THE HISTORICAL SOCIOLOGISTS 1 75 



Nowhere does the intellectual motive enter more easily into the domain of 

 social interest than in the satisfaction of religious need. On the other hand, 

 nowhere do inborn interests and the motives peculiar to them reveal them- 

 selves more clearly than when man endeavors to apply his religious ideas to 

 social life. . . . Religious faith when grounded in a correct interpretation 

 of the relation of the individual to the absolute is one of the most potent 

 forces in life, but such faith is possessed by only a few, and only by the re- 

 peated awakening of religious sentiments is the moral emotion able to attain 

 lordship in the interest of society. 1 



Individuals differ not only physiologically, but in innate mental 

 capacity and in will power. Races, too, differ in the average of 

 these qualities. 2 Men are classified as to will power into active 

 or aggressive and passive or defensive, the latter, numerically in 

 the majority, always subordinated to the comparatively small 

 number of the former. This process of subordination of the 

 many weak to the one strong will is the source of social organiza- 

 tion. 3 The one strong personality formulates the line of interest- 

 satisfaction or social purpose accepted by groups and the more or 

 less conscious acceptance of this purpose on the part of the group 

 is what constitutes social will. 



Contrary to Gumplowicz, our author assumes a monogenetic 

 origin of the human race outof the primates in theTertiaryperiod, 

 although he admits that the process of evolution is shrouded in 

 mystery. 4 The earliest stage was characterized by sociality and 

 co-operation in a struggle against physical conditions and wild 

 animals. 5 Increase of population and pressure on means of sub- 

 sistence led to conflict of interests, separation and migration, and 

 the various groups under the long continued influence of different 

 environmental conditions developed by the law of adaptation 

 the ethnic peculiarities which differentiated the races in earliest 

 historic times. 6 The second stage, or that of primitive culture was 

 characterized, industrially, by fishing and agriculture in some 

 environmental conditions, in others by hunting, herding, or both, 

 leading to the development of nomadic life. Socially this stage 

 was characterized by the rise of institutions. 7 In the third or 

 barbaric stage we find increase of numbers leading to conflict of 



1 Erkenntnis, p. 258. 4 Soziologie, p. 27. 7 Ibid., p. 14. 



2 Soziologie, pp. 35 f. 6 Ibid., p. 13. 



3 Erkenntnis, p. 285. 6 Ibid., pp. 13, 30 f., 37 f., 65, 74. 



