UNIV PUKE SOCIOLOGY PURE SOCIOLOGY Creative ON THE ORIGIN AND SPONTANEOUS DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIETY BY LESTER F. WARD HOFE88OR OF SOCIOLOGY IN BROWN UNIVERSITY, AUTHOR OF "DYNAMIC SOCIOLOGY," "THE PSYCHIC FACTORS OF CIVILIZATION," "OUTLINES OF SOCIOLOGY," "APPLIED SOCIOLOGY" SECOND EDITION THE MACMILLAN COMPANY LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD. 1907 All rights reserved COPYRIGHT, 1908, BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and electrotyped. Published January, 1903. Reprinted January, 1907. J. S. Cushing &, Co. Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. I DEDICATE THIS BOOK TO Qfyt ftfoenttetf) Centtirg ON THE FIRST DAY OF WHICH IT WAS BEGUN PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION EXACTLY seven years ago, to wit, on the first day of the twentieth century, I invited a small company of the elite of the National Capi- tal to meet me and lend their valued counsel in considering the scheme which I laid before them for a system of sociology, and especially in advising me as to the proper designation of such a system. The persons thus invited were : Major J. W. Powell, Director of the United States Geological Survey and of the Bureau of American Ethnology ; the Hon. David Jayne Hill, Assistant Secretary of State; the Hon. William T. Harris, United States Commissioner of Education ; the Hon. Carroll D. Wright, United ' States Commissioner of Labor and Superintendent of the Tenth Census ; Dr. Frank Baker, Superintendent of the National Zoological Park ; Mr. W. F. Willoughby, now Treasurer of Porto Eico ; Mr. Edward T. Peters of the Department of Agriculture ; Messrs. David Hutcheson and Roland P. Falkner of the Library of Congress ; Mr. Henry F. Blount, manufacturer and banker; and Miss Sarah E. Simons, Head of the English Department of the Washington High Schools. After free discussion and mature deliberation it was decided that the system should consist of two volumes, as far as possible independent of each other, the first to be entitled Pure Sociology and the second Applied Sociology, and the title-pages of these volumes were drawn up. Slightly more than two years from that date, namely, on February 18, 1903, the first of these volumes appeared, and in a little over three years more, that is to say, on July 2, 1906, the second of the volumes saw the light. To-day the world is calling for a second edition of the first. Although some of the positions taken in that work were very advanced, and were set forth rather as hypotheses inviting criticism than as established science, and although these questions have been discussed at length by many of the ablest writers of the age, none viii PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION of the new theories advanced can be said to have been overthrown and many of them have been greatly strengthened. It is therefore too early at least to undertake any extensive revision of the work. Indeed, as I have often said, the works of an author constitute a history of the development of his mind and even of that of the ideas themselves, and any attempt to revise them beyond the correction of positive errors destroys the continuity of those ideas and brings confusion into philosophy. Who, for example, does not regret that Kant was compelled to revise his " Kritik der Keinen Vernunf t" ? and who could be satisfied with the revised editions alone ? The present work must therefore stand for the time being substantially as it was originally penned. The purpose of this preface must, therefore, chiefly be to draw attention to the fact that the system has been completed as origi- nally outlined, and as the little scrap of its history here introduced was omitted in the preface to the first edition, it seems proper to give it at this time, not only for the sake of the history itself, per- haps of a rather unimportant event, but also as an acknowledgment due from the author to those persons in whom he confided what was at the time, in view of various contingencies, practically a secret. One of those persons whose judgment was most valued has passed off the scene, but his judgment still stands and is embodied in the work, and the author's sense of indebtedness to them all has con- tinued to increase. If this were the proper place, the phenomenal progress of sociology and of the entire class of ideas and public activities in the field of social science and social progress during the period that has elapsed since the conception of this work might be profitably discussed, but this is known to all, and no claim is made that the system of soci- ology of which it forms a part is anything more than a product of the Zeitgeist, although, like every other such product, it may have exerted its normal reciprocal influence, and may be in some small degree a cause as well as an effect. L. F. W. BROWN UNIVERSITY, PROVIDENCE, R.I., January 1, 1907. PREFACE I MAKE no claim to priority in the use of the term pure sociology. It is but natural that those who regard sociology as a science should divide the science, as other sciences are divided, into the two natural departments, pure and applied. But as the term " pure sociology " has been freely used for several years by certain European sociologists, it seems proper to explain that the matter for this work has been accumulating in my hands for many years. I should perhaps rather say that sociological material has been long pouring in upon me, and that the first classification that was made of it was into such as related to the origin, nature, and genetic or spontaneous develop- ment of society, and such as related to means and methods for the artificial improvement of social conditions on the part of man and society as conscious and intelligent agents. The first of these classes I naturally called pure sociology, the second, applied sociology. It was upon my notes as thus classified that in 1897 I delivered two courses of lectures before the Summer School of the University of Chicago, one on Pure Sociology and the other on Applied Sociology. These two courses of lectures under the same titles, but with ever increasing volume of data, I repeated in 1898 at the University of West Virginia, and in 1899 at Leland Stanford Junior University. I think I can therefore justly claim the right, after three years more of research along the same lines, to give to the work in which the first of these classes of materials is systematically elaborated the title of Pure Sociology which I have always applied to that class, and should I succeed in systematically collating the materials of the second class and in reducing them to a suitable form for publication, I shall crave permission to give to them for like reasons the title Applied Sociology. All the more does it seem advisable to call this work Pure Sociology, because the use that is being made of that term by the sociologists referred to is much narrower than my conception of the x PREFACE science, and practically limited to the application of mathematics to the phenomena of society. I cannot accept such limitations, but must regard all social phenomena as pure which are unaffected by the purposeful efforts of man and of society itself. That is, there must be only the two great branches of the science, the pure and the applied, and pure sociology must be made broad enough to embrace everything which cannot be brought under applied soci- ology, using the term applied in strict analogy with its use in other sciences. Hence I have employed a secondary title : The Origin and Spontaneous Development of Society. I wish to lay special empha- sis on the word spontaneous in this title, as embodying my concep- tion of pure sociology. Whatever is spontaneous is pure in this sense. Its two other chief synonyms are "genetic" and " natural" as opposed to " telic " and " artificial." Still, as the telic faculty is itself a genetic product, it cannot be omitted from a treatment of pure sociology, and, as I have shown, its manifestations are in one sense as strictly spontaneous as are those of the dynamic agent. I will add that the present work is wholly independent of all my previous works, and is in no sense a resume or condensation of them. While necessarily some of the same ground has been trav- ersed, this is always done for an entirely different purpose and the subjects are viewed from a different angle of vision. But the greater part of all that the work contains is not to be found in my other works nor in any of my previous writings. More vital still is the fact that the purpose and essential character of the work are wholly different from those of any of the others. I am now aiming at a System of Sociology, and should the volume on Applied Soci- ology be written, the two volumes will practically constitute such a system. This, be it said, is without prejudice to other systems, all of which I recognize and respect, and none of which is at all in conflict with the system which I prefer and adopt. L. F. W. WASHINGTON, August 22, 1902. CONTENTS PART L TAXIS CHAPTER PAGE I. GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF PURE SOCIOLOGY ... 3 II. ESTABLISHMENT OF THE SCIENCE 8 How science advances . . . * 8 Systems of sociology 12 III. THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF SOCIOLOGY 15 IV. METHODOLOGY 45 PART II. GENESIS V. FILIATION 65 Sympodial development 71 Creative synthesis 79 Creation . 81 Social ideals 83 The poetic idea 84 Poesis . - 88 Genesis 89 Synthetic creations of nature 92 VI. THE DYNAMIC AGENT . . . 97 VII. BIOLOGIC ORIGIN OF THE SUBJECTIVE FACULTIES . . . Ill The object of nature 112 Origin of life 115 Origin of mind 119 Feeling in its relations to function 124 Feeling as an end . 126 Philosophy of pleasure and pain 129 Restraints to feeling 132 VIII. THE CONATIVE FACULTY 136 The soul 140 The will 142 Xii CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE IX. SOCIAL MECHANICS 145 Mathematical sociology 145 Social physics 147 Psychics 150 Psychometry 159 The law of parsimony 161 Mechanics 163 Social energy 165 X. SOCIAL STATICS 169 Principle versus law 169 Synergy 171 Cosmic dualism 172 Artificial structures 176 Organic structures 178 Structure versus function 180 Social structures . 183 The social order 184 Human institutions 185 Social assimilation 193 Social differentiation 199 Social integration 202 The struggle of races 203 Conquest and subjugation 204 Social karyokinesis 205 Caste 205 Inequality 206 Law 206 Origin of the state 206 Formation of a people 208 The nation 211 Compound assimilation 212 Pacific assimilation 215 Postscript 216 XI. SOCIAL DYNAMICS 221 Social progress 223 Social stagnation 226 Social degeneration 227 Social instability ... 229 Dynamic principles 231 Difference of potential 232 Innovation 240 Conation 247 XII. CLASSIFICATION OF THE SOCIAL FORCES 266 XIII. THE ONTOGENBTIC FORCES . 266 Exploitation 267 Slavery 267 Labor . 270 CONTENTS xm CHAPTER PAGE Property 273 Production . . . 278 Social distribution 280 Consumption . . . . ... . . . 282 Pain and pleasure economy 283 XIV. THE PHYLOGENBTIC FORCES 290 Reproduction a form of nutrition 290 The androcentric theory 291 The gynsecocentric theory 296 History of the theory 297 The biological imperative 302 Reproduction 304 Fertilization 307 Conjugation 310 Origin of the male sex 313 Sexual selection . 323 Male efflorescence 328 Primitive woman 332 Gynsecocracy 336 Androcracy ... 341 The subjection of woman 346 The family .351 Marriage 353 Male sexual selection 360 Woman in history ........ 364 The future of woman 372 Recapitulation 373 Classification of the phylogenetic forces 377 Natural love 379 Romantic love 390 Conjugal love ......... 403 Maternal love 412 Consanguineal love 415 XV. THE SOCIOGENETIC FORCES 417 The moral forces 418 Race morality 419 Individual morality 422 Ethical dualism 426 The esthetic forces 431 The intellectual forces 437 The sociological perspective 448 PAET III. TELESIS XVI. THE DIRECTIVE AGENT 457 The objective faculties 457 Control of the dynamic agent 462 XIV CONTENTS The final cause 466 The method of mind 469 Idea forces 472 XVII. BIOLOGIC ORIGIN OF THE OBJECTIVE FACULTIES . . . 475 Genesis of mind . . . 475 Indifferent sensation 477 Intuition 477 Perception 479 Keason 479 Indirection 481 Moral indirection 483 Material indirection 489 XVIII. THE NON-ADVANTAGEOUS FACULTIES 493 Origin of genius 493 Inventive genius 494 Creative genius 495 Philosophic genius 496 XIX. XX. THE CONQUEST OF NATURE Human invention Scientific discovery . 511 514 525 SOCIALIZATION OF ACHIEVEMENT ...... 544 Socialization 546 Social regulation 547 Legal regulation 648 The state 549 Collective achievement 555 Growth of collectivism . 658 Social invention 668 Social appropriation 572 INDEX 577 PART I TAXIS CHAPTER I GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF PURE SOCIOLOGY THE terms pure and applied may be used in sociology in the same sense as in other sciences. Pure science is theoretical, applied science practical. The first seeks to establish the principles of the science, the second points out their actual or possible applications. It is in this sense simply that I shall use the terms. Whatever further explanation may be necessary will be due to the special character of sociology as a science. The titles of the chapters, and especially the names I have given to the three parts into which this work is divided, sufficiently attest the theoretical character of the work. The first part deals with the order or arrangement of sociological data; the remainder of the work deals with their origin and nature, first from the standpoint of nature, and then from the standpoint of intelligent beings. In view of the flood of sociological literature in our time, not- withstanding the extreme youth of the science, it would be pre- sumptuous to hope to contribute anything absolutely new. Even in the seventeenth century, La Bruyere thought that he had come into the world too late to produce anything new, that nature and life were preoccupied, and that description and sentiment had been long exhausted. And yet, throughout the eighteenth century men con- tinued to thrash literary straw most vigorously. But although the age of literature as an end has passed, and we are living in the age of science, and although in many sciences new truth is being daily brought to light, still, such is the nature of sociology, that this is not true of it unless we understand by truth, as we certainly may, the discovery of new relations. So far as any other meaning of truth is concerned, I have probably already offered the most that I possess, and the chief task that now confronts me is that of endeav- oring to organize the facts of sociology, and to bring them together into something like a system. I shall not therefore apologize for the restatement of facts or principles, assuming that the reader will 8 4 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART i realize that it is done for a different object from any that I have formerly had in view. A logically organized system of sociology thus necessarily becomes a philosophy. Not that it is a speculation, which would imply that it abandoned the domain of fact, but from the very wealth of facts which such a highly complex science necessarily inherits from the entire series of simpler sciences, its proper treatment demands deep plunges into those domains in order to discover and trace out the roots of social phenomena. The method of pure science is research, and its object is knowledge. In pure sociology the essential nature of society is the object pursued. But nothing can be said to be known until the antecedent conditions are known, out of which it has sprung. Existing facts must be interpreted in the light of past processes, and developed products must be explained through their embryonic stages and phyletic ancestors. This is as true of social structures as of organic structures. It is this filiation, this his- torical development, this progressive evolution, that renders soci- ology such an all-embracing field, and which makes its proper treatment so laborious, and at the same time so interesting. It is this, also, that brings contempt upon it when its treatment is attempted by those who are not equipped for the task. By pure sociology, then, is meant a treatment of the phenomena and laws of society as it is, an explanation of the processes by which social phenomena take place, a search for the antecedent conditions by which the observed facts have been brought into existence, and an setiological diagnosis that shall reach back as far as the state of human knowledge will permit into the psychologic, biologic, and cosmic causes of the existing social state of man. But it must be a pure diagnosis, and all therapeutic treatment is rigidly excluded. All ethical considerations, in however wide a sense that expression may be understood, must be ignored for the time being, and atten- tion concentrated upon the effort to determine what actually is. Pure sociology has no concern with what society ought to be, or with any social ideals. It confines itself strictly with the present and the past, allowing the future to take care of itself. It totally ignores the purpose of the science, and aims at truth wholly for its own sake. A fortiori the pure method of treatment keeps aloof from all criti- cism and all expressions of approval, from all praise or blame, as CH. i] GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF PURE SOCIOLOGY 5 wholly inapplicable to that which exists of necessity. Augusts Comte, in one of his early essays, 1822, reflects the true spirit of pure science in the following words : Admiration and disapprobation should be banished with equal severity from all positive science, since every preoccupation of this kind has for its direct and inevitable effect to impede or divert examination. Astronomers, physicists, chemists, and physiologists do not admire, neither do they blame, their respective phenomena ; they observe them. 1 Gumplowicz has put the same thought into the following form : Sociology must necessarily abstain from criticising nature. It is only interested in the facts and their regular occurrence. From the sociological point of view there is no ground for asking whether things could not have been other than they are, or whether they could not "have been better, for social phenomena are necessarily derived from human nature and the nature of human relations. 2 This strictly objective treatment also necessitates the looking of facts in the face, however ugly they may be. It is no more the part of pure sociology to apologize for the facts, than to extol or condemn them. Still less can it afford to deny what really exists, or attempt to minimize it or explain it away, merely because it is abhorrent to certain refined perceptions of highly developed races. Such a remark may seem like a truism, but nothing is more certain than that every scientific truth which has at first seemed repugnant to man, has had to be established against powerful opposition, often from eminent men of science in the domain to which it belonged, growing out of nothing but the wholly unscientific aversion to admitting its possi- bility the desire to defend the race from the supposed humiliation of such an admission. Nor does this strict adherence to the facts of nature involve, as certain prominent philosophers seem to suppose, a defense of nature's methods as necessarily the best possible, and their com- mendation as patterns and models for men to copy and follow. To do this is to violate the canon of pure science : nil admirari. This sort of scientific nature-worship, besides not being really scientific in its spirit, is pernicious as promulgating a false doctrine that applied sociology readily disproves, but which, if it becomes current, 1 "Plan des travaux scientifiques necessaires pour reorganiser la societe." Re- printed as Appendix to Vol. IV of the " Systeme de Politique Positive," 1863, p. 114. 2 " Precis de Sociologie," Paris, 1896, p. 222. 6 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PARTI as it seemed at one time to be likely to do, takes its place among the erroneous Weltanschauungen that have one after another stood in the path of human progress. We cannot top strongly emphasize the paradox that pure science really rests on faith. " Faith," as Dr. Starcke puts it, " that causa- tion is universal." * Faith not only that all effects have causes but also that all causes have effects ; faith that whatever is is worthy, and that whatever is worth being is worth knowing; and finally faith, since this cannot be wholly suppressed, that some beneficial result will follow the discovery of truth. But this faith need not go so far as to become anthropocentric and optimistic, so as to divert the investigator from the single pursuit of truth and carry him off in a vain search for the supposed necessary uses of facts or for strained analogies and imaginary harmonies. Another reef to be shunned is the notion that was formerly quite prevalent and which is still continually coming into view, that science consists in the discovery of facts. There is not a single science of which this is true, and a much more nearly correct defini- tion would be that science consists in reasoning about facts. This is perhaps best illustrated in geology, where the facts rocks are infinitely older than human history or the human race, and most of them have stared the world in the face throughout all ages, but were never known till men began to reason about them and interpret them. But the truth comes nearer home in the more practical sciences like physics and chemistry. The forces of nature and the properties of substances have always existed, but they were of comparatively little use until the age of experimentation which involves the closest reasoning. The electricity that lights our houses and propels our cars was here all the time, and could just as well have been used two thousand or four thousand years ago as now, if any one had thought out and worked out its true nature, as has so recently been done. The term pure sociology has been used considerably of late in the sense of regarding it as an exact science. In this it is usually attempted to reduce its laws to mathematical principles, to deduce equations and draw curves expressing those laws. The best work 1 Revue Internationale de Sociologie, Janvier, 1898, p. 17. Compare also the address of Andrew D. White at the farewell banquet to Professor Tyndall, Pop. Sci. Monthly, Vol. II, April, 1873, pp. 736-739. CH. i] GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF PURE SOCIOLOGY 7 of this kind has been done in the domain of economics by men like Cournot, Gossen, Jevons, and Walras, but most of these laws are in a proper sense sociological, and have a far-reaching significance for sociology. I fully recognize the importance of such studies, but I shall only thus briefly mention them in this chapter, deferring the full treatment of so fundamental a subject to the chapter on Method- ology (Chapter IV), under which head I class it. CHAPTER II ESTABLISHMENT OF THE SCIENCE I DO not claim that sociology has as yet been established as a science. I only maintain that it is in process of establishment, and this by the same method by which all other sciences are established. Every independent thinker has his system. It is always based on some one leading idea or unitary principle which binds all its parts together, and this principle is the chief matter with the author. The system constitutes a means of thoroughly illustrating his ruling idea. This is not only true of sociology but of all systems of phi- losophy. This is as it should be, and illustrates the march of ideas and the progress of science in general. How SCIENCE ADVANCES It will be well to pause a moment and consider this question of how science advances. The progress of science is no even straight- forward march. It is in the highest degree irregular and fitful. And yet there is a certain method in it. It is the work of a vast army of workers, and each individual works more or less indepen- dently. Scarcely any two are working at exactly the same thing, and when they are their individual peculiarities, their differences of training, and their different environments are certain to render the product different. The history of scientific research in any one of the great fields of investigation is an interesting subject for analysis. Even in astronomy there is great diversity, but especially in laboratory research, as in physics, chemistry, and biology, is this feature made prominent. Whether it relates to the law of gravita- tion, to the nature of sound, to spectrum analysis, to the different kinds of rays, to the properties of the various substances and gases, to the formation of chemical compounds, including the complex organic compounds, to the study of protoplasm, to the investigation of cells and unicellular organisms, to the origin of tissues and their distribution in the metazoan body, to the phenomena of reproduc- CH. n] HOW SCIENCE ADVANCES 9 tion, or to the nature and functions of nerves and of the brain, whatever the field may be, the general method of all earnest scien- tific research is the same. Every investigator chooses some special line and pushes his researches forward along that line as far as his facilities and his powers will permit. If he is a master, he soon exhausts the resources and appliances of the libraries and laborato- ries and proceeds to construct a technique of his own for his special purposes. He observes and experiments and records the results. Whenever important results are reached, he publishes them. He not only publishes the results, but he describes his methods. He tells the world not only what he has found, but how he found it. If the results thus announced are at all novel or startling, others working along similar lines immediately take them up, criticise them, and make every effort to disprove them. Working under somewhat different conditions, with different subjects or specimens and different tools, and possessing different personal peculiarities of mind and character, some of these rivals are certain to bring out something new. Part of the results claimed by the first investi- gator will be disproved or shown to bear a different interpretation from that given them. Part of them will probably stand the fire and after repeated verification be admitted by all. These represent the permanent advance made in that particular science. But no one investigator can establish anything. Nothing is established until it has passed through this ordeal of general criticism and repeated verification from the most adverse points of view. Now, each one of the many workers is doing the same thing as the one here considered, only every one chooses a different line and pushes his researches out in a different direction. Thus a thousand lines of research are projected into the unknown from every field of scientific investigation. There is little or no attempt to coordinate the new facts. They have a linear connection with the series of antecedent facts pursued by each, but they do not anastomose, so to speak, with the similar lines run out by others. Nevertheless, ultimately some of the earlier proximal points that have been veri- fied and established will spontaneously become associated and corre- lated, forming a sort of web between the bases of the lines, which later become the accepted boundary of the established science. Finally the synthetic mind comes forward and performs the work of coordination, to be followed by the text-book writer, who 10 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PARTI more or less successfully puts the science in the way of social appropriation. Such is the apparently desultory and haphazard, but really methodical way in which all science advances. True, it is crude and primitive. It is not at all economical, but extremely wasteful in energy and effort. It is a typical method of nature as distin- guished from the telic method or method of foresight and intelli- gence, but it accomplishes its purpose and has given us all the established truth we possess. I have sometimes compared it to the way in which certain shore lines are formed on coasts that are slowly rising, especially in regions where a retreating ice sheet has done its part of the work. If you will glance at a map of the west coast of Scotland, of the east coast of Nova Scotia, or of the south shores of Maine, you will understand this comparison. These shores consist of innumerable tongues of land projecting into the sea, sep- arated by friths or inlets and wider bays. These inlets formerly extended much farther into the land, but the peninsulas had then only begun to form. As the land rose, their bases, which were then much farther inland, gradually coalesced to form the main coast, while the ridges between the furrows plowed by the ice emerged from the water in the form of tongues such as we now see. These may be conceived as being thrust out from the shore something after the analogy of the lines of scientific research that I have described, uniting at their bases to form a permanent domain. Even the islands, of which there are many, have their counterparts in those isolated discoveries of science, like the Rontgen rays, which seem for a time like islands in the sea of the unknown. Another favorite comparison of mine, and one with the subject of which I am personally more familiar than I am with seacoasts, is with the progress of a prairie fire, such as used to sweep across the mainly treeless grassy plains of northern Iowa. With a front of ten to twenty miles such a fire would advance at the rate of five to ten miles an hour, consuming everything in its way. But the line of flame, which could be distinctly traced, especially in the night, to a great distance by the eye, was never straight, but in consequence of certain checks at one point and specially favorable conditions at another, it would present great irregularities. Long tongues of fire would be seen projecting far in advance of the main line, leav- ing narrow unburned tracts between them, and every other conceiv- CH. n] HOW SCIENCE ADVANCES 11 f> able form of indentation and irregularity would mark the boundary of the advancing conflagration. In fact this would have a great resemblance to the coasts I have referred to. Occasional sparks carried far in advance by the high wind which the fire alone was capable of generating, would ignite the grass some distance from the point from which it emanated, and temporary islands would be quickly created. But if any one spot be watched, all these separate projections would be seen soon to join and the wider sinuses to be swept along until the whole area in question was completely con- sumed and the same scene of operations transferred to a point far in advance where the same process was being repeated, and so on indefinitely. The whole country behind these rapidly advancing scenes would be black, the devouring flames not being prevented by any of their erratic performances from ultimately compassing their design. We thus have a kinetographic representation, as it were, of the general method of nature in the march of evolution, the differ- ence between this and the previous illustration being that while this goes on before the eyes almost more rapidly than it can be described, the other is a slow secular process that cannot be observed in operation, but can only be interpreted by the geologist from the facts that he can see and recognize as having themselves recorded their own history. The progress of discovery, of science, and of knowledge and truth in the world generally, follows this same method, whatever depart- ment we may examine. The effect of it is to give the impression during the early stages in the history of any science, that all is chaos, and that no real progress is being made. Every one is mak- ing claims for his own results and denying those of all others, so that the mere looker-on and the public at large are led to doubt that anything is being accomplished. They see only the main land of established truth and deny that the sea bottom is rising and that the promontories and islands are being united to the continent. Like the Indians of the Pacific slope who admitted that the grass grew, but denied that the great Sequoias had ever been other than they are, the world perceives the movement of events on the surface cf society political, economic, industrial but denies that there is a great social movement which is becoming slowly crystallized into a science. Just at present we are in that initial stage in sociology, in which 12 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PARTI a great army of really honest and earnest workers is wholly without organization an army, it might be called, all the members of which are officers having the same rank, and none subject to the commands of any other. Each one is pursuing the one particular line that he has chosen. Nearly every one has some one single thought which he believes to embrace, when seen as he sees it, the whole field of sociology, and he is elaborating that idea to the utmost. Now, it is clear that he will make much more of that idea than any one else could make. He will get all the truth out of it that it contains. It is true that he will carry it too far and weight it down with implications that it will not bear; but these are, like the errors of all scientific investigators, subject to universal criticism and ultimate rejection by putting the real truth in their place. The notion has always been prevalent that men of one idea are useless or worse than useless. The fact is that they are the most useful of all men. I do not refer to such as are afflicted with the pathological idee fixe, but to those who are, as it were, possessed and consumed by some single thought, some favorite hypothesis, some heuristic conception, which grows larger and more all-comprehen- sive, until it impels them to pursue it untiringly to its last logical conclusion and to work into it great fields of truth that no name that can be given it would even suggest to any one else. Work done under such an inspiration is thoroughly done. The analysis is ex- haustive, and it never fails, notwithstanding the necessary error and exaggeration, to constitute a substantial contribution to the general stock of human knowledge and to the true progress of science. SYSTEMS OF SOCIOLOGY All sciences pass through a long analytic period before reaching the synthetic stage. Sociology is still in its analytic period. There is even a disposition to condemn all attempts at synthesis. No one will recognize anything done by others. There is a spirit of intense individualism. There is no disposition to appropriate the truth that is being produced. The ideas that are put forth seem to have no affinity for one another. On the contrary they are mutually repel- lent. There is little real controversy because every one regards all other ideas as quite unworthy of attention. There is therefore no discussion, and the necessary prelude to coordination is discussion. CH. n] SYSTEMS OF SOCIOLOGY 13 When different writers shall begin to discuss one another's ideas there will be some hope of an ultimate basis being found for agree- ment, however narrow that basis may be. In this perfectly independent way a large number of what may be called systems of sociology are being built up, most of which are regarded by their authors as complete, and as superseding all other systems. Any attempt adequately to present all these systems to the reader would require a volume instead of a chapter. This has, however, already been done in great part and ably by Professor Paul Barth l in the introduction to a work whose title indicates that he has himself a system, but who differs from most of his contem- poraries in not only respecting but also in understanding other systems. 1 also undertook an enumeration of the principal systems of sociology from my own special point of view, which was originally intended to be embodied in this chapter, but the treatment of a dozen of these, brief though it had to be, attained so great volume that I decided to publish it separately 2 and content myself with this reference to it, should any desire to consult it. This I can do the better as the present work cannot be historical, and as there is certainly enough to be said in illustration of my own " system " without devoting space to the consideration of those of others. But each of these twelve leading sociological conceptions or unitary principles has been put forward with large claims to being in and of itself the science of sociology. The ones selected for treatment in the papers referred to were considered as embodying in each case the idea entertained by the principal defender or expounder of the principle, or by the group of persons advocating it and thus consti- tuting in each case a sort of school, of what constitutes the science. The principles were therefore preceded by the expression " Sociology as " in analogy to Professor Earth's title : " Sociology as the Phi- losophy of History." Thus designated, these unitary principles, forming the basis of so many systems or schools of sociology, were the following : 1 " Die Philosophie der Geschichte als Sociologie." Erster Theil : Einleitung und kritische Uebersicht, Leipzig, 1897. 2 " Contemporary Sociology." American Journal of Sociology, Vol. VII, Chicago, 1902, No. 4, January, pp. 475-500 ; No. 5, March, pp. 629-658 ; No. 6, May, pp. 749- 762. Reprinted as brochure, Chicago, 1902, pp. 70. 14 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PARTI Sociology as : I. Philanthropy. II. Anthropology. III. Biology (the organic theory). IV. Political Economy. V. Philosophy of History. VI. The Special Social Sciences. VII. The Description of Social Facts. VIII. Association. IX. The Division of Labor. X. Imitation. XI. Unconscious Social Constraint. XII. The Struggle of Races. There are of course others, but these may be taken at least as typical examples if not as the principal ones now confronting the student of sociology. -Any one of these views might be, and most of them have been, set forth in such a form that, considered alone, it would seem to justify the claim set up. This enumeration is cal- culated to afford to the unbiased mind something like an adequate conception of the scope of sociology, for no single one of these con- ceptions is to be rejected. All are legitimate parts of the science, and there are many more equally weighty that remain as yet more or less unperceived. A comprehensive view of them will also illus- trate the law set forth at the beginning of this chapter relating to the manner in which not only social science but all science advances. To change the figure there used, all these various lines, together with all others that have been or shall be followed out, may be com- pared to so many minor streams, all tending in a given direction and converging so as ultimately to unite in one great river that repre- sents the whole science of sociology as it will be finally established. CHAPTER III THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF SOCIOLOGY THE reader will probably say, after reading this chapter, that I have added another to the dozen systems of sociology enumerated in Chapter II. I shall not demur to this. But he will remember that I have not disparaged the multiplications of systems, provided they are based on a real idea. It is the only way in which the science can advance, and the more ideas thus exhaustively worked out, the broader and richer the science will become. The conceptions thus marshaled are sufficiently dissimilar and varied, but I think it will be admitted that the additional one now to be set forth is different still from any of them, and as unlike them as they are unlike one another. My thesis is that the subject-matter of sociology is human achieve- ment. It is not what men are, but what they do. It is not the structure, but the function. Sociologists are nearly all working in the department of social anatomy, when they should turn their atten- tion to social physiology. Most of them have imbibed the false notion that physiology is dynamic, and is in some way connected with social progress. They scarcely dare inquire what social physi- ology is, for fear that it may involve them in questions of social reform. But physiology is merely function. It is what structures and organs do, what they were made to do, the only purpose they have. Structures and organs are only means. Function is the end. It is therefore easy to see how much more important physiology is than anatomy. The latter is, of course, a necessary study, since functions cannot be performed without organs ; but it is in the nature of preparation, and can be relegated to one or other of the special social sciences, which, as I have shown, supply the data for the study of sociology. The principal sources of such data are history, demog- raphy, anthropology, psychology, biology, civics, and economics ; but all the sciences contribute to that highest science, social physiology. 15 16 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PARTI To be less technical, but really repeat the same thing, sociology is concerned with social activities. It is a study of action, i.e., of phe- nomena. It is not a descriptive science in the naturalist's sense a science that describes objects looked upon as finished products. It is rather a study of how the various social products have been created. These products once formed become permanent. They are never lost. They may be slowly modified and perfected, but they constitute the basis for new products, and so on indefinitely. Viewed from the evolutionary standpoint, the highest types of men stand on an elevated platform which man and nature working to- gether have erected in the long course of ages. This is not only true of our time, but it has been true of all times. The most ad- vanced of any age stand on the shoulders, as it were, of those of the preceding age ; only with each succeeding age the platform is raised a degree higher. The platforms of previous ages become the steps in the great staircase of civilization, and these steps remain unmoved, and are perpetuated by human history. Or, to change the figure, the human polyp is perpetually building a coral reef, on the upper surface of which the last generation lives and builds. The generations live and die, but they leave behind them the result of all that they accomplished when living. This result is a permanent part of the great ocean bed of human achieve- ment. As time goes on these successive additions, superimposed the one upon the other, form the bed-rock of civilization. They become lithified, as it were, and constitute the strata of the psychozoic age of the world, through which the true historian, like the geologist, cuts his sections and lays bare in profile the successive stages of human culture. It is this fact of permanent human achievement that makes the broad distinction between animal and human societies. Just as there -is a radical difference between cosmic and organic evolu- tion, 1 so there is a radical difference between organic and social evolution. The^fprmula that expresses this distinction the most clearly is_that_ the environment transforms the animal, while man transforms the, environment. Now it is exactly this transformation 1 I brought out this distinction as long ago as 1877 in an article on " Cosmic and Organic Evolution," in the Popular Science Monthly for October, 1877, Vol. XI, pp. <>72-(>82, in which I showed that even Mr. Spencer had ignored it in his profound analysis of the laws of the redistribution of matter. CH. m] THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF SOCIOLOGY 17 of the environment that constitutes achievement. The animal achieves nothing. The organic world is passive. It is acted upon by the environment and adapted to it. And although it is true that in the structural modifications that constitute such adaptation the efforts and activities of the organism play a promi- nent part, still even this is only a reflex response to the pressure from without, and really constitutes a part of the environment. Man, on the contrary, as a psychically developed being, and in increasing degrees in proportion to his psychic development, is active and assumes the initiative, molding nature to his own use. There has been no important organic change in man during the historic period. The trifling physical differences which we attribute to differences of environment acting on man during a century or two, would have no diagnostic value in biology. He is no more fleet of foot, keen of vision, or strong in muscle and tendon than he was when Herodotus wrote. Yet his power of vision has been enormously increased by all the applications of the lens, his power of locomotion has been multiplied by the invention of propelling machines, and his strength has become almost unlimited by calling the forces of nature to his assistance. Tools are vastly more effective than teeth or claws. The telescope and the microscope completely dwarf all natural organs of sight. Eailroads are fair substitutes for wings, and steamships for fins. In the electric transmission of thought across continents and seas he has developed an organ of which no animal possesses a rudiment. Yet all this is less practically useful than the increased means of production that have resulted from a long series of inven- tions. It is all the result of man's power to transform the environ- ment. The artificial modification of natural phenomena is the great characteristic fact in human activity. It is what constitutes achieve- ment. No animal is capable of it. Some superficial observers seem to see in the nests of birds, the dams of beavers, the honeycomb of bees, and the various more or less complicated habitations of certain rodents and other animals, an analogy to the achievements of man. But these all lack the essential element of permanence. They cannot be called artificial, and it is their artificial character that distin- guishes the results of human activity. The principle here involved will be dealt with in Chapter XVII. It is necessary to inquire here what in reality constitutes civil iza- 18 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PAKT i tion. We have not in the English language the same distinction between civilization and culture that exists in the German language. Certain ethnologists affect to make the distinction, but they are not understood by the public. The German expression Ktilturgeschichte is nearly equivalent to the English expression history of civilization. Yet they are not synonymous, since the German term is confined to the material conditions, while the English expression may and usually does include psychic, moral, and spiritual phenomena. To translate the German Kultur we are obliged to say material civilization. Culture in English has come to mean something entirely different, corresponding to the humanities. But Kultur also relates to the arts of savages and barbaric peoples, which are not included in any use of civilization, since that term in itself denotes a stage of advance- ment higher than savagery or barbarism. These stages are even popularly known as stages of culture, where the word culture becomes nearly synonymous with the German Kultur. To repeat again the definition that I formulated twenty years ago : material civilization consists in the utilization of the materials and forces of nature. It is, however, becoming more and more apparent that the spiritual part of civilization is at least conditioned upon material civilization. It does not derogate from its worth to admit that without a material basis it cannot exist. But it is also true that the moment such a basis is supplied, it comes forth in all ages and races of men. It may therefore be regarded as innate in man and potential everywhere, but a flower so delicate that it can only bloom in the rich soil of material prosperity. As such it does not need to be specially fostered. 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 dis- missed from our considerations, and our interest may be centered in the question of material civilization, and this will be understood without the use of the adjective. As examples of the forces that are utilized in civilization, stated in something like the historical order of their use, maybe mentioned heat, light, gravitation, wind, water, steam, and electricity. The value of water as a power is in its weight, so that this is only one of the many applications of gravitation. More difficult to class, but perhaps earlier than any other, is the power of inertia in ponderable matter by which, even in the clnb, it is made to increase the efficiency CH. in] THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF SOCIOLOGY 19 of the unaided hands. Still more subtle, but immensely effective, is the use of the principle of the lever and fulcrum, by which effects are rendered vastly greater than the muscular force exerted. These are only a few of the most obvious of nature's powers which man learned to profit by. Of materials or substances, the simplest were wood, clay, stone, and the metals as fast as means were discovered of separating them from their ores. The reason why bronze (copper) antedates iron is that it more frequently occurs in a pure state, for it is much less abundant. Aluminum, perhaps the most abundant of all metals, was among the last to be utilized, solely because so diffi- cult to obtain in a pure state. After these came the multitudinous chemical substances, elementary and composite, that are now applied to innumerable uses. The distinction, however, between materials and forces dis- appears entirely upon analysis. It is no longer metaphysical to say that we know nothing of matter except through its properties. It is only its reactions that affect man's senses, only its properties that are utilized. But no line of demarcation can be drawn between the properties of matter and physical forces. Properties are forces and forces are properties. At bottom, it is simply activities with which we have to do. It is now known that all matter is active, and the only difference between substances is the different ways in which they act. Of course these differences in activity are due to corresponding differences in constitution, but this need not concern us. But if matter is only known by ite properties, and the proper- ties of matter are forces, it follows that matter possesses inherent powers. Schopenhauer was right when he said : " Die Materie ist durch und durch Causalitat." 1 Matter is causality. Matter is power. Saint Simon had this idea in his apotheosis of indus- try and the importance of devoting energy to material things. Guyot has attempted to reduce it to a simple formula. In his "Principles of Social Economy" he expresses it in the following form : "Economic progress is in direct ratio to the action of man on things." 2 In an article of later date he expanded and completed his formula as follows : 1 " Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung," 3d edition, Leipzig, 1859, Vol. II, Table of " Praedicabilia a priori " to p. 55, first page, 3d column. 2 " Principles of Social Economy," by Yves Guyot. Translated from the French by C. H. d'Eyncourt Leppington. Second edition, London, 1892, p. 298. 20 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PARTI Progress is in direct ratio to the action of man on things, and in inverse ratio to the coercive action of man on man. 1 Matter is dynamic, and every time that man has touched it with the wand of reason it has responded by satisfying a want. This is the true philosophical basis of that " historical materialism " of which we hear so much in these days. Its defenders dimly perceive the principle, but are unable to formulate it, being engrossed by surface considerations. It is this, too, that is meant when it is asserted that material civilization tends in the long run to ameliorate the condition of man. This is denied by some, but most men, I think, feel that it is so, although they might not know how to demonstrate it. Civilization may be regarded either as an unconscious or as a conscious process, according to the point of view. The efforts and activities that have raised man from round to round of the ladder may be looked upon as the results of the inherent forces of his nature, and hence unconscious and cosmic. Or, the civilizing acts of men may be looked upon as the results of will, ideas, and intelli- gent aspirations for excellence, and hence conscious and personal. The first of these view-points has been erected into a science, and is sometimes appropriately called mesology. Human history thus becomes a simple extension of natural history. This is regarded as the scientific view par excellence. It is, however, mainly true that man has risen by dint of his own efforts and activities. The nature of human progress has been the theme of much discussion, and the extreme scientific view seems to negative not only all praise or blame but all hope of success on the part of man himself in trying to accelerate his advancement or improve his condition. The very law of evolution threatens to destroy hope and paralyze effort. Science applied to man becomes a gospel of inaction. But whether we are hero-worshipers or believers in the blind forces of evolution^ we must admit that the truly great are the necessary instruments by which human progress is accomplished, and such progress with- out their intervention is inconceivable. But we are told that these 1 Le progres est en raison directe de 1'action de 1'homme sur les choses et en raison inverse de 1'action coercitive de 1'homme sur 1'homme. Journal desteonomistes, 58* anne'e, 5' se'rie, tome XL (Octobre a Decembre 1899), 15 Decembre, 1899, p. 332, being the concluding words of an article entitled: " Le Crite'rium du Progres," par Yves Guyot, pp. 321-332. CH. in] THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF SOCIOLOGY 21 human instruments of progress are themselves products of ante- cedent causes which could result in nothing else. Ergo, laissez faire. The fallacy of this reasoning has been hard to point cmt. I have finally satisfied myself that it belongs to the class of " fool's puzzles," like Zeno's proof of the impossibility of motion, or the feat of the woman of Ephesus who carried her calf each day from the time of its birth till it became an ox. I have frequently stated the problem in my own way, usually giving the argument the name of the " gospel of action," and Professor Huxley, a short time before his death, seems to have caught a glimpse of the principle. 1 But per- haps the best statement of the case that has yet been made is that of Mr. John Morley in his essay on " Compromise." He says : It would be odd if the theory which makes progress depend on modifica- tion, forbade us to attempt to modify. When it is said that the various successive changes in thought and institution present and consummate them- selves spontaneously, no one means by spontaneity that they come to pass independently of human effort and volition. On the contrary, this energy of the members of society is one of the spontaneous elements. It is quite as indispensable as any other of them, if, indeed, it be not more so. Prog- ress depends upon tendencies and forces in a community. But of these tendencies and forces the organs and representatives must plainly be found among the men and women of the community, and cannot possibly be found anywhere else. Progress is not automatic, in the sense that if we were all to be cast into a deep slumber for the space of a generation, we should arouse to find ourselves in a greatly improved social state. The world only grows better, even in the moderate degree in which it does grow better, because people wish that it should, and take the right steps to make it better. Evolution is not a force, but a process ; not a cause, but a law. It explains the source and marks the immovable limitations of social energy. But social energy can never be superseded either by evolution or by anything else. 2 It is human activity that transforms the environment in the in- terest of man. It is that interest 3 which is in the nature of a force, and which in fact constitutes the social forces, that has accomplished 1 " Prolegomena to Evolution and Ethics," 1894. Collected Essays, Vol. IX. 2 John Morley, Fortnightly Review, Vol. XXII (N. S., Vol. XVI), Aug. 1, 1874, p. 229; " On Compromise," London, 1874, Chapter V, pp. 160-161. 8 Ratzenhofer has greatly enriched the terminology of social science by the promi- nent place he gives to this term (angeborenes Interesse) as the precise equivalent of the social forces, as I have used that expression. See his " Sociologische Erkenntnis," pp. 28 ff . et passim. M. Espinas used the same term in his "Socie'te's animales," p. 459, in the same sense, but did not elaborate the thought. 22 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PARTI everything in the social world. It is the social homologue of the universal nisus of nature, the primordial cosmic force (Urkraft) which produces all change. It is, to use a modern phrase, unilateral, and hence we find that the activities which have resulted in human achievement have, when broadly viewed, an orderly method and a uniform course. Just as the biotic form of this universal force pushes life into every crack and cranny, into the frozen tun- dras and the abysmal depths of the sea, so the generalized social energy of human interest rears everywhere social structures that are the same in all ages and races so far as concerns their essential nature. But it is time to inquire more specially what the products of achieve- ment are. The chief failure to understand them is due to the false and superficial view that they consist in material goods, or wealth. This is the fallacy upon which chiefly rests the notion that human society differs from animal society only in degree. Because welfare is so largely dependent on wealth, it is natural to suppose that wealth is the main condition to progress. There is a sense in which this is true, but to say that wealth is a product of achievement involves an ellipsis. Material goods, as, for example, food, clothing, and shelter, are, it is true, the ends ; but the real products of achieve- ment are means. They are the means to these ends, and not the ends themselves. Involved in the idea of achievement 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 employed. Now, material goods are all perishable. Nothing is better understood by economists than the instability of wealth. Says John Stuart Mill : When men talk of the ancient wealth of a country, of riches inherited from .ancestors, and similar expressions, the idea suggested is, that the riches so transmitted were produced long ago, at the time when they are said to have been first acquired, and that no portion of the capital of a country was produced this year, except as much as may have been this year added to the total amount. The fact is far otherwise. The greater part, in value, of the wealth now existing in England has been produced by human hands within the last twelve months. A very small proportion indeed of that large aggregate was in existence ten years ago ; of the present productive capital of the country scarcely any part, except farm-houses and factories, and a few ships and machines ; and even these would not in most cases have survived so long, if fresh labor had not been employed within that period in putting CH. in] THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF SOCIOLOGY 23 them in repair. The land subsists, and the land is almost the only thing that subsists. Everything which is produced perishes, and most things very quickly. . . . Capital is kept in existence from age to age, not by preservation, but by perpetual reproduction. 1 Mr. Henry George in his " Progress and Poverty," Chapter IV, has further discussed this subject. Most goods of course are consumed at once. These are the most important of all. The real end is con- sumption, and goods have no value except in consumption. But there are great differences in the degree of perishability of goods corresponding to the different kinds of consumption. A brown stone front on Fifth Avenue requires several* generations of occupants to " consume " it, but if not constantly kept in repair it would soon crumble into ruins, and even the stones that face its front would be ultimately buried under accumulations of dust. Wonder is sometimes expressed at the discovery of ruined cities, such as Nineveh, Babylon, Troy, etc., deeply buried under the earth, and it is supposed that it is because the sands of the desert of that region have rapidly entombed them. But in Rome and other ancient cities not in desert regions excavations reveal buildings underneath the sites of the present ones. In the exceptionally clean city of Washington the official files and records stored away in the archives of fireproof buildings are covered with a thick coating of dust in a few years. The deposition of dust in the United States National Museum seems to be about at the rate of one millimeter per annum. It would be many times that out-of-doors, and the National Capital would become a buried Nineveh in a few centuries, if abandoned by man. Wagons, carriages, and other vehicles only last their owners a cer- tain length of time. Locomotives and railroad rolling stock last only so long, and must be replaced by new, however thoroughly they may be kept in repair. A steamship has a duration of life that is more nearly a fixed quantity than that of a man or an animal, and its mor- tality is just as certain. It makes very little difference either whether these things are kept in use or not. They disintegrate even more rapidly if lying idle. Machinery rusts and timbers rot more rapidly if always lying in one position than if kept moving. Houses go to pieces faster if unoccupied than if inhabited. Clothing would probably last longer unworn if kept away from moths and moisture 1( ' Principles of Political Economy," etc., by John Stuart Mill, Boston, 1848, Vol. I, pp. 93, 94. 24 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PARTI than if worn, but sometimes even this does not seem true. I once talked with an aged colored man at the Soldier's Home near Wash- ington, who had been the body servant of General Winfield Scott, and who, since the death of the general, had been assigned the duty of caring for his effects in a room where they were kept. Among these effects were his military clothes, his sashes, etc. The old man said with a sigh of loyal sadness that in spite of all his care they were going to pieces, and with a true touch of superstitious reverence he ascribed their rapid decay to the fact that their owner was no longer alive. But of course he forgot that if he had lived all that time it would probably have been necessary to renew them several times. If achievement consisted in wealth, the objects of production would have grown more and more durable with the progress of civilization. The fact is precisely the reverse of this. Whatever class of objects we may examine, we find that the farther back we go the more solid and enduring the materials are of which they are constructed. This is perhaps the most strikingly exemplified in architecture. Compare the old with the new part of any city of Europe, or even of America. I once engaged a room in a house on Essex Street, Strand, of which the front door consisted of ponderous planks six inches thick. The enlightened host apologized for it, saying that it was a very old house. Without some such experience, the modern American law student can scarcely understand the phrase he finds in his " Black- stone," that in English law " a man's house is his castle." The clap- boarded balloon frames of the Middle West are more like " castles in the air." But any American who has seen Europe, even in the capacity of a tourist, knows that this case was no particular excep- tion. Builders in European cities have unlimited difficulty in trying to introduce into the older buildings such " modern improvements " as water and gas pipes, and electric wires. Such buildings were built to stay, and many of them are still very strong. But to see the perishability of even such structures it is only necessary to visit such castles and chteaus as those of Colchester or Chinon. But there has been a gradual change in the character of architecture, both public and private, in the direction of less and less solidity, dura- bility, and costliness, from the pyramids of Egypt to the cottages of modern summer resorts. Not less clearly is this tendency illustrated by the history of book- CH. in] THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF SOCIOLOGY 25 making since the invention of printing. Any one who has had occa- sion to handle books published in the sixteenth or seventeenth century, does not need to have this point further enforced. Often printed on parchment, always with strong, almost indestructible binding, firmly and securely hand sewed, not to speak of the elabo- rate ornamentation of the title page and rubrics at the heads of chapters, these ancient tomes are the embodiments of painstaking workmanship and durability. Contrast them with modern books. Four centuries hence there will scarcely exist a copy of a nineteenth- century book that anybody reads. Many an Edition de luxe even will go to pieces on the shelves of public libraries. But to these qualities of durability and expensiveness have suc- ceeded those of ready reproduction and indefinite multiplication. These are the elements of diffusion and popularization. It is an evening up of conditions. For along with the massive structures, chiefly for tombs of dead rulers or temples to the gods, there went great deprivation, even in the means of shelter, for the living men of the time. So, too, in the early history of book-making, only the very few could afford to own a book. Only the cheap can become universal, and it is easier to renew a cheap article than to guard a costly one. The ages of stone and bronze and iron have successively passed, and we are living in an age of paper and caoutchouc. Achievement does not consist in wealth. Wealth is fleeting and ephemeral. Achievement is permanent and eternal. And now mark the paradox. Wealth, the transient, is material ; achievement, the enduring, is immaterial. 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, institu- tions. In a word, they are inventions. Achievement consists in in- vention in the Tardean sense. It is anything and everything that rises above mere imitation or repetition. Every such increment to civilization is a permanent gain, because it is imitated, repeated, per- petuated, and never lost. It is chiefly mental or psychical, but it may be physical in the sense of skill. The earlier developments of civi- lizing influences consisted mainly in these, and such accounts as we have consist in descriptions of the physical feats of heroes. But mere muscular strength soon yields to cunning and skill. These do not achieve until they begin to create. Language itself was an. 26 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PARTI achievement of stupendous import, and every one of the steps it has taken gesture, oral, written, printed forms of language has marked an epoch in the progress of man. Literature has become one of the great achievements. Art, too, is an achievement upon which we need not dwell. Philosophy and science must be ranked as achievements, vast and far-reaching in their consequences. The invention of tools, instruments, utensils, missiles, traps, snares, and weapons comes under this head, crowned by the era of machino- f acture, artificial locomotion, and electric intercommunication. All these are too obvious and important to have escaped the observation of any one. But I wish to draw attention to a class of products of achievement that are at once typical, important, and little thought of in this connection. They may be called the tools of the mind. Lord Bacon saw the need of instruments or helps to the mind as tools are helps to the hand, 1 but long before his day many such had been invented, and he had used them all his life, and many have been invented since. An arithmetical notation, or mode of expressing numbers by symbols of any kind, is such a tool of the mind, and all leading races have devised something of the kind. Greece had hers, and Rome hers. We still make some use of the latter. But these systems vary greatly in value and usefulness, according to their simplicity and flexibility. It is remarkable that the Greek mind, although so given to mathematics, did not furnish the world with a perfect method of writing numbers. The system that is now universally employed by civilized races is called the Arabic system, but it is probable that the Arabs only somewhat improved it after receiving it from the East. We are told, too, that, like most other things, it has a history and a genesis, but its origin is for the most part lost in obscurity. So far as the decimal system itself is concerned, some form of it (if not decimal, then by fives or twenties) is practically universal, for the simple reason that there are ten fingers on the two hands, and that the fingers (or fingers and toes) are universally used for counting. The origin of the Arabic symbols is a matter of speculation, 2 but these would be evolved very much as were the letters of the alphabet. But the peculiar merit of 1 "Novum Organum," Aph. II. 2 An ingenious theory was proposed by Mr. W. Donisthorpe in Nature of Sept. 30, 1875, Vol. XII, p. 476, and supplemented by Mr. D. V. T. Qua in the Popular Science Monthly for April, 1877, Vol. X, pp. 737-739, and numerous other writers of about that time. CH. in] THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF SOCIOLOGY 27 the Arabic system consists in what is called the value of position, 1 and this it is which gives it its wonderful adaptability to business uses. We need only to figure to ourselves the sorry plight the world would be in if obliged to depend for all the business transactions, engineering calculations, and pedagogic necessities upon, say, the Eoman system of numerals, in order to form a just idea of the infinite value to society of the Arabic system. This illustrates, too, as well as any other case, what is meant by permanence. The goods whose cost, prices, and values it enables us so readily to calculate, may be produced, transported, exchanged, and consumed a thousand or a million times, but the means of computing all the elements of these processes remain forever, and may be used throughout all future time, as they have been used in the past. The Arabic system is a typical permanent human achievement. In like manner we might review all the other kinds of calculus : algebra, which also goes back to India ; logarithms, of relatively modern date ; analytical geometry, invented by Descartes and now used by all statisticians, by political economists and sociologists; the differential and integral calculus, somewhat independently formulated by Newton, Leibnitz, and Lagrange, and without which astronomy and many other sciences and arts could never have reached their present state of development. These, too, are among the great permanent achievements of the race. The three great arts of read- ing, writing, arid calculating, viewed from a philosophical standpoint, have raised that part of mankind who possess them high above all those races in which they are unknown, or only rudimentary. The unreflecting have little idea of the importance of these factors in giving superiority to the advanced races. I fully agree with Galton, Kidd, and others of their school, that the natural superiority of civilized races as compared with uncivilized ones is greatly exagger- ated, and that it is almost wholly due to this vast mechanical equip- ment of acquired aptitudes, built up along one advancing line of social development, increment upon increment, permanently welded to these races so that they imagine that it is a part of themselves. Mr. Kidd very happily calls the power thus acquired social efficiency, 1 See the learned essay on this subject by Baron von Humboldt, originally published in Crelle's Journal fur die reine und angeicandte Mathematik, Vol. IV, Berlin, 1829, pp. 205-231 (especially pp. 215-227) ; reproduced in part in his "Kosmos," Vol. II (Cotta's edition, Stuttgart, 1870), pp. 288-290. 28 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PARTI a term that I gladly adopt and shall freely use. And I fully agree with him when, after illustrating this truth at considerable length, he concludes : The true lesson of this, and of the large class of similar experiences commonly supposed to prove the low mental development of uncivilized man, is not that he is so inferior to ourselves, intellectually, as to be almost on a level with Mr. Galton's dog, but that he is almost always the representa- tive of a race of low social efficiency with consequently no social history. On the other hand, the individuals of civilized races with whom he is contrasted are the members of a community with a long record of social stability and continuity, which is, therefore, in possession of a vast accumu- lated store of knowledge inherited from past generations. That is to say, we are the representatives of peoples necessarily possessing high social qualities, but not by any means and to the same degree these high intellectual qualities we so readily assume. 1 The industrial arts form a much more obvious, though perhaps not more important, class of human achievements. They are greatly dependent at every step on the tools of the mind, and, properly viewed, they are almost as completely psychic in their nature. For all art is due to invention, and invention is a mental operation. Every tool or implement of industry, however primitive and rude, has cost a large amount, in the aggregate, of thought, although it may be the product of a long series of slight improvements, distributing the mental energy through many different minds acting in different generations. Still it foots up the same quantity of thought applied to the invention. But the increment of improvement is at once materialized in the changed product, and the achievement is thus rendered permanent, and the basis for further improvement. Thought is thus dynamic when applied to matter. The new and better article, if used, will wear out, but the materialized idea lives on in the reproduction of the article as long as it serves its purpose. This part involves what is called labor. The inventor need not make a usable tool or machine at all. He may embody the idea in a model, or even in a drawing, and nowadays the state assumes the duty of registering and preserving these models, and protecting the inventor from having them copied by others who did not invent them. But the simple reproduction of invented products is not purely physical or muscular. This point has latterly been insisted upon by a number of economists. Says Dr. Gustav Cohn : i " Social Evolution," by Benjamin Kidd, New York, 1894, p. 272. CH. in] THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF SOCIOLOGY 29 Labor, in its economic aspects, whether mental or physical, has its basis, not in nature, but in civilization ; it does not depend on physiological but on psychological reasons. Moreover, it is not possible in any case to separate mental from physical labor ; for the simplest operation in which the use of the muscles is guided by any trace of thought is a combination of both kinds of labor. 1 Professor Clark expresses the same truth in the following language : In view of the constant presence of these three elements in labor, the physical, the mental, and the moral, any effort, in the supposed interest of the working classes, to depreciate mental labor in comparison with physical is unintelligent. All labor is mental. To a large and controlling extent the mental element is present in the simplest operations. With the laborer who shovels in the gravel pit the directing and controlling influence of the mind predominates, to an indefinite extent, over the simple foot-pounds of mechanical force which he exerts. 2 This is why human labor and animal activity are generically distinct, and one of the principal reasons why sociology cannot properly include the study of the so-called animal societies, pro- duced and continued by reflex and instinctive forces. Inventions, in the narrower sense of the word, almost immediately pass into arts. In fact, in most of them there is scarcely any line of demarcation between them. They are preeminently telic, and it is the function that is primarily in the inventor's mind. He knows what he wants done, and merely devises the means of doing it. It is thus that the arts grow up. What the inventor does is to discover the principle by which he can cause the forces of nature, including the properties of the substances that he is acquainted with, to do the work that he wishes to have done and cannot do with his unaided hands. The discovery of this principle and the mode of applying it is what constitutes the achievement. This discovery, and not the resulting material product, is the lasting element in the operation. It can be used thenceforth for all time. It never wears out and is never lost. We hear a great deal about lost arts. I heard a learned lecture once on lost arts, and the thing that chiefly impressed me was the extreme rarity and practical non existence of lost arts. They may be conceived of, 1 " A History of Political Economy," by Dr. Gustav Cohn. Translated by Joseph Adna Hill, Philadelphia, 1894 (Supplement to the Ann. Am. Acad. Pol. and Soc. Set., March, 1894), pp. 87-88. 2 " The Philosophy of Wealth," etc., by John B. Clark, Boston, 1886, p. 21. 30 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PARTI but as a matter of fact there are none, at least in the historic (weltgeschichtliche) races. The only way in which we can conceive an art to be lost is to suppose several lines of civilization to have developed independently of one another, some of which have for any reason terminated, while others have continued. If inventions and arts had existed in the former that did not exist in the latter, they might thus be lost, and we can imagine that their products, preserved by time and favorable conditions, might subsequently be discovered by surviving races who did not know how they were created. But this is merely hypothetical, and with the increasing intercommunication among nations and consequent cul- tural anastomosis, the chances of its occurrence are constantly diminishing. These two great classes of products of achievement, means of handling quantities and means of utilizing forces calculus and invention are perhaps the most important, and they have chiefly rendered civilization possible. But others might be enumerated, which, considered alone, might appear to possess still greater weight, and of many of which it can at least be said, that but for them the fruits of the forms of achievement that we have considered could not have been reaped. These are essentially social in their char- acter, and relate to men in a collective capacity. To mention them in something like the probable order of their development, we may enumerate, 1, military systems, 2, political systems, 3, juridical systems, and 4, industrial systems.. Whatever views may be enter- tained relative to the social position of war, the sociologist cannot ignore the role it has played in the history of man and society. The subject will be fully dealt with in the tenth chapter, but it may properly be stated here that the earliest of the whole series of means for organizing the social forces were military systems, and that all others grew out of them. The transition from military to political control was natural and gradual, as Gumplowicz and Ratzenhofer have shown. The state was the normal and legitimate outcome of the race struggle, first military, then political. Law, too, began as an economic method of escape from the necessity of constantly exercising military and civil power, and systems of jurisprudence were a natural outgrowth of social conditions under a regime of con- quest and subjugation. Lastly, the industrial system, as such, could only arise under the protection of army, state, and law. These may en. in] THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF SOCIOLOGY 31 therefore be called protective or conservative systems or achieve- ments, and neither industry, art, nor science could thrive except under the protection of law and government having a final appeal to the military power. Finally, it may be said in general that all human institutions are achievements. Even those that we now consider bad, even those that have been abolished, were useful in the wider sense in their day and age. The fact that they were developed and actually came into existence proves to the sociologist that they must have served a purpose. But there is really no such thing as abolishing an institu- tion. Institutions change their character to adapt them to their time, and the successive forms may take different names, and be no longer recognized as the same as the institutions out of which they have de- veloped, but the fundamental principle which underlies them is com- mon to them all, and may usually be traced through the entire series of changes that an institution may have undergone. The term institu- tion is capable of such expansion as to embrace all human achieve- ment, and in this enlarged sense institutions become the chief study of the sociologist. All achievements are institutions, and there is a decided gain to the mind in seeking to determine the true subject- matter of sociology, to regard human institutions and human achieve- ment as synonymous terms, and as constituting, in the broadest sense of both, the field of research of a great science. These products of achievement that we have been considering have one fundamental condition, without which they would have been impossible. They absolutely require social continuity. I have said that they are permanent, that they are never lost. This is implied in the term achievement. To be lost is not to exist. We may illus- trate this from, biology. Individuals are short-lived, but the race persists. Species may become extinct, but genera or families are carried on. We find certain forms in existence. We know nothing of other forms. If there have been such, they are the same to us as if they had not existed. The theory is that the bathmic force is omnipresent and pushing in every direction, as from the center of a sphere toward every point on its periphery. We may imagine that, besides the few lines that succeeded in developing, there were hun- dreds or even thousands of other lines tested, but found to fail, sooner or later, leaving only the ones we know. Now a lost art or a lost institution would correspond to one of these supposed failures of 32 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PARTI organic nature. It would be, to all intents and purposes, non- existent. In other words, and it certainly sounds platitudinal, society consists of existing institutions, just as life consists of exist- ing forms. But this truth is not quite so simple as it seems when put in this way. Social continuity is an important factor, and one that may be readily thought away. In fact, and here the biological analogy seems to fail, it does not apply to all the populations of the globe. I do not mean to favor any doctrine of polygenism, by doing which Gumplowicz has so greatly and so unnecessarily weakened his argu- ments in the eyes of scientific men. It has nothing to do with the question of organic descent or with the origin of the human races. It is a purely sociological fact that all the human races do not belong to one and the same series of cultural development. Many of them are so primitive that even when brought into contact with the historic races they have nothing to contribute to the general stream of culture, and become simply subjects for natural history study, like the flora and fauna of the regions they inhabit. But there are others, such as most of the Asiatic races, who have followed lines of their own, and must have a certain culture history, which r however, is so unlike that of the European races, that there is very little in common between them. Some maintain that Chinese culture, for example, is equal if not superior to European. The same claim is sometimes made for India. I need not enter into that question here. Suffice it to say that Oriental civilization seems to have con- sisted chiefly in what may be called spiritual culture, largely ignoring material culture. But as matter alone is dynamic, they have acquired very little social energy, or social efficiency. They have not called nature to their assistance, and consequently they are practically powerless when brought into competition with Western civilization. I do not refer altogether to their weakness in matters of war. They lack in great measure the industrial efficiency of the West. They lack chiefly the mechanic arts, and have developed but little machinofacture, being confined in the main to manufacture in the literal sense. They have not employed the two great agencies, steam and electricity. Even if their civilization represents a longer line than that of the Occident, it is certainly immensely behind it in these respects, which we regard as the most important ones. They are beginning to recognize this, and some of the nations of the East, CH. in] THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF SOCIOLOGY 33 notably Japan, are rapidly westernizing and working over into the great current of scientific culture. It is probably safe to predict that all will either do so or be permanently side-tracked. Sociology, as distinguished from anthropology, deals mainly with historic, or as the Germans call them, weltgeschichtliche races, because here alone is social continuity, the sine qua non of achievement. Such races may properly be called in analogy to the use of the term in biology, the " favored races." These alone have built up a civili- zation. They have achieved and handed down the products from generation to generation, and from age to age. It is easy to trace this line back to a state of barbarism. We can almost see it emerg- ing out of savagery. At least, we know that it did once so emerge, so that when we say that savages contribute nothing to civilization, we do not mean that a state of savagery is incompatible with historic development ; we only mean that in the present state of the world they are contributing nothing to the main existing line of develop- ment. It does not follow that if existing savages could be unmolested for an indefinite period they would not slowly advance along some line of their own. Letourneau has shown that savages do progress. But it is very difficult now to prove such a point. If they are near enough to civilized races to be observed, they cannot fail to be affected by them, and it is impossible to say what they would have done if they had never been brought into contact with them. The x study of uncivilized races, therefore, is, and must remain, anthro- pology and not sociology. This is true even for the Asiatic civiliza- tions. They can be used by the sociologist to furnish valuable illustrations and comparisons, but beyond this they form no part of sociology proper. Should they ever adopt Western methods, acquire , the Western spirit, and fall entirely into line with the Western ( * world, the case would be changed. But except in the case of Japan, and that only quite recently, the fundamental characteristics are so radically different that the sociologist can only study them for com- parative purposes. The widest chasm that separates the East from the West is the lack of individuality in the former contrasted with the exuberant individualism of the latter. The spirit of resigna- tion, the prevailing philosophy of quietism, the denial or complete subordination of the will to live, that prevail under Buddhism, Brahminism, Shintoism, and other Oriental ' isms/ are fatal to that vigorous push which has wrought Western civilization. Desire is 34 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PARTI the social force, and where there is no desire, no will, there is no force, no social energy. Civilization is the product of active social energy. Or, to use Ratzenhof er's terminology, there must be a lively interest or there can be no achievement. It is this innate interest (angeborenes Interesse) that makes men fight and conquer and struggle. It is the same that makes them undertake voyages of discovery in search of golden fleeces, or El Dorados, or Northwest Passages. Interest impels mankind to explore, to migrate, to invent, to labor, to produce wealth, to seek knowledge, to discover truth, to create objects both of use and beauty in a word, to achieve. We shall return to this subject in Chapter XI, when it will be time to consider in its full significance the philosophy of effort. It must be clear from all that has been said that the essential characteristic of all achievement is some form of knowledge. But knowledge, unlike capacity, cannot be transmitted through heredity. The germ-plasm can only carry the ancestral strains of parents to their offspring and descendants, and whether " acquired characters " can be thus transmitted or not, it is certain that acquired knowledge is a " character " that does not descend in that way. It has to be acquired anew by every member of society. If it is not thus ac- quired, it is lost to that member. But as all achievement is knowledge, to be saved it must be transmitted in some way. The process by which achievement is handed down may be aptly called social heredity. This social heredity is the same thing that I have otherwise denominated social continuity, and it is the absolute necessity of social continuity that restricts the science of sociology to that great line of social development in which there has been no break in the transmission of achievement. We thus have the con- tinuity of the social germ-plasm, which is as good an analogy as the organicists have discovered. The social germ-plasm is that Promethean fire which has been passed on from age to age, warm- ing the world into life with its glow, and lighting it with its flame through all the long night of the past into the daybreak of the present. A few rare minds have dimly seen that civilization con- sists in the cumulative light of knowledge. The most cele- brated expression of this truth is that of Pascal in which he says that "the entire series of men during the course of all the ages is to be considered as if it were one and the same man en. in] THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF SOCIOLOGY 35 who has always lived and has been constantly learning." 