Chapter XVII The Sociology of Lester F. Ward

The name of Lester F. Ward (1841–1913) stands forth between the old and new eras of social thought. Ward belongs to both the old and new. He adopted Comtean positivism and built in part upon Spencer’s evolutionary principles, but opposed Spencer’s laissez faire ideas and his evolutionary determinism, especially in regard to education. Perhaps his most notable work was the way in which he shocked a Spencerian-tinged world of social thought into a new method of thinking.

Ward became the ardent advocate of social telesis. Man can modify, defeat, or hasten the processes of nature. Ward brought the concept of dynamic sociology to the attention of the world. Although he was interested in social statics, his primary concern was in the fact that man through the use of his intelligence can transform not only the natural world but the social world, and that he can harness not only the natural forces to social ends, but even the social forces to social purposes. Hence it is that Ward holds rank today, despite his monistic philosophy and his false psychological beliefs, as one of the world’s leading sociologists.

Lester F. Ward was born in Joliet, Illinois. He received a limited schooling, and early went to work, first on a farm and then as a wheelwright. He manifested an unusual liking for books and to a great extent was self-educated. He entered the employment of the United States Government, where he remained for more than forty years, after he was honorably discharged from service in the Civil War. In the Government service he held the positions of geologist and paleontologist. Despite his strenuous and efficient work for the Government, he found time to think through and write out an elaborate sociological system of thought.

Ward’s published works in sociology began with his Dynamic Sociology (1883) and ended with the Glimpses of the Cosmos (1913) in several volumes, which, with the exception of volume one, have been published posthumously. The intermediate books of importance in order were: Pure Sociology, Applied Sociology, and Psychic Factors of Civilization.

Ward was characterized by an impressive command of his subject and “a terrific mental drive.” In 1906, he began the unique experiment of teaching sociology at the age of 65. As a professor of sociology he served Brown University until his death—for a period of seven years. He was supported by the indefatigable assistance of his wife, as shown by the many files which she kept of “Reviews and Press Notices”, “Autograph Letters,” and “Biography.”

Ward was led to produce the Dynamic Sociology because of his observation that preceding 1875 there was an essential sterility in social science thinking. Ward observed that the prevalent teachings of Herbert Spencer were statical, and that the ideas of Spencer’s American disciples were only passively dynamic. Ward believed that before the science of society could be truly established the active dynamic factors must be described. A science which fails to benefit mankind is lifeless. To save sociology from the lifelessness which it was manifesting, Ward wrote the Dynamic Sociology. He contemplated social phenomena “as capable of intelligent control by society itself in its own interest.”XVII-1 His main thesis in the Dynamic Sociology is “the necessity for universal education as the one clear, overshadowing, and immediate social duty to which all others are subordinate.” He argued for a truly progressive system of popular scientific education.XVII-2 He declared that not one-hundredth of the facts which original research has already brought forth are today obtainable by a one-hundredth of the members of society, and hence not one truth in ten thousand is fully apprehended.XVII-3

The prevailing doctrine in social thought, that of laissez faire as championed by Spencer, drew forth Ward’s best intellectual efforts as a challenger. Ward protested against the teaching that natural forces are operating only as elements in the all-powerful evolutionary process. He pointed out that man is distinguished from animals by the development of his psychical nature, i. e., of his foresight and reason. He demonstrated that by this development man is able to master and regulate the operation of the blind evolutionary forces. Hence, the doctrine of laissez faire is not only false but pernicious. It defeats social progress. The truth is, said Ward, society is able to improve itself, and it should set itself scientifically at once to the opportunity.

Passive, or negative, progress is represented by the social forces operating in their natural freedom, subject only to general evolutionary laws.XVII-4 Active, or positive, progress is represented by the social forces guided by conscious human purposes. Social statics deals with the nature of social order; social dynamics treats of the laws of social progress. Social dynamics concerns itself with two types of studies. One line analyzes and describes what is going on in society under the influence of natural laws—this is pure sociology. It is pure diagnosis; it has nothing to do with what society ought to be. It describes the phenomena and laws of society as they are.XVII-5 The other procedure discusses the application of human purpose to the natural social forces—this is applied sociology. It studies the art of applying the active, or positive, forces to the natural evolution of society. This method is distinctly a human process and “depends wholly on the action of man himself.” Applied sociology treats of social ends and purposes.

