Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/728

 704 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

any man to spread the news that the world is not made up of instanta- neous and separate creations, like so many bricks in the mold ; but that everything is a link in a chain of perpetual becomings, and that we can find no end to the chain in either direction. Ward concentrates the same sort of interpretation upon generic changes from universal ether to and through society. The social reality has never been at the same time so specifically and so comprehensively expounded as the latest aspect of energies acting continuously, with no gaps in the causal series.

In the fourth place, Ward has elaborated concepts, from the most inclusive, like "genesis" and "telesis," to the most particular, all of which are inevitable categories for thinking the social process. There is plenty of room for difference of opinion both about the absolute and the comparative value of some of these categories, but there is no room for doubt that intelligence about the social process must involve familiar knowledge of these generalizations, and aptness to apply them in criticism of concrete situations. In many cases we shall have to use formulas contained in this book as the best available account of what is embraced under standard generalizations.

In the fifth place, the system is relatively compact. To be sure? the volume contains more than one excursus which perhaps might better have been relegated to an appendix. The main line of argu- ment might thus have become more apparent. Considering, however, the well-known works that have occupied much more space, and yet have failed to cover the ground of general sociology, this volume, even if we reckon in the Applied Sociology, which we hope will soon fol- low, is an unusually successful combination of the condensed and the compendious.

If these propositions are true, it is superfluous to add that the volume is one of those which every professional sociologist must master. Not to be familiar with it will mean provincialism of a sort which no course of reading that I could name would certainly remove.

But in spite of the foregoing estimate, notwithstanding the debt which I personally acknowledge to Ward, and although I believe he will have a permanent and conspicuous place among the makers of sociology, I must submit that there is a serious issue between him and the majority of sociologists. Without presuming to speak for them, my own dissent from him may be expressed in the charge that he shifts the center of attention too far back into some region of pre- sociology. ^The more I read Ward, the more I am inclined to classify