1 Pascal seems to have derived the idea from St. Augustine, of whom he was an admirer and a close student. Bacon has expressed a similar view, and something very close to it occurs frequently in Condorcet's " Esquisse " in connection with his favorite doctrine of the per- fectibility of the human race. Herder also entertained similar ideas. But this conception is only an approach toward the truth. It falls far short of what has actually taken place in the world. It indicates the length but not the breadth of civilization. No one man, however wise, and though immortal, could have accomplished what all men have accomplished. This brings us in full view of one of the most important and at the same time most neglected factors of social evolution, viz., that of individuality in achieve- ment. It is another aspect of the truth we encountered in the last chapter that it is inequality that has broadened and enriched civilization as it has broadened and enriched science. Civilization advances in much the same way that science advances. It is not the work of any one man, but of thousands of men. Each one of these thousands does a somewhat different work from any other. This is due to the natural inequalities of men, chiefly to varied in- tellectual capacities and attainments which cause them to follow different and almost infinitely varied lines and produce correspond- ingly varied results. This causes the enormous superiority of all men over any one man. Human achievement may be compared to a great modern city with its buildings of unequal shapes, sizes, and heights, its columns, monuments, domes, towers, and spires differing in all conceivable ways, and yet denoting a still more endless variety of activities and social operations. If we take up the study of any one particular line, it matters not what, we shall find lesser lights and great lights characterizing the history of its development. Different schools of art represented by great masters, each of which has added something to the work of all the rest. Schools of architecture, of sculpture, of painting, of music ; types of poetry and prose literature ; systems of philosophy ; world views and religious systems ; qualitative and quantitative powers of perceiving utilities, 1 "Toute la suite des hommes, pendant le cours de tant de siecles, doit etre considered comme nn meme homme qui subsiste toujours, et qui apprend continuelle- ment." Pense'es de Blaise Pascal suivies d'une Table Analytique, Paris, 1828, p. 28. Saint Augustine (" De Civitate Dei," X, 14 ; " DeQiuestionibus," LXXXI1I, Qusest. 18) expressed a similar thought and doubtless Pascal's idea was derived from that source. 36 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PARTI resulting in innumerable inventions and arts all due to natural inequalities in men. It is thus that civilization acquires its volume and that it becomes that infinitely complex and varied field of study which the sociologist finds before him. Here come in the diversities of genius and the question of the nature of genius in general. It is necessary to use the word genius, if we use it at all, in a very broad sense. Galton in the prefatory chap- ter to the edition of 1892 of his " Hereditary Genius " concludes from the criticisms of the term genius as used by him that it would have been better to substitute the word ability, but this would have lacked character, and it is much better to retain his original dignified title and simply give to the word genius a greater latitude. This is what all thinkers do when they seek to express a great thought by some one comprehensive term. Kant's Vernunft, Schopenhauer's Wille, Comte's positivisme, are such comprehensive uses of terms much more restricted in common language. I shall use the word genius in this large sense. Genius is a sort of focalization of psychic power. While there is an immense range to the human mind in general, and enormous differences in the aggregate capacity of different minds, this difference is still further increased by a sort of unconscious or natural concentration of psychic power in special ways in the same mind. That is to say, a mind of only average aggregate capacity may draw- off from all but one of its faculties and add on to that one, until it becomes wonderfully keen or able or efficient in that one direction. I believe this to be the case with most typical geniuses in any particu- lar form of achievement. It is proverbial that artists are very medi- ocre in all but their art. There are very few Leonardo da Vincis. It is the same with poets and usually with philosophers. It is a sort of psychic division of labor that society creates, whereby with a large number of workers it can accomplish the maximum results, just as by the industrial division of labor much greater results are accomplished than could be done if all were doing all kinds of work and only doing them moderately well. But this process does not stop with producing ordinary genius in all directions by draining other faculties to stock some particular one to the utmost. It sometimes goes, like everything in nature, to great extremes, and produces what are called prodigies. A prodigy is a person in whom a particular faculty is greatly overdeveloped at the expense of the rest. Blind Tom, except in music, is very close CH. in] THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF SOCIOLOGY 37 to an idiot. Zerah Colburn, Vito Mangiamele, Tom Fuller, Jedediah Buxton, Inaudi, Dasah, Zaneboni, were all " lightning calculators," or mathematical prodigies. They varied in respect of other faculties, but are all reported as dull, ignorant, illiterate, or incapable of learning anything. Several of them were defective in some of their senses and more or less physically deformed. There have been many prodigies in other directions, usually deficient in all but the one power. That there is such a power of compensation or substitution of facul- ties is attested by the history of deaf-mutes and blind persons, in which the remaining senses are usually much sharpened. This con- centration of mental power is often very marked in children, and cases of marvelous precocity are recorded without number. Great geniuses are usually precocious, and some men, like John Stuart Mill, Pascal, and Goethe, who were not one-sided in later life, were precocious. But the achievements of prodigies have been compara- tively small, and where the specialization runs thus rampant the result is reduced until we reach monomania, the idee fixe, or com- plete insanity, all of which are only further steps in the same direction. If we expand the meaning of genius to include all that are called great for any reason, we arrive at a crude basis for estimating the proportion of geniuses to population. Galton undertook the compu- tation and concluded that for high grade talent there are in England 250 per million, or one to every 4000 males of fifty years of age and upward. This may perhaps be accepted as approximately the actual state of things in the leading countries of the world. The subject of potential genius is much too large to be introduced here, and we can only base our discussion on the observed facts of society and the state of things which social evolution has actually brought about. I do not say that the rest of mankind is socially worthless, but it is mainly devoted to statical work which preserves and perpetuates achievement. It corresponds to' heredity in biology, while achieve- ment corresponds to variation. We cannot, therefore, regard the non-achieving classes of society as mere ciphers, nor say with Gracian " that even in the most populous cities not a man was to be met with, but they were all inhabited by lions, tigers, leopards, foxes, apes, cattle, asses, and swine, nowhere a man ! but that upon further in- vestigation it was found that the few real men, to avoid seeing how things were, had withdrawn into the solitudes, where one would 38 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PARTI expect to find the wild beasts." l And yet it cannot be denied that the paucity of true men in the world makes a true man feel lonesome unless he has learned to study man objectively as a naturalist studies animals, and this feeling of contempt for the mass of mankind has been expressed by many writers, such as Humboldt, Schopenhauer, and Dean Swift. The point of view of this chapter furnishes a remedy for this form of pessimism. It does not really study men or the human race at all. That belongs to other sciences than sociology, chiefly to anthropology. It studies activities, results, products, in a word, achievement. Viewed in this light the contemptible side of human- ity vanishes from view, and only what is worthy or grand is pre- sented to the gaze. Even the relatively trifling character of the contribution of most individuals need not absorb attention, but only aggregates. Just as the geologist, although no one knows as well as he that the great ledges and canon walls were built up by mi- nute accretions through eons of time, need not dwell upon these aspects, but may study as a whole the miles 2 of stratified rock, so 1 " El Criticon," Primera Parte, Crisi V. Obras de Lorenzo Gracian, Madrid, 1664, Vol. I, p. 37. 2 The Grand Canon walls are over a mile in vertical thickness from the granite to the top of the rim (Upper Aubrey), and still we are in primary or Paleozoic (Car- boniferous) time. On this are heaped farther eastward the Mesozoic, the Tertiary, and the Pleistocene. Haeckel in his " Weltrathsel " (pp. 17, 44H43) calls this general view of the world the " cosmological perspective," and he emphasizes the importance of a clear under- standing of the age of the earth as an antidote to the prevailing anthropocentric world view. He takes up the question of geologic time which has been actively discussed during the last two decades and gives 100,000,000 as the minimum esti- mate of the life-bearing period of our globe. Of this he gives 52,000,000 years to primordial time (Archozoic), ending with the Cambrian, 34,000,000 to the Paleozoic, 11,000,000 to the Mesozoic, and 3,000,000 to the Cenozoic. To this he adds 100,000 years for the Quaternary (Anthropozoic) period. One of his students, Heinrich Schmidt, brought out these results in a very striking form by conceiving the whole of this time as a cosmic day (" Schopfungstag ") of twenty-four equal parts after the analogy of a solar day, and then assigning to each geological period its share of this time in hours and minutes. The humiliating conclusion is thus reached that the traditional 6000 years of human history (" Weltgeschichte ") occupy five seconds of the cosmic day. It occurred to me to give to this cosmological perspective a graphic representation by means of a dial, and I prepared one and have used it in lectures on the geological history of plants. In the light of all the discussion of the age of the earth I adopted a still more conservative estimate, placing the total at 72,000,000 years. The Hon. Charles D. Walcott, Director of the United States Geological Survey, in his address as Vice- president of the Geological Section of the American Association for the Advance- ment of Science in 1893, went into a thorough discussion of this question from all C1I. Ill] THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF SOCIOLOGY 39 the sociologist may forget the paltry littleness of each increment to civilization and the still more paltry motives that inspired it, and study the monument that the race has thus erected, classifying each stratum, as does the geologist, and working out the stages of hu- man culture. But the sociologist has an advantage over the geologist. The latter finds the world completed, so far as need concern him. The whole period of human occupation counts for nothing in geologic time, and it is idle for him to speculate even as to the future of the life that has been entombed in the rocks or now occupies the earth's surface. But the sociologist deals with a fresh young world. He can see it grow, and he has a perfect right not only to specu- late as to the future of society but also to try to accelerate its growth, on what I may call the Mori ey an principle above set forth. points of view (see the Proceedings, Vol. XLII, pp. 129-169), and conceded more to the physicists and astronomers than any other geologist has done, reducing the time scale to 55,000,000 years. He showed that the theories from the cooling of the globe and from the thickness of the strata are in practical harmony both as to the abso- lute time and also as to the relative lengths of the geological periods. While the former was made much less than geologists generally demand, the latter may be accepted with as much confidence as any of the estimates dealing with this problem. I have substantially adopted them in the following scheme. On the basis of 72,000,000, each hour of the cosmic day represents 3,000,000 years, and we have : GEOLOGIC PERIODS YEARS HOURS Archean 18,000,000 6 Algonkian 18,000,000 6 Cambrian 6,000,000 2 Silurian 6,000,000 2 Devonian 6,000,000 2 Carboniferous 6,000,000 2 Triassic 3,000,000 1 Jurassic 3,000.000 1 Cretaceous 3,000,000 1 Cenozoic 3,000,000 1 72,000,000 24 The Cenozoic, including the Pleistocene or Quaternary, may then be further sub- divided. The Tertiary need not be divided into Eocene, Miocene, and Pliocene, but it is important to estimate the length of the glacial periods. Haeckel doubtless gives too little time to these events (100,000 years). The minimum estimates exceed twice that, and 300,000 years is about an average. The human period, i.e. the utmost that any one will concede for human history, is not usually considered by geologists, and is left to the ethnologists and archaeologists. We may put it at 25,000 years, while 6000 years is generally recognized as covering the entire historic 40 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART i We see, then, that the results of human effort in bringing about civilization may all be comprehended under the single word achieve- ment, for it is the sum-total of human achievement that we call civilization. And while achievement is exclusively the work of individual men, it can only take place in a social state of coopera- tion on a grand scale, and it is impossible if the series of results is ever allowed to be interrupted. In the genealogical tree of social evolution no side branches can persist unless they are kept constantly nourished by direct contact with the main trunk. The nature of social evolution as of all organic evolution will be dealt with in Chapter V, and it is only necessary to say here that it is very different from the prevailing conception of evolution. But we cannot regard those leading civilizations that have separated off territorially from the main trunk and carried with them all the culture of the mother country, such as the American and Australian civilizations, as mere branches. They belong to the tree itself period, or that for which there are any real records. Including these in the Cenozoic we have : GEOLOGIC PERIODS YKABS HOURS MINUTES SECONDS Tertiary Pleistocene Human Total Cenozoic 2,675,000 300,000 25,000 53 6 30 30 3,000,000 1 Human History 6,000 n DIAL-OF-THE- COSMIC-DAY -ACE-OF-THE-EARTH CH. in] THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF SOCIOLOGY 41 and are attached to it by every organ and every function essential to the whole. Although every act must in strict science be recognized as the resultant of all the forces, internal and external, acting upon the agent, still it remains true that achievement is the work of individ- uals thus acting, and although from this scientific point of view there can be no praise nor blame, no room for criticism and no justification for eulogy, still there are all degrees in the value and meritoriousness of human acts corresponding to the extent to which they contribute to the general result, and such acts therefore become proper subjects for study and analysis. Such study and analysis, sympathetically pursued, tend rather to enhance one's opinion of men's actions and supply a certain corrective to the pessimistic tendencies above pointed out. We find that for the most part those acts which have proved to constitute real contributions to civiliza- tion have emanated from motives of a high order, I do not mean morally, but psychologically. They have as their basis a psychic rather than a physical interest. As soon as men rise to the con- templative stage of development, which occurs very early under a system of caste, which is the first to grow up under the operation of the struggle of races that almost universally prevailed, the psychic or transcendental interest is developed. The brain takes the place of the stomach and loins as a center of feeling, and there arise mental cravings, which constitute as effective social forces as hunger and love. The history of the world bears out this statement, and under these sociogenetic forces (see Chapter XV) art, philosophy, literature, industry, and science came gradually into existence and combined in the work of human achievement. Under the operation of these forces the chief ambition of all vigorous minds and enlightened spirits became that of contributing something to the great stream of civilization. It is for this to-day and not for pelf, that the student burns the midnight oil, that the genius sweeps the skies of fancy, that the philosopher probes the depths of nature, that the inventor tests the properties of substances and the actions of forces, that the specialist in any branch of science delves deeper than any of his predecessors. It is said that the love of approbation is the principal motive, and this may be admitted to be a less worthy motive than the love of achievement. As from the standpoint of modern psychology all motives are simply func- 42 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PARTI tions of the character or primordium (Anlage) l of individuals, worthiness is equivalent to social efficiency or effectiveness, and is here only used in that sense. Love of approbation is therefore to be welcomed as an aid to other motives in accomplishing the results. But when we look over the history of achievement we shall find that love of approbation plays a less prominent role than would seem from an observation of contemporary workers. The beginnings of all great achievements, which all will admit to be the most important steps, are usually laid in deep obscurity by men impelled by motives difficult to define. No doubt the idea of utility is a large factor, but not utility to self. Mere love of activity and pleasure in mental exertion are powerful motives arid have caused the most sustained labor often' in immensely fertile directions. Originality is difficult to distinguish from love of approbation, because no doubt it has to do with the opinion of others. The recluse inventor may have motives closely akin to those of the ancho- ret or the non-religious hermit. He does not care or expect to have his actions approved, but he may enjoy the sense of having them observed, or even ridiculed. Let any one, for example, try to analyze the motives that actuated Galvani in his studies of frogs' legs and they will be found complex in the extreme. Did he even dimly fore- see the era of electricity? Perhaps. But one thing seems certain. The love of approbation formed no part of his motives. His work only received disapprobation and contempt. We might instance other celebrated cases, but this one is typical. It was much the same way with the older philosophers. Many wrote without thought even of publication. The greater part of Leibnitz's works were published posthumously. Descartes sup- pressed his most important work, apparently not through fear of persecution, but from doubt as to whether it would be right to pub- lish it- Many eminent persons write their autobiographies with the condition that they be not published till after their death. Others write extended treatises in the same way, as, for example, Helvetius's work, " De 1'Homine," in two volumes. 1 Only biologists have thus far, to my knowledge, discussed the question of a proper English equivalent for the German word Anlage (see Nature, Vol. LVIII, Aug. 25, 1898, p. 390 ; Science, N.S., Vol. VIII, Dec. 2, 1898, p. 793). The German word is used in a much broader sense than is implied in these discussions. It applies to mind and society, and may often be rendered character or disposition (French naturel). It is here the intelligibel Charakter of Kant, or rather its physical basis. CH. in] THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF SOCIOLOGY 43 While therefore the love of approbation enters into the motives of men it is usually mingled with the love of achievement, which often includes the idea of doing some good, of benefiting mankind, etc. The desire to be remembered after death, or in remote future ages, must be very strong in many. This seems exactly intermediate between the love of approbation and the love of achieve- ment. It is the love of approbation in the form of ambition to be enrolled after death on the scroll of immortal fame as one of the contributors to the monument erected to the work of the world. And it cannot be doubted that the feeling of being once in the great current of intellectual progress is the highest and most powerful of all incentives. Thus far only a few have contributed to this stream, but the per- centage is probably increasing, and might under improved social conditions be greatly increased, and the time may come when all may at least aspire to the honor of laying some small offering on the altar of civilization. As the ages go by and history records the results of human action it becomes clear to larger numbers that this is the true goal of life and larger numbers seek it. It is seen that only those who have achieved are remembered, that the memory of such grows brighter instead of dimmer with time, and that these names are likely to be kept fresh in the minds of men forever. Achieve- ment, therefore, comes to constitute a form of immortality and has an exceedingly attractive side. This hope of immortality has doubt- less formed one of the important motives in all ages, but as the hope of a personal immortality wanes under the glare of scientific truth, especially of biological truth, 1 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 immortality is the immortality of achievement. And after all it is a personal immortality. This far it resembles Christian immortality in that only a few attain it. Only the elect are saved. They only are immortal who have achieved. As in Christianity, too, immortality, which is salvation, may be aspired to by all, nay, in some degree, it may be attained by all. But we may leave the apotheosis of achievement to the rostrum and be content to view it in its strictly scientific aspects as a concep- l Cf. Ernst Haeckel, " Die Weltrathsel," Bonn, 1899, Chapter XI. 44 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PARTI tion of the subject-matter and true end of sociology. Our treatment in this chapter has been much too narrow, and to some it may not seem to be a framework large enough to contain all that the remain- ing chapters aim to put into it. I can only say that it is so intended, and any apparent failure in this respect will be due to the brevity and imperfection of the presentation of the subject in the present chapter. It is probably in some respects better to have thus made the pattern scant and trust to the reader to fill out the neglected parts as the conception grows. CHAPTER IV METHODOLOGY THE basis of method is logic, and the basis of logic is the suffi- cient reason or law of causation. The object of method is clear- ness, and what is logical is usually clear. At least, the same subject, however abstruse or inherently difficult, will be clearer of compre- hension if logically presented than if incoherently presented. This principle lies at the foundation of style. I always observed that there was the greatest difference in the ease with which I could read dif- ferent authors, although all masters in their own field, but it was a long time before I discovered the reason for this. I saw that it had nothing to do with the language I was reading, for it was easier to follow Haeckel's German than Darwin's English. On the other hand, Huxley's English was exceedingly easy while the German of Sachs, for example, was very hard. There was the same difference with French authors. Finally I undertook to investigate the matter, and I soon discovered that aside from all embellishments of style, that which rendered a style easy was the strict logical sequence of ideas. In Huxley or Haeckel, if any one will look into it he will find that every sentence is clearly and causally linked to the sentence that precedes it and so naturally follows from it that it requires no effort of the mind to pass from one to the other. In difficult styles this is not the case. There are either complete breaks in the chain of reasoning, or there are ellipses, digressions, collateral ideas, or neoterisms, which check the flow of thought and impede comprehension. Usually it is simple incoherency or lack of serial order in the arrangement of the ideas expressed, in short, defective method. What is true of style is true of other things. It is especially true of education, and it is probable that something like double the progress could be made by pupils and students of all grades, if an exact logical method could be adopted in the order of studies, so that every new study would naturally grow out of the one that 45 46 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PAUT r had preceded it. But every large subject is complex and embraces a great number of component subjects, and if it is carefully looked into, it will be found that most of the subordinate subjects can be arranged in a series of logically connected ideas or facts. The first duty of educationalists should be to arrange all the branches to be taught in their logical, which is their natural order. A glance at the curriculum of any school system or institution of learning will show that this is not only the last thing to be thought of, but that it has probably never been thought of. A science is a great complex subject composed of many subor- dinate or component subjects, and these latter may, by the proper effort, be arranged in logical, i.e. causal order, and the science taught in this order. A treatise on any science is easy or hard in proportion as this is done. The work of a methodical investigator can be instantly distinguished by this mark. A large proportion of the scientific specialists in all departments are innocent of the use of method. They plunge into their subject at any point and treat those, subjects first that first present themselves, regardless of order or of the relation of parts. Such work, however able, is difficult to use and entails great effort on all who labor in their field. Once, in conversation with Prof. Joseph Le Conte some years before his death, I spoke of his continued fruitful labors and asked him if he was able to accomplish as much as when he was younger. He replied that he could accomplish more, because what he might have lost in strength and endurance was more than made up in method. The need of method increases with the complexity of a science. Sociology, as the most complex of all the sciences, has the greatest need of it. In the first place it is necessary to recognize that it is a science. Very few seem to treat it as if it was a true science, and the sociologists themselves are largely responsible for the opinion that so widely prevails that sociology is not a science. A true science is a field of phenomena occurring in regular order as the effects of natural or efficient causes, such that a knowledge of the causes renders it possible to predict the effects. The causes are always natural forces that obey the Newtonian laws of motion. The order in which the phenomena occur constitutes the laws that govern the science. These laws must be studied until they are understood the same as the laws of gravitation, heat, light, etc., in physics have CH. iv] METHODOLOGY 47 been studied. In sociology there is a disposition to deny that there are any such laws, forces, or efficient causes. There are always paradoxers in all sciences, but in social science it is especially common, I had almost said fashionable, to question or deny its claim to the rank of a science. Some, of course, will have nothing of it. Mathematicians and astronomers, who deal with the most exact of all the sciences, usually have no patience with anything that cannot be reduced to mathematical precision. I once heard an eminent astronomer sneer at meteorology because the Weather Bureau often fails to predict the weather for any particular place. Yet it may be questioned which of these two sciences is the more useful to man. There has always been a large number who deny that history is a science. Among these are historians, such as Froude, and historical economists like Dilthey. Some even who believe in sociology and teach it, think that it differs generically in this respect from other sciences. Dr. Ludwig Stein, for ex- ample, maintains that we can only arrive at probability or moral certainty, and that there are no laws, only rules. 1 The favorite standpoint of all who dispute the title of sociology to rank as a science is that of mathematics. The laws of astronomy, of physics, and to a large extent of chemistry, can be reduced to mathematical notation. The assumption is that anything that can- not be so reduced cannot be a science. Comte, who was himself primarily a mathematician, protested against this attitude and called it, as it seems to me, very appropriately " materialism," 2 because, as he says, " it tends to degrade the noblest conceptions and assimi- late them to the grossest," and he characterizes the abuse of mathe- matics as the initial phase of materialism. But he it was who pointed out that mathematics is not a science but only a standard or criterion. It is a measure of the relative " positivity," i.e. exact- ness, of all the sciences. The mathematicians, astronomers, and physicists, who affect to decry sociology because not sufficiently exact for their habit of think- ing, usually overlook biology, which they conceive as simply the study of plants and animals, and hence proper enough and quite innocent, and reserve their criticisms for psychology and sociology. 1 "Wesen und Aufgabe der Sociologie," Archiv f. syst. Philosophic, Bd. IV, reprint p. 12 ; Annales de Vlnstitut International de Sociologie, Vol. IV, p. 291. 2 " Politique Positive," Vol. I, pp. 50, 472. 48 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PARTI But all they say of these would be equally true of biology. There has been no greater progress in reducing the phenomena of life to exact mathematical form than there has in so reducing those of mind and society. In fact, in certain departments of both these latter fields there has been more progress in this direction than in any department of biology. In economics, for example, and in statistical researches, much use has been made of mathematics, the only dan- ger being that of abusing this method and making the apparently exact results stand for more than they are really worth. The names of Thiinen, Gossen, Cournot, Walras, and Jevons, are intimately associated with the highest order of this class of work. The ques- tion, however, whether the broader domain of social activity can be thus reduced to exact notation and the laws of society formulated or stated in equations, has only recently begun to be agitated. Sociologists are duly forewarned of attempting this by the failure of the old-time political economy, which established an " economic man," impelled simply by physical want. This failure was due in part to the fact that there never was such a being, and in part to the fact that the laborer gradually rose in the social and psychic scale until his physical impulses became a less important factor than his social and psychic impulses, for which their formulas were worthless. It does not always follow that because the phenomena embraced by a science are subject to uniform laws they can always be reduced to mathematical formulas. Only a comparatively small part of physics is of a character to require mathematical treatment. It is still less so in chemistry. Still, the laws of thermology, electrology, and chemistry are just as invariable as those of barology and astronomy. Uniform laws or processes are the essentials of a science. Their mathematical expression is not essential. The sociologist, therefore, need only inquire whether society is a domain of uniform laws. That it should not seem to be to superficial observers is natural enough. Before proceeding further, I will formulate the principle which, as I see it, underlies the proposition that sociology is a true science. It is that in the complex sciences the quality of exactness is only percep- tible in their higher generalizations. This is a different thing from the other truth that in the complex sciences safe conclusions can only be drawn from wide inductions. In a field so great as that of human CH. iv] METHODOLOGY 49 society, a wide induction becomes unmanageable. The number of facts to be dealt with is so great that they bewilder the mind. Something must be done besides accumulating facts, and drawing conclusions from them. A mental process of a higher order must be employed. The attempt to reason from the facts of society directly usually results in error. Conclusions so based are unsafe. The his- torical school of economists sometimes employ this method, but they do not agree in their results, and often err. They attempt to arrive at truth of too low an order to be established in sociology. It is such attempts and their failures that bring sociology into disrepute. If a sociologist, for example, were to pretend that he could tell from the facts of society how a prospective election would result, he would be making an unwarrantable assumption. This is why sociology can have so little to do with current questions. Their solution depends upon too many minute details and local and personal conditions. All the sociologist can do, even in applied sociology, is to lay down certain general principles as guides to social and political action. A true sociologist will scarcely have an opinion on a current question. The method in sociology is generalization. Precisely what is meant by this may require some illustration. It is essentially the process of grouping phenomena and using the groups as units. Nature works by this method, for example in chemistry, where it is believed that the higher compounds have as their units compounds of lower orders. The phenomena of society are omnipresent. They obtrude upon the view at every turn. We exist in a social medium. The facts that the sociologist must use are spontaneously supplied to him every moment and everywhere. He need not go in search of them. The ones that are thus hourly thrust upon him are the most important of all. If he travel through all lands he will find the same facts. What he will find additional is only auxiliary and valuable for comparative study. Yet as a rule only the sociologist or true student of society really sees these facts. The sociologist himself finds them so obvious and natural that it is difficult for him to realize their importance. Their very proxim- ity is a bar to their full comprehension. I have called this " the illusion of the near," and likened it to the difficulty of seeing a city or a forest while in its midst. If we magnify any object sufficiently it loses its character. A tyro with a microscope always uses too high a power and thus fails to obtain the desired results. The relativity 50 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART i of magnitude is interesting to reflect upon, and it was this truth that Dean Swift so forcibly illustrated in his description of the Lilli- putians and the Brobdingnagians. I was once exploring for my own amusement the suburbs of a large city one side of which was flanked by a range of high hills. I climbed over the ridges and was descending one of the slopes toward the town when my attention was arrested by a curious structure that seemed to me without meaning. It inclosed nothing, but presented a crude fabric of large timbers, some upright, some horizontal, some strangely crossing each other and rising twenty feet or more above the ground, in a long row resembling scaffolding, but without obvious purpose. They had been partly painted white, but the paint had mostly disappeared from long exposure to the elements. I pondered over the meaning of this grotesque structure for some time, and started several theories (targets, pyrotechnic frames, etc.), none of which would bear analysis. Finally I resumed the descent of the ridge and ultimately found myself in the back streets of the city half a mile from the spot where I noted the timbers. Being inter- ested to see where I had been and how I had succeeded in getting down, having had to pursue a somewhat winding course on account of obstacles, I turned round and took a prolonged view of the long hillside, noting all the objects that had attracted my attention. I was quite sure of my route, but there was one object standing out in clear lines against the green hillside that caused some doubt, as I had not seen it, and I surely would have noted it had I passed near it. It was a clearly depicted name of a firm that extensively advertised it- self in the city. The letters were all perfect and the words stood out with great distinctness. After puzzling awhile it at last occurred to me that this was the strange and awkward collection of timbers whose meaning and purpose I had failed to fathom. A more typical case of the illusion of the near I have never met with, and as I had already formulated that phrase and illustrated it as fully as possi- ble I congratulated myself upon this new and unexpected example. That which is near seems to lack symmetry and definiteness. It presents a great mimber of apparently dissimilar and heterogeneous ob jects. These objects seem to have no other relations than those of coexistence, distance, direction, and position. They do not seem to have any order. To see order in them it is necessary to view them at a distance. We do not apply the term landscape to what is close around CH. iv] METHODOLOGY 51 us. That is only landscape to persons some distance away. Beauty is almost a synonym of order. If objects are far enough off to reveal the order they possess they are usually beautiful. The enchantment that distance lends is the response of our faculties to the order pre- sented, for the mind naturally loves the symmetrical. The develop- ment of the human mind is nowhere better illustrated than in the difference between the savage and the civilized man in their ideas of beauty. The savage loves small artificial objects like beads, rings, medallions, trinkets, etc., but he sees no beauty in rivers, groves, mountains, or clouds. This is because his causality is not sufficiently developed to see order or regularity in them. But the developed mind admires landscapes because it can resolve the parts into wholes and grasp the relations that bind them together. A mountain, seen at a distance, is a symmetrical object of rare beauty, but when one is climbing it the rocks and crags, the ridges and gulches, the trees, bushes, briers, and prostrate logs, constitute a disordered mass of obstructions to which the term beauty does not apply. An inverted field glass is a tolerable substitute for distance in bringing order out of chaos and causing near objects to arrange themselves in agreeable form. It simply removes them to the same degree that the same field glass employed in the normal way brings them up to the observer. The effect of distance, or its equivalent, may be called intensive, as opposed to the extensive effect of proximity. In the latter we only see surface and extension, in the former we see causation. It may be likened to the different wave lengths that cause different colors. It may be illustrated mechanically in the gearing of machin- ery, where -the little wheels, whose surfaces must travel the same distance as those of the large wheels, may describe a thousand revolutions while the latter are describing one. This is the type of intensive motion in general. If the quantity of motion is unchange- able in the universe, as the law of the conservation of energy seems to require us to suppose, the effect of confining motion is necessarily to increase the intensive at the expense of the extensive changes. As the paths are shortened the number of circuits is increased, and motion of translation is finally converted into molecular motion, as it is called. This usually increases the efficiency, or ability to do work. The effects of motion as a cause become apparent. Here again intensity is causation. 52 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PARTI The same principle applies in matters of sound as in those of sight. If a string is stretched, as in a stringed instrument, and struck it gives forth a sound corresponding to the amplitude of the vibration of the string, which in turn depends upon its length. If it be shortened by pressing it at any point with the finger, as in fingering, the pitch is raised proportionally, on account of the diminished amplitude of the vibrations. The sound becomes more intense. Any desired tone may thus be produced. As the vibrations become shorter they are more rapid, and we have another illustration of con- fined motion. The physical laws of all this are of course well known. They were mostly worked out by Pythagoras. I only wish to show that they are merely examples of a general law of universal application. Besides these examples within the range of the organs of sense there are examples which can only be cognized by the mind. The mind appropriates truth as naturally as the body appropriates nourishment. Its ability to do so depends on two elements, its inherent capacity or power and its equipment. These two together constitute intelligence, as distinguished from intellect on the one hand and knowledge on the other. As intelligence develops the ability to generalize increases and the stage is at length reached at which the mind sees much that the senses cannot apprehend. With the progress of science this power is enormously enhanced and the true interpretation of nature begins. We must be content with a very few illustrations from physical phenomena. The early pastoral races of the East learned much about the heavens as they lay out under the starry sky tenting their flocks. But their synthetic powers wasted themselves in the fanciful group- ing of the stars into constellations that possess no scientific signifi- cance. The galaxy or milky way was of course an object of their constant attention, but in their ignorance of the general constitution of the universe they never framed any theory to explain it. It re- mained for science to propose such a theory, and, so far as I know, only one has been proposed. I do not vouch for it, but, assuming it to be true, I use it as showing the power of the mind in possession of certain facts to bring order out of chaos. This theory is, as the reader doubtless knows, that our solar system belongs to a more or less definitely circumscribed universe or great body of stars; that this stellar aggregate possesses a somewhat lenticular shape; and CH. iv] METHODOLOGY 53 that our solar system is not located at the center of its shorter axis but some distance to one side of the center. This theory seems to account for the majority of the facts presented by sidereal astron- omy, and explains the milky way as simply the effect produced by looking in the direction of the thin edges of the lens where a so much larger number of stars naturally come into view than when looking in the direction of its sides, or, as it were, out into empty space. We thus, by a pure act of the mind, gain an orderly conception of the universe, which may be contrasted with the chaotic conceptions that formerly prevailed, or that must be entertained by any person of reflective habits unacquainted with this theory. The distribution of land and water on the surface of the earth must appear devoid of order to the child who first sees a map of the world or a globe. It so appears to many persons of mature years who do not reflect or who have never had its relations pointed out. Yet most scientific geographers see in it the operation of a great law. To the geologist, especially one who has given special atten- tion to that modern branch of geology called physiography, this action of law is much more clear still than to those who study only surface phenomena. If with all this is combined a philosophical conception of the origin of the different planets of the solar system and the causes affecting the crust of the earth, the wrinkling due to shrinkage, etc., the epeirogenic and orogenic conditions become clear, and a knowledge of the causes lends a charm to studies of this kind. The oceans and seas, the island groups, the continents, and the mountain chains become systems definitely related to one another, and an orderly method is seen to pervade all the phenomena of the earth's surface and the earth's crust. Passing over chemistry, which, in its hierarchy of combinations elements, inorganic compounds, organic compounds, each a sub- hierarchy in itself has furnished us with the very principle of generalization ; and biology, where, from the multiplicity of organic forms, no progress can be made without classification, which is gen- eralization, we may enter at once the domain of anthropology and find the same truth exemplified at every point. What Dr. Edward B. Tylor has called "ethnographic parallels," viz., the occurrence of the same or similar customs, practices, ceremonies, arts, beliefs, and even games, symbols, and patterns, in peoples of nearly the same culture at widely separated regions of the globe, proves, except 54 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PARTI in a few cases of known derivation through migration, that there is a uniform law in the psychic and social development of mankind at all times and under all circumstances. The details will vary with the climate and other physical differences in the environment, but if we 'continue to rise in the process of generalization we will ulti- mately reach a plane on which all mankind are alike. Even in civilized races, including the most enlightened modern peoples, there are certain things absolutely common to all. The great primary wants are everywhere the same and they are sup- plied in substantially the same way the world over. Forms of government seem to differ immensely, but all governments aim to attain the same end. Political parties are bitterly opposed, but there is much more on which all agree than on which they differ. Creeds, cults, and sects multiply and seem to present the utmost heterogeneity, but there is a common basis even of belief, and on certain occasions all may and sometimes do unite in a common cause. Not only are the common wants of men the same, but their passions are also the same, and those acts growing out of them which are regarded as destructive of the social order and con- demned by law and public opinion are committed in the face of these restraining influences with astonishing regularity. This is not seen by the ordinary observer, and every crime or breach of order is commonly looked upon as exceptional and arouses great local or general interest according to its nature and the circumstances attending it. But when accurate statistics are brought to bear upon this class of social phenomena they prove to be quite as uniform, though not quite so frequent, as the normal operations of life. Even the most extraordinary occur- rences, such as the killing of an aged parent by a child or the marriage of brother and sister, actually occur once in about so long, or so as to form a certain percentage of the homicides or marriages. There is a law of deviation from a mean, upon which Galton lays great stress, which explains such cases. In dealing with prodigies in the last chapter we encountered one aspect of this law. Fanatics illustrate another aspect of it. When any question agitates the public mind there is a great central mass of men who take an ordinary enlightened interest in it. Below these there is a body of persons experiencing an interest diminishing in degree until CH. iv] METHODOLOGY 55 it practically vanishes. Above the mean there is a certain number with whom the interest is greater, and this rises with diminishing numbers until there is reached a point at which a very few persons are wholly engrossed in the question. There may be one so completely absorbed as to be capable of committing a terrible crime, such as assassination. This is probably the true psychological explanation of all three of the presidential assassinations in the United States. Such acts might be represented geometrically as forming the apex of a curve, or the maximum deviation from the mean. Even assassinations are regular social phenomena, as any one may see by casting a glance backward through less than half a century. This does not mean that they cannot and should not be prevented by every power society possesses, nor does it mean that any crime may not be utterly eradicated by appropriate social action. In fact all history proves that the forces underlying crime, as well as many actions that are not criminal, have been gradually drawn off into other channels, or in scientific phrase, commuted, by civilizing agencies. The ordinary events of life go unnoticed, but there are certain events that are popularly regarded as extraordinary, notwithstand- ing the fact that the newspapers every day devote more than half their space to them. One would suppose that people would some- time learn that fires, and railroad accidents, and mine disasters, and boiler explosions, and robberies, and defalcations, and murders, as well as elopements, liaisons in high life, seductions, and rape, were normal social phenomena, after reading of nearly every one of these and hundreds of other similar events every day through- out the whole course of a lifetime. But this enormous mass of evidence has no effect whatever in dispelling the popular illusion that such events are extraordinary, and the octogenarian whose eyesight will permit still pores over the daily news, as it is called, with the same intense interest as when he was a youth. There is nothing new in " news " except a difference in the names. The events are the same. It was this that Schopenhauer meant when he said that history furnishes nothing new but only the continual repetition of the same thing under different names. And this is what is meant by generalization. We have only to carry it far enough in order to arrive at unity. Society is a domain of law, and sociology is an abstract science in the sense that it does not 56 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART i attend to details except as aids in arriving at the law that under- lies them all. This has been called the historical perspective. It is the discovery of law in history, whether it be the history of the past or the pres- ent, and including under history social as well as political phe- nomena. There is nothing very new in this. It is really the oldest of all sociological conceptions. The earliest gropings after a social science consisted in a recognition of law in human affairs. The so-called precursors of sociology have been those who have per- ceived more or less distinctly a method or order in human events. All who have done this, however dimly, have been set down as the heralds of the new science. Such adumbrations of the idea of law in society were frequent in antiquity. They are to be found in ihe sayings of Socrates and the writings of Aristotle. Lucretius sparkles with them. In medieval times they were more rare, and we scarcely find them in St. Augustine, but Ibn Khaldun, a Sar- acen of Tunis, in the fourteenth century gave clear expression to this conception. 1 His work, however, was lost sight of until recently, and Vico, who wrote at the close of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth century, was long regarded as the true forerunner of Montesquieu. Still, there were many others both before and after Vico, and passages have been found reflecting this general truth in the writings of Machiavelli, Bruno, Campanella, Bacon, Hobbes, Locke, Hume, Adam Smith, Ferguson, Fontenelle, Buffon, Turgot, Condorcet, Leibnitz, Kant, Oken, etc. Before Comte had given name and form to sociology Saint-Simon, Bastiat, Carey, and John Stuart Mill had more or less clearly formulated the general doctrine of historical determinism, and the philoso- phy of history had received wide recognition. The theologically inclined, when this truth was brought home to them, characterized it by the phrase " God in history," and saw in the order of events the divine hand guiding the acts of men toward some predestined goal. This is perhaps the most common view to-day, and the gen- eral optimism of mankind furnishes all the faith necessary to harrno- 1 " Prolegomenes historique d'Ibn Khaldoun." Translated from the Arabic by M. G. de Slane, and published in the Notices et Extraits des Manuscrits de la Bibliotheque Imperiale, publics par 1'Institut de France, Vol. XIX, Pt. I, Paris, 1862, 4. This includes an autobiography of Ibn Khaldun and his entire system of historical science, in which many of the leading questions now under consideration by sociologists are discussed from an enlightened standpoint. CH. iv] METHODOLOGY 57 nize the doctrine with the scientific law of human evolution. But science deals with phenomena and can only deal with phenomena. Sociology, therefore, can only become a science when human events are recognized as phenomena. When we say that they are due to the actions of men there lurks in the word actions the ghost of the old doctrine of free will, which in its primitive form asserts that any one may either perform a given action or not, according as he may will. From this point of view it is not supposed that any event in human history needed to have occurred. If the men whose actions caused it had willed otherwise, it would not have occurred. That is, the old form of the doctrine of free will maintained that men might have willed otherwise than they did. It is not merely that they might have acted differently if they had willed to do so, but that they might have willed to act differently. If we substitute wish for will, as of course we may, since it is simply a peculiarity of the English language that there are two words for the same thing which in other languages is expressed by the same word (yolere, wollen, vouloir, etc.), the doctrine becomes that men might have wished to act otherwise than they did wish to act. This is a violation of the metaphysical axiom of contradiction, or as Sir William Hamilton more correctly calls it, non-contradiction. That axiom is that a thing cannot both be and not be. In other words the old-fashioned doctrine of free will assumes that men may act differently from what they do act irrespective of character and environment. If this were so, there could certainly be no science of action, no philosophy of history, no sociology. There would be no social phenomena but only arbitrary actions due to no true cause, and all power of prevision or prediction would be wanting. 1 ^ As opposed to this, the scientific view is that human events are phenomena of the same general character as other natural phe- nomena, only more complex and difficult to study on account of the subtle psychic causes that so largely produce them. It has been seen more or less clearly by the men I have named and by many others that there must be causes, and the philosophy of history that gradually emerged from the chaos of the existing history was simply an attempt to ascertain some of these causes and show how they produced the effects. To those who make the philosophy of 1 Cf. Gumplowicz, "Actions ou pMnomfenes," Revue des Revues du 15 novembre, 1895. 58 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PAHT i history coextensive with sociology, this is all that sociology implies. Certainly it was the first and most essential step in the direction of establishing a science of society. The tendency at first was strong to discover in the environment the chief cause of social variation, and some authors sought to expand the term climate to include all this. This doctrine had its advocates and was of course car- ried too far, as exemplified in the saying that "mountains make freemen while lowlands make slaves." It was found that this was only half of the truth, that it took account only of the objective environment, while an equally potent factor is the subjective envi- ronment, and that the ancient saying, codum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt, is also true. Character, however acquired, is difficult to change, and must be reckoned with in any attempt to interpret human events. Thus expanded, the study of society from this point of view becomes a true science, and recently it has been given the appropriate name of mesology. The great influence of climate and physical conditions must be fully recognized. It reaches back into the domain of ethnology and physiology, and doubtless ex- plains the color of the skin, the character of the hair, and the general physical nature of the different races of men. The psychic effects of the environment are scarcely less important, and the qualities of courage, love of liberty, industry and thrift, ingenuity and intelli- gence, are all developed by contact with restraining influences adapted to stimulating them and not so severe as to check their growth. The social effects are still more marked. We first see them in the phenomena of migration and settlement and the ways in which men adapt themselves to the conditions, resources, and general character of the region they may chance to occupy. The question asked by the traditional boy in the geography class : Why the large rivers all run past the great cities ? illustrates how clearly everybody sees natural law at work in society. It is the laws of society that determine the direction and character of migration and settlement. " Laws," says Montesquieu, " are the necessary rela- tions that are derived from the nature of things," * and this is pre- cisely the sense here implied. In peoples at all advanced the head 1 "Les loix, dans la signification la plus etendue, sont les rapports necessaires qui derivent de la nature des choses." This is the first sentence of Montesquieu's principal work, " de 1'Esprit des Loix." CEuvres de Montesquieu, Nouvelle Edition, Tome Premier, Paris, 1788, p. 1. CH. iv] METHODOLOGY 59 of navigation of rivers is usually the site for the principal towns. A short time ago when water was more used than now as a power, there was usually combined with the advantages offered by the head of navigation (all vessels being then small), the additional advan- tage of the fall in the stream, which is almost always greatest at the point where the piedmont plateau joins the coastal plain. As streams only reach base level after emerging upon the coastal plain, this sudden fall almost always occurs a short distance above the head of navigation. As this is true of all the streams that drain a continent, a line may be drawn through this point on all the rivers and it will be approximately parallel to the coast. Such a line is called the fall line and it is a law of populations that the first settlements of any country take place along the fall line of its rivers. There are many laws that can be thus illustrated, and careful observation reveals the fact that all social phenomena are the results of laws. But the fundamental law of everything psychic, and especially of everything that is affected by intelligence, is the law of parsimony. It has its applications in biology, and even in cosmology, which 1 need not stop to point out, but it was first clearly grasped by the political economists, and by many it is regarded as only an economic law. Here it is usually called the law of greatest gain for least effort, and is the basis of scientific economics. But it is much broader than this, and not only plays an important role in psychology, but becomes, in that col- lective psychology which constitutes so nearly the whole of sociology, the scientific corner-stone of that science also. We have seen that the quality of scientific exactness in sociology can only be clearly perceived in some of its higher generalizations, where, neglecting the smaller unities which make its phenomena so exceedingly complex, and dealing only with the large composite unities that the minor ones combine to create, we are able to handle the subject, as it were, in bulk. Here we can plainly see the rela- tions and can be sure of their absolute uniformity and reliability. When we reach the law of parsimony we seem to have attained the maximum stage of generalization, and here we have a law as exact as any in physics or astronomy. It is, for example, perfectly safe to assume that under any and all conceivable circumstances a sentient, and especially a rational being will always seek the 60 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART i greatest gain, or the maximum resultant of gain his "marginal" advantage. Those who are shocked by such a proposition take too narrow a view of the subject. They think that they themselves at least are exceptions to the law, and that they do not always seek their greatest gain, and they give illustrations of actions performed that result in a loss instead of a gain. This is because they understand by gain only pecuniary gain, or only gain in temporary enjoyment or immediate satisfaction. If they could analyze their feelings they would see that they were merely sacrificing a present to a future advantage, or what they regard as a lower to what they regard as a higher satisfaction. When Henry Clay said (if he did say it) that " every man has his price," l he may have merely stated this law in a new form. If we make the important qualification that the " price " is not necessarily a money price, we may see that the statement con- tains a truth. Even in the lobby, which he probably had in view, it is well known that downright bribery is very rarely resorted to. It is among the least effective of the lobbyist's methods. There are other far more successful ways of gaining a legislator's vote. Passes on railroads and other favors of that kind are much more common, but even these are relatively coarse and transparent, and the great vested interests of a country know how to accomplish their ends by much more subtle means. It is only necessary to put those whom they desire to influence under some form of obligation, and this is usually easy to do. Among the most effective means to this end are social amenities and the establishment in apparently the most disin- terested ways of a friendly entente, which appeals to the sense of honor, and would make any man ashamed to act contrary to the known wishes of a friend. Under such powerful sentiments constitu- encies are forgotten. But this is by no means the whole meaning of the law. It deals solely with motives, and worthy motives are as potent as unworthy ones. It is based, it is true, on interests, but we must give to the term interest all the breadth that Ratzenhofer does. Interest is not always bad. It is much more frequently good. It was necessarily good, at least for the individual, in the beginning, since it had the mission to impel life and race preserving activities. Interest may be 1 In England a similar phrase is commonly ascribed to Sir Robert Walpole. Cf. Coxe: "Memoirs of Walpole," Vol. IV, p. 369. CH. iv] METHODOLOGY 61 perverted, but this is the exception. Men feel an interest in doing good, and moral interest is as real as any other. Ratzenhofer shows that men have been profoundly moved by what he calls " transcen- dental interests," which he defines as a striving after the infinite, and to this he attributes the great religious movements in society. If therefore we take into account all these different kinds of interest, physical, racial (Cfattungsinteresse), moral, social, and transcendental, it becomes clear that all action is based on supposed gain of one or another of these orders. Still, the world has never reached a stage where the physical and temporary interests have not been largely in the ascendant, and it is these upon which the economists have estab- lished their science. Self-preservation has always been the first law of nature, and that which best insures this is the greatest gain. So unerring is this law that it is easy to create a class of paupers or mendicants by simply letting it be known that food or alms will be given to those who ask. All considerations of pride or self-respect will give way to the imperious law of the greatest gain for the least effort. All notions of justice which would prompt the giving of an equivalent vanish before it, and men will take and use what is prof- fered without thought of a return or sense of gratitude. In this respect men are like animals. In fact, this is precisely the principle that underlies the domestication of animals and the taming of wild beasts. So soon as the creature learns that it will not be molested and that its wants will be supplied, it submits to the will of man and becomes a parasite. Parasitism, indeed, throughout the organic world is only an application of the law of parsimony. While therefore no law can be laid down as to how any individ- ual will act under a given set of circumstances, in consequence of the enormous number and variety of causes that combine to deter- mine any single act, we have a law which determines with absolute certainty how all men may be depended upon to act. If there is any apparent exception to this law we may be sure that some ele- ment has been overlooked in the calculation. Just as, in the case of a heavenly body which is observed to move in a manner at variance with the established laws of gravitation and planetary motion, the astronomer does not doubt the universality of those laws but attrib- utes the phenomena to some undiscovered body in space of the proper size and in the proper position to cause the perturbation, and proceeds to search for that body ; so in human society, if there are 62 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PARTI events that seem at variance with the fundamental sociological law of parsimony, the sociologist may safely trust the law and proceed to discover the cause of the social perturbation. It is the function of methodology in social science to classify social phenomena in such a manner that the groups may be brought under uniform laws and treated by exact methods. Sociology then becomes an exact science. In doing this, too, it will be found that we have passed from chaos to cosmos. Human history presents a chaos. The only science that can convert the milky way of history into a definite social universe is sociology, and this can only be done by the use of an appropriate method, by using the data furnished by all the special social sciences, including the great scientific trunks of psychology, biology, and cosmology, and generalizing and coordi- nating the facts and groups of facts until unity is attained. PART II GENESIS CHAPTER V FILIATION IT has become customary to speak of the hierarchy of the sciences and nearly everybody understands what the expression means. For this reason it does no harm to use it and I use it constantly myself. Nevertheless, if we examine it critically we find that it will not bear analysis, and that the relation subsisting among the sciences is a very different one from that expressed by the word hierarchy. A hierarchy is a relation of superiority and subordination such as is expressed in the word rank as applied, for example, to officers of an army. It is also the same as is involved in all synoptical classifica- tion, as in the natural sciences, where the several classific groups (class, order, family, genus, species) are subordinated to one another by the possession of characters of lower and lower classificatory value. This is what may be called logical classification. If we ex- amine the relation of the several sciences of the so-called hierarchy (astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, etc.) we at once perceive that the kind of superiority or subordination is generically different from that subsisting among officers of an army or among classific groups in natural history. As I said, nearly everybody knows just what the nature of this relation is, viz., one of diminishing generality with increasing complexity, and therefore no one stops to consider the appropriateness of the term hierarchy as applied to it. This, however, may be called serial classification, and it is important for many reasons to insist upon the complete distinctness of these two kinds of classification. For example, Mr. Spencer dissented from Comte's classification of the sciences and drew up one of his own which, he claimed, conflicted with Comte's. But Mr. Spencer's classification was a logical one while Comte's was a serial one, and it was impossible for them to conflict. In fact they afforded no basis of comparison for the purpose of establishing the truth or fal- sity of either. 1 1 1 have several times stated, as have also other writers (De Greef, " Introd. a la Sociologie," I, p. 5, 1886; Dallemagne, " Principes de Sociologie," p. 36, 1886; Hector F 65 66 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART n Now, what concerns the sociologist is primarily the serial order of phenomena. The several groups of phenomena constituting the Denis, " Revue Int. de Sociologie," 8 e annee, 1900, p. 778), that notwithstanding Mr. Spencer's vigorous disclaimer of any indebtedness to Comte, and notwithstanding his work on the " Classification of the Sciences," he had virtually admitted the correctness of Comte's serial arrangement by arranging his own subjects in practically the same order (" First Principles," dealing with inorganic nature, Biology, Psychology, Sociol- ogy)- When I repeated this statement in the American Journal of Sociology for July, 1895, p. 18, I received a letter from Mr. Spencer which ought to be made public because it throws a flood of light upon a number of obscure questions connected with his views on the classification of the sciences, which he has nowhere made clear in his works. This relates especially to his ideas relative to the relations of the sim- pler sciences dealing with inorganic matter, which he says he was obliged to leave out of his system because it would so expand it that he could not hope to complete it. I have felt, too, somewhat keenly, his implied censure for making the statement referred to, which seemed to me so self-evident that it did not occur to me that it could give offense, and therefore I am willing to let the world know what the points are at which Mr. Spencer takes exception, and I therefore give his letter entire, fol- lowed by the reply that I made to it after mature reflection : "64 AVENUE ROAD, REGENT'S PARK, LONDON, N.W., " Sept. 19, 1895. "Mr DEAR SIR: I have just received a copy of your essay on 'The Place of Sociology among the Sciences,' and on glancing through it am startled by some of its statements. " 1. You have not, I presume, read my essay on ' The Genesis of Science ' ; other- wise you would scarcely say that Comte's classification represents the genetic or serial order of the sciences. You would have found that it is in that essay shown that there is no serial order, and in the second place that Comte's classification does not at all represent the order of genesis, numerous facts being given to show that the evolution of the sciences was no such succession as he alleges. "2. But I am much more amazed by your statement respecting Comte's system that ' Spencer himself, notwithstanding all his efforts to overthrow it, actually adopted it in the arrangement of the sciences in his Synthetic Philosophy.' Now in the first place, if you will look at my essay on ' The Genesis of Science,' you will see that the first two great groups of sciences the abstract, containing logic and mathematics, the abstract-concrete, containing mechanics, physics, and chemistry have no place whatever in the ' Synthetic Philosophy.' So far from the ' Synthetic Philosophy' containing them in the order in which Comte places them, they are not there at all. The ' Synthetic Philosophy ' concerns exclusively those sciences which I class as concrete sciences the sciences which have for their subject-matters actual concrete existences and treats of each one not in respect of any one set of traits but in respect of all its traits. " Setting aside the fact that, as I have pointed out, the sciences which deal with the forms of phenomena and those which deal with their factors, make no appearance whatever in the order of sciences forming the ' Synthetic Philosophy,' there is the fact that even if the sciences as involved in the ' Synthetic Philosophy ' are compared with the system of Comte they are shown to be wholly incongruous with it. If you will turn to the original preface to ' First Principles,' in which an outline of the ' Synthetic Philosophy ' is set forth you will see there, between the programme of ' First Prin- ciples ' and the programme of the ' Biology,' a note in italics pointing out that in logical order there should come an application of First Principles to inorganic nature, and that the part of it dealing with inorganic nature is omitted simply because the en. v] FILIATION 67 true " hierarchy " of the sciences, not only stand in the relation of diminishing generality with increasing complexity, but they stand scheme, even as it stood, was too extensive. Two volumes were thus omitted a volume on astronomy and a volume on geology. Had it been possible to write these in addition to those undertaken, the series would have run astronomy, yeology, biology, psychology, sociology, ethics. Now in this series those marked in italics do not appear in the Comtian classification at all. In the part of the ' Synthetic Phi- losophy ' as it now stands the only correspondence with the Comtian classification is that biology comes before sociology ; and surely any one would see that in rational order the phenomena presented by a living individual must come before those pre- sented by an assemblage of such living individuals. It requires no leading of Comte for any one to see this. " 3. But now in the third place, I draw your attention to Table III in my ' Classi- fication of the Sciences.' There you will see that the order of the works already existing in the ' Synthetic Philosophy,' and still better the order in which they would have stood had the thing been complete, corresponds exactly with the order shown in that table, and is an order which evolves necessarily from the mode of organiza- tion there insisted upon, and corresponds also to the order of appearance in time, if we set out with the nebular condensation and end with special phenomena. The order of the ' Synthetic Philosophy ' does not correspond with that of Comte, and it does correspond with the order shown in my own ' Classification of the Sciences.' This seems to me undeniable if it is remembered that in the process of evolution there were astronomical phenomena before there were geological ; that there were geological phenomena before there were biological ; that there were biological before there were psychological ; that there were psychological before there were any sociological that is to say, the order as shown in the table and as followed in the ' Synthetic Philosophy ' is the order of actual genesis that has occurred in the course of universal evolution. "lam " Faithfully yours "HERBERT SPENCER. "LESTER F. WARD, Esq." After considerable delay I replied to the above letter as follows : " 1464 R. I. AVE., WASHINGTON, D.C., U. S. AMERICA. "Jan. 6, 1896. "Ma. HERBERT SPENCER, LONDON. " My Dear Sir: I received your letter of Sept. 19, 1895, while in the field in Cali- fornia, where it was forwarded to me. I had no facilities for writing at the time and did not reach Washington till well into November. I have been contemplat- ing a reply since that time, but partly from an excess of work of various kinds, and partly from doubts as to what kind of a reply I ought to make, I have procrastinated until now. " I do not hope that anything I could say would be satisfactory to you, and it seems almost useless to enter into a full discussion of the points involved. Not long ago I received a letter from Mr. Richard Congreve, relative in the main to the same article you criticize, in which he takes me almost as severely to task as you do for not going farther in the same direction in which you think I go too far. Evidently if I had tried to please everybody I should have pleased nobody, and matters would have been no better than they are. But of course I do not want to misquote or in any way misrepresent any one, and have not meant to do so. " The series of articles that are running through the American Journal of Socioloyy is a course of lectures that I have twice delivered at the Hartford School of Sociology, 68 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART ir in the relation of parent to offspring, i.e., of filiation. The more complex sciences grow out of the simpler ones by a process of differ- orally in 1894, and in their present form in November last. They were all written out before I left Washington in August. In this series I have not aimed at much originality, and only wished to put before the students primarily, but also the numer- ous teachers of the various social sciences in this country, some general outlines and fundamental principles, most of which have been stated by me in earlier works. All the statements you criticise have been made by me before, some of them more than once. I have taken extra pains to put my writings into your hands, without, how- ever, hoping that you could find time to look them through. Indeed, you have writ- ten me how you require to husband your mental strength, and I had long regarded the sending you my papers as merely a compliment, which I would have been deterred from making if I had thought you would waste any energy on them. " I have always maintained that Comte's classification was a true genetic one. I said all I have to say on this point in ' Dynamic Sociology,' and the only answer I can make to any of the points in your letter is contained in pages 143 to 149 of the first volume of that work. There also are to be found all the statements in the article to which you have taken exception. Having stood there over twelve years unchallenged, I did not hesitate to repeat them in a more popular form. Although Dr. Youmans told me you could not read the book, it was to be supposed that you would at least glance at the first few pages of the chapter that deals especially with your philoso- phy, and it is these pages on which the statements all occur. Should you care to do so now you will see that I recognized the omission in your system of the parts relat- ing to inorganic nature, which I have always regarded as unfortunate. But your ' First Principles 'partly supply this omission and impressed me with your recognition of the subordination of astronomical, physical, and chemical, to biological principles. Exactly in what order you would have treated these departments could not of course be told, but the extent to which you base biology upon chemical laws in your ' Prin- ciples of Biology ' seemed to indicate that these were regarded by you as the immedi- ate foundation of biology. " You will also see by a footnote to page 148 that I had read your ' Classification of the Sciences,' and some of your strictures on Comte's philosophy, but not until the matter of that chapter was in type. As soon as I could obtain it I read your ' Genesis of Science.' In taking down my copy I see that I put an occasional comment in the margin. At the close of your discussion of Comte I had written: 'Nevertheless Comte's hierarchy is a grand truth that Spencer recognizes by adopting the same order in his system.' "This merely shows how strongly I have always been impressed with this idea, and the remark made in my footnote to page 146 of ' Dynamic Sociology,' Vol. I, is jus.t what I should now say to your 'Genesis of Science.' Literally you are right and Comte wrong, for nothing is clearer than that all science, all knowledge, and all progress, have been empirical, have come limping along in an irregular, illogical, and haphazard way, wrong end first, and tumbling over each other, after the wasteful method of nature in general that some affect so greatly to admire. It was unfortu- nate that Comte should have blundered as he did in asserting that the historical order of development conformed to the natural order of genesis, and thus given you an occasion to take him up on this unessential point, which many no doubt have mistaken for the essential one. But Comte was always making such blunders, cal- culated to scare off nearly every one from looking into the merits of his system. " I am very glad to learn from your letter what your entire system would have been. So far as the heads are concerned, it is quite as near to Comte's as I supposed. If your ' geology ' could be regarded as the equivalent of his physics and chemistry, the two series would be identical, for Comte did not ignore psychic phenomena and en. v] FILIATION 69 entiation. The more general phenomena of the simpler sciences are elaborated into more complex forms. They are the raw material which is worked up into more finished products, much as pig iron is worked up into tools, machinery, cutlery, and watch-springs. The simpler sciences contain all that is in the more complex, but it is more homogeneous, and the process of evolution, as we know, is a laws, but treated them quite fully and in the same position as you. He only denied that they were distinct from biology. Moreover, in his ' Politique Positive,' he makes ethics the final term, the same as you. " The difference, then, is not so much in the names or the order of the sciences as in the point of view from which they are contemplated. Here it seems fundamental, and I have never so fully realized this before. You base your classification upon the concrete phenomena or material facts, while Comte based his upon the laws or prin- ciples underlying the phenomena. Your geology cannot therefore be reduced to physics and chemistry. Your astronomy is the sun, planets, and stars ; your biology, the animals and plants, and your sociology, associated human beings. But I do not see how you get a concrete basis for psychology, since mind is not concrete. As for ethics, it certainly is not a concrete thing, and I consider it only a department of sociology. ' ' But is the distinction as fundamental as it seems at first sight ? Concrete things are only known by the phenomena they manifest, and philosophy is mainly a process of arriving at the laws and principles underlying phenomena. Each of your treatises avowedly deals with ' principles ' ' the laws of the knowable.' A classification based on the laws of the universe is therefore much more fundamental than one based on the concrete facts, and is, in my judgment, the only one upon which the true ' filia- tion ' of the sciences can proceed. " Yours with great respect, " LESTER F. WARD." In a paper which I read before the Philosophical Society of Washington on Feb. 1, 1896, partly growing out of this correspondence, an abstract of which was pub- lished in Science for Feb. 21, 1896, I placed the two systems in parallel columns, as follows : System of Auguste Comte : System of Herbert Spencer : 1. Astronomy ..- 1. Astronomy 2. Physics j . J . . 2. Geology 3. Chemistry ) 4. Biology (including 3. Biology 5. Cerebral biology) 4, Psychology 6. Sociology 5. Sociology 7. Ethics 6. Ethics The more I reflect upon the use of geology as a coordinate term in this series the more objectionable it appears. In sucB comprehensive groups as these must neces- sarily be geology would fall under astronomy, as zoology and botany fall under biology. The earth is only one of the planets of the solar system, and only happens to be the one we know most about and can most thoroughly observe, hence it calls for a special science. But there might just as logically be a science of venerology (hesperology), of martiology (areology), of joviology (diology), of saturnology (cronology) , or of uranology, as well as of heliology and selenology ; and we already have in common use the terms selenography and areography. 