MOOT POINTS IN SOCIOLOGY 207
The causes or factors of social change are statico-dynamic processes, transmutations, and stimuli. Statico-dynamic pro- cesses I call those ordinary functional activities which leave behind them as by-products cumulative effects capable of causing social change. Transmutations are those gradual unconscious alterations which occur in consequence of the inability of human beings to reproduce accurately the copy their fathers set them. Stimuli, however, which are those factors of change lying out- side of the strictly social sphere, furnish most of the impulses toward social transformation. The principal orders of stimuli are the growth of population, the accumulation of wealth, migra- tion, innovation, the cross-fertilization of cultures, the inter- action of groups, the conjugation of societies, and alteration of the environment.
Those modifications of society which are brought about by the social will, equipped with adequate knowledge, using appro- priate means, and striving toward an intelligently conceived goal, do noti of course, come within the purview of pure sociology.
EDWARD ALSWORTH Ross.
THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA.
