Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 3.djvu/721

 NOTES AND ABSTRACTS 707

inhabits, and his kind of labor." (2) "The general or average well-being of man can be obtained, especially in our epoch, only by the labor of the capable man utiliz- ing chiefly his force of will, his intelligence, and his power of acti< n over other men and over machines, associated, on the one hand, with that of the man of less capacity acting chiefly as an animated motor, and, on the other hand, with that of the machine." (3) "Theoretically, the time economized in the labor of the total production, due to the intervention of the capable man and the use of machines, ought to be devoted to the instruction of the productively capable," in order that the total production may be increased without increase in the number of men devoted to it. Considering society as it is, however, these economic laws are considerably disturbed. Each actual man does not furnish his quota to the total production, according to the first law. Con- trary to the second law, really incapable men are engaged in production because they are capitalists, and capital has a power of action superior even to true productive capacity. Moreover, the evil is often multiplied by capitalistic heredity. The direc- tion of progress in society ought to be such that this evil may be progressively reduced. The practical means to this end is an inheritance tax progressing by gene- rations, with a view to the ultimate elimination of capital transmitted by heredity. The true social party should reject the sentimental formula, "to everyone according to his needs," for the formula of economic progress to everyone according to his productivity useful to the universal well-being. Passing to the intellectual domain, the first consideration of the social party should be the principle of free inquiry, to seek the positive truth and to reject the arbitrary. In science, religion, and ethics the immediate end should be the gradual extension of the proven or generally accepted body of knowledge in the different spheres to every man according to the degree of his receptivity and by virtue of the time progressively economized in production. The final situation aimed at in the application of the formulae of the social good and the social evil is the greatest possible material and intellectual equality between men, and in consequence the universal elevation of the average life of man, in which we sum up the whole morale sociale. E. SOLVAY, Annales de rinslituides Sciences Societies % December, 1897.

Ideal and Positive Science in Sociology. Today the opinion is general that sociological research should end where truth may only be divined, not demonstrated. But to admit hypothesis and pure reason in sciences such as chemistry, physics, and natural history, which treat of external phenomena accessible to experiment, and not admit them in a subject whose phenomena originate in the human mind and are man- ifested by a mechanism so complicated as society, is contrary to good sense. That the human mind seeks the hidden realities, inaccessible first causes, is an observed fact proved by the study of every epoch and by the feelings of each people and indi- vidual. It is then legitimate, being necessary and natural. De Santis said : "The germs of metaphysics are so alive in the human heart that even the materialists had some." Comte said that positivism signified the insurrection of science against the heart

True, the principles obtained by ideal science will never reach the certainty of those of positive science. Ideal science exists for particular sciences as well as for science as a whole. Physics comes upon the enigma of force, biology to the great mystery of life, etc.

TV social phenomenon results from human action, and hence originates in the stimuli which direct human com! ontnins the same problems as metapl

though presented more concretely. Their solution is of more than philosophical intcr- . hy is the human conscience growing more altruistic? Why does not the evolution of conscience in various peoples follow the same track? Why does it not advance with the came rapidity? What end will it read < relation between the

social conscience and that of individuals? \\hat is the law of moral progress? These and others are the high problems of ideal science, certainly impoitant for soci- ology. What are the formulae of civilization? History cannot tell us, neither can observation, for the perfect civilization does not yet exist. Sociology studies such problems from a special point of view, connecting results with what has been ascer-