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 246 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

with disappear but for the impulses that indirectly lead to their preservation. These functional results are undesired. They are automatic. The will does not enter into their production. This of itself explains their statical character. Whatever is dynamic must be desired, must be due to motive, must be a product of will power. The act itself of satisfying desire is not dynamic and if no effort were required there could be no modification of structure. It is precisely because, in the great majority of cases, effort is necessary that transformation takes place. From the very outset there have been obstacles to the satisfaction of desire, to remove which has required greater or less effort, and it is this effort that has resulted in change.

The fact to be noted at this point is that the effect (removal of obstacles) is not, like the functional effects hitherto con- sidered, indirect and remote, but is direct and immediate. The effort is a true efficient cause and the effect is a purely natural physical consequence of the activity. In the animal world this effect is mainly subjective. It transforms the organism, modi- fies organs, multiples structures, and creates new varieties, species, genera, and even families and classes. In man it does this too, but only to a limited extent. Here the principal effects are modifications of the environment to adapt it to the organs and faculties that he already possesses, and the degree to which this takes place is proportional to his superiority over the animal. It is a measure of his psychic development, and especi- ally of his intellectual development. The removal of obstacles to the satisfaction of desire is the underlying cause of all social progress. It transforms the social environment. It modifies existing social structures and originates new ones. It establishes institutions. It resists the repressing tendencies of obsolescent customs and codes. It inaugurates reforms, which are at bot- tom a sort of social exuviation. If old, hardened structures prove too obdurate, it results at length in revolution. In short it constitutes the dynamic process of society.

Social progress is either genetic or telic. Progress below the human plane is altogether genetic and is called development.