INVENTION AND PRODUCTION 227 



energy in the interest of the greatest possible sum total of pleas- 

 ure over pain. 



4. Individual and Social Telesis. — Closely linked with creative 

 synthesis is his doctrine of individual and social telesis or anthro- 

 poteleology as against theo-teleology of popular religion, yet this 

 does not indicate that Ward believes in arbitrary freedom of the 

 will. All acts are but parts of a cosmic process and the result of 

 the inter-action of mechanical forces. 1 This doctrine is explained 

 as follows: — 



Progress below the human plane is altogether genetic and is called develop- 

 ment. In the earlier human stages it is mainly genetic, but begins to be 

 telic. In the later stages it is chiefly telic. The transition from genetic to 

 telic progress is wholly due and exactly proportional to the development of 

 the intellectual faculty. . . . There are two kinds of telic progress, or 

 telesis, individual and collective. The former is the principal kind thus far 

 employed. The latter is as yet so rare as to be almost theoretical. Society 

 itself must be looked upon as mainly unconscious. . . . The intermediate 

 step between individual telesis and social telesis is an organization of individ- 

 uals into a limited body. ... If a small number of individuals may think 

 and act for a common purpose, a larger number may, and there is no neces- 

 sary limi t until the totality of a people is embraced in the number. 2 



Having surveyed briefly some of the main principles of Ward's 

 social philosophy we are prepared to consider the one that is 

 most important of all so far as our subject is concerned, viz., that 

 form of telesis which he calls human achievement. This is of two 

 kinds, material and spiritual, the latter the flower of the former. 

 " The subject matter of sociology," he says, " is human achieve- 

 ment. It is not what men are, but what they do." 3 He differ- 

 entiates biological and social evolution by a formula with which 

 we are familiar: " The formula that expresses this distinction the 

 most clearly is that the environment transforms the animal, while 

 man transforms the environment." 4 That is, in one case we have 

 passive material adaptation; in the other, active material adapta- 

 tion. Civilization is denned as the sum total of human achieve- 

 ments, material and spiritual. " Material civilization," he says, 

 " consists in the utilization of the materials and forces of nature. 



1 Pure Sociology, ch. Ill, pp. 465 ff. 



2 Dealey and Ward, Text-book, pp. 267, 268. 



3 Pure Sociology, p. 15. * Ibid., p. 16. 