Pure sociology describes the spontaneous development of society; applied sociology deals with the artificial means of accelerating the spontaneous processes in society.XVII-6 Pure sociology treats of achievement; applied sociology, of improvement. But applied sociology is not social reform; “it does not itself apply sociological principles, it seeks only to show how they may be applied.” It lays down principles as guides to social action. The carrying of these principles into social and political practice is social reform.

The distinction is now clear between natural and artificial progress.XVII-7 The former is a blind growth; the latter, a purposeful manufacture. One is a genetic process; the other, a teleological process. One is characterized by increasing differentiation; the other, by a process of calculation. Artificial progress is considered superior to natural progress.

Ward was a monist. He believed in the absolute unity of nature, from the revolutions of celestial orbs to the vicissitudes of social customs and laws.XVII-8 He held that “life is a property of matter,” and naïvely declared that “it is simply the result of the movements going on among the molecules composing a mass of protoplasm.”XVII-9 Psychic phenomena are “the relations which subsist among the material molecules of the brain and nervous system and between these and the material objects of the outside world....” Since mind is relational, it is immaterial, but it has matter for its basis. Relations, however, constitute the properties of matter, and hence mind, as well as life, is a property of matter.XVII-10 The logical length to which Ward goes in supporting his monistic doctrine is in itself a proof of his error.

Unlike Comte, Ward believed that man originally was anti-social and completely selfish. In the earliest stage of human existence, man lived a life almost solitary, or at least in small groups.XVII-11 He was surrounded by destructive forces both inorganic and organic. Against the wild and ferocious beasts he found himself almost physically helpless. Some of his number overcame their physical defenselessness by using their “wits.” Through sagacity and cunning they were able to withstand the attacks of the wild beasts, to survive, and to propagate their young. Along with increased cunning there went an increased brain size in proportion to size of body, and also an improved brain structure qualitatively.

This brain development is the essential prerequisite for perceiving the advantages of association.XVII-12 Man early recognized the merits of association, and moved up from the solitary, or autarchic, stage of social life to the second, or constrained aggregate stage. This second stage does not contain the elements of permanency because of its forced nature. The tendencies toward association are often counteracted and at times destroyed by fierce contests for the limited natural foods. In contending that man’s early ancestors were very irascible and quarrelsome beings, Ward went beyond the limits of scientific induction. In believing that altruism is an outgrowth of egoism, Ward again violates the best scientific thought. The probabilities are that both egoism and altruism have developed pari passu, and in part from different causes. During the second stage human speech became an art. It was a natural outgrowth of the associational life.

The rise of the rudiments of an established government marks the beginning of the third period in human society. For protection, tribes unified themselves under central controls. Through compulsion or interest, and for protective reasons, tribes united; the spheres of social organization thus were enlarged. But government, which was established for the purpose of securing peace, became one of the chief causes of external wars. Governments, autocratic control, and territory hunger led peoples into destructive war. The world is still in this third stage.

But some day, according to Ward, wars between nations will cease, national prejudices will soften, diversity of language will be overcome, and all governments probably will be consolidated into one. This picture represents the fourth, or ideal, level of societary life, and may never be attained. Ward cherishes the strong belief that the present national stage will be succeeded by the cosmopolitan, or pantarchic, age. Ward perceives an ultimate triumph of humanitarian sentiments, which will be also “a triumph of practical interests, that shall sweep away the present barriers of language, national pride, and natural uncongeniality, and unite all nations in one vast social aggregate with a single political organization.”XVII-13

Ward’s analysis of social evolution rests on his conception of the social forces. The primary social force is desire. Desire is the expression of any of the native impulses which, at the given moment, has not been gratified. This striving for gratification constitutes desire and the moving force in the societary world. “Desire is the essential basis of all actions.”

