Those special doctrines of Dynamic Sociology (1883) which were regarded by the author as fundamental, received the least attention. The present work, though complete in itself, aims to develop and substantiate the two most important of these; namely, that desire is a true natural force, and that progress depends upon the rational control of this force by the second great agent, intellect. Part I deals with the origin and nature of the dual mind as coming into existence under the laws of evolution. The end of nature is the transformation of inorganic into organic matter and for this, feeling is merely a means. But the means of nature becomes at once the cause and the end of mind. For feeling is the primary psychic reality, while intellect is a secondary sexual character developed in the interest of direct and indirect reproductive forces. The latter is thus directive in character, and is misconceived, on the one hand by philosophers who regard it as a mysterious entity, creating its own ends, and on the other by economists whose biological point of view leads them to ignore its regulative and inventive power. Sociology has its roots in psychology, not in biology, and begins with a comprehension of the mission of mind in supplanting the biological law of competition by the psychological law of coöperation. In Part II, the author describes the several forms which intellect assumes in the performance of its directive function, traces their progress and success, and considers the bearing of the principles deduced on the social theories of the day. An analysis of current economic maxims results in a series of propositions which retain the form, but for the most part completely reverse the meaning, of hitherto accepted tenets of political economy. The explanation of these paradoxes is found to be that "the whole farrago which has so long passed for political economy is true only of irrational animals, and is altogether inapplicable to rational man." In thus condemning the laissez faire principle, the author has no reference to any supposed ethical grounds. The indirect, rational means substituted for direct animal competition make no change in principle and purpose but only in methods and effects. Indeed, ethics is not properly an independent science, for it has for its object only the transitional "hemming and cribbing of a great natural force," whose laws and control form the subject-matter of sociology.
It is impossible to indicate in a brief notice the variety of interest in the content of the book, which boldly correlates still disputed doctrines from psychology and evolutionary science, and connects with them a theory of rational and aggressive social action based upon the primary egoistic forces—"believing that neither meliorism nor sociocracy is dependent upon altruistic props for its support." L. Hannum.