70 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART n passage from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous. A serial classification is based on this principle of natural differentiation and the resulting filiation. It might be called tocological. In the natural sciences, especially in biology, we have to do with both kinds of classification. Systematic botany, for example, is based on a strict logical classification, as I have described it. But phyto-biology must also deal with genetic relationships, and the terms higher and lower have different meanings when they relate to these two classes of phenomena. Sometimes their meanings may seem to be opposed to each other. Once, when I was obliged to define the two terms Gymnospermce and Angiospermce for a diction- ary, I found myself saying that the former were coordinate with the latter, and also that they were lower in the scale of development, and this at first seemed like a contradiction. But a close analysis shows that both statements were true and did not conflict, because, in the one the point of view was systematic, i.e., that of the logical classification, while in the other it was genetic, i.e., that of the serial classification. The serial order of the sciences is not an optional arrangement in which different authors may differ at will. It is the order of nature, and if all authors do not agree it is because they have not yet fully discovered the true order. As in the progress of establishing truth everywhere, they must ultimately all agree, because the truth is one. We do not accept it on any one's authority, and there is no occasion for trying to be original and saying something else after the truth has been once said. What all right-minded persons want is to dis- cover the true order of nature and the natural arrangement of the sciences. The filiation of the sciences is also an order of mutual dependence. Just as a child is dependent on its parents, so the complex sciences are dependent upon the general ones. This dependence is specially marked between any one science in the series and the one immedi- ately below it, but in a broader sense all the higher sciences are dependent upon all the lower ones. For the sociologist it is specially important to recognize the dependence of social science on physical science, using these terms in their commonly accepted senses. This might seem to be a truism, but a glance at even modern education is sufficient to justify its emphasis. I think it safe to say that the educational programme or curriculum of none of the leading institu- CH. v] SYMPODIAL DEVELOPMENT 71 tions of learning or popular educational systems makes any pretense at a serial arrangement of studies in the sense that that term has here been used an arrangement by which a knowledge of nature is acquired in the order in which natural phenomena and natural things have been developed. Social science becomes as much more thorough, intelligible, inter- esting, and useful when based on physical science as is astronomy, for example, when based on mathematics, or geology and mineralogy when based on physics and chemistry. There is no one of the more general sciences that does not throw light on sociology. Any one who looks for them can find " analogies " all through. There are almost as many parallels between social and chemical processes as there are between social and biological. By extended comparisons in all fields we find that the operations of nature are the same in all departments. We not only discover one great law of evolution applicable to all the fields covered by the several sciences of the series, but we can learn something more about the true method of evolution by observing how it takes place in each of these fields. Even some of the subordinate sciences falling under the great groups that we have been considering, are capable of shedding light upon the method of evolution, and probably any specialist in science, if he w'ould look carefully for such indications, could supplement the knowledge we have relative to the essential nature of evolutionary processes. As an extreme example of the aid that the higher sciences and the philosophy of science in general may derive from some of the more special fields of research I will cite the branch that I have myself most fully studied, and only for that reason, viz., paleobotany. Be- fore I had specially pursued that study my ideas of evolution were similar to those that I observe to prevail among scientific men and the educated public generally. But an acquaintance with the extinct plant life of the globe has wrought a great revolution in my concep- tions of the development of life in all its forms and also in the nature of evolution itself, cosmic, organic, and social. SYMPODIAL DEVELOPMENT The science of botany in its wide and proper sense what I call " the New Botany," the natural history of plants including their geo- logical history teaches that the prevailing conception of organic 72 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART n evolution is radically incorrect in one of its essential aspects, and that the true view is as great an improvement upon the current arbo- rescent conception as that is upon the earlier notion of linear devel- opment. It shows that plant development at least, and inferentially animal development also, is sympodial. This term of course requires definition to all but the botanist, and yet every educated person ought to have learned enough botany at school to understand it. But the botanists, i.e., those who have paid no attention to paleo- botany, and the writers of botanical text-books, do not, it must be confessed, clearly explain this term, and having no idea of the im- portance of the principle involved as bearing upon evolution, they do not lay stress on its essential features. At the risk, therefore, of being elementary I will briefly remark that the vegetable kingdom presents two clearly marked modes of branching known respectively as monopodial and sympodial. In monopodial branching the stem or main trunk gives off at intervals subordinate stems called branches, containing a comparatively small number of the fibre-vascular bun- dles of the main stem, which thus continues to diminish in size by the loss of its bundles until all are thus given off and the stem termi- nates in a slender twig. In sympodial branching, on the other hand, the main stem or trunk rises to a certain height and then gives off a branch into which the majority of the fibro-vascular bundles enter, so that the branch virtually becomes the trunk, and the real trunk or ascending portion is reduced to a mere twig, or may ultimately fail of support altogether and disappear through atrophy. This large branch at length in turn gives off a secondary branch contain- ing as before the bulk of the bundles, and the first branch is sacri- ficed in the same manner as was the original stem or trunk ; and this process is repeated throughout the life of the tree or plant. As might be naturally expected, the resulting series of branches of dif- ferent orders is zigzag, and in most sympodial herbs this is manifest in the plant. It is somewhat so in vines like the grape vine, but in trees, like the linden, the forces of heliotropism and general upward growth serve to right up these several originally inclined sympodes, the abortive stems of antecedent stages vanish entirely, and the trunk becomes as erect and symmetrical as those of its monopodial companions of the forest. There are other distinctions which may be found set forth in the books, but these are the only ones that concern us here. CH. v] SYMPODIAL DEVELOPMENT 73 Now the monopodial type of branching is of course the one that everybody is familiar with, and this is the type that is alone consid- ered when we speak of the arborescent character of organic develop- ment. Its inadequacy in explaining the actual phenomena presented by organic nature has been strongly felt, but no attempt has been made to discover a more correct method of representation. The opponents of evolution have made much use of the facts which, on the current arborescent theory, are in conflict with the doctrine, and even now, after the general truth of evolution has been firmly estab- lished, these residual phenomena that refuse to square with hypoth- esis occasionally obtrude themselves and generate unpleasant doubts. In the earlier pre-Darwinian days of the first half of the nineteenth century, after Lamarck, Goethe, Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, and Robert Chambers (anonymous author of the " Vestiges of Creation " ) had filled the air with the idea of evolution, these opposing facts were eagerly seized upon and brought forward as effectually disposing of the doctrine. A class of writers of that time Dr. William Buck- land, Dr. Lindley, Dr. Henry Witham, and Hugh Miller who were as well acquainted as anybody in their day with the character of the extinct floras of the globe, availed themselves of this scientific knowledge to disprove evolution on scientific grounds, and their arguments are as unanswerable to-day, on the prevailing view of arborescent (monopodial) development, as they were at that time. They never have been answered. On the view here presented that evolution is sympodial and not monopodial, these arguments find their complete answer, and the last objection to the doctrine of evolution is removed. For example, it was well known to Dr. Lindley, Hugh Miller, and Dr. Buckland, that the great lepidophytes and calamites which formed the forests of the Carboniferous period belonged to the same type of vegetation as our comparatively insignificant club- mosses and horsetails, and they could say with crushing force of argument that there had been no evolution, but degeneration instead. No evolutionist has been able to answer this argument, which is only one of scores that the history of plant development in geologic time presents. As an evolutionist myself, I could not help being impressed with these facts which have been staring me in the face for the past twenty years. Throughout all this time it has been my constant effort to discover a law that would reconcile these 74 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART n facts with the truth of evolution. Not until the idea had occurred to me that evolution was sympodial did I find such a law. I then subjected the new theory to all possible tests, and with each trial it has grown more solid. There are no facts inconsistent with it, and the only scientific argument against the general doctrine of evolution seems to be answered. I have prepared a course of lectures on Evolution in the Vege- table Kingdom, illustrated by over fifty lantern views, and show- ing how the law of sympodial development has operated in the geological history of plants. I cannot even summarize these facts in this chapter, and will confine myself to giving a few of the most striking examples. The case of the Lepidodendrales and the Calamariaceae has already been mentioned. Neither of these great phyla crossed the line that divides primary from secondary time. They reached their maximum development in the Carbon- iferous epoch, dwindled toward its close, and went down with the Permian winter to reappear no more forever. These were the great specialized types that attained such beauty and majesty in that island world of heat and moisture that prevailed in Carbon- iferous time. The records do not make it certain what the sympode was that received the bulk of the fibers and continued these races of plants, but it is probable that the Coniferae were the true descendants of the lepidophytes. The persistence of unspecialized types is a part of the law of sympodial development, and it is these only that have come down to us from these great lines. The Calamariaceae also disappeared at the close of the Paleozoic, but the large forms of Equisetum of the Mesozoic indicate that the original phylum did not die out, but persisted down to our time, gradually dwindling until they are now only represented by our scouring rushes which are strictly herbaceous. We can only specu- late as to what the first great branch of this type was. It may have been the Gnetacese, and the next may have been the Casuari- naceae, which most authors regard as dicotyledonous, though Treub maintains that they are wholly anomalous. The tree-ferns, which were the true rivals of the lepidophytes in the Carboniferous, have a history similar to that of the Calamariaceae. Our ferns of to-day, including the tree-ferns of the tropics, are doubtless the direct descendants of the original phylum, which has dwindled slowly throughout all these ages. It is now almost certain that the first en. v] SYMPODIAL DEVELOPMENT 75 sympode of that line was the Bennettitales, which reached their culminating point in the Upper Jurassic or Lower Cretaceous, and are now extinct, but are represented in our flora, though sparingly, by the true Cycadacese, of which Cycas revoluta is the most familiar example. The Cordaitales of the Devonian and Carboniferous dis- appeared in Paleozoic time after playing an important role. The first sympode of that line was probably Nceggerathia, the second, ]>aiera, characteristic of the Mesozoic, and the third, Ginkgo, which was abundant in the Jurassic, but fell off during the Cretaceous and Tertiary, and is now represented by a single species, the maidenhair-tree, native of China, but cultivated throughout all the warmer temperate parts of the world. This is without ques- tion the most interesting line of descent presented by the vegetable kingdom. Whatever may have been the original phylum of which the Coniferse constituted a sympode, we at least know that they first took the form of the Permian genus Walchia, later that of the Mesozoic genus Palissya, and finally that of the chiefly Cretaceous and Tertiary genus Sequoia, which, however, much as in the case of Ginkgo, still persists, although now on the verge of extinction. Its living representatives are the two great forest monarchs, the redwood and the mammoth tree of the Coast Range and the Sierras, respectively, of California. Space will not permit me to follow out other lines, as I could easily do, and show that everywhere and always the course of evo- lution in the plant world has been the same ; that the original phy- lum has at some point reached its maximum development and given off a sympode that has carried the process of evolution on until it should in turn give birth to a new sympode, which can only repeat the same history, and so on indefinitely. Each successive sympode possesses attributes which enable it better to resist the environment and therefore constitutes a form of development or structural ad- vance, so that the entire process is one of true evolution, and has culminated in the great class of dicotyledonous exogenous plants which now dominate the vegetable kingdom. On this view there is nothing remarkable in our finding extinct forms much superior to any of the living forms of the same type of structure. In fact, that is what we should expect, and it is what we actually find wherever there is an adequate record of the history of any line. What we have in the living flora of the globe to compare with those great 76 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART H fallen races of the past is merely the persisting unspeoialized types, which escaped destruction simply because unspecialized. For the law of the persistence of the unspecialized is only the counterpart of the law of the extinction of the specialized. Specialization is always a preparation for destruction. Although representing adap- tation to existing conditions it becomes inadaptation so soon as those conditions change. From lack of qualifications and opportunity I have not been able to verify the operation of this law in the animal kingdom to the same extent as I have done in the vegetable, but a slight acquaint- ance with zoology, and especially with paleozoology, is sufficient to show that it is as true there as in the history of plants. It is only necessary to mention the trilobites of the Cambrian, the molluscan life of the Silurian, the ganoid fishes of the Devonian, the gigantic Neuroptera and cockroaches of the Carboniferous, the enormous lizards (dinosaurs) of the Jurassic, and the mastodons of the Plio- cene, in order to suggest at least an almost exact parallel to what I have been sketching for the record of plant life. Any zoologist who clearly grasps the principle of sympodial dichotomy will doubtless be able to supplement the above enumeration to any required extent. Passing over, then, with these few hints, the field of zoology, let us rise at once to the plane of human history and see whether we cannot find a similar parallel here. We may look upon human races as so many trunks and branches of what may be called the sociologi- cal 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. Its origin is lost in the obscurity of ages of unre- corded history, and we can only judge from existing savages and the meager data of archaeology and human paleontology, how the process went on. But we know that it did go on, and when at last the light of tradition and written annals opens upon the human races we find them engaged in a great struggle, such as Gumplowicz has so graphically described. But we also find, as both he and Ratzen- hofer have ably shown, that out of this struggle new races have sprung, and that these in turn have struggled with other races, and out of these struggles still other races have slowly emerged, until at last, down toward our own times and within the general line of the historic races, the great leading nationalities French, English, CH. v] SYMPODIAL DEVELOPMENT 77 German, etc. have beeu evolved. Now every one of these races of men, from the advanced nationalities last named back to the bar- baric tribes that arose from the blending of hostile hordes, is simply an anthropologic sympode, strictly analogous to the biologic sym- podes that I have described. And when we concentrate our atten- tion upon those later aspects of this movement which we are fairly well acquainted with, we find a most remarkable parallelism between the phenomena which we popularly characterize as the rise and fall of nations or empires and the rise and fall of the great types of life during the progress of geologic history. As I look back in imagina- tion over the vast stretches of the past I can see the earth peopled, as it were, by these vegetable forms, different in every epoch, and an image presents itself to my mind of the gradual rise, ultimate mas- tery or hegemony, and final culmination of each of the great types of vegetation, followed by its decline contemporaneously with the rise of the type that is to succeed it. This rhythmic march of evo- lution has been going on throughout the entire history of the planet, and the path of geologic history is strewn with the ruins of fallen vegetable empires, just as that of human history is strewn with the wreck of political empires and decadent races. We may distinguish between specialization and evolution. The former consists chiefly in modification of form and size without essential 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. At the period of maximum develop- ment of any type of structure it must be fairly well adapted to its environment, and it becomes specialized in form and vigorous in growth, usually attaining relatively large size, as in the lepido- phytes, calamites, cordaites, and tree-ferns of the Carboniferous, the dinosaurs of the Jura, and the great sequoias. All these must have once been thoroughly adapted to their environment. But as soon as a change begins to take place in the environment the degree of adaptation begins to diminish. The result, however, is not a retrac- ing of any of the steps in specialization that have been taken. It is first diminishing abundance and supremacy of these specialized forms, then their more and more complete subordination to the more vigorous types, i.e., those better adapted to the now changed envi- ronment, and finally their extinction. But they go down just as they are, with all their specialization of form and size, and simply 78 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PAKT u perish from inability longer to compete with the rising types of life. It is possible that, if human aid does not prevent it, the last repre- sentative of the mammoth trees of the Sierras may be the largest and grandest individual of its race. Just how specialization entails extinction is an important ques- tion. Often, as in most of the cases just cited, the organisms become overgrown, and, as it were, break down by their own weight the moment that perfect adaptation ceases which enabled them to attain such proportions. But there are many other more subtle causes at work in the same direction. I shall not attempt an enumeration of them here, but will instance one case which will give a clear idea of how specialization may work its own destruction. It is well known that some species of Yucca depend for their con- tinuance upon cross fertilization through insect agency, and that their flowers have become specialized so as to permit a certain species of insect, the Yuccasella pronuba, to effect this cross fertiliza- tion. Now if this plant should be transported by any agency to a habitat where this insect does not exist it must inevitably perish. It cannot wander beyond the range of the insect, and if for any reason the insect should die out the plant must also die. This extreme case vividly illustrates the whole subject of overspecializa- tion and the precarious nature of highly specialized organisms, for there are all degrees of the phenomena and every form of specializa- tion makes the life of the species short and uncertain. When we say that any once vigorous type has dwindled since the period of maximum development and left only degenerate survivors in our time, the statement is not altogether correct and is mislead- ing. The truth is that the highly specialized forms do not degene- rate or retrograde at all, but perish as they were, being simply crowded out of existence. What persists is the unspecialized forms of the same type that were contemporary with the specialized ones, but escaped competition because not specialized. These may come on down and even improve somewhat, but they will appear by com- parison to be degenerate. Such are all the long-lived races of both animals and plants that are found, like Lingula, passing on up through many geological formations. How do all these principles apply to human races? Careful examination reveals a close parallelism. Races and nations become overgrown and disappear. Peoples become overspecialized and fall CH. v] CREATIVE SYNTHESIS 79 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. The plot of the " ^Eneid," though it be a myth, at least illustrates this truth. Troy was swallowed up by Greece, but not until it had been transplanted to Rome, and the Pergama recidiva handed on the qualities of Trojan character to later ages. Italy was the vanguard of civilization to the sixteenth century, when she transferred her scepter to Spain, which held it during the seven- teenth, and in turn transferred it to France. It passed to England in the nineteenth, and bids fair to cross the Atlantic before the close of the twentieth. 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. CREATIVE SYNTHESIS I borrow this expression from Wundt, 1 who gives the central idea of it in the following passage : " There is absolutely no form which in the meaning and value of its content is not something more than the mere sum of its factors or than the mere mechanical resultant of its components " (p. 274) . 2 But I shall make of it a still wider application than he does. It seems to me to embody the answer to a large amount of what passes for very wise, but what I have always regarded as not only superficial but also essentially false reasoning. The idea is so far-reaching that I cannot hope to pre- sent all its applications in this chapter. The most I can do is to lay down the principle and let the applications come at their proper times and places as we proceed. The conception was not 1 " Logik." Eine Untersuchung der Principien der Erkenntniss und der Methoden wissenschaftlicher Forschung. Von Wilhelm Wundt. Zwei Bande. Zweite um- gearbeitete Auflage. Stuttgart, 1895. Zweiter Band. Methodenlehre. Zweite Abtheilung. Logik der Geisteswissenschaften. Zweites Capitel. Die Logik der Psychologic, 4. Die Principien der Psychologic ; d : Das Princip der Schopferischen Synthese, pp. 267-281. 2 " Es gibt absolut kein solches Gebilde, das nicht nach der Bedeutung und dem Werth seines Inhaltes mehr ware als die blosse Summe seiner Factoren oder die blosse mechanische Resultante seiner Componente," loc. cit., p. 274. 80 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART 11 entirely new when I met with the expression in Wundt's " Logik," but this expression, I freely confess, had the effect to render it more definite and clear. As will be seen, it is a composite idea. The notion embodied in the second component is nothing more nor less than the fertile truth taught most clearly by chemistry that a compound of two substances is something more than the sum of those substances, and is in a proper sense a third and dif- ferent substance. That its properties are in some way derived from and due to those of its components is not denied, but the relation is one that no human insight can fully comprehend. No one, for example, could predict in advance what kind of a sub- stance would result from even so simple a combination as oxygen and hydrogen in the proportion of two atoms of the latter to one of the former. No one could have told till he had tried it whether the resulting substance would be a gas, like both the components, or a liquid, as it is at ordinary temperatures, or a solid, as it is at lower temperatures. Much less could any one have told what its properties would be. The common hypothesis on which the substances resulting from the chemical union of components which are themselves composite is explained is that the molecules of the components enter into the new aggregate as units without previous decomposition into their simpler elements; but it cannot be said that this is known to be true. This chemical synthesis has long been believed to typify a large number of other phenomena in all departments of nature. The indestructibility of matter requires us to suppose that different things are nothing but so many combinations of elements that have always existed, and this truth is apt to generate the idea that there is really "no new thing under the sun." This idea, although em- bodying a very general truth, really leads to a false conception of nature, the conception namely that there are no real differences in things, and that the universe is a monotonous sameness. The facts of chemical union resulting in products wholly unlike their components tend to dispel this illusion, but the law of aggregation or recompounding is not perceived to be a universal one. applicable to all departments of nature. Spencer and others have successfully shown that this is the case, and it is to this truth that Durkheim appeals in defense of the existence of distinctively social phenomena. CH. v] CREATIVE SYNTHESIS 81 But this universal chemism, or intimate blending of elements with complete loss of individuality and reappearance in new forms, as dis- tinguished from mere mechanical mixture or amalgamation, required to be more deeply studied. The moment we recognize that it is creative, although it thereby acquires no quality that it did not pos- sess before, a flood of light is shed on the entire process, and we then see how it can be that an infinite variety may spring from relatively few elements, or, indeed, from an assumed unitary substratum of the universe. Creation. The popular conception of creation is vague and con- fused. The old view, and the theological view generally, is the making of something without materials creation out of nothing. But the mind cannot conceive this, and in the face of medieval theologism the maxim ex nihilo niliilftt has always been constantly repeated and never seriously gainsaid. The only rational or think- able idea of creation has always been that of putting previously existing things into new forms. If we go outside of inetaplrysics and confine ourselves wholly to art we find that this is the funda- mental conception upon which all art rests. Art erects ideals, and ideals are creations in just this sense. It is common to speak of the perfection of nature and to hear it said that art imitates nature. These are both false conceptions. Nature is everywhere imperfect, and art always aims to improve upon nature. No two natural objects are exactly alike. This is because no natural object is ideally perfect. The differences are due to defects. Let a botanist try to find a perfect specimen of a plant that grows abundantly around him. He will examine dozens or hundreds and then be compelled to take one that he sees to be defective. I have often searched long and faithfully to find a perfect leaf on a tree full of leaves without succeeding. Something is always lacking. The reason why we know our friends and neighbors is because no human face is perfect. Only lovers find each other perfect, and marriage too often quickly dispels the illusion. We think that foreigners all look alike, but among themselves even Chinese and Amerinds know one another. It is said that the Alpine shepherds know their sheep, and I can believe it, because when a boy it was my duty to " tend " my father's sheep, which usually numbered a hundred or more, and I not only knew them all but gave them all names. Now they must have all differed, and these differences 82 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART n were deviations from an ideal, always falling below it, because there is no possibility of rising above it. That would involve a contradiction of terms. Xature is always imperfect, but the mind, at a certain stage of development, or with a certain amount of cultivation and training, becomes capable of forming ideals of perfection. It acquires the power of seeing the defects in nature and of supplying them in imagination. This is the creative imagination which precedes all art. Creative genius is the next step, which is the capacity for supplying these defects in nature outside of the imagination in some concrete objective way. The fine arts are the ways in which it does this. The history of the formation and execution of ideals is an interesting one. Those strange conventionalized figures that characterize ancient Oriental art and that of barbaric races obelisks, totem posts, etc. merely show that the imagina- tion of such peoples was limited to general forms and could not rise to exact representation. Not until we come to Greek art do we find the power of perfect representation coupled with the genius for its complete execution. It is truly said that imagination cannot exceed observation, that the artist can put nothing into his picture that he has not seen in nature. Creation does not imply this. What the artist does is to take the perfect parts of many imperfect models and combine them in one in which all the parts are perfect. This is the essence of creative genius. The mind cannot make something out of nothing, any more than can the hands. All it can do is to elaborate and rearrange the materials it has previously received through the senses. Nihil in intellects, quod non prius in sensu. But with these materials it not only can reconstruct but it can construct. The imagination, as thus understood, is a faculty of the intellect which has developed pari passu with its other faculties. The immediate antecedent of imagination is imitation, and there can be no doubt that the former grew out of the latter. Those animals to which we ascribe the highest psychic powers are the most imitative. The rea- son why the apes are such mimics is that their minds are more highly developed than those of other animals. They are approach- ing a stage at which the formation of ideals is possible. From the highest degrees of imitativeness to the lowest degrees of imagina- ' ' ; - -\ short step, and it is just here that one of the bridges spans CH. v] SOCIAL IDEALS 83 the chasm between animal and man. M. Tarde would have laid a solid psychological foundation for his philosophy if he had recognized this truth and illustrated it in his customary way. Social Ideals. We have seen that the essential condition of all art is the psychic power of forming ideals. Their execution is cer- tain to follow their creation. It has often been remarked that persons of an artistic turn of mind often become, especially in later life, social reformers, and the examples of Ruskin, William Morris, Howells, Bellamy, and others are brought forward. I once heard a lecturer on sociology at a university lay great emphasis on this fact before his class, and he treated it simply as a remarkable and appar- ently inexplicable coincidence. This led me to reflect upon it, but the explanation was not far to seek. An artist or art critic, like Ruskin, possesses a mind specially constituted for seeing ideals in nature. Such a mind instantly detects the defects in everything observed and unconsciously supplies the missing parts. This faculty is general, and need not be confined to human features, to architec- tural designs, to statues, portraits, and landscapes. It may take any direction. After a life engaged in the search of ideals in the world of material things, the mind often grows more serious and is more and more sympathetic. It lays more stress on moral defects, and in the most natural way conceivable, it proceeds to form ethical and social ideals by the same process that it has always formed esthetic ideals. The defectiveness of the social state in permitting so much suffering is vividly represented, and the image of an ideal society in which this would be prevented spontaneously arises in the mind. Instinctively, too, the born artist, now become a social artist, proceeds to construct such an ideal society, and we have a great array of Utopias, and Arcadias, and Altrurias, in which imagi- nation drives out all the hard, stern realities of life, and leaves only Edens and Paradises. The highest flights of artistic ingenuity and creative power are attained, and by looking forward and backward every shadow that is cast on society is banished leaving only sun-lit Elysian fields. To indulge in an apparent hyperbole, the moral and social reformer, nay, the social and political agitator or even fanatic, pro- vided he be sincere and not a self-seeker, exercises the same faculty as the poet, the sculptor, and the painter, and out of all these fields of art, even from that of music, there have been recruited, in this 84 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART n perfectly natural and legitimate way, philanthropists, humanitarians,, socialists, idealists, religious, economic, and social reformers. The list is large, but as representative types, besides those already men- tioned, we may properly name Victor Hugo, Tolstoi, Wagner, Millet, Swinburne, and George Eliot. It may be said that there is a difference between esthetic art and social art, as thus described, in that the first relates to the beautiful while the second relates to the good ; but this is rather a distinction than a difference, since there is a recognized moral beauty, and also because, as all true philosophers of art admit, the ultimate object of art is to please, so that both rest on feeling, and thus have a moral basis. And if the social artist is moved more by pain to be relieved than by pleasure to be enjoyed in his ideal society, this is only a difference of degree, since there can be no doubt that one of the strongest motives to creative art is the pain caused by the defects,, maladjustments, discords, jars, and eyesores that the real world constantly inflicts upon the hypersensitive organization of the artist. Again it may be urged that a work of art is a real and lasting contribution to the world's possessions, not to be set aside as foolish, or trivial, or useless, while a social utopia is an ideal and nothing more, a chimera, an Unding, to be set aside as the vaporing of an unbalanced mind. The answer to this objection is that some Utopias do not answer this description, but, independently of all practical considerations, are, in and of themselves, works of art. No one will probably deny this merit to those of Plato and More, and a little later that of Bellamy is likely to become a classic. But be this as it may, it is the psychological nature of these operations that we are considering and not their value. And what is art but exaggeration of nature, a charming unreality, more unrealizable than the wildest utopia ? There never was, there never can be an Apollo Belvidere or a Venus of Milo. Tlie Poetic Idea. The train of thought that we have been follow- ing out naturally leads us to consider the nature of the poetic idea. The close relation or practical identity of poetry and prophecy has been frequently recognized, but an analysis of its psychological char- acter seems to be thus far lacking. This subject furnishes another good illustration of the light that the natural sciences shed on the highest forms of ideation. Already in this chapter it has been shown CH. v] THE POETIC IDEA 85 how difficult it must be for any but a botanist, familiar with the principle of sympodial dichotomy, to seize and firmly grasp one of the most essential characteristics of universal evolution, and now we shall see how a comprehension of the truths of organic development may supply the materials for a clear conception of so different a phenomenon as the unfolding of a poetic or prophetic formula. A true poet, especially one whose mind is stored with the wisdom of the world, is in very truth a prophet, and is the subject of veritable inspirations, which he occasionally formulates as it were uncon- sciously. He is a seer, i.e., he sees truth that others do not see. He sees it only vaguely and utters it vagiiely in forms that may seem meaningless to his contemporaries, but after time has wrought its changes and separated out the elements that were in his mind the meaning of his phrases emerges, and the truth vaguely expressed becomes definite and clear. The faculty is, like imagination, a purely creative one. The truth expressed was never presented to the senses, but only its elements, which he puts together and con- structs a new truth which time will ultimately reveal. Now the objective evolution of nature is parallel to the subjective evolution of mind, and a study of evolution throws light on mental processes. In the organic world we know that the course of evolu- tion is from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous through systematic differentiation. All life has sprung from a homogeneous, undifferen- tiated plasm, which contained within itself the potency of all the varied forms that have evolved out of this plasm. All through the history of organic development there occur relatively undifferen- tiated forms which later divide up and take on a number of definite shapes, all of which are suggested by these ancestral forms. Agas- siz, who resisted the march of evolutionary ideas to the end of his life, clearly saw this truth, and he it was who called such forms comprehensive or prophetic types. He attributed them to a great preordained plan conceived by the deity and slowly worked out in this way through geologic ages. These comprehensive types occur in all departments of organic nature, and no enumeration of them is called for. But I will mentioji one that is practically unknown to the world, and which, as I discovered it myself, has brought this truth more closely home to me than any other. As it is quite as good an illustration as could be found anywhere, I feel justified in using it. 86 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PAUT u In 1883, while operating in the Lower Yellowstone Valley in Montana, I collected in the Laramie Group, in beds underlying the Fort Union deposits, and therefore probably belonging to the extreme Upper Cretaceous, a singular fossil plant, as yet unnamed, but to which I have since devoted considerable study. I described it in a paper read by me before the Geological Section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science at the Cleveland meet- ing in 1888, and illustrated it by a number of lantern views. I need not repeat the description here, but will quote my conclusions as presented in that paper and published in the Proceedings of the Association for that year (Vol. XXXVII, p. 201) : - I am disposed to regard it as a " comprehensive type " of vascular crypto- gamic life, embodying some of the characters of several well known living types, viz., 1. The large tufted central base is suggestive of that of most species of Isoetes, and the long weak stems of certain of these species are observed to recline and lie prostrate in all directions around this center. 2. The double row of spore-cases at the apex of the stem agrees in all essen- tial respects with that of Ophioglossum, and the elliptic expansion may be regarded as homologues of the larger blade-like fronds of that genus, which may easily be imagined to have the spores borne along its median line instead of on a special fruiting frond. 3. The prostrate sinuous habit is not widely unlike that of certain creeping species of Lycopodium, as, e.g., L. annotinum, and the tooth-like appendages may be the reduced homologues of the scale- like leaves of that genus. 4. A still further approach is seen in Selaginella where the scales have become distichous and the stems flat and closely creep- ing. This parallel is well-nigh complete in those species, such as S. Douglasii, in which the spores are borne in terminal spikes, like those of most Lycopo- diums, except that these are more or less flattened and two-ranked. 5. Finally, ignoring the appendicular organs of Marsilea we see in the fruit-bearing por- tion a further analogy to our fossil, the fruiting stems radiating from the thickened base and bearing the spores at their apex. The fossil would thus represent a highly generalized type and may be phylogenetically related to all these more specialized modern forms with each of which it seems to possess some characters in common. Such facts as these incline me to believe that evolution is not always typically sympodial, although it is probably never typically monopodial. They indicate that there sometimes occurs what may be called polychotomy, in which the main trunk divides up some- what equally, producing a number of large trunks or branches, each possessing some of the characters of the common ancestor, which subsequently become further differentiated and specialized, resulting in the different existing forms. Thus my prophetic Laramie plant CH. v] THE POETIC IDEA 87 may have been the common ancestor of Isoetes, Ophioglossum, Lyco- podium, Selaginella, and Marsilea. But as some of these genera have been found to have near relatives at least in still older strata, it is much more probable that my form is a late, lingering hold-over, somewhat depauperate, of a much more ancient form. This case, however, represents at best a somewhat late, and rela- tively, a highly differentiated type, and far back of it must have existed more and more homogeneous forms in which these characters could not be seen, although their elements must have been present in them. Such are all the earlier ontogenetic stages in the develop- ment of even the highest living organisms, whether vegetable or ani- mal, according to Von Baer's law. If these are traced backward we arrive at last at the egg, the germ cells, and the sperm cells, which must in some way embody all the Anlagen of the mature organism. These facts now belong to the elementary truths of biology familiar to all informed persons. But their familiarity does not detract from their profound significance. It is, however, high time that the application of all this be made to the poetic idea, although few readers will probably need to have it made at all, since it must have already become clear to them. It is that a poetic idea is a homogeneous undifferentiated truth embodying the germs of many dis- tinct truths which in the process of time and of the general develop- ment of ideas, are destined to take clear and definite forms. Its vagueness of both conception and expression belongs to its essential character as such, as the exact psychologic homologue of the bio- logic facts above described. It was thus, for example, that Emerson voiced the great truth of evolution when he said : And, striving to be man, the worm Mounts through all the spires of form. 1 1 " Nature," by Ralph Waldo Emerson, originally published in September, 1836. This edition is now very rare but the essay occupies the first place in Emerson's " Miscellanies," published in 1856. " Nature" is a prose essay, but to it was prefixed as a motto these lines : A subtle chain of countless rings The next unto the farthest brings ; The eye reads omens where it goes, And speaks all languages the rose ; And, striving to be man, the worm Mounts through all the spires of form. In his work on, " Ralph Waldo Emerson: his Life, Writings, and Philosophy," Boston, 1881, Mr. George Willis Cooke states (p. 40) that "Nature" was published 88 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART 11 Poesis. 1 I use this term in the primary sense of the Greek word as used by Herodotus, Thucydides, and other of the older Greek writers, and also sometimes by Plato, and not in the later derivative sense of poesy or poetry. In this sense it is the exact opposite of genesis. It is not, however, to be confounded with telesis, which is the name I give to Part III of this work. That is also the antithesis to genesis, but in a somewhat different sense, and the distinction will be fully pointed out. What it concerns us to emphasize now is that most of what has been said of what is called fine art is true also of practical art. Whichever should stand first, and they were doubt- less developed pari passu, inventive genius, as well as creative genius, is a faculty for putting together raw materials so as to form new combinations. 2 The product is something different from that which existed before. It is a creation. Poesis is a form of creative syn- thesis. In esthetic creation the thing made is an ideal freed from the crudities of nature and beautiful to contemplate. In inventive creation the thing made is useful and serves a practical purpose. Here the defects of nature that are specially attended to are the obstructions to existence. Nature is not only crude and uncouth but she is obnoxious and destructive. She is also wasteful and extravagant, and inventive genius works for economy. The special quality to which inventive genius applies itself is utility. Here is a new or fourth category to be added to the conventional thiee truth, beauty, goodness. The useful is not the same as the good, as used in this formula, but it is even more important because of universal application, while the field of ethics is a restricted one which is con- stantly contracting. The completed formula should then be : the true, the beautiful, the good, and the useful, in which the useful is not put last because least, but only because the last to be recognized. But poesis is more than invention and more than art. It is both. It embodies a form of imagination as well as a form of creation. Or in September, 1836. This poetic adumbration of modern evolutionary doctrine there- fore antedates Darwin's " Origin of Species " by twenty-three years. As Emerson was familiar with Goethe's writings it is not surprising that his works should breathe the spirit of evolution. The remarkable thing in this is that he should have men- tioned the " worm," since it is through the Vermes that the vertebrate type was de- rived. If he had said the snail the scientific character of the passage would have been lost. 1 Gr. irolriffis, a making. 2 No one has seen or expressed this truth more clearly than Condorcet. See the "Tableau historique des Progres de 1'Esprit humain," Paris, 1900, pp. 327 ff. CH. v] GENESIS 89 rather, as in esthetic art, it first creates an ideal and then creates an object which materializes that ideal. The chief difference is in the nature of that ideal. Instead^of an ideal beauty it is an ideal utility. The first step, ton, is a, form nf ima.crjna.tion, for there is little in the, raw materials used to suggest that utility j Qr> ^ ' f Togi.;^ ^ ^'"^ an order of genius to form such an ideal as it does to form an ideal of symmetry and perfection. Not enough has yet been said of this wonderful faculty of imagination. 1 The popular conception of it is far too narrow. We sometimes hear of scientific imagination. There certainly is such. It is that faculty which coordinates the disor- dered impressions received through the senses and out of them con- structs a truth. For truth is also an ideal and thought is a form of creative synthesis. Experience never furnishes truth. Nothing but a creative faculty can bring truth from fact. Genesis. Thus far I have only considered the psychological aspect of the subject. Its cosmological aspect is still more impor- tant, but can be better understood in the light of these studies in mind. The truth now to be enforced is that nature also creates. The case with which we started of the formation of chemical com- pounds illustrates this truth, for every new combination is not only a synthesis but a creation. Something is made to exist which did not exist before. It is made of preexisting materials, but it is different from any of those materials. What we miss is the ideal, but while the creations of mind, being telic, necessarily proceed from ideals, the creations of nature, being genetic, do not proceed from ideals. They are none the less creations. Wherever there is com- bination, as distinguished from mixture coalescence as distinguished from coexistence something new results, and there is creative syn- thesis. But this is the principal method of nature. All the organ- ized movements in the universe involve combination and coalescence. The word organic, in its wider sense, implies this. Relations that are not organic in this sense are merely accidental. They are due to conjuncture, which is itself an important factor in the total make-up of things, but does not produce that intimate interlocking of ele- ments necessary to render their union a new unit. The branches of an oak may interlock with those of an elm, but there will be no 1 In the French language imaginer is to invent as well as to imagine, and the same is true for most of the romance languages. The distinction between the esthetic and the useful has been differentiated out of the homogeneous idea of creation. 90 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART H coalescence, no cross fertilization, but two closely related species of oak thus mechanically forced together will hybridize. Entirely different animals, as the cat and the dog, would be sterile inter se, but more nearly related ones, as the ass and the horse, are partially fertile. An amalgam or an alloy can scarcely be called a new prod- uct, but an acid or a salt is a true creation. There must be a cer- tain degree of resemblance, there must be a mutual affinity, before there can result that organic union which constitutes creation. The synthesis must be natural and not fortuitous. It is here that we find the application of creative synthesis to the general fact of filiation. The natural order of the sciences is due to the fact that the more complex phenomena of the higher sciences are the creative products of phenomena of a lower order. The former are generated by the latter, and all generation, or genesis, is creative. The relation between them is organic. The more complex sciences deal with these new products, which are, indeed, composed of elements constituting the units of the less complex ones, but they are no longer directly recognizable as such, having combined to form units of a higher order, and it is these higher units with which the complex sciences deal. By the laws of motion described in the fourth chapter, under which mechanical motion is converted into molecular motion, physics passes into chemistry. By the recom- pounding of chemical elements, inorganic compounds, and organic compounds, protoplasm is evolved, and chemistry passes into biology. By a further process of recompounding, to be considered in future chapters, life passes into mind. By a still higher series of creative acts man and society come forth. None of these steps will be neg- lected, but their full treatment here would be to anticipate. The order of the dependence of the sciences is thus seen to be something more than the inverse order of generality and complexity. This of itself, as formulated by Comte, is a great truth, but there is a still deeper truth, viz., that each of the higher sciences is a prod- uct of the creative synthesis of all the sciences below it in the scale. Each science is thus distinct, though not independent. It is a new and different field of phenomena. Chemistry is not physics, but a science apart. Biology is not chemistry, nor is psychology, as Comte maintained, biology. Sociology is not psychology, still less biology. It is a science, new in two senses, viz., those of being newly created and newly discovered. It is the product of recompounding of the sim- CH. v] GENESIS 91 pier sciences. The sociological units are compounds of psychological units, but differ as much from their components as corrosive subli- mate differs from chlorine or mercury. This principle also explains the relation of sociology to the special social sciences. It is not quite enough to say that it is a synthesis of them all. It is the new compound which their synthesis creates. It is not any of them and it is not all of them. It is that science which they spontaneously generate. It is a genetic product, the last term in the genesis of science. The special social sciences are the units of aggregation that organically combine to create sociology, but they lose their in- dividuality as completely as do chemical units, and the resultant product is wholly unlike any of them and is of a higher order. All this is true of any of the complex sciences, but sociology, standing at the head of the entire series, is enriched by all the truths of nature and embraces all truth. It is the scientia scientiarum. Still another vexed question finds its solution here, to wit, the question of the social consciousness or collective mind. It receives the same answer as the rest. The social mind is a product of spon- taneous creative synthesis of all individual minds. In this sense it is real. That it differs widely from any individual mind has been abundantly shown by many writers. In this case the resulting compound, in so far as it can be compared to the component units, somewhat represents their average. It seems to be below the aver- age, but this is partly from the habit of only observing the highest psychic phenomena and disregarding the lowest. The social mind sometimes seems to be embryonic, i.e., to take the form of the more primitive mind of man as we observe it in uncivilized races. This is due to the fact that in manifestations of the social mind the artificial restraints of civilized life are removed. The period of the evolution of civility is very short compared with the precivilized period, and the coat of civility is thin. " Scratch a Russian and you have a Tartar." Scratch a savant and you have a savage. The process of becoming civilized has been one of restraint. The civil- ized man puts his best foot forward. Civilized life helps to do this. Living in houses, every one concealed from his fellows, favors the process. Witness the restraint that people feel when obliged, even for a brief period, as in certain cottages at the seaside, to live where what they say can be heard by the occupants of adjacent rooms. How the tent life of the earlier ages of European history must have 92 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART n laid bare human character ! That of the army does this now, as I have had occasion personally to observe. Pioneer life and life in mining camps has the same effect. 1 Now, just as in the camp, so in the crowd, the restraints of civil- ized life are removed. The thin veneering that covers men's acts in society peels off, and the true character of the civilized man as an enlightened savage comes to light. The veneering consists of about half culture and half hypocrisy. The social mind partly lays off both these garbs and represents men more nearly as they are. The acts which would be objectionable in private life are shifted to the broad shoulders of all the rest. No individual holds himself respon- sible for them. This has been pointed out by various writers and numerous illustrations given. I will add only one, which relates to one of the most recently acquired civilized qualities, viz., modesty. At the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition of 1876 I saw a crowd of orderly, well-dressed, and evidently genteel people around the monkey cages, and men, women, boys, and girls alike were laughing and shouting and gazing at actions of the large apes which probably not one of those present, if in small companies acquainted with one another, would have pretended to see. I made a note of the fact at the time as illustrating how little it requires to rub off the thin wash of modesty that covers civilized society. And it is much the same with nearly all distinctively civilized qualities of man. The erratic and erotic career of Oscar Wilde would furnish another illustration of the same truth. Eemove social restraints and men will act their natures, and social ideals are so much higher than human nature that the social mind, which is so much nearer the natural mind than the individual mind is under these restraints, seems much lower, cruder, and more primitive than that of individuals. Its qualitative differences are almost wholly due to the removal of these restraints. Much more might be said under this head but it would be mainly a repetition of what has been said by others. Synthetic Creations of Nature. We thus see that nature is crea- tive as well as man, that creation is genetic as well as telic, and that the products of genesis as well as those of telesis are products of creative synthesis. It is these wide applications of creative synthe- sis that it chiefly concerns us to note, and we may now briefly review a few of the most important of them. The fact to be insisted upon 1 Dr. Ross has emphasized this point. See his " Social Control," pp. 45, 46. CH. v] SYNTHETIC CREATIONS 93 is that evolution is through and through creative. As change after change goes on from the nebular chaos toward universal cosmos, from cosmos to bios, and from bios to logos, long stretches inter- vene between these several great stadia, during which the creative products have not as yet assumed such definite forms as to consti- tute turning points or crises in the march of the world's progress. But ever and anon such a stage is reached, and a new creative product is brought forth, so unlike anything that has hitherto existed, and so cardinal in its nature as to give, as it were, a new point of departure to all future evolution. At every such stage the universe seems to change front and thenceforward to march in a new direction. There have been many such cosmical crises, after each of which there has been a new universe. We know not what the absolutely elementary state of matter may be, but the universal ether is now almost as well proved as the existence of ponderable matter. If out of it there once came those relative condensations which constituted the as yet homogeneous and undifferentiated masses of diffused matter called nebulae, this must have marked one of the cosmic epochs of which we have spoken, and such a nebula may be regarded as a synthetic creation. That such nebulae subsequently differentiated into systems of worlds of which our solar system is one is nothing more than a statement of the nebular hypothesis of Kant and Laplace. Every such world system is a cosmic creation. The history of our planet has doubt- less been repeated thousands of times in all the countless star sys- tems that we have ocular demonstration of within the limits of our lenticular universe. As we know little of other planets and much of our own, we can only assume that the course of evolution has been similar in all. Confining ourselves to our earth, we practically know that in the course of its history there have been evolved three of the epoch-making properties that we are considering, viz., life, feeling, and thought. But these properties belong to certain material products that have first been evolved, each of which was a new creation. They have appeared at long intervals in an ascending unilateral series, and each successive product, while possessing all the properties of the one that immediately preceded it, possesses the one additional prop- erty by which it is specially distinguished. The activities mani- fested by these creative products of evolution are either molecular 94 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART n or molar, and each gives rise to some kind of phenomena which are capable of classification. Each product is at once the effect of ante- cedent causes and the cause of further effects, and the kinds of causes to which these latter belong may also be classified. Thus all activities are either molecular or molar, all phenomena are either physical, vital, psychic, or social, and all causes are either efficient, conative, or telic. Placing these products in a column in the ascend- ing order of their development, and the properties they possess, the quality of their activities, the phenomena they manifest, and the nature of the causes through which they work, in parallel columns, we shall have the following table : SYNTHETIC CREATIONS OF NATURE PRODUCTS DIFFERENTIAL ATTRIBUTES Properties Activities Phenomena Causes Society Achievement > Social j Man Intellect M, 1 Psychic J Telic Animals Feeling Molar Conative Plants Life 1 Protoplasm Motility J Organic Compounds I Efficient Inorganic Compounds [ Chemism Molecular Chemical Elements ' I Physical Universal Ether Vibration Radiant Whether we contemplate the products or the properties of this series, each of these steps in evolution, or synthetic creations of nature, may be regarded as something new, i.e., as something that had no existence before. Although their primary elements always existed, the combinations resulting in the several products constitute so many distinct things. Although the properties are all manifesta- tions of the universal force, still that force never manifested itself before in anything like the same way. They are wholly different modes of motion. Each new plane of existence thus attained is a fresh base of operations. The successive products and properties are so many discrete degrees in the history of the universe. Only his most philosophical disciples know just what Swedenborg meant by " discrete degrees," but as he was a true poet, this may have been a poetic idea or prophetic vision of the law of evolution and universal genesis which I have endeavored to sketch. He may have dimly en. v] SYNTHETIC CREATIONS 95 seen the creative power of nature and the principle of creative syn- thesis, and his discrete degrees may have been an adumbration of the synthetic creations of nature. I have not introduced worlds into the table because all worlds must consist of chemical elements, inorganic compounds, and organic compounds, and the property of chemism must be common to them all. Protoplasm, though probably the result of some form of recompounding of organic compounds, is unlike any other product of chemism, and marks the transition from spontaneous molecular to spontaneous molar activity, which latter is the fundamental char- acteristic of vital or biotic phenomena. It came to stay and is, as Huxley says, the physical basis of life. Out of it sprang the plant world and the animal world. But the plant only elaborates inor- ganic matter, while the animal must re-elaborate the organic matter created by the plant. The chief differential attribute of the animal, however, is what I call feeling the property of self-awareness. The highest animals, it is true, possess the germs of intelligence, but for convenience of tabular representation, and for all practical pur- poses, intellect may be made to begin with man. The will belongs to animals and is the kind of force or causation that they employ. At bottom it is a form of the efficient cause, but it is deserving of a special designation. We will call such causes conative. The phe- nomena presented by protoplasm and by plants are vital. The differential (additional) phenomena presented by animals, including man, are psychic. But intellect is essentially a final cause. Man, with all the attributes of all the lower products and intellect added, generates another and highest product, society. This is also dis- crete and hitherto unknown. That which chiefly distinguishes it from all other cosmic creations is its capacity for achievement (in the sense in which I use the word, see Chapter III). Social phenomena thus inaugurate another, and thus far the last, new departure in the history of evolution, viz., the movement toward civilization. Many distinct lines of culture have started, but only one promises to pos- sess permanent continuity. The recent rapid westernizing of Japan is probably an earnest of what will be the ultimate result in China, India, and other Oriental civilizations, while the weaker ones will be simply absorbed in the mass of Occidental life that is overflowing and overrunning all the remoter continents and the islands of the sea. 96 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART n It will not have escaped attention that these broad steps in evolu- tion are closely analogous to the more restricted phenomena of organic development taking place within one of the cosmic periods. The fact is here even more marked that at every one of the culmi- nating points a new direction is given to the whole scheme by the appearance of a new product with its added attributes. The march of cosmic, as of organic evolution is thus zigzag. It resembles the culm of certain grasses that changes its direction at every joint. It is perfectly homologous to the stem of a sympodial plant, which consists of a series of branches each of which has appropriated prac- tically all the energy of the plant. For the differential attribute which each cosmic product possesses in addition to those of all before it immediately becomes paramount and the antecedent ones sink into relative insignificance. Each product with its concomitant attributes is thus a true sympode, and cosmic evolution is also sympodial. Finally it is to be noted that the series is parallel to that of the sciences of the hierarchy. This follows as a matter of course, it is true, since those sciences simply deal with the phenomena which nature presents. But we saw that the sciences could be arranged in a natural succession and that when so arranged they grew out of one another in such a manner that the term filiation could be properly applied to it. But this is because there is a corresponding relation among the phenomena themselves. This corresponding relation is the genetic succession of cosmic products with their differential attributes that we have been considering. The succes- sion is not only genetic but tocogenetic. The higher terms are gener- ated by the lower through creative synthesis, and are thus affiliated upon them. The filiation of the sciences is the simple correlate of the filiation of the products and attributes of evolution. CHAPTER VI THE DYNAMIC AGENT GLANCING again at the table of synthetic creations of nature on p. 94, and giving special attention now to the second column of " properties," we may note first that it is as true of properties as of products that they are affiliated upon one another, the lower beget- ting the higher. It cannot perhaps be said to be known that chem- ism grows out of ethereal vibrations, though the phenomena of thermodynamics point that way. But we can almost say that we know that life emerges in some way from chemism through the differential attribute of protoplasm, motility. That feeling sprang from life will be the thesis of the next chapter. The proof that feeling created intellect will be found in Chapter XVII. That achieve- ment, as defined in Chapter III, is only possible in a rational being, would seem to require no demonstration. In the second place it is to be observed that the mode of produc- ing effects, called the " cause " in the last column of the table, is in feeling conative, and in intellect telic. This distinction is funda- mental, and upon it depends the primary subdivision of sociology. A conative cause is, as was stated in the last chapter, a modality of the efficient cause, but it is psychic instead of physical, and this dis- tinction, while not generic, is fundamental, and calls for a wholly dif- ferent method of treatment. The telic or final cause is not a force, as is every form of efficient cause, but it utilizes efficient causes in a manner wholly its own, and thus produces effects. It will be both convenient and correct to regard both the conative and the telic cause as agencies in sociology, or, still more definitely, as the two prime agents in society. The conative cause, being a true force, is the dynamic agent, the word dynamic being here used in its primary sense denoting force. The final cause is the directive agent of society, the nature of which will be fully set forth in Part III. There are two somewhat different meanings of the word dynamic in current use. The primary one, based on the etymology of the H 97 98 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART n word, simply relates to force. This use of the word is much less common than the other, chiefly because the need of such a term does not often arise. The second or derivative meaning relates to move- ment and change, and this is the sense in which the word is most frequently used. It is so used in the mathematical science of me- chanics, and is opposed to static, which there simply denotes that the forces are in equilibrium. This meaning of the word dynamic has been transferred to other sciences, but so soon as it becomes applicable to real and not hypothetical bodies there is almost neces- sarily attached to it the notion of change. The more complex the science to which it is applied the more the idea of change becomes prominent until in its biological, psychological, and sociological uses this is the leading idea. It is so often used in connection with the phenomena of evolution that we sometimes find it practically identi- fied with progressive, but all careful writers recognize that it may apply as well to catabolic or regressive phenomena as to anabolic or progressive ones. Besides mechanics, astronomy, physics, and geol- ogy, in which dynamic phenomena form regular departments, I have, in the course of my reading, observed its application to chemistry, biology, psychology, logic (Tarde), economics (Patten), and sociology. In all these cases it is in the secondary or derivative sense that the term is used. Certain writers have endeavored to avoid this use of the word dynamic in two senses by substituting kinetic for the secondary sense, but this does not accomplish the object, since the notion involved in kinetic is not the same as the one involved in dynamic. Kinetic is essentially a physical term, and signifies actual motion, and the opposite of it is not static, but potential. The dis- tinction is clear enough, and almost the same distinction is seen in the two English words motion and movement. Motion does not imply change, unless it be simple change of position, but movement may and frequently does imply transformation. In all the higher appli- cations of the word dynamic, from geology upward, the idea of trans- formation is involved. This is the sense in which dynamic, and its substantive form dynamics, will be used in Chapter XI. In the pres- ent chapter, and indeed, throughout Part II, as the leading concep- tion embodied in the phrase dynamic agent, the term will be used in its primary or etymological sense, as relating to force. All the cosmic products of creative synthesis the synthetic crea- tions of nature have their characteristic properties or modes of en. vi] THE DYNAMIC AGENT 99 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 modalities of the one universal force, but it is not only con- venient but practically correct to treat them as distinct. Each of these products, moreover, may be said to form the basis or subject- matter of a science, and these sciences are distinct in the same sense. They are creations, and represent successively new aspects of .cosmic history. Every true science is a domain of forces, and the nature of the forces differs with the science. Indeed this difference in the forces is what constitutes the difference existing among the sciences. Without dwelling on the physical forces, and even passing over the vital forces, we may begin at once the consideration of the psychic forces. For the present, too, we will omit the strictly zoological aspect of the subject, and deal only with man. As each product possesses all the properties of the antecedent products with its own peculiar differential attribute added, man possesses feeling in com- mon with the lower animals, and the fact which it is important to note just at this point is 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 feeling is a true cosmic force, as will be fully shown, and constitutes the propelling agent in animals and in man. In the associated state of man it is the social force, and with it the sociolo- gist must deal. Under this agency social phenomena take place according to uniform laws which may be studied in the same way that the laws of any other domain of phenomena are studied. Soci- ology is thus a true science, answering to the definition of a science, viz., a field of phenomena produced by true natural forces and conforming to uniform laws. But feeling as the dynamic agent manifests itself in a variety of ways, and just as it is convenient and practically correct to speak of a plurality of natural forces, the modalities of the universal force, so it is convenient and practi- cally correct to speak of a plurality of social forces, the modalities of the general social force or dynamic agent. The conservation of energy and correlation of forces are as applica- ble to psychic- and social forces as to physical forces. This truth has been perceived by sociologists, but failure to understand the principle of creative synthesis has led to grave misconceptions. 100 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART n Some of them, for example, talk as though these higher forces were eternal and could never be added to or subtracted from, but were unchangeable in quantity. The truth is that they are compara- tively recent developments. There can be no psychic force where there is no mind, no vital force where there is no life. There can be no mind where there is no brain or nerve ganglia, no life where there is no animal, plant, protist, or protoplasm. The products must first be created in which the forces inhere, but of course the properties appear part passu with the products, and both conform to the process of genesis, or becoming, through infinitesimal incre- ments. This erroneous conception of the uncreatibility and inde- structibility of vital and psychic forces tends to keep alive the older and more popular error, which survives from the theological stage of history, that the universe is endowed with life and intelli- gence. All such erroneous world views rest on a basis of truth. They are simply crude conceptions of the truth. The soul of truth contained in this error is that the universe possesses the potency of life and mind. It has within it all the elements out of which life and mind are constructed. But before life and mind can exist they must first be constructed. To say that they exist in some diffused state in the universe is as false as to say that houses exist in a bank of clay out of which bricks may be made. Vital and psychic forces are new creations, and they can only be brought into existence through the delicate instrumentalities of organic development. They must come through protoplasm, the product of chemism and be elaborated in the alembic of nature. Protoplasm must be con- centrated in cytodes and cells, cells must be united into the cormus, the process must be continued until tissues are evolved ectoderm, endoderm, and mesoderm and out of these the Metazoan body must be built. The protoplasmic tracts and threads of the Proto- zoan must be inclosed in sheaths and sent branching and anastomos- ing through the animal body. Physiological dynamos must be established at convenient points, and from these ganglionic power houses the currents of life and sensibility must be sent round through the animal tissues. Motor and sensor apparatus must be perfectly adjusted. Finally a great central storage battery, the brain, must be devised and put in charge of the whole system. All this must be accomplished before any great development of vital and psychic force can take place. From this point on greater and en. vi] THE DYNAMIC AGENT 101 greater quantities of mind power can be stored for use until the phenomena of intelligence shall at length dimly appear and thence- forward increase until mind reaches the stage at which it can contemplate its own history and development. The social forces are therefore psychic, and hence sociology must have a psychologic basis. It cannot be based directly upon biology, which only manifests the phenomena of the vital forces. It may be said that animals possess feeling although coming within the domain of biology. This is true, and psychology begins with the animal, It is psychology that rests on biology. Here there is direct filiation, and mind is of biologic origin. The higher terms of the series of modalities are : chemism, bathmism, zoism, and psychism, and there . is complete filiation throughout the entire series. The popular conception of " mind " is wholly inadequate for the sociologist. A race of beings who are capable of thinking on such subjects at all are certain to be so much struck by this thinking power or faculty that they will soon come to regard it as constituting mind, and when they use that word it will only be in the sense of the thinking faculty. When they advance still farther and become philosophers this tendency increases, and we accordingly find most of the works on mind confined to the thinking faculty. The use of- the word mind in any other sense is rare, but it is obvious upon the least reflection that it must include much more. It certainly must include the feelings, the emotions, the passions, the will. This is of course recognized by scientific psychologists, who usually divide psychology into two departments, the one (commonly put first) con- sisting of the senses and the intellect, and the other of the emotions and the will. None of these works, however, draw the clear distinc- tion between these two departments of mind that the sociologist requires. With him it is, or should be fundamental. He must dis- cover the forces that govern social phenomena, and the thinking faculty is not a force. But feeling is a true force and its various manifestations constitute the social forces. The feelings had, moreover, a much earlier origin than the intellect, so that during a prolonged period they constituted the only psychic manifestations, and do so still throughout practically the entire ani- mal world. The simplest forms of feeling developed out of vitality through motility to irritability and sensibility in a series of very short steps. The sensori-motor apparatus was the first to develop, and : 102 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART 11 for a specific and practical purpose, as will be shown in the next chapter. This great primordial half of mind is sometimes appro- priately said to constitute the affective side of mind, since it embraces all the affections in the broadest sense of that word. It is also, with equal propriety, called the subjective department of mind, the phe- nomena being wholly subjective or relating to the organism, and never objective or relating to the external world. Without entering here into other characteristics of feeling, it is essential to our present purpose to point out that one of its inherent qualities is that of seeking an end. That is to say, it is appetitive, and this is popularly recognized by the word appetite. All appetites belong to the subjective department of mind. A general term for this quality is appetition. Appetition is a motive and impels^ to action. It is this that constitutes it a force. It is the sensor side of the motor fact, and the force is proportional to the intensity of the feeling. The word motive has two meanings. It often means inducement or purpose. This is a telic sense not applicable here. Its primary meaning is that which causes or impels, and this is the one we are using. The French language has a separate word for these two ideas, the first being expressed by motif and the second by mobile. Appetition is a mobile, not a motif. It is an efficient cause, not a final cause. In a word, it is conative. It is the psychic mo- tive to action. Action is certain to follow the motive unless pre- vented by some physical obstacle or by other motives that antagonize it and produce a state of psychic equilibrium. That is, it is similar in all essential respects to all other natural forces. It is further true that no psychically endowed being can move without a motive. Such a thing would be an effect without a cause. In common parlance, appetition, or psychic motive, is simply desire, and desire of whatever kind is a true natural force. The collective desires of associated men are the social forces. This use of the word desire is, however, very broad. It embraces all wants, volitions, and aspirations. From this point of view feeling is iden- tical with desire. Primarily all feeling is intensive. It not only consists in an awareness of self but in an awareness of some need. Wasting tissues constantly need to be renewed, and feeling consists in a sense of this need. With increased complexity of structure other needs arise, until in man and society the wants are unlimited in num- ber and variety. Man's whole affective nature is composed of them. CH. vi] THE DYNAMIC AGENT 103 All emotions and all passions consist, on final analysis, of appetitions. All cravings, yearnings, and longings, all hopes, anticipations, aspira- tions, and t ambitions, are such. But they may be negative, or forces of repulsion instead of attraction. Such are fear, hate, envy, jealousy. When the desire is beyond all hope of satisfaction they take the form of grief, sorrow, disappointment, and despair. Man is thus a theater of desires, positive, negative, or suppressed, all of which cause some form of action, and which together constitute the dyna^mic agent. It is therefore well worth our while to consider for a moment the philosophy of desire. Desire is a psychic condition resulting primarily from restraint, exerted by the impinging environment, to motor activity, and where strong enough it overcomes these barriers and causes activity. It is a sensation, and it must be regarded as an unpleasant sensation. The activity it causes is always expended in removing the restraint. Until this is accom- plished the sensation must be a disagreeable one. If it were agreeable the effort would be in the direction of continuing it, not of terminating it. Desire is therefore in the nature of pain. It differs, however, from other forms of pain in containing within it a suggestion of action for relief. A burn, a boil, or any other painful affection, furnishes a sensation which does not embody in the sensation itself any suggestion of action that will relieve the pain. All desire does embody such a suggestion, and the action suggested is certain to be performed unless prevented by some of the causes above specified. The typical form of physical desire is to be found in the phenomenon of itching. Desire is essentially prurient. In cutaneous affections causing this sensation the inclina- tion may become irresistible to produce an alteration in the tissues affected. There are, it is true, certain sensations which convey a suggestion of the action necessary to relieve them, but which, nevertheless, are not properly itching. There is a sort of disease called mysophobia, a morbid sense of being unclean, which constantly drives the patient to wash himself. The sensation due to being wet, espe- cially that of having wet clothing, is usually disagreeable even when not attended with the sensation of cold, and suggests effort to dry one's self. When the sleeve of an undergarment works up the feeling is very disagreeable and the pulling of it down produces 104 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART n a marked satisfaction. Such sensations and many others, such as that of a bad odor or a bad taste, though disagreeable, are not called pains, any more than is desire, and therefore, as there is no other one word for them, it seems proper to use the word pain in a sense wide enough to include all sensations that are unpleasant or which a sentient being shuns or seeks to remove or relieve. In this sense all desire is pain. As distinguished from the more normal forms of pain, which may be called positive, desire may be called negative pain. It cannot be denied that the greater part of the discomfort experienced by man is due to unsatisfied desire. But the phrase unsatisfied desire is tautological, since the quality of being unsatisfied is implied in the idea of desire. All desire is unsatisfied desire. A satisfied desire would no longer be desire at all. Desire might almost be defined as dissatisfaction. Discontent consists entirely in the desire for things that cannot be attained. While desire is scarcely ever perceived to be pain, of which it really is a form, it is very commonly regarded as a pleasure, which it is not. This is because in the vague, undisciplined thinking of the mass of mankind desire is so spontaneously and universally associated with its satisfaction that the two wholly distinct things cannot be separated. The fact is that just as the greater part of all unhappiness consists in desires that are not satisfied, so the* greater part of all happiness consists in satisfying desires. Relief from any pain, if sufficiently rapid, can scarcely be distinguished from pleasure. It is relative pleasure. If it is arrested before it is complete and a portion of the pain continue, it will soon be recognized as such, although the sudden partial sensation may have seemed to be a pleasure. Desire is a kind of pain which further differs from other kinds in the possibility of more or less rapid relief. As it is always due to something that is withheld the supply of that desideratum satisfies the desire and relieves the pain. In most cases, too, this act of supplying the want and the consequent relief produce a peculiarly agreeable sensa- tion. Desire represents a deprivation, and its satisfaction consists in the supply of the thing of which the subject was deprived. The more intense the desire the more gratifying the satisfaction. Desire differs again from other forms of pain in not generally representing a pathologic state. Other kinds of pain usually re- sult from some derangement of function. There is no essential CH. vi] THE DYNAMIC AGENT 105 difference between them and disease. Most diseases- are painful, and the pain is due to such derangement. Some pathologists maintain that all disease is due to some lack in the supply of those things needful to perfect health. They may all be reduced to this, because even where extraneous bodies invade the system and derange its functions it may be said that this is equivalent to the want of the proper supply. But the sensation called desire pre- supposes a healthy state of the system. Desire is liable to fail in a diseased state. A strong craving for a natural supply betokens a healthy state. Long deprivation may bring on a diseased state, or the organs may become atrophied by inaction, usually at the ex- pense of other organs. Where the supply is permanently with- held, such is the adjustability of the physical constitution that the desire will ultimately disappear. Usually it takes some other form. This is the principle on which slow habituation to different kinds of diet and different conditions of life become possible. But supposing that the desire is fresh and healthy its satisfaction is a pleasure, and when we consider the great number and variety of desires to which man is subject and the fact that most of them are actually satisfied sooner or later we may form some idea of the volume of pleasure that is thus yielded. It constitutes the great bulk of all that makes existence tolerable. It is possible to make a rough calculation of the relative amount of satisfied and unsatis- fied desire. If the latter prevail over the former we have a social state which Dr. Simon N. Patten has happily characterized as a "pain economy," and if the reverse is the case we have his "pleasure economy." 