The desires are numerous and complex, but upon examination lend themselves to classification. There are two fundamental and primary sets of desires, the nutritive and the reproductive. The end of the first is to preserve the individual; and of the second, to preserve and maintain the race.

“The first desire of all creatures is for nourishment.” This desire remains dominant throughout life. The human race, Ward summarizes, spent its infancy—thousands of years—in the single pursuit of subsistence.XVII-14 When the natural food supply failed, man was forced to be inventive and to labor or die. Too many individuals in one place meant either the migration of some individuals or that others must compel nature through labor to increase her normal yield of subsistence.XVII-15

The nutritive desire has led man to labor. Labor, however, is not the natural condition of man.XVII-23 Work, according to Ward, is unnatural and irksome. The constant spur of hunger transformed man into a working man. To be useful, however, work must be continuous and applied steadily to a given object until that object is attained. This process is the essence of invention, the highest and most useful form of labor. Without wings, valuable weapons of offense and defense, claws for digging, man has had but one line of advance open to him, namely, invention, whereby he could overcome his limitations and master nature.

Ward overlooked what Veblen has called the instinct of workmanship. Man has a desire to do, to achieve, to be active—only so can he escape the terrors of ennui. He secures illimitable enjoyment from seeing the crude materials of nature change under the manipulations of his hand and mind into works of art.

Nevertheless, the need of nutrition was probably the chief factor in the invention of tools and in the storing of food against the hungry day. These tools and stores constituted property. Property at once represented power. The law of acquisition soon exerted a great force. Intense rivalries in acquiring property developed. “The grand rivalry was for the object, not the method; for the end regardless of the means.”XVII-16 Through the centuries and until the present hour, the morality of obtaining wealth has rarely risen to the morality of many other phases of life.

Deception early came into prominence. We deceive an animal, in order to catch and domesticate or kill him. We deceive a fellow human being and take his hard earned property away from him. Society, blindly, has praised deception even when used by one individual against the welfare of his fellows. Society has honored him who could “drive a bargain.”

Ward declared that the desire to acquire property regardless of the method is as strong as ever.XVII-17 The only changes that have come are a mitigation of the harshness of the method and the rise of compulsory laws and codes which force individuals to “drive their bargains” and to practice their deceptions within prescribed limits. The acquisitive impulses have created major social evils, as evidenced by “the exceeding indigence of the poor and the exceeding opulence of the rich,” and by a relatively large proportion of non-producing rich people to the entire number of wealthy.XVII-18 On the other hand, those who are poor because they are indolent are only a small proportion of those who are poor and industrious.

The evils of acquisitiveness cannot be overcome by softening the human heart. Ward would make it impossible for individuals to take away the property of others by making it to the interest of all individuals not to act in that way. And then he would teach them, through the social sciences, that such conduct is against their own highest development.

Ward pronounced the money-making tendency one of the most useful and at the same time “one of the coarsest and cheapest of all mental attributes.”XVII-19 It is useful because it is “the spur of all industry and commerce; it provides the leisure which makes intellectual pursuits possible; it encourages exploration, discovery, and invention; it is the basis of all large business undertakings; and it has been an essential force in the development of civilization. Since civilization is so exclusively artificial, money can buy a vast variety of objects of human desire; hence, the possession of money is strenuously sought.

On the other hand, money-making confers a pleasure which after all is sordid.XVII-21 It often leads to avarice. It has produced a pecuniary inequality of mankind which socially admits of little justification. From a moral viewpoint the great struggle for pecuniary possession has been man’s greatest curse.XVII-22 Because of it, many infants have opened their eyes as millionaires in a world of boundless plenty; others (equally worthy) have opened their eyes as beggars in a world of abject poverty.

Society becomes divided into two main classes: the industrials and the non-industrials, or parasites. The non-industrials use their cunning in various ways.XVII-24 The leading non-industrial modes of acquisition are these: robbery, theft, war, statecraft, priestcraft, and monopoly. This list represents the chronological order and history of non-industrial types of acquisition.

