MICHIGAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 15 



technical processes of production. Tlie tendency toward routine, toward 

 scientific management, and toward centralized and depersonalized supervision 

 in modern large-scale industry is making "individuality in industry" a rare 

 phenomenon. 



The negative incentives furnished by compulsion are not only inefficient 

 now as was also true in the days of slavery and of serfdom, but, in an era of 

 democracy and of compulsory education for all classes, unless re-enforced and 

 modified by others of a more inspiring and stimulating type, the negative 

 incentives provide social dynamite which will sooner or later put civilization 

 in the imminent danger of a serious social upheaval. 



The complex of instincts, habits, passions, prejudices, likes and aversions 

 called man is the slowly and painfully evolved product of unnumbered genera- 

 tions. Man is the resultant of generations in which there was little of routine, 

 regularity or reasoning. Man is endowed with almost ineradicable instincts 

 and impulses which are the fruits of environmental conditions in the ages past. 

 Modern industry on the contrary is a recent and artificial contrivance ; it is 

 the gift of the last two or three generations. The man who has become a cog 

 in the gigantic articulated modern tread-mill is subjected to experiences and 

 influences which cut across, thwart and inhibit many of the impulses and keen 

 desires which he has inherited from the long ago. 



The problem of the social sciences — if tljey have any adequate grounds 

 for demanding the appelation of sciences — is to hasten the adjustment of 

 associated men to the conditions of modern life and to reduce the friction 

 accompanying such adjustment. To accomplish this purpose evidently both 

 the environmental conditions and the psychology of human beings must be 

 carefully investigated. There is reason for believing that the fundamental 

 impulses and instincts of mankind have changed little since the primitive man 

 appeared. 



According to McDougal, "men are moved by a variety of impulses wl^ose 

 nature has been determined through long ages of evolutionary process with- 

 out reference to the life of man in civilized society." Such being the case, 

 our problem becomes one of finding out what these fundamental impulses, 

 instincts and emotions are, and to find expression for them in ways which 

 make for uplift and racial betterment. Repression inevitably si>ells danger. 

 It is quite clear that the instincts which long racial experience have evaluated 

 as essential to survival cannot be easily swept aside by a few generations of 

 regular industry, relative peace and plenty. We must reckon with them. To 

 continue to disregard them is to close the door upon the possibility of making 

 economics or sociology scientific. Assuming that human nature is not plastic 

 or easy to modify, the most practical solution of the problem of industrial 

 efficiency may be judged to lie in a definite and planned attempt to modify 



