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_.
Ward was characterized by an impressive command of his subject and “a
terrific mental drive.” In 1906, he began the unique experiment of
teaching sociology at the age of 65. As a professor of sociology he
served Brown University until his death--for a period of seven years.
He was supported by the indefatigable assistance of his wife, as shown
by the many files which she kept of “Reviews and Press Notices”,
“Autograph Letters,” and “Biography.”
Ward was led to produce the _Dynamic Sociology_ because of his
observation that preceding 1875 there was an essential sterility in
social science thinking. Ward observed that the prevalent teachings of
Herbert Spencer were statical, and that the ideas of Spencer’s American
disciples were only passively dynamic. Ward believed that before the
science of society could be truly established the active dynamic
factors must be described. A science which fails to benefit mankind
is lifeless. To save sociology from the lifelessness which it was
manifesting, Ward wrote the _Dynamic Sociology_. He contemplated social
phenomena “as capable of intelligent control by society itself in its
own interest.”[XVII-1] His main thesis in the _Dynamic Sociology_ is
“the necessity for universal education as the one clear, overshadowing,
and immediate social duty to which all others are subordinate.”
He argued for a truly progressive system of popular scientific
education.[XVII-2] He declared that not one-hundredth of the facts
which original research has already brought forth are today obtainable
by a one-hundredth of the members of society, and hence not one truth
in ten thousand is fully apprehended.[XVII-3]
The prevailing doctrine in social thought, that of _laissez faire_ as
championed by Spencer, drew forth Ward’s best intellectual efforts as
a challenger. Ward protested against the teaching that natural forces
are operating only as elements in the all-powerful evolutionary
process. He pointed out that man is distinguished from animals by
the development of his psychical nature, i. e., of his foresight and
reason. He demonstrated that by this development man is able to master
and regulate the operation of the blind evolutionary forces. Hence,
the doctrine of _laissez faire_ is not only false but pernicious. It
defeats social progress. The truth is, said Ward, society is able to
improve itself, and it should set itself scientifically at once to the
opportunity.
Passive, or negative, progress is represented by the social forces
operating in their natural freedom, subject only to general
evolutionary laws.[XVII-4] Active, or positive, progress is represented
by the social forces guided by conscious human purposes. Social statics
deals with the nature of social order; social dynamics treats of the
laws of social progress. Social dynamics concerns itself with two
types of studies. One line analyzes and describes what is going on in
society under the influence of natural laws--this is pure sociology.
It is pure diagnosis; it has nothing to do with what society ought to
be. It describes the phenomena and laws of society as they are.[XVII-5]
The other procedure discusses the application of human purpose to the
natural social forces--this is applied sociology. It studies the art of
applying the active, or positive, forces to the natural evolution of
society. This method is distinctly a human process and “depends wholly
on the action of man himself.” Applied sociology treats of social ends
and purposes.
Pure sociology describes the spontaneous development of society;
applied sociology deals with the artificial means of accelerating
the spontaneous processes in society.[XVII-6] Pure sociology treats
of achievement; applied sociology, of improvement. But applied
sociology is not social reform; “it does not itself apply sociological
principles, it seeks only to show how they may be applied.” It lays
down principles as guides to social action. The carrying of these
principles into social and political practice is social reform.
The distinction is now clear between natural and artificial
progress.[XVII-7] The former is a blind growth; the latter, a
purposeful manufacture. One is a genetic process; the other,
a teleological process. One is characterized by increasing
differentiation; the other, by a process of calculation. Artificial
progress is considered superior to natural progress.
Ward was a monist. He believed in the absolute unity of nature, from
the revolutions of celestial orbs to the vicissitudes of social
customs and laws.[XVII-8] He held that “life is a property of matter,”
and naïvely declared that “it is simply the result of the movements
going on among the molecules composing a mass of protoplasm.”[XVII-9]
Psychic phenomena are “the relations which subsist among the material
molecules of the brain and nervous system and between these and the
material objects of the outside world....” Since mind is relational,
it is immaterial, but it has matter for its basis. Relations, however,
constitute the properties of matter, and hence mind, as well as life,
is a property of matter.[XVII-10] The logical length to which Ward goes
in supporting his monistic doctrine is in itself a proof of his error.
