INVENTION AND PRODUCTION 25 I 



artificial checks imposed by social control. The monogamic 

 family has no other justification than this, — the regulation of the 

 increase of population in the interest of social efficiency. Abolish 

 private property and the logic of the situation, as many socialists 

 assert, makes probable the disintegration of the domestic institu- 

 tion. But with private property, family pride is a great incentive 

 to the production of wealth.^ 



As the utilization of every possible motive is necessary to secure 

 maximum productivity, all sociaHstic schemes that look to the 

 aboHtion of private property or of competition and economic 

 reward, are considered disastrous. 



In his introduction to Sociology and Social Progress emphasis is 

 given to the power of idealization as one of the important psychic 

 factors in the development of civilization. " This may be de- 

 fined not very inaccurately as the power of making believe, — a 

 factor which sociologists have scarcely appreciated as yet. . . . 

 One of the greatest resources of the human mind is its abiHty to 

 persuade itself that what is necessary is noble, or dignified, or 

 honorable, or pleasant.'' The idealization of war in the mihtary 

 stage of civilization, and the idealization of work in more recent 

 times are given as illustrations. " Work is still a necessity as 

 imperious as war ever was. Looked at frankly and truthfully 

 work is a disagreeable necessity and not a good in itself. Yet by 

 persuading ourselves that work is a blessing, that it is dignified 

 and honorable, our willingness to work is materially increased, 

 and therefore the process of adaptation is facihtated; in other 

 words, progress is accelerated. For this reason, he who in any 

 age helps to idealize those factors and forces upon which the prog- 

 ress of his age depends, is perhaps the most useful man, the most 

 powerful agent, in the promotion of human well-being, even 

 though from the strictly realistic point of view he only succeeds 

 in making things appear other than they really are. From the 



1 Class lectures; cf. Principles of Rural Economics, p. 337. Professor Carver 

 seems to have overlooked the function of the monogamic family in the process of 

 social adaptation. The children, closely resembling the parents, are easily assimi- 

 lated to the customs of the family group and by this means to those of the larger 

 social group; moreover the monogamic family has great possibilities in training for 

 social efficiency. 



