Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 2.djvu/551

 SOCIAL GENESIS ;;;

In the preliminary paper referred to, while full weight was given to the fundamental antithesis itself, the direct or causal nature of actions produced by the one, and the indirect or con- sequential nature of those produced by the other, were not specially set forth. This was subsequently worked out, and the passages already quoted sufficiently express the latter of these laws, which is the basis of social statics. The former or dynamic law was formulated in the introduction to the classification of the social forces, 1 but perhaps the clearest expression of it occurs in the treatment of the reproductive forces, in connection with which the principle comes forward with the greatest clearness, and it is stated that "the first of these classes of effects may be denominated direct or causal, the second indirect or conse- quential." 2

We see, then, that the primary characteristic of genetic social progress is that it results from the actions of men that directly flow from their efforts to satisfy their desires. It is this, too, which gives it its distinctively genetic character. Genesis is becoming, and whatever is genetically produced is the result of a vis a tergo molding it into shape by successive impacts. The impinging, body is in direct and intimate contact with the one that is being molded. The change produced is gradual and the process is one of development or evolution. Social progress is in this respect analogous to organic progress, or even to cosmic progress. It is never sudden or rapid. It does not take place by leaps or strides. Increment after increment is slowly added to social as to animal structures, and in the course of ages habits, customs, laws, and institutions are changed, or abolished and replaced by others. As the object of all these activities is always the fuller satisfaction of desire, and as such satisfaction results in self-preservation and race continuance, the effect in the long run, under the ever-present law of selection, is to pro- duce superior races. This effect, however, is biologic, or rather ethnologic. The sociologic effect is to adapt the environment, to improve the conditions of existence. This is social

1 Dynamic Sociology, Vol. I, p. 469. Ibid. % p. 603.