being is with Comte one
of the chief tests of progress.3 “ All human progress,”’ he says,
“political, moral or intellectual, is inseparable from material
progression, in virtue of the close interconnection which, as we
have seen, characterizes the natural course of social phenomena.
Now, it is clear that the action of man upon nature depends
chiefly on his knowledge of the laws of inorganic phenomena,
though biological phenomena must also find a place in it.” 4
Passive Spiritual Adaptation.—Comte’s whcle doctrine of rela-
tivity is but another way of expressing this principle. He holds
that the genius is an age-product;® that the preponderating
opinions of the people determine morals and politics; ® and he
goes so far as to say that “‘ the happiness of every man depends on
the harmony between the development of his various faculties and
the entire system of the circumstances which govern his life”;
i. e., on both material and spiritual adaptation.’
Comte might almost be termed a social realist in his insistence
that the individual apart from society is a mere abstraction
whereas humanity, or again the general human mind is real.
1 Positive Philosophy, ii, p. 116. 4 Tbid., ii, p. 118.
2 Tbid., ii, pp. 92 f. 5 Tbid., ii, p. 92.
®* Ibid., i, pp. 223, 363, 3933 Hi, pp. 57,118. 6 Ibid., i, p. 14; ii, pp. 30, 165.
7 [bid., ii,p. 87. Cf. Caird, The Social Philosophy and Religion of Comte, p. 25-
AUGUSTE COMTE 123
He thus approaches the theory of many modern sociologists who
hold that society is a psychological organism: This fact of
psychical unity, according to Comte, distinguishes sociology from
biology which makes the individual organism the unit of investi-
gation. After setting forth this contrast he says: “ The evolu-
tion of the individual mind can disclose no essential law: and it
can afford neither indications nor verifications of any value
unless brought under the methods of observation taught by the
evolution of the human mind in general.” ?
This doctrine furnishes the key to this theory of education:
“The sociological theory requires that the education of the in-
dividual should be a reproduction, rapid but accurate, of that of
the race. In his brief career, he must pass through the three
stages which an aggregate of nations has wrought out with infi-
nite comparative slowness; and if any material part of the ex-
perience is evaded, his training will be abortive.” ? Comte thus
reaches deductively a theory of recapitulation very much like
that of some modern psychologists and pedagogues which they
claim to have reached by inductive methods. ‘The individual
mind is real then, and able to perform its functions, according to
our author, only as it partakes of the general mind, or is produced
and moulded by it, —and this is a form of passive spiritual
adaptation.
Another point emphasized by Comte, bearing on this doctrine,
is his theory of the family as a training school for social adjust-
ment.?
Active Spiritual Adaptation. — Reacting as Comte did upon the
methods of social reconstruction of his day, we might have ex-
pected that he would have gone to the other extreme as did
Spencer and Gumplowicz, but instead we find a compromise, —
a recognition of natural law but also a law possible of modifica-
tion by human intelligence and effort. ‘‘ Though modifications
from all causes,” he says, “‘ are greater in the case of political
than of simpler phenomena, still they can never be more than
modifications: that is, they will always be in subjection to those
1 Positive Philosophy, ii, p. 509. 2 Ibid., ii, p. 510.
3 Tbid., ii, p. 133.
24 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
fundamental laws, whether statical or dynamical, which regu-
late the harmony of the social elements, and the filiation of their
successive variations. ‘There is no disturbing influence, exterior
or human, which can make incompatible elements co-exist in the
political system, nor change in any way the natural laws of the
development of humanity. What then are the modifications of
which the social organism and social life are susceptible, if noth-
ing can alter the laws either of harmony or of succession ? The
answer is that modifications act upon the intensity and second-
ary operation of phenomena, but without affecting their nature or
their filiation. In the intellectual order of phenomena, for in-
stance, there is no accidental influence, nor any individual
superiority, which can transfer to one person the discoveries
reserved for a subsequent age, in the natural course of the human
mind; nor can there be a reverse case of postponement.” ! This
gives rise to his theory of opportuneness which, though carried too
far, contains a truth that needs to be re-emphasized in these days
of legislative radicalism.
vA Comte’s theory of social control is tersely expressed in these
words: “ It is the social function of mind to struggle perpetually,
in its own way, to modify the necessary rule of material power, by
subjecting it more and more to respect for the moral laws of
universal harmony, from which all practical activity, public and
private, is apt to revolt, for want of loftiness of view and gener-
osity of sentiment. Regarded in this way, legitimate social
supremacy belongs neither to force nor to reason, but to morality,
governing alike the actions of the one and the counsels of the
other. . . . This spiritual authority will be naturally kept
within bounds by the very nature of its functions, which will be
those of education, and the consultative influence which results
from it in active life; and again, by the conditions imposed on
their exercise, and the continuous resistance which must be
encountered, — the authority itself being founded on free assent,
within the limits necessary to guard against abuse. . . . The
disposition to seek in political institutions the solution of all
difficulties whatever is a disastrous tendency of our time.’?
1 Positive Philosophy, ii, pp. 90-92. 2 Ibid., ii, p. 471.
AUGUSTE COMTE 25
Thus government is to rest on the free consent of the governed
and be a spontaneous expression of social demands based on moral
considerations which place the good of all above that of the
individual.
There is to be a separation of spiritual and temporal authority
yet the two are expected to work in harmony. The spiritual
authority will be supreme in matters of education but consulta-
tive in what concerns action, while the temporal authority will be
supreme in matters of action with consultative power in matters
ofeducation. Comte’s educational ideal is modern with emphasis
on the studies that make for active adaptation, i. e., power over
the forces of nature and such development of the moral instincts
as shall make for social well-being. ‘‘ The direct effect of a
universal education is to place every one in the situation best
adapted to his abilities, whatever his birth may have been.” !
Comte recognizes the historic value of religion as a factor in
social progress, holding that, though an illusion, it is indispens-
able to active adaptation.2. He values also its function in social
organization and its place in providing a permanent speculative
class. “‘ Itis a radical property of the theological philosophy to be
the sole support of man’s moral courage, as well as the awakener
and director of his intellectual activity. . . . Feeble as are the
intellectual organs, relatively considered, the attractive moral
perspective of an unbounded power of modifying the universe, by
the aid of supernatural protectors, must have been most impor-
tant in exciting mental action. In our advanced state of scientific
progress, we can conceive of the perpetual pursuit of knowledge
for the sake of the satisfaction of intellectual activity, joined to
the tranquil pleasure which arises from the discovery of truth;
yet it is doubtful whether such natural stimulus as this would
always suffice without collateral instigations of glory, of ambition,
or of love and stronger passions, except in the case of a very few
lofty minds. . . . In the working out of such speculation, the
mental activity can be sustained by nothing short of the fictions
of the theological philosophy about the supremacy of man and
1 Positive Philosophy, ii, p. 485. Cf. A General View, pp. 91, 189, 192-194.
2 Positive Philosophy, i, p. 4.
26 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
his unbounded empire over external nature.”! This evaluation of
the idealizing function of the mind is elaborated in the Systéme
and in the Subjective Synthesis, and as made concrete in the
sacerdotal order of positivism appears to most people grotesque,
yet it contains an element of truth. Whether an illusion or not,
religion is a power in life that makes for individual and social
success, and using Comte’s pragmatic test the very fact that it
works gives us good reason for believing that it is not a mere
fiction of the mind.?
There was to be a social hierarchy under positivism yet based
not on force, or privilege, but on ability with equal opportunity
to each. This, he grants, would result in inequality in wealth,
but “ the positive philosophy will show that it is of small impor-
tance to popular interests in what hands capital is deposited, if its
employment is duly useful to society at large; and that condition
depends much more on moral than on political methods. No
jealous legal provision against the selfish use of wealth, and no
mischievous intervention, paralyzing social activity by political
prohibition, can be nearly so effectual as general reprobation,
grounded on an ascertained principle under the reign of positive
morality.” Thus social control, according to our author, is a
potent factor in social progress, but to be effective it must be
based on a knowledge of the laws of social development, and be
inspired by a desire to enhance the well-being of humanity at
large.
It is commonly stated that the two leading teachings of the
Positive Philosophy are the law of the three stages and the
hierarchy of the sciences, but most fundamental of all is Comte’s
conception of all humanity forming a living, growing entity or
“‘general mind.” The doctrine as developed may be stated as
follows: (1) Society is an organism, (2) with a structure in which
all parts are co-ordinated, each adapted to the whole and to its
function, (3) each stage in the process of development growing out
of the past, growing into the future and adapted to its environ-
' Positive Philosophy, ii, pp. 164, 165. Cf. A General View, pp. 364 ff.
2 Cf. Carver, The Religion Worth Having, p. 89.
3 Positive Philosophy, ii, p. 486.
AUGUSTE COMTE 27
ment both material and social. (4) In this evolutionary process
the intellect leads, furnishes the pattern and makes possible
material achievement and social telesis, and finally, (5) the heart,
including the desires and emotions, is the impelling force.” The
first is essential to his ethics of altruism and his religion of
humanity for he had discarded all supernatural sanctions and
needed something to take their place. The second supplies the
key to his static sociology with its doctrine of consensus. The
third furnishes his theories of social continuity, social prophecy
and relativism. The fourth issues in his law of the three
periods as the interpreter of the historic process, in his teaching
concerning active material and social adaptation with the corol-
lary of political opportunism. The fifth supplies the dynamic of
social progress, of his altruistic ethics and of his positive polity
based on love and on his religion of humanity. ~
/ This fiction of a general mind, however, not only does not corre-
spond to reality, but it partially closed the eyes of Comte to two
great realms of sociological investigation: first, to the actual
state of disorder and mal-adaptation, attention to which has led
to the modern studies in social pathology and social control,
and second, to the processes, forces and methods of social evolu-
tion which are now being studied inductively as well as those of
biological evolution.
His assumption of an impulse to orderly development,
very like the preformation theory of early biologists, is highly
metaphysical and so unwarranted from his theory. There is no
such thing as a general human mind that has developed from
primitive to modern times. There is, to be sure, the phenomenon
of so-called social heredity or the transmission of acquired knowl-
edge and experience from generation to generation through
imitation, tradition, custom and education. There is, too, the
fact of similarity of individual mental processes in all ages, so far
as we know, and similarity in the laws of psychic interaction so
that, as Ross points out, “those social phenomena which lie
1 In the Polity evaluated above the intellect.
2 Positive Philosophy, ii, pp. 75-85.
8 Cf. Ward, Pure Sociology, p. 381.
28 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
nearest the subjective focus will exhibit in their transformations
a certain logic and regularity,” 1 but there is the other focus in
social evolution, the objective. ‘“ Environments,” Ross con-
tinues, ‘(impose modes of existence extremely unlike, and
therefore in differently situated social groups those social phe-
nomena lying nearest the objective focus will undergo not
parallel but divergent evolution.” The discovery and working
out of these problems was reserved for later sociologists under the
inspiration of Darwin’s painstaking labors in biological evolution.
Comte might have made more progress along these lines in his
later years, aided by advance not only in biological but in mental
and historical science had it not been that he was obsessed by the
logical fiction of his early treatise, was busied with the elabora-
tion of his positive polity and moreover, was led astray by his
theory of “cerebral hygiene”? which closed his mind to the
scientific truths discovered in the later years of his life.
In spite, however, of these short-comings, so great has been his
contribution to social science and social philosophy that a modern
authority says: ‘The broad and general lines on which he
sketched the outlines of social science have formed the basis of all
attempts since. Much of his filling in was crude, but some was of
permanent value. He indicated correctly the true nature and
scope of the science and the proper method of investigation to be
followed.’ 2
Sociological organicists may well claim Comte as their master,
so too, the biological and the classifying schools. In basing social
evolution on the development of mind he is in line with genetic
psychologists. In suggesting the importance of material achieve-
ment as the basis of cultural, he was a forerunner of Ward, Carver
and others; in his emphasis on desires as the impelling forces to
progress his position was very much like that of Ratzenhofer
and Small; in his doctrine of social telesis and political opportun-
ism, he pointed the way to rational social control as generally
accepted today by social scientists. Comte’s Positive Philos-
ophy may thus not inaptly be denominated a Prolegomenon
-. to Sociology.
“1 Foundations of Sociology, p. 62. 2 F. Spencer Baldwin, Class Lectures.
CHAPTER II
HERBERT SPENCER (1820-1903)
Cosmic EvoLuTIon
As the naturalistic philosophy of eighteenth-century France and
the social enthusiasm of the early nineteenth century were
strangely fused in the life and social philosophy of Auguste Comte,
so the England of Sir William Hamilton, Adam Smith, Lyell,
Watts, and Shaftesbury, — the England at once scientific, in-
dustrial, moral and religious, found expression in the life and
Synthetic Philosophy of Herbert Spencer. To appreciate his
theories of evolution and adaptation one needs to understand the
unfolding of his life and thought and this is revealed in his pub-
lished autobiography and letters with a frankness and keenness
of self-analysis that is illuminating.
The son of an English school-master, of a line of non-conform-
ist ancestors, breathing from earliest days the atmosphere of
intellectual and religious freedom and himself taught to question,
to observe, and to reason, Spencer grew up through boyhood a
student of nature, a questioner, a seeker after causes in a law-
abiding order.
An only child, left much to the companionship of his own
thoughts, he became a dreamer. Allowed to have his own way,
and deprived of the opportunity of developing his social nature
normally through play with other children, when in youth he did
mingle with others, he found the problem of social adjustment a
severe task, and out of this experience was born his theory of
moral compromise, — of rational adjustment between egoism and
altruism. He refused the opportunity of a university career and
turned to engineering where for several years he struggled along,
dividing his time between drawing, field-work, inventing, study,
and writing.
29
30 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
The reading of Lyell’s Principles of Geology when twenty years
of age marked a crisis in Spencer’s life, for it turned his attention
to the theory of evolution as against creationism as a method of
explaining the origin of species. Liyell’s attempt to refute
Lamarck, however, made him a believer in Lamarck’s hypothesis.
Professor Royce thus summarizes the development of Spencer’s
thought as revealed in his autobiography: —
First, came a love for tracing the causes of things, a love which early led to
the notion that nature permitted no miracles, that all processes of nature
are unbroken and continuous, and that all which is beyond the realm of dis-
coverable law is altogether unknowable. Second, came an assurance that,
even as he himself was of an independent spirit, so no man’s liberty ought to
be hindered, so long as such a man did not interfere with his neighbor’s
liberty. Third came, slowly growing in his mind, the assurance that the
“‘ development theory ” must account for living things, by means of a natural
process, just as causation in general was needed to account for every other
natural event and product. Next came the notion that, in particular, the
life of the mind must be understood as a development, determined by natural
causes, and connected with the development of all the phenomena of life.
Finally came the conviction that a full and coherent theory of nature, in
which the organic and inorganic worlds were united by the working of uni-
versal laws, not only would explain, so far as that was possible, the growth of
things, but also would furnish a systematic and complete foundation for his
own never changing individualistic ethics, and for his sturdy, old-fashioned
British liberalism. In this way, the main work of Spencer’s life came to be
an effort to bring into synthesis an organic theory of the unity of the evolu-
tionary process, with a doctrine regarding the freedom and the rights of the
individual which had come down to him from an age when evolution and the
organic unity of things had indeed interested Englishmen but little. This
particular synthesis of organic evolution with individual independence re-
mains one of the most paradoxical, and consequently most instructive, fea-
tures of Spencer’s teaching.
Turning to a consideration of the teachings of Spencer which
bear directly on our subject we find the following: —
1. Society an Organism. — Spencer’s method in this discussion
is analogical. He mentions four similarities and four dissimilari-
ties between society and a biological organism. The former are
continuous growth, increasing complexity, increasing dependence of
parts, and possible independent life of organism and member. The
four dissimilarities are lack of specific external form in the case of
society, units discreet and dispersed instead of continuous, mo-
1 Herbert Spencer, pp. 63-64.
HERBERT SPENCER 31
bility of parts and separate centers of feeling. He concludes,
however, that the similarities are so much more striking than the
dissimilarities that the use of the analogy is legitimate. This
theory is not essential to Spencer’s system as it was to Comte’s,
and in reply to criticism he holds that the only analogy alleged is
community in the fundamental principles of organization. “I
have used the analogies elaborated but as a scaffolding to help in
building up a coherent body of analogical inductions. Let us take
away the scaffolding: the inductions will stand by themselves.’’?
Society, then, according to our author is a quasi-biological
organism.
Spencer is more definite in his concept of the content of that
society which is like an organism than is Comte, yet does not face
the question squarely as have some later sociologists. His
thought is most clearly expressed where he says: ‘‘ It is the per-
manence of the relations among component parts which con-
stitutes the individuality of a whole as distinguished from the
individuality of its parts”; and again where he defines society as
an entity, “‘ because, though formed of discrete units, a certain
concreteness in the aggregate of them is implied by the general
persistence of the arrangement among them throughout the
territory occupied.” * This seems to imply a sovereign group,
and corresponds roughly to a biological species. He uses the
term with the same meaning also in Part III where he contrasts
the diverse interests of the species, of the parents and of the
offspring.
2. Social Evolution interpreted in Terms of Cosmic Evolution. —
Spencer, as Comte, divides sociology into social statics and social
dynamics but with difference in meaning. With the latter statics
had to do with relations of co-existence and dynamics with rela-
tions of sequence, corresponding roughly to social anatomy and
social physiology. With the former static is defined in the me-
chanical terms of equilibrium of forces and dynamic in those of
dis-equilibrium.
1 Sociology, i, pt. 2, ch. II; also Illustrations of Universal Progress, chapter on
“ The Social Organism.”” For Ward’s criticism, see Am. Journ. Soc., vii, pp. 493 fi.
2 Sociology, i, p. 592.
3 Ibid., i, pp. 447, 448. 4 Ibid., pp. 603 f., esp. p. 610.
32 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
Spencer’s theory of social progress, though nowhere elaborated,
is brought out in his summary of the application of the general
laws of evolution to the social process,
The many facts contemplated unite in proving that social evolution forms
a part of evolution at large. Like evolving aggregates in general, societies
show integration, both by simple increase of mass and by coalescence and
recoalescence of masses. The change from homogeneity to heterogeneity is
multitudinously exemplified; up from the single tribe, alike in all its parts,
to the civilized nation, full of structural and functional unlikeness. With
progressing integration and heterogeneity goes increasing coherence. We see
the wandering group dispersing, dividing, held together by no bonds; the
tribe with parts made more coherent by subordination to a dominant man;
the cluster of tribes united in a political plexus under a chief with sub-chiefs;
and so on up to the civilized nation, consolidated enough to hold together for
a thousand years or more. Simultaneously comes increasing definiteness.
Social organization is at first vague; advance brings settled arrangements
which grow slowly more precise; customs pass into laws which, while gaining
‘fixity, also become more specific in their applications to varieties of actions;
and all institutions, at first confusedly intermingled, slowly separate, at the
same time that each within itself marks off more distinctly its component
structures. Thus in all respects is fulfilled the formula of evolution. There
is progress towards greater size, coherence, multiformity, and definiteness.!
The sociological unit, corresponding to the cell in biological
evolution, is primitive man with certain qualities, physical,
emotional and intellectual; ? yet other unities are given promi-
nence as the primitive horde,’ later the family,‘ and finally the
sovereign group or nation.5
Men thus endowed form the internal or intrinsic factors in the
social process but this process is determined by the extrinsic
factors, climate, surface, flora, fauna and their interaction § and
by the super-organic environment of each group, made up of
other groups.”
Very little attention is given by our author to an analysis of the
social process,’ his chief purpose being to show that it corre-
sponds to evolution in general so is considered to be almost
1 Sociology, i, pp. 596, 597.
? Ibid., p.. 9, also p. 437. Cf. Barth’s criticism, of. cit., p. 100.
3 Sociology, pp. 464 f., 550. Cf. Laws of Univ. Prog., p. 399.
4 Sociology, pp. 437, 711. 8 Ibid.,i, p. 9, ch. III.
5 Ibid., p. 603; ii, pp. 569 f. 7 [bid., p. 12.
> Cf. Social Statics, pp. 77 ff., Sociology, iii, p. 609.
HERBERT SPENCER 33
entirely a process of unconscious, gradual adjustment by means
of such phenomena as increase of population together with
economic pressure, conflict of groups, psychic interaction be-
tween individuals and the group and such super-organic products
as tools, language, knowledge, laws, and works of art.! Social
evolution further results from the inheritance of acquired adapta-
tions both biological and sociological? and by the natural selec-
tion.’ That group will survive, grow and ultimately “ possess
the land” that has the best family system, the most efficient
methods of production and distribution and the best government.
Spencer recognizes only two distinct stages of social progress,
the military and industrial. Compulsory co-operation is character-
istic of the former, voluntary co-operation of the latter. Under
militarism we have social progress by multiplication of homogene-
ous units, grouping and compound grouping with ever increasing
efficiency of organization and division of labor.’ Under indus-
trialism little corporate activity is required® hence a less compli-
cated and centralized political organization.6 The contrast is
well expressed thus: ‘‘ In a society organized for militant action,
the individuality of each member has to be so subordinated in
life, liberty and property, that he is largely or completely owned
by the state. . . . Under the industrial régime the citizen’s in-
dividuality, instead of being sacrificed by the society, has to be
defended by the society. Defence of his individuality becomes
the society’s essential duty.” 7
When, according to Spencer, with the abolition of inter-group
conflict “‘ there remains only the industrial struggle for existence,
the final survival and spread must be on the part of those societies
which produce the largest number of the best individuals, —
individuals best adapted for life in the industrial state.’’®
With simplification and decentralization of government, how-
ever, comes an increase of industrial organization, yet not at the
expense of individual freedom as in the former case.? Industrial-
1 Sociology, i, pp. 11 ff. 2 Tbid., p. 549.
3 Ibid., p. 652; ii, pp. 601, 268, 569 f., 610; ili, pp. 581 f.
4 Ibid., i, pp. 466 ff.; ii, pp. 568 ff. 7 [bid., p. 607.
5 Tbid., ii, pp. 606 f. 8 Ibid., ii, p. 610.
6 Ibid., p. 612. 9 Ibid., pp. 613, 632.
34 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
ism, moreover, leads to a breaking down of national barriers and
the development of world-federations.1_ It also leads to a de-
crease of individual bitterness and revengefulness, hence of anti-
social acts.?
Along with the change from militarism to industrialism are
manifold sociological changes co-ordinated with it. In Spencer’s
discussion of the evolution of social institutions he shows not only
how the changes are brought about in harmony with the general
laws of evolution which he has formulated, but also how in each
case the structure, functions and changes are correlated with the
movement from militarism to industrialism. The six institu-
tions whose evolution is thus described are the domestic, cere-
monial, political, ecclesiastical, professional and industrial.
3. Tests of Progress.— Our author, as we have noted, makes
increasing complexity the general test of progress. More
specifically, the test of individual well-being is measured by
length of life multiplied by breadth, this latter made up of “ the
aggregate of thought, feeling and action”;* the test of industrial
progress is increase of division of labor, and also increase of
interdependence;? the test of intellectual progress is the ever
increasing power of complex mental operations;® the test of
moral development is increasing adjustment of acts to ends, the
ends including both self-maintenance and race-maintenance.®
For the individual this last test includes increase of well-being?
which calls for progressive adjustment to an ever increasing
complexity of social relations § and also such activity as furthers
the well-being and adjustment of fellow-men.® The test of social
progress is increase of complexity in social life and institutions
and in social interdependence.” The test of religious progress is
1 Sociology, pp. 615 ff. 2 Ibid., p. 636.
3 Data of Ethics, p. 14.
4 Illustrations of Universal Progress, p. 404; Sociology, iii, p. 410.
5 Ibid., i, ch. VII; Principles of Psychology, sections 484-493.
8 Data of Ethics, p. 17.
7 Tbid., pp. 37, 49 f.
8 Ibid., pp. 20, 21, 87; Sociology, iii, pp. 608 ff.
° Data of Ethics, p. 27.
10 Illustrations of Universal Progress, pp. 2, 403; Sociology, i, pt. z, ch. IV; also
P- 5973 ili, p. 410.
HERBERT SPENCER 35
increasing complexity in religious institutions and functions but
with a simplification of doctrine until it consists merely in belief
in and adoration of the infinite but unknowable source of all.!
The test of political progress is for a time increasing differentiation
and integration but ultimately decentralization in the interest of
individual liberty: and well-being, until it is merely negative-
regulative.”
Spencer’s specific contribution to the doctrine of adaptation
as a theory of social progress began as early as 1843 when he
wrote The Proper Sphere of Government and reached its highest
development in Social Statics written in 1861. His own sum-
mary of the principles as there elaborated is given in his Auto-
biography: —
Everything was referred to the unvarying course of causation, no less
uniform in the spheres of life and mind than in the sphere of inanimate exist-
ence. Continuous adaptation was insisted on as holding of all organisms,
and of mental faculties as well as bodily. For this adaptation, the first cause
assigned was the increase or decrease of structure consequent on increase or
decrease of function; and the second cause assigned was the killing off, or
dying out, of individuals least adapted to the requirements of their lives.
The ideally moral state was identified with complete adjustment of constitu-
tion to conditions; and the fundamental requirement, alike ethical and polit-
ical, was represented as being the rigorous maintenance of the conditions to
harmonious social co-operation; with the certainty that human nature will
gradually be moulded to fit them.
The dependence of institutions upon individual character was dwelt on;
the reciprocal influences of the two emphasized; and the adjustment of
moral ideas to the social state illustrated. A physiological view of social
actions was taken; on sundry occasions the expression ‘‘social organism”
was used; the aggregation of citizens forming a nation was compared
with the aggregation of cells forming a living body; the progress from a
whole made up of like parts which have but little mutual dependence to
a whole made up of unlike parts which are mutually dependent in a high
degree, was shown to be a progress common to individual organisms and
social organisms. So that the conception of progress subsequently to be
presented in a more generalized form, was evidently foreshadowed.
We thus have two principles of evolution or tests of progress:
that of continuous adjustment and’ that of increasing differen-
tiation and integration, the former taking into consideration the
1 Sociology, iii, ch. XVI. 2 Tbid., i, pp. 494 ff., 598 ff.; ii, pp. 643 ff.
3 Autobiography, ii, p. 8. Cf. Hudson, Philosophy of Herbert Spencer, pp. 43, 44-
36 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
relation between the organism and its environment, the latter, the
structure and functions of the organism. Now these two prin-
ciples or tests are not alwaysin agreement. Mention has already
been made of Spencer’s exception in the case of government,
turning aside from his universal principle in the interest of
individual well-being, thus returning to his principle of adaptation.
The same conflict is to be noted in his discussion of the family.
He shows that there has not been any one line of development
from promiscuity to monogamy but that the order has depended
on economic conditions, i.e., on the principle of adaptation.
That the individual and social goal is adaptation and survival
rather than mere increasing complexity (if indeed we are war-
ranted in speaking of a goal in a naturalistic system) is brought
out in this same discussion: ‘‘ Family organizations of this or
that kind have first to be judged by the degrees in which they
help to preserve the social aggregate they occur in, for in relation
to its component individuals, each social aggregate stands for the
species. Mankind survives not through arrangements which
refer to it as a whole, but by survival of its separate societies,
each of which struggles to maintain its existence in presence of
other societies. And survival of the race, achieved through sur-
vival of its constituent societies, being the primary requirement,
the domestic arrangements most conducive to survival in each
society must be regarded as relatively appropriate.”1 The
standard of right thus expressed is not a final test, however, but
such as belongs to the pre-perfect social state whereas under
complete industrialism and world-federation, the standard of
right is no longer group utility and survival but “the liberty
of each limited only by like liberty of others.” The group
ethics of the preliminary stages is thus very like that of Galton,
Carver and others whom we shall consider later.
Our author admits that survival may necessitate a return to a
simpler form but this he considers retrogression, thus placing
increasing complexity as a higher test of progress than adapta-
tion. He never seems to have faced this problem squarely and
thought it through. Increasing differentiation and integration is
1 Sociology, i, p. 610.
HERBERT SPENCER 37
a formal or structural test whereas increasing adaptation is a life
test. This point has weighty moral and religious implications.
The summum bonum of individual and group life should be re-
vealed by a study of cosmic and especially of social evolution, and
if we are theists we may believe that God’s will is there revealed.
Now if increasing differentiation and integration is the one all-
inclusive formula of life and progress, every individual should
seek to hasten this process in his own life, so, too, should each
group, though it lead to destruction. To theists, this would be
God’s will. If, on the contrary, progressive adaptation is the law
of life, every individual should seek to further the process in his
own life, so, too, should every group, though it call for a return to
a simpler form, — which Spencer terms retrogression. In this case
retrogression would mean progression for it would mean increased
adaptation to a change in the environment requiring such simpli-
fication for survival. Whether or not such simplification is
possible for a group is a mooted question but it certainly is pos-
sible for an individual.
In his Principles of Ethics adaptation again comes to the front
as the test of the good. Moral conduct is there defined in two
ways: as “acts adjusted to ends” and as “ the adjustment of
acts to ends.” Spencer does not seem to have appreciated the
significance of the difference in these two statements but they
may be interpreted very differently, the first signifying merely
passive adaptation, the second, active adaptation, because the
process issues from intelligent purpose. With him the distinction
is merely between emphasis on the formed body of acts or on the
form alone.!
Spencer does give some place to purpose, to be sure, in his dis-
cussion of conduct, but nowhere does he bring out the contrast
between conduct that happens to be adjusted and conduct that is
purposely adjusted. This is shown by the following quotations:
“We are able to furnish no other test of perfection than that of
complete power in all the organs to fulfil their respective func-
tions.”? ‘“ The perfection of man considered as an agent means the
being constituted for effecting complete adjustment of acts to
1 Data of Ethics, p. 4. 2 Ibid., p. 36.
38 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
ends of every kind.” ! ‘ Given its environment and its structure,
and there is, for each kind of creature a set of actions adapted to
their kinds, amounts, and combinations, to secure the highest
conservation its nature permits.” ? All conduct, that is, fits into
one scheme of things and only one line of action can be fitting
hence good. The total pressure of heredity, of material and social
environment tends to force a man into this line of conduct. The
normal man reacts approximately in the fitting way hence is good;
the abnormal man fails to react properly, that is, fittingly, hence
may be pronounced bad.? We have thus a doctrine of rela-
tivity similar to that of Comte with this difference: with the
latter ethics is relative until made absolute under the positive
régime while with the former there can be no absolute system
until the ideal state of social equilibrium is reached, — a state
made up of ideal men each perfectly adapted to the whole.*
With Spencer, as we noted in our introduction, adaptation is a
five-fold process: that of the individual to his material® and
social environment and that of the group to the well-being of its
members, to its material environment and to other societies, i. e.,
to its super-organic environment.
Spencer’s failure to emphasize active adaptation or “telesis”’
was due to several causes: —
1 Data of Ethics, p. 37- 2 Ibid., p. 152.
3 Cf. Mackintosh’s interpretation of Spencer: “The morally good society is the
typically human society; the morally good individual, so far as he is good, is
qualified for membership in that society,” op. cit., p. 109. Cf. Social Statics, pp. 77 f.
4 Data of Ethics, p. 83.
5 In Spencer’s Education published as early as 1860 we have his only important
contribution to the doctrine of active material adaptation (though the phrase is not
used), where, along with emphasis on the knowledge that insures health, stability of
the family, maintenance of wholesome social relations and the satisfaction of the
tastes and feelings, stress is placed on the knowledge that gives power over nature so
that with increased productivity will come the material essentials for “ complete
living.” Yet even in this treatise which has been one of the most potent factors in
the modern movement for an education which fits for success in life, the main
emphasis is on passive adaptation as shown in his discussion of “ punishment,” in
his insistence that education is to fit the child for the world as he finds it rather than
for an ideal social order, and in his repeated use of the dictum “ follow nature ”’
without making clear that nature includes man and social groups with power to
react on it purposefully in the interest of the largest possible individual and social
life.
HERBERT SPENCER 39
1. His whole system is formal, abstract and logical. Bergson
characterizes his evolution theory as false because it ‘ consists in
cutting up present reality already evolved, into little bits no less
evolved, and then recomposing it with these fragments, thus
positing in advance everything that is to be explained.” 1 Pro-
fessor Bowne delighted to speak of his method of confusing logical
classification with genetic order, as the “fallacy of the universal.’’?
2. His explanation is essentially mechanistic. He endeavors
to interpret the complexities of psychical and social life in
terms adequate to describe only movements of lifeless matter.
Mackintosh shows how inadequate is his theory to explain or-
ganization, consciousness and history,? and Sir Arthur Thomson,
while recognizing that Spencer was using mere symbols to express
the workings of the unknown reality, points out that these
symbols are entirely inadequate to represent the genesis of life
and mind. ‘No one can doubt,” he says, ‘“‘that development is
progressive differentiation, but it is rather a realization of a com-
plex inheritance of materialized potentialities than a change from
an incoherent, indefinite homogeneity to a coherent, definite
heterogeneity.””4 The mechanical laws of multiplication of
effects, of rhythm and of the tendency to equilibrium are thus
entirely inadequate to explain social evolution.
3. Spencer’s assumption of an inherent tendency to develop-
ment in the cosmos together with his belief in use-inheritance and
natural selection, render his explanation much easier than is
really the case. The first assumption is hyper-scientific, the
second has been all but disproven and the third has been ques-
tioned so seriously in its application to social progress that his
general theory has been greatly weakened.
4. His emphasis on the importance of economic factors has
been accentuated since; but he failed to appreciate the distinc-
tion between uneconomic and economic competition; i.e.,
between the competition that is destructive of human energy and
1 Creative Evolution, pp. xiii, xiv. Cf. also pp. 364-391.
2 Class Lectures. 3 Op. cit., p. gt.
4 Herbert Spencer, p. 115. Cf. also pp. 103, 140, 211, 212.
8 For criticism of his use of law of rhythm, see Schiller, ‘Herbert Spencer,”
Encyclopedia Brit., xiii ed.
40 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
diminishes social welfare and the competition that tends to de-
velop and encourage the multiplication of the most efficient men
and methods and increases social welfare. The one should be
prevented, the other encouraged by social control.!
5. Spencer failed to appreciate the function of intelligence in
“short circuiting” the normal processes of nature.? Intelligence
has as one of its chief functions the economizing of time and
energy. Man by “art” abridges the slow process of passive
adjustment.
6. Finally his failure to appreciate the functions of social con-
trol was due in large measure to his extreme individualism, ex-
pressed in religion in non-conformity and free-thought; in
economics by laissez faire doctrines; in ethics by over-emphasis
on egoism; in government, in his theory of decentralization and
“negative regulation.” ‘Liberty, equality, justice and fra-
ternity,” —these ideals were for him the interpreters of the social
process in its final stages. This point of view led him to see only
those acts of Parliament that were over-paternalistic and had
proven a failure, and blinded him to the many successful meas-
ures that had been passed. Despite these short-comings, how-
ever, his doctrine of passive adaptation as developed in Social
Statics and illustrated in his Principles of Sociology stands as one
of the great principles of social progress, a process which was
destined to be analyzed by more keenly analytic students in-
spired by the more strictly scientific methods of men like Darwin.
1 For development of this distinction see discussion of Professor Carver’s
social philosophy.
2 Cf. however, note 5, p. 38.
CHAPTER III
SOCIOLOGICAL METHODOLOGY
Bota Comte and Spencer defined life in terms of progressive
adaptation between an organism and its environment and both
conceived society as a quasi-biological organism, though not
agreeing in their conception of society nor of the process of adjust-
ment. Comte’s concept was a logical fiction, so also, to a con-
siderable degree, the process of social evolution as formulated by
him. Spencer attempted to describe in mechanical terms the
historical process by which society, considered for the most part
as a sovereign group, is progressively adapted to its environment
so also that of the various social institutions; but most of his
time was devoted to a study of origins and his method, the logical
classification of concepts, failed to give him genetic order, and led
him to neglect the study of social forces. Comte was in advance
of Spencer in emphasizing the power of mind over matter thus
making place for active adaptation.
From Comte and Spencer the development of theories of social
progress, of methods of sociological investigation, and as a result
of these, the development of the doctrine of adaptation as the key
to social philosophy, was along several different lines. Some
pushed further than these two the method of classification as a
means of attaining knowledge of the social structure and process
such as Littré, De Roberty, De Greef, Lacombe and A. Wagner.
Some used the same analogical method as they and elaborated the
concept of society as a quasi-biological organism, chief among
whom were Lilienfeld and Schiffle. Others making use of the
neo-Darwinian formula, as Nietzsche, Kidd, and Lapouge,
endeavored to explain social progress in terms of struggle and
survival. Others interpreted society as a quasi-psychological
organism as Le Bon, MacKenzie, Fairbanks, Ely, Giddings and
Baldwin. Others, still, sought to analyze and evaluate social
4r
42 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
forces, some of whom, following the lead of Quételet, made use of
the statistical method, as Buckle, Galton, and Pearson, while
others, under the inspiration of Darwin, turned to an inductive
study of social facts and forces as Ratzenhofer, Gumplowicz and
the modern school of social scientists such as Le Play, Booth,
Rountree and the eugenicists,— represented in England by
Galton and Pearson and in America by Davenport,—and a
final group have endeavored to explain social progress in terms of
some one law or principle as Tarde and Giddings.
As method is so important in any department of investigation,
especially in one that is new, and inasmuch as an appreciation of
the method used by an author often furnishes a valid means of
criticizing his conclusions, it may be well to devote some place
to a brief discussion of sociological methodology in general and of
some methods as illustrated by specific writers in this field whose
contribution to the development of the doctrine of adaptation
has been indirect rather than direct.
When Comte and Spencer wrote, the deductive method reigned
almost supreme in social science, and though they prided them-
selves on breaking away from the methods of the past, they were
still, to a considerable extent, fettered by their training. Mal-
thus, Quételet, and a few others, indeed, had turned their atten-
tion seriously to a scientific study of social phenomena but their
followers were few.
Comte turned his attention to this subject holding that the
same inductive methods in vogue in biology were, with some
modification, applicable in sociology, viz., observation, experi-
ment, and comparison, with the promise of a fourth method to
be derived from biology, — since fulfilled in the so-called genetic
method.!. Under experiment, Comte mentions only a study of
pathological conditions, but despite Mill’s teaching concerning
the inapplicability of this method in social investigations,? we
have come to realize the possibility of arranging social conditions
and forces by forethought much as does the worker in the physical
or chemical laboratory, although as the phenomena are so much
more complex, and the time required to try out the experiment is
1 Positive Philosophy, ii, ch. II. 2 Logic, ch. VII.
SOCIOLOGICAL METHODOLOGY 43
so great, the process is difficult and the results more or less un-
certain. Under the comparative method, according to Comte,
we have comparison between society and animal groups, between
co-existing states of society and between consecutive stages in
social growth. A combination of this last and of the method
derived from biology has given rise to the historical method,!
where the purpose is not merely to deduce general laws from
specific historical events but to discover the “ filiation ” in suc-
cessive events. ‘Two other forms of the inductive method have
come to have increasing vogue since Comte’s time, the statistical
method and what might well be termed the “ inverse historical ””
method, i. e., the analysis of current events with the purpose of
finding a clue to the interpretation of the past.?
In this chapter we will consider Quételet because of his develop-
ment of the statistical method and his use of it in studying social
phenomena, Lilienfeld as representative of the analogical school
and De Greef as representative of those whose social philosophy is
based largely on the method of logical classification, and in the
following chapter consider Darwin and his successors as repre-
sentatives of the inductive method.
Lampert A. J. QuETELET (1796-1874)
The Statistical Method
Such a large place has the statistical method § played in all the
social sciences during the past half century that some place needs
to be given it, and especially to its use in connection with the
doctrine of adaptation as a theory of social progress, for it is an
instrument of first importance in diagnosing social pathology or
mal-adaptation, as it is also in measuring social growth and
adaptation.
According to Quételet, statistics, as a science, dates back no
longer than 1820,‘ but M. Block shows that in its essential fea-
1 Logic, ch. X.
2 Carver, Sociology and Social Progress, p. 64.
® King, Elements of Statistical Methods, ch. I.
4M. Block, Traité de Statistique, p. 48; Hankins, “Quételet,” Columbia Unio
Studies, xxxi, pp. 37.
44 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
tures this method was taught by Courning in the University of
Helmstadt in 1660, and that a course in statistics was offered at
Jena in the early part of the eighteenth century. Although asa
science it is of recent date, enumerations of population and cal-
culations concerning other social phenomena antedate the birth of
Christ more than 2000 years.2 The word law was first used in
statistics by Sussmilch in 1775 to express regularity in the recur-
rence of social phenomena;* but some statisticians have confused
this with naturallaw. M. Block distinguishes the two as follows:
“One indicates certainty, the other, probability... . In
natural laws we are able to follow the relation of cause and
effect. We see (as far as our knowledge or experience permits)
all the factors in action, we know in advance that the cause will
produce the effect. . . . In statistics the relations of cause and
effect are less visible, often we can determine only correlations
(coincidences) from the post hoc rather than from the propter hoc,
for now the cause remains unknown.”
Quételet is generally recognized as the first name in the his-
tory and development of modern statistical science. His con-
tribution is stated by Hankins to be four-fold: (1) perfection of
plans for census taking; (2) criticism of sources; (3) arrangement
of materials; and (4) progress toward uniformity and compar-
ability of data.5 He was the leading spirit in the formation of the
Bureau of Statistics in Belgium and in the organization of the
Royal Statistical Society of London. Through his influence
various nations were led to co-operate in using a standard
system of enumeration.
Quételet was a contemporary of A. Comte and seems to have
influenced him to some extent though Comte finally repudiated
the statistical method. His influence on Buckle, however, was
profound and the statistical method, made popular among
scientists by his writings, has been found of great value by
modern sociologists.
Guided by the scientific thought of his day as represented by
Lyell, Agassiz, Gray and Hooker, Quételet considered each species
1 Op. cit., p. 5. 3 Ibid., p. 115. 5 Tbid., p. 41.
2 Ibid., p. 1. 4 Hankins, p. 36.
SOCIOLOGICAL METHODOLOGY 45
to be immutable. The normal frequency curve applied to each
species revealed the type nature was aiming to produce. Varia-
tions from the norm were considered to be due to accidental
causes.! This law he considered to be of universal application,
and it furnished him the background for his doctrine of the
“average man” which was one of his great original contributions
to anthropology, although we find a similar conception in the
writings of Father Buffier.2 The qualities of this typical man,
moral and mental as well as physical, were obtained in the same
way. He had not only a certain height, weight, complexion,
color of hair and eyes, but a certain intellectual acuteness, tem-
perament, sensitiveness, — in other words a “‘character,”’ which
represented reaction power to physical and social stimuli. Under
certain conditions this typical man would react in such a way
that society would denominate the action crime or again, suicide,
and he considered that the social conditions were on the whole so
uniform as to produce regularity in such phenomena. He made
no place for progress in either physical or intellectual capacity,
but only in the acquirement of knowledge and power over nature.
Quételet applied the same method to the study of society that
he had to the study of the “‘ average man.” He is vague in his
definition of society but considers it as a “ body” in a sense
almost as crude as in the use of the term by Hobbes. The nation-
type, in his thought, was made up of physical, intellectual and
moral factors. He recognized a complexity here, however, which
had no analogy in man, for he showed that in stature, for example,
sections of a people differed, as city and country dwellers, and also
that there were various sectional types.
The statistical method, especially as applied to moral phe-
nomena, seems to some to eliminate arbitrary will; not so, how-
ever, with Quételet who emphasized its importance in individual
life,3 but showed that the free will manifested itself in activities
which were a part of the law-abiding order and that considering a
group as a whole this element of arbitrariness did not appear as
1 Du Systéme Social, pp. 257 f.
2 Quoted and adopted by A. Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments, p. 318.
3 Du Systéme Social, p. 96.
46 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
such. Indeed he went so far as to hold that ‘les phénoménes
sociaux, influencés par le libre arbitrare de ’homme, procédent,
d’année en année, avec plus de régularité que les phénoménes
purement influencés par des causes matérielles et fortuites.” ?
The fallacies in Quételet’s argument are all ascribable to two
sources, first, his belief in the stability of types, and second, his too
rigid application of the organic analogy toa social group. Never-
theless, he shares with Comte, Spencer, and Darwin the honor
of being pillars in the building of the new social science.
The statistical method, of utmost value when used with scien-
tific insight, has been misused more than has any other, for its
fallacies are less easily observed by the uninitiated. As has been
frequently pointed out this method gives us at best only correla-
tions and conditions, not causes; and too often the phenomena
compared are not sufficiently alike to warrant the conclusions
drawn from the comparison. The results obtained by this
method are valid only in proportion as all other things are equal
save in the one point of comparison, and this is difficult to obtain
in social phenomena.
The advent of Darwin’s Origin of Species marks a new epoch in
sociological methodology and since his day the pure deductive
reasoning of the mediaeval philosophers has constantly waned,
so too, of late, the endeavor to ground social philosophy on a
classification of social phenomena or formulate its principles by
analogy. Observation, comparison, compilation of statistics,
correct interpretation of the data, experiment, —these are
emphasized with increasing vigor, with a proper use, to be sure,
of deduction, classification, and analogy.
Before passing to a consideration of Darwin and his successors
as representatives of the inductive method and as furnishing the
biological background for the theory of adaptation, it will be
necessary to consider the importance of the material environment
in biological evolution and the contributions of Lamarck.
1 Du Systéme Social, p. 97.
SOCIOLOGICAL METHODOLOGY 47
Pau Von LILiENFELD (1829-1903)
The Analogical Method
Lilienfeld is perhaps the best representative of the analogical
school, for though Schiffle has made large use of the organic
analogy it is not essential to his system as proven by the fact that
in his Sociology he dispensed with the concept entirely, and
his whole temperament and method, together with his emphasis
on the psychical factors in society and social progress, give war-
rant for placing him in another class.
Lilienfeld may well be termed a social realist for he insists
“dass diese oder jene Gesellschaftsgruppe, dieser oder jener Staat
wirkliche, lebendige Organismen, gleich allen iibrigen Organismen
in der Nature, sind, die sich im Raum und in der Zeit nicht nur
ideell, sondern reell entwickeln und wahrnehmen lassen.” !
Many likenesses between society and a biological organism are
enumerated, the individuals in the former corresponding to the
cells in the latter,? the political, juridical and industrial institu-
tions corresponding to the central nervous system while the inter-
cellular substance in the body has its analogue in such social
achievements as works of art, written laws and ideas, by means of
which society projects itself in concrete form.?
While holding that there is no break in the cosmic process, yet
he shows how the forces working in organic life differ from those
in the inorganic realm, becoming ever more active, complex, and
differentiated, culminating in freedom and purposeful action.‘
He mentions five ways in which the former shows its superiority
to the latter: (1) in the organic cycle of growth and decay activi-
ties are never repeated; (2) an organism has an inner unity of
life; (3) there is a correlation of materials and forces working
toward an end; (4) there is a struggle to come to completion and,
(5) there is a storing up and transmission of surplus energy.®
In the first and last items he has made real contributions to social
1 Gedanken iiber die Socialwissenschaft der Zukunft, i, p. 27. Cf. Pathologie
Sociale, Preface.
* Gedanken, ii, pp. viii f. 4 Gedanken, i, pp. 56, 57.
3 Pathologie Sociale, pp. 95 ff. 5 Ibid., pp. 57 f.
48 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
philosophy, especially in the last. He shows how this is especially
characteristic of developed personality and how, in this respect, a
society is not like a low form of organic life but like the highest.
This process he terms social capitalization.t Society is further
like a personality in that it has consciousness, reason and will.?
Another important contribution for our purpose is his distinc-
tion between a normal and diseased organism. This concept he
applies by analogy to society and develops especially in his La
Pathologie Sociale. Disease may affect society in any one of the
three departments, — industry, justice, or politics, — and these
social maladies correspond to three forms of nervous disease,
that of industry to insanity, that of justice to delirium, that of
politics to paralysis. This last, however, can hardly be called a
contribution to science of any kind. Ross scores Lilienfeld
severely for such flimsy analogical reasoning.4
The discussion of social pathology leads our author to the
question of social therapeutics which in places is equally fanciful
and unscientific. In bringing out this phase of group life he
introduces a note which finds little place in the systems of Comte
or Spencer. We have now the concept of social mal-adaptation
and the problem of adjustment.
Another analogy used by Lilienfeld which has had large use
since, especially by pedagogical writers, is his bio-social law of
recapitulation taken over from Haeckel, according to which the
individual person recapitulates, in his development, the culture-
periods of racial history.®
The analogical method has been used too frequently as a device
to exploit some pet theory without painstaking endeavor to dis-
cover the forces at work in the process and formulate the laws of
their operation. ‘This has been true to a considerable extent as
we shall have occasion to note later, with much of the reasoning
of the biological school of sociologists who are apt to assume
1 Gedanken, pp. 55 f. 3 Barth, op. cit., pp. 103-105.
2 Ibid., p. 61. 4 Foundations of Sociology, p. 48.
° Gedanken, i, pp. 245 ff. “Die Stadien der menschlichen embryonalen Entwicke-
lung eines jeden Individuums entsprechen der progressiven socialen Entwickelung
des ganzen Menschengeschlechts in seiner stufenweisen Ausbildung in Verlaufe der
ganzen Geschichte der Menschheit ” (zbid., p. 247).
SOCIOLOGICAL METHODOLOGY 49
that a law that prevails, or is thought to prevail, in biological
evolution, prevails in like manner in the evolution of a social
group or civilization taken as a whole. The fact would seem to
be rather that each phase of development has its characteristic
marks and can be understood only in the light of an inductive
study of the elements that make up its own life. Moreover, while
a knowledge of higher phases of development can be applied with
a good degree of certainty to lower phases, the reverse is true
only within limits which need to be carefully defined.
GUILLAUME DE GREEF (1842- _—s=)
Classification as a Method of Sociological Knowledge
De Greef accepts Comte’s hierarchy of the sciences, but greatly
extends it to include the social sciences.!. In addition to Spencer’s
principle of classification, increasing complexity and de-
pendence of parts,—he adds that of volitional activity or
contractualism, which he holds to be “ the distinguishing char-
acteristic of society, both from the structural and the functional
point of view,”’ and defines as “ their superior and special mode of
adaptation and life.” ?
De Greef arranges the social elements in a hierarchy based on
decreasing generality beginning with the economic and including
in order, the industrial, genetic, artistic, scientific, moral, juridi-
cal, and political. Not only does this scale stand for the order of
generality, but also represents their related order of influence on
social progress and on each other. That is, the economic factor
has great influence on social progress as a whole and on the politi-
cal factor in particular, whereas the political factor has little
influence on social progress and little on economic conditions.?
1 Am. Journ. Soc., vii; Introduction a la Sociologie, Preface.
2 Am. Journ. Soc., viii, p. 497. Cf. Barth, op. cit., p. 69.
3 This is a good example of the artificialities into which some are led. Sucha
harmonious cross-classification does not represent concrete life conditions. The
fact is that government has more influence on the economic factor than it has
on the religious, moral, or juridical, and, in fact, as Sumner has pointed out, the
moral is most often changed by legislation that has aimed to bring about certain
industrial changes. Cf. Barth, zbid., p. 81; Small, General Sociology, pp. 68 ff.
50 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
The above hierarchy, too, according to our author, is based on
increasing contractualism; i.e., in politics we have the highest
degree of voluntary action, in economics, the least. De Greef
thus made advance on the logical classification of Comte but
made the mistake of thinking this represented the real objective
order.!
Spencer, as we have seen, connects social with biological evolu-
tion without emphasizing any marked difference. With him
social development is a part of the whole cosmic process which is
a mechanical system and so affords no opportunity (or practi-
cally none) for rational control. While De Greef’s position is in
many respects the same,’ yet his differentiating factor of volitional
activity or contractualism, though perhaps merely logical, is yet
important, for De Greef believed it represented some real objec-
tive distinction. It is closely related to Ward’s concept of telesis
and in proportion as his classification does represent reality it
reveals degrees of active adaptation. But the same criticism
applies here as in the case of Comte: a logical hierarchy is of no
value for social science unless it represents objective distinctions
and relations; but with neither of these writers are we made sure
that this is the case,? and with De Greef we are very sure that it is
positively false in some respects. As there are different degrees
of adaptation,‘ or better, of mal-adaptation, the important thing
1 Op. cit.,i, p. 159. Barth holds that logical classification may represent the
temporal evolution of an object as a biological organism, but that it does not
represent necessarily the evolution of a science or of a social institution. He
shows that as'propagation co-exists with struggle for existence, so love is as early
as economic endeavor, and that the industrialism of primitive people is no more
general than their religious thoughts and acts, op. cit., p. 87.
2 Tbid., i, p. 140.
3 On this point Small justly remarks: ‘ His claim with reference to the hier-
archial order of phenomena so arranged must stand or fall as a result of specific
investigation of the activities and sub-activities distinguished in the schedule.”
General Sociology, p. 72. Cf. Barth, pp. 88 f.
4 “ There is a wide interval between the highest and lowest degrees of complete-
ness of living that are compatible with maintenance of life. Hence the wicked
flourish. Vice is but slowly eliminated because mankind has so many other
qualities, besides the bad ones, which enable it to subsist and achieve progress in
spite of them, that natural selection, — which always works through death, — can-
not come into play.” John Fiske, Cosmic Philosophy, ii, p. 98.
SOCIOLOGICAL METHODOLOGY 51
to know is the cause of the mal-adaptation and the best way to
secure adjustment, and for this De Greef’s logical scheme would
not seem to be of much service.
De Greef makes advance over both Comte and Spencer, also,
in that he gives clearer content to the concept of society, holding
that humanity is a social organism only at best potentially, and
that the true social aggregates are the androgynous couple, the
family, tribe, etc.,! moreover that the distinguishing feature of the
social organism is a certain felé ‘‘ togetherness’ whether it be
merely automatic and reflexive or thought out.?
1 Op. cit., p 71. 2 Op. cit., p. 131.
PART II
PASSIVE PHYSICAL AND PHYSIO-
SOCIAL ADAPTATION
CHAPTER IV
BIOLOGICAL EVOLUTION
HAVING surveyed in outline the social theories of Comte and
Spencer with special reference to their bearing on the doctrine of
adaptation, and having reviewed the various methods in use in
social science and social philosophy and considered their bearing
on our subject, pointing out some of the dangers lurking in the
use of the classifying, analogical and statistical methods, our next
problem is to study the development of the doctrine of adapta-
tion by those who have endeavored to explain evolution in terms
of the influence of the environment on the organism or social
group.
The environment may affect the organism in three different
ways: (1) by direct action, producing molecular, chemical or
functional changes as in pigmentation and acclimatization;
(2) by affording favorable opportunity for growth and functional
variation, or the reverse, as in change of habitat resulting in
increase or decrease of food, or (3) by furnishing conditions favor-
able to struggle and selection.
The first view, advocated by Buffon and Erasmus Darwin,! was
eclipsed for a long time under the influence of the theory of nat-
ural selection but has been upheld firmly by Viet, Scott Elliott,
W.H. Dall and others, and still more recently by the advocates of
the theory of geographical isolation as the most important factor
in species formation.?
The direct influence of environment on the organism is well
illustrated by the words of Dall though in somewhat exaggerated
terms: ‘‘ The environment stands in a relation to the individual
such as the hammer and anvil bear to the blacksmith’s hot iron.
The organism suffers during its entire existence a continuous
" Packard, Lamarck, pp. 203, 218.
2 Kellogg, Darwinism To-day, ch. IX.
55
56 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
series of mechanical impacts, none the less real because invisible,
or disguised by the fact that some of them are precipitated by
voluntary effort of the individual itself.” }
The influence on the organism of such environmental forces as
food and climate has never been seriously questioned. The
mooted points are such as these: (1) the inheritance in any
degree of characters thus acquired, and if so, the method; (2) the
presence and potency in the organism of a vital, directive force;
(3) the character of the variations whether continuous or dis-
continuous; and (4) the process by which variations come to
have such qualitative difference as to give rise to new species.
The most vital point in the controversy today, especially among
the followers of Weismann, is as to whether or not any environ-
mental influence can affect heredity, working either through the
blood or through the central nervous system, and if so, what such
influences are and how the effect is produced.
In the development of the doctrine of adaptation in theories of
biological evolution, five names stand out with such prominence
as to demand special consideration: Lamarck, Charles Darwin,
Weismann, De Vries and Mendel.
Jean BaptistE DE LAMARCK (1744-1829)
Use-Inheritance
Pemberton in his Path of Evolution thus characterizes the work
of Lamarck: —
He rendered to mankind the eminent service of arousing attention to the
probability that all change in the organic as well as in the inorganic world,
was the result of law and not miraculous interposition. His theories of
the origin of species were, that the organs of the body were modified by the
desires and will of the individual in response to external condition. The
changes thus induced would be transmitted to their offspring, subject,
moreover, to like changes from new conditions so that, if illimitable time was
granted, it would account for the formation of the highest order of animals
from the lowest organisms. In accordance with this doctrine he held that
man himself was derived from the species next below him, the anthropoid
apes.?
1 Pemberton, Path of Evolution, p. 294.
* Op. cit., p. 294.
BIOLOGICAL EVOLUTION 57
The four laws of organic evolution as formulated by Lamarck
in his latest work are as follows: —
First law: Life, by its proper forces, continually tends to increase the
volume of every body which possesses it, and to increase the size of its parts,
up to a limit which it brings about.
Second law: The production of a new organ in an animal body results
from the supervention of a new want (besoin) which continues to make itself
felt, and of a new movement which this want gives rise to and maintains.
Third law: The development of organs and their power of action are con-
stantly in ratio to the employment of these organs.
Fourth law: Everything which has been acquired, impressed upon, or
changed in the organization of individuals, during the course of their life is
preserved by generation and transmitted to the new individuals which have
descended from those which have undergone these changes.!
These four laws may be summarized briefly into these two
principles: (1) the active response of an organism by way of
variation to a felt need of adjustment to its environment, and
(2) use and disuse inheritance. The first issues easily into the
theory of an active life-principle or “‘ bathmic force’? as formu-
lated by Nageli, Ratzenhofer and Ward, while the second has been
the chief point of contention among biologists since Weismann’s
experiments on mice.
After pointing out the function of instinct in the lower orders
Lamarck differentiates the higher in a way to lay the biological
foundation of the concept of active adaptation. “It is not the
same in animals which, besides a nervous system, have a brain,
and which make comparisons, judgments, thoughts, etc. ‘These
same animals control more or less their power of action according
to the degree of perfection of their brain; and although they are
strongly subjected to the results of their habits, which have modi-
1 Packard, Lamarck, p. 346. “Every want felt produces an emotion in the
inner feeling of the individual which experiences it; and from this emotion of the
feeling in question arises the force which gives origin to the movement of the parts
which are placed in activity. . . . Thus, in the animals which possess the power
of acting, — the force productive of movements and actions, — the inner feeling,
which on each occasion originates this force, being excited by some need, places in
action the power of force in question; excites the movement of displacement in the
subtile fluid of the nerves which the ancients called the animal spirits; directs
this fluid toward that of its organs which any want impels to action; finally, makes
this same fluid flow back into its habitual reservoirs when the needs no longer
require the organ to act.’’ — Ibid., p. 330.
58 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
fied their structure, they enjoy more or less freedom of the will,
can choose, and can vary their acts, or at least some of them.” !
That is, if man’s mode of existence calls for stronger muscles in
any part of his body, he can, by taking thought, exercise and thus
develop those parts. In this sense the organism is modified by a
consciousness of need and an act of will, although the process of
adaptation is in strict accordance with law.
CHARLES DARWIN (1809-1882) ©
Natural Selection
Charles Darwin was born at Shrewsbury, England, of an an-
cestry that by “ nature ” or “‘ nurture ” had much to do with his
future life-work. His grandfather, Erasmus, in his Zoonomia
published in 1794, had laid down ten principles bearing on evolu-
tion, many of which became famous later through Lamarck and
Charles Darwin, though they were worked out independently by
the former and to a considerable extent by the latter. His
father Robert was a most acute observer of nature. From him
came caution and conservatism. It is significant, too, that his
cousin was the Francis Galton who was the founder of the science
of eugenics.
In formal education Darwin was not a success. Turning aside
from medicine which he studied at Edinburgh, and from the-
ology which he studied at Cambridge, he closed his academic
studies with his chief asset the scientific inspiration which he
received from the botanist Professor Henslow, and the geologist,
Professor Sedgwick. The two books to which he was most
indebted were Lyell’s Principles of Geology and Malthus on
Population, —the two books which profoundly influenced
Spencer also. The most potent factor in Darwin’s education,
apart from the influence of these teachers, was the experience he
had as naturalist on the “Beagle”? which made a tour of the
world for scientific purposes in 1831-36.
With broken health, his great work, The Origin of Species, was
published in 1859 after twenty-one years of labor to demonstrate
' Packard, Lamarck, p. 331. 2 Ibid., pp. 230 f.
BIOLOGICAL EVOLUTION 59
the truth of the hypothesis with which he began;! and it was
given the world then only because A. R. Wallace had come to
similar conclusions working independently, though for a much
shorter time.
Darwin started with the general theory of evolution based on a
recognition of the influence of heredity and environment, with
Malthus’ doctrine of ‘“‘ teeming nature ”’ and struggle for exist-
ence; with Lamarck’s law of transmission of acquired characters;
and with the observed facts of variation and improvement under
domestication. His problem was: “Can nature, with long
enough time, do what man in a short time is able to accomplish by
use of reason and choice?”’ The hypothesis of natural selection
with the correlative doctrine of sexual selection was the outcome
of his thought and years of most painstaking observation.
There are five links in the chain of this theory of the origin of
species: (1) prodigality of nature; (2) struggle for existence;
(3) variation; (4) survival of the fittest, and (5) heredity.?
Other factors recognized but not emphasized by Darwin, such as
“ geographical isolation ”’ have since come into prominence and
one, transmission of acquired characters, taken over from
Lamarck, has been questioned with ever increasing unanimity
since Weismann’s experiments.
Prodigality of Nature and Struggle for Existence.—These two
links are so interrelated as to call for consideration together, as
was done by Darwin. ‘A struggle for existence,’ he says,
“inevitably follows from the high rate at which all organic beings
tend to increase.” * The term ‘‘struggle for existence” is used in a
large and metaphorical sense, as Darwin takes pains to explain,
and includes ‘‘ dependence of one being on another, and . . . not
only the life of the individual, but success in leaving progeny.” 4
This doctrine is that of ‘‘ Malthus applied with manifold force to
the whole animal and vegetable kingdoms; for in this case there
can be no artificial increase of food, and no prudential restraint
upon marriage. . . . There is no exception to the rule that every
1 Fifty Years of Darwinism, pp. 17 ff.
2 Conn, The Method of Evolution, pp. 19, 20. Wallace, Darwinism, ch. I.
3 Origin of Species, London, 1872, p. 50.
4 Thid., p. 50.
60 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
organic being naturally increases at so high a rate that, if not
destroyed, the earth would soon be covered by the progeny of a
single pair.” Darwin gives many instances of the prodigality of
nature and these have been supplemented by contributions from
more recent exponents of “ natural selection.” !
He considers various checks to the increase of members of a
species including enemies, lack of food supply and climate and
shows the complex relations of all animals and plants to each,
other in the struggle for existence, concluding that “ battle
within battle must be continually recurring with varying suc-
cess.”’?
This prodigality and struggle for existence, according to the
author under consideration, is just the condition most favorable
for progress by means of natural selection, for in this struggle
those individuals which by slight favorable variations are best
adapted to the conditions of life will survive whereas the least
adapted will perish. As to the working of natural selection,
Darwin says: “ Let the endless number of slight variations and
individual differences occurring in our domestic productions, and,
in a lesser degree, in those under nature, be borne in mind; as
well as the strength of the hereditary tendency. . . . Can it
then be thought improbable, seeing that variations useful to man
have undoubtedly occurred, that variations useful in some way
to each being in the great and complex battle of life, should occur
in the course of many successive generations ? If such do occur,
can we doubt (remembering how many more individuals are born
than can possibly survive) that individuals having any advantage,
however slight, over others, would have the best chance of surviv-
ing and of procreating their kind ? On the other hand, we may
feel sure that any variation in the least degree injurious would be
rigidly destroyed.” He goes on to say that “ variations neither
useful nor injurious would not be affected by natural selection,
and would be left either a fluctuating element .. . or would
ultimately become fixed, owing to the nature of the organism and
the nature of the conditions.” 3
1 Wallace, op. cit., pp. 25 f.; Conn, of. cit., pp. 52 ff.; Morgan, Evolution and
Adaptation, p. 111.
2 Origin of Species, p. 57- 3 [bid., pp. 62, 63.
BIOLOGICAL EVOLUTION 61
Darwin further grants that multitudes of eggs and organisms
are destroyed by accidental causes in which case the quality of the
stock would not be affected.
Variation and Survival. — The theory of natural selection was
suggested and built up to a considerable extent on principles long
observed in artificial breeding. The fact of considerable variation
in each new generation had been observed for thousands of years,
and use made of the principle of “ selection ”’ to secure desirable
traits. Darwin accepted the well-known facts of variation with-
out attempting to explain their efficient cause or causes. He
recognized two kinds, the indefinite and the definite.
The direct action of changed conditions leads to definite or indefinite
results. In the latter case, the organism seems to become plastic, and we
have much fluctuating variability. In the former case the nature of the
organism is such that it yields readily, when subjected to certain conditions,
and all, or nearly all, the individuals become modified in the same way.
It is very difficult to decide how far changed conditions, such as of climate,
food, etc., have acted in a definite manner. There is reason to believe that
in the course of time the effects have been greater than can be proved by
clear evidence. . . . When a variation is of the slightest use to any being,
we cannot tell how much to attribute to the accumulative action of natural
selection, and how much to the definite action of the conditions of life.?
In response to an objection that a single variation would soon be
swamped, our author admits the force of the point and suggests
an explanation that is very close to the theory of ‘ organic
selection’ formulated later by Lloyd Morgan, Osborn and
Baldwin. ‘It should not . . . be overlooked,” he says, “ that
certain rather strongly marked variations, which no one would
rank as mere individual differences, frequently recur owing to a
similar organization being similarly acted on, — of which fact
numerous instances could be given with our domestic productions.
In such cases, if the varying individual did not actually transmit
to its offspring its newly acquired character, it would undoubtedly
transmit to them, as long as the existing conditions remained the
same, a still stronger tendency to vary in the same manner.” ?
T. H. Morgan thinks this and what immediately follows invali-
dates much that had been claimed previously for natural
1 Origin of Species, p. 68. 2 Ibid., p. 106. Cf. p. 170. 3 Ibid., p. 72.
62 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
selection, for Darwin continues: ‘‘There can also be little
doubt that the tendency to vary in the same manner has
often been so strong that all the individuals of the same species
have been similarly modified without the aid of any form of
selection.”
As to conditions favorable for the production of new forms
through natural selection, Darwin mentions a large and diverse
area, numbers of individuals in the species, intercrossing (espe-
cially among hermaphrodites) and isolation! Diversification
of structure is considered an adaptive quality under some cir-
cumstances and is discussed at length,? and origin of species is
accounted for as the cumulative result of ever increasing diversi-
fications which in time become fixed.
In considering the degree to which organization tends to
advance, Darwin discusses the question of standards of judging
advancement and accepts that of Von Baer, namely, “ the
amount of differentiation of the parts of the same organic being,
(in the adult state, Darwin adds) . . . and their specialization
for different functions . . . or the completeness of the division
of physiological labor.” 4
Not only does natural selection lead to the origin of new
species, but also to the extinction of intermediate forms.’ ‘ Use
and disuse of organs” is linked with natural selection, so also
“acclimatization,” “correlated variation,” and ‘compensation
and economy of growth ”’; § then follows a frank discussion of the
difficulties in the way of accepting his theory. “‘ Some of them,”
he says, “are so serious that to this day I can hardly reflect on
them without being in some degree staggered.” ?
1 Origin of Species, pp. 81 ff. This last element, first stressed by Wagner, was
given great prominence by Romanes and more recently by David Starr Jordan. “In
the principle of isolation,” says Romanes, “we have a principle so fundamental and
so universal, that even the great principle of natural selection lies less deep, and
pervades a region of smaller extent. Equalled only in its importance by the two
basal principles of heredity and variation, this principle of isolation constitutes
the third pillar of a tripod on which is reared the whole superstructure of organic
evolution.” — Darwin and after Darwin, ii, p. 2.
? Origin of Species, pp. 86 ff. 5 Ibid., pp. 59, 93, 134.
3 Ibid., pp. go ff. ® Ibid., ch. V.
4 Ibid., p. 97. 7 Ibid., p. 133.
BIOLOGICAL EVOLUTION 63
The first difficulty is concerning ‘“ the absence or rarity of
transitional varieties,’ and his answer is: “‘ As natural selection
acts solely by the preservation of profitable modifications, each
new form will tend in a fully-stocked country to take the place of,
and finally to exterminate, its own less improved parent-form and
other less favored forms with which it comes into competition.” !
In discussing the difficulty of explaining neuter insects, Darwin
formulates the doctrine of selection on the basis of utility to the
species rather than to the individual.?
In reply to criticism by Mr. Mivart, Darwin takes issue with all
who believe in mutations, appealing as usual to experience under
domestication.?
Instincts are discussed at length and their origin explained in
the same way as other useful characters, — by natural selection.‘
We find further contributions to our doctrine of adaptation in
Darwin’s Descent of Man though here he was preceded by other
writers. In this work we are shown how the various mental
qualities so highly developed in man have descended or “ as-
cended ” from rudiments to be found in the lower orders.’