Robbery is the coarsest manner of acquisition. Theft represents the lowest order of cunning. Wars of conquest are robbery on so large a scale that they arouse group patriotism. Cunning and treachery in war have given way to strategy. Statecraft has often been characterized by the egoistic attempts of a few shrewd individuals, who have devised means for supplying the wants of the many, and appropriated rich rewards for themselves from “the befriended and grateful community.” Priestcraft as represented by many of the priests of Brahma, Buddha, Osiris, Ormuzd, Mahomet and even Jesus have developed successful modes of acquisition. They have often stood at the gates of death, and for pay guaranteed to the stricken and fearful friends of a departed loved one a safe journey through the perils following death. Monopoly takes cunning advantage of a scarcity of the means of substance, or creates an artificial and false scarcity. Monopoly has organized the fields of transportation, exchange, finance, labor, manufacture.

The non-industrials co-operate better than the industrials and against the welfare of the latter. The industrials, unfortunately, do not understand the principles of co-operation very well and do not have the intelligence to carry them into practical operation. They receive less education than the non-industrials; the years of their industrial apprenticeship are taken from their school days. After their apprenticeship begins, the fatigue of their labor gives them little time or energy for intellectual improvement.XVII-25 In pronouncing co-operation the product of superior intelligence Ward neglects the rôle played by the gregarious, parental, and related social instincts. Ward sees only part of the truth when he calls competition a natural law, and co-operation artificial. He wisely observes, however, that those who co-operate thrive at the expense of those who compete.XVII-26 In the same way that individuals co-operate in order to secure their own gain, society must organize to secure the progress of all.

The second primary set of fundamental forces is the reproductive. These operate for the future and for the species. In animals they operate without arousing shame or modesty. Among human beings they are manipulated through the agencies of the reason and the imagination and give rise to the sentiments of shame and modesty.XVII-27 They are so clouded in secrecy that they arouse dangerous forms of curiosity.

Among animals the choice of mates is largely determined by the females. In fact, among the lowest types of animals there are no males. Among certain higher forms of animal life the male appears as a mere adjunct. But among human beings, male sexual selection developed. This change in sexual selection is one of the differences between the brute and the human worlds. This transition is explained by the fact that the higher a being rises in the scale of development the more sensitive its organs become, and by the correlated fact that the male human being through his reason is able to arouse and satisfy a thousand desires within the female, and thus cause her to look to him for “that protection and those favors which he alone can confer.”XVII-28

In the human world the reproductive forces have first produced a crude sexual love, animal in its nature, but far-reaching in its basic implications. Sexual love is an unconscious but dominant factor in courtship. In its refined form, and modified by the addition of genuine but often short-lived affective elements, it becomes romantic love. Romantic love, according to Ward, unfits lovers for the normal pursuits of life. While under its spell they are unable to enjoy anything but each other’s presence. “The man is unfitted for business, the woman for social life, and both for intellectual pursuits. The only spur that can make either party pursue other things, is the sense of doing something that the other desires.”XVII-29

In the sense that natural, or sexual, love becomes the basis of romantic love, so romantic love in turn represents the genesis of a still higher form of love, namely, conjugal love. The love of a man for his wife or of a woman for her husband is, however, fundamentally different from romantic love. It is more stable, less disturbing to the normal processes of life, and makes the home and the family socially productive institutions. It often reaches a high state of refinement and develops its beauty of content from the sharing together by husband and wife of great joys and sorrows.

Maternal love, an outgrowth of maternity, manifests startling degrees of courage even among animals. Under the spur of the need for defending her young, a mother will often perform miraculous deeds. In its highest form maternal love manifests a remarkable strength throughout life and an extra-human power of forgiveness.

Then there is consanguineal love, which according to Ward includes paternal and fraternal affections. It becomes the blood bond or feeling of attachment that exists among the members of a primitive kinship group, and it leads to feelings of race and world solidarity and attachment.

Ward also pointed out that for each of these forms of love there is a correlative hate. This force of repulsion is often greater than the correlative love. Jealousy often leads to violent and destructive actions. Race hatred frequently becomes a vicious, brutal, and widespread sentiment that paralyzes all tendencies toward world progress.