Unlike Comte, Ward believed that man originally was anti-social and
completely selfish. In the earliest stage of human existence, man lived
a life almost solitary, or at least in small groups.[XVII-11] He was
surrounded by destructive forces both inorganic and organic. Against
the wild and ferocious beasts he found himself almost physically
helpless. Some of his number overcame their physical defenselessness
by using their “wits.” Through sagacity and cunning they were able to
withstand the attacks of the wild beasts, to survive, and to propagate
their young. Along with increased cunning there went an increased
brain size in proportion to size of body, and also an improved brain
structure qualitatively.
This brain development is the essential prerequisite for perceiving the
advantages of association.[XVII-12] Man early recognized the merits
of association, and moved up from the solitary, or autarchic, stage
of social life to the second, or constrained aggregate stage. This
second stage does not contain the elements of permanency because of its
forced nature. The tendencies toward association are often counteracted
and at times destroyed by fierce contests for the limited natural
foods. In contending that man’s early ancestors were very irascible
and quarrelsome beings, Ward went beyond the limits of scientific
induction. In believing that altruism is an outgrowth of egoism, Ward
again violates the best scientific thought. The probabilities are that
both egoism and altruism have developed _pari passu_, and in part from
different causes. During the second stage human speech became an art.
It was a natural outgrowth of the associational life.
The rise of the rudiments of an established government marks the
beginning of the third period in human society. For protection,
tribes unified themselves under central controls. Through compulsion
or interest, and for protective reasons, tribes united; the spheres
of social organization thus were enlarged. But government, which was
established for the purpose of securing peace, became one of the chief
causes of external wars. Governments, autocratic control, and territory
hunger led peoples into destructive war. The world is still in this
third stage.
But some day, according to Ward, wars between nations will cease,
national prejudices will soften, diversity of language will be
overcome, and all governments probably will be consolidated into one.
This picture represents the fourth, or ideal, level of societary life,
and may never be attained. Ward cherishes the strong belief that the
present national stage will be succeeded by the cosmopolitan, or
pantarchic, age. Ward perceives an ultimate triumph of humanitarian
sentiments, which will be also “a triumph of practical interests, that
shall sweep away the present barriers of language, national pride,
and natural uncongeniality, and unite all nations in one vast social
aggregate with a single political organization.”[XVII-13]
Ward’s analysis of social evolution rests on his conception of the
social forces. The primary social force is desire. Desire is the
expression of any of the native impulses which, at the given moment,
has not been gratified. This striving for gratification constitutes
desire and the moving force in the societary world. “Desire is the
essential basis of all actions.”
The desires are numerous and complex, but upon examination lend
themselves to classification. There are two fundamental and primary
sets of desires, the nutritive and the reproductive. The end of the
first is to preserve the individual; and of the second, to preserve and
maintain the race.
“The first desire of all creatures is for nourishment.” This desire
remains dominant throughout life. The human race, Ward summarizes,
spent its infancy--thousands of years--in the single pursuit of
subsistence.[XVII-14] When the natural food supply failed, man was
forced to be inventive and to labor or die. Too many individuals in one
place meant either the migration of some individuals or that others
must compel nature through labor to increase her normal yield of
subsistence.[XVII-15]
The nutritive desire has led man to labor. Labor, however, is not
the natural condition of man.[XVII-23] Work, according to Ward, is
unnatural and irksome. The constant spur of hunger transformed man
into a working man. To be useful, however, work must be continuous and
applied steadily to a given object until that object is attained. This
process is the essence of invention, the highest and most useful form
of labor. Without wings, valuable weapons of offense and defense, claws
for digging, man has had but one line of advance open to him, namely,
invention, whereby he could overcome his limitations and master nature.
Ward overlooked what Veblen has called the instinct of workmanship. Man
has a desire to do, to achieve, to be active--only so can he escape
the terrors of ennui. He secures illimitable enjoyment from seeing the
crude materials of nature change under the manipulations of his hand
and mind into works of art.
Nevertheless, the need of nutrition was probably the chief factor in
the invention of tools and in the storing of food against the hungry
day. These tools and stores constituted property. Property at once
represented power. The law of acquisition soon exerted a great force.
