Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 1.djvu/645

 REVIEWS.

The Theory of Social Forces. By Supplement to the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. VII., No. 1, January 1896. Philadelphia, pp. 151.

This book consists really of two essays of nearly equal length, having no apparent relation to each other. Neither of them has anything more to do with the theory of social forces or with social forces themselves than would any treatise relating in a general way to social matters. A theory of social forces would be a discussion of the laws according to which social phenomena regularly take place as a consequence of these forces. No such discussion is contained in this treatise.

The first essay, occupying chapters i. to iii. (pp. 7–74), is mainly psychological, but embraces some biographical considerations. Chapter i. professes to be purely biological, and discusses such questions as "the relation of economics to biology," "the causes of a progressive evolution," "the obstacles to a progressive evolution," and "the requisites for survival." These discussions certainly contain nothing new, although some of the statements are true and important, as that "clear perceptions of the environment and the power of definite adjustments depend on the mental mechanism," and that "the single aim of progressive animals is to escape from competition." We will pass it over with a protest against such a contradiction as "static progress," to say nothing of such tautology as "dynamic progress."

Chapter ii., on "Race Psychology," is a pretentious affair, and ought to be reviewed by a trained psychologist. Not professing to be one myself, and finding the psychology so peculiar, I had the curiosity to bring it to the attention, first of one of the leading brain physiologists, and then of one of the foremost experimental psychologists.

Almost at the outset the author says: "It is assumed that there are certain simple elements of thought distinguished by introspection, and certain elements of the nervous system dicovered by a physical analysis Rh