Emotion, imitation, attention, memory, imagination, reason,
the use of tools, even language are thus evolved. All of these, —
with many others such as self-consciousness, individuality,
abstraction, general ideas, sense of beauty, religion, — are the
1 Origin of Species, p. 134. 2 Tbid., pp. 230 f.
3 Ibid., pp. 202 f. Recent experiments by De Vries, Bateson and others, how-
ever, indicate to their satisfaction that nature does take leaps, ‘“‘ Natura facit
saltum.” Cf. Walter, Genetics, chs. IV, VII, and VIII.
4 Ibid., ch. VIII. Professor T. H. Morgan takes issue with his conclusions
concerning the development of such instincts as that of slave-holding among certain
species of ants. ‘“‘ We must not forget,” says Professor Morgan, “ that it is not
enough to show that a particular habit might be useful to a species, but it should
also be shown that it is of sufficient importance, at every stage of its evolution,
to give a decisive advantage in the ‘ struggle for existence.’ For unless a life and
death struggle takes place between the different colonies, natural selection is
powerless to bring about its supposed results. And who will be bold enough to
affirm that the presence of slaves in a nest will give victory to that colony in com-
petition with its neighbors? Has the history of mankind taught us that slave-
making countries have exterminated countries without slaves ?”’ His conclusion
is that the instinct was a mutation and that the species practising it survived
because it was not so disuseful as to lead to extermination.
5 Articulate language, however. is peculiar to man. Descent of Man, p. 52.
64 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
outcome of the process of natural selection. In this discussion
Darwin pays tribute to Herbert Spencer and agrees with his
doctrine of use-inheritance taken from Lamarck. Man’s
development, he holds, is in every case homologous with that of
the lower orders.!
In discussing the rate of increase in population our author fol-
lows Malthus rather than Spencer, holding that “ there is reason
to suspect . . . that the reproductive power is actually less in
barbarous than in civilized races.”? Malthus is criticized for not
giving sufficient emphasis to infanticide as a check among
primitive people.
Passive adaptation which gave man the prehensile thumb,
erect posture and added brain capacity, is shown to have been the
one supreme factor in making possible those later differentiations
which are the crowning glory of the human race.®
Tn conclusion, he says: —
As all animals tend to multiply beyond their means of subsistence, so it
must have been with the progenitors of man and this will inevitably have led
to a struggle for existence and to natural selection. ‘This latter process will
have been greatly aided by the inherited effects of the increased use of parts;
these two processes incessantly reacting on each other. It appears, also, as
we shall hereafter see, that various unimportant characters have been
acquired by man through sexual selection. An unexplained residuum of
change, perhaps a large one, must be left to the assumed uniform action of
those unknown agencies which occasionally induce strongly-marked and
abrupt deviations of structure in our domestic productions.
With strictly social animals, natural selection sometimes acts indirectly
on the individual, through the preservation of variations which are beneficial
only to the community. A community, including a large number of well-
endowed individuals, increases in number and is victorious over other and
less well-endowed communities; although each separate member may gain
no advantage over the other members of the same community.‘
In Chapter V of the Descent of Man we find developed the
doctrine phrased in this paper as active material adaptation.
Following Wallace our author shows how important was the
1 Ch. IV. It is noteworthy that both Wallace and Weismann differed from
Darwin as to the explanation of the evolution of mental and moral faculties by
natural selection. Wallace, Darwinism, p. 461.
2 Descent of Man, p. 127.
3 [bid., ch. IV. 4 Ibid., p. 149.
BIOLOGICAL EVOLUTION 65
change in the evolutionary process when natural selection turned
from the development of the organism to the development of
intellectual power, ‘‘for man is enabled through his mental
faculties ‘ to keep with an unchanged body in harmony with the
changed universe.’”? He invents weapons, tools, and various
stratagems, by which he procures food and defends himself.
When he migrates into a colder climate he uses clothes, builds
sheds, and makes fires... Whatacontrast this to that of the lower
animals, who ‘‘ must have their bodily structure modified in order
to survive under greatly changed conditions.”
The development of intelligence and sagacity in earliest times
enabled the tribes whose members were best endowed to supplant
the other tribes, even as today in various parts of the world.?
With the development of men in society, progress became more
rapid through imitation, reason and experience.? Likewise were
developed sympathy, fidelity, courage and obedience to authority.
“‘ A tribe possessing the above qualities in a high degree would
spread and be victorious over the other tribes; but in the course
of time it would, judging from all past history, be in its turn
overcome by some other and still more highly-endowed tribe.
Thus the social and moral qualities would tend slowly to advance
and be diffused throughout the world.”’4
From experience the value of co-operation was learned, habits
formed and sympathy developed, which after many generations
became fastened upon the organism as an instinct.’ Thus, too,
originated other social virtues such as the praise and blame of
fellow-men, love of approbation and dread of infamy, and remorse
at the consciousness of failure in the performance of duty. Later
the self-regarding virtues developed, such as temperance, chastity,
etc., based on experience of the results of conduct.®
As Darwin’s argument concerning the working of the law of
natural selection among civilized nations is built so largely on the
labors of such investigators as W. R. Greg and Francis Galton,
we will pass over the subject for the present and turn to another
1 Descent of Man, p. 152. 4 Ibid., p. 156.
2 Thid., p. 154. 5 Ibid., p. 157.
3 Tbid., p. 155. 6 Tbid., p. 158.
66 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
line of argument which will not be duplicated in a later part of
this discussion.
Concerning the causes which lead to the extinction of races of
man, we are told that “unfavorable physical conditions appear to
have had but little effect,’ but that “ extinction follows chiefly
from the competition of tribe with tribe, and race with race”;
also, that “‘ when civilized nations come into contact with bar-
barous, the struggle is short, except where a deadly climate gives
aid to the native race.” Among the specific causes for this ex-
termination, new diseases and vices are mentioned as being among
the most potent.!
Next to natural selection, the doctrine of sexual selection is
the great original contribution of Darwin, although in a sense it
may be considered but a modification of the former. The prob-
lem is to account for the development of secondary sexual dif-
ferences, among other things for the fact that in most species of
birds the males are more conspicuously beautiful than the
females. In contrast to natural selection which has to do with
the results of a life and death struggle for existence, sexual
selection has to do merely with the process and results of mating
whereby certain qualities are selected and transmitted. The
more vigorous males or those better weaponed, secure possession
of the desired females leaving the weaker males to mate with the
females that are left over. The supposition is that the more
vigorous pairs will leave the most numerous offspring. Or,
again, the females are supposed to exercise choice and select the
more brilliant or active males, with the same result.? Such selec-
tion is most easily secured when the males largely exceed the
females in number, otherwise resort is made to the hypothesis
that the more vigorous are ready to mate first either physiologi-
cally, or by virtue of reaching first the breeding place, and so
rear a More numerous progeny.?
1 Descent of Man, pp. 229 f. 2 Ibid., chs. VIII and XIII.
3 Professor T. H. Morgan has formulated twenty objections to this doctrine,
among others that “ there is no evidence that the more precocious females would
rear a larger number of offspring than the more normal females, or even those that
breed somewhat later.” Evolution and Adaptation, ch. VI; cf. Kellogg, op. cit.,
p. 118.
BIOLOGICAL EVOLUTION 67
It is noteworthy in this connection that Darwin and Wallace
had diametrically opposite theories as to the cause of the more
brilliant plumage of male birds. ‘“‘ According to Darwin, the
gayness of male birds is due to selection on the part of the
females; according to Wallace, the soberness of female birds is
due to natural selection, which has eliminated those which per-
sisted to the death in being gay.’’?
Heredity. The fifth and last link to be considered does not
yield to Darwin added fame. A follower of Lamarck in the belief
that acquired characters were inherited, he was led to make use of
this refuge when hard pressed by his opponents. His construc-
tive theory, that of pangenesis, — given to the world against
the advice of Huxley, — was so completely disproved by Weis-
mann as to receive scant reference today, though here, too, he was
a prophet and the hope expressed to Sir Joseph Hooker has been
fulfilled: “I feel sure that if pangenesis is stillborn it will, thank
God, at some future time reappear, begotten by some other father
and christened by some other name.” * Cytology has taken up
his task and some who have received his mantle are striving
earnestly to discover the secret hidden from his, and up to the
present, from all human eyes, — the mystery of heredity. De
Vries has made some use of Darwin’s hypothesis in his theory of
“intracellular pangenesis,” so too Weismann in his theory of
“determinants,” but laboratory experiments have not as yet
added conviction to assumption.
The transmission of acquired characters in the sense used by
Lamarck, Spencer and Darwin has been all but disproven,
though as we shall see later there is proof of the influence of
ontogenetic variations on the offspring, and some ground for
believing that habit and environment may furnish conditions
favorable for modification of the germ plasm.
In concluding our discussion of Darwin and the bearing of his
theory of natural selection on the problem of thisstudy, first place
must be given to the new spirit infused into biological and social
science by the publication of his Origin of Species. With
1 The Evolution of Sex, Geddes and Thomson, p. 10; Wallace, Darwinism, pp.
274 f. Cf Morgan, cited above pp. 213 ff.
2 Cf. Fifty Years of Darwinism, p. 93. 3 Ibid., p. 94.
68 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
good reason has he been called the liberator of the human mind
and spirit. Patient, long-continued investigation to discover the
cause and laws of variation is now the sine qua non of success in
every science. His catholic spirit, generous appreciation of the
discoveries of others together with a humble estimate of his own
merit form a rare combination in one who is generally estimated
as the most influential thinker of the nineteenth century. The
five links in his chain of causes leading to the origin of species
stand today, though some have been interpreted differently, and
causes minimized by him have been raised to rank with that of his
great theory. Especially is this true concerning the factor of
geographical isolation.
The fittest to survive, in Darwin’s thought, are those best
adapted to their environment. Spontaneous variations of use in
the struggle for existence have been preserved and transmitted by
heredity while variations disuseful have been eliminated. Not
only is adaptation emphasized by him but adaptability, that is,
power in the organism to adapt itself to a changing environment.
We have brought to our attention also the fact that the variations
need not always be useful to the individual providing they are
useful to the species in its contest with other species. Connection
is made between passive and active adaptation and the principle
of struggle and survival applied to the development of the higher
human faculties and the evolution of races. Natural selection
is supplemented by sexual selection to account for secondary
sexual differences.
We must pass now to the contributions of some other biologists
who have supplemented and corrected the work of their master.
Aucust WEISMANN (1834- _)
Continuity of the Germ Plasm
August Weismann the “‘ Sage of Freiburg ” is especially worthy
of consideration in our discussion as his investigations and teach-
ings mark a turning-point in biological and to a certain extent in
sociological theory, for the doctrine of natural selection was
somewhat on the wane when he began to write but with him it
BIOLOGICAL EVOLUTION 69
has taken on new life and in his earlier writings and with most of
his disciples it has become the “ Allmacht ” in the explanation of
the formation of new species.
Weismann’s contributions to biology are thus summarized by
Kellogg:
His careful investigation and illumination of the vexed question of the
inheritance of acquired characters, his definite exposition of that point of
view which distinguishes sharply in the individual between the germ-plasm
(that particular protoplasm in the body from which the germ-cells, eventu-
ally new individuals, arise) and the soma-plasm (that which develops into,
or gives rise to, the rest of the body), his development of the interesting and
suggestive combinations of fact and theory designated by the phrase names
“continuity of the germ-plasm ” and “immortality of the Infusoria,’’ —
these products of his investigating and philosophizing mind prove him one
of the ablest of modern biological scholars.1
Of almost equal importance with the above for sociology is his
emphasis on the species as the unit in the struggle for existence,
for from this point of view sympathy, mutual aid and all forms of
co-operation that make for group strength are seen to be of adap-
tive value.
Weismann’s theory of “ germinal selection ” is also worthy of
note for although not widely accepted today we find in it an
application of the doctrine of adaptation to the determinants —
the theoretical sub-divisions of the germ-cell. Weismann holds
that these determinants compete for the possession of food and
that the successful dominate in the organism that is to be.?
Weismann’s influence on social theory will be noted in succeed-
ing chapters; here it will suffice to bring out his teaching con-
cerning the continuity of the germ-plasm for the wide-spread
acceptance of this has led to the corresponding disbelief in the
inheritance of acquired characters as taught by Lamarck and
Spencer, and has been a most potent factor in the modern eugenics
movement. Weismann’s statement of the theory is as follows:
Heredity depends upon the fact that a small portion of the effective sub-
stance of the germ, the germ-plasm, remains unchanged during the develop-
ment of the ovum into an organism, and this part of the germ-plasm serves
as a foundation from which the germ-cells of the new organism are produced.
There is therefore continuity of the germ-plasm from one generation to
1 Darwinism To-day, p. 188.
2 For explanation of germinal selection, see Kellogg, op. cit., pp. 195 f.
70 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
another. One might represent the germ-plasm by the metaphor of a long
creeping root-stock from which plants arise at intervals, these latter repre-
senting the individuals of successive generations.
Heredity being thus explained, variation is held to be due to the
union of diverse sex cells? and possibly to katabolic influences
from the environment that somehow affect the germ-plasm.$
Huco De Vrigs (1848- _—+);
Mutations
Three quotations at the very beginning of De Vries’ Species
and Varieties are suggestive of the relation between his work
and that of Lamarck and Darwin. “ The origin of species is a
natural phenomenon,” Lamarck; ‘“ The origin of species is an
object of inquiry,” Darwin; “The origin of species is an object of
experimental investigation,” — this is the thesis of De Vries, and
to his observations and experiments, according to Sir Arthur
Thomson, the world is indebted for the establishment upon a
solid basis of the theory of evolution by mutation.
A further relation between this theory and that of Darwin is
brought out in the closing words of the book referred to: “ Mu-
tation explains the arrival of the fittest but natural selection the
survival of the fittest.” That is, De Vries does not deny the
potency of natural selection, as some have asserted, but contends
that it is insufficient as a theory of biological evolution for it
takes no account of the origin of change. His chief contention
with the Darwinians is that natural selection operates to preserve
adaptive mutations rather than mere fluctuations.*| The theory
in question is thus explained by Thomson:
The general idea is that novel characters may suddenly appear, as it were,
full-fledged, with considerable perfectness from the moment of their emer-
gence, and without intergrades linking them to the parents. Furthermore,
1 Essays upon Heredity, p. 266; cf. pp. 184f. For further explanation and illus-
tration, see Walter, Genetics, pp. 10-13. 2 Essays upon Heredity, pp. 269 f.
3 Weismann laid all stress on the former but in his later writings admitted the
latter, and recent experiments have demonstrated the certainty of such source of
variation though the range seems very limited. See infra, pp. 73 f.
4 Species and Varieties, their Origin and Mutation, Introduction. Cf. Kellogg,
op. cit., pp. 337 ff.
BIOLOGICAL EVOLUTION 71
the novel character of the mutant, if we may use the word, is independently
heritable and does not blend; it can be grafted intact onto another stock,
or it can be dropped out as such. Again, mutations are what may be called
qualitative, as contrasted with fluctuations which are quantitative!
Having established the principle of mutation or discontinuous
variation, which Darwin denied, De Vries raises several questions
which have not as yet been answered: Is mutability a temporary
or permanent condition ? If temporary what is its cause and
how is the quality lost? How may mutations be induced or
controlled ?? By way of answer he suggests several working
hypotheses: Mutability may be a periodic phenomenon; It may
be permanent in the main line of development with loss of muta-
bility in lines branching from the main trunk of the genealogic
tree; One primary mutation giving rise to one or more unit
characters, initiates a multitude of minor changes. He thinks
that besides these periodic seasons of mutation there are stray
mutations that are potent also in the evolutionary process.
Our author discusses at length the possibilities and limitations
of artificial selection,’ shows how inconstant are races improved
thus and how prone they are to revert to the species-type,® also
how uncertain is selection based on visible qualities,* holding that
the study of pedigree is of first importance.
Joann GREGOR MENDEL (1822-1884)
Independent Unit Characters
Although Mendel’s great work antedated both that of Weis-
mann and De Vries, it was entirely lost to the scientific world for
nearly forty years and not brought tc light till 1900 when within
a few months De Vries, Correns and Tschermak working inde-
pendently published papers setting forth the substance of his
discoveries.
1 Darwinism and Human Life, p. 107. 2 Species and Varieties, pp. 690 £.
3 “ At the beginning of each series of analogous mutations there must have been
one greater and more intrinsic mutation, which opened the possibility to all its
successors. This was the origination of the new character itself, and it is easily
seen that this incipient change is to be considered as the real one. All others are
only its visible expressions,” ibid., p. 703.
4 Thid., pp. 805 f. 5 Ibid., pp. 770 f. 6 [bid., pp. 810 f.
72 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
The so-called Mendelian law, the outgrowth of years of experi-
ment by Mendel in crossing garden peas of different varieties,
and verified since by hundreds of experiments on various plants
and animals by many botanists and zodlogists, is thus stated and
illustrated by Professor Walter: +
When parents that are unlike with respect to any character are crossed,
the progeny of the first generation will apparently be like one of the parents
with respect to the character in question. The parent which impresses its
character upon the offspring in this manner is called the dominant. When,
however, the hybrid offspring of this first generation are in turn crossed with
each other, they will produce a mixed progeny, 25 per cent of which will be
like the dominant grandparent, 25 per cent like the other grandparent, and
50 per cent like the parents resembling the dominant grandparent.
The law is represented by the following figure which shows that
in monohybrids the dominant character comes to the surface in
the second generation in three out of four of the offspring, one
of the three, however, being of pure breed, the other two being
hybrids.
D (Dominant) R (RECESSIVE)
|
D(R)
[ |
DD 2D(R) RR
i a
DD DD 2D(R) RR RR
| | [eS |
se
D DD 2D(R) RR RR RR
There are three principles involved in this law: (1) The exist-
ence of independent unit characters, (2) dominance, in cases where
the parents differ in a unit character, and (3) segregation of the
units contributed by the respective parents, this segregation being
found among the gametes formed by the offspring.?
1 Genetics, pp. 123 f.
* Castle, Heredity, p. 38; cf. Walter, op. cit., pp. 144, 145.
BIOLOGICAL EVOLUTION 73
The knowledge and use of the Mendelian law by animal
breeders and horticulturists during the past few years have shown
its great importance to man in the process of active material
adaptation, and its present use in studies of defectiveness has
demonstrated its value in eugenics which comes under the division
of active social adaptation.
Before summing up the contributions of biology to sociology
and to the subject of this book in particular it may not be amiss to
consider briefly the position of biologists today on some of the
fundamental questions brought out in our survey of the theories
of Darwin and his successors. For this purpose the Centennial
Addresses in Honor of Charles Darwin before the American
Association for the Advancement of Science, should furnish
impartial material.
That inborn variation and natural selection alone are sufficient
was questioned by J. M. Coulter of the University of Chicago
from the side of botany. David Starr Jordan of Leland Stanford
emphasized isolation as a factor of equal importance with natural
selection. E. B. Wilson of Columbia showed that experiments
had proven the possibility of the transmission of ontogenetic
variations and gave assent to the theory of metabolism through
chemical action. ‘‘ Experiment,” he said, “‘ has established the
fact that certain forms of development are thus controlled by
substances, the ‘ hormones,’ that may be extracted from the
cells that produce them, and upon injection into the body call
forth their characteristic results. Such an effect, for instance, is
the development of the cock’s comb in the hen upon injection of
testic-extract and its recession to the characteristic female condi-
tion upon cessation of the injections.” + Professor Wilson made
another statement of great suggestive value in its bearing on social
progress: ‘‘ We must not forget that some of the most acute and
thoughtful of naturalists have in recent years expressed the
conviction that the ultimate control of development is not to be
sought in the physico-chemical properties of the germ cells, but
in an indwelling ‘entelechy’ or ‘élan de la vie,’ a power of
1 Fifty Years of Darwinism, pp. 106, 107.
74 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
unknown nature, that may, in the last analysis, be psychical in
nature.”! Though not a neo-Lamarckian, Professor Wilson
makes room for environmental influences to affect the germ
plasm and so influence heredity. “ Though we may not fully
understand the manner in which the germ cells are modified,
there is no inherent improbability or difficulty in the conception
that such modifications will produce blastogenic variations or
mutations that are inherited, permanently or temporarily. We
can readily understand that the constitutional effects of tempera-
ture, food, moisture, and similar general agencies of the environ-
ment may manifest themselves in definite changes that reappear
in following generations because the germ cells have been directly
affected in the same way as the somatic cells.”
D. T. MacDougal of the Carnegie Institution of Washington
took a position very like that of Wilson, holding that “ the
securest foundation is laid for the conclusion that well-defined
correlations exist in the plant by which secondary effects of the
action of external factors, or of morphogenic or embryonic
procedure, may be freely communicated from one part of the
soma to another and from the egg to the soma.” ?
Charles B. Davenport also of the Carnegie Institution and
Secretary of the American Genetic Association championed the
cause of mutation, and Professor Eigenmann advocated “ selec-
tive adaptations ” as a factor to be reckoned with. ‘“‘ Adapta-
tions,” he says, ‘‘ have usually been looked upon as adjustments
in the organism to its environment. The suggestion has more
recently been made that adapted environments and habits are
selected by animals adjusted to them. . . . The shore-fishes,
channel-fishes, etc., depending on light to find their food and
mates, moved out to the Green River, where their descendents
live to the present day. The fishes negatively heliotropic,
nocturnal, or stereotropic, moved into the holes dissolved in the
bottom of the river, followed its subterranean development, and
their descendents live today in the stream which now flows
entirely below the valley. . . . Primarily blind fishes do not
have degenerate eyes because they live in caves, but they live in
1 Fifty Years of Darwinism, p. 109. 2 [bid., p. 120.
BIOLOGICAL EVOLUTION 75
caves because their ancestors were adjusted to do without the use
of eyes.””}
Another paper by H. F. Osborn of Columbia is of interest
because it re-emphasizes the value of the theory of variation by
“ organic selection ” formulated some years ago by Baldwin and
himself in this country and by Lloyd Morgan in England. Bald-
win gives this explanation: “It claims that it is possible for
intelligent adaptations, or any sort of ‘modification’ made by the
individuals of one generation, to set the direction of subsequent
evolution, even though there be no direct inheritance of acquired
characters from father to son.” ?
Osborn, in the paper cited, contends for law-abiding rather
than fortuitous variations,? and formulates his own theory as
follows: —
The life and evolution of organisms continually center around the proc-
esses which we term heredity, ontogeny, environment and selection; these
have been inseparable and interacting from the beginning; a change intro-
duced or initiated through any one of these factors causes a change in all.
First, that while inseparable from the others, each process may in certain
conditions become an initiative or leading factor; second, that in complex
organisms one factor may at the same time be initiative to another group of
characters, the inseparable action bringing about a continuously harmonious
tesult.4
An additional citation may well be made from a recent work by
Professor Loeb of the Rockefeller Institute because of his recog-
nized authority. Professor Loeb has endeavored to reduce all
life to terms of the physical and chemical interaction.’ While
discrediting the theory formulated by Fornier, that the results of
muscular activity may be inherited by their effect on the central
nervous system and through this on the germ plasm, he goes on to
say: —
If we thus deny the immediate influence of the central nervous system on
the germ, and assume a chemical theory of heredity, it might still be possible
that the central nervous system could influence heredity indirectly, in so far
1 Fifty Years of Darwinism, pp. 183, 189.
2 Story of the Mind, p. 34. Cf. Conn, M ethod of Evolution, pp. 306 ff.; also
Thomson, Darwinism and Human Life, p. 169.
3 Fifty Years of Darwinism, p. 225. 4 Ibid., p. 238.
5 Especially in his Mechanistic Universe.
76 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
as it can affect the chemical processes of the body. As illustrations of a
chemical effect of the nerves, the fact is mentioned that stimulation of the
nerves of certain glands produces a secretion. Mathews has shown, however,
that in cases where stimulation of the sympathetic system produces a secre-
tion, the glands contain muscular fibres which contract when stimulated,
and in this way press a liquid out of the ducts. . . . There are no specifi-
cally trophic nerves, but it is possible that many nerves produce indirectly
(for instance, through disturbances of the circulation and limitation of the
supply of oxygen) such extensive chemical changes that morphological
changes of the tissue ensue. If this is really the case, a possibility still exists
that the central nervous system also affects the sexual cells indirectly, in so
far as disturbances of circulation and hence chemical changes are produced,
which may modify the sexual cells contained in the testes and ovaries chemi-
cally. Thus there might be a very remote chance that brain-activity of one
generation might lead to the formation of chemical substances which affect
the sexual cells. . . . We arrive thus at the conclusion that a transmission
of hereditary characteristics through the egg is only possible in the form of
specific chemical substances, and that the central nervous system could only
influence heredity, if it could bring about the formation of special substances
in the egg (by influencing metabolism).1
This quotation is in harmony with the suggestion of Professor
Wilson as to the operation of “‘ hormones.” 2
In the babel of voices can we hear a single clear word of use in
the study of social progress ? That nature is prodigal is certain
but decreasingly so as we rise in the scale to the higher species
where a large proportion of the offspring reach maturity. Varia-
tion is the law of life,—and more universal than Darwin
imagined.* Struggle for existence is unquestionable if we accept
the term in the large and metaphorical sense as used by Darwin
and more recently by Thomson.‘ As to the causes of variation,
however, the “doctors disagree ” so too, as to the potency of
1 Physiology of the Brain, pp. 208 ff. 2 [bid., p. 79.
® Cf. Conn, Method of Evolution, pp. 108 ff.; Wallace, Darwinism, ch. III.
* Thomson mentions three classes of struggle for existence: (r) struggle between
fellows, (2) struggle between foes, (3) struggle with fate. In the first, “‘ the struggle
does not need to be direct to be real, — the essential point is that the competitors
seek after the same desiderata of which there is a limited supply. In the second,
it is between individuals and between species, sometimes to the death. In the
third, our sweep widens still further, and we pass beyond the idea of competition
altogether, to cases where the struggle for existence is between the living organism
and the inanimate conditions of life, — for instance, between birds and the winter’s
cold, between aquatic animals and changes in the water, between plants and
drought, between plants and frost . . . in a wide sense, between Life and Fate.”
BIOLOGICAL EVOLUTION og
natural selection in the struggle between individuals where Dar-
win laid chief emphasis.
There seems to be a strong tendency now to accept the theory
of mutations in the line of inheritable unit characters, to empha-
size the unity of the species in the struggle for existence and to
rate highly the importance of geographical isolation in the
formation of new species and ethnic groups. There seems to be
a tendency in certain quarters, also, following the lead of Nageli
and Driesch, to return to the hyper-scientific method of earlier
days and posit a life principle or force as the mainspring of
development. ‘This is strongly opposed, however, by those who
hold that science is weakened just in proportion as it gets beyond
the domain of demonstrable facts, so on the whole sociology can
claim little support for this theory from biologists of recognized
authority?
Most clear and certain of all, it would seem, stands out above
the confusion of present biological knowledge and hypotheses the
doctrine of adaptation though with differences of interpretation
and emphasis. In proportion as the struggle is between individ-
uals, either friends or foes, the weak and otherwise less adapted
tend to be eliminated, but in proportion as the struggle is between
groups certain instincts seem to have been evolved which have as
their specific function the strengthening of the group in collective
activity. Some of these instincts seem to work for the detriment
of the individual member who does not fit in with the “ group
sentiment of safety’’? or whose death will in some way be
advantageous to the group as in the destruction of the weak, the
1 For a sane criticism of Darwinism, see Kellogg, Darwinism To-day, chs. ITI,
IV, V.
2 Although this theory is in general repudiated as extra-scientific and tending
to turn scientists aside from their supreme task of finding out the efficient causes
of change, the vast realm of mystery that still baffles biologists in their endeavor
to explain the process of biological evolution and has led some to posit a force or
intelligence as the cause of these changes, gives a vantage ground for social phi-
losophers who are not limited, as are scientists, to mere description in terms of co-
existence and sequence, but have as their task to push their investigations and
formulations on to an underlying or final cause as have Ratzenhofer, Fiske, and
Ward. Cf. Kellogg, of. cit., pp. 226 f.
3 Ward, Pure Sociology, pp. 134, 419-
78 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
maimed and the “drones ”’; sometimes, however, it seems to
manifest itself in defence of the helpless and weak, thus providing
the biological background of “‘ mutual aid ” in the social behavior
of men.t But the range of mal-adaptation possible before
elimination takes place is often wide,2—-and here again the
decisive factor is the severity of the struggle for existence, and
although adaptation in the strict use of the term and in every
particular may not be necessary to the mere existence of the
individual to the point of reproduction and so to the point neces-
sary for the preservation of the species, adaptation in this sense
is necessary for the largest possible life of which any individual
or species is capable. The pine tree of the tropics is vastly dif-
ferent from the pine tree of the cold regions.
Permanent modifications within a species, as in the forma-
tion of new varieties seem to come: (1) as a result of inter-cross-
ing; (2) through a great change in the environment affecting a
certain portion of the species eliminating all but those whose
variations from the type prove best adapted to the new conditions
of life; (3) through geographical isolation resulting in inbreeding
and the selective pressure of a different combination of environ-
mental conditions, or (4) by spontaneous variation or mutation
often with the potency of development, arising by a process as yet
unknown. When the changes are sufficiently great, especially
when the reproductive functions are affected so as to make the
individuals of the variety and the parent species infertile when
crossed, we have a new species.
As tropisms, reflexes and instincts are inborn characters, or
based on such, their origin is to be explained in accordance with
the above principles, and they are to be considered as on the
whole of adaptive value either to the individual or to the species.*
They may persist, however, as “‘ vestiges ’’ even though disuseful,
providing this disutility is not sufficient to lead to elimination.
The human organism is in direct descent from the anthropoid
apes or from the common precursor of these and man, and the
* Kropotkin, Mutual Aid. 2 Kellogg, op. cit., p. 227.
* For discussion of “ Varieties” see Walter, Genetics, pp. 60 f.
4 Colvin and Bagley, Human Behavior, pp. 21-25, 126 ff.; Miller, Psychology
of Thinking, pp. 18 f.; Parmelee, Science of Human Behavior, pp. tos ff.
BIOLOGICAL EVOLUTION 79
existence of all human qualities is to be explained, if at all, on
the assumption that they have been of value on the whole in the
struggle for existence.
Some modern genetic psychologists and sociologists, working
on the above premises, and studying the behavior of animals and
infants to get a clue to the behavior of man, have formulated the
following conclusions which may well be included with the
above: —
When unconscious reactions were not adequate to survival,
consciousness, in some cases, seems to have arisen as an adaptive
response to this need, and having arisen, developed rapidly.!
Every organism tends to respond positively to stimuli that
are favorable and negatively to those that are unfavorable, and a
favorable reaction tends to be repeated. In this way innate
tendencies are modified and habits formed.?
In higher organisms endowed with feeling, reactions that are
favorable to the individual or species are accompanied, on the
whole, by pleasurable sensations, those that are unfavorable, by
painful sensations.’
With the development of the human intellect giving man the
power of selection among satisfiers of felt needs arose the possi-
bility of a selection that was detrimental to the organism and to
the species.‘
With the rise of conscious, purposeful choice, came the power of
active adaptation, —i.e., the purposeful modification of the
individual or group to make it better adapted to life conditions, or
the purposeful modification of the life conditions to make them
more favorable to the individual or group.®
1 Ellwood, Sociology in its Psychological Aspects, p. 98.
2 Ibid., pp. 106 f.; Thorndike, Original Nature of Man, ch. TX.
3 Parmelee, of. cit., pp. 232 £.; Ward, Pure Sociology, p. 130: ‘‘ All pleasure is
mandatory and all pain is monitory. ... So long as feeling and function are
adapted pleasure means life and health and growth and multiplication, while pain
points to danger, injury, waste, destruction, death, and race extinction.”
4 Miller, op. cit., pp. 44 f.
5 Ellwood, of. cit., pp. 104 f.
CHAPTER V
NEO-DARWINIAN SOCIOLOGISTS
Havinc made our approach through biological evolution espe-
cially as interpreted by Darwin and his successors, we will take
up in this chapter the contributions to our subject from some
representative social philosophers who make use primarily of the
neo-Darwinian formula, and to this extent of the principle of
passive adaptation, considering here Nietzsche, Kidd, Galton,
Pearson and Lapouge.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE (1844-1900)
Evolution of the Super-Man
Although Nietzsche is not usually classed as a sociologist, his
writings have had profound influence on modern social philosophy,
especially as represented in drama, novel, magazine and news-
paper. According to Mencken he reigns as king in the German
universities.
Nietzsche’s philosophy, according to the same commentator,
consists of the following propositions: ?—
1. That the ever-dominant and only inherent impulse in all
living beings, including man, is the will to remain alive, — the will,
that is, to attain power over those forces which make life difficult
or impossible.
2. That all schemes of morality are nothing more than efforts
to put into permanent codes the expedients found useful by some
given race in the course of its successful endeavors to remain
alive.
3. That, despite the universal tendency to give these codes
authority by crediting them to some god, they are essentially
man-made and mutable, and so change, or should change, as the
conditions of human existence in the world are modified.
1 The Philosophy of Nietzsche, p. vii. 2 Tbid., pp. ix, x.
80
NEO-DARWINIAN SOCIOLOGISTS 8I
4. That the human race should endeavor to make its mastery
over its environment more and more certain, and that it is its
destiny, therefore, to widen more and more the gap which now
separates it from the lower races of animals.
5. That any code of morality which retains its permanence and
authority after the conditions of existence which gave rise to it
have changed, works against this upward progress of mankind
toward greater and greater efficiency.
6. That all gods and religions, because they have for their
main object the protection of moral codes against change, are
inimical to the life and well-being of healthy and efficient men.
7. That all the ideas which grow out of such gods and religions
— such, for example, as the Christian ideas of humility, of self-
sacrifice and of brotherhood, — are enemies of life, too.
8. That human beings of the ruling, efficient class should reject
all gods and religions, and with them the morality at the bottom
of them and the ideas which grow out of them, and restore to its
ancient kingship that primal instinct which enables every eff-
cient individual to differentiate between the things which are
beneficial to him and the things which are harmful.
This analysis would seem to indicate that Nietzsche should be
classified rather among those who have contributed chiefly to the
development of the doctrine of active adaptation, but his phi-
losophy is rooted fundamentally on two assumptions: The will
to live as the primary element in human life, and the development,
by the law of struggle and survival, of the super-man in whom this
will to live shall find the highest possible expression.
We shall concern ourselves here chiefly with the second of these
fundamental elements.
One can understand the evolution of Nietzsche’s system only
in the light of his temperament and life. He was born in 1844
into the home of a Lutheran pastor of Récken. Bereft of his
father at four years of age, he, with two sisters, was brought up in
the companionship of four pious women.‘ The idol of the home,
now changed to Naumburg-on-the-Saale, ‘“‘ the boy shrank from
the touch of the world’s rough hand,” until he entered the Gym-
1 The Philosophy of Nietzsche, pp. to f.
82 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
nasium. Here he received a mental and spiritual shock which to
one of his temperament and early training had much to do with
the transformation of his unsophisticated piety and credulity to
dionysian iconoclasm.
The influence of Ritschl, the celebrated philologist at Bonn and
Leipsic, was very great on the developing youth ' but greater yet
that of the writings of Schopenhauer which he read in 1865, but
interpreted in the light of Darwin’s theory of natural selection
with which he became acquainted during his first years at Bonn.?
Schopenhauer interpreted in the light of the doctrine that progress
results from struggle for existence and survival of the fittest is thus
the very heart of Nietzscheism.?
Our author arrived at manhood in the flush of an intellectual
period when monistic philosophy and the scientific method were
being turned to a criticism of all of life’s conventions and values.
The cataclysm in Nietzsche’s moral and religious ideas and beliefs
made the conventional standards in these departments of life
values his special concern, and later his special point of attack,
and he became one of the most virulent and blasphemous of
moral and religious critics.
In his attack on David Strauss in 1873, he charges that phi-
losopher and critic with lack of courage in failing to follow out the
Darwinian formula to its logical conclusion.4 The same argu-
ment would apply to Darwin himself, and to Wallace, Fiske, Bal-
four and Huxley, as Dr. A. Lilly points out, for none of these apply
the biological formula in all its rigidity to social progress, or to the
development of moral sentiments. The consensus of opinion
today, however, among sociologists is with Darwin rather than
with Nietzsche and his defenders as we shall point out later. To
say that the law of natural selection does not apply rigidly in
social evolution is not to pit man against the cosmic process, for
man with his intelligence and will is a part of that process, so
also are society and the social sentiments. The reasoning of the
Nietzscheans is far from conclusive.®
1 The Philosophy of Nietzsche, p. 16. 2 Ibid., p. 13.
3 Cf. Mencken, pp. 64 ff., ror f., 138 f., esp. 142 n. 4 [bid., p. 30.
5 For Drummond’s position as against Huxley see his Ascent of Man, ch. I.
6 Introduction to The Case Against Wagner, etc., cf. Mencken, p. 140.
NEO-DARWINIAN SOCIOLOGISTS 83
Nietzsche’s peculiar reaction against the naturalistic ethics of
Darwin and the English utilitarians is doubtless to be explained
also in the light of his temperament, early training and violent
reaction which carried him to the extreme of conventional
iconoclasm. Naturalistic ethics made large place for sympathy,
sociability and self-sacrifice. Nietzsche, an eccentric egoist, with
will to power and natural selection forming an idée fixe, re-enforced
by the experience which came by defying, with more or less
success, the forces both physical and moral which seemed allied
against him, had to find some other explanation for the origin of
moral sentiments than that given by the Darwinians.
His approach was through his specialty, philology, and he tried
to prove by the derivation of words used to express ethical con-
cepts that the moral code of Christendom was a “ slave morality ”
imposed by the ruling classes for their own advantage. The ré-
sumé of the process by which he obtained “ enlightenment ” as
set forth in A Genealogy of Morals indicates the pressure of his in-
dividualistic bias. His violence against traditional Christianity is
likewise explained. The Christianity with which he was most
familiar was that typified on the one hand by the life of Saint
Francis of Assisi and on the other that set forth dogmatically by
Albrecht Ritschl who was Professor of Systematic Theology at
Bonn during his student days there. The negation of the will
to live which found its greatest Christian example in Saint
Francis must necessarily call forth violent opposition from one of
Nietzsche’s temperament and life philosophy.
His study of the genesis of moral ideas is unsatisfactory from
biological and anthropological viewpoints, and seems strained
even from that of philology. To try to explain the herding in-
stinct among men which is so pronounced among certain species
of mammals as a social institution produced by the combining of
the many weak against the few strong, is too absurd to merit
serious consideration.?
With Nietzsche the good is that which advances the will to live,
the bad, that which hinders it. But he never gets beyond the
1 A Genealogy of Morals, Third Essay, cf. Mencken, p. 143.
2 A Genealogy of Morals, p. 17.
84 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
individual. Now granted that personal might made right in
primitive times; that “ gut ” is related to the ruling ‘‘ Goths”;
that “ schlecht ” is identical with ‘‘ schlicht,”’ — simple, common;
that purity is merely ceremonial and priestly in its origin, — all
this does not invalidate the social utility of conventions thus
derived. Nietzsche seems entirely oblivious to that social
phenomenon emphasized by Darwin, Fiske, Drummond and in
fact by practically all sociologists, viz., the prevalence and persist-
ence in early times of the inter-group struggle, and the survival
of that group which was the most powerful, not only by virtue
of physical strength but of organization based on social qualities
possessed by the members. According to consistent Darwinism
no Nietzschean group could have survived to transmit its theory
of life by congenital variation or social heredity, — nor is it
probable that it'could today. It is destructive to the family as
well as to the state and can lead only to self-annihilation. Thus
it is not social ethics that leads to destruction but dionysian
individualism. A study of the history of Nietzscheans for a few
generations would be illuminating. If all were such woman-
haters as the founder there would be no normal generation.
Nietzsche’s chief contribution to the development of the
doctrine of passive material adaptation is by virtue of the fal-
lacies in his opposition. Indeed he positively repudiates the
doctrine as contrary to the notion of functional activity.
Laboring under this idiosyncrasy, “‘ adaptation,” that is to say, a second-
rate activity, in fact, a mere reactivity, is pushed into the foreground, and
indeed, life itself has even been defined as “‘ a continuous better adjustment
of internal relations to external relations ’’ (Mr. Herbert Spencer). But this
is to mistake the true nature and function of life, whichis will to power. It is
to overlook the principal priority which the spontaneous, aggressive, trans-
gressive, new-interpretative and new-directive forces possess, from the result
of which “adaptation ” follows. It is to deny the sovereign office of the
highest functionaries in the organism, in which functionaries the will to live
appears as an active and formative principle. The readers will recall here
what Huxley objected to in Spencer —his ‘‘ Administrative Nihilism.”’
But we have to deal here with much more than mere “ administration.” }
His failure here is in his inability to see that adaptation may
be interpreted to include the very will to life and power for which
1 A Genealogy of Morals, p. 95.
NEO-DARWINIAN SOCIOLOGISTS 85
he stands, — except in the extreme form which characterizes his
theory.
Nietzsche, like many another critic, drives out a theory at the
front door only to let it in at the rear. Self-denial and self-
sacrifice, the products of slave-morality, are to be despised, —
yet every individual, he holds, is to deny himself the gratification
of certain impulses that he may attain greater future life and
power. Likewise the aristocracy of the present generation are to
become dionysians in the interest of the super-man of the future,
— but Nietzsche provides no sanction for such sacrifice, save an
appeal to the law of cosmic evolution. Such a sacrifice has no
rational sanction, however, according to his theory, and all super-
rational sanctions are tabooed.
Nietzsche contributed to the development of the doctrine of
passive social adaptation by emphasizing the relativity of ethical
ideals, but this had been done previously by Comte and Spencer.
He went to the extreme, however, in his devaluation of all values.
The brief outline and few quotations given above indicate how
great emphasis our author placed on the power of individual
initiative, thus paving the way for a reaction against the laissez
faire tendency growing out of the first application of scientific
methods to social phenomena. In this way he has contributed
very greatly to the development of the doctrine of active adapta-
tion in all its phases.
The philosophy of Nietzsche applied to the group fitted in
admirably with the statecraft of Bismarck and together they have
inspired the German people to become a dionysian group; but
applied to the state this social theory loses its distinctive Nietzs-
chean quality and takes on the character of the social theories of
Kidd, Pearson, and Carver in which some of the very qualities so
bitterly denounced by our author come to have supreme impor-
tance.
BENJAMIN Kipp (1858- )
Religion and Social Progress
Nietzsche took as his point of departure Schopennauer’s will to
live interpreted in terms of Darwin’s formula of struggle for
existence between individuals. Kidd takes as his, a belief in
86 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
supernatural religion and Weismann’s formula with emphasis on
the survival of the species. The work of the former is largely
destructive; that of the latter apologetic and constructive.
Both writers are hyper-imaginative and dogmatic, presenting
mere hypotheses with the certitude of well-established scientific
facts, and reading into these hypotheses their own interpretations.
Mr. Kidd’s air of authority and use of superlatives tend to make
the unsophisticated believe that the ultimate truth in social
philosophy has at last been discovered. This characteristic is
illustrated by the use, in the first three pages of his Social Evolu-
tion, of such terms as “‘ profoundly,” “‘ stupendous,” “‘ helpless,”
“onslaught,” “most remarkable,” ‘most commanding,”
“pregnant.” His rigid application to social progress of the
formula of Weismann is shown by the following: —
Left to himself, this high born creature [man], whose progress we seem to
take for granted, has not the slightest innate tendency to make any progress
whatever. It may appear strange, but it is strictly true, that if each of us
were allowed by the conditions of life to follow his own inclinations, the
average of one generation would have no tendency whatever to rise beyond
the average of the preceding one, but distinctly the reverse. This is not a
peculiarity of man; it has been a law of life from the beginning, and it con-
tinues to be a universal law which we have no power to alter. . . . Progress
everywhere from the beginning of life has been effected in the same way, and
it is possible in no other way. It is the result of selection and rejection. .
To formulate this as the inevitable law of progress since the beginning of life
has been one of the principal results of the biological science of the century;
and recent work, including the remarkable contributions of Professor Weis-
mann in Germany, has all tended to establish it on foundations which are not
now likely to be shaken.
The above quotation shows not only Mr. Kidd’s dogmatic
spirit, but the further fact that his social theory is built up
deductively on the teachings of Weismann with sole emphasis on
natural selection as the method of progress, degeneration result-
ing from the cessation of this process and by “ pan-mixia” or
general breeding.
Our author shows how wide-spread has been this struggle for
existence in social evolution and how it exists today not only
between individuals, but between classes, nations and races. He
1 Social Evolution, p. 36.
NEO-DARWINIAN SOCIOLOGISTS 87
pictures the misery of the exploited classes in industrial centers
and seems to feel that all this is natural and necessary, — neces-
sary for the good of the social organism with special emphasis
on unborn generations.!
Having read the first three chapters with emphasis on rivalry
between individuals as a basis of selection, — though he fails to
indicate how there can be selection for he admits that the masses
who do not succeed leave the largest number of offspring,? — one
is surprised to find later that Mr. Kidd repudiates the commonly
accepted belief among biological sociologists concerning the
differential in average mental capacity between primitive and
modern man.’ His view seems to be that with the advent of
man natural selection turned to the production of those qualities
of character which make for group efficiency such as energy,
vigor,‘ virility, courage, integrity ® and simple-minded devotion
to conceptions of duty,® but he fails to show how these qualities
are produced. He lays great stress on the increasing prevalence
of the doctrine of the equality of all men and traces this to “‘ the
great fund of altruistic feeling generated by the ethical system
upon which our civilization is founded,” 7— but he does not
furnish a shred of evidence that this feeling is due to selection
rather than to the increase of co-operation, intercourse and educa-
tion. Indeed as to the other qualities which he holds to be of
supreme worth in the individuals of the successful group, — these
are the result of a complex of physical and social conditions and
by no means solely the product of selection. In other words,
there is no more reason for believing that the western nations
excel others in the social and religious instincts than there is for
believing that they excel in average mental ability.
The struggle between groups results, as Kidd shows, in the
survival of the groups that on the whole are best adapted to the
conditions of life in which they are placed, and survival power
depends not only on the social efficiency of the individual mem-
bers, but on the efficiency of the social organization. It depends
1 Social Evolution, ch. II. 5 Ibid., p. 61.
2 Ibid., pp. 278 f., 372, 384. § [bid., p. 349.
3 [bid., ch. IX. 7 [bid., p. 182.
4 Ibid., p. 58. 8 Tbid., pp. 68 f.
88 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
primarily, however, according to our author, on religion, which
provides a super-rational sanction for the self-sacrificing conduct
which is required of the great majority of people that their group
may succeed, and especially that social progress may be furthered
to theadvantage of future generations.! “The greatest good which
the evolutionary forces, operating in society, are working out,” he
says, “is the good of the social organism as a whole. The
greatest number in this sense is comprised of the members of
generations yet unborn or unthought of, to whose interests the
existing individuals are absolutely indifferent.” ? This he terms
the law of projected efficiency.
This law of projected efficiency is the key to the Saeaenaie
of Kidd’s social philosophy, so must be explained. He makes use
of this law in the later chapters of Social Evolution, but it is
developed at length in his Principles of Western Civilization. He
claims biological support for it in Weismann’s essay on Duration
of Life, but so far as I can discover there is not one word in the
whole essay that, fairly interpreted, warrants the conclusion Mr.
Kidd draws. All Professor Weismann claims is that duration of
life in a given species is dependent on an internal principle deter-
mined by utility to the species in its struggle for existence, — a
theory which has received added confirmation in recent studies
concerning Mendelian characters. Yet this theory of projected
efficiency is enunciated by Kidd as if it were a demonstrated fact
and we are told that “‘ Never before has a principle of such reach
in the social sciences emerged into view.” In explanation of its
workings, he says: —
What we are now brought to see is that the overwhelming weight of
numbers as of interests, in the evolutionary process, is never in the present.
It is always in the future. . . . Weare, in other words, brought face to face
with the fact that, in the scientific formula of the life of any existing type of
social order destined to maintain its place in the future, the interests of these
existing individuals, with which we have been so preoccupied, possess no
meaning, except so far as they are included in, and are subordinate to, the
interests of a developing system of social order, the overwhelming proportion
of whose members are still in the future.
1 Social Evolution, ch. IV. 2 Ibid., p. 312.
3 Principles of Western Civilization, p. 4, cf. p. 65.
NEO-DARWINIAN SOCIOLOGISTS 89
Let us examine the facts as taught in biology and contrast them
with the interpretation given by the author under consideration.
According to Darwin biological evolution has resulted from in-
crease of numbers beyond means of subsistence, struggle for exist-
ence and the survival of those best adapted to the conditions of
life. According to Weismann the struggle is not so much be-
tween individuals as between species and variations may con-
ceivably be preserved which would prove disadvantageous to the
individual if he had to carry on the struggle independently, but
which are advantageous to the group in competition with nature
or with other groups.!_ Now under static conditions the curve
showing the “ norm ” or “ type” represents those on the whole
best adapted for survival, but under dynamic conditions, espe-
cially in the physical environment, some individuals varying
from the norm will have the advantage and survive, thus per-
manently modifying the species. Shortness of life in the
individual, according to Weismann in the essay quoted, may be
considered favorable to a species in a dynamic environment
calling for frequent modifications of the “ type”’ in order that
the species may persist. The species living under such conditions
that evolves an inner principle which causes death when the
individual has ceased to be of service to the group, has an advan-
tage in competition with other groups or species where certain
individuals live on as a burden to others. Brevity of life for the
individual, then, may be of value to the species, though in general
brevity of life is considered disadvantageous. Now “species”
is a generic term and includes past, present and future. Having
seen that a variation may be of advantage to the species though
possibly disadvantageous to the individual, it is but a step to say
that as the great bulk of those who comprise the species and who
are to receive the benefit of this variation are yet unborn, there-
fore the benefits of the variation are “‘ projected ” into the future.
We thus have “ projected efficiency.”
Mr. Kidd’s chief error is in conceiving that a quality can be of
advantage to the species which is not at the same time of advan-
tage to the great majority of individuals that compose it at any
1 Recognized by Darwin, but not emphasized.
go ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
one time.’ “Species” is but a class term and a species can
survive only through the survival of individuals. In a dynamic
environment a species cannot persist without modification and if
changes in the type occur there is no special advantage in keeping
the same name. In the above illustration from Weismann, if
brevity of life in the individual is advantageous to the species in
its present struggle, it is advantageous to the individuals com-
posing the species, for if nature did not terminate life when the
individual had ceased to be of service to the group, the group as
such would have to make way with it, that is, if the struggle for
existence were sufficiently acute, —-even as happens in some
species. The same thing holds true of man. Among some
primitive tribes the aged are cast off to die. It would be of
advantage to the individuals under such conditions if there were
an inner principle which would bring life to an end as soon as
such social disutility occurred as to lead to their destruction by
the group.
This theory of projected efficiency, calling for the sacrifice of
the vast majority of living individuals to the good of unborn
generations, gives Kidd the background for his emphasis on the
need of a super-rational sanction which will hold the members of a
group to their thankless but inevitable task.
Reason, which in his conception is the cold calculating faculty
that enables one to balance pleasures and pains and choose con-
duct in the line of self-interest cannot furnish a sanction, for if
allowed full sway it would lead to the establishment of some kind
of socialistic or anarchistic scheme which would mean present
gain though future disaster to the race.2_ Reason is considered
to be diametrically opposed to “ belief” and “ ultra-rational.”
There can be no such thing, according to our author, as a reason-
able religion. Religion is not only super-rational but irrational.
Mr. Kidd’s chief contributions to the development of the
doctrine of adaptation are (1) emphasis on the development by
inter-group conflict of the social and moral qualities which make
' His illustrations from social evolution, Social Evolution, chs. VI and VII, have
no biological analogue.
2 Ibid., pp. 67 ff. 3 Ibid., pp. 107 f.
NEO-DARWINIAN SOCIOLOGISTS gi
for group strength thus affording a wholesome antidote to
Nietzsche; (2) the value he places on religion as a factor in group
survival; (3) his criticism of the over-emphasis on the intellectual
element in social progress as in the writings of Buckle, though here
he is weak in failing to appreciate the value of the intellect in
active social adaptation; and (4) his doctrine of projected effi-
ciency which, though untenable as formulated by him, is most
suggestive especially as a principle of social control. As such it
means merely that the group that would be immortal must use
forethought and see to it that those qualities and conditions are
developed which make for group strength not only in the present
but in the distant future and that those which weaken the group
are eliminated, — but this is entirely foreign to the thought of
our author.
The most serious objections to Kidd’s social philosophy are
(t) his use of the deductive and analogical method almost ex-
clusively, rather than the inductive; (2) his loose, inconsistent
use of biological formulae as applied to social progress; (3) his
hyper-acute imagination which reads into biological theories
what was never intended by the author; (4) his dogmatic setting
forth of mere hypotheses as assured laws; (5) his use of the term
organism to include the future, for there can be no organism apart
from organization; and (6) his conception of reason as diametri-
cally opposed to faith on the one hand and to everything that
does not favor narrow self-interest on the other. This is due to
his failure to recognize the function of the self-regarding sentiment
as it expands to include ever wider circles of individuals with
whom self-interest is identified. Just as reason leads us to deny
ourselves a present for a future enjoyment, and one that is sensual
for one that is intellectual, so it may lead us to deny an egoistic
satisfaction for one that comes as a result of success to our family,
club, church or state.1_ Moreover Kidd fails utterly to note the
function of reason in mitigating social misery. He pictures the
awful condition of the poor in industrial centers and cites this as
an example of the sacrifice required on the part of the toiling
masses that the group may succeed and that social progress may
1 For the development of this thought, see infra, chs. VII, XV, and Conclusion.
92 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
be advanced, — and finds no rational sanction for such sacrifice;
but the pity of it all is that religion is invoked to keep them to
their hard lot when in fact social welfare demands that their
condition be changed. It is true that there is no rational sanction
for the condition of the millions of the industrially exploited, nor
should there be any super-rational sanction.
GALTON AND PEARSON 1
National Eugenics
These two may well be considered together for they are closely
related in point of view, method and conclusions, and moreover
have been associated in their life work, — the latter being the
present director of the Eugenics Laboratory at London, founded
by the former.
Sir Francis Galton, cousin of Charles Darwin, well versed both
in medicine and mathematics, is known chiefly as the author of
Hereditary Genius and founder of the modern science of national
eugenics. ‘This new science was thus defined by its founder in
establishing the laboratory in connection with the University of
London: “ National eugenics is the study of those agencies under
social control, which may improve or impair the racial qualities
of future generations, either physically or mentally.”’2 This
definition is interpreted somewhat differently by Professor Pear-
son in Lecture Series, nos.1and vu. In the former he says, “The
word eugenic here has the double sense of the English well-bred,
goodness of nature and goodness of nurture. Our science does
not propose to confine its attention to problems of inheritance
only, but to deal also with problems of environment and nur-
ture.” * In the pamphlet published two years later practically
all the stress is placed on nature as over-against nurture. Here
racial is given most prominence and is defined as follows: ‘“ We
understand by a racial character, one which is the product of
many generations of selecting, one which passes from generation
to generation, and one which is not fundamentally modified if a
child be born to the race in India, Canada, or Australia. We are
1 Galton, 1822-1911; Pearson, 1857-.
? Laboratory Lecture Series, no. ix, p. 2. 3 Ibid., no. i, p. 10.
NEO-DARWINIAN SOCIOLOGISTS 93
looking, therefore, at the range of qualities fixed by selection and
transmitted by heredity.” !
In Hereditary Genius Galton endeavored to trace the in-
fluence of heredity in the transmission of high mental ability, but
succeeded in showing only a correlation without separating the
factors of “ nature” and “nurture”’; yet in his discussion of
Influences that Affect the Natural Ability of Nations, he assumes
that he has shown that the qualities are hereditary rather than
due to environment. ‘I shall have occasion to show,” he says,
“that certain influences retard the average age of marriage, while
others hasten it; . . . that an enormous effect upon the average
natural ability of a race may be produced by means of those
influences. I shall argue that the wisest policy is that which
results in retarding the average age of marriage among the weak
and in hastening it among the vigorous classes; whereas, most
unhappily for us, the influence of numerous social agencies has
been strongly and banefully exerted in precisely the opposite
direction.” 2 He discusses not only the effect of the age of
marriage, but also of religious persecution and celibacy both of
the priesthood and of a type of scholastics,? and bases his con-
clusion on the innate differences between the various classes in
English society and their value to the race-stock. Now he has
not proven that the lower economic classes or those who by
intellectual tests stand lowest are innately inferior to the higher,
yet the whole value of his argument rests on this and on the
correlation between physical vigor and the possession of those
qualities which make for national strength. In truth, in his
prefatory chapter to the edition of 1892 where he takes his stand
on Weismannism, he confuses those qualities of mind and char-
acter which may be purely psycho-social, as in the illustration
given from the French Huguenots, and those that pertain to the
germ plasm.! The same confusion is to be noted in his discussion
of The Comparative Worth of Different Races. He holds that the
1 Laboratory Lecture Series, no. vii, pp. 4 f.
2 Hereditary Genius, p. 339 (italics ours).
3 Ibid., pp. 343 £. Yet he admits that celibacy is favorable to eminence, hence to
the production of those utilities which make for national strength, zbid., p. 320.
4 [bid., p. xxiii.
94 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
average ability of the Anglo-Saxon race is about two classes above
the Negro race, but about an equal degree below the ancient
Athenians. This confusion of innate and acquired characters is
especially pronounced in his discussion of “ types,”’ where there is
not a shred of evidence adduced in support of his contention that
it is a matter of race-stock! rather than of social heredity.
Indeed here his argument is largely analogical.
Extensive investigations have been carried on during the past
three years in connection with the Eugenics Laboratory in which
the endeavor has been made to separate the influences of “ na-
ture” and “nurture” but they are only to a limited degree
convincing, especially concerning the main thesis of both Galton
and Pearson that the majority of each generation are the off-
spring of a small per cent of those in the preceding generation
composing the half of the population inferior in natural ability.?
There is no question, today, among students of the subject,
concerning the general facts of heredity, including the inheritance
of mental and temperamental traits although these must be
reduced to terms of the physical. There is great difference of
opinion, however, as to the variability of the race-stock as a
whole or on the average. In fact we do not know the unit
characters and the combination of them which make for individual
and social efficiency, and if we did, as Max Nordau has pointed
out, selective breeding for “ points”? would probably result in
lack of adaptability to general life conditions as is the case with
thorough-bred animals.*
One of the recent investigations at the Eugenics Laboratory
proves absolutely nothing except the difficulty of securing social
data of any real value for statistical purposes. This investiga-
tion concerning The Influence of Defective Physique and Unfavor-
able Home Environment on the Intelligence of School Children by
Dr. David Heron, concludes that on the basis of the data there is
“little sensible effect of nurture, environment, and physique on
intelligence.”* This finding is so at variance with the results of
1 Hereditary Genius, pp. 350f. ‘This discussion based on Darwin’s theory of
pangenesis was repudiated in the Preface to the 1892 edition. Cf. p. xiv.
2 Lecture Series, no. ii, esp. pp. 16 ff.
3 Sociological Papers, ii, p. 31. 4 Memoirs, no. viii, p. 58.
NEO-DARWINIAN SOCIOLOGISTS 95
medical inspection in schools both in England and America as to
be of negative value.
Other of the studies are of far greater value, as those concerning
the influence of alcohol on heredity ! but even these are not con-
clusive, except as indicating with a good degree of certainty that
chronic alcoholism is more or less a symptom of germinal defect.?
The general conclusion of all the laboratory investigations is to
the effect that mental and moral traits, as well as physical, includ-
ing insane and tubercular diathesis, are inheritable in about the
same ratio,? and that heredity is vastly more important than
environment. The writer goes so far, even, as to hold that
medical progress, by suspending the operation of natural selection
by prolonging the lives of those who otherwise would have been
“ selected,’ has weakened the average quality of the race-stock,§
and that this tendency can be counteracted only by national
eugenics.
Mr. Galton wrote his Hereditary Genius from the point of view
of Darwin’s theories of natural selection, pangenesis and the
inheritance of acquired characters, but later accepted the teach-
ings of Weismann. Pearson, in his Grammar of Science, makes
room for other factors in race-stock improvement besides natural
selection,® but in his more recent writings he, too, has become a
1 Memoirs, nos. x and xiii.
? For sane criticism see Charity Organization Review, September, 1910.
3 Lecture Series, no. ii, p. 20. How a moral trait can be inherited is not made
clear. There is a strong tendency in modern psychology and ethics to repudiate
the old teaching concerning a ‘“‘ moral sense.” Biology has not yet revealed the
possibility of inheriting anything that cannot be reduced to terms of the physical
(including the nervous system). If there be innate moral traits they must be a
function of the nervous system. The nearest approach that modern psychology
can make is in its assumption of a gregarious or social instinct, and possibly of an
instinct that leads one to do as others do. Recent studies of juvenile delinquency
have failed to find any specific inheritance of criminal tendencies, and criminal
psychologists are now questioning the existence of the class of so-called ‘‘ moral
delinquents.” Cf. Healey, The Individual Delinquent.
s “ We find that the effect of nurture is on the average hardly one-fifth to one-
tenth that of heredity.” — Lecture Series, no. vii, p. 7. Yet in no case has the
factor of heredity been kept entirely separate from early home training except in
Galton’s study of twins. Cf. Ward’s Applied Sociology.
5 Lecture Series, no. ix, p. 19.
6 Grammar of Science, p. 378. Cf. concluding chapter of this volume.
96 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
Weismannian and with him emphasizes the good of the species
rather than that of the individual. In the former work, also, he
traces the operation of the law of evolution and selection through
the three stages which he names individualism, socialism and
humanism, but in National Life from the Standpoint of Science and
in his published lectures the emphasis is almost entirely on the
national group in its competition with other groups.
The contributions of Galton and Pearson to our subject may be
summarized as follows: —
1. Passive Physical Adaptation. They have endeavored to
prove by the biometric method that social progress is largely by
natural selection: e. g., that from 60 to 70 per cent of deaths are
“ selective ”; | that 12 per cent of one generation, and from those
of inferior ability, produce 50 per cent of the next generation; ?
that there is correlation between physical stature and race vigor ®
and that urbanization leads to degeneration;‘* that ‘‘ nature ”
is stronger than “ nurture ”’; > that alcoholism is not so much the
cause as the symptom of degeneration; ® that intermarriage with
inferior races is fatal to the higher race; 7 that health and vigor are
the best selective qualities known at present and that the best
qualities are to a large extent correlated; ® but most important of
all is the emphasis laid by Pearson on the importance of inter-
group struggle and on the teaching that co-operation within
the group is essential to make it strong in competition with
other groups.°®
2. Active Material Adaptation. The chief contribution in this
department comes from Pearson’s Grammar of Science where he
points out the utility of scientific training not only to increase the
1 Lecture Series, no. ii, p. 22. 2 Tbid., p. 28.
3 Inquiries into Human Faculties, p. 22.
4‘ Ibid., p. 24. Weakened, however, by the following: “ Sickly looking and
puny residents in towns may have a more suitable constitution for the special
conditions of their lives, and may in some sense be better knit and do more work
and live longer than much haler men imported to the same locality from elsewhere.”
® Cf. Galton’s studies of twins, Inquiries into Human Faculties, p. 235.
®§ Memoirs, nos. x and xiii.
7 National Life, pp. 14 f.
8 Sociological Papers, ii, p. 50.
9 National Life, pp. 44 f.
NEO-DARWINIAN SOCIOLOGISTS 97
comforts of life but in the interest of efficient citizenship,’ and
from his National Life, where he shows the importance of educa-
tion for adaptability and group success.?
3. Passive Spiritual Adaptation. Galton points out the in-
fluence that customs and religion have had on marriage institu-
tions and believes that after a time eugenics may so influence
public opinion that uneugenic marriages will be tabooed and that
this new science may yet receive the sanction of religion® If this
stage should be reached we would have an example of the opera-
tion of passive spiritual adaptation. Pearson emphasizes the
value of scientific training to insure social stability.
4. Active Spiritual Adaptation. Eugenics as defined by Galton
belongs properly to this department of our subject, so that the
contributions of these two on the constructive side belong here.
The contrast between eugenics and evolution is well illustrated by
these words from the founder of the new science: —
Eugenics strengthens the sense of social duty in so many important partic-
ulars that the conclusions derived from its study ought to find a welcome
home in every tolerant religion. It promotes a far-sighted philanthropy,
the acceptance of parentage as a serious responsibility, and a higher concep-
tion of patriotism. The creed of eugenics is founded upon the idea of evo-
lution; not on a passive form of it, but on one that can, to some extent, direct
its own course. Purely passive, or what may be styled mechanical evolution
displays the awe-inspiring spectacle of a vast eddy of organic turmoil, origi-
nating we know not how, and traveling we know not whither. ... Its
constituents are always changing, though its shape as a whole hardly varies.
Evolution is in any case a grand phantasmagoria, but it assumes an infinitely
more interesting aspect under the knowledge that the intelligent action of
the human will is, in some small measure, capable of guiding its course. Man
has the power of doing this largely so far as the evolution of humanity is con-
cerned; he has already affected the quality and distribution of organic life so
widely that the changes on the surface of the earth, merely through his dis-
forestings and agriculture, would be recognizable from a distance as great as
that of the moon... .
Eugenic belief extends the function of philanthropy to future generations,
it renders its action more pervading than hitherto, by dealing with families
and societies in their entirety, and it enforces the importance of the marriage
covenant by directing serious attention to the probable quality of the future
offspring. It sternly forbids all forms of sentimental charity that are harm-
ful to the race, while it eagerly seeks opportunity for acts of personal kind-
+ pp. 7 f. 3 Sociological Papers, i, p. 12.
% p. 32. 4 Grammar of Science, p. 9.
98 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
ness, aS some equivalent to the loss of what it forbids. It brings the tie of
kinship into prominence and strongly encourages love and interest in family
and race. In brief, eugenics is a virile creed, full of hopefulness and appealing
to many of the noblest feelings of our nature. !
Both Galton and Pearson are to be commended for their pains-
taking labors in one important department of human progress.
The biometric method as developed by Pearson and employed by
his co-laborers is certain to prove a valuable instrument in social
science although owing to the unreliable character of much of the
data gathered up to the present the conclusions are far from
satisfactory. The friction between the workers at the Galton
Laboratory and the American workers at Cold Spring Harbor
under Dr. Davenport is perhaps unfortunate, yet the rivalry and
competitive criticism which is essentially a struggle for existence
between statistics as applied to the study of hereditary qualities
and a study of family records on the basis of the Mendelian theory
of unit characters, will doubtless result in hastening a knowledge
of the truth. The Memoirs issued from the Eugenics Laboratory
are cautious and modest in their statements and conclusions, not
pretending to discover causes but only correlations. In the
Lecture Series, however, too often the suggestions of the Memoirs
are given out as ascertained facts, and the animus shown in some
of the criticisms of the Mendelian workers by those of the Galton
Laboratory suggests a consciousness of weakness in the biometric
methods as there used.?
The conclusions of both Galton and Pearson concerning race-
stock degeneration do not seem to be borne out by the Courtis
tests in arithmetic applied to more than 40,000 children in
widely separated schools in several states of our country and
three schools of London. ‘These tests do not indicate that there
is very much difference in natural ability between the children of
the various social classes, although they do show great differences
in natural ability between individual pupils in all classes.? Neither
are they corroborated by use of the Binet tests on certain orphans
1 Sociological Papers, ii, pp. 52, 53.
* See Eugenics Record Office, Bulletin no. 11, February, 1914.
5 Report Investigation, New York Schools, 1912, pp. 62, 66, 74; especially tests
on twins, pp. 71, 72.
NEO-DARWINIAN SOCIOLOGISTS 99
received from the lowest economic classes, for the results seemed
to indicate average intelligence.1_ So while the work of the Galton
Laboratory is to be commended in a general way, the results as
yet are by nc means conclusive and the question of the relative
importance of “ nature ” and “ nurture ”’ is still open.
VACHER DE LAPOUGE (1854- _—=)
Societal Selections
Professor Lapouge, in his Sélectiones Sociales, takes very much
the same position as Galton and Pearson concerning the applica-
tion of biological formulae to social progress and the necessity
of a thorough-going system of eugenics to offset the present
tendency toward race degeneration. He pushes his theoretical
conclusions farther than they but has not done so much in the line
of original investigation. He makes more concessions than does
Pearson in his most recent writings to those who hold that many
influences may affect the germ plasm,? but like both Galton and
Pearson holds that social progress is by selective rather than by
collective evolution; * i. e., by selection within the group rather
than by any process of group transformation, and like them, too,
he emphasizes race far more than environment,‘ holding that the
reason for the short and brilliant career of Portugal was due to
the loss of her best blood and crossing with negro slaves,® and says
that “‘ if the Greeks of the golden age could suddenly return to life,
in less than a century the center of civilization would have
returned to the Acropolis.” ®
With Lapouge a nation or race is not a permanent type but in
constant flux so that it is not able to accomplish at one time what
it had been able to accomplish at a previous period,’ and indeed
differs so greatly in two epochs as to be equivalent to two distinct
races. He points out the fatality which results to a superior
race that mixes with an inferior one that greatly exceeds it in
numbers as in the case of the Spaniards in South America.
1 Survey, November 11, 1911, p. 1188. Cf. Report Massachusetts Commission
on Increase of Crime, Insanity, etc., 1910; and especially Ward, A pplied Sociology.