Intense rivalries in acquiring property developed. “The grand rivalry
was for the object, not the method; for the end regardless of the
means.”[XVII-16] Through the centuries and until the present hour, the
morality of obtaining wealth has rarely risen to the morality of many
other phases of life.
Deception early came into prominence. We deceive an animal, in order
to catch and domesticate or kill him. We deceive a fellow human being
and take his hard earned property away from him. Society, blindly, has
praised deception even when used by one individual against the welfare
of his fellows. Society has honored him who could “drive a bargain.”
Ward declared that the desire to acquire property regardless of the
method is as strong as ever.[XVII-17] The only changes that have
come are a mitigation of the harshness of the method and the rise of
compulsory laws and codes which force individuals to “drive their
bargains” and to practice their deceptions within prescribed limits.
The acquisitive impulses have created major social evils, as evidenced
by “the exceeding indigence of the poor and the exceeding opulence
of the rich,” and by a relatively large proportion of non-producing
rich people to the entire number of wealthy.[XVII-18] On the other
hand, those who are poor because they are indolent are only a small
proportion of those who are poor and industrious.
The evils of acquisitiveness cannot be overcome by softening the human
heart. Ward would make it impossible for individuals to take away the
property of others by making it to the interest of all individuals not
to act in that way. And then he would teach them, through the social
sciences, that such conduct is against their own highest development.
Ward pronounced the money-making tendency one of the most useful and
at the same time “one of the coarsest and cheapest of all mental
attributes.”[XVII-19] It is useful because it is “the spur of all
industry and commerce; it provides the leisure which makes intellectual
pursuits possible; it encourages exploration, discovery, and invention;
it is the basis of all large business undertakings; and it has been an
essential force in the development of civilization. Since civilization
is so exclusively artificial, money can buy a vast variety of objects
of human desire; hence, the possession of money is strenuously sought.
On the other hand, money-making confers a pleasure which after all is
sordid.[XVII-21] It often leads to avarice. It has produced a pecuniary
inequality of mankind which socially admits of little justification.
From a moral viewpoint the great struggle for pecuniary possession
has been man’s greatest curse.[XVII-22] Because of it, many infants
have opened their eyes as millionaires in a world of boundless plenty;
others (equally worthy) have opened their eyes as beggars in a world of
abject poverty.
Society becomes divided into two main classes: the industrials and
the non-industrials, or parasites. The non-industrials use their
cunning in various ways.[XVII-24] The leading non-industrial modes of
acquisition are these: robbery, theft, war, statecraft, priestcraft,
and monopoly. This list represents the chronological order and history
of non-industrial types of acquisition.
Robbery is the coarsest manner of acquisition. Theft represents the
lowest order of cunning. Wars of conquest are robbery on so large a
scale that they arouse group patriotism. Cunning and treachery in war
have given way to strategy. Statecraft has often been characterized by
the egoistic attempts of a few shrewd individuals, who have devised
means for supplying the wants of the many, and appropriated rich
rewards for themselves from “the befriended and grateful community.”
Priestcraft as represented by many of the priests of Brahma, Buddha,
Osiris, Ormuzd, Mahomet and even Jesus have developed successful modes
of acquisition. They have often stood at the gates of death, and for
pay guaranteed to the stricken and fearful friends of a departed loved
one a safe journey through the perils following death. Monopoly takes
cunning advantage of a scarcity of the means of substance, or creates
an artificial and false scarcity. Monopoly has organized the fields of
transportation, exchange, finance, labor, manufacture.
The non-industrials co-operate better than the industrials and against
the welfare of the latter. The industrials, unfortunately, do not
understand the principles of co-operation very well and do not
have the intelligence to carry them into practical operation. They
receive less education than the non-industrials; the years of their
industrial apprenticeship are taken from their school days. After their
apprenticeship begins, the fatigue of their labor gives them little
time or energy for intellectual improvement.[XVII-25] In pronouncing
co-operation the product of superior intelligence Ward neglects
the rôle played by the gregarious, parental, and related social
instincts. Ward sees only part of the truth when he calls competition
a natural law, and co-operation artificial. He wisely observes,
however, that those who co-operate thrive at the expense of those who
compete.[XVII-26] In the same way that individuals co-operate in order
to secure their own gain, society must organize to secure the progress
of all.
