Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 1.djvu/650

638 Dr. Patton's "Social Commonwealth" would be a state in which all this is reversed—a pleasure economy. In such a state the environment is conceived as friendly instead of hostile. The aim of life is to secure pleasure, not to avoid pain. The motive to action is hope, not fear. But he is not trying to found a Utopia. He perceives the movement and realizes the transition. He first supposes all external dangers removed and then deals at length with the internal dangers. He considers the reaction which the single pursuit of pleasure must inevitably produce and the possible ways in which this may be gradually prevented. Of course a pleasure economy could only exist under a high state of intelligence, and in the end it is this that must be depended upon to render it safe and successful.

Among the influences working in this direction he names as the two leading ones "economic bonds," or the rational demands of self-interest, and "social bonds," or the pursuit of ideals that must become the common possession of all the members of society. There are many indications that the author has been driven to the study of this problem by the necessity of finding some substitute for Kidd's "Ultrarational Sanction," although he seems to be, here as everywhere else, very much afraid that some one may imagine that he is indebted to others for suggestions, and hence leaves the reader to infer the source of his ideas, which is not usually difficult. The fact is, in this case, that Kidd never rises to the conception of a pleasure economy, and his whole notion of social evolution is such as may take place in a pain economy. This is well adapted to the dominion of gods and spirits whose supposed mysterious power inspires awe and arouses terror, i.e., religion.

In an inchoate pleasure economy the only dangers are those that result from excess. These are vice, disease, and race degeneracy. The chief object of fear is temptation. Until, in a state of high intelligence and culture and of developed moral and aesthetic perceptions, self-interest and social ideals shall become more potent than the temptations to commit excesses the perfect social commonwealth cannot be realized. But who shall say that such a stage may not be ultimately attainable? In seeking to discuss this problem in the concluding chapter on "Normal Progress," our author cannot be said to have been successful except in avoiding its Utopian aspects. Indeed it is a question whether this might not better be left to each reader to work out for himself. The principle once distinctly posited, time and events