present state of progress is adduced as proof that this is the necessary result. But while it is admitted that this has resulted in some parts of the world and in past history, it must be denied that the effect has been beneficial in all parts of the world or wholly so in any part, and also that any guaranty exists that it will continue indefinitely to be so, even where the actual benefits have been greatest. It can also be legitimately argued that much greater benefits might be secured if society were the conscious agent and had its improvement for its clearly perceived end. But this is an anticipation. This much needs however to be said, that in predicating action as the object of society the time has not yet come when it can be said to be conscious of its end. (Society has not yet begun to seek its end. It has not reached the stage of psychic development attained by the Cretaceous insect, the Eocene bird, the Miocene mammal, or the Quaternary man, when conscious desire began to inspire activity in securing its satisfaction. The soul of society is not yet born. Yet none the less is society the beneficiary of the direct results of human action in so far as they are beneficial, albeit that action is directed solely toward the attainment of the object of the individual man, viz., happiness It is the essence of the doine of individualism that what is good for the individual must be good for society. This is based on the admitted fact that society exists only for the individual. Society is only an idea-a Platonic idea, like species, genus, order, etc., in natural history. The only real thing is the individual. And it is argued: Why strive to benefit that which has no feeling and therefore is incapable of being benefited? The argument is plausible. Only it proceeds from a misconception of what social reformers really mean when they talk of improving society. There are none so simple as literally to personify society and conceive it endowed with wants and passions. By the improvement of society they only mean such modifications in its constitution and structure as will in their opinion result in ameliorating the condition of its individual members. Therefore there is nothing illogical in their claim, and to answer them it must be shown in each case that the particular supposed reform that they are advocating will not as a matter of fact result in the alleged amelioration of the individual members of society. Arguments of this class are legitimate. This results every direction. their ends, and mass to outgrow It would also be legitimate to argue that no possible alteration in the existing status of society can produce beneficial effects as thus defined, but I am not aware that anyone has ever taken that position. It is too obvious on the most superficial view that the evils that individuals suffer are often due to the constitution of society which entails them. from the constant changes that are going on through the activities of individuals seek from time to time causing the needs of the the restrictions which society under very different previous circumstances was obliged to impose. So that if a state of perfect adaptation of the individual to society could be at any given moment conceived to exist it would not remain so very long, and new internal transformations would soon again throw the individual units out of harmony with the social aggregate. It is this inertia of society and its inability to keep pace with the growth of the living mass within it that gives rise to social reformers who are legitimate and necessary, nay, natural products of every country and age, and the ignoring of this fact by conservative writers who lay so great stress on the word natural, is one of the amusing absurdities of the present period.1 1 "Laissez faire is translated' into 'blunt English' as meaning 'mind your own business,' and this injunction he drives home to almost every one who has ever done anything except to write about 'what social classes owe to each other'; the salutary reservation of Sir Joseph Porter, 'except me', seeming to be constantly kept in mind. . .. 66 Again in his severe condemnation of the 'friends of humanity', as he sneeringly calls all who believe in the attainment through human effort of a higher social (so So long, therefore, as society remains the unconscious pro-, duct of the individual demands of each age, so long will the organized social state continue to be found out of accord with and lagging behind the real spirit of the age, often so intolerably so as to require more or less violent convulsions and social revolutions. But if ever an ideal social organization shall come to be a clearly defined conscious individual want, it will be possible to establish one that will have elements of flexibility sufficient to render it more or less permanent. / But here, as everywhere else under the dominion of the psychic forces, the end of the individual or object of man, happiness, or some improvement in his personal condition, must be put vividly before him as the loadstone of desire and motive to action. state, he seems to forget that these very troublesome persons are merely products of society and natural. To hear him, remembering his premises, one would suppose that these men either had invaded the world from some outer planet or had artificially created themselves. But they belong to society as much as the hated paupers and worthless invalids whom he would turn over to nature. Why then not let them alone? Why meddle with the natural course of things? In fact what is the raison d'être of this earnest book that wants to have so much done? On his own theory, the author should let his deluded victims alone, should laisser faire- we omit the " 'translation.' Review of Prof. W. G. Summer's book, entitled: What Social Classes Owe to Each Other. Man, Vol. IV; New York, March 1, 1884. 