Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/815

 MOOT POINTS IN SOCIOLOGY 785

preting change is becoming ever more helpful to the student of society. The substitution of iron for wood is a progress if some Tubal Cain has made iron cheaper, an adaptation of deforestation has made wood dearer. A vegetarian movement may signify either that the art of preparing cereal foods is advancing, or that over-population is making land too valuable for the growing of animal food. Among herdsmen it is only the lash of poverty that makes anyone endure the drudgery of tillage and the cultivation of the soil presents itself, not as a progress, but as an adaptation to the pressure of numbers.

Apparently rearward movements are equally ambiguous. Militarism is hardly a regress when a people finds itself men- aced by the approach of an aggressive neighbor. The Asiati- cization of government under Diocletian and his successors, hitherto looked upon as a sure symptom of degeneration, was a consequence of the filling up of the depopulated parts of the empire with barbarians hard to keep in order and very sus ceptible to pomps and ceremonies. The English viceroy is today modifying the government of India in the same way and for the same purpose. The magnifying of the state is a backward step if it signifies that a people has become less self-reliant and liberty-loving; it is but adaptation if the growth of monopoly has made intervention necessary in order to pre- serve individual initiative and free competition. The multi- plying of statutes is ominous if it results from the individual becoming evil-disposed or the legislator meddlesome ; on the other hand, as an endeavor to meet the needs of a more com- plex organization of society, it presents itself in the light of a welcome adjustment. The growth of one-man power is degeneration if it is caused by a lowered citizenship ; it is only adaptation if the facilities for focusing public opinion have so improved that the cruder checks on the executive have ceased to be necessary.

I conclude, then, that social dynamics ought to drop such vague and inadequate conceptions as progress and regress, and set its teeth determinedly in the fact of social change.