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PURPOSE OF SOCIOLOGY 449 be, but in addition to adverse criticism, which I desired and courted, I observed some tendency to make too much of the doctrines I advanced. This was especially the case with the principle of conscious social action. I had repeatedly stated that society thus far must be regarded as in the main unconscious, and therefore the whole idea of social action for the sake of improvement was an ideal which simply followed from the assumption of such a train of conditions as are described in Vol. II of that work. I did not wish to lay too great stress upon it as a present or early future possibility. When, therefore, in an article on "Static and Dynamic Sociology," which appeared in the Political Science Quarterly for June, 1895, I sought to draw a clear line between these two kinds of sociology, I purposely omitted all reference to what I now call collective telesis, because the distinction could be made equally clear without it, and its introduction would have weakened my argument in the minds of just those persons to whom I desired to appeal.

To this omission and my general disinclination to push this part of my social philosophy, as manifested in other popular articles, I have attributed the impression that I have observed among contemporary sociological writers that I had to some extent abandoned that doctrine. The clearest expression of this that I can readily refer to is contained in Professor Vincent's exhaustive paper on the "Province of Sociology" that appeared in the for January, 1896, p. 487. Under "(c) The 'constructive' theory, or the projection of social tendencies into ideals for guidance," he says: "Small stands for this as one of the functions of sociology, and Ward in his early work distinctly advanced this view. Judged by his recent articles the latter has apparently modified his position." In 1893, or ten years after the appearance of Dynamic Sociology, this doctrine was as distinctly reaffirmed as in the "early work." Professor Vincent does not refer to my Psychic Factors of Civilization in which (Part III) this was done, and the inference seems plain that he was unacquainted with it.

It may be said that after the paper on the "Mechanics of