2 Sélectiones Sociales, p. 49. 3 Ibid., pp. 83 f. 4 Ibid., pp. 60 ff.
5 Tbid., p. 77- 8 Tbid., p. 69. 7 Ibid., p. 62. 8 Ibid., p. 66.
ifele) ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
In discussing the stages of growth and decay in a civilization,
which he likens to a biological organism,! he says: —
The birth of a historic people requires the presence in a social environment
of superior ethnic elements capable of directing and drawing along (en-
trainer) the masses. These elements . . . are regularly provided by a
conquering people but they can come by pacific immigration and even,
theoretically, by internal selection. ...The period of development is that
where superior elements multiply, take the direction of affairs and put on
them the stamp of their personal genius. . . . The golden age is the cul-
mination of eugenics. . . . The period of decadence follows the weakening
of the superior elements and condemns itself by the division of power with
inferior elements. The end comes with the complete exhaustion of eugenic
capital, but a nation may still survive in this state so long as a shock from
outside does not overthrow the decayed structure (édifice vermoulu).?
Lapouge believes that civilization leads inevitably to cerebral
regression just as in the case with animals under domestication,?
and that education can affect only the individual, so is limited in
influence and nil in race-stock improvement.*
He follows Darwin and Broca in recognizing the change in the
evolutionary process with the development of man’s intelligence
and holds with reason that ‘‘in man, social selection overrides
natural selection.” > Among the institutions which make for
social selection, he discusses at length the military, political,
religious, moral, legal and economic. Under the last he mentions
age of marriage, occupational mortality, migration and urbaniza-
tion.®
His conclusion is pessimistic in the extreme: ‘‘ The future is not
to the best, at most to the mediocre. To the degree that civiliza-
tion develops, the advantages of natural selection change to a
bitter scourge upon humanity. All apparent progress is at the
expense of capital drawn from the force and energy, from the will
and intelligence, and this capital becomes dissipated.?. He holds
that the testimony of paleontology is to the effect that the most
perfect forms are the least stable; that the lower forms are better
adapted to their environment as in the case of parasites, mi-
1 Sélectiones Sociales, p. 49. 5 Tbid., pp. 187 f.
2 [bid., pp. 77 f. 6 Ibid., pp. 207-387.
3 [bid., p. 118. 7 Ibid., p. 406.
4 [bid., pp. 100 f.
NEO-DARWINIAN SOCIOLOGISTS IOI
crobes, and insects which have destroyed the largest and best
armed species.!. He sees no evidence of purpose or plan in the
evolutionary process, nor any guarantee for the future of hu-
manity. Utopias, he holds, are mere phantasies of the brain.
Lapouge sees one glimmering ray of hope, — systematic selec-
tion, or what Galton and Pearson are pleased to call national
eugenics. He sets forth facetiously the possibilities of zodtech-
nic and scientific reproduction ? concluding that the triumph of
statecraft would be in the breeding of a society of optimists who
would always be content with everything. In this we are re-
minded of the ultimate stoical super-man of Nietzsche evolved by
natural, however, rather than by artificial selection.
Lapouge’s eugenic program is as follows: —
(x) To establish a natural aristocracy in some selected social
group; (2) to establish special, distinct castes; (3) to transform
the group as a whole to a fixed point; (4) to create a race that
shall dominate everywhere; (5) to recast humanity completely
by the aid of perfect local types; (6) to substitute for humanity
as it now is a single perfect race; etc.*
This program is to be carried out in a two-fold way: by the
elimination of unserviceable elements and second, by the breed-
ing of superior elements. He realizes the difficulties in the
accomplishment of the plan but looks first to the enlightenment
of the people and the formation of public opinion, and then
expects that some sort of socialistic régime will be necessary for
its consummation.
In view of the dispute among biologists as to the place natural
selection plays in biological evolution, all social philosophies
based on this theory by deduction have an uncertain foundation
but this foundation becomes still more unreliable when we consider
that in social evolution intelligence adds a new and disturbing
1 Sélectiones Sociales, p. 457- 2 Ibid., pp. 472 f.
3 (x) De constituer une aristocratie naturelle chez un people déterminé; (2) de
constituer des castes spécialisées et separées; (3) de transformer intégralement un
peuple a un degré déterminé; (4) de créer une race dominante ubiquiste; (5) de
refondre entigrement l’humanité 4 l’aide des types locaux les parfaits; (6) de sub-
stituer A Vhumanité actuelle une race unique et parfaite; etc,” p. 484.
102 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
factor. The only safe method, then, is to secure a sure basis, if
possible, by an inductive study of the process itself and only
after we have done this are we in a position to criticize fairly the
school of writers whom we have just reviewed.
Before passing to this inductive study, however, it will be neces-
sary to consider another group of writers who have laid stress on
the environment as the most important conditioning factor, and
of these we shall consider briefly the contributions of four repre-
sentative writers: Karl Marx making his approach through
economics and philosophy, Buckle, through economics and sta-
tistics, and Ratzel! and Ripley through an inductive study of the
influence of the physical environment on individuals and social
groups.
1 As interpreted by Miss Semple.
CHAPTER VI
THE ENVIRONMENTAL SCHOOL OF SOCIOLOGISTS
Kart Marx (1818-1883)
Economic Determinism
Kart Marx, the founder of scientific socialism, finds place in our
discussion, not so much because of his contribution to the develop-
ment of the doctrine of adaptation as a theory of social progress as
because of his emphasis on certain features and factors of progress
which properly interpreted are fundamental and have been given
saner interpretation since.
Marx started as a disciple of Hegel and never entirely freed
himself from Hegelian @ priorism and dialectic. He became a
Hegelian of the Left, however, which at the time was dominated
by Feuerbach whose materialistic philosophy is well summed up
in the aphoristic and much-quoted expression ‘‘ der Mensch ist
was er isst.” Like Comte, his French contemporary, Feuerbach
united a scientific view of life with a passion for humanity. The
result among the young Hegelians was Humanism linked with
Communism. This provided a fertile soil for the production of
scientific socialism with its philosophy of “ economic determin-
ism.” }
The transformed Hegelianism of Marx led him to find the cause
of all historical movements in material conditions.? His interest
in the proletariat class with their bad conditions of life and labor,
led him to a study of the industrial revolution and its connection
with feudalism. Out of this study came his teaching that class
struggle is the very essence of history and that methods of pro-
duction and exchange are the fundamental causes of these strug-
gles and of the social institutions and ideals growing out of them.
1 John Rae, Contemporary Socialism, pp. 129 f.; Kirkup, History of Socialism,
ch. VII.
2 Manifesto of the Communist Party (1898).
3 Capital, pp. 392 f., 502 f.
103
104 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
Moreover he was familiar with the teachings of the classical
economists “‘ that labor is the source of value, but that of this
value the laborer obtains for himself merely a subsistence wage,!
the surplus being appropriated by the exploiting capitalist.” ?
Such theories gave him the background for his fundamental doc-
trine that this theft of the surplus-value of labor is the fountain-
head of all social inequality and of the modern industrial system
with its exploitation of the laboring class. With these premises
his conclusion was inevitable: The supreme need that the workers
of each nation and ultimately of all nations should unite in a class-
conscious revolution against their exploiters and secure the
socialization of all wealth, all of which was the product of social
labor.?
Of special interest for our purpose is Marx’s philosophy of his-
tory which has come to be known as “ economic determinism.”
This principle, set forth in the Manifesto of the Communist Party
in 1848, drawn up jointly by Marx and Engels is stated by the
latter in the introduction to the second edition to mean
That in every historical epoch, the prevailing mode of economic produc-
tion and exchange, and the social organization necessarily following from it,
form the basis upon which is built up, and from which alone can be explained,
the political and intellectual history of that epoch; that consequently the
whole history of mankind (since the dissolution of primitive tribal society,
holding land in common ownership) has been a history of class struggles,
contests between exploiting and exploited, ruling and oppressed classes.
Though in this quotation all the emphasis is on methods of
production and exchange, the social forces were not always so
narrowly limited by Marx and Engels,‘ nor are they so limited by
leading exponents of this philosophy today, but include all human
endeavor to satisfy the fundamental needs of life. In other
words, as W. J. Ghent phrases it:
The economic interpretation of history is the doctrine that the relations of
men to one another in the matter of making a living are the main under-
lying causes of men’s habits of thought and feeling, their notions of right,
1 Capital, pp. 119, 150 f., ch. XVII.
2 Kirkup, of. cit., p. 154; cf. Capital, p. 517.
3 Manifesto (1898) p. 33, Capital, pp. 621, 788 f.
4 Cf. Walling, The Larger Aspects of Socialism, p. 379.
ENVIRONMENTAL SCHOOL OF SOCIOLOGISTS 10s
propriety, and legality, their institutions of society and government, their
wars and revolutions.!
Of the fundamental economic teachings of Marx, not one is
accepted today by economists of recognized authority.2 His pro-
phecy concerning the disappearance of the middle class has failed
of fulfilment. His emphasis on the conflict between the capitalis-
tic and proletariat classes as the very essence of social and indus-
trial evolution is now recognized as being too easy a solution of
the problem of conflict of interests between classes and between
groups, but his teaching that social progress and social institutions
are determined largely by economic conditions, has received
increasing acceptance with the passing years.’
Henry THomas BucKLeE (1820-1862)
Intellect and Environment
Frail of body from earliest years with almost no schooling and
without the home training which was the making of Spencer,
Henry Thomas Buckle, self-educated, if that term is ever appro-
priate to use, at his death at the age of forty-one years, left a
work which has placed his name high among those who have
contributed to the science of social progress.
Although his réle was that of a philosopher of history and his
aim “ to bring up this great department of inquiry [history] to a
level with other departments ” by placing it on the sure founda-
tion of science, his History of Civilization in England contains
much that bears directly on the development of the doctrine of
adaptation as a theory of social progress.
Although well equipped for his task as to information gleaned
from the study of many thousand books, as well as by extensive
travel, in logic he was exceedingly weak. Here, as nowhere else,
was manifested the lack of training which such a person would
have received by means of a university education.
Mr. Buckle’s approach to his problem was through statistics
and economics, so his point of view, his illustrations and con-
1 W. J. Ghent, Mass and Class, ch. I. 2 Cf. Kirkup, of. cit., pp. 154 f.
3 Cf. discussion of Active Material Adaptation, infra, Part IV.
106 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
clusions, differ greatly from those of Spencer, being more like
those of Comte, but most of all like those of Quételet whom he
follows closely in many places.
Comte made use of history to illustrate his law of the three
stages as the foundation of his Philosophy and Polity. Buckle
made use of history to prove that a science of history was possible
and especially to establish his theory that social progress was due
entirely to increase of knowledge.
He shows first, by appeal to statistics, that there is regularity
in the recurrence of such social phenomena as deaths, marriages,
etc., demonstrating thus that there are underlying causes with
laws of manifestation. From this he concludes that free will, as
usually interpreted, is an illusion.1 In this he goes further than
Quételet who grants arbitrary freedom within certain limits, a
theory illustrated by M. Block as follows: “ L’homme est libre
mais l’humanité suit sa propre voie; de sorte que l’individu se
trouve comme le voyageur sur le bateau 4 vapeur; il peut se
promener librement sur le pont 4 la condition de ne pas géner les
manoeuvres des marins.”’?
He turns next to a study of the causes of the rise and progress
of civilization, making use of the statistical method in a rough,
loose way, and finds that there are two fundamental factors, the
external or nature, and the internal, or mind. The elements of
the former are climate, food, soil and the general aspects of
nature; those of the latter, the intellect and moral nature. The
paysical organism is practically ignored, and with it the influence
of heredity, stressed so greatly by some later writers. Nor was
this due to ignorance of the biological conclusions of his day
including the Origin of Species. Numerous citations in footnotes
show he was acquainted with the leading biological writings of
his time. He was intimate with Spencer and in a letter refers to
Darwin’s Origin of Species. After hearing the evidence pro
and con he decides that ‘‘ the original distinctions of race are
altogether hypothetical.” “We have no decisive ground,” he
holds, “ for saying that the moral and intellectual faculties in man
are likely to be greater in an infant born in the most civilized part
1 History of Civilization, pp. 17 f. ? Traité de Statistique, p. 143.
ENVIRONMENTAL SCHOOL OF SOCIOLOGISTS 107
of Europe than in the wildest region of a barbarous country.” !
He discredits all theories of hereditary transmission of virtues and
vices, even madness, but fails to discriminate between acquired
and inborn variations. “Here then,” he says, “is the gist
of the whole matter. The progress is one, not of internal power,
but of external advantage.” 3
This does not mean that Buckle was not a believer in the
general theory of evolution but biological evolution with him
stopped with the physical basis of primitive man and all further
development was the result of environment and education.
With Buckle there are two separate realms, nature, with its
laws of development, and the mind, with its laws. These two
realms somehow interact but he makes no attempt to get at the
realnexus. ‘“‘ On the one hand we have the human mind obeying
the laws of its own existence, and, when uncontrolled by external
agents, developing itself according to the conditions of its organ-
ization. On the other hand, we have what is called nature,
obeying likewise its laws; but incessantly coming into contact
with the minds of men, exciting their passions, stimulating their
intellect, and therefore giving to their actions a direction which
they would not have taken without such disturbance.”* “When
we consider the incessant contact between man and the external
world,” he says, “it is certain that there must be an intimate
connection between human actions and physical laws,” — and he
looks forward to a time when physical science shall show the
connection.®
His chief contribution to our subject is in his contrast between
those sections of the earth where man is dominated by his environ-
ment and where civilization is thus a product of the interplay of
forces unguided by intelligence, as in Egypt and India, thus
illustrating passive adaptation, and those sections of the earth
where the environment has stimulated the development of the in-
tellect until man controls nature in the interest of his highest well-
being as in western Europe, thus illustrating active adaptation.
1 In this he deserves great credit as being the forerunner of Ward, Kidd, Boas,
Angell, and a host of other modern sociologists. 2 Op. cit., p. 161.
3 Op. cit., p. 162. 4 Op. cit., p. 19. > Op. cit., p. 32.
108 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
He summarizes his conclusions in the first part of Chapter IIE
and brings out so clearly the contrast between passive and active
adaptation that portions may well be given.
Looking at the history of the world as a whole, the tendency has been, in
Europe, to subordinate nature to man; out of Europe, to subordinate man
to nature. . . . It suggests the important consideration, that if we would
understand, for instance, the history of India, we must make the external
world our first study, because it has influenced man more than man has
influenced it. If, on the other hand, we would understand the history of a
country like France or England we must make man our principal study,
because nature being comparatively weak, every step in the great progress
has increased the dominion of the human mind over the agencies of the ex-
ternal world. Even in those countries where the power of man has reached
the highest point, the pressure of nature is still immense, but it diminishes
in each succeeding generation, because our increasing knowledge enables us
not so much to control nature, as to foretell her movements, and thus obviate
many of the evils she would otherwise occasion. . . . All around us are the
traces of this glorious and successful struggle. Indeed it seems as if in
Europe there was nothing man feared to attempt. The invasions of the sea
repelled, and whole provinces, as in the case of Holland, rescued from its
grasp; mountains cut through and turned into level roads; soils of the most
obstinate sterility becoming exuberant, from the mere advance of chemical
knowledge; while, in regard to electric phenomena, we see the subtlest, the
most rapid, and the most mysterious of all forces, made the medium of
thought and obeying even the most capricious behests of the human mind.
. . . Formerly the richest countries were those in which nature was most
bountiful; now the richest countries are those in which man is most active.
. . . From these facts it may be fairly inferred that the advance of Euro-
pean civilization is characterized by a diminishing influence of physical laws,
and an increasing influence of mental laws. . . . These mental laws, when
ascertained, will be the ultimate basis of the history of Europe; the physical
laws will be treated as of minor importance, and as merely giving rise to dis-
turbances, the force and frequency of which have, during several centuries,
perceptibly diminished.!
This conclusion leads Buckle to discuss the current meta-
physical method of studying mental phenomena, — the intuitional
method, as we now say, —and to suggest as Comte had done that
mental phenomena must be studied in their historical manifesta-
tions as furnishing an objective, ‘common to all.” He was
evidently reaching after the modern method of physiological-
psychology.
1 History of Civilization, pp. 138-143.
ENVIRONMENTAL SCHOOL OF SOCIOLOGISTS 10g
In Chapter IV he uses the historical method to discover which
of the two mental factors is the more important, the intellectual
or the moral nature, and concludes that
The leading countries have now, for some centuries, advanced sufficiently
far to shake off the influences of those physical agencies by which, in an
earlier state their career might have been troubled; and that although
the moral agencies are still powerful, and still cause occasional disturbances,
these are but aberrations, which, if we compare long periods of time,
balance each other, and thus in the total amount entirely disappear. So
that, in a great and comprehensive view, the changes in every civilized
people are, in their aggregate, dependent solely on these things: first on the
amount of knowledge possessed by their ablest men; secondly, on the direc-
tion which that knowledge takes, that is to say, the sort of subjects to which
it refers; thirdly, and above all, on the extent to which the knowledge is
diffused, and the freedom with which it pervades all classes of society.
Buckle is open to criticism along several lines: (1) He talks
much about progress without giving a definite standard.2 He
speaks of intellectual progress, progress of society, advance of
civilization, increase of general happiness but nowhere sets forth
a social goal. The dominant note, however, is the increase of
man’s power over the material environment which we term active
material adaptation.
(2) Knowledge is always considered as having dynamic quality
much as with Socrates, but this is not true of mere knowledge of
the laws of nature which is the conception dominant in his
thought.
(3) He is not clear in his definition of the moral element. In
one place it would seem to be a matter of will, — “ To be willing
to perform our duty is the moral part; to know how to perform it
is the intellectual part.” * Again it would seem to consist largely
of emotional elements: “If the advance of civilization and the
general happiness of mankind depend more on their moral feelings
than on their intellectual knowledge, we must of course measure
the progress of society by those feelings ”;* but again, morality
appears to be a matter of conforming to standards of conduct
varying from country to country and from year to year,> while
on the same page we find the statement made that “ there is,
1 History of Civilization, pp. 204, 205. 2 Ibid., pp. 158 f.
3 Tbid., p. 159. 4 Ibid., p. 159. 5 Tbid., pp. 162-163.
1IO ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
unquestionably, nothing to be found in the world which has
undergone so little change as those great dogmas of which moral
systems are composed.”
(4) In discussing the influence of religion, literature and
government on social progress, we are reminded of both Comte
and Spencer, for with all three the doctrine of relativity is promi-
nent, that is, religion, literature and government are all merely
expressions of the life of society and relative to the degree of
civilization possessed. Buckle, with Spencer, believed that the
function of government should be purely negative-regulative, —
to use Spencer’s phrase, — and in this differed from Comte with
his paternalism. Buckle failed utterly to appreciate the in-
spirational value of religion, literature and moral ideals and
failed to evaluate correctly the more positive, constructive func-
tions of government that have proven so essential to social well-
being.
(s) His conception of law and his confusion of correlation with
cause lead to serious fallacies in his argument. These errors are
due to his infatuation with the statistical method without appre-
ciating its limitations. His conception of law is brought out in a
footnote where he quotes Dugald Stewart with approval as
follows: “A law of nature being merely a generalization of
relations, and having no existence except in the mind, is essen-
tially intangible; and, therefore, however small the law may be,
it can never admit of exceptions, though its operation may admit
of innumerable exceptions.” ! The change in marriage rates
corresponding to the rise and fall in the price of corn illustrates
Buckle’s conception of law.
In his investigation of the effects of environment on social con-
ditions, again, he shows merely correlations but not proximate
causes.? Granted that in Egypt with cheap food supply we have
the early rise of tyrants and slaves, if we start with Buckle’s
assumption of natural equality, why do some become aristocrats
rather than others? ‘The true solution would seem to be either
in difference of native ability, or priority in securing possession of
1 History of Civilization, p. 28.
® For excellent criticisms see Fiske, Cosmic Philosophy, ii, pp. 200 f.
ENVIRONMENTAL SCHOOL OF SOCIOLOGISTS Itl
the most fertile land or both. That is, Buckle points out correla-
tions rather than causes.
(6) Finally, his analysis of the mind or internal factor is faulty.
It is impossible to evaluate separately the operations of thought,
feeling and will. The self functions as one and to separate the
working of the intellect and the moral factor is like trying to
decide which comes first the chicken or the egg.
Since he did not pretend to be a scientist, as did Spencer, we
should not criticize him too harshly when he invades the field of
science. He did his task in calling attention, as neither Comte
nor Spencer had done, to the mighty influence of the physical
environment on social progress, in pointing out that evolution
took a new turn when it had developed the human organism
including the brain of man, and in emphasizing that distinction
most important in our discussion, between what Professor
Carver and others call passive and active adaptation.
The task of setting forth the relation between the physical
environment and social progress, so well begun by Buckle, has
been carried forward by Friedrich Ratzel, W. Z. Ripley, and
others. The work of the former has been interpreted with some
modifications by his pupil and disciple, Ellen Churchill Semple,
and furnishes an important contribution to the doctrine of social
progress by passive adaptation.
RATZEL-SEMPLE}
Anthropo-Geography
“Ratzel,” says Ellen Churchill Semple, in her book, Influence of
Geographic Environment, “ performed the great service of placing
anthropo-geography on a secure scientific basis. He had his
forerunners in Montesquieu, Alexander von Humboldt, Buckle,
Ritter, Kohl, Peschel and others; but he first investigated the
subject from the modern scientific point of view, constructed his
system according to the principles of evolution, and based his
conclusions on world-wide inductions, for which his predecessors
did not command the data.” ?
1 F, Ratzel (1844-1904); Ellen C. Semple (1863-).
2 Influence of Geographic Environment, Preface.
112 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
In the spirit of Ratzel and dependent on much of the data
collected by him, Miss Semple makes an elaborate analysis of the
potent influence of geographical factors on history. In the
factors of environment we have, according to this author, a stable
force yet unceasing in its operations on “ shifting, plastic, pro-
gressive, retrogressive man.”
Geographic remoteness from centers of authority, as the thir-
teen colonies from the mother country; geographical proximity
to centers of civilization, as Greece to the Orient; natural barriers
that protect from migrating hordes; natural highways and
waterways that serve as arteries for the flow of commerce and
culture between nations, —all these, she shows, make history
dependent on geography.” Yet she grants that the analysis of
the interplay of physical with social forces is by no means easy.
“ We see the result,” she says, ‘‘ but find it difficult to state the
equation producing the result.”* Miss Semple points out how
the land and sea sometimes co-operate, sometimes are opposed
in influence, and how, though each country is an independent
whole and its history determined in large part by local geographi-
cal conditions, it is also influenced by those as far remote as the
downfall of Rome in relation to the gradual desiccation of
western Asia and the Volkerwanderung.®
Our author wisely discriminates between the direct and indirect
influences of the geographical environment, and shows how the
latter are in many respects the more potent, criticizing Buckle for
over-emphasizing the importance of awe-inspiring natural
phenomena in their direct effect on the human mind. ‘‘ Moun-
tain regions,” she says, “discourage the budding of genius
because they are areas of isolation, confinement, remote from the
great currents of men and ideas that move along the river valleys.
They are regions of much labor and little leisure, of poverty today
and anxiety for the morrow, of toil-cramped hands and toil-dulled
brains. In the fertile alluvial plains are wealth, leisure, contact
with many minds, large urban centers where commodities and
ideas are exchanged. ‘The two contrasted environments produce
1 Influence of Geographic Environment, p. 2- 2 Tbid., pp. 3 f.
3 [bid., p. 14. 4 Tbid., p. 16. 5 [bid., p. 17.
ENVIRONMENTAL SCHOOL OF SOCIOLOGISTS 113
directly certain economic and social results, which, in turn,
become the causes of secondary intellectual and artistic effects.” !
She shows how this factor of geographical isolation produces
social variations much as it does biological ? and how in the case of
colonization, if the new center of social life affords abundant
opportunity for production, the result is the rejuvenation of the
race.
“ Environment influences the higher, mental life of a people,”
says our author, “ chiefly through the medium of their economic
and social life.” She shows how true this is concerning politics
and even ethical ideas. ‘ Political parties tend to follow geo-
graphical lines of cleavage,” 4— but this is due to the fact that
these lines of cleavage mark lines of divergent interests, as in our
own Civil War when the mountaineers of the South sided with
the Union because they had no interest in slavery.
Time is an element to be reckoned with for the influence of
geographic environment takes time. “A habitat leaves upon
man no ephemeral impress; it affects him in one way at a low
stage of his development, and differently at a later or higher stage,
because the man himself and his relation to his environment have
been modified in the earlier period; but traces of that earlier
adaptation survive in his maturer life.’ 5 These modifications
are carried by a people in their migrations and determine their
reactions to a new environment as in the case of the Moors of
Spain; — “‘ They bore the impress of Asia, Africa and Europe,
and on their expulsion from Spain, carried back with them to
Morocco traces of their peninsula life.” 6
In tracing the influence of environment, Miss Semple shows
how complex is this factor, extending far beyond mere local con-
ditions, including, in fact, the whole earth.
The earth is an inseparable whole. Each country or sea is physically and
historically intelligible only as a portion of that whole. Currents and wind-
systems of the oceans modify the climate of the nearby continents, and direct
the first daring navigations of their peoples. . . . Europe is a part of the
Atlantic coast. This is a fact so significant that the North Atlantic has
become a European sea. The United States also is a part of the Atlantic
1 Influence of Geographic Environment, p. 20. 2 [bid., p. 21.
3 Tbid., p. 22. 4 Ibid., p. 23. 5 Ibid., p. 25. § Ibid., p. 25.
{14 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
coast: this is the dominant fact of American history. China forms a section
of the Pacific rim. This is the fact back of the geographic distribution of
Chinese emigration to Annam, Tonkin, Siam, Malacca, the Philippines, East
Indies . . . Ecuador and Peru.
As the earth is one, so is humanity. Its unity of species points to some
degree of communication through a long prehistoric past. Universal history
is not entitled to the name unless it embraces all parts of the earth and all
peoples, whether savage or civilized. To fill the gaps in the written record it
must turn to ethnography and geography, which by tracing the distribution
and movements of primitive peoples can often reconstruct the most impor-
tant features of their history.1
There are four fundamental classes of geographic influences
according to our author: (1) direct and indirect physical, (2)
direct and indirect psychical, (3) economic and social, and (4)
effects upon movements of peoples. As illustrations of the direct
effects working in conjunction with natural selection and espe-
cially potent on primitive man, we have variations in stature,
pigmentation and acclimatization; and of the indirect effects,
such anatomical changes as result from certain occupations,
these in turn being due to physical environment as in the case of
the thin legs and thick arms of the Payaguas Indians due to so
much of their life being spent in canoes.2 The psychical effects
are registered in differences in temperament which differentiate
peoples as well as in differences in literature and religion, while
the indirect effects are seen in peculiarities of language reflecting
local conditions and occupations. Under the third class we have
the effect of physical environment on a group through the natural
resources provided, the occupations encouraged or discouraged
and the facilities for exchange offered; and under the fourth
class, ‘‘ the effect of natural barriers . . . in obstructing or de-
flecting the course of migrating people and in giving direction to
national expansion, . . . the tendency of river valleys and tree-
less plains to facilitate such movements, the power of rivers, lakes,
bays and oceans either to block the path or open a highway, . . .
and finally the influence of all these natural features in determin-
1 Influence of Geographic Environment, p. 30.
2 Tbid., pp. 34f. If due merely to occupation these characters would not be in-
herited.
3 Ibid., p. 41.
ENVIRONMENTAL SCHOOL OF SOCIOLOGISTS IIs
ing the territory which a people is likely to occupy, and the
boundaries which shall separate them from their neighbors.” !
“The geographical environment of a people,” she continues,
“may be such as to segregate them from others, and thereby to
preserve or even intensify their natural characteristics; or it may
expose them to extraneous influences, to an infusion of new blood
and new ideas, till their peculiarities are toned down, their dis-
tinctive features of dialect or national dress or provincial cus-
toms eliminated, and the people as a whole approach to the
composite type of civilized humanity. A land shut off by moun-
tains or sea from the rest of the world tends to develop a homo-
geneous people....An easily accessible land is geographically
hospitable to all newcomers, facilitates the mingling of peoples, the
exchange of commodities and ideas. The amalgamation of races
in such regions depends upon the similarity or diversity of the
ethnic elements and the duration of the common occupation.” ?
The remainder of the book is largely an elaboration of the gen-
eral outline given in the first two chapters and indicates a breadth
of vision, a wealth of material gleaned from numerous authorities,
and a general grasp of all the factors that enter into social life and
social progress, that is highly satisfactory. However potent a
factor struggle and selection may be, even these, as Miss Semple
has so clearly shown, are largely determined by environmental
influences.
Witiam Z. Rrrey (1867- +d)
Race and Environment
Professor Ripley’s Races in Europe forms a fitting conclusion to
this part of our discussion for it represents a synthesis of the views
of those emphasizing the all-sufficiency of selection to explain
race progress and those stressing the potency of physical environ-
ment. “ Nature,” he says, “ sets the life lines for the savage in
climate; she determines his movements, stimulates or restrains
his advance in culture by providing or withholding the materials
necessary for such advance.”’? His investigations based on
1 Influence of Geographic Environment, p. 44.
2 Tbid., p. 45. 3 Races in Europe, p. 10.
116 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
observations and measurements of more than 25,000,000 persons
carried on by different authorities, including those by himself,
have as one aim “ to show the relation which has arisen between
the geography of a country and the character of its people and its
institutions,’ but more specifically to separate if possible the
factors of “ nature ” and “ nurture ” in the racial composition and
ethnic peculiarities of the peoples of Europe.
Race, with Professor Ripley, is not to be identified with political
boundaries, language or culture,' but is to be determined by
characters that are inheritable, such as shape of the head, face
form, pigmentation, stature and shape of the nose, — characters
now designated as Mendelian; but among these he holds that the
head form is most permanent, so the best ultimate criterion. In
considering the head form he says that no correlation has been
discovered as yet between this or indeed between the absolute
size of the head and intellectual capacity.2. A map of the world
showing the distribution of head forms indicates that a broad
headed race occupies central Asia and a strip on the extreme
north; a medium headed race, or a mixed people, the central
and eastern part of Europe and nearly all of the Americas except
the west, while a long-headed race occupies Africa, Australia,
Melanesia, western and southern Europe and the extreme north
of the new world.’ This distribution coincides roughly with that
of the racial divisions of Flower and Giddings‘ based on color
of the skin.
In discussing the best criterion of race our author shows that
pigmentation, though often correlated with head form, is more
subject to environmental influences than the latter character,’
so, too, stature, which is often an ontogenetic variation due to
congestion of population, occupation, and insufficient nutrition;
that head form is better, also, than color and form of the hair
which seem to change with slight race mixture.¢
The particular problem of the author, to analyze the racial
composition of Europe, is especially difficult as this part of the
1 Races in Europe, ch.I, pp. 214,454. 4 Principles of Sociology, p. 231.
2 Tbid., pp. 39 f. 5 Races in Europe, chs. IV and XXI.
3 Ibid., p. 42. 6 Ibid., p. 461.
ENVIRONMENTAL SCHOOL OF SOCIOLOGISTS 117
earth is the area of most frequent race migrations, race conflicts
and race mixtures,! yet by means of the normal frequency curve
used especially to show the cephalic index, our author concludes
that there are at present three distinct races, though by no means
pure, which he designates as the Teutonic, the Mediterranean and
the Alpine.
The Teutonic race, occupying especially Scandinavia and
Germany, is described as possessed of long head, long face, light
hair, blue eyes and narrow, aquiline nose; the Alpine (Celtic)
race as found in the Alpine highlands of central Europe, as of
medium height and stocky in build, with round head, broad face,
light chestnut hair, hazel-gray eyes and variable nose; while the
Mediterranean race of Italy, Spain and Africa, is shown to be of
medium height and slender build, with long head, long face, dark
brown or black hair, dark eyes and rather broad nose.2 He
believes that the first and third stand in direct descent from the
long-headed dwellers of Europe in the Pleistocene period as rep-
resented by the Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon skulls, but that
they came originally from Africa, the Teutonic being a differen-
tiation from the original now represented by the Mediterranean
race, increased stature and increased pigmentation being due to
environmental influences together with selection, especially arti-
ficial selection. He believes the Alpine race to be connected
with the round-headed race which invaded Europe from Asia in
this early period, at first largely displacing the long-headed race,
but afterwards, in turn, crowded back by the latter into the less
desirable sections, as the mountain regions; the long-headed
people now occupying the most advantageous portions with a
tendency to city life, while the round-headed are essentially
country dwellers.‘
Professor Ripley considers not only the problem of race segrega-
tion and stratification in Europe as determined by anthropomet-
ric measurements but also the derivation of these races and their
relation to language, nationality and culture. All the factors
that sociologists have emphasized as causes of social progress find
1 Races in Europe, pp. 107 ff. 3 Ibid., pp. 462 f.
2 Tbid., p. 121. 4 Ibid., pp. 335 f., chs. XVII and XX.
118 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
place in his discussion, such as geographical isolation, social
contact together with group struggle and selection,? migration,’
direct and indirect environmental influence, consciousness of
kind,® economic conditions,® and social, sexual and artificial
selection.’
Our author attacks the specific problem of environment 2. race
in explaining ethnic peculiarities and cultural products and con-
cludes that environmental factors have been all too largely neg-
lected by investigators in the past. ‘‘ At times,” he says, ‘‘ they
rise paramount to all other circumstances.” *® He shows, for
example, how climate has determined the segregation of cotton
mills about Lancashire; how such social phenomena as divorce,
suicide and crime are the products of density of population,
economic and cultural conditions, and these in turn of physical
and social environment, rather than of race.® A favorable geo-
graphical environment encourages early marriages as in the case
of Italy in contrast to Brittany; it favors the development of
village and city life with social contacts resulting in increased
individualism, liberty often descending to license and vice and
political radicalism, — yet withal, progress, whereas the peoples
relegated to geographic isolation, with their purer family life
and greater stability of character are conservative and non-
progressive.
The phenomenon of the marvellous growth of cities during the
past century is discussed with special reference to its effects on
ethnic distribution. City dwellers are found on the whole to be
shorter in stature, lighter in weight (especially in tenement
districts), and also on the whole with a greater tendency to
pigmentation than dwellers in the country." These facts have
given rise to the theory of “ urban selection,’’ — pigmentation
being considered to have some relation to vital force.”
1 Races in Europe, pp. 56, 74 f., 139, 141, 232, 520.
2 [bid., pp. 1, 56. 8 [bid., p. 514.
3 [bid., p. 16. ° Ibid., pp. 520 ff.
4 Tbid., Introduction, chs. XIX, XXI. 0 [bid., p. §33.
5 [bid., p. 2. U [bid., pp. 551 £.
° Ibid., pp. 338, 475. ® Ibid., p. 557.
7 Tbid., pp. 49 f., 85 f., 89, 201 f., 292, 308 £.
ENVIRONMENTAL SCHOOL OF SOCIOLOGISTS 119g
The concluding chapter is given to a study of acclimatization in
its relation to the problem of the original diversification of races
from one parent stock, but especially in its bearing on the
colonization of the tropics by the white race. He shows how
complex is the question concerning the effect of climate on the
human organism as when people migrate from temperate regions
tothe tropics, and enumerates several disturbing factors that must
be eliminated before one can determine this effect, such as the
natural change in habits of life in the line of intemperance and
immorality that so frequently accompany army life; the effect of
race-crossing, choice of foods, differences of occupation with
indolence on the one hand and over-exertion on the other. He
shows further how a discussion of the effect of climate on the
human body must take into consideration the racial element and
ethnic peculiarities, certain races being susceptible to certain
diseases and immune to others. Having eliminated these dis-
turbing elements our author concludes that “ the physical ele-
ments of climate, ranged in the order of their importance, are
humidity, heat, and lack of variety.” 4
Physical acclimatization approximating the adaptation of
natives, he holds, is a process requiring generations and that ulti-
mate racial adjustment to the tropics can be secured, if at all,
only by the costly method of trial and selection or by the drift to
those regions of individuals and races already by nature and mode
of life adapted to such life conditions. He shows that much
temporary advantage may be gained by hygienic precautions, but
that this does not mean racial acclimatization, and concludes that
true colonization of the tropics by the white race is impossible.?
As to the question of the original process of racial acclimatiza-
tion and diversification, Professor Ripley holds that it was due to
spontaneous variation and natural selection and possibly also to
ontogenetic variations that somehow became fastened upon the
race.®
The eminently scientific character of this work and the judicial
temper evinced on every page make it apparently above adverse
criticism. The various factors that enter into passive socio-
1 Races in Europe, p. 571. * Ibid.,p. 584. ° Ibid., p. 587; cf. pp. 383 f.
120 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
physical adaptation are clearly set forth with suggestions of the
potency of artificial selection and hygiene, — factors that belong
to active adaptation.
This work we have so briefly reviewed takes us into the very
heart of inductive sociology and might well introduce us at once
to a review of the social philosophers who have emphasized the
inductive method as applied to the whole social process but we
must turn aside to consider some who have given their attention
primarily to the problem of social philosophy as a whole, to the de-
velopment of the concept of society as a psychological organism,
and to an analysis of the socio-psychical factors in the develop-
ment of civilization, — all these writers making considerable use
of the deductive method.
PART III
PASSIVE SPIRITUAL ADAPTATION
CHAPTER VII
DEVELOPMENT OF THE CONCEPT OF SOCIETY AS
AN ORGANISM
WE have noted the use of the organic analogy by Comte and
Spencer and its exaggerated use by Lilienfeld. In this chapter we
will consider the development of the concept, especially as re-
lated to our subject, in the social theories of Schiffle, Mackenzie,
Le Bon and Durkheim, with some reference to other writers.!
In our discussion of Spencer we called attention to the very
great emphasis placed by him on passive adaptation. In his
thought society, meaning, usually, the sovereign group, is a
quasi-biological organism, or “ super-organism,”’ subject, in its
growth and decline, to the same mechanical laws as a biological
organism. Almost no place was given by him to the concept of
active adaptation. Lilienfeld, as we saw, brought into promi-
nence the idea of social pathology and social therapeutics (a
figurative term for active adaptation), although his reasoning
was so largely deductive as to be of little scientific value. Those
whom we are to consider in this chapter have made more use of the
inductive and historical methods and have carried the discussion
further into the realm of the psychical than did the earlier writers,
bringing into prominence the thought of society as a psychical
organism, thus preparing the way for greater emphasis on active
adaptation.
ALBERT SCHAFFLE (1831-1903)
The Social Organism
According to Barth, Schiffle made slight advance over Spencer
in the use of the organic concept in several minor particulars: (1)
as to the structure of society, Schaffle does not consider the
individual to be the social unit in all social relations, but rather
1 Barth discusses the use of this concept by Spencer, Lilienfeld, Schaffle, Fouillée,
and Worms, op. cit., ch. IV.
123
124 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
the family;! (2) he calls attention more than Spencer to the
apparatus for the defence of the social body, and (3) he empha-
sizes the nature of the spiritual life of society and its media of
expression and development.
-As to the social process, our author goes beyond his predeces-
sors in his discussion of the decline of social bodies, — the problem
of mal-adaptation, — even to destruction, making some use of the
terms evolution, transvolution and involution to describe the
cycle of growth and decay. He goes further, too, in his distinc-
tion between types and stages of development. By the former he
has in mind ethnological distinctions corresponding roughly to
animal species, but characterized not only by physiological but
also by mental and social differences; by the latter he has in
mind various social groupings which he considers to represent
stages of development.? Barth holds that he has not extended
in any marked degree the social theories of his predecessors.*
The careful reader of Schiéffle, however, cannot fail to note a dif-
ferent atmosphere and an emphasis not found in Spencer on
the psychical character of the “ social body ” and on purposive
action.
Small characterizes the difference between these two authors as
follows: “‘ Spencer’s analysis affects one more like the disentan-
gling of a mechanical puzzle, while there is more of the atmosphere
of actual life in Schiffle’s description of the social body. The
difference as I see it reduces to this: Spencer does not succeed in
making his interpretation of society picture it as more than an
organism of mechanism, Schiffle’s central conception of society is
an organization of work.” * I should add, “ directed by pur-
posive intelligence.” §
1 Op. cit., pp. 138 f.
2 Barth, p. 141, gives as Schiffle’s classification the following: (i) Vélkerschaft,
(ii) sttindische oder feudale Gesellschaft, (iii) biirgergemeinschaftliche Polis, (iv)
Landesgemeinwesen, (v) Nationalgemeinwesen.
3 “So finden wir, bei Schaffle kein principielle Hinausgehen iiber Spencer. .
Es ist ihm aber nicht bewusst geworden, das damit die Gesetzmissigkeit des tier-
ischen Lebens, die biologische, verlassen wird, und eine ganz neue an ihre Stelle
tritt,” —ibid., p. 145. * General Sociology, p. 167.
5 “Der sociale Kérper wirkt und lebte zwar durch Krifte der anorganischen
und der organischen Natur aber er beherrscht diese Kréfte geistig und verwerthet sie
THE ORGANIC CONCEPT OF SOCIETY 125
To appreciate Schiiffle’s use of the organic concept as applied to
society and especially the bearing of his teaching on our subject
one must understand his philosophical approach. A follower of
F. U. Lange and von Baer in his spiritual monism and so a posi-
tivist in his treatment of social phenomena from the point of view
of science, he nevertheless makes place for the hyper-scientific
world of values, —the realm of the aesthetic and religious.!
Although making large use of the work of Fechner, Helmholtz and
Wundt in physiological psychology, he repudiates all attempts to
identify the two orders on the material side, and lays great stress
on the fact of teleology in the social process, asserting that this
fact gives warrant for belief in teleology in the world-order2
With Nageli et al., he posits as a necessary assumption to the
understanding of cosmic and especially of social evolution, an
entelechy or life-force with a tendency to reach out and develop to
ever higher forms of life.’
A follower of Darwin in his belief in natural selection at least as
a powerful factor in organic evolution, he shows that in animal and
human societies the individual is not the unit of struggle but the
group, and that group life is characterized by mutual aid He
holds that the law of natural selection operates very differently in
social evolution for the groups are ever enlarging, and the struggle
is not so much for existence as for kind of existence and is also
between social ideals and institutions.®
technisch. Der Mechanismus, der Chemismus und das Spiel organischer Vorginge
werden im socialen Leben zu einer zweckbewussten geistig bewegten Physik
erhoben.
“Der sociale Kérper folgt aber auch einer véllig eigenartigen, wenn gleich
gesetzmissigen Entwickelung. . . . Diese Entwickelung ist die Wirkung von in
historischem Sinn constanten Motiven und Bediirfnissen und von eben solchen
Naturvoraussetzungen. Sie ist nicht Ablauf eines mechanischen Uhrwerks.
Gegeniiber dem wunderbar sicheren und regelmdssigen aber noch nicht genau
erklarbaren Verlauf der Evolutions- und ‘ Involutions’-Erscheinungen orga-
nischer Leiber ist die sociale Entwickelung wesentlich Produkt der bewussten
Triebe oder Beweggriinde, die in jeder Generation des Volkes leben, jedoch unter
dem Einfluss fiihrender Geister und ihrer Ideen beharrlichen Neuerungen und
Bereicherungen unterliegen,” of. cit.,i, p. 4. Cf. also, pp. 9g, 10, 12, 828, 831.
1 Bau und Leben, i, pp. §, 63, 66. 3 Tbid., ii, p. 20.
2 [bid., ii, p. 23; cf. i, p. 104. 4 [bid., ii, pp. 11, 25.
5 Tbid., ii, pp. 2, 29,47. His theory of social development is summarized as follows
(ii, p. 55): “Die fortschreitende Gesellschaftsbildung (Civilisation) ist das héchste
126 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
Schaffle wisely turns aside from the analogical reasoning of
Haeckel and Lilienfeld formulated in their theory of ‘‘recapitula-
tion ” also from the theory of “ division of labor ” of the latter,
and points to the possibility of studying the social process
immediately, — ‘“‘ a process now going on before our very eyes.” !
Accepting the principle of adaptation as the key to the under-
standing of biological evolution he makes large use of this concept
for the understanding of social evolution. ‘‘ Through the very
nature of the widening struggle for existence and struggle of
interests, which characterizes the co-operative labor of the social
unity,” he says, “is brought about that transformation of
civilization which is in the line of the greatest possible perfection-
ment and so is in a specific sense a development. Struggle creates
parties relatively best adapted for the conflict. Those organisms,
persons, institutions (Gesellschafteseinrichtungen) that are rela-
tively most perfect attain more or less exclusive worth while the
enemies and rivals that are unadapted are suppressed or forced to
an adaptation of a lower order (zu abweichenden Anpassung
genothigt werden). The bestadapted (Passendere) attain devel-
opment, transmissable goods (Ueberlieferung) and posterity.” 2
Ergebniss der vervollkommnenden Auslese der menschlichen Daseinskampfe.
Genauer gesagt — ist sie das unausbleibliche Produkt aller Daseins- und Interessen-
kampfe, welche von den socialen Einheiten jeder Individualisirungstufe theils unter
sich, theils gegen die Aussere Natur, mit den wachsenden Mitteln der menschlichen
Geistes-, Kérper- und Vermégensausstattung und innerhalb einer durch Recht und
Sitte gesetzten Streitorganisation ausgekimpft, durch den Trieb individueller und
collectiver Selbsterhaltung, durch den organischen Vermehrungstrieb, durch den
Eigennuz, durch gemeinniizige Verbesserungsbestrebungen erweckt und in immer
héherem Grade erneuert, um die Befriedigung nicht blos der sinnlichen Nothdurft,
sondern mehr und mehr um ein steigendes Mass htherer materieller und ideeller
Lebensanspriiche gefiihrt, durch Zufall, durch Spiel, durch dusseren und inneren
Krieg, durch freien Austrag und durch vielgestaltige Urtheilsinstanzen des Wett-
streites entschieden werden, und nothwendig dahin fiihren: dass im Einzelnen die
relativ besten Anpassungen sowohl angeregt als zur Herrschaft, Ausbreitung und
Ueberlieferung gebracht, dagegen die relativ schlechtesten Anpassungen, die Ent-
artungen und fremdartigen Bildungen vernichtet, abgestossen, oder zu besserer
Anpassung genéthigt werden, und dass 7m Ganzen ein wachsendes Mass ideeller
und materieller Krafte fiir die collective Fiihrung des menschlichen Daseinskampfes
sich anhduft, dass immer mehr Gesellschaftsbildung, das heisst immer mehr Glie-
derung und Vereinigung der geistigen und physischen Arbeitskrifte, sowie der
zuhoérigen Giiterausstattungen stattfindet.”
1 Bau und Leben, ii, pp. 33 f., 460. 2 Ibid., ii, p. 29; cf. also pp. 10, 31, 166.
THE ORGANIC CONCEPT OF SOCIETY 127
This principle of adaptation is with him the mediator between
the cosmic spirit and the material world-order; i. e., the spirit is
limited in its manifestation by bonds imposed by the material.!
With this glimpse into the background of his social philosophy
we can understand better his use of the organic concept as applied
tosociety. ‘ At the very summit of the phenomena of life on our
earth,” he says in the opening paragraph of his Bau und Leben,
“stands human society, — the social body and its private and
national institutions. Built up out of matter, and impelled by
forces of the inorganic and organic world, it is nevertheless a
living body of a peculiar kind. Human or civil society, a far
higher structure than the societies of animals, is a purely spiritual
result, an indivisible social life of organized individuals wrought
out through the force of ideas and achievements of art.” 2
It is true that Schiffle does not make it as plain as we should
desire just what is included in this concept “ social body.” In
the preface to Bau und Leben he quotes with seeming approval
Goethe, Pascal and Comte who conceived all past generations of
men as forming an organic whole; in some places the goal of the
social process includes all humanity; in other places he seems to
have in mind primarily the sovereign state, and again the term
is used as synonymous with a civilization; but his general line
of argument would necessitate the limitation of the term to such
a group as possesses real psychical unity. It is thus a very
elastic term. The one thing Schiffle seems to be groping after
is a conception developed later by Le Bon and Durkheim of a
psychical somewhat over against the individual which moulds his
life, into which he is assimilated and which he in turn modifies, —
and this unity organized and active, expressing itself in social
institutions.‘
The goal of the social process is “ the coming to fulfilment ” of
the process itself,—but this is not given definite content. With
increasing development comes increasing differentiation and
1 Bau und Leben, ii, p. 31-
2 Cf. also, i, pp. 9, 10, 12, 828, 831.
3 I[bid., Introduction, esp. pp. 6, 7; cf. i, pp. 316 f.; ii, pp. 464 f.; cf. Jacobs,
German Sociology, pp. 18 f.
4 Bau und Leben, i, p. 203; ii, pp. 203 f.
128 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
integration of that which is taken as the social unity. This
means division of labor and increasing dissimilarity in the parts
which make up the “ social body ” and in the functions performed
by them.
The goal for each individual should be to find out the place in
the social body for which he is best adapted and fit himself for
that place. The function of government is considered to be
primarily to improve the condition of the backward members of
the social body, and to make them fit members, to organize for
social efficiency and well-being and to correct pathological con-
ditions.? In this task leadership rests primarily with the élite.
In his emphasis on individual and social purposeful activity,
then, we have the chief difference between Schiffle and Spencer,
in this approximating more nearly to Comte and Lilienfeld. He
goes far beyond the former, however, in his analysis both of the
structure and development of the social body, and beyond the
latter in his use of inductive rather than merely analogical reason-
ing with conclusions proportionately more scientific and satis-
factory.
J. S. MAcKENzIE (1860- =)
An Idealistic Interpretation of Social Progress
Professor Mackenzie has not done so much to develop the
organic concept as to analyze its meaning and rationalize its use.
His approach to social philosophy is through Hegelianism of the
Right and the Hegelian idealism and dialectic are evident at
many points.
Like Spencer and Schiffle he believes in an inner principle of
development but unlike them he repudiates the attempt to reduce
this to terms of positive science. No one, perhaps, has criticized
more cogently than he that form of utilitarianism which, as with
Bentham, tries to evaluate pleasures and pains quantitatively,
but he fails to appreciate the fact that there may be a utilitarian-
ism which has an objective standard entirely different from the
one criticized.
1 Bau und Leben, ii, pp. 440 f. 8 Ibid., i, p. §59; ii, pp. 194 f.
2 [bid., i, p. 202. 4 Tbid., i, p. 435.
THE ORGANIC CONCEPT OF SOCIETY 129
Three of his analyses are of special importance for our discus-
sion: that of different kinds of unity, that of different meanings
of self, and that of different goals of social endeavor.
I. Kinds of Unity.— The totality of the world, or any particular
object in the world, according to Mackenzie, may be regarded:
(z) as a simple unity, in which there is no real difference of parts;
or (2) as a mere collection of differences, in which there is no real
unity; or as a system in which there is both unity and difference.
And if it is thought of as a system, it may be regarded either (3)
as a system in which the parts have an absolutely independent
existence, though they are subordinated to the whole to which
they belong; or (4) as a system in which the parts are deprived of
their independence by being transformed and swallowed up in the
whole; or, finally, as a system in which the parts have a certain
relative independence, but an independence which is conditioned
throughout by its relation to the system, — an independence, in
short, which is not freedom from the system, but freedom in and
through it.)
Mackenzie goes on to show that the first might be typified by a
single crystal, the second by a heap of stones or bed of flowers, the
third by the solar system, the fourth by any chemical combina-
tion and the fifth by the life of a single plant.
Our author shows how these five different views of unity are
reflected in different philosophical systems, in various ways of
interpreting human freedom, in theology, in one’s conception of
justice and finally in endeavors to understand society.2? He
defines an organism as “‘a whole whose parts are intrinsically
related to it, which develops from within and has reference to an
end which is involved in its own nature,’’? and shows that society
corresponds to this kind of unity rather than to any of the other
four mentioned.
Its parts are intrinsically related to it, for the rational nature of the beings
who compose it is entirely dependent for its being and continuance on the
existence of certain social relations. It develops from within; for its growth
consists simply in the unfolding of the rational nature of each of its individual
members, —that rational nature being, moreover, always essentially relative
1 Introduction to Social Philosophy, p. 129.
2 Ibid., pp. 131 £. 3 Tbid., p. 148.
130 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
to the nature of the whole society in which it develops. It has reference to
an end which is involved in its own nature; for the end of society is to pre-
serve the life and to secure the highest life of its individual members, —this
highest life, moreover, consisting not in the attainment of anything external
either to the individuals or to their society but to the perfect realization of
their own rational nature, which can be attained only in a perfect social life.t
This interpretation of the organic nature of society can be
understood only in the light of his philosophical presuppositions
developed in the first three chapters of his Social Philosophy
which are essentially Hegelian. The chief difficulty is that it is
vague and devoid of specific content.
II. Meanings of Self. — In his analysis of the different mean-
ings of self, objects are considered to have selfhood under the
following conditions, arranged in a progressive series: (1) When
there is some kind of unity and identity, though given it by an
apperceiving mind, as when we speak of a river that empties
itself into the sea. A house, book, work of art has this kind of
selfhood; (2) where there is not only this kind of apperceived unity
but where the object must be so regarded in order to be under-
stood as in the case of a vegetable organism; (3) where the object
has some degree of self-consciousness mediated, however vaguely,
through sensations of pleasure or pain, as in the case of an animal:
“ Such a being is a unity for ztself, though not conscious of itself
asa unity ”; (4) where the object is conscious of itself as a unity,
reflecting on its own life and recognizing itself as one throughout
all its changes; and finally, (5) where the object is conscious of
itself as a unity and part of a unitary world, as in the case of man
at least potentially: ‘‘ He is aware of his individual life not as a
microcosm in a chaos, but as a microcosm in a macrocosm, to the
objective unity of which his individual life as well as everything
else is referred.” 2
Mackenzie does not enter into the question current now among
social psychologists as to the meaning of self as applied to the
social organism, and his whole discussion leaves us in doubt as to
what his position would be, for while he emphasizes the individual
as the sociological unit, society existing only for the well-being of
1 Introduction to Social Philosophy, p. 238. 2 Ibid., pp. 161 f.
THE ORGANIC CONCEPT OF SOCIETY I3I
individuals,! he holds that the individual apart from society is an
abstraction.? He does, however, emphasize the psychical unity
of society, considering persons or groups who are unassimilated
as instruments of a civilization of which they do not partake.
III. Social Goals. — In discussing possible ends to which the
world-orderis tending he holds that it must be considered in terms
of the well-being of individuals and discusses various ways of
interpreting individual well-being as in terms of knowing, feeling,
willing, in some combination of these, or finally as a realization of
our conscious nature as a whole. His conclusion is that the end
is in the fulfilment of certain wants of our nature rather than in
the pleasure which ensues upon their satisfaction.’ This brings
his teaching into harmony with the doctrine of adaptation, for our
real needs are such as make for largeness and fullness of life and
this depends upon our being adapted to our environment and
especially upon our mastery of our environment, as our author
holds.$
Mackenzie divides these wants or needs into three classes: (1)
vegetable, (2) those arising from our organic or animal sensations,
and (3) those due to reason.?’ He shows that the end cannot be
merely either (1) or (2) or both combined, so must be (3), and this
requires that we view our world as issuing from intelligence of
which our own and that of our fellow-men are parts, and that we
make ourselves at home in this world. He concludes as follows:—
1 Introduction to Social Philosophy, pp. 66, 159.
2 Tbid., pp. 120, 180; cf. pp. 131, 136.
3 Tbid., p. 156. 4 Tbid., chs. IV and V. 5 Ibid., p. 228.
6 “ Men were first exploited by men; then they were exploited by things; the
problem now is to combine men together that they may exploit things,” ibid., p.
107.
7 Ibid., p. 228.
8 “ We must not only be able to bring our world into a certain intelligible order,
but we must also be able to see it issuing out of an intelligible order. Such an
intelligible world would exist for us if the world of our experience were not merely
presented to our intelligence, but arose from our intelligence, i.e., if we created
our world as well as perceived it, and such a world would equally exist for us if
we saw it as issuing from the unity of some other intelligence than our own. It
would then appear not merely as a collection of facts which is reduced to system,
but as a collection which flows from a system, and which is consequently intelligible
from beginning to end. . . . Now such an intelligible world is presented to us
132 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
Here, then, we seem at last to have found out what the true nature of
man’s end is; and we see that that end is by its very nature a social one. It
is clear, too, that the end which we have now defined includes everything
which ‘‘we divine”’ as belonging to the highest good. It includes, indeed,
every one of the ends which have been previously enumerated. It includes
what we have described as the objective ends, — the realization of reason,
order and beauty in the world; for the realization of them is part of our work
in making our world intelligible and clear to ourselves. It includes also the
realization of life; for it is the fulfilment of that towards which our lives as
rational beings strive; and in the fulfilment of this for ourselves, there is
involved also the realization of the lives of other intelligent beings; since it
is only in the fulfilment of their intelligent nature that our own can receive
fulfilment.
The social problem, as he sees it, is to discover the form of social
union in which, under given conditions, the progress will be most
rapid and most secure towards that good which we must regard
as the ultimate end.? He holds that, though diversity of inter-
ests leads to conflict, ultimately the good of the individual and
society are identical.?
In his practical program of meliorism, Mackenzie emphasizes
individual culture, the conquest of nature and right social rela-
tions, all these introducing what we have termed active adapta-
tion.
The need of social control is due to the fact that
progress towards a more complete mastery of nature is not necessarily a
progress towards more complete happiness for the following reasons: (1) As
the means of material well-being increase, population also increases, and the
struggle for existence becomes keener; (2) Human nature is not sufficiently
plastic to adapt itself continuously to the changing conditions of existence;
(3) Industrial progress brings with it an increasing freedom of competition,
and this adds to the keenness of the struggle; (4) Industrial progress tends
to reduce the working classes more and more to the condition of a prole-
tariate, and in that way militates directly against the happiness of the great
mass of population.’
by the lives of our fellow-men and in the works which they perform. .. . No
attainment of the ideal of our rational nature is conceivable, except by our being
able to see the world as a system of intelligent beings who are mutually worlds
for each other. . . . It is only in the lives of other human beings that we find a
world in which we can be at home. The society of other human beings is not
merely a means of bringing our own rational nature to clearness, but it is the only
object in relation to which such clearness can be attained,” ibid., PP. 231-233.
1 Introduction to Social Philosophy, p. 234. 2 Tbid., p. 237.
3 Ibid., p. 236. 4 Ibid., p. 241. 5 Tbid., p. 307.
THE ORGANIC CONCEPT OF SOCIETY 133
He finds communism and socialism entirely inadequate forms of
social organization and rule by an aristocracy of talent at present
impracticable so is driven back to the ideal of Fraternity under-
standing by that “ the recognition that the true ideal must be
founded rather on the notion of a readjustment of the hearts of
the citizens.” !
This introduces a conception of adaptation which may be
termed active moral, i. e., the effort to adjust our lives progres-
sively to our ever-advancing ideal, and to bring our fellow-men
also into harmony with that ideal.
Gustav LE Bon (1841- )
The Psychology of Peoples
We have considered the development of the concept of organism
as applied to society in the social theories of Schaffle and Mac-
kenzie, the one making his approach largely through biology, the
other through philosophy, and both emphasizing the fact that
the bond of social union is primarily psychical, the former bring-
ing into prominence common ideals, symbols, traditions and the
expression of these in institutions, the other, the rational needs of
individuals; but we are still left with the vague social goal of
self-realization, either of individuals as with Mackenzie or of the
world-force as with Schéffle. We turn now to some writers who
have endeavored to work out a clear concept of society as a
psychical organism.
Le Bon in his Psychology of Peoples summarizes the conclu-
sions of elaborate investigations carried on by him covering a
period of years and published in several volumes, dealing with the
fundamental characteristics of various peoples considered as
psychical unities. He shows how impossible is a racial classifica-
tion based on descent, and how unsatisfactory is one based on
physiological characteristics. A race as he conceives it, is
primarily a social group which by a common physical and
psychical heredity develops a distinct character or “soul.” In
early historical times this soul did not extend beyond the family,
1 Introduction to Social Philosophy, p. 290.
134 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
tribe, city (as in Greece) or village (as in India). More recently
it has expanded to include the state or nation.!
The fundamental characteristics which differentiate races, he
holds, are few in number and practically unchangeable. The
accessory characteristics, however, due to environment, circum-
stances or education are changed with comparative ease.?
Races are classified as primitive, inferior, average and su-
perior, the chief criterion of superiority being ‘ aptitude for
dominating their reflex impulses.” ? From primitive to superior
civilization there is progressive differentiation of individuals,
sexes and races, though among superior races there are “ no
inherent differences in men of one race.” The only difference is
that ‘“ circumstances have called out latent possibilities,” as in the
case of Robespierre, Fouquer-Tinville and Saint Just.‘
“ Character,”’ says Le Bon, “is formed by the combination in
varying proportions, of the different elements which psycholo-
gists are accustomed at the present day to designate by the name
of sentiments . . . [such as] perseverance, energy, power of self-
control, faculties more or less dependent on the will and moral-
ity.”* ‘ The intellectual qualities,’ he holds, ‘‘ are susceptible
of being slightly modified by education, those of character almost
wholly escape its influence,” — and this latter result comes only
in the case of neutral natures, i. e., those “‘ whose will is almost
non-existent.” 6 ‘The character of a people and not its intel-
ligence determines its historical evolution and governs its des-
tiny.” 7 Because of the different characters of peoples taken as a
whole, arise misunderstandings and wars, subjugation and social
stratification resulting in division of labor. Owing to this
stratification and the exploitation of the masses, a people comes
to have a form like a pyramid with the élite at the apex, “an
exceedingly restricted group as compared with the rest of the
population, but the only group that determines the rank of a
country in the intellectual scale of civilization.” ®
1 Psychology of Peoples, p. 14. © Ibid., p. 31. Cf. Comte’s use of term “heart.”
2 Ibid., p. 19. ® Tbid., p. 32.
3 Ibid., p. 30. 7 [bid., p. 34.
4 [bid., p. 20. 8 Ibid., pp. 35-42, 199 f.
THE ORGANIC CONCEPT OF SOCIETY 135
The only way the soul of a people can be radically changed, our
author asserts, is by cross-breeding, and he points out the danger
that threatens America in the hordes of emigrants going to her
shores; but the bad effects of cross-breeding are not considered by
Le Bon to be physiological so much as socio-psychical.1. Such a
period of transition is always one of internal struggle and only at
such a time is environment a potent factor in the transformation
of the racial type.*
Le Bon shows how social institutions are a manifestation of the
invisible soul of a people and how impossible it is to change these
institutions except through a change in the soul.? He reaches the
conclusion that the elements which, philosophically speaking, are
inferior (e. g., military power) are the most important from the
social point of view. ‘‘ If the laws of the future,”’ he says, “‘ are
to be those of the past, it may be said that to have attained to too
high a degree of intelligence and culture is what is most harmful
to a people. People perish as soon as the qualities of character
which form the ground work of their soul begin to decline, and
these qualities decline as soon as the civilization and intelligence
of a people reach a high level” ;4—but he does not analyze the
causes of the decline in the character of a nation nor does he
show the reason why this leads to their conquest by a barbarous
people.
Our author goes on to consider how the history of nations is a
consequence of their character, illustrating this truth especially
from politics, and shows how France today, as for generations,
stands for state control, in contrast with the English demand for
social endeavor by voluntary co-operation.®
In book IV, Le Bon discusses the question of the modification
of the psychical characteristics of races and shows how this is
brought about by a slow process of progressive adaptation as a
result of the pressure of wants, struggle for life, action of certain
1 Psychology of Peoples, pp. 52 f.
2 Tbid., p. 54. 3 [bid., pp. 64 ff.
4 Ibid., p. 80. Cf. pp. 55, 193, 213, where he shows how the soul of a people
may be destroyed.
5 Ibid., pp. 130 ff. His forecast that there would be little progress in state
control in England and America has been negatived by recent developments.
136 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
elements in the environment (especially in new races), progress of
the sciences and industry, by education, beliefs, and in many
other ways. “‘ Ideas,” he says, “‘ can have no real action on the
soul of peoples until, as the consequence of a very slowelaboration,
they have descended from the mobile regions of thought to that
stable and unconscious region of the sentiments in which the
motives of our actions are elaborated. They then become ele-
ments of character and may influence conduct.” !
As to the mechanism of propagation of new ideas, it is held to be
by innovation on the part of the élite and imitation on the part of
the masses,? under some conditions taking a form analogous to
contagion.’ Religious beliefs, he holds, have always constituted
the most important element of the life of peoples.‘
Le Bon makes verbal connection with our general subject in
these words: —
The history of civilization is . . . composed of slow adaptations, of
slight successive transformations. . . . The brain cells do not assimilate in
a day what it has taken centuries to create, and what is adapted to the senti-
ments and needs of organisms that differ from one another. Only slow
hereditary accumulations allow of such assimilation; §
but his whole discussion is an elaboration of the concept of psychi-
cal unity applied to the group, this unity being the progressive
result of the law of adaptation, the individual member forced to
adapt himself to the group and the group-soul progressively
changing in response to new needs until it has attained its full
growth when there ensues a period of decline.
Thus with the progress of social evolution and in accordance
with the law of adaptation we find different social groupings so
united by a common physiological and psychological heritage, so
bound together by common interests and ideals, and responding
so alike to a common stimulus that we may well speak of such
groups as having a “‘soul.””® Though in describing the soul of any
particular group whether city or state we may use the normal
frequency curve representing all the people, it is the variation
1 Psychology of Peoples, p. 168. 4 Psychology of Peoples, p. 190.
2 Ibid., p. 174. 5 [bid., p. 96.
3 Developed in his Crowds. 5 Ibid., pp. 6, 59, 146, 171.
THE ORGANIC CONCEPT OF SOCIETY 137
representing the élite that really characterizes the group.!. The
mass are mere imitators. This unity thinks as one, feels as one,
wills as one. Such unity and homogeneity, he holds, is essential
to greatness, hence is imperilled by large scale immigration.?
Le Bon is open to criticism chiefly in that no group or race is in
fact such a psychical unity as he portrays, and containing as each
group does individuals representing all stages of culture, a possible
opening is afforded for foreign influences of all sorts. Tarde has
been his most successful critic in this particular expressing him-
self thus: —
We must, from now on, no doubt, abandon such artificial differences as the
philosophy of history established between successive peoples. . . . It is no
longer allowable to interpret these much abused expressions “ the genius of a
people or race,” “ the genius of a language,” or “ the genius of a religion,” in
the way that some of our predecessors, including even Renan and Taine,
understood them. These embodiments of collective character . .. were
endowed with a fictitious personal identity, which was, however, rather in-
definite. Certain predispositions, supposed to be invincible, for some partic-
ular grammatical types, religious conceptions, or governmental forms, were
freely attributed to them. On the other hand, they were supposed to have
an insuperable repugnance to borrowing conceptions or institutions from
certain of their rivals. . . . Sooner or later, one must .. . recognize that
the genius of a people or race, instead of being a factor superior to and domi-
nating the characters of the individuals . . . is simply a convenient label, or
impersonal synthesis, of these individual characteristics; the latter alone are
real, effective, and ever in activity. . . . The impersonal, collective char-
acter is thus the product rather than the producer of the infinitely numerous.
individual characters.*
We must grant to Le Bon, however, credit for his exposition of
an important truth needed at the time to offset the over-emphasis.
being laid on the concept of society as a biological organism
carried so far especially by Schaffle and Lilienfeld. There is a
“ togetherness ” in every social group. There is a certain com-
munity of thought and life. Working for ages this communal
life has no doubt registered its effects on the physical organism
including brain and nervous system. To him credit is due, also,
for placing in strong light the truth that every individual is born
as a part of this “ soul ” and that he must harmonize his life with
1 Psychology of Peoples, p. 43. 2 Tbid., p. 13.
3 Social Laws (Warren), pp. 49 ff.
138 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
it; further, that social progress is advanced by the contact and
conflict of social “‘ souls ”’ by processes of imitation, assimilation,
conflict and survival.
Emite DurKHEmM (1858- _—=—)
Social Realism
Durkheim’s social philosophy is founded on Comte’s positivism
modified somewhat by Espinas’ social realism, and the Volks-
wirtschaftslehre of Wagner and Schmoller and the psychological
teachings of Wundt.1_ He makes advance on the authors pre-
viously considered in two particulars: first, in his elaboration
of the thesis that society has an objective reality, sui generis, and
second, that this solidarity is on the one hand mechanical, based
chiefly on consciousness of kind and expressed in repressive
reactions against the individual, and on the other hand organic,
based on division of labor and consciousness of supplementary
difference and expressed in family life, friendship, co-operative
endeavor and co-operative right.
1. Society as a Reality, sui generis. This concept had already
been developed by Comte, Schaffle, Espinas, Wagner, Schmoller,
et al., and was being developed by Le Bon. Comte, however,
considered only society, not societies; Schaffle connected sociol-
ogy immediately with biology and individual psychology, making
the individual, for the most part, the sociological unit; Espinas
was interested chiefly in animal societies and greatly exaggerated
the conscious social activity manifested in lower orders and
approached more nearly than Durkheim to the crass realism of
mediaeval philosophers. The German school was interested
chiefly in the production of wealth from the nationalistic point of
view together with the historical discussion of the subject, while
Le Bon was busied with a study of the phenomena of crowds, and
in the socio-psychical characters of social groups. Durkheim’s
approach is purely sociological. His aim is to show that society
is not merely a psychical organism but one that is socio-psychical,
governed by laws different from those of individual psychology,
1 Deploige, Le Conflit de la Morale et dela Sociologie, pp. 127, 128.
THE ORGANIC CONCEPT OF SOCIETY 139
hence the need of a special department of investigation with
its own terminology, — viz.,; sociology. This interest is revealed
in his Régles de la méthode Sociologique, published in 1894, in
which we find the thesis that “ society is not a mere sum of in-
dividuals, but the system formed by their association represents a
specific reality which has its own characters.” 2 Yet Durkheim
admits that there is no objective substratum of this collective
consciousness corresponding to the physiological substratum of
individual consciousness.
