1 66 



ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS 



" The greater the number of these socializing forces that bind 

 men together, the stronger is the social bond, the greater the 

 social cohesion, and as a result the greater the power to withstand 

 opposition, and especially as these operate over long periods of 

 time." 1 



Like Spencer, Schaffle and others, our author believes in a 

 cycle of social development and decay due to the play of natural 

 laws. " It is not difficult to show the causes of this cyclical 

 motion in the natural, economic and social conditions of folk- 

 life," he says. "... Men's wants and desires . . . cause them 

 to raise themselves by groups and societies from a primitive con- 

 dition to a condition of culture and civilization; and, having 

 once attained it, so to conduct themselves that their fall neces- 

 sarily follows through other groups and societies in a progressive 

 state." 2 The chief cause assigned for this decay is increase of 



1 Grundriss, p. 145. Cf . also Soziologie und PolUik, pp. 84, 92-95. 



2 Moore, p. 205. 



