Social Adaptation; A Study in the Development of the Doctrine of Adaptation as a Theory of Social Progress (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1921. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XVII SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION The purpose of our investigation as set forth in the Introduction was to make a historical approach to a constructive social philosophy having as its central theme adaptation in its four-fold aspect of passive material and spiritual and active material and spiritual, -- this approach beginning with Auguste Comte and Herbert Spencer, though in a few cases including previous writers whose contributions seemed essential to an appreciation of those coming later. The method chosen was to review briefly the social theories of writers in this field who have been most influential in the development of the doctrine of adaptation, and in an order so far as possible, both historical and logical. Comte's Positivism was reviewed as a fitting prolegomenon to social philosophy and it was shown how he had contributed to the problem and formulated this principle of adaptation in its various aspects though with different terminology. His chief contribution, we saw, was his insistence on the possibility of a scientific study of society, and the necessity of such a study as the basis of social reconstruction. Comte, however, did not believe in cosmic evolution, so his system was a " subjective synthesis " without a necessary objective correlate. Herbert Spencer is to be credited with the first comprehensive attempt to formulate the principle of cosmic evolution and this he did in terms of increasing differentiation and integration. In his Social Statics, he formulated the principle of adaptation and applied it as a test to various institutions. In his Progress, Its Law and Cause, he worked out the organic analogy as applied to society. In his Sociology, he showed how the general law he had formulated for cosmic evolution applied to the developmen...