226 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS 
social evolution. ‘That principle is not the same as natural selection, but it 
serves the same purpose. It also resembles the latter in growing out of the 
life-struggle and in being a consequence of it; but, instead of consisting in the 
hereditary selection of the successful elements of that struggle, it consists in 
the ultimate union of the opposing elements and their combination and assim- 
ilation. Successively higher and higher social structures are thus created 
by a process of natural synthesis, and society evolves from stage to stage. 
The struggling groups infuse into each other the most vigorous qualities of 
each, cross all the hereditary strains, double their social efficiency at each 
cross, and place each new product on a higher plane of existence. It is the 
cross-fertilization of cultures. 
This theory, developed more at length by Gumplowicz and 
Ratzenhofer, is especially valuable as an antidote to the over- 
worked natural selection theory of the biological sociologists 
though the materialistic postulates on which it rests are ques- 
tionable. 
A further quotation from Ward is necessary to appreciate his 
doctrine of synergy: — 
The true nature of the universal principle of synergy pervading all nature 
and creating all the different kinds of structure that we observe to exist . . . 
isa process of equilibration, i.e., the several forces are first brought into a state 
of partial equilibrium. It begins in collision, conflict, antagonism, and oppo- 
sition, but as no motion can be lost it is transformed, and we have the milder 
phases of antithesis, competition and interaction, passing next into the modus 
vivendi, or compromise, and ending in collaboration and co-operation. . . . 
Synergy is the principle that explains all organization and creates all struc- 
tures? ... 
Upon the perfection of these structures and the consequent success with 
which they perform their functions depends the degree of social efficiency. 
In the organic world the struggle has the appearance of a struggle for exist- 
ence. The weaker species go to the wall and the stronger persist. There is 
a constant elimination of the defective and survival of the fittest. On the 
social plane it is the same, and weak races succumb in the struggle while 
strong races persist. But in both cases it is the best structures that survive. 
The struggle is therefore raised above the question of individuals or even of 
species, races and societies and becomes a question of the fittest structures. 
We may therefore qualify Darwin’s severe formula of the struggle for exist- 
ence and look upon the whole panorama rather as a struggle for structures 
Another name for social structures is human institutions,‘ and 
the function of these is the control and utilization of social 
1 American Journal of Sociology, xii, p. 585; cf. Pure Sociology, pp. 171 f. 
2 Pure Sociology, p.175. It is by no means certain that mechanical principles 
work in social processes as indicated in this quotation. 
3 Ibid., p. 184. 4 Tbid., pp. 185 f. 
