412 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
that comes in answer to the different stimuli to complaint. There is the same specific weakness in the program that inheres in the day- dream as a motive for action. In the nature of the case the interest in the immediate process tends to take the place of the devotion to the program. Nor is this a phenomenon that is confined to socialism. In Christianity there is a constant transfer of attention from the dogma to the interest in immediate practical effort toward the amelioration of suffering and wrong.
The psychological inefficiency of the programist lies in the neces- sity of continually diverting the attention from the task in hand to the mental picture of the program-state. There result divided attention and great waste of force. In the nature of the case the opportunists must become a stronger, better organized force because their interest is centered constantly upon immediate problems. They are not forced to draw their power from a distance, nor does their organization of interests represent detached activities. From the psychological standpoint it is safe to prophesy the conquest of the opportunist over the programist, wherever they come into
conflict.
George H. Mead.
Social Laws: An Outline of Sociology. By G. Tarde. Trans- lated from the French by Howard C. Warren, Assistant Pro- fessor of Experimental Psychology in Princeton University. With a Preface by James Mark Baldwin. The Macmillan Co. Pp. xi -|- 213. Si. 25. The original of this little book was noticed at length in this Jour- nal for November, 1898. The translation is excellent. While we recognize a logic in M. Tarde's own arguments that makes for conclu- sions different from those which he draws, it would be a great mistake to undervalue his services at the present stage of sociological thinking. If all his books could be presented to English readers in an equally genial version, the prevailing awe of M. Tarde's opinions would more promptly give place to perception of their provisional and partial
validity.
A. W. S.
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