Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 3.djvu/285

 NOTES AND ABSTRA CTS 271

Complete nutrition can do no more than to create psychic control. Further social progress depends upon social control. This means that there must be secured the same unity of action and harmony of motives in society that psychic control creates for the individual. Social control is secured by the elimination of the overfed. Over- nutrition weakens psychic control and reduces the individual's energy by means of which economic advantage ceases.

" Social progress, therefore, demands a steady improvement in psychic control, through which the productive power is increased and a corresponding modification of

consumption in such ways as will avoid over-nutrition Any increase of efficiency

among the well fed must result in over-nutrition if the intensity of old wants is not reduced and if new ones of greater intensity are not acquired. Those who persist in the old habits fall victims to dissipation and disappear."

For purposes of social philosophy the Darwinian reasoning in this form : i. The rapid multiplication of the species; 2. The struggle for existence; 3. The survival of the fittest, is inadequate. The well fed survive in the struggle for existence. But a well-fed man need not necessarily be a fit man. Social qualities determine fitness in his case. The modified reasoning is as follows: I. The rapid multiplication of the species ; 2. The struggle for existence ; 3. The survival of the well fed ; 4. The degeneration of the overfed; 5. The modification of desires; 6. The survival of the fittest.

The biologic formula accounts for the origin of species, but does not account for permanence of types. The new formula accounts for the existence of species under the conditions that may exist, whether static or dynamic. S. N. PATTEN, Annals of the American Academy, July 1897.

Have Americans any Social Standards ? Society is the social world as distinct from the economic, political, or intellectual. In this sense it means the inter- change of courtesies and the receiving of hospitality. It is the nearest approach to the ideal life we have.

Tradition controls the European social world, and its stability is its essence. In a republican country conditions are different. In America we had during the first half of this century the New England and southern social influences, but at present the tendency seems to be toward a purer democracy, or the New England social type.

New Englanders had habits of thrift and frugality, grew rich slowly, toiled alone or with servants, exhibited a keen intellectual hunger, and made their region the literary and educational center of the country. Southern social life followed the Eng- lish tradition more closely, and was conditioned by a different economic life, made possible by the institution of slavery. Fox-hunting was a pastime ; free-hearted hos- pitality obtained, and there was constant merrymaking in the dining and drawing rooms.

In ante bellum days these opposing social forces and tendencies met at, " first, Washington; second, the watering places so-called summer resorts with hotels to which fashionable people then flocked ; and, third, to some extent the northern schools and colleges. In each of these places the South was socially dominant." But the last half century has witnessed great social changes. The social balance has been mate* rially disturbed since the Civil War. " The result is that the average American is helpless in the matter of social judgments. Middle-aged people, usually of.the female sex for women manage society in this country are in a state of timid anxiety about what they shall eat, how they shall act, what they shall wear, whom they shall associate with, and where they shall go in the summer."

The matters pertaining to social life are not trivial. "How we live shows what we are living for. The way a person spends his leisure and the companions he chooses give a much juster indication of his character than the habits and associates of his working hours." America has some social standards peculiarly its own. Culture does command respect. Literary people and others of intellectual habits are consid- ered to belong to the best society. We have simply abjured those which are associated with mediaeval oppression and have not yet arrived at a degree of culture and dignity which enables us to establish coherent standards of our own. FRANCES M. ABBOTT, Forum, July 1897.