504 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
Again, he says :
A high degree of evolution can be attained by society only if the motion lost is but slightly in excess of the motion gained.'
These quotations show how entirely his sociology is based upon physical principles, and how utterly impossible it is for him if he would maintain the slightest amount of consistency to admit the self-notion in a socially causal principle such as con- sciousness of kind.
These ultra-physical remarks appear largely toward the latter part of his Principles of Sociology, when he is stating his position in reference to the general nature and method of sociological explanation. Nothing more positivistic than these statements could be desired. But, while they are still fresh in our mind, let us contrast with them some other statements which we find here and there in his exposition.
In this process [the social process] the human mind, aware of itself, forms and carries out policies for the organization and perfection of social life, in order that the great end of society, the perfection of the individual personality, may be completely attained. Society is not a purely mechanical Product of physical evolution. To a great extent it is an INTENDED product of psychological evolution*
This is a hard saying when it is remembered that it is uttered almost as the final words of a book which says that a high degree of social evolution can be attained only if the motion lost is but slightly in excess of the motion gained. It, however, conclusively brings into prominence one thing; and that is that when he is theorizing, or discussing sociology as a whole, he sticks to the purely mechanical view of its subject-matter and the method of its explanation; but when he gets to the actual interpretation of social phenomena, he is constrained, notwithstanding all his earlier protestations to the contrary, to admit that this might we call it plus element is a necessary part of the explanation. This plus element is of course the appreciative, the purposive, that which embodies worth.
After this digression, we will proceed with the argument.
T Elements of Sociology, p. 340.
- Ibid., p. 350 ; the italics in this quotation are mine.
