THE HISTORICAL SOCIOLOGISTS 1 67 



prosperity among the lower economic classes followed by de- 

 crease in population. This decay is inevitable, according to 

 Gumplowicz, for having ruled out all telic activity no group can 

 forestall the operation of these " natural " laws. This particular 

 illustration shows the inherent weakness of his whole system, for 

 prosperity leads to limitation or decrease of population mostly 

 through the operation of telic foresight. The first effect of 

 industrial prosperity is rapid increase of population, as proven 

 in the case of England, of Germany and of Japan. It is only 

 when people have learned how to prevent conception and when, 

 with emphasis on consumption rather than on production, they 

 prefer other things to wholesome family life, that the results 

 portrayed by our author take place. But if by telic foresight on 

 the part of individuals population can be limited or even de- 

 creased, telic foresight on the part of a group might prevent this 

 result and lead to social immortality. 1 



The individual as such has almost no place in Gumplowicz's 

 social theory. " The greatest error of individual psychology is 

 the assumption that man thinks. . . . What thinks in man is 

 not he but the social community of which he is a part. The 

 fountain of his thought lies not in himself but in the social milieu 

 in which he lives, in the social atmosphere which he breathes, and 

 he cannot think otherwise than the influences of this milieu con- 

 centrated in his brain make necessary." 2 Again he says, "Not 

 the individual but the group is egoistic. The heroes of history 

 are only marionettes who carry out the will of the group." 3 This 

 plasticity of the individual is shown by the ease with which he is 

 assimilated into a new social environment, 4 and by the influence 

 upon him of his economic and social status. 5 In his Soziologie 

 und Poliiik, however, Gumplowicz makes some place for the 

 individual in his mechanical reaction to social pressure and so for 

 his effect on the group. Speaking of the socio-psychical factors 

 he says: "Every one of these factors is a product of the co-work- 

 ing of the individual and his group. Each of these factors, arising 



1 See infra, Conclusion. 4 Grundriss, pp. 173 ff. 



1 Grundriss, pp. 76, 165 f. 5 Ibid., p. 176. 



3 Der Rassenkampf, p. 37. 