The totality of the beliefs and sentiments common to the average members
of a social group form a definite system which has its own life. One can call
it the collective or common consciousness. To besure it does not have a unique
organ for its substratum, for it is by definition, diffused throughout the extent
of the society; but nevertheless it has specific characters which make it a
distinct reality. It is independent of the particular conditions in which
individuals happen to be placed; they pass, it remains. It isthesame at the
north and in the middle sections, in the large cities and in the small, in the
different professions. Likewise it does not change with each generation but
on the contrary unitesthem. It is then something different from particular
consciousness although it is realized only through individuals. It is the
psychic type of society, — a type which has its own properties, conditions of
existence, mode of development, just as individuals have, although of a
different kind. By virtue of this it has a right to be designated by a special
word.
While the above is true in a certain general sense of a sovereign
group or “ people,’”’—a conception elaborated by Le Bon, — it is
also true and more specifically so, according to our author, of
smaller social groupings within the state, as the family and
professions, and of these at particular times. ‘‘ The study of
these social solidarities,” he holds, ‘‘ is the special province of
sociology.” 5
In this conception we are getting away from the individual
approach to sociology as made by Spencer,° Schaffle and Mac-
kenzie to emphasize the reality of the group over against the
1 Cf. Deploige, of. cit., pp. 156 f.
2 Régles, p. 127, quoted by Deploige, op. cit., p. 157-
3 Dela Division du Travail Social, p. 84.
4 “ Ce qui existe et vit réellement, ce sont les formes particuliéres de la solidarité,
la solidarité domestique, la solidarité professionnelle, la solidarité nationale, celle
Whier, celle d’aujourd’hui, etc. Chacune a sa nature propre.” — Ibid., p. 69.
5 Tbid., p. 69. 6 Ibid., p. 382.
140 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
individual, prior to the individual and making him what he is, —
in this going back to Comte only with refinements. That is,
Durkheim gives specific content to the concept of society as a
socio-psychical organism: it is the psychical somewhat over
against the individual which forms that particular spiritual en-
vironment into which he is born and which moulds his life. This
environment, moreover, is not one but multiple. The individual
is born into and moulded by the psychic somewhat represented by
his particular family, later by that of the school he attends, later
still by that of his vocational associations. Then there is the
specific socio-psychic moulding power of his community and
state.
2. The Nature of Social Solidarity.— This social solidarity,
according to our author, is of two kinds, mechanical and organic.
His purpose in De la Division du Travail Social is to work out
a positive ethics and in order to have an objective ‘‘ common to
all,” — an object for scientific investigation, — all phenomena of
the inner life of individuals must be correlated to objective ex-
pressions. The social consciousness expresses itself in laws,
institutions, etc., and these are of a nature to be studied scienti-
fically. The solidarity of society based on similarities or
“consciousness of kind” is expressed in mores and crystallized
primarily in “‘ repressive right.” ‘‘ The bond of social solidarity
to which repressive right corresponds is that whose rupture consti-
tutes crime. . . . One knows what the bond is, then, by know-
ing the particular crime which is considered most important. . . .
The essential characters of crime are those which are found where-
ever there is crime whatever may be the social type. Now the
only characters which are or have been recognized as common to
all are the following: (1) crime clashes with the sentiments which
are possessed by all normal individuals of the society under
consideration; (2) these sentiments are strong; (3) they are
definite. Crime, then, is the act which clashes with the strong
and definite states of collective consciousness.” !_ The difference
between the immoral act and the crime, he holds, is merely that
the former violates sentiments diffused in individuals throughout
1 De la Division du Travail Social, Table of Contents, p. 462.
THE ORGANIC CONCEPT OF SOCIETY I4I
society whereas the latter violates those sentiments held so
generally and so strongly that the group reacts as a unit. He
shows that crime cannot be explained wholly on the basis of
disutility because many acts are tolerated which are far more
disuseful than many which are regarded as crimes; yet his dis-
cussion shows that the principle of utility is after all of great
importance.!
The social reaction expressed in repressive right is called
mechanical for it corresponds to the instinctive reactions of
biological organisms against irritants. The object of the reaction
is to be free from the irritant, and on the whole the reaction of
society against crime, though largely instinctive and irrational, is
useful? This mechanical solidarity expressed in repressive right
is especially characteristic of primitive societies, the determina-
tion of crime and punishment among higher societies having a
more rational basis,? though even here the function of punish-
ment is to conserve the feeling of social solidarity rather than
reform the criminal. ‘‘ Every strong state of consciousness,” he
says, ‘‘is a source of life; it is an essential factor of our general
vitality. As a result, everything which tends to weaken it
diminishes and depresses us. . . . It is inevitable then that we
should react vigorously against any cause which threatens such
diminution; that we arouse ourselves to remove it in order that
we may maintain the integrity of consciousness.” * This is as
true of social as of individual consciousness.®
Durkheim explains the quasi-religious character of criminal
procedure (le droit penal) as due to the fact that the sentiment of
vengeance expressed in passional reaction against the criminal is
felt by each member of society yet not as a sentiment having
personal origin or reference but rather as an echo of something
1 No one asserts that the social struggle is so keen as to eliminate everything
disuseful; yet on the whole and in the long run social consciousness is able to
determine and does determine the socially disuseful and the society that fails to
determine its crimes on this basis is on the road to destruction. Cf. Hall, Crime
in its Relation to Social Progress. This seems to be Durkheim’s position. Cf.
De la Division du Travail Social, pp. 87 £., 114 £.
2 Ibid., pp. 89 ff. 3 [bid., pp. 91 f. ‘4 Ibid., pp. 94 f.
5 Tbid., p. 103. 6 [bid., pp. 109, 114.
142 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
from without and this something without, — which is in fact the
collective consciousness, — is conceived as a superior power, real
or ideal. This conception, though natural and necessary, is
nevertheless illusory according to our author.!
This mechanical social solidarity, expressing itself in repressive
right and punishment, is negative, but there is a positive social
solidarity which expresses itself in co-operation, in division of
labor, and co-operative law having as its psychological correlate
the consciousness of supplementary difference.
This elaboration of the concept of organic solidarity based on
division of labor and consciousness of supplementary difference
though having antecedents in Comte and Bain, is the one great
contribution of Durkheim and supplements in a much-needed
way the concept of consciousness of kind, the corner-stone of
Giddings’ system.
The function of the division of labor is not to produce civiliza-
tion, he holds, but to give birth to groups which, without it,
would not exist.
It is possible that the economic utility of division of labor counts for some-
thing in this result but in any case its social value far exceeds the sphere of
economic interests, for it results in the establishment of a social and moral
order sui generis. Individuals are bound together who without it would be
independent. In place of developing separately they unite in their efforts.
They are solidare and with a solidarity which does not reveal itself merely in
the brief moments of exchange of services but extends much further, as for
example in conjugal solidarity among modern nations.?
This division of labor gives rise to “‘ consciousness of supple-
mentary difference” which has increasing importance with
advancing civilization. Durkheim finds biological and anthro-
pological basis for this as well as economic and psychological.
Practically the only functional difference between the sexes at
first, he holds, was that due to sex, and in this, too, we have the
physiological basis of consciousness of supplementary difference;
but with division of labor and functional differentiations came
increasing structural changes, and pari passu increasing psy-
chological, economic and social differentiations making ever
greater opportunity for the play of the attractive force based on
1 De la Division du Travail Social, pp. 107, 108. 2 [bid., p. 63.
THE ORGANIC CONCEPT OF SOCIETY 143
consciousness of supplementary difference. The result of this
process has been ever increasing organic solidarity in societies.
One of the strongest proofs of his position he finds in the de-
crease of mechanical solidarity and increase of organic solidarity
as revealed in the decrease of repressive rights and criminal laws
and increase of co-operative rights and laws.!
The social ideal is a society where the division of labor produces
such a condition that social inequalities express natural inequali-
ties. Under such normal conditions we have the greatest possible
individual and social well-being.
The only cause which determines the manner by which work is divided is
diversity of capacity. By reason of this the division is made on this basis.
Thus there is realized of itself a harmony between the constitution of each
individual and his condition. One may say that this is not always sufficient
to content men; that there are those whose desires exceed their abilities. It
is true but such cases are exceptions not the rule. Normally man finds happi-
ness in filling his natural place in society; his needs are in correspondence
with his means. Thus in the organism each organ claims only that amount
of aliment proportionate to its dignity?
Most, I think, would say that this was the ideal rather than the
normally actual. But even as an ideal it is suggestive, and as the
disparity between the actual and the ideal is the background for
individual and social telic endeavor, we have in this condition the
chief sphere for the process of active as against passive adapta-
tion. And indeed Durkheim recognizes this but considers as
normal what we should term ideal and as abnormal what statis-
tics by use of a frequency curve would doubtless show to be
normal. He seems to have been misled by Comte’s theory of
society as a developing personality, by the general organic
analogy and by Galton’s theory of natural ability. The law of
adaptation does not work so rigidly in social evolution at present
as to bring about the survival of those societies only where divi-
sion of labor is based on natural capacity to the degree assumed
by our author. Indeed, as we have seen, we have no data avail-
able which afford proof of such differences in ability as assumed
by Galton and Durkheim.
1 Dela Division du Travail Social, ch. V. 2 Tbid., pp. 421, 422.
144 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
Durkheim recognizes that society by reglementation must
furnish equality of opportunity for all and prevent that injustice
which is the result of external restraint based on any other
principle than that of ability. But society must go further than
he suggests. It must train its members to perform those func-
tions most needed by society, and when the need of the group is
made the standard of the value of the individual to the group we
will have to change the current conception of natural capacity
and ability.
While indebted to Durkheim for his elaboration of the concept
of social solidarity based on consciousness of kind and expressed
in repressive right, we are more indebted to him for his insistence
that consciousness of supplementary difference is both a cause
and a result of division of labor, and that division of labor is both
a cause and result of social solidarity. Though he holds that this
social solidarity and social consciousness are objective and real
with laws different from those of biology or individual-psychology,
yet he recognizes that it has no organic substratum corresponding
to that of individual consciousness.
Fouillée and Le Bon have been, perhaps, among the ablest
critics of this social realism, as it has been called,? but out of the
controversy has come the truth now generally recognized that
there is a psychical somewhat over against the individual which
determines his life at least in general outline. This “‘ somewhat ”
may be organized as a fraternity, church, or state, but in any case
it is the great moulding and assimilating force in society. As in
each organization there is need of division of labor, and as along
with consciousness of kind man has a consciousness of supple-
mentary difference, so in each organization we find diversity of
capacity and temperament yet fused into one whole, made the
stronger, usually, by the very fact of these differences.
Now every such “unity” is subject to the general law of
adaptation. Not only does it react passively to its social environ-
ment, but to succeed in the highest degree it must take thought.
* For an opposite view, see Taussig, Principles of Economics, i, p. 38.
? Yet there is practically no difference between the fundamental conception of
Durkheim and his critics. Cf. Fouillée, Psychologie du peuple frangais, pp. 10 £.
THE ORGANIC CONCEPT OF SOCIETY 145
It must secure inner cohesion and strength in accordance with
the principles elaborated by Durkheim ef al., and must have as its
ideal that function in the larger whole for which it is adapted.
It must, too, not only find its place but make its place by seeing a
social need as yet unrealized by others.
FURTHER DEVELOPMENT OF THE ORGANIC CONCEPT
In the use of the organic concept as applied to society, we have
noted development along several lines. First, from the vague-
ness of the concept of society as used by Comte and Schiffle,
through the nationalism of most of the German school, to the
variable definiteness of the concept as used by Durkheim; i.e.,
with him any social group or unity becomes a society under
certain conditions.! It is well to note in passing that others con-
sider society, not as an object or unity, but rather as a process.”
A second line of development is in the conception of the kind or
grade of organism to which societyis analogous. Spencer held that
society could be compared only to the lowest forms of biological
organisms but today, with increasing emphasis on the psychical,
the tendency is to compare it to the most highly-developed person-
ality, endowed with self-consciousness and intelligent, purposeful
volition.2 With this has come, too, for the most part, emphasis
on centralized government, the analogue of the ever increasing
power of the central nervous system in biological organisms.
A third line has been in a change of emphasis from analysis of
the structure of the organism as with Spencer, through that of
function as with Schiffle, to an analysis of social consciousness as
with Durkheim, and of the laws of social and socio-psychical
development as with the authors we are about to consider.
Before passing to a discussion of this last phase, which carries
us beyond the organicists, we must consider briefly some further
developments of the concept of social consciousness.
1 Cf. Boodin, American Journal of Sociology, xix, p. 37.
2 For an illuminating discussion of the theories of society as held by German
sociologists, cf. Jacobs, German Sociology, pp. 31 f. Ellwood, Sociology in its
Psychological Aspects, pp. 382-395. Boodin, op. cit., p. 21.
3 Boodin, op. cit., pp. 37 £. Deploige, op. cit., p. 161.
146 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
In the writings of Durkheim is brought out clearly the concept
of social consciousness with some kind of objective reality, —
whether phenomenal or ontological is not discussed. Granted
that there is some kind of real objective unity that is applicable
to human beings in association whether phenomenal or ontologi-
cal, static or dynamic, whether predominatingly mediated by
thought, feeling, will, or a combination of these, we have next to
enquire if there is anything in this unity corresponding to the
self-consciousness characteristic of highly-developed man. This
seems to be the bone of contention among social psychologists
today, together with that other related and perplexing problem
as to the relation between the individual mind and the social
mind. Discussion of the development of thought along this line
would carry us through the whole range of recent socio-psychical
literature, but we may call attention in passing to James’ doc-
trine of selves and self-consciousness as of special importance.
According to him we have a “ hierarchy of the mes.” “ A toler-
ably unanimous opinion,” he says, “‘ ranges the different selves of
which a man may be ‘ seized and possessed,’ and the consequent
different orders of his self-regard in a hierarchical scale, with the
bodily me at the bottom, the spiritual me at the top, and the
extra-corporeal material selves and the various social selves
between.” !
This concept, making the approach to the discussion of social
self-consciousness from the point of view of biology and individual
psychology as do Schiffle, Fouillée, Ratzenhofer, McDougall,
Giddings and most of the other sociologists and social psycholo-
gists, is repudiated by Dewey, Cooley,” Boodin? and a few others
who make the approach from the point of view of spiritualistic
monism and by Gumplowicz from the point of view of positivistic-
social-pluralism, all of whom arrive at what might legitimately be
termed social realism. According to them individual conscious-
ness and self-consciousness are differentiations of original group
consciousness. A clarifying discussion of the whole subject is the
1 Briefer Course, p. 190. Cf. McDougall, Social Psychology, chs. VII and VIII.
® Social Organization, ch. 1; Human Nature and the Social Order, ch. I.
3 Op. cit.
THE ORGANIC CONCEPT OF SOCIETY 147
analysis of social mind by M. M. Davis.! His outline is as
follows: —
1. The sum of common mental con-
tent (ideas and sentiments) of the
Objective members of a society.
2. Thecommon mental qualities and
characteristics of such members.
3. Common mental content, com-
Social Mind mon mental qualities and charac-
teristics, which are realized by
these members to be common.
Subjective ; 4. Common mental content and
qualities so realized, and function-
ing therefore as dynamic social
agents upon the individuals dur-
ing childhood and maturity.
Static
Aspect
Dynamic
Aspect
Davis seems to feel that by social mind we should mean 3
and 4, both subjective aspects, the former static whereas the
latter is dynamic.
In its essence and practical important bearings, the social mind is to be
viewed subjectively. Common beliefs, sentiments, and determinations,
exist only in individual minds. They influence individual thoughts and acts.
They are essentially independent of any individual in the sense that they
would continue to be influential if any one man containing them was removed
from society. But we call these common beliefs, etc., a social mind, not
merely because they are held in common but because of something more.
They become social and make of society a psychic unity, because of the way
in which individuals regard them. ‘They are realized to be common. Be-
liefs or tendencies, once thought of as common, acquire a new relation to the
individual because of this realization. They become dynamic agents,
influencing action directly and powerfully.
This is Ellwood’s position: ‘ Society as a group of individuals
carrying on a common life process, thinks, feels and wills only
through its individual members. Society . . . must be thought
of as a complex unity made up of many individual psychic units
that are in interaction, continually affecting and modifying each
other, so that the only unity which we have in society is a unity of
process.” ?
Worms certainly made a good point when he held that social
consciousness was like the personal ego because the essential
characteristic of being is doing. ‘“‘ Was wirkt, wie das sociale
1 Columbia University Studies, xxxiii, p. 68. 2 OP. cit., p. 330.
148 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
Bewusstsein, muss ein Wesen sein und da es Bewusstsein ist, muss
es sich denken.”! Yet this does not prove ontological reality.
Men can work together for a common end without having a
consciousness of corporate or socio-psychic continuity as is true
of normal human beings. The “ constellation” or “ fusion ”
which is the essence of the social reality,? and the background of
social self-consciousness, if there be such, is temporary. No one,
so far as I am aware, has shown that there is anywhere in the
social order a consciousness of socio-personal continuity, — of
identity persisting in change, —such as characterizes the personal
ego.
We conclude as follows: —
1. There is one cosmic process, differentiated in the social order
into individuals and into social groupings.
2. The individuals and groups become organized on the basis
of consciousness of kind and consciousness of supplementary dif-
ference, having as their basis individual and group interests.
3. There is mental interaction, inter-stimulation and response,
resulting in a phenomenon well expressed by the term fusion.
4. The process of fusion or creative synthesis is, on the one
hand, a process of progressive co-adaptation among the members
and, on the other, a process of progressive adaptation of the
particular social unit to its physical and spiritual environment.
5. There is more or less agreement in ideals, purposes, etc.
6. At times there is unanimity in feeling due to similar re-
sponse to a common stimulus.
7. There is a permanent yet ever-changing core in every social
organization or organism to which the spiritual part of every
individual member is to a greater or less degree assimilated.
8. This core of social personality, if one cares to use the term,
exercises constraint on each individual, and forms the background
of the group, but is constantly modified by the total changing
situation.
g. Each individual is at times conscious of his organic relation
to the various groups to which he belongs; i. e., his self-conscious-
1 Barth, op. cit., p. 162.
* Cf. Boodin, op. cit., pp. 20, 38.
THE ORGANIC CONCEPT OF SOCIETY 149
ness and self-regarding sentiment extend to include the group and
he feels or believes that others are going through a similar expe-
rience, but there is no group consciousness of this persisting core
of social personality corresponding to that of the individual ego.
10. This gives ground for the belief that the individual per-
sonality has some kind or degree of ontological reality not pos-
sessed by any group.
CHAPTER VIII
THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIOLOGISTS
TurRNING from those who have emphasized the importance of
physical factors in social evolution, as Buckle, Ratzel and Ripley,
from those whose argument is based chiefly on a deductive appli-
cation of the neo-Darwinian formula of biological evolution, as
Nietzsche, Kidd, Galton, Pearson and Lapouge, from those, too,
whose interest has been largely philosophical or socio-psychical
and who have discussed some theoretical principles of funda-
mental importance to our subject as the organicists, we turn now
to some representative writers who have emphasized the necessity
of studying the process of social evolution inductively to find out
the laws and forces of social development. These writers differ
greatly among themselves as they are interested primarily in social
origins as the anthropologists, or in the whole process as the his-
torical school, or again in the forces now at work as the economists
and social psychologists. They differ also as they try to find some
one all-embracing law or principle corresponding to the law of
gravitation or posit a number of distinct laws and forces. A third
line of cleavage is as to whether the individual socius is made the
point of departure and society explained as some kind of combina-
tion of sociz, or whether the group is taken as the unit. A fourth
distinction might be made according as they recognize a mutual
hatred and struggle as the chief characteristic of primitive or
“natural ” man or sympathy and mutual aid; and here again a
strictly logical classification of writers is impossible for they over-
lap at so many points.
The anthropological and historical schools have met with
especially great difficulties, as we noted in the discussion of
Spencer, because of the uncertainty connected with social origins.
With the discovery of relics of human ingenuity in geological
1 Cf. Boas, Mind of Primitive Man, pp. 99, 182.
150
THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIOLOGISTS IS!
strata and also of portions of the human skeleton some basis
has been found for scientific generalizations.!
Besides relics of bygone ages and peoples, anthropologists
have endeavored to get light on prehistoric conditions from the
following sources: (1) operations of modern savages; (2) the
publications of historians and travelers who were acquainted
with savage tribes long ago; (3) the languages of cultured and
uncultured races; (4) the makeshifts and contrivances of chil-
dren and of the folk who never receive letters-patent upon their
devices.2 But the presupposition in every case except that of
relics is that savages of these later centuries are like those of
earliest time. This assumption is based on some logical principle
of classification as with Spencer and De Greef, on the theory of
recapitulation * as with Lilienfeld and many pedagogical writers,
or on the theory that mind is essentially the same in its operations
and manifestations everywhere and in all ages. This last is
accepted so generally today that it must be regarded as of scienti-
fic worth though even here the principle must be used with
caution. Anthropologists are generally agreed today, also, that
social development has not been linear, but by a process, either
similar to that termed by Ward “ sympodial,” or irregular, deter-
mined by environmental conditions.
At the other extreme of those who emphasize social origins and
genetic development is T. N. Carver, who holds that “ all past
development . . . must be accounted for on the ground of forces
and factors now at work, and which can be observed at first hand
by the student ”’; and that “‘ it is in this study of first-hand mate-
rials, in the observation of social activities about us, that we must
get our clue to the relation of cause and effect in social and politi-
cal affairs.” §
1 Keith, Ancient Times; Keane, Ethnology, ch. IV.
2 Mason, Origin of Invention, pp. 28, 29. Cf. Boas, of. cit., p. 182.
3 For criticism of this theory, see Kellogg, Darwinism To-day, p. 21; Mason,
op. cit., p. 45; Thorndike, Educational Psychology, i, pp. 248 ff.
4 Cf. Boas, op. cit., pp. 184-195; Ross, Foundations of Sociology, p. 61; Tylor,
Early History of Man, pp. 5,190. The chief difficulty is to find primitive savages,
practically all, even when visited and “ written up ” hundreds of years ago, having
come in contact with higher or lower cultures.
5 Sociology and Social Progress, p. 5.
152 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
It is difficult to select representatives from the large and grow-
ing number of anthropologists who have contributed to our sub-
ject.1 Spencer devoted much of his sociology to a discussion of
primitive man but was led astray by his principle of classification
and by reports which have since been corrected. More recent
investigations have tended to discredit his teaching concerning
the intellectual and emotional equipment and beliefs of primitive
man.2 We will review in this chapter the main theses of Sumner
and Boas, the former approaching the subject from the neo-
Darwinian point of view, the latter emphasizing the influence
of environment and opportunity. We will also touch upon the
conclusions of some others, adding suggestions as to the value of
the concept of adaptation in anthropological interpretations.
Wittiam G. SUMNER (1840-1910)
Folkways
Although Sumner was primarily a sociologist, we have in
Folkways a mine of classified information concerning social origins
which is invaluable if one would appreciate the place of adapta-
tion in the development of folkways and mores among primitive
groups.*
Sumner’s general attitude of laissez faire is brought out in his
earlier book What Social Classes Owe to Each Other. In this later
work we have the neo-Darwinian formula applied to the develop-
ment of folkways and social institutions. The main thesis is that
“ the mores are always right ”; but this is not to be taken abso-
lutely. The meaning is that the mores furnish the standard of
right for each group at every particular period. Although many
rites and ceremonies grew up as a response to what he terms the
“aleatory element ” or luck,’ and many were positively injuri-
ous,° yet on the whole, and in the long run, only those groups
survived who built up their folkways and mores on the principle
of utility.
1 See ch. VI, review of W. Z. Ripley.
? Thomas, Source Book, pp. 143 ff.; Angell, Chapters from Modern Psychology,
pp. 247 f.; Keith, of. cit., p. 26.
3 For distinction, see Folkways, ch. I. 5 Tbid., p. 6.
4 [bid., pp. 28, 58, 521 £., 532. 6 Ibid., pp. 26 f.
THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIOLOGISTS 153
Granting that all origins are lost in mystery,! he holds that by
study of primitive life as observed and recorded during the past
few centuries, and of the forces now at work, we are able to reach
valid conclusions as to the development of mores. How these
arise, largely by an unconscious process of trial and error, and
how they are related to the folkways is well brought out in a
recapitulation he gives of his preliminary analysis: —
Men in groups are under life conditions; they have needs which are simi-
lar under the state of the life conditions; the relations of the needs to the
conditions are interests under the heads of hunger, love, vanity and fear;
efforts of numbers at the same time to satisfy interests produce mass phenom-
ena which are folkways by virtue of uniformity, repetition, and wide con-
currence. The folkways are attended by pleasure or pain according as they
are well fitted for the purpose. Pain forces reflection and observation of
some relation between acts and welfare. At this point the prevailing world
philosophy (beginning with goblinism) suggests explanations and inferences,
which become entangled with judgments of expediency. However, the folk-
ways take ona philosophy of right living and a life policy for welfare. Then
they become mores, and they may be developed by inferences from the phi-
losophy or the rules in the endeavor to satisfy needs without pain. Hence
they undergo improvement and are made consistent with each other.?
Sumner makes the group the sociological unit and evaluates
individuals and classes according to their production of social
utilities, holding that societal value depends on a harmonious
combination of physical, economic, moral and intellectual ele-
ments and is measured roughly by income from work contributed
to the industrial organization, whether by a member of the
“ masses ” or by a genius.’
A race or group is classified by means of the normal frequency
curve,‘ but the masses which determine the classification along
certain lines are never the cause of progress nor the builders of
institutions but these results come “ by the selection of the lead-
ing men and classes who get control of the collective power of the
society and direct it to the activities which will (as they think)
serve the interests which they regard as most important.” 5
The mores make the right, not only because there is no other
standard for the group, but because they are backed by force, and
“nothing but might has ever made right.” ©
1 Folkways, p. 7. 3 Tbid., p. 41. 5 Tbid., p. 49.
2 Tbid., p. 34. 4 Ibid., p. 43. § Ibid., pp. 64, 65.
154 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
Sumner carries his discussion on to the development of the
“ethos ” or group character,' — a concept corresponding to that
of “soul”? as used by Le Bon. The greater part of the book is
given to illustrations of the above principles concerning the
development of such mores as slavery, abortion, infanticide,
killing of the old, cannibalism, sex relations, and those connected
with social codes, kinship, blood revenge, primitive justice, social
harlotry, etc.
Although principal attention is given to the spontaneous devel-
opment of folkways and mores, Sumner makes place for criticism
and improvement. As these can come only from the élite, he
advocates critical ability as an important element in education.
“ Tt is only by high mental discipline,” he says, “‘ that we can be
trained to rise above that atmosphere [of the mores] and form
rational judgments on current cases. This mental independence
and ethical power are the highest products of education.”?
Further on he says, ‘‘ In the organization of modern society the
schools are the institutional apparatus by which the inheritance
of experience and knowledge, — the whole mental outfit of the
race,— is transmitted to the young. . .. The transmission
ought to be faithful, but not without criticism. The reaction of
free judgment and taste will keep the mores fresh and active, and
the schools are undoubtedly the place where they should be
renewed through intelligent study of their operation in the past.” *
Social evolution is thus, with Sumner, almost entirely a passive
process, individuals and groups working out their salvation in
proportion to a fortunate selection of ways of acting. Rational
choice is very rare, even among the most highly-civilized races.
Sumner is open to criticism chiefly at two points, first, in his
use of the neo-Darwinian formula without proving that it works
the same in social as in biological evolution, and second, in his
failure to bring out clearly the difference between the right and
good as seen by the people and the right and good as seen by the
élite and demonstrated as such by consequences. From this
point of view we might substitute for Sumner’s, “ The mores are
1 Folkways, pp. 70 f. 2 Tbid., p. 532. 3 [bid., p. 635.
4 Cf. Hobhouse, Morals in Evolution, pp. 26 £.
THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIOLOGISTS 155
always right,” the other extreme brought out somewhere by
Ross, ‘‘ The mores are never right ”’; that is, mores are of neces-
sity adaptations to past conditions, and as life is a process they
can never keep up with that process.!. Sumner’s book is, how-
ever, a valuable contribution to our discussion as his multitude of
citations and illustrations show how important is this principle of
adaptation in the formulation of folkways among primitive
people.
Franz Boas (1858- _—+)
Opportunity and Race Progress
At the opposite pole from Sumner and all Darwinian anthro-
pologists, is Franz Boas who minimizes differences in native
ability among individuals and races, and emphasizes the time
element in social evolution which, working through environment
and historical events, has determined the differential in achieve-
ment of extant races.2. According to him, the present superiority
of European races may be accounted for along the following lines
of reasoning: (z) Social and economic causes working through
a more favorable habitat gave the European races the advantage
in social progress; (2) Consciousness of kind operates today to
prevent the rise of the backward as it did not a few thousand
years ago; (3) Social progress in Europe has brought a higher
form of social organization, making possible greater achievement;
(4) The devastating influences of diseases resulting from the
contact of primitive with cultural groups is a hindrance to the
progress of the former today as it was not to the ancestors of
the latter; (5) Industrial development among the cultural groups
gives them ever increasing advantages over the non-cultural, and
the expansion of the former holds back and drives back the latter.
Boas concludes that ‘‘ achievement alone does not justify us in
assuming greater mental ability for the white race than for
others, unless we can sustain our claim by other proof.” 3
1 Cf. Sumner, op. cit., p. 634: “ The folkways need constant rejuvenation and
refreshment if they are to be well fitted to present cases.”
2 Mind of Primitive Man, p. 9.
3 Tbid., p. 17.
I 56 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
Our author questions the alleged greater similarity of primitive
than of modern types of man to the anthropoid apes, showing
that this is true only of certain selected features, while in some
other respects modern types show greater similarity than primi-
tive types to their sub-human forbears.t Granting that on the
whole the brain of modern man is larger and heavier than that
of primitive man, he refuses to grant to this fact a proof of greater
mental capacity.?
Boas discusses at length the influence of environment upon
human types and shows how climate, food and labor have regis-
tered their effect. The permanency of somatic characters, so
emphasized by Gumplowicz and Deniker, is refuted by our
author, not only on the authority of Wiedersheim,‘ but by reason
of modern measurements by Bowditch, Peckham, Ammon, and
Ripley ® as well as by his own measurements of immigrants to
America and their descendants. In this study the traits selected
for examination were head-measurements, stature, weight and
hair-color, and the ethnic groups chosen were the South Italians,
representing the Mediterranean type of Europe, the Central
European type, the Northwest European type, and the East
European Hebrews. “ The results of our inquiry,” he says,
“have led to the unexpected result that the American-born
descendants of these types differ from their parents; and that
these differences develop in early childhood, and persist through-
out life.” ¢
Our author is unable to explain these somatic changes from the
type, but holds that they prove that human types are plastic
1 “ The European shares lower characteristics with the Australian, both retain-
ing in the strongest degree the hairiness of the animal ancestor, while the specifically
human development of the red lip is developed most markedly in the negro. The
proportions of the limbs of the negro are also more markedly distinct from the
corresponding proportions in the higher apes than are those of the European,”
Mind of Primitive Man, p. 22.
2 Ibid., pp. 24-28.
3 Ibid., pp. 23, 27, 40, 116. ‘I am inclined to believe that the influence of
environment is of such a character that, although the same race may assume a
different type when removed from one environment to another, it will revert to
its old type when replaced in its old environment,” zbid., p. 76.
4 Tbid., p. 41. 5 Thid., pp. 45 f. § Tbid., p. 54.
THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIOLOGISTS 157
within limits.1_ He shows further that the changes in the human
frame as a result of civilization are analogous to those in animals
as a result of domestication,? there being this difference, however,
that whereas change of environment (especially with change of
nutrition and mode of life), conscious selection, and crossing, have
all been potent factors in the development of different types of
domesticated animals, change of environment and crossing have
been most strongly active in the development of the races of man.?
Boas explains the occurrence of distinct local types in primitive
races‘ in contrast to the variability to be found among civilized®
as due to differences in environment, to isolation and in-breeding.
Our author shows how chaotic our information is as to the charac-
teristics of primitive races,* and questions the conclusion of
Spencer concerning the great native differences in primitive
and civilized man as regards fickleness, strength of passion,
lack of control, improvidence, inability to concentrate atten-
tion, and lack of originality.’7 He believes that “the differences
between civilized man and primitive man are in many cases
more apparent than real; that the social conditions, on account
of their peculiar characteristics, easily convey the impression
that the mind of primitive man acts in a way quite different
from ours, while in reality the fundamental traits of the mind
are the same.’’® Our author admits, however, differences in
mental traits among individuals and races, and believes that
the efforts of such investigators as Galton will be able yet to
analyze and classify them with some degree of precision.» He
concludes that ‘ while it is likely that changes of the mental
character go hand in hand with the undoubted changes in the
human anatomy, ... . we cannot prove that any progressive
changes of the human organism have taken place; and partic-
ularly no advance in the size or complexity of the structure of
the central nervous system, caused by the cumulative effects
of civilization”; moreover, that “the difficulty of proving a
1 Mind of Primitive Man, p. 64. 8 Ibid., pp. ror f.
2 [bid., pp. 66 f., 75. 7 [bid., pp. 106 f.
3 Ibid., pp. 68-70. 8 [bid., p. 114.
4 Tbid., pp. 75 f. 9 [bid., p. 116.
5 Ibid., p. 93-
158 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
progress of faculty is even greater.” 1 He believes that a large
proportion of individuals among primitive races are capable of
reaching the level of civilization represented by the bulk of our
own people.?
Boas holds that language does not furnish the much-looked-
for means of discovering differences in the mental status of differ-
ent races, but on the contrary, that similar cultural traits are
found in most widely-separated groups and languages.’
Our author criticizes strongly the use of the evolutionary
formula as often applied to social progress concluding that “ the
assumption of a uniform development of culture among all the
different races of man and among all tribal units is true in a
limited sense only,” — that increasing complexity, for example,
does not apply to linguistic development or to that of music and
art.4
Applying his conclusions to race problems in America, he says
that “ the danger to the vigor of the American nation due to an
influx of alien European types, is imaginative, not real.” 5 His
attitude on the negro question is very similar. Rejecting the
theory of racial inferiority, he does not believe there is anything
to be feared from race mixture.®
: Boas has contributed to our subject chiefly by way of criticism
of the dogmatism of many social evolutionists, and “‘ selection-
ists,” by the scientific, inductive spirit of his work and by the
prominence given to the factor of environment in variation and
progress.
His contribution is almost wholly along the line of passive
physical adaptation. There is a seeming lack of the sociological
point of view, however, especially in his discussion of race prob-
lems in the United States. The problem of immigration and
the amalgamation of diverse races is as much social as biological,
and the social results that come from the union of representatives
of diverse ethnic groups are not usually satisfactory.”?. Moreover,
1 Mind of Primitive Man, pp. 118, 119. 4 T[bid., p. 194.
2 [bid., p. 123. 5 Tbid., p. 262.
3 [bid., ch. V, esp. pp. 133, 154. ® Ibid., p. 277.
? Boas touches this question (p. 277), and says: “ When the bulky literature of
this subject is carefully sifted, little remains that will endure serious criticism; and
THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIOLOGISTS 159
he grants enough of the claims of the biological sociologists to
warrant belief in a sufficient differential in individual and racial
types in the line of quantity of intellectual power and quality of
predispositions, to make a considerable difference in the relative
strength of competing groups.
Westermarck and Hobhouse! occupy a position midway be-
tween Sumner and Boas, both being representatives of what might
be called “‘ progressive orthodoxy.”” Westermarck is most widely
known for his defence of monogamy as the primitive form of the
family against Morgan, Bachofen and McLennan, but it should
also be recognized that he stands for the supremacy of motive in
ethical evaluations as against the theory of the utilitarians.?
Hobhouse has taken pains to criticize the neo-Darwinian
sociologists and point out how far short this formula comes of ex-
pressing the truth of social evolution, yet he makes large use of
this principle in his Morals in Evolution, but even greater use
of the principle of adaptation,? and shows how in ethical devel-
opment the process has been from the unconscious behavior of
individuals and groups in response to needs and in accordance
with environmental conditions, physical and social, to the
reflective choice which characterizes the highest types of moral-
ity. He holds, contrary to Buckle, that there has been real
ethical progress but not, as most neo-Darwinians affirm, in
the development of new instincts and impulses in man or in
the disappearance of instincts that are old and bad, but rather
in the rationalization of the moral code which, as society ad-
vances, becomes more clearly thought out and more consistently
applied. Nor has this ethical progress been in a straight line
or correlated with progress along other lines as Comte assumed.
“On the contrary,” he says, ‘“‘ the very conditions of the develop-
ment of society have in some cases been hostile to moral develop-
ment for the time being. An advance in the arts of life may well
I do not believe that I claim too much when I say that the whole work on this
subject remains to be done.” Cf. Le Bon, op. cit. pp. 52 f.
1 E. Westermarck (1862-), L. T. Hobhouse (1864-).
2 Origin and Development of Moral Ideas, i, ch. XI.
3 Morals in Evolution, Introduction. 4 Ibid., pp. 20 f. 5 Tbid., p. 34.
160 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
work retrogression in the ethical sphere.” He shows how the
principle of adaptation has been at work but not rigidly, for
“Society’s shoulders are broad, and they can bear many a burden
imposed by human perversity without breaking down. Many
injurious customs may arise and flourish as long as they do not
touch the social life in a vital spot.” ?
Hobhouse deserves credit for distinguishing between logical
classification and genetic order and holds that as ethical and
social evolution have not been linear we cannot be sure of the
identity between the order of classification and that of temporal
development.
The position of Thomas* approaches more nearly to that of
Boas with emphasis on environment.‘ He is deserving of notice
because of his grouping together of three factors in progress,
control, attention and crisis, — in his discussion of these making
large use of the concept of adaptation, —also for the importance
he places on the “great man.”” Control is the end, attention the
means, and crisis furnishes the occasion for the calling forth of
attention, while the “great man” is the one who first responds
effectively to a social crisis, directs the attention of others and
leads the way to social telesis.®
On the whole Sumner and Boas have contributed primarily to
the development of the concept of passive spiritual adaptation
whereas Westermarck, Hobhouse and Thomas have contributed
also to that of active spiritual adaptation.
This principle of adaptation has been of service to anthropolo-
gists in their endeavors to solve such problems as the connection
between man and the anthropoid apes both physically and psy-
chically,® the original habitat of man,’ his earliest mechanical
1 Morals in Evolution, p. 35.
2 Tbid., p. 18.
3 W. I. Thomas (1863-).
4 Shown by his choice of selections in his Source Book, as well as by his
Introduction and the comments at the close of each chapter.
5 Source Book for Social Origins, pp. 14 f.
§ Cf. supra, conclusions to ch. IV.
7 Hoernes, Primitive Man, p. 6.
THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIOLOGISTS 161
inventions ! and social institutions, racial differences ? and early
migrations. For example the historical investigations of Sir
Henry Maine left the question of the pre-historic family un-
touched save by inference. The anthropological researches of
Bachofen, McLennan, Morgan and Lubbock have come to be
considered as based on insufficient and misleading evidence, and
the most potent weapon of criticism of their conclusions, as used
by Spencer, Howard, Westermarck and others, is just this theory
of adaptation. Granted that primitive people were ignorant of
the relation between copulation and child-birth, we may still
argue for a more or less permanent relation between the sexes
from monogamic mating among birds and higher mammals, from
jealousy, and from economic need, also from the more recent
studies of sex mores among extant types of primitive culture.
Moreover, whatever the first form, promiscuity could not prevail
because of its dis-utility owing to its connection with venereal
diseases and low fecundity, and because of its effect on childhood.
Thus the earliest form and changes in it were in accordance with
this principle of adaptation.
1 Mason, Origin of Inventions, ch. I.
2 Marett, Anthropology, pp. 93 f.; Keane, Ethnology, ch. X; also Man Past and
Present, p. 13; Boas, op. cit., ch. IT.
3 Chapin, Social Evolution, pp. 141 f.
CHAPTER IX
THE HISTORICAL SOCIOLOGISTS
Lupwic Gumptowicz (1838-1910)
Progress by Inter-Group Conflict
GumPLowicz takes as his point of departure Comte’s positiv-
ism and Spencer’s theory of deterministic evolution but criticizes
the former for giving any place whatever to policies of social
amelioration, claiming that all such are absurd in a deterministic
system, and criticizes the latter for taking the individual as his
unit instead of the primitive horde, also for his failure to distin-
guish the different realms in the cosmic process governed by
entirely different kinds of laws.! In this he seems strangely
inconsistent for while criticizing monism and its attempt to find
a universal law for events in the whole domain of nature,
holding that all such attempts fail to distinguish between univer-
sal and social laws,? yet a little further on in his discussion he
says, ‘‘Modern natural science has successfully demonstrated that
even ‘ human mind ’ is subject to physical laws; that the phe-
nomena of the individual mind are emanations from matter,”
and then proceeds to lay down ten laws that are universal? He
is a strict determinist and finds the goal of life-philosophy in
resignation to the inevitable.t This position together with his
assumption of the multiple origin of humanity might warrant his
being called a pluralistic-positivist.
Gumplowicz criticizes the organicists with special vigor but
gives Spencer credit for a discriminating use of the concept.5
All cosmic phenomena are classified into physical, mental
and social,® all controlled by the operation of the following
1 Grundriss der Sociologie (1885), pp. 4{. (Moore’s Translation, pp. 24 f.).
2 Ibid., p. 14 (Moore, p. 32).
3 Ibid., pp. 62 £. (Moore, pp. 74 f.).
4 Ibid., pp. 4, 228.
5 Tbid., pp. 11 f.
8 Ibid., pp. 55 f.
THE HISTORICAL SOCIOLOGISTS 163
cosmic laws: (a) causation, (b) development, (c) regularity of
development, (d) periodicity, (e) complexity, (f) reciprocal
actions of foreign (‘‘ heterogen’’) elements, (g) adaptation to an
obvious end, () identity of forces, (z) similarity of events,
(J) parallelism.
The law of reciprocal action of foreign or “ heterogen ” ele-
ments is especially important in Gumplowicz’s theory and he
finds the social analogue of the original cosmic, atomic elements
in the innumerable small, diverse groups or hordes with which
history began. He bases his conclusion concerning the multiple
origin of races (x) on the findings of anthropologists concerning
the physiological differences of individuals in every race and
tribe, holding that as these are strictly hereditary they signify
different origins;? (2) on the fundamental and irreducible differ-
ences to be found between various languages * and (3) on the
variety of primitive religions.*
The starting point of sociology, then, is these innumerable
primitive hordes, each with its own language, morals, religion,
etc., each with great similarity and equality between individual
members, each possessed of consciousness of kind and instinctive
hatred of every other horde or group.* Increase of population
and necessity of self-maintenance bring these groups into conflict
resulting in the annihilation or subordination of the conquered.
This act of enslavement introduces into the victorious group the
element of inequality which is the starting point of social organi-
zation and which furnishes the basis of conceptions of right and
justice.’
1 Grundriss, p. 66 (Moore, pp. 78f.).
2 Der Rassenkampf, pp. 41 f.; Grundriss, pp. 81f. Cf. also Fiske, Excursions
of an Evolutionist, ch. V, who seems to agree with Gumplowicz.
3 Der Rassenkampf, pp. 56 f.
4 Ibid., pp. 137 f.
5 Grundriss, p. 190; der Rassenkampf, p. 64.
8 Grundriss, p. 195: “Es gibt kein Recht, das nicht der Ausdruck der Un-
gleichkeit wire weil all und jedes Recht die Vermittlung ist zwischen ungleichen
socialen Elementen, die Urspriinglich, zwangsweise herbeigefiihrte Verséhnung
widerstreitender Interessen, welche erst durch Uebung und Gewohnheit auch die
Sanction der neuen Sitte erlangt,” zbid., p. 190.
7 Grundriss, pp. ot £., 135 f., 177 £., 189 f.
164 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
There are not now, he holds, and so far as we know there never
have been any pure races, the so-called historical races being
compounds formed by the amalgamation of separate ethnic
groups and by cross-fertilization of cultures.
As all social development has resulted primarily from inter-
group struggle, there has been no opportunity for selection as a
result of struggle between individuals, hence no increase in the
innate mental capacity of man but only in knowledge due to
social heredity.1
In discussing the origin of social classes Gumplowicz uses
biological analogies but his interpretation of biological evolution
is far from satisfactory. He makes heredity and adaptation
(Erblichkeit und Anpassung) the two opposing methods of
explaining the origin of species, or again, autogenesis and evolu-
tion (Autogenismus und Evolutionismus).? By the first he seems
to mean spontaneous variation and its hereditary transmission
and by the latter physiological changes in the developing organ-
ism to adapt it to its environment and the transmission of these
slight variations to the offspring. Two other terms are used, the
latter of which seems entirely out of place in biology: originality
and imitation (Originalitét und Imitation). Applying these laws
to the formation of social classes he says: —
We have seen how some classes (the ruling, the peasant and the business
classes) arose out of the union of heterogeneous ethnical elements; how their
differences and individuality, original in each case, date from the time
previous to the union and persist later when they form part of the state,
because both the anthropological and moral peculiarities of each help to
1 Grundriss, pp. 211 f., 222 f.
2 Ibid., p. 135. The use of these terms by Gumplowicz is unfortunate and
does not correspond to modern terminology. In biology we have spontaneous
or inborn and acquired variations. The first are inherited, the latter probably
not. In social evolution, however, these acquired variations or habits are handed
on by so-called social heredity, but both processes may be explained by the
principle of adaptation, for those variations which handicap the individual, species,
class or group too much, prevent survival in the struggle for existence.
3 “ Auf doppelte Art entstehen natiirliche Gebilde, origindr und sekundar. Es
gibt in der Natur sozusagen zwei entgegengesetzte Strémungen, die sich immer
und tiberall begegnen, und die wir Originalitét und Imitation nennen konnten.
““Was namlich die Natur originell, auf eine uns unbekannte ‘ schépferische”
Art geschaffen hat, das entsteht auch haufig unter dem Einfluss dusserer, uns wohl
THE HISTORICAL SOCIOLOGISTS 165
maintain the separation and opposition of the classes and castes as they exist
later in the state. But we have also noticed that there were other classes
(the priests, large industries in opposition to small, scholars, jurists, officials,
etc.) which have arisen by a process of differentiation, and only after this
process has been completed and the classes clearly marked off, do they guard
their peculiar interests in a way analogous to that of original classes.
Group self-interest, whether of the original, natural groups and
their compounds or of the interest groups formed later by the
two-fold process described above, is the bond of unity, the source
of conflict and the mainspring of progress.”
The social forces uniting groups and impelling to progress are
classified as we find them in the table on the following page.’
begreiflicher und zu Tage liegender Umstande; diese letztere Art des Entstehens
nennt die Schule Darwin’s evolutionistisch.
“ Autogenismus und Evolutionismus arbeiten sich nun iiberall in die Hande.
Das verwirrt unsere Sinne. Wir streiten bei jedem organischen Gebilde; ist es
autogenetisch oder evolutionistisch ?
“Nun kann aber ein und dasselbe Ding, ein und derselbe Typus (in vielen
Fallen ist es nachgewiesen) auf eine oder die andere Weise entstehen, denn im
Grunde ist es doch dieselbe natiirliche Weise, so wie ein Maler ein Bild originell
schaffen kann, dasselbe aber dann auch reproduzieren, kopieren kann.
“|. . Die doppelte Art der Entstehung ist iibrigens leicht erklarich. Wenn
die geographische Lage und Beschaffenheit der Umwelt noch heutzutage im stande
ist, auf die Modifikation eines organischen Typus bestimmend einzuwirken: wie
viel mehr miisste dieses Agens auf die urspriingliche Entstehung von Varietdten
einwirken! Es waren sozusagen genetische Unterschiede, welche dieser Faktor
einst erzeugte: er wirkt noch heute fort in geschwichtem Masse aber jene ur-
spriingliche genetische Wirkung erweist sich iiberall als dauerhafter und stabiler.
Freilich erhalt dadurch auch jene Argumentation den Schein von Berechtigung,
welche sich an diese sekundare Wirkung klammert und indem sie die kurze Zeit der
Wirksamkeit dieser sekundaren Faktoren ins Unendliche multipliziert, dadurch
jede Annahme einer originiren Entstehungsart als iiberfliissig erscheinen lisst.
Aber diese Operation ist nur arithmetisch richtig, sie hat nur einen logischen Wert,
eine logischen Berechtigung, ohne jedoch die Annahme einer originaren, auto-
genetischen Entstehungsart, fiir die eine Reihe anderer Momente sprechen, je
widerlegen zu kénnen.
“ Ebenso nun wie auf dem Gebiete der organischen Natur, begegnen sich auch
auf sozialem Gebiete primare und sekundire, autogenetische und evolutionistische
Entstehungsarten iiberall.”” —Grundriss (1905). Few verbal changes from the
first edition, pp. 137, 138 (Moore, pp. 134, 135).
1 Grundriss, p. 135. (Moore, pp. 134 f.)
2 Thid., p. 138.
3 Ibid., p. 146; cf. Moore, p. 142.
166 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
Common dwelling place (more or less removed)
Common Social Life
Material Consanguinity
Relationship
Nobility
Burghers
siacaae Peasants © a 4
Professional classes, etc. 4 a 3
{oO /9
Rural e * 8
: ural Ss ies
; Possessions ee 2 &
Economic rs
. . a
(Wirthschaftlich) iandoners ©
Farm tenants 4
, Manufacturers and industrial a
Occupations ae
workers gs
Merchants
Artisans, etc.
Language
Religion
Moral Science
Art
Accidental fate (emigrants, etc.)
“The greater the number of these socializing forces that bind
men together, the stronger is the social bond, the greater the
social cohesion, and as a result the greater the power to withstand
opposition, and especially as these operate over long periods of
time.” !
Like Spencer, Schiffle and others, our author believes in a
cycle of social development and decay due to the play of natural
laws. “It is not difficult to show the causes of this cyclical
motion in the natural, economic and social conditions of folk-
life,” he says. “. . . Men’s wants and desires . . . cause them
to raise themselves by groups and societies from a primitive con-
dition to a condition of culture and civilization; and, having
once attained it, so to conduct themselves that their fall neces-
sarily follows through other groups and societies in a progressive
state.” ? The chief cause assigned for this decay is increase of
1 Grundriss, p.145. Cf. also Soztologie und Politik, pp. 84, 92-95.
2 Moore, p. 205.
THE HISTORICAL SOCIOLOGISTS 167
prosperity among the lower economic classes followed by de-
crease in population. This decay is inevitable, according to
Gumplowicz, for having ruled out all telic activity no group can
forestall the operation of these “ natural” laws. This particular
illustration shows the inherent weakness of his whole system, for
prosperity leads to limitation or decrease of population mostly
through the operation of telic foresight. The first effect of
industrial prosperity is rapid increase of population, as proven
in the case of England, of Germany and of Japan. It is only
when people have learned how to prevent conception and when,
with emphasis on consumption rather than on production, they
prefer other things to wholesome family life, that the results
portrayed by our author take place. But if by telic foresight on
the part of individuals population can be limited or even de-
creased, telic foresight on the part of a group might prevent this
result and lead to social immortality.
The individual as such has almost no place in Gumplowicz’s
social theory. ‘‘ The greatest error of individual psychology is
the assumption that man thinks. . .. What thinks in man is
not he but the social community of which he is a part. The
fountain of his thought lies not in himself but in the social milieu
in which he lives, in the social atmosphere which he breathes, and
he cannot think otherwise than the influences of this milieu con-
centrated in his brain make necessary.”? Again he says, “‘ Not
the individual but the group is egoistic. The heroes of history
are only marionettes who carry out the will of the group.” ? This
plasticity of the individual is shown by the ease with which he is
assimilated into a new social environment,‘ and by the influence
upon him of his economic and social status.’ In his Soziologie
und Politik, however, Gumplowicz makes some place for the
individual in his mechanical reaction to social pressure and so for
his effect on the group. Speaking of the socio-psychical factors
he says: ‘“‘Every one of these factors is a product of the co-work-
ing of the individual and his group. Each of these factors, arising
1 See infra, Conclusion. 4 Grundriss, pp. 173 ff.
2 Grundriss, pp. 76, 165 £. 5 Ibid., p. 176.
3 Der RassenkamPf, p. 37-
168 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
out of a social movement, is a psychical deposit of the social life of
the group and a result of the manifold adaptations of the indi-
vidual to it! Arbitrary freedom is an illusion.2 Morality is
nothing but the reflection in the individual mind of what has been
considered useful for the group. There is no right or justice
apart from the might of the ruling class in the sovereign state, or
as an abstract ideal formed by the oppressed classes as a means of
securing liberation.” 4
Nowhere is the passive, purely mechanical character of social
evolution better expressed than in these words: “ Out of frictions
and struggles, out of separations and unions of opposing ele-
ments, finally come forth as new adaptation products the higher
socio-psychical phenomena, the higher cultural forms, the new
civilizations, the new state and national unities . . . and this
merely through social action and reaction, entirely independent
of the initiative and will of individuals, contrary to their ideas
and wishes and social striving.” ©
To Gumplowicz is to be given credit for a clean-cut demarca-
tion and study of the sociological field, — the field consisting of
the two-fold mechanical process by which all the modern races
and social groups with their socio-psychical products have been
evolved, on the one hand by inter-group conflict, and on the other
by intra-group differentiation and struggle. His power of keen
analysis is revealed in his discussion of the meaning of the term
“society” which with him is always either a concrete natural, or
interest group, or else a class term including all such groups.®
He is worthy of commendation, also, for his consistency, on the
whole, in carrying to a logical conclusion his fatalistic determin-
ism, issuing in atheistic free-thought and stoical resignation to the
inevitable. He is open to criticism along the following lines: —
1. He makes large use of biological analogies but as his biol-
ogical interpretations are unsatisfactory his analogies fail to be
1 Soziologie und Politik, p. 94. Cf. Grundriss, pp. 174 £.
* Grundriss, pp. 167, 215.
3 [bid., pp. 179 f.
4 Ibid., pp. 114 f., 189 £., 237.
5 Soziologie und Politik, p. 94.
° Grundriss, pp. 139 £.; Soziologie und Politik, pp. 49 f.
THE HISTORICAL SOCIOLOGISTS 169
convincing. The factors of isolation and cross-breeding! are
ignored while the Darwinian theory of natural selection is mis-
interpreted.
2. His assumptions concerning primitive groups and their
mutual hatred are not sustained by facts. There is co-operation
as well as strife, depending on conditions.
3. Though using the term progress in various places, such use
is not warranted from his premises and from his assertion that
there are no standards of value. Indeed there can be no values
in a strictly deterministic system such as he has attempted to
describe. He denies that there is such a thing as progress for
humanity as a whole or for “ civilization,” though he grants that
there may be for individual groups for a period of time. He
grants that there may be progress, also, in scientific knowledge,
although by this he seems to mean merely a heaping-up of infor-
ination.?
4. He has failed to appreciate the dynamic of intelligence both
in individual and social amelioration.
Finally, while granting the necessity of religion for complete
adaptation, —for most people, —he seems to feel that the highest
attitude toward the Great Unknown is that of the atheistic free-
thinker. Judged by the pragmatic test this cannot be true. His
fatalistic philosophy of despair, — or of stoical resignation, — is
not such as to inspire a group to heroic deeds or lead to that kind
of social endeavor which might prevent the decay and destruction
of the group that has attained wealth and culture. For this
reason his social philosophy can never become the philosophy of
the dominant group. It stands condemned as false before that
judge which to him is the only judge, — the laws of life. Its
normal outcome is the destruction of the group that accepts it
and applies its precepts.*
Gumplowicz’s greatest contribution to our subject is just this,
— he has carried passive social adaptation to its logical conclu-
1 His “‘cross-fertilization of cultures” is the social analogue, however.
2 Grundriss, pp. 220 f. 3 Der Rassenkampf, pp. 137 1.; Moore, pp. 108, 212 f.
4 Gumplowicz comes under the condemnation pronounced upon the “ anthro-
pological moralist,” by Professor Carver in his most recent book, Essays in Social
Justice.
170 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
sion from the standpoint of fatalistic determinism. If he had
said the last word the task of the social philosopher would be hard
indeed because heartless. To rob people of the illusions of hope
and delusions of religious belief without providing a better sub-
stitute may be in harmony with science, but surely not with
pragmatic philosophy.
Gustav RATZENHOFER (1842-1904)
Interests
Social evolution with Ratzenhofer is to be explained as a
process of progressive adaptation in conformity with law, yet it
is not to be explained in the mechanical terms of attraction within
and antagonism between “ heterogen ” groups resulting in anni-
hilation, modification, and new combinations of elements, as with
Gumplowicz, but rather as a process by which the original
power, the “ Urkraft ” or “ Ursache” is able to come to ever
increasing self-expression and self-realization under the limita-
tions of organic structure and physical environment.!
The means by which this “ Urkraft ” works in and through
organic nature is termed Interest. ‘“‘ Every form of phenomena
from heavenly body to atom, and every organism is a part of the
original force with an interest appropriate to its particular de-
velopment. . . . These form the principle of creation.” 2
There are two kinds of consciousness, pure consciousness, i. e.,
the undifferentiated ‘“‘ Urkraft ” as it exists in every creature, and
the organic consciousness or the differentiated “ Urkraft ” that
has struggled up through the evolutionary process to that self-
consciousness which has its highest expression in adult, civilized
man.’ This endeavor on the part of the Urkraft to come to the
largest and fullest experience of life is the cause of differences
between species.’
The Urkraft and the inherent (anhaftende) or inborn (ange-
borene) interest are the two principles of creation, working to-
1 Die Sociologische Erkenntnis, pp. 24, 28, 29, 39 f.
2 Ibid., p. 28.
3 Ibid., p. 26. Cf. p. 54.
4 Ibid., pp. 28, 29.
THE HISTORICAL SOCIOLOGISTS I7I
gether to “ try out ” all possible conditions of life that the result
may be the largest possible experience of individual, self-conscious
life. This inborn interest is the prime factor in attention, associ-
ation, purpose and will. ‘‘ One can apperceive nothing and think
of nothing which does not conform to the interest inhering in
iy
The factors to be found in the lowest forms of organic life which
make possible all further differentiation and development are as
follows: —
1. The Urkraft endowed with the capacity of struggling to
ever increasing development under conditions imposed by the
environment.
2. Interest inborn in every creature.
3. The power of assimilation or the physiological impulse, also
rooted in the interest but possessing different influence because it
works no longer merely through the Urkraft within the creature
but draws to it particles from the outside world.
4. The influence of the phenomenal world. The individual
impelled by interest and struggling to come to completion,
creates out of the conditions of life at hand the greatest possible
advantage for the development of the species through variation
and adaptation.
5. Individuation, or the process by which the creature working
through the inborn interest builds up a unitary consciousness.
6. Reproduction as the result of the continuous working of the
Urkraft in and through the individual.
7. Heredity, whereby the creature is able to bring forth only a
like offspring on the basis of his inner capacity.
Selection and struggle for existence are recognized as two
further factors to be taken into consideration in the explanation
of biological evolution.’
As a result of the struggle for development on the part of the
Urkraft every “ preformed ” germ develops just in proportion as
the conditions of life make possible, even to the expression of
purposeful acts of civilized man.®
1 Erkenntnis, p. 34. 3 Ibid., pp. 40f. §& Ibid., pp. 302 f.; Soziologie, p. 23.
2 Tbid., pp. 38, 39- 4 Tbid., p. 46.
172 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
In his discussion of the inborn content of consciousness, Rat-
zenhofer brings out a detailed analysis of interest which is one of
his greatest contributions to sociology and especially to the
development of the doctrine of adaptation.
As soon as the male germ cell has united with the ovum the following
dynamic phenomena (Krafterscheinungen) are present: —!
1. The Urkraft differentiated into life to which we ascribe in general the
power of bringing forth the whole developmental series, and through which
the organized life is in relation to the cosmic forces. There is also present
the impulse to try out all life-situations in order to produce the most complete
creature possible. Thus this inherent life-power struggles against the
barriers set by its environment, but in the sense of an inner impulse to ever
larger life, in accordance with the universal law of adaptation. This struggle
for the largest possible life brings the individual into conflict with other
individuals and thus makes room for the Darwinian doctrine of selection.?
2. The inborn interest differentiated into several phenomenal forms by
means of the life conditions under which the individual is developing as
follows: —
(a) The racial interest which has the peculiar characteristic of maintaining,
through reproduction, the species to which the creature belongs; .. .
(b) The physiological interest, in general taken over from the mother
as the new creature is a continuation of her physiological activity, .
impels to a search for food and leads to the development of all other life
interests; ...
(c) In higher forms these original interests become differentiated, the
physiological into an individual interest which has to do with the maintenance
and development of individual life;4 ...
(d) The racial interest which because of the physiological connection
between the individual and his ancestry easily expands to a social interest.
The emotion of love is connected with this social interest but also with the
sex impulse. Together they form the basis of the family.
These various interests often come into conflict; for example,
the individual with the social, and the social with the racial.
Under great temptation a man may force into the background
his interest in his country, as the traitor; or a man may give
this interest preéminence, self-interest and interest in family
being thrust back, as the patriot in time of war. “In the lordship
of the individual interest man sees himself not merely physiolog-
ically but really, as the center of the universe while in the lordship
1 Erkenntnis, pp. 56 f. 2 Cf. ibid., p. 44. 3 Cf. Soziologie, pp. 68 f.
4 Ratzenhofer accepts Spencer’s law that individuation and fecundity are in-
versely proportional. Man is able to thwart the purposes of the Urkraft by sup-
pressing the racial interest and living only for self.
THE HISTORICAL SOCIOLOGISTS 173
of the social interest the outer world attains a reality for sensation
which it does not possess psychologically. . . . The social in-
terest widens our individuality so that we accept the phenomena
of the outer world as integrating parts of the ego.” !
“In general,” he says, “the development of the social interest
depends on the existence of such conditions as permit the physio-
logical and individual interests to take the background; the
higher interests come forth in the measure that the lower appear
to be secured. The physiological interest satisfied gives room for
the intellectual side of the individual interest, and the narrower
family development must be secured in order that the interest in
social relations may become lively.” ?
(e) The final mode of development of the inborn interest is the transcen-
dental. Fear manifested in lower animals in the presence of unusual noises and
terrifying phenomena of nature is a lower form of that which in man becomes
religion? .. . In man this usually takes the form of a sense of dependence
upon that Original Power which awakens his consciousness. Moreover this
sense of dependence is suppressed only as a result of man’s attention being
given entirely to the satisfaction of his physical needs, or even more fre-
quently by the occupation of the mind in day-dreams as a result of a super-
abundance of goods.‘
These inborn interests impel the organism to activities looking
toward their satisfaction. ‘The satisfiers lie in the environment,
physical and social, and in the case of the transcendental, not only
in the environment but within the individual himself; i. e., the
Urkraft is the background of all existence, and the conscious
apprehension of this is the result of a correct interpretation of all
experience including a direct intuition of the relationship existing
between the individual consciousness and the Urkraft of which it
is a part.5
These interests become in a sense forces, i. e., an interest un-
satisfied is a condition of mal-adaptation and gives rise to a feeling
of unrest and of discomfort... The very nature of an organism is
to act in the line of satisfying its interests or needs. An organism
that did not thus react to such impulses would not survive.’
1 Erkenninis, p. 62. 4 Ibid., p. 64. 1 Ibid., p. 106.
2 Thid., p. 62. 5 Tbid., p. 65.
3 Tbid., p. 63. 6 Tbid., p. 252.
174 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
The inborn interests or needs as immediately related to organic
activity seeking their satisfaction, are called motives (Triebe).
All the modal forms of the inborn interest come to expression in the indi-
vidual first as a result of the directing activity of the Urkraft working in the
life. The force derived from interest in the sense of the life-plan expresses
itself as motive (Trieb). Just as interest comes to view as feeling-tone
connected with sensation, so in real life it expresses itself as motive, so that
interest and life united stand over against the outer world. Motives enter
into consciousness and grip the circuit of motor-nerve activities. The
motives corresponding to the forms of development of the interest which
work in us are the material, egoistic, intellectual and moral motives.!
The relation of interest and motive is as follows: —
The material motive [corresponding to the physiological interest] has as
its function to maintain and develop the individual in the struggle for exist-
ence until with death the nerves cease their activity. It works largely ina
reflex, automatic manner. But with the development of consciousness it
loses its fundamental character and, subordinated to reflection, draws on a
larger circle of the world for the satisfaction of its strivings; now all the
impulses co-operate to develop the individual and maintain the race. The
material interest as thus developed we call the egoistic motive [corresponding
to the individual interest] which of all the motives exercises the most definite
influence on the social process. With the development of reason and the
enlargement of experience, this motive is increased to embrace what is of use
to every creature and to the social organization, and expanding by means of
the blood-bond, comes to include the race. . .. Upon this motive of self-inter-
est rests to an essential degree the origin, maintenance and development of
social individuals; it supports culture also in the direction useful to man.
This motive, moreover, is the chief force in all political events. When the
individual is able to identify self-interest with that of a social institution he
works all the harder to advance the conditions favorable to it, but sometimes
the welfare of the individual and society come into conflict, and while the
conflict is often solved instinctively, sometimes it comes into consciousness
in a way to stir up the intellect, and the intellectual motive which deals with
ideas. These ideas are all related to organic needs so the intellectual motive
is an outgrowth of the process of adaptation and arises because the organism
cannot adapt itself to the given situation on a lower plane of activity. ...
These motives, as the interests, tend to function harmoniously in accord-
ance with the principle of adaptation. When a person is lacking in the social
interest every idea is bound up with self-interest. Many times, it is true,
individual interest comes into the realm of intellectual struggle, but without
being able to yield its egoistic bias. Intellectual motives remain pure only
when they keep free from everything that has practical bearing on the social
struggle. On this account the intellectual motive must be accompanied by
the moral motive [corresponding to the social and transcendental interests] in
order that it may guard the objectivity of social interests.?
1 Erkenninis, p. 254. 2 Ibid., p. 255 f.
THE HISTORICAL SOCIOLOGISTS 176
Nowhere does the intellectual motive enter more easily into the domain of
social interest than in the satisfaction of religious need. On the other hand,
nowhere do inborn interests and the motives peculiar to them reveal them-
selves more clearly than when man endeavors to apply his religious ideas to
social life. . . . Religious faith when grounded in a correct interpretation
of the relation of the individual to the absolute is one of the most potent
forces in life, but such faith is possessed by only a few, and only by the re-
peated awakening of religious sentiments is the moral emotion able to attain
lordship in the interest of society.
Individuals differ not only physiologically, but in innate mental
capacity and in will power. Races, too, differ in the average of
these qualities.2 Men are classified as to will power into active
or aggressive and passive or defensive, the latter, numerically in
the majority, always subordinated to the comparatively small
number of the former. This process of subordination of the
many weak to the one strong will is the source of social organiza-
tion. The one strong personality formulates the line of interest-
satisfaction or social purpose accepted by groups and the more or
less conscious acceptance of this purpose on the part of the group
is what constitutes social will.
Contrary to Gumplowicz, our author assumes a monogenetic
origin of the human race outof the primates in the Tertiary period,
although he admits that the process of evolution is shrouded in
mystery. The earliest stage was characterized by sociality and
co-operation in a struggle against physical conditions and wild
animals.’ Increase of population and pressure on means of sub-
sistence led to conflict of interests, separation and migration, and
the various groups under the long continued influence of different
environmental conditions developed by the law of adaptation
the ethnic peculiarities which differentiated the races in earliest
historic times. The second stage, or that of primitive culture was
characterized, industrially, by fishing and agriculture in some
environmental conditions, in others by hunting, herding, or both,
leading to the development of nomadic life. Socially this stage
was characterized by the rise of institutions.? In the third or
barbaric stage we find increase of numbers leading to conflict of
1 Erkenntnis, p. 258. 4 Soztologie, p. 27. 7 [bid., p. 14.
2 Soziologie, pp. 35 f. 5 Tbid., p. 13.
3 Erkenntinis, p. 285. § Ibid., pp. 13, 30 f., 37 £., 65, 74.
176 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
interests between groups, robbery and warfare resulting in the
death or enslavement of the vanquished. The fourth or stage of
warfare was characterized by the general practice of living by
plunder and war and by the development of social organizations
adapted to such a life, also by the rise of private property and by
the development of rights. In the fifth stage we have the ruling
classes struggling for the possession of the earth and the subject
classes struggling for better conditions of life, hence a conflict of
classes within the group, based on class interests.? In the sixth
stage we have the spread of capitalism, an era of discovery and
exploitation of new lands and the bloody conflicts between culture
groups for the possession of the earth. The extension of the capi-
talistic system necessitates the development of credit and leads
to the conflict between the capitalistic and laboring classes. It
leads also to the development and spread of culture * and to the
rise and rule of an aristocracy of wealth.*
A new age is coming, — an age of settled social life character-
ized by the harmonious organization of production. Every land
will eventually need all its territory for the support of its own
people so migration will cease, — except as carried on by force
by the stronger groups. Each group will produce those com-
modities for which it is best adapted, and the whole world will be
organized on a basis of free international exchange. The stronger
races will increasingly dominate the weaker.
