Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/854

 834 THE AMERICAN JOURjVAL OF SOCIOLOGY

of the prevailing economic conditions, then that of the economic doc- trines which flow from them, and next that of the aesthetic, moral, and religious ideas which the epoch produces. But most startling of all, and absolutely at variance with our accepted ideas on the subject of thought development, the author next asserts that the history of aesthetic, moral, or religious thought, each taken independently, is impossible because later epochs do not grow out of older ones, but out of new material. History must be studied in epochs, and each group of ideas should be connected with its roots in the underlying condi- tions, and not with its antecedents in the same group. The blending of the old with the new of the same group (which fact Dr. Patten must acknowledge) happens after new conditions have exerted their force or have brought out what is most peculiar to them. Here we strike the keynote of the author's theory — new economic conditions form the basis of thought development. The race has passed through a series of temporary environments, each of which has contributed certain characteristics that have become a part of national character. Char- acter is the one enduring, growing element in a civilization where all else is temporary and fleeting. Economic conditions produce the pri- mary motor reactions. Under new environments, where new condi- tions for survival obtain, these motor reactions respond to abstract instead of concrete phenomena. The concepts created by the motor reactions disappear if they do not harmonize with new conditions. If they do, they become ideals. Motor reactions, once formed, do not readily fall into disuse; they are appropriated by ideals.

Dr. Patten next informs us that there are two classes in society capable of progressive thought — the philosophers and the economists; that the influence of the observers (economists) on the thinkers (philoso- phers), and of the thinkers on the observers, causes progression in thought. Every transition to a new environment tends to develop a new type of man and remodel the old. From the new arise the econ- omists, from the old the philosophers. The former proceed on an upward curve of thought from facts to theory, the latter on a down curve from theory to facts. English thought divides itself into three epochs. In the first progress is due to Hobbes, Locke, and Newton ; in the second Mandeville, Hume, and Adam Smith are the master spirits; and in the last it is the work of Malthus, Mill, and Darwin that influences thought development.

Chapter 2 is devoted to the antecedents of English thought. Fol- lowing Montesquieu and Buckle, Dr. Patten makes the determining