232 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS 



to the principle of natural selection, but rather to that of " spon- 

 taneous variation " issuing in a " sport." The aesthetic faculty 

 is not considered to be primarily of adaptive value, but to minister 

 to the satisfaction of individual feelings. Thus art in its mani- 

 fold forms is not to be explained or justified according to the 

 principle of adaptation but on that of egoistic satisfaction. 

 Religion, though originally connected with the group sentiment 

 of safety and so of adaptive value to the race, yet has differen- 

 tiated into many forms, most of which are now probably some- 

 what disadvantageous. 1 



Finally, in his persistent emphasis on the potency of " nurture " 

 as over against " nature," and on the necessity of social activity 

 to preserve the " social germ plasm " by universal education, our 

 author has contributed still further to this division of our subject. 

 His Applied Sociology is a monument of painstaking work along 

 this line and his general conclusions have been verified recently, 

 to a considerable extent, as we have noted in previous chapters. 



In scope, ripeness of scholarship, thoroughness of analysis and 

 originality, Professor Ward's achievements in sociology remind 

 us more than those of any other English writer in this field, of the 

 characteristics attributed for the most part only to German 

 scholars. These very qualities, however, have made his system 

 almost inaccessible to the public, and difficult of reading even for 

 students of the subject as their approach to social philosophy has 

 not been through the natural sciences so much as through psy- 

 chology, history, the social sciences and philosophy, — especially 

 through economics and social psychology. Moreover his reason- 

 ing is largely deductive and analogical rather than inductive. 

 He describes in terms of physics, chemistry, and biology rather 

 than analyzes in terms of economics and psychology and this 

 tends to prejudice the modern student. 



The very comprehensiveness of his work together with the fact 

 that much of it was done in times of sociological pioneering, has 

 laid it open to criticism at many points : 



i . His Lamarckian bias has made his biological interpretations 

 unacceptable to those who, with the leading biologists of the 

 1 Pure Sociology, ch. XVm. 



