THE HISTORICAL SOCIOLOGISTS 177 



hence, to permanent ethnological characters. ^ We have the 

 environment working indirectly by compelling certain groups to 

 certain kinds of industrial Hfe and to the development of social 

 institutions adapted to it.^ We have passive material adapta- 

 tion, moreover, as a result of overpopulation in proportion to 

 means of subsistence at the disposal of the individual and group 

 leading to conflict of interests, struggle, and the survival of those 

 best fitted for the particular environment and stage of civiliza- 

 tion.^ We have passive spiritual adaptation by the operation of 

 social pressure on the individual,^ and in the evolution of higher 

 civilizations and social institutions as a result of group conflict 

 and cross-fertilization of cultures. Finally, we have active spiritual 

 adaptation through the work of those few great thinkers who are 

 able to attain a measure of real intellectual freedom ^ and become 

 leaders to hasten, within limits, the process of natural evolution, 

 also through organized social activity under the leadership of 

 such rare individuals. In the latter case the result is usually 

 attained by the organization of a new faction within the group as 

 the center for the advancement of the desired reforms. 



Walter Bagehot (1826-1877) 



Discussion and Animated Moderation 



Although Physics and Politics was pubHshed before many of 

 the writings already discussed, and although Bagehot makes such 

 large use of biological formulae ^ that he might have been classed 

 with that school of sociologists, his contribution is placed here 

 because his chief interest is an inductive study of the social 

 process,^ and in this study he emphasizes two elements as all 

 important in social progress, imitation ^ and discussion.^ The 

 book thus forms a logical transition from the anthropological 

 and historical schools to those sociologists who endeavor to dis- 

 cover one all-important element as the key to the understanding 



1 Soziologie, pp. 37 f., 50 f. * Ihid., p. 159. 



2 IhU., pp. 89 f. 5 IhU., p. 184. 



3 Ihid., p. 159. 



^ Physics and Politics (New York, 1873), ch. II, p. 24. 



^ Ihid., pp. 118 f. 8 Ibid., pp. 33, 100. ' Ihid., ch. V. 



