VII and VIII; and afterwards comes a genetic view in detail (Chapters IX to XVI) of the progress of mental development in its great stages, Memory, Association, Attention, Thought, Self-consciousness, Volition. So the whole is a whole, the theory resting upon an induction of facts (put before it) and supported by the deduction of facts (put after). … There are certain other great provinces, besides, which I find capable of fruitful exploration with the same theoretical principles. Of course, genetic psychology ought to lay the only solid foundation for education, both in its method and its results. And it is equally true, though it has never been adequately realized, that it is in genetic theory that social or collective psychology must find both its root and its ripe fruitage. We have no social psychology, because we have had no doctrine of the socius. We have had theories of the ego and the alter; but that they did not reveal the socius is just their condemnation. So the theorist of society and institutions has floundered in seas of metaphysics and biology, and no psychologist has brought him a life-preserver, nor even heard his cry for help. These aspects of the subject I hope to take up in the same modest way in another work, already well under way, to bear the same general title as this volume, but to be known by the sub-title Interpretations: Educational, Social and Ethical, in contrast with the Methods and Processes, by which this book is described more particularly on the title-page. It will endeavor to find a basis in the natural history of man as a social being for the theory and practice of the activities in which his life of education, social cooperation and duty involves him.
In his preface the author explains that three years ago he began to write a paper on "Natural Rights," which has grown into the present volume. At first he feared that he might be "occupied in slaying the already slain," but later he became convinced that the theory was at least still capable of mischief. Though disclaimed by almost all our careful writers on politics and ethics, it yet remains a commonplace of the newspaper and the platform. Professor Ritchie has "attempted to regard the theory in the light of its historical significance." Part I treats of the "Theory of Natural Rights"; Part II, of "Particular Natural Rights." In the appendix are reprinted several political documents, American and French, referred to in the body of the work. Review will follow.