Finally, with geological changes in the earth and with the
waste of the ground materials of civilization which characterizes
our present age, will come a time of increasing difficulty of pro-
duction which will call for a new type of human life.®
This brief sketch shows how prominent is the doctrine of
adaptation in the social theory of Ratzenhofer, and how much he
has contributed to the development of this theory as a key to the
understanding of social evolution. We have passive material
adaptation by the direct influence of the environment on the
organism, leading eventually to changes in the germ plasm,
1 Soztologie, p. 14. 4 Ibid., p. 16.
2 [bid., p. 15. 5 Ibid., p. 17.
3 [bid., p. 15.
THE HISTORICAL SOCIOLOGISTS 177
hence, to permanent ethnological characters.| We have the
environment working indirectly by compelling certain groups to
certain kinds of industrial life and to the development of social
institutions adapted to it.2_ We have passive material adapta-
tion, moreover, as a result of overpopulation in proportion to
means of subsistence at the disposal of the individual and group
leading to conflict of interests, struggle, and the survival of those
best fitted for the particular environment and stage of civiliza-
tion. We have passive spiritual adaptation by the operation of
social pressure on the individual,‘ and in the evolution of higher
civilizations and social institutions as a result of group conflict
and cross-fertilization of cultures. Finally, we haveactivespiritual
adaptation through the work of those few great thinkers who are
able to attain a measure of real intellectual freedom * and become
leaders to hasten, within limits, the process of natural evolution,
also through organized social activity under the leadership of
such rare individuals. In the latter case the result is usually
attained by the organization of a new faction within the group as
the center for the advancement of the desired reforms.
WALTER BaGEHOT (1826-1877)
Discussion and Animated Moderation
Although Physics and Politics was published before many of
the writings already discussed, and although Bagehot makes such
large use of biological formulae * that he might have been classed
with that school of sociologists, his contribution is placed here
because his chief interest is an inductive study of the social
process,’ and in this study he emphasizes two elements as all
important in social progress, imitation * and discussion.® The
book thus forms a logical transition from the anthropological
and historical schools to those sociologists who endeavor to dis-
cover one all-important element as the key to the understanding
1 Soztologie, pp. 37 f., 50 f. 4 Ibid., p. 159.
2 [bid., pp. 89 f. 5 [bid., p. 184.
3 Ibid., p. 150.
6 Physics and Politics (New York, 1873), ch. II, p. 24.
7 Ibid., pp. 118 f. 8 Ibid., pp. 33, 100. 9 Ibid., ch. V.
178 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
of social evolution. Writing before Weismann, he believed with
most biologists of his day in the inheritance of acquired charac-
ters although this doctrine is not essential to his argument.1. He
accepted in general the theory of Sir Henry Maine as to the earli-
est historic form of the family and state,—the patriarchal, —
but he also accepted the conclusions of Bachofen, McLennan,
and Lubbock, as to an earlier stage when loose sexual relations
reigned along with ‘‘ mutterrecht.” ?
The first problem of primitive times, as Bagehot sees it, is to
get law, order, polity,— “‘a polity first — what sort of polity is
immaterial; a law first — what kind of law is secondary; a
person or set of persons to pay deference to — though who he is,
or they are, by comparison scarcely signifies.” * Despotism and
slavery were thus angels in disguise, for they were the means of
disciplining the impulsiveness of primitive man. But the nation
that went too far in its legalism and its conservatism, cutting off
all innovators and innovation, was doomed.*!
The two essentials to social as well as biological success are,
then, stability and variation, social stability resulting from imita-
tion, — mostly unconscious, — and elimination of the disuseful;®
social variation resulting from invention and free discussion.®
Bagehot wisely discriminates between the process of race mak-
ing (confined mostly to prehistoric times), and that of nation
making, a modern phenomenon.’
As the importance of imitation will be discussed later, we will
consider here only the factors of discussion and animated modera-
tion, which are his original contributions to sociology. Having
shown the necessity of custom and custom-imitation together
with the danger of over-conservatism, he says: ‘“‘ The change
from the age of status to the age of choice was first made in states
where the government was to a great and a growing extent a gov-
ernment by discussion, and where the subjects of that discussion
1 Physics and Politics, pp. 7, 8. 4 [bid., ch. II.
2 Tbid., pp. 12, 122 f. 5 [bid., pp. 92, 103.
3 Tbid., pp. 50, 64, 137. § Tbid., pp. 65 f., 156 f.
7 Ibid., pp. 86, 136. “If we look at the earliest monuments of the human
race, we find these race-characters as decided as the race-characters now,” ibid.,
p. 107.
THE HISTORICAL SOCIOLOGISTS 179
were in some degree abstract, or, as we should say, matters of
principle,” !— such as those connected with religion, philosophy
and politics, in the abstract.2. Matters of practical social import
were the first questions to be discussed, but if concerning merely
methods of warfare as with the Indians, progress did not result.’
The chief value of discussion, he holds, is due to the premium it
puts on intelligence and its effect in promoting tolerance.
Bagehot mentions the following as conditions that may be
traced historically to the nation capable of a polity that suggests
principles for discussion, and so leads to progress: —
First, the nation must possess the patria potestas in some form so marked
as to give family life distinctness and precision, and to make a home educa-
tion and a home discipline probable and possible. . . . Secondly, that polity
would seem to have been created very gradually by the aggregation of
families into clans or gentes, and of clans into nations, and then again by the
widening of nations, so as to include circumjacent outsiders as well as the
first compact and sacred group, —the number of parties to a discussion was
first augmented very slowly. Thirdly, the number of “‘open”’ subjects, —
that is, of subjects on which public opinion was optional, and on which dis-
cussion was admitted, was at first very small.§
Another valuable result that comes from discussion is a char-
acter which he terms “animated moderation.”® “To act
rightly in modern society,” he says, “requires a great deal of pre-
vious study, a great deal of assimilated information, a great deal
of sharpened imagination; and these prerequisites of sound action
require much time.” He shows how true this is especially in the
art of benefiting men, where ‘‘ haste makes waste.’ Discus-
sion, too, leads to intellectuality and this in turn by virtue of the
law of conservation of energy, to limitation of population’ Theory of Moral Sentiments, pt. 5, chs. I and II.
§ Tbid., pp. 78 £., 307 f. 7 Cf. McDougall, Social Psychology, ch. VII.
8 Theory of Moral Sentiments, pp. 217 f., 381 f.
FORMULAE OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 183
of “selves.”” Indeed in Smith we have a theological and meta-
physical! interpretation of the principles which a hundred years
or more later were to be established by historical and empirical
study and interpreted in scientific terms.
Adam Smith has been given the credit of being the founder of
the laissez faire school of economists, and to this degree he stands
primarily as an exponent of passive adaptation; but while he
gives prominence to wise self-interest, especially in his political
economy, he criticizes severely those who make this the deter-
mining factor in social progress and raises to a prominence
previously unknown the correlative and corrective doctrine of
sympathy or fellow-feeling. Nor does he try to evolve the latter
from the former, as did Helvetius, Bentham and others,” holding,
on the contrary, that the capacity for fellow-feeling is an original
endowment of man functioning contrary to self-interest under the
sense of duty.®
Smith holds that etymologically sympathy includes only fel-
low-feeling with the sufferings of another, but practically that
it includes all kinds of fellow-feeling, and that “ our propensity to
sympathize with joy is much stronger than our propensity to
sympathize with sorrow.” * This is due to its relation to individ-
ual pleasure and pain, based on the purpose of the Creator, and
also on its greater social utility.®
Sympathy is the result of imagination, —of putting one’s self in
place of another,*— and so requires community of experience.
This calls for a levelling process manifested especially in self-
control on the part of those in distress.”
Judgment of propriety concerning the action of another is
based on imaginary self-judgment and the sentiment of approval
resulting. “‘ If, upon bringing the case home to our own breast,”
he says, “ we find that the sentiments which it gives occasion to
’ Using these terms in the Comtean sense; cf. Theory of Moral Sentiments, pp.
139 £., 174, 223, 232.
2 [bid., pp. 477 f.
3 Tbid., pt. 3, chs. II and III, especially pp. 515 £.
4 Ibid., pp. 4, 68, 145.
5 Tbid., Book I, Sect. 2, pp. 94 f., 310.
6 Ibid., ch. I, pp. 178 f. 7 Tbid., pp. 25 f.
184 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
coincide and tally with our own, we necessarily approve of them,
otherwise we necessarily disapprove of them, as extravagant and
out of proportion.” !
Man is so constituted that he derives pleasure not only from
a perception of right, i. e., fitting or adapted to the end proposed,
according to Smith, but also from an appreciation of utility.’
Thus as the perception of order, harmony, system, propriety,
utility, gives pleasure, whereas the perception of the opposite
qualities gives pain, so also does the perception and experience
of the familiar give pleasure, — hence the influence of custom and
fashion on moral sentiments.
Although merit and demerit should depend upon motive,
according to our author, rather than upon results, and although
the sentiment of approval or disapproval should come only from a
sympathetic appreciation of motives, yet he grants that in fact
the result of an act is the basis of judgment rather than motive.
The explanation of this irregularity he finds in the good of the
species.*
Important, too, is the emphasis placed by Smith on the truth
that man desires not only approval but even more the conscious-
ness of being worthy of such approval.® “‘ It is only the weakest
and most superficial of mankind who can be much delighted with
that praise which they themselves know to be altogether un-
merited. To desire, or even to accept of praise, where no praise
is due, can be the effect only of the most contemptible vanity.” ®
This necessity for the highest happiness, that conduct should
conform as nearly as possible to one’s ideal, —which according to
our author is the basis of the sense of duty,7—will be discussed
later under the head of “ idealization.”
Sympathy, then, according to Adam Smith, is the bond of social
cohesion, the basis of moral sentiments, and the most essential
factor in individual and social well-being.
1 Theory of Moral Sentiments, pp. 25 f.
? Ibid., pp. 286 f. Propriety and utility are practically identical.
3 Ibid., pt. 5.
4 Ibid., pp. 159-175. 8 Tbid., p. 189.
5 Ibid., pp. 188 ff. 7 Tbid., pp. 184 ff.
FORMULAE OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 185
GABRIEL TARDE (1843-1904)
Imitation
The function of imitation in social progress, brought out forcibly
by Adam Smith and developed by Walter Bagehot, has been
emphasized as the one all-comprehensive factor by Tarde and
been given almost equal prominence by Baldwin and Giddings.
As jurist Tarde observed how large a part imitation played in
crime; as statistician he dealt with recurrences, repetitions; as
psychologist he was particularly interested in the analysis of
motives, and the experience and study of years finally crystal-
lized into a cosmic philosophy which sought to explain evolution
by the three related laws of repetition, opposition and adaptation,
—the three subsumed under the one comprehensive law of
imitation! “‘ Repetition, opposition and adaptation,” he says,
“« are the three keys which science employs to open up the arcana
of the universe,’ — and these, though distinct, are closely con-
nected. ‘In biology, for example, the tendency of species to
multiply in geometric progression (a law of repetition) forms the
basis of the struggle for existence and natural selection (a law of
opposition); and the appearance of individual variations, the
production of various individual aptitudes and harmonies, and the
correlation of parts in growth (laws of adaptation) are necessary
to the functioning of both.” ?
Tarde criticizes those sociologists such as Durkheim and Le Bon
who deal with impersonal forces and spontaneous crowd impulses
which coerce the individual, also those who emphasize the group
as the unit. Mass movements according to our author, have their
ultimate explanation in the inter-cerebral relations of two minds,
the one reflecting the other. “It is here,” he says, “‘ that he [the
sociologist] must seek the key to the social mystery; it is from this
that he must endeavor to derive the few simple but universal laws
which may be distinguished amid the seeming chaos of historical
and human life.” * From this point of view he refuses to accept
such concepts as “ social organism,” “‘ soul of a people,” “ genius
1 Tarde, The Laws of Imitation (Trans. by Parsons), Introduction.
2 Tarde, Social Laws (Trans. by Warren), p. 7. 3 Ibid., pp. 46, 47, 165.
186 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
of a people or race,’’ as commonly used, and holds that they are
merely a convenient label, or impersonal synthesis of individual
characteristics and that the characters of individuals are alone
real, effective and ever in activity. Thus instead of assuming asa
starting point for cosmic evolution a homogeneous mass, as did
Spencer, and defining progress in terms of differentiation and
integration, Tarde assumes a motley array of elements, each
possessing its own individual characteristics.!
Tarde takes his stand with the mathematical economists such
as Walras and Jevons and insists that the intellectual and volun-
tary activities of the self can be measured quantitatively and that
only so can sociology be a science.? This leads to a praise of the
statistical method of social measurements and to the introduction
of his social theory.
The evolution of the present world-order, according to our
author, consists in resolving the mass resemblances into resem-
blances of detail, and in transforming the gross and obvious mass
differences into infinitely minute differences of detail. The
minute interagreement of minds and wills, which forms the basis
of social life, i. e., the presence of so many common ideas, ends,
and means in the minds and wills of all members of the same
society at any given moment, — is due, not to organic heredity
nor to mere identity of geographical environment, but rather
to the effect of the suggestion-imitation process which, starting
from one primitive creature possessed of a single idea or act,
has passed this copy on to one of its neighbors, then to another,
and so on.’
The reciprocal suggestion-imitation relation between two
persons, Tarde holds, is the fundamental social fact and finds
illustration in the relation of mother and child and also in that
of teacher and pupil. “ The unvarying characteristic of every
social fact whatever is that it is imitative. And this character-
istic belongs exclusively to social facts.” 4
While imitation is the great principle of social uniformity, it is
never exact; and the refraction of imitation rays in the individual
1 Social Laws, p. 210. 3 [bid., p. 38.
2 Ibid., p. 34. 4 Tbid., p. 41.
FORMULAE OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 187
or group! and the new complex rays resulting from various desire-
belief combinations and oppositions are the mainspring of varia-
tion and progress.”
Tarde differs from Ratzenhofer in making the idea of a satisfier
precede desire. He grants the impelling force of organic need but
holds that this is a vital rather than a social factor. The social
substance or thing invented or imitated is “ an idea or volition,
a judgment or a purpose, which embodies a certain amount of
belief and desire. Desire and belief: they are the substance and
the force, they are the two psychological quantities which are
found at the bottom of all the sensational qualities with which
they combine, and when invention and then imitation takes
possession of them in order to organize and use them, they also are
the real social quantities.” 4 Belief and desire according to our
author are not social forces until they come to a head in invention
and are transmitted by imitation. But beliefs and desires are
not always supplementary or co-ordinate, coming frequently into
conflict and this fact leads Tarde to a discussion of the laws of
opposition.
The social forces thus classified drive individuals on by co-opera-
tion and opposition, and by struggle and survival produce ulti-
mately a more or less complete harmony. “ Any aggregation
whatever,” he says, ‘‘ is a collection of individuals jointly adapted,
either some adapted to the remainder or all to a common func-
tion. An aggregate means an adaptate. Moreover different
aggregates which have relations with one another may be co-
adapted; this constitutes an adaptate of a higher degree, and an
infinite number of such degrees may be distinguished. For the
sake of simplicity, let us distinguish merely between two degrees
of adaptation; adaptation of the first degree is that which the
elements of the system in question have among themselves;
adaptation of the second degree is that which unites these ele-
ments to the systems which surround them, that is, to what is
1 The Laws of Imitation, p. 22.
2 Social Laws, pp. 100 f. For Tarde’s use of “ imitation ” and his justifica-
tion of it, including in the term counter-imitation, see Introduction, Les Lois de
UImitation; also Social Laws, p. 42 n.
3 The Laws of Imitation, p. 145. 4 Ibid., pp. 92, 93.
188 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
vaguely denoted by the term environment. The adjustment
with one’s self differs greatly, in phenomena of every sort, from
the adjustment with others, just as self-repetition (habit) differs
from the repetition of others (heredity or imitation), and as self-
opposition (hesitation and doubt) differs from opposition to
others (strife or competition).”! As to whether or not there is a
cosmic adaptation or “teleology,” Tarde says, ‘‘Henceforth the
religious mind need turn no longer far away to the vast vault
of heaven, there to find and worship the fathomless wisdom that
moves the universe; rather, it must gaze into the chemist’s
crucible, and there discern the mystery of those physical harmonies
that are surely the most exact and marvelous of all,—far more
wonderful even than the scattered disorder of the stars: I mean
the chemical combinations.” ?
Though man has had to give up anthropocentric cosmology he
finds scope for teleological conceptions in the marvelous adapta-
tion in the details of each organism. ‘“‘ There is no single end
in nature,” Tarde says, ‘‘no end in relation to which all others are
means; but there is an infinite number of ends which are seeking
to utilize one another. Every organism, and in every organism
every cell, and in every cell, perhaps, every cellular element, has
its own particular providence, for itself and initself. Here, then,
as before, we are led to consider the harmonizing force . . . not
as something unique, external and superior, but as indefinitely
repeated, infinitesimal, and internal. In reality, the source of all
these harmonies of life, which become less striking the farther we
get from the starting point and the wider the field we embrace,
is the fertilized germ; this last is a living representation of the
intersecting lines that meet in it, forming often a felicitous cross-
breed; it is the germ of new talents, which are destined to spread
broadcast and propagate themselves in turn, thanks to the
survival of the fittest, or the elimination of the least fit.” 3
The same is true of society, he holds: —
The final outcome . . . of this final preponderance of a single line of social
evolution . . . is the series of scientific discoveries and industrial inventions
that have gone on ceaselessly accumulating and making use of one another;
1 Laws of Imitation, pp. 148 f. 2 Tbid., p. 154. Ibid., p. 157.
FORMULAE OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 189
these have become bound together in a system or bundle, whose real logical
interrelation, though not without intricacies of its own, seems vaguely re-
peated in the interrelation of the races which have contributed to its forma-
tion. If we follow up this great scientific and industrial stream, we find its
source in the mind of every genius, whether obscure or celebrated, who has
added some new truth, some new means of activity, to the enduring legacy
of humanity, and who has made the relations among mankind more har-
monious by this contribution, by promoting community of thought and col-
laboration of effort. Andso... I maintain that the details of human events
alone contain striking adaptations; that the basis of those harmonies which
are less noticeable in a vaster domain here comes plainly to view, and that
the more we rise from a small but closely united social group, such as the
family, the school, the workshop, the rural church, the convent, or the regi-
ment, to the city, the province, or the nation, the less complete and striking
does the solidarity become. . . . This is true, be it observed, unless some
powerful personality intervenes to govern and overrule the interrelation of
events. The latter, however, tends to occur more and more frequently, since
civilization is distinguished by the facilities it offers for the realization of
special schemes of social reorganization; and in this case it does not always
hold true that the harmony of an aggregate is in inverse ratio to its mass.!
In Tarde’s philosophy we have a “ pluralistic universe.” The
ultimate fact so far as he can discover is a vast multitude of
diverse primal units. These primal units or simple elements after
a time form into a vast array of complex units exhibiting internal
adaptation. Ultimately the complex protoplasmic organism is
evolved having internal adaptation and a certain degree of
external, — and so on through the development of species to
man and through the family to complex social relations.2. Viewed
statically adaptation for the most part decreases inversely with
the extent of adaptive relations, but viewed dynamically the
progress of civilization reveals another movement tending to
increase the closeness of human relations by association and
co-operation so that we may look forward to an ultimate social
organization co-extensive with humanity which shall reveal a
high degree of internal adaptation? And just as the evolution
of species is explained by variation, struggle and survival, so
the process of socialization is explained by social variation
(invention) and imitation, working by the laws of repetition and
opposition to secure ultimate adaptation. Imitation, then, with
1 Laws of Imitation, pp. 162, 163. 2 [bid., p. 162. 3 [bid., p. 169.
190 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
Tarde, explains socialization much as natural selection with Dar-
win explains biological evolution and the origin of species.
The social ideal is well expressed in the following: —
* If we take the ideas of invention, imitation and social logic as a guiding
thread we are led to the more reassuring perspective of a great future con-
fluence . . . of multiple divisions of mankind into a single peaceful human
family. The idea of indefinite progress, which is such a vague and obstinate
idea, has neither a clear nor precise meaning except from this point of view.
The necessity of a progressive march towards a great but distant goal is an
outcome of the laws of imitation. This goal, which becomes more and more
accessible in spite of apparent, although transitory, set-backs, is the birth,
the development, and the universal spread, — whether under an imperial
or federated form is insignificant, —of a unique society. . . . We might
demand to what extent this collective dream, this collective nightmare of
society, was worth its cost in blood and tears if this grievous discipline, this
deceptive and despotic prestige, did not serve to free the individual in calling
forth, little by little, from the depths of his heart, his freest impulses, his
boldest introspection, his keenest insight into nature, and in developing every-
where, not the savage individualities, not the clashing and brutal soul-stuffs
of bygone days, but those deep and harmonious traits of the soul that are
characteristic of personality as well as of civilization, the harvest of both the
purest and most potent individualism and consummate sociability.
Tarde is open to criticism chiefly in the following points: —
1. His system is essentially logical rather tnan factual, and he
has not proven that logical classification fits life conditions.
Although there seems to be a straining towards consistency in the
belief-desire life of the individual, this is seldom attained, and
chaos is not uncommon. The same holds of the co-adaptive
process of socialization.
2. His attempt to reduce life to mechanistic terms explicable
by mechanical laws fails in two particulars: (a) it leads to strict
determinism making the apparent freedom of individual and
social activity an illusion,? and (0) it leads to a doctrine of socio-
psychical measurements which is contradicted by every-day
experience. The only possible way that evaluations can be
quantitatively compared is by first :educing them to their physi-
1 The Laws of Imitation, p. xxiv.
? Especially apparent in his discussion of suggestion and auto-suggestion:
“ Létat social, comme |’état hypnotique, n’est qu’une forme de réve. . . . N’avoir
que des idées suggérées et les croire spontanées: telle est l’illusion propre au som-
nambule, et aussi bien 4 l’homme social,” Les Lois de I’ Imitation, p. 83.
FORMULAE OF SOCIAL PROGRESS IgI
cal correlates as is done in physiological-psychology. But this
process, as Miinsterberg has shown, leaves out the very heart of
the phenomena compared. Evaluations differ from moment to
moment, and social facts are the outcome of these ever-shifting
evaluations.
3. His broad use of the term imitation is questionable,! its
exact meaning left undefined and its modus operandi mis-explained
by use of mechanical similes. Indeed his discussion of suggestion
and imitation is now passée.?
4. He made the mistake common to many social philosophers
of trying to find one all-comprehensive element or principle as
a sociological solvent.*
M. M. Davis credits Tarde’s social logic as giving the following
valuable suggestions: ‘‘ It helps us to conceive how beliefs and
desires (inventions) agree, disagree, or combine, and thus, how
systems of ideas are built up. We see that the social life of a
people must be an organic whole because of the inherent necessity
for logical harmony between those different ideas and sentiments
existing in individual minds, which are represented objectively
in social institutions. We see that social change must come about
through the appearance and adoption (imitation) of new ideas,
(inventions) which are either in harmony with the existing sys-
tem, or are connected with such strong beliefs and desires that
they substitute themselves for parts of this system and occasion a
re-synthesis. The relative strength of such beliefs and desires
determines whether or not an invention will be established
socially, that is, be imitated.” 4 Davis criticizes Tarde, however,
for his over-emphasis on this one factor to the practical exclusion
1 Cf. Small, op. cit., pp. 626 f.; Baldwin, Social and Ethical Interpretations,
p. 478; Wallis, The Great Society, p. 120.
2 Cooley, Human Nature and the Social Order, pp. 25 {.; Wallis, op. cit., pp. 131 £.3
Thorndike, Original Nature of Man, ch. VIII.
3 This criticism may be passed on the endeavor of the present writer to interpret
social progress by the principle of adaptation, but this difference should be noted:
The term imitation is supposed to have definite content and is used by Tarde to
explain a process which includes innovation, repetition, opposition, and adaptation,
whereas the term adaptation is used in this volume merely to describe a series of
relationships existing or that should exist.
4 Davis, Psychological Interpretations of Society, p. 22.
192 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
of others. ‘‘ The general conception of social progress,”’ he says,
“is the mutually adaptive reactions of individuals; and that special
form of adaptation which we call imitation is neither its only
social form nor its only social form of importance,” and quotes
Cooley with approval, who says: ‘“‘There are other aspects of
society besides imitation which may be viewed as social proc-
esses; competition, communication, differentiation, and others,
are each worthy of a volume like Tarde’s Laws of Imitation. . . .
The real process is a multiform thing, of which these are but
glimpses.” }
In the writings of Tarde we have an attempt to explain cosmic
evolution in purely mechanical terms, hence passive adaptation
is ever in the foreground, but these mechanistic forces are ever
producing new compounds?” hence the possibility of progress. In
the human intellect these result in new ideas, and in the “ heart ”
in new desires and sentiments, and these functioning in social life
as inventions, make possible that so-called telic process which we
term active adaptation.
James Mark BALpwin (1861- _—+)
The Dialectic of Growth
Professor Baldwin, as Tarde, has made imitation the funda-
mental social process or “‘ true type of social function,” although
he differs from the latter in his interpretation of the process, in his
analysis of the “‘ imitable” and in his emphasis on “ reflective
imitation.” ¢
Baldwin makes his approach to social philosophy from the
point of view of genetic psychology, studies the process of the
development of the child’s mind in contact with his social environ-
ment and from his conclusions formulates his principles of the
“Dialectic of Personal Growth” and “ Dialectic of Social
Growth ” which together form his chief contribution to our sub-
ject. In order to appreciate these principles some preliminary
observations will be in place.
1 Davis, op. cit., p. 104. 2 L’invention, pp. 4 f.
3 Social and Ethical Interpretations, pp. 478 f.
FORMULAE OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 193
As we noted in our discussion of biological evolution, Baldwin,
with Osborn and Lloyd Morgan, formulated the doctrine of
“Organic Selection” according to which acquired characters are
considered to affect the evolutionary process either by working
through the central nervous system or by the preservation of
these characters through habit and social heredity until they
eventuate in an inborn variation which is transmitted by physical
heredity.!
Baldwin is a firm believer in the doctrine of natural selection
and makes large use of it in his psychology and social philosophy,
but he brings the social process into strong contrast to the
biological, laying chief stress on invention, imitation, and “ social
heredity,” and pointing out several ways in which the doctrine of
natural selection fails when applied to social evolution.?
The socio-psychical process or the “‘ modes of social or collective
life ” are divided into three classes: (1) the instinctive or grega-+
rious; (2) the spontaneous or plastic; and (3) the reflective or
social proper. The instinctive or gregarious group of collec-
tive reactions are physically inherited by individual animals.
Such modes of action, moreover, are fixed and unprogressive and
are the product of biological laws. The spontaneous or plastic
group of collective actions are “due to experience, habits of
common or joint behavior which are not inherited, but learned... .
These acquired modes of collective action illustrate social trans-
mission rather than physical heredity. . . . The individual does
not go by this method beyond what the group life has already
acquired. . . All the individuals of the group learn the same things;
and what they learn is the body of useful actions already estab-
lished in the collective life of the group. The laws of this mode of
collective action are, accordingly, psychological, not merely
biological.” He calls this a “‘ mode of psychological solidarity.”
1 Social and Ethical Interpretations, pp. 545 ff.
2 Tbid., pp. 57 £., 459, 462 f. ‘“‘ This is the great essential thing about social
truth as opposed to biological fact: it leaps the bounds of physical heredity,” ibid.,
. 462.
. 3 The Individual and Society, p. 36. Baldwin quotes with approval Ténnies’
distinction between ‘“ Gemeinschaft”’ and “ Gesellschaft,” Social and Ethical
Interpretations, p. 486.
194 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
In the reflective or social group we have not merely instinctive or
unconscious imitative activity, but “an intelligent judgment
made with a view to consequences to be attained.” Here, alone,
according to our author, do we find a group of activities that may
properly be called social. In this group of intelligent acts of
co-operation he notes the following characteristics: (1) They are
social novelties, yet on the whole progressive and constructive in
contrast to mob action which comes under the second mode;
(2) these issue in a “ solidarity of intelligence, of conviction, of
higher sentiment, . . . [which] takes the place of the solidarity
of mere instinct or blind feeling ”’; and (3) the result is a solidarity
of conscious intention and voluntary co-operation.
These three modes are not mutually exclusive or definitely
demarked. The instinctive issues in the plastic and this in the
social yet all three are co-existent and overlap.
Professor Baldwin’s genetic approach to social philosophy and
the gist of his theory including the inter-relation of the individual
and society, the dialectic of personal growth and the all-impor-
tant function of imitation cannot be stated better than in his own
words as found in his latest work The Individual and Society.
The individual comes into the world with the impulse of the history of the
race behind him. He has few perfect instincts, such as many of the animals
show. He is, on the contrary, plastic and educable. But his development
is nevertheless to be a compromise between the two tendencies which
throughout all his life represent individualism and collectivism. He has
distinctly egoistic and individualistic impulses, but with them he has also
positive predispositions to social life. These two germinal tendencies are to
receive their more perfect adjustment, or at least a working relation, in his
education and training in the habits and usages of the social group.
It is not necessary to dwell upon the more individualistic factor in his
heredity; it is summed up in the word “ appetite.” He has a mass of ten-
dencies which are necessary to the preservation and advancement of his
vegetative and animal life. These are of necessity direct, strong, and self-
seeking.
But over against these we find certain positive impulses which are of a
quasi-social or gregarious sort, ready soon after birth to develop the other
side of his nature. Bashfulness, shame, jealousy, are some of the more
fundamental tendencies rooted in the organic structure of the human babe,
which seem to reveal ancestral conditions of collective life and habit.
1 The Individual and Society, pp. 36 f. (italics as in text).
FORMULAE OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 195
With these go, in a more positive sense, certain great motives of action
which, natural as they are and quasi-instinctive, become the tools of “ sociali-
zation according to nature ” very early in the individual’s personal history.
Play and imitation, twin brothers in the scheme of the child’s hereditary
impulses, come to assume, each alone and both together, a very extraordinary
Tole.
By play the young animal and the child alike come into the most fruitful
social relations with one another. The meaning of the varied situations of
life is learned in play, under conditions free from the storm and stress of
actual serious life; and thus the functions playfully exercised are developed.
The great activities of later utility in the struggles of life, and in the varied
social conditions of existence, are thus made ready. In play we find one of
the great meeting places of the forces of individualism and collectivism.
Imitation is another great socializing function. The child naturally falls
to imitating and when once this has begun he is a veritable copying machine,
turning out acts, opinions, decisions, which are based with more or less correct-
ness upon models found in his social environment.
By imitation he gets the “‘ feel ” of things that others do, and so learns to
value the safe and sane; by imitation, he tries on the varied ways of doing
things, and so learns his own capacities and limitations; by imitation he
actually acquires the stored up riches of the social movements of history; by
imitation he learns to use the tools of culture, speech, writing, manual skill,
so that through the independent use of these tools he may become a more
competent and fruitful individual; finally, it is by imitation in the way of
varied and effortful trial that he succeeds in being original and inventive. Of
this last result, more later on; here let us note simply that imitation in its
social réle is not mere imitation, mere copying, slavish adherence to the
prevalent and easy ways of doing things; that would be a superficial way of
looking at this most extraordinary set of functions. Imitation to the intelli-
gent and earnest imitator is never slavish, never mere repetition; it is, on the
contrary, @ means to further ends, a method of absorbing what is present in
others and of making it over in forms peculiar to one’s own temper and
valuable to one’s own genius.
Armed with these impulses, the weapons of competition as well as of
co-operation, the young hero of the nursery begins his personal development,
as acenter of considerate and purposeful action. The nucleus of personality,
to the outsider, is the bodily self; it isa sort of social unit; but to the individ-
ual himself, the distinction between persons as minds and persons as mere
bodily presences soon springs up and takes on greater and greater signifi-
cance. For this is not an inborn distinction. The sense of self is not a
ready-made and perfect gift; it is a slow growth, the stages of which show in
a most interesting way the interaction of the individualistic and social
factors.
It begins, probably, when the child notes the capricious and seemingly
lawless actions of persons, in contrast with the more regular and mechanical
actions of things, such as the swinging of the pendulum, the opening and
closing of the door, the rolling of the ball upon the floor. Persons do the
most unexpected, the most inconsistent things. And it is these things that
196 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
attract attention and call out the impulse to imitate. The child imitates the
acts of persons.
Thus he is admitted to the inside of the other’s mind, as it were, and dis-
covers that bodies are not, as minds are, centers of feeling, will, and knowl-
edge. He makes very quickly the discovery that his own personality is
likewise two-sided; that he, too, is a mind on the inside, and that that which
others see of him on the outside is not the mind, but merely the physical
person. He goes through a series of distinguishable processes of interpreta-
tion, all worked out in detail by the psychologist, which are of momentous
significance for the evolution of personality.
Put very briefly and untechnically, these processes are in outline as fol-
lows:
The mind of others is at first to the child the source of capricious and
mysterious actions and events. It is located simply in the physical person
of others: it is then “ projective”? — simply “ projected ” into the other
person, nurse, mother, or whoever it be.
But this sort of presence is then taken over into himself, by imitation, and
illustrated in those more intimate experiences which are peculiar to his own
mental life — pains, efforts, emotional crises, etc. These become the means by
which he interprets the “ projective ” characteristics of others. Their inner
life is understood in terms of hisown. The whole set of events, having per-
sonal, and not merely physical or bodily significance, becomes “ subjective ”’;
it is peculiar to the “‘ subject,’ which is now for the first time differentiated
with some clearness from things.
This is followed again by areturn movement. The subjective experiences,
— say a series of violent efforts, or a violent pain, — are in analogous circum-
stances read into others also. When the emotional expression warrants it,
or when cries or gestures indicate it, the subjective is made over to other
persons; it is ‘‘ ejected ” into the individuals of the immediate entourage.
Other persons are thought of then in just the same terms as the private
self; and the private self in the same terms as other persons; it is impossible
to distinguish them, so far as the meaning in subjective terms is concerned.
The thought of self is of a larger self which includes personalities in general,
and the different persons, in all that which is not singular or characteristic of
each, are fundamentally the same.
This dialectic of personal growth has its analogue in the give-
and-take process continually going on between the individual and
society. ‘“‘ We see that society,” says Baldwin, ‘stands as a
quasi-personality under a two-fold relation of give-and-take
to the individuals who make up the social group. It is related
to these individuals in two ways: first, as having itself become
what it is by the absorption of the thoughts, struggles, sentiments,
co-operations, etc., of individuals; second. as itself finding its new
1 The Individual and Society, pp. 18-26.
FORMULAE OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 197
lessons in personal (now social) growth in the new achievements
of individuals. If we take any lesson which society learns, —
any one thought which it adopts and makes a part of its organized
content, — we can trace the passage of this thought or element
through the two poles of the ‘ dialectic of social growth ’ just as
we can also trace the elements of personal suggestion, in the case
of the analogous dialectic of the individual’s growth. The new
thought is ‘ projective’ to society as long as it exists in the
individual’s mind only; it becomes ‘ subjective’ to society
when society has generalized it and embodied it in some one of
the institutions which are a part of her intimate organization;
and then finally society makes it ‘ ejective ’ by requiring, by all
her pedagogical, civil, and other sanctions, that each individual,
class, or subordinate group which claims a share in her corporate
life, shall recognize it and live up to it.
“ Society, in other words, makes her particularizations, inven-
tions, interpretations, through the individual man, just as the
individual makes his through the alter individual who gives him
his suggestions; and then society makes her generalizations by
setting the results thus reached to work again for herself in the
form of institutions, etc., just as the individual sets out for social
confirmation and for conduct the interpretations which he has
reached. The growth of society is therefore a growth in a sort of
self-consciousness, —an awareness of itself, — expressed in the
general ways of thought, action, etc., embodied in its institutions;
and the individual gets his growth in self-consciousness in a way
which shows by a sort of recapitulation this two-fold movement
of society. So the method of growth in the two cases, — what
‘has been called the ‘ dialectic,’ — is the same.” !
The relation between society and the individual is well ex-
pressed in these words: “ (1) Individuals can particularize only
on the basis of earlier generalizations of society. This gives an
initial trend to the thought-variations which are available for
social use. (2) Society is absolutely dependent, as to its new
acquisitions, upon the new thoughts, particularizations, of
individuals; and it again generalizes them. It can get material
1 Social and Ethical Interpretations, p. 512.
198 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
from no other source. (3) Only when both these conditions are
fulfilled, — when old social matter is particularized by an individ-
ual and then again generalized by society, — can new accretions
be normally made to the social content and progress be secured
to the organization as a whole.” !
Professor Baldwin has contributed further to social philosophy
by his analysis of ‘“‘ sanctions” meaning by this term “ all the
reasons which are really operative on the individual, in keeping
him at work and at play in the varied drama of life.”” Of these
there are two general classes, the personal and the social. The
personal sanctions are classified as impulse, lower hedonic, desire,
higher hedonic and right. The social sanctions are classified as
natural, pedagogical and conventional, civil, and ethical and religious.
Our author differs from many in holding that there is no real
antagonism between the individual and the social sanctions,
except in the case of the “‘ exceptional man or the exceptional
judgments of the average man.”? “The actual oppositions
which do arise in his life,” says Baldwin, ‘“‘are rather a propos of
questions regarding which he finds room for discussion, and for the
more thoroughgoing application of the intellectual sanction.” *
Among the most important of these sanctions, according to our
author, are the ethical and the religious, and in the discussion of
these, use is made of the “dialectic of growth ” and of the doctrine
of adaptation.
“There can be no real opposition,” says Baldwin, “ between
society and the individual in the matter of the essential demands
of the moral and religious consciousness. The fact of ‘ publi-
city ’ in all religious and ethical thought makes it necessary that
the same ideal should be erected in the individual and in the com-
munity in which the individual is reared, since the growth of the
ideal self-thought in the individual depends constantly upon the
absorption of moral and religious suggestions from the social
environment.” 4 The same is true, he holds, concerning the
religious life, though he admits that historically there have been
acute conflicts in the religious sphere.
1 Social and Ethical Interpretations, p. 511. 3 [bid., p. 429.
2 Tbid., p. 424. 4 [bid., p. 434.
FORMULAE OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 199
Professor Baldwin is open to criticism especially at two points:
first, in the loose way in which he uses the term imitation and
second for his failure to give definite content to those various
unities that make up quasi-personalities. We have in fact
different “‘ societies ” with different ideals, and as one person
is brought under the influence of varying and often conflicting
ideals, the result is a greater diversity and confusion in the inner
life of the individual than provided for in Baldwin’s theory;
yet on the whole perhaps no author has contributed more to the
development of the concept of adaptation as a social theory,
especially as pertaining to morals and religion. To his ascending
series of ‘‘ struggles,’’ — between individuals in the lower species
of animals, between groups in the higher, and in human society,
struggle for a living, for place, and excellence,! — we would add a
final form, — struggle for social achievement.
Henry Drummond (1851-1897)
Struggle for the Life of Others
Drummond’s great contribution to social philosophy is in
supplementing the law of struggle for existence with that of
“ struggle for the life of others’ having its mainspring in that
disposition or sentiment termed love. ‘‘ Experience,” he says,
“tells us that man’s true life is neither lived in the material
tracts of the body, nor in the higher altitudes of the intellect, but
in the warm world of the affections.” * This fact which Comte
emphasized in his Polity, Drummond endeavored to explain
through biology. He shows that love is not a resultant of strug-
gle for existence but is rooted in the primal activity of reproduc-
tion by cell division. ‘‘ Even at its dawn life is receiver and
giver; even in protoplasm is selfism and otherism.”
“ The two main activities of all living things,” he holds, “ are
nutrition and reproduction. . . . The object of nutrition is to
secure the life of the individual; the object of reproduction is to
secure the life of the species. . . . The first has a purely personal
1 The Individual and Society, ch. III. Cf. infra, ch. XIV.
2 For further criticism, see infra, p. 308 f.
3 The Ascent of Man, p. 215. 4 Ibid., pp. 225 f.
200 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
end ... the second in a greater or less degree is impersonal;
its attention is turned outwards; it lives for the future. .
Almost the whole self-seeking side of things has come down the
line of the individual struggle for life; almost the whole unsel-
fish side of things is rooted in the struggle to preserve the life of
others.” !
Drummond is highly poetical in his description of this process
through the lower forms of nature, but is more scientific and
satisfactory when he comes to ground his conclusions in the facts
of human sex relations and maternity. He finds that as in the
male the productive and nutritive functions are most prominent
whereas in the female the reproductive play the important rdle,
so in man’s life, struggle for existence finds its chief illustration,
in woman’s, struggle for the life of others.?- This gives him back-
ground for his statement that “‘ the passage from mere otherism,
in the physiological sense, to altruism in the moral sense, occurs
in connection with the due performance of her natural task by her
to whom the struggle for the life of others is assigned. That
task, translated into one great word, is maternity, — which is
nothing but the struggle for the life of others transfigured,
transferred to the moral sphere.’ * And this maternity, he
holds, is not pre-eminently the mother of children nor of affection
between male and female, but of Jove, —“‘ of love as love, of
love as life, of love as humanity, of love as the pure and
undefiled fountain of all that is eternal in the world.” 4
With this origin, sympathy and love, he holds, are born in the
home and from the home-circle extend in ever increasing rela-
tions.®
In the writings of Drummond we have the advantages and dis-
advantages arising from the attempt to interpret scientific
processes in terms of religious faith and dogma. He has done
more, perhaps, than any other one man to bridge the chasm
between science and religion for the orthodox minister and lay-
man and make them realize the possibility of seeing this orderly
universe as God’s world, the whole process guided by intelligence
1 The Ascent of Man, pp. 221, 222. % Ibid., p. 258. 5 Ibid., pp. 265, 266.
2 Tbid., p. 257. 4 Ibid., p. 259.
FORMULAE OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 201
andlove. Hiswritings are inspiring, —as religious writings always
should be, —and tend to make the religionist more respectful
in his attitude toward nature and natural law, and the scientist,
if not repelled by Drummond’s interpretations, more inclined to
appreciate the values of life as well as life’s processes; but such a
method has this disadvantage: bias prejudices the mind to see not
what is but what is desired. Some of his “ natural laws in the
spiritual world ”’ are examples of this defect.
The chief contributions of Drummond are: (1) his explanation
of sympathy and love as due to the result of biological evolution
interpreted in terms of adaptation, and (2) his explanation of
social organization as the outgrowth, by an analogous process,
of the instincts of nutrition and reproduction.
FRANKLIN H. Grwpincs (1855- _+)
Consciousness of Kind
Turning from the doctrine of imitation as developed from Smith
through Bagehot, Tarde and Baldwin, with a suggestion of most
recent lines of criticism of this doctrine by McDougall, Cooley
and Thorndike, we find in F. H. Giddings not only a psycho-
logical analysis of imitation but especially, in his doctrine of
Consciousness of Kind, the culmination of the analysis of the
function of sympathy as made by A. Smith, Fiske, Drummond,
et al.
In the social philosophy of Giddings we have a selective syn-
thesis of the contributions of the writers we have considered, and
an original contribution in his analysis of and emphasis on con-
sciousness of kind as the fundamental social fact.!. With Comte he
accepts a positivistic and organic view of society; ? with Spencer
he makes use of general laws of cosmic evolution to explain social
progress.? He accepts Durkheim’s theory of constraint‘ with
some recognition of his emphasis on consciousness of difference as
1 “Tt is about the consciousness of kind, as a determining principle, that all
other motives organize themselves in the evolution of social choice, social volition
or social policy.”’ — Principles, p. 19.
2 Tbid., p. 6.
3 Elements, ch. XXV, especially pp. 335 f. 4 Principles, p. 15.
202 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
a means of social cohesion.!_ He accepts Tarde’s law of imitation,
with slight modification,? and Novicow’s theory of progress from
physical through intellectual conflicts to ever increasing har-
mony.’ Ward, too, with his emphasis on individual and social
telesis, has left his impress, and Baldwin with his “ dialectic of
personal growth,” has left his; 5 while Bagehot’s “ discussion ”
and “ animated moderation ” find place though under different
phraseology. He makes large use of Darwin’s theory of natural
selection, also, applying it to groups, ideals and institutions.®
Giddings holds that science cannot get beyond the dualism of
matter and mind, this being the province of philosophy.” He is
classed among the dualistic sociologists by Barth,® and his dis-
tinction between the physical and psychical is, for the most part,
so clean cut as to warrant such a classification.
“ All the conscious activities of mankind,” according to our
author, ‘‘spring from certain internal motives, such as passions,
appetites, desires of various kinds, and ideas.” ® These motives
are classified as those of appreciation giving pleasure through the
sensory organs, and, later through mental activity; wutilization
leading to the satisfaction of the various appetites; characteriza-
tion, leading to the satisfaction of desire for enlargement of per-
sonal life as distinguished from mere self-preservation, and the
primary motive of socialization or the desire for companionship,
sympathy, etc."
These various motives work out the processes or practical
activities through various methods: that of appreciation through
the methods of response to stimuli and imitation; that of utiliza-
tion through the methods of attack, impression and invention;
that of characterization through the methods of persistence,
accommodation and self-control; that of socialization through the
method of assimilation, — all of these being so many modes of the
one universal method of conflict.
1 Elements, pp. 194 £., 215, 353+ 7 Elements, pp. 330 £.
2 Principles, pp. 15, 102 f. 8 Op. cit., pp. 183 f.
3 [bid., pp. 14 f.; Elements, pp. 346 f. 9 Elements, p. 45.
4 Principles, p. 11. 10 Jbid., pp. 46 ff.
5 Elements, pp. 342 f. ll [bid., p. 50.
6 Principles, see Index.
FORMULAE OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 203
Association is based on certain similarities, first, on those de-
rived from kinship, and second, on those — mental and moral —
due to similar brain organization. As a result of this we have
“a similar responsiveness of two or more individuals to the same
stimulus or stimuli,” which may be analyzed into three stages of
development: (1) initial responsiveness, — a mere first interest
in any object as in a momentary panic; (2) persistent responsive-
ness which becomes a habit or fixed manner as in forms of speech
and courtesy, and (3) rational responsiveness “ which invokes
the complex activity of all the powers of mind and will, and the
varied adaptation of means to end.” ?
We have not only these resemblances between individuals but a
more or less articulate consciousness of them and also of dif-
ferences. This consciousness, in its lowest form, is called organic
sympathy and its contrary, organic antipathy.* These may be
studied in animal reactions and also in the developing mind and
activities of the child. There are three factors in organic sym-
pathy, according to Giddings: “ (1) like responsiveness of like
individuals to the same stimulus; (2) like sensations received by
like individuals from self and others ; (3) the readier imitation of
one another by like individuals than by those who greatly differ.” *
The second factor is illustrated as follows: ‘‘ The sound made by
the mother’s voice has been like that made by the child’s own
voice; while the sounds made by the dog and bird have been
unlike those made by the child’s own voice. When the infant
puts his hands together or passes them over his face, he receives
in his brain certain sensations of pressure. When he passes his
hands over his mother’s face and over her hands, he again re-
ceives sensations of pressure; and they are very like the sensations
that he has received from his own body.” > The third factor finds
illustration in the facility with which imitation operates among
the like-minded and the difficulty with which it operates between
antagonistic individuals or groups.
1 Elements, p. 55.
2 Ibid., p. 56; cf. Inductive Sociology, pt. z, ch. I.
3 Elements, pp. 59 f.
4 Tbid., p. 62. 5 Tbid., p. 60.
204 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
Reflective sympathy arises when imitation and like response
are the result of reflective, intelligent volition. ‘‘ Resembling
individuals not only sympathize with one another, but they know
that they sympathize, and to a certain extent they are aware that
their sympathy is affected by the perception of resemblance.” !
Two other consequences of resemblance are affection and desire
for recognition.”
This four-fold mode of consciousness appears to the expe-
riencing individual as a unitary fact and is called by our author
consciousness of kind which he defines as “ that pleasurable state
of mind which includes organic sympathy, the perception of
resemblance, conscious or reflective sympathy, affection, and the
desire for recognition.” ? This, he holds, is the simplest of all
the states of mind which can be called social, and its growth is the
mental or subjective side of socialization, its objective side being
dependent upon communication and association!
The process of growing alike is termed assimilation
The fundamental importance of consciousness of kind in Gid-
dings’ social philosophy is seen from the following: ‘‘ Conscious-
ness of kind modifies appetite and desire. . . . [It] modifies the
ideas and the desires that enter into the consciousness of integral
self-satisfaction. ... [It] modifies impression . . . and imita-
tion.” ® He holds that like-mindedness must precede co-opera-
tion, and that where consciousness of kind exists, co-operation
necessarily follows.7 It is the basis of the form of association
termed social pleasure. Consciousness of kind is the basis of
social groupings both component and constituent, the former
based on likeness of type, the latter on likeness of purpose, and
expresses itself according to the following law: ‘‘ The social
composition develops in proportion to the intensity and scope of
the passion for homogeneity.” ® Human nature, our author
1 Inductive Sociology, p. 64. 4 Tbid., pp. 68, 69.
2 Ibid., pp. 64, 65. 5 Tbid., p. 70.
3 Ibid., p. 66.
8 Ibid., pp. 70-72; cf. Principles, pp. 18 £.; Inductive Sociology, pt. 2, chs. II, IIT.
7 Elements, p. 80.
8 Ibid., p. 89.
9 Ibid., p. 192.
FORMULAE OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 205
holds, is pre-eminently social, and “its chief trait is a conscious-
ness of kind wider and stronger than in animal groups.” !
Like-mindedness is of two kinds, formal and rational. The
former is seen in the popular acceptance of tradition and obedience
to rules and precepts embodied in them, and is produced (1) by
the tendency to accept as true the thing vividly imagined or
desired, especially if believed by others in whom one has confi-
dence, or if handed down from the past, and (2) by direct teaching
and discipline.?
Rational like-mindedness is the result of criticism and the basis
of public opinion. ‘ Public opinion comes into existence only
when a sympathetic like-mindedness or an agreement in belief is
subjected to criticism, started by some skeptical individual who
doubts the truth of the belief, or the wisdom of the agreement;
and an opinion is then thought out to which many communicating
minds can yield their rational assent.”* The chief method of
developing public opinion is by discussion, and, indeed is propor-
tional to discussion.‘
Component societies, for the most part genetic aggregations
and characterized by likeness of type, are classified as families,
ethnical groups (hordes, tribes, confederations) and demotic
groups (families, neighborhoods, hamlets, parishes, towns, cities,
states).° Constituent societies based on likeness of purpose are
classified as household, clan and other tribal associations, and
various civil societies and private or public associations, including
political, juristic, economic, and cultural. Although the
development of component societies depends on likeness in type,
that of constituent societies and of the social constitution “ de-
pends upon the growth of an appreciation of the value of variety
or unlikeness in society.”7 Whether the like-mindedness is
formal or rational determines the character of the social organiza-
tion as to whether it is predominantly coercive or liberal.
“ Social organization is coercive,” he says, ‘‘in those commun-
ities in which sympathetic and formal like-mindedness strongly
1 Elements, p. 241. 5 Ibid., pp. 179 f.
2 Tbid., ch. XIV, especially pp. 152, 153. § [bid., pp. 193 f.
3 Ibid., pp. 155 f. 7 [bid., p. 215.
4 [bid., p. 156.
206 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
predominate over rational like-mindedness. Conversely, social
institutions are liberal, allowing the utmost freedom of thought
and action to the individual only in those communities in which
there is a high development of rational like-mindedness.”’ !
A second law enforcing his thesis that highly-developed con-
sciousness of kind of a relative homogeneous population is neces-
sary for the success of a democracy, is as follows: ‘‘ The forms of
social organization, whether political or other, in their relation
to the individual, are necessarily coercive if, in their membership,
there is great diversity of kind and great inequality. Conversely,
institutions or other forms of social organization can be liberal,
conceding the utmost freedom to the individual if, in the popula-
tion, there is fraternity and, back of fraternity, an approximate
mental and moral equality.” ?
Efficiency in social organization is measured by benefit con-
ferred on the members and depends upon moral qualities, together
with a recognition of the value of expert knowledge (the basis of
effective division of labor). The results of such efficiency of
social organization are seen “ in the economic, intellectual, and
moral life of the community, and especially in the development of
an improving type of human personality.”4 This means the
emancipation of man from fear and superstition, decrease of
emotionalism and impulsive action, and increase of rational sym-
pathy and purposeful co-operation. “If... man is becoming
ever better as a human being, more rational, more sympathetic,
with an ever-broadening consciousness of kind,— then, whatever
its apparent defects, the social organization is sound and eff-
cient.” >
The socius is thus the social unit for Giddings and the social
mind is nothing more than the interaction or organization of
individual minds. Taking his point of departure from English
associational psychology, in sociology the association of minds is
substituted for the association of ideas.’
1 Elements, p. 219. 2 Ibid., p. 221.
3 Ibid., pp. 225, 226; cf. Inductive Sociology, pp. 449 £.
* Elements, p. 227. 5 Ibid., p. 230.
° Tbid., pp. 119 f.; Principles, pp. 420.
7 Principles, p. 25; Barth, op. cit., p. 183.
FORMULAE OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 207
Giddings has contributed to the development of the doctrine of
passive adaptation by his analysis of the psychological basis of
association, imitation and antagonism in so far as they are merely
automatic, organic reactions along the line of least resistance and
utility not only for the individual but for the group. He has
contributed to the development of the doctrine of active adapta-
tion by his insistence on the scientific distinction between man
and society, both endowed with self-determined will, and the
lower orders determined by forces from without; also by his anal-
ysis of the social process culminating in reflective sympathy,
rational like-mindedness, and social will! He gives to ideals and
religion a far higher place than most whom we have considered
and leaves the reader buoyed up by his manifest faith in the pos-
sibility of social reconstruction.?
Giddings is open to criticism in that he makes the individual the
sociological unit, that his test of progress is individualistic and
too indefinite, and that he has over-emphasized the one factor of
consciousness of kind to the neglect or slighting of other factors
equally important.
1 Inductive Sociology, pt. 2, ch. IV, “ Concerted Volition,” also pp. 265 f.
2 Principles, Book 4, chs. III and IV.
CHAPTER XI
TRANSITION FROM PASSIVE TO ACTIVE ADAPTATION
Up to this point our discussion has been confined very largely to
passive adaptation in its various phases and processes and with
good reason, for most men and social groups in most of their
activities are devoid of forethought, yet our attention has been
called repeatedly to the fact that social evolution is a process of
increasing power of man over his material and spiritual environ-
ment.
Whether or not there is any break in the cosmic process war-
ranting the distinction between passive and active adaptation is
a mooted question, some holding that we have only new and
increasingly complex combinations of mechanical forces, others
holding that activity and consciousness go back to the primal
cell, but the fact is indisputable that man as no other animal
rebels against nature, fights, CONQUERS, in some sense and to some
degree. Manas no other animal is a dynamo for the transforma-
tion of mechanical energy drawn from the material environment
to personal energy which reacts on that environment. In this
respect individual men differ greatly, —so do groups. Such
materialistic monists as Ernst Haeckel tell us that man is noth-
ing more than a dynamo, — a mere machine, — whose product
in personal energy is strictly commensurable with the material
energy transformed. ‘This is Ward’s position as we shall see in
the next chapter. ‘“‘ Matter is dynamic,” he says, “‘ and every
time that man has touched it with the wand of reason it has
responded by satisfying a want.’ But reason itself, according
to strict monism, is only the most highly complex portion of the
human machine and of the same stuff as all other machines,
whether made of inorganic matter, or organic as in the vegetable
and animal kingdoms. But granted, for the sake of argument, all
that the monists claim; — granted that there was originally no
distinct break between man and his pithecoid precursor, physical,
208
FROM PASSIVE TO ACTIVE ADAPTATION 209
mental or moral, the fact remains that there is such a break
today. Homo sapiens is a distinct species. The “ missing
link,” the hypothetical homo alalus of Haeckel has not been dis-
covered,! and recent paleontological finds and psychological
experiments on extant representatives of primitive culture tend
to show that man for possibly two hundred thousand years has
been infinitely superior to his nearest animal progenitors.2. The
Cro-Magnon type of the glacial period was a race of physical and
probably intellectual giants,’ if not also the races represented by
the Dartford skull and the Galley Hill type, and even by the
Neanderthal type as revealed by remains found near Elberfeld,
Germany, near Le Moustier, France, and in the Island of Jersey,
— going back possibly from 500,000 to 1,000,000 years. It is of
greatest significance that food and implements of war were buried
with some of these early remains, indicating the development of
religious ideas.4
With the possible exception of the race of men represented by
the Java skull (and it is more than questionable whether or not
this is a normal skull, much less human), man for possibly half a
million years has had a brain capacity indicating power of active
adaptation, and this conclusion is strengthened by the expres-
sion of this power in tools unearthed in geological strata of the
Tertiary period, according to some authorities.§
There are four methods of approach to this problem of the
transition from passive to active adaptation. From the stand-
point of biology and evolution we are led to inquire as to the
organic variation or mutation, or group of such variations which
1 Keith thinks there is some ground for believing that the Heidelberg man
was devoid of speech; Ancient Types of Man, p. 83. Brinton, on the contrary,
agreeing with the text, — Races of Peoples, p. 80.
2 Angell, Chapters from Modern Psychology, Lecture VIII; Archives of Psy-
chology, no. 11 (1908); Boas, Mind of Primitive Man, ch. IV; Keane, The World’s
People, p. 4; Dawson, The Meeting Place of Geology and History, pp. 61 f.
3 Keith, op. cit., ch. VII; cf. also, pp. 33 f£., 83 f., 105 £.
4 Marett, Anthropology, p. 80.
5 Cf. Keane, op. cit., p. 7. Haddon to the contrary, History of Anthropology,
Pp. 94, yet he says: “‘ During the latter half of the paleolithic age there lived mighty
hunters, skilful artists, big-brained men, who laid the foundations upon which
subsequent generations have built,” ibzd., p. go.
210 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
provided the physiological correlate of the psychical change we
are endeavoring to explain and we find many different anatomical
factors championed as the most important. Darwin stresses
erect posture and prehensile thumb; Heineman holds that the
mutation which made erect posture possible was in the ento-
cuneiform bone and position of the foramen magnum, and that
this change, forcing man from the tree life of his ancestors, left
him at so great a disadvantage in the struggle for existence that
success was possible only by the use of the little intelligence he
possessed to outwit his rivals, this necessity and use determining
the whole succeeding order of his evolution;! others, on the con-
trary, hold that the development of the intellect came first and
led to a new mode of life in a new environment and that this fur-
nished the occasion for physiological variations and the selection
of those that were especially serviceable. Delay in the closing of
the sutures of the skull was an important factor,” so too, were the
development of the apparatus of speech, the organ of speech
located by Broca in the third frontal convolution of the brain,*
the nervous connection between the organ and the apparatus, the
development of the cerebrum, and the free use of the forearms
made possible by erect posture and terrestrial life.
Approaching the problem from the standpoint of psychology
we have two lines of study, the first using the comparative method
with the endeavor to find the differential psychical element be-
tween man and beast, and here the power of abstraction and
association of ideas seems at present to be most stressed; and
second, the method used by Baldwin and others, of observing the
steps in the child’s mind by which the transition is made from
reflexive and instinctive activity to that which is self-conscious
and purposeful.
From the sociological point of view we have a study of the
materials furnished by the development of civilization as a whole,
of separate groups and of contemporary social movements, by
means of which we are able to analyze the social factors that
enter into the transition.
1 The Physical Basis of Civilization, p. 31.
2 Keane, Ethnology, ch. III. 3 Macnamara, Human Speech, ch. X.
FROM PASSIVE TO ACTIVE ADAPTATION 211
The fourth approach is through philosophy with the endeavor
to find an adequate ground for and explanation of the cosmic
process culminating in free intelligence. Most biologists and
sociologists assume that this process is one and continuous, to be
described and explained in the terms of exact science, but Huxley,!
Wallace,? Sir Oliver Lodge, Professor McDougall * and scores of
others protest that not chemical affinity, natural selection nor
any other known law or laws has explained the transition from
the inorganic to the organic, from matter to mind, from instinc-
tive activity to that which is conscious and purposeful, — from
determinism to free choice. Positivists, on their part, assure us
that though the rationale of this process is not yet clear in all its
details, yet that the only way of ever even approximating the
desired goal is by means of the assumptions and methods used by
them. But the fact still remains that mind and matter appear to
be entirely different and that in the realm of the psychical no one
has yet solved the mystery of man’s consciousness of, or at least
belief in, uncaused freedom, — except to hold that it is a ser-
viceable illusion.
Professor Ward claims to have explained the transition from
matter to mind and from instinctive to intelligent behavior but
at best he has merely described the process and analyzed the
elements that have entered into it, — and this, too, in language
that in places reads more like poetry than science. Spencer in
1 “ Force and matter are paraded as the Alpha and Omega of existence. . .
All this I heartily disbelieve. ... It seems to me pretty plain that there is a
third thing in the universe, to wit, consciousness, which . . . I cannot see to be
matter, force, or any conceivable modification of either.”” — Evolution and Ethics,
p- 130.
2 “ The special faculties we have been discussing clearly point to the existence
in man of a spiritual essence or nature, capable of progressive development under
favorable conditions. On the hypothesis of this spiritual nature superadded to
the animal nature of man, we are able to understand much that is otherwise mys-
terious or unintelligible in regard to him, especially the enormous influence of ideas,
principles, and beliefs, over his whole life and actions.” — Darwinism, p. 474.
* Professor McDougall, in his latest book, Body and Mind, shows how com-
pletely inadequate is monism, either materialistic or spiritualistic, to explain cosmic
evolution, and how far short it comes, —and so, too, all theories of psycho-
physical parallelism, — of enabling us to understand such phenomena as unity of
consciousness and attention, adopting as his own theory what he calls “‘ animism ’’—
very like the “ vitalism ’’ of Driesch.
212 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
planning his cosmic philosophy deferred to a later time the volume
that was to describe the change from the inorganic to the organic,
but never wrote it. The nearest he comes to an explanation
of psycho-physical parallelism is in a letter in which he makes use
of a very apt illustration ! to suggest the parallelism but admits
that we must assume that both the physical and psychical are
dependent on the Eternal Source of Energy which is behind both
processes.
We have noted the assumptions of Ratzenhofer that the original
force is ever expanding and attaining new forms of life in pro-
portion as the conditions and elements are provided by the en-
vironment; indeed most spiritualistic monists assume that the
transition is possible because the world-ground is intelligent.
But even so, the change is still left a mystery. We must conclude
that at present we can at most but describe the process in terms
of sequence. Nor will a mere logical classification of elements
that enter in suffice for this. We must assume, provisionally,
that for scientific purposes this is a law-abiding cosmic order and
in the spirit of Darwin endeavor to find the various elements,
locate the stages of development and their order of sequence.
But we may still hold that this fails to give us the life of values
of conscious experience.”
The crucial point in the transition process from passive to
active adaptation in its higher manifestations, is the power of
choice between two apparently different courses of action. Prac-
tically all monists tell us that all we mean by freedom of choice is
that it is determined by individual character rather than by out-
ward constraint; but this fails to satisfy. The logical conclusion,
1 Duncan, Life and Letters of Herbert Spencer, pp. 237-239.
2 Compare with this the conclusion of Professor Henderson of Harvard in his
book, The Fitness of the Environment: ‘We may be sure that, whatever successes
science shall in future celebrate within the domain of teleology, the philosopher
will never cease to perceive the wonder of a universe which moves onward from
chaos to perfect harmonies, and, quite apart from any possible mechanistic
explanation of origin and fulfilment, to feel it 4 worthy subject of reflection.
From this point of view, however, science need expect no interference, but without
any last vestige of former shackles may pursue the search after mechanistic
explanations of all natural phenomena,” p. 311. He quotes Royce with seeming
approval.
FROM PASSIVE TO ACTIVE ADAPTATION 213
as Ward saw, is fatalism. According to this theory, when I
awake in the morning some sense impression from without, some
idea-suggestion from within, or some organic need sets going a
psychical process which with its correlated activities fills the
period of conscious activity during my waking hours. Every
phase of that process is strictly determined. If I deliberate on
a proposed course of action, I can neither prolong the deliberation
nor bring it to a close until the proper combination has been
reached which results in action. Iam but a part of a machine, —
a part, however, that has become conscious, — and strange to say
deluded into the belief that Iam more than a mere machine. Man
is saved from despair by this illusion.
Now the ultimate solution of this whole question is meta-
physical, hence outside the domain of social philosophy, yet one
phase of it belongs to our consideration. What are the relative
consequences of consistent monism and libertarianism (of some
sort) on human well-being and group success ? Let us suppose
two competing social groups. In one we have all the adults
consistent monists believing that every thought and act is a part
of a strictly deterministic system; that at any crucial point in
individual life the ultimate decision might have been foreseen by
one who knew all the elements within the mind and in the envi-
ronment without. The only responsibility of the individual, then,
is to society. The feeling of responsibility is a purely social
product. In the other group, while granting that heredity and
environment determine very largely that character which in turn
determines choice, there is still belief that by a sheer act of will
the individual may tap new reservoirs of energy which will give
him some new grip on life and life’s tasks.1_ The people in this
group believe that there is at least power to prolong or close a
mental conflict involving a great decision; this decision, in turn,
having the potency of changing the whole current of life. Which
group will be most productive, increase most rapidly in wealth,
numbers, power? Which group will win out in the long run ?
1 This view is very like that of James, Energies of Men, of Royce, The Spirit
of Modern Philosophy, Lecture XII, and The World and the Individual, Lecture X,
also of Bowne, Personalism.
214 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
After thousands of years of inter-group conflict and cultural
development, the common-sense philosophy of the winning
groups is essentially libertarian. Historically, fatalism has led
to stagnation and decay. If belief in freedom is necessary, and
this belief is nevertheless a delusion, then this is not a rational
universe, but rests ultimately on falsity not truth.
Social philosophy must rest its case on this pragmatic test:
The ultimate truth as to the relation between mind and matter,
and the ground of distinction between passive and active adap-
tation will be based on that philosophy which is most inspiring
to man. Science can give us at best but relations of co-existence
and sequence between phenomena. Our ultimate explanation is
hyper-scientific, — a matter of belief.
One author, John Fiske, deserves special consideration in the
treatment of this subject because he has brought to light a
bio-sociological factor of first importance in the transition from
passive to active adaptation in the individual, and as in other
cases we will glance at his general social philosophy before
taking up his specific contribution.
JouN Fiske (1842-1901)
Prolongation of Infancy
This great American disciple and interpreter of Herbert
Spencer varied from the teaching of his master in some points
and at others supplemented and developed it. Accepting
the evolutionary formula as a test of social progress he places
more stress than did Spencer on a secondary test, — “‘ the con-
tinuous weakening of selfishness and the continuous strengthen-
ing of sympathy,” — thus reminding us of Comte. He goes
beyond his master in his analysis of the spiritual environment
which conditions the life of every individual and social group, but
makes advance especially in the importance he places on the
psychical factors in social evolution, coming to highest expression
in the purposeful activity of men and in the organization of
groups.’ A spiritualistic monist and deeply religious, he stresses
1 Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy, ii, chs. XXI, XXII.
FROM PASSIVE TO ACTIVE ADAPTATION 215
the importance of religion in life and the conscious endeavor of
the individual to conform his life to the divine will. Fiske
was a bitter opponent of such teachings as those of Haeckel and
Ward that minimize the importance of man’s place in nature,
for he looks upon humanity as the flower of cosmic evolution up
to man, and the perfection of humanity as the goal of social
progress. ‘‘ Once dethrone humanity,” he says, “ regard it as
a mere local incident in an endless and aimless series of cosmical
changes, and you arrive at a doctrine which, under whatever
specious name it may be veiled, is at bottom neither more nor
less than atheism. On its metaphysical side, atheism is the
denial of anything psychical in the universe outside of human
consciousness.” 1
Of greatest importance to the present subject is his discussion
of the change in the cosmic process with the evolution of man.
“When humanity began to be evolved,” he says, “ an entirely
new chapter in the history of the universe was opened. Hence-
forth the life of the nascent soul came to be first in importance,
and the bodily life became subordinated to it. Henceforth it
appeared that, in this direction at least, the process of zodlogical
change had come to an end, and a process of psychological change
was to take its place. Henceforth along this supreme line of
generation there was to be no further evolution of new species
through physical variation, but through the accumulation of
psychical variations one particular species was to be indefinitely
perfected and raised to a totally different plane from that on
which all life had hitherto existed. Henceforth, in short, the
dominant aspect of evolution was to be not the genesis of species,
but the progress of civilization. .. .
“Tn the human organism physical variation has well-nigh
stopped, or is confined to insignificant features, save in the gray
surface of the cerebrum. The work of cerebral organization is
chiefly completed after birth as we see by contrasting the smooth,
ape-like brain surfaces of the new-born child with the deeply
furrowed and myriad-seamed surface of the adult individual
1 Destiny of Man, pp. 12, 13, yet cf. Cosmic Philosophy, ii, p. 230, where he
points out the value of skepticism.
216 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
brain. The plastic period of adolescence, lengthened in civilized
man until it has come to cover more than one-third of his life-
time, is thus the guaranty of his boundless progressiveness. . . .!
In its crude beginnings the psychical life was but an appendage
to the body, in fully-developed humanity the body is but the
vehicle for the soul.” ?
