INVENTION AND PRODUCTION 223 



march chanced to produce. But with the advent of the highly developed 

 insects in late Cretaceous and early Tertiary time the psychic factor began 

 to react upon the plant world, and . . . flowers were the direct product of a 

 growing aesthetic faculty, — the response to the demands of a true soul force 

 in nature. Later the same agency, working in bird life and mammaHan Ufe 

 ushered in the rich, showy and nutrient fruits of the forest and the bread- 

 yielding grains of the meadow and the marsh. The wonderful revolution 

 wrought by this same growing soul in relations of the sexes among the 

 creatures last mentioned . . . might fittingly form the theme of the future 

 poetry of science. In human society . . . the soul is the great transforming 

 agent which has worked its way up through the stages of savagery and bar- 

 barism to civilization and enlightenment, the power behind the throne of 

 reason in the evolution of man.^ 



Let us consider briefly Professor Ward's contributions to our 

 subject: — 



I . Sympodial Development. — After contrasting sympodial with 

 monopodia! development in biology which results in the former 

 case in a zigzag instead of linear development, he applies the 

 principle to social development as follows: — 



We may look upon human races as so many trunks and branches of what 

 may be called the sociological tree. The vast and bewildering multiplicity 

 in the races of men is the result of ages of race development, and it has taken 

 place in a manner very similar to that in which the races of plants and 

 animals have developed. . . . Every one of these races of men, from the 

 advanced nationalities . . . back to the barbaric tribes that arose from the 

 blending of hostile hordes, is simply an anthropologic sympode, strictly 

 analogous to the biologic sympodes.^ 



This leads Professor Ward to a distinction between specializa- 

 tion and evolution: " The former consists chiefly in modification 

 of form and size without change in the type of structure. The 

 latter depends entirely on modification in the type of structure to 

 adapt it to changes in the environment." The former is merely 

 natural growth and progressive adaptation to a slightly changing 

 environment, the latter a more radical change such as is necessary 

 for continuous adjustment to a marked change in the environ- 

 ment. 



Ward shows that highly specialized forms are more or less 

 unstable. " The highly specialized forms do not degenerate or 



^ The Psychic Factors of Civilization, pp. 48, 49. 

 ' Pure Sociology, pp. 76, 77. 



