8 10 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
propensities which now cause evil are essentially bad. They are all in them- selves good, must necessarily be so, since they have been developed for the sole purpose of enabling man to exist, survive, and progress. All evil is relative. Any power may do harm. The forces of nature are good or bad according to where they are permitted to expend themselves. The wind is evil when it dashes the vessel on the rocks; it is good when it fills the sail and speeds it on its way. Fire is evil when it rages through a great city and destroys life and property ; it is good when it warms human dwellings or creates the wondrous power of steam. Electricity is evil when in the thun- derbolt it descends from the cloud and scatters death and destruction ; it is good when it transmits messages of love to distant friends. And so it is with the passions of men as they surge through society. Left to themselves, like the physical elements, they find vent in all manner of ways and constantly dash against the interests of those who chance to be in their way. But, like the elements, they readily yield to the touch of true science, which directs them into harmless, nay, useful channels, and makes them instruments for good. In fact, human desires, seeking their satisfaction through appropriate activity, constitute the only good from the standpoint of sociology. 1
Few, of course, will be satisfied with these generalities, and many will doubtless ask for some concrete illustrations of scien- tific legislation. Even those who accept the general conclu- sions that thus logically flow from the facts of genetic and telic progress will still find themselves at a loss to conceive what definite steps can be taken to accelerate the latter, or how the central ganglion of society can inaugurate a system of social machinery that will produce the required results. This is quite natural, and the only answer that can be made is that, owing to the undeveloped state of the social intellect, very few examples of true ingenuity on the part of legislators exist. Society, as I have shown, if comparable to an organism at all, must take rank among creatures of a very low order. The brain of society has scarcely reached the stage of development at which in the animal world the germs of an intellectual faculty are percep- tible. Only when spurred on by the most intense egoistic impulses have nations exhibited any marked indications of the telic power. This has developed in proportion to the extent to which the national will has coincided with the will of some
1 Psychic Factors, pp. 113-115.
