THE DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIOLOGY I 57
by no means synonyms. Spencer naturally discovered in his law of evolution certain criteria which were sometimes assumed to be those of advance. Heterogeneity, coherence, definiteness, were often set up as tests however abstract and difficult to apply of social advancement. But Spencer really relied upon his two social types of militarism and industrialism with their character- istic status and contract. Here was an infallible criterion. What- ever tended toward military autocracy portended retrogression, while movement toward industrial liberty and free contract was to be reckoned progressive. Ward represents the Comtean theory that intellectual control is the guiding dynamic agency. Telesis purposeful social action is contrasted with genesis uncon- scious, natural social growth and likened to the calculated course of an ocean liner as compared with the drifting of an ice- berg. 48 With Ward the diffusion of accurate knowledge is an automatic means of progress. Giddings, admitting that the prob- lem is philosophic, rather than scientific, sees three progressive stages in social evolution: (i) political centralization; (2) criticism and freedom; (3) industrial and ethical development. 47 By these he would test the degree of advancement and the trend of a given people or society.
In an address delivered in 1892 Mr. A. J. Balfour examined the popular belief in progress, taking up successively the argu- ments from biology, the increase of knowledge, and the elevation of ethics. His conclusion was that there are no rational or strictly scientific grounds for predicting progress, and that it is futile to raise the question. 48 W T hile sociologists as a class would hardly take this view while, as a matter of fact, they expect their researches to have social utility their present interest may be said to turn, not so much to large philosophic generalizations concerning vast secular movements, as to the more definite scien- tific study of concrete social phenomena. They are concerned rather with the laws of change than with the formulation of
- WARD, Pure Sociology (New York, 1903), pp. 463, 465.
- G i DOINGS, Principles of Sociology, pp. 299 f.
- BALFOUR, "A Fragment on Progress," Essays and Addresses (Edinburgh,
1893).