1 All social progress, in the proper sense of the phrase, is a movement from a pain economy toward a pleasure economy, or at least a movement in the direction of the satisfac- tion of a greater and greater proportion of the desires of men. It "also involves the question of the increase in the number and in- tensity of desires, but this cannot be entered into here. In ordinary pains and in diseases from which men recover the lessening of the pain is usually so slow that its character as pain is recognized as long as it endures at all. There is no distinct sense of relief. This is because there is no basis for direct comparison of greater with lesser pains. But if sufficiently rapid for such direct 1 The Theory of Social Forces. Supplement to the Annals of the Academy of Political and Social Science, January, 1896, pp. 59, 60, 75. \ 106 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART 11 comparison there is a sense of relief that is a relative pleasure. Most desires are satisfied rapidly enough for such a direct compari- son, and the difference between the unsatisfied and the satisfied state is intensely vivid. It amounts to a pleasure commensurate with the intensity of the desire and the completeness of the satisfaction. But it is never instantaneous. Time is always required, and so far as the actual or presentative pleasure is concerned, this is all of it. If it was instantaneous there would only be a representative pleasure, viz., the comparison of remembered sensations. In the actual case both these elements exist. If only one desire existed and was satis- fied this would be all of a man's happiness. But in point of fact all men are always subject to a great number of desires, and if a fair share of them are satisfied at intervals of time there results a gen- eral state which is called happiness. Besides the more prominent and intense specific desires of which every one is always conscious, there is constantly present in the healthy organism a stream of minor and chiefly unconscious desires arising out of the normal wants of the system. These are also being perpetually satisfied by the processes of nutrition, assimilation, and metabolism, and the satisfaction, if it cannot be called pleasure, that results constitutes what is called the " enjoyment of health." Schopenhauer accurately showed that the satisfaction of desire was its termination, but he drew the erroneous conclusion that pleas- ure was only relief from pain, and had no positive existence that happiness was an ! illusion. Hartmann sought to perpetuate this error. They forgot to take into the calculation the time element that we have been considering. This alone can give reality to pleasure, and when we recognize the perpetual stream of desires constantly being satisfied, we see that in a normal human life pleasurable sensations of various kinds practically fill all the inter- vals of existence. This constitutes human happiness, and is the only object really worth striving for. Even if we admit, as most psychologists maintain, that no part of man's psychic activity is ab- solutely continuous, but that the stream of feeling really consists in a., series of separate shocks rapidly succeeding one another, still the case is virtually unchanged, since the very fact that it required close psychological study to discover this, if it is true, shows that, to all but the psychologist, happiness is a continuous state. The pulse and the beating of the heart must be specially observed to be CH. vi] THE DYNAMIC AGENT 107 perceived. Systole, diastole, peristalsis, and even breathing, are practically unconscious, and much more so all the various vibrations of the nervous system, ganglionic, and cerebral transformations that generate feelings and emotions. Of the stronger, conscious, and often violent desires those of hunger and love of course hold the first place. These are original, i.e., not in any sense derivative, and belong to all creatures above the Protozoa certainly, and perhaps to these also. They are both perfectly typical desires, and all that has been said of desire in gen- eral applies to them. They are the chief mainsprings to action, and it may almost be said that all other desires are directly or remotely derived from them. This statement, however, would require quali- fication. But these forces have not diminished with higher organi- zation and the appearance of other desires. They are quite as strong in man as in animals, and in the higher types of men as in the lower types. In society they become the principal social forces and the foundations of sociology. They impel mankind to the performance of the great bulk of all the operations of society. They are strong and reliable forces and capable of working out spontaneously most of the problems that physical life presents. This truth has been perceived by philosophers and poets, but the most classical expression of it is that of Schiller in his " Lyrisch- didactische Gedichte " : Doch well, was em Professor spricht Nicht gleich zu alien dringet, So iibt Natur die Mutter-Pflicht Und sorgt, dass nie die Kette bricht, Und dass der Reif nie springet. Einstweilen, bis den Bau der Welt Philosophic zusammenhalt, Erhalt sie das Getriebe Durch Hunger und durch Liebe. Political economists early seized upon it, and it may be regarded as the basis of all economics also. The failure of mathematical econom- ics to meet the modern problems of life and business was not due to any flaw in positing the reliability of human impulses. It cor- rectly grasped the ontogenetic and phylogenetic forces of society, but it grounded on the failure to recognize the sociogenetic and the idea forces. These, as we shall see, were a factor before the era of machinery, and have steadily advanced in importance with civiliza- 108 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART u tion, until they have become second only to the primary motives that we are considering. Ratzenhofer has shown that all interest is derived from satisfac- tions. If we closely analyze this question we shall see that such is the case. Interest is almost a synonym of desire in the sense here employed. Attention cannot be attracted unless an interest can be aroused, and this can only be done by holding out the prospect of some satisfaction. If some craving of the soul is to be answered by a suggested act that act will be performed. This is all that is involved in inducement or incentive, and when a subject or an action becomes attractive, this simply means that it promises a satisfaction or pleasure. Interest thus involves an ellipsis. The satisfaction of desire is understood. Such elliptical terms are very convenient. They clothe the naked truth, and almost without dimi- nution of clearness, they convey the truth in a delicate way to minds that might be somewhat shocked or pained to view it full in the face. Human interests thus constitute the equivalents of the social forces. They are coextensive with the dynamic agent in "society. Many other elements might be enumerated as entering into so complex a conception as the dynamic agent, and which do not seem at first glance to come strictly under the definitions thus far given, but which in fact may be reduced to them by giving sufficient lati- tude to the terms. Such, for example, are curiosity and wonder, considered as social stimuli, and no one can deny the influence of ennui in promoting activity. Some of these considerations will recur in the course of the discussion, but they are too much in the nature of details to be dealt with further in this general outline of the dynamic agent. With the development of mankind the deriva- tive forces come more and more into the foreground until a point is at length reached at which they seem at least to be more potent agencies than the original forces. These are also true natural forces and simply swell the volume of social energy. Sociology takes account of them all, and is the science which treats of what the social forces have done and are doing, and of how they accom- plish results. As denoting the position that sociology occupies relatively to the other sciences it is worthy of remark that the attitude of the civil- ized world toward the social forces is analogous to the attitude of CH. vi] THE DYNAMIC AGENT 109 the savage foward the physical forces. All know that this is one of apprehension. Fear and not love of nature is the characteristic of primitive peoples. " It is an inherent attribute of the human mind to experience fear and not hope or joy at the aspect of that which is unexpected and extraordinary." l There is something peculiarly awe- inspiring about the phenomena of nature. The fear they arouse is out of all proportion to the real danger. The danger of being run over by a railroad train, of being thrown from a horse or a carriage, or of being killed by any of the common causes of accidents, is much greater than that of being struck by lightning or buried by an earth- quake, and yet the fear of these phenomena is scarcely ever experi- enced, while the others are commonly much feared. Some one sent out a circular to many intelligent persons asking them what of all things they most feared. Few were found to fear those dangers which statistics show to be the really greatest, but many confessed to great fear of natural events, lightning, wind, cyclones, hailstones, tc. A few declared that their greatest dread was that of being struck by meteoric stones ! The sensation produced by earthquake shocks has been graphically described by Humboldt 2 and Darwin, 3 who, although rationally assured that there was little real danger, could not sup- press that instinctive terror that all men have inherited from the savage state when all nature was regarded as conscious and malig- nant. It is difficult to reconcile this with the blind foolhardiness with which people are known to crowd up to the foot of volcanoes to be buried under molten lava at the next great eruption. This fact is psychologically a very complex one, and doubtless want and habituation are large elements in it, but at bottom I believe it to rest on a form of superstition akin to that which causes nature to be unduly feared. It is a form of fatalism, a world view characteristic of man before he acquired a scientific conception of the nature of mechanical causation, and under the illusion of which he lost all faith in the efficacy of his own efforts or actions. For it is precisely this sense of personal helplessness that gives rise to those indescrib- 1 Humboldt "Cosmos," Otte's translation, Vol. I, p. 97. This translation scarcely does justice to the original, which is as follows : " Es liegt tief in der triiben Natur des Menschen, in einer ernsterfiillten Ansicht der Dinge, dass das Unerwar- tete, Ausserordentliche nur Furcht, nicht Freude oder Hoffnung, erregt." " Kos- mos," Cotta's edition, 12mo, in 4 vols., Stuttgart, 1870, Vol. I, p. 75. 2 Op. cit., Vol. I, pp. 137 ff. 3 " Journal of Researches," New York, 1871, p. 302. 110 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART 11 able terrors that natural phenomena inspire. The idea of the possi- bility of influencing natural events or controlling physical forces thus manifested is wholly foreign to the primitive man, and the feel- ing is that if the inscrutable powers of nature really intend his destruction there is no remedy. Now, as already remarked, civilized man, although he has learned not only to avert the dangers of the physical forces but even to sub- jugate and utilize them, has made no progress with social forces, and looks upon the passions precisely as the savage looks upon the tor- nado. Man is only civilized in relation to the lower and simpler phenomena. Toward the higher and more complex phenomena he is still a savage. He has no more thought of controlling, much less utilizing, the social forces than the savage has of controlling or util- izing the thunderbolt. Just as pestilences were formerly regarded as scourges of God, so the so-called evil propensities of man, which are nothing but manifestations of social energy, are still looked upon as necessary inflictions which may be preached against but must be endured. This difference is wholly due to the fact that while we now have sciences of physics, chemistry, geology, and bacteriology, which teach the true nature of storms, electricity, gases, earth- quakes, and disease germs, we have no science of social psychology or sociology that teaches the true nature of human motives, desires, and passions or of social wants and needs and the psychic energy working for their satisfaction. The sociologist who has a proper conception of his science as similar in all essential respects to these other sciences, and as having, like them, a practical purpose and use for man, looks upon the social forces as everybody looks upon the physical and vital forces, and sees in them powers of nature now doing injury, or at least running to waste, and perceives that, as in the other case, they may, by being first studied and understood, be rendered harmless and ultimately converted into the servants of man, and harnessed, as the lightning has been harnessed, to the on-going chariot of civilization. BIOLOGIC ORIGIN OF THE SUBJECTIVE FACULTIES THE supreme importance to sociology of the dynamic agent, the general nature of which was outlined in the last chapter, justifies any amount of effort to acquire a full and fundamental conception of it. The only way in which anything can be completely under- stood is to learn its history. All of nature's creations are genetic, and therefore their history is always the same as their genesis. As these creations have not always existed, but have come into exist- ence at certain epochs in the course of universal evolution, before which they did not exist, it becomes necessary to learn their origin as an essential part of their genesis. The problem before us, then, is nothing less than the origin and genesis of the dynamic agent. As this includes only part of mind, viz., the subjective faculties, we need not concern ourselves at all with the other part, or the objec- tive faculties, and may refer their treatment to Part III. All genesis is the result of the operation of efficient causes pro- ducing natural effects through_t1i" Qn -^ nT i of the appropriate forces^ A study of the genesis of any natural product consists, then, chiefly in a search for the causes that have produced it. The form of research is essentially setiological. But the principle of creative synthesis furnishes the clue to the pursuit of the causes that have produced the observed results. We know, at least, that the product we are studying has been created out of materials of a lower order that existed anterior to it. It is therefore among these materials and their properties that we must look for the antecedents to the more complex synthetic creations of nature. The small part of the universe that comes within the range of our powers of observation reveals a movement from the lower toward the higher orders of phenomena. Possibly in other parts there may be a corresponding inverse movement, so that progress and regress may upon the whole exactly balance each other, but of this we have only a few suggestive examples. Our earth is now capable of sustaining life over the 111 112 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART 11 greater part of its surface. Paleontology teaches us that there has been a gradual rise in the type of structure of both plants and ani- mals throughout geologic time. History, ethnology, archaeology, and what we know of human paleontology, all combine to prove that the human race has been slowly rising from lower to higher states. In neither of these series is there any sign that it is approaching a culminating point, beyond which it will cease to be an ascending and become a descending series. THE OBJECT OF NATURE While the scientific world does not doubt that all the phenomena of evolution are strictly genetic and produced by forces from behind that push things into their observed shapes, still, such unilateral tendencies as those last mentioned certainly present the appearance of being directed toward an end, and there is small wonder that throughout the theological stage of human thought it should have been believed that they were thus directed. This stage covered the entire formative period of language, and the consequence was that language acquired a teleological form which it is now very difficult to modify. It is almost impossible to discuss the phenomena of nature in any other form of language, and we are practically com- pelled first to disclaim all teleological leanings and then proceed to talk in teleological terms. It certainly brings the idea more vividly home to the mind to speak of the object of nature in a case like the present than to speak of the tendencies of things, and when it is understood that no more is meant by the former than by the latter form of expression no special harm can result from its use. We may, then, properly inquire what seems to be the general object of nature in the creation of the several higher and higher products that we have been considering. What is the end toward which matters seem to be moving in an ascending series of creative acts such as we observe in our part of the universe at the present stage of cosmic evolution? If^we go far enough back throu^h^the geologic ages of the earth's history we ultimately arrive at a time when,if the science of the earth teaches anything, there was nothing in it or upon it but inorganic matter. Even at the present time the amount of inorganic matter is so much greater than that of organic, or still more of organized and living matter, that it is easy to con- ceive of this little being blotted out leaving only a dead world. It CH. vn] THE OBJECT OF NATURE 113 is practically confined to its surface, if we regard the water, like the air, as simply an enveloping medium. After an enormous period following the commencement of the formation of a crust over the molten mass of which the earth was formerly composed, and which is supposed still to constitute the whole of its interior, the simplest forms of life began to appear, the earliest probably consisting of some exceedingly low form of vegetable organism, such as that, whatever it was, which made the graphite beds of the Laurentian. Other forms came slowly on until in the Cambrian we have trilobites and molluscs ; in the Silurian, seaweeds and higher molluscs ; in the Devonian land plants and fishes ; in the Carboniferous, forests of higher land plants, and so on down, the quality and quantity of life both increasing, until the present flora and fauna of the globe were finally produced. Throughout the entire process it is noteworthy that the increase in the bulk of organized matter was attended with a corresponding increase in the degree of structural development. This might, it is true, be stated the other way, but the lesson" would be the same. That lesson seems to be that the increased structural development is the condition to the increased mass of organized matter. It is prob- able that the quantity of lowly organized matter still largely pre- dominates over that of the highly organized, but among land plants the higher types, such as the coniferous and dicotyledonous forest trees, predominate over the lower types, such as the ferns and mosses. Among animals the herds of ungulates that roamed over vast areas before man commenced their systematic extermination may have constituted the larger part of the animal life of the globe, considered from the sole point of view of mass of organized matter, weight, for example. But man, after all, has done little more than substitute domestic for feral creatures, and there probably never were as many bisons on the western plains of America as there now are cattle on the same area, while the animals that man keeps in existence in thickly peopled countries doubtless greatly exceed in bulk and weight the faunas of those countries before they were settled by man. Even if we consider the subject from the standpoint of brain development, as the highest form of structural organization, we shall find the law to hold good, for it is this that has enabled the human race to increase until the population of the globe has reached about 1,600,000,000, the aggregate mass of whose bodies represents, in 114 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART n addition to an undiminished quantity of animal life, a larger amount of organized matter than could have been produced without the aid of such brain development. We may therefore probably say with some approach toward the truth that the object of nature, as this phrase has been explained, is to convert as large an amount as possible of inorganic into organic and organized matter. This may be a somewhat unpoetical conclu- sion, and if we could have things as we want them a more delicate and respectable end might be imagined for nature to pursue. But we are only trying to ascertain what the end really is toward which things tend, and this formula comes nearer to expressing it than any other that has been offered. It may be askedjwhy the end is not rather structural perfection. But^ this, as^ we have seen, seems to be a means rather than an end. It obviously accomplishes the end, and it seems to be a more pertinent question how it happened to be hit upon as a means. And here we encounter a curious state of things which we shall find to recur at almost every one of the great cosmic steps. Weismann several times refers to certain peculiar phenomena which he meets with in the course of his biological researches, for which there seems to have been no antecedent preparation, and which in the normal course of things would not be expected. In fact they are usually more or less contrary to the expected result, and seem like mistakes in the economy of nature. For such phe- nomena he uses the term "unintended." A course or series of events is set on foot generating certain products and properties, when at length some of these latter begin to work at cross purposes to the general movement and tend to antagonize it. They were created for one purpose which they serve, but are found to possess other qualities which develop until they overshadow the original qualities and react against the normal course of things. Structural development in organic beings sometimes comes partly within this class of occurrences. It serves its purpose admirably at the beginning and for a long period, but when it begins to take the form of extreme specialization it ceases to conduce to the advantage of the race, and, as shown in Chapter V, it prepares for its own destruction. Perfection of structure may be looked upon as a device for securing the end above described. It is simply the means to that end. It therefore seems to be telic. Everywhere in nature genesis simulates telesis. The true scientific explanation of this is CH. vii] ORIGIN OF LIFE 115 that the nisus of nature is in all directions, and the principle of advantage selects the advantageous course. We may imagine every other conceivable method of attaining the end to have been tried and all the rest to have failed because not advantageous. If there is a path to success it is sure to be found because all paths are tried. This secures the same result as if a directive agent had pointed out the only true path, and no other had been tried. We lookers-on, after the success has been achieved, know nothing of the infinite number of failures because they have left no record. This may be taken as the general explanation of the universal belief in teleologv_ during the theological period of intellectual development. ORIGIN OF LIFE Planets are formed by the condensation of nebulous matter. As the mass condenses it contracts. The volatilized elements vary greatly in their degrees of volatility and some of them, in the process of cooling through radiation, and from the increasing dis- tance from the central mass (sun), reach their points of liquefaction earlier than others. From the liquid state they finally reach the viscid or molten state, and ultimately the solid state. Thus the different substances become distributed according to their constitu- tions in the mass of the planet. The heavier substances with high condensing points occupy the center and general mass, while the lighter ones with low condensing points remain at the surface. Some of these, like nitrogen, do not combine with others, and remain elementary. Others, like hydrogen and carbon, combine with part of the oxygen. The first of these combinations resulted primarily in the formation of vast masses of steam, which later partly condensed into vapor and still later into water or even ice. Jupiter seems to consist largely of vapor. The earth doubtless once had an aqueous (steam or vapor) envelope as thick as would be made by converting all the waters of the oceans and seas into vapor. The oxygen also seizes all the carbon and converts it into the dioxide, which is a gas at all ordinary temperatures. After the formation of a crust all round a planet there still remains a large amount of water occupying the cavities if th^ nnrffiPPj and an atmosphere of oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and aq\ iftr> "s yap* These last are the principal materials out of which the hioti<>._ products are formed. There is everywhere a universal chemism, 116 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART 11 and different substances are constantly being formed through the contact and elective affinities of matter. Within a certain some- what narrow range of temperature, chiefly between the freezing and the boiling points of water, but increasing in both directions from these points so as to reach a maximum near the middle of the scale (. that separates them (50 C., 122 Fahr.), this chemism may be sup- i posed to pass into zoism during the process of cooling of a planet. ) This, however, is of course mere speculation. What we do prac- tically know is that life did at some time commence on our own planet. That this actual beginning of life took place when tem- peratures were much higher than they are now even in the tropics, is also practically certain. Of this archigonia, as Haeckel calls it, we are as sure as we are of the principal facts of geology. Whether it is still going on we are not so sure, and it is just possible that it may have required higher temperatures and different conditions than, now exist to originate the organic world. We are not so much con- cerned with this as we are with the products and properties of life. The products in large measure we know, although we may not know the absolutely simplest. The primary differential attributes are motility and irritability, if there is any difference between these. The simplest product we know is protoplasm, and this is so simple when viewed from the biological standpoint that it can scarcely be called organic, yet when viewed from the chemical standpoint it is so complex that it cannot be classed among chemical substances. It occupies the exact middle point between the inorganic and the organic worlds. It was perfectly described by Huxley as the " physical basis of life." 1 The sea is the mother of all life. The oceans were formerly larger and shallower than now, and the waters must have once been very warm. Doubtless there was a time when there was no land. When land first appeared it was in the form of islands and the continents rose later. In the warm, almost seething waters that bathed the shores of these low islands and incipient continents all the conditions existed for the origination of life. It came, and its. history from Laurentian times to the present, a period perhaps not less, possibly much more than one hundred million years, is fairly 1 See Professor Huxley's address with the above title delivered in Edinburgh, Nov. 18, 1868, and first published in the Fortnightly Review for February, 1869, many times reprinted. en. vn] ORIGIN OF LIFE 117 well known by the records left in the rocks. But we are not now considering the forms that life created. We are concerned at present only with the nature and origin of life itself. Prior to the appear- ance of protoplasm all activity had been molecular. Motion there always was in all bodies and substances, but it was confined to their elements or chemical units. Masses only moved when impelled by the contact of other moving masses. To all appearances solid bodies are motionless. Science only has taught that the particles compos- ing them are in motion. Even liquids and gases move only wh^n impelled by some force which is usually well understood. Yet the inherent molecular motions of even the hardest substances are, when properly considered, spontaneous. But the term spontaneous has, from our long ignorance of molecular motion, been applied only to masses that move of themselves. The bodies capable of doing this are said to be alive. But as all things are endowed with spontaneous molecular motion the only difference between things without life and things alive seems to be that the latter are also capable of spontane- ous molar motion. The power of spontaneous molar motion is there- fore the differential attribute of life. It is called motility. Motility first appears in protoplasm. There is probably no essential resemblance between the movements of protoplasmic masses and those purely physical movements that certain ingenious investiga- tors have succeeded in producing in the laboratory. The principle underlying the latter, whatever it is, is doubtless wholly different from that of motility. But motility is so far only an observed fact, not itself a principle. Its principle cannot be said to be known, and, so far as I am aware, the only hypothesis that has ever been advanced to explain motility is that which I proposed in 1882 and formulated in the following words : The primary distinction between these most complex of all known bodies [plasson or protoplasmic bodies] and the less complex ones seems to be, that while in the latter all their activities are molecular, in the former they are to a certain extent molar, and carry with them the whole or a portion of the substances themselves. 1 I there explained that this might become possible in consequence of the relatively enormous size of the molecules of protoplasm, and showed that the isomeric forms of the next most complex chemical substances, the albuminoid and protein bodies, constitute a certain i American Naturalist, Vol. XVI, December, 1882, p. 978. 118 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART n approach toward the property of motility. If protoplasm results from the further recompounding of these highest known true chemi- cal compounds we may well expect that such a substance will pos- sess some remarkable property, and motility is not too remarkable for such an exalted product to reveal. The entire process is one of organization, but until protoplasm was reached the organization was wholly chemical. From that point on we have biotic organization, constantly rising in complexity from the simplest plasson bodies, the amoeboid forms, the unicellular organisms, and the Protista, through the Protophyta and Protozoa to the higher types of vegetal ancT animal life. The life principle was the effect of chemical organ- ization, but it was the cause of biotic organization. High chemical complexity up to a certain point, as in the alkaloids, shows itself in such properties as astringency, bitterness, corrosive- ness, and other intense activities rendering them poisonous to animals and men. But the most complex of all organic compounds, those with the largest molecules and greatest atomic weights, such as the albuminoids, show their complex constitution by such properties as instability and isoiiu'rism. I Jut, as we have seen, it is only a step from these properties to that of motility, in which the molecular activities are so strong and so adjusted that they are able to sway the mass. It may be difficult to imagine how this is done. The phenomena presented by the jumping bean may convey a crude idea of such a process. The larva of the moth Carpocapsa saltitans finds its way into the seed of the Euphorbiaceous plant Sebastiania Pal- meri and by its activities causes the seed to seem alive and move and roll about. Intense activities of large compound molecules may produce an effect analogous to this upon the circumscribed bodies which they compose. This at least may pass for a hypothesis of the nature of motility in protoplasm. But motility in its later stages takes the form of bathmism, 1 and 1 A few of Professor Cope's neologisms have proved useful, and I have not hesitated to use this one, for which there is no other exact equivalent. His first use of it seems to have been in his "Review of the Modern Doctrine of Evolution" in the American Naturalist for March, 1880, Vol. XIV, p. 176, but it occurs con- stantly in his later works. See his " Origin of the Fittest," p. 205, and his " Primary- Factors of Organic Evolution," pp.479, 484. It was in the former of these works (p. 430) that he expressed his acceptance of the theory I have been stating, and which, as will be seen by the passage above quoted from my paper on the " Organic Compounds in their Relations to Life," was proposed by me two years earlier than the publication by Loew and Bokorny of their researches leading to a similar result. CH. vn] ORIGIN OF MIND 119 becomes the universal growth-force of the organic world. What I wish especially to emphasize here is that motility, with its general- ized form, bathmism, is simply a property of protoplasm and of all living organisms, as much so as sweetness is a property of sugar, bitterness of quinine, or isomerism of protein. Zoism is a synthetic creation of chemism. ORIGIN OF MIND We have now to consider another new property created by the synthetic power of nature, viz., the property of awareness, conscious- ness, or feel in wardness, and the other was to check the development of animal instincts. Both of these effects tended to widen the breach between feeling and function and thus jeopardize the existence of the human- race. But while the individual reason tended to destroy the race; there grew up along with it a sort of group reason which was partly instinct, calculated to counteract this tendency. It did not work oh the principle of animal instinct, developing new nerve centers, or as they may be called, functional pleasure nerves, but it took the form of counteracting the pursuit of dangerous pleasures by the fear of greater pains. But as in the beginning moral suasion would have been ineffective, this social instinct went further and elaborated a system of social control provided with all the machinery of coercion necessary to hold the refractory and recalcitrant elements in check^ 134 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART u It established an array of sanctions and ultimately a system of regu- lative edicts, rules, penalties, and conditions, supported by a body of specially appointed persons to whom were intrusted their enforce- ment. All these were crystallized into customs and surrounded by ceremonies and rites. Although essentially a system of social con- trol for the purpose stated, it early took the form of a religious sys- tem based mainly on supernatural sanctions. As most deviations from the path of safety were due to the exuberance of the egoistic reason acting as a guide to dangerous pleasures, this system sought to compel a blind obedience to rules and forms beyond the range of reason and chiefly based on alleged supernatural retributions, the fear of which was a powerful deterrent to the performance of for- bidden acts. For want of a better name I have characterized this , social instinct, or instinct of race safety, as religion, 1 but not without clearly perceiving that it constitutes the primordial un differentiated plasm out of which have subsequently developed all the more impor- tant human institutions. This "ultra-rational sanction," as Mr. Kidd calls it, if it be not an instinct, is at least the human homo- logue of animal instinct, and served the same purpose after the instincts had chiefly disappeared and when the egoistic reason would have otherwise rapidly carried the race to destruction in its mad pursuit of pleasure for its own sake. After reading the article above cited on the "Essential Nature of Religion," Mr. John M. Robertson asked me why I did not say laio instead of religion, as he did not see why all I said would not be equally applicable to law. I was obliged to admit that this was true, and I may go farther and say that it also applies to govern- ment in general. Mr. Spencer has ably shown how all the different classes of institutions treated by him had their origin in what he calls v Ecclesiastical Institutions," which are simply the superstruc- tures, or social structures, that were erected upon the primordial foundation that I have described. I have limited the restraints to ( feeling to two, instinct and religion, but a third might appropriately be added and called law or government. But as this is so clearly only a further differentiation of the second, it does not seem neces- sary to regard it as distinct. As regards ethics, it is also wholly embodied in the original homogeneous plasm, and constitutes another 1 " The Essential Nature of Religion," International Journal of Ethics, Vol. VIII, Philadelphia, January, 1898, pp. 169-192. CH. vn] RESTRAINTS TO FEELING 135 ramification in the course of the unfolding of that comprehensive principle. If this were the place it might easily be shown that, just as reason, even in early man, rendered instinct ^nflfiflftqsary, so fur- ther intellectual development and wider knowledge and wisdom wilT ultimately dispense with both religion and ethics as restraints to unsafe conduct, and we may conceive of the final disappearance of all restrictive laws and of government as a controlling agency. But that the world is still far from this ideal state may be realized by reflecting that all that we call vice and crime, and in general all attacks upon the social order, constitute, when we seize their true philosophic import, neither more nor less than so many deviations from the path of function in the interest of feeling. The considerations set forth in this chapter are sufficient to estab- lish the biologic origin of the subjective faculty. This faculty con- stitutes the most anomalous of all the differential attributes that have resulted from the creative synthesis of nature, and by it the car of cosmic progress has been shunted off on an entirely new track. Whither does the new route lead ? We shall endeavor to answer this question. All that we can note at present is that the new motor is a powerful one, and as we have seen, it is necessary to apply the brakes. But they have been successfully applied, and the train, now for the first time laden with human freight, is safely speeding on. CHAPTER VIII THE CONATIVE FACULTY NATURE is not only a becoming, it is a striving. The universal energy never ceases to act and its ceaseless activity constantly creates. The quantity of matter, mass, and motion in the universe is unchangeable, everything else changes position, direction, veloc- ity, path, combination, form. To say with Schopenhauer that matter is causality involves an ellipsis. It is not matter but collision that constitutes the only cause. This eternal pelting of atoms, this driv- ing of the elements, this pressure at every point, this struggle of all created things, this universal nisus of nature, pushing 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. In the last chapter we traced the history of this creative power to where it took the form of psychic energy, which is only a modality of the universal energy. We found that it constituted the basis of the subjective or affective faculties of mind, and that these were of biologic origin and were created as a condition to the existence of all . the higher forms of life. We also saw that this remarkable property, feeling, at first so completely at the service of function, soon became the end of the creature and tended to depart from its normal course, threatening in manifold ways to defeat the very pur- pose for which it was created, rendering necessary the further crea- tion of powerful checks to this tendency. So long as the functional ends of life were not put in jeopardy these new activities were harm- less, and, indeed, since they represented a great increase of life power, they were useful in accelerating the consummation of nature's ends. Feeling added to bathmism or growth force, psychism or mind force, and greatly increased the quantity of force that had been withdrawn from the physical world and converted into organic energy. The 136 CH. vin] THE CONATIVE FACULTY 137 conative form of causation now at work was far more potent than the purely mechanical form that had hitherto prevailed. In defining the dynamic agent in the sixth chapter it was found necessary to enter somewhat fully into the psychological nature of this force and deal with the philosophy of desire. That ground need not be gone over again, but it can now be better seen how desire came to constitute the real psychic force. While feeling, or intensive sensation pleasure and pain must be made primary, still the step from this stage to that of desire is very short. Desire presupposes memory, which must therefore be one of the earliest aspects of mind. In fact memory is nothing but the persistent representation of feeling, continued sense vibrations after the stimulus is withdrawn, and involves no mystery. Just as a bell will continue for a time to ring after the clapper ceases to beat upon it, so the nerve fibers, or protoplasmic gelatine, continues to vibrate for a time after the object, agreeable or the reverse, is no longer in contact with it. In case of an agreeable sensation, as the pleasure fades on the withdrawal of the stimulus, a desire arises to renew or continue the more intense presentative pleasure, and this is all that constitutes desire. But though simple in its explanation, it is powerful and far-reaching in its effects. But for this interruption in the agreeable states with faint intermediate mnemonic vibrations there would be no activity directed to the renewal or repetition of those intenser states. The withdrawal of the stimulus is in the nature of a deprivation or want, and this is the true character of all desire. As the activities thus produced normally led to function and secured the preservation, perpetuation, and increase of life, it was to the interest of these ends that this conative power be increased to the utmost, and consequently we find that in the higher organ- isms special centers exist in connection with the leading functions for the accumulation of this energy, and the performance of such functions is attended with intense satisfaction, while inability to perform them creates an almost irresistible desire. This is of course best exemplified in the two great primordial functions, nutrition and reproduction, with the corresponding physical im- peratives, hunger and love, which are typical desires. But in the higher mammals, and especially in man, many other centers have been developed storage batteries of psychic energy which, 138 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART n though in the main more or less connected with the primary ones, are practically distinct. They consist of nerve-plexuses, which are mostly situated within the great sympathetic system and deeply buried within the body, having no connection with the pain and pleasure nerves of the periphery. These latter belong to the cerebro-spinal system which is the seat of most monitory desires and also of many mandatory ones. The great sympathetic contains a vast number of ganglia located in all parts of the body, the functions of many of which are little understood. But it is main- tained by many that these plexuses, or at least some of the larger ones, such as the deep cardiac, the semilunar, etc., are the seat of the principal emotions of the human soul. Such sentiments as joy and gladness, enthusiasm, love of the helpless, etc., probably belong here. But painful as well as pleasurable emotions arise, and these are chiefly in the nature of desires. They all represent the depriva- tion of something once enjoyed. If there is the least chance of regaining the lost object there is scarcely any limit to the amount of exertion that will be put forth for the attainment of that end. This renders them the most powerful forces in society, and next to the efforts put forth for the supply of the primary wants above mentioned, the emotions constitute the chief social stimuli or social forces. Descartes was the first to treat the emotions from a scientific or even a philosophical standpoint. 1 He really dealt with the subject physiologically, and if there had been more knowledge in the world at the time he wrote his work would have been valuable. But he knew practically nothing of the nervous system, its place being taken by the " animal spirits " then recognized as flowing through the body, and which he described as " un certain air ou vent tres subtil " (Art. 7). But he correctly distinguished the " external senses" from the "internal appetites" (Art. 13). He seems com- pletely to confound the subjective and objective faculties; cognition, perception, thought, and ideas are mixed up with volition, senti- ment, emotion, and passion. But this is so commonly done even to-day that we should not too severely judge it in Descartes. The most curious part of his treatment of this subject is his favorite hypothesis "that there is a little gland in the brain in which the soul performs its functions more particularly than in other parts " 1 " Les Passions de 1'Ame." CH. vni] THE CONATIVE FACULTY 139 (Art. 31). He here describes what is now known as the pineal gland, and gives as his reason for regarding it as the special seat of the soul " that the other parts of our brain are all double, as also we have two eyes, two hands, two ears, and finally all the organs of our external senses are double; and that as we have but one sole and simple thought of one same thing at one time, it is necessary that there be some place where the two images that come through the two eyes, or two other impressions that come from one single object through the double organs of the other senses, can combine into one before they arrive at the soul in order that they shall not represent two objects instead of one " (Art. 32). He proceeds to enumerate, describe, and classify a large number of passions and emotions, and clings constantly to the physiological method of explanation, but modern physiologists would not probably admit that this added to the value of the treatment. For example, understanding pretty well the nature of the circulation of the blood as it had already been explained by Harvey, and believing in ani- mal spirits, he taught that those emotions which caused tears to flow were the ones that generated certain vapors which were carried by the circulation to the eyes and condensed when they reached the surface. Hinc illce lacrymce ! In general it may be said that Des- cartes' treatment of the passions is disappointing, as have also been to me his metaphysical speculations. But he did admit in a number of passages that the passions are not essentially bad and that they are often useful, and says (Art. 175) that he cannot per- suade himself "that nature had given to men any passion that is always vicious and has no good and praiseworthy purpose " ; and he concludes (Art. 212) "that it is upon the passions that depend all the good and all the evil of this life." Spinoza also treated the emotions in a characteristically philosophi- cal way, and it is his special merit to have called the subject ethics. Ethics, as I have shown in the preceding chapter and elsewhere, 1 is based entirely upon feeling, and without the phenomena of pleasure and pain there can be no moral quality. But Spinoza's analyses of the various passions were much more acute than Des- cartes', and he still more clearly recognized their utility, their importance, and their essential innocence when legitimately exer- 1 International Journal of Ethics, Vol. VI, Philadelphia, July, 1896, pp. 441-156. Cf . especially, pp. 443-444. 140 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART n cised. His saying (Prop. XLI) that a joy is not essentially bad, but good, while grief is essentially bad,'*' reflects both the asceticism of his time and his own philosophical penetration. Hume also treated the passions as an essential part of " human nature," making much of sympathy, as was done by Ferguson and Adam Smith, and later by Bentham, each from his own special point of view. But it was reserved for Schopenhauer to show that the cravings of existence constitute the mainspring of action and the real power of the world. Comte's spiritual philosophy as set forth in his " Positive Polity " is based on the affective faculties and has altruism for its end. Other names might be mentioned of those who have contributed to give to the cold, objective, intellectual phi- losophy that had chiefly prevailed a subjective trend, 1 and to direct attention to the far older and certainly not less important subjective and conative faculties in which alone the psychic and social energy resides. THE SOUL What is the soul ? I do not mean an imaginary thing. I mean a real thing. Descartes, as we have seen, used the French word dme almost in the sense of the whole mind, the faculties of which he confounded, but he chiefly dealt with those animal spirits that, as it were, animate the body. They produce the passions and the emo- tions. Indeed, he makes these two synonymous, and in one place (Art. 28) expresses a preference for the term emotions, because, as he says, " not only can this term be applied to all the changes that take place in it [the soul], that is, to all the various impressions (pense'es) that come to it, but especially because, of all the affections (pens&es) that it can have there are no others that so strongly agi- tate and move (tbranlenf) it as do these passions." It is therefore evident that he recognized in the passions a moving force, but his soul was something more comprehensive. Our own English word soul is so far given over to religious usage, under the influence of the doctrine of immortality, that it is difficult to separate it from that world view arid look upon it as a real scientific fact. The Ger- man word Seele seems not to be so trammeled, and expresses the phenomenon of animation or conscious spontaneous activity. This 1 1 treated this subject somewhat fully in a paper read before the Institut Interna- tional de Sociologie in 1897. See the Annales, Vol. IV, pp. 111-132. CH. vm] THE SOUL 141 is the central idea in the conception of the soul, and it was possessed by the first and lowest animate beings. The moment an interest to move in a definite way for a definite purpose was planted in them the soul was born, and their continued conscious activities under the spur of that interest is that which has produced the varied forms of animal life. The soul then is that new-born property that has been engaging our attention through the last two chapters. We have been study- ing its cosmic and geological development. It was not present when the planets were formed. It does not dwell in rocks. The signs of it in the vegetable kingdom (protoplasmic movements in the utricle, sensitive plants, the behavior of the " tentacles " of Drosera, the clos- ing of the fly-traps of Dionaea, circumnutation, etc.) are few, obscure, and of an ambiguous character, either referable to physical reactions, or else belonging to forms that closely approach the nature of ani- mals, such as the insectivorous plants. Plants live but do not feel. We are carried back to the famous definition of Linnaeus : Lapides crescunt; vegetabilia crescunt et vivunt; animalia crescunt, vivunt, et sentiunt. I scarcely need point out the agreement that exists be- tween this and my table of evolutionary products and differential attributes (supra, p. 94). The last of the Linnaean attributes, feel- ing, ushered in the soul. The soul is well described in Genesis as " the Spirit of God " that "moved upon the face of the waters," for, as we have seen, the sea must have been the cradle of life in which consciousness first dawned. From the standpoint of hylozoism this spirit may be said to " sleep in the stone, dream in the animal, and awake in man," for its elements lay dormant in the inorganic world, and it was only in man, and in a higher type of man, that self-consciousness arose, viz., a consciousness of consciousness. But as more and more inorganic matter was converted into living forms larger and larger quantities of physical and vital energy were converted into psychic energy, and the soul grew and acquired greater power. It became a transform- ing agency and a potent influence in the transmutation of species and the development of higher and more multiform types of life. It was the chief cause of variation and hence the prime factor in organic evolution. On the human plane the soul has become en- riched by the introduction of all the derivative affections, the pas- sions and emotions of which we have spoken, until it has carried 142 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART n its transforming influence beyond the individual organism into the social organism and into the environment, and has become the agent of social evolution. THE WILL When we consider all this volume of feeling as essentially a striv- ing we find in it all the elements of the will. It is the conative faculty, and in this lies its immense importance to sociology. Feel- ing, as we have seen, starts with interest and immediately becomes desire. Using desire in its widest possible acceptation, there is a sense in which it may be identified with will. It is the wish, the vow, the prayer, the yearning of the soul. To clothe this with all the attributes of will we have only to observe it passing into action. Will is the active expression of the soul's meaning. It is inchoate action. If it does not pass into action it at least passes into effort, and it is effort rather than action in which the dynamic quality inheres. The will is that which asserts itself. The interests of life must be subserved, the desires must be satisfied, remembered past pleasures must be renewed, pains experienced or feared must be escaped, life must be preserved and continued, hopes, aspirations, ambitions, goals must be realized. It is will that accomplishes all this. Without it all is lost. This is the meaning of optimism as a principle of nature rather than a world view or tenet of philosophy. There is no balancing of the gains and losses of existence. There is no faltering or hesitation. Existence must be preserved and nature has pointed the way. The will gives the command and the body obeys. The effort is put forth and the result is limited only by the amount of physical power and the amount of resistance encoun- tered. Optimism is the normal attitude of all sentient beings. No other attitude is possible in the animal world or in any type of man- kind that has not reached a high degree of intellectual development. Only such a developed intellect when deprived of an adequate knowl- edge of nature is capable of inventing a quietistic philosophy. The doctrine of the denial of the will, if it could be rigidly enforced, would quickly terminate the course of any race that should practice it. Only the partial failure to enforce such teachings, or their prac- tical reversal and conversion into optimistic teachings among the uninstructed, can have saved the Orient from destruction, and the ease with which European nations can seize, hold, and govern CH. vin] THE WILL 143 India, Cochin China, and parts of China, attests the superior social efficiency of optimistic over pessimistic races. And there is no bet- ter lesson to teach the superiority of will over reason of that ancient primordial cosmic power over the newly fledged parvenu intellect than these odds furnish when the two are brought into conflict. Natural, spontaneous, or impulsive optimism is true, and is a healthy social influence. It means self-preservation, race continu- ance, and social progress. But rational optimism is both false and shallow. The moment the light of reason is turned upon it it withers and decays. This is because the condition of mankind from the moral point of view, i.e., from the standpoint of feeling, will not bear analysis. Reason applied to it, if at all thoroughgoing, leads at once to pessimism. It teaches that desire is want, that hunger is pang, that love is pain, that pains are acute and prolonged while pleasures are brief and moderate, that the satisfaction of desire puts an end to feeling, but that no sooner is one desire disposed of than another arises, and so on forever. This is the philosophy that per- vades the vast populous regions of southern and eastern Asia, and which has for its universal refrain the injunction : crush the will. This is logical and has been echoed by the wisest seers of optimistic Europe Goethe, Humboldt, Pascal, Dean Swift, Jeremy Taylor, Huxley * who have simply looked at the world and seen things as they are. A little reason corrupts and neutralizes the optimistic impulses and produces that false and mongrel optimism that teaches the fold- ing of the arms and the gospel of inaction. More reason penetrates to the dark reality and ends in pessimism or the gospel of despair and nirvana. But it is possible to probe still deeper and to find again the hope that characterizes the first blind subrational or ultra- 1 " Even the best of modern civilization appears to me to exhibit a condition of mankind which neither embodies any worthy ideal nor even possesses the merit of stability. I do not hesitate to express the opinion that, if there is no hope of a large improvement of the condition of the greater part of the human family ; if it is true that the increase of knowledge, the winning of a greater dominion over Nature which is its consequence, and the wealth which follows upon that dominion, are to make no difference in the extent and the intensity of Want, with its concomitant physical and moral degradation, among the masses of the people, I should hail the advent of some kindly comet, which would sweep the whole affair away, as a desirable consum- mation." Professor Huxley in the Nineteenth Century, Vol. XXVII, January-June, 1890, No. 159, May, 1890, pp. 862-863 (in article entitled : " Government : Anarchy or Regimentation," ibid., pp. 843-866). 144 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART n rational struggle for existence. Rational optimism and pessimism are products of the naked reason, than which no guide is more unsafe. The true guide, the Moses that is to lead man out of the wilderness, is science. The naked reason must be clothed. Man must learn to know. He must learn how and why he is subjected to all these woes, and then he may see a way of escaping them. The only sci- ence that can teach this is social science. This science does teach it, and it gives forth no uncertain sound. All this belongs to applied sociology and cannot be treated here, but it may at least be remarked that the mental and social state to which social science points is neither optimism nor pessimism, but meliorism. Meliorism means the liberation of the will, so that it may assert itself as freely and as vigorously as it ever did under the rule of blind impulse. It means the massing and systematic application of all the vastly increased powers of developed man to the perfected machinery of society. The avenues of action to be cleared and not choked up as at present. Different social movements to be along appointed paths and not in opposite directions in the same path so as to neutralize each other. The combined social will may thus be so adjusted as to exert its full force in one harmonious and irresistible effort toward the accomplishment of the supreme social end. CHAPTER IX SOCIAL MECHANICS IN the last three chapters the foundations have been laid for a science of social mechanics. The essential condition of such a science is the existence of true natural forces in society that can be depended upon to produce effects with the same certainty and exactness as do physical forces. The dynamic agent, the general character of which was set forth in Chapter VI, and the genesis and full treatment of which have been given in the last two chapters, furnishes the sociologist with all that he requires from this point of view. It is true that the complex phenomena of society neces- sitate the application of the limiting principle laid down in Chap- ter IV, that the quality of exactness is difficult to detect except in the relations that subsist among the more highly generalized groups. MATHEMATICAL SOCIOLOGY The application of mathematics to sociology is at best precarious, not because the laws of social phenomena are not exact, but because of the multitude and complicated interrelations of the facts. Except for certain minds that are mathematically consti- tuted there is very little advantage in mathematical treatment. It instantly repels the non-mathematical, and however much we may deplore it, the proportion of mathematical minds is very small. Usually a rigidly logical treatment of a subject is quite sufficient even where mathematics might have been used, and when the latter adds nothing to the conception its use is simply pedantic. A number of eminent mathematicians, among whom the names of Cournot, Gossen, Jevons, and Walras are the most frequently heard, have undoubtedly done much to found pure economics on a mathematical basis. At the present time, while there are many mathematical economists, there seems to be but one mathematical sociologist, viz., Dr. Leon Winiarsky of the University of Geneva. In qiiite a formidable series of papers he has endeavored to lay the L 145 146 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART n foundations of the science of social mechanics as a mathematical science. 1 His claim to being the first to do this seems to be just, but his further claim of priority in conceiving such a science cannot be sustained. 2 The special merit of Dr. Winiarsky's treat- ment is that it bases the science on the desires and wants of men as the forces with which it deals, and although he scarcely goes beyond the primary impulses of hunger and love, still these are correctly conceived as true natural forces susceptible of the most exact formulation. Moreover, his papers are not overburdened with equations and formulas, and are decidedly readable discussions, abounding in acute observations. They also contain reasonable admissions of the limitations to mathematical treatment. Comte, although himself a professional mathematician, never tired of condemning the attempt to reduce the complex sciences to the mathematical form. We find in one of his early papers, published in 1822, this remark : The proposition to treat social science as an application of mathematics in order to render it positive had its origin in the metaphysical prejudice that outside of mathematics no real certainty can exist. This prejudice was natural at a time when everything that was positive belonged to the domain of applied mathematics, and when, in consequence, all that this did not embrace was vague and conjectural. But since the formation of the two great positive sciences, chemistry and especially physiology, in which mathe- matical analysis plays no rdle, and which are recognized as not less certain than the others, such a prejudice would be absolutely inexcusable. 8 Early in his " Positive Philosophy," and in the volume devoted to mathematics, he further says : Nevertheless we should not cease, as a general philosophical thesis, to con- ceive phenomena of all orders as necessarily subject in themselves to mathe- matical laws, which we are simply condemned always to ignore in most cases on account of the too great complication of the phenomena. 4 i Revue Philosophique, Vol. XLV, April, 1898, pp. 351-386 ; Vol. XLIX, February, 1900, pp. 113-134; March, 1900, pp. 256-287 ; Rivista Italiana di Sociologia, Anno III, Fasc. v, Rome, September, 1899 ; Premier Congres de I'Enseignement des Sciences Sociales, Compte rendu, Paris, 1901, pp. 341-345; Annales de VInstitut International de Sociologie, Vol. VII, Paris, 1901, pp. 229-233. 2 1 may have been the first to use the expression "social mechanics." See " Dynamic Sociology," New York, 1883, Vol. I, p. 503 ; cf. Am. Journ. of Sociology, Vol. II, September, 1896, pp. 234-254, and" Outlines of Sociology," New York, 1898, Chapter VIII. 8 " Politique Positive," Vol. IV, Appendix, p. 123. * " Philosophic Positive," Vol. I, p. 117. CH. ix] SOCIAL PHYSICS 147 In his treatment of chemistry and biology in Vol. Ill, he encounters the prejudice of which he speaks and characterizes it very severely. The following will serve as a sample of his views in this regard : This confusion, difficult to avoid, between acquired instruction and native ability is still more common, in the case of mathematical studies on account of the more special and prolonged application which they require and the characteristic hieroglyphic language which they must employ, the imposing aspect of which is so well calculated to mask, to the eyes of the vulgar, a profound intellectual mediocrity. 1 . It was Goethe who said : I accept mathematics as the most sublime and useful science so long as it is applied in its proper place ; but I cannot commend its misuse in matters which do not belong to its sphere, and in which, noble science as it is, it seems to be mere nonsense ; as if, forsooth, things only exist when they can be mathematically demonstrated ! It would be foolish in a man not to believe in his sweetheart's love because she could not prove it to him mathematically. She can mathematically prove her dower, but not her love. And a more modern writer has well said : " No forms of error are so erroneous as those that have the appearance without the reality of mathematical precision." 2 SOCIAL PHYSICS I have preferred the name social mechanics for this science to that of social physics, which Comte first gave to the whole science of soci- ology, because it is the social forces with which we have to do rather than material bodies with which physics seems more naturally asso- ciated, but it is well for us to inquire what Comte meant by social physics. It was in the same early paper from which we have quoted, first published in May, 1822, that he first used this expres- sion. Continuing his remark relative to the use of mathematics, he says : It is not as applications of mathematical analysis that astronomy, optics, etc., are positive and exact sciences. This character comes from themselves. It results from the fact that they are founded on observed facts, and it could only result from this, because mathematical analysis separated from the observation of nature, has only a metaphysical character. Only it is certain 1 Op. cit., Vol. Ill, p. 307. 2 Dr. George M. Beard in the Popular Science Monthly, Vol. XIV, April, 1879, p. 751. 148 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART n that in the sciences to which mathematics are not applicable close direct observation is the less to be lost sight of ; deductions cannot with certainty be carried so far, because the data for reasoning are less perfect. With this exception the certainty is just as complete if kept within proper limits. . . . Such is the final judgment which I believe it is possible to form from attempts made or to be made to apply mathematical analysis to social physics. After discussing Cabanis's " Rapport du physique et du moral de I'horame," he continues : Since the superiority of man over the other animals cannot have, and, in fact, has no other cause than the relative perfection of his organization, all that the human species does, and all that it can do, must evidently be re- garded, in the last analysis, as a necessary consequence of his organization, modified in its effects by the environment (ttat de Vexterieur). In this sense, social physics, that is, the study of the collective development of the human species, is really a branch of physiology, that is to say, of the study of man in the broadest sense of the word. In other terms, the history of civiliza- tion is nothing else than the succession and necessary completion of the natural history of man. 1 A little farther on in the same essay, while laying the foundations of the positive philosophy in his well-known classification of the sciences, but before it had taken its final form, he says : The four great classes of observations previously established do not comprise, at least explicitly, all the points of view from which existing be- ings may be considered. There is evidently lacking the social point of view for the beings that are susceptible of it, and especially for man; but we see with the same clearness that this is the only omission (lacune). Thus, we possess now a celestial physics, a terrestrial physics, either mechanical or chemical, a vegetal physics, and an animal physics ; we still want one more and last one, social physics, in order that the system of our knowledge of nature be complete. 2 Still more definite and clear is the following statement that fol- lows on the same page with which the passage last quoted closed : I understand by social physics the science that has for its proper object the study of social phenomena, considered in the same spirit as astronomical, physical, chemical, and physiological phenomena, i.e., as subject to natural invariable laws, the discovery of which is the special object of its investiga- tions. Thus it proposes directly to explain, with the greatest possible pre- cision, the great phenomenon of the development of the human species, l " Politique Positive," Vol. IV, Appendix, pp. 123-125. 2 ioc. Git., pp. 149-150. CH. ix] SOCIAL PHYSICS 149 considered in all its essential parts; that is, to discover through what fixed series of successive transformations the human race, starting from a state scarcely superior to that of the societies of large apes, gradually led to the point at which civilized Europe finds itself to-day. At the close of the third volume of the "Positive Philosophy" he says that the next or fourth volume will be devoted to creating the new science of social physics, and early in that (fourth) volume he speaks of instituting what he had already called social physics. To the term thus introduced, and which is here italicized, he appends the following foot-note : This expression, and that not less indispensable one of positive philosophy, were constructed seventeen years ago [this volume appeared in 1839], in my early essays on political philosophy. Although so recent, these two essen- tial terms have already been in some sort spoiled by vicious attempts to appropriate them on the part of various writers who had not at all compre- hended their true purpose, although I had, by a scrupulously invariable practice, carefully characterized their fundamental acceptation. I ought specially to point out this abuse, in the case of the first of these terms, by a Belgian savant, who has adopted it in these late years as the title of a book which treats of nothing but simple statistics. 1 The reference is of course to Quetelet' s work entitled : " Sur 1'homme et le developpement de ses facultes, ou essai de physique sociale," in two volumes, which appeared in 1835. Quetelet also laid stress on the uniformity and regularity of social phenomena, but, as Comte says, from the standpoint of statistics. But there is no more reliable method of proving this than the use of statistics, and no one has done more along this fruitful line than Quetelet. Still it must be admitted that Comte's conception of social physics was vastly broader than this, and as the above passages, and others that might be cited, show, was coextensive with sociology. Indeed, since it was he who gave us the word sociology and made it synony- mous with social physics as he had denned that term, we must at least agree that his social physics is the same as his sociology. This word, as all sociologists know, was first used by him in the volume from which the passages last quoted occur, but considerably farther along, viz., in the forty-seventh lecture on p. 185. As in the case of social physics, he appended a foot-note to the italicized word, and in this he says : 1 " Philosophic Positive," Vol. IV, p. 15. 150 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART n I think I should venture, from now on, to use this new term, exactly equivalent to my expression, already introduced, of social physics, in order to designate by a single word that complementary part of natural philosophy which relates to the positive study of the sum total of the fundamental laws governing social phenomena. We see then that social physics in the Comtian sense is the sociol- ogy that he founded, and although, notwithstanding his pains to make it clear, it possesses a certain vagueness due to its comprehen- sive character, still this combined quality of breadth and vagueness lend to it sufficient elasticity to adapt it to all the unforeseen ele- ments of expansion that have arisen or are likely to arise,' and thus make the word sociology an altogether satisfactory name for the whole science. In view of this the term social physics has by com- mon consent been dropped out of view. If revived it should be with its original scope, and this, of course, is not what I mean by social mechanics. That is not sociology as a whole, but is a subscience of the science of sociology. It is that branch of sociology which deals with the action of the social forces. It relates to the dynamic agent only, not to the directive agent, and belongs moreover exclusively to pure sociology. PSYCHICS As the social forces are psychic social mechanics has- to do with psychic forces, and just as the science which treats of the physical forces, of whose positivity mechanics is the mathematical test, is called physics, so the science which treats of the psychic forces, of whose exactness social mechanics is the criterion, must be psychic physics, which may for the sake of brevity be called psychics. Psy- chics, therefore, is the science or subscience that deals with the exact and invariable laws of mind. The word has found its way into the dictionaries, but is badly defined. Most of them make it a synonym, of psychology, which it differs from almost as widely as physics differs from physiology. Others give it a secondary meaning as a synonym of " psychical research." It is well known that the expres- sion " psychical research " has become equivalent to the quasi- scientific attempt to prove the existence of a soul independent of the body, and is simply a prop to spiritualism and occultism. This attempt 'to prostitute the term psychics may prove fatal to it, as it did to that other etymologically excellent word phrenology. There CH. ix] PSYCHICS 151 have, however, been some attempts to rescue psychics from this fate. In 1881 Mr. F. Y. Edgeworth published a work entitled : " Mathe- matical Psychics, an Essay on the Application of Mathematics to the Moral Sciences," London, 1881. He explains the subject of the work to be " the applicability and the application of mathematics to sociology" (p. 1). "Where there are data," he says (p. 2), "which, though not numerical, are quantitative for example, that a quantity is greater or less than another, increases or decreases, is positive or nega- tive, a maximum or a minimum, there mathematical reasoning is possible and may be indispensable." There may have been other uses of the word in a scientific sense prior to the year 1893, when I introduced it 1 in the same sense as that in which I use it now, but I have not met with them. This sense is somewhat broader than that of Edgeworth, and includes data to which mathematics would not apply. The essential basis of psychics is, of course, that psychic phe- nomena obey uniform laws. This has been observed and remarked by many writers, some very ancient, and, as we saw in Chapter IV, the recognition of this truth in a collective way, as in human history, is the prime condition to any science of society. But as collective action is made up of individual action, it must also be true of the latter, however contrary it may seem to daily observation. Our failure to perceive it is due to what was there called " the illusion of the near." Herbart is said to have declared that " ideas move in our minds with as much regularity as the stars move in the heavens." 2 Kant said that " if we could probe all the phenomena of volition to the bottom there would not be a single human action which we could not predict and recognize as necessary from its antecedent condi- tions." 3 Kant is usually regarded as a libertarian, and yet in the only contribution he made to sociology he says : Whatsoever difference there may be in our notions of the freedom of the will metaphysically considered, it is evident that the manifestations of this will, viz. human actions, are as much under the control of universal laws of nature as any other physical phenomena. It is the province of his- tory to narrate these manifestations ; and let their causes be ever so secret, we know that history, simply by taking its station at a distance and contem- plating the agency of the human will upon a large scale, aims at unfolding 1 " Psychic Factors of Civilization," pp. 56, 129. 2 Professor W. I. Thomas in the American Journal of Sociology, Vol. I, p. 441. 8 "Kritik der reinen Vernunft," ed. Hartenstein, 1868, p. 380. 152 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART 11 to our view a regular stream of tendency in the great succession of events ; so that the very course of incidents, which taken separately and individually would have seemed perplexed, incoherent, and lawless, yet viewed in their connexion and as the actions of the human species and not of independent beings, never fail to discover a steady and continuous though slow develop- ment of certain great predispositions in our nature. Thus for instance deaths, births, and marriages, considering how much they are separately dependent on the freedom of the human will, should seem to be subject to no law according to which any calculation could be made beforehand of their amount : and yet the yearly registers of these events in great countries prove that they go on with as much conformity to the laws of nature as the oscillations of the weather. 1 Mr. John Watson of Queen's University, a close student of Kant, and himself a thorough-going libertarian, sums up that part of his doctrine as follows : Take any action you please, and you will find, according to Kant, that its place in the chain of events is as unalterably determined as the fall of a stone, or the motion of a projectile through space. Let the action be, say, the relieving of distress. Setting aside the physical movements which pre- cede the consciousness that a certain person stands in need of relief, and the physical movements by which the action is carried into effect, there remains for consideration simply a series of mental events, which will be found to be connected together in a fixed order of dependence. Following upon the perception of the object, there arises in the consciousness of the agent a desire to relieve distress. This desire would not arise at all, did not the agent possess a peculiar form of susceptibility ; viz., that of pity at the sight of human suffering. Now, this susceptibility is a part of his sensuous nature, which he can neither make nor unmake. Not every one is so affected, or affected in the same degree. Clearly, therefore, the desire to relieve distress is an event, occurring at a certain moment, and following upon the idea of another's pain as certainly as any other event that can be named. If the de- sire is so strong that the agent determines to relieve the other's distress, we have a further sequence of a certain volition upon a certain desire ; and this, like all- other sequences, is subject to the law of causality. The most rigid determinist has evidently no reason so far to complain of any want of " vigor and rigor " in Kant's doctrine. 2 Archbishop Whately states practically the same case in the following form : Every one is accustomed to anticipate future events, in human affairs, as well as in the material world, in proportion to his knowledge of the several cir- 1 " Idea of a Universal History on a Cosmo-political Plan," by Immanuel Kant. Translated by Thomas De Quincey. London Magazine, Vol. X, October, 1824, p. 385. 2 Philosophical Review, Vol. I, January, 1892, p. 11. en. ix] PSYCHICS 153 cumstances connected with each ; however different in amount that knowl- edge may be, in reference to different occurrences. And in both cases alike, we always attribute the failure of any anticipation to our ignorance or mis- take respecting some of the circumstances. When, e.g., we fully expect, from our supposed knowledge of some person's character, and of the circum- stances he is placed in, that he will do something which, eventually, he does not do, we at once and without hesitation conclude that we were mistaken either as to his character, or as to his situation, or as to our acquaintance with human nature, generally ; and we are accustomed to adduce any such failure as a proof of such mistake ; saying, " It is plain you were mistaken in your estimate of that man's character ; for he has done so and so : " and this, as unhesitatingly as we should attribute the non-occurrence of an eclipse we had predicted, not to any change in the Laws of Nature, but to some error in our calculations. 1 This is virtually Kant's position, and is a clear analysis of the meaning of his phrase " intelligible character." John Stuart Mill reechoed it when he said : " Given the motives which are present to an individual's mind, and given likewise the character and disposi- tion of the individual, the manner in which he will act might unerr- ingly be inferred." 2 But much earlier still than Kant, Hartley had made the following statement : By the mechanism of human actions I mean, that each action results from the previous circumstances of body and mind, in the same manner, and with the same certainty, as other effects do from their mechanical causes ; so that a person cannot do indifferently either of the actions A, and its contrary a, while the previous circumstances are the same ; but is under an absolute necessity of doing one of them, and that only. Agreeably to this I suppose, that by free-will is meant a power of doing either the action A, or its contrary a ; while the previous circumstances remain the same. 8 Hume, with most of whose writings Kant was acquainted, fre- quently expressed this same idea in such terms as this : " There is a general course of nature in human actions as well as in the operations of the sun and the climate." 4 It may be objected that these sayings of philosophers are of no value as lacking proof, and as simply indicating the tendency of the 1 " Elements of Logic," by Richard Whately, reprinted from the 9th (octavo) edition, Louisville, 1854, pp. 236-237. 2 "A System of Logic," by John Stuart Mill, People's edition, London, 1884, p. 547 (Book VI, Chapter II, 2). 8 "Observations on Man, his Frame, his Duty, and his Expectations," by David Hartley, 5th edition, London, 1810, Vol. I, p. 515. 4 "A Treatise of Human Nature," etc., by David Hume, edited by T. H. Green and T. H. Grose, Vol. II, London, 1898, p. 184. 154 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART n mind, when untrammeled by facts, to construct a logical scheme. Let us therefore turn to quite the opposite type of mind, viz., that of the practical jurist whose opinions are always derived from the ex- periences of men in their regular daily operations. Starkie says : Experience and observation show that the conduct of mankind is gov- erned by general laws, which operate, under similar circumstances, with almost as much regularity and uniformity as the mechanical laws of nature themselves. ... In general, all the affairs and transactions of mankind are as much connected together in one uniform and consistent whole, with- out chasm or interruption, and with as much mutual dependence on each other, as the phenomena of nature are; they are governed by general laws ; all the links stand in the mutual relations of cause and effect. . . - 1 The use by such writers of such qualifying words as " almost " is not to be construed as indicating that they think there are real exceptions to these natural laws of the mind. It means about the same as it would to say that bodies almost always fall to the ground. Because balloons do not fall to the ground does not invalidate the law of gravitation. The mechanical principles of psychic action, instead of losing ground through scientific investigation, are being constantly strengthened, and motives are coming more and more to be recognized as true forces. The reason why so many volitions do not cause action is being explained by various physiological forms of inertia and especially by the great number of simultaneous and conflicting volitions growing out of the more and more complex character of the developing mind. Mr. Spencer states this very well in the following passage : For though when the confusion of a complex impression with some allied one causes a confusion among the nascent motor excitations, there is en- tailed a certain hesitation; and though this hesitation continues as long as these nascent motor excitations, or ideas of the correlative actions, go on superseding one another; yet, ultimately, some one set of motor excitations will prevail over the rest. As the groups of antagonistic tendencies aroused will scarcely ever be exactly balanced, the strongest group will at length pass into action. 2 Again he says : The diffused discharge accompanying feeling of every kind produces on the body an effect that is indicative of feeling simply, irrespective of kind 1<( A Practical Treatise on the Law of Evidence," by Thomas Starkie, 9th American from 4th London edition, Philadelphia, 1869, pp. 70, 78. 2 "Principles of Psychology," New York, 1873, Vol. I, p. 455 ( 204). CH. ix] PSYCHICS 155 the effect, namely, of muscular excitement. From the shrinking caused in a sleeping person by a touch, up to the contortions of agony and the caperings of delight, there is a recognized relation between the quantity of feeling, pleasurable or painful, and the amount of motion generated. 1 Of course this is all much more clearly seen in animals than in man, because the rational faculty, while it does not in the slightest affect the principle, introduces so many incalculable causes of per- turbation that the rigidity of the psychic laws cannot always be seen. If this class of obscuring influences can be nearly or quite removed, as it is in the lower animals, the law conies out in great clearness. Action becomes mainly reflex, and its physical character can scarcely be distinguished from that of inanimate bodies. As illustrating this Professor Ernst Mach says: The ivory snail (Eburna spiratd) never learns to avoid the carnivorous Actinia, no matter how often it may wince under the latter's shower of needles, having apparently no memory whatever for pain. A spider can be lured forth repeatedly from its hole by touching its web with a tuning-fork. The moth plunges again and again into the flame which has burnt it. The humming-bird hawk-moth dashes repeatedly against the painted roses of the wall-paper, like the unhappy and desperate thinker who never wearies of attacking in the same way the same insoluble chimerical problem. As aimlessly almost as Maxwell's gaseous molecules and in the same unreasoning manner, common flies in their search for light and air stream against the glass pane of a half-opened window and remain there from sheer inability to find their way around the narrow frame. But a pike separated from the minnows of his aquarium by a glass partition, learns after the lapse of a few months, though only after having butted himself half to death, that he cannot attack these fishes with impunity. 2 Professor James well says that "every instinct is an impulse," and remarks : The actions we call instinctive all conform to the general reflex type ; they are all called forth by determinate sensory stimuli in contact with the ani- mal's body, or at a distance in his environment. The cat runs after the mouse, runs or shows fight before the dog, avoids falling from walls and trees, shuns fire and water, etc., not because he has any notion either of life or death, or of self, or of preservation. He has probably attained to no one of these conceptions in such a way as to react definitely upon it. He acts in each case separately, and simply because he cannot help it; being so framed that when that particular running thing called a mouse appears in 1<( Principles of Psychology," Vol. II, p. 541 (496). The Monist, Chicago, Vol. VI, January, 1896, pp. 166-167. 156 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART n his field of vision he must pursue; that when that particular barking and obstreperous thing called a dog appears there he must retire, if at a distance, and scratch if close by ; that he must withdraw his feet from water and his face from flame, etc. His nervous system is to a great extent a preorganized bundle of such reactions they are as fatal as sneezing, and as exactly cor- related to their special excitants as it is to its own. 1 Farther on the same author says that " consciousness is in its very nature impulsive " (p. 526), and that " movement is the natural imme- diate effect of feeling, irrespective of what the quality of the feeling may be. It is so in reflex action, it is so in emotional eocpression, it is so in the voluntary life " (p. 527), all of which accords perfectly with the principle under consideration, and is what makes a science of psychics possible. Professor C. Lloyd Morgan, who of course makes his bow to the traditional world view as to the generic distinctness of matter and mind, has nevertheless introduced a term that may tend somewhat to soften the fall of that conception. He says : It is generally admitted that physical phenomena, including those which we call physiological, can be explained (or are explicable) in terms of energy. It is also generally admitted that consciousness is nevertheless in some way closely, if not indissolubly, associated with special manifestations of energy in the nerve-centers of the brain. Now, we call manifestations of energy " kinetic " manifestations, and we use the term "kinesis" for physi- cal manifestations of this order. Similarly, we may call concomitant mani- festations of the mental or conscious order " metakinetic," and may use the term " metakinesis " for all manifestations belonging to this phenomenal order. According to the monistic hypothesis, every mode of kinesis has its concomitant mode of metakinesis, and when the kinetic manifestations assume the form of the molecular processes in the human brain, the metakinetic manifesta- tions assume the form of human consciousness. . . . All matter is not con- scious, because consciousness is the metakinetic concomitant of a highly specialized order of kinesis. But every kinesis has an associated metakinesis ; and parallel to the evolution of organic and neural kinesis there has been an evo- lution of metakinetic manifestations culminating in conscious thought. 2 Morgan's metakinetic energy is therefore the same as my conative energy or form of causation, and the difference between kinesis and metakinesis is the difference between motion produced by physical or ordinary efficient causes and motion produced by psychic or cona- tive causes. The latter are at bottom efficient causes also. All ani- 1 " Principles of Psychology," New York, 1890, Vol. II, p. 384. 