SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 317 



that kind of social life, social organization and social control 

 which shall result eventually in the birth only of those who, when 

 properly trained, will fit most effectively into the life of the 

 group and of humanity at large. 1 



These criticisms of the neo-Darwinian sociologists have forced 

 us to introduce conclusions from later chapters, — and now to 

 return to the progress of our investigation. We turned from this 

 school to a consideration of passive socio-physical adaptation, or 

 the development of social groups with reference to their physical 

 environment, and concluded that geographical conditions " set 

 the life lines of groups," condemning some to isolation and stagna- 

 tion and opening up to others possibilities of enlarged life not 

 only by affording better facilities for self-support but also by 

 inducing inter-group contact. 



Up to this point emphasis had been chiefly on the physiological 

 basis of race-progress with race conceived in biological terms, but 

 anthropologists having assured us that there are at present no 

 pure races and that ethnic groups must be defined with reference 

 to cultural even more than to physical characteristics, it was 

 necessary to turn to some writers who had developed the thought 

 of society as a psychical unity, and the more so as the concept 

 " society " had been used without definite content. 



In the discussion of Schaffle, Mackenzie, Le Bon, Durkheim 

 and other social psychologists, we developed the concept of 

 society as a psychical " somewhat," variously organized, in a 

 sense over against the individual, molding his life and in turn 

 modified by his reaction. This brought us to the phase of our 

 subject characterized as passive spiritual adaptation and an ap- 

 proach to social philosophy through social psychology, — though 

 to a considerable extent of a deductive variety. We concluded 

 that every group or social organization, united by common 

 interests and co-operating for a common end was a psychical unity 

 with the possibility that such a unity might at certain times and 

 under certain conditions rise to such community of thought, 



1 For the most recent attempt to work out a social philosophy on the biologi- 

 cal basis, using the terms variation, selection, transmission and adaptation as 

 " key-words," see the admirable book by Professor A. G. Keller of Yale, Societal 

 Evolution. 



