INVENTION AND PRODUCTION 257 
lead of those from whose writings he has made selection in his 
Sociology and Social Progress. 
The importance of formal education as a method of socia 
adaptation is stressed and his constructive social philosophy 
provides an educational goal of “ social efficiency ” and a prin- 
ciple of value in educational management. 
In the discussion of ‘‘Active Social Adaptation” the emphasis 
is on social control, but the process is illustrated also in the zn- 
novator and moral reformer who try to adapt their social environ- 
ment to their personal ideals of the right and good, although 
this latter part is not stressed. 
Social control is necessary largely because the social instincts 
have not as yet been sufficiently developed to secure by sponta- 
neous action the type of social life that is most efficient. In 
discussing this subject Professor Carver sounds another compara- 
tively new note for the function of government is considered to be 
pre-eminently that of suppressing uneconomic competition and of 
encouraging economic co-operation. As competition among the 
lower biological orders is advantageous in the development of the 
species so is it in society. The competitive industrial system 
which rewards according to merit gives the meritorious the 
opportunity to succeed in the struggle and leave the largest 
number of offspring as a social asset. But not all competition is 
economic. Co-operation within the group is essential to strengthen 
it for its inter-group struggle.! 
The abstract discussion of individual rights and the limits of 
social control is vain. With the sovereign group, might is right, 
and the individual has no rights apart from social utility.2 There 
is no real issue as to woman’s rights in the matter of suffrage. It 
is purely a matter of social expediency, and Professor Carver does 
not believe it is expedient. 
One of the great problems for social control in the line of social 
efficiency is the improvement of the quality of the race-stock. 
This opens up the whole question of eugenics which is considered 
to be of the greatest importance. Family pride, especially 
1 The Religion Worth Having, pp. 42 f., 88 ff.; Essays in Social Justice, ch. V. 
2 Class lectures; Essays in Social Justice, ch. I. 
3 Principles of Rural Economics, pp. 354 ff. 
