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The Future Trend. In describing the characteristics of the modern period as those of greater individual freedom and equality, it is not assumed that these characteristics are fully matured, but merely that they represent the trend of the time. Predictions concerning future developments, in so far as they are worth while, would merely be in line with previous changes. Present tendencies indicate that inherited privilege will disappear, and the system of division of labor will be perfected. Democracy in political and in family relations, which still seems to be little more than a form, will be realized in fact. And economic relations, which have not yet reached a satisfactory solution, must work out a form of democratic control which will be in keeping with other institutions and will reflect the spirit of the times. Finally, when the forms of social organization have been brought into harmony with the principles of individual liberty, all mental products will be much less restricted. They will become free expressions of the ideals embodied in them, and their service and influence will therefore be greatly increased. In the past, exercise of physical force and compulsion in the social organization has tended to warp the ideal products of the mind; and these, not being free channels for the expression of truth, have sometimes hampered individual and social development.

The Interaction of Social Institutions. This brief review of the development of the social organization is sufficient to show that social institutions and social products are not distinct and separate entities, but are closely related parts of a whole, each part acting and reacting upon the others. The organic concept of society, though furnishing an unsatisfactory symbol in some of its details, is suggestive and accurate when used to illustrate the idea of the interdependence of parts. It is evident that in a wellorganized society, as in any organism, all parts must be present and must perform their proper functions; and in both cases every organ has an influence on all of the others. Nevertheless it is also true both in society and in an organism that some organs and functions are more fundamental and necessary than others; and in the matter of reciprocal influence each has a stronger and a more direct influence upon particular organs or institutions than upon others.

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The true nature of the interrelationship of parts in society is of importance and has been the subject of considerable speculation. The socialists have given the chief impetus to the discussion in their insistence that economic activities are the most fundamental of all and are also the most influential in determining the character of other institutions, though in their more careful statements they admit the organic nature of society and the general interdependence and interaction of parts. With regard to the importance of the direction of their influence, Labriola maintains that the economic organization determines in the first place and directly the formation and struggles of classes, the regulations relative to law, morality, and the state; and that indirectly it also affects the products of the mind, such as art, religion, and science.

Professor De Greef? has arranged social phenomena in the following order, economic, genetic, aesthetic, beliefs (religious, metaphysical, and scientific), moral, juridical, and political. This arrangement seems to be primarily a classification of the social sciences after the manner of Comte's classification of the primary sciences, for the author's chief contention is that they are arranged in order of decreasing generality and of increasing complexity; but his discussion implies that he has in mind also their actual order of dependence in social life, though it may be unfair to apply that principle strictly to all parts of the classification.

It seems to me that interdependence of social phenomena could be indicated better by a more circular arrangement instead of a lineal one; and I would therefore suggest the following order:

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1 A. Labriola, Essays on the Materialistic Conception of History, p. 201. 2 G. de Greef, Les Lois Sociologiques, p. 82.

This arrangement is intended to indicate that out of the original relationship between man and the physical environment there grew up simultaneously forms of social organization and mental products. The sequence suggests the direct influence of one phase of social life upon another, and also the more indirect influence of factors below but not immediately adjacent. The breaks in the linear arrangement are intended to indicate the existence of minor cross-influences acting upon each institution.

The specific influences determining the various organizations have been discussed in detail in the treatment of each of the separate topics; and a brief summary will be sufficient here. Considering social institutions first, the influence of the physical environment upon economic life is manifest. Inasmuch as wealth production means the extraction and the adaptation of nature's products, economic activity is consequently directed and limited either by the mineral resources existing or by the vegetable products which are possible of cultivation. Next, goods have to be transported, and nature determines to a considerable extent both the highways and the method of communication, whether by sea or by land. And finally economic life is directed to a lesser degree by the effect of climate, or of land surface, upon the consumption of goods. The kind of goods demanded determines, within limits imposed by the environment, the kind of goods produced.

While the physical environment therefore determines in a broad way the character of economic life, all social institutions react upon it and in a limited way help to determine its details. These influences are so numerous that mere suggestions concerning their nature will have to suffice. All human activities and interests affect desires and therefore help to determine the character of production, always of course within the broad limits set by the environment. Social customs and fashions are conspicuous in their effects on production; but the environmental limits to production are so continuously operative that they are likely to be ignored. For example, changes in style of clothing may be considerable from generation to generation; but such changes are always limited by the comparatively few natural products suitable for use as clothing. In addition to customs, moral ideals

and legal restrictions play a part in the direction of consumption and therefore of production.

The institution of the family, though affected by numerous cross-currents in the social organization, is most strongly influenced by economic life. In the first place the form of the family has been determined to a large extent by economic conditions, for, although, as has been pointed out, broad changes in the family are traceable to the development and the nature of the personality, economic conditions particularly in early times have been instrumental in determining the direction of its growth; and economic conditions have also been the most potent forces in determining specific forms of the family. In the second place, in addition to shaping the form of the family, economic conditions have determined an even more important factor, and that is the size of the family, or in other words the total populalation. The size, the distribution, and the density of population are all economic phenomena in the sense that they depend upon the wealth of the environment, the configuration of the land surface, and the character of the products.

The form and character of the state are determined immediately by genetic forces; but they are influenced indirectly by the economic organization, and more indirectly still by the nature of the environment. In the beginnings of civilization family relations had a direct bearing on the larger organization, in the sense that these early political forms were ethnic. And, while the growth of population and a settled habitat obliterated the influence of immediate blood relationships, still in modern states similarity of blood within racial limits appears to furnish the best material for a harmonious political organization. Of more importance has been the effect of numbers, for the size and density of populations have been the chief factors in determining the type of the state. The form of the state has also been affected by class divisions and systems of production, such as slavery or wage labor; but these again are genetic or economic phenomena. A single illustration will make clearer the interdependence of the several forces. England is in some ways the most democratic country politically in the world; and its democracy has resulted chiefly from the compactness and the homo

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geneity of its population, which is congregated in large cities and is possessed of ample means of communication. Its concentrated population is the direct effect of its industrial development, and that in turn has resulted from two environmental conditions: first, its limited area, which prevented the inhabitants from scattering and which made impossible an isolated agricultural existence but stimulated a search for new sources of wealth; and, second, the existence of coal and iron in close proximity, which permitted industrial life. Another element was that their insular position enabled them to defend themselves from attack and therefore to avoid heterogeneity in population sufficiently to favor the formation of strong and permanent class distinctions. If the intermediate steps be omitted, it would then be approximately correct to conclude that the inhabitants of England were destined to evolve a democratic form of government because of their insular situation and their possession of rich deposits of coal and iron.

Considering next the group of mental products, the intellectual life of a people is embodied most directly in religious beliefs and in positive knowledge; and these two in a sense supplement each other, for neither by itself covers the entire field of thought. Both are immediate products of the environment. Science means positive knowledge concerning one or the other primary factor in social life, the environment and man, the natural sciences dealing with the former and the social sciences with the latter. Religion is speculation concerning man's relationship to unknown external forces. In primitive stages of culture the absence of positive knowledge caused these speculations to cover more intimate as well as more distant objects of nature; but in later stages of culture natural objects were transferred to the domain of science, leaving the more spiritual relations only as subjects for religious contemplation. Therefore the character of the environment and the progress of positive knowledge must determine the broad outline and general character of all religious beliefs; and with nature religions they also affect the minute details of belief and the character of religious worship. Even in advanced religions the environment influences the character of the religion, and the attitude of the individual, in so far as it affects his

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