292 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS 



change as in the following: "The accumulation of changes in the 

 rational principle is progress: of utilities, practical progress; of 

 truths, intellectual progress. / Mor^il progress and aesthetic prog- 

 ress do not come about essentially by origination and rational 

 diffusion. 'Progress in these departments is usually the conse- 

 quence of material or intellectual advancement. 'y 



In his. Foundations of Sociology he differentiates progress, 

 change and adaptation as follows: " Change means any qualita- 

 tive variation, whereas progress means amelioration, perfection- 

 ment. The one is movement; the other is movement in the 

 direction of advantage. Progress is better adaptation to given 

 conditions. Change may be adaptation, — at first, perhaps, very 

 imperfect, — to new conditions.'' The difference is illustrated as 

 follows: " When a mammal thrust northward gets a heavier coat 

 of hair, or a bird acquires the nest-building instinct with the 

 advent of a rodent that destroys her eggs on the ground, we have a 

 case of adaptation. Now, this way of interpreting change is 

 becoming ever more helpful to the student of society. . . . 

 Movements that seem regressive are equally ambiguous. Mili- 

 tarism is hardly a regress when a people finds itself menaced by 

 the approach of an aggressive neighbor. . . . The growth of 

 one-man power is degeneration if it is caused by a lowered citizen- 

 ship; it is only adaptation if the faciHties for focusing public 

 opinion have so improved that the cruder checks on the executive 

 have ceased to be necessary. /l conclude, then, that social 

 dynamics ought to drop such vague and dubious conceptions as 

 progress and regress, and address itself to the simple fact of social 

 changeJ^ y 



Now progress as used in these and other examples is defined very 

 much as we have defined adaptation, and adaptation, he says, is 

 becoming ever more helpful as a way of interpreting change. In- 

 deed in none of these examples is there any necessary distinction. 



We find that he uses adaptation in a way that would seem to 

 make it the standard of progress in his discussion of " the genesis 

 and evolution of ethical elements " ^ where he holds thaty^ome- 

 thing very like the struggle and survival principle of biological 



^ Social Psychology, p. 286. ^ Foundations, pp. 185-189. ' Social Control, ch. XXV. 