Marriage institutions have developed from the operation of the reproductive forces. Polygamy, polyandry, and a score of other types of marriage have arisen, although monogamy has demonstrated itself to be the superior type of marriage institution.

The reproductive forces have led to numerous sexuo-social inequalities. Men and women have come to occupy separate spheres of activity, and to represent distinct social conditions.XVII-30 Although the two sexes live together and appear to be companions, they are in fact dwelling in separate worlds and on different planes. There are several principal inequalities. (1) There is an inequality of dress, which has loaded woman with ornaments and caused her an enormous amount of disease and suffering. (2) There is an inequality of duties, which has kept woman confined to the house, and made a slave or a pampered pet of her. (3) There is an inequality of education. Society has shut woman in the past from all opportunities for gaining knowledge by experience. Moreover, society has seen fit to debar women from the knowledge that is acquired by instruction. (4) An inequality of rights has meant that women have been discriminated against before the law. Without direct representation in legislatures, women have suffered in proprietary matters. (5) A general sex inequality has at times made woman the property or the slave of man. In short, women have been denied, until with recent years, entrance to the higher intellectual forms of activity and at the same time denied social and political rights.

Reverting to Ward’s classification of desires, we may now proceed to a discussion of the third set of forces, the sociogenetic. In contradistinction to the nutritive and the reproductive desires, or to the ontogenetic and the phylogenetic forces, respectively, the sociogenetic forces lead directly to race, or social, improvement. The ontogenetic forces guarantee individual preservation; the phylogenetic, race preservation; and the sociogenetic, race and social progress. Ward classified the sociogenetic forces as moral, esthetic, and intellectual.XVII-31

Morality is either racial or individual. Race morality is largely an outgrowth of custom. Duty, according to Ward, is conduct favorable to race safety, while virtue is “an attitude of life and character consistent with the preservation and continuance of man on earth.”XVII-32 Individual morality on the other hand, is based on altruism. Altruism is the expenditure of energy in behalf of other individuals, and involves the power of representing the psychic states of others to one’s self. Morality leads to humanitarianism, whose aim is meliorism. Meliorism aims to reorganize society so that the minimum pain and the maximum enjoyment may be insured. Meliorism is a non-sentimental improvement or amelioration of the human or social state.XVII-33

Ward holds that the esthetic forces consist of a desire for open or deep-seated symmetrical forms. Behind a landscape which at first appears irregular and jagged, there is a fundamental symmetry and balance. Sculpture, painting, and landscape-gardening are largely imitations of nature. Architecture, however, emphasizes straight lines, regular curves, and other symmetrical and geometrical figures.XVII-34 Because of the invention of popular musical instruments, music is open to and enjoyed by the common people. No such invention, unfortunately, has taken place in the fields of painting and sculpture. These realms are limited to the highest geniuses and “their choicest productions appropriated by the few who combine wealth with taste.”XVII-35

The intellectual forces are chiefly the desires to know. These desires are three-fold: (1) to acquire knowledge, (2) to discover truth, and (3) to impart information.XVII-36 The desire to acquire knowledge is perhaps strongest in the young. Youth will often learn anything, without exercising any powers of discrimination. The gratification of the desire to discover new truth yields almost divine thrills of satisfaction. There are four methods of imparting information to others, viz., (1) by conversing, (2) by teaching, (3) by lecturing, and (4) by writing.

In addition to the dynamic forces there is the directive agent in society, namely, the intellect. Ward makes a precarious distinction between the feelings and thought, or between intellect as a seat of emotion, appetite and motive power, and intellect as the organ or source of thought and ideas.XVII-37 Ward’s psychology is admittedly unscientific. The thought or ideational phase of the intellect Ward divorced almost absolutely from the affective aspects of consciousness. He failed to perceive the dynamic character of thought and ideas. He made thought simply the directive agent in society.

