THE HISTORICAL SOCIOLOGISTS 167 
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.' 
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.”? 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.” * This 
plasticity of the individual is shown by the ease with which he is 
assimilated into a new social environment,‘ and by the influence 
upon him of his economic and social status.® In his Soziologie 
und Politik, 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. 
2 Grundriss, pp. 76, 165 f. 5 Tbid., p. 176. 
3 Der Rassenkamf, p. 37- 