2 " Auimal Life and Intelligence," by C. Lloyd Morgan, London, 1890-1891, p. 467. en. ix] PSYCHICS 157 mals act from these definite forms of causation, call them instincts, impulses, motives, or by any other name. The domestication of animals has only been possible from the knowledge that man has acquired of these uniform and reliable springs of animal action. Cattle, sheep, horses, hogs, etc., can all be depended upon to come where they expect to receive food or whatever satisfies their crav- ings. The owner's call, which they learn to know, brings them in haste and in droves to the crib. They have no sense of pride in thus acting from egoistic motives, but come always. Man knows this, and this knowledge makes him ashamed to act like animals. This sense of shame is the chief additional motive that modifies his action. He has the egoistic motives even more strongly developed than the animal, but he seeks to conceal them, and pretends not to be governed by them. Instead of proceeding directly to the desired object and appropriating it, as animals do, he makes a feint, waits awhile till attention is turned away from him, or starts in a differ- ent direction and follows some circuitous route that ultimately brings him to it. He feigns deliberation and nonchalance, and pretends to care least for that which he most desires. Children early thus become conscious, and, as we say, sophisticated, and begin that life of indi- rection and deception that they are to lead. Here the law of gen- eralization, laid down in Chapter IV, comes in to help us explain the apparent anomalies in human action which the close-range view can only see, and which give rise to the belief that the actions of men are not governed by the same fixed laws as those of animals. For we have only to extend our sphere of observation to an entire community, to a whole people, or to the events of human history, to see that in spite of this pretense of higher motives, or of indepen- dence of motive, the human race really acts in the same way as the animal, pursues the objects of its desires, and secures and appropri- ates them with the same disregard of others as do the more humble creatures. Time, distance, and numbers brush away the thin gauze that obscures the actions of those with whom we are in close con- tact, and lay bare the great psychic law that actuates all sentient creatures alike. It must not be supposed that even among animals there are not complications that often obscure this law. These are all the result, the same as in man, of conflicting motives. A colt that is " hard to catch " may usually be caught by showing it a lump of salt. It 158 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART n then will stand around and look wistfully at the salt, perhaps ap- proach some distance, and as the person trying to catch it advances, will first for a while evade him and dodge about, but when it finds it cannot have the salt without coming up and taking it from the hand it will usually do this eventually and allow the halter to be put on. But whatever it may do will depend rigidly upon the rela- tive strength of the motives. If it prefers liberty to salt it will decline to come, and vice versa. The horse is a very good animal to study from this point of view, for notwithstanding its reputation for intelligence, and the number of fine anecdotes supposed to establish this, having had to do with horses all my life, I have come to about the same conclusion as David Harum, that " hosses don't know but dreadful little, really. Talk about hoss sense wa'al the' ain't no such thing." l At any rate a horse's motives always seem to stand out more clearly than those of other animals, and they can always be easily read. The wants of horses are few and simple : food, water, home (the stable or place where kept, to which they are strongly wonted), and company, i.e., other horses, for no animal has the " conscious- ness of kind" more firmly rooted in its nature. Knowing these motives it is easy to predict what a horse will do under given cir- cumstances. It is also easy to understand why horses act thus and so. Conflicting motives in horses are also clearly displayed. In driving or riding a horse away from any of its centers of attraction it will be perfectly apparent that it wants to go in the opposite direction. Its gait and rate will be strongly affected by the fact. It can be compared to rowing a boat against a current. With the same urging the horse will travel much slower away from home than towards home, and the percentage of difference is easily calcu- lated -with exactness for the same animal, but will differ with differ- ent animals. For the return trip no urging at all is usually required, and it may be necessary to restrain the horse. When the direction is away from the place of wont, if the reins are slackened the speed at first diminishes and would ultimately be reduced to a stop if the road was narrow. But if the course lies across an open plain with- out a road it will become a case of constrained motion, and if the horse is left wholly to itself it will describe a curve and finally take 1 "David Harum," A Story of American Life, by Edward Noyes Westcott, New York, 1899, p. 161. CH. ix] PSYCHOMETRY 159 the direction of the stable. If the course is at right angles to that which the horse desires to go it will be necessary to keep one rein tighter than the other to prevent the horse from deviating in the direction of its impulses. This may be compared to the rowing of a boat, or to swimming, across a rapidly running stream. * It is neces- sary to aim at a point considerably one side of the one it is desired to reach, in order to allow for the transverse force. If the point where the horse desires to go is to the right, it is like crossing the stream from the right to the left bank, and vice versa. The conflict of motives may be much more complex than these cases imply, and some of the possible problems might be beyond solution, but most of them might be stated and solved mathemati- cally. Complete inaction among animals, resulting from perfect equilibrium of psychic forces, is probably very rare, .because the gen- eral law of the " instability of the homogeneous " puts almost infinity to one against it, and this is the true answer to the fool's puzzle of Buridan's ass that starved to death between two stacks of hay be- cause the attraction of one stack was exactly equal to the attraction of the other. It might also be applied to the following amusing rhyme : The centipede was happy quite Until a frog, in fun, Said, " Pray, which leg comes after which? " This raised its mind to such a pitch, It lay distracted in the ditch, Considering how to run. But in the case of man, with his vastly greater number of motives, and especially with his reason, by which he is capable of true delib- eration, the cases are common in which such a multitude of more or less conflicting, or at least mutually limiting motives, arise and crowd or choke one another in such a way that there is produced, if not an equilibrium, at least a glut and a chdmage in the mind which renders action impossible during considerable periods. But this state always eventually works itself out, and certain groups of mo- tives gain the ascendant, and action is resumed. PSYCHOMETRY Scientific investigation of psychic phenomena does not, however, stop with establishing the qualitative exactness of mental processes. It has attacked the problem of their quantitative relations and has 160 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART 11 created a science of psychometry. The first truth reached in this direction was the protensive nature of all psychic reactions. In the psychological laboratory the old metaphysical idea of their indepen- dence of time and space was quickly dispelled. It was found that sensations occupy time and that the amount of time has a certain relation to the distance they must travel. But the results are greatly modified by the nature of the physiological apparatus through which they are accomplished. Such problems are very complicated. Helmholtz found that sensations travel along the nerves at a rate varying from 84 to 96 feet per second. Since then experiments have been multiplied and considerable variation from these figures has been noted, so that the range may now perhaps be put at from 60 to 150 feet per second. But this does not probably represent the actual velocity of sensation. Much of the time is doubtless lost in a certain process of elaboration in the ganglia and sensory tracts. Between any stimulus and its consequent action a certain interval of time elapses varying from one tenth to three tenths of a second, but the personal equation of different persons varies greatly. It has been found that the act of winking occupies about five one hun- dredths of a second. The act of vision, however, is almost instan- taneous. It has been stated as low as four billionths of a second. The reaction time of various psychic operations has been experi- mented upon and more or less exact results have been reached. Among the most interesting is 'that which fixes the time required for a volition at thirty-five thousandths of a second. A great num- ber of instruments have been invented for measuring mental opera- tions, among which is an " algometer " for testing the quantity of pain experienced. All this has a possible value for sociology, but the most impor- tant psychological law, from this point of view, that has been dis- covered, is the well-known Weber-Fechner law that sensations represent the logarithms of their stimuli. According to this law if a stimulus increases in a geometrical progression the resulting sensation will increase in intensity in an arithmetical progression. This constitutes a sort of psychological law of diminishing returns, and its application to social phenomena is obvious and far-reaching. It is, however, chiefly in applied sociology that its value appears, and therefore this is not the place to enter fully into its discus- sion. This should also be accompanied with a statement of the CH. ix] THP: LAW OF PARSIMONY 161 qualifications that it has been found necessary to make in the law itself. THE LAW or PARSIMONY We found in the fourth chapter that the law of parsimony was the highest generalization thus far attained in psychic and social phenomena, and that therefore its quality of exactness was the most clearly apparent of all psychic and social laws. It is therefore one of the most important of the laws of social mechanics. It is the resultant of the mechanical forces of society, or the algebraic sum of pleasures and pains, and the quantity and quality of human activity depend upon that sum and its sign. Greatest gain for least effort means, when reduced to these terms: greatest pleasure for least pain. Pleasure and pain are both motives, and although phys- iologically they are both positive, sociologically pleasure may be called positive and pain negative. If the positive terms exceed the negative ones the resultant action will be positive, i.e., it will be in the nature of pursuit. If the negative terms exceed the positive ones the resultant action will be negative, i.e., it will be in the nature of retreat. The law is therefore merely the mechanical expression of least action, and is perhaps scarcely more than a case of Maupertius's mechanical theorem of least action, of Lagrange's principle of minimal effort or maximal energy. Dr. 0. Thon has well said : Particular mention should be made of the point of view that differentia- tion is an effect of effort for conservation of energy. This thought, which is used in psychology as " the law of minimum effort," and in various ways in the natural sciences, should be made useful in sociology. 1 Although long regarded as a purely economic law it is found to apply to all human institutions. M. Tarde calls attention to one of its most striking applications, viz., to language. He says : The law of least effort explains many irreversibilities. In virtue of this universal tendency, although unequal and variable, the phonetic softening studied by linguists takes place, that substitution of mild syllables, of a pronunciation easy and rapidly propagated, for strong and harsh syllables; likewise the attenuation of quantity, which tends to render the long short, never the short long, as is especially shown by a comparison of the older with the later Latin poets. Under the influence of this same tendency, sym- bols, changing so as to propagate themselves farther and more rapidly, are i American Journal of Sociology, Vol. II, March, 1897, pp. 735-736. M 162 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART n simplified, abridged, and polished down, like forms of procedure, business operations, and artistic themes. 1 It is the same principle that explains that survival of the fittest that goes on among languages whenever several are struggling together for the mastery. ISTo one has so forcibly brought out this point as M. Alphonse de Candolle. "In the conflict of two languages," he says, " other things equal, it is the shortest and simplest that wins. French beats Italian and German, English beats the other languages." As a consequence of this law he concludes that English " will be spoken in half a century by many more civilized men than German and French combined," and that "the Anglo-American tongue is destined by the force of circum- stances to become predominant." 2 The law of parsimony does not always work in the interest of progress. As we saw in Chapter IV, it often causes degeneracy. One of its less serious consequences is its tendency to deter from earnest and fruitful labors. Mr. Spencer says : Nearly all are prone to mental occupations of easy kinds, or kinds which yield pleasurable excitements with small efforts ; and history, biography, fiction, poetry, are, in this respect, more attractive to the majority than science more attractive than that knowledge of the order of things at large which serves for guidance. 8 But there is a serious flaw in the statement of this law. The simple form, as the law of greatest gain, is perfectly correct. So is the form " greatest satisfaction with least sacrifice," 4 for effort is not always equivalent to sacrifice. The "least effort" part of the formula grew out of the almost universal assumption of econo- mists that labor is always undesirable, unpleasant, irksome, and odious. Mr. Veblen, in his " Theory of the Leisure Class," has ad- mirably shown how, why, and to what extent this is so. Ratzen- hof er characterizes it as the " Gesetz der Arbeitsscheu," 5 and sees it in practically the same light as Veblen. Now this Arbeitsscheu or ponophobia, as it may be called, being purely artificial and due 1 " Logique Sociale," 1895, p. 182. 2 " Histoire des Sciences et des Savants," 2" ed., Geneve-Bale, 1885, pp. 368, 454, 543. " Principles of Ethics," Vol. I, New York, 1892, p. 519 ( 222). 4 Professor Sidney Sherwood in the Annals of the Am. Acad. of Pol. and Soc. Science, Vol. X, September, 1897, p. 206. 5 " Die Sociologische Erkenntnis," Leipzig, 1898, p. 142. en. ix] MECHANICS 163 either to a stigma of caste or an unnatural excess of compulsory effort, gives the law a different meaning in sociology from that which it has in the rest of the sciences. Effort expended in labor, though it be not arduous, irksome, excessive, or in itself unpleasant, becomes a sacrifice of pride. The true basis of the law of parsimony is utility, and it then becomes little more than another form of expression for the law of marginal utility, which is also a sociological law. But utility itself is ultimately reducible to satisfaction, happiness, pleasure, and we are once more down on psychological bed rock. Condorcet, who was not afraid of words, and who had wonderful penetration into such subjects, uttered about the whole truth in the following passage : Man always disposes himself for the action that promises him the greatest happiness. Whether he yields to the attraction of a present pleasure, or whether he resists it in view of a more remote advantage ; whether he allows himself to be drawn on by pleasure, by avarice, by ambition, or whether he sacrifices these to the love of glory, to a feeling for humanity, to tenderness for some individual, to the fear of remorse, to the desire to taste that internal contentment that follows fidelity to the rules of justice and the practice of virtue ; whether he is inclined toward the good by a calculation of interest founded on coarse enjoyments or the noblest and purest pleasures, by the idea of reward and punishment in another life or even by an enthusiasm which unites him to the will of a Supreme Being, he always performs the action from which he expects either a greater pleasure or a lesser pain. 1 This form of statement of the law of parsimony really requires no qualification, but on account of the prevalent habit of identifying all pleasure with the class that men are pleased to call low or coarse, but which, as I have shown, are not only the most essential to the scheme of nature and the good of mankind, but also the most altruistic, it may require fuller explanation, and this will be given in Chapter XV, where the whole subject will be fully treated. MECHANICS Mechanics is that branch of mathematics which treats of the effects of forces as exhibited in the production of motion or rest. In text-books the production of rest is treated before the production of motion, the state of rest being due to an equilibrium of forces. 1 "Tableau Historique des Progrfcs de 1'Esprit Humain," Paris, 1900, pp. 357-358. PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART n This department is called statics, and the department which treats of forces not in equilibrium, and therefore producing motion, is called dynamics. The principles of mechanics are in their funda- mental aspects very simple and the science is one of the most fascinating in the whole range of mathematics. The principle of the composition of forces, susceptible, as it is, to geometrical nota- tion, especially in the parallelogram of forces and its various modifi- cations and derivatives, is one of the most attractive and fertile that have been discovered in any science. It is needless to say that mechanics, applicable, as it is, to the entire domain of physics, has also proved one of the most useful of all sciences. Into all this it would be both profitless and inappropriate to enter here, but it is obvious that the general principles of mechanics apply to any domain of phenomena in which the nature of the underlying forces is clearly understood. In astronomy, in all branches of physics, in geology, to considerable extent in chemistry, and in some restricted departments of biology, these principles have been successfully applied. Their use by political economists has been quite legitimate, and important results have been reached. The only difficulty here has been the ignoring of factors that should have been included, but which were, for the most part, too complex and recondite to be sufficiently understood. In consequence of these same factors, which will be dealt with more fully in Part III, the application of mechanics to sociology is still more difficult, but in some respects the broader aspect of that science gives it a cer- tain advantage over economics proper from this point of view. As I have already said, the use of mathematics in sociology is as yet possible only in a very limited degree. The most that can be done is to insist from the outset and throughout that sociology is a domain of forces and susceptible of such treatment as fast as, and to the extent that, the action of those forces is thoroughly under- stood. As pointed out in Chapter IV, it is necessary as yet to confine the attempt to treat sociology as an exact science to its most general aspects, but so long as this limitation is rigidly respected it is possi- ble so to treat it, and the result becomes of the highest value. The laws that have been set forth in this chapter, viz., those of social physics and of psychics, and the law of parsimony or maximum utility, are social generalizations that can be depended upon. Upon en. ix] MECHANICS 165 them can be established a true science of social mechanics, which, with the proper caution against the neglect of hidden and deranging factors, will include and elucidate the greater part of the vast field of social phenomena. Social Energy. The only two absolutely irreducible categories of philosophy are mass and motion. Space and time are the essential " forms " that these must be conditioned by. Mechanics deals with these four terms. Velocity is the amount of space (distance) that a body (mass) moves through in a given time. It is represented by fs \ the space divided by the time f - = v j- The quantity of motion (mo- V J / \ mentum) is the mass into the velocity ( = my V If a moving mass \ t J collides it exerts its force on the mass impinged, thus checking the momentum by transferring a part of the motion to the second body. The force thus exerted is expressed by dividing the momentum by the time [ = ) But the kinetic energy, or vis viva, which is \* * J what is now understood by physicists by the technical term energy, is the product of the mass into the square of the velocity, though if a given force be converted into energy this product must be divided by two. Finally the production or consumption of energy represents the mechanical power, which is to energy what force is to momen- tum, requiring the energy to be divided by the time. -n, ms mv \ Force = f- Energy = f^- = w Power =(f = ^| Sociologists who speak of social forces have been charged with failing to recognize the great advance that was made in physics by the general substitution of energy for force after the discovery of Joule that it is energy that is conserved. Yet Helmholtz's great memoir which laid the foundation for the law of the conservation of energy is entitled " The Conservation of Force " (Die Erhaltung der Kraft}. The charge against the sociologists is not sustained. Soci- ology was founded by a mathematician who was thoroughly familiar with the nature of energy. The following passage was first pub- 166 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART n lished in 1830 : " The first and most remarkable of them [mechanical theorems], the one that presents the most important advantages in its application, consists in the celebrated theorem of the conservation of live forces (forces vives)." And he proceeds to give the history of the discovery of this property by Huyghens, its further application by Jean Bernouilli, who, he says, exaggerated the " famous distinc- tion introduced by Leibnitz between dead and live forces." * I have probably made more of the social forces than any other writer on sociology, and I may not have as fully recognized the distinction between force and energy in my early works as I should have done, but I have constantly used the expression, and in a paper entitled " The Social Forces," 2 published in 1896, 1 fully set forth the distinc- tion. Winiarsky is also insisting upon it as altogether applicable to sociology as a mathematical science. In view of all this, and merely as a sample of much that is being said, let us listen to a modern physicist, who, as in most cases, assumes to be competent to discuss sociological questions : It is not only in those departments of science where the uniformity of natural law would seem to be a legitimate deduction that the scientific method has found favor with investigators, for at the present time many of the writers on ethics and sociology and theology are attempting to apply the methods and the laws of physical science in their fields of investigation. It is noticeable, however, that it is not the new physics of energy, but the old physics of forces, which is being thus applied. The physics which has been rendered obsolete by the investigation of the century has been taken up by the sociologist, and we have this mighty organism, man, still strug- gling with as many forces as were formerly supposed to battle for the con- trol of the physical bodies of his individual members. ... If there is any spiritual universe, the phenomena of ethics are spiritual phenomena. The assumption of natural law, that is, physical law, in the spiritual universe means that there is no spiritual universe. A universe governed by the laws of physics is a universe in which there is no right or wrong, justice or injus- tice, reward or punishment : nothing but inevitable consequences. . . . This much, at least, is certain : if there is not a uniformity of nature ,in social phenomena so that effects follow causes with the same certainty as they do in the physical universe, then is there no science of sociology, and no such thing as a moral or social law. In so far as man is a free, moral agent, capable of determining his own conduct, all attempts at predicting what he will do under given circumstances must fail. Only in so far as man is gov- erned, not merely influenced, by laws as unalterable and unvarying as are 1 Auguste Comte, " Philosophic Positive," Vol. I, pp. 519, 520. 2 American Journal of Sociology, Vol. II, July, 1896, pp. 82-83. CH. ix] MECHANICS 167 the laws of the physical universe, can his actions furnish the materials of scientific study. If, on the other hand, there are such laws, then all attempts of man at influencing the social order will be as successful as would attempts at revising the law of gravitation. 1 The last sentence in the above quotation, which, from the point of view of logicality, fairly represents the whole, might be paraphrased as follows : " If there are unalterable and unvarying physical laws, then all attempts of man to utilize physical phenomena will be as successful as would attempts at revising the law of gravitation." For the only object in " influencing " social phenomena must be to utilize them. The idea that sociologists think they are engaged in " revising " social laws is decidedly refreshing. So far as I can see they are simply trying to understand them, just as the physicists tried to understand physical laws, and many of them doubtless have at least a mental reservation that, besides this knowledge for its own sake, some one may some day in some way be benefited by it. Surely this is what the physicists all thought, and the result has abundantly sustained this surmise. The truth is exactly the oppo- site from his statement, viz., that if there are no " unalterable and unvarying " social laws, then all attempts at " influencing," i.e., im- proving, the social order would be hopeless. I am always very chary about using such expressions as " spiritual phenomena," because the word spiritual has almost become a syno- nym of supernatural. Yet the word is a perfectly proper one and ought to be redeemed and freely used, more nearly as a synonym of psychic in its widest sense, and I shall not hesitate so to use it. The last three chapters have been devoted to showing that spiritual phenomena are as much natural phenomena as physical phenomena, that spiritual forces are true natural forces, and that there is a spiritual energy, i.e., a psychic and social energy, that is as capable of doing work as any other form of kinetic energy. In fact it is the highest and most effective form of energy or vis viva. There is therefore a true science of social mechanics, and as social energy is only a special mode of manifestation of the universal energy, social mechanics is only a kind of mechanics which deals with this form of energy. The fundamental classification of mechanics, 1 The Scientific Method and its Limitations. Address at the eighth Annual Com- mencement, Leland Stanford Junior University, May 24, 1899, by Fernando Sanford, Professor of Physics, Stanford University, 1899, pp. 19-21. 168 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART n as we saw, is into statics and dynamics, and social statics and social dynamics are as legitimate branches of mechanics as are hydrostatics and hydrodynamics, the principles of which are commonly included in text-books of mechanics. In fact, Winiarsky has made a direct application of thermodynamics to social mechanics as essential to its full treatment. I shall deal with social statics and social dynamics in that order, which is the same as that in which mechanics is always treated, the advantage of which is even greater here than in other departments, as will be clearly apparent as we proceed. CHAPTER X SOCIAL STATICS THE dynamic agent is a powerful agent. Chere is no lack of power for propelling the social machinery. Social energy surges through society in all directions, but, like a liood or a storm, it is ruthless The innate interests of men work at cross purposes, often to no purpose. They conflict, collide, and dash against one another, but in such an unorganized, haphazard, and chaotic way that they do not produce equilibrium but mutual ruin. The dynamic agent, like any other cosmic force, is centrifugal, catabolic, destructive. If there was no way of curbing or harnessing the social energy there would be nothing but destruction no construction. In Chapter VII we considered two modes of natural restraint to feeling, one of which was on the human plane and related to the dynamic agent of society. We must now go much deeper into the gener^. problem of restraining social energy. As, however, the actual process that has gone on in society has done so under the operation of a truly cosmic or universal principle, it cannot be adequately understood without first understanding its simpler manifestations in nature at large. PRINCIPLE VERSUS LAW I use the word principle here instead of law intentionally, because there is an essential difference. Both words are, it is true, often used very loosely and vaguely, so as to render them interchangeable, but the distinction should be insisted upon in any scientific discus- sion. There is little or no difference between law and theory, as the latter term is used by mathematicians and physicists. A law is the general expression of the natural sequence of uniform phenomena. It states the fact that certain phenomena uniformly take place in a certain way. It takes no account of cause, but only of the order of events. A principle, on the contrary, deals wholly with the cause, or, perhaps more correctly, with the manner. It is the modus oper- andi. It has to do with the means or instrument by which the 169 170 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART n effects are produced. It is essentially an ablative conception. As principles deal with causes they must deal with forces. Gravitation, for example, is a force, but it operates in a regular way which we call the law of gravitation. Its various applications are principles or utilize principles. Thus the weight of water is a force, but the different kinds of water-wheels act on so many different principles overshot, undershot, flutter, turbine, etc. The turbine wheel, for example, acts on the principle of reaction, according to Newton's third law of motion that action and reaction are equal and opposite. Other applications of the law of gravitation are those of weights, the balance, the pendulum, etc., all of which involve different princi- ples. Water and steam expand by heat according to a certain law. This expansion of steam is a force which has been utilized by means of a number of mechanical principles the piston, the cut-off, the governor, etc. Again, evolution is a law, or takes place according to a law, the phenomena succeeding each other in a definite order of sequence. We observe the successive phenomena and from them, deduce or formulate the law. But natural selection is a principle. It teaches how the effects thus observed are produced. Malthus's great book, the " Principle of Population," was correctly named, and the princi- ple is there fully explained. So the expression which I prefer to others of the same import, viz., the " principle of advantage," con- forms to this definition and applies wherever there can be an advan- tage, i.e., to all sentient things. Creative synthesis is a principle of far-reaching application in both the inorganic and the organic worlds, and each of the synthetic creations of nature passed in review in Chapter V was brought about under the operation of this principle. All the products of natural genesis involve appro- priate principles. A law cannot explain anything, but must itself be explained. Principles alone explain. The law of gravitation is as yet unex- plained. No principle has been found that explains it to the satis- faction of physicists. The world is therefore never satisfied with laws. It demands principles. The positivists may affect to dis- pense with causes and be content with mere observed succession, but the mind will never be at rest until the principle according to which that succession goes on is discovered and the phenomena are thereby really explained. CH. x] SYNERGY 171 SYNERGY That there is a universal principle, operating in every department of nature and at every stage in evolution, which is conservative, creative, and constructive, has been evident to me for many years, but it required long meditation and extensive observation to dis- cover its true nature. After having fairly grasped it I was still troubled to reduce it to its simplest form, and characterize it by an appropriate name. I have at last fixed upon the word synergy as the term best adapted to express its twofold character of energy and mutuality, or the systematic and organic working together of the anti- thetical forces of nature. The third and equally essential and invariable quality of creation or construction is still lacking in the name chosen, unless we assume, as I think we may do, that work implies some product, to distinguish it from simple activity. Syn- ergy is a synthesis of work, or synthetic work, and this is what is everywhere taking place. It may be said to begin with the primary atomic collision in which mass, motion, time, and space are involved, and to find its simplest expression in the formula for force ( ^r )> which implies a plurality of elements, and signifies an x * / interaction of these elements. Caspari says : The notion of force presupposes a relation with another force, the latter a foreign one, which is called resistance. A force without resistance would be a force without force, i.e., an inconceivable absurdity. He who speaks of force is therefore obliged to understand by it at the same time the mechanical resistance of this force, or else he contradicts himself. This is why all investigators in philosophy who have become so through the study of the natural sciences and who have studied mechanics, have recognized that it is always necessary to suppose a primary plurality of separate vehicles of force : centers of force, atoms of force of Democritus, or monads of Leib- nitz, or realities of Herbart, or dynamids of Redtenbacher, etc. 1 It further seems probable that vortex motion is based on this principle, or is the same principle, and it is through this that some expect the problem of the nature of gravitation to find its solution. The impact theory is taking the place of the old pseudo-conception of attraction. There can be no such thing as attraction except in the sense in which the little microscopic creature, happily named 1 "Die Philosophic im Bunde mit der Naturforschung." Von Otto Caspari, Cos- mos, Vol. I, April, 1877, pp. 4-16 (see p. 9). 172 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART n Yorticella, is said to " attract " the nutrient particles floating in the medium in which it lives into its mouth opening. Any one who will carefully watch this process with a good objective and with the medium properly illuminated will readily see wherein this so-called attraction consists. A circle of cilia surrounds the creature's mouth opening, and these it keeps constantly in motion in such a way as first, to waft all the particles that surround it for some dis- tance outward and forward, and next to produce a true vortex motion which results in the production of a constant stream directly in front toward and into the cavity of its body within the circle of cilia. The separate illuminated particles may be watched as they are first propelled from near the creature's body, then carried for- ward and made to describe a curve, and finally forced into the in-flowing current, and poured into the animal's body. Certain experiments that have been recently made look in the direction of explaining gravitation on a principle similar to this. Cosmic Dualism. It always happens that a great truth receives a name too narrow to comprehend its full scope, and that certain minds in glorifying that truth attach themselves to the name and give currency to something not only less than the truth but also in some degree false. It has been notably thus with the name monism which has come into use as the short and economical designation of the great truth that there is a unitary principle running through all nature. Monism has become a sort of philosophic shibboleth, and the term to which it is commonly opposed is dualism. It has come about in this way that dualism is used as an epithet which is freely hurled at all who make bold to question even the narrowest and most metaphysical or mystical doctrines into which monism has latterly degenerated. All this has as its natural result to cause other -equally important truths, in supposed conflict with monism, to be ignored or fought shy of, whereby a full knowledge of nature's method is prevented and only partial truth or even partial error is propagated and accepted. Second only in importance, if not of equal importance, to the truth of cosmic unity is the fact of universal polarity. The universe is polarized throughout. Every force meets with resistance, otherwise there could be no energy. Universal conflict reigns. But for this conflict evolution would be impossible. The forces of nature are being perpetually restrained. If centrifugal forces were not con- CH. x] COSMIC DUALISM 173 strained by centripetal forces the very orbs of space would fly from their orbits and follow tangents, i.e., straight lines. If there had never been such restraint they would never have been formed. All definite forms of whatever class are due to antagonistic influences restraining, circumscribing, and transforming motion. The conser- vation of energy results from this law, and all the multiform modes of motion, perpetually being converted one into another, are the products of a ceaseless struggle. Not only do the centrifugal and centripetal forces engage in this struggle, but we also see contending on a gigantic scale the gravitant and radiant forces. We see attrac- tion and repulsion, concentration and dissipation, condensation and dissolution. Though these are all equally modes of manifestation of the universal force, they are nevertheless, by the force of circum- stances, pitted against one another in ubiquitous conflict. We have now to consider some of the effects of this cosmic dual- ism. Collision produces deflection, constraint, and transfer of motion, resulting in increased intensive activity at the expense of extensive activity, a shortening of paths and circuits with a mul- tiplication of the number of transits or revolutions ; motion of trans- lation is converted into vibration, and molar activity into molecular activity. Everywhere we have heightened intensity, increased energy, and more work. It is a process of securing constantly greater and greater cosmic efficiency. Next as to the form that this concentrated effort of nature as- sumes. We observe that in the realm of space nebulae appear. Then these nebulae condense and assume various definite forms, tending toward and ultimately attaining a close approximation to sphericity. Condensation continues and the central mass becomes a star, i.e., a sun. If, as is usual, smaller masses fail to cohere with the principal mass, these are further condensed and rolled up into balls (planets) that revolve around the contracting and receding central mass. Often still lesser tertiary masses break away from the secondary ones and similarly roll up and revolve about the latter as satellites. The whole now forms a system and clings together under the influence of the same antagonistic forces that presided over its inception and its entire history. There is no department of nature from which the truth comes forth more clearly that the normal and necessary effect of the cosmic struggle is organization. But these great orbs of space consist wholly of the same infinitely 174 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART 11 minute particles that first existed in a diffused and discrete condi- tion before even the nebulae were formed. In this molecular world the same law obtains as in the molar universe. Chemistry teaches that there are molecular systems also, and to all appearances these are as symmetrical as world systems and are held together and kept in motion by the interaction of antithetical forces differing scarcely except in degree from planetary forces. Chemical atoms themselves are doubtless such systems, and the more and more complex mole- cules of inorganic and organic chemistry simply represent so many degrees of chemical organization as the effect of the same law, while aggregations of these atoms and molecules constitute the manifold substances, minerals, rocks, fluids, and gases, that make up the planet. All these substances are theaters of intense internal activity. This molecular activity has resulted from the condensation of formerly free particles flying through space. Forced into relatively contracted portions of space they retained their original quantity of motion. Their mode of motion was changed, their paths, or orbits, or circuits were reduced, and they were compelled to expend the whole <5 their original, inherent, and unalterable sum of activity within exceedingly minute areas. The whole of this reduction in the space had to be made up by increase in intensity. The quantity of motion was converted into force, the force into energy, and the energy into power. This compromise among the contending forces of nature was effected through organization and the formation of chemical systems, which are so many reservoirs of power, this power being represented by what we call the properties of matter. These systems store up energy and expend it in work, but the work is always a collaboration or cooperation of all the competing forces involved. It is synergy. Passing to the organic world we find new forces that have entered the lists and are participating in the contest. The vital and psychic forces whose genesis we have been studying are now at work, and we have a corresponding change in the character of the products. The kind of systems that result from the struggle on this plane are organic beings, or organisms. These, too, are symmetrical bodies, and the character of the process as one of organization becomes still more apparent. But the bodies of organisms consist of structures, and here we see more clearly than in the previous cases that the final result of synergy is construction. Solar systems, stars, planets, and CH. x] COSMIC DUALISM 175 satellites are also structures, and so, too, are chemical units of what- ever order. The constructive process inheres in all forms of synergy, and the cooperation of antithetical forces in nature always results in making, that is, in creating something that did not exist before. But in the organic world this character of structure becomes the leading feature, and we have synthetic products consisting of tissues and organs serving definite purposes, which we call functions. Finally, in the social world, as we shall soon see, we have the same principle at work accomplishing results not generically dis- tinct from those accomplished on the three planes of activity thus far considered. We shall find that it is also a theater of intense activity, and that competing and antagonistic agencies are fiercely contending for the mastery. The complete domination of any one set of these forces would prevent the formation of society. If such a hegemony were to supervene at any given stage it would sweep society out of existence. Here as everywhere any single force, acting without opposition or deflection, would be destructive of all the order attained. Only through the joint action of many forces, each striving for the mastery but checked and constrained by the rest and forced to yield its share in conforming to the general principle, can any structure result. And we shall see that this is what is taking place in society, that society was itself thus created, and that social structures were thus formed which are as real, as definite, and as symmetrical as are biotic, chemic, or cosmic structures. In the above sketches I have only sought to set forth 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. While it is the same synthetic creation that was described in Chapter V, we are enabled now to look deeper into it and perceive the principle through which it works. Primarily and essentially it 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 opposition, but as no motion can be lost it is transformed, and we have the milder phases of antithesis, competi- tion, and interaction, passing next into a modus vivendi, or com- promise, and ending in collaboration and cooperation. It is the cosmological expression of the Hegelian trilogy and constitutes the synthesis of all the antinomies at work. Synergy is the principle 176 PUKE SOCIOLOGY [PART n that explains all organization and creates all structures. These products of cosmic synergy are found in all fields of phenomena. Celestial structures are worlds and world systems, chemical struc- tures are atoms, molecules, and substances, biotic structures are protoplasm, cells, tissues, organs, and organisms. There are also psychic structures feelings, emotions, passions, volitions, percep- tions, cognitions, memory, imagination, reason, thought, and all the acts of consciousness. And then there are social structures, the nature of which it is the principal object of this chapter to explain. These are the products of the social forces acting under the prin- ciple of social synergy. Artificial Structures. What has been said thus far is scarcely more than a statement of facts. It fails to convey an idea of the exact nature of the principle of synergy. In seeking to do this we may perhaps be aided by an anthropomorphic conception. Just as the primitive man can only understand natural phenomena by analogy with the acts of men, so we may obtain light on this natural principle by examining the analogous artificial principle. A mechanism is something constructed. It may therefore be called a structure. As it is artificial, it is an artificial structure, and we may compare artificial structures with natural structures. The inventor or constructor of any mechanism, no matter how simple, virtually recognizes the law of the conservation of energy. He assumes that the quantity of motion is unchangeable. That is, he acts on the theory that natural forces will continue to act no matter what disposition he may make of his materials. He has no idea of the possibility of increasing or diminishing the sum total of force. But he also recognizes the further truth that the particular manner in which forces act is indefinitely variable, i.e., that the direction, velocity, etc., are matters of indifference, and will depend upon the amount and kind of resistance with which bodies meet. In other words, while he realizes that the quantity of motion is con- stant, he perceives that the mode 'of motion is variable. This enables him artificially to modify natural phenomena, to direct and control them. The one universal and generic method of arti- ficially modifying the spontaneous course of natural phenomena is that of offering some kind of resistance. When a man dams a stream he does not expect to stop the stream from flowing on. He knows that the water will continue to rise behind his dam till CH. x] ARTIFICIAL STRUCTURES 177 it overflows it, and will then continue on in its course as before. But if he wants nothing but a pool of water his dam secures that, and the original state of things is altered to that extent. Usually he wants something more. He wants the water to fall perpendicu- larly as far as it falls by the original inclination of its bed in flowing considerable distance. He therefore constructs above his dam another channel for the water with a very slight incline, and directs the water into it. The desired "head" is thus easily obtained and he causes the same force to act in a different way, far more effective for his purpose. He has controlled a natural force to his own advantage. All mechanisms can be reduced to terms as simple as these. The whole principle is that of inter- posing barriers to the natural coiirse of phenomena and giving them an artificial course. But what is implied in a barrier, in this resistance? Simply the production of a temporary or a partial equilibrium. A solid material substance placed in the path of a moving body arrests it and there is temporary equilibrium. Open the sluiceway and motion is resumed, but it is less rapid than before because held by a material channel (ditch, trough, tube, etc.) the bed of which is nearly level. If we follow the water to the penstock and see it pour into this until it is full, we only see further barriers to its normal progress. When at last the gate at the bottom of the penstock is opened and the weight of the column forces the water violently against the paddles of a properly con- structed wheel, we only see a higher application of the same prin- ciple. The most important of these applications is that of storage. As already remarked, the inventor does not expect to destroy the force. He wants to utilize it, and in no way can he so effectually utilize it as by storing it until he wants it and using it at will. The flume stores the energy of the water. Any other use by man of natural forces would have served the purpose as well as the one selected. The steam engine, with its boiler, pipes, cylinders, etc., is a complicated mechanism for confin- ing steam and using it at will. The resistance of the boiler equili- brates the steam till the cocks are opened. The piston produces a partial resistance and brings out the energy of the steam which forces it to move and drive the machinery. Everywhere there are checks and balances. It is an artificially contrived struggle between the force of the steam and the resistance of the apparatus, through 178 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART n which the former is compelled to do work. It is a sort of synergy. Electrical motors would illustrate the subject equally well. But here we have in the storage battery the most complete example of the application of a somewhat permanent equilibrium, capable of being disturbed at will for the utilization of the force. Another impor- tant application is that of gearing up machinery. Large wheels are connected by belts or cogs with small ones to secure more rapid rotation. In this way greater intensity is secured. The analogues of all these principles are to be found in the operations of nature unaided by intelligence. Organic Structures. While all the synthetic creations of nature and all the products and differential attributes treated in Chapter V are illustrations of the natural storage of energy, and have been evolved under the law of creative synthesis and through the princi- ple of cosmic synergy, organic structures, worked out through the combined action of chemism, zoism, and psychism, furnish more of the elements that the sociologist must use, and are essential to his work. It is here that we see more clearly than on any lower plane the true nature of organization. For here we have true organs, and all the structures more or less fully integrated. In the organic world the primary contending forces are those of heredity and variation. These correspond to the centripetal and centrifugal forces in astronomy. Heredity may be regarded as that tendency in life to continue in existence whatever has been brought into existence. All forces are essentially alike and the life force or growth force is like any physical force. That is, it obeys the first law of motion and causes motion in a straight line unless deflected by another force. This, if allowed to go on uninfluenced, would simply result in perpetually increasing the quantity of life without affecting its quality. But in the domain of vital force, as in that of physical force, in consequence of the multiplicity of objects in nature, there is necessarily constant collision, constant opposition, constant contact with other forces from all conceivable directions. These constitute the resistance of the environment. Heredity pushes through all this as best it can, striving to pursue the straight path on which it started, but as it is only one of the many forces involved in the contest, it obeys all the other laws of motion and is checked, deflected, shunted, buffeted this way and that, and compelled to pursue a very irregular path. We saw that under the principle of CH. x] ORGANIC STRUCTURES 179 cosmic synergy the primary cosmic force which impels the matter of universal space, similarly colliding and contending, ultimately assumed an organized form and elaborated the matter of space into symmetrical bodies coordinated into systems. In like manner the vital force subjected to all these counter-forces, stresses, and strains, began at the outset to elaborate symmetrical forms and to organize biological systems. The organic world protists, plants, animals was the result. This biological dualism struck the early students of organic nature and has been repeatedly described and abundantly illustrated in all the great philosophical works. The synthetic mind of Goethe clearly grasped it, and he discussed it at length in his " Metamor- phosis of Plants " (1790), and earlier in his " Morphology " (1786), but especially in his somewhat later miscellaneous writings. He recognized the analogy of these biologic forces to the centrifugal and centripetal forces in astronomy. In one of his short papers on Natural Science in General which bears date March 17, 1823, he says : The idea of metamorphosis is a most noble, but at the same time very dangerous gift from on high. It leads back to the formless state, destroys and dissipates knowledge. It is like the vis centrifuga and would lose itself in the infinite were there not something to counteract it : I mean the spe- cific force, the stubborn power of permanence of whatever has attained reality, a vis centripeta, which in its fundamental nature no outside power can affect. 1 Goethe's metamorphosis is of course what is now called the trans- mutation of species, and his specific impulse is heredity, which tends to maintain the fixity of species, and was long supposed to do so absolutely. The vis centrifuga corresponds to the impinging forces of the environment causing constant deviation from the spe- cific type, i.e., variation. The organism must conform to the mold 1 " Die Idee der Metamorphose ist eine hochst ehrwurdige, aber zugleich hochst gefahrliche Gabe von oben. Sie fiihrt ins formlose, zerstort das Wissen, lost es auf. Sie ist gleich der vis centrifuga und wiirde sich ins Unendliche verlieren, ware ihr nicht ein Gegengewicht zugegeben : ich meine den Specificationstrieb, das zahe Beharrlichkeitsvermogen dessen, was einraal zur Wirklichkeit gekommen, eine vis centripeta, welcher in ihrem tiefsten Grunde keine Aeusserlichkeit etwas anhaben kann." Goethes sammtliche Werke in dreissig Banden. Vollstandig neugeordnete Ausgabe, Stuttgart und Tubingen, Vol. XXIX, pp. 350-351. (This passage occurs under the subtitle " Probleme" of the heading "Problem und Erwiederung," dated " Weimar den 17 Marz 1823," in the collection of essays entitled " Zur Naturwissen- schaft im Allgeinehien," which is put at the end of this volume in the edition cited). 180 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART n established for it by its environment, which requires modification in the specific type. The process of compelling the organism to undergo these transformations and secure this conformity is what in modern biological language is called adaptation. .But as the environment is infinitely varied and the number of possible condi- tions to which organisms may be adapted is infinite, the effect is to differentiate the one original hypothetical form which heredity would perpetuate unchanged into an unlimited number of different forms. The resistance of the environment, therefore, so far from offering an obstacle to life, is of the highest advantage, and has made the existing multiplicity of organic forms possible. All of which brings clearly to view the extraordinary creative and con- structive character of organic synergy. But this is not all of biological statics. Lamarck and Darwin showed that there is going on in the organic world a perpetual struggle for existence. We have here nothing to do with the Lamarckian principle of exercise or the Darwinian principle of natural selection, which are both dynamic principles, but Mr. Her- bert Spencer, in his profound analysis of organic phenomena in the first volume of his " Principles of Biology," has shown that there is involved on a vast scale a true process of equilibration, which belongs to biological statics and constitutes its true foundation. In Spencer's direct and indirect equilibration, which are the statical equivalents of the two dynamic principles above named, we have the mechanical philosophy of organic life. Involved in it is the geographical distribution of plants and animals and their adaptation to environment. The ordinary treatment of geographical distribu- tion is very unsatisfactory. The attempt to establish floral and faunal zones is never wholly successful on account of the constant commingling of species. But the study of the habitat of particular species and the causes that circumscribe it leads to exact results. I published such a study in botanical statics in 1876, 1 and since then I have accumulated a large number of additional facts from which a volume might be written. Structure versus Function. It is in the organic world that we can best begin the study of function. It is true that every artificial structure also has its function. The function is the end for which 1 " The Local Distribution of Plants and the Theory of Adaptation," Popular Si-i- ence Monthly, New York, Vol. IX, October, 1876, pp. 676-C84. en. x] STRUCTURE VERSUS FUNCTION 181 a mechanism is constructed. It is that which it is made to do. The function of a watch is to keep time, of a locomotive to draw trains, of a storage battery to propel machinery, etc. But for the function the structure would be worthless. It is not otherwise with organic structures. The structures are only means. Function is the end. The study of structures is called anatomy, that of func- tion, physiology. But the two are of course intimately bound up together and can only be separated in thought. In fact, all natural structures are developed along with their functions, which may be regarded in a sense as the cause of the structures. The effort of nature to accomplish its ends results in material means capable of accomplishing them, and such means are structures. The function then becomes the particular way in which the structures are utilized in the accomplishment of these ends. In mathematical language, where the word function is used in much the same sense, organic function may be regarded as the dependent variable, and organic structure as the independent variable. In biology and all the higher sciences the dependent variable is what the independent variable is for. In mathematics neither can be said to have any purpose. Such being the relations of structure and function, and all con- siderations of structure being statical, it is evident that all consid- erations of function must also be statical. The functions of nutrition and reproduction go on during the entire life of an organism without producing any organic change of structure. All the physiological processes digestion, assimilation, circulation, secretion, excretion, respiration, sensation, mentation take place throughout the life of an organism of whatever grade without causing any modification in the tissues and organs by which they are performed. This may go on through hundreds and thousands of generations and through vast geological periods. In fact unless something besides the simple and normal performance of function takes place there will never be any organic change. Function simply as such, has no effect whatever in modifying structure. Plain and self-evident as all this seems, it is astonishing that so many sociologists basing the science of sociology upon biology should have conceived the idea that, while anatomy is a statical science, physiology is dynamic. 1 This confusion of thought 1 1 made a partial enumeration of the sociologists taking this view, in my paper on " La Mecanique Sociale," read at the Congres de 1'Institut International de Soci- ologie in Paris in 1900. See the Annales de 1'Institut, Vol. VII, p. 182. 182 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART n must be ascribed in part to the failure to analyze the phenomena of structure and function, but still more to the utter chaos that reigns among sociologists as to what constitutes statics and dynamics in the concrete sciences. Not only are nutrition, reproduction, and all the so-called vegeta- tive functions, statical, where they simply preserve the life of the individual and of the species, but they do not cease to be statical when by excess of function they increase the quantity of life through growth and multiplication of the same unaltered types of structure. Size and number do not alter the conditions in this respect. There are some animals whose size seems to depend mainly on age and environment. This is notably the case with certain fishes. When a boy I used to fish around an old mill pond. Among other fishes it contained many pickerels which I learned to catch, although they would not take the hook. They were from six inches to a foot in length, but sometimes, when I would venture some distance into the pond among the drift wood and aquatic vegetation, a huge crea- ture that I had taken for a log would surge out and dart away into the deep water. I finally discovered that these were immense pick- erels which, unable to escape from the pond, and well supplied with food (smaller fish), had grown old and attained such a great size. Later, when the pond was drained, a hundred or more of these fishes, many four feet in length and nearly a foot in diameter, were secured. There were also all intermediate sizes, clearly showing that they belonged to the same species that I had been in the habit of spear- ing. This was simply a case of overgrowth under favorable condi- tions, and involved no dynamic principle. It is the same when from abundance of food and absence of enemies a species multiplies and attains enormous numbers, as in the swarms of locusts, the clouds of pigeons, or the droves of lemmings that occasionally appear. All this is still within the limits of biological statics. We may even go further and maintain that simple perfectionment of structure is statical so long as it does not involve the least change in the nature of the structure. Here the distinction becomes fine, but it can be successfully maintained by noting in any given case whether the principle on which the structure works is or is not altered. To illustrate in the case of artificial structures or mech- anisms, as, for example, inventions. If a man were to invent a ma- chine and make a rough model, too imperfect to work, he might CH. x] SOCIAL STRUCTURES 183 obtain a patent. In such a case if another man were to present a model of the same machine but much more exactly made, so that the model itself would work, he could not obtain a patent for an im- provement simply on the ground that his model was better made. There must be some change in the principle, however slight, to entitle him to a patent for an improvement. It is precisely this distinction that separates the dynamic from the statical, whether in artificial or natural structures. Social Structures. Passing over psychic structures which have already been enumerated and the subjective ones fully treated, we come to social structures, for the better understanding of which only, other structures have been considered. But having fully grasped the general principle on which all structures whatever are formed, it is easy to pass from organic to social structures. The principle is the same and the only difference is in the forces. Social structures are the products of social synergy, i.e., of the interaction of different social forces, all of which, in and of themselves, are destructive, but whose combined effect, mutually checking, constraining, and equili- brating one another, is to produce structures. The entire drift is toward economy, conservatism, and the prevention of waste. Still, it must not be supposed that social statics deals with stagnant socie- ties. A static condition is to be sharply distinguished from a stationary condition. Failure to make this distinction is due to what I have called the fallacy of the stationary. Social structures are genetic mechanisms for the production of results and the results cannot be secured without them. They are reservoirs of power. A dynamo generates electricity from the electrical conditions that sur- round it. Those conditions were there before the dynamo was built, but they produced none of the effects that the dynamo produces. They may be described as so much power running to waste. The dynamo simply saves and husbands this power for man's use. It is exactly the same with every true natural structure. Before the dam was built the same quantity of water coursed through the area after- wards occupied by the mill pond. It had the same weight, i.e., power, before as after, but it did no useful work. By means of the dam, the race, the flume, the wheel, the mill, it is utilized and made to do the work required of it. The water in that pond is, as it were, charged with power. The same water occupying a basin without an outlet would soon become stagnant, and instead of doing good would 184 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART n be doing harm by exhaling miasma. The distinction between a mill pond and a stagnant pool is precisely the distinction between a static and a stationary condition in anything whatever between, for example, an organized and thrifty society and a stagnant society. Social statics deals with social organization. Social equilibration under the principle of social synergy, while it involves a perpetual and vigorous struggle among the antagonistic social forces, still works out social structures and conserves them, and these structures perform their prescribed functions. 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 existence. The weaker species go to the wall and the stronger persist. There is a constant elimination of the defective and sur- vival 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 existence and look upon the whole panorama rather as a struggle for structure. THE SOCIAL ORDER The social mechanism taken as a whole constitutes the social order. Order is the product of organization. Social synergy, like all other forms of synergy, is essentially constructive. Social statics may therefore be called constructive sociology. Without structure, organization, order, no efficient work can be performed. Organiza- tion #s it develops to higher and higher grades simply increases the working efficiency of society. To see how this takes place we have only to contrast the efficiency of an army with that of a mob, assum- ing that both are striving to accomplish the same object. Social statics is that subdivision of social mechanics, or that branch of sociology, which deals with the social order. The social order, in this respect like an organism, is made up of social structures, and is complete in proportion as those structures are integrated, while it is high in pro- portion as those structures are differentiated and multiplied and still perfectly integrated, or reduced to a completely subordinated and CH. xl HUMAN INSTITUTIONS 185 coordinated system. This branch of sociology will therefore deal chiefly with social structures and their functions, with their origin and nature, their relations of subordination and coordination, and with the final product of the entire process which is society itself. But it is not to be expected that we can constantly adhere to the biological terminology which we have thus far used, nor is it desira- ble to do so. The object in its use in a strictly genetic treatment like the present is not to lose sight for a moment of the great unity that pervades all science. But sociology should have a terminology of its own, and such, in fact, it already has. Human Institutions. The most general and appropriate name for social structures is human institutions. The adjective " human " is really not necessary, however, since it cannot be with propriety said that animal societies (and this itself is a metaphorical expression) consist of, or, indeed, possess institutions. It should be stated at the outset that structures are not necessarily material objects. None of the psychic structures are such, and social structures may or may not be material. Human institutions are all the means that have come into existence for the control and utilization of the social energy. Already in Chapter V, when searching for the true nature and essence of the social energy, we were called upon to deal with that most fundamental of all human institutions, that primordial, homogeneous, undifferentiated social plasma out of which all institu- tions subsequently developed, and which has been so far overlooked by students of society that it is even without a name. We ventured to call it the group sentiment of safety, and showed that its nearest rela- tions to any human institution that has been named are to religion. Out of it have certainly emerged one after another religion, law, morals (in its primitive and proper sense based on mos, or custom), and all ceremonial, ecclesiastical, juridical, and political institutions. But there are other human institutions almost as primitive and essential, such as language, art, and industry, that may have a differ- ent root, while the phylogeny of thousands of the later derivative institutions may still be difficult to trace. This great phylogenetic study of society will one day become a prominent department of sociology, even as organic phylogeny has so recently become a recog- nized branch of biology. A closer examination of human institutions reveals the fact that they are not all quite alike even in their general character. They 186 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART n may be divided into two or three groups or classes. We have already seen that some are material and others immaterial, but even this is not as fundamental or as essential a classification as another which is, indeed, akin to it, but still does not strictly follow the same lines. It is more difficult to define than it is to perceive in the best examples. It might be called the distinction between natural and artificial, or between spontaneous and factitious institutions, although really one class is as natural as the other, and both are partly spontaneous and partly factitious. In many cases, however, there are two cognate institutions, one of which belongs to one class and the other to the other. In such cases the natural or spontaneous one seems older or more primitive, and the artificial or factitious one is in a sense an outgrowth from the first. The one class might there- fore be called primary and the other secondary. From still another point of view the secondary institutions may be regraded as products or functions of the primary ones. A few examples will show both the real distinction between these classes and also the difficulty in finding terms capable of clearly characterizing the distinction. If, for example, we take the institution of marriage, giving the term all the breadth necessary to embrace all stages of human devel- opment the customary relations of the sexes we perceive that there grows out of it or depends upon it the institution called the family, by which we need not, any more than in the case of marriage, understand any of the developed forms, but simply the customary way of raising children and the relations among kindred generally. If we consider religion as an institution, even the simple form of it which I have called the group sentiment of safety, we shall see that out of it there grew a system of enforcing conduct conducive to race safety and of punishing conduct opposed to race safety. This is called religion, too, and indeed superficial observers do not see that there .is anything behind it and consider it all of religion among primitive peoples. But in reality it is the beginning of both cere- monial and ecclesiastical institutions as defined by Spencer. In its later aspects it becomes the church, and just as Spencer expands the term ecclesiastical to cover these early forms, so we may expand the word church still farther until it becomes correct and intelligible to say that the church is that secondary or derivative institution which religion, as a primary and original institution, made necessary and virtually created. CH.X] HUMAN INSTITUTIONS 187 Let us next take law, which, as Mr. Kobertson suggested (see supra, p. 134), is closely allied to religion, or is at least a branch coordinate with the latter of the still earlier and as yet wholly un- differentiated group sentiment of safety or social imperative. Law in its simplest expression is merely a sentiment like religion. It may be called the sense of order in society. But out of it grew or developed the whole system of jurisprudence, which is therefore a derivative institution, and law bears the same relation to the court that religion bears to the church. Morality in its earliest stages was also a branch of the homogene- ous social plasm described, and was coordinate with religion and law. At their base all these three are perfectly blended and inseparable. There was very little altruism in primitive morality. There was the parental instinct that exists in animals, and there soon came to be an attachment to kindred generally, which can scarcely be detected below the human plane. Still later, as kindred became the group, the attachment became coextensive with the group, but did not ex- tend to other groups, although these may have been merely offshoots from the same group, broken away when the group grew too large to hold together. Still later when the primitive hordes combined to form clans there was more or less attachment among all the members of the clan, and the sentiment expanded pari passu with the expand- ing group until the end of the primitive peaceful stage of social development. But it was always a blood bond, and the sole basis of adhesion was that of real or fictitious kinship. In fact this " ethical dualism," as Dr. Edward A. Ross has so happily styled it, 1 lasted much longer, and will not have entirely disappeared until all race prejudices and national animosities shall cease. But morality within these narrow bounds, the germ of all ethical conceptions, was one of the primordial human institutions. It was essentially social, and had sociability as its central idea. Comte's "morale" is therefore the true scientific and historic morality, and differs widely from the ethics of Spencer and other moralists. Now to what secondary in- stitution, corresponding to the church and the court, did this primary institution give rise ? Why, to the moral code, to be sure. The ethical code of all races, peoples, and nations, with the whole mass of rules, precepts, and customs that attend it, constitutes a derivative and factitious institution, growing primarily out of the blood bond, i " Social Control," p. 72. 188 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART n Political institutions have a later origin, but we may mention as a case in point the institution of government in the abstract as the spontaneous condition which required and ultimately produced the state. As this will soon come up for fuller treatment it need not be more than noted here among the correlative institutions. Language is among the earliest of human institutions, and was certainly spontaneous. By language I mean the power of rational intercommunication which is an exclusively human institution. The science of language in this sense is the semantics of Breal. 1 It is much broader than oral speech, and includes sign and gesture lan- guage. It is probably not true, however, that these latter preceded speech. Most animals communicate feelings at least by means of sounds, and these are not always made by the voice. Voice proper is practically confined to. vertebrates and chiefly to mammals. The grammar of animals contains only one part of speech, viz., the inter- jection. This was probably long true of the animal that finally became man, but the line between animal and man coincides very closely with that which marks the origin of the noun. Speechless man (Alalus) is therefore a contradiction of terms. Language was a product of intelligence and has nothing to do with the perfection of the vocal organs. It would be easy to show anatomically that man is by no means the most favored animal in this respect. But without a certain amount of intelligence he would be incapable of language. No animal, no matter how perfect its vocal organs, could possess language without this minimum of rational power. Con- versely, any animal endowed with it would inevitably develop lan- guage, and this irrespective of its anatomical adaptation. A Houyhnhnm could communicate high-grade ideas with the form of a horse and the mind of a man, while a Yahoo with the form of a man and the mind of a monkey could never do anything but chatter. To what extent words are suggested by things is one of the insolu- ble questions of philology, but the general outcome of the volumi- nous discussion of this question is that this influence is very slight. Most primitive words appear to be wholly arbitrary, but some names of things that consist chiefly in sound or that are usually associated 1 " Une Science nouvelle, La Semantique," par Michel Breal. Revue des Deux Mondes, Vol. CXLI, juin, 1897, pp. 807-836. Essai de Se'mantique." Paris (Hachette), 1897. " Semantics: Studies in the Science of Meaning," by Michel Bre'al, translated by Mrs. Henry Gust, London, 1900. CH. x] HUMAN INSTITUTIONS 189 with sound are undoubtedly onomatopoeic. But most of the mimetic words of the culture languages are consciously made by poets and orators who see beauty and force in their use and intentionally intro- duce them for rhetorical effect. The question remains how particular things got their names, and this is an equally insoluble question. Certain it is that for different linguistic stocks the words for the same thing bear no resemblance to each other. If this were the proper place, it would, however, be possible or even easy, to show how this might have taken place. The imperative necessity for some medium of intercommunication lies at the bottom of the whole problem, and what the words shall be that are to signify particular things is a matter of complete indifference. No word of the most developed language will bear an isolated contemplation. Single out any word, as man, dog, house, and rivet the mind upon its mere sound or its form when written, and it will soon appear absolutely absurd. 1 But things must have names, and one is as good as another if it only means some particular thing to all who have to do with it. This being the case the most trifling circumstance is sufficient to associate it with a given sound, and the instant one hears another call it by such and such a name he will imitate him and thus imme- diately give that name vogue. I can illustrate this from my own experience when a child with my intense desire to know the names of such things as flowers, insects, birds, fish, and other animals, that my companions could not give me names for. If I met any one who would offer a name I would instantly seize upon it and never let it go. I cared absolutely nothing what the name should be if it was only a name. Thus I learned names for many plants that I never forgot, some of which subsequently proved to be wrong, but they served their purpose. I even coined names from analogy, resem- blance, and association, which my brother and I freely used and by which we were able to talk about such plants. These names, which I never forgot, seemed silly and stupid enough when, as a botanist, I learned the right names of those plants. For example, some one who pretended to know, told me that the painted cup was the sweet- william and I thereafter called it so. A yellow flower that some- what resembled it except in color and for which no one had ever 1 Cf. James, " Principles of Psychology," Vol. II, pp. 80-81 ; Tarde, " Lois de 1'Imitation," 2 ed., pp. 206-207 (footnote) ; Gumplowicz, " Der Rassenkampf," pp. 108-109. 190 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART n suggested a name, we agreed to call the " sweet-john." It proved to be the yellow puccoon. Knowing the lady's-slipper, we named the next handsomest flower the gentleman' s-slipper. This was the Dodecatheon. The following case well illustrates the arbitrary character of words and of language in general : A gentleman gave me the name of the wild American cranesbill, Geranium maculatum, and I instantly seized upon it and I never forgot it. But a boy does not scrutinize plants. He only cares for showy flowers. I never observed the fruit of the cranesbill. I do not remember having any curiosity to know why it was so called. All I wanted was a name, and the question of the propriety of the name never rose in my mind. The plant as I knew it, flowers and leaves, had nothing about it to sug- gest a crane's bill, and I was well acquainted with the sandhill crane which my older brothers often brought in and which I fre- quently saw in flocks high in air. It was not until my botanical days, years afterwards, that I observed the beak-like fruit. There were many other such cases, and it ended by our having a name for every plant and animal in the region where we lived which we mutually understood. But alas ! they were for the most part mean- ingless to others. Later in life I was ashamed of these childish freaks, and not until I began to reflect on the origin of language did they acquire any philosophical significance. I can now see how the primitive savage, in the childhood of the race, must have blundered on the names of things in a manner not widely different from that of a child, filled with curiosity and wonder about the objects of nature that appeal to his senses. Just as the grammar of animals consists wholly of interjections, so the earliest human speech consisted of interjections and nouns. The other parts of speech, all of which indicate relations, came later, and the verb was one of the latest to appear. It was at first pecu- liarly the function of gestures and signs to indicate relations, so that gesture language is really a more developed form than speech itself. Relations belong to the stage of ideas, and it was first things that demanded expression. The order of development of the parts of speech was the same as that of the development of the mental facul- ties. First feelings, then things, then thoughts. There is no more interesting study than that of derivative words. Not only do the roots take on successive modifications to express all manner of rela- tions growing out of the original conceptions of the roots, but the CH. x] HUMAN INSTITUTIONS 191 original words themselves acquire more and more complex meanings. I was struck with this in reading Homer and Herodotus, after hav- ing read Xenophon and Demosthenes. I soon learned that while in the latter it was among the later derivative meanings that I must look for the one to fit the case, in the former it is always the sim- plest and most material of all the senses of a word that satisfies the context. And I finally arrived at this generalization, which, I think, will bear analysis, viz., that in the culture languages all words relat- ing to mind originally related to matter. Language is thus obviously a purely natural product, the result of a struggle on the part of men to understand one another. It is spontaneous and original. We have then to inquire what is the corresponding secondary, derivative, and more or less consciously developed institution which language gave birth to. In the other cases we have considered there was little or no time interval between the original and the derivative institution, the latter being developed pari passu with the former. But here there certainly was such a time interval, because the derivative institution was so difficult to create. It consists in any means for broadening the influence of language. Simple language, whether based on sound, or sight, availed only between persons in close proximity with one another and only for present time. The next problem was to communicate at a dis- tance and to make a record for future time. Both these ends were secured by the same general device. We cannot now go into the history of written language through the stages of pictography, hiero- glyphics, alphabets, sj^mbolic writing, and printing. It has been written over and over again, and all that remains to do is to point out that literature, giving the term its fullest breadth, is the normal functional outgrowth of language, the institution that was naturally built upon it as its base. But it may be well to pause at one aspect of the question that is sometimes overlooked by philologists. Written language is mainly a visualization of sound. It is of course secondary, but it is none the less natural on this account. There is a modern school of ortho- graphic reformers who treat it as wholly artificial, and insist that language is based essentially on sound. They are therefore willing to set aside the written forms of words that have grown up with the history of written language, and fall back on a purely phonetic scheme of writing. The principle that they overlook is that Ian- 192 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART u guage, from the earliest attempts to record it, has constantly tended to become more and more visual, until at the present day in all the culture languages sight is a more important sense than hearing in giving meaning to words. Sound is such a varying factor that the same word may have a wide range of vocal fluctuation, and pronun- ciation differs greatly in different local districts of the same country. The vocal organs of different persons differ, and the powers of articu- lation are as varied as human voices. The written word alone is definite and capable of being made uniform. With this visualization of language there grows up a sense of taste and propriety which is violated by some of the radical changes of orthography proposed. In those languages written in Roman characters l this is especially marked. To all esthetic eyes, I think, c and q are more esthetic than k, and, all conventional considerations aside, culture and bouquet are esthetic while kulture and bookd are barbaric. I am, however, well aware that such arguments are without weight with "spelling reformers." This general subject of the dualism of human institutions might be treated much more at length, as almost every original institution sooner or later gives rise to a corresponding derivative one. As the primary ones are the direct products of fundamental wants and de- mands of human nature, and are thus intimately connected with the psychic and social energy, while the secondary ones are much more in the nature of artificial constructions, it might be advantageous at times, and for the sake of distinction, to limit the term institution to the former and call the latter social structures in the more restricted sense. Not that they are not both structures and also both institu- tions, but this use of the terms may sometimes serve to emphasize what is certainly a real distinction. We might then go on to enum- erate other institutions with their corresponding structures. We should find, for example, that property is the institution which has given rise to the arts as a social structure, and that out of these roots have grown up all industrial institutions in Herbert Spencer's use of the expression. The division of labor in its widest sense is an institution which underlies all forms of voluntary organization as social structures. These are to be carefully distinguished from 1 The general superiority of the Roman alphahet over all others is hrought forcibly home to me by the fact that with the same light I am obliged to wear glasses two numbers stronger to read German, Russian, or Greek text than to read Roman text. CH. x] SOCIAL ASSIMILATION 193 all that pertains to the state on the one hand and to the church on the other. The latter are, in the sociological sense, compulsory organi- zations into which men are born. It is still so of the state, for if one goes from one country to another one is still under the authority of a state. It seems different in the case of the church, for many be- long to no church, and any one is free to unite with any church he pleases. But this is a modern condition of things, and primitive man was as truly subject to the cult of his race as to its government. Over most of the world this is largely the case still, and it was so in Europe until the fifteenth century. As leading up to the developed state matriarchy may be regarded as the institution upon which was founded the clan as a derivative social structure. Patriarchy is similarly related to the gens, while the basis of the more complex groups, such as the tribe, is the blood bond. This rapid and imperfect sketch of human institutions, or rather of a few of the principal ones, will afford an idea of the nature of social structures. They are all the result of some form of struggle among the social forces whereby the centrifugal and destructive character of each force acting alone is neutralized and each is made to contribute to the constructive work of society. In forming these structures the various forces are equilibrated, conserved, commuted, and converted into energy and power. The structures once created become reservoirs of power, and it is through them alone that all the work of society is performed. All these structures are interrelated and the performance of their functions brings them into contact or even conflict with one another. This mild struggle among social structures has the same effect as other struggles, and leads to general social organization. The final result is the social order, or society itself as an organized whole a vast magazine of social energy stored for use by human institutions. SOCIAL ASSIMILATION The expression social assimilation implies original heterogeneity. However similar primitive races may seem to civilized men, they themselves recognize the greatest dissimilarity. Each race looks upon all others as utterly unlike itself, and usually there exists among different races the most profound mutual contempt. When- ever two races are brought into contact it usually means war. If we go back in thought to a time anterior to all historic records, to a o 194 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART n time before any of the early civilizations existed, before the Chinese Indian, Chaldean, Assyrian, Babylonian, or Egyptian periods, and attempt to picture to ourselves the condition of the world of that day, while we may admit that very little is known of it, no one will deny that great areas of the earth's surface were already occupied by men. So far as we can judge from subsequent history and from all that is now known of uncivilized man in the world, there existed at that time a great number of entirely different races, tribes, groups, clans, and hordes, each striving to maintain an existence. Whatever differences of opinion may exist in respect of other matters, all agree as to this primitive multiplicity and heterogeneity of mankind. It is with regard to the cause of this heterogeneity that opinions chiefly differ. The simplest and most nai've explanation is that all these different races of men represent so many separate and distinct creations, the so-called state of polygenism. This of course is a purely theological conception, and belongs to the general doctrine of special creation as opposed to evolution. In the present state of science it would not be worth while to take any notice of it were it not that certain historians, philosophers, and even sociologists, feel compelled to fall back upon it in order to explain the condition of the world. All that can be said in such cases is that such authors cannot be sufficiently imbued with the facts, truths, and spirit of modern biology to weigh exactly the biological evidence on this point. This may look like a serious charge, but when we remember how few even of those who are called highly educated and well-informed persons imbibe enough of real science to be competent to weigh evi- dence from geology or paleontology, or who have any adequate idea of time limits, we need not so much wonder that historians, or even anthropologists, should fail to see the full meaning of the facts of phylogeny and embryology, not to speak of human paleontology. The 'theologically educated and all those who have only what is called a " common school education," know absolutely nothing about any of these things, so that between them and the truly scientific mind there is a "great gulf fixed" which keeps their thoughts as completely separated as if they were on opposite sides of the earth. Neither is this deplorable state of things confined to the wholly un- scientific. The utterly false idea that prevails relative to the nature of science, according to which any one who can read and write is prepared to take up any scientific specialty and become an astrono- CH. x] SOCIAL ASSIMILATIOX 195 mer, a physicist, a chemist, a zoologist, or a botanist, actually places scientific specialists among the least informed members of society. This has been repeatedly exemplified within my own observation by the complete lack of acquaintance on the part of many good botanists with the geological history of plants, and especially with the meaning of geologic time. On one occasion a distinguished botanist, after looking at a collection of fossil plants, perhaps of Cretaceous age, closed the discussion with the remark that he sup- posed they were all prehistoric ! Another, when examining some beautiful Carboniferous ferns, after it had been explained to him that they were of the age of the coal measures, inquired whether that was not before the glacial epoch ! The fault is not with these excellent people. The fault is with the educational method, which takes no account of the natural succession of phenomena or the depend- ence and true filiation of the sciences. But of this enough was said in Chapter V. The hope of the future is not in scientific specialists. A specialty once chosen all interest in general science and the progress of truth ceases. The hope is in the general edu- cated public, who, having no specialties to absorb and narrow them, are interested in all science and all truth. Such are some of the reflections that naturally grow out of the existence of the false explanation of the original heterogeneity of mankind. The question of polygenism or monogenism is a biological question simply, not a sociological question. It is well for sociolo- gists to recognize it, but only biology can settle it. Most biologists now regard it as settled by the new truths that have, since Darwin, been brought to light, and it is noticeable that the sociologists who suppose that the sociological problems connected with the origin of the human race can only be solved by supposing a plurality of origins cite chiefly those pre-Darwinian biologists, such as Louis Agassiz, who was almost the last of his race. The fact is often mentioned that none of Agassiz's pupils and students accepted his views in this respect, and the number of anti-Darwinian biologists of note can now be counted on the fingers. But the truth is that the doctrine of polygenism is wholly un- necessary to the sociologist. He has, as sociologist, nothing to do with the origin of man. The heterogeneous condition of the human race as far back as concerns him is easily accounted for without any such violent assumptions. It is fully explained on the simple 196 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PAKT n assumption of the animal origin of man, which is now accepted by the great majority of both biologists and anthropologists. Many of the latter deny that the creature that early inhabited most of Europe, and whose remains are found in certain deposits of the early Pleistocene, or perhaps late Tertiary, was in any proper sense a man, and maintain that it was simply the ancestor of man. There is no doubt that there was such an animal as Pithecanthro- pus, the remains of which have now been found in the island of Java. This genus was probably widespread during early Pleisto- cene time. For reasons which we do not understand this genus acquired a relatively high degree of brain development, that is, an advance upon that of other anthropoid apes, which we know possess relatively better brains than other existing animals. The first manifestation of a growing brain is excessive mimicry, i.e., the special faculty of imitation. This is not to be confounded with manifestations of cunning relating to the animal's special physical needs and mode of life, which becomes largely a form of instinct. The power of imitation in the apes is independent of their physical needs, 1 is the result of surplus mental energy, and thus represents a higher stage of brain power in general. As was shown in Chapter V, the next step after this power of imitation is the simplest manifestations of the inventive faculty. While no true apes now known to the fauna of the globe can be said to have reached this stage, it seems probable, and is a reason- able supposition, that Pithecanthropus did really attain to some slight inventive power. This alone would account for almost every fact that reveals itself in the transition from animal to man. The least manifestation of this power would be such an immense advan- tage in the struggle for existence that natural selection would bring about the rest. Pithecanthropus would almost immediately acquire the ability to expand territorially and occupy great areas. It is not often perceived that the restricted faunal areas of animal species is due to the inability to adapt the environment to their needs. Let any true animal attempt to overstep the bounds of what is called its natural habitat, and it is cut off. The boundaries of faunal regions 1 Biittikofer relates that the chimpanzees of Western Africa, having seen men bring firewood into camp and build camp fires, will themselves drag together fagots and brush, surround it and blow it, and then hold their hands to it as if warming them, in pure idle imitation of men. "Reisebilder aus Liberia," von J. Biittikofer, Leiden, 1890, Vol. I, p. 230. CH. x] SOCIAL ASSIMILATION 197 are veritable dead lines beyond which an animal cannot go on pain of death. The Malthusian principle, which is more perfectly ap- plicable to the animal world at large than to man, teaches that the reproductive power if unchecked would soon make any one being so numerous as to people the whole world. It is the environment in its broadest sense that prevents there being ten- a hundred- or a thousandfold more individuals of any species than can exist in the actual condition of things. But the least power over the environ- ment, such as a slight development of the inventive faculty would give, checks the eliminating influence of the environment, and per- mits the reproductive power to expand to another and much higher stage. The faunal barriers are broken over and the species expands territorially, and consequently increases in numbers proportionally to the area occupied. It was thus, as it would seem, that Pithecan- thropus became the master creature and spread over great expanses of territory in all directions from its original habitat, wherever that may have been. If any one should ask why other species did not also acquire this increased brain power and compete with Pithecanthropus for this mastery, the sufficient answer would be that in the nature of things only one master creature could thus arise. .The one that first started on this road would prevent others from doing the same in a variety of ways. It is not difficult to see that such would be the case, but if an illustration were needed there is one at hand. Admitting with Letourneau that native races left undisturbed naturally tend to progress, let us imagine any of the existing uncivilized races thus progressing so as to compete with the present dominant race. The process would be so slow that before any appreciable advance had been made such a race would certainly be overwhelmed by the hosts of men going out from civilized centers in a variety of capacities and occupying the region in question. Destruction or absorption of the native race would be inevitable before anything could be done even to indicate that a progressive tendency existed. It could scarcely have been otherwise at that early period when a species of apes acquired the power to modify to any trifling extent the external conditions of its existence. The difference would be fully as great between such a species and other species as is that between civ- ilized and uncivilized races to-day. The power to wield a club in 198 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART u battle, many times increasing the efficiency of the naked hands ; any other simple weapon or implement capable of injuring enemies or killing game ; the foresight to lay up stores for the future ; the art of skinning animals and wrapping the skins around the body for pro- tection ; the wit to dig a hole in a bank of clay and crawl in and out ; and from this on to the stage of building fire, of making tools and weapons, and of providing more adequate clothing and shelter, and the still higher stage of simplest tillage and the domestication and use of animals such are some of the early steps by which the inchoate intuitive reason of the creature that was ultimately to domi- nate the earth must have won its first victories over nature. These steps once taken, everything else would follow as a matter of course. The faunal boundaries once broken over, the expansion, due to diminished checks to reproduction, would be in all directions. In a very short time the geographical extremes would represent great distances and all contact with the parent stock would cease. Differences in the environment would alone account for all the dif- ferences that exist among the races of men. Migration would be along radiating lines, but they would not be straight lines. They would be lines of least resistance. There would also be cross lines and diagonal lines, and curved and crooked lines, and ever and anon at any and all points there would be liability to conjuncture. This might be friendly, but after the different stocks had lost all trace or recollection of one another, this accidental encounter between two hordes or clans would lead to conflict. While between a human horde and the wild animals among which it lived there would be only fear or perhaps affection, between one human horde and another there would be both fear and hatred. Hence collisions, conflicts, and wars would begin even thus early in the history of a race destined to people and transform the earth. All such questions as those of the "cradle of the race," of the "first pair," and of the origin of races generally, are therefore puerile. As Haeckel aptly says we might as well talk about the first Englishman or the first German as to talk about the first man or the first pair. In nature there is no first, there is only an eternal becoming. Long before there was any record or tradition the human race had spread over the entire Eurasian continent, Africa, and Australia. It had occupied all the Asiatic and Australasian archi- pelagos and islands. It had pushed northward into Kamtchatka, CH. x] SOCIAL DIFFERENTIATION 199 crossed Bering Straits into Alaska, swarmed southward and occu- pied the whole of North America, streamed along the Cordilleras, over the isthmus of Darien, and followed the Andes to Tierra del Fuego, peopling the valleys of the Orinoco, of the Amazons, and of the La Plata, and the plains of Argentina, Bolivia, and Chili. We have scarcely any adequate idea of the successive dates of this winning of the world. Long before history dawned man was everywhere. As Voltaire said of America, we should be no more surprised to find men there than to find flies. 