and philosophical literature. At the same time, it may not be vain to expect those who are thoroughly acquainted with that older literature may find new insight in their own fields and a wider vision of truth by taking advantage of the splendid results of the research work that must be credited to modern sociology.

OBJECTIVE CLASSIFICATION OF DESIRES IN ST. THOMAS AND IN SMALL.

Professor Small's classification is found in the textbook which he published jointly with Dr. Vincent, "Introduction to the Study of Society," 1894. It appears in its most developed form in Small's "General Sociology," 1905, passim and in particular from pages 443-481. Pages 718-727 contain a suggestive elaboration of fundamental human interests as the achievement of them might be described in American civilization.

It is to be noted that Small offers this classification without attempting to elaborate a whole system of philosophy as is done by Ward and by St. Thomas. He makes his study simply as a work of social observation without paying any attention to metaphysical implications. "Our purpose

is not to propose psychological, and still less metaphysical, solutions. We shall simply schedule, with scant illustrations, certain components of the real individual which are to be reckoned with whenever we try to understand human affairs. Psychological analyses and metaphysical hypotheses have their own competence with respect to these elements, but all sane social theory must first accept certain crude facts as part of its raw material ." (General Sociology, 444).*

Small uses three terms: desire, want, interest. "An interest is an unsatisfied capacity, corresponding to an unrealized condition, and it is predisposition to such rearrangement as would tend to realize the indicated condition" (433). "Human interests, then, are the ultimate terms of calculation in sociology. The whole life-process, so far as we know it, whether viewed in its individual or in its social phase, is at last the process of developing,

All references in this Chapter, not otherwise specified, are to Small's General Sociology.

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adjusting, and satisfying interests. . . . Interests in the sociological sense, are not necessarily matters of attention and choice. They are affinities, latent in persons, pressing for satisfaction, whether the persons are conscious of them generally or specifically, or not; they are indicated spheres of activity which persons enter into and occupy in the course of realizing their personality." (ibid.) Professor Small finds that each of these interests has a subjective and an objective aspect. These interests pass from the latent subjective unconscious state to the active objective conscious form. The difference in meaning between interest, want, and desire, is not worked out because of the complex relations among them and the various meanings in which the words are used. In a footnote (436), Professor Small says: "We might reserve the term 'interest' strictly for the use defined above, applying the term 'desire' to the subjective aspect of choice, and 'want' to the objective aspect, i.e., the thing desired. Precisely because the term 'interest' is in current use for all these aspects of the case, we prefer to retain it." "For our purpose in this argument we need not trouble ourselves very much about nice metaphysical distinctions between the aspects of interest, because we have mainly to do with interests in the same sense in which the man of affairs uses the term." (436.)

Taking interests as these unsatisfied capacities of man and recognizing his tendency toward the satisfaction of these capacities, Professor Small holds that there are six fundamental human interests which explain all desires and, therefore, all of the activities of man. "Interests are the simplest modes of motion which we can trace in the conduct of human beings." (426.) These fundamental interests are health, wealth, sociability, knowledge, beauty and rightness. "Sociology might be said to be the science of human interests and their workings under all conditions." "Our systematized knowledge of the human process, will be measured by the extent

of our ability to interpret all human society in terms of its effective results" (442).

St. Thomas' view of appetency and of its different forms which he described as natural, sensient and rational comes to expression substantially in the following from Professor Small: "It is evident that human beings contain one group of interests which are generically identical with the factors that compose plants and animals. . . . They exist in trees and fishes and birds and quadrupeds and men alike. . . . These forces are incessantly displaying themselves in the movements that arrive at certain similar types of result." (426.)

The "interests" described by Small, generically at least, are identical with the bona or goods described by St. Thomas. The resemblances and differences will be seen by a comparison of the two systems of classification.

THE HEALTH INTEREST.-Professor Small's understanding of the health interest will appear from the following: "The primary interest of every man, as of every animal, is in sheer keeping alive." "A universal form of the primary interest is the food interest." (196.) "Again, the food interest is merely foremost in a group of interests that are in the most intimate sense peculiar to the body, the animal part of them." "In this group the sex interest is usually made coordinate with the food interest." (197.) "I venture to call all the other positive types of bodily interests by the general name 'the workinterests.' . . . I mean by it all the impulses to physical activity for its own sake. I mean the impulses to physical prowess and skill, that vary from the pranks of childhood to the systematized trial of skill among athletics." The explanation is summarized as follows: "The three species of interest which I call food, sex, and work make up one genus of human interest to which I give the name the health interest. By this phrase I mean all the human

desires that have their center in exercise and enjoyment of the powers of the body." (197.)

There is an interesting agreement between the bona corporis of St. Thomas and the health interests thus described by Professor Small. Self-preservation is the first law of nature. Corresponding to the food, sex and work interests as phases of the health interest in Professor Small's classification we find enumerated by St. Thomas among the goods of the body, food, sex, health, beauty, strength, activity, integrity. The following indications facilitate the comparison: Con. Gen. 3, c. 32; ibid., c. 33; 2-2ae, Q. 65, ad. 3.

THE WEALTH INTEREST.-Dr. Small describes this interest as follows: "We recognize, alongside of health, this second factor which enters into complete personal realization, viz., that lordship over things which is founded upon direct mastery of natural forces." (454.) "Lordship over things in this sense is an essential social function." (455.) Dr. Small recognizes the great range of unlike motives which may inspire the quest of wealth. "The fact that most of the things deemed desirable in highly developed society are to be accomplished only with the aid of wealth, obscures more than it reveals the intimate nature of the wealth desire proper." (450.) Our author understands by lordship over things the conquest of nature and its subjection to human uses. It is the wealth interest as understood by economic science distinct from the popular identification of money with wealth. "It is part of complete human personality to exercise lordship over things." (451.) "Real wealth is not appreciated by men who know nothing intimately of the difficulties of creating wealth. Wealth as the measure and as the realization of man's mastery over things is neither too highly nor too generally valued in our civilization. Wealth as the mere accumulation of things that others have mastered is both too highly and too generally valued." (454.)