846 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



an accompanying improvement in the general morality of the commu- 

 nity, there would not be a correspondingly reduced need for the kind of 

 legislation directed to constructive social ends which the avithor so ardently 

 invokes ? The community is to be educated up to the highest point, in 

 order that a highly intelligent legislature may do for the eminently in- 

 telligent and moral community what the latter in spite of its advanced 

 education is still not quite intelligent or moral enough to do for itself. 

 We find here a somewhat excessive complication. Besides, why, after all, 

 should a serious writer like Mr. Ward worry about a "social conscious- 

 ness " of which he can not pretend to assert that any organ exists ? He 

 knows perfectly well that consciousness is essentially an individual thing, 

 and that the consciousness which we conceive as residing in one brain can 

 by no possibility be the consciousness of another brain. A legislative com- 

 mittee may wield a delegated power, but such a thing as a delegated con- 

 sciousness never yet existed and never will exist. 



We are sorry to find Mr. Ward repeating a statement regarding Mr. 

 Spencer, the incorrectness of which was fully demonstrated by Mr. Spen- 

 cer himself in an article published in this magazine in the month of De- 

 cember, 1896, on the occasion of the first appearance in print, in the form 

 of an article in the American Journal of Sociology, of one of the chapters 

 of Mr. Ward's present book. The passage to which we refer is as follows : 

 '■ Herbert Spencer, although he treated psychology as a distinct science, 

 and placed it between biology and sociology in his system of Synthetic 

 Philosophy, made no attempt to affiliate sociology upon psychology, while, 

 on the contrary, he did exert himself to demonstrate that it has exceedingly 

 close natural affinities with biology '' (page 94). Mr. Spencer's reply to 

 this was that he had, in the most distinct manner, indicated the dependence 

 of sociology upon psychology, and that, in point of fact, the opening chap- 

 ters of his Principles of Sociology dealt almost wholly with psychical fac- 

 tors. He adduced numerous passages from his writings proving that he 

 had made his position upon this point perfectly plain. Any of our readers 

 who care to turn to the number of this magazine which we have men- 

 tioned can see for themselves how complete was the refutation of Mr. 

 Ward's erroneous statement. It seems to us that, as a matter of cour- 

 tesy as well as of elementary justice, Mr. Ward should have seen to it that 

 he did not put forth a second time an utterance so ill-founded and injuri- 

 ous. Mr. Ward himself, in the vei*y pai^agraph in which he makes the 

 allegation complained of by Mr. Spencer, furnishes evidence of its incor- 

 rectness. He says that at the close of the third chapter of Mr. Spencer's 

 Psychology the fact comes clearly forth that "' the class of attributes in the 

 individual animal with which those of society could best be compared were 

 its psychic attributes." Surely if this was clearly the drift of Mr. Spencer's 

 argument there was no great need of repeated affirmations that a nexus 

 existed between psychology and sociology. Mr. Ward is an industrious 

 writer, and his style is, as a rule, clear and interesting. He seems, how- 

 ever, to take himself a little too seriously. When, in recapitulating (page 

 164) the conclusions which he claims to have reached, he includes the doc- 

 trine that " social foi'ces are psychic," he can not fail to bring a smile to the 

 face of any one who has ever read Spencer. The same effect is produced 

 when he says (page 111) that he is the only one, so far as he is aware, 

 " who has attempted to show a way out of the difficulty " connected with 



