Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 70.djvu/374

370 human wants, the satisfaction of one usually causing another to emerge in the mind, and so on indefinitely. Circumstances conscribe and restrict such expansion always and everywhere; so, not being able to satisfy all their wants at once, men are compelled to choose between the satisfaction of one and the satisfaction of another. Such choice is effected through evaluation, which comes in last analysis to this: in every set of circumstances each man asks himself, 'to the satisfaction of which of my many wants do I attach the most immediate importance? which, in a word, is most worth while?' and having decided, proceeds to utilize his resources accordingly. The same is true in a more general way of peoples and races; as a result of a long series of evaluations, groups as well as individuals establish their standards in accordance with their physical, social and historical circumstances. So I should say: evaluation constitutes the regulative factor of super-organic development. If so, utilization becomes in last analysis the accomplishment of that which utility suggests, circumstances allow and evaluation controls. A word in conclusion: because of the expansion of human wants, utility constitutes the progressive principle of super-organic development, but utility is counteracted to a considerable extent by imitation, the disposition to accept traditionally established standards and utilize in accordance with custom and convention instead of circumstance—imitation constitutes accordingly the conservative principle of super-organic development.

Before stepping over from the formulated organic into the unformulated super-organic, in order to indicate the direction and measure the distance I said: the fundamental principles of civology should be subsequent to and consistent with the fundamental principles of its antecedent science, biology. Having taken the step—or made the leap, if you like—let us look about us and see where we have landed. In the first place, are the super-organic principles suggested consistent with the organic principles already established? They seem to me so—I appeal to comparison. Biology has succeeded in coordinating the phenomena of life; the task I set civology was to coordinate the phenomena of civilization. The phenomena of life are organic, the phenomena of civilization are super-organic. The former, that is the phenomena of life, present themselves to science as variations; the latter, that is the phenomena of civilization, should, I say, present themselves to science as systems of utilization. Organic variations are conceived of by biology as the accomplishment of that which variability permits, environment requires, and selection directs; so, it seems to me, super-organic systems of utilization should be conceived of by civology as the accomplishment of that which utility suggests, circumstance allows and evaluation controls. The parallelism between the two processes is apparent: Both proceed from intrinsic principles which