L. F. WARD'S DYXAMIC SOCIOLOGY. 309 D. Dynamic Opinion is the direct means to Dynamic Action ; it is, therefore, the third proximate end of conation, or tertiary means to the ultimate end. E. Knowledge is the direct means to Dynamic Opinion ; it is therefore, the fourth proximate end of conation, or fourth means to the ultimate end. F. Education is the direct means to Knowledge ; it is, therefore, the fifth proximate end of conation, and is the fifth and initial means to the ultimate end." The whole of the second volume is an expansion and elaborate justification of the six theorems thus formally set forth. Happiness is shown to be the one ultimate good, which may be sought directly by the individual, but can only be attained by the society through indirect means. It is demonstrated with much show of mathematical cogency that the only means of so attaining it is through progress : that progress again is only possible through dynamic action ; and so on until at last we come to the final means, education. Two criticisms must be passed upon this last rigorously demon- strative portion of Mr. Ward's work. In the first place, it is vitiated throughout by the deliberate and dogmatic reiteration of the astounding Jeffersonian paradox, that all men are born equal. By adopting this pre-Darwinian figment, Mr. Ward throws over- board a great part of all modern biological truth, and utterly ignores the overwhelming value of hereditary influences. Over and over again he talks as though almost all human beings were equally capable of education: once he even asserts that the large additions made to science and literature by persons placed in high official or professorial positions indicate that almost anyone else put in the same place would have done equally well. He thus quietly ignores the fact that these people were put there just because they possessed congenital faculties which fitted them for doing that particular work ably and well. Is it not a transparent absurdity to say that almost anybody else would have made as good an Astronomer Eoyal as Sir Wm. Herschel ? It would be easy enough to understand such an argument if it came from essen- tially aristocratic England, where any man who happens to be born a duke is considered good enough to make a cabinet -minister : but coming from democratic America, with its career open to the talents, it is simply extraordinary and almost incredible. Hardly a page in Mr. Ward's later chapters is free from the initial fallacy thus boldly set forth. It is assumed time after time that though intelligence differs widely, intellect is everywhere about the same : that most people are capable of being educated up to that dynamic opinion which would finally ensure the triumph of progress. We should gather from this that Mr. Ward has had no practical personal experience in the work of teaching. In a class of 15 boys of 15 years old taken from the exceptionally intelligent English upper and middle classes, it may be safely asserted that only three on an average can ever be taught really to understand, we do not