Fiske goes on to show the necessity of prolongation of infancy
with the development of higher forms of animal life, in order that
the organism may adjust itself to the ever increasing complexity
of its environment. In lower forms the reactions are automatic
or instinctive, but such are not sufficient for higher forms which
must learn by experience, and a prolonged infancy affords a
period of training so that when independent life is entered upon
the organism will have a fair chance of survival. ‘‘ While the
nervous connections accompanying a simple intelligence are
already organized at birth,” he says, “‘ the nervous connections
accompanying a complex intelligence are chiefly organized after
birth. . . . Infancy, psychologically considered, is the period
during which the nerve connections and correlative ideal associa-
tions necessary for self-maintenance are becoming permanently
established. Now this period, which only begins to exist when
the intelligence is considerably complex, becomes longer and
longer as the intelligence increases in complexity. In the human
race it is much longer than in any other race of mammals, and it is
much longer in the civilized man than in the savage.” 3
According to our author this prolongation of infancy had a
profound sociological effect in uniting the parents in a more
permanent family life required for the protection of the helpless
infant, in this way developing sympathy, the basis of sociality.
““ Thus we cross the chasm which divides animality from human-
ity, gregariousness from sociality, hedonism from morality, the
sense of pleasure and pain from the sense of right and wrong.” 4
The prolongation of infancy is of vital importance, then, not only
in the development of the nervous system and its acquirement of
modes of activity making for adaptation, but in the establish-
1 Destiny of Man, pp. 30, 56. 3 Cosmic Philosophy, ii, p. 342.
2 Tbid., p. 65. * Tbid., p. 346.
FROM PASSIVE TO ACTIVE ADAPTATION 217
ment and maintenance of family life, a training school of greatest
value in social adjustment.
With the genesis of permanent family relation, according to
our author, the evolution of man may be said, in a certain
sense, to have been completed. We thus have three stages in
biological evolution, the organic, including the development of
the brain, the psychical beginning in the organic and continuing
to the establishment of the family including the training of
children, and the social, having to do primarily with man in his
extra-family relations.
Fiske has contributed to our subject by the comprehensive
way he has used the concept of adaptation to explain social
evolution, although almost entirely in the passive sense, clarifying
and expanding some of Spencer’s unclear statements and making
many valuable additions. He places more stress than the latter
on the power of the great man ! though he believes that this power
is limited by the general trend of the age and character of the
group to which the man belongs, and gives greater prominence
to man’s control over nature.?
Our author applies the doctrine we are considering to man’s
adjustment to his social environment using the phrase moral
adaptation, also to man’s knowledge and use of natural law under
the term intellectual adaptation, — here approaching the use of
the concept in its active sense.? Finally, he applies the theory to
man’s conscious endeavor to harmonize his life with the cosmic
spirit, —a process he discusses under the caption “ Religion
as Adjustment,” though his God is not more definite than Spen-
cer’s Unknowable.! His chief contribution, however, as already
intimated, is his analysis of the sociological significance of the
prolongation of infancy.
1 Excursions of an Evolutionist, pp. 183 £. 3 Cosmic Philosophy, ii, p. 252.
2 Destiny of Man, p. 33. 4 Tbid., pt. iii, ch. V.
PART IV
ACTIVE MATERIAL ADAPTATION
CHAPTER XII
INVENTION AND PRODUCTION
AcTIVE adaptation as a process was defined in our Introduction
as the “ purposeful modification of any organic or quasi-organic
unity to suit it to its environment, or the purposeful modification
of the environment to make it favorable to the unity.” In the
preceding chapter we noted the difficulty in drawing any line
between passive and active adaptation, so here we have the same
difficulty in distinguishing between activities that are deliberately
purposeful and those that are the outcome of a personal life acting
occasionally with forethought but usually as a result of impulse
and habit. Though foresight and purposeful activity are the
flower of the process of human development, their beginning far
outdates history, — indeed they are to be found among the
lower orders.
For practical purposes, then, active material adaptation will
comprise the whole process of industrial development, or about
what Professor Ward includes under the term material achieve-
ment.
As representative writers who have laid supreme emphasis on
material achievement as the basis of cultural, or on material
adaptation as the basis for spiritual (including social) develop-
ment, we will consider in this chapter the social theories of
Ward, Simon N. Patten, and Carver.
LesTER FRANK Warp (1841-1913)
Material as the Basis of Spiritual Achievement
Professor Ward has the most thorough-going system of any
English writer since Spencer, including as it does Dynamic
Sociology, Psychic Factors in Civilization, Outlines of Sociology,
Pure and Applied Sociology, and Glimpses of the Cosmos.
1 Posthumous work now in press.
221
222 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
. A geologist and botanist of authority, Professor Ward was an
ardent admirer and disciple of Darwin, but in the controversy
between the neo-Darwinian and neo-Lamarckian schools he
ranged himself with the latter, holding that there was a “ bath-
mic-force ’ ever pushing out to larger life expression and to new
forms, accepting also the principle of use-inheritance.'
In philosophy a strict monist, he endeavored to interpret life in
terms of the inter-action of mechanical forces. A great admirer
of Comte, he made use of his “hierarchy of the sciences” and like
Comte emphasized the affectional nature as the dynamic of social
evolution, even conceiving feeling as a cosmic force, — a function
of the world-soul. Unlike Comte with whom cosmic evolution
culminated in humanity and whose philosophy eventuated in the
worship of humanity as the Great Being, Professor Ward con-
sidered humanity as but an incident in the cosmic process and the
love of nature as the highest type of religious sentiment.?
The greatest contribution of Professor Ward to social philos-
ophy is his stress on the all-importance of the intellect in social
evolution making possible permanent human achievement, this
being the characteristic which differentiates man and society
from lower orders of creation, and sociology from the other
sciences. Nature in its processes, he holds, is wasteful. Man
is an economizer. He alone is an economic animal. To be sure
human intelligence is rooted in animal intelligence, with no break
in the process, but man is characterized by forethought, — telic
activity.
Our author endeavors to explain or at least describe the process
by which the cosmic soul evolved into the human soul as fol-
lows: —
The birth of the soul was the dawn of the psychic faculty. It marks an
era in the cosmical history of the earth. Dimly and imperceptibly it worked
through the primordial ages in the Silurian mollusk, the Devonian fish, and
the Mesozoic reptile, producing scarcely any modification in the normal
course of biologic evolution. During all these vast eons of time the only
organic products of beauty or utility were such as nature in her objectless
" In later life he accepted De Vries’ mutation theory.
2 Pure Sociology, p. 430.
3 [bid., pp. 17 f. 4 Ibid., pp. 470, 471.
INVENTION AND PRODUCTION 223
march chanced to produce. But with the advent of the highly developed
insects in late Cretaceous and early Tertiary time the psychic factor began
to react upon the plant world, and . . . flowers were the direct product of a
growing aesthetic faculty, — the response to the demands of a true soul force
innature. Later the same agency, working in bird life and mammalian life
ushered in the rich, showy and nutrient fruits of the forest and the bread-
yielding grains of the meadow and the marsh. The wonderful revolution
wrought by this same growing soul in relations of the sexes among the
creatures last mentioned . . . might fittingly form the theme of the future
poetry of science. Inhuman society . . . the soul is the great transforming
agent which has worked its way up through the stages of savagery and bar-
barism to civilization and enlightenment, the power behind the throne of
reason in the evolution of man.!
Let us consider briefly Professor Ward’s contributions to our
subject: —
1. Sympodial Development.— After contrasting sympodial with
monopodial development in biology which results in the former
case in a zigzag instead of linear development, he applies the
principle to social development as follows: —
We may look upon human races as so many trunks and branches of what
may be called the sociological tree. The vast and bewildering multiplicity
in the races of men is the result of ages of race development, and it has taken
place in a manner very similar to that in which the races of plants and
animals have developed. . . . Every one of these races of men, from the
advanced nationalities . . . back to the barbaric tribes that arose from the
blending of hostile hordes, is simply an anthropologic sympode, strictly
analogous to the biologic sympodes.?
This leads Professor Ward to a distinction between specializa-
tion and evolution: ‘‘ The former consists chiefly in modification
of form and size without change in the type of structure. The
latter depends entirely on modification in the type of structure to
adapt it to changes in the environment.” The former is merely
natural growth and progressive adaptation to a slightly changing
environment, the latter a more radical change such as is necessary
for continuous adjustment to a marked change in the environ-
ment.
Ward shows that highly specialized forms are more or less
unstable, ‘“‘ The highly specialized forms do not degenerate or
1 The Psychic Factors of Civilization, pp. 48, 49.
2 Pure Sociology, pp. 76, 77.
224 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
retrograde at all, but perish as they were, being simply crowded
out of existence. What persist are the unspecialized forms of the
same type that were contemporary with the specialized ones, but
escaped competition because not specialized.”' Ward goes on
to show how this principle applies to races.
Races and nations become overgrown and disappear. Peoples become
over specialized and fall an easy prey to the more vigorous surrounding ones,
and a high state of civilization is always precarious. Races and peoples are
always giving off their most highly vitalized elements and being transplanted
to new soil, leaving the parent country to decline or be swallowed up. .. .
Race and national degeneration or decadence means nothing more than this
pushing out of the vigorous branches or sympodes at the expense of the
parent trunks. The organicists see in colonization the phenomenon of social
reproduction. ‘This is at least a half truth. Colonization often means
regeneration; it means race development; it means social evolution.?
Thus from England has grown the United States, Canada,
Australia, South Africa. Even should England perish as a
nation, her civilization, her ideals, her achievements would live
on. With Ward this social process and social progress is more
important than the continued existence of the sovereign group.
2. Creative Synthesis. — This contribution of Professor Ward
comes next in order in Pure Sociology and introduces us to his
cosmic philosophy. He compares cosmic creation to chemical
combination which results apparently in something different
from a sum of the causes that enter into the compound. ‘“ The
only rational or thinkable idea of creation,” he says, ‘‘ has always
been that of putting previously existing things into new forms.” *
Ward assumes that the initial force differentiates and that later
portions come together forming ever new combinations and that
thus the cosmic order is ultimately evolved culminating in the
free intelligence of man.
The synthetic creations of nature have their characteristic properties or
modes of acting, and it is through these that they produce effects. Taken
together these active properties constitute the forces of nature. These
separate and apparently different forces are, however, only so many modali-
ties of the one universal force, but it is not only convenient but practically
correct to treat them as distinct.. . . Man possesses feeling in common with
1 Pure Sociology, p. 78. Such analogical reasoning, while suggestive, turns the
attention away from a study of the real social causes that produce the results.
2 [bid., p. 79. 3 Tbid., p. 81.
INVENTION AND PRODUCTION 225
the lower animals, and it is important to note . . . that feeling constitutes
the dynamic agent, and is therefore the highest attribute that we have to
consider so long as we are dealing with the dynamic agent. . . . Now feel-
ing is a true cosmic force . . . and constitutes the propelling agent in
animals and in man.!
Feeling is used by Ward in two different senses: as the property
of self-awareness which is the chief differential attribute of the
animal,? and as a force or the dynamic agent in animal and human
evolution. It would seem as though Ward were guilty of the
fallacy of the universal and like Spencer confuses logical classifi-
cation with ontological reality. Because man has a multitude
of specific feelings and because animals behave as though
they had inner experiences similar to man does not prove that
feeling is one force, something like gravitation, always acting,
and a common antecedent to all activity. There is a general
sense of awareness which Ward considers as feeling; there is a
certain vital feeling or awareness of the general operation of vital
processes, especially the vegetative, according to Hoffding,‘ and
there is the consciousness of certain specific agreeable or dis-
agreeable states or experiences, but there is no warrant for
assuming a general feeling, as a force. Thought, feeling and
will are class terms. The phenomenal realities are specific
thoughts, specific feelings, and specific attitudes which eventuate
in action. These are all functions of personality. To assume
feeling as a force presupposes a cosmic personality that feels, but
this is contrary to Ward’s philosophy.
3. Ward’s third contribution is his doctrine of synergy which
he explains as follows: —
Just as in biology the world was never satisfied with the law of organic
evolution worked out by Goethe and Lamarck until the principle of natural
selection was discovered which explained the workings of that law, so in
sociology it was not enough to formulate the law of social evolution, however
clear it may have been, and the next step has been taken in bringing to light
the sociological homologue of natural selection which explains the progress of
1 Pure Sociology, p. 99-
2 Ibid., pp.95,124f. For criticism of Ward’s theory of the dynamic agent and
of social forces, see E. C. Hayes, Publications American Sociological Society, vol. v.
3 Ibid., p. 99.
4 Psychology, p.97- Cf. Small’s criticism, General Sociology, pp. 532 f.
226 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
social evolution. That principle is not the same as natural selection, but it
serves the same purpose. It also resembles the latter in growing out of the
life-struggle and in being a consequence of it; but, instead of consisting in the
hereditary selection of the successful elements of that struggle, it consists in
the ultimate union of the opposing elements and their combination and assim-
ilation. Successively higher and higher social structures are thus created
by a process of natural synthesis, and society evolves from stage to stage.
The struggling groups infuse into each other the most vigorous qualities of
each, cross all the hereditary strains, double their social efficiency at each
cross, and place each new product on a higher plane of existence. It is the
cross-fertilization of cultures.*
This theory, developed more at length by Gumplowicz and
Ratzenhofer, is especially valuable as an antidote to the over-
worked natural selection theory of the biological sociologists
though the materialistic postulates on which it rests are ques-
tionable.
A further quotation from Ward is necessary to appreciate his
doctrine of synergy: —
The true nature of the universal principle of synergy pervading all nature
and creating all the different kinds of structure that we observe to exist . . .
is a process of equilibration, i.e., the several forces are first brought into a state
of partial equilibrium. It begins in collision, conflict, antagonism, and oppo-
sition, but as no motion can be lost it is transformed, and we have the milder
phases of antithesis, competition and interaction, passing next into the modus
vivendi, or compromise, and ending in collaboration and co-operation. . .
Synergy is the principle that explains all organization and creates all struc-
tures? ...
Upon the perfection of these structures and the consequent success with
which they perform their functions depends the degree of social efficiency.
In the organic world the struggle has the appearance of a struggle for exist-
ence. The weaker species go to the wall and the stronger persist. There is
a constant elimination of the defective and survival of the fittest. On the
social plane it is the same, and weak races succumb in the struggle while
strong races persist. But in both cases it is the best structures that survive.
The struggle is therefore raised above the question of individuals or even of
species, races and societies and becomes a question of the fittest structures.
We may therefore qualify Darwin’s severe formula of the struggle for exist-
ence and look upon the whole panorama rather as a struggle for structure?
Another name for social structures is human institutions and
the function of these is the control and utilization of social
1 American Journal of Sociology, xii, p. 585; cf. Pure Sociology, pp. 171 f.
2 Pure Sociology, p. 175. It is by no means certain that mechanical principles
work in social processes as indicated in this quotation.
3 Ibid., p. 184. 4 Ibid., pp. 185 f.
INVENTION AND PRODUCTION 227
energy in the interest of the greatest possible sum total of pleas-
ure over pain.
4. Individual and Social Telesis.— Closely linked with creative
synthesis is his doctrine of individual and social telesis or anthro-
poteleology as against theo-teleology of popular religion, yet this
does not indicate that Ward believes in arbitrary freedom of the
will. All acts are but parts of a cosmic process and the result of
the inter-action of mechanical forces.!. This doctrine is explained
as follows: —
Progress below the human plane is altogether genetic and is called develop-
ment. In the earlier human stages it is mainly genetic, but begins to be
telic. In the later stages it is chiefly telic. The transition from genetic to
telic progress is wholly due and exactly proportional to the development of
the intellectual faculty. . .. There are two kinds of telic progress, or
telesis, individual and collective. The former is the principal kind thus far
employed. ‘The latter is as yet so rare as to be almost theoretical. Society
itself must be looked upon as mainly unconscious. . . . The intermediate
step between individual telesis and social telesis is an organization of individ-
uals into a limited body. . . . If a small number of individuals may think
and act for a common purpose, a larger number may, and there is no neces-
sary limit until the totality of a people is embraced in the number.?
Having surveyed briefly some of the main principles of Ward’s
social philosophy we are prepared to consider the one that is
most important of all so far as our subject is concerned, viz., that
form of telesis which he calls human achievement. This is of two
kinds, material and spiritual, the latter the flower of the former.
“ The subject matter of sociology,” he says, ‘“‘ is human achieve-
ment. It is not what men are, but what they do.” ? He differ-
entiates biological and social evolution by a formula with which
we are familiar: ‘‘ The formula that expresses this distinction the
most clearly is that the environment transforms the animal, while
man transforms the environment.” * ‘That is, in one case we have
passive material adaptation; in the other, active material adapta-
tion. Civilization is defined as the sum total of human achieve-
ments, material and spiritual. ‘‘ Material civilization,” he says,
“ consists in the utilization of the materials and forces of nature.
1 Pure Sociology, ch. III, pp. 465 ff.
2 Dealey and Ward, Text-book, pp. 267, 268.
3 Pure Sociology, p. 15. 4 Tbid., p. 16.
228 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
. .. The spiritual part of civilization is at least conditioned
upon material civilization.” ‘It does not derogate from its
worth,” he continues, ‘‘ to admit that without a material basis it
cannot exist; . . . but the moment such a basis is supplied it
comes forth in all ages and races of men. It may therefore be re-
garded as innate in man and potential everywhere, but a flower
so delicate that it can only bloom in the rich soil of material pros-
perity. . . . No amount of care devoted to it alone could make
it flourish in the absence of suitable conditions, and with such
conditions it requires no special attention. It may therefore be
dismissed from our consideration, and our interest may be cen-
tered in the question of material civilization, and this will be
understood without the use of the adjective.” !
“Involved in the idea of achievement,” ? he says, “is that of
permanence. Nothing that is not permanent can be said to have
been achieved, at least in the sense in which that term is here em-
ployed. Now, material goods are all perishable. . . . Achieve-
ment does not consist in wealth. Wealth is fleeting and
ephemeral. Achievement is permanent and eternal. . . . The
products of achievement are not material things at all. As said
before, they are not ends but means. They are methods, ways,
principles, devices, arts, systems, institutions. In a word, they
are inventions. . . . It is anything and everything that rises
above mere imitation and repetition. Every such increment to
civilization is a permanent gain, because it is imitated, repeated,
perpetuated, and never lost. It is chiefly mental or psychical,
but it may be physical in the sense of skill.” 4 He enumerates
and discusses other forms of achievement such as language,
literature, philosophy, science, the invention of tools, instruments,
utensils, missiles, traps, snares and weapons crowned by the prod-
ucts of the modern era of machino-facture with power of artificial
1 Pure Sociology, p. 18. 2 Thid., pp. 22 ff.
* Institutions, however, are not permanent as he himself says on p. 31. The
only permanent thing is the process itself or intelligence that is its source. Cf.
Bradley, Appearance and Reality, ch. V; Bowne, Metaphysics, ch. III. For criticism
of this doctrine of achievement, see Gillette, American Journal of Sociology, July,
1914.
4 Pure Sociology, p. 25.
INVENTION AND PRODUCTION 229
locomotion and electric-intercommunication. The process by
which achievement is handed down is called social heredity; and
the personality who is the source of social variation is the genius
of which there are three varieties: the inventive genius, the crea-
tive genius and the philosophic genius.!
This doctrine, too, is given religious significance.
Achievement comes to constitute a form of immortality and has an ex-
ceedingly attractive side. This hope of immortality has doubtless formed
one of the important motives in all ages, but as the hope of personal immor-
tality wanes under the glare of scientific truth, especially of biological truth,
there is likely to be a still stronger tendency in this direction. Whatever
other forms of immortality may be taught and believed in, the immortality
of deeds is not an article of faith but a demonstrated fact. The real immor-
tality is the immortality of achievement. And after all it is a personal
immortality. Thus far it resembles Christian immortality in that only a
few attainit. Only the elect are saved. They only are immortal who have
achieved.?
Although this doctrine of the immortality of achievement will
never satisfy those who anticipate conscious existence beyond the
grave, nor does it offer hope to the toiling masses as does the
Christian doctrine, it supplements the orthodox view in a most
helpful way, and is a source of inspiration to the comparatively
few leaders of social progress whose reward is not primarily from
their contemporaries for whom they labor and give their lives,
but whose reward comes in the consciousness that their labor is
not in vain and that whether or not future generations connect
their name with their achievement, humanity at large will enjoy
greater well-being because they have lived. It has special signif-
icance, however, when applied to the social group.
To summarize the bearing of Ward’s social philosophy on our
subject: The process of cosmic evolution up to man is by passive
physical adaptation interpreted largely in mechanical terms in
much the same way as did Spencer whom he follows closely in
many respects. Our author introduces psychical terms, how-
ever, even here, and considers with Schopenhauer that the world-
soul with feeling as a dynamic has been pushing out blindly in
every direction, the adaptive variations blazing the path of
progress.®
1 Pure Sociology, pp. 493 f. 2 Tbid., p. 43. 8 Ibid., chs. VI and VIII.
230 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
In the exposition of his theory as applied to social evolution he
has made large use of principles elaborated by Gumplowicz,
Ratzenhofer, Tarde and others with some modifications and
additions. The process is almost entirely one of passive spiritual
adaptation described by such terms as social assimilation, social
karyokinesis (analogous to cross-breeding), compound assimila-
tion and pacific assimilation, all working in accordance with the
principle of synergy! In this discussion natural selection is
given a prominent place but reinterpreted and modified in view
of psychical and social factors that enter into the higher phase of
the cosmic process under consideration.”
His discussion of the dynamic factors of social progress forms a
transition from passive to active adaptation. The first of these
dynamic principles is “ difference of potential,” this term taken
over from mechanics and illustrated by sexual reproduction in.
biology, being used by analogy to describe that phase of the social
process which most sociologists today are explaining in terms of
social suggestion and imitation. The second principle, “ inno-
vation ” is interpreted also in terms of mechanics, following
Tarde, but even more in terms of biology, having its biological
analogue in the “ sport,” or fortuitous variation which our author
considers to be the chief method in the origin of species? The
1 Pure Sociology, pp. 171 f.
2 The prominence given to the doctrine of adaptation is seen by the following:
“Tf the individual is at all adjusted to his environment his action will contribute
in some degree either to the preservation or the continuation of life. At the lower
animal stages . . . all desires are adapted to the needs of the creature and their
satisfaction conduces to the life of either the individual or the species. Any con-
tinuous tendency to the contrary would result in the death of the former or the
extinction of the latter. It is not really otherwise with society. We have fully
shown how everything in society works for the conservation of the group and the
race, and how the wayward tendencies of mankind have been subjected to natural
and spontaneous restraints in the interest of social order. This social adaptation
is well-nigh as complete as organic adaptation, and it would be impossible for any
considerable number of men to persist in anti-social acts for any considerable time
without disrupting society altogether. . . . Human desires are, therefore, more
or less completely adjusted to individual and social needs, and it is safe to assume
that the satisfaction of any normal desire also contributes in some degree to the
preservation of the life of the individual or of other individuals . . . or to the
maintenance of society, or both,” zbid., p. 250.
3 [bid., pp. 240 f.
INVENTION AND PRODUCTION 231
third principle is conation or social effort which, when directed to
material ends, belongs to our division “ active material adapta-
tion” and results in achievement. Every dynamic action, he
holds, has three effects: to satisfy desire, to preserve or con-
tinue life or to modify the surroundings. This last effort results
largely from the projection of desire into the future, and is
directly proportional to the distance between desire and its ful-
filment. The effort put forth to attain this delayed satisfaction
is the cause of the transformation of the environment, — a process
summarized by the term achievement.!. Active adaptation or
anthropoteleology, or again, individual and social telesis come
into prominence only among the most highly cultured men, with
most people and groups the satisfaction of desire being the only
conscious aim of endeavor? In the analysis of conation two
elements are emphasized, human desire and the instinct of work-
manship the latter under normal conditions leading to the satis-
faction of desire by work which is pleasure-giving.* As man
always follows the line of least resistance or preponderant mo-
tives, and as the satisfaction of material wants is of primary
importance for survival, there must be a surplus of wealth before
the higher wants can be satisfied and a surplus always furnishes
the conditions favorable for the development of cultural wants.
In the discussion of individual and social telesis Professor Ward
contributes to the fourth division of our subject, active spiritual
adaptation, the former leading man to react on the mores of the
group in the line of variation,® the latter making it possible for a
group so to co-operate as not only to transform their material
environment, but their spiritual environment as well in the in-
terest of increased well-being.®
In his analysis of the function of the genius, Ward holds that
here we have an illustration of the non-advantageous faculties of
mind, though they are the outgrowth of those that are advan-
tageous. The origin of the genius is not to be explained according
1 Pure Sociology, pp. 248 f.
2 Tbid., pp. 465, 545, 555. Human invention, however, antedates history,
ibid., pp. 515 f.
3 [bid., p. 245. 5 Tbid., p. 244.
4 Ibid., p. 50. 6 Ibid., ch. XX.
232 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
to the principle of natural selection, but rather to that of “ spon-
taneous variation” issuing in a “sport.” The aesthetic faculty
is not considered to be primarily of adaptive value, but to minister
to the satisfaction of individual feelings. Thus art in its mani-
fold forms is not to be explained or justified according to the
principle of adaptation but on that of egoistic satisfaction.
Religion, though originally connected with the group sentiment
of safety and so of adaptive value to the race, yet has differen-
tiated into many forms, most of which are now probably some-
what disadvantageous.!
Finally, in his persistent emphasis on the potency of “ nurture ”
as over against “ nature,” and on the necessity of social activity
to preserve the “ social germ plasm” by universal education, our
author has contributed still further to this division of our subject.
His Applied Sociology is a monument of painstaking work along
this line and his general conclusions have been verified recently,
to a considerable extent, as we have noted in previous chapters.
In scope, ripeness of scholarship, thoroughness of analysis and
originality, Professor Ward’s achievements in sociology remind
us more than those of any other English writer in this field, of the
characteristics attributed for the most part only to German
scholars. These very qualities, however, have made his system
almost inaccessible to the public, and difficult of reading even for
students of the subject as their approach to social philosophy has
not been through the natural sciences so much as through psy-
chology, history, the social sciences and philosophy, — especially
through economics and social psychology. Moreover his reason-
ing is largely deductive and analogical rather than inductive.
He describes in terms of physics, chemistry, and biology rather
than analyzes in terms of economics and psychology and this
tends to prejudice the modern student.
The very comprehensiveness of his work together with the fact
that much of it was done in times of sociological pioneering, has
laid it open to criticism at many points:
1. His Lamarckian bias has made his biological interpretations
unacceptable to those who, with the leading biologists of the
1 Pure Sociology, ch. XVIII.
INVENTION AND PRODUCTION 233
present, are more inclined to follow Weismann, De Vries and
Mendel.
2. His materialistic monism ‘is opposed by those sociologists
who prefer to follow such idealistic philosophers as Hegel or Kant,
by the pragmatists who follow James, by the theists to whom the
“‘ personalism ” of Bowne furnishes the most acceptable explana-
tion of cosmic evolution, and especially by those who consider
that sociology should be a science rather than a philosophy. A
monist, yet supremely interested in emphasizing the place of
purposeful activity in social progress, Ward is forced to face the
dilemma of determinism and free will which he admits is a “ fool’s.
puzzle.” ? He grants the necessity of practical belief in free will
but denies a place for it in philosophy. The difficulty here, as in
all monism, is its endeavor to interpret life in terms of discursive
thought.
3. Growing out of his monism and his preference for deductive
reasoning, have arisen certain fallacies connected with his theory
of the “‘ dynamic agent ” and with his analysis of “ social forces.” *
Modern psychologists are calling our attention to the fact that
there is no such thing as feeling in general, or thought or will.
Experience gives specific feelings, ideas, volitions.t These may
1 j. e., an endeavor to interpret cosmic evolution in terms of the redistribution
of matter and force. This is shown in the following quotations: —
“No line of demarcation can be drawn between the properties of matter and
physical forces. . . . It is now known that all matter is active, and the only
difference between substances is the different ways in which they act. . . . Matter
is causality,” Pure Sociology, p. 19.
“All life has sprung from a homogeneous, undifferentiated plasm, which con-
tained within itself the potency of all the varied forms that have evolved out of
this plasm,” ibid., p. 85.
“This eternal pelting of atoms, this driving of the elements, this pressure at
every point, this struggle of all created things, this universal nisus of nature, push-.
ing into existence all material forms and storing itself up in them as properties,
as life, as feeling, as thought, this is the hylozoism of the philosophers, the self-
activity of Hegel, the will of Schopenhauer, the atom-soul of Haeckel: it is the
soul of the universe, the spirit of nature, the ‘ First Cause’ of both religion and
science, — it is God,” ibid., p. 136.
2 Tbid., p. 21.
3 Cf. “‘ The ‘Social Forces’ Error,’ by Professor E. C. Hayes, Publications of
American Sociological Society, vol. v.
* Especially Thorndike, The Original Nature of Man.
234 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
be classified for logical purposes, but Professor Ward seems to
identify the product of logical classification with ontological
reality.
4. Approaching social philosophy from the point of view of
biology and individual psychology, and an individualist much
like Spencer, his philosophy culminates in an emphasis on pleas-
ure and consumption which on the whole seems to be its weakest
point. Although in Pure Sociology abundance of life is set forth
as the apparent end of cosmic evolution,! in Dynamic Sociology,
pleasure is given a place of pre-eminence, this being correlated
with increase in the complexity of organisms.? This emphasis,
however, does not grow out of his system necessarily, indeed
seems almost to have been grafted on. If abundant life is the
end; if adaptation is the means to abundant life, as he holds, and
if pleasure and pain are sign-boards indicating the ways of life and
death,? as he shows also, the end of telic endeavor should be
adaptation, not pleasure; and the test of progress should likewise
be adaptation and abundance of life, — an objective test which
Spencer insisted rightly was necessary for science. This error, if
it be one, is the result of his thesis that feeling is the dynamic
agent in social progress. Desire, with him, is the mainspring of
human endeavor.’ Modern functional psychology, on the con-
trary, makes organic reactions the fundamental phenomena,
sensations of pleasure and pain being considered as arising in
connection with these reactions because of their adaptive value.
The organic needs that impel to activity may well be termed
“interests ” as with Ratzenhofer.
1 Pure Sociology, p. 114; cf. p. 1.
2 Dynamic Sociology, ii, pp. 173 f. Cf. Pure Sociology, p. 126, where feeling is
considered as an end.
3 Pure Sociology, p. 130.
4 “ Preservation, continuation, and augmentation are the three aspects of the
cosmic end. . . . But it merely happened that at a certain point it became neces-
sary, in order to secure these ends . . . to furnish . . . later creations with some
form of interest that should enable them to assist in the prosecution of the plan.
Hitherto the products of creative synthesis had been passive. Henceforth they
were to become active. . . . The form which this interest took was the faculty
of feeling, whereby these tocogenetic creations were made to care for themselves.
. . Henceforth there was to be animated nature. . . . In it [feeling] were
contained the psychic world and the moral world. With it came pleasure and pain
INVENTION AND PRODUCTION 235
5. Ward’s teaching that all the stress should be placed on
material achievement — the outcome of his monism, deductive
method and hedonism —is open to question. The cycle of
national growth and decay as illustrated in history, as has been
pointed out by many sociologists, shows that emphasis on produc-
tion of material goods for the sake of consumption results in national
degeneration. If now we take the group instead of the individual
as the sociological unit, we are warranted in saying that stress on
material achievement when linked with hedonism furnishes the
most destructive kind of a social philosophy so far as the welfare
of the social group is concerned.
6. Closely linked with the above criticism is that of his inter-
pretation of the function of art and religion. These are the
product of sociological “sports”? according to our author, as
noted above, and not to be evaluated because of their influence
on the life and success of a group. Indeed they are now, for the
most part, of no adaptive value, if not positively disuseful except
as they satisfy individual desire. The genius who is the inno-
vator hence the source of those variations which make for social
progress is likewise a “ sport.’”’ Religion in the beginning was of
adaptive value, according to Ward, else it could not have gotten
a start, and this value was due to its relation to the “ group
sentiment of safety.”” This sentiment, however, is considered to
play an ever decreasing part in social evolution; patriotism is
discounted,! and the decay of a group or nation considered of little
moment. Individual pleasure and the process of civilization are
the “ be all” and “ end all ” of telic activity and, with apparently
little appreciation of the potency of group self-consciousness and
loyalty as factors in increasing social and so individual well-
being, such concepts as social innovation, social suggestion and
social imitation are given almost no consideration.2. With more
recent emphasis on the species as the biological unit, and a social
with all their momentous import, and out of it ultimately grew thought and in-
telligence. Nature cared nothing for any of these. They were unnecessary to
her general scheme, and not at all ends of being. Mind was therefore an accident,
an incidental consequence of other necessities, —an epiphenomenon,” Pure Sociology,
pp. 127, 128.
1 [bid., pp. 211 f. x Cf., however, ibid., pp. 568 f.
236 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
group of some sort as the sociological analogue, — especially
the state; with the present teaching, also, which distinguishes the
mere “ sport ” from the mutation that has adaptive value for the
species, the real genius in human society and his products, in so
far as they foster idealism, lead to group unity, and stimulate to
productive endeavor, are of the very greatest utility to the group.
Finally, in his failure to give due consideration to social psy-
chology with its concepts of group consciousness and the expand-
ing self-regarding sentiment, he has left untouched one of the
most potent dynamics in social cohesion and social telesis.
The social philosophy under review, however, with emphasis
on material achievement, on the power of intelligent volition and
on the value of that education which makes for control over the
forces of nature, has been so well adapted to the “ age-spirit ” of
all western nations during the past fifty years that it has exerted
a profound and lasting influence on sociological thought through-
out the world. More recent advance in biology, inductive social
science and especially psychology, tend to discredit some of
Ward’s conclusions, yet he will ever rank as one of the foremost
of American sociologists and as one who has contributed most of
any, perhaps in the world, to the development of the doctrine
of active material adaptation.
Smon N. Patten (1852- _——)
Pain-Pleasure-Creative Economy
In the writings of Professor Patten we have a forceful example
of the statement made in the Introduction that the historical
tendency in social philosophy from Comte and Spencer to the
present has been in the line of increasing emphasis on active as
against passive adaptation. In Professor Patten’s earlier writ-
ings, even in his Theory of Social Forces, the latter point of view is
dominant, whereas in his latest, The Reconstruction of Economic
Theory, his former position is criticized and corrected in the light
of changes that he admits have come into his own views in the
line of greater emphasis on creative activity.!
1 Cf. Seager’s criticism, ‘‘ Professor Patten’s Theory of Prosperity,” Annals,
American Academy Social and Political Science, March, 1902.
INVENTION AND PRODUCTION 237
An apparent strain after the novel characterizes all his writings,
and in the earlier, especially, deductive rather than inductive
reasoning. That he has given the world hastily-formed hypothe-
ses unsupported by scientific investigation is indicated by the
fact that he has had but few followers, though many admirers,
and that he has so frequently shifted his position and negatived
former conclusions. Such a writer is frequently suggestive but
rarely convincing.
One doctrine formulated by him, however, seems to have found
an enduring place in social philosophy which will be strengthened,
I believe, in the light of his recent corrections, — his theory of the
contrast between a pain and a pleasure economy, or progress as
the result of a surplus rather than a deficit economy.
This doctrine rests upon certain biological and psychological
postulates which must be sketched briefly: —
1. Biological evolution is neither the result of chance varia-
tions of adaptive value, preserved by natural selection as with
the neo-Darwinians, nor the result of the inheritance of acquired
tendencies or characters as with the neo-Lamarckians but is due
to the acquirement of surplus energy or variations resulting from
such surplus which lead to change in environment and this, in
turn, to permanent modifications.?
Invading the domain of cytology to get a basis for his psycho-
logical approach, he makes the following assumptions: (1) that
consciousness and movement are opposite poles of the same forces
and that both are present in the beginning of cell growth; (2)
that the original germ cell has a capacity for consciousness but no
content until a structure is developed through which will and
memory are evolved; (3) that growth creates folds and they
become incipient ovaries, the sex-products of which are nerve
cells which become differentiated until finally sensation, memory,
and consciousness are eventually evolved by the process of
selection.’
1 Cf. Ward’s appreciation, Pure Sociology, p. 105.
2 Heredity and Social Progress, pp. 28 £., 63; Theory of Social Forces, pp. 14 f.,
50 f.; Theory of Prosperity, pp. 20, 159 f., 196.
3 Heredity and Social Progress, pp. 76, 89, 90. These hypotheses have no
inductive support.
238 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
Advancing from cytology to physiology, Patten argues ana-
logically back from sociology, endeavoring to explain the asso-
ciation of cells in the mind by the conscious association of
men in society.! This is novel and suggestive if not convincing.
All improvement in mental power, he holds, is due to improve-
ment in mental mechanism, i. e., in the mechanical arrangement
of the constituent elements ? and this improvement comes on the
one hand from surplus energy secured in a favorable environment
which expends itself in motor activity resulting in the develop-
ment of the motor feelings of pleasure and pain, and in growth;
and, on the other hand, as a result of forced migration to escape
competition, which results in the development of new organs and
sensory feelings.*
“ There are thus,” he says, “‘ two stages of progress, — the bio-
logic and the social, — corresponding to the two possible environ-
ments. In the biologic stage beings are pushed into a local
environment where the objective conditions are so complete that
little thought is needed to supply the necessities of life. Under
these conditions the development of the motor powers determines
who shall survive. The organism becomes a more nearly perfect
individual because of the growth of organs on the one hand and
an increase of desire on the other. In the struggle for such an
environment the beings with the superior motor powers drive out
those with inferior motor powers. Some of the latter class are,
however, better fitted to occupy a general environment where
their sensory powers are of more use than in the local environ-
ment from which they were driven. The conquered thus find a
place to live and by the development of some of the social forces
create for themselves a new society with new requisites for sur-
vival. When the struggle for existence begins within this new
environment, those with superior motor powers will again survive,
while those with an imperfect motor organization, but with
improved sensory powers, will be forced again into a more general
environment where new social instincts must be acquired.” 4
This last quotation takes our author into the domain of psychol-
1 Theory of Social Forces, pp. 18 f. 3 [bid., pp. 48, 51.
2 Tbid., pp. 19 £. 4 Ibid., p. 52.
INVENTION AND PRODUCTION 239
ogy which is very important in his social philosophy, especially
the theory of psycho-physical parallelism in so far as it asserts
that energy derived from metabolism must find expression in some
other form of activity, — muscular, intellectual or emotional, —
which theory is the basis of his doctrine of surplus energy.!
The development of social forces according to Patten is not
due entirely to an objective environment to which the organism
must adapt itself, perish, or move to a new environment, but to a
subjective environment made up of forms of thought and ideals,?
which crystallize into knowledge and belief,? and ultimately find
expression in customs, habits, social institutions and race ideals.‘
The change from one environment to another, demanding a
change in habits, beliefs and ideals, is fraught with great danger.®
Extension of knowledge comes through organic reactions first
to sense of touch, then to vibrations in the surrounding medium
through sensations of light, sound and smell. Fear is the first
sensation which a perception of these vibrations creates, — and
fear is usually connected with moving objects. The recogni-
tion of the world as an aggregate of materials shifts the interest
from pains to pleasures, with a corresponding increase of knowl-
edge. Soon the distinction is drawn between the natural and
the supernatural,— the former connected with pleasure, the
latter with pain. ‘“‘ The growth of knowledge is not due to
developed men coming in contact with more of nature. It is due
to beings of limited sensory powers gradually increasing their
powers as they are forced to know nature more intimately or to
come in contact with larger areas of the world. Each new
requisite for survival has caused the development of some new
sensory power, and has thus created an area of knowledge in-
dependent of the older areas, and in no logical connection with
them. Knowledge comes by leaps and bounds when a new
environment with new requisites for survival is entered.” 7
1 Theory of Social Forces, pp. 26 {., 64; Heredity and Social Progress, chs. XI,
XVI; Theory of Prosperity, ch. XI; Annals, American Academy Political and Social
Science (1897) p. 34-
2 Theory of Social Forces, p. 54- 5 Tbid., p. 56, ch. IV.
3 Ibid., pp. 409 ff. 6 Ibid., p. 60.
4 Ibid., pp. 53, 119. 7 Ibid., p. 63.
240 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
This leads our author to discuss the distinction between a pain
and a pleasure economy, the former based on necessity of struggle
for existence carried on under the dominating impulse of fear, the
latter based on life lived under conditions favorable to survival,
relatively free from competition, resulting in abundance of sur-
plus energy which manifests itself in motor activity, accompanied
by the motor sensation of pleasure.
Under the former economy human institutions have as their
basis the fear of enemies and pain,! causes lying in the environ-
ment. But “ the development of human society has gradually
eliminated from the environment the sources of pain. The
civilized world has been freed from dangerous beasts and reptiles,
and the growth of large nations has cut off the danger of invasion
by barbarous and warlike human foes. . . . The sensory powers
have free play in analyzing this material into its elements, and
in reorganizing these elements into valuable goods. These
changes make a pleasure economy possible and destroy the con-
ditions which make the subjective environment of the old pain
economy a necessity.”? This transition is perilous and has
caused the downfall of many nations owing to their inability to
make a readjustment.
The human race is now, he holds, in a state of transition
from a pain to a pleasure economy.? Under an ideal pleasure
economy ‘‘ there would be two prominent groups of motives, —
the one prompting actions which increase the pleasure of the in-
dividual, and the other prompting actions which promote the
progress of the race. . . . Each tendency to get pleasure at the
expense of social welfare would be counteracted by the formation
of some ideal or social institution with which would be coupled
impulses prompting to their realization. The requisites for
survival would be those social impulses which preserve individuals
from temptation, disease and crime. The number of ideals and
institutions would be gradually increased until their united effect
would be strong enough to determine the choices of individuals
and make their conduct conform to the interests of the race.” 4
1 Theory of Social Forces, p. 75. 3 Ibid., p. 80.
2 Tbid., p. 76. 4 [bid., p. 84.
INVENTION AND PRODUCTION 241
In the ideal commonwealth under a pleasure economy there
must be the elimination of all such rivalries and conflicts as pro-
duce fear.!. In such a commonwealth “the economic forces would
constitute the first and elementary bonds uniting the members
of such a society,”’ leading to division of labor, the storing of
energy in the form of capital, and, as a result of differences in soil,
climate, and universal products, to commerce. Self-interest would
call for co-operation and organization. The conditions of con-
sumption as well as of production would assist in uniting men.?
Increase in standard of living with variety in diet results in
greater social interdependence as well as in increased individual
well-being. Increasing range of desires and the demand for
harmonious groups of utilities are potent factors in the formation
of social organizations.‘ ‘The economic forces, therefore, are
sufficient to create powerful bonds uniting the individuals into a
social commonwealth even if they feel no other motives than
those due to the pursuit of pleasure.” > ‘‘ The race ideals are an
outgrowth of the same process through which harmonious groups
in consumption are formed.” * The aesthetic ideals are the first
to be formed, then the moral and finally the religious.’
Thus according to our author, up to the present man has been
dominated largely by fear and pain due to lack of adjustment with
his environment and this failure, in turn, has been due primarily
to lack of productive power. With increased power over his
environment (active material adaptation) there results normally
a surplus of energy, motor activity and pleasure, the process of
industrial evolution leading to ever increasing social bonds and
institutions, these being supplemented by associations arising out
of consumption. The greatest danger in this process arises from
the tendency to expend this surplus energy in wasteful consump-
tion, i. e., consumption not resulting in health, growth, and in
those forms of activity that increase individual and social well-
being. Such wasteful consumption is dissipation leading to
degeneration and elimination by the law of selection. The con-
1 Theory of Social Forces, p. 83. 5 Tbid., p. go.
2 Ibid., pp. 85 f. 8 [bid., p. gt.
3 Ibid., pp. 86 f. 7 [bid., p. 94.
4 Tbid., p. 89. 8 Theory of Prosperity, pp. 166 f., 180.
242 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
trast between a pain and a pleasure economy is reflected also in
religion, the former being linked with a religion of fear, sacrifice,
etc., the latter with a religion of love, worship and service.
Professor Patten finds that the classical economists, in fact
nearly all up to the present, have built theories on a pain or
deficit economy and he pleads now for a reconstruction of eco-
nomic theory based on a pleasure or surplus economy. He holds,
also, that the practical problems of social science can be solved
only by increasing the surplus of the mass of wage earners and by
guiding them in wise consumption. The surplus in the case of
the rich should be drawn off in social service.
Passive adaptation, both material and spiritual, finds large
place in Patten’s social philosophy especially in his early writings.
Nearly all of his Theory of Social Forces and Heredity and Social
Progress is from this point of view, so, too, much of his Theory
of Prosperity. The key-note of The New Basis of Civilization
and Reconstruction of Economic Theory, however, is active adap-
tation. The resources of nature under man’s control should
provide for all his increasing needs.?_ Surplus and leisure for the
lower classes will lead to culture and efficiency ? and tend to break
down social classes and distinctions.4 Reflective morality, ideali-
zation, and religion are needed to inspire to productivity, self-
control, efficient consumption, and social service, and social
control has a most important function in bringing about such an
industrial and social reorganization as shall make widespread the
surplus that tends to issue in growth, variation, pleasure, ideali-
zation and progress.®
The law of rhythm as manifested in the phenomenon of growth
and decay in nations is not necessary according to our author, but
it can be prevented from operating only on the condition that
consumption is controlled with reference to future efficiency.
“The normal man seeks to establish a direct relation between his
consumption and production, and forms of consumption that do
not result in the creation of surplus energy are dissipation and
hinder him in his struggle for existence and superiority. The
1 Theory of Prosperity, p. 168.
2 The New Basis of Civilization, ch. I. .
3 [bid., pp. 63, 156, 160 f. 4 Ibid., ch. IV. 5 Tbid., ch. VIII.
INVENTION AND PRODUCTION 243
dissipated are thus steadily eliminated, leaving those whose use
of goods tends to create surplus energy. Every increase of pro-
ductive power adds to the quantity of goods consumed, and these
if properly used augment the surplus energy of workers.” !
Nowhere is his recent emphasis on active adaptation so clearly
revealed as in his criticism of his own theory of “ pleasure-pain ”
economies. ‘I now regard this division as defective,” he says.
“To love pleasure is a higher manifestation of life than to fear
pain; but the pleasure of action is in advance of the pleasure of
consumption. Action creates what pleasure uses up. This
would divide progress into three stages: a pain economy, a
pleasure economy and a creative economy. Each stage has its
own mode of thought, and its own social institutions.” His new
complete theory is thus visualized.?
Character of the
Stage of Progress Form of Struggle Form of Control Social Bond
1. A pain economy Race struggle Ancestral control Blood bonds
2. A pleasure economy Class struggle Wealth control Interest bonds
3. A creative economy Self-direction Character control Social beliefs
Kind of Type of
Type of Thought Thought Limitations Philosophy Morality
1. Theological Substance Anthropomorphic Traditional
2. Rational Space Material Utilitarian
3. Pragmatic Time Ideal Telic
The importance of the active factor in securing adjustment is
revealed in his list of checks to expenditure which tend to bring
the family budget to an equilibrium.’ His conclusion is of in-
terest for it is his last word to date in his social philosophy.
“Surplus promotes activity and that activity transforms the
natural surplus into wealth. With wealth come price relations
through which ancestral control is broken and wealth control put
in its place. Price relations give rise to budgetary concepts. In
the endeavor to bring the family budget to an equilibrium,
activity is increased and consumption is put on a cultural basis
by increasing the intensity of new wants. This brings on a self-
repression which is the essence of character building. The
1 Theory of Prosperity, p. 15; Seager, op. cit., p. 83.
2 “ Reconstruction of Economic Theory,” Annals, American Academy Political
and Social Science, 1912, (Supplement), p. 92.
3 Ibid., p. 62.
244 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
struggle for supremacy is now changed from a race and class
struggle to an internal struggle for self-control. Primitive feelings
and instincts are repressed, sex and appetite are curbed, and cul-
tural motives replace the older sentiments due to race and class
antagonisms. . . . The new and the old types of culture, motive
and character are bound to come into sharper conflict as the
century advances. The older tendencies are coercive and will
strive to impress themselves as state socialism. The newer forces
will express themselves in voluntary association. It will be a
struggle of tradition, race and class with the blending influences
that make for unity and character.” !
Professor Patten is his own best critic of many of his early
theories. If time and intellectual vigor permit he may round out
a consistent social philosophy. His greatest advance has come
from his transition from an almost exclusively deductive method
to emphasis on, though not successful use of, the inductive
method, and from stress on pleasure-pain motives and tests, to
objective tests measured in terms of health, wealth and culture.”
His theory that progress is due to surplus energy and that
historically social progress has passed from a pain to a pleasure
economy and is now entering a creative economy, is so sug-
gestive that it is most unfortunate that he has developed the
theory in such a way as to meet disapproval from the specialists
in every field he has touched.
1 “ Reconstruction of Economic Theory,” pp. 94, 95.
2 Ibid., p. gt: cf. pp. 61, 86, 87.
CHAPTER XIII
INVENTION AND PRODUCTION (contTINUED)
Tuomas N. CARVER (1865-__—+)
The Super-Group
Wira Professor Carver the chief function of sociology is to work
out a consistent and thorough-going theory of social progress and
its only justification is social amelioration.!. It is thus a social
philosophy. To the methods of sociological investigation out-
lined by Comte he adds a fifth, viz., the study of social forces now
at work, and holds that instead of interpreting present events
solely in the light of historical analyses the more effective method
is to interpret both the present and the past by an analysis of
forces now at work.
Two preliminary assumptions are made: first, that this is a
rational universe, — a cosmos rather than a chaos; and second,
that life is a good thing; i.e., that life is better than death. If
life is a good thing, then more life is a better thing. He goes a
step further in The Religion Worth Having, and assumes that
this is God’s world and that the laws of the universe are God’s
laws. From a religious point of view it is necessary to be obe-
dient to the will of God, but this calls for an understanding of
that will as revealed in the cosmic process.
Professor Carver does not stop with mere abundance of life as
the goal of the cosmic process, but emphasizes quality; as a neo-
Darwinian, however, he believes that quality can be secured only
by a process analogous to that which prevails in biological
evolution, i.e., superabundance of life, variations, struggle for
existence, elimination of the ill-adapted and inheritance of
adaptive qualities, a process leading gradually to the production
of new and higher species, — higher, that is, because better
adapted to life conditions. As the cosmic process, according to
1 Sociology and Social Progress, Introduction.
245
246 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
his view, has issued in man who is not merely the product of
passive adaptation, but who is able to react on that process and
guide it within certain limits in the interest of increased well-
being, his cosmology is anthropocentric, or better, perhaps,
socio-centric, for while recognizing that the individual has a
metaphysical reality such as cannot be posited of any other
creature or of society, yet with him the sovereign group is the
sociological unit and its success necessary to the well-being of the
individuals that constitute the group.
His strong neo-Darwinism is indicated by the choice of selec-
tions in his Sociology and Social Progress and shown conclusively
in The Religion Worth Having! and Essays in Social Justice ® in
which the biological doctrine of struggle and survival is applied
rigidly to human life and progress with emphasis, however, on the
struggle between sovereign groups.
The key to Professor Carver’s social philosophy as suggested in
our Introduction is the doctrine of adaptation, as set forth in the
following scheme: * —
ENVIRONMENT
Kind of
Adaptation Material Social
Pedi { Biological Moral development
Evolution Education
‘ Industrial Social Control
Active
Progress
Professor Carver follows Weismann closely in his interpretation
of the doctrine of selection, holding that the ill-adapted are
eliminated only “ by-and-large and in the long run,” and that the
struggle is chiefly between species. He believes with all biological
sociologists that the highest human powers and faculties and
institutions have been evolved by an analogous process.
In social development the group corresponds to the biological
species and although the primordial struggle for existence pre-
vailed among primitive groups this has been supplanted by a
struggle between nations for the markets of the world. Within
the group there is struggle for wealth, place, power, etc., and this
1 The Religion Worth Having, pp. 20 f., 42-45, 88 ff.
2 Essays in Social Justice, ch. I.
5 Class lectures; cf. Sociology and Social Progress, pp. g, 10.
INVENTION AND PRODUCTION 247
has gone through three distinct stages: “The first stage is
struggle by destruction, that is private war; the second is
struggle by palaver, that is politics; the third is struggle by
production, that is economic competition.” 4
Struggle for existence, according to our author, indicates
scarcity, for if all wants were satisfied there would be no scarcity.
Scarcity is thus relative? Its cause is attributed to the niggardli-
ness of nature, for the commodities that nature has supplied in
such abundance as to satisfy all man’s wants have no economic
value. “ The fact that there are human wants for whose satis-
faction nature does not provide in sufficient abundance, in other
words, the fact of scarcity signifies that man is, to that extent
at least, out of harmony with nature.” This makes labor and
fatigue necessary which are, therefore, signs of mal-adaptation.?
“That there is a deeper harmony hidden somewhere beneath
these glaring disharmonies is quite possible,” — but this problem
is passed over to philosophy. The whole evolutionary process, he
holds, both passive and active, both biological and economic, is a
development away from less toward greater adaptation, from less
toward greater harmony between the species and its environment.
Economic scarcity, according to our author, is the chief cause
of the disharmony between man and man, and in the conflict of
interests thus resulting we have the origin of the problem of evil.!
“ Fundamentally,” we are told, ‘“ there are only two practical
problems imposed upon us. The one is industrial and the other
moral; the one has to do with the improvement of the relations
between man and nature, and the other with the relations be-
tween man and man.” ®
As to the cause of economic scarcity, it is due primarily to the
indefinite expansion of human wants, and to the multiplication of
numbers, and for both man isin a large measure responsible. “ It
would be difficult to find any question in the whole science of
jurisprudence, or of ethics, or politics, or any of the social sciences
for that matter,” says our author, “ which does not grow out of
1 The Religion Worth Having, p. 55.
2 Essays in Social Justice, ch. II.
3 Ibid., pp. 38, 4o. 4 Ibid., pp. 41 f. 5 Ibid., p. 43.
248 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
the initial fact of economic scarcity and the consequent antag-
onism of interests amongmen. ‘This reveals, as nothing else can,
the underlying unity of all the social sciences . . . and it shows
very clearly that the unifying principle is an economic one.” !
Passing to a consideration of methods of escape from the dif-
ficulties imposed upon us by economic scarcity, the simple life
is found insufficient if linked with uncontrolled passion, and
insufficient, too, and for the same reason, industrialism, due to
the fact pointed out by Malthus that population tends to in-
crease faster than the means of subsistence.
Only one way of escape seems open. ‘“‘ Even under the con-
ditions of economic scarcity there would be no antagonism of
interests between man and man if human nature were to undergo
a change by which altruism were to replace egoism.” ?
As a practical working program of meliorism our author
suggests: (1) improvement in methods of production; (2) simpler
life, especially on the part of the wealthier class; (3) an increas-
ing sense of the responsibilities of parenthood, especially among
those classes who can least afford to spawn; and (4) a more wide-
spread spirit of altruism. ‘In spite of all these methods, how-
ever, there will still be antagonistic interests to be adjudicated.
The state must therefore continue to administer justice.” *
This doctrine of economic scarcity is closely connected with the
laws of diminishing returns and proportionality, which Professor
Carver has elaborated as has no other economist.!
These laws have profound bearing on all labor problems, for
they are due, fundamentally, to the fact that there are too many
unskilled laborers in proportion to the amount of land, capital and
organizing ability involved. If capitalists are getting too large
reward, says Professor Carver, it is because they are too few in
proportion to the other factors in production. One way, then, to
increase the wages of the lowest economic class is to increase the
number of capitalists. Another way is to decrease the number of
unskilled laborers. The reason wages are higher in one occupa-
1 Essays in Social Justice, p. 50. 2 Thid., p. 51. 3 Ibid., pp. 52, 53.
4 Distribution of Wealth, chs. II and IV. Cf. Marshall’s Principles of Eco-
nomics (1910), p. 169; also Efficzency Society Transactions, i, no. 63.
INVENTION AND PRODUCTION 249
tion than in another is due to a relative disproportion of numbers
in the two occupations. The reason prices of food are high in one
place and low in another is due primarily to the operation of the
same law. In the solution of the labor problem we may be sure
that there are not too many capitalists for their return in interest
is great; that there are not too many captains of industry for their
income is enormous; that there is not too much land, for rent is
ever increasing; that there are not too many skilled mechanics,
for their wages are high. We may be sure, however, that there
are too many unskilled laborers, for their wages are low.!
A third economic law is given almost equal prominence with
these two and that is the law of productivity as a measure of value.
And here, again, Professor Carver has gone far beyond any other
economist, for he has elaborated Ricardo’s productivity theory
of land value and rent, and the modern productivity theory of
wages and applied it as a measure of man’s value to society. Just
as the value of any piece of land can be determined by what it
adds to the total productivity of the community, and just as a
man’s wages are determined by what he adds to the total produc-
tivity of the concern for which he works, so a man’s value to
society may be measured, theoretically, by the increase of eco-
nomic goods produced as a result of his contribution, — and this
holds not merely of the manual laborer but of the teacher,
preacher, and artist.2 That is, education, art, morals and
religion are not ends in themselves, nor is their end individual
enjoyment or perfection. The social unit is the group, and inter-
group competition makes group strength the criterion of the good.
Inasmuch as production of wealth is the sine qua non of group
strength, education, art, morals and religion are to be evaluated
in proportion as they increase the productive and competitive
power of the group. Just in proportion as society rightly appre-
ciates the utilities needed for group strength, and in harmony with
the law of supply and demand, will wages measure man’s value to
society.
1 Adapted from Professor Carver’s lectures; cf. Essays in Social Justice, ch. XIV.
2 Cf. Distribution of Wealth, chs. I and IV; ‘ Diminishing Returns and Value,”
Rivista di Scienza, iv, pp. 12-14; Essays in Social Justice, ch. VII.
250 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
This law of man’s value to society is expressed by means of the
following formulae: —
“The value of a man is equal to his production minus his con-
sumption. His economic success is equal to his acquisition [i. e.,
his income] minus his consumption. When his acquisition is
equal to his production |i. e., when a man receives as income the
equivalent of what he has added to the total productivity of the
group of which he forms a working part], then his economic suc-
cess is equal to his value.”! This puts a premium on merit and
strengthens the group in competition with other groups. The
function of the state, then, is to see to it that a man receives as
income what he produces, or in other words, to prevent the mis-
carriage of the law of productivity applied to wages. ‘‘ That is
justice.” !
Civilization is interpreted by Professor Carver largely in terms
of productivity as it is also by Dr. Ward. “Civilization,” he
says, “‘ is essentially a storing of surplus energy, and is due to the
fact that men have had more energy to expend than was necessary
to procure subsistence.” 2 The beginning of this process, so far
as the group is concerned, is considered to be due to the rise of a
despot, but “ slavery, religious fear, aristocracy, — these have all
doubtless been agencies for the accomplishment of the same
purpose.” 3
Private property as reward for efficiency, and pride in family
building closely linked with it, are considered to be of primary
importance. Indeed the two are inseparably connected, in the
thought of our author, both historically and logically. Our
present industrial system places the responsibility for the rearing
of children upon the one who is responsible for their coming into
the world, and this is the best check yet evolved or devised for
limiting population to means of subsistence according to the
prevailing standard of living. . Remove this check and popula-
tion would increase so rapidly as to entail wide-spread misery,
leaving only the natural checks of war, pestilence and famine, and
1 Essays in Social Justice, p. 173.
2 Sociology and Social Progress, p. 13.
3 [bid., p.13; Essays in Social Justice, p. 134.
INVENTION AND PRODUCTION 251
artificial checks imposed by social control. The monogamic
family has no other justification than this, — the regulation of the
increase of population in the interest of social efficiency. Abolish
private property and the logic of the situation, as many socialists
assert, makes probable the disintegration of the domestic institu-
tion. But with private property, family pride is a great incentive
to the production of wealth.!
As the utilization of every possible motive is necessary to secure
maximum productivity, all socialistic schemes that look to the
abolition of private property or of competition and economic
reward, are considered disastrous.
In his introduction to Sociology and Social Progress emphasis is
given to the power of idealization as one of the important psychic
factors in the development of civilization. ‘‘ This may be de-
fined not very inaccurately as the power of making believe, —a
factor which sociologists have scarcely appreciated as yet... .
One of the greatest resources of the human mind is its ability to
persuade itself that what is necessary is noble, or dignified, or
honorable, or pleasant.”” The idealization of war in the military
stage of civilization, and the idealization of work in more recent
times are given as illustrations. ‘‘ Work is still a necessity as
imperious as war ever was. Looked at frankly and truthfully
work is a disagreeable necessity and not a good in itself. Yet by
persuading ourselves that work is a blessing, that it is dignified
and honorable, our willingness to work is materially increased,
and therefore the process of adaptation is facilitated; in other
words, progress is accelerated. For this reason, he who in any
age helps to idealize those factors and forces upon which the prog-
ress of his age depends, is perhaps the most useful man, the most
powerful agent, in the promotion of human well-being, even
though from the strictly realistic point of view he only succeeds
in making things appear other than they really are. From the
1 Class lectures; cf. Principles of Rural Economics, p. 337. Professor Carver
seems to have overlooked the function of the monogamic family in the process of
social adaptation. The children, closely resembling the parents, are easily assimi-
lated to the customs of the family group and by this means to those of the larger
social group; moreover the monogamic family has great possibilities in training for
social efficiency.
252 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
sociological point of view this is the mission of art and preaching
of all kinds.” !
Desire for social esteem is a fourth motive for productivity and
functions advantageously in proportion as society appreciates
and rewards the producer.? The dollar yard-stick so frequently
anathematized today by moralists, is after all an effective means
of securing the surplus so necessary for social good.
Patriotism, when properly conceived, is a most potent force.
Every one who is interested in the success of the group must be
interested in doing that which will insure success. The highest
form of patriotism is not that which is awakened merely when the
nation faces a crisis, but the form that responds daily to the
nation’s daily need. True patriotism calls for a willing subordina-
tion of individual to group welfare; and as the multiplication of
numbers and production of economic goods, or in other words, the
increase and economizing of human energy, are of prime impor-
tance, patriotism calls for the subordination of consumption to
production. Pleasure cannot be an end in itself according to
this philosophy, but on the one hand the sign board of health and
efficiency, and on the other, the means of securing increased
production.
Finally, and in some respects most important of all, is religion.
Religion is defined as “ such belief in or regard for supernatural
agents as to influence conduct.” The only religion worth having
is the one which so energizes life as to make it most productive,
and the best religion is the one which is the most energizing.
“That is the best religion which (1) acts most powerfully as a
spur to energy, and (2) directs that energy most productively.” 3
In discussing this he makes use of the biological formula and
concludes: “ The religion worth having is the religion which
brings the largest success in the final and ultimate sense to the
peoples and nations which adopt it and enables them to survive in
competition with peoples and nations possessing any other type
of religion. . . . The religion which enervates or subdues the
1 Cf. Comte, Positive Philosophy, ii, p. 315; A General View, ch. VI.
2 Cf. The Religion Worth Having, pp. 65 f.
3 Tbid., p. 13.
INVENTION AND PRODUCTION Paces
spirit of a people, which does not develop their latent energy, or
which wastes their energy in a kind of effort which does not sup-
port life or support it abundantly, will fail because it will cause
the failure of the people who are handicapped by it. But the
religion which stimulates to high endeavor and develops the
latent energy of its people, and directs that energy wisely and
productively, will succeed because the people who are fortunate
enough to possess it will succeed and hold dominion over the
world.” !
The third general division of Professor Carver’s social philos-
ophy is passive social adaptation which includes moral develop-
ment and education. As already indicated the welfare of the
sovereign group is the swmmum bonum and the standard for
judging all other good. In this discussion we are reminded of
both Nietzsche and Spencer. He differs from the former in sub-
stituting the concept of the super-group for that of the super-man
thus making large place for sympathy, sociability, co-operation
and religion, negatived by Nietzsche. He differs from Spencer
chiefly in the following points: —
1. Adaptation rather than increasing complexity is considered
the test of progress with no expectation of attaining a state of
perfect equilibrium.
2. Spencer’s negative regulative theory of government is
replaced by a strong doctrine of social control.
3. The well-being of the group is placed above that of the
individuals that compose it. Spencer held this position for the
group when endangered by another group but thought this
menace would decrease continually under industrialism. Pro-
fessor Carver sees no possibility of removing the causes of inter-
group conflict because of the working of the Malthusian law of
population and the law of diminishing returns.?
With Professor Carver, then, that is good which tends to
strengthen the group in competition with other groups. That is
evil which tends to weaken the group. As his social theory is a
1 The Religion Worth Having, pp. 22, 23.
2 In this he agrees with Van Dyke Robinson. See Selections, p. 133. Cf.
Essays in Social Justice, chs. I and II.
254 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
synthesis of biological “adaptation ” and economic “ produc-
tivity ” so his ethical theory is a synthesis of intuitionalism and
evolutionary utilitarianism. We have intuitions of right and
wrong, but these are not absolute. Our moral intuitions are our
personal interpretations of the mores of the group to which we
belong. These mores are the result of social evolution and social
utility. We first passively adapt ourselves to them, then in some
small degree react on them in the line of variation, and in a few
cases men have gotten a deeper insight into social values and
become prophets or moral reformers.!
The moral is the socially useful. The one who acts contrary to
the mores of the group is adjudged immoral. The one who acts
contrary to these mores or conventions that have become crys-
tallized into law is adjudged a criminal. Motive does not count
except as it determines conduct.
As the moral is the useful, and the useful is that which has
enabled the group to win out in its struggle with other groups,
and as in the process of social and industrial evolution economic
productivity has been found to be above all else that which makes
for group success, therefore the most moral man is the one who
contributes most to the strength of the group. By this yard-
stick the rich parasite who consumes more than he produces, is
highly immoral.
Men should be moral, then, because only thus are they of value
to their group, and the very fact that they are of value makes
them moral. Morality, however, has to do not only with eco-
nomic productivity but also with the relations of man to his fel-
low-men within the sovereign group, in other words, with social
adaptation. Lack of homogeneity and friction within the group
tend to weaken it in competition with other groups, hence are
evil. Morality requires a man to be socially efficient and that
means development of personal efficiency, physical and mental,
and such response to his social environment as to make for
co-operation and social adjustment. The so-called vices are
morally bad, not because they violate any divine command, but
because they make for personal and social mal-adaptation2
1 Essays in Social Justice, pp. 14 f. 2 Principles of Rural Economics, p. 187.
INVENTION AND PRODUCTION 255
Self-control is a virtue, for only through it can social adjustment
be secured. This self-control must be extended to the procreative
impulse, for the bringing into the world of those who, because
of defect in the organism or deficiency in training, cannot be
socially efficient, is immoral.
Each sovereign group is called upon to work out its own salva-
tion and to struggle for world-mastery, and in so doing every act
is justifiable and good which gives promise of securing this result.
Under this system of group ethics we may conceivably have a
double standard even as has prevailed from earliest times;
i. e., a code of conduct may be used in dealing with foreign
groups or representatives of these groups which would not be
used in intra-group relations. Such a group ethics is justified by
Professor Carver on the following grounds: —
1. Group success furnishes a test of the good and true. This
is a pragmatic test based on the neo-Darwinian theory of bio-
logical evolution applied to society. The good and the true are
not absolute, but relative to group success. What is right in one
age and nation may be wrong in another.
2. By inter-group rivalry we have the only adequate method
of evolving the most efficient social organization. We have no
other test than just this of workability. That form of organiza-
tion is best which makes the group most efficient in competition
with other groups.
3. By this method, also, the largest degree of individual well-
being is secured, for individual happiness is linked with group
success. In primitive struggles the losing group was annihilated
orenslaved. In the modern struggle for the markets of the world
the losing group will be thrown back ultimately on its own
resources and forced to remain a poverty-stricken agricultural
nation with limited population or accept the lowest wage for
manufacturing, except as location and resources give it monop-
olistic advantages. The group winning because of economic
efficiency can increase in population, power and wealth with
accompanying largeness of life.
Finally, although the emphasis is on group success, Professor
Carver believes that this gospel of productivity provides the only
256 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
method of securing the ultimate triumph of that civilization
which would bring maximum well-being to all individuals, — or
in religious terminology, the triumph of the kingdom of God.
Most sociologists accept as inevitable the historic cycle of the
rise and fall of nations. Passing from a pain to pleasure economy,
to use Professor Patten’s phraseology, consumption comes to be
regarded as an end and the nation thus worshipping at the shrine
of pleasure, falls a victim before a powerful group still struggling
in the productive stage. The nation that would become im-
mortal and carry its civilization with its government and religion
to the farthest parts of the inhabitable globe, must accept the
gospel of the productive life, grow in population and wealth,
win the markets of the world, colonize, take possession of un-
occupied territory, force back the social laggards and ultimately,
and by sheer force of efficiency, possess the earth.
Religious sanction for such a program is claimed from the
teachings of Jesus.
The perception of this great economic principle of valuation, and the
application of it to non-commercial objects, such as mental and moral quali-
ties, is the leading characteristic of Christ’s teaching respecting the Kingdom
of God. He who gives much and takes little, whose service exceeds his
demands by the largest margin, is greatest inthe Kingdom. ‘The Kingdom
of God, as set forth by its greatest expounder, is nothing more nor less than a
kingdom in which this principle of valuation prevails. That is the only
objective characteristic of the Kingdom which he ever emphasized. The
nation which adopts the same principle of valuation as its basis of selection
will approximate as nearly to the ideal of the Kingdom as is possible in a
world of physical reality.
