According to Mackenzie, there are three main lines of social progress, and hence three main types of social control to be encouraged.[XVI-17] (1) The control of natural forces by human agencies. (2) The control of individuals by the communal spirit. (3) Self control.
The road of social advance is beset with obstacles. The chief are these: (1) The dominance of vegetative needs. These economic factors are so universal and insistent that they are likely at any time to override all other human needs. (2) The insistence of animal impulses, chiefly love and strife. While love promotes unity, it generally produced a limited unity. Moreover, one mode of unity is apt to conflict with other types of unity, and thus lead to intense strife. (3) The mastery of mechanism. Life is easily crushed under the weight of organization; thought, by scholastic pedantry; industry, by economic systems; nationality, by soulless bureaucracy. (4) Anarchism. The remedy for over-organization is not anarchy, for life and society are composed of numbers of conflicting tendencies, which must be controlled by the power of thought. But the exercise of merely individual thought will not suffice. Individual thought is likely to be egocentric, to evade the problems of group life, or to solve them selfishly. (5) Conservatism. An established and successful civilization is in danger of relying too much on its past. It often carries within itself the canker of decay, and frequently lacks any clear vision of higher development.
Mackenzie is committed to internationalism. It is no longer fitting for anyone to think of his own country as an exclusive object of devotion. “The earth is our country, and all its inhabitants are our fellow-citizens; and it is only the recognition of this that entitles us to look for any lasting security.”
Mackenzie advances beyond the organic analogists when he describes the ways in which society is organic. As a social philosopher he has contributed important pattern-ideas. He has escaped from the foibles of the organic analogy and at the same time indicated the values that lie beneath that concept.
This chapter deals with a significant period in the history of social thought. The biology of the time was very faulty and the sociological applications of biological knowledge were consequently of little merit. The early years of the present century were characterized by noteworthy improvements in biological thinking. The facts about the laws of heredity and variation increased in number; a science of heredity was established. The first decade of the present century also marks the rise of the science of eugenics. In a later chapter the contributions of recent scientific biology, and particularly of eugenics, to social thought will be presented.
Chapter XVII
The Sociology of Lester F. Ward
The name of Lester F. Ward (1841–1913) stands forth between the old and new eras of social thought. Ward belongs to both the old and new. He adopted Comtean positivism and built in part upon Spencer’s evolutionary principles, but opposed Spencer’s laissez faire ideas and his evolutionary determinism, especially in regard to education. Perhaps his most notable work was the way in which he shocked a Spencerian-tinged world of social thought into a new method of thinking.
Ward became the ardent advocate of social telesis. Man can modify, defeat, or hasten the processes of nature. Ward brought the concept of dynamic sociology to the attention of the world. Although he was interested in social statics, his primary concern was in the fact that man through the use of his intelligence can transform not only the natural world but the social world, and that he can harness not only the natural forces to social ends, but even the social forces to social purposes. Hence it is that Ward holds rank today, despite his monistic philosophy and his false psychological beliefs, as one of the world’s leading sociologists.
Lester F. Ward was born in Joliet, Illinois. He received a limited schooling, and early went to work, first on a farm and then as a wheelwright. He manifested an unusual liking for books and to a great extent was self-educated. He entered the employment of the United States Government, where he remained for more than forty years, after he was honorably discharged from service in the Civil War. In the Government service he held the positions of geologist and paleontologist. Despite his strenuous and efficient work for the Government, he found time to think through and write out an elaborate sociological system of thought.
Ward’s published works in sociology began with his Dynamic Sociology (1883) and ended with the Glimpses of the Cosmos (1913) in several volumes, which, with the exception of volume one, have been published posthumously. The intermediate books of importance in order were: Pure Sociology, Applied Sociology, and Psychic Factors of Civilization.