50 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS 



The above hierarchy, too, according to our author, is based on 

 increasing contractualism; i. e., in politics we have the highest 

 degree of voluntary action, in economics, the least. De Greef 

 thus made advance on the logical classification of Comte but 

 made the mistake of thinking this represented the real objective 

 order. 1 



Spencer, as we have seen, connects social with biological evolu- 

 tion without emphasizing any marked difference. With him 

 social development is a part of the whole cosmic process which is 

 a mechanical system and so affords no opportunity (or practi- 

 cally none) for rational control. While De Greef's position is in 

 many respects the same, 2 yet his differentiating factor of volitional 

 activity or contractualism, though perhaps merely logical, is yet 

 important, for De Greef believed it represented some real objec- 

 tive distinction. It is closely related to Ward's concept of telesis 

 and in proportion as his classification does represent reality it 

 reveals degrees of active adaptation. But the same criticism 

 applies here as in the case of Comte: a logical hierarchy is of no 

 value for social science unless it represents objective distinctions 

 and relations; but with neither of these writers are we made sure 

 that this is the case, 3 and with De Greef we are very sure that it is 

 positively false in some respects. As there are different degrees 

 of adaptation, 4 or better, of mal-adaptation, the important thing 



1 Op. cit., i, p. 159. Barth holds that logical classification may represent the 

 temporal evolution of an object as a biological organism, but that it does not 

 represent necessarily the evolution of a science or of a social institution. He 

 shows that as propagation co-exists with struggle for existence, so love is as early 

 as economic endeavor, and that the industrialism of primitive people is no more 

 general than their religious thoughts and acts, op. cit., p. 87. 



2 Ibid., i, p. 140. 



3 On this point Small justly remarks: " His claim with reference to the hier- 

 archial order of phenomena so arranged must stand or fall as a result of specific 

 investigation of the activities and sub-activities distinguished in the schedule." 

 General Sociology, p. 72. Cf. Barth, pp. 88 f. 



4 " There is a wide interval between the highest and lowest degrees of complete- 

 ness of living that are compatible with maintenance of life. Hence the wicked 

 flourish. Vice is but slowly eliminated because mankind has so many other 

 qualities, besides the bad ones, which enable it to subsist and achieve progress in 

 spite of them, that natural selection, — which always works through death, — can- 

 not come into play." John Fiske, Cosmic Philosophy, ii, p. 98. 