The second primary set of fundamental forces is the reproductive.
These operate for the future and for the species. In animals they
operate without arousing shame or modesty. Among human beings they are
manipulated through the agencies of the reason and the imagination and
give rise to the sentiments of shame and modesty.[XVII-27] They are so
clouded in secrecy that they arouse dangerous forms of curiosity.
Among animals the choice of mates is largely determined by the females.
In fact, among the lowest types of animals there are no males. Among
certain higher forms of animal life the male appears as a mere
adjunct. But among human beings, male sexual selection developed.
This change in sexual selection is one of the differences between the
brute and the human worlds. This transition is explained by the fact
that the higher a being rises in the scale of development the more
sensitive its organs become, and by the correlated fact that the male
human being through his reason is able to arouse and satisfy a thousand
desires within the female, and thus cause her to look to him for “that
protection and those favors which he alone can confer.”[XVII-28]
In the human world the reproductive forces have first produced a crude
sexual love, animal in its nature, but far-reaching in its basic
implications. Sexual love is an unconscious but dominant factor in
courtship. In its refined form, and modified by the addition of genuine
but often short-lived affective elements, it becomes romantic love.
Romantic love, according to Ward, unfits lovers for the normal pursuits
of life. While under its spell they are unable to enjoy anything but
each other’s presence. “The man is unfitted for business, the woman for
social life, and both for intellectual pursuits. The only spur that can
make either party pursue other things, is the sense of doing something
that the other desires.”[XVII-29]
In the sense that natural, or sexual, love becomes the basis of
romantic love, so romantic love in turn represents the genesis of a
still higher form of love, namely, conjugal love. The love of a man
for his wife or of a woman for her husband is, however, fundamentally
different from romantic love. It is more stable, less disturbing to the
normal processes of life, and makes the home and the family socially
productive institutions. It often reaches a high state of refinement
and develops its beauty of content from the sharing together by husband
and wife of great joys and sorrows.
Maternal love, an outgrowth of maternity, manifests startling degrees
of courage even among animals. Under the spur of the need for defending
her young, a mother will often perform miraculous deeds. In its highest
form maternal love manifests a remarkable strength throughout life and
an extra-human power of forgiveness.
Then there is consanguineal love, which according to Ward includes
paternal and fraternal affections. It becomes the blood bond or feeling
of attachment that exists among the members of a primitive kinship
group, and it leads to feelings of race and world solidarity and
attachment.
Ward also pointed out that for each of these forms of love there is a
correlative hate. This force of repulsion is often greater than the
correlative love. Jealousy often leads to violent and destructive
actions. Race hatred frequently becomes a vicious, brutal, and
widespread sentiment that paralyzes all tendencies toward world
progress.
Marriage institutions have developed from the operation of the
reproductive forces. Polygamy, polyandry, and a score of other types of
marriage have arisen, although monogamy has demonstrated itself to be
the superior type of marriage institution.
The reproductive forces have led to numerous sexuo-social inequalities.
Men and women have come to occupy separate spheres of activity, and to
represent distinct social conditions.[XVII-30] Although the two sexes
live together and appear to be companions, they are in fact dwelling in
separate worlds and on different planes. There are several principal
inequalities. (1) There is an inequality of dress, which has loaded
woman with ornaments and caused her an enormous amount of disease and
suffering. (2) There is an inequality of duties, which has kept woman
confined to the house, and made a slave or a pampered pet of her.
(3) There is an inequality of education. Society has shut woman in
the past from all opportunities for gaining knowledge by experience.
Moreover, society has seen fit to debar women from the knowledge that
is acquired by instruction. (4) An inequality of rights has meant that
women have been discriminated against before the law. Without direct
representation in legislatures, women have suffered in proprietary
matters. (5) A general sex inequality has at times made woman the
property or the slave of man. In short, women have been denied, until
with recent years, entrance to the higher intellectual forms of
activity and at the same time denied social and political rights.
