Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/203

 MOOT POINTS IN SOCIOLOGY igi

by the influence of transformations wrought by mechanical inventions. A readjustment of the family relations may be brought about by the state which has become powerful enough to intervene because an invention like gunpowder, which gives the Attack an advantage over the Defense, makes for political inte- gration. Sometimes the long chain of social causes reminds one of the way cats favor stock-raising. The cats keep down the mice which destroy the nests of the bumblebees which fertilize the blossoms of the clover that fattens the cattle.

Between the orders of social phenomena the causal currents run every way, but it is likely that by far the greater number radiate from two primary centers, viz., the series of conceptual changes the religio-scientific innovations and the series of practical changes the industrial-military inventions. Here originate the chief determining influences which reverberate throughout society. The ultimate cause of ethical change is rarely a new ideal of conduct. Few political changes are wrought by the promulgation of a new principle or the invention of a new expedient. Artistic progress is usually referable to new knowl- edge or to new wealth. Most transforming impulses, in fact, appear to radiate from the invention of labor-saving devices, the improvement of the means of transport and communication, new conceptions of the Unseen, and the discovery of scientific truth.

The key to the paradox that the strictly social changes origi- nate less in political, ethical, and aesthetic innovations than in industrial inventions, geographical discoveries, and scientific or speculative ideas t is a fact that the latter are condition-making. Since there is no herdsmanship without the taming of animals, no agriculture without the domestication of plants, no water com- munication without the boat, no sea commerce without the com- pass, invention has much to do with that expansion of population or of wealth which, as above shown, is so pregnant with social change. The modes of production, moreover, act directly upon the size and structure of the family and the working group. The inventions pertaining to warfare have been fateful for the replace- ment of the less ingenious races by the more ingenious and for the development of all forms of subordination and race-parasitism.