Evolution Social and Organic

by Arthur M. Lewis

And now Ward presents a truth that is very familiar to all Socialists—that the difference between an animal living in a state of nature and man living in human society, is that man is a tool using animal. This use and development of tools is due to that application of reason called the inventive faculty, which no other animal possesses. “The beaver indeed, builds dams by felling trees, but its tools are its teeth, and no further advantage is taken than that which results from the way the muscles are attached to its jaws. The warfare of animals is waged literally with tooth and nail, with horn and hoof, with claw and spur, with tusk and trunk, with fang and sting—always with organic, never with mechanical weapons.”

And because man can invent tools and improve them he has an immense advantage over other animals. It is this advantage which the biological sociologists have overlooked. But this advantage makes an incalculable difference. The fundamental difference is, that “the environment transforms the animal, while man transforms the environment.”

What, then, is civilization? It is human development beyond the animal stage. What it its chief factor? It is psychic—the application of “mind” to the problems of life.

Now we see still further how Ward is irresistibly driven, by the logic of his position, to Socialist conclusions. He sees that another striking difference between irrational nature and rational society is that nature is competitive, while society is increasingly co-operative. And this co-operation is due to the greater development of that psychic factor, which is the chief instrument of civilization and leads men to avoid waste.

Turning now to “Pure Sociology,” we are told that the subject-matter of sociology is “human achievement.” When we ask, in what does this achievement consist, we are informed that: “Achievement does not consist in wealth. Wealth is fleeting and ephemeral. Achievement is permanent and eternal.”

Again the sum total of the things which constitute achievement may be summed up in the one word “inventions.”

Achievement with Ward is another name for civilization. Page after page is given to an enumeration of its particulars,—music, painting, poetry, exploration, industry and many other things which we have not space even to mention. The one thing that is vital here is that “achievement,” while it does not include perishable wealth, nor yet the actual, perishable machinery by which the wealth has been produced, does nevertheless undoubtedly include that something described by Socialists as the “process of production.”

This is of prime importance because now when we turn to Ward’s “Applied Sociology,” we find that not only achievement, but “improvement” is the theme of that branch of the science.

And now listen to this great American sociologist, who has so far outstripped all his contemporaries as to be practically without a rival, this thinker whose monumental works have gained him an international reputation; listen and compare what follows with the hocus-pocus that usually comes from the official chairs:

“The purpose of applied sociology is to harmonize achievement with improvement. If all this achievement which constitutes civilization has really been wrought without producing any improvement in the condition of the human race, it is time that the reason for this was investigated. Applied sociology includes among its main purposes the investigation of this question. The difficulty lies in the fact that achievement is not socialized. The problem, therefore, is that of the socialization of achievement.