Reverting to Ward’s classification of desires, we may now proceed
to a discussion of the third set of forces, the sociogenetic. In
contradistinction to the nutritive and the reproductive desires, or
to the ontogenetic and the phylogenetic forces, respectively, the
sociogenetic forces lead directly to race, or social, improvement. The
ontogenetic forces guarantee individual preservation; the phylogenetic,
race preservation; and the sociogenetic, race and social progress.
Ward classified the sociogenetic forces as moral, esthetic, and
intellectual.[XVII-31]
Morality is either racial or individual. Race morality is largely
an outgrowth of custom. Duty, according to Ward, is conduct
favorable to race safety, while virtue is “an attitude of life and
character consistent with the preservation and continuance of man on
earth.”[XVII-32] Individual morality on the other hand, is based on
altruism. Altruism is the expenditure of energy in behalf of other
individuals, and involves the power of representing the psychic states
of others to one’s self. Morality leads to humanitarianism, whose
aim is meliorism. Meliorism aims to reorganize society so that the
minimum pain and the maximum enjoyment may be insured. Meliorism is
a non-sentimental improvement or amelioration of the human or social
state.[XVII-33]
Ward holds that the esthetic forces consist of a desire for open or
deep-seated symmetrical forms. Behind a landscape which at first
appears irregular and jagged, there is a fundamental symmetry and
balance. Sculpture, painting, and landscape-gardening are largely
imitations of nature. Architecture, however, emphasizes straight lines,
regular curves, and other symmetrical and geometrical figures.[XVII-34]
Because of the invention of popular musical instruments, music is open
to and enjoyed by the common people. No such invention, unfortunately,
has taken place in the fields of painting and sculpture. These realms
are limited to the highest geniuses and “their choicest productions
appropriated by the few who combine wealth with taste.”[XVII-35]
The intellectual forces are chiefly the desires to know. These desires
are three-fold: (1) to acquire knowledge, (2) to discover truth, and
(3) to impart information.[XVII-36] The desire to acquire knowledge
is perhaps strongest in the young. Youth will often learn anything,
without exercising any powers of discrimination. The gratification
of the desire to discover new truth yields almost divine thrills of
satisfaction. There are four methods of imparting information to
others, viz., (1) by conversing, (2) by teaching, (3) by lecturing, and
(4) by writing.
In addition to the dynamic forces there is the directive agent in
society, namely, the intellect. Ward makes a precarious distinction
between the feelings and thought, or between intellect as a seat of
emotion, appetite and motive power, and intellect as the organ or
source of thought and ideas.[XVII-37] Ward’s psychology is admittedly
unscientific. The thought or ideational phase of the intellect Ward
divorced almost absolutely from the affective aspects of consciousness.
He failed to perceive the dynamic character of thought and ideas. He
made thought simply the directive agent in society.
In thought, Ward found the hope of the race. Thought can restrain and
control social energy. It can produce telic methods of progress which
are immeasurably superior to the blind, ruthless methods of nature.
The procedure of nature with unlimited resources is “to produce an
enormously redundant supply, and to trust the environment to select
the best.”[XVII-38] Nature secures success through “the indefinite
multiplication of chances.” Hence the survival of the fittest results
in a sacrifice of a great majority--a highly wasteful method. The
method of mind is the reverse. Though prevision, mind utilizes all the
dynamic forces of society, that is the human desires, in constructive,
orderly ways. Social waste may be reduced, by telic methods, to a
minimum. Mind can perceive the best social ends and pursue them,
whereas nature works blindly. Thought has in its power the possibility
of subjugating natural forces and turning them into contributors to
human needs.
Ward developed essentially four leading principles of social dynamics
and hence of societal progress. (1) The first law he called “difference
of potential.” This term, which he borrowed from physics, refers to the
difference in potential possibilities of individuals. This difference
is manifested, for example, in the crossing of cultures. It disturbs
social stability, and creates social liability. Sex is a device whereby
a difference of potential is maintained. While asexual reproduction
is characterized chiefly by repetition of forms, sexual reproduction
creates changes in the stock in countless directions. The difference of
potential which is caused by a crossing of strains is highly dynamic,
resulting in unnumbered variations, and hence in providing endless
opportunities for progress. In a similar way a cross fertilization of
cultures opens many opportunities for social advancement. “Progress
results from the fusion of unlike elements.”[XVII-40] Difference of
potential, again, is illustrated in the friction of mind upon mind.