This is the only conception of a Kingdom of God on earth which is possible
toa person who believes that this physical world is God’s world and that the
laws of selection now in operation are God’s laws. If that be true, the kind of
a group which best meets the conditions and requirements of this struggle
and survival, and which can therefore win the world in competition with all
other forms and types of social organization, must, of logical necessity, be
God’s Kingdom. That group will survive which evaluates most accurately
the fitness of its men to help in the struggle, and which distributes power and
responsibility on the basis of that fitness.1
As to the psychical factors involved in the historical and present
process of passive social adaptation, our author has not contrib-
uted anything new. In this field he has followed, in general, the
1 The Religion Worth Having, pp. 76, 77.
INVENTION AND PRODUCTION 267
lead of those from whose writings he has made selection in his
Sociology and Social Progress.
The importance of formal education as a method of socia
adaptation is stressed and his constructive social philosophy
provides an educational goal of “ social efficiency ” and a prin-
ciple of value in educational management.
In the discussion of “Active Social Adaptation” the emphasis
is on social control, but the process is illustrated also in the in-
novator and moral reformer who try to adapt their social environ-
ment to their personal ideals of the right and good, although
this latter part is not stressed.
Social control is necessary largely because the social instincts
have not as yet been sufficiently developed to secure by sponta-
neous action the type of social life that is most efficient. In
discussing this subject Professor Carver sounds another compara-
tively new note for the function of government is considered to be
pre-eminently that of suppressing uneconomic competition and of
encouraging economic co-operation. As competition among the
lower biological orders is advantageous in the development of the
species so is it in society. The competitive industrial system
which rewards according to merit gives the meritorious the
opportunity to succeed in the struggle and leave the largest
number of offspring as a social asset. But not all competition is
economic. Co-operation within the group is essential to strengthen
it for its inter-group struggle.!
The abstract discussion of individual rights and the limits of
social control is vain. With the sovereign group, might is right,
and the individual has no rights apart from social utility.2 There
is no real issue as to woman’s rights in the matter of suffrage. It
is purely a matter of social expediency, and Professor Carver does
not believe it is expedient.
One of the great problems for social control in the line of social
efficiency is the improvement of the quality of the race-stock.
This opens up the whole question of eugenics which is considered
to be of the greatest importance. Family pride, especially
1 The Religion Worth Having, pp. 42 f., 88 ff.; Essays in Social Justice, ch. V.
2 Class lectures; Essays in Social Justice, ch. I.
3 Principles of Rural Economics, pp. 354 ff.
258 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
among the most efficient is emphasized as of the greatest value in
helping to counter-balance the increase of population which is
now so largely from the lowest economic classes. As noticed
above, economic efficiency is considered by our author to be the
best principle of selection yet discovered, though he admits that
this principle is not now working because of the practical sterility
of the most efficient.
Regulation of marriage as well as of divorce should be a
function of the sovereign group. A minimum wage law rigidly
enforced is considered one of the feasible methods for race-stock
improvement, for the incapables would be thrown upon society
for subsistence and by segregating these the race-stock would be
improved in an appreciable degree within a few generations.
As the chief function of social control is considered to be the
economizing of human energy, all forms of waste must be elimi-
nated. Professor Carver gives attention to two in particular,
waste land and waste labor. The following scheme sets forth his
analysis of these forms of waste: —
(a) Too stony,
1. Bad physical conditions {0 Too wet,
(c) Too dry.
(a) Too much acid,
(6) Too much alkali.
(a) Bad taxation,
(b) Too much speculation.
1
fetcesbiwasteland 2. Bad chemical conditions {
3- Bad social conditions {
. The involuntarily unemployed.
. The imperfectly employed.
. The improperly employed.
The voluntarily idle.
Forms of waste labor ¢
PWR
The class of involuntarily unemployed is made up mostly of
defective individuals; the imperfectly employed of those whose
idleness is due to enforced “ lay-offs ” and seasonal occupations;
the improperly employed, of those who are not doing the work for
which they are best adapted and the voluntarily idle, of the
tramps and idle rich. There are two classes of the latter, those
who have produced sufficient wealth for their maintenance and
have retired from the productive life, and those whose sole occu-
1 Principles of Rural Economics, p. 132. 2 Tbid., p. 185.
INVENTION AND PRODUCTION 259
pation is to spend what others have produced. Society’s most
serious problem is with the fourth class, and especially with the
idle rich whose talents presumably are above the average and who
could thus be of great value to society as producers.
This gospel of the productive life is applied to the problem of
social service concerning which so much is being said and written
of late.
The result is that as much cant is being preached in the name of social
service as ever was preached in the name of spirituality. This is to be ex-
pected of those who do not realize that all productive work such as growing
corn, wheat or cattle to feed the world, or growing wool or cotton to clothe
the world, is social service; and that the best social service which the average
man can perform is to do his regular work well, — to grow good crops if he
is a farmer, and to bring up his family in habits of industry, sobriety, thrift
and reliability, and mutual happiness; that anything, in short, is social
service which builds up the country and makes it strong, powerful, progres-
sive and prosperous.!
One other kind of adaptation is suggested by Professor Carver
but not labeled, — the adaptation of man and society to the
evolving cosmic process, phrased by John Fiske as religious
adaptation. It is implied where the thought is emphasized that
this is God’s world and that the highest type of obedience is to
find out God’s will as revealed in the cosmic process, and having
found out, conform both individual and social life to that will.
Progress by struggle and survival is God’s will for it is God’s
way. Success for the individual man and the race by the
economizing of human energy, and by testing all consumption by
its bearing on future production is also God’s will for it is God’s
way. Support is found, too, in interpreting God’s will, by appeal
to the Bible, and especially to the words of the Great Teacher.
Amid the pessimistic utterances of those who see the inevitable
downfall of the Anglo-Saxon race in accordance with those laws
that have effected the downfall of the other great races which
have become rich, effete, and thus the prey of stronger, struggling
races, Professor Carver utters a strong prophetic message of
hope, — but on one condition: ‘‘ Repent or ye shall all likewise
1 Principles of Rural Economics, p. 355; Essays in Social Justice, ch. XVI.
2 The Religion Worth Having, pp. 85 f.
260 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
perish,” — and repentance means turning from the “ pig-trough ”
to the “ work-bench ” philosophy of life; turning from the ideal of
“ graceful consumption” and “ eminent leisure” to that of
production, of the economizing of human energy, and of consump-
tion not as an end but as a means to further production.
This social theory, like all ‘‘ prophecies ” will meet with theoret-
ical and practical opposition. It will be opposed on the latter
side by those who have been taught by experience that sole
emphasis on one phase of life is narrowing and deadening and who
do not believe that a race can be evolved which can combine this
excessive emphasis on the production of material goods and on
reproduction, with emphasis on cultural values to the degree
assumed by our author, and to the degree required to make his
theory effective. It will be opposed on this side, too, by those
who live to consume.
On the theoretical side it is open to criticism along the following
lines: —
(z) It is logical and abstract and of value as a social philosophy
in proportion as its premises are true, but even so, it is concerned
too largely with “ by-and-large ” and “ in-the-long-run ” without
sufficient regard to individual, concrete conditions.
(2) It is built up on a rigid application to social progress of the
neo-Darwinian formula for biological evolution and fails to be
convincing just in proportion (a) as this formula fails to explain
biological evolution, and (0) in proportion as this formula needs
to be modified or is shown to be inapplicable to social evolution.
(3) Over-emphasis is placed on the sovereign, territorial group
as the sociological unit. There seems good reason for holding,
on the contrary, that the sovereign group is not an end in itself,
but only a means to the well-being of the largest possible number
of individuals and it is by no means certain that this result can be
attained only by the conflict between territorial groups.
(4) In his desire to give prominence to the objective standard
of the good, the right and the just, Professor Carver has denied all
worth to motive as such; but a man’s attitude toward life. his
ideal, his intelligent purpose are most potent factors in enabling
him to find that place and do that task which shall prove most
INVENTION AND PRODUCTION 261
serviceable to the group.! “ Hearty ” co-operation between an
employer and his employees has proven to result in increased
production. An employer who is interested merely in output may
introduce a system of profit-sharing or welfare work with the sole
purpose of securing increased dividends, another employer may be
interested in his men as fellow human beings and co-workers in
increasing the well-being of the community and sovereign group,
and work directly to foster this spirit of co-operation. Surely this
latter attitude on the part of an employer is a desirable quality to
emphasize and the one having such an attitude is on the whole
more apt to secure the co-operation of his employees than the one
who does not have it. To be sure the important thing is the
result, —but to emphasize the worth of the attitude or motive and
the duty of having such an attitude would seem to be of some
intrinsic value.
(5) His psychological analyses are not satisfactory. The
individual is always set over against other individuals or groups
with emphasis on conscious conflict of interests and a solution of
the conflict is sought on the basis of rational self-interest?
Modern social psychologists, as Baldwin, McDougall, Dewey,
Ellwood ef al., have shown how the self-regarding sentiment
expands to include other individuals in such a way as to prevent
the consciousness of conflict, or to reduce it to a minimum through
co-operation for the attainment of a common purpose. There is
not ordinarily such a cold calculation of interests as assumed.
Most responses of the ego are to interests which are either in-
stinctive or developed by social experience and education. These
responses are for the most part automatic rather than reflective
and controlled by social impulses, by a sense of duty, by regard
for public opinion and other motives working to a very large
extent below the threshold of consciousness.
(6) The theory in question does not make sufficient place for
rational imitation, individual and social, as a method of social
advance, nor for the possibility of race-stock improvement by
this method linked with social control? If our interest is in
1 Essays in Social Justice, p. 4. 3 Mentioned, however, Essays, ch. V.
2 Tbid., ch. II.
262 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
humanity rather than in the success of the territorial group we
may well believe that wise social control of the defective class in
one group would be reflectively imitated by others and result
ultimately in a higher type of physical organism and psychical
endowment for humanity as a whole than we have reason to
believe would result merely from inter-group conflict even of the
commercial type.
(7) The appeal to Biblical sanction for the “ productive life ”
as interpreted by our author, is questionable. It is not difficult
to find support for such a doctrine in the parable of the ten
talents, but it is not so easy to interpret thus the parable of the
lord of the vineyard who rewarded alike the workmen commenc-
ing at the third hour and the one at the eleventh hour, thus
apparently negativing the theory that motives do not count; nor
does it “ feel ” like the Gospel of the Kingdom as proclaimed by
Jesus with emphasis on obedience to the will of God, love toward
even one’s enemies, and such service as can hardly be interpreted
in terms of “ self-centered appreciation ” and inter-group com-
petition. We believe that the constructive theory outlined in
our conclusion is more in harmony with Biblical teaching.
Despite these points which are at least open to question, Pro-
fessor Carver’s social philosophy is most suggestive and stimulat-
ing, and illuminating, too, in helping one to understand the
present European war which is the result in large measure of the
commercial rivalry between Germany and England. It is a
social philosophy very similar to the one under discussion that has
caused the marvelous growth and industrial expansion of Ger-
many during the past half-century. On the whole the people of
that country have been inspired by a purpose to produce rather
than to consume, and ultimately to possess the earth.!_ They have
had the vigor, the ambition, — and the conceit, — character-
istic of adolescence whether individual or social. But certain of
* Professor Carver does not justify Germany’s militarism, however, but believes
that the desired results might have been attained by populating contiguous terri-
tory, buying up the land and eventually by annexation. A coalition of nations
jealous of success was almost inevitable in any case with war as a result. Indeed
war seems to be the logical outcome of such a social theory with so great emphasis
on the success of the territorial group.
INVENTION AND PRODUCTION 263
the wisest of English social philosophers have seen the inevitable
outcome of such commercial rivalry and have called their country-
men to rally to the industrial and political defence of their father-
land, !— and these two are peculiarly linked in England. The
commercial rivalry between these two sovereign groups has
resulted in the development in each of a strong national con-
sciousness and in methods of education and social control having
as their aim the strengthening of the group and the securing of
greater efficiency and well-being among the people. The war has
called attention to various forms of waste of human energy, — as
from the excessive use of alcohol, — and thought is being given to
a solution of the problem. It is almost certain that one of the
results of this war will be to make acceptable to all western
nations a program of social control very similar to that outlined
by Professor Carver,? and if so, it will not take many years to
secure for the people of these nations a degree of well-being which
might not have come otherwise in centuries. Should the other
nations of Europe adopt a program of expansion like that of
Germany, the inter-group struggle will become as acute as
portrayed by our author and in that event the nation with the
most efficient standard of living will win out. This, in the view
of our author, will probably be the basis of the final conflict.
1 Cf. Pearson’s, National Life from the Stand point of Science.
2 Fssays, ch. X, ‘‘ Constructive Democracy.”
PART V
ACTIVE SPIRITUAL ADAPTATION
CHAPTER XIV
ACTIVE SOCIAL ADAPTATION
ACTIVE spiritual (including social) adaptation was defined in the
Introduction as “‘ the purposeful adjustment of the individual to
his spiritual environment, social, ideal and transcendental, the
work of true teachers and social reformers, and purposeful social
control.” We have already noted many contributions to the
development of this phase of our subject, but have reserved till
now the discussion of it as a specific form of social progress.
This doctrine of active spiritual adaptation has one root in the
monism of Schopenhauer with Will as the supreme characteristic
of the All, especially as this has been interpreted through the
writings of Nietzsche (combined in his social philosophy with
neo-Darwinism), and through the philosophy of William Wundt
with emphasis on “ teleology,” and adopted in sociology by
Ratzenhofer and Ward. It hasa second root in the a priorism of
Kant which brings into prominence the activity of the ego in the
acquirement of knowledge, also in his doctrine of the practical
reason with exaltation of the will, especially as this has issued in
modern pragmatism. It has a third root in modern social psy-
chology issuing in a kind of social realism with its doctrine of
social will.
Since Darwin there has been a growing tendency to fuse these
various philosophical teachings and interpret them in terms of
life and adaptation. We have noted this tendency in our pre-
vious discussions and the contributions to it by various social
philosophers, especially important being Tarde’s theory of inno-
vation, Bagehot’s doctrine of progress by discussion, the teaching
of Schiffle and other social psychologists concerning the social
will, Ward’s theory of individual and social telesis, and the
emphasis placed by Patten and Carver on idealization, religion
and social control in the wide-spread production of surplus
and its wise use. In this chapter and the next, under “ active
social adaptation” we will consider Novicow’s “ hierarchy of
267
268 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
struggles,”’ Carlyle’s Great Man theory, James’ teaching concern-
ing “ Energies of Men,” and Ross’ Social Control. This will pre-
pare the way for a discussion of idealization and religion or
“ active spiritual adaptation ” in the narrower use of the term.
Jacques Novicow (1849- _—s+)
Social Progress by Cultural Attraction and Expansion
Although Novicow is given scant recognition by American
sociologists, his writings, especially Les Luttes are deserving of a
prominent place in this book for two reasons: (1) He antedated
by many years the four-fold analysis of adaptation worked out
independently by Professor Carver which has formed the basis of
this present discussion, and (2) his analysis of the European
situation with its inter-group rivalry for territorial and commer-
cial expansion is especially worthy of recall now that this rivalry
has resulted as he feared and as he tried to prevent by turning
the thoughts of cultured men and leaders in social progress to that
highest form of conflict, struggle for excellence. His suggestion
of a federation of nations is not far removed from that advocated
at present by such American exponents of peace as ex-President
Taft and Senator Lodge, but he stands almost alone in his
emphasis on growth of nations by cultural attraction and expan-
sion rather than by territorial or even commercial. This last
point is particularly noteworthy in our present discussion and
warrants his consideration in this division of our subject rather
than earlier where the date of his writing and his biological and
psychological postulates would otherwise cause him to be placed.
Novicow begins his study of “ conflicts”? by showing that
struggle and alliance are twin phenomena in all cosmic evolution,
— that “ the universe is a totality of systems being continually
formed and broken up.” He holds, moreover, that ‘“ the group-
ings which we consider as irreducible units, the molecule, cell,
individual, state, for example, are pure subjective categories of
the mind ” ! as are also the divisions between the sciences.?
Passing from the domain of the inanimate to that of the ani-
mate, he shows that there are struggles not only between associa-
1 Les Luttes, p. 5. 2 Ibid., pp. 7 f.
ACTIVE SOCIAL ADAPTATION 269
tional groups, animal and human, but between organisms within
the group, and not only between organisms but among cells in an
organism; that there is struggle between psychical elements
resulting in consciousness; struggle for mastery between thoughts;
struggle between industries; — struggle everywhere, but every-
where, also, alliance. He holds, moreover, that as no definite
point can be fixed at which the associational process begins, so
there is no known end until all humanity is organized (in alliance
with all useful animals under domestication) in a struggle against
inanimate nature and disuseful animals.
Considering the different forms of struggle between living
beings, our author says that there are two fundamental divisions:
(x) those having as their purpose the assimilation more or less
complete of the elements of the conquered to the advantage of
the conqueror, — in a word, absorption, and (2) those having as
their purpose the removal of an obstacle in the way of the attain-
ment of the vital end of the individual, — in a word, elimination.
Each of these is shown to have two phases: attack and defense;
i. e., “ living things struggle to absorb or eliminate others, on the
one hand, and on the other, to preserve themselves from absorp-
tion or elimination.” 2 In the vegetable world, and between
herbivorous animals, the struggle results in elimination; between
animals and plants and between carnivorous animals it is chiefly
one of absorption. In general, plants are subordinated to animals,
weak animals to strong, and both plants and animals to man.
These biological processes have their analogue in the forms of
struggle between social groups.’
Struggle and alliance, according to Novicow, work in accord-
ance with the law of adaptation and will always be in evidence, for
absolute adjustment or equilibrium is impossible as the universe
is in a state of perpetual creation or transformation.
In biological evolution we have passive physical adaptation as a
result of the impact of external nature on the organism and active
adaptation in a more or less telic effort put forth by a portion of
the organism ‘ to facilitate adaptation. This he calls production.
Continuing he says: —
1 Les Luttes, p. 30. 2 Ibid., p. 19. 3 Tbid., pp. 21 f.
4 This theory, formulated by Lamarck, is now discredited.
270 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
Adaptation to the physical environment is science. . . . The totality of
the human sciences elaborates a conception of the universe as complete as
possible and if this conception were perfect the adaptation of man to his
cosmic environment would be absolute.
The influence which one organism exerts on another is strong in proportion
to their resemblance or to their affinity. In that case movements produced
by one organism are reproduced spontaneously by the other. . . . Imitation
is passive adaptation to the social environment? .. .
Active adaptation to the physical environment has the same name in
sociology as in biology, — production. As the mental horizon of man is much
higher than that of animals he foresees the possibility of adapting his environ-
ment to his needs ina greater measure. Moreover as his faculty of prevision
becomes greater, production takes two forms: man can transform external
objects for his immediate use but he can also create utilities to enable him to
adapt a portion of the planet to his needs (as digging canals, draining
swamps, irrigating arid lands, etc.). . . . Organization and biological tools
on the one hand and science and social tools on the other are in the closest
co-ordination. ...
The active adaptation of the social environment can be designated by the
general term love. Indeed to love any one is to desire to make that person
like oneself. Charity has for its goal to procure for others the material well-
being which we ourselves enjoy. The apostle, the propagandist, have for
their aim to lead others to think as they do. Charity and propaganda are
the two forms which bring about the active adaptation of the social environ-
ment.?
The forms and processes of adaptation as explained by Novicow
are shown in the following diagram: 4‘ —
ADAPTATION
Phenomena Passive Active
Biological Organization Biological tools
Social tools of the first
Physical Science Produc- degree
Psychical environment tion
Adaptation of the planet
and
(second degree)
Sociological | Social
environment Imitation Love { Charity
Propaganda
* Novicow with Aristotle identifies knowledge with power, but man’s actual
adaptation to his environment is never on a par with his knowledge.
? Here our author follows the now discarded theory of instinctive imitation.
Such a theory fails to give sufficient prominence to individuality and the satisfac-
tion of individual interests by instinct and habit.
3 Les Luttes, pp. 38-40.
4 [bid., p. 41.
ACTIVE SOCIAL ADAPTATION 271
Passive adaptation (science) and active adaptation (production) go
together, reacting on each other constantly. The more easily one receives
impressions from without the more easily does he act on that which is ex-
ternal. . . . The struggle for existence results in the survival of the most
apt. Now, most apt from the point of view of psychology is synonymous
with most intelligent. . . . Man has conquered the animals because he was
able to adapt himself more quickly to his environment than other living
species, or (what is exactly the same thing) because he was the most intelli-
gent.
What one calls intellectual culture is also a form of adaptation to the
environment. Cultured man possesses a more or less complete representa-
tion of the universe and sums up in himself the mental labors of humanity.
His horizon is greatly extended in space and time and this means that he is
capable of representing to himself a great number of images and states of
consciousness. . . . The struggle for existence assures the victory to the
individuals and societies who possess the most exact conception of the uni-
verse.!
Novicow goes on to interpret life in terms of rhythm, and
adaptation as “ eurhythm ” and holds that as the change from
anarchic movements to those that are co-ordinated requires time,
so adaptation, physical, mental and social, also requires time.
The various forms of struggle are analyzed, — the physiological,
the economic, the political, the intellectual and those which arise
in the domain of sentiment, — and these are shown to form a hier-
archy, the most rapid, the most complete, and the most pleasure-
giving being in the realms of mind and heart, these latter varieties,
too, being the last to be attained. In the physiological realm
man has passed from cannibalism (absorption) through murder,
plunder and dispossession of territory (elimination), through wars
for the possession of women and slaves to provide satisfaction of
physiological interests, on to that highest form of struggle be-
tween the sexes known as love. “ All love is a combat because in
all love there is one being who subordinates his life to the ends of
the other, hence a vanquished and a vanquisher.” ?
The physiological * and economic struggles ‘ are practically the
same on the lower levels of social life but the latter differentiates
as society progresses and finally enters the domain of politics
taking the form of invasions, demands for concessions,° etc.
1 Les Luttes, p. 42. 4 Ibid., pp. 73 ff.
2 Ibid., p. 71. 5 Ibid., pp. 82 ff.
3 Ibid., pp. 64 ff.
272 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
The political struggle is rooted largely in physiological and
economic interests, though later it enters the mental realm and
has for its purpose religious coercion. The unit in this struggle
is always the territorial group. Inter-group conflicts are held
to have two fundamental purposes: (1) group aggrandisement or
group safety on the one hand and (2) so-called rights either
national or international on the other.
The intellectual struggle ! comes relatively late and is closely
related to the political, i. e., that nation will win out in the long
run which has the language that best facilitates intercourse; that
knowledge which makes possible the greatest production, hence
gives industrial supremacy; that literature which is most inspir-
ing and most successful in securing the “‘ sympathy ” of members
of other nations; that philosophy which gives the most exact
concept of the cosmic order and that religion which is most potent
in expanding ideas.?
As feeling (le sentiment) is a most important element in struggle
and adaptation, this psychological factor is analyzed at some
length, but here, as in some other places, Novicow fails to be
convincing because of his hedonistic psychology with its whole
emphasis on the motives of pleasure-seeking and pain-avoiding.
As with Ward, feeling is a “social force” though not labelled thus,
and is the dynamic in social attraction and expansion.?
All the cultural elements, together with those social character-
istics which give zest to life, are most potent in making the
winning group.
It is by the totality of moral and intellectual qualities; by the power of
seduction; by means of a high culture, artistic development, enthusiastic
interest in the researches of science and the speculations of philosophy, that
make a country interesting and evoke a sympathetic response in its neigh-
bors. Nowsucha people attracts strangers. The stranger carries over new
ideas and stirs the intellectual movement. This movement favors philos-
ophical speculation. A good philosophical method contributes to the ad-
vancement of the sciences. Science leads to the improvement of technique
and to the perfecting of social institutions. In turn these two factors
{moral and intellectual] increase riches and riches create political power.‘
1 Les Luttes, pp. 96 ff. 3 [bid., pp. 112 ff., 164 f.
2 Ibid., pp. 96 f. 4 Tbid., p. 120.
ACTIVE SOCIAL ADAPTATION 273
Now this winning quality of evoking sympathy (se rendre
sympathique) is incompatible with the use of physical force.
No one can compel love by force. The only way one can evoke sympathy
is by possessing the qualities which are admired. If one society experiences
admiration for the intellectual culture of another, this admiration provokes
sympathy and leads it to imitate the models which are pleasing. To provoke
imitation is the most efficient process in the domain of sentiment.
Although Novicow’s use of the terms sympathie and sympatheti-
que are not the best in this connection, his emphasis on the
importance of “ provoking imitation ” as a factor in social prog-
ress is of the greatest significance in our discussion. The con-
clusion to his analysis of feeling is as follows: —
The power which one society possesses of assimilating a lower society and
its power of radiating influence is in direct proportion to the sympathy it can
evoke. Now the ability to absorb strange elements and to make conquests
outside are the very conditions of the growth of societies. We conclude,
then, that . . . other things being equal, the nation which evokes the most
sympathy will be the most powerful?
In discussing ‘“ denationalization ’”’ Novicow points out the
value of homogeneity to a political groupand shows howineffectual
are the coercive methods used almost exclusively up to the present
time by rulers in their endeavor to assimilate subject peoples
differing in language and cultures He condemns the current
political theory and practice which make the territory belonging
to a nation under the absolute control of the rulers to be disposed
of as they wish without regard to the desire of the private owners
and occupiers of the land, and holds that migration, alliance,
union and realignment of groups should be absolutely free and
based entirely on the laws of social attraction or “ sympathy.”
For example he believes that the northern states were not
justified in ’61 in preventing the secession of the southern states;
that Alsace and Lorraine should themselves decide as to whether
they would be a part of Germany or France.‘
The reason assigned for the failure of coercion to secure group
homogeneity is the fact noted above that assimilation is a matter
of feeling. The “ sympathy ” of the subject people must be won
1 Les Luties, pp. 122, 276 ff. 3 Tbid., p. 127.
2 Tbid., p. 124. 4 Tbid., pp. 251, 252.
274 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
and then assimilation comes by imitation. It is of greatest
importance, for example, that the ruler of such a conglomerate
state as Austria-Hungary should have such personal magnetism
as to win the affection and loyalty of the people whether Magyar,
Italian, German, Jew or Slav. With personal prestige he can
win not only by encouraging the spread of culture among the
aliens, but even more by personal example exercised first on his
friends but ultimately on all throughout the realm.
Justice in all dealings with subject groups is also a supreme
requisite in assimilation, and the granting of large civil and
political rights.?
Passing to an analysis of the successive phases in the develop-
ment of social consciousness our author shows that just as in-
dividual consciousness arises out of struggle and the rupture of
mental equilibrium, this rupture resulting either in pleasure or
pain,? so social consciousness arises only in the presence of the
unusual and “ startling.”’ Psychic pleasures, he holds, are far
higher and more enduring than physiological, hence culture in its
varied forms is most important for a group, — and culture tends
to be made incarnate in human institutions.
The human body is a totality of organs of service to the psychic life of the
brain. Society is a totality of institutions of service for intellectual produc-
tion. This production is the end of the life of societies and naturally takes
first place in national consciousness. In civilized societies the savants,
philosophers, religious innovators, authors and artists are in the first rank.
Their glory far transcends that of the rich and the men of state.‘
Novicow shows that social consciousness up to the present has
been developed largely by wars and conquests but that it is
possible to have as a social goal the expansion of nationalism by
intellectual conquest, — by the attractive power of a culture that
1“ Pour étre aimé, il faut étre aimable. Aussi, sur ce terrain, le dominateur
ne peut agir que par ses qualités personnelles. S’il est intelligent, noble de char-
actére, loyal, fier, avec cela affable, séduisant, bref s’il a ce prestige magique que
donne la supériorité morale, il exerce un grand attrait sur son entourage . . . mais
les sentiments se manifestent aussi dans les sociétés par le cérémonial et les moeurs.
Ici a dominateur peut agir de nouveau par des mesures législatives, mais naturelle-
ment son action la plus puissante s’exerce par l’exemple.’’ — Les Luttes, p. 149;
cf. pp. 288 f.
2 Tbid., pp. 2090 f. 3 Ibid., pp. 159 f. 4 Ibid., p. 166.
ACTIVE SOCIAL ADAPTATION 275
evokes sympathy because it promises the highest joys of life.!
But to raise inter-group conflict to this peaceful, intellectual plane,
there must first be a general recognition of the fact that power
comes from wealth and wealth from intelligence and morality.?
Success in the inter-group struggle for existence is thus dependent
on psychic factors, — but so is it also, according to our author,
among animals.
Beings possessed of a brain have triumphed over those which did not have
one. At the moment when animals appeared on the earth endowed with a
nervous system, they formed some conception of the universe. It is thus
possible to say that struggle between species is at bottom a struggle between
different conceptions of the universe.?
Almost no one today would agree with Novicow in thus
attributing to the lower orders a power of abstraction so potent
in the struggle for life. A life philosophy is potent, however, in
the social struggle. India and China, for example, can never
become progressive so long as they are dominated the one by
mysticism, the other by ancestor worship.
As adaptation is synonymous with intelligence, according to our
author, and as intelligence is continually increasing, we have in
this fact a test of progress. Indeed this increase of intelligence
is progress! The connection between intellectual progress,
struggle and adaptation is expressed thus: —
The more perfect a species becomes the more the individuals composing
it multiply (human beings, for example, are far more numerous than other
mammals), and the greater is the rivalry. The more violent the conflict,
the more rapid are the physiological and psychological changes because of
the importance for success of each point of advantage. That is, progress is
in direct ratio to competition.®
Novicow sounds a new note in sociological discussion in his
doctrine that the way for a society to preserve its national type
is through imitation.
1 Les Luttes, pp. 178 f. 2 Thid., p. 182. 3 Ibid., p. 188.
4 Or, comme adaptation est synonyme d’intelligence, on voit que c’est en vertu
des lois universelles de Ja nature, que Vintelligence va toujours en s’accroissant.
Cet accroissement s’appelle le progrés. — Jbid., p. 188.
5 Ibid., p. 189. This is a misstatement, for as Spencer has shown, reproduction
decreases with biological evolution.
276 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
If a society desires to preserve its type, it should possess a sum total of
mental activity equal to that of all its rivals; i. e., it ought to assimilate all
the ideas of its neighbors. As soon as a society is not capable of this effort
its denationalization is inevitable, its type is condemned. Passion for the
new, then, is a special sign by which one can recognize that a nation is still in
its period of growth. The connoisseur of spiritual things who is on the
watch for every fresh exotic production, preserves his nation from stagnation
and torpor. To understand everything, to feel everything, — this it is that
makes the grandeur of nations as of individuals.1
That imitation as here used is not merely instinctive but rather
reflective is shown not only by use of the simile expressed by the
word connoisseur but also by the following: —
To provoke imitation is to attack; to endure a propaganda (or a system
of teaching) with the purpose of selecting parts for personal advancement is
to defend oneself. Now it is absolutely impossible to impose imitation by
violent methods since such methods stir up antagonistic feelings which act
by way of constraint. One can only provoke imitation. The nations which
have this faculty in a high degree win out in the struggle for existence while
those who have it in a low degree, fail. . . . Imitation varies, naturally,
within wide limits. Up toa certain point it preserves national individuality
but carried further it can destroy it. . . . The societies which know how to
preserve a just balance . . . prosper; those who do not know how, perish.?
The means which assure mental preponderance, i. e., assimila-
tion and expansion, are exactly analogous to those which today
assure political preponderance: organization and equipment
(outillage). The battle of the future is to be between ideas rather
than armies, and for this intellectual struggle artists, poets,
savants and women are needed. Moreover there is need of an
organization of peaceful propaganda.t The outcome will be the
amelioration of every department of life. Among other things
there will be an increase in the individuality of nations.
Each nation will endeavor to be self-sufficient, to individualize. Individ-
uality is most marked among the most advanced civilizations. All savages
are alike. To produce characters as different as Dante, Michael Angelo and
Spinoza requires high intellectual culture ina group. In the first place divi-
sion of labor is proportional to the degree of civilization. . . . But division
of labor is true of societies with relation to humanity. After having at-
tempted to cultivate in the same degree the totality of human knowledge
there may come a time when nations will specialize, — certain nations, for
example, having greater aptitude for the natural sciences will cultivate them
in preference to the social sciences.®
1 Les Luttes, p. 301; cf. p. 54t. 3 Ibid., pp. 305 f. 5 Tbid., p. 324.
2 Tbid., p. 303. 4 Ibid., p. 438.
ACTIVE SOCIAL ADAPTATION 277
Contrary to the school of Treitschke, Novicow holds that war is
not necessary to keep alive national spirit, but on the contrary,
that the collective desire for intellectual supremacy will prove far
more potent. Indeed the state is not the final form of human
association, he holds, but even now that form known as “ na-
tionality,” i. e., a group united by the bonds of cultural likeness
and sympathy. Such intellectual rivalry, moreover, will provide
the largest possible well-being and happiness, for intellectual
activity is the very quintessence of life and pleasure.!
To live signifies to think, to feel, to will, to act; and the more vibrant
the thought, the more profound the feeling, the more ardent the desire, the
quicker the action and the more rapid the changes, the more intense is the
life. . . . The law of acceleration which pervades all nature is also at work
in the evolution of societies. Passing from the physiological phase through
the economic and political, the struggle for existence ends with the intellec-
tual phase where it attains its greatest intensity. When the nations shall
have entered this struggle definitely, when the social transformations which
it demands shall have been completely effected, there will be an activity and
an intensity of movement throughout humanity in comparison with which
our actual existence will appear to be mere lethargy.?
The hierarchy of human struggles culminating in free assimila-
tion and in the provoking of imitation is shown in the diagram
on the next page.
In a panoramic review of human struggles our author deduces
several laws: —
(x) “ Progress consists merely in abandoning the slower proc-
esses of adaptation to environment to adopt those that are more
rapid.”’* But as this change is wholly dependent on the increase
of knowledge and intelligence, progress may be defined as a pro-
gressive change from non-rational to rational processes or from
passive to active adaptation.
(2) Self-interest has always been the mainspring of struggle
and progress yet the unlooked-for result has been increasing
advantage to the conquered and increasing social solidarity.‘
(3) Methods and processes that are effective in the lower
phases of struggle are not effective in the higher, as coercion,
for example, in social assimilation.®
1 Les Luttes, pp. 327, 410, 434- 4 Ibid., p. 406.
2 Ibid., pp. 328, 329. 3 [bid., p. 404. 5 Tbid., p. 416.
ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
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ACTIVE SOCIAL ADAPTATION 279
(4) The different forms of social conflict are merely a continua-
tion of astronomical and biological processes to be interpreted in
terms of movement, rhythm, equilibrium and adaptation. ‘ Mat-
ter tends constantly toward equilibrium. Biological equilibrium
is adaptation to environment. Adaptation to environment is a
correlation between exterior objects and their interior image, i. e.,
truth. Truth is the suppression of the notions of space and
time.” He goes on to show that as the economy of time leads to
association, at first between cells, finally between millions of men,
we are compelled to believe that an extension of association would
lead to still great economy of time and increase of human well-
being, hence to the suppression of war as the general rule of social
life.t
As peace means death whereas conflict means life, conserva-
tism in a society means death whereas liberalism and rapidity of
change mean life. Nor does conflict necessarily produce pain.
Defeat is painful but not struggle as such. Work, for example, is
painful only when of a certain kind and carried on too long. Nor,
again, does struggle for existence necessarily engender hatred.
Industrial competition, for example, leads to co-operation and
co-operation deadens the hatred stirred up by rivalry. Thus
while conflict may arouse hatred it also unites men against a com-
monenemy. The ideal of struggle, then, is that it be carried on
with courtesy, that it lead to loyalty, and that it unite as many as
possible ina common purpose. These conditions are fulfilled best
when struggle is on the intellectual plane.”
After discussing the application of these principles to “ se-
curity ”* and “ justice ” 4 (including international), our author
passes to a consideration of the interests of the units composing
social groups.
Novicow agrees with Ferriére as against Spencer that in the
biological organism as well as in the social, the whole exists for
the good of the parts.* Each individual, he holds, tends to secure
the greatest amount of happiness possible but he insists that the
first condition of this is to adapt the earth to his needs in the
(73
1 Les Luttes, pp. 426 f. 4 Ibid., pp. 481 f.
2 Tbid., pp. 458 f. 3 Ibid., pp. 461 ff. 5 Tbid., p. 532.
280 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
greatest possible degree. ‘‘ To live the best possible, this is
the end of every member of society.” 1 With this end in view,
how the earth is divided among different political groups is of
as little importance as the administrative divisions in the case of
a state.”
How self-interest leads to social solidarity is brought out in his
theory of the scale of interests: “ To be the richest in the richest
society; to be the-first in the most powerful society; to be a part
of the most civilized nationality, — this is the individual point of
view. But considering each nation as a unit in a still higher order
we may say that each society is interested in being the richest
among the richest societies; the best organized (the most perfect)
among the best organized; the most civilized among the most
civilized.” * In answer to the question as to how one can enrich
himself without impoverishing another, he says: “ By producing
the most riches in the shortest time.” So one can surpass others
in intelligence without diminishing the development of society
“by imposing his ideas on others merely by the power of per-
suasion.”” 3
The continuity of organic, including social evolution is brought
out in the following: —
To climb the ladder of being constitutes the interest of every living creat-
ure from the smallest microbe to the greatest nation. To be the most
intelligent animal assures the victory over other animals. To be rich gives
the possibility of cultivating the mental powers; to be rich and intelligent
gives the possibility of occupying the foremost place in the state, and this,
in turn, furnishes the opportunity of adapting one’s social environment most
quickly to one’s needs. To be part of the richest society permits one to
profit by the most complete material and mental equipment. This equip-
ment gives political power and political power, in turn, assures the most rapid
extension of nationality.’
Finally, self-interest and emphasis on rivalry in excellence leads
to international solidarity, — all co-operating for the conquest of
nature to secure the greatest possible satisfaction of human
needs.!
That which causes suffering to humanity is the lack of adaptation between
man and nature. When men come to understand that their true enemy is
1 Les Lutles, p. 544. 3 Ibid., p. 553.
2 Ibid., p. 547. 4 Ibid., p. 571.
ACTIVE SOCIAL ADAPTATION 281
the inorganic world they will realize their solidarity. The differences which
divide them are merely the toys of a child in the face of terrible dangers which
come from nature who like a cruel foster-mother condemns millions of
human creatures to misery and famine. Incapable of seeing what is their
true enemy, — thanks to their dulness of mind, — men, divided, succumb
by millions to the onslaughts of nature.!
The real worth of Novicow’s contribution to social theory has
been obscured by the many fallacies in his reasoning due chiefly
to false postulates in biology and psychology. The self-interest
that leads to co-operation is not merely the empirical self but the
conjunct self,—to use the phrase of Professor Palmer,?—and this
conjunct self, in turn, is the product of co-operation. The phe-
nomena to be interpreted are individuals and groups struggling for
existence. This struggle leads to co-operation and co-operation
to an extension of self-consciousness and the self-regarding senti-
ment. At times the empirical self stands out over against some
social group but again it is merged in the group. Now govern-
ment, ideally, is nothing more or less than the corporate activity
of the members of a group to secure their greatest individual well-
being and the survival and expansion of the group. Any activity,
therefore, is proper for the government which promises this
result.
But again, Novicow’s dual interest in emphasizing struggle on
the intellectual plane, and individualism linked with laissez faire
doctrine, has led him to confuse theoretical and practical measures,
forgetting that as societies are now below the plane of struggle for
excellency they cannot at present use merely those methods which
belong to the latest phase of social evolution. Free trade, un-
restricted immigration and absolute liberty in making and
breaking alliances among border groups may be in harmony with
social self-interest in some cases, but not in all at present. Nor is
the endeavor to secure national homogeneity always consistent
with unrestricted immigration. Our author shows lamentable
ignorance of the practical phenomena of large scale immigration,
segregation and race prejudice as a menace to homogeneity in
some sections of the United States.
1 Les Luttes, p. 572. 2 The Nature of Goodness, pp. 170 f.
282 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
His theory is open to the same criticism as that of the neo-
Darwinians: The inter-group rivalry is not so keen as to eliminate
all but the best adapted, hence emphasis on mere activity and the
assimilation of everything, is a dangerous doctrine. Activity
and adaptation are by no means in direct ratio, nor are intelli-
gence and adaptation.
Notwithstanding these shortcomings his four-fold analysis of
adaptation with emphasis on active material adaptation inter-
preted in terms of the increasing elimination of space and time,
and on active social adaptation secured by means of reflective
imitation and the provoking of imitation in others through the
power of an attractive example, together with his teaching con-
cerning the hierarchy of struggles culminating in group rivalry for
excellence, especially cultural, warrant Les Luties being given
the prominent place accorded it in this discussion.
CHAPTER XV
ACTIVE SOCIAL ADAPTATION (contINUED)
Tuomas CARLYLE (1795-1881)
The Réle of the Great Man
Though antedating the period selected for the main part of our
discussion, the great man theory of Carlyle has been too impor-
tant in modern history, literature and social writings to be passed
by without mention. Himself a genius, a prophet, a teacher, a
moral reformer, he appreciated the contributions to social progress
of those in whose souls and lives the best in others had been fused,
and who gave it back to the world not only with the stamp of their
personality but in such form and with such energy as to stir up
new currents of thought, feeling and activity destined to change
the whole flow of human history. But not only do great men give
back to their fellow-men in new form what they have received,
he holds, but great men are in touch with the divine. The spark
that lights their souls and fires their wills is not of the earth,
earthy, but from above. ‘ The history of what man has accom-
plished in this world,” he says, “‘ is at bottom the history of the
great men who have worked here. They were the leaders of men,
these great ones, the modelers, patterns, and in a wide sense crea-
tors, of whatsoever the general mass of men contrived to do or to
attain; all things that we see standing accomplished in the world
are properly the outer material result, the practical realization
and embodiment of thoughts that dwelt in the great men sent
into the world; the soul of the whole world’s history, it may justly
be considered, were the history of these. . . . No time need have
gone to ruin, could it have found a man great enough, a man wise
and good enough; wisdom to discern truly what the time wanted,
valor to lead it on the right road thither; these are the salvation
of any time. But I liken common languid times, with their
unbelief, distress, perplexity, with their languid doubting char-
acters and embarrassed circumstances, impotently crumbling
283
284 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
down into ever worse distress towards final ruin; — all this I
liken to dry dead fuel, waiting for the lightning out of heaven that
shall kindle it. The great man, with his free force direct out of
God’s own hand, is the lightning. His word is the wise healing
word which all can believe in. All blazes round him now, when
he has once struck on it, into fire like hisown. The dry moulder-
ing sticks are thought to have called him forth. They did want
him greatly; but as to calling him forth! — Those are critics of
small vision, I think, who cry: ‘ See, is it not the sticks that made
the fre?’ ... There is no sadder symptom of a generation
than such general blindness to the spiritual lightning, with faith
only in the heap of barren dead fuel.” +
Refreshing indeed is this glowing appreciation of the power of
personality, — this veneration of the great personality after our
many excursions into those types of social philosophy which see
only the great cosmic machine with man but a cog!
Carlyle makes practical application of the above thesis to his
own time in England, — England suffering from a dearth of great
men, — England but “dry mouldering sticks” awaiting the
kindling touch of genius. He finds an analogy to the political
and social condition of his day and a key to the solution of the
problem in the condition of the monastery of St. Edmundsbury
in the twelfth century and the reconstructive work of Abbot
Samson as portrayed in the Chronicles of Jocelin.
Abbot Samson, we are told, was not a high dignitary but only
sub-Sacrista; that he had learned during many years of faithful
service the great lesson of obedience thus being supremely quali-
fied to command; a man “ whom no severity would break to
complain, and no kindness soften into smiles or thanks.” There
is something in his selection to the high office of Abbot, too, as
told by our author, which is significant of Carlyle’s own ideal of
selection to public office. He was not chosen by popular vote
of any group of people but by a process of ‘‘ winnowing.”’ 2
1 Heroes and Hero Worship, Lecture I.
2 The Chapter selects twelve monks who with the Prior are to confer with
the King, the Bishop of Winchester, and the Chancellor, and secure the appoint-
ment of an abbot, if possible from their own convent. The thirteen are ordered
to nominate three from their monastery and these names are given to the King, —
ACTIVE SOCIAL ADAPTATION 285
Samson the poor but capable monk is selected for the high office
because of the instinctive wisdom of the thirteen. ‘‘ Great souls,
true governors,” says our author, “ go about under all manner of
disguises now as then. . . . Those superstitious blockheads of
the Twelfth Century had no telescopes, but they still had an eye;
not ballot-boxes, only reverence for Worth, abhorrence of Un-
worth.” He contrasts with this the methods of England’s choice
that placed George the Third as ‘‘ head charioteer of the destinies
of England ” and allowed Burns, the genius and poet “ to gauge
ale-barrels in the Burg of Dumfries.” !
Abbot Samson begins at once the task of bringing order out of
chaos,? and he is able to do this supremely valuable social task
because of what he is, because of his power over other men, and
because of his unquestioned authority. The character-sketch of
this ‘‘ hero ” is worth reproducing: —
In most antiquarian quaint costume, not of garments alone, but of
thought, word, action, outlook and position, the substantial figure of a man
with eminent nose, bushy brows and clear-flashing eyes, his russet beard
growing daily grayer, is visible, engaged in true governing of men. It is
beautiful how the chrysalis governing-soul, shaking off its dusty slough and
prison, starts forth winged, a true royal soul! Our new Abbot has a right
honest unconscious feeling, without insolence as without fear or flutter, of
what he is and what others are. A courage to quell the proudest, an honest
pity to encourage the humblest. Withal there is a noble reticence in this
Lord Abbot: much vain unreason he hears; lays up without response. He
is not there to expect reason and nobleness of others; he is there to give
them of his own reason and nobleness. Is he not their servant, as we said,
who can suffer from them, and for them; bear the burden their poor spindle-
limbs totter and stagger under; and, in virtue of being their servant, govern
them, lead them out of weakness into strength, out of defeat into victory!®
The Abbot begins his task with the reconstruction of the ma-
terial aspects of his great problem, — with a “ radical reform of
with the addition of three others, — those on the nominating committee each nomi-
nating a fellow-member. The King orders three other names added from outside
the convent, and then from the nine, orders three names to be struck off, then one
declines, two more are ordered struck off, then still another, leaving but two names,
those of Samson and the Prior, and of these, the choice is Samson. — Past and
Present, ch. VIII.
1 Past and Present, p. 86.
2 “Man is the Missionary of Order; he is the servant not of the Devil and
Chaos, but of God and the Universe.” — Jbid., p. 91.
3 Tbid., pp. 89-90.
286 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
his economies ”? and with much-needed repairs of the Monastery
itself. Material rubbish is cleared away, — and spiritual rubbish
as well!
Faithful in his immediate tasks at St. Edmundsbury, he is
equally faithful to his king in time of war and to his country as a
member of Parliament in times of peace. Thus, “ by the heavenly
Awe that overshadows earthly business, does Samson, readily in
those days, save St. Edmund’s Shrine, and innumerable still
more precious things! ”
“‘ By heavenly Awe! ” — for Carlyle ranks as vital in the great
man and his power, religious conviction, — and by religion, he
means, “ the thing a man does practically lay to heart, and know
for certain”; or again: “the manner in which he feels himself
to be spiritually related to the unseen world or no world.” 4
Personality, then, is the key to Carlyle’s social philosophy, — a
personality born a genius and developed by faithfulness in ap-
prenticeship tasks, thus learning to guide others; — “ faithful
over few things’ rewarded by being made “ ruler over many
things.” The supreme need of every nation in every age accord-
ing to him, is the willingness and the machinery for selecting as
leaders the one born and trained to rule. And finding such he
should be clothed with authority by the powers of earth, fortified
with belief that this authority is also of God, so that he may be
able to compel as well as merely Jead.
In early times, such great men were heroes and worshipped as
such, — and Carlyle would bring back that day, turning aside
from all pretense of democracy for an aristocracy of the truly
great.
WiLi1aM JAMES (1842-1910)
The Energies of Men
Standing almost alone among the galaxy of great thinkers and
writers whom we have passed in review, William James was a
firm believer in unconditioned freedom of the will, at least in some
small degree. His starting point for philosophical thought is the
experience of life with all its contradictions; and unlike the
1 Heroes and Hero Worship, p. 6, Lecture II.
ACTIVE SOCIAL ADAPTATION 287
absolutists in philosophy, whether materialistic or spiritualistic,
he does not pretend to think through these contradictions and
resolve them into an ultimate harmony.' For him, real freedom
is a datum of experience hence a fact to be reckoned with in every
attempt to interpret life in terms of thought.2, The outcome of
his philosophy is a “ pluralistic universe ”’ * on the one hand and
“‘ pragmatism ”’ on the other; i.e., philosophy for him has no
value except for life, no truth except as it is true to life, and no
test of truth save the test of life,t and as thought cannot inter-
pret all the facts of life in terms of unity it must use those of
plurality.
From this point of view it is natural that he should criticize the
monism of Spencer and the attempts of all strictly logical evolu-
tionists to evolve the complexities of the universe as we know it
and of life as we experience it, from one primordial principle
whether matter, force, or matter-force.
Turning specifically to the subject of this chapter, James made
a notable contribution in an article in the Aflantic Monthly in
1880 on “ Great Men, Great Thoughts, and the Environment.” >
He proposes this problem: ‘‘ What are the causes that make com-
munities change from generation to generation, — that make the
England of Queen Anne so different from the England of Eliza-
beth, the Harvard College of today so different from that of
thirty years ago?” and answers, “ The difference is due to the
accumulated influences of individuals, of their examples, their
initiatives, and their decisions.” He sets his own solution over
against that of Spencer and his followers who hold, according to
James, that “ the changes go on irrespective of persons, and are
independent of individual control”; that “ they are due to the
environment, to the circumstances, the physical geography, the
ancestral conditions, the increasing experience of outer relations,
to everything, in fact, except the Grants, and the Bismarcks, the
Joneses and the Smiths.” *
1 Pragmatism, pp. 20 f. 3 Pragmatism, p. 161.
2 The Will to Believe, p. 175- 4 Ibid., Lecture IT.
5 Reprinted in The Will to Believe, pp. 216 ff.
6 John Fiske as a follower of Spencer repudiates this interpretation (Excursions
of an Evolutionist, ch. VI), and quotes Spencer as saying that sociology ‘has in
288 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
James shows how impossible it is to find the causes of human
variation either in heredity or in the environment, and holds that
the deflecting cause which produces a genius instead of a dunce
“must lie in a region so recondite and minute, must be such a
ferment of a ferment, an infinitesimal of so high an order, that
surmise itself may never succeed even in attempting to frame an
image of it.”1 “The causes of production of great men,” he
continues, ‘lie in a sphere wholly inaccessible to the social phi-
losopher. He must simply accept geniuses as data, just as Darwin
accepts his spontaneous variations.” For him, as for Darwin,
the only problem is, these data being given, how does the environ-
ment affect them, and how do they affect the environment ?
“The mutations of societies . . . from generation to genera-
tion,” he says, ‘‘ are in the main due directly or indirectly to the
acts or the example of individuals whose genius was so adapted
to the receptivities of the moment, or whose accidental position of
authority was so critical that they became ferments, initiators of
movement, setters of precedent or fashion, centers of corruption,
or destroyers of other persons, whose gifts, had they had free
play, would have led society in another direction.” ?
From this quotation it is certain that James recognized the
relativity of genius even as did Spencer, Fiske, Tarde, and Ward,
but with this difference: with James, the work of the genius is
relative to the receptivity of his group and age, with the others,
the relativity of genius is due to the fact that he is the product of
his group and age, though he may be so great a variation from the
type as to warrant the appellation “ sociological sport.” ®
every case for its subject-matter the growth, development, structure, and functions
of the social aggregate, as brought about by the mutual actions of individuals, whose
natures are partly like those of all men, partly like those of kindred races, partly dis-
tinctive.’ The fact remains, however, that the burden of Spencer’s teaching is
contrary to that of James. Cf. quotation from Spencer, Will to Believe, p. 232.
1 The Will to Believe, p. 225. 2 Tbid., p. 227.
3 Cf. Ward, Pure Sociology, pp. 243 ff. Lombroso held that the genius and the
insane were but a step removed from each other. Galton showed by a study of
many families that the genius was sometimes of sound family stock, but again
related to a defective strain. Nordau and Sumner have distinguished between the
genius who is a true leader in the line of advance, and the genius who is a
degenerate although confining their discussion for the most part to the latter.
ACTIVE SOCIAL ADAPTATION 289
“Social evolution,” says James, “is a resultant of the inter-
action of two wholly distinct factors, — the individual, deriving his
peculiar gifts from the play of physiological and intra-social
forces, but bearing all the power of initiative and origination in
his hands; and, second, the social environment, with its power of
adopting or rejecting both him and his gifts. Both factors are
essential to change. The community stagnates without the
impulse of the individual. The impulse dies away without the
sympathy of the community.” !
James has made another important contribution in his discus-
sion of the inner source of power of individuals, under the
caption, The Energies of Men.2_ His approach is through the
familiar experience of “‘ warming up ” to a job, physical or intel-
lectual, and especially through the experience of track athletes,
who after reaching a point of fatigue push on by sheer force of
will and tap a new level of energy, — a process known as “ getting
second wind.” ‘ There may be layer after layer of this expe-
rience,” says James, “ a third and a fourth wind may supervene.”
“ Mental activity,” he continues, “‘ shows the phenomenon as well
as physical, and in exceptional cases we may find, beyond the very
extremity of fatigue distress, amounts of ease and power that we
never dreamed ourselves to own, — sources of strength habitually
not taxed at all, because habitually we never push through the
obstructions, never pass those early critical points.”
James compares the phenomenon of “ efficiency-equilibrium ”
with that of nutritive equilibrium and holds that “few men
live at their maximum of energy, and second, that any one
may be in vital equilibrium at very different rates of energizing.”
This opens up an ethical and sociological problem of great im-
portance. ‘In rough terms,” he says, “a man who energizes
below his normal maximum fails by just so much to profit by his
chance at life; and a nation filled with such men is inferior to a
nation run at higher pressure. The problem is, then, how can
men be trained up to their most useful pitch of energy ? And
how can nations make such training most accessible to all their
sons and daughters ? ”
1 The Will to Believe, p. 232. % “The Energies of Men,” Science, March, 1907.
290 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
Two questions are raised in this connection, first, “ What are
the limits of human faculty in various directions ? and second, By
what diversity of means, in the different types of human beings,
may the faculties be stimulated to their best results ? ”
Granting that as a rule men habitually use only a small part of
the powers which they actually possess and which they might use
under appropriate conditions, the question arises, ‘‘ To what do
the better men owe their escape ? and, in the fluctuations which
all men feel in their own degree of energizing, to what are the
improvements due, when they occur ?”?—and he answers,
“ Either some unusual stimulus fills them with emotional excite-
ment, or some unusual idea of necessity induces them to make an
extra effort of will. Excitements, ideas, and efforts, in a word,
are what carry us over the dam.”
James illustrates his theory by several historical examples and
points out especially the power of suggestive ideas to awaken the
energies of loyalty, courage, endurance or devotion.
“ Conversions,”’ he holds, ‘‘ whether they be political, scientific,
philosophical, or religious, form another way in which bound
energies are let loose. They unify us and put a stop to unscientific
mental interferences. The result is freedom, and often a great en-
largement of power. A belief that thus settles upon an individual
always acts as a challenge to his will.”
Christian Science, faith-cure and prayer are given credit for
being instruments for the tapping of this reservoir of energy to
the good of man, and he concludes: ‘‘ The two questions, first
that of the possible extent of our powers; and second, that of the
various avenues of approach to them, the various keys for unlock-
ing them in diverse individuals, dominate the whole problem of
individual and national education. We need a topography of
the limits of human power, similar to the chart which oculists use
of the field of human vision. We need also a study of the various
types of human beings with reference to the different ways in
which their energy reserves may be appealed to and set loose.
Biographies and individual experiences of every kind may be
drawn upon for evidence here.” !
1 This James has done in his Varieties of Religious Experience.
ACTIVE SOCIAL ADAPTATION 291
James has thus contributed to our subject by holding that the
relation of a man to his age and group is not wholly due to the
fact that he is produced by it, but even more by the fact that
rarely does a man have available energy to break away from
the conventions that repress him and attain new heights, and
further that though he himself gain a new vision of the true and
good, the spread of this depends on the sympathy he may be
able to secure in his social environment.
He shows further that certain emotional experiences and certain
ideas have the power of tapping for man his ever-present reservoir
of energy, or to change the figure of “carrying him over the
dam.” The true genius is the man who by heredity or by some
inner power is able to attain levels of efficiency-energy far beyond
those of the average of his group and inspire his fellow-men to like
attainment. Such a man is an example, an exponent, and leader
in active spiritual adaptation.
Epwarp AtswortH Ross (1866- _—+)
The Psychology of Social Control
Professor Ross has made contributions to our subject primarily
along two lines: first, in his criticism of the theories of other sociol-
ogists and second in his constructive analysis of social control.
As a sociological critic he is perhaps without a peer among
American scholars in this field; yet brillant and suggestive as are
these criticisms he seems to lack the ability to “ see life steadily
and see it whole,” hence the many apparent inconsistencies in his
writings.
As many of his criticisms have already been cited, and the rest
are easily accessible in his Foundations of Sociology, we will con-
sider here merely his distinction between change, adaptation and
progress, and then discuss his analysis of social control.
Although Professor Ross denies any place to the term progress
in social science,! he makes large use of it in his Social Psychology
and Social Control, and defines it, now in terms of adaptation, as
where he says “ Progress follows the line of advantage, substitut-
ing always the better adapted,” ? but again in terms of mere
1 Foundations of Sociology, pp. 75, 76. 2 Social Psychology, p. 94.
292 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
change as in the following: ‘‘ The accumulation of changes in the
rational principle is progress; of utilities, practical progress; of
truths, intellectual progress. Moral progress and aesthetic prog-
ress do not come about essentially by origination and rational
diffusion. Progress in these departments is usually the conse-
quence of material or intellectual advancement.” !
In his Foundations of Sociology he differentiates progress,
change and adaptation as follows: ‘“‘ Change means any qualita-
tive variation, whereas progress means amelioration, perfection-
ment. The one is movement; the other is movement in the
direction of advantage. Progress is better adaptation to given
conditions. Change may be adaptation, — at first, perhaps, very
imperfect, — to new conditions.” The difference is illustrated as
follows: ‘‘ When a mammal thrust northward gets a heavier coat
of hair, or a bird acquires the nest-building instinct with the
advent of a rodent that destroys her eggs on the ground, we have a
case of adaptation. Now, this way of interpreting change is
becoming ever more helpful to the student of society... .
Movements that seem regressive are equally ambiguous. Mili-
tarism is hardly a regress when a people finds itself menaced by
the approach of an aggressive neighbor. ... The growth of
one-man power is degeneration if it is caused by a lowered citizen-
ship; it is only adaptation if the facilities for focusing public
opinion have so improved that the cruder checks on the executive
have ceased to be necessary. I conclude, then, that social
dynamics ought to drop such vague and dubious conceptions as
progress and regress, and address itself to the simple fact of social
change.” ?
Now progress as used in these and other examples is defined very
much as we have defined adaptation, and adaptation, he says, is
becoming ever more helpful as a way of interpreting change. In-
deed in none of these examples is there any necessary distinction.
We find that he uses adaptation in a way that would seem to
make it the standard of progress in his discussion of “ the genesis
and evolution of ethical elements ” * where he holds that some-
thing very like the struggle and survival principle of biological
1 Social Psychology, p.286. ® Foundations, pp.185-189. * Social Control, ch.XXV.
ACTIVE SOCIAL ADAPTATION 293
evolution is at work in society, and that in the struggle among
“views,” “customs,” “ methods” and “ civilizations” some
perish while others survive. ‘‘ The genesis of ethical elements,”
he says, ‘‘as well as the genesis of customs and beliefs, is a
process of selection and survival. Just as the development of
Zuni or Lydian pottery is due to a competition which makes the
handiest and handsomest form of pot the prevailing type, and to
the renewal of this healthy competition whenever an inventive
potter or a foreign art supplies a new pattern, so the improve-
ment in the ethical standard of a civilization is due to the survival
and ascendency of those elements which are best adapted to an
orderly social life. . . . It is just this selection which explains the
snug fit of early ethical elements to the needs of the group that
develop them.” In this same connection he shows how certain
conventions “‘ develop very naturally by a process of unconscious
adaptation out of the mental contacts and long intercourse of
associates.” !
This doctrine of adaptation as a theory of social progress seems
to be the one thing lacking to make clear his interpretation of the
“ Vicissitudes of Social Control,” ? where he shows how change in
control is brought about by change in social need due largely to
change in the economic condition of the people. In other words
the vicissitudes of social control are due to society's need of adapting
uself to changed conditions of existence.
There seem to be some features of social progress which, accord-
ing to Ross, make the biological categories of struggle and sur-
vival, or the principle of adaptation, inapplicable. Commenting
on the struggle between civilizations, he says, ‘‘ This struggle of
rival elements of culture is by no means the same thing as the
struggle between persons. When one race has overrun and
trampled down another, it is always interesting to see if the
spiritual contest of the two civilizations has the same issue as the
physical contest of the two races. Will the upper civilization
smother the lower, as in the case of the Spaniards and the Aztecs,
the Germans and the Wends, the Romans and the Etruscans, the
Saracens and the Roman Africans; or will the one beneath grow
1 Social Control, pp. 342-345. 2 [bid., ch. XXIX.
294 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
up through and subdue the one above, as the Romans were
captivated by the Greek culture, the barbarians by Roman
civilization, or the Mongols by Islam?” ! This is a strong
criticism-of the neo-Darwinian sociologists and militates against
the rigid use of the biological doctrine of selection applied to
social progress but it does not militate against the use of the
doctrine of adaptation or adjustment, for a new amalgam of
cultures is the net result of a multitude of minor struggles, and
the new political unit faces the problem of survival through
adaptation. Ross seems to recognize this for he says: “ The
struggle between groups of men involves a testing of the codes
and moralities that govern them, and must in the long run con-
duce to the triumph of those codes and moralities which strengthen
the group over those which do not.” In this statement we have an
approach to the application of group struggle and survival em-
phasized by the neo-Darwinian sociologists.
As a constructive sociologist Ross may well be classed as an
“ eclectic ” because of the wide use he has made of the discoveries
and formulations of others in the same field. He has also formu-
lated many new laws but it is difficult to enumerate those due to
him alone.
His most important contribution to our subject along positive
lines is to be found in his Social Control. In this he discusses
the functions of natural control in securing order and progress
under the four headings of “ sympathy,” “ sociability,” ‘ sense
of justice,” and “individual reaction.” The rdle of each is
presented in strong terms, but each and all together are found
unequal to the task of securing social order and progress.
This is followed by a consideration of the “ need,” “ direction,”
and “ radiant points ” of social control. In Part II we are pre-
sented with an able survey of the ‘‘ means of control” such as
public opinion, law, belief, social suggestion including education
and custom, social religion, personal ideals, ceremony, art,
personality, enlightenment and illusion. With the exception of
law and personal ideals these forces for the most part act in such
a way as to make it possible to classify the process by which
1 Social Control, p. 340.
ACTIVE SOCIAL ADAPTATION 295
society is thus moulded, under passive adaptation. In law and
consciously directed public opinion we have “ social telesis ”; in
personal ideals, art, personality, enlightenment and social religion,
we have “individual telesis” yet working for social control
through suggestion and imitation in which the passive element
predominates.
In considering the “ genesis of ethical elements,”’ variations in
the discovery and enunciation of moral truths are held to be
due to the prophet or moral genius owing to his superior social
insight,! and the successful promulgation of these truths, to the
élite. But variations having been accounted for in this way
through “ innovation,” the ultimate triumph of the principle is
held to be due to struggle and survival, the decisive factor being
social utility?
In his discussion of ‘‘ the system of control”? we have an
analysis of the functions and methods of control as exercised in
organized government. First to be considered is class control
which is defined as ‘‘ the exercise of power by a parasitic class in
its own interest,” — as in the case of slavery and serfdom.
Under class control private property develops and “ is so shaped
as to permit a slanting exploitation under which a class is able to
live in idleness by monopolizing land or other indispensable
natural means of production.” The system of class control is
modified “‘ to economize coercion, to economize supervision, to
economize direction.” 3 As the parasitic class in control cannot
easily bolster up their authority by use of art, personality and
social religion, which emanate from the great man, the prophet
or the élite, use is made of force, superstition, fraud, pomp and
prescription which are degenerate forms of those natural supports
of social order already considered, viz., law, belief in the super-
natural, custom, ceremony and illusion. “ Born in aggression
and perfected in exploitation,” Ross says, “ the State even now,
when it is more and more directed by the common will, is not easy
to keep from slipping back into the rut it wore for itself during the
centuries it was the engine of a parasitic class.” ®
1 Social Control, p. 357. 3 Tbid., pp. 376, 377- 5 Ibid., p. 386.
2 Ibid., pp. 342, 349, 357. 4 Ibid., pp. 381, 382, 386 f.
296 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
Social control is distinguished from class control by the fact
that in the latter case society being on the competitive basis, “ the
hopelessly poor and wretched are, to a large extent, the weak and
incompetent who have accumulated at the lower end of the social
scale, because they or their parents have failed to meet the tests
of the competitive system.”’ In this case control is largely in the
hands of the efficient and in the interest of the social whole,
Ross assumes in the above that the present competitive system
is a success in producing social segregation on the basis of native
ability and social worth, — a questionable assumption.
The vicissitudes of social control, he points out, are primarily
in response to social needs, and of these the economic are con-
sidered of first importance.!. Conflict of groups and conflict
of classes within the group are also recognized as potent causes
of change, the class conflict being due not alone to sharp conflict
of interest but to great contrast of means and a great inequality of
opportunity. “ Another cause of vicissitude,” he says, “ is
change in the culture and habits of a people”? whether due to fresh
knowledge, new ideas, foreign influences, or novel experiences.*
Ross divides the supports of order into two groups, the ethical,
including public opinion, suggestion, personal ideals, social
religion, art, and social valuations based on sentiment rather than
judgment of social utility, and the political, including law, belief,
ceremony, education and illusion, — the last, “‘ frequently the
means deliberately chosen in order to reach certain ends.” 4 The
political supports are instruments of the ethical.
He believes that social control by the hero, by custom, by
supernatural religion, and by mob, ban or boycott, is passing, and
that enlightened self-interest, suggestion, moral idealism and
social religion will become increasingly potent.5
In discussing the limits of social control he takes a decided
stand against all social theories that place the good of the group
above that of its constituent members, holding that “ society is
not a being, but just people in their collective capacity,” and
1 Social Control, p. 395. 4 Ibid., p. 411.
2 Ibid., p. 402. 5 Tbid., pp. 415-416.
3 Ibid., p. 404.
ACTIVE SOCIAL ADAPTATION 297
“that the only welfare there is, is the welfare of persons present
or to come.” !
Ross formulates the following canons as to the limits of social
control: ? —
1. Each increment of social interference should bring more
benefit to persons as members of society than it entails incon-
venience to persons as individuals.
2. Social interference should not lightly excite against itself the
passion for liberty.
3. Social interference should respect the sentiments that are
the support of natural order.
4. Social interference should not be so paternal as to check the
self-extinction of the morally ill-constituted.
5. Social interference should not so limit the struggle for
existence as to nullify the selective process.
The criteria of social control are economy, inwardness (reaching
the feelings, reason and will), simplicity, and spontaneity, fostered
by diffusion, — as in public opinion, suggestion, social religion and
art.
His conclusion harmonizes his theory of social control with the
position we are advocating: —
The better adaptation of animals to one another appears to be brought
about by accumulated changes in body and brain. The better adaptation of
men to one another is brought about, not only in this way, but also by the
improvement of the instruments that constitute the apparatus of social
control. In the same way that the improvement of optical instruments
checks the evolution of the eye, and the improvement of tools checks the
evolution of the hand, the improvement of instruments of control checks the
evolution of the social instincts. The goal of social development is not, as
some imagine, a perfect love, or a perfect conscience, but better adaptation;
and the more this is artificial, the less need it be natural.*
Ross does not believe that any one form of control is adapted to
all races and temperaments, but that under the influence of social
forces, the form of control best suited to a people is the one
selected, and that those in authority should study and use these
means of control though, as in the case of supernatural religion,
they may rest on illusion.*
1 Social Control, p. 418. 3 Ibid., p. 437.
2 Tbid., pp. 419 f. 4 [bid., p. 441.
CHAPTER XVI
IDEALIZATION AND RELIGION
WE have already noted to some extent the influence of these
factors in the various social theories passed in review, but have
reserved till this later chapter a more complete analysis of the
process of idealization in accordance with the principle of adapta-
tion. This process may be interpreted in terms of “ active moral
adaptation ” leading to “ active social adaptation ” and finally
to “ religious adaptation.”
Idealization as a factor in social progress has three elements: (1)
the intellectual by which the ideal is created, i. e., imagination,
(2) the emotional response of the individual by way of attraction,
and (3) the volitional expression of thought and feeling in art,
religion and rational conduct. In the latter case, where the
individual endeavors to harmonize his life with his ideal, we have a
form of adaptation that may be termed active moral, and growing
out of this is a fourth element, — the desire and effort to bring
others to accept the ideal which dominates our life, due to the
demand of our whole nature for internal harmony, and adjust-
ment with our spiritual environment. Normal man can never be
satisfied to live in solitude, even in his thought life, nor can he be
satisfied to live in conflict... John Wesley was wise when he urged
his missionaries as they started for America to “ find companions
or make them.” If man cannot find or make companions in the
flesh he seeks them in the spiritual realm, either as revealed in
their writings or as created by his imagination.
