292 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS 



change as in the following: " The accumulation of changes in the 

 rational principle is progress; of utilities, practical progress; of 

 truths, intellectual progress. Moral progress and aesthetic prog- 

 ress do not come about essentially by origination and rational 

 diffusion. Progress in these departments is usually the conse- 

 quence of material or intellectual advancement." 1 



In his Foundations of Sociology he differentiates progress, 

 change and adaptation as follows: " Change means any qualita- 

 tive variation, whereas progress means amelioration, perfection- 

 ment. The one is movement; the other is movement in the 

 direction of advantage. Progress is better adaptation to given 

 conditions. Change may be adaptation, at first, perhaps, very 

 imperfect, to new conditions." The difference is illustrated as 

 follows: " When a mammal thrust northward gets a heavier coat 

 of hair, or a bird acquires the nest-building instinct with the 

 advent of a rodent that destroys her eggs on the ground, we have a 

 case of adaptation. Now, this way of interpreting change is 

 becoming ever more helpful to the student of society. . . . 

 Movements that seem regressive are equally ambiguous. Mili- 

 tarism is hardly a regress when a people finds itself menaced by 

 the approach of an aggressive neighbor. . . . The growth of 

 one-man power is degeneration if it is caused by a lowered citizen- 

 ship; it is only adaptation if the facilities for focusing public 

 opinion have so improved that the cruder checks on the executive 

 have ceased to be necessary. I conclude, then, that social 

 dynamics ought to drop such vague and dubious conceptions as 

 progress and regress, and address itself to the simple fact of social 

 change." 2 



Now progress as used in these and other examples is defined very 

 much as we have defined adaptation, and adaptation, he says, is 

 becoming ever more helpful as a way of interpreting change. In- 

 deed in none of these examples is there any necessary distinction. 



We find that he uses adaptation in a way that would seem to 

 make it the standard of progress in his discussion of " the genesis 

 and evolution of ethical elements " 3 where he holds that some- 

 thing very like the struggle and survival principle of biological 



1 Social Psychology, p. 286. z Foundations, pp. 185-189. 3 Social Control, ch.XXV. 