1 Social Differentiation. Taking the animal origin of man and his monophyletic development as established by the labors of Darwin, Huxley, Haeckel, and many other biologists of the highest rank, the problem is to explain the origin and genesis of human society. We have already seen how the one differential attribute incipient reason removed the. chief barrier to indefinite expansion and enabled that most favored race to overspread the globe. But the transition from Pithecanthropus to Homo was attended with a large number of other modifications, some of them physical, others social. It was during this period that the principal steps toward the erect posture were taken. I shall not attempt to describe these steps here. 2 It was also at this time that the transition took place from a purely herbivorous and frugivorous to a largely carnivorous life. These were profound anatomical and physiological modifica- tions, but not difficult to account for as the necessary result of continued brain development. From the sociological point of view the origin of the family, which also occurred during this period, is even mor.e significant. Among animals, the mother at least, often knows her yoiing, and with apes there is probably a somewhat gen- eral recognition of the nearest kinship relations. With primitive man this was carried further and the members of the kinship group came to be closely cemented together into what may be called the family. This simply means the parents and children, but as the children become parents in turn it includes these children of the second generation, and then of the third, and so on, until the family or kinship group becomes so large that it cannot longer hold together. 1 " CEuvres completes," Vol. XVI, 1784, p. 37. 2 I made my first contribution to this subject in 1881, entitled " Pre-social Man." Abstract of Transactions of the Anthropological Society of Washington for 1880 and 1881, Washington, 1881, pp. 68-71. This paper was expanded to make Chapter VI of " Dynamic Sociology." Many others have ably discussed the subject. 200 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART n It then breaks up in various ways and scatters, resulting in numer- ous families, or kinship groups. As we have seen, there could be no special first family or first pair because it is one long and slow development out of the animal state, but a primitive family or kin- ship group, taken in the abstract, may be regarded as a homogeneous and as yet undifferentiated unit. The name horde is loosely applied by ethnologists to something similar to this, and Durkheirn has not inappropriately called this " social protoplasm." 1 Complete separation into hordes represents the lowest and simplest form of group life, just above the animal stage, but differing from any form of gregariousness in animals in the more or less rational recognition of consanguineal relationship. At a higher stage, with better reasoning powers the group expanded into the clan, which was the largest group that the men of that stage could recognize as kin- dred. Thus far kinship was traced to the mother only, as no such fixed relations of the sexes existed as to make it possible to trace it from the father. In fact, parturition and not fecundation, was the test of parentage. Throughout the greater part of this stage the connection of the father with the reproductive function was unknown. There are races now living in which this is the case, the women attributing their pregnancy to some form of sorcery. 2 Reproduction is carried on under the influence of the reproductive forces solely without reference to function. As is well known, the transition to the patriarchal system, which has taken place in nearly all existing races, is effected through a fiction, called the couvade, in which the father feigns the labor of the mother, and is thus assumed to acquire the title to parentage. The astonishing prevalence of this apparently absurd custom only shows how deep-seated has always been the belief among the most primitive peoples in parthenogenesis, of which the numerous later religious myths of an "immaculate conception " are undoubtedly survivals. It was also during this long maternal, or matriarchal period that language was formed, but as the hordes and clans scattered them- selves over vast areas and lost all memory of one another and of their ancestry, each group developed a different language. At the same time customs, ceremonies, and religious rites and practices 1 "De la Division du Travail Social," par Emile Durkheim, Paris, 1893, p. 189. 2 Letourneau, Revue de I'ticole d' Anthropologie de Paris, Vol. IX, septembre, 1901, p. 280. CH. x] SOCIAL DIFFERENTIATION 201 grew up, and these, too, would differ widely for each group. The enlargement of the groups was a function of the developing intellect, but there was a limit beyond which it could not go. The sole basis of group adhesion was kinship, and for everything not recognized as akin, there was no attachment, but intense aversion. The tribe was the maximum possible unit, and here exogamy, or the necessity of marrying outside of the narrower kinship group (clan, gens, etc.) was rigidly enforced, doubtless with the twofold object of preserving the vigor of the race and of keeping peace among the clans. The charm of sexual novelty also strongly favored this practice. Such a state of things can scarcely be called society, and yet it contained all the germs of future society. This was the stage of differentiation. The primitive social protoplasm was beginning to work itself up into multiform shapes and to pervade all lands. It is easy to see that there was no lack of heterogeneity. Although the groups all had the same general pattern, they soon came to differ in all their details. Their languages were different, their customs varied within certain limits, their cults were all different, their fetishes, totems, gods, all bore different names. Only a phi- losopher looking at them from the highest standpoint could see any similarity among them. They themselves, completely blinded by the illusion of the near, saw nothing common, and regarded one another with the utmost detestation. This great moving, swarming mass of humanity, now become completely heterogeneous, would necessarily from time to time collide. One group would encroach upon the domain of another, and over a large part of the earth hostile tribes of men would find themselves in contact. For we are not limited for time to work out these results. We know that either man, or the animal from which man was directly developed, occu- pied many parts of the Old World in early Quaternary time. Geologists estimate this time at anywhere from 200,000 to 500,000 years. But 100,000 years would seem to be all the time that the most exacting could demand in which to realize any required trans- formation. The assumption, therefore, of a polyphyletic origin of man is wholly unnecessary in order to account for the required degree of differentiation and heterogeneity. This period of social differentiation represents that idyllic stage of comparative peace and comfort to which ethnologists sometimes refer as preceding the era of strife and war between more developed 2J2 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART n races. In all probability the pre-human animal was a denizen of some tropical clime, and many facts point to Southern Asia as the region which saw the dawn of the human race. Nothing more defi- nite than this can be said with any confidence, and even this is not certain. But that it was somewhere in the tropics of the Old World seems a tolerably safe assumption. Here amid natural abundance and under friendly skies, living like animals, but with sufficient intelligence to outwit and evade the larger carnivores, capable of so far modifying the environment as to escape the fate of other species that overstep the habitat to which they have become adapted, in- choate man could reproduce with great rapidity and a sufficient number of those born could live to the age of maturity to cause an increase of population in a geometrical progression. Collision could be avoided by migration, and peace prolonged during a great period. The duration of this idyllic period depended principally on posi- tion. Those who wandered far could maintain their independence of others much longer than those who clung to the immediate center of dispersion. Certain races that worked off farther and farther into remote regions or even islands, remained wholly unmolested and continued their simple half-animal existence unchanged by con- tact with other races. Some such exist to-day, and it is from their study that we gain an insight into this truly primitive life of man. But those who did not migrate far came sooner into contact with others on account of the rapidly increasing numbers of men in all the groups. It was therefore in these regions that' social differentia- tion ceased first, and the succeeding stages of human history earliest supervened upon the one described. Without insisting upon close ethnological distinctions I propose to use chiefly the sufficiently vague and comprehensive term race as a general designation for all the different kinds of social groups that were formed during the process of social differentiation. We shall therefore be dealing essentially with the races of men. Social Integration. Prolonged as may have been the era of social differentiation with its halcyon days and wild semi-animal freedom, it could not in the nature of things always last, and as already remarked, its close came much earlier in the general region from which the human race originally swarmed forth to people the whole earth. Here the different races, now fully formed, and having lost all trace or tradition of any common origin, and acquired different CH. x] THE STRUGGLE OF RACES 203 languages, customs, arts, cults, and religions, first began to encroach upon one another and finally more or less to crowd and jostle together. Regarding one another as so many totally different orders of beings, every race became the bitter enemy of every other, and therefore on the approach of one race toward another there was no course open but that of war. The proximity of hostile races was a powerful spur to invention, attention being chiefly turned to the production of the means of offense and defense. Success in war depended then, as it does to-day, on the mechanical superiority of the instruments of warfare, far more than on personal prowess. A warlike spirit developed, and ambitious chiefs began to vie with each other for the mastery. At first sight this might seem to have nothing to do with social integration. In biology integration is the coordination and sub- ordination of the tissues, structures, and organs of an organism, so that they constitute an integer or whole. There is here also both differentiation and integration, but in the process of development both these take place together, though of course there must be dif- ferentiation in order that there be integration. It is so also in society, and our era of differentiation is somewhat of an abstrac- tion, in order clearly to grasp the nature of this process. The human race began as an undifferentiated group, the horde, con- taining all the elements of the most developed society. This group first differentiated, somewhat in the manner described. At length a process of integration began. We have seen how the former took place. We are now to inquire by what process and according to what principle the latter was accomplished. At the very outset it is important to note that this principle is none other than that by which all organization takes place, viz., synergy. We have the antagonistic forces at work here as everywhere, and we shall see that the entire process is identical with that which formed star sys- tems, chemical systems, and organic forms. We shall see all the steps in this process, and in many respects social phenomena are not only more clear and patent than are other classes of phenomena, but they actually illuminate the latter, and give us a firmer grasp of the exact workings of this principle on the lower planes. Tlie Struggle of Races. Gumplowicz and Ratzenhofer have abun- dantly and admirably proved that the genesis nf soc.iftty a.s we see it and know it has been through the struggle of races. I do not hope 204 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART n to add anything- to their masterly presentation of this truth, which is without any question the most important contribution thus far made to the science of sociology. We at last have a true key to the solution of the question of the origin of society. It_is not all, but it is the foundation of the whole ? and while the edifice of sociology must be built upon it, its full recognition and comprehension will demolish all the cheap and worthless rookeries that have occupied the same ground. It is the only scientific explanation that has been offered of the facts and phenomena of human history. It proceeds from a true natural principle which is applicable to man everywhere, and which is in harmony with all the facts of ethnology and anthro- pology. Finally, this principle proves to be a universal one, and is the one on which are also explained all other natural phenomena. If I succeed in contributing anything to the subject it will consist in pointing out this truth and showing that the struggle of races is simple and typical social synergy and that it is the particular way in which synergy as a cosmic principle operates in the social world. Conquest and Subjugation. The first step in the struggle of races is that of the conquest of one race by another. Among races that have pushed their boundaries forward until they meet and begin to overlap war usually results. If one race has devised superior weap- ons or has greater strategic abilities than the other it will triumph and become a conquering race. The other race drops into the position of a conquered race. The conquering race holds the con- quered race down and makes it tributary to itself. At the lowest stages of this process there was practical extermination of the con- quered race. The Hebrews were scarcely above this stage in their wars upon the Ganaanites but that seems to have been a special out- burst of savagery in a considerably advanced race. The lowest sav- ages are mostly cannibals. After the carnivorous habit had been formed the eating of human flesh was a natural consequence of the struggle of races. The most primitive wars were scarcely more than hunts, in which man was the mutual game of both contending parties. But at a later and higher stage head hunting, cannibalism, and the extermination of the conquered race, were gradually replaced by different forms of slavery. Success in conquering weaker races tended to develop predatory or military races, and the art of organ- izing armies received special attention. Such armies were at length used to make war on remote races, who were thus conquered and CH. x] SOCIAL KARYOKINESIS 205 held under strong military power. Here the conquered would so greatly outnumber the conquering that extermination would be im- practicable. The practice was then to preserve the conquered race and make it tributary to the wealth of the conquering race. Pris- oners of war were enslaved, but the mass of the people was allowed to pay tribute. Social Karyokinesis. Lilienfeld 1 has likened the process which takes place through conquest to fertilization in biology, comparing the conquering race to the spermatozoa and the conquered race to the ovurn^ the former active and aggressive, the latter passive and submitting, resulting in a crossing of strains. Similarly Ratzenhofer 2 compares this race amalgamation to conjugation in biology, and says that hordes and clans multiply by division. There certainly is a remarkable " analogy " between the process called karyokinesis in biology and that which goes on in societies formed by the conquest of a weaker by a stronger race. This process has been fully described and illus- trated by both Gumplowicz and Ratzenhofer, and they not only agree as to what the successive steps are but also as to the order in which they uniformly take place. I therefore need only enumerate these steps and refer the reader to the works of these authors, especially to Gumplowicz's " Rassenkanipf," and Ratzenhof er's " Sociologische Erkenntnis." The following are these steps arranged in their natu- ral order: 1. Subjugation of one race by another. 2. Origin of caste. 3. Gradual mitigation of this condition, leaving a state of great individual, social, and political inequality. 4. Substitution for purely military subjection of a form of law, and origin of the idea of legal right. 5. Origin of the state, under which all classes have both rights and duties. 6. Cementing of the mass of heterogeneous ele- ments into a more or less homogeneous people. 1. Rise and develop- ment of a sentiment of patriotism and formation of a nation, I shall content myseit witn a lew comments on each" of these phases and especially on points that do not seem to me to have been adequately brought out. Caste. By conquest two different races are brought into close contact, but they are so unlike that no assimilation is possible. None is desired or attempted. The society, if it can be called such, 1 " Zur Vertheidigung der Organischen Methode in der Sociologie," von Paul v. Lilienfeld, Berlin, 1898, p. 50. 2 "Die Sociologische Erkenntnis," Leipzig, 1898, p. 109. 206 PUKE SOCIOLOGY [PART n is polarized. The conquering race looks down with contempt upon the conquered race and compels it to serve it in various ways. The conquered race maintains its race hatred, and while sullenly submit- ting to the inevitable, refuses to recognize anything but the superi- ority of brute force. This was the origjn of caste, and the two mutually antagonistic and defiant races represent the opposite poles of the social spindle. History shows how difficult it is completely to eradicate the spirit of caste. Inequality. The inequality of the two races is, however, some- thing more than an inequality of rank. The races were primarily (i.e., before the conquest) thoroughly heterogeneous. They spoke different languages, worshiped different gods, practiced different rites, performed different ceremonies, possessed different customs, habits, and institutions, and the conquered race would die sooner than surrender any of these. The conquering race professed absolute contempt for all these qualities in their subjects, but were power- less to transform them into their own. Law. The difficulty, cost, and partial failure attending the con- stant arid unremitting exercise of military power over all the acts of the conquered race, ultimately becomes a serious charge upon the conquering race. For a while, flush with the pride of victory, this race persists in meting out punishments to all offenders against its authority, but sooner or later such personal government grows weari- some, and some change is demanded. It is found that authority may be generalized, and that rules can be adopted for the repression, of certain classes of acts, such as are most frequently committed. When this is found to be economical, still larger groups of conduct are made the subject of general regulation. By the continued ex- tension of this economical policy a general system of such rules is ultimately, though gradually, worked out, and the foundation is laid for a government by law. So long as the law is not violated a cer- tain degree of liberty is conceded to the subordinate race, and the performance of acts not in violation of law comes to be recognized as a right. Origin of the State. There are always great natural 'differences in men. In civilized societies everybody knows how immensely indi- viduals differ in -ability and character. We naturally assume that with savages and low races this is not the case, but this is certainly a mistake. The natural inequalities of uncivilized races are prob- CH. x] ORIGIN OF THE STATE 207 ably fully as great as among civilized races, and they probably exert a still greater relative influence in all practical affairs. For the com- plicated machinery of a high civilization makes it possible to cover up mediocrity and to smother talent, so that the places that men hold are very rude indices indeed to their fitness or their true merits. In savage life this is not the case, and a chief is almost certain to be a man of force and relative ability of the grade required at that stage of development. In a conquered race such individual differences are likely to make themselves felt. The assumption all along is that the races consid- ered are not primarily widely unlike. The issue of battle depends only to a small extent on real differences of mind or character. It may be merely accidental, or due to the neglect of the conquered race to cultivate the arts of war. In all other respects it may be even superior to the conquering race. The latter therefore often has to do with its social equals in everything pertaining to the life of either group. The difficulty of enforcing law in a community constituted as we have described must be apparent. With such an intense internal polarization of interests, the conquering race would find it difficult or impossible to frame laws to suit all cases. It could not understand the conquered race definitely enough to be suc- cessful even in securing its own interests. In a word, the conquer- ing race needs the assistance of the conquered race in framing and carrying out measures of public policy. This it is never difficult to secure. A large number of the members of the subject race always sooner or later accept the situation and are willing to help in estab- lishing and maintaining order. The only basis of such order is the creation of correlative rights and duties under the law. This can only be secured through concessions on the part of the master race to the subject race and the enlistment of the best elements of the latter in the work of social reorganization. This, in fact, is what is sooner or later always done. The conquering race may hold out doggedly for a long time in a harsh military policy of repression and oppression, but it is only a question of time when experience alone will dictate a milder policy in its own interest, and the basis of compromise will at last be reached. The two principles involved are both egoistic, but equilibrate each other and contribute jointly to the result. These are economy on the part of the governing class and resignation on the part of the governed class. These produce 208 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART n concessions from the former and assistance from the latter. The result is that form of social organization known as the state. Formation of a People. A people is a synthetic creation. It is not a mechanical mixture. It is not either of the antagonistic races and it is not both of them. It is a new product evolved out of these elements through precisely the same process that goes on at every stage in cosmic evolution at which its successive products appear. Only the details of the process are different here from those at any other stage, but this is as true at any other stage as it is here. It is the details only that differ, the process is always the same. But there is no cosmic product in which the detailed operations involved in its formation are as plainly to be seen and traced as they are in the genesis of a people. We have all the elements before us. Two antagonistic races of nearly equal social value, but one of which has by some means succeeded in subjugating the other and is striving to secure the greatest return for the cost involved in so doing. After a long trial of the stern policy of repression the physically superior race tires of the strain and relaxes in the direction of general law, of calling in the aid of the best elements of the weaker race, and at length reaches the stage marked by the formation of a state. At this stage in the process of social karyokinesis the social idants mutually approach the equatorial plate and have already commenced coquetting for a nearer approach. Concession and resignation, compromise and mutual assistance, pro- ceed apace. Animosity abates and toleration increases. A number of potent agencies combine to accelerate the process. The most important of these is interest. It is a truth of the deepest signifi- cance that interest unites while principle divides. What all the theory of race superiority backed by the military power could not accom- plish, personal interest and individual advantage secure. The looker-on is apt to concentrate his attention upon the race struggle and the political principles involved and forget that there are other forces at work. These large issues represent the general mass motion of the system and involve only force. But the stage of concentration has now been reached when the most effective activi- ties are molecular, so to speak, and constitute energy. The stage of extensive activity has passed and that of intensive activity has supervened. The individuals of both races have before them the problem of maintaining their existence. If they are of a sufficiently CH. x] FORMATION OF A PEOPLE 209 high development they are also interested in the accumulation of wealth. In all this, however bitter their animosities may have once been, each needs the help of the rest. Every man is an aid to every other. Business enterprises are launched and must be sup- ported in order to succeed. When a member of the ruling race establishes a business he must have customers, and the custom of a member of the subject class is as good as one of his own class. He thus becomes dependent upon the lower class, and as that class normally far outnumbers the other, that dependence is increased. In order for the society to nourish and the state to be solvent and strong, arts and industries must spring up everywhere and com- mercial activity must be fostered and encouraged. The division of labor takes place ramifying in all directions regardless of race lines. Business organizations, corporations, and combinations are formed, based on character and fitness and not on race distinctions. Propinquity in such matters is a far more potent influence than race. The influence of men upon one another, other things equal, is inversely as the distance. It is those immediately around that interest and assist. Every one, I think, has observed that the par- ticular persons with whom, though it be by mere chance, he is thrown into immediate contact, assume an importance greatly in excess of their actual merits. There is something in the presence of another person that completely alters our attitude towards him. What we might say of some one at a distance we would not venture to say to his face. I call this principle the sanctity of the second person. What Dr. Ross calls " the morality of accomplices " * is a special case under this broader principle. But we may apply it to the problem before us and we find that it is a leading factor in social karyokinesis. The proud scion of a conquering race meets a bright representative of the race he has regarded as inferior and finds that he may be much his superior in some things, or at least that he can and is willing to be useful to him in the carrying out of cherished objects, and his race prejudice rapidly melts away and he joins with him in some enterprise that contributes to general social development. But interest is not the only cementing principle. There are many other operations which at a certain stage of development inspire intense activities and possess a powerful socializing influence. Such l "Social Control," p. 348. p 210 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART n are many of the ways of pursuing pleasure, knowledge, art, science, and philanthropy, through voluntary organizations. As these are forms of association that are based exclusively on personal quali- ties affability, zeal, skill, talent, etc. and not on race differ- ences, they tend to break down race barriers and unify mankind through the recognition of true personal excellence. Finally, the time usually comes sooner or later when the state needs the physical and moral support of the lower elements, when outside invaders threaten to overrun and destroy it and plant an alien race over even the race that boasts of its own conquests. At such times the more numerous subject class becomes the main dependence and to it the new state usually owes its preservation. When this is the case two other unifying sentiments arise a dim sense of gratitude on the part of the ruling classes and a lively sense of pride on the part of the subject race. These work together to the same general end as all the other influences named. Passing over many other equating and assimilating influences, upon which, like some of those here enumerated, far too little stress has been laid by those who have worked out the law of the struggle of races, I must content myself with the mention of one other, which, though in fact perhaps the most vital of all, has, singularly enough, been almost totally overlooked. This is what I shall call the social chemistry of the race struggle, and which begins with the primary conquest itself and continues through the entire assimilative period. In a war of conquest between two savage or barbaric races the women of the conquered race are always appropriated by the con- querors. There is never any such race antipathy as to interfere with the free play of the reproductive forces. Aside from purposes of lust, there exists a certain intuitive sense that the mixture of blood conduces to race vigor. It is an extension of the rule of exogamy and a survival of one of the earliest of human race instincts. Historic examples are numerous, the most cele- brated, perhaps, being that of the rape of the Sabines. That this practice was in full force among the Israelites is amply attested by Scriptural passages. 1 There is another instinct that tends in the same direction, and which may be called the charm of sexual novelty. This is one aspect of a very comprehensive principle which cannot be discussed 1 See especially Numbers xxxi ; Deuteronomy xxi. CH. x] THE NATION 211 here, but which will be treated in its proper place. We only need to note the fact, so vital to the present discussion, that between races that are not too different from each other, when brought into contact from any cause the sexes are strongly attracted to each other. Men are charmed by the women of a different race, and women are not less strongly drawn toward alien men. This senti- ment is heightened by war. Whatever may be the degree of race hatred between the contending races, this has no effect to cool the ardor of the sexes. On a low plane of culture the women of the conquered race are systematically appropriated by the men of the conquering race. Nor are the women wholly averse to this. Although they may detest the race that has subjugated their own, there is a glamour attached to the successful military hero that powerfully attracts women under all circumstances. Eace misce- genation therefore begins immediately, but it does not cease after the subjugation is complete. Throughout all the stages of social karyokinesis that we have been considering it is constantly going on. All attempts to keep the superior race pure fail utterly, and by the time the state has been established the majority of the inhabit- ants have in their veins the blood of both races. The formation of a, people, therefore, is not only a political, civil, and social process, but it is also largely a physiological process. It is not until after all these steps have been taken, occupying a long period varying in different cases, that a new race is created through the blending of the two, originally hostile and antagonistic races, the active, conquering race having, as it were, fecundated the passive conquered race, introduced the elements that give rise to new processes, and, by a cross fertilization of cultures, created a new social structure. This new social structure is a people. TJie Nation. All past animosities are now forgotten and the people thus created have acquired" a sense of unity and solidarity. There begins to be formed a national sentiment. A deep-seated affection grows up for both the people and the territory, and individ- uals come to feel that they have what they call a country. This affection is filial from the sense that the country has given them birth, and in most languages the name by which it is known denotes paternity patria, patrie, Vaterland. The sentiment that it inspires receives a name derived from the same root, and is called patriotism. This sentiment is popularly regarded as a very high one, but it is by 212 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART n the same logic that places maternal love on such an exalted throne, when it is only an animal instinct and common to all mammals at least, also to birds, and probably to many reptiles. Condorcet loved the country that persecuted him and drove him to suicide, and in one passage l he very clearly describes the sentiment of patriotism, giving some of the philosophical grounds on which it rests. But it is not a very exalted sentiment and belongs to the same class as that by which animals become " wonted " to the particular spot where they have been raised with no reference to its superiority over other places. It may also be called collective egotism, but as Spencer remarks, " while excess of egotism is everywhere regarded as a fault, excess of patriotism is nowhere regarded as a fault." 2 Comte rele- gated it to the theological stage, its place being taken in the positive stage by humanitarianism, 3 Bagehot called it " territorial sectarian- ism," and Dr. Johnson characterized it as "the last refuge of a scoundrel." But whatever its rank as a human affection, patriotism plays an important role in the process of social assimilation. It is the basis of the national sentiment, or feeling of social solidarity, that is essential to this last step in the process of social karyokinesis. It marks the disappearance of the last vestige of the initial social dualism. It means the end of the prolonged race struggle. It is the final truce to the bitter animosities that had reigned in the group. The antagonistic forces have spent themselves, social equilibrium is restored, and one more finished product of social synergy is presented to the world. Compound Assimilation. In the above meager sketch I have described one isolated and typical case of the simplest form of social assimilation by conquest, struggle, compromise, and equilibration. It is not of course to be supposed that all cases will conform in all respects to this norm, but it is not believed that there have been deviations from it that can be called generic. But what is specially to be noted is that such a simple case is theoretical, and that in fact all the known historic examples are complex or compound. By this I mean that social assimilation is a process of social aggregation or recom pounding, and thus conforms in this respect also to the uni- 1 "Tableau historique des Progres de 1'Esprit humain," Paris, 1900, p. 247. 2 " Study of Sociology," New York, 1880, p. 206. 8 "Politique Positive," Vol. II, p. 147. CH. x] COMPOUND ASSIMILATION 213 versal process going on in nature. I have assumed two coordinate social groups as units of aggregation, coming into collision with the results described. Such cases must occasionally occur and for them the description given is accurate. But it must be remembered that these collisions and conjugations of races have been going on ever since man emerged from the animal stage. None of the groups of which we have any historical knowledge are thus simple. The earliest conjugations were doubtless peaceful. Hordes coalesced into clans and clans into tribes during the early idyllic period. The struggle did not begin till by the fiction of the couvade the patri- archal system succeeded the age of motherright. Doubtless there have been numberless cases of the clash of patriarchal tribes as sim- ple as the one described. But the historic cases enumerated by Gumplowicz, Ratzenhofer, Vaccaro, and De Greef are all later and between compound races. The process has to be gone through with over and over again. A nation is fully developed according to this process, when another more vigorous nation that has been similarly formed sweeps down upon it and subdues it. Then the entire series of steps has to be repeated on a higher plane, and all these elements must be again assimilated by the same slow process. A new state, a new people, a new nation, have to be created by the same synergetic principle. But even this is not safe. While it was incubating other states, peoples, nations, were also slowly coming into being, des- tined, by further conjuncture, to become the rivals of the other, and so on forever. Races, states, peoples, nations are always forming, always aggressing, always clashing and clinching, and struggling for the mastery, and the long, painful, wasteful, but always fruitful gestation must, be renewed and repeated again and again. Nor need the social units always be of the same order. Conjuncture is as likely to take place between races of different orders as between those of the same order. For example the conquering race may have resulted from a third or fourth assimilation, while the con- quered race may only represent a second assimilation, and have therefore acquired an inferior degree of social efficiency. An extreme of this case is where a so-called enlightened nation occupies a region inhabited by savages. The former may have undergone twenty assimilations while the latter may be still almost in their idyllic stage, or Durkheim's stage of simple segmentation. In the case of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, for example, it is 214 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART it easy to trace five or six assimilations almost within historic time, and yet the last assimilation is so complete that, except in parts of Ireland, loyalty and patriotism are at high water mark. Nearly the same is true of France and Germany, but the case is very different in Austria. Here the process of assimilation is incomplete, but it is progressing appreciably. But the several races that are now under- going social assimilation in the Austrian empire Magyars, Czechs, Poles, Styrians, etc. are for the most part old nations that have each long ago gone through the process, and doubtless, if their entire his- tory could be traced, any one of them would be found to be a social unit of an advanced order. The objection may be raised that all that has been said does not apply to races so different that they will not mix, and one of which is so inferior to the other that subjugation is very easy. The princi- pal answer to this objection has already been given, viz., that these are cases in which social units of very different orders of assimi- lation happen to collide. The so-called low races of men have very little social efficiency. Social efficiency, as shown in Chapter III, is the result of achievement. It was impossible in that chapter to explain by what process human achievement is made possible. We can now see that social achievement is only possible through human institutions, and all the higher and more developed institu- tions are the outcome of social assimilation. Those social units called states, peoples, and nations are of all orders, depending upon the number of assimilations. Every assimilation is a fresh cross fertilization of cultures, and renders the resulting social unit more and more stable and solid. That is, it gives it more and more social efficiency, and it thereby becomes increasingly capable of achieve- ment in the full sense of my definition. The most efficient of all races are those that lie directly in the track of civilization, and which have never had their connection with the past cut off or interrupted. Through this continuity of the social germ plasm, accompanied by repeated crossing of the highest strains, the maxi- mum social efficiency and the maximum achievement are secured. Races that have lived wholly off this line of historic development, that have been, as it were, side-tracked, that have been long undis- turbed and never subjugated, have only slightly felt the power of social synergy, and have been left far behind in the race. It is not so much their mental inferiority, though mind obeys the Lamarckian ( CH. x] PACIFIC ASSIMILATION 215 law of exercise, and is strengthened by every fresh effort put forth. But these races possess all the elements of development, and have only lacked the opportunity which comes only through the struggle of races and repeated social assimilations. The only kind of social assimilation that is increasingly fertile is that between races that occupy substantially the same social posi- tion. The case is very similar to that of sexual reproduction. For successful crossing the individuals must belong to the same species and not be too different. With these limitations the more they differ the better. It must be true crossing of stocks and not hybridization, or the crossing of different species. The social groups must, so to speak, belong to the same species. The difference between a modern civilized race and a savage race may be called a specific difference, and while physiologically, the individuals may be perfectly fertile inter se, the races as such can only hybridize, with much the same results as attend hybridization in animals. Pacific Assimilation. A final question remains. Is this, then, the only possible kind of social assimilation ? Is it only through war, conquest, and subjugation that social structures must be formed ? The answer is yes and no, according to the point of view. But the only answer needed here is to say that the purpose of this chapter and, indeed, of Part II of this work, as its title denotes, is to study the genesis of society. Pure sociology need scarcely go beyond this, although it is not altogether confined to it. The object has not been here to show what man in the social state may and will do. The object has been to show how man entered the social state and what the social state is that he has entered. Whatever may happen in society after it is fully formed, the truth remains that thus far there has been only one way by which society has been formed, and that is through social assimilation by conquest, struggle, caste, inequality, resignation, concession, compromise, equilibration, and final inter- action, cooperation, miscegenation, coalescence, unification, consoli- dation, and solidarization. But it may as well be said that there are other forms of social assimilation, late derivative, pacific forms, that have already begun to operate in advanced societies, and that may ultimately supersede the original, spontaneous, natural method. It may well be that the one great historic line of social evolution has well-nigh reached its term in the direction of forcible consolidation, and that an era of 216 PUKE SOCIOLOGY [PAHT n peaceful rivalry and friendly emulation is about to be inaugurated, but the world has evidently not yet reached the point where war shall cease and where the millennium shall be ushered in. We shall see in the next chapter why this is so, and shall consider certain reasons for thinking, and perhaps for hoping, that it may never reach that point. Our chapter is already too long. To consider adequately all the supplementary forms of social assimilation would unduly extend it, and in view of the fact that these are the forms commonly treated, while the primary, original, and true natural form has been neglected except by the few authors named, there seems no need of entering into the more detailed internal movements in society, most of which after all are simply the normal and legitimate consequences of the great struggle in its later modified phases. It is hoped that the considerations set forth in this chapter will be sufficient to furnish a just conception of what constitutes social statics, and that however much sociologists may differ with regard to the classification and terminology of sociology, it need not longer be said that the views of those who recognize a science or subscience of social mechanics, treating of social statics and social dynamics, are vaguely and confusedly entertained. To my own mind it would be impossible to conceive of a more definite branch of science than that of social statics as here presented. It cannot be confounded with any other science or domain of natural law, and we shall see in the next chapter that it is as clearly marked off from social dynamics as from all other sciences, although it is its natural prelude and its study is absolutely essential to the study of social dynamics, which cannot be understood without it as a basis. Postscript. This chapter was written as it now stands from Dec. 8 to 29, 1901. On Feb. 11, 1902, I listened to the address of Professor W. H. Holmes as retiring president of the Anthro- pological Society of Washington on the origin, development, and probable destiny of the races of men. Although working in the same building with him I had never conversed with him on these subjects and had no idea of what his views were. I was therefore both surprised and gratified at the broad philosophical grounds taken in his address, and doubly so as they harmonized so completely with my own views as already expressed in this chapter. The reader of his address and of the chapter, in the absence of this state- CH. X] POSTSCRIPT 217 ment, might well infer that we had compared notes and aimed only to present the same truth from our two points of view, the anthro- pological and the sociological. We have indeed discussed the sub- ject since the delivery of his address, but he has had no more occasion for modifying his views than have I for modifying mine, and neither his address nor my chapter has undergone any change. Notwithstanding this complete harmony, I freely confess that the anthropological view so ably presented by Professor Holmes, greatly illuminates my sociological presentation, and with his courteous sanction I am most happy to be able to embody in this postscript to the chapter so much of his address as bears most directly upon the vital questions involved. His address is now (Aug. 15, 1902) passing through the press, to appear in the forthcoming number (July-September) of the American Anthropologist, and he has gener- ously allowed me to make the following extract from the proofs now in his hands, including one of the numerous fig- ures, prepared with the skill and finish character- istic of one of America's first artists, as he is also one of America's leading anthropologists, geolo- gists, and men of sci- ence rare combination in these days of scien- tific specialization. I wish now to combine in a single diagram (K) a summary of my conception of the development of the species and the races from the period of specialization of the anthropoids up to the present time. The side lines in this diagram stand for the limits of the world K within which the branch- jjjor tree of the Hominidce DIAGRAM K.- Showing origin of the gains /ftwio (A) in Ter- tiary time, separation Into races through isolation in Post- Tertiary time (F, o, n, i), and theoretic blending of all forms in future time. The separate lines in each column repre- (A) springs up. The hori- sent variant groups parting and again more or less fully , , v , coalescing. zontal lines connecting 218 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART n across, mark the periods by means of which we separate the stages of devel- opment. The first period (i) is that which witnessed the specialization of the group of creatures (A) from which man sprang. It may be regarded as corresponding somewhat closely to the Tertiary period as formulated by geol- ogists. We know not the exact number of closely related branches at that time, but it is held that the prospective human stem flourished and rose above the others. In the diagram the collateral branches B, c, D, E, are left undeveloped in order that Homo (A) may have a clear field in order that we may illustrate more clearly the manner in which this group, according to our best interpretation, spread from its natal district and occupied the habitable world. That the home of the human precursor was, at this stage of his develop- ment, restricted in area is assumed on reasonable grounds. The apes and monkeys of to-day, which are believed to correspond in grade of development to the human stock of the natal period, are not widely distributed, but occupy very restricted areas and such as are particularly suited to their arboreal habits and their rather delicate constitutions. There is no reason to believe that man at a corresponding stage was more hardy, more enter- prising, or more widely scattered. In the diagram, therefore, the stem A is made narrow below, widening upward, thus suggesting expansion of area with increase in numbers, energy, and intelligence. This expansion was, no doubt, very slow and may or may not have extended to the farthest limits of the land area occupied, but it was prophetic of the greater expansions to be realized in period u. We can- not know in just what part of the world these events took place, just where the prehuman group was transmuted into the human. It may have been in Europe, Asia, Africa, Eurasia, Eurafrica, Lemuria, or America, but this does not matter here. We reach the conclusion that at or near the close of Tertiary time (period i) the change occurred and that upright, self-conscious man took his place permanently in the van of progress. We conceive further that, about this time, the continents assumed approximately their present dimensions and relations and that this creature man, breaking over the barriers that formerly hedged him in, was ready to engage in their con- quest. The simple, initial, integrate period of his career had now closed, and a period of marvelous expansion supervened (period n). Spreading gradually into the various continental areas the incipient human groups, as yet reasonably homogeneous in character, became widely separated. Some were quite completely isolated and went their separate ways, becoming sharply demarcated from the rest. Others less fully isolated continued to intermingle along the margins of the areas occupied, so that gradations of characters occur, and in some cases the resulting hybrid peoples have probably occupied separate areas long enough to become well-established varieties. Three or four groups only became so widely separated and fixed in physical characters that students are agreed to call them separate races, but these comprise the great body of mankind. The line marking the close of period n stands for the present time, and CH. x] POSTSCRIPT 219 F, G, H, and i are the races now in evidence. Let us consider what is hap- pening along this line to-day. The end of the second period the isolated specializing period has come for the races, and changes of a momentous kind are being initiated. Man has spread and occupied the world, and the resulting isolations and partial isolations on continent and island of peoples having meager artificial means of transportation, have brought about, directly or indirectly, the variations called races ; but the period of group isolation and consequent race specialization is at an end. In the last few hundred years the sea-going ship and the railway have been invented and the extremes of the world are no farther apart than were the opposite shores of a good-sized island when, a little while ago, all men went afoot. The period of differentiation is closed forever and the period of universal integration is upon us. We do not see how rapid these move- ments are, but contrasted with the changes of earlier days they are as a hurricane compared with the morning zephyr. The continent of America has changed its inhabitants as in the twinkling of an eye, and Asia, Africa, Australia, and the islands of the Pacific are in the throes of race disintegra- tion. To-day each man may go two hundred and forty times around the world in his short lifetime. A single individual may be the parent of pro- geny in every important land area of the world ; and this is only the begin- ning the first few hundred years of a period to which millions must be assigned. Then how shall we project the lines of the diagram into the future ? There can be but one answer. Very briefly we may outline the inevitable course of human history. In period in the races will fade out and disappear as the combined result of miscegenation and the blotting out of the weaker branches. The world will be filled to overflowing with a generalized race in which the dominat- ing blood will be that of the race that to-day has the strongest claim physically and intellectually to take possession of all the resources of the land and the sea. Blood and culture will be cosmopolitan. Man, occupy- ing every available foot of land on the globe, will be a closer unit than he was on the day far back in period i, when, in a limited area hidden away in the broad expanse of some unidentified continent, the agencies of specializa- tion first shaped up the species. 1 To the fully developed and completely emancipated man of our time the races of men, and even the human race at large, seem coarse, backward, benighted, uninteresting, and repugnant. It is only from that higher ground of the philosopher that they acquire an interest and become an object worthy of thought and attention. This is almost wholly due to the possibilities that they embody. When we contemplate the relatively brief time that man has occu- 1 " Sketch of the Origin, Development, and probable Destiny of the Races of Men." Address of Professor William H. Holmes, delivered Feb. 11, 1902, as Retiring Presi- dent of the Anthropological Society of Washington. American Anthropologist, N. S., Vol. IV, No. 3, July-September, 1902, pp. 369-391 (see pp. 387-390). 220 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART a pied this planet, as shown by the cosmological perspective (supra, pp. 38-40), and connect it with what he has already achieved (see Chapters III, XIX, XX), we have a basis for reflection upon the future. It is common in all such speculations to refer to the evidence in favor of an ultimate decline of life on the globe, due to the gradual withdrawal of the sun's heat and the general condi- tions of dissolution as the sure sequence of evolution taught by Herbert Spencer. Without questioning the general soundness of this view in the abstract, it is so frequently brought in that it seems proper to point out that certain important truths are usually overlooked. Conscious humanity has occupied about one five hun- dredth part of the time since the beginning of the Tertiary. There is certainly no probability that the conditions of existence on the globe will begin to decline within a period less than the whole of Tertiary time. The culminating point is at least as remote as three million years from now. But we can scarcely conceive of one million years. That length of time is for all the purposes of a sane philosophy infinite. Any speculation beyond it is utterly devoid of practicality. We may therefore for all practical purposes calculate that physical conditions will always be at least as favor- able as they are at present. These reflections have been called forth by the short concluding part of Professor Holmes's address, which indeed was omitted from the address as delivered, but which now appears. It does no harm for the sake of a symmetrical scheme, to look forward to the end, but, for the reasons I have given, this must be regarded as purely theoretical and speculative, and we may concentrate our attention upon that period which is now rapidly approaching, which is no longer a speculation, but is a legitimate and irresistible deduction from all the facts, the period in which the races of men shall have all become assimilated, and when there shall be but one race of men the human race. That period, as I have said, is likely to last at least a million years, probably as many as three million, the assumed duration of Cenozoic time, and possibly much longer. Let any one attempt to figure to himself the possibilities involved in such a truth ! CHAPTER XI SOCIAL DYNAMICS As social statics has to do with the creation of an equilibrium among the forces of human society, so it may be inferred in advance that social dynamics must have to do with some manner of disturb- ance in the social equilibrium. But surely it cannot relate to the disruption or disintegration of the social structures J;hat have been so slowly and painfully wrought by the rhythmic strife of social synergy. And as we found that neither the growth, the multiplica- tion, nor the perfectionment of social structures involved any dy- namic principle, we have yet to learn wherein essentially consists the condition that is truly dynamic. This should be postulated at the outset, as the necessary starting point in the treatment of social dynamics. This postulate may be stated in the following form : In all departments of nature where the statical condition is represented by structures, the dynamic condition consists in some change in the type of such structures. To revert to the illustration used in connection with the perfectionment of structures, an " improvement " in an invention must involve some additional principle on which the apparatus works, so, in order to constitute a dynamic condition, a structure, whether cosmic, organic, or social, must undergo some change in its type, whereby its relations to the environment become different from those previously sustained. It was pointed out in Chapter VI that the word dynamic was used in two senses, a broader and a narrower sense. In the broader sense it relates to force in general according to its etymology, and was there used in this sense in defining the term dynamic agent. In its narrower sense it implies a movement. This is the principal sense in which it is used in the concrete sciences. The difference between mere motion in bodies and such a movement consists in the fact that in the latter case it is predicated of structures, and the movement consists in the gradual change taking place in the type of these structures. The term has been so used in its application to chemis- 221 ' 222 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART 11 try, biology, psychology, economics, and sociology. It is in this sense that it will be used in this chapter. The process by which structures are produced is not a dynamic process. Structures repre- sent a condition of equilibrium and are the normal result of the equilibration of conflicting forces. But no dynamic phenomena can take place until structures are formed. Just here is the fundamental distinction between dynamic and kinetic phenomena, which are so commonly confounded. The motions that take place prior to equili- bration, the unrestrained motions in all things in their primitive state, are kinetic. But these produce nothing. They are lost. Un- bridled forces running to waste or producing destructive effects upon all structures in their way are kinetic manifestations of force. They construct nothing. Construction is only possible through equilibra- tion. Statics does not imply inactivity or quiescence. On the con- trary, it represents increased intensity, and this is what constructs. Dynamic movements are confined to structures already formed and, as stated, consist in changes in the type of these structures. But the important fact to be noted is that not for one moment must the organic nature of the structure be lost or endangered. The change of type must be brought about without destroying or injuring the structure. It is a differential process and takes place by infinitesimal increments or changes. It may be compared to the process of petri- faction, in which every particle of the vegetable substance is replaced by an exactly equivalent particle of mineral substance, so that it is often impossible to distinguish the one from the other, the minutest structures and even the color being exactly reproduced. This differential process is what characterizes evolution, and the contrast so often popularly made between evolution and revolution is the contrast between a truly dynamic process and a merely kinetic process which breaks up and destroys existing structures in order to make new ones. The structures destroyed by revolution are organic, i.e., genetic structures. It has taken ages to produce them through the secular process of social assimilation described in the last chap- ter. It is impossible to reproduce them, and all that can be done is to create artificial structures. This, in fact, is what is done in cases of complete revolution; though it may be doubted whether there ever was a complete revolution, and what have been called revolu- tions have only partially destroyed the previous structures. Very soon after they are over there results an effort to go back and gather CH. xi] SOCIAL PROGRESS 223 up every remnant of the former order and embody it in the new arti- ficial structure. After the frenzy is over it is soon seen that human wisdom is inadequate artificially to replace the time-honored institu- tions which it has required ages to create, and a reaction usually sets in, resulting in a return, temporary at least, to conditions as near as possible to those that existed before the revolution. SOCIAL PROGRESS It is common to speak of order and progress as opposites, but an attempt has been made to show that regressive tendencies are dynamic as well as progressive ones. I shall endeavor to show in how far this is true and also what qualifications it requires. For the present it is sufficient to point out the true relation between order and progress and to show in what the latter really consists. Assuming that the differential changes that take place in the types of social structures are advantageous or in the direction of struc- tural advance, a dynamic movement becomes synonymous with social progress. The structure represents equilibrium, and as it must remain intact and still constantly undergo change it represents a moving equilibrium. As change in the type of structure presup- poses structure to be changed, it is clear that progress presupposes order. Order is therefore the necessary basis of progress, its essen- tial condition. This shows more clearly than any other view point could do, not only why social statics must be taken into the account, but also why in the treatment of social mechanics social statics must precede social dynamics. When their true relations are perceived it becomes apparent that the latter cannot be understood until a clear conception of the former has been gained. But the literature of sociology furnishes no clew whatever to these relations or to the real nature of either. Comte saw and said that progress is, as he expressed it, " the development of order," l but that he really con- ceived the principle of social statics as set forth in the last chapter there is no evidence in his works. I shall in this chapter also show that he did not properly conceive the nature of social dynamics, although he defined it and treated it at great length. Nor can it be 1 " C'est ainsi que j'ai construit le grand aphorisme sociologique (leprogres est le developpement de I'ordre) sur lequel repose tout ce traite'." " Politique Positive," Vol. I, pp. 494-495. In the second volume (p. 41) he repeats this aphorism and says that he established it "pour Her partout les lois dynamiques aux lois statiques." PURE SOCIOLOGY [FAKT u denied that his view of social dynamics as historical progress is both true and vital. It is not opposed to any other true view and does not in the least conflict with what will be said in this chapter, but it can scarcely be said to form a part of social mechanics in a sci- entific sense. Comte's able treatise on social dynamics, beginning with the last chapter (51st lecture, p. 442) of Vol. IV of the " Posi- tive Philosophy " and continuing through Vols. V and VI, is a mas- terly development of the doctrine of Condorcet, earlier formulated by Leibnitz in the phrase that "the present is pregnant with the future." But this does not show how social progress takes place, i.e., the principle or principles through which progressive agencies work. All these philosophers had a sort of prophetic ken which enabled them to see in a vague way the truth of social progress, and Comte's aphorism above quoted is a typical prophetic or poetic idea as I defined it in Chapter V. It has the requisite vagueness and will bear the closest analysis, but it explains nothing. Although sociologists have never formulated the principle of social statics, still most of their works deal with it because they treat of social structures. They do not explain how social structures are formed but they treat them as finished products. Their work is precisely analogous to that of the systematist in botany or zoology who describes species and regards them as unalterably fixed. In biology it has now been learned that species are not fixed but varia- ble, and that there has been a perpetual transmutation of species. This is dynamic, as the other is static biology. And it is not neces- sary to give up the study of plants and animals, considered as fin- ished products, merely because it has been discovered that they are undergoing slow changes. It is just as easy and just as important to describe and classify species as it was before the theory of trans- mutation was established. It is the same in sociology. Social statics, like biological statics, is a theoretical science. It assumes the fixity of human institutions in order to study them, abstracts for the moment the idea of movement or change, and deals with society at a given point of time. It takes, as it were, an instan- taneous photograph of society, transfers it to the sociological labora- tory, and studies it at leisure. That picture at least will not change, and while the institutions themselves may be transforming, the one thus stereotyped can be investigated at leisure. Or, reverting again to biology, the statical sociologist may be compared to the naturalist, CH. xi] SOCIAL STAGNATION 225 who, although he may be an evolutionist, nevertheless secures his specimens in the traditional way and places them in his cabinet. A dried plant, a stuffsd bird, a mounted butterfly or chloroformed beetle, is not going to change in his hands, and he may let the live things go on and change all they may, his specimens at least are fixed. In fact, however, all transformations, social as well as organic, are secular, and their movements can only be seen with the eye of reason, so that human institutions as well as vegetable and animal species are, for all purposes of investigation virtually fixed, and the simple knowledge that they are changing need not disturb their quiet study any more than the knowledge that the earth with all that is on it is swiftly flying through space need dis- turb the operations of men inhabiting its surface. Nevertheless, the dynamic condition exists and much of the change is in the direction of progress. I am using the term prog- ress here in the same sense that is given it in treating of organic forms. We saw in Chapter V that in nearly all departments of nature at the present stage in the history of this planet evolution is taking place, i.e., things are changing by a series of steps which is an ascending and not a descending series. In general, the movement is in the direction of higher types of structure having greater differ- entiation and more complete integration of their parts. What is true of the organic world is true of human institutions. We have only to look back over the brief span of human history covered by the writ- ten records to see that this has been the case during the past two or three thousand years, but especially so far as regards the histori- cal races. It is probably true only to a less degree of the rest of mankind. It is also a safe inference that what we can thus plainly see at the end of the series has been true for all the earlier terms of it, back entirely through the human into the animal state where we leave it to biology to follow it on through all the phylogenetic stages. SOCIAL STAGNATION Social progress, however, is subject to a sort of law of diminish- ing returns. The progressive forces are themselves subject to equili- bration and a rhythmic swing, which gradually diminishes in amplitude and ultimately comes to rest unless some new force is introduced. Imitation preserves what has been gained, but after a change for the better has been adopted and its value recognized it Q 226 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART n becomes sacred with time, and the older an institution is the more sacred and inviolate it is. The permanence of social structures from these causes thus becomes the chief obstacle to reform when this is demanded by a changing environment and internal growth. Society is constructed somewhat on the plan of a crustacean. 1 This is espe- cially true of the more backward and somewhat primitive societies, while the later and higher societies have been reconstructed more on the plan of the vertebrate. Mr. Spencer truly says : The primitive man is conservative in an extreme degree. Even on con- trasting higher races with one another, and even on contrasting different classes in the same society, it is observable that the least developed are the most averse to change. Among the common people an improved method is difficult to introduce ; and even a new kind of food is usually disliked. The uncivilized man is thus characterized in a still greater degree. His simpler nervous system, sooner losing its plasticity, is still less able to take on a modified mode of action. Hence both an unconscious adhesion, and an avowed adhesion, to that which is established. 2 This also accounts for the prevalent idea in civilized nations that progress is the normal condition and always welcome. Says Bagehot : Our habitual instructors, our ordinary conversation, our inevitable and ineradicable prejudices, tend to make us think that " Progress" is the normal fact in human society, the fact which we should expect to see, the fact which we should be surprised if we did not see. But history refutes this. The ancients had no conception of progress ; they did not so much as reject the idea; they did not even entertain the idea. Oriental nations are just the same now. Since history began they have always been what they are. Savages again, do not improve ; they hardly seem to have the basis on which to build, much less the material to put up anything worth having. Only a few nations, and those of European origin, advance ; and yet these think seem irresistibly compelled to think such advance to be inevitable, natural, and eternal. 8 Sir Henry Sumner Maine, speaking from a still wider range of observation, fully corroborates these statements when he says : Each individual in India is a slave to the customs of the group to which he belongs. . . . The council of village elders does not command anything, it merely declares what has always been. Nor does it generally declare that which it believes some higher power to have commanded; those most entitled to speak on the subject deny that the natives of India necessarily 1 This happy comparison was made by Professor Joseph Le Conte. See the Monist for January, 1900, Vol. X, p. 164. 2 " Principles of Sociology," Vol. I, p. 78 ( 38). 8 " Physics and Politics," New York, 1877, pp. 41-42. CH. xi] SOCIAL DEGENERATION 227 require divine or political authority as the basis of their usages; their antiquity is by itself assumed to be a sufficient reason for obeying them. 1 It is indisputable that much the greatest part of mankind has never shown a particle of desire that its civil institutions should be improved since the moment when external completeness was first given to them by embodiment in some permanent record. 2 Vast populations, some of them with a civilization considerable but pe- culiar, detest that which in the language of the West would be called reform. The entire Mohammedan world detests it. The multitudes of colored men who swarm in the great continent of Africa detest it, and it is detested by that large part of mankind which we are accustomed to leave on one side as barbarous or savage. The millions upon millions of men who fill the Chinese Empire loathe it and (what is more) despise it. ... The enormous mass of the Indian population hates and dreads change. . . . To the fact that the enthusiasm for change is comparatively rare must be added the fact that it is extremely modern. It is known but to a small part of mankind, and to that part but for a short period during a history of incalculable length. 8 To all of which it may be added that even these few persons in the most enlightened countries desire change or " reform " only in certain institutions and by no means in all. As Dr. Ross fittingly puts it : How few there are who honestly believe that improvement is possible anywhere and everywhere ! Who expects change in worship or funerals, as he expects it in surgery? Who admits that the marriage institution or the court of justice is improvable as well as the dynamo? Who concedes the relativity of woman's sphere or private property, as he concedes that of the piano or the skyscraper? 4 All this may seem incompatible with the general law of progress, and may lead some to wonder how there can have been any progress at all. My purpose in introducing it is to clear the ground for the application of the real dynamic principles. But another even more serious fact must also be frankly avowed. SOCIAL DEGENERATION The universally recognized fact that social degeneration some- times occurs has led many to look upon it as the natural antithesis of social progress, and it is said that nations and races have their 1 " Village Communities in the East and West," by Sir Henry Sumner Maine, New York, 1880, pp. 13-14; 68. 2 " Ancient Law, its Connection with the Early History of Society, and its Relation to Modern Ideas," by Henry Sumner Maine, with an Introduction by Theodore W. Dwight. Third American from fifth London edition, New York, 1883, pp. 21-22. 8 " Popular Government," by Henry Sumner Maine, New York, 1886, pp. 132-134. < " Social Control," New York, 1901, p. 195. 228 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART n regular stages of youth, maturity, and decline as with old age. The basis of truth in all this was pointed out in Chapter V, under the head of Sympodial Development. It was there shown that there is no true opposite to any form of evolution, that development never goes backward, retracing the steps it has taken, and that the loss of any structure that has been acquired can only take place through the crowding out or extinction of the organisms possessing such structure, which is always done by the rise of other more vigorous organisms competing successfully for the means of subsistence. It was also there shown that human races are no exception to this law. There is therefore little to be said here except to point out the place that social degeneration occupies in social mechanics and especially in social dynamics. The chief question is whether degeneracy constitutes a movement in the same sense as progress, so as to make it a factor in the dynamic life of society. It is usually held to be such, but it now becomes clear that this view requires qualification. Degeneration or decadence, if we make these terms synonymous, is not strictly dynamic, but quasi-pathologic. There is only one form of it that seems to constitute an exception to this rule, and this is parasitic degeneracy. This, as was shown in Chap- ter IV, is always a product of the law of parsimony, and works really to the advantage of the being undergoing it. When a hand- some moth, the agile form and gay colors of which were produced by natural and sexual selection, abandons its competitive life and attaches itself to a host from whose stored tissues it directly and far more easily draws an abundant subsistence, its wings become useless and abort under the Lamarckian principle of disuse, its form becomes fleshy, obese, and uncouth, and all its beauty vanishes, because no longer needed in the struggle for existence. To the esthetic looker-on this is degeneracy, and from the standpoint of evolution it is also degeneracy, since it is change in the direction of simplicity of structure, although not in a direction just the reverse of that by which the former more complex structure was acquired. But from the standpoint of the advantage of the organism it is progress, since for the organism the last estate is better than the first. Social parasitism of every kind conforms to the principle of organic parasitism, and therefore does not constitute regression, as the opposite of progression. It is not strictly pathologic, and it may be classed as a form of social progress. CH. xi] SOCIAL INSTABILITY 229 If savage man has come out of an animal state (Homo descended from Pithecanthropus), if barbaric man has come from savage man, if half-civilized man has come from barbaric man, if civilized man has come from half-civilized man, if enlightened man has come from early civilized man, then there has in the long run always been progress in spite of all the forms of degeneracy and all the rhythms to which this series of phenomena has been subjected. The later steps in the series we know to have taken place, because we have a connected historical account of them. The very earliest steps are pretty clearly taught by zoology, paleontology, embryology, and phylogeny. The only ones that are not clearly vouched for are the second and third, and even here we are not altogether without evidence, while all theory, all logic, and all scientific analogy sup r port them. Ethnologists have described certain; low races whoin they suppose to have degenerated from some higher state, as, foy example, the Veddahs, the Akkas, the Fuegians, and even the Ainos and the Esquimaux. From this there are certain to be some who will "jump at the conclusion" that all savages are degenerates,. This is but to revive the old doctrine of a " golden age " and the de-r generacy of all mankind, or at least Aristotle's doctrine that all sav, r ages have degenerated from a civilized state. These doctrines have all been definitely set at rest by Lyell, 1 Tylor, 2 Lubbock, 3 and others^ and need not occupy us. Although everything points to social evolution as having always gone on and as still going on, and although there are no indications that there is now or ever has been any true social involution in the sense of retracing the steps that have been taken, still, it must riot be inferred that all the modern discussion of the problem of social decadence is to no purpose or based on vain imaginings. The real problem is how to secure social stability. The Complicated process by which societies are formed, as set forth in the last chapter, ren- ders them somewhat delicate structures, and although the degree of social efficiency increases directly with the degree of complexity, the 1 " Antiquity of Man," London, 1863, Chapter XIX, p. 379. 