Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 1.djvu/662

650 their reports are meager and fragmentary. The League of Agricultural Associations furnishes also but partial reports, and there are numerous smaller associations.

A central bank has been established for these associations under the patronage of the German government which has furnished a working capital of $1,250,000 in 3 per cent, bonds. The objects of this central bank are: (1) to lower the rate of interest on the minor associations; (2) to encourage the extension of the system. On the one hand, it is urged that the sum furnished by government is insignificant for the purpose. On the other hand, that such help by government will only help to spread the idea that credit is a right which may be demanded by all. This is not a part of the system, and its beneficent possibilities are at present in jeopardy. ( in Vierteljahrschrift für Staats- und Volkswirtschaft, January 1896. Hirschfeld, Leipzig.)

Capitalism in Modern Society is a more explicit statement of a portion of the above doctrine. From this point of view, society is in bondage to capitalism; the exchange has become the center of national life; the humble laborer is forsaken. The chief of the present disorders grow out of the institution of interest on capital. In an ideal society interest would be prohibited. This is shown by the evils at present resulting from interest in agriculture, in commerce, and in the arts and trades. The church has held this ideal from the fifth century to the present time. The chief causes of the present situation are immense state loans, unrestricted speculation, indefinite and unlimited issue of stock by corporations without governmental inspection and regulation, legislative and judicial corruption by corporate wealth, and, finally, the Jewish money lenders. For the second and third of these evils efficient laws constitute a remedy; honest and courageous officials will obviate the fourth; while the first and the last are really the great evils now confronting European society. The only remedy for these is the creation and direction of opinion, chiefly by means of the church. ( in L'Association Catholique; Revue des Questions Sociales el Ouvrières, December 1895.)

Social Evolution and Social Progress.—The great triumph of the physical period of science has been the establishment of the theory of evolution. The object of science in its social period is the application of the same theory to the problems of civilization and society. In a certain broad and general way this has been established; but all more definite attempts have proven futile. The reason for this is found in the crucial difference between the subject matter of physical science and that of the social sciences. The physical sciences study sequences not causes. They tell us how, never why. But the very thing impossible in the physical sciences becomes possible in the social sciences. We can discover not only how the units act but why they act. These inner properties of the social unit not only equal the facts of its external behavior in point of accessibility, but are superior to them. Not only does social science thus naturally begin with the unit, but it is also the unit with which its conclusions end. For these two reasons the methods and theories of physical science are inadequate for social science. The neglect of this truth is the cause of the failure of social scientists. Contemporary sociologists, notably Herbert Spencer, deliberately reject the methods by which, in social science, the methods of physical science must be supplemented. So far as it goes this method is correct, and its introduction into the study of sociology is a genuine scientific achievement. Furthermore, social evolution is not identical with social progress though in many respects they coincide. There is a large part of social progress which is not evolution; and there may be much evolution which is certainly not progress. Evolution, as revealed in the physiological world, is in its essence the reasonable sequence of the unintended. Social evolution is even more strikingly so. But social progress is a double progress. It is the joint result of evolution, or unmtended changes, and changes introduced designed and carried out by men of various degrees of greatness. So in a study of social progress Carlyle's "great man theory" cannot be ruled out as Spencer would have us do, though in a study of social evolution this may be done. These intended changes are of two kinds; first, those further changes which are accomplished by other great men and which require for their accomplishment design and intention also; and second, those further changes which are suffered rather than accomplished by average men,