Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/587

 NOTE ON WARD'S "PURE SOCIOLOGY" 569

of thorough consistency with his formula "achievement." That is to say, in his term " function " he seems to be conceiving of society as something in which individual choices have a smaller part to play than they really do. This to such an extent that one feels a measure of incongruity between his expressions in terms of " function " and those in terms of "achievement." This is the sort of thing which pro- vokes the charge of " dualism." When process is conceived as mechanical and result as psychical, one feels that the interpretation does not interpret. No unity is established, no nexus appears. In trying to find one the questions urge themselves: Is this supposed mechanical function really psychical, or is the supposed psychical result really mechanical, or how else shall we conceive of the operation and the output as a whole ?

This unfavorable impression is strengthened by such phrases as "that highest social science, social physiology" (ibid.}. The use of terms is of course figurative, and no doubt the tu quoque answer isflrima facie a legitimate bar upon my right to object. It is not to the figure, however, but to the amount of literalness in the figure that I demur. The figure strains too hard to go on all fours, and limps in doing it for the reason just stated.

The impression is confirmed again by the obiter dictum that " the spiritual part of civilization," which rests on utilization of nature, "does not need to be specially fostered," provided the soil is prepared for it in the shape of material prosperity (p. 18). This is partly optical illusion which overlooks the tremendous labors that men have always had to put forth to procure spiritual progress after the material means were supplied ; and it is partly the same mistake in theory which marks the most vulnerable point in Dynamic Sociology. I have called it the drop-a-nickel-in-the-slot conception of the social process the idea that " information " passes automatically through the steps of the psychological series and deposits "happiness" in its owner's cup. The amount of technical effort that has been expended on the spirit- ual contents of civilization, which Ward refers to as a spontaneous growth, is curiously underestimated in this passage. There is prob- ably a close connection also between this appraisal of spiritual tasks and the enumeration of means by which men have reached the two chief classes of achievements, viz., "handling quantities" and "utiliz- ing forces." Ward enumerates as such means: (i) military systems, (2) political systems, (3) juridical systems, (4) industrial systems (p. 30). Why scientific, educational, and religious systems