THE HISTORICAL SOCIOLOGISTS 169 
convincing. The factors of isolation and cross-breeding! are 
ignored while the Darwinian theory of natural selection is mis- 
interpreted. 
2. His assumptions concerning primitive groups and their 
mutual hatred are not sustained by facts. There is co-operation 
as well as strife, depending on conditions. 
3. Though using the term progress in various places, such use 
is not warranted from his premises and from his assertion that 
there are no standards of value. Indeed there can be no values 
in a strictly deterministic system such as he has attempted to 
describe. He denies that there is such a thing as progress for 
humanity as a whole or for “ civilization,” though he grants that 
there may be for individual groups for a period of time. He 
grants that there may be progress, also, in scientific knowledge, 
although by this he seems to mean merely a heaping-up of infor- 
mation.? 
4. He has failed to appreciate the dynamic of intelligence both 
in individual and social amelioration. 
Finally, while granting the necessity of religion for complete 
adaptation, —for most people, —he seems to feel that the highest 
attitude toward the Great Unknown is that of the atheistic free- 
thinker. Judged by the pragmatic test this cannot be true. His 
fatalistic philosophy of despair, — or of stoical resignation, — is 
not such as to inspire a group to heroic deeds or lead to that kind 
of social endeavor which might prevent the decay and destruction 
of the group that has attained wealth and culture. For this 
reason his social philosophy can never become the philosophy of 
the dominant group. It stands condemned as false before that 
judge which to him is the only judge, — the laws of life. Its 
normal outcome is the destruction of the group that accepts it 
and applies its precepts.‘ 
Gumplowicz’s greatest contribution to our subject is just this, 
— he has carried passive social adaptation to its logical conclu- 
1 His “‘cross-fertilization of cultures” is the social analogue, however. 
2 Grundriss, pp. 220. 3 Der Rassenkampf, pp. 1371.3; Moore, pp. 108, 212 f. 
4 Gumplowicz comes under the condemnation pronounced upon the “ anthro- 
pological moralist,” by Professor Carver in his most recent book, Essays in Social 
Justice. 
