Kinley — The Direction of Social Reform . 
137 
THE DIRECTION OF SOCIAL REFORM. 
By David Kinley, Madison. 
With the classification of Sociology as a department of 
Biology, an important change has been wrought in the com¬ 
mon view of the nature and mode of growth of society. The 
“social body” is regarded as, in some sense, an organism 
developed under varying conditions from pre-existent forms. 
It is now recognized that social progress consists in a con¬ 
tinual readaptation to changed and changing environment, the 
nature of which is such as to produce a more complex structure, 
or an organism of higher order. The nature of the institu¬ 
tions of a people depends, as is now well understood, on the 
character of the people, on climate, mode of life, and a score of 
lesser influences. 
The changes of conditions, or environment, which hitherto 
have induced changes in the social structure, have been in the 
main spontaneous. They have not, generally speaking, been 
the result of a preconceived purpose on the part of men to- 
attain an ideal. Whatever changes men have made have Deen,. 
so to speak, remedial rather than formative; to meet present 
exigencies rather than to construct a new social fabric. The 
result of human action has been to put experience into laws,, 
which roughly mark the boundaries of civilization rather than 
constitute its expansive force. In short, “blind evolution” 
has been the chief motive power of change. As, however, 
knowledge of the laws underlying human life in society in¬ 
creases, it should become more and more possible for men to 
guide these laws for the accomplishment of a preconceived pur¬ 
pose; so to change the conditions under which they operate 
as to direct their movement to the attainment of an ideal. 
Social and economic conditions have come to be, in a large 
and an increasing degree, under human control. The change 
