DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIOLOGY 809 



be missed. De Greef has traced the historical origin and develop- 

 ment of this idea which was a part of the heritage of the nineteenth 

 century from the past. 1 Rousseau's "back to nature" and the 

 golden age of primitive innocence left this optimistic dream in- 

 tact. Comte by his division of sociology into static and dynamic 

 provided a new term for progress which he regarded as conditioned 

 by the intellectual movement generalized in the law of the three 

 stages. With the prevalence of positivism all differences of opin- 

 ion "intellectual anarchy" would perforce disappear and 

 complete harmony would reign in a final static order. The idea of 

 evolution as illustrated by social changes is the great central con- 

 cept of nineteenth-century sociology. It is everywhere dominant, 

 and every problem has been stated or restated in terms of the 

 developmental doctrine. But evolution and progress are by no means 

 synonyms. Spencer naturally discovered in his law of evolution 

 certain criteria which were sometimes assumed to be those of ad- 

 vance. Heterogeneity, coherence, definiteness, were often set up 

 as tests however abstract and difficult to apply of social 

 advancement. But Spencer really relied upon his two social 

 types of militarism and industrialism with their characteristic 

 status and contract. Here was an infallible criterion. Whatever 

 tended toward military autocracy portended retrogression, while 

 movement toward industrial liberty and free contract was to be 

 reckoned progressive. Ward represents the Comtean theory that 

 intellectual control is the guiding dynamic agency. Telesis 

 purposeful social action is contrasted with genesis uncon- 

 scious, natural social growth and likened to the calculated 

 course of an ocean liner as compared with the drifting of an ice- 

 berg. 2 With Ward the diffusion of accurate knowledge is an auto- 

 matic means of progress. Giddings, admitting that the problem 

 is philosophic rather than scientific, sees three progressive stages 

 in social evolution: (1) political centralization; (2) criticism and 

 freedom; (3) industrial and ethical development. 8 By these he 

 would test the degree of advancement and the trend of a given 

 people or society. 



In an address delivered in 1892, Mr. A. J . Balf our examined the 

 popular belief in progress, taking up successively the arguments 

 from biology, the increase of knowledge, and the elevation of ethics. 

 His conclusion was that there are no rational or strictly scientific 

 grounds for predicting progress, and that it is futile to raise the 

 question. 4 While sociologists as a class would hardly take this 



1 De Greef, Le transformisme social (Paris, 1893). 



* Ward, Pure Sociology (New York, 1903), pp. 463, 465. 



3 Giddings, Principles of Sociology, pp. 299 n. 



4 Balfour, A Fragment on Progress, Essays and Addresses (Edinburgh, 1893). 



