250 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



efficiency and well being. It has already diminished human suffering 

 and will in the future enable us to conquer some of the most serious 

 evils still existing. But our rapid conquest of nature and our increas- 

 ing control of different forms of life have introduced certain new evils 

 which instead of being self-corrective seem likely to increase unless new 

 forces in the shape of social sciences arise to correct them. 



Mention has just been made of some of the undesirable effects of 

 medicine in counteracting the forces of natural selection. The correc- 

 tion of this evil will not be found in biological science alone. A 

 thorough study of the dependent, defective and delinquent classes must 

 be made before an adequate reform can be begun and this study is an 

 important department of social science. Modern ideas of humanity 

 will never be satisfied with an indiscriminate production of dependents, 

 soon eliminated by selective forces because they can not adapt them- 

 selves to the environment, even though the vigor of the population is 

 kept up by this method. And the sense of self preservation will not 

 long suffer the indiscriminate production of dependents who are kept 

 alive as burdens upon the community and are even permitted to mul- 

 tiply and thus lower the average vitality and efficiency of a society. The 

 only solution consistent with modern sentiment lies in studying the 

 causes of the evil and applying the remedy at the source, so that fewer 

 dependents will be produced and the average vitality of the population 

 will be raised. This will be accomplished only through the cooperation 

 of the sciences of individual and social life. Another evil effect of the 

 unrestrained production of wealth and of the irrational propagation of 

 human beings has attracted still greater attention and has probably 

 been most influential of all in stimulating the study of sociology as a 

 general science of society. The greater control over nature made pos- 

 sible by the advance of the natural and biological sciences and the in- 

 creased wealth resulting therefrom, has affected different parts of so- 

 ciety very unequally. Certain persons, who, for various reasons, had 

 an early advantage in the accumulation of wealth, have been able to 

 retain that advantage and even to pass it on to their descendants. In 

 some cases, advantage once obtained has become cumulative. On the 

 other hand the descendants of those who lacked special advantage, or 

 were hindered with positive disadvantage, suffered similar and even 

 greater disadvantage. And in the older societies the possibility of 

 improvement through individual effort becomes more and more diffi- 

 cult. The resulting divergence of classes, which may have been use- 

 ful in certain stages of social progress, is now seen to be out of harmony 

 with the present trend of development. Society suffers because such a 

 large number lack opportunity. Forces at work in progressive societies 

 have, it is true, been lessening this evil, but modern sentiment now 

 demands a more rapid change. And this desire has stimulated the study 