1 Social mal-adaptation not only does violence to our egoistic and social interests
and instincts and hence leads to dissatisfaction and an endeavor to secure adjust-
ment, but it causes intellectual conflicts and the tendency of the mind is to secure
harmony. The resolution of conflict is always pleasure-giving. Cf. Bradley,
Appearance and Reality, ch. XIV; also Comte, A General View, pp. 387 £.
298
IDEALIZATION AND RELIGION 299
IDEALIZATION AND RELIGION ACCORDING TO COMTE
The process of idealization issuing in religion was recognized
and valued in the Positive Philosophy but not analyzed and
developed as it was later in the Polity when Comte had come to
tate the feelings more highly than the intellect, the beautifying
of life above material achievement, and had come to worship
woman because she was the highest expression of this phase of
life.!
The idealizing activity of man finds expression, according to
Comte in art in its various forms of poetry, oratory, music, paint-
ing and sculpture, and in religion. Art is defined as “‘ an ideal
representation of facts’ and its object held to be “ to cultivate
our sense of perfection.” In art, he holds, the unity of human
nature finds its most complete and most natural representation,
for it is in direct relation with the three orders of phenomena by
which human nature is characterized. It originates in feeling,
has its basis in thought, and its end in action, hence its power
of exerting an influence for good alike on every phase of our exist-
ence, whether personal or social. Thus art, standing midway
between philosophy and polity, should be controlled by the
former, as the emotions, unguided, express themselves in extrav-
agant and sometimes harmful ways. Art in turn should influence
polity, since ‘‘ in every operation that man undertakes, he must
imagine before he executes.”
Philosophy and art must work together in the formation of
social Utopias, art to form the ideal and philosophy to see that
this ideal is related to the real. ‘‘ As humanity is subject to the
order of the external world,” he says, “ the ideal must always be
subordinated to the real.2 . . . In our artificial improvements we
should never aim at anything more than a wise modification of the
natural order; we should never attempt to subvert it.” $
Art of various kinds is a factor in progress, he holds, because it
1 A General View, chs. V and VI.
2 Ibid., p. 316. He shows how this truth is illustrated in the developing mind
of the child: “ As his notions of fact change, his fictions are modified in conformity
with these changes.”
3 Ibid., p. 319.
300 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
has to do chiefly with the feelings. “‘ Of all the phenomena which
relate to man human affections are the most modifiable and there-
fore the most susceptible of idealization. Being more perfect
than any other, by virtue of their higher complexity, they allow
greater scope for improvement. ... All aesthetic study .. .
may become a useful moral exercise, by calling sympathies and
antipathies into healthy play. The effect is far greater when the
representation, passing the limits of strict accuracy, is suitably
idealized. This, indeed, is the characteristic mission of art. Its
function is to construct types of the noblest kind by the contem-
plation of which our feelings and thoughts may be elevated.” !
There are three stages in the aesthetic process, imitation, ideal-
ization and expression. Poetry is the art which idealizes the
most and imitates the least. The function of the poet is esteemed
because of his power to idealize and to stimulate.
As to the relation of art to social progress our author says:
“ Utopias are to the art of social life what geometrical and me-
chanical types are to their respective arts. In these their neces-
sity is universally recognized; and surely the necessity cannot be
less in problems of such far greater intricacy. Accordingly we see
that, notwithstanding the empirical condition in which political
art has hitherto existed, every great change has been ushered in,
one or two centuries beforehand, by an Utopia bearing some
analogy to it. It was the product of the aesthetic genius of
Humanity working under an imperfect sense of its conditions and
requirements.” *
The function of art in education, in the propagation of positi-
vism, in government and religion is discussed at some length, and
he concludes “ that the priest of Humanity will not have attained
his full measure of superiority over the priest of God, until, with
the intellect of the philosopher, he combines the enthusiasm of the
poet, as well as the tenderness of woman and the people’s
energy.” 4
1 A General View, p. 315.
? Ibid., p. 325. Compare the teaching of Buckle who ignores this function of
literature and art, — supra, ch. VI.
3 Tbid., p. 317. 4 Ibid., p. 354.
IDEALIZATION AND RELIGION 301
The process of idealization, directed by social utility, eventu-
ates in the worship of Humanity. ‘‘ Towards Humanity, who is
for us the only true Great Being, we, the conscious elements of
whom she! is composed, shall henceforth direct every aspect of
our life, individual or collective. Our thoughts will be devoted to
the knowledge of Humanity, our affections to her love, our actions
to her service.”’ 2
The principle of adaptation is clearly manifested in this dis-
cussion for not only is the development of art dependent on social
utility,’ but its influence is based on the doctrine of relativity or
“adaptability.” The ideal must spring out of the real and in-
spire men to transform the real, gradually, in the line of perfec-
tionment.
The ideal of humanity as a Great Being is a fiction of the mind,
according to Comte, but though an illusion is in a sense true
because this fiction and religious worship connected with it, are
necessary to progress.
IDEALIZATION AND RELIGION ACCORDING TO Ross
Idealization according to Ross is the product of self-esteem
reacting reflectively in accordance with our mental and tempera-
mental make-up. The process is both personal and social.
Society, by a process of utility and selection, evolves certain
“types ” of character and conduct. The individual accepts these,
with modification, as his personal ideals. The social type is
always above the average man so that “ it is able to lift him once
he comes to live it and lay hold on it.” 4
Ross shows how each social class and calling has its type or
ideal, in each case developed by the principle of adaptation, as for
example, contempt of danger in the soldier type, harshness in the
jailor, tenderness in the nurse; and how these types are magni-
fied and glorified by literature, oratory, art and religion thus
1 Feminine because the Great Being is a personification of those qualities that
find their highest expression in woman.
2 A General View, p. 365.
3 [bid., p. 325.
4 Social Control, p. 220.
302 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
making a strong appeal to the individual who desires social esteem
and dreads the shame of social disapproval.!_ Types complete in
every feature, however, are provided only for the chief positions
in life. For the rest, society by dissecting and comparing normal
conduct for all sorts of exigencies brings to light certain resem-
blances; but each individual has to work out for himself his own
personal ideal.
The generalized types formulated by society by a process of
passive adjustment furnish the background for conventional
ethics; the personal acceptance of and reaction on these general-
ized types furnish the highest form of reflective ethics.2 ‘“ The
greatest effect of an ideal,” says Ross, “ is not attained when it is
pitched very far above natural inclination,” — otherwise it will
attract such a slender portion of the whole area of variation that
it will benefit very few people; yet on the other hand too low a
standard may do no good by not being far enough above the
average to raise it.?
Idealization, according to our author, is a powerful means of
control and at present has more promise than any of its rivals, —
though not a finalform. ‘“ Social order will have to rest on arti-
fice till there is joined to natural altruism, as we find it developing
in the family, a clearness of vision that sees in the upright dis-
charge of the requirements of every social office and station the
highest ministry to the welfare of our fellows.”4 He does not
show how this vision is to be secured, however, — for this vision
itself needs to be interpreted in terms of adaptation.
Art, according to Ross, as with Comte, is the means of express-
ing ideals. It functions in social progress by arousing the pas-
sions, by kindling sympathy, by exploiting the aesthetic sense and
the sense of the sublime, by perfecting social symbols and by
fascinating with new types. It performs one of its greatest
functions in transmuting realities and in veiling with some attrac-
tive image the grisly features of hardship, mutilation, and death,
especially in its glorification of war and sacrifice when these are
needed. Art softens inevitable ills, persuades to present hardship
1 Social Control, p. 235. 3 Ibid., p. 243.
2 Tbid., p. 242. 4 Ibid., p. 246.
IDEALIZATION AND RELIGION 303
for the sake of future gain and lures man to the supremest
sacrifices for the sake not of self, but of society at large.
Closely related to idealization is illusion, — a device evolved to
control those who cannot be controlled by other devices, such
as the illusion of pseudo-consequences exploited in Sunday-school
literature; that of social solidarity which has no real basis of appeal
to the individual, and that of asceticism,—a symptom of bad
race temperament, depressing climate, low physical tone, or
the resource of a class desiring power. Another illusion is that
of the dicta of intuitional rather than social moralists who are
interested in abstract duty rather than in social welfare.”
Ross’ use of the term illusion in some of these cases at least is
questionable. All are inductions from experience, perhaps exag-
gerated or mixed with error, or generalizations that are not
applicable in every individual case.
Social valuations and the genesis of ethical elements are next dis-
cussed and large use is made of the principle of adaptation,
some of these valuations being derived from race experience,
others being the creation of genius. ‘‘ The improvement in the
ethical standard of a civilization,” he says, “‘ is due to the survival
and ascendancy of those elements which are best adapted to an
orderly social life.”* The principle of selection, he holds, explains
only the rise of the ethos of the clan. “ We need invention to
explain the rise of a national or race ethos.” 4 In this distinction
we have a contrast between passive and active adaptation.
Ross’ discussion of religion is unsatisfactory because unclear if
not contradictory. In one place he seems to accept the reality of
mysticism from which springs legal religion,® but in other places
this is held to be an illusion though necessary,° while the only true
religion is held to be social idealism based on sympathy, — very
like Comte’s Religion of Humanity.’ This social religion is
defined as “‘ the conviction that there is a bond of ideal relation-
ship between the members of a society and the feelings that arise
in consequence of this connection.”’ In one place he seems to
1 Social Control, pp. 264 f. 5 Ibid., pp. 197, 207, 216.
2 Tbid., ch. XXIII. 6 Ibid., pp. 209, 212, 441.
3 Ibid., p. 342. 4 Ibid., p. 350. 7 Ibid., ch. XVI.
304 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
accept the interpretation of religion as given by Jesus,! but again
turns aside from all super-naturalism although apparently he
rejects the religion of naturalism.?
On the whole Ross seems to consider religion to be an idealiza-
tion of social relations and experiences, and one of the most potent
factors in securing both order and progress. “‘ A body of religious
belief of the kind I have described [the faith that makes for ethical
religion] ”’, he says, ‘is a storage battery of moral emotion. It
is a means of storing up for society the moral energy of the ethical
élite, and enabling it to do work by producing sociable emotions
and modifying conduct in desirable ways.” *
Comparing the value of social religion with other means of
social control he says: ‘‘ The palm must always belong to that
influence which goes to the root of man’s badness, and by giving
him more interests and sympathies converts a narrow self into a
broad self.” * He concludes that “ social religion has a long and
possibly a great career awaiting it.” “As it disengages itself
from that which is transient and perishable,” he continues, “as
the dross is purged away from its beliefs and the element of social
compulsion entirely disappears from it, social religion will be-
come purer and nobler. No longer a paid ally of the policeman,
no longer a pillar of social order, it will take its unquestioned place
with art, and science, and wisdom, as one of the free manifesta-
tions of the higher human spirit.”
IDEALIZATION AND RELIGION ACCORDING TO BALDWIN
Professor Baldwin’s Social and Ethical Interpretations *® so
abounds in material bearing on this phase of our subject that
selection or a brief summary is difficult.
The imagination, according to our author, is not merely con-
structive in its activity but “creative” for the products of its
activity are “ new forms into which the materials of our thought
are cast as a result of variations in our actions in the process of
1 Social Control, pp. 204 f.
2 Ibid., p. 213. The Religion of Naturalism is not given the best possible
interpretation.
3 [bid., p. 212. 4 Ibid., p. 216. 5 Also his Individual and Society.
IDEALIZATION AND RELIGION 305
adaptation to the ends of utility.” ‘It is by adapted action,”
he continues, “ that our mental life is held together in great con-
sistent thought-systems; and it is by new refinements upon these
adapted and correlated actions that new variations are intro-
duced into the systems of our coherent thought.”! Thus the
truth is that thought is a function of doing as well as the reverse,
that ‘‘what we do is always a function of what we think,” ?
and the thought that is eventually incorporated into our thought-
system is the result of activity that has proven of adaptive
value.
The idealizing as well as constructive function of the imagina-
tion is prominent in the dialectic of growth in the developing
child, and in this process several “ selves ”’ emerge in conscious-
ness: (1) the habitual self consisting of a “ solidified mass of per-
sonal material which he has worked into a systematic whole by a
series of acts ”;* (2) the accommodating self, still in the “ projec-
tive,” unfinished stage “‘ that is constantly being modified by the
influences outside, and in turn, passing the new things learned
over to the self of habit, —the self that learns, that imitates, that
accommodates to new suggestions ”; (3) an ethical self gradually
emerging partly by obedience and partly by suggestion, built up
as a result of contact with father, mother, nurse, and others,
whose actions he cannot interpret but whom he must obey, and
who, he comes to learn, in turn obey a common law; (4) an ideal
self “‘ which represents his best accommodation to self in general,”
and (5) a public self the basis of the ideal self.
Having described the process by which the ideal self arises in
consciousness,*® Baldwin says, “‘ The regular, law-abiding, sanc-
tion-bringing, duty-observing self hovers over his thought,
inspires it and regulates its tendencies to action.” “ This general
notion of self,’ he continues, “is, like all general notions con-
sidered as general, not a presentation, not a mental content, but
an attitude, a way of acting; and the child has to bring all
the partial personal tendencies to action which spring up on the
1 Social and Ethical Interpretations, p. 94.
2 Ibid., pp. 92, 97- 4 Ibid., pp. 283, 284, 315.
3 Ibid., p. 34. 5 Tbid., pp. 36 f.
306 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
thought of the partial more isolated selves of his habit, into the
way of action which we call ethical conduct.” }
The concrete body of this ideal, that is, the child’s actual
mental picture of what is good in a person, is made up from his
own acts and the acts which he conceives as possibly his own.
“ And then, so far as he feels it to be inadequate, he seeks to find,
in the persons projective to him some one or more whose actions
are better than his.”
Ethical conduct has one aspect which our author calls sentiment
and defines as “‘ the emotional or active tendency of consciousness
away beyond the confines of its actual interpretations.” + This
general sentiment has three phases the ethical, social, and re-
ligious, which are of special importance in our present discussion.
“‘ The most general and important phase of ethical sentiment,”’
he says, “is that known in theoretical ethics as the sense of
obligation.” This arises, he shows, from a sense of incomplete-
ness, of mal-adaptation, of social restraint compelling obedience to
a law higher than any worked out by himself.2, When the child
has attained an appreciation of right conduct he “ ejects” this
into his associates,? and by the dialectics of personal and social
growth there is worked out a general public opinion.
By social or public sentiment is meant that pressure of social
suggestion and constraint on the individual of which the child, —
and all persons, — are more or less conscious much of the time,
this sentiment growing out of the conflicts between the habitual
self and the public self. This public sentiment as felt and given
intellectual form, becomes ethical judgment. The child judges
and realizes that he is judged, — another dialectic process.®
The religious sentiment of the growing child is merely an ex-
tension of the ethical and social, and has two elements, a feeling
of dependence with three phases, spontaneous, intellectual and
ethical, and a feeling of mystery engendered as a result of his ever
increasing experience of the unexpected and inexplicable in his
relations with persons.”
1 Social and Ethical Interpretations, p. 295. 2 Tbid., pp. 36, 297.
3 Tbid., pp. 299, 331; cf. The Individual and Society, p. 72.
4 Social and Ethical Interpretations, p. 315.
5 Ibid., p. 326. 8 Jbid., p. 441. 7 Ibid., pp. 347 f.
IDEALIZATION AND RELIGION 307
The developing sense of dependence in its intellectual phase
gives rise to the two categories of cause and design ! which enter
as elements into the construction of his ideal of the great spirit;
in its ethical phase it gives rise to such attributes of Deity as jus-
tice, mercy, grace, love and righteousness. This sense of depend-
ence further explains the essential anthropomorphism of the
religious consciousness.”
There are two elements in the “ personal sense ”’ as revealed in
this anthropomorphism: “ (1) There is the tendency to make
ejective the ideal person reached by the road already traced; to
make it real, a separate being or personality. There must be
somewhere, feels the child, a self which answers to all the elements
of the law: to the charity, the love, the beauty of the ideal, whose
presence in my thought makes my own self morally so incom-
plete. . . . The great spirit becomes the way of speaking of
this being, — that is, it is the race-child’s way. (2) The other
element in religious emotion is the child’s expectation of yet more
manifestations from this highest of all persons, — manifestations
which he cannot anticipate nor cope with; which he must submit
to when they come, learn of only when they have come, propitiate
in the ways that please persons, and stand in awe of from first to
last.” 3
“The ejective, personifying element, which the history of
primitive peoples puts so clearly in evidence,” our author con-
tinues, “gives positive content to the religious sentiment as
mentioned above; while the projective or negative element, as
seen thus in this latter aspect of the child’s growth, is the awe-
inspiring, something-over of mystery equally emphasized in the
rites and cults of primitive ceremonial.” 4
This developing sense of mystery in the dialectic of personal
growth is analyzed as follows: —
First. The ethical child, — and man too, — must think of God as thinking of
him; as having a positive ethical attitude toward him. . . .
Second. In this highest stretch, therefore, of the religious life into which
the child is now entering, God is a real person, standing in real relations of
1 Social and Ethical Interpretations, p. 337; also to those of “ omnipotence and
omnipresence,” p. 346.
2 Ibid., p. 346. 3 Ibid., pp. 330, 331- 4 Ibid., p. 331.
308 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
approval and disapproval, — says the religious sense,—to me who worship
him... .
The divine person is, in the religious life, very much the same sort of a
postulate that the social fellow is in the ethical life, and that the world of
external and personal relationships is in the intellectual life.
Third. The intelligence is baffled both by the limitations of its own growth
and by the very “ projective” and “ prospective” nature of the movement upon
which the religious sense resis... .
Fourth. The essential mysticism of the religious consciousness lives to the
last.
Our author concludes his discussion as follows: ‘‘ The place of
religion in social development is, in view of its dependence upon
the growth of self at all its stages, that of emotion of the social
sort. It becomes most important in its alliance with the ethical
life in the higher reaches of human development.” ?
Thus out of the activities, the conflicts and the relationships of
life evolves in the child and in the race, by the dialectic of personal
growth, reverence for ideal personality.
Professor Baldwin’s analysis of the dialectic of personal growth
issuing in reverence for personality is most suggestive and helpful,
but there are other processes of idealization issuing in so-called
religion which his analysis does not cover. He lays stress on the
esprit de corps ® to be found in certain groups and on the social
instincts that give rise to the social self but he has not analyzed
the expansion of self-consciousness to include a group so satis-
factorily as has McDougall for example. The truth seems to be
that whereas empirical self-consciousness is clarified and intensi-
fied by conflict with nature and with other individuals, social
self-consciousness, i.e., self-feeling that includes a group, de-
velops through co-operation with other selves united by common
interests and by conflicts with other groups.
In proportion as esprit de corps is developed and enthusiastic
effort put forth for the success of the group; in proportion as the
members have faith in the organization or institution and in the
ideal for which it exists; in proportion as they love and serve it,
sometimes being willing even to die for it, a phenomenon results
that has some warrant to be called “ social religion.” This was
1 Social and Ethical Interpretations, p. 355 (italics in text).
2 Tbid., p. 357. 3 Ibid., pp. 232, 407 f.
IDEALIZATION AND RELIGION 309
Comte’s attitude toward humanity idealized and personified as
the “Great Being.” Such is the attitude of many toward
socialism. There is a third phenomenon that is frequently
called religion, namely a worshipful attitude toward the cosmos.
A sense of mystery and power above and beyond the highest
reach of intellect or of experience evokes the negative self-feeling
with a sense of dependence, submission, and obedience. With
feeling dominant the result is mysticism; with the intellect
dominant we are apt to have some form of religious monism, i. e.,
an attitude of belief and trust in the Eternal Source of Power.
Now as the process of the evolving self-consciousness on the one
hand and of the expanding self-consciousness or self-feeling on the
other are not distinct processes but essentially one with two
aspects, and as the processes of idealization growing out of them
are valid for life activity, so the religious culmination of each may
be considered as true. We need a reverence for personality,
individual and transcendental, as we have in theism; we need
also reverence for personality as incarnate in our fellow-men and
as approached in the unity and power of intelligent social en-
deavor.
In the chapter on biological evolution we noted the value of
the doctrine of adaptation in explaining the origin of conscious-
ness and the development of the instincts (including the social)
and of the higher intellectual qualities of man. In our discussion
of the transition from passive to active adaptation we considered
this same question further with the addition of new material,
especially the importance of “ prolongation of infancy” in
enabling the individual to become adjusted to his spiritual
environment. We have seen how Baldwin has endeavored to
explain the development of idealization and religion by the “ di-
alectic of personal growth,” and have discussed the function of
these two factors through the writings of several authors, especially
Comte and Ross. The sum of the whole matter seems to be that
beginning historically in the personification of the forces of nature
as in animism, the process of idealization has culminated now in
the personification and worship of the social ideal as with Comte,
now in the personification and worship of the cosmic process itself
310 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
as in the spiritualistic monism of Fiske, but again in belief in
and worship of the first cause considered to be a self-conscious
personality, as with Baldwin.
Idealization must by its very nature be accompanied by some
sort of emotional experience and a volitional tendency to satisfy
the interest through which, alone, the process could have been
initiated and carried to completion; i. e., the ideal is formed in
response to felt need. It grows out of the experience of mal-
adjustment with the spiritual (including social) environment, and
is a force drawing the individual into assimilation with the ideal
life of interest and desire. The mal-adjustments which lead to
the formation of ideals are manifold, arising chiefly from the fact
that the individual has many conflicting interests within his own
personal life (as between the desire to satisfy hunger and the
desire for intellectual or aesthetic enjoyment), and from the fact,
also, that he is a member of various social unities with conflicting
“mores ”’ and conflicting ideals. But this very conflict of ideals
and interests, is, as we have seen, the condition of development.
As friction between the wheels and track is necessary for progress
by the locomotive; as consciousness itself is born out of the fric-
tion developed in the process of personal growth,! so the higher
reaches of intellectual and moral power are the outcome of con-
flicts won in struggles on the lower planes of living. This leads
us to formulate the law that mal-adaptation on the lower planes
of life is essential to progress to a higher plane. To use another
illustration: as biological progress is marked by the development
of “ inhibitors ” or factors that control or prevent the functioning
of other factors or “‘ characters,”’! so social and moral evolution is
marked by the development of self-control, and self-control, both
individual and social, is secured only by the experience of conflict
and victory, —of mal-adaptation leading to a higher form of
adaptation?
1 Sabatier, Outlines of a Philosophy of Religion, p. 15.
® Professor C. B. Davenport would seem to make self-control wholly a matter of
the presence of “ inhibitors”? in the germ plasm which under normal conditions
come to expression and prevent anti-social conduct. In a letter to the author he
says, “‘ In the development of the child, the inhibitors develop one after the other in
those who are self-controlled and fail of development in those who lack self-control”;
IDEALIZATION AND RELIGION 311
To conclude this present discussion: Man must adapt himself
to his physical environment and adapt it to his needs. Out of
this problem and process arises the necessity of adapting himself
to his social environment and in the case of the cultured man of
influencing others for the purpose of satisfying his manifold
personal interests (or needs). But among these needs are some
that are social, intellectual, aesthetic, moral and religious, and the
satisfaction of these demands co-operation with his fellow-men
rather than exploitation. Thus the self develops both intensively
and extensively, each experience of mal-adaptation making possible
a higher form of adaptation culminating, as we have seen, in the
formation of the personal ideal, the group quasi- personal ideal, and
the cosmic or divine ideal.
The process of adjusting oneself progressively to the ever-
enlarging personal and group ideal is a phase of spiritual adapta-
tion which might be called moral adaptation, and if the personal
and group ideal is given religious sanction, i. e., if the intellectual
form is supported by belief in and adoration of an objective cor-
relate of the ideal, and the individual endeavors to conform his life
to that ideal we have religious adaptation.
Is there another phase of the religious life and thought which
corresponds to active material and active social adaptation in the
sense of a manipulation of the ontological correlate of the per-
sonal religious ideal in the interest of self-satisfaction ? In other
words, instead of conceiving of this object of religious thought
and worship as a self-conscious intelligence to whose will the
individual and society must conform, may it be conceived as the
cosmic order in process of self-evolution, of which man is a part
and which he, in turn, helps to create? The religious ideal as a
cf. article by him in The Medical Times, Oct. 1914. According to this theory, self-
control is entirely spontaneous and primarily a matter of germinal qualities that
develop, under normal conditions, in all but the feeble-minded. This automatic
self-control, if there be such, is not the kind the author has in mind, but the control
that comes through training and is at least in part the result of conscious effort. In
both cases, however, there is struggle, for struggle, as we have seen, is a determining
factor in the development of germinal capacity including these inhibitors; effective
training has a considerable element of coercion, and conscious effort is anything but
“ spontaneous.” We seem justified in saying, then, that power of active adaptation
is dependent on struggle or mal-adaptation in some form and to some degree.
312 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
mental construction is a human invention. Is the final cause
in some sense and degree a human creation ?
If the absolute is experience, as Bradley holds,! or if the cosmic
process is itself creative, as according to Ward and Bergson, then
man may have as his religious goal not simply conformity to the
will of God or to the unfolding of the cosmic order, but he may
even dare to make the cosmic order conform, in some small
degree, to his ideal and minister to his needs. Primitive man
endeavored to ‘‘ manipulate’? God or the gods by sacrifice,
incense, prayers, etc. The Christian of today seeks to win favor
and the supply of his needs by prayer, and in the thought of
many, by the kind of life that merits divine favor. Compara-
tively few have attained the thought of compelling divine favor
by living in conformity with divine (because cosmic) laws; —
and fewer still have gone so far, probably too far, as to believe that
there is no other divine law than just these laws we have been
and are discovering, formulating and controlling in the realms of
nature and mind. Are we warranted in taking the step, then, of
asserting that as the incarnation of creative intelligence, men as
creators are making cosmic laws, and in a sense making the God
they worship ? If so, we have a new and final form of adaptation
which might be called active religious adaptation, but as this
assumes that there is no higher form of consciousness, thought,
feeling or will than that possessed by man, we cannot give our
assent to this hypothesis.
1 Appearance and Reality.
CHAPTER XVII
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
THE purpose of our investigation as set forth in the Introduction
was to make a historical approach to a constructive social phi-
losophy having as its central theme adaptation in its four-fold
aspect of passive material and spiritual and active material and
spiritual, — this approach beginning with Auguste Comte and
Herbert Spencer, though in a few cases including previous writers
whose contributions seemed essential to an appreciation of those
coming later. The method chosen was to review briefly the social
theories of writers in this field who have been most influential in
the development of the doctrine of adaptation, and in an order so
far as possible, both historical and logical.
Comte’s Positivism was reviewed as a fitting prolegomenon to
social philosophy and it was shown how he had contributed to the
problem and formulated this principle of adaptation in its various
aspects though with different terminology. His chief contribu-
tion, we saw, was his insistence on the possibility of a scientific
study of society, and the necessity of such a study as the basis of
social reconstruction. Comte, however, did not believe in cosmic
evolution, so his system was a “ subjective synthesis ” without a
necessary objective correlate.
Herbert Spencer is to be credited with the first comprehensive
attempt to formulate the principle of cosmic evolution and this he
did in terms of increasing differentiation and integration. In his
Social Statics, he formulated the principle of adaptation and
applied it as a test to various institutions. In his Progress, Its
Law and Cause, he worked out the organic analogy as applied to
society. In his Sociology, he showed how the general law he had
formulated for cosmic evolution applied to the development of
society as a whole but especially to various social institutions,
giving much consideration to primitive conditions. We noted
that while the theory of passive adaptation, both physical and
313
314 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
social, was developed to a high point by this author, he gave
almost no place to the concept of active adaptation.
With a discussion of these two founders of sociology considered
both as a science and philosophy, we turned to a discussion of
methodology, considering especially the statistical method as
developed by Quételet, the analogical method finding its most
complete expression in Lilienfeld, the method of classification as
exemplified by De Greef, and the inductive method as outlined by
Comte and used by Darwin and his successors, — this method
including the historical and what we termed the inverse historical,
or the study of the present as a key to the interpretation of the
past.
Turning to the subject of passive physical adaptation, we
contrasted the theories of Lamarck and Darwin, the former hold-
ing that variation and progress were the result of the activity of
the organism in response to felt need of adjustment to life condi-
tions, these useful variations being transmitted by heredity; the
latter laying chief stress on the passivity of the organism and the
active character of nature in selecting, as it were, for survival,
those organisms and species particularly qualified to win out in
the struggle for existence (including the leaving of offspring),
though resorting at times to the supplementary principle of use-
inheritance. We reviewed also his Descent of Man in which the
same principles are used to explain the development of social
instincts, conscience, and indeed, all the qualities that go to make
the winning individual and group. The contributions of Weis-
mann, De Vries and Mendel were mentioned and a brief survey
given of the standing of Darwinism today among leading biol-
ogists. Their disagreement on points of vital importance in
social philosophy led to the conclusion that biology furnished, as
yet, a precarious foundation for a constructive theory of social
progress. In almost every case, however, adaptation was the one
thing insisted upon, though some gave wide latitude to the degree
necessary for survival.
This general spirit of uncertainty or positive disagreement
furnished us a background for the study of social philosophers
who have built their theories on the neo-Darwinian formula and
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 315
we concluded that their analogical method was unsatisfactory,
also that the biometric method of the Galton Eugenics Laboratory
had not as yet yielded conclusive evidence as to the relative in-
fluence of “nature” and “nurture,” because the data were
unreliable and because of the inherent difficulty of separating
these two factors. Evidence brought forward in later chapters
has tended to confirm this conclusion and to leave us in uncer-
tainty as to whether or not progress from the far distant period of
the Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon types of man has been in native
mental ability or merely in somatic variations in the line of or-
ganic adaptation to geographical environment, and in acquired
intellectual and moral qualities transmitted by social heredity.
The arguments of the neo-Darwinian sociologists are too largely
deductive and analogical to be conclusive, whereas at least some
of the evidence produced by the environmental school is inductive
and indisputable. The former to a large extent have made the
cardinal mistake of assuming that the different races of mankind
are analogous to biological species whereas at present the con-
sensus of opinion is that there is but one species, while the term
“race” has no definite connotation. Evidence concerning the
difference in social instincts, keenness of sense perception, and
intellectual and emotional qualities between primitive and
modern man is so conflicting as to counsel moderation of state-
ment rather than dogmatism. The evidence on the whole, how-
ever, indicates that as there have been somatic variations mak-
ing for better adaptation to life conditions, especially in the
decrease in the size of the mandibles, in pigmentation and accli-
mation, so there have been variations in the nervous system
and brain tissue making for greater adaptation to the conditions
of existence and success imposed by modern life in civilized
nations. Differences in individuals are unquestioned, but when
the group is made the sociological unit the standard of ability is no
longer individual but social, and we have no sure word concerning
the native ability of the average in any civilized nation today as
compared with the average in any primitive group now extant or
that ever existed. No two groups come into competition now,
and never have, so far as we know, under such conditions that we
31 6 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
can be assured that the success of the winning group has been
merely on the basis of native ability rather than on opportunity
and training! This suggests as a definite criticism of the neo-
Darwinian sociologists that just as the severity of competition
among lower biological orders is in dispute, so among social
groups it is by no means certain that inter-group competition is
now or ever will be so acute as to eliminate all but the best
adapted.
The biological sociologists make much of societal selection as a
method of improving native ability, — and well they may,— but
at present we have little knowledge of value as a guide. Before
agreement can be reached on many of the points involved we must
await further evidence concerning the correlation between physical
qualities on the one hand and intellectual and moral qualities on
the other, for societal selection in so far as it is non-purposeful, like
natural selection, works only by death or sterility. As to positive
eugenics, we need to know more concerning the native qualities
which, when trained, will make for the most efficient group life.
We need to know more also concerning the various methods of
societal selection and “ counter selection”? that we may en-
courage those that are favorable to the production and preserva-
tion of socially efficient individuals and prevent from operation
those that are unfavorable. The goal, of course, is to work out
1 If 1,000 babies born from the aristocracy of America, 1,000 babies from the
proletariat class and 1,000 babies born from some primitive group could be reared
under like conditions and at maturity brought into some kind of competition we
would have the conditions for a sociological test of value in determining race-stock
efficiency. But even in this case the test would not necessarily be physical vigor
or military prowess except in so far as necessary for self-preservation, nor yet in-
dustrial superiority except in so far as necessary for cultural achievement. While
these tests would be valid in proportion as existence and growth of the groups
were vitally involved, if the competition was no more severe than among civilized
groups today the test might well be the ability to work out a corporate life so
manifestly desirable that it would be copied, with variation, by the other groups
and not only in one instance but continually, for the supreme test is “in the long
run.” The supremely desirable thing is not only the immortality of achievement
as the term is used by Ward, but the continuous achievement of an immortal
group, and immortal because it continues to achieve that which is worthy of
imitation.
2 See A. G. Keller, Societal Evolution, ch. VI.
3 Cf. Walter, Genetics, ch. XI.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION . 417
that kind of social life, social organization and social control
which shall result eventually in the birth only of those who, when
properly trained, will fit most effectively into the life of the
group and of humanity at large.!
These criticisms of the neo-Darwinian sociologists have forced
us to introduce conclusions from later chapters, — and now to
return to the progress of our investigation. We turned from this
school to a consideration of passive socio-physical adaptation, or
the development of social groups with reference to their physical
environment, and concluded that geographical conditions “ set
the life lines of groups,” condemning some to isolation and stagna-
tion and opening up to others possibilities of enlarged life not
only by affording better facilities for self-support but also by
inducing inter-group contact.
Up to this point emphasis had been chiefly on the physiological
basis of race-progress with race conceived in biological terms, but
anthropologists having assured us that there are at present no
pure races and that ethnic groups must be defined with reference
to cultural even more than to physical characteristics, it was
necessary to turn to some writers who had developed the thought
of society as a psychical unity, and the more so as the concept
“ society ” had been used without definite content.
In the discussion of Schiffle, Mackenzie, Le Bon, Durkheim
and other social psychologists, we developed the concept of
society as a psychical “ somewhat,” variously organized, in a
sense over against the individual, molding his life and in turn
modified by his reaction. This brought us to the phase of our
subject characterized as passive spiritual adaptation and an ap-
proach to social philosophy through social psychology, — though
to a considerable extent of a deductive variety. We concluded
that every group or social organization, united by common
interests and co-operating for a common end was a psychical unity
with the possibility that such a unity might at certain times and
under certain conditions rise to such community of thought,
1 For the most recent attempt to work out a social philosophy on the biologi-
cal basis, using the terms variation, selection, transmission and adaptation as
“key-words,” see the admirable book by Professor A. G. Keller of Yale, Societal
Evolution.
318 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
feeling and volition as to warrant the application of such terms as
social organism, social consciousness and even social personality.
The next line of development considered was through those
social philosophers who had emphasized an inductive study of the
social process, dividing the writers into three groups: the an-
thropological, dealing largely with primitive man and the begin-
nings of social evolution, the historical, endeavoring to analyze
the forces at work in the progress of civilization and trace the
causal nexus, and another group attempting to explain social
evolution in terms of some one law or principle. We noted the
large use of the concept of adaptation by Sumner and Boas, the
one interpreting social progress almost entirely in terms of natural
selection, the other, in terms of environmental influences, and
showed how useful this concept had been in explaining ethnic and
social origins. We saw how Gumplowicz by his teaching con-
cerning progress by inter-group conflict and cross-fertilization of
cultures, and Ratzenhofer by his theory of interests had enriched
our knowledge of progressive social adaptation, and finally how
through the contributions of the third group of writers we had
been enabled to understand the process of association and
integration within each society.
As a net result of our study of the phenomena of association up
to this point, we have reached the concept of society as a psycho-
logical organization with some sort of self-consciousness and will,
revealed at least on occasion; we have seen how societies are
evolved, on the one hand, by such inner forces and processes as
social and sexual selection, division of labor, consciousness of kind
and consciousness of supplementary difference, sympathy, mutual
aid, suggestion, imitation and social constraint, — by a process,
that is, of inner co-adaptation (largely passive), and we have
noted, on the other hand how such societies are evolved by a
process of progressive adjustment to their geographical and super-
organic environments by natural selection and acclimation,
by inter-group contacts and conflicts, by racial and cultural
assimilation and amalgamation, by social suggestion, imitation
and constraint, —by a process, that is, of outer adaptation, —and
this, too, largely passive.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 319
In all our discussion, however, while chief stress has been laid on
progress by these non-purposeful reactions between societies and
between societies and their constituent units, the function of
individual and social purposeful activity has been brought to
view, especially in the theories of Baldwin and Giddings with
emphasis on the social goal of “ the evolution of personality
through ever higher stages until it attains to the ideal that we
name humanity.’’}
With a brief discussion of some of the factors that enter into the
transition from matter to mind, from unconscious to purposeful
activity, — from passive to active adaptation, — with special
attention to Fiske’s theory of “ prolongation of infancy,” we
turned to a consideration of the social theories of some who had
stressed purposeful activity as expressed in active material
adaptation. We noted Ward’s contributions concerning material
achievement, individual and social telesis, and the power of
“ nurture ” as contrasted with “nature.” We considered Pat-
ten’s theory of ‘ pain-pleasure-creative economy ” with well-
being measured in terms of health, wealth and culture, and
reviewed at length the social theory of Carver with a criticism
of his “ gospel of the productive life.”” We saw that with him the
goal of cosmic evolution was the super-group possessing the earth
by virtue of its greater group efficiency, this efficiency, in turn,
being measured by the sum of the efficiency of the individual
members as properly organized, directed and controlled.
Having considered with these writers the fundamental need of
active material adaptation we turned to a discussion of active
spiritual adaptation and reviewed at length the social philosophy
of Novicow as revealed in Les Luttes, bringing out his four-fold
1 Giddings, Principles of Sociology, p. 421. Ellwood phrases the goal as follows:
“ The goal and purpose of our life . . . is not self-realization, but the progressive
realization of a society of harmoniously adjusted individuals.” — Sociology in its
Psychological Aspects, p. 393. According to Mackenzie, the social goal includes
three elements: the subjugation of nature, the perfection of social machinery and
personal development including self-restraint. “‘ What we want,” he says, “is
not a universe in which we may enjoy ourselves, but a universe that shall be inter-
esting, i.e., one to which we may devote ourselves, and in devotion to which we
may find the realization of a higher life than that of our individual selves,’ —
Introduction to Social Philosophy, ch. IV.
320 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
doctrine of adaptation, his teaching concerning the hierarchy of
struggles culminating in group rivalry for excellence carried on by
free assimilation, by provoking imitation, and by an organized
propaganda for the extension of its culture. We considered next
a group of writers who have exalted the place of the individual as
the instigator of social movements in the line of better adaptation
and welfare, as Carlyle with his Great Man theory and James with
his modification of this interpreted by his doctrine concerning the
“Energies of Men,” also Ross with his analysis of social control,
concluding that natural sanctions must be supplemented by those
that are artificial, created by the élite. We turned then to the
function of idealization as set forth by Comte, Ross and Baldwin,
noting its expression in art, reflective morality and religion and
its culmination in reverence for ideal personality and religious
adaptation. We concluded that idealization especially when
reflective was one of the most potent factors in social progress.
In the study of this process of active spiritual (including social)
adaptation, several concepts stand out with great clearness:
idealization, innovation, reflective imitation, rivalry in excel-
lence, and the provoking of imitation by the power of example, all
of these processes, though primarily individual, having a social
analogue. This analogy between the psychical activity of in-
dividuals and social unities, together with the fact that the
individual is a social product and should have a social goal, war-
rants the use of the term social-personalism to indicate the social
philosophy that has emerged in outline from our study of the
development of the doctrine of adaptation as a theory of social
progress. By this phrase is meant that the acme of cosmic
evolution is not the social group even in its collective activity
(unless it can be interpreted as a quasi-personality), but the
individual person, for personality alone has power over the cosmic
process, the group always acting on the initiative of persons, —
but this personality socially determined and with a social goal.
To analyze this concept more in detail: Mind is superior to
matter for it knows, feels and controls it, within limits. Reflective
creation is the highest form of intellectual activity and personal
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 321
affection, of emotional activity. Now reflective creation and
affection are functions of the individual, never of a group, how-
ever much the individual may be determined by his social
environment. This truth, together with some metaphysical con-
siderations, warrants the use of the term personalism.1 But this
very fact of the determination of the individual by society war-
rants the qualifying word social, and finally, the fact that in the
highest forms of associational activity we have such a “ together-
ness” of self-conscious activity that approach is made to the
phenomenon of personality, and that the goal of the individual is
not merely personal but also some form of associational well-
being, warrants the compound social-personalism. Let us note
how this concept has grown out of our historical survey of the
development of the concept of adaptation: —
In our study of biological evolution we saw how the individual
organism was the product of the species and of the material
environment (with due allowance for mutation), also how the
good of the species including future generations seemed to have
consideration above the welfare of the mere individual. We have
seen that personality is likewise the product of physical and social
heredity and of social suggestion, i. e., it is a social product, modi-
fied by individual reaction in the line of variation. Thus are
evolved temperament, intellectuality, moral judgment, religious
sentiment, — indeed all the qualities that constitute and dif-
ferentiate personalities. But this personality cannot be satisfied
with mere self-development. Social instincts and social interests
impel to ever widening activities and an ever enlarging “self”
and “ self-regarding sentiment.” ? Thus normally the goal of
the individual cannot be merely selfish in the narrow sense but
social and one can find true happiness only in social adaptation,
and the highest happiness only in the consciousness that the in-
dividual life is unfolding in harmony with the cosmic order or with
the divine will, —i.e., in religious adaptation.
With self-development comes an expanding net-work of con-
flicting and co-operating interests, those of the “inclusive” group
1 Cf. Personalism, by B. P. Bowne.
2 McDougall, Social Psychology, pp. 174 ff.
322 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
taking precedence over those of the “‘ included ” groups, requiring
sacrifice on the part of these smaller unities. The individual must
at times deny his physiological and egoistic interests! for the
satisfaction of his racial and social interests as represented
in his family; and the welfare of the family and its constituent
members must at times be sacrificed for the social interest as
represented in the state. This problem of conflicting interests
between individuals and groups finds a solution as soon as all can
be united in the attainment of acommon purpose. War does this
temporarily, and Novicow has suggested the possibility of union
for cultural expansion, but this is a far distant goal. Now organ-
ization, it would seem, offers the desired remedy. There is no
friction in the perfect organism. The individual is able to
organize his various interests, — often conflicting, —by making
them all tributary to the attainment of a life purpose. Such is
the power of personality. Just in proportion, too, as various
social unities attain quasi-personality will such organization of
interests be possible as shall reduce friction to a minimum.
Social evolution seems to be aiming not only at the develop-
ment of groupings of ever increasing size and complexity but also
of ever increasing integration and organization which means
specialization on the part of the various unities that make up the
whole.? In the human personality we have the highest type both
of integration and of specialization with this difference between it
and all other unities: The biological organism is constituted of
parts that have no value except in relation to the well-being of the
whole, thus specialization is entirely subordinated to the need of
organic adaptation. In all social unities, however, as Spencer
insisted, the individual has value on his own account. He is an
end, not merely a means. The organization of group interests,
then, and the demand for specialization on the part of the con-
stituent members must be carried on with due regard for this
worth of personality, — and so it is in the long run, for the group
that does not follow this procedure is doomed to fail.
' Following Ratzenhofer’s classification.
2 There seems to be a limit, however, to this movement, noted especially of
late in industry.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 323
We agree with Giddings, Baldwin and others that society is a
psychological organization but insist that “ society’ must be
given content and interpreted so as to include these various con-
flicting, co-operating, combining unities, each a quasi-organism
with a super-organic environment to which it must adjust itself,
each a potential quasi-personality. We agree, too, with Schiffle
who holds that the individual should seek to find his place in
society, fit himself to function there as efficiently as possible
and that society should assist in this process. We hold that the
same should be true of every social unity, — of the family, of
the church, of the club, political party or state.
Just as individual personality, then, is not only socially condi-
tioned but has a social goal, viz., to function as efficiently as possible
in ever enlarging social unities, — so should each of these social
unities as it attains quasi-personality seek to function as efficiently
as possible in the more inclusive social organizations of which it
forms an integrating part.
Approaching this same problem from another point of view,
we have seen that social evolution reveals an ever increasing
power of active adaptation and of progress by co-operation, inno-
vation and reflective imitation rather than by struggle for exist-
ence and survival. Now that which is increasingly imitated is
personal and group adaptive activity; i.e., as the normal physical
organism is continually reacting to stimuli along the line felt to
be life-preserving and life-enlarging, so the conscious personality,
in so far as guided by real interests, imitates, with adaptive
variations, other persons in the line of increasing well-being; and
groups, in proportion as organized and directed by intelligence,
also imitate other groups in their adaptive activities. The
individual, moreover, has as a copy for imitation not only the
real but the ideal which, as Baldwin has shown, is a social product.
So every quasi-personal social unity may form a group-ideal, —
as in the case of labor unions, fraternities, communities, — which
is far above the real of present attainment. This group-ideal,
too, is a social product and one in which the super-organic
environment plays a most important part, and usually this ideal
includes not only the welfare of its members, but also that of a
324 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
more inclusive social unity. The church-ideal, for example, in-
cludes the “ denomination ” or Christianity as a whole; that of
the local union includes the trade union or the “laboring class.”
This leads to a point where we can suggest a social goal so far as
I know not previously formulated in social philosophy,' and with
no word to express it, I suggest exemplifaction? to complete the
triad begun by innovation and imitation.
This ideal of living a life that shall enter into other lives by the
power of example is by no means new as applied to individuals.
It seems to have been prominent in the consciousness of Jesus
when he said “ Follow me”; when he taught that he was the
Way, and when he said to his disciples, ‘‘ Let your light so shine
before men that they may see your good works.” We find it
in the words of Paul (I Cor. xi.1): ‘‘ Be ye followers of me even
as I also am of Christ.” ? This ideal as applied to groups is new,
however, so far as I know, with the possible exception of the
Hebrew prophet who taught that Israel should be a “ light to the
Gentiles ” (Isa. xlix.6), but even here the thought seems to be
that of social service by supremacy and social control, rather than
by the persuasion of example.*
The doctrine is just this: Every social unity, — family, church,
club, village, city, state, nation, — should have as its goal self-
preservation and self-enlargement, and should be led to see that
these can be secured best (1) by striving to develop such an
1 Novicow’s analysis of adaptation and his phrase “‘ provoquer l’imitation”’ were
unknown to the writer until the manuscript was in the hands of the printer. Chap-
ter XIV was afterwards written and a few changes made in this chapter. With
Novicow, however, individual pleasure is the goal of life and individual and social
processes including “provoquer limitation” are considered but means to that end
dictated by self-interest. Our position, on the contrary, is that active adaptation
is the end and pleasure and pain sign-boards to indicate the right way.
2 The words exemplification and exemplariness have somewhat different meaning.
5“ Muunral pov ylvecbe, xaBws neyo xpiorod. Cf. II Thessalonians, iii. 7-10.
4 Cf. Ward’s “ immortality of achievement.” The highest form of struggle and
rivalry, as Novicow has shown, and the form most potent in social progress, is
rivalry in excellence, i. e., struggle for that attainment that shall become immortal
through reflective imitation. ‘‘ Imitation ’”’ as here used, so too, “ example” have
the broad meaning of Tarde and Baldwin with no thought of slavish copying.
In this sense a person is imitated as his life is a source of inspiration and suggestion.
Only in this sense is Jesus the example for man.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 325
organized life and one so manifestly helpful to its members that
it will increase by the power of attraction and by the spread of
its principles and methods by reflective imitation on the part of
other groups so situated that these principles and methods are
practically imitable, and (2) by seeking to function as efficiently
as possible in a more inclusive group; i.e., to find or make its
place in a still larger organization. Its intrinsic goodness ! may
be determined by social judgment, its extrinsic goodness by its
efficiency as a member of a more inclusive organization and by its
spread through reflective imitation on the part of other groups
likewise inspired by a purpose of attaining the highest possible
success measured in terms of social well-being.
This social philosophy called social-personalism includes the
following elements: —
I. The supreme worth of the individual because he is the high-
est expression of cosmic evolution as measured by his creative
activity in the line of active material and spiritual adaptation, the
former giving him power to coerce nature in the line of minister-
ing to his needs, the latter giving him power (a) to react on society
by imitative variation, innovation and suggestion; (6) to in-
fluence men in the interest of self-satisfaction; (c) to form ideals
and conform or adapt his life progressively to them; (d) to win
his fellow-men by example and persuasion, to the acceptance of
his ideals and so restore the social equilibrium disturbed by his
creative variation from the standards of the group, and (e) in
conjunction with others, to compel social adaptation on the part
of social laggards and the anti-social.
Il. The individual goal of self-development and social efficiency.
The first is called for (1) because of the intrinsic value of person-
ality, and (2) as a basis for passive and active adaptation both on
the part of the individual and of society, and the second is called
for to give specific direction to self-development and activity;
i.e., it is not mere self-development that makes for individual
well-being and social strength, but the kind of development that
fits the individual for the place in social life that he can fill
supremely well according to his capacity. This goal of social
1 For use of the terms intrinsic and extrinsic, see Palmer, of. cit., pp. 18 f.
326 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
efficiency, moreover, requires that each should find his place in
the various organizations to which he belongs, increase his effi-
ciency for that place to the highest degree (with due regard to
conflicting interests), and use his influence to strengthen the
organization in its task of survival, growth and social utility, and
in its attempt to form and attain the group-ideal of functioning
in a larger social unity.1
III. The responsibility of society for the character of every per-
sonality. Every member of a group is now very largely a social
product. A society can have the kind of members it really
wants. Social conscience, then, should be made to feel that it is
responsible for the character of every individual.
IV. The general ideal for every social quasi-personality (or unity)
of social exemplifaction; i. e., to work out such an organized life
and one so fruitful in securing the highest possible well-being of
its members and of humanity as a whole, that it will spread by
reflective imitation? on the part of other social unities.
V. The social goal of functioning in a more inclusive unity
(mentioned in II); but this goal is not to be confined to the
national group as in the theories of Pearson, Carver and many
German writers, but moves on in ever widening circles with the
extension of co-operation and the expansion of the self-regarding
sentiment until it embraces all humanity.
The social philosophy briefly outlined, the outcome of a survey
of many social philosophies written under greatly diverse condi-
tions of thought and life, fused on a principle that seems to per-
vade all forms of cosmic development, — that of adaptation, —
suggests answers to the problems propounded in the Introduction
concerning the what, the how, the whence, the whither and the
1 The goal of exemplifaction has not been applied to the individual for such a
goal might possibly lead to a narrow self-consciousness, pride, and arrogance, though
this is not probable if balanced with emphasis on social efficiency. Indeed this ideal
of exemplifaction furnishes a principle of judging conduct that is more practicable
than Kant’s “‘ Act as if the maxim of thy action were to become by thy will a univer-
sal law of nature.” It is better for it makes place for the relativity which we have
found is characteristic of all morality. An act might well be worthy of reflective
imitation by others similarly situated and yet not such as could be used as the basis
for a universal principle.
2 See note 4, p. 324.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 327
why of that process at least in its higher phases. As to the first:
social evolution is the process of the formation and progressive
adaptation of social unities to their ever changing physical and
spiritual environment. As to the second, the “how,” this
process may be described in terms of the “ dialectic of growth ”
or a “ give-and-take ” between the psychical unities and their
physical and spiritual environment. The evolution of every social
group is like an ascending spiral in the form of an ellipse with
two foci, the socius and the various associational groups that are
gradually formed by the process of differentiation and integration.
In this process the conflict of interests and mal-adaptations on
lower planes of life result in co-operation, in higher adaptations,
and in the organization of interests both individual and social.
But the process thus described in thought terms does not ade-
quately represent the real life of values given in experience which
is too rich and too large to be subjected to such an analysis. Life
must be experienced and appreciated, not merely analyzed and
described.
Viewed historically, this process of experience and appreciation
shows development in three directions: (1) the self-conscious
personality has attained greater power over self, nature, and
fellow-man, and in its search for the true, the beautiful and the
good, has come to believe in a Final Cause which it tends to per-
sonify in exaggerated terms of its own powers and values, and to
worship as God; (2) the self-conscious personality has enlarged
in interest, in sympathy, in purpose, in self-feeling, till it in-
cludes in certain experiences all humanity. Now this self-
conscious personality in these experiences of power, of intuition,
of evaluation, of up-reach and out-reach, is the highest form of
reality that can be grasped by consciousness, but there is reason
for belief that the God of idealization, and the soczus of religious
feeling, is a still higher form of reality and personality, though
impossible of expression in terms of discursive thought; (3)
experience and appreciation, though in the last analysis personal,
have a social basis and a social outlook. Out of this fact have
developed social organizations with common interests and a
common goal. Such interest groups, as we have seen, may
328 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
become quasi-personalities, and as such are a second fruitage of
cosmic evolution. Now out of these three lines of development
of experience and appreciation, intensive personal, extensive
personal, and social, together with the realization that develop-
ment has come through struggle, issues the belief that cosmic
evolution has not in any of its phases been the mere outcome of
the interaction of blind forces but rather the expression of Intelli-
gence and Love.
The “how” of the process suggests the ‘‘ whither” and
“why.” If the phenomenal order is a universe, a cosmos, i. e.,
if there is a world-order dependent on infinite intelligence rather
than a world-disorder which is the outcome of the permutations
and combinations of blind forces, a study of the process should
suggest its goal. Although our discussion has brought out
several suggested goals, the outcome of it would seem to indicate
that nothing higher has been formulated than the increasing
adaptation of men in societies to their physical and spiritual environ-
ment, this adaptation being interpreted in terms of power and
fullness of life, attained and expressed in its highest associational
forms in reflective innovation, reflective imitation and exempli-
faction, with emphasis, too, on the affectional nature and on ideal-
ization expressing itself in art in its varied forms and in religion.
As to the true type of religion, we have noted in our survey
many diverse theories from the “Worship of Humanity”
(Comte), and a mere “ Appreciation of the Cosmos” (Ward),
to a “Living Faith in a Self-Conscious, Personal, World-
Ground ” (Bowne, Baldwin), while others say that there is no
one true religion but that like everything else religion is relative
to the stage of social development and environmental conditions
of a group. The philosophy of social-personalism lends itself
easily to the belief that the ultimate religion will be along lines
suggested by Bowne and Baldwin, with emphasis, however, on
its social aspects and its pragmatic warrant. In any case a
pragmatic test is provided in the way that the religion of a group
influences its associational life, and in the survival and spread of
the religion either by the success of the group thus inspired in
possessing the earth or the success of the associational achieve-
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 329
ments of the group in being reflectively imitated. Professor
Carver asserts that the only way the Kingdom of God can come
throughout the earth is by the possession of the earth by the
group that accepts the ‘‘ gospel of the productive life,” and that
the religion of this group will thus be demonstrated to be the
true religion. In contrast we believe that the Kingdom of God
will come by the spread, through reflective imitation, of the
achievements of the groups setting the best example of social
organization and collective welfare, and that the “ gospel of social-
personalism ” working by purposeful idealization, innovation,
imitation and exemplifaction will demonstrate its superiority over
any form of deterministic monism or the gospel of the productive
life as interpreted by Professor Carver.
This test of the truth of social philosophy, however, is so indefi-
nite and far distant as to seem of little present value, but a con-
sistent social philosophy thus tested, while desirable, is not
indispensable. Most important is a working program of social
amelioration that commends itself to the enlightened judgment of
the sociological élite 1 and this is provided in the four-fold doc-
trine of adaptation as worked out in this study, the apparent
truth of this social theory and of the social philosophy growing
out of it being revealed in its manifest utility as a key to the
understanding and solution of practical life problems. As
applied to social problems and conditions, the theory of adapta-
tion and the philosophy of social-personalism would seem to call
for emphasis on the following factors in associational life: —
J. Production of material goods as the basis of life, growth
and cultural development;
II. The elimination of waste land, waste labor and the waste
of natural resources;
1 A group of persons with deep interest in a social problem and such training
and experience as fits them for judgment, after mature deliberation frequently
attain an “insight ” into an apparent solution of the problem that is akin to
intuition, indeed such collective insight might well be termed “‘ social intuition.”
It is nothing supernatural or mystical or innate, but a short-circuited “ insight ”
based on experience and discussion, and accompanied by a feeling of satisfaction.
This is the tribunal of final authority with reference to an action worthy of imita-
tion, — though it may err.
330 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
III. Efficient consumption, — interpreted in terms of produc-
tion (Carver), of surplus energy (Patten) or of social well-being;
TV. Education for social efficiency which will include
(a) recognition of the family as the educational as well as
sociological unit;
(b) the acquirement of such knowledge, skill and training on
the part of each individual as will fit him best for the place he can
best fill in the industrial system or in the supply of human needs,
with such direction and encouragement as will tend to relative
equality of income because of relative equality in social service
rendered;
(c) the acquirement of such knowledge and training as will
result in social adaptation and co-operation;
(d) the development of personality and individuality with
self-control, self-direction and prophetic vision to see the line of
action that will make for individual and social well-being;
(e) the attainment of that religious insight and experience
which will link the human life with the Eternal Source of life,
thus making for increased energy and social unity;
(f) the above elements unified and energized with the educa-
tional ideals of adaptation and social exemplifaction.
V. Social Control
(a) to secure efficient race-stock and to regulate population;
(b) to deal with the anti-social and the social laggards;
(c) to prevent that competition which experience shows to be
uneconomic or detrimental to well-being;
(d) to encourage such co-operation as promises to be socially
advantageous, and
(e) to secure a more just distribution of wealth.!
The individual who would succeed in life must adapt himself to
his environment, physical and spiritual; but most to be envied
is the one who can exert the greatest influence on his fellow-men
in the line of the increased well-being of all humanity, — himself
included.
1 Cf. the program for a constructive democracy formulated by Professor Carver,
Essays in Social Justice, pp. 264, 265.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 331
The club, the religious sect, the political party, the social
institution of every sort which would succeed must likewise adapt
itself to its environment, — so, too, the sovereign group. But
mere survival should not be the goal, but this, modified by the
ideal of functioning in a more inclusive unity; and while these are
most frequently in harmony they are not alwaysso. The welfare
of the group at times calls for the sacrifice of the individual; it
may call for the sacrifice of a club, a sect, a party, an institution.
The welfare of humanity may call for the sacrifice of a sovereign
group. All these unities and all forms of associational life are
means to the attainment of the one supreme goal, — the well-
being of the greatest number of rational individuals including not
only the present but future generations.
Professor Bowne holds with good reason that well-being has two
constituent factors, outward fortune and inner worth and peace.!
Emphasis on material progress may produce the outward fortune
but destroy the sense of worth and peace which alone makes life
worth living for the individual. Emphasis on the subjective side
may lead to such neglect of material welfare as to result in in-
dividual and social stagnation and decay. Both elements must
have place in a social philosophy that shall satisfy life conditions
and inspire to that individual and social activity that shall attain
ultimately the coveted goal.
No words are better fitted to conclude this discussion than those
which bring to a close Professor Giddings’ Principles of Sociology:
“ A social being, the normally organized man returns to society
with usury the gifts wherewith he has been by society endowed;
and this truth will be the starting point of the ethical teaching of
coming years. Personality cannot live within itself to perish
with the individual life. It goes forth into the everlasting life of
man. And so, little by little, age by age, society, which has
created man, is by man transformed. Of supreme importance in
this work is the influence of those few transcendent minds whose
genius pierces the unknown; of those pioneers of thought and
conduct who dare to stand alone in untrodden ways; of those
devoted lovers of their kind who, often in obloquy and pain,
1 Principles of Ethics, p. 304.
332 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS
reveal the possibilities of a spiritual life. It is chiefly through
these that the mass of humanity is lifted in some small degree
above the plane of physical necessity into the freer air of liberty
and light. This is the way of life that Browning has so truth-
fully described: —
‘. . . Already you include
The multitude; then let the multitude
Include yourself; and the result were new.
Themselves before, the multitude turn to you.
This were to live and move and have, in them,
Your being, and secure a diadem
You should transmit (because no cycle yearns
Beyond itself, but on itself returns)
When, the full sphere in wane, the world is o’erlaid
Long since with you, shall have in turn obeyed
Some orb still prouder, some displayer, still
More potent than the last, of human will,
And some new kind depose the old.’ ”
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— Principles of Ethics. New York, 1892.
The Christian Life. New York, 1899.
Theism. New York, 1887.
— Theory of Thought and Knowledge. New York, 1897.
The Philosophy of Herbert Spencer. New York, 1881.
Bradley, F. Appearance and Reality. London, 1893.
Ethical Studies. London, 1876.
Brinton, D.G. Races and Peoples. New York, 1890.
The Basis of Social Relations. New York, 1902.
Brooks, J. G. The Social Unrest. New York, 1903.
Buckle, H. T. History of Civilization. 2 vols., New York, 1897.
Butler, N. M. The Meaning of Education. New York, 1808.
Caird, Edward. The Social Philosophy and Religion of Comte. Glasgow,
1895.
1 The books listed in this Bibliography are not merely the ones cited in the
preceding pages, but also those which have furnished the background for the criti-
cism of the various authors, and for the social philosophy sketched in the Intro-
duction and Conclusion.
335
336 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Carlyle, Thomas. Heroes and Hero Worship. New York, 1885.
Past and Present. Boston, 1887.
Carver, T.N. Distribution of Wealth. New York, 1904.
Efficiency Society Transactions. Vol. i, no. 63.
— _ Essays in Social Justice. Cambridge, Mass., 1915.
— Harvard Theological Review. Vol. i, no. 1.
— Principles of Rural Economics. New York, 1911.
— Rivista di Scienza. Vol. iv.
— Sociology and Social Progress. Boston, 1906.
— The Religion Worth Having. Boston, 1912.
Castle, W. E. Heredity in Relation to Evolution and Animal Breeding.
New York, to11.
Chapin, E.S. Social Evolution. New York, 1913.
Chatterton-Hill, G. Heredity and Selection in Sociology. London, 1907.
Coe, G. A. The Spiritual Life. New York, 1900.
Colvin and Bagley. Human Behavior. New York, 1900.
Compayre, G. Herbert Spencer and Scientific Education. New York, 1907.
Comte, Auguste. A General View of Positivism. (Bridges), Routledge,
London.
—— Catechism. London, 1858.
—— Positive Philosophy. 2 vols. (Martineau), New York, 1853.
— Subjective Synthesis. Paris, 1856.
Systeme de Politique Positive. 4 vols., Paris, 1851.
Condorcet, Marquis de. History of the Progress of the Human Mind. Lon-
don, 1795.
Conn, H.W. The Method of Evolution. New York, 1900.
Cooley, C.H. Human Nature and the Social Order. New York, 1902.
— Social Organization. New York, 1909.
Croll, J. Climate and Time. New York, 1875.
Darwin, C. Descent of Man. London, 1871.
Origin of Species. London, 1872.
Davenport, F. Heredity in Relation to Eugenics. New York, 1911.
— Primitive Traits in Religious Revivals. New York, 1905.
Davis, M. M. Columbia University Studies, vol. xxiii.
—— Psychological Interpretations of Society. New York, 1909.
Defourney, M. La Sociologie Positive. Louvain, 1902.
De Greef, G. American Journal of Sociology. Vols. VII and VIII.
— Introduction ala Sociologie. 4 vols., Paris, 1886.
— Lois Sociologiques. Paris, 1896.
Sociologie Général. Bruxelles, 1894.
Deniker, J. The Races of Man. London, 1900.
Deploige, Simon. Le Conflit de Morale et de la Sociologie. Louvain, 1912.
De Vries, Hugo. Species and Varieties. London, 1905.
Dewey, J. Psychology. New York, 1896.
The School and Society. Chicago, 1904.
Dewey and Tufts. Ethics. New York, 1908.
Drummond, H. The Ascent of Man. New York, 18094.
— Natural Laws in the Spiritual World. New York, 1884.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 337
Duncan, D. Life and Letters of Herbert Spencer. 2 vols., New York, 1908.
Durkheim, E. De la Division du Travail Social. Paris, 1893.
—— Les Reégles dela Méthode Sociologique. Paris, 1904.
Ellis, H. The Problem in Race-regeneration. New York, r1or1.
—— The Task of Social Hygiene. New York, 1912.
Ellwood, C. A. Sociology in its Psychological Aspects. New York, 1912.
Engels, F. Socialism. New York, 1802.
Everett, C.C. The Science of Thought. Boston.
Fairbanks, A. Introduction to Sociology. New York, 1900.
Ferraz, M. Etude sur la Philosophie. Paris, 1877.
Field, J. A. ‘‘Progress of Eugenics,” Quarterly Journal of Economics,
vol. xxvi.
Fifty Years of Darwinism. New York, 1900.
Fiske, John. Excursions of an Evolutionist. Boston, 1884.
—— Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy. 2 vols. Boston, 1890.
— The Destiny of Man. Boston, 1899.
—— The Meaning of Infancy. Boston, 1909.
Through Nature to God. Boston, 1899.
Fite, W. Individualism. New York, 1or1t.
Flint, Robert. Historical Philosophy. London, 1894.
Fouillée, A. La science sociale contemporaine. Paris, 1904.
— Lévolutionisme des idées-forces. Paris, 1898.
— Psychologie du peuple frangais. Paris, 1898.
Galton, Francis. Hereditary Genius. New York, 1870.
— Inquiries into Human Faculties. London, 1883.
— Natural Inheritance. London, 1889.
Geddes and Thomson. The Evolution of Sex. London, 1895.
Ghent, W. J. Mass and Class. New York, 1905.
Giddings, F. H. Descriptive and Historical Sociology. New York, 1908.
— Elements of Sociology. New York, 1898.
— Inductive Sociology. New York, 1901.
Principles of Sociology. New York, 1806.
Green, T. H. Prolegomenon to Ethics. Oxford, 1883.
Gumplowicz, L. Der Rassenkampf. Innsbruck, 1883.
— Grundriss der Sociologie. Vienna, 1885.
— Ibid. (translation by F. W. Moore) in Annals, Am. Acad., 1899.
— Soziologie und Politik. 1892.
Guthrie, M. Mr. Spencer’s Formula of Evolution. London, 1879.
Haberlandt, M. Ethnology. London, 1900.
Haddon, A. C. History of Anthropology. New York, 1910.
—— The Study of Man. New York, 1808.
Haeckel, E. The Last Link. London, 1808.
— The Riddle of the Universe. New York, 1901.
Hall, A. C. Crime in its Relation to Social Progress. Columbia University
Studies, 1902.
Hall, G.S. Youth, its Education, Regimen and Hygiene. New York, 1907.
Hankins, F. H. Adolph Quételet as Statistician. Columbia University
Studies, vol. xxxi.
338 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Headley, F.W. Problems in Evolution. London, 1goo.
Healey, W. M. The Individual Delinquent. Boston, 1915.
Heineman, T. W. The Physical Basis of Civilization. Chicago, 1908.
Henderson, L. J. The Fitness of the Environment. New York, 1913.
Hillebrand, Karl. German Thought. New York, 1880.
Hobhouse, L. T. Morals in Evolution. 2 vols., New York, 1906.
Social Evolution and Political Theory. New York, 1911.
Hoffding, H. Outlines of Psychology. New York, 1893.
Hoernes, M. Primitive Man. London, 1900.
Horne, H.H. Philosophy of Education. New York, 1904.
Psychological Principles of Education. New York, 1906.
Howard, G.S.
95, 178, 222, 237.
Utilitarian, Utilitarianism, 5, 159, 254.
Utility, Utilization, 36, 63, 84, 88, 141,
142, 152, 183, 202, 207, 222, 236, 241,
257; 291, 295, 301, 325, 329.
Utopias, 5, 101, 299, 300.
Value, Valuation, 85, 104, 109, 125, 153,
159, 212, 249, 303, 327-
Vanity, 184.
Variation, Variability, 84, 107, 292, 3253
biological, 45, 55, 60, 61, 70, 89, 94,
107, 116, 164, 209, 288; psychical, 215;
social, 45, 113, 136, 157, 178, 185, 187,
189, 229, 231, 235, 288, 325. See also
Innovation, Invention, Genius.
Variety, 63. :
Vice, 50, 66, 107, 118, 254.
Vigor, 87, 93, 96.
Volition, 145, 187, 204, 298.
Wages, 104, 242, 248, 258.
Wallace, A. R., 59, 64, 67.
War, Warfare, 113, 134, 176, 247, 250,
262, 263, 277, 302. See also Conflict,
Struggle.
Ward, Lester F., 4, 17, 21, 27, 31, 50,
ISI, 213-215, 221-236, 311.
Waste, 176, 241, 253, 258, 263, 329.
Wealth, 3, 26, 104, 112, 138, 176, 213,
228, 243, 251, 256, 274, 330.
356
Weismann, A., 56, 64n., 67, 68-70, 86,
88, 93, 96.
Well-being, Welfare, 25, 34, 110, 128,
130, 131, 132, 143, 153, 184, 213, 220,
240, 241, 256, 258, 260, 263, 297, 302,
325, 326, 329-331.
Wesley, J., 298.
Westermarck, E., 159.
Will, 82, 168, 175, 186, 207; free, 45,
58, 106, 211, 213, 227, 233, 235, 286;
see Choice; of God, 37, 215, 245, 259,
INDEX
311; to live, 82-88, 106; to power,
80-85, 175; social, 48, 175, 207.
Willing, 108, 131.
Wisdom, 304.
Woman, 275, 300, 301 n.; suffrage, 257.
Work, 231, 278.
World, 34, 36, 129, 131, 133, 200.
Worship, 301.
Worth, 126, 285, 295, 325, 331.
Wundt, W., 138.
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