INVENTION AND PRODUCTION 237 



An apparent strain after the novel characterizes all his writings, 

 and in the earlier, especially, deductive rather than inductive 

 reasoning. That he has given the world hastily-formed hypothe- 

 ses unsupported by scientific investigation is indicated by the 

 fact that he has had but few followers, though many admirers, 

 and that he has so frequently shifted his position and negatived 

 former conclusions. Such a writer is frequently suggestive but 

 rarely convincing.^ 



One doctrine formulated by him, however, seems to have found 

 an enduring place in social philosophy which will be strengthened, 

 I beheve, in the Hght of his recent corrections, — his theory of the 

 contrast between a pain and a pleasure economy, or progress as 

 the result of a surplus rather than a deficit economy. 



This doctrine rests upon certain biological and psychological 

 postulates which must be sketched briefly: — 



I. Biological evolution is neither the result of chance varia- 

 tions of adaptive value, preserved by natural selection as with 

 the neo-Darwinians, nor the result of the inheritance of acquired 

 tendencies or characters as with the neo-Lamarckians but is due 

 to the acquirement of surplus energy or variations resulting from 

 such surplus which lead to change in environment and this, in 

 turn, to permanent modifications.^ 



Invading the domain of cytology to get a basis for his psycho- 

 logical approach, he makes the following assumptions: (i) that 

 consciousness and movement are opposite poles of the same forces 

 and that both are present in the beginning of cell growth; (2) 

 that the original germ cell has a capacity for consciousness but no 

 content until a structure is developed through which will and 

 memory are evolved; (3) that growth creates folds and they 

 become incipient ovaries, the sex-products of which are nerve 

 cells which become differentiated until finally sensation, memory, 

 and consciousness are eventually evolved by the process of 

 selection.^ 



* Cf. Ward's appreciation, Pure Sociology, p. 105. 



2 Heredity and Social Progress, pp. 28 f., 63; Theory of Social Forces, pp. 14 f., 

 50 f.; Theory of Prosperity, pp. 20, 159 f., 196. 



' Heredity and Social Progress, pp. 76, 89, 90. These hypotheses have no 

 inductive support. 



