THE PROSPECTS OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES 



to explosive mutations, and while they reveal how small 

 is the actual control of society over its own development, 

 the processes of orderly change are themselves so little 

 understood as to produce the endless debate between 

 individualism and collectivism. The material progress of 

 the last century and a half seems convincing evidence that 

 a considerable degree of individualism is justified by its 

 fruits. However, the student of society cannot overlook 

 the fact that such rapid change leaves in its wake an 

 appalling amount of poverty, maladjustment, and de- 

 generacy. The greater the speed of change, the greater the 

 strain upon individuals to make adjustment to the ever new 

 conditions. The system of free enterprise and voluntary 

 inter-relationships has resulted in an almost dizzying rate 

 of invention and economic improvement for society as a 

 whole; but it also produces alternating periods of prosperity 

 and depression with unemployment, crime, suicide, and 

 nervous collapse for many. These evils may be looked upon, 

 in large part, as the price we pay for liberty and its dynamic 

 effects. Like all selective processes in nature, those of a 

 competitive society are rough and ready, and do damage 

 along with benefit. The problem of the social engineer is 

 to preserve the latter while reducing the former. 



Spencer's organismic analogies thus made it clear that 

 society is a special order in nature whose structure and 

 evolution must be studied from a "natural history" view- 

 point. Darwin showed that man, and hence society, are 

 products of evolutionary processes. They do not, therefore, 

 escape the action of that struggle, selection, survival, and 

 adaptation characteristic of all living things. On the human 

 plane all these take on a somewhat special character. This 

 would be expected in view of man's special qualities. As 

 related to this particular matter, these special qualities 

 would seem to be his superior brain power and his natural 

 defenselessness. 



[35] 



