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 822 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

6. Sociocracy would confer benefits in strict proportion to merit, but insists upon equality of opportunity as the only means of determining the degree of merit.

A cycle is thus completed. Sociocracy is a return to nature from which society has departed. Individualism was the original and natural method recognizing natural inequalities and apportioning benefits according to natural ability. Indi- vidual telesis has completely abolished this method. Socialism recognizes this, and would remedy it by an equally wide depar- ture from the natural. Collective telesis can alone remove the artificial barriers raised by individual telesis and place society once more in the free current of natural law.

LESTER F. WARD. WASHINGTON, D. C.