2 " Primitive Culture," London, 1871, Vol. II, pp. 52 ff. 8 British Association Report, Dundee Meeting, 1807, London, 1868, Pt. II, Noticed and Abstracts, pp. 121 ff. 230 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART n degree of stability seems to be inversely proportional to the grade of aggregation. We meet here with a fresh application of the law that was seen to prevail in the organic world, and which was charac- terized by the phrase : survival of the plastic. There is a constant tendency in society to ossification, growing out of the intense appre- ciation that all mankind displays for those social structures that have served a good purpose. Men perpetually praise the bridge that took them across the river of life, and continue to praise it and cling to it after its timbers have decayed and its abutments begin to crumble. This highly useful conservatism thus becomes a dangerous misoneism, and the very stability which men thus seek to secure becomes a source of weakness. Here we encounter the distinction between the stable and the labile, or rather the real connection be- tween the two. For only the labile is truly stable, just as in the domain of living things, only the plastic is enduring. For lability is not an exact synonym of instability, as the dictionaries teach, but embodies besides the idea of flexibility and susceptibility to change without destruction or loss. It is that quality in institutions which enables them to change and still persist, which converts their equilib- rium into a moving equilibrium, and which makes possible their adaptation to both internal and external modification, to changes in both individual character and the environment. As there is no such thing in physics as absolute rest, so there is no such thing in society as absolute stagnation, so that when a society makes for itself a procrustean bed it is simply preparing the way for its own destruction by the on-moving agencies of social dynamics. The law of the instability of the homogeneous will alone prevent the continuance of a changeless state, but as structures once formed never retrace the steps through which they were created, they must either change organically and move on to higher stages or they must succumb to the pressure exerted by surrounding dynamic influences. The case is precisely the same here as that described in Chapter V, when dealing with the causes of the extinction of species and of trunk lines of descent under the influence of sympodial development. It is this that is meant by the instability of society or of civilization. Social decadence is never universal. If it is going on in one place a corresponding social progress is going on in others, and thus far the loss has always been more than made up by the gain. The causes of social decadence have been so widely, I will not say deeply, CH. xi] DYNAMIC PRINCIPLES 231 discussed in recent times that I need not dwell upon them. They are personal, racial, and social. 1 We may therefore admit the force of the arguments of the school of criminal anthropologists headed by Lombroso, of the school of anthroposociologists headed by La- pouge, of the school of individualists headed by Demolins, and of the statisticians, who have demonstrated the law that the in- crease of intelligence and of population are inversely proportional ; we may concede with Nietzsche that a high state of morals and civility is iri a certain sense decadent, and with other extremists that all forms of collective existence are to some extent at the ex- pense of virility ; we may recognize all these factors of the problem without being thereby blinded to the principal fact that in society and in the human race generally the series has thus far been and still remains an ascending one, and that social, organic, and cosmic evolution prevail and have prevailed to the limit of our powers of fathoming the universe. But, on the other hand, this scientific optimism should not, and, properly interpreted, does not teach any laissez faire doctrine, and we cannot afford to close our eyes to the patent facts of social instability. But I may as well repeat here what was said at the close of the preceding section, that my purpose in discussing social stagnation, social degeneration, and social instability has been to prepare the way for the clear and intelligent discussion of the true principles of social dynamics. These subjects now so engross public attention that all proper perspective is destroyed, and the picture presented of human society has become distorted and obscured. DYNAMIC PRINCIPLES In some respects social dynamics is a more complex branch of social mechanics than social statics. In the latter we found that all the phenomena were controlled by a single principle, that of social synergy, under which social energy is equilibrated and social struc- tures are formed. In social dynamics, on the contrary, several quite distinct principles must be recognized. We shall endeavor to reduce these to three, or at least to confine ourselves chiefly to the three leading dynamic principles. These are, first, difference of potential, manifested chiefly in the crossing of cultures, and by which the J See the recent able article on this subject by Miss Sarah E. Simons, Ann. Acad, Pol. and Soc. Sci., Philadelphia, Vol. XVlil, September, 1901, pp. 251-274. 232 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART n equilibrium of social structures is disturbed, converting stability into lability ; second, innovation, due to psychic exuberance, through which the monotonous repetition of social heredity is interrupted, and new vistas are gained ; and third, conation, or social effort, by which the social energy is applied to material things, resulting in poesis and achievement. All these principles are unconscious social agencies working for social progress. Difference of Potential. This expression is of course borrowed from modern physics, and I shall assume that the reader is familiar with the distinction between potential and kinetic energy. It is the broadest of all the dynamic principles, and is, in fact, a cosmic prin- ciple like that of synergy. I cannot deal with it in all its bearings upon social science, but must confine myself chiefly to its one great application, the crossing, or cross fertilization of cultures. Although I do not refer here especially to the physiological aspect of the question, still, as this furnishes the clearest illustration of the principle I shall make free use of it, and to render it still more clear I shall begin the discussion with a glance at the nature of sex. Biologists have only recently discovered the principle of sex. It had always been supposed, and is still popularly supposed, that the purpose of sex is to insure reproduction. But, paradoxical as it may sound, sex has fundamentally nothing whatever to do with reproduction. Not, of course, that in the higher animals reproduc- tion is possible except through the organs of sex, but the great num- ber of organisms now known to science which possess no sex, and which, nevertheless, reproduce asexually in the most prolific man- ner, clearly shows that sex is not at all necessary to reproduction. What, then, is the purpose of sex ? What office does it perform in organic economy ? The answer that modern biology gives to this question is that sex is a device for keeping up a difference of potential. In asexual reproduction heredity is simple repetition. The struc- tures in existence exactly reproduce themselves. The offspring is in all respects like the parent. Function is fully performed. Growth and multiplication go on at rapid rates. There may be even considerable perfectionment of these same structures. But, as we saw in the last chapter, all these are static operations. The horticulturist well knows that propagation by buds, slips, stolons, grafts, etc., simply continues the stock indefinitely unchanged, CH. xi] DIFFERENCE OF POTENTIAL 233 while propagation by seed is liable to produce change in the stock in almost any direction. Seedlings frequently will not " come true." This is because seed is the result of sexual fertilization, and em- bodies elements from two plants, or at least two individuals in the biological sense, according to which a single plant is composed of many individuals. In native plants the attentive observer can clearly see the effort of nature to avail herself of the advantages of sex. The original and "natural" method of reproduction is asexual, and all sexual differentiation has been a departure from that method. But except in the lowest forms sexuality has been attained throughout the vege- table kingdom. Here, however, it usually goes on along with asex- ual reproduction. In fact sexual reproduction in plants is almost always an " alternation of generations." This phenomenon when discovered in a few animals was regarded as quite remarkable, and botanists did not have the wit to see that what was an exception in the animal kingdom, was the rule in the vegetable kingdom. But in plants, after true sexuality had been attained there were several steps in the direction of more and more complete dualism in repro- duction. There are, for example, the hermaphrodite, the monoecious, and the dioecious states, and the evidence is strong that this is the order in which these states have been developed. But this is not the whole of the story. It is found that among plants that have every outward appearance of being hermaphrodite there are many that are only structurally so, but functionally unisexual. There is a variety of devices for securing this result. The commonest of these is what is called dichogamy, and the two principal forms of dichogamy are proterandry, by which the anthers mature and shed their pollen before the pistils are ready for it, and proterogyny, the reverse of proterandry, in both of which self fertilization is impos- sible. In other cases, as commonly in the strawberry, although all the flowers have both stamens and pistils, a close inspection shows that in some flowers only the stamens are functional and in others only the pistils. In many monoecious plants, as, for example, in the wild rice (Zizania), the female flowers are above the male, so that the pollen from the latter cannot fall upon the former. But the number of such devices is so great that no enumeration of them is possible here. Everywhere nature is seeking, as Dr. Gray happily expressed it " how not to do it," and the intention, so to speak, is 234 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART n plainly written over the whole vegetable kingdom to prevent self fertilization at all hazards. But when we examine the other more numerous and obvious class of cases in which it is evidently, and, as we may say, avowedly sought to secure cross fertilization, we cannot look amiss of them. In fact we may almost venture the general proposition that all irregular flowers are adaptations to insect agency for this purpose. Fragrance in flowers seeks the same end, and, in fact, color, and brilliancy in flowers can have no other object. But for the possibility of cross fertilization by insects there would have been no flowers in the popular sense, and as I have often pointed out, showy and fragrant flowers came into existence simultaneously with nectar-seeking insects. There is a constant tendency in both the vegetable and the animal kingdoms to escape from asexual reproduction and resort to sexual reproduction, and in the latter to secure the greatest possible separa- tion of the sexes and difference in the parents. Although all this is brought about by natural selection, or the principle of advantage, and the term purpose is a metaphor, still it overwhelmingly demon- strates that there is an advantage in sexuality. This advantage is clear to be seen, since it is nothing less than that of setting up a difference of potential between organic beings, which may be regarded in so far as mechanical systems charged with potential energy which cannot be converted into kinetic energy except through the influence of other systems foreign to themselves brought into such relations to them as to act upon them and mutually give and take of their stored energy. This sex primarily accomplishes, and it is accom- plished in increasing degrees by the wider and wider crossing of strains. Thus the object of sex is not reproduction at all but varia- tion. It is organic differentiation, higher life, progress, evolution. The crossing of strains is in the highest degree dynamic, and it applies to all living beings. It must therefore apply to man, and before leaving the physiological side of the subject it is well to note that this is the principle that underlies all the customs and laws of primitive as well as civilized men looking to the preservation of the vigor of races. The most conspicuous and widespread of such cus- toms are those which, in varying forms and degrees, and with vary- ing but usually great severity, enforce the practice of exogamy. Among higher races the same principle is embodied in laws against incest, and in codes defining the degrees of consanguinity within en. xi] DIFFERENCE OF POTENTIAL 235 which marriage is forbidden. Everywhere it is and always has been realized either instinctively, intuitively, or rationally, and now it has been demonstrated experimentally, that close interbreeding is dete- riorating and endangers the life of society. We need not discuss how men so early arrived at this truth. Personally I am disposed to regard it as in large part a survival of customs so old that they were developed under the biologic principle of natural selection. But be that as it may, from the high standpoint of the sociologist the truth comes forth as one of the clearest exemplifications of the universal principle of social dynamics for which the phrase difference of potential seems to be the clearest expression. But difference of potential is a social as well as a physiological and a physical principle, and perhaps we shall find the easiest transi- tion from the physiological to the social in viewing the deteriorating effects of close interbreeding from the standpoint of the environment instead of from that of the organism. A long-continued uniform environment is more deteriorating than similarity of blood. Persons who remain for their whole lives, and their descendants after them, in the same spot, surrounded by precisely the same conditions, and intermarry with others doing the same, and who continue this for a series of generations, deteriorate mentally at least, and probably also physically, although there may not be any mixing of blood. Their whole lives, physical, mental, and moral, become fixed and monoto- nous, and the partners chosen for continuing the race have nothing new to add to each other's stock. There is no variation of the social monotony, and the result is socially the same as close consanguineal interbreeding. On the other hand, a case in which a man should, without knowing it, marry his own sister, after they had been long separated and living under widely different skies, would proba- bly entail no special deterioration, and their different conditions of life would have produced practically the same effect as if they were not related. The transition from this semi-physiological aspect of the subject to the wholly sociological one is easy. The cross fertilization of cultures is to sociology what the cross fertilization of germs is to biology. A culture is a social structure, a social organism, if any one prefers, and'ideas are its germs. These may be mixed or crossed, and the effect is the same as that of crossing hereditary strains. The process by which the greater part of this has been accomplished, 236 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART n at least in the early history of human society, is the struggle of races. In the last chapter we discussed this phenomenon from one point of view. We saw in it the working of the principle of social synergy, equilibrating antagonistic social forces and constructing human institutions. We kept as completely out of view as possible the other and equally important point, viz., the simultaneous and concomitant working of the principle of the difference of potential. A race of men may be looked upon as a physical system possessing a large amount of potential energy, but often having reached such a complete state of equilibrium that it is incapable of performing any but the normal functions of growth and multiplication. It is reduced by the very principle that constructed it to the power of simple repe- tition. Under the head of Social Stagnation at the beginning of this chapter it was shown that most savage and barbaric races are actually in this state. They want no change and ask for nothing that does not already exist ; nay they detest and consistently oppose all change. If it were left to the initiative of such races there never would be any social progress. We may go further and say that if it were left to the deliberate and conscious action of mankind human progress would be impossible. Fortunately there are great cosmic, unconscious principles that work for progress against the eternal resistance of established social structures. By sheer force of circumstance, by the exuberant fertility of mankind, by the pushing out of boundaries to avoid overcrowding, by wanderings and migrations, different races, charged with poten- tial energy locked up in varied cults and customs, tongues and tendencies, experience wholly fortuitous encounters and collisions, resulting in conflicts and conquests, whereby all these divergent idea-germs are first hurled promiscuously together and then rudely jostled and stirred into a heterogeneous menstruum that tends to polarize on the social spindle, but ultimately blends in the manner described under the head of Social Karyokinesis. Every one of these social Anlagen thus forced into intimate relations is full of energy which can only be released by changing its potential, and this is what is done by the action of dissimilar foreign Anlagen brought into contact with them. In the last chapter only the synergetic or constructive effects of the struggle of races were described. But the social equilibrium thus produced is always a moving equilibrium. Without destroying the structures produced by social synergy a CH. xi] DIFFERENCE OF POTENTIAL 237 molecular or differential change is constantly taking place whereby they are perpetually changing in type and evolving into new and higher types of structure. This is the dynamic movement caused by the change of potential, which is in turn the result of the cross fertilization of cultures. Progress results from the fusion of unlike elements. This is creative, because from it there results a third something which is neither the one nor the other but different from both and something new and superior to either. But these elements, although they must be unlike, must possess a certain degree of similarity so as not to be incompatible and unassimilable. It must be cross fertiliza- tion and not hybridization. All cultures are supposed to be assimi- lable. Whatever is human must have some points of agreement. Just as all races are fertile inter se, so all human institutions may be regarded as belonging to the same species. Still there are some races whose culture differs so widely from that of others that they seem to form an exception to this law. Such differences are, how- ever, usually differences of degree and result, as explained in the last chapter, from differences in the rank or order of the two societies as measured by the number of assimilations which they have undergone. They are theoretically, but not practically assimi- lable. The one has so little potential energy that it produces no appreciable effect on the other, while the higher civilization imme- diately overwhelms, engulfs, and absorbs, or destroys the lower. The distinction between cross fertilization and hybridization may be illustrated by the effect that different ideas sometimes produce. Let a Hegelian, who proceeds from the standpoint of thought or spirit, attempt to discuss any philosophical question with a man of science, who proceeds from the standpoint of concrete facts, and they will make no headway. They cannot understand each other. There is no common ground to stand upon. Their ideas will no more mix than oil and water. They are infertile. But let a zoologist and a botanist discuss some question of general biology, the data for which are found in both the organic kingdoms, and their ideas will instantly attract and supplement each other. Each will adduce fresh illustrations from his own field that will illumi- nate those of the other and they will harmonize and progress per- fectly. In a word, their ideas will cross fertilize each other. It is not otherwise with human societies brought into contact. 238 PURE SOCIOLOGY [I-AKT n Again, anything that increases social activity, especially if it affects the intensity of this activity, is dynamic. Thus increase of population, in and of itself, is not dynamic, but there is such a thing as the " dynamic density" of population, and it may be distinguished from the " material density." l By the friction of mind upon mind, especially in a mixed population of a certain density, there is pro- duced a difference of potential among individuals which is in a high degree dynamic. It is impossible in dealing with this subject to avoid the bearing of war and peace on human progress. All civilized men realize the horrors of war, and if sociology has any utilitarian purposes one of these certainly is to diminish or mitigate these horrors. But pure sociology is simply an inquiry into the social facts and conditions, and has nothing to do with utilitarian purposes. In making this objective inquiry it finds that, as a matter of fact, war has been the chief and leading condition of human progress. This is perfectly obvious to any one who understands the meaning of the struggle of races. When races stop struggling progress ceases. They want no progress and they have none. For all primitive and early, undevel- oped races, certainly, the condition of peace is a condition of social stagnation. We may enlarge to our soul's content on the blessings of peace, but the facts remain as stated, and cannot be successfully disproved. As regards the more civilized races, this much at least must be admitted. The inhabitants of southern, central, and western Europe, call them Aryan, Indo-Germanic, or anything you please, and irrespective of the question whether their history can be traced back and their origin discovered or not, have led the civilization of the world ever since there were any records. They are and have been throughout all this time the repository of the highest culture, they have the largest amount of social efficiency, they have achieved the most, and they represent the longest uninterrupted inheritance and transmission of human achievement. The several nations into which this race is now divided are the products of compound assimila- tion of a higher order than that of other nations. As a consequence 1 Cf. lmile Durkheim, " Les Regies de la Methode sociologique," 2 e ed., Paris, 1901, pp. 139-140. This question was also ably discussed by M. Adolphe Coste in one of his very last contributions to sociology, " Le Facteur Population dans revolution sociale," Rev. Int. de Sociologie, 9 Annee, Aout-Septembre, 1901, pp. 569-612. CH. xi] DIFFERENCE OF POTENTIAL 239 of all this this race has become the dominant race of the globe. As such it has undertaken the work of extending its dominion over other parts of the earth. It has already spread over the whole of South and North America, over Australia, and over Southern Africa. It has gained a firm foothold on Northern Africa, Southern and Eastern Asia, and most of the larger islands and archipelagos of the sea. It is only necessary to understand the modern history of the world and the changes in the map of the world to see this. Much of this has been peacefully accomplished, but whenever any of the races previously occupying this territory has raised any obstacle to the march of the dominant race the latter has never hesi- tated to employ force or resort to war. Certain tender-hearted per- sons have almost always uttered a faint protest against it, but it has been utterly powerless to stem the current. Consider for a moment the settlement of North America by Europeans. It has been almost universally felt that it must be done, and any objection on the ground of the prior occupancy of the native races has been looked upon as mere sentimentality. There have been so-called treaties and purchases and bargains with the savages, but with such odds in intel- ligence and shrewdness, as well as in advantage, that they amounted to no more than pretense. The white man fixed the terms and if the red man declined them he was simply coerced. If they had all been rejected the result would have been the same. From such transactions the element of justice is wholly excluded. It is only another form of conquest. Indeed, the whole movement by which the master race of the planet has extended its dominion over inferior races differs not the least in principle from the primitive movement described in the last chapter. The effects are different only because of the great disparity in the races engaged, due in turn to the superior social efficiency of the dominant race. Under the operation of such a cosmical principle it seems a waste of breath to urge peace, justice, humanity, and yet there can be no doubt that these moral forces are gaining strength and slowly miti- gating the severity of the law of nature. But mitigation is all that can be hoped for. The movement must go on, and there seems no place for it to stop until, just as man has gained dominion over the animal world, so the highest type of man shall gain dominion over all the lower types of man. The greater part of the peace agitation is characterized by total blindness to all these broader cosmic facts 240 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART n and principles, and this explains its complete impotence. There is a certain kind of over-culture which instead of widening narrows the mental horizon. It is a mark of an effete mind to exaggerate small things while ignoring great things. Maudlin sentimentality and inconsistent sympathy, thinking on problems of the world without discrimination or perspective, incapacity to scent the drift of events or weigh the relative gravity of heterogeneous and unequal facts, are qualities that dominate certain minds which, from culture and advantages, gain the credit of constituting the cream of the most advanced intelligence. Far safer guides are the crude instincts of the general public in the same communities. If the peace mission- aries could have made their counsels prevail there might have been universal peace, nay, general contentment, but there would have been no progress. The social pendulum would have swung through a shorter and shorter arc until at last it would have come to rest, the difference of potential would have grown smaller and smaller until it reached the zero point, and all movement in the social equi- librium would have ceased. Whatever may be best for the future when society shall become self-conscious and capable of devising its own means of keeping up the difference of potential, thus far war and struggle with all that they imply have been the blind uncon- scious means by which nature has secured this result, and by which a dynamic condition has been produced and kept up. Attention has thus far been confined to those primary social structures called races, nations, etc., which constitute the forms of human association. There are other almost equally important aspects of the subject having their roots in other classes of facts, and to these we may now turn our attention. Innovation. The dynamic principle next in importance to that of difference of potential is what I prefer to call innovation. Its bio- logical homologue is the sport. This is only possible in sexual reproduction, and is probably to be explained by the fact that the hereditary elements (Anlageri) may remain undeveloped during many generations and suddenly appear in offspring whose parents do not possess the given qualities, but in whom they have lain latent as well as in several generations of their ancestors. These then seem to be new elements, and are called sports. This may appear to be only an accidental and subsidiary consideration, but in its broader aspect it takes the form of what I have called fortuitous CH. xi] INNOVATION 241 variation, an expression used by Darwin, Spencer, Romanes, Cope, and others, but not always given its full significance. I am free to confess that I studied botany chiefly for the purpose of trying to arrive at the laws and principles of vegetable life, and with little interest in plant forms as such. From the beginning of my botani- cal investigations I was struck with the manifestations of the prin- ciple of fortuitous variation, and I finally undertook to illustrate and formulate the principle. On Dec. 15, 1888, I read a paper before the Biological Society of Washington on: "Fortuitous Varia- tion, as illustrated by the Genus Eupatorium," which I illustrated by a large series of specimens collected by myself, having in each case carefully noted the habitat. This paper, which was not written, should have been published with the illustrations, but I had not the facilities for this, and contented myself with sending a brief abstract of it to Nature, which appeared in that journal for July 25, 1889 (Vol. XL, p. 310). I shall not introduce here the technical part even of this note, but as it is now wholly forgotten, I will revive it by quoting a part of the concluding portion in which I attempted to explain the cause of fortuitous variation. Organized or living matter constantly tends to increase in quantity, which may be regarded as the true end of organic being, to which the perfection of structure, commonly mistaken for such end, is only one of the means. Every organic element may be contemplated as occupying the center of a sphere, toward the periphery of which, in all directions alike, it seeks to expand, and would expand but for physical obstructions which present themselves. The forms which have succeeded in surviving are those, and only those, that were possible under existing conditions ; that is, they have been developed along the lines of least resistance, pressure along all other lines having resulted in failure. Now, the various forms of vegetable and animal life represent the latest expression of this law, the many possible, and the only possible, results of this universal nisus of organic being. The different forms of Eupatorium, or of any other plant or animal, that are found co-existing under identical conditions merely show that there were many lines along which the resistance was not sufficient to prevent develop- ment. They are the successes of nature. I disclaim any desire to discredit or impair in any way the great law of natural selection. The most important variations, those which lead up to higher types of structure, are the result of that law, which therefore really explains organic evolution ; but the comprehension and acceptance of both natural selection and evolution are retarded instead of being advanced by claiming for the former more than it can explain, and it might as well be recognized first as last that a great part numerically by far the greater 242 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART n part of the variety and multiplicity, as well as the interest and charm of Nature, is due to another and quite distinct law, which, with the above qualifications, may perhaps be appropriately called " the law of fortuitous variation." At least one biologist of note, Mr. George J. Romanes, was attracted by this paper, and urged me to follow the subject up experimentally, which I was unable to do. He brought it to the attention of the Biological Section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science the same year, as in line with his doctrine of " physiological selection " and what he had called " unusef ul " or " non-utilitarian " characters. I returned to the subject in my address as president of the Biological Society of Washington in January, 1890, dealing somewhat more at length with the philosophical aspect, and concluding as follows : Here then we have the solution of by far the worst difficulty in the way of natural selection. The beneficial effect need not be assumed to begin at the initial stage. It need not be felt until well-formed varieties have been developed without regard to any advantage in the particular differences which they present. There seems to be no flaw in this mode of solving this paramount problem, and if it is objected that it amounts to a new explana- tion of the origin of species, I am ready to admit it, and I believe that more species are produced by fortuitous variation than by natural selection. Natural selection is not primarily the cause of the origin of species; its mission is far higher. It is the cause of the origin of types of structure. 1 It might be supposed that fortuitous variation as thus explained was something quite apart from the phenomena of sports, but this is because in these papers I did not attempt to go into the specific causes of such variations. The chief cause of organic variation, as already shown in this chapter, is sex. When treating of sex as a device of nature for producing a difference of potential I did not go beyond the primary dualism of the parental strains. But it is evi- dent that for any developed organism with a long phylogeny the number of atavistic stirps must be next to infinite, and as any of these are liable to lie latent during many generations and crop out at any time, the possibilities of fortuitous variation are enormous. This is the inner explanation of fortuitous variation, and is the way in which nature fills every crack, chink, and cranny into which it is possible for life to be thrust. i Proc. Biol. Soc. Washington, Vol. V, 1890, p. 44. CH. xi] INNOVATION 243 I am not at this writing acquainted except at second hand with the exhaustive work of Professor Hugo de Vries entitled : " Die Mutationstheorie " (Leipzig, 1901), but from all accounts I have seen of it I infer that he is working at this same problem, and that his theory will not be found to differ widely from my own as above stated, although no one can make extended observations in such a promising field without discovering the necessity of qualifying, and of both restricting and enlarging the attempts of others to formulate the truth that underlies all the phenomena. It matters not by what name we designate it, whenever the life force breaks over the bounds of simple heredity and goes beyond the process of merely repeating and multiplying the structures that have already been created, it becomes innovation and changes the type of structure. In biologic language this is variation, and all variation is dynamic. Variation due to mere exuberance of life is quite as much so as when due to other causes. These erratic sports, these leaps and bounds of a throbbing, pulsating, exultant nature, under the life-giving power of sunshine and shower, produce a perpetual rejuvenescence and call back into life and activity all the myriad germ-plasms that have been pushed aside in the march of heredity and which line the wayside of evolution. These con- stitute an inexhaustible source of fresh variations, combining and recombining in an endless series of ever changing forms. Such are the conditions and methods of organic innovation, with which utility, advantage, and fitness to survive have nothing to do. Social innovation proceeds upon the same principle, and although the immediate conditions and accompanying circumstances may ap- pear very different, we have only to abstract the details and general- ize the phenomena to perceive the fundamental unity of process. Social innovation has been called invention by Tarde and impulse by Patten. 1 Tarde has so fully explained and illustrated the prin- ciple that there is no possibility of misunderstanding him. Patten states it so obscurely that in reading his book I missed it entirely, and would never have known what he meant if he had not ex- plained it to me orally. The phenomenon is psychic and involves the whole of mind. Invention unduly emphasizes the intellectual side and impulse the feeling side. Innovation avoids both these extremes. The tendency in social, as in organic structures is simply i " Theory of Prosperity," by Simon N. Patten, New York, 1902, pp. 180 ff. 244 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART n to conserve and reproduce; it is to copy and repeat, grow and multiply, but always to retain the same structures. In both depart- ments the normal process is simple metabolism, and social metabolism would never any more than physiological, produce a new structure. But in society as in organisms there is a surplus of energy that must be worked off. This is not, however, universally diffused. It is a somewhat exceptional product. The great mass have no energy to spare beyond the bare needs of existence. But nature always produces irregularities and inequalities. Its method is ut- terly devoid of economy. It heaps up in one place and tears away in another. There is a law which Spencer has called the " multipli- cation of effects." Action begun in a certain direction tends more and more to go in that direction until all homogeneity is destroyed. Advantage creates advantage. The smallest fissure through a dam helps on the work of enlarging that fissure until the dam is under- mined and swept away. The least groove on a mountain slope causes this to become the center of erosion and makes a gorge. The more a river bends the more it wears and the bend is cumula- tively increased. The same law works in society. Extremes breed extremes, and a state of equality, if it could be conceived to exist, would be ephemeral. A state of inequality would quickly replace it. So that while all the social energy if equally distributed might leave a very small surplus to each member of society, the actual case is : vast numbers in whom the social energy is below the level of healthy activity and small groups in whom it is far above the possibility of ever consuming it. Surplus social energy is confined to these favored groups, and all social innovation emanates from them. We saw in the last chapter how human association was brought about. We did not, however, penetrate into the inner workings of the principle of social synergy. The great fact of human slavery had to be dismissed with a sentence. A word to the wise was sufficient. The historian has too often told this story. The his- torian has also fully described the system of caste, but usually without giving any idea of its cause, or else a wrong idea. Nor has he neglected the fact of a leisure class, and often he has cor- rectly portrayed the advantages that have accrued to the world from the leisure class. Our present task is to point out that social innovation has been largely due to this form of social inequality. Not wholly, however, and it is only necessary that the primary CH. xi] INNOVATION 245 wants be supplied without exhausting the social energy for it to crop out in the form of innovation. There is a social bathmism or growth force which ever presses. Physical wants must be supplied, and most of this energy is thus expended, but everything goes to show that the moment this is done this energy overflows in the direction of doing something new. This overflow, too, takes all conceivable forms and by far the greater part of it is utterly wasted, often more than wasted. One only needs to read Professor Veblen's book J to see that this is so, but he intentionally left out of view the other side, and he would probably agree that there is another side. It only helps to emphasize two truths: the non- economical character of all of nature's processes, and the small amount of energy that really makes for evolution or social progress. The apparently large gains in this direction are due to the almost unlimited time that there has been in which to realize them. It is our task to consider the other side and show, not what the. leisure class has done for human progress, , because - others have already done that, but more specifically how, it has done it. Mr. Veblen himself has given us the key to the whole process. It is his " instinct of workmanship," which is nothing more nor less than the dynamic principle of innovation. The odium: of labor, as he has so ingeniously shown, is something conventional and artificial. If body or mind is not fatigued with the effort required to satisfy the needs of existence, activity in , either is pleasurable. As was shown in Chapter V, not only is all normal exercise of the faculties a satisfac- tion, but at bottom all pleasure, all enjoyment, and all good consist in the normal exercise of the faculties. All want; and all pain, and the whole of the so-called Weltschmerz, are due to .restraints of one kind or another to such exercise. When there .is .no other form olj this pain there remains the form called ennui, .which is the mosl? intolerable of all, and which is the chief form in which it is experi- enced by the leisure class. They must work or suffer unendurable, torture. Normally they will follow the instinct of workmanship and do something useful. So long as work is respectable, i.e., sq long as there is entailed by it no loss of caste, it will be done. The late lamented M. Adolphe Coste has clearly shown 2 that employ T 1 " The Theory of the Leisure Class," by Thorstein Veblen, New York, 1899. 2 "Les Principes d'une Sociologie Objective," Paris, 1899, pp. 114-115; "L'Ex- pe'rience des Peuples et les Provisions qu'elle autorise," Paris, 1900, pp. 200-201. 246 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART 11 ments which are now exclusively followed by the " working class " and which no " gentleman of leisure " would deign to engage in, were boasted of by the great men of antiquity, many of whom were skilled forgers, masons, carpenters, tanners, and dyers, as well as warriors and hunters. And when we reflect how intimately skilled labor is connected with invention, who can estimate the loss that the world has suffered by that pure conventionality which relegates all skilled labor to the mentally least developed and least equipped classes of society ? For labor in and of itself is not dynamic. Most of the labor done in the world is purely static. It simply reproduces after the set pattern. It multiplies exact copies of what has been invented. It is imitation in the Tardean sense. Such is nearly all unskilled labor in all departments of industry. Such is also most so-called skilled labor, for the laborer only learns to make or do one thing over and over again in exactly the same way. Outside of his "trade" he is utterly inefficient, and when a new machine robs him of his trade he is thrown out of employment and has nothing that he can do. Such, too, is all menial service and routine work, most of the work that relates to cleanliness, washing, scrubbing, scouring, dusting, sweeping, brushing; most of the work of women in civilized countries, the eternal round of feeding and caring for mankind. In this there has been degeneracy, for among savages not only the skilled labor but also the invention is done by women as well as by men. Finally most charity and philanthropic work is static, and philanthropists are content to alleviate present suffering by temporary action, when they know that it will have to be done again and again. Many such would disparage a reformer who should suggest a general policy that would if carried out prevent the recurrence of the conditions that call for charity. Statical work has been happily called a web of Penelope. Its usefulness, how- ever> cannot be questioned, since through it alone can the status quo be maintained. It is the conservative force of society, preventing the loss of the progress attained, and it must always absorb by far the greater part of all the social energy. What then is dynamic action ? It is that which goes beyond mere repetition. It is heuristic. It discovers new ways. It is Spencer's "fructifying causation." It is alteration, modification, variation. When applied to production it produces according to a geometrical instead of an arithmetical progression. But it need not necessarily CH. xi] CONATION 247 be invention. It may be impulse, as Dr. Patten says, exuberance and overflow of spirits, of emotion, of passion even, which will not brook constraint and dashes forward to higher and greater results. Dynamic action is progressive, and, instead of leaving the world in the same condition as before, leaves it in a changed, i.e., in an im- proved condition. The final criterion of a dynamic action is achieve- ment in the sense in which that term was used in the third and fifth chapters, and every innovation, however slight, constitutes an incre- ment to the world's achievement. It is so much permanently gained, it can never be lost, and does not have to be done again. It consti- tutes the means of producing something better than could have been produced before, and this product is rendered perpetual by its con- tinual reproduction through imitation or social heredity. This is not innovation, which differs totally from it in the fact that its repetition would be a contradiction of terms. Every innovation is something different from every other. There can be only one innovation in the same sense, although progress consists of many series of innovations in the same direction. Conation. We are now prepared to consider the third dynamic principle, which I call conation. These dynamic principles are all related, and the order in which they have been treated is the natural order. Innovation could not be advantageously explained until the general principle of cross fertilization of cultures had been shown to be the essential condition to that unconscious progress which made invention possible. And now, as we shall see, conation or social effort could not be understood without a clear conception of the true nature of a dynamic action, which is the essential condition to inno- vation. The crossing of cultures is the most fundamental of the dynamic principles. It is a social principle, but it is at the same time organic. It goes to the essence of social structures and works changes in their very type and nature, selecting and preserving all that is best in the different structures thus blended, and creating a new structure which is different from and superior to any of the prior existing structures. It does this, as we have seen, without de- stroying the structures out of which the new structure is formed. The state of equilibrium established by social synergy in producing the old structures is converted into a moving equilibrium developing higher structures. Innovation is a part of this process, and is not to be considered as a separate movement. It is a partial explanation 248 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART n of how the changes take place. In studying it we simply go deeper into the details of the process and learn to distinguish the strictly dynamic from the wholly static elements of social activity. It con- sists in dynamic actions. Finally in studying conation we proceed one step further in our analysis and seek to discover what it is that makes an action dynamic. Or, still more accurately stated, we ana- lyze action itself and seek to determine what part of it is dynamic, for in a certain sense no action is wholly dynamic. There are, how- ever, many actions which contain no dynamic element, and therefore we have to do here only with such actions as do contain a dynamic element. Let us therefore select any action in which a dynamic element resides and subject it to a rigid analysis. It makes no difference what the action is if it is one that leaves society in a state different from that which existed before it was performed, presumably in an im- proved state, however slight that improvement may be. We have to consider the several effects of such an action, for nearly every action has more than one effect. These effects are the essential things, and the question always is whether any of them are dynamic, and if so which ones. We assume that the action selected for analysis has fcome dynamic effects as well as some static effects. A close inspec- tion will show that actions are much alike in these respects, and that all dynamic actions have about the same general effects. Leaving out of account all accidental and unessential consequences of such an action we shall find that it always has three necessary and essential effects, viz. : 1. To satisfy desire. 2. To preserve or continue life. 3. To modify the surroundings. We will consider each of these effects in and for itself and wholly separate from the rest. This is difficult to do on account of their obvious interrelations and mutual associations, and most of the faulty logic and confusion of ideas, i.e., of the error on this and kindred subjects, is due to the failure to keep these distinct effects separate in the mind. Let us examine the first effect : to satisfy desire. I place this first as it is the condition itself to the action. Every action whatever must have this object, otherwise there is no motive, i.e., no cause. We need not discuss the question whether the action actually satisfies desire. We may assume that it does and proceed, CH. xi] CONATION 249 but, as a matter of fact, it must, for the desire, so far as we are con- cerned here, is simply to act in the direction in which the desire impels, and that is in itself the satisfaction of the desire. Nothing beyond this need be taken into the account. But we will suppose that this part of the action is wholly successful and that the satis- faction sought is attained. The only question that concerns the present discussion is whether this effect of the action is dynamic or not. If we cling strictly to this one fact and keep all its associa- tions wholly out of the way, we can clearly see that the simple satis- faction of the individual's desire contains no dynamic element. It is, in fact, purely physiological. It is also transient. A desire, as we have seen, when satisfied is terminated. Until the satisfaction commences it is a painful sensation, during the period of satisfaction it is a pleasure, enjoyment, happiness, or whatever we may call it. After satisfaction it is nothing. However great the individual good, the social good is purely statical. Permanence can only be attained through indefinite repetition, which is impossible, and if possible would still be statical. We may therefore dismiss this first effect as statical. Now as to the second effect. If the individual is at all adjusted to his environment his action will contribute in some degree either to the preservation or the continuance of life. At the lower animal stages, as we saw in Chapter V, 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 continuous tendency to the con- trary 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 com- plete 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. If such has ever been the case such societies have perished and are unknown. Human desires are therefore more or less completely adjusted to in- dividual and social needs, and it is safe to assume that the satisfac- tion of any normal desire also contributes in some degree to the preservation of the life of the individual or of other individuals 250 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART n (wife, children, family, etc.), or to the maintenance of society, or both. Here again the question for us is whether this effect of the action is or is not dynamic. The answer is that the preservation of life and social order are not dynamic effects. This is too self-evi- dent to require any argument, and we may content ourselves with pointing out that the two effects thus far considered differ in two important respects. The first is conscious, the second unconscious, and while neither can be called direct, the second is clearly indirect, and, as it were, incidental. It is the type of the class of effects that were characterized as "unintended" (see supra, p. 114). In fact, it is precisely similar in this respect to the phenomena of nutri- tion and reproduction in the organic world, and belongs, like them, to the "objects of nature," as distinguished from the object of the individual, which in both cases is the satisfaction of desire. Finally, let us consider the third effect, viz., that of modifying the surroundings. From one point of view, viz., that of the order of time, this is the first effect of the action, but I put it last as being the most incidental and non-essential of all the effects. It is easy to conceive of an action which should have no such effect. If the desire is for something very easily attainable, something practically in contact with the individual, with no intervening obstacles, or with nothing but simple space between, which can be traversed with- out moving anything but his own body or limbs, it will be satisfied and have its indirect or functional effect without causing any percep- tible modification of the surroundings. The action would then have only the first and second effects, neither of which being dynamic, it would not be a dynamic action at all, which is contrary to our hypothesis. But if there are any obstacles or obstructions in the way of the satisfaction of desire the first part of the action is to remove these, and this modifies the surroundings to that extent. It is obvious that while there may be very simple degrees of this con- dition, there may be and are also all conceivable degrees of difficulty and complexity in the interval between the desire and its satisfac- tion. When we consider developed man with some capacity for "looking before and after" we can readily see that most of his actions are thus complex, and that very few of his desires can be satisfied without first making considerable modification in his sur- roundings. This quality increases with his general development and with the increasing number and growing complexity of his CH. xi] CONATION 251 desires. When at last Ms desires, like those of most civilized men, become chiefly spiritual and intellectual, usually remote either in space or time, it is necessary both to work and to wait, and this involves prolonged and intense activity. All this activity is ex- pended upon the surroundings, clearing away obstructions and pre- paring a smooth road to the predestined goal. The satisfaction of every such desire works extensive changes in the immediate environ- ment and a large part of these changes is permanent, contributing somewhat in each case to the sum total of civilizing influences in society. The principal form that all this takes is that of creating means to the end, and such means are permanent contributions to civilization. They do not merely serve the end of the individual who creates them, but remain after he is through with them to serve the ends of other individuals for all time. This third effect of a dynamic action is therefore chiefly to transform the environment. If we examine this principle closely we shall see that, within a legitimate extension of the terms, all social progress consists in transforming the environment. I will not even restrict it to simple material progress, where this is obvious, covering as it does all economic and industrial operations, but will predicate it also of all esthetic, moral, and intellectual operations. It is, indeed, difficult to separate these, as the historical materialists have suc- ceeded in showing, because the latter are to so large a degree dependent upon the former, but even if we succeed in doing this, at least in thought, still these higher spiritual operations, wholly abstracted from their material base, constitute transformations of the environment in a very proper sense. Looked at from a certain point of view, it is these that furnish not only the most important of such transformations but also the most enduring of them. In Chapter III it was shown that civilization consists in human achieve- ment, and also that the great achievements of mankind are not material but spiritual, that material things are fleeting and eva- nescent, while spiritual things are lasting and indestructible. Still it must not be forgotten that these permanent contributions to civi- lization are simply the means by which transformations in the material environment in the interest of man can be wrought, and their value consists in the quality of enabling man to work such transformations constantly and for all time. We may therefore say that this third and only dynamic effect of an action consists in 252 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PAUT a the permanent transformation of the environment which constitutes human achievement. Looking still deeper into the nature of this dynamic effect of action it is perceived that, somewhat as in the second or functional effect, it is not the effect desired or intended by the agent. The only conscious and intentional effect of the action is the one first considered, the satisfaction of desire. This is the only end of the individual, the only one in which he has an interest. The second or functional effect, viz., the maintenance of the social order, and the third or dynamic effect, viz., the furtherance of social progress, are not only matters of complete indifference to him, but they are for the most part undesired, unintended, and unknown by him. Ex- cept in the most highly developed and most advanced and enlight- ened of all men, progress, as we have seen, is not only undesirable but odious and detestable, so that the greater part of all progress both in the past and present has taken place and is taking place in opposition to the desires of men and in spite of the universal con- servatism and misoneism of mankind. This is true of all progress produced by the cross fertilization of cultures, it is true of progress through innovation, and it is true of progress through conation. All this belongs to the " philosophy of the unconscious," dimly seen by Schopenhauer and Hartmann, by the latter of whom it received this designation, but which at bottom constitutes the essence of all pure science relating to the sentient world. It is the natura naturans, the mysterious power of nature working for ends beyond the reach of human wisdom. It is the mission of true science to lift the veil and peer behind it into the workings of this power, and so far as may be to discover the principles and formulate the laws of these unconscious and deep-lying dynamic agencies. If now we look squarely at this third, dynamic effect of action we shall see that the quantity of the result is measured by the amount of effort put forth, so that the essence of the principle is effort. The greater the obstacles to be removed the greater the effort required. The more difficult the end is of attainment the more elaborate will be the means necessary to secure the end. The more remote the end the longer is it necessary to work in order to reach it, and all the work done in this time consists in transforming the environment in the interest of progress. In every case it is effort that produces the effect, and the quantity of the CH. xi] CONATION 253 effect will depend upon, and be roughly proportional to the quantity of effort. Of course the quality has also to be taken into the account, and if the effort is chiefly mental, especially if it is inventive, the dynamic effect is far greater, and seems out of proportion to the effort. But here we may apply the dictum of Descartes that all considerations of quality may be reduced to those of quantity, since mind is the result of a vast series of climactic organizations, so that a genial idea represents a prolonged accumulation, a concentration, focalization, and intensification of the simpler forms of energy, and thus really represents an enormously increased quantity of trans- formed and sublimated muscular effort. Bastiat seems to have caught a distinct glimpse of the principle under consideration here when he formulated the much quoted phrase, " wants, efforts, satis- factions," 1 which was put forth as the key note to his " Economic Harmonies." He does not, however, work the principle out nor manifest any clear grasp of its sociological importance. As an economist he of course wholly missed the dynamic effect of efforts, and dwelt on the satisfactions, which cannot be logically separated from the wants, which, indeed, constitute the dynamic agent, but not the dynamic principle. This is effort, and the term conation means the same. I use it as a technical term, partly because so important a principle should have a definite name, and partly because not all efforts are necessarily dynamic, and the word is often loosely used. Conation and effort are not therefore strictly synonymous, and the latter would fall short of exactly defining the principle. The biological homologue of conation is the Lamarckian principle of exercise, which might as well be called the principle of effort. This is a principle of dynamic biology, and cooperates with fortui- tous variation, whose sociological equivalent is innovation, to fur- nish the initial variations upon which natural selection seizes in producing the transmutation of species. The principle is the same in sociology as in biology, but there is an exceedingly important dif- ference in the way in which it works in the two fields. This differ- ence is expressed by the formula that I have so frequently repeated 1 " Besoins, efforts, satisfactions, voilk le fond general de toutes les sciences qui ont 1'homme pour objet." Journal des Economistes, Vol. XXI, September, 1848, p. 110. The article in which this phrase occurs is entitled : " Harmonies Economiques " (pp. 105-120), which he afterward expanded into a volume (Vol. VI of his complete works, Paris, 1854), the second chapter of which is entitled : " Besoins, Efforts, Satis- factions," which follows the same lines as the preliminary article. 254 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART n that in biology the environment transforms the organism, while in soci- ology man transforms the environment. The biologists have abun- dantly shown how the former of these effects is produced, and now I have shown how the latter effect is produced. The one is a physi- ological effect, the other a sociological effect. The physical nature of man, as was stated in an earlier chapter (see supra, p. 17) has undergone very little change since he assumed his completed human form, but in so far as it has changed or is still changing the principle through which the change is produced is the biological and not the sociological principle. With it therefore we have here nothing to do. But it is clear that animals perform dynamic actions as well as men, and any such action may be analyzed as we have analyzed a human dynamic action. The three effects are the same with the above qualification of the third, viz., 1, the satisfaction of desire, 2, the preservation or continuance of life, 3, the modification of the organism. The first alone is conscious, the second is unconscious, unintended, and unknown, but functional and therefore static. The third is unconscious, unintended, and undesired, but as it tends to change the type of structure it is dynamic. All this is too obvious to require anything beyond simple statement, but it furnishes a per- fect illustration of the vast cosmic sweep of the fundamental princi- ples here set forth as well as of the true unity of nature in all its departments when we once seize the thread that binds all these departments into one. This is true monism, as I understand that term, and reconciles infinite variety with perfect unity. Society is the beneficiary of all the dynamic principles of soci- ology. The dynamic effects are social effects, and the general result is achievement and social progress. But we may look still farther into the process. However much mind may enter into it, the effort is expended directly upon the material environment. Its success in causing, social progress is conditioned upon the fundamental truth stated in Chapter III that matter is dynamic. In the whole history of mankind it is found that effort expended upon matter has yielded advantageous results. Other expenditures of energy have been either statical or fruitless. Expended in coercing men, social energy yields no progressive results (see supra, pp. 19-20). Directed to purely spiritual things, it results in a weak, stagnant civilization, like that of India, culminating in caste, oppression, and quietism, hermeti- cally sealed to all dynamic influences. Matter alone possesses the CH. xij CONATION 255 "promise and potency" of progress, and this has been demonstrated by the enormous strides made by the western civilization after it had fairly commenced to concentrate its energies on the material environment. The dynamic property of matter resides in its susceptibility to change under the influence of external forces. The law of the con- servation of energy does not affect this. That law simply predicates the indestructibility of matter and motion. The quantity of matter and motion is fixed, but the form of matter and the mode of motion are indefinitely variable. As Clerk Maxwell expresses it, " The total energy of any material system is a quantity which can neither be increased nor diminished by any action between the parts of the system, though it may be transformed into any of the forms of which energy is susceptible." l This establishes the indefinite modi- fiability of all material things and the possibility of directing all the forces of nature according to the will of the agent. Nature is thus easily " managed " to the extent that her laws are understood, and there is no limit to the extent to which the inexhaustible forces of nature may be brought into the service of man. This is why the material progress of man has so greatly outstripped his moral progress, 2 and this is what I mean by my definition of civilization as "the utilization of the materials and forces of nature," upon which I have so long insisted. Matter is for man, endowed with intelligence and inspired by science, a veritable lamp of Aladdin, which he need but rub, and, as if by magic, all things take on the forms of utility and cast themselves at his feet. 1 " Matter and Motion," New York, 1892, p. 103. 2 I drew this contrast in 1885 in a paper entitled, Moral and Material Progress Contrasted, read before the Anthropological Society of Washington, Feb. 17, 1885. See Trans. Anthrop. Soc., Washington, Vol. Ill, Washington, 1885, pp. 121-136. CHAPTER XII CLASSIFICATION OF THE SOCIAL FORCES THERE are many ways of classifying social phenomena. Nearly all the systems considered in Chapter II require classifications of their own, and the different classifications, like the different systems, all have their merits. Our point of view is that of regarding soci- ology as a true science, and the principal characteristic of a true science is that it is a domain of natural phenomena produced by a special class of forces. The forces producing social phenomena are the social forces, and taken together they constitute the dynamic agent, the nature of which was made the subject of Chapter VI. The five following chapters (VII to XI) have been devoted to work- ing out the principles according to which the dynamic agent operates in human society, and we have at last arrived at the point where we can undertake a classification of the various forces that combine to make up the dynamic agent, and where we can take up the several classes or groups of such forces and treat them in their logical order. Nothing that has already been said need be repeated and we may proceed at once with the classification. At the outset we encounter the obstacle presented by the choice of terms. Although the dy- namic agent consists wholly in feeling, such is the poverty of the lan- guage of feeling that it would be difficult or impossible to find the requisite terms in that vocabulary. We might, it is true, designate the two great primordial classes of forces as the hunger forces and the love forces, but we should be troubled for appropriate adjectives and derivatives. And then, this represents only the positive side of individual preservation and race continuance, and in the former at least there would still be lacking terms suitable for designating those negative forms of preservation which consist in defense and escape. With the other classes of forces the difficulty would be still greater, and it seems best to choose most of the terms from the language of function. Here there is comparatively little diffi- culty. The world has always avoided as far as possible the expression of feeling. It is too personal, too near to the person 256 en. xn] CLASSIFICATION OF THE SOCIAL FORCES 257 or the body. It exposes too plainly the bodily and mental states, which are naturally concealed. Under the highest states of feeling indifference is feigned. If the feeling is pleasurable there is either an ascetic sense of its sinfulness or a sense of shame in its avowal, and it is experienced in silence. If it is painful it involves the admission of imperfection or defectiveness, which no one wishes to admit. " Of course," says Schopenhauer, " human life, like any bogus article, is coated on the outside with a false tinsel ; whatever is suffered is always concealed ; but whatever any one can afford in the way of show and gloss he keeps in full view, and the more unhappy he is the more he tries to make others think he is the hap- piest of men." l This is doubtless due to the sense of imperfection implied in suffering, and the effort to conceal it is heightened by its general recognition in the form of refusing to help any one who lets it be known that he is in need, while willingly showering bene- fits on those who make it appear that they have need of nothing. This apparently detestable trait in human nature is based on the inevitable association of suffering with worthlessness, and the innate disinclination to waste substance on the worthless. Everything thus conspires to the suppression of the utterance of feeling and to prevent the possibility of the development of a rich and copious language of feeling. Compare for example the vocabu- lary of the sense of sight, which is chiefly intellectual, with that of either taste or smell, which are wholly sensual. Think of the num- ber of names of colors and the fine shades that they express, and compare these with the names for odors or tastes. For the latter it is necessary to name some object (flower, perfume, fruit, condiment, etc.) and say it smells or tastes like such and such a thing. Perfumes and flavors, in which the language is most complete, are all so named (violets, ottar of roses, red cedar, incense, vanilla, orange, strawberry, pineapple, etc.). There are no such simple words as red, blue, yellow, green, etc. This is all due to taboo of the sensual and the check thus given to the development of a language of feeling. But when it comes to function the case is reversed. Here the lan- guage is rich and the vocabulary ample. This is because of the sup- posed dignity and nobility of function. It is instinctively felt that the preservation of the individual and the race, the maintenance of the social order, the furtherance of social progress, and the esthetic, i " Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung," Vol. I, pp. 383-384. 8 258 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART n moral, and intellectual development of mankind are paramount considerations upon which any amount of effort and energy may be profitably expended. The consequence is that they have from the first been made the subjects of exhaustive treatment and thousands of volumes have been written dealing with them from almost every conceivable point of view. It is this that has rendered the language of function so full and complete. It has from the first been apparent to me that the foundation of sociology as a true science must be a logical classification of the social forces, and in a paper that I read on Aug. 31, 1880, before the Section of Anthropology of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston, entitled, " Feeling and Function as Factors in Human Development," I proposed the following sys- tem, placing it on the blackboard in tabular form : 1 Essential Forces Preservative Forces Reproductive Forces Positive, gustatory (pleasurable) Negative, protective (painful) Direct. The sexual instinct Indirect. Parental and consanguineal affections Non-essential Forces Esthetic Emotional Intellectual In " Dynamic Sociology," which appeared in 1883, the table of classification of the social forces occurs on p. 472 of the first volume. As will be seen, it is the same as the above with a few verbal changes : Preservative j Positive, gustatory (seeking pleasure) Forces \ Negative, protective (avoiding pain) Reproductive ( Direct. The sexual and amative desires ! Forces 1 Indirect. Parental and consanguineal affections Esthetic Forces / ? Emotional (moral) Forces Intellectual Forces 1 The paper was published in full in Science, original series, Vol. I, Oct. 23, 1880, pp. 210-211, the table occurring on p. 211. CH. xn] CLASSIFICATION OF THE SOCIAL FORCES 259 In the " Psychic Factors of Civilization," which appeared in 1893, a chapter (Chapter XVIII) was devoted to the social forces, and the above table was placed at the head of that chapter without change. It was also introduced without change in my article entitled : " The Social Forces," published in the American Journal of Sociology for July, 18%, Vol. II, where it occurs on p. 88. This article forms Chapter VII of the " Outlines of Sociology," the table occurring on p. 148. In that article, however, some elective modifications were proposed. For example, it was shown that the Essential Forces may be designated as physical, and the Xon-essential Forces as spiritual, the Preservative Forces as forces of individual preservation, and the Reproductive Forces as forces of race continuance. Moreover, it was suggested that the Spiritual Forces are essentially forces of " race elevation," and each of these groups was discussed from the new point of view. In the present work the point of view is primarily that of the genesis of society, and the classification of the social forces, may, without losing anything of its character as a logical system, be somewhat recast to bring it into harmony with the general treat- ment. As sociology has not yet acquired a suitable terminology from the standpoint of genesis or evolution, we may conveniently borrow a few appropriate terms from biology, whose evolutional terminology is especially well developed. In discussing the classi- fication of the social forces I have repeatedly shown that the physi- ological basis of the preservative forces, especially of the positive ones, is nutrition, metabolism, growth, etc., that is to say, the func- tions that develop and sustain the physical body. From the stand- point of genesis this includes all the phases through which an organism passes during the period of gestation, and this is called its ontogeny. But ontogeny need not, and properly understood, does not end with the birth of the individual, but includes everything that relates to the being during its whole existence, excluding only the genetic relations of one being to other beings, i.e., the beings from which derived and the beings generated by the being in ques- tion. Consideration of these belongs to phylogeny. But although the forces called preservative in the above tables of classification are desires and wants of individuals and serve primarily to perserve the lives of individuals, it is also true that they are the influences which work for the maintenance of the social order through the principle 260 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART H of social synergy, and they are therefore the forces of social as well as individual preservation. I shall therefore use, as altogether synonymous with the former expression " preservative forces," ex- cept as designed to connote also their genetic and evolutionary relations, the expression ontogenetic forces. In like manner the "reproductive forces" of the former classifica- tion may be called the phylogenetic forces, as the influences that work the perpetuity and continuity of the phylum, hereditary stock, or race. From the standpoint of function they take no account of the individual, but in continuing the race they make the life of the indi- vidual as it were continuous. In thus continuing the membership of society they continue society itself. This is true social reproduc- tion, but is not what the organicists mean when they use that phrase. If by society we mean associated men in general there is. no other social reproduction, but if we regard society as a plurality of social bodies or groups, social reproduction is a sort of gemmation, and is that which was called social differentiation in Chapter X, becoming colonization in advanced societies. All the social forces that have hitherto been classed as "non- essential" I now propose to call sociogenetic forces. These were shown in 18% to be " spiritual forces," meaning by this that they are psychic in a somewhat different and " higher " or " nobler " sense than the essential forces, which were then designated as " physical," not that they can be other than ps} r chic, but simply that their functions are physical, while the functions of the non- essential forces are also psychic. But a step was also there taken in the direction of the present point of view, by treating them as "forces of race elevation." It was then seen that these are the chief civilizing agencies. It remains to be pointed out that they are also the chief socializing agencies. But the difference between civilizing and socializing agencies is not wide. Whatever is socializ- ing either is, or may become, civilizing. Socialization is the first step toward civilization, and all esthetic, moral, and intellectual influences are working for civilization chiefly through socializa- tion. The general subject of socialization and its relations to civilization and human achievement is fully treated in Chapter XX. The final classification, then, may be given the following form : CH. xii] CLASSIFICATION OF THE SOCIAL FORCES 261 r~: H d> -c o o f-rj ,^2 2 c - cS o s ' ^ Ontogenetic f Positive, attractive (seeking pleasure) Forces | Negative, protective (avoiding pain) Phylogenetic f Direct, sexual Forces [Indirect, consanguineal Sociogenetic Forces Moral (seeking the safe and good) Esthetic (seeking the beautiful) Intellectual (seeking the useful and true) Notwithstanding the prominence that the functional has to assume in the terminology of the social forces, the fact must not be lost sight of for a moment that this is not the essence of them, and that the standpoint of the sociologist is not function but feeling. Function is indirect, incidental, and consequential, the result of adaptation and that preestablished harmony that was considered in Chapter V. It is biological and not sociological. The social forces are wants seeking satisfactions through efforts, and are thus social motives or motors inspiring activities which either create social structures through social synergy or modify the structures already created through innovation and conation. They reside in the in- dividual but become social through interaction, cooperation, and cumulative effects. They are all primarily physical or physiological, even those classed as spiritual, for the organism is the only source from which they can emanate. They all have, therefore, their physical seat in the human body, and for most of them this is not difficult to locate. The ontogenetic forces of the positive or attrac- tive class, which might be called the hunger forces, have their chief seat in the stomach where the principal satisfaction is experienced, but the passageway to the stomach is provided with specialized nerves calculated to attract and convey nutritious substances to the digestive tract. This office is performed by the sense of- taste, located chiefly in the tongue and palate. The sense of smell is commonly and correctly regarded as ancillary to that of taste, but no one seems to have pointed out that its chief purpose is to enlarge the radius of nutritive attraction by acquainting the individual with the existence of nutrient materials that are not in contact with the 262 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART n organism and may not even be in sight of it. The value of this to the lower organisms is obvious, but it diminishes with structural development until it 'is scarcely necessary to developed man. The ontogenetic forces of the negative or protective class may be said to have their physical seat in all the specialized pain nerves of the body, wherever these may be located. The primary or direct phylogenetic forces of course have their physical seat in the loins, but the secondary, indirect, or consan- guineal social forces are much more vaguely located and cannot be limited to any definite tract. Philoprogenitiveness, and especially maternal affection, form a true transition from the sexual to the consanguineal, and the latter is more or less restricted to the mam- mary plexuses. But between this sentiment and the love of the helpless, which some regard as the basis of the moral sentiments, the step is short, and emotions of both these classes can be easily located by any observing person experiencing them in the general region popularly called the " breast." It might naturally be expected that the spiritual or sociogenetic social forces would be more difficult to locate in the physical system, and some may deny altogether the possibility of doing this. But, while the difficulty may be frankly confessed without humiliation, the task is not hopeless. The fact last noted clearly shows that some at least of the moral sentiments are definitely cantoned in the human breast, as the poets so often tell us, and the anatomist informs us that this chiefly means the large plexuses of the great sympathetic system that are located in this region. It is these and not the great circulative organ or force-pump of the blood, that constitute the " heart" of the emotional literature, whether romantic, moral, or religious. If, therefore, the social forces are to be classi- fied on the basis of their physical organs, the moral forces must undoubtedly follow immediately after the secondary phylogenetic forces out of which they have naturally grown during the historical expansion of the primitive ethical dualism (see supra, p. 187). In former classifications I have placed the esthetic before the moral forces without giving any particular reason for doing so, but from a certain sense of the close connection between ideas of beauty and ideas of right, and the extent to which the former grow out of romantic love. But there is perhaps a still closer connection between love and altruistic sentiments, which belong to the moral forces. en. xn] CLASSIFICATION OF THE SOCIAL FORCES 263 The fact is that both moral and esthetic ideas are closely affiliated upon the tender emotion and no linear classification can adequately show this. It is at least clear that most or all of the moral sentiments, grow- ing as they have out of sympathy, which in turn is a development of the love of kindred, have their seat in the general emotional tracts, i.e., in the great sympathetic plexuses. There are so many of these, and they are so widely distributed throughout the body, that it is impossible in the present state of science to locate these sentiments definitely, and still more so to assign particular senti- ments to particular ganglia, even supposing that the system has attained any such degree of specialization. I do not doubt that when experimental psychology shall have advanced much farther than at present the study of what I may call the localization of the emotions will be undertaken somewhat as the localization of the faculties in the brain is now being studied. The seat of the esthetic forces is still more difficult to determine. The love of beauty is clearly a feeling and amounts to an emotion, but it receives its stimulus from the semi-intellectual senses of sight and hearing. The stimuli are propagated from the optic and audi- tory tracts of the brain to the appropriate emotional centers, which are probably, in part at least, in the brain itself. Any attempt more definitely to locate them would be hopeless, but, as in the case of the moral emotions, they present a problem for the future scientific psychology. Finally the intellectual forces, usually characterized as the love of truth, but also involving the love of knowledge, are clearly centered in the brain and doubtless chiefly reside in the cortical layers. They are therefore affiliated upon the esthetic forces and not on the moi-al forces, and this is another reason for the order here adopted in the classification of the spiritual forces. But all these sentiments inter- cross and anastomose. There is an obvious connection between utility and safety, and between both these and the simpler sense of self-preservation. All the social forces represent the innate inter- ests of mankind and whatever interests prompt to action, thus becoming a social motor. Many other relationships might be pointed out among the social forces. The physical forces may be regarded as original and the spiritual as derivative, and it is practically true that the latter are 264 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART 11 confined to the human race while the former are common to both men and animals. It is also true that while the former become social by stimulating activities which unconsciously produce social effects, the latter are essentially socializing and tend to race eleva- tion and universal culture. Again, all the physical forces may be regarded in one sense as negative, since they are directed to the pre- vention of pain rather than the production of pleasure. Hunger, thirst, cold, fear, want of every kind, and also love, are painful states, to escape from which men continually strive, while the satis- factions derived from successful efforts in these directions are for the most part momentary and count for next to nothing as pleasures compared to the gain of having escaped from the pains. On the other hand the spiritual forces may be classed as positive, since to a much less degree are they directed to the relief of pain, and they are almost wholly directed to securing pleasures whose absence is not felt as a pain. Sympathy, it is true, is a secondary or represen- tative pain, an echo in self of the pains of others, but most moral action is performed for the pleasure it yields, and not to escape from even this form of pain. The esthetic forces are still more positive in this sense, while the intellectual forces seem to be wholly so. Among other relations of the social forces we find a class which I will characterize as paradoxes of the social forces. There is a wide misconception, not to say ignorance, on the subject, coupled with a large amount of hypocrisy and absurd conventionality, which may be exposed by analysis, although it cannot be dispelled by logic. The facts last stated might be classed among these paradoxes, viz., that the physical impulses are negative while the spiritual ones are positive. But it is also true that the physical forces are altruistic, while the spiritual forces are egoistic. The maintenance of life and of the -race are highly altruistic objects, and it is these that the physical forces secure. It need not be maintained that this altruism is conscious, but if this test is to be applied it will compare favora- bly here with the later and better understood forms of altruism. On the other hand, the spiritual forces are egoistic. This follows from what I have just said that they are not modes of escape from danger to the individual and the race, but ways of pursuing pleasure for its own sake. There is great confusion in the popular ideas of high and low, coarse and refined, worthy and unworthy. The most CH. xn] CLASSIFICATION OF THE SOCIAL FORCES 265 worthy and noble of all things are those that preserve and perpetu- ate the race. This is function and the end of nature. The concep- tion of safety lies at the foundation of all religion. It is the essence of salvation, however far the meaning of that term may have de- parted from it in the later derivative and distorted cults. The physical social forces are therefore those that represent the high- est necessity, while the spiritual forces chiefly represent utility, as I have defined these terms (see supra, p. 131). The fundamental criterion of utility is the quantity of satisfaction yielded, and, measured by this standard, it is clear that the spiritual interests far outweigh the physical interests of developed man. Physical satis- factions have greater intensity, but spiritual satisfactions have greater duration. The former are momentary, and the gain mainly con- sists in having gotten rid of a pain or a pang or a goad, the gadfly of eternal passion. The spiritual forces are no such torments, though aspirations after excellence may constitute a prolonged and uninter- rupted incentive to strive and to achieve. But satisfaction accom- panies achievement, and the debt of anticipation is constantly paid in the coin of participation, so that the satisfaction is to all intents and purposes continuous. This gives volume to spiritual pleasures much more than sufficient to counterbalance the greater intensity of physical pleasures. It is only in the sense of being more moderate and enduring, and thus greater in real volume, that the former can be said to be higher, more refined, or more worthy than the latter. But no such comparison of degree is just or logical. The distinction is qualitative, not quantitative, and the physical forces are character- ized by their necessity, while the spiritual forces are characterized by their utility. The former chiefly serve function and secure the ends of nature, standing thus largely on the biological plane, while the latter minister to feeling and secure the ends of man, and there- fore stand wholly on the sociological plane. The first are ontogenetic and phylogenetic, while the second are exclusively sociogenetic. CHAPTER XIII THE OXTOGENETIC FORCES WE have to consider in this chapter the influence which those human activities that have subsistence and protection for their ends exert on the creation and transformation of social structures. The struggle for existence in the animal world did not cease with the emergence of the human species out of that into the social world, but has always continued. Here it became social synergy and worked for social structure. Just as in the earliest Metazoan life the first organ developed was the stomach, and the first organisms consisted of a stomach only, so in the lowest societies all energy is concentrated on the one supreme function of nutrition or subsistence, and such societies may be not inappropriately characterized as con- sisting exclusively of a social stomach. But at a very early stage the environment raises opposition and threatens injury, and defen- sive activities are added to the appetitive activities. The struggle grows more intense and the group sentiment is generated and creates incipient society. The primitive group or horde is the resultant social structure. During the period of social differentiation described in Chapter X great vicissitudes are passed through, during which the multiplied groups grow heterogeneous and ultimately come to differ from one another as widely as coordinate groups of human beings are capable of differing. But thus far the competition is with one another and with the environment (climate, wild beasts, terrestrial obstructions, etc.), and the effect is mainly constructive, intensive, and creative ; in a word, it is static. When, however, the time arrives for social integration to begin the competition is one of group with group and wholly new elements enter into the struggle. The stage of race antagonism is reached and the era of war begins. The chase for animal food is converted into a chase for human flesh, and anthropophagous races arise spreading terror in all directions. 