Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/621

 EVOLUTION OF SOCIAL STRUCTURES 605

that a progressive age demands. A condition of social statics may thus be converted into one of social dynamics. All social structures taken together constitute the social order. The prob- lem is to inaugurate a condition of social progress. This cannot be done by disturbing the social order. Order is the condition to progress, and progress consists in setting up dynamic activi- ties in the social structures themselves. A structure represents a state of equilibrium, but it is never a perfect equilibrium, and the conversion of this partial equilibrium into a moving equilibrium, provided it moves in the right direction, is social progress.

LESTER F. WARD.

WASHINGTON, D. C.