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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



be of a negative or passive kind, and he 

 says that this has hitherto proved sterile or 

 unproductive of benefit to the community. 

 Like the other sciences, it needs application 

 to make it useful and valuable. But this 

 application involves active human agency, 

 the control of social effects, and, as man's 

 effort and directive power is here the main 

 idea, he expresses this element of force by 

 the term dynamic, and calls this branch of 

 the subject " Dynamic Sociology." On this 

 view, statical sociology deals with the great 

 processes of nature, with genesis and nat- 

 ural evolution ; while dynamic sociology 

 treats of psychic human agency, and arti- 

 ficial results in the social sphere. 



Mr. Ward maintains that the time has 

 come when sociology must pass formally 

 from the theoretic to the applied stage. 

 While admitting the impracticability of most 

 of the measures that have aimed at social 

 amelioration, he nevertheless considers that 

 we can no longer avoid the endeavor to de- 

 rive certain fundamental principles of social 

 action that shall bring the phenomena of 

 society under the same intelligent control 

 that science has long made possible in the 

 division of physical phenomena, and guide 

 the active interference of man in the direc- 

 tion of social affairs and to the accom- 

 plishment of social ends. This he assumes 

 to be the art stage in the development of 

 the subject in which purposed artificial 

 agencies supplement and carry forward the 

 natural processes of development for the 

 attainment of the highest fruits of human 

 progress. 



Mr. Ward devotes his first volume main- 

 ly to " Statical Sociology." It opens with a 

 long introductory chapter, presenting a gen- 

 eral view of the entire scheme. This is 

 followed by two historical chapters, review- 

 ing the two great modern systems of Au- 

 guste Comte and Herbert Spencer, in a man- 

 ner sufficiently full for his general pur- 

 pose. Then follow four chapters dealing 

 with the most fundamental principles of 

 cosmical development, or evolution in the do- 

 main of purely natural phenomena. These 

 are entitled respectively " Cosmogeny," 

 " Biogeny," " Psychogeny," and " Anthro- 

 pogeny," dealing with the genesis of worlds, 

 of life, of mind, and of man, and naturally 

 leading up to the higher department of 



"Sociogeny," or the genesis and develop- 

 ment of human society. Following the cur- 

 rent terminology, we have here to do with 

 pure sociology only, or its treatment from 

 the point of view of the laws of nature. 

 As a comprehensive exposition of the doc- 

 trine of evolution, this volume has great 

 merit. 



Sociological study thus far, Mr. Ward 

 maintains, has chiefly given attention to the 

 genetic or unconscious progress of society. 

 The causes that have produced this passive 

 or unconscious social progress are subjected 

 to a searching analysis, and are found in the 

 social forces. These consist fundamentally 

 in desires, but they are desires which in- 

 here permanently in the nature of man as a 

 living organism. They are divided into 

 two great groups, the original, or essential, 

 and the derivative, or non-essential, social 

 forces. The essential forces are those de- 

 sires which belong to man as an animal, 

 and are necessary to the maintenance of 

 the primary functions of nutrition and re- 

 production. The non-essential forces are 

 those desires which have been developed in 

 the course of evolution, and they are divided 

 into the aesthetic, the emotional, or moral, 

 and the intellectual social forces. The pri- 

 mary forces, which have led to social trans- 

 formations, are, therefore, blind forces, 

 which result to the performance of acts with 

 no reference to their ultimate effects. 



Mr. Ward's argument for dynamical so- 

 ciology, to which his second volume is de- 

 voted, is not easily presented in a para- 

 graph, but it is substantially as follows : 

 The ultimate end of human action is well- 

 being or happiness, but this can not be at- 

 tained through direct effort ; it requires 

 means. There are five proximate ends 

 standing in as many degrees of remoteness 

 from the ultimate end, the attainment of 

 any of which is equivalent to the attain- 

 ment of all the less remote ones, and the 

 ease in securing which is directly propor- 

 tional to their remoteness. These proxi- 

 mate ends, therefore, constitute so many 

 means to the attainment of the ultimate end 

 of well-being. 



The first of these proximate ends is hu- 

 man progress itself, which, in order to be 

 true progress, must secure the ultimate end. 

 But progress is not in any proper sense at- 



