ACTIVE SOCIAL ADAPTATION 297 



" that the only welfare there is, is the welfare of persons present 

 or to come." 1 



Ross formulates the following canons as to the limits of social 

 control: 2 



1. Each increment of social interference should bring more 

 benefit to persons as members of society than it entails incon- 

 venience to persons as individuals. 



2 . Social interference should not lightly excite against itself the 

 passion for liberty. 



3. Social interference should respect the sentiments that are 

 the support of natural order. 



4. Social interference should not be so paternal as to check the 

 self-extinction of the morally ill-constituted. 



5. Social interference should not so limit the struggle for 

 existence as to nullify the selective process. 



The criteria of social control are economy, inwardness (reaching 

 the feelings, reason and will), simplicity, and spontaneity, fostered 

 by diffusion, as in public opinion, suggestion, social religion and 

 art. 



His conclusion harmonizes his theory of social control with the 

 position we are advocating: 



The better adaptation of animals to one another appears to be brought 

 about by accumulated changes in body and brain. The better adaptation of 

 men to one another is brought about, not only in this way, but also by the 

 improvement of the instruments that constitute the apparatus of social 

 control. In the same way that the improvement of optical instruments 

 checks the evolution of the eye, and the improvement of tools checks the 

 evolution of the hand, the improvement of instruments of control checks the 

 evolution of the social instincts. The goal of social development is not, as 

 some imagine, a perfect love, or a perfect conscience, but better adaptation; 

 and the more this is artificial, the less need it be natural. 8 



Ross does not believe that any one form of control is adapted to 

 all races and temperaments, but that under the influence of social 

 forces, the form of control best suited to a people is the one 

 selected, and that those in authority should study and use these 

 means of control though, as in the case of supernatural religion, 

 they may rest on illusion. 4 



1 Social Control, p. 418. * Ibid., p. 437. 



* Ibid., pp. 419 f. * Ibid., p. 441. 



