530 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
revolutionary France, the anti-slavery movement, the spread of foreign missions, and the expansion of the higher education. These have to be stated in terms of desire, and accounted for by those things which arouse desire, namely, new ideas and beliefs.
Hardly have we focused down to the great truth, first empha- sized by Dr. Ward, that the social forces are human desires, when we come upon a new crop of errors.
First is the notion, fostered by the organic conception of society, that the diverse desires of individuals are, as it were, melted down into a desire for the social welfare, and that this generalized force it is which furnishes the driving power for the various "social organs." Even Spencer is apt to attribute a social structure either to the individual sense of a common interest or to the common sense of individual interest, and to overlook the role of specific desires in generating particular insti- tutions. Thus in his account of domestic institutions he under- rates the role of sexual jealousy, which in certain places has had much to do with determining the form of the family. He regards religious practices as instigated by fear, and fails to notice that in certain developments of religion the love of a benignant deity and the craving for certain ecstatic experiences have become important springs of worship.
In his account of law, after distinguishing between laws that are personally derived and those that are impersonally derived, Spencer states that the force which calls the latter into being is "the consensus of individual interests." A more exhaustive analysis shows that along with the general desire to safeguard individual interests should be reckoned such factors as the desire for fair play, and sympathy with the resentment of the wronged man.
Again, in considering the political forces Spencer states that "governing agencies during their early stages are at once the products of aggregate feeling, derive their powers from it, and are restrained by it." The fact is overlooked that along with the aggregate feeling there is a specific desire the love of power which, although animating only the few, continually
