624 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
all other rights to its enjoyment. This is limited by the community's right of dis- posal, often latent unless public interests require it. In communal ownership the property of one person is limited by the number of persons ; in private ownership it is limited not by persons but by things. The tendency is toward the latter, till many persons seem shut out of the right of enjoyment of things. Reaction may result. This is the ever present, never-to-be-settled social question.
X. Division of Property. There must be a compromise between general and individual good. Society exists, not of nor for itself, but for individuals. Yet it can- not consider the interests of individuals as such, but only general or at most class interests. The state has an interest in the division of property, because that state is strongest in which the lower classes are rising, and hence happy. This condition could not exist where the majority are hopelessly poor, nor where there was no difference between rich and poor. Fear of sinking and hope of rising give courage and energy to labor. These motives are most active in a society where there are infinite gradations of wealth. A gulf between classes produces hatred and hopelessness on one side, contempt and languid effort on the other. Competition makes work intense and stimulates inventiveness, foresight and economy. But its tendency toward absorp- tion of small enterprises by large ones is dangerous to society. If this absorption should become complete, the large enterprises might not do as well as now, while they have the stimulus of competition with small enterprises, the workman's pleasure in his work would be lessened, and men become machines.
The general welfare then demands a compromise which shall preserve men's independence without great injury to production. Statistics and experience must guide the state to find this compromise. The state must decide what small industries it is judicious to protect. Probably law should depress enterprises which crowd out smaller ones, not because of cheap production but because of larger capital. The state, by taking transportation upon itself, would prevent much unnecessary competi- tion and set many free for production. Mining and banking might be undertaken by the state. Farming should be left to the independence it has shown itself able to maintain. Art should be given back to individualism. As food, shelter, and clothing are necessary to all and affect the worker's productive power, they should be controlled by the state. Productiveness must be increased and be made to benefit the lower classes especially, for the safety of the state as well as for unselfish reasons. DR. VON SCHUBERT-SoLDERN, " Das menschliche Gliick und die soziale Frage" Zeitschrift fiir die gesanite Staatsunssenschaft, Viertes Heft, 1896. Fr.
New Interpretation of Sociological Phenomena. Social life among all animals has a tendency to arrest the production of new biological and psychological types, i. e., of individuals more diverse and complex. One of a herd gains in senti- ments of sympathy and certain material advantages, but loses independence and the stimulus to development of intelligence that isolation in attack and defense gives. The division of labor makes the case worse for man. It has a tendency to create new types, not biological, but professional. These types being specialized are simplified, hence lower than the primitive biological type. Division of labor injures mind and body, makes a man an attachment to a machine, and causes a long list of diseases and deformities. The sentiment produced by society is unnatural and sickly. The few men who stand above the mass are content to accumulate knowledge ; hence decadence and lassitude. There is evolution, but no progress. Of social groups, the one in which cohesion and division of labor are carried farthest tends to survive, hence individuals are more and more simplified, less and less original. If an inventor appears, he will be a specialist, not a universal genius. Possibly the nervousness, even insanity, often accompanying marked talent is the consequence of this unnatural one-sidedness. Social evolution does not follow a regular formula. The evolutionary formula and the dialectic formula do not necessarily contradict each other. Neither is sufficient. If society were a perfect organism or brain, the individual would be only a cell which must passively submit to evolution. But the individual can try to adapt society to his needs. In fact society has tendencies, but only tendencies, to organic development. Social evolution has made thought more logical, less intuitive. But the greatest conquests of the human mind, i. e., language-making, mythologies,