4 CHAPTER XVII. SOCIAL FRICTION. Ethical principles are a growth of the social system. The members of society are literally bound by them, not by an ideal bond, but by positive constraint. The prevailing idea is, that any one might conduct himself immorally if he preferred, and that pure principle is all that prevents the majority of mankind from doing so. Such ideas legitimately follow from the free-will doctrine and other kindred errors that pervade the moral teaching which we all receive. The truth is, that men are compelled to conduct themselves according to the established standards of propriety. This is the condition upon which society has been enabled to develop. The few who attempt to break over these restrictions quickly come to grief. They drop into the criminal classes, and find their way into the penitentiaries ; or they are stamped as monomaniacs, fanatics, “cranks,” and rigidly guarded. They are driven from the centers of culture, and find for brief periods the means of continuing their licentious course on the expanding borders of civilization. Here they are known as "roughs" and "desperadoes,” and flourish until compelled to succumb to the summary justice of "vigilance committees," which are merely the rude guardians of moral law in such communities. For there is really no hard-and-fast line which can be drawn between criminality and the less heinous forms of immorality. But even the least deviation from the path of rectitude is, in developed social centers, a signal for ostracism, the withdrawal of esteem, systematic avoidance, and all the other forms of punishment which render life intolerable, and demonstrate the completely compulsory character of the ethical code. It is a code which enforces itself, and therefore requires no priesthood and no manual. And strangely enough, here, where alone laissez faire is sound doctrine, we find the laissez faire school calling loudly for "regulation."-Dynamic Sociology, II, 372-373. The great object of action is to do something. Conduct only aims to avoid doing either to avoid interfering with the "pursuits of ends" by others, or to prevent others from pursuing such ends, or to do some benefit for another, whereby he is prevented from doing the necessary acts for rendering an equivalent, or to do him an injury whereby he is prevented, to that extent, from pursuing his natural ends. It is all through a negative proceeding, interfering at every point with the normal course of action. Conduct is a guidance of acts so as to prevent or to occasion conflicts in normal actions. — Dynamic Sociology, II, 376-377. Moral conduct, instead of being, as usually represented, conduct in a right line, is in reality conduct in a very irregular line. The path of rectitude is a crooked path, and the distance lost in following it counts heavily against the progress of the world, yet less heavily than would the jars and collisions which a failure to follow it would inevitably produce. The remarkable fact to be noted is, that it is this class of human action, aiming simply to avoid such conflicts of interest, insignificant as it is in comparison with the main current of human action, that has been the subject of all the ethical teaching and ethical writing which have flooded the world from the earliest historic periods. — Dynamic Sociology, II, 377-378. From the sociological point of view, then, Ethics becomes nothing else than a definite account of the forms of conduct that are fitted to the associated state, in such wise that the lives of each and all may be the greatest possible, alike in length and breadth. - HERBERT SPENCER: Data of Ethics, p. 133. Our vices thus are virtues in disguise, POPE: Essay on Man, Epistle II. Thus spite of all the Frenchman's witty lies POPE: Ibid. (another version of the above). If any one were to write a book professing by its title to set forth the value of machinery and its usefulness to civilization, and were to confine himself exclusively to the subject of friction, pointing out in great detail the importance of reducing it to the minimum, describing the most effective kinds of journals, gudgeons, and bearings for this purpose, and treating exhaustively the subject of lubricating oils, the case would be closely analogous to that which exists with respect to the treatment by all writers of human or social action. Unquestionably the most important subject that can engage the attention of the human mind, its laws, principles and methods, as well as its substantial results have been ignored and volumes by thousands have been written on the mere friction which it engenders, its interferences and conflicts and how they may be lessened. This insignificant field of investigation has been dignified by |