132 The Special Sociological Errors 



time it must have some reason for existence; 

 it must correspond with some real need. "War 

 always has been and always will be, therefore it 

 is a biological and sociological necessity." The 

 advocates of this doctrine quote approvingly 

 Pope's line "Whatever is, is right." This soph- 

 ism is a part of the general tendency to make 

 thought parasitic upon action, to justify the condi- 

 tions which we find in the world about us without 

 submitting them to critical analysis. It is inti- 

 mately related to the social fatalism which we 

 shall study more closely later, but this philosophy 

 fails to take account of the fact that social and 

 political institutions are created by men and that 

 man is subject to error. An error which has been 

 dominant for thousands of years does not become 

 for that reason the truth. Neither the duration 

 nor the universality of an idea has anything to do 

 with the truth. At the time when witches were 

 burned, the belief in witchcraft was almost univer- 

 sal in the Western world. At one time Columbus 

 stood alone in opposing the almost universal 

 belief that the earth was flat, yet Columbus was 

 right and the almost universal behef was wrong. 

 2. The sophism of the transitory state consists 

 in the assertion that a thing which is wrong or 

 evil in itself is a good thing because without it a 

 certain other desirable condition could not have 

 been realized. Thus Spencer asserts that war 

 has been a good thing in the past because it forced 

 men to co-operate, and because without co-opera- 



