Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/746

 722 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

tone it urges the most timely appeal : " Let us not assume that the best has been discovered. Let us take thought!"

As stated in the preface, the object of the book is to show, in the first place, that "the attempt to assume the privileges of freedom and disclaim its responsibilities is fatal to the nation which tolerates it ; and theories of law or schemes of social reform which ignore this ethical basis of democracy are likely to prove suicidal ; " then, in the second place, "to show what this ethical basis of democracy is, how it has arisen, and what happens if we try to ignore it."

The only occasions which I have found for dissent from the author's views are probably not expressions of his real position, but implica- tions which the extremely compact treatment could not avoid. For instance, on the proposition that the spirit of a government is more essential than its form, he says (p. 2): "Without such unselfish purpose and adherence to tradition, monarchy degenerates into tyranny, aristoc- racy into oligarchy, democracy into populism." The last antithesis seems to me to imply disregard of the deep meaning underneath populism, in spite of its pathetic manifestations.

Again, in discussing the concept "freedom" he says (p. 70): "These facts go far to explain the general teaching and general accept- ance of the theory of the freedom of the will. From the standpoint of modern science, this theory is little short of an absurdity. From the standpoint of modern morals, it is little short of a necessity." I cannot help thinking that the paradox would have been spoiled if Dr. Hadley had explained the precise content of the theory which he had in mind as an "absurdity," and the quite different content to which he must have had reference in calling it a "necessity." The final paragraph (p. 72) of this notable chapter calls for elaboration. The proposition that the freedom of the will is a "legal conception" is too absolute to go unchallenged, even though one follows the author's argument in general.

The impression which I received from first reading on p. 79, that the "irruption of the barbarians into Europe brought with it, under the feudal system, a nearly complete return to the old theory of status, etc.," was that the feudal system had been dated back half a thousand years or more. Of course, the author was speaking in terms of forces rather than of chronologies. In the same connection I feel like protest- ing against the scant allowance made for the element of contract in the feudal system. There is something more to be said both of the quantity and of the quality of contract between lord and vassal. The