Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 2.djvu/716

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700 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

in passages quoted in the preceding paper, still I did not in that volume neglect to point out the distinction and emphasize the contrast between the two kinds of social progress. Immediately following the definition of passive or .negative progress that of active or positive progress is given as follows :

Active, or positive, progress takes place through the application to the natural forces acting in and upon society of a force external to and distinct from them. To the regular course of the social phenomena as determined by the laws of evolution, we must conceive added a new force limiting and directing these into special channels and for special ends. Its chief quality as distinguished from other forces is purpose. In short, it is the teleological force, the abstract conception of which is familiar to all, having formed the basis of theological philosophy .... This force is regarded as active by reason of its direct action upon the remaining forces controlling society, while progress thus produced may be fitly called positive, from the purely arbitrary character of its processes and the recognition of man himself as the disposer of social events. 1

In the initial chapter of the second volume (chap, viii), after further contrasting genetic and teleological phenomena in gen- eral, I attempted a classification of human motives or efforts. Employing an old but excellent word revived by Sir William Hamilton, viz., conation^ to signify human motive, I divided the methods employed in seeking the satisfaction of desire into the two classes direct and indirect. The "direct method of conation" is of course that employed by irrational beings and by rational ones, too, when they do not use their reason. The " indirect method" is the method of reason, and is teleological. The nature and use of this method were set forth somewhat fully. Notwithstanding all this and the stress laid throughout the work on this important antithesis, I still had reason to feel that I had fallen far short of impressing students of society with a full sense that there was a great neglected factor in the current social philosophy, and in 1884 I prepared a paper on "Mind as a Social Factor," which, after reading it before the Anthropolog- ical Society of Washington and the Metaphysical Club of Johns Hopkins University, I contributed to the British psychological

1 Dynamic Sociology, Vol. I, pp. 57, 58.