Thoughts conflict, and the result is likely to be an invention.
Difference of potential may lead to creative synthesis.[XVII-41] When
two elements are joined, the result is usually more than the sum of
the parts. The combining of hydrogen and oxygen in given proportions
produces water, which manifests characteristics that are not possessed
by either of the constituents. Likewise, the combining of two ideas by
the human mind may result in a new idea, and thus in progress.
(2) A second dynamic principle is innovation, which has its biological
homologue in the sport, or mutant. Throughout nature and society,
fortuitous variations occur. Life at times breaks over the bounds of
pure heredity--the result is innovation. Variation, in the sense of
mutation or innovation, appears to be due to the exuberance of life.
At times nature appears to react against being bound by rigid laws of
heredity, to defy her own rules, and to become rampant.
Social innovation is invention. New ideas often appear accidentally.
The mind in its exuberance coins new phrases, catches new glimpses
of reality, and creates ideas which are contrary to all that is
established and supposedly true.
(3) Ward’s third law of progress is called conation. This concept
refers to social effort which is carried on naturally to satisfy
desire, to preserve or continue life, to modify the surroundings. In
satisfying normally the gregarious desires, the individual advances
the cause of social progress. In preserving the life of the child,
the mother presumably contributes to the welfare of the race. The
sacrifices which parents make in behalf of children are efforts which
further the welfare of society. Every constructive modification
of either the physical or spiritual environment benefits mankind.
Conation is thus a term which covers a multitude of activities that
are performed in the ordinary course of daily life, and which
unconsciously to the doers are adding to the sum total of human welfare.
(4) The fourth dynamic principle which Ward described has already been
discussed, namely, the principle of social telesis. The possibilities
in social telesis are illimitable. Social telesis can turn the passions
and desires of men into socially useful channels. These passions are
bad only when directed to wrong ends. They are like fire--they can
destroy or they can refine. If individuals as members of society could
develop prevision and work together for societary ends, they would be
able to transform the world.
Ward believed that greatness does not rest so much in intellectual
power as in emotional force. He had great faith in persons of average
intellectual ability who are ambitious. It thus becomes the part of
wisdom for society to educate wisely the average intelligence. Ward
challenged the idea that only a very few persons are geniuses and
that these individuals, by virtue of their superior abilities, will
uniformly overcome their environments. He held that genius is largely a
matter of focalization of psychic energy, and that by this process all
individuals may have the honor of contributing something valuable to
civilization.
Ward pointed out that geniuses are as likely to appear in one social
stratum as in another, among the poor as among the healthy, in the
hovel as in the palace. He also demonstrated how society allows genius
and talent to be ruthlessly destroyed among the lower classes through
denial of opportunity. As a solution for this problem, Ward advocated
social distribution, that is, the distribution of all useful knowledge
to all humanity everywhere. A scientific system needs to be perfected
for the more thorough and equal distribution of the great volume of
valuable knowledge which has already been discovered. Ward was a strong
advocate of the socialization of education.
In an article which appeared in the month following his death, Ward
discussed his idea of social progress under the terms, eugenics,
euthenics, and eudemics.[XVII-42] He supplemented a theory of sound
birth with a theory of sound environment. The practical result in
society would be a state of eudemics, or a society of sound people.
Ward was an advocate of sociocracy. By sociocracy he did not mean a
democracy or a rulership that is likely to be conducted selfishly by
the individuals who exercise sovereign power. Sociocracy connotes a
rulership of the people in which each individual is governed primarily
not by his own interests but by the interests of society.
Achievement was a large concept in Ward’s mind. He made “achievement”
one of the chief goals of human life. By achievement in behalf of human
progress individuals gain social immortality. The masses of humanity
are achieving little or nothing in behalf of society.
In this treatment of Ward’s sociological thought it has not been the
aim of the writer to enter upon a dissertation regarding the abstract
and philosophic implications that are involved in the subject matter.
Neither has he attempted a polemic against the weaknesses in Ward’s
thinking, except to note the defective monistic philosophy and the
erroneous “faculty” psychology. It has been his purpose to let the
strong, constructive elements in Ward’s system of sociology speak
clearly and effectively for themselves.