266 CH. xin] EXPLOITATION 267 EXPLOITATION All social processes that can be called economic have their origin in exploitation. In entirely primitive social groups, comparable to the Protozoa or unicellular organisms, each individual goes about in the way that animals do, seeking food, shelter, etc., and con- sumes whatever he finds. There is no social result any more than in the case of animals, certainly no more than in the case of such animals as dig holes, build nests, etc. The efforts thus put forth have only the biological effect of somewhat strengthening the organs thus brought into exercise. The skill acquired in securing animal food strengthens the brain and increases the power of adaptation to varied physical conditions, which was the prime requisite to social differentiation. But early in the stage of social integration, when the various differentiated groups nearest to the center of original radiation began to approach one another and encroach upon terri- tory occupied by other groups, the idea of making some economic use of such proximity was not slow to rise in the minds of those groups that proved themselves superior. The use of the bodies of the weaker races for food was of course the simplest form of exploita- tion to suggest itself. But this stage was succeeded by that of social assimilation through conquest and subjugation, where the conquered race became something more than a factor in subsistence. Still the conquered race remained an economic element, and the conquering race soon learned to utilize it to far greater advantage than canni- balism could yield. The profound inequality produced by subjuga- tion was turned to account through other forms of exploitation. The women and the warriors were enslaved, and the system of caste that arose converted the conquered race into a virtually servile class, while this service and the exemptions it entailed converted the leaders of the conquering race into a leisure class. There were other influences, especially sacerdotal, that contributed to the same end, but we are concerned here especially with the economic aspects of the problem. Slavery. Such was the origin of slavery, an economic institution which is found in the earlier stages of all the historic races. The moral prejudices of the modern advanced races naturally cause wholly false views to prevail relative to slavery which the sociolo- gist finds it very difficult to contend with. Perhaps his greatest 268 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART n difficulty is not that of conveying true views to others, but that of acquiring them for himself. The danger of seeming to defend an institution which is repugnant to him tends to blind him to much of the real truth. His attitude is liable to become that of the modern advocates of universal peace, discussed in Chapter X. It seems inconsistent to argue against war and slavery in the present while maintaining that they were useful institutions in the past. There are two answers to this charge of inconsistency. The one is the fundamental law that prevails throughout all departments of nature that nothing can come into being that is not demanded by the conditions existing at the time. Nothing that is really useless can by any possibility be developed. A fortiori it is a contradiction of terms to speak of the natural genesis of anything injurious or wholly bad. And all this is as true of social as of organic structures. According to the Lamarckian principle it is function that creates structure, and the law of demand and supply is not merely an economic law but a sociologic law, and is nothing more nor less than the economic and sociologic expression of the biologic law of exer- cise. There never was a human institution that was not called forth in response to a social demand, which from the scientific standpoint, means a social necessity. The second answer to this charge of inconsistency, of which some sociologists are so much afraid, is that many structures, both organic and social, outlive their usefulness and persist as impediments to the life and health of the organism and of society. In the former case they become " vestiges," and while sometimes quite innocuous except as involving the waste produced in nourishing them, they more frequently become dangerous seats of disease, as in the vermi- form appendage, the tonsils, etc. The extreme stability of social structures was noted in Chapter XI as one of the principal obstacles to human progress, and there is no human institution, however nec- essary it may have been at the time it was created, that will not sooner or later become a burden unless it has the element of lability and is transformed under the influence of some of the dynamic prin- ciples that were treated in that chapter. Such transformation may ultimately become so complete as to amount to virtual abolition, but unless it takes place without organic disruption of the original struc- ture it is revolution. Institutions that persist after they have ceased to serve a useful purpose are the exact sociological homolognes of CH. xin] SLAVERY 269 vestiges in biology and may be appropriately called social vestiges. Major Powell has happily called superstition and folklore vestigial opinion. 1 These too are human institutions and may be classed as social vestiges. In fact social structures are in this respect precisely like organic structures, and exist in all stages from rudiments, or incipient structures, to vestiges, or obsolescent, and also wholly obso- lete structures. Now the proper and scientific attitude toward an institution that is regarded as bad is not wholesale condemnation and denunciation as something that is essentially bad and must have always been bad, but investigation to ascertain what stage of its history it is in, and whether it is in process of transformation, throwing off its outgrown elements and replacing them with elements adapted to existing con- ditions, and therefore useful. If it is found not to be in this dynamic state, or state of moving equilibrium, it is proper to inquire whether by any human action it can be put into this state. To this end its history and its true nature should be studied, and especially the original conditions which must have developed it and caused it to exist. Until this is done there is no logical ground for attack- ing it. With regard to the institution of slavery we have already seen that it was an advance upon the practice of extermination, and still more upon cannibalism. It was universal throughout antiquity and persisted in Europe through the Middle Ages. The causes that conspired to bring about its gradual abolition have been enumerated and discussed by all historians of Europe and need not be entered into here. I will only note how relatively modern is the sentiment condemning it. It is certainly confined, with very rare exceptions, to the last two centuries, and chiefly to the nineteenth century, and it never related to European slavery, but has been almost exclusively confined to that form of slavery which consisted in importing inferior races from their native country, chiefly Africa, and enslaving them in civilized countries. The thing that has been chiefly condemned is the slave trade, but of course the resulting form of slavery became the subject of a general crusade. But as showing how relatively modern was even hostility to the slave trade the fact may be cited that De Foe, when he wrote his " Robinson Crusoe," which appeared 1 American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. II, January, 1900, p. 1 ; The Monist, Vol. X, April, 1900, p. 389. 270 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PAUTII in 1719, had evidently never heard that there was anything wrong in it, for the shipwrecked vessel was engaged in the slave trade, of which he speaks as one would speak of the cattle trade or of the trade in spices. Labor. Economists, socialists, statesmen, and industrial reform- ers, however widely they may differ on other matters, are agreed that all value in the economic sense is due to labor, but most of them talk as though labor was natural to man, and as though the main question was how to give men work enough to do. However this may be in civilized societies now, nothing is more certain than that the original problem was how to make men work. It does not seem to be seen that the human race has been radically transformed in this respect, and that the modern industrious artisan or laborer is utterly unlike his primitive ancestor. We can gain some little idea of this difference by comparing him with the North American Indian, especially with those tribes that have adhered to their tribal customs and adopted none of the habits of Europeans. Still, only those who have had considerable to do with these races realize how impossible it is for them to do anything that we call work. The total lack of the power of application, especially among the men, is an almost universal characteristic. Not that they do not often follow the chase for sustained periods, and they will also spend hours in fashioning a weapon or a boat, but here the end is immediately before them and the fruition is to be theirs the moment the end is attained. These are elements that are absent from labor proper. The instinct of workmanship is simply the love of, or pleasure in, activities that immediately satisfy desires and which satisfaction is constantly and vividly before the mind. Labor in the conventional sense possesses no such stimulus. The pursuit of food wherever it can be found by the members of the primitive horde can no more be called labor than can the grazing of a buffalo or the browsing of an antelope. Nor is there any true labor involved in the operations of races at much higher stages of culture, as, for example, the Amerinds already mentioned. Only the work of the women in caring for the men and the children, and in performing the drudgery of the camp approaches the char- acter of labor, and this differs widely from most forms of pro- ductive industry. And it may be safely inferred from all that is known of actual savages and primitive peoples that prior to the CH. xiii] LABOR 271 period of social integration, and at the beginning of the period of conquest, mankind, both the conquered and the conquering races, were utterly incapable of sustained labor and had no conception of it. Men of that type would be perfectly worthless in the indus- trial world to-day. Their productive power in the economic sense would be nil. Now contrasting the disciplined laborer of modern society with the undisciplined savage, and admitting that the former has been transformed from the latter, this enormous and all-important change in human character has to be accounted for. How did man learn to work ? Did the needs of existence teach him self-denial, tone down his wild unsettled nature, and discipline his mind and body to daily toil ? Not at all. It is safe to say that if left wholly to these influ- ences man would have never learned to labor. It required some other influence far more imperative and coercive. In a word, nothing short of slavery could ever have accomplished this. This was the social mission of human slavery to convert mere activity into true labor. The aim of the conquering race was to gain the maximum advantage from the conquest. The conquered race possessed little that could be seized as booty. This would be soon consumed and gone. The only thing the conquered race possessed that had any permanent or continued value was its power of serving the con- queror. This could not escape the mind of the latter, however low his stage of intelligence, and as a matter of fact and of history, so far as these are known, this has been perceived and generally acted upon. The women and the warriors at least, and as many others as were needed, were enslaved and compelled to serve the conquering race. The motive to labor is no longer the desire to enjoy the fruits of labor. This, as we have seen, is never sufficient to induce primitive man to perform prolonged and arduous tasks. The motive now is fear of the lash. The slave must work or suffer any punishment his savage master pleases to inflict. If flogging does not suffice he may be tortured, and if torture fails he will be killed. No pen will ever record the brutal history of primitive slavery through genera- tions and even centuries of which mankind was taught to labor. The bitterest scenes of an Uncle Tom's Cabin would be an agreeable relief from the contemplation of the stern realities of this unwritten history. It will never be known how many, unable to adapt them- 272 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART 11 selves to such a great change from their former free, wild, capricious life, failed, faltered, and fainted by the way to have their places taken by stronger, more flexible and more adaptable ones, that could bear their burdens and transmit some small increment of their new- found powers of endurance to their posterity. For the capacity to labor is a typical "acquired character" that has been transmitted in minute additions from parent to offspring and from generation to generation of slaves, until great numbers of men were at last born with a " natural " or constitutional power to apply themselves to monotonous tasks during their whole lives. This truth has been dimly perceived by certain writers, but its immense economic im- portance has been almost completely overlooked. The number of conquering races has always been relatively small and the number of conquered races has of course been correspond- ingly large. This came at length to mean that the " ruling classes " constituted only a small fraction of the population of the world, while the subject classes made up the great bulk of the population. At the time that men began to compile rude statistics of population, which was sparingly done before the beginning of our era, it was found that the slaves far outnumbered the " citizens " of all coun- tries. In Athens there was such a census taken in the year 309 B.C., when there were found to be 21,000 citizens, 10,000 foreigners, and 400,000 slaves ! It is not, therefore, a small number of men that have been thus kept in training all these ages, but practically all mankind. It may sound paradoxical to call slavery a civilizing agency, but if industry is civilizing there is no escape from this conclusion, for it is probably no exaggeration to say that but for this severe school of experience continued through thousands of generations, there could have been nothing corresponding to mod- ern industry. And right here is a corollary which Mr. Spencer and other critics of militancy have failed to draw. For slavery, as they admit, is the natural and necessary outcome of war. It is the initial step in the " regime of status." It was therefore in militarism that the foundations of industrialism were laid in social adaptation. There seems to be no other way by which mankind could have been prepared for an industrial era. Or if this is more than we are warranted in saying, it is at least true that this is the particular way in which men were fitted for the role that they have been play- ing in the past two centuries. CH. xin] PROPERTY 273 \ PROPERTY An animal can scarcely be said to possess anything. It is true that predatory animals possess their prey after catching it and while devouring it, and dogs will fight over the possession of a bone, but no one would dignify such possession with the name of property. The primitive hordes of men may be said to possess the few things needed for their existence, but here the line is practically drawn at the artificial. Even a club is artificial. The skin of an animal used as a blanket has cost the effort and skill of skinning the animal, and this usually presupposes some kind of instrument, a sharp-edged flint, for example, and such things may be said to "belong" to their " owners." But for most of the possessions of undeveloped races communal or group ownership is the prevalent form. One may call this property, but it is at best only an embryonic form of property in an economic sense. In this respect, as in so many others, the unassirnilated races are sharply marked off from the assimilated races. I prefer these sociological terms to biological ones, but there is a certain advantage in having both. In Chapter X, when dealing with the genesis of society, I compared the phenomena of conquest and subjugation with those of fecundation in living organisms. In Chapter XI, when dealing with social evolution, I compared the same phenomena with cross fertilization. Both comparisons were elucidating and altogether appropriate. But this shows that they are not "analogies," for there cannot be two different anal- ogies of the same phenomenon. They are simply comparisons from different points of view that help to render an obscure process clear. We have now to deal with the same phenomena from still a third point of view, viz., from that of the origin of property. It is clear that neither of the organic operations, fecundation, cross fertiliza- tion, previously used will serve here as a term of comparison. There is, however, another still more fundamental biologic fact that will serve as such term not only here but in many other cases. The most important stage in organic development, after the origin of life itself, is unquestionably that which marks the passage from the simple, unicellular condition to the compound multicellular condi- tion, from the protozoic or protophytic to the metazoic or metaphytic type of structure. Now the primitive horde, which has already been 274 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART 11 called " social protoplasm," 1 and has even been likened to the inde- pendent animal cell, or the Amoeba/ very exactly represents the first of these two stages, which may therefore be appropriately called the protosocial stage, and the horde the protosocial type of society, while the whole social fabric which was wrought by social integration and social assimilation may be called the metasocial type, the period of conquest, subjugation, fusion, and amalgamation repre- senting the metasocial stage of social development. These terms protosocial and metasocial 5 seem to me every way preferable to Durkheim's terms " unsegmented " and "segmented" which are also intended as biological analogies, but do not correspond to any definite stage in the early development of the metasocial type, such as that of the origin of segmented animals. If the horde is only social protoplasm the unsegmented type must be metasocial, but true social tissues were formed as soon as two societies coalesced. From this time on we may have a science of social histology. And here we might indulge in another analogy and call all tissues formed from or traceable to the conquering race ectodermal, all formed from or traceable to the conquered race, endodermal, and all formed from or traceable to the combined and commingled mass of both races who are neither noble nor slave, mesodermal. These comparisons are certainly better than those of Spencer. Returning to the subject of property, we may now say that the protosocial form of property is chiefly communal, while the meta- social form is individual possession. But as property is only valua- ble in so far as it satisfies desire, the first form of metasocial property consisted largely in slaves, i.e., in something that could serve the owner and satisfy his wants. Beginning with women, used both to gratify the lust and also to wait on the person of the military chief, it extended to men, who could surround him with all manner of luxuries and do his general bidding. The other princi- pal form of metasocial property, unknown in the protosocial state, was land. The lower races lay claim to certain regions of country 1 " De la Division du Travail Social," per ^mile Durkheim, Paris, 1893, p. 189. 2 " Die Sociologische Erkenntnis," von Gustav Ratzenhofer, Leipzig, 1898, p. 229. 8 It is too late to raise the objection of hybrid Grseco-Latin etymology, as has been done hi the case of the word sociology, since there is really no Greek equivalent for the Latin socius. It must not, however, be supposed that sociology is the only science in which this etymological sin has been committed. The name of so well established a science as mineralogy is open to the same objection. CH. xin] PROPERTY 275 over which they are accustomed to roam in search of animal and vegetable food, but no one member of the group pretends to an ex- clusive right to any subdivision of that region. But after the con- quest of one race by another the leading warriors of the conquering race lay claim to all the territory occupied by the subject race and proceed to divide it up among themselves, assigning boundaries to the shares of each individual. This assumes more complex forms with successive assimilations, and ultimately creates the latifundia and the feudal fiefs. All the other forms of property grow out of these two general classes, and the ruling classes come into the pos- session of flocks and herds, castles, vehicles, tools, weapons, and everything that can minister to a life of ease and domination. But this is only a general view of the economic operations of early society the social warp, as it may be called. Over it there is everywhere and always woven a social woof, which is not less important to the sociologist. The conception of two antagonistic classes, the conquering and the conquered, falls far short of the real state of things. Both these classes must also be conceived as thoroughly heterogeneous. All this was considered in Chapter X, where the whole process of social karyokinesis was described, result- ing in the development of the four great human institutions, law, the state, the people, and the nation. Not all the members of the dominant race are chiefs, rulers, lords, or the immediate proteges of these. A much larger number are simply citizens without special claims upon the rulers and obliged to maintain themselves by their own efforts. Neither are all the members of the subject race slaves. A considerable number are free and in a condition not widely differ- ent from the class last mentioned. The two races are virtually equal in natural capacity, and the process of mingling the blood through intermarriage is rapidly obliterating race lines. These two wide margins constantly overlap, interlace, and interpenetrate each other, serving as a sort of leaven for the generation of a common people. The true economic idea of property is the possession of useful commodities in excess of immediate needs. It is based on the division of labor, which creates all things in excess and secures their mutual exchange. As has been pointed out by many writers, property in this sense is impossible except under the protection of law and under the power of the state. So soon as these institutions are 276 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART n formed the other coordinate human institution property takes form and henceforth constitutes one of the leading civilizing agents. The distinction between meus and tuus does not exist in the mind of primitive man. Whatever any one has possession of is his by pos- session, but there is no such notion as its being his by right. If another can wrest it from him it becomes his, and so indefinitely. The idea of ownership of anything in possession of another, or of a thing regardless of where it may be, is a late derivative idea. This is the idea that lies at the foundation of property, and there could be no property in any true sense until this idea had taken firm root in society. But such is human nature, or more properly speaking, the natural animal constitution of man, that no such idea could arise in the protosocial state. The substitute for it was communism, which is in the nature of a modus vivendi. After conquest the possessions of the subjugated race fall for the most part to the conquerors, or at least the communistic regime ter- minates. What with sacking and pillaging and sequestering and portioning, the incipient metasocial society finds itself in a state of economic chaos, and the process of social karyokiuesis affects pos- sessions as it affects persons. The large penumbral mass who are neither slaves nor rulers constitute the turbulent, unmanageable element. The races mingle, at first mechanically, but in time chemically and organically. Interest here as everywhere unites, and extremes meet on a sort of common ground of struggle for existence, all demanding concessions from the military power. Every one seizes whatever he can, defends it by force or hies away with it to a place of safety. He hides it or buries it, or repairs to the solitude to enjoy it as best he can. Own it he cannot, and such a thing as property in any modern or economic sense is impossible. No- matter how stern and unrelenting the military power may be, the state of things ultimately becomes intolerable, and the stage of concession on the one hand and resignation on the other is sooner or later reached, followed by all the other forms of social equilibration, until at last the regime of law begins, rights are recognized, and the state is born. Now for the first time there arises the possibility of property, and it is at this stage that property as a human institution begins. When a man can own a camel or a buffalo skin, or a spear, or a bronze ax, and be secured in its possession without having to CH. xin] PROPERTY 277 fight for it, or conceal it, it becomes property, and next to personal safety, the first and most important function of the state is to guarantee the security of rightful possession. Of all the many ways in which the principle of permanent pos- session, or property, contributed to social development, the principal one was the incentive it furnished to accumulation. Without accum- ulation property would have very little socializing influence. But when it is seen that any one may own much more of a thing than he can immediately use, can hold it for future consumption, or can barter it for other things that he does not possess, he will begin to acquire as large an amount as possible of that which he can most easily obtain and hold it in store for these and other purposes. Until this was possible the division of labor was useless, and hence we see that the division of labor, which is usually spoken of as a very primitive condition, was impossible until the state was formed. But property in this sense means much more still than this. It was the basis of exchange, of trade, of commerce, and of business in general as well as of industry in the more restricted sense. Property, which is of course only a means to enjoyment, when thus guaranteed and made convertible and flexible, is made an end and is pursued as such. A new desire, a new want, is thus created, which finally develops into the most imperative of all wants. Property assumes the character of wealth, and the pursuit of wealth, wholly irrespec- tive of the power to use it, becomes the supreme passion of mankind. Such a powerful passion is of course sure to have its dark side, but considered as a spur to activity and as an agent in transforming the environment, it must be admitted to be the most powerful of all the motor forces of society. A large part of the final intensity that this passion acquired was of course due to the adoption at a certain stage of the movement of a symbol or representative of property^in the form of a circulating medium, or money. Through this device all forms of property became blended and reduced to one, and the pursuit of wealth was converted into the pursuit of money which .stands for wealth. Besides the legitimate effect in giving simplicity and ease to all business transactions, the introduction of money lent an additional charm to the pursuit of wealth and greatly intensified the passion. It gave rise to a universal plutolatry, which took fantastic forms, creating both misers and spendthrifts on the opposite margins of the 278 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART n social beam, but which had for its main and solid effect to penetrate and illumine the darkest corners of the material world. To it the material civilization of the great historic races is chiefly due. As a factor in human achievement this super-preservative social force, " the love of money," has had no rival, and still remains the main- spring of economic and industrial activity. If to the moralist it is " the root of all evil," to the sociologist, studying the causes of social development, it is the root of all the good there is in material civil- ization. As shown in Chapter XI, this is the result of efforts directed toward personal ends but expended on the means to the attainment of those ends. The pursuit of wealth acquires its highly dynamic character by virtue of its quality of keeping the end remote from the means, and of thus rendering the effort indefinitely pro- longed and practically continuous. Production. Production is the creation of property. This, though true, is not a definition, since there are forms of property, such as land, which are not properly produced. But production is only possible through labor, and is therefore an exclusively metasocial institution or operation. Economists give a very broad meaning to production, as anything that creates or increases value. It might naturally be supposed that under a system of slavery, where the majority of the population is compelled to labor, production would be very rapid, but this is not the case. However large the number of slaves the masters find ways of consuming all they produce. The non- working classes, though numerically small, are naturally waste- ful. Mr. Veblen has shown how the mere maintenance of caste requires the gratuitous and ostentatious waste of property, and this is greatly increased by the rivalry in displaying wealth on the part of the members of the leisure class. The maintenance of the mili- tary rule consumes a large share, and another large portion goes to administration. In all the ^arly societies there exists, besides the governing class properly so called, a sacerdotal class, which is a leisure class par excellence. This class is habitually the recipient of large emoluments and costly luxuries. All these expenses are paid by slave labor and by tribute from the free industrial class. Societies thus organized produce little in excess of their supposed needs, and slaveholding nations do not acquire wealth. That modification of this condition known as feudalism also represents a minimum of production and of wealth. on. xni] PRODUCTION 279 The earlier economists laid great stress on agriculture and the production of raw materials, and did not clearly see to how great an extent the value of the latter could be increased by skilled labor expended upon them. They had false ideas of value, and it is only in quite recent times that the truth has gained acceptance that value is measured by the satisfaction yielded. Seen in this light it becomes clear that production does not stop at any stage in the elaboration of the raw materials, but that the utility continues to increase so long as the labor expended adds to the power of the product to satisfy desire. And now it is found that the real wealth of nations consists chiefly in this refinement of the original products. Agri- cultural nations are never rich, and mining countries do not become rich until provided with extensive manufactories. The great wealth of the leading nations of the world at the present time is almost wholly due to machinofacture. The sociological importance of production as thus understood consists in the power of highly elaborated products to satisfy desire, contribute to ease, comfort, and the enjoyment of life, and in gen- eral, to render existence tolerable and desirable. Any one going out of the centers of civilization into regions where " modern conven- iences" have not penetrated immediately feels this, and wonders what the inhabitants of such places have to live for. It is curious that such " blessings of civilization " keep in the very van of the advancing races. They are much more universal in America and, I am told, in Australia, than in Europe. An American of moderate means does not find in Britain or on the Continent what he is in the habit of regarding as the ordinary comforts of life. It is a common mistake to suppose that men usually have the means of satisfying all their wants. Aside from the very rich, whose unsatisfied wants consist of things that money will not buy, every one at all times wants unnumbered things that money would buy if he had it. And aside from the abject poor that swarm in the richest countries, there is the great toiling proletariat who not only want many things that they never dare to hope for, but also need much to prevent physical suffering. There is therefore call for a greatly increased production, and there is no danger that too many useful things will be produced. But here we encounter a problem that has thus far baffled econo- mists, sociologists, social reformers, and statesmen. I shall not attempt to solve it, nor even to point out a way to its solution, but 280 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART u if I can succeed in formulating a clear and correct statement of it I shall be more than content. Social Distribution. The principles of economic distribution are very simple and have been repeatedly set forth. With them we have nothing to do here. But what may be distinguished as social distribution presents a problem. It may be a question whether it belongs to pure sociology at all. If the social forces do not produce it it does not so belong. But if they do produce it, even to a very limited extent, it comes in for treatment here. Under the exact scientific laws of political economy all surplus production should go to the ruling, owning, employing class. The slave of course owns nothing, any more than does a horse. But neither should the wage worker own anything. The wage, according to the Ricardian law, is fixed at the precise amount that enables him to live and reproduce. If he is able to possess anything beyond these requirements the wage is correspondingly reduced. If he weakens and fails to keep up his numbers the law will spontaneously eke out his wage till he can again keep even. It acts on the same principle as the law of prices, and is at bottom the same law, since it has maximum profits as its basis. Now, the question is, has this law always operated rigidly in society ? So far as slavery is concerned we may say that it has, but outside of slavery, has the working man always been obliged to be content with the means of subsistence, including that of a family large enough to insure the rearing of two children for each pair to the age of reproduction, so that the number shall not diminish? If anything beyond this has occurred, then there has been social distribution to that extent. It can now be seen what I mean by social distribution. It is the socialization of wealth. It is some transgression of the iron law. It is the existence of defects, cracks, pores, and fissures in the eco- nomic dam, by which some small part at least of the surplus produc- tion seeps through and finds its way into the hands of the wage earner. It is some check to the economic law whereby wages in ex- cess of those required to live and reproduce fail to cause their prompt contraction to that point. No one need of course be told that in the present state of the world, at least, this process is going on. What is supposed to be the final answer to all complaints against the ex- isting industrial system is that the laborer is receiving an increas- ingly larger share of the wealth produced. This is supposed to CH. xin] SOCIAL DISTRIBUTION 281 dispose of the whole question and relegate all the dissatisfied to the ranks of social agitators, and there is no lack of statistical proof of this fact. As this same argument has been used for about two hun- dred years we may assume that it has been true during that time, and it is a fair inference that it has always been true to some extent. The flaw in the logic consists in assuming that it is in any sense an answer to the demand for more complete social distribution. As a matter of fact it is an admission of the justice of such a demand. It is never maintained that the laborer gets too large a share of the wealth produced. It is always held that he gets a larger amount now than at some previous period and should therefore be satisfied. But as at any such previous period the same statement was made and is supposed to be true, there is the implied admission that if what he gets now is the just share, what he received then was something less than the just share. And as all this applies to all past periods and will apply to all future ones, the inference is fair that there has never been a time when the laborer received a just share of the wealth produced. But all this belongs to applied soci- ology, one of the chief problems of which is to formulate the laws and indicate the methods of a perfect social distribution of wealth. We are content to have discovered that the social forces have spontaneously secured some degree of social distribution, and we may cast a glance at some of the special causes that have produced this result. The principal cause is the heterogeneity of all meta- social groups. It is impossible at the outset for the ruling class to obtain a complete monopoly of labor, and after the establishment of civil law and the formation of the state, whereby rights to property were recognized, the economic laws operating among individuals of all degrees of inequality of mind and character, soon generated a sort of archetypal bourgeoisie with a multiplicity of small owners of varying degrees. The rise of the feudal system interrupted the natural development of this state of things and its gradual trans- formation into the modern industrial system, but this transformation was ultimately brought about. As all know, the exploiting class then became chiefly the bourgeoisie, and under legal and political protection, especially after the era of machinery began, wealth passed into the hands of industrial leaders, and the great economic struggle began. But industry had now become greatly diversified, the remote regions of the world had been opened up, and there were 282 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PAKT ir innumerable outlets for the laborer, dissatisfied with his lot. The great differences in ability and character among workmen produced grades and stimulated ambition. Exceptionally bright hands were called to more lucrative places, compelling employers to raise wages in order to retain their best men. Those who had received the higher grades of salary for considerable time found themselves in position to withdraw and set up business for themselves, thus becoming em- ployers and perhaps " captains of industry." Such are a few of the ways in which the iron law of wages has been gradually mitigated, and social distribution secured. One need not be a panegyrist of natural law in the economic world to recognize the power of the ontogenetic forces to keep up a difference of potential and convert economic structures into systems of moving equilibrium. There has been some social distribution from the earliest times, and it is increasing with increasing production. Under the division of labor, especially in the mechanic arts, production increases as the square of the number employed, reversing the Malthusian law, and the socjal distribution is a function of the amount of production per capita. If for no other purpose, therefore, than to increase the social distribution, increase of production is a social desideratum. The laborer becomes an element in the market, and it is more and more the interest of the proprietor of goods to let him share in their consumption. Increased production means diminished price, and the latter at last comes within the resources of the real producer. Consumption. If political economy has nothing to do with con- sumption, sociology has everything to do with it. Consumption means the satisfaction of desire, which is the ultimate end of cona- tion. In Chapter XI we analyzed a dynamic action and found that the only effect that the individual is conscious of seeking is the sat- isfaction of desire. The other effects, viz., the preservation of life and the modification of the surroundings, are incidental and indif- ferent to him. Although the vast importance of these two latter effects makes this first one seem paltry and trivial, nevertheless it must not be forgotten that but for it the action would not be per- formed at all, and all would be lost. But if we abandon for a moment the high standpoint of nature's end in a scheme of universal evolution, and temporarily ignore the somewhat less exalted stand- point of social progress, we may concentrate attention upon the end, and the only possible end, of the individual, the satisfaction of CH. xin] PAIN AND PLEASURE ECONOMY 283 desire, the enjoyment of life, in short, human happiness, and we shall see that it is not such a trivial object as it at first appeared. While the particular element in an action which is dynamic is its direct and unintended effect in transforming the environment, the prospect of consumption is the essential condition to the action itself, and therefore, with a slight ellipsis, it may be said, and has been perceived and remarked by several economists (Jevons, Walker, Patten), that consumption is the dynamic element in political econ- omy. Dynamic economics, if any one prefers to call it so, is based on consumption. It may also be called subjective economics. More closely analyzed, it is found to lie at the foundation of the true conception of value, the measure of which is the quantity of pleas- ure experienced or yielded by the product consumed. But all this, if economics at all, is transcendental economics, and really belongs to the domain of sociology, which starts with consumption, where economics leaves off, and becomes the science of welfare. 1 Pain and Pleasure Economy. Sociology is indebted to Dr. Simon N. Patten for the terms " pain economy " and " pleasure economy," 2 and for their justification in the history of the world. Struck with the importance of the truth embodied in these terms, I have on two occasions 3 endeavored to point out applications of them not made by Dr. Patten and to show the deeper psychologic and biologic foundations of the subject. These considerations have been still more fully set forth in this work, especially in Chapter VII, and their relation to the subject of the present chapter is now clear. The somewhat paradoxical fact was noted in the last chapter that the essential or physical social forces are negative in the sense that they have for their chief purpose to rid mankind of goading and tormenting wants, while the positive satisfactions yielded in so doing, though intense, are so brief as to possess no volume, and that the chief result is therefore relief from pain. Dr. 1 The ablest analysis of this distinction with which I am acquainted is to he found in a series of papers by Professor H. H. Powers, entitled, " Wealth and Welfare," in the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. XII, November, 1898, pp. 325-357; Vol. XIII, January, 1899, pp. 57-80; March, 1899, pp. 173-211. 2 " The Theory of Social Forces," Supplement to the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. VII, No. 1, January, 1896, pp. 75 ff. 8 " Utilitarian Economics," American Journal of Sociology, Vol. Ill, January, 1898, pp. 520-536; " L'^conomie de la Douleur et 1'lSconomie du Plaisir," Annales de I'Institut International de Sociologie, Vol. IV, Paris, 1898, pp. 89-132. 284 PUKE SOCIOLOGY [PART n Patten states that the animal world represents a pain economy, and the interpretation of this is that -all the wants of an animal belong to the physical class. The same is true of primitive man, and the protosocial stage, which is sometimes described as idyllic, is so in the same sense as in the animal. Probably no such positive term as happiness would be applicable to either. If progress means any- thing more than the objective fact of increasing complexity of organization, if it has any subjective meaning at all, it must con- sist in an increase in the relative degree to which the end of the organism or the individual is secured. A state in which the end of the creature is completely subordinated to the end of nature, in which function is everything and feeling is nothing, is a typical pain economy, and subjective progress throughout the sentient world consists in an increasing recognition of the claims of feeling. Animals and the inferior types of men literally "eat to live." The stomach is the main seat of the nutrient attraction. The food is put there as quickly as possible and not allowed to linger on the way to tickle the papillae of the tongue and palate. Feed a hungry dog bits of meat and watch the process of deglutition. The interval between the time when the morsel touches the animal's jaws till it is safely landed in the stomach is as short as the action of the organs can possibly make it. It is so nearly instantaneous that the eye can scarcely follow the wave that flits along the throat during the act of swallowing. It cannot be said that such an animal takes any pleasure in eating. The demand for nutri- tion is so imperious that it wholly excludes all other considera- tions. The satisfaction is no doubt intense, but the enjoyment is nil. I have heard ethnologists describe the manner in which the Chinook Indians eat the shellfish and other sea food that they gather on the shores of Alaska, the refuse of which form the kitchen middens of that region, and it accords with the above description of the way animals eat. It is characterized by excessive gluttony and the quickest possible dispatch of the meal, which receives no preparation except to detach the animal from its shell in the most expeditious manner possible. Mr. Spencer, in support of two very different propositions, has collected a large number of such facts, 1 but they certainly illustrate the principle here under con- 1 " Principles of Sociology," Vol. I, New York, 1877, pp. 49-52 ( 26) ; "Principles of Ethics," Vol. I, New York, 1892, pp. 436-438 ( 174). on. xin] PAIN AND PLEASURE ECONOMY 285 sideration equally well. It might almost be said that the length of time it requires for food to pass from the lips to the stomach is a measure of civilization. It typifies the transition from a com- plete subjection to function to a recognition of feeling as also an end, from a regime of necessity to a regime of utility, from mere negative satisfaction to positive enjoyment, from a pain economy to a pleasure economy. Such a movement there has been throughout the history of human development, and it has not been confined to the ontogenetic forces of society, but it is clearly characterized in them. In connection with food alone it has consisted in a general improvement in the palatableness of food. Instead of being eaten in its natural state nearly all food is now prepared, the most important part of the preparation consisting in cooking it. This preparation of food, besides greatly increasing the number of food products, converting into food many things that previously were not edible, has chiefly tended to render all kinds of food better, more savory, more palat- able and toothsome, and thus to convert the mitritive act from a mere imperative necessity into a greater and greater source of en- joyment. Along with this, and as a consequence of it, there has gone an increased inclination to masticate food, and thus to prolong the period of this enjoyment. The habit of eating slowly, of pro- viding a variety of articles of food, of preparing them in a variety of ways, of combining them variously, and of seasoning food, and all the arts of modern cookery all this represents the same proc- ess of seeking to derive the maximum good from the physical necessity of eating. Busy men, and especially scientific men, often complain of the time consumed not only in eating but more in the preparation of food which involves so large an expense, and latterly we have been hearing of the proposed " synthetic food," prepared in the chemical laboratory, and consisting of the essence of the most nutritious substances in a form that can be taken without loss of time and at such intervals as the system may demand. They should know that this, instead of a step forward, would be a return not only to the savage, but to the animal method ; but if it represents the completion of a cycle, we may perhaps be thankful that it can- not be realized. Not less marked has been the tendency in the same general direc- tion in the satisfaction of the defensive and protective wants of 286 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PARTII mankind. If we leave out the means of protection from human enemies in the form of offensive and defensive weapons, these con- sist chiefly in clothing, shelter, and fuel. To review the progress in all these would be both tedious and unnecessary, but we have only to point to architecture as an esthetic art to show that the movement was toward the realization of ideals, and that the needs of existence soon ceased to be the motive that caused man to build. Here, of course, the problem is complicated by the religious element, which was long the chief spur to architectural progress. In modern times the chief architectural motive is comfort, which, after all, is the same as pleasure, enjoyment, happiness. Almost the same might be said of clothing, except that here the field was more open for the extravagances of fashion, and even these are a form of enjoyment for those constituted to prefer them. Upon the whole the evolution of dress has conduced to the fullness of social life. The relation that the full satisfaction of men's wants bears to the physical and mental development of the race is of the highest interest to the sociologist. Many travelers (Cook, Ellis^ Erskine, etc.,) have noted the superior size of the chiefs and rulers of the lower races, and the fact seems to be general. The usual explana- tion is that the most robust and physically powerful of a tribe are always chosen as leaders. There may be some truth in this, but where the ruling class is hereditary much of it is doubtless to be explained by the better nutrition of that class, always having plenty to eat and being well protected from whatever the unfriendly elements of the environment may be, while the subjects are often insufficiently nourished and are exposed to these unfriendly elements. This state of things, continued through many generations, would bring about all the observed difference in the two classes. It -is also often remarked that civilized men are usually superior to savages physically as well as mentally. On this point Darwin remarks : Although civilization thus checks in many ways the action of natural selection, it apparently favors, by means of improved food and the freedom from occasional hardships, the better development of the body. This may be inferred from civilized men having been found, wherever compared, to be physically stronger than savages. They appear also to have equal powers of endurance, as has been proved in many adventurous expeditions. Even the great luxury of the rich can be but little detrimental ; for the expectation CH. xin] PAIN AND PLEASURE ECONOMY 287 of life of our aristocracy, at all ages and of both sexes, is very little inferior to that of healthy English lives in the lower classes. 1 The general physical superiority of great men in all departments, notwithstanding certain marked exceptions which have attracted attention because anomalous, has also been occasionally noted. Gal- ton expresses a feeling I have often experienced, when he says : " A collection of living magnates in various branches of intellectual achievement is always a feast to my eyes ; being, as they are, such massive, vigorous, capable-looking animals." 2 A false notion to the contrary of all this prevails, but one has only to look around. Go into any business establishment and you will in nine cases out of ten instantly pick out the proprietor by his superior physique. He is usually the largest man present, and his hale, active, independent mien at once impresses you with his general superiority over all the journeymen, clerks, employees, and even the foremen and chiefs of departments in the business, whatever it may be. This is as true of a store where all the employees are well dressed as of a shop where most of them wear working clothes. And it is pretty generally true not only that a sound mind requires a sound body, but that superior minds, including all the qualities of character that insure success, are associated with superior bodies, usually larger than the mean for the race, and well formed, healthy, active, and strong. Galton would concede all this, but his conclusion from it is false, or at least only half true. It is that these men are where they are because they are superior. It would probably be more nearly true to say that they are superior because they are where they are. The real truth lies between these two propositions. Galton has empha- sized the first. The second should be fully recognized. Life is very flexible. It adapts itself to circumstances. Its preservation is so essential that it cannot be destroyed by reducing the amount of nutri- tion. In the history of life there have been wide vicissitudes in this respect, and the organism has been adapted and adjusted to these vicissitudes. If food is abundant the organism comes up to that standard and is correspondingly robust. If the supply falls off the standard- is lowered to correspond, but life goes on. Unless too sudden a great diminution of the supply can thus be sustained with- out destroying life. The creature becomes what is called " stunted," 1 " Descent of Man," New York, 1871, Vol. I, p. 164. 2 " Hereditary Genius," London, 1892, p. 321. 288 PURE SOCIOLOGY [I-AKTII but does not perish. If life is thereby shortened, then, by a curious law of compensation, fecundity is correspondingly increased. The botanist soon learns where to find the plants farthest advanced in the process of flowering or fruiting. It is where the soil is poorest. But the specimens will be depauperate, though bearing an abundance of precocious fruit. And the gardener who does not want his plants to fruit at all has only to make the soil exceedingly rich and they will bear luxuriant foliage but no flowers. It is the same with ani- mals. Reproduction and nutrition are inversely proportional. The poorest and most starved and puny are the most prolific. It is so with the human race. The poor and underfed have the largest families; the low quarters of cities, occupied by laborers and me- chanics, swarm with children; the rich have small families, and, as Kidd says, society is perpetually recruited from the base. 1 It follows from all this that there is scarcely any such thing as " over-nutrition " 2 as a social condition, although of course it is often an individual fact ; or rather we should say, over-eating, and especially the eating of improper things made palatable by the arts of cookery, is a common occurrence with the leisure class. This belongs to the same class of phenomena as other forms of intemper- ance and relates to social pathology. Dr. Maurel 3 ascribes to it a considerable part of the diminished birthrate of France, giving to the diseases to which it gives rise the general name of arthritism, which includes, along with infecundity, such maladies as gout, rheu- matism, gravel, calculus, diabetes, etc. These are unnatural forms of living that follow from excessive social inequalities not controlled by science or good morals, and do not concern us here. Ample natural nutrition enjoyed by a whole people or by a large social class will cause a healthy development which will ultimately show itself through physical and mental superiority. Thus far, such has been the history of mankind that it has always been a special class that has been able to obtain the means thus fully to nourish the body. That class has always been superior physically to the much larger class that has always been inadequately nourished. Adequate protection from the elements in the way of houses, clothes, 1 " Social Evolution," New Edition, New York, 1894, p. 263. 2 "Over-nutrition and its Social Consequences," by Simon N. Patten, Annals of the Academy of Political and Social Science, Philadelphia, Vol. X, pp. 33-53. 8 " De la Depopulation de la France, Etude sur la Natalite," par E. Maurel, Paris, 1896. CH. xin] PAIN AND PLEASURE ECONOMY 289 and fires, tends in the same direction, while improper exposure dwarfs and deforms both body and mind. Leisure, in the proper sense of exemption from the necessity of making painful and pro- longed exertion, coupled with such physical and mental exercise as the system demands, or the normal use of all the faculties, cooper- ates with full nutrition and adequate protection to develop the faculties and perfect the man. On the other hand compulsory exertion in the form of excessive and protracted labor blunts and stunts all the faculties and tends to produce a more or less deformed, stiffened, and distorted race of men. When we remember that in real truth these two opposite influences have been at work in human society ever since its organization, with the intense persistence of caste conditions working to prevent the mixing of the classes, we have abundant cause for all the observed physical and mental inequalities in men. The reason why this explanation is not clearer is that during the past three centuries the original conditions have been disturbed and a great social panmixia has been going on, greatly obscuring the elements of the problem. Still, although slavery has been abolished and the feudal system overthrown, the new industrial system is largely repeating the pristine conditions, and in the Old World especially, and more and more in the New, class distinctions prevail, and differences of nutrition, of protection, and of physical exertion are still keeping up the distinction of a superior and an inferior class. The former has come up to the limit of its possibilities ; the latter is arrested on the plane at which it can exist and reproduce. And thus is exemplified the truth that there is in the German calembour of Moleschott: "man ist was man isst." This, too, is the great truth that lies at the bottom of the so-called " historical materialism." Not only does civilization rest upon a material basis in the sense that it consists in the utilization of the materials and forces of nature, but the efficiency of the human race depends absolutely upon food, clothing, shelter, fuel, leisure, and liberty. CHAPTER XIV THE PHYLOGENETIC FORCES THE proper subject of this chapter would be the influence exerted by those forces that have reproduction for their functional end in the direction of creating and transforming social structures. Keep- ing in view, however, the genetic method of treatment, the subject demands, much more than that of the preceding chapter, that deep explorations be made into the remote and obscure beginnings and prehuman course of things leading up to and explaining the facts that lie on the surface of the highly artificial and conventionalized society of to-day. In view, too, of the almost unexplored field in which this must be done, compared with the overdone domain of the economic forces passed over in the last chapter, the apparently un- even and much more extended treatment of the present subject is fully justified. A glance at the number and variety of heads and subheads into which the subject naturally falls, none of which can be wholly ignored, is sufficient to show that it might easily, and should properly, be expanded into a book instead of condensed into a chapter. REPRODUCTION A I?ORM OF NUTRITION The subject may really be regarded as only a continuation of that of the preceding chapter, since no fact in biology is better estab- lished than that reproduction represents a specialized mode of nu- trition through the renewal of the organism, which, for reasons that we cannot here stop to point out, if indeed they can be said to be fully known, cannot be continued indefinitely. " The process of re- production," says Haeckel, " is nothing more than a growth of the organism beyond its individual mass." * The biological ground for this statement will be set forth a little later, but may now be di- rectly connected with the fact referred to in the last chapter that 1 Der Vorgang der Fortpflanzung ist weiter Nichts als ein Wachsthum des Organ- ismus iiber sein individuelles Maass hinaus. " Natiirliche Schopfungsgeschichte," von Ernst Haeckel, achte Auflage, Berlin, 1889, p. 167. 290 CH. xiv] THE ANDROCENTRIC THEORY 291 the arrest of nutrition hastens reproduction, while abundant nutri- tion checks, and may even prevent reproduction. If we recognize only two forms of nutrition, natural selection determines which form shall be employed. Individual nutrition will be continued so long as there is no danger of the individual being cut off. Ultra-individ- ual nutrition will begin as soon as there arises a chance of the indi- vidual being cut off, and it will be emphasized by any direct threat to the life of the individual. Hence reproduction is not possible in animals to the young that are growing rapidly, nor to plants that are over-nourished. Trees always die first at the top, but it is alsoj at the top that they first flower and mature their fruit. This general fact is sufficient reason for treating the ontogenetic before the phylogenetic forces, although from the standpoint of their importance the latter may be given precedence. The race is certainly of more consequence than the individual, and is that for which nature seems chiefly to care, but when the individual is looked upon as being simply prolonged and to merge into a new in- dividual, the individual is seen to be all and to embrace or consti- tute the race. The race or species becomes an ideal, an abstract conception, and the individual the only thing that is real. The case is analogous to that of "society," in contradistinction to the individual members of society. Society exists only for the members and in preserving the members the society is preserved. So of the race. If the individuals continue to live over into one another, as reproduction provides, the race is conserved. Reproduction is therefore not only ultra-nutrition, in going beyond the individual, but it is altro-nutrition, in carrying the process to and into another. It is, as we shall see, the beginning of altruism. As it preserves the race or phylum, it is the condition to phylogenesis, and as con- necting these two ideas, it may be called phylotrophy, or race nutri- tion, and stand opposed to ontotrophy, or individual nutrition. THE ANDROCENTRIC THEORY I propose to present two theories to account for the existing rela- tions between the sexes, between which the reader can choose accord- ing to the constitution of his mind, or he can reject both. The first I call the androcentric theory, the second the gyncecocentric theory. I shall, however, set down the principal facts known to science in support of each of these theories, and these may not be accepted or 292 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART n rejected at will. They may be verified, or even proved false, but unless they are shown to be false and not facts at all, they must stand on one side or the other of the argument. The androcentric theory is the view that the male sex is primary and the female secondary in the organic scheme, that all things center, as it were, about the male, and that the female, though necessary in carrying out the scheme, is only the means of continuing the life of the globe, but is otherwise an unimportant accessory, and incidental factor in the general result. This is the general statement of the androcentric theory as a tenet of biological philosophy, but as a tenet of sociology or anthropology, it becomes the view that man is primary and woman secondary, that all things center, as it were, about man, and that woman, though necessary to the work of repro- duction, is only a means of continuing the human race, but is other- wise an unimportant accessory, and incidental factor in the general result. The facts in support of the androcentric theory, in both its general and its special form, are numerous and weighty. From the former point of view we have the general fact that in all the principal animals with which everybody is more or less familiar, including the classes of mammals and birds at least, the males are usually larger, stronger, more varied in structure and organs, and more highly orna- mented and adorned than the females. One has only to run over in his mind the different domestic animals and fowls, and the better known wild animals, such as the lion, the stag, and the buffalo, and most of the common song birds of the wood and meadow, to be convinced of the truth of this proposition. Among birds the females are not only smaller and of plain colors, but the male alone possesses the power of song. > He is often brilliantly colored and far more active and agile than his mate. Among animals the male, besides his greater size and strength, is often endowed with such purely esthetic accessories as antlers and gracefully curving horns, and such weapons as tusks. Some male birds, too, are provided with spurs not pos- sessed by the females. A comparison of female animals and birds with the young of the same species shows, as compared to the males, a marked resemblance, which fact has given rise to the favorite | theory of many zoologists that the female sex represents a process of " arrested development " as contrasted with the alleged normal, and certainly far greater development of the males. Such are the CH. xiv] THE ANDROCENTRIC THEORY 293 main facts which zoology furnishes in support of the androcentric theory. When we narrow the comparison down to the human races we find the same general class of facts somewhat emphasized. The women of all races are smaller than the men. They are less strong in proportion to their size, certainly if size is measured by weight. In the lower races at least the esthetic difference holds, and the male is more perfectly proportioned, and if positive beauty can be predicated of either sex it belongs to the man more than to the woman. In the advanced races female beauty is much vaunted, but women themselves regard men as more beautiful, and in the matter of beard, at least, they have what corresponds to the male decorations of animals. The difference in the brain of man and woman is quite as great as that of the rest of the body. Many measurements have been made of male and female brains both of civilized and uncivilized races, and always with the same general result at least that the female brain is considerably less than the male both in weight and cubic capacity. The average civilized male brain is said to weigh 602 grammes while the average female weighs only 516 grammes, a differense of over fourteen per cent of the former. But there are also qualitative differences showing female inferiority. Some of these are enumerated by Topinard as follows : The outlines of the adult female cranium are intermediate between those of the child and the adult man; they are softer, more graceful and delicate, and the apophyses and ridges for the attachment of muscles are less pro- nounced, . . . the forehead is ... more perpendicular, to such a degree that in a group of skulls those of the two sexes have been mistaken for different types ; the superciliary ridges and the gabella are far less developed, often not at all ; the crown is higher and more horizontal ; the brain weight and the cranial capacity are less ; the mastoid apophyses, the inion, the styloid apophyses, and the condyles of the occipital are of less volume, the zygomatic and alveolar arches are more regular, the orbits higher, etc. 1 Other parts of the body differ in a similar manner. Professor W. K. Brooks says : " The female is scarcely in any normal case a mere miniature copy of the male. Her proportions differ; the head and the thorax are relatively smaller, the pelvis broader, the bones slighter, and the muscles less powerful. 2 " All these facts are stated over and over again in all the works that treat of the subject, 1 " Elements d'Anthropologie gen^rale," par Paul Topinard, Paris, 1885, p. 253. 2 Popular Science Monthly, Vol. XIV, p. 202. 294 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PAUT u with slight variations, it is true, but with substantial agreement, and they may therefore be safely accepted as true to all intents and purposes. But this is only the physical side of the subject. Stress of course is always laid upon the differences in the male and female brain, and it is but natural that inferior brain development in woman should be attended by correspondingly inferior mental powers. This is found to be the case, and attention is usually drawn to this as an immediate consequence of the other. In the first place it is found that women have very little inventive power. As invention is the great key to civilization, and as the inventive faculty is the primary advantageous function of the intellect, this is a fundamental difference and has great weight. If we take the inventive faculty in a wider sense and include scientific discovery we shall find woman still more behind man. It is for scientific discoveries rather than for mechanical inventions that the great men of history have risen to fame. In the leading countries of Europe there are scientific academies which from time immemorial have made it a practice to elect to membership any person who has made noteworthy scientific discoveries. This of course is not always done, and there are often narrow prejudices and short- sighted judgments that have debarred the greatest men for a time from this honor ; but, these aside, membership in such bodies is prima facie proof of special eminence in one or another department of science. Professor Alphonse de Candolle, basing his arguments chiefly on this test, wrote his great work on the "History of Science and Scientific Men," which has become a recognized classic, taking rank alongside of the similar works of Francis G-alton, " Hereditary Genius," " English Men of Science," to which it is in large part an answer. In this work de Candolle devotes two pages- to " Women and Scientific Progress," most of which is so appropriate to the present discussion that I cannot do better than to quote it. He says : We do not see the name of any woman in the table of scientific asso- ciates of the principal academies. This is not wholly due to rules that fail to provide for their admission, for it is easy to perceive that no person of the feminine sex has done an original scientific work that has made its mark in any science and commanded the attention of scientific men. I do not think that it has ever been proposed to elect a woman a member of any of the great scientific academies with restricted membership. Madame de CH. xiv] THE ANDROCENTRIC THEORY 295 Stael and George Sand might have become members of the French Academy, and Rosa Bonheur of the Academy of Fine Arts, but women who have translated scientific works, those who have taught or compiled elementary works, and even those who have published some good memoir on a special subject, are not elevated so high, although they have not lacked sympathy and support. The persons of whom I have spoken are however exceptions. Very few women interest themselves in scientific questions, at least in a sustained manner and for the sake of the questions and not of persons who are studying them or in order to support some favorite religious theory. It is not difficult to find the causes of this difference between the two sexes. The development of woman stops sooner than that of man, and every one knows that studies at the age of from 16 to 18 years count for much in the production of a scientist of distinction. Besides, the female mind is superficial (primesautier). It takes pleasure in ideas that can be readily seized by a sort of intuition. The slow methods of observation and calculation by which truths are surely arrived at, cannot be pleasing to it. Truths themselves, independent of their nature and possible consequences, are of little moment for most women especially general truths which do not affect any one in particular. Add to this, small independence of opinion, a reasoning faculty less strong than in man, and finally the horror of doubt, i.e., of the state of mind through which all research in the sciences of observation must begin and often end. l Not only is the inventive genius of woman low as compared to that of man, but so is also her creative genius. 2 The following by a writer in the Gentleman's Magazine is fairly representative of what may be found repeated a hundred times in the general literature of the nineteenth century : It is notorious that creative genius is essentially of the masculine gender. Women are the imaginative sex, but the work which nature seems to have distinctly allotted to them has been done bymen. This strange phenome- non is not due to the fact that women have written comparatively little, because, if it were, the little imaginative work they have done would have been great in quality, and would surpass in quantity the other work they have done. But it has not been great in quality compared with that of men, and, compared with the rest of their own work, has been infinitesimally small. No woman ever wrote a great drama ; not one of the world's great poems came from a woman's hand. 8 1 " Histoire des Sciences et des Savants depuis deux siecles," etc., par Alphonse de Candolle. Deuxieme Edition considerablement augmentee. Geneve-Bale, 1885, pp. 270-271. (This section occurs only in the second edition of the work.) 2 There is only one art in which women equal and perhaps excel men, and that is the art of acting. Cf. Havelock Ellis, " Man and Woman," p. 324. 8 "The Physiology of Authorship," by R. E. Francillon, Gentleman's Magazine, N. S., Vol. XIV, March, 1875, pp. 334-335. 296 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART n If we wished to pursue this line further we should find it often asserted that in all the fine arts woman is far behind man. There are very few great women architects, sculptors, painters, or musical composers. Still less can be said for the female side of speculative genius, the faculty by which the mind deals with abstract truth and rises by a series of ever widening generalizations from multiplicity to unity. Women care very little for truth for its own sake, take very little interest in the abstract, and even concrete facts fail to win their attention unless connected more or less directly with persons and with some personal advantage, not necessarily to self, but to self or others. In short, they lack the power to see things objectively, and require that they be presented subjectively. Innate interests are ever present to their minds, and anything that does not appeal in any way to their interests is beyond their grasp. A glance at the history and condition of the world in general is sufficient to show how small has been and is the role of woman in the most important affairs of life. None of the great business inter- ests of mankind are or ever have been headed by women. In politi- cal affairs she has been practically a cipher, except where hereditary descent has chanced to place a crown upon her head. In such cases, however, no one can say that it has not usually rested easily. But from a certain point of view it almost seems as if everything was done by men, and woman was only a means of continuing the race. THE GYN.ECOCENTRIC THEORY The gynsecocentric theory is the view that the female sex is pri- mary and the male secondary in the organic scheme, that originally and normally all things center, as it were, about the female, and that the male, though not necessary in carrying out the scheme, was developed under the operation of the principle of advantage to secure organic progress through the crossing of strains. The theory further claims that the apparent male superiority in the human race and in certain of the higher animals and birds is the result of spe- cialization in extra-normal directions due to adventitious causes which have nothing to do with the general scheme, but which can be explained on biological and psychological principles ; that it only applies to certain characters, and to a relatively small number of genera and families. It accounts for the prevalence of the androcen- CH. xiv] THE GYN^ECOCENTRIC THEORY 297 trie theory by the superficial character of human knowledge of such subjects, chiefly influenced by the illusion of the near, but largely, in the case of man at least, by tradition, convention, and prejudice. History of the Theory. As this theory is not only new but novel, and perhaps somewhat startling, it seems proper to give a brief account of its inception and history, if it can be said to have such. As the theory, so far as I have ever heard, is wholly my own, no one else having proposed or even defended it, scarcely any one accept- ing it, and no one certainly coveting it, it would be folly for me to pretend indifference to it. At the same time it must rest on facts that cannot be disputed, and the question of its acceptance or rejec- tion must become one of interpreting the facts. In the year 1888 there existed in Washington what was called the Six O'Clock Club, which consisted of a dinner at a hotel followed by speeches by the members of the Club according to a programme. The Fourteenth Dinner of the Club took place on April 26, 1888, at Wil- lard's Hotel. It was known to the managers that certain distinguished women would be in Washington on that day, and they were invited to the Club. Among these were Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Miss Phebe Couzins, Mrs. Croly (Jennie June), Mrs. N. P. Willis, and a number of others equally well known. On their account the subject of Sex Equality was selected for discussion, and I was appointed to open the debate. Although in a humorous vein, I set forth the greater part of the principles and many of the facts of what I now call the gynsecocentric theory. Professor C. V. Biley was present and, I think, took part in the discussion. Many of my facts were drawn from insect life, and especially interested him. I mention this because a long time afterward he brought me a newspaper clipping from the Household Companion for June, 1888, containing a brief report of my remarks copied from the St. Louis Globe, but crediting them to him ; and he apologized for its appearance saying that he could not explain the mistake^ The reporter had fairly seized the salient points of the theory and presented them in a manner to which I could not object. This, therefore, was the first time the theory can be said to have been stated in print. The exact date at which it appeared in the Globe I have not yet learned, but presume it was shortly after the meeting of the Club. Professor Blley did not hesitate to announce himself a convert to the theory, and we often discussed it together. 298 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART n I had long been reflecting along this line, and these events only heightened my interest in the subject. The editor of the Forum had solicited an article from me, and I decided to devote it to a popular but serious presentation of the idea. The result was my article entitled, " Our Better Halves." 1 That article, therefore, constitutes the first authorized statement of the gynsecocentric theory that was published, and as a matter of fact it is almost the only one. Mr. Grant Allen answered my argument on certain points in the same magazine, 2 and I was asked to put in a rejoinder, which I did, 3 but these discussions related chiefly to certain differences between the mind of man and woman and did not deal with the question of ori- gin. I alluded to it in my first presidential address before the Biological Society of Washington, 4 and it came up several times in writing the Psychic Factors " (Chapters XIV, XXVI). Such is the exceedingly brief history of the gynaecocentric theory, and if it is entirely personal to myself, this is no fault of mine. Nothing pleases me more than to see in the writings of others any intimation, however vague and obscure, that the principle has been perceived, and I have faithfully searched for such indications and noted all I have seen. The idea has not wholly escaped the human mind, but it is never presented in any systematic way. It is only occasionally shadowed forth in connection with certain specific facts that call forth some passing reflection looking in this general direc- tion. In introducing a few of these adumbrations I omit the facts, which will be considered under the several heads into which the subject will naturally fall, and confine myself for the most part to the reflections to which they have given rise. Many of these latter, however, are of a very general character, and not based on specific facts. In fact thus far the theory has had rather the form of a prophetic idea than of a scientific hypothesis. We may begin as far back as Condorcet, who brushed aside the conventional error that intellect and the power of abstract reasoning are the only marks of superiority and caught a glimpse of the truth that lies below them when he said : 1 The Forum, New York, Vol. VI, November, 1888, pp. 266-275. 2 "Woman's Place in Nature," by Grant Allen, the Forum, Vol. VII, May, 1889, pp. 258-263. 8 " Genius and Woman's Intuition," the Forum, Vol. IX, June, 1890, pp. 401-408. 4 "The Course of Biologic Evolution," Proc. Biol. Soc., Washington, Vol. V, pp. 23-55. See pp. 49-52. CH. xiv] HISTORY OF THE THEORY 299 If we try to compare the moral energy of women with that of men, tak- ing into consideration the necessary effect of the inequality with which the two sexes have been treated by laws, institutions, ciistoms, and prejudices, and fix our attention on the numerous examples that they have furnished of contempt for death and suffering, of constancy in their resolutions and their convictions, of courage and intrepidity, and of greatness of mind, we shall see that we are far from having the proof of their alleged inferiority. Only through new observations can a true light be shed upon the question of the natural inequality of the two sexes. 1 Comte, as all know, changed his attitude toward women after his experiences with Clotilde de Vaux, but even in his "Positive Philos- ophy," in which he declared them to be in a state of " perpetual in- fancy," and of " fundamental inferiority," he admitted that they had a " secondary superiority considered from the social point of view." 2 In his " Positive Polity " he expressed himself much more strongly, saying that the female sex " is certainly superior to ours in the most fundamental attribute of the human species, the tendency to make sociability prevail over personality." 3 He also says that " feminine supremacy becomes evident when we consider the spontaneous dis- position of the affectionate sex (sexe aimanf) always to further morality, the sole end of all our conceptions." * Of all modern writers the one most free from the androcentric bias, so far as I am aware, is Mr. Havelock Ellis. In his excellent book "Man and Woman," he has pointed out many of the fallacies of that Weltanschauung, and without apparent leaning toward any- thing but the truth has placed woman in a far more favorable light than it is customary to view her. While usually confining himself to the facts, he occasionally indicates that their deeper meaning has not escaped him. Thus he says : " The female is the mother of the new generation, and has a closer and more permanent connection with the care of the young ; she is thus of greater importance than the male from Nature's point of view " (pp. 383-384). To him is also due the complete refutation of the " arrested development " theory, above mentioned, by showing that the child, and the young gener- ally, represent the most advanced type of development, while the adult male represents a reversion to an inferior early type, and this in man is a more bestial type. 1 "Tableau Hisjtorique des Progres de PEsprit Humain," Paris, 1900, pp. 444-445. " Philosophic Positive," Vol. IV, Paris, 1839, pp. 405, 406. 8 "Systeme de Politique Positive," Vol. 1, 1851, p. 210. 4 Op. cit,, Vol. IV, 1854, p. 63. 300 PURE SOCIOLOGY [PART n In the sayings quoted thus far we have little more than opinions, or general philosophical tenets, of which it would be much easier to find passages with the opposite import. In fact statements of the androcentric theory are to be met with everywhere. Not only do philosophers and popular writers never tire of repeating its main propositions, but anthropologists and biologists will go out of their way to defend it while at the same time heaping up facts that really contradict it and strongly support the gynaecocentric theory. This is due entirely to the power of a predominant world view ( Weltan- schauung'). The androcentric theory is such a world view that is deeply stamped upon the popular mind, and the history of human thought has demonstrated many times that scarcely any number of facts opposed to such a world view can shake it. It amounts to a social structure and has the attribute of stability in common with other social structures. Only occasionally will a thinking investi- gator pause to consider the true import of the facts he is himself bringing to light. Bachofen, McLennan, Morgan, and the other ethnologists who have contributed to our knowledge of the remarkable institution or historic phase called the matriarchate, all stop short of stating the full significance of these phenomena, and the facts of amazonism that are so often referred to as so many singular anomalies and reversals of the natural order of things, are never looked at philo- sophically as residual facts that must be explained even if they overthrow many current beliefs. Occasionally some one will take such facts seriously and dare to intimate a doubt as to the prevailing theory. Thus I find in Ratzenhofer's work the following remark: It is probable that in the horde there existed a certain individual equal- ity between man and woman ; the results of our investigation leave it doubtful whether the man always had a superior position. There is -much to indicate that the woman was the uniting element in the community ; the mode of development of reproduction in the animal world and the lat- est investigations into the natural differences between man and woman give rise to the assumption that the woman of to-day is the atavistic prod- uct of the race, while the man varies more frequently and more widely. This view agrees perfectly with the nature of the social process, for in the horde, as the social form out of which the human race has developed, there existed an individual equality which has only been removed by social dis- turbances which chiefly concern the man. All the secondary sexual differ- ences in men are undoubtedly explained by the struggle for existence and the position of man in the community as conditioned thereby. Even the