In thought, Ward found the hope of the race. Thought can restrain and control social energy. It can produce telic methods of progress which are immeasurably superior to the blind, ruthless methods of nature. The procedure of nature with unlimited resources is “to produce an enormously redundant supply, and to trust the environment to select the best.”XVII-38 Nature secures success through “the indefinite multiplication of chances.” Hence the survival of the fittest results in a sacrifice of a great majority—a highly wasteful method. The method of mind is the reverse. Though prevision, mind utilizes all the dynamic forces of society, that is the human desires, in constructive, orderly ways. Social waste may be reduced, by telic methods, to a minimum. Mind can perceive the best social ends and pursue them, whereas nature works blindly. Thought has in its power the possibility of subjugating natural forces and turning them into contributors to human needs.

Ward developed essentially four leading principles of social dynamics and hence of societal progress. (1) The first law he called “difference of potential.” This term, which he borrowed from physics, refers to the difference in potential possibilities of individuals. This difference is manifested, for example, in the crossing of cultures. It disturbs social stability, and creates social liability. Sex is a device whereby a difference of potential is maintained. While asexual reproduction is characterized chiefly by repetition of forms, sexual reproduction creates changes in the stock in countless directions. The difference of potential which is caused by a crossing of strains is highly dynamic, resulting in unnumbered variations, and hence in providing endless opportunities for progress. In a similar way a cross fertilization of cultures opens many opportunities for social advancement. “Progress results from the fusion of unlike elements.”XVII-40 Difference of potential, again, is illustrated in the friction of mind upon mind. Thoughts conflict, and the result is likely to be an invention.

Difference of potential may lead to creative synthesis.XVII-41 When two elements are joined, the result is usually more than the sum of the parts. The combining of hydrogen and oxygen in given proportions produces water, which manifests characteristics that are not possessed by either of the constituents. Likewise, the combining of two ideas by the human mind may result in a new idea, and thus in progress.

(2) A second dynamic principle is innovation, which has its biological homologue in the sport, or mutant. Throughout nature and society, fortuitous variations occur. Life at times breaks over the bounds of pure heredity—the result is innovation. Variation, in the sense of mutation or innovation, appears to be due to the exuberance of life. At times nature appears to react against being bound by rigid laws of heredity, to defy her own rules, and to become rampant.

Social innovation is invention. New ideas often appear accidentally. The mind in its exuberance coins new phrases, catches new glimpses of reality, and creates ideas which are contrary to all that is established and supposedly true.

(3) Ward’s third law of progress is called conation. This concept refers to social effort which is carried on naturally to satisfy desire, to preserve or continue life, to modify the surroundings. In satisfying normally the gregarious desires, the individual advances the cause of social progress. In preserving the life of the child, the mother presumably contributes to the welfare of the race. The sacrifices which parents make in behalf of children are efforts which further the welfare of society. Every constructive modification of either the physical or spiritual environment benefits mankind. Conation is thus a term which covers a multitude of activities that are performed in the ordinary course of daily life, and which unconsciously to the doers are adding to the sum total of human welfare.

(4) The fourth dynamic principle which Ward described has already been discussed, namely, the principle of social telesis. The possibilities in social telesis are illimitable. Social telesis can turn the passions and desires of men into socially useful channels. These passions are bad only when directed to wrong ends. They are like fire—they can destroy or they can refine. If individuals as members of society could develop prevision and work together for societary ends, they would be able to transform the world.

Ward believed that greatness does not rest so much in intellectual power as in emotional force. He had great faith in persons of average intellectual ability who are ambitious. It thus becomes the part of wisdom for society to educate wisely the average intelligence. Ward challenged the idea that only a very few persons are geniuses and that these individuals, by virtue of their superior abilities, will uniformly overcome their environments. He held that genius is largely a matter of focalization of psychic energy, and that by this process all individuals may have the honor of contributing something valuable to civilization.

Ward pointed out that geniuses are as likely to appear in one social stratum as in another, among the poor as among the healthy, in the hovel as in the palace. He also demonstrated how society allows genius and talent to be ruthlessly destroyed among the lower classes through denial of opportunity. As a solution for this problem, Ward advocated social distribution, that is, the distribution of all useful knowledge to all humanity everywhere. A scientific system needs to be perfected for the more thorough and equal distribution of the great volume of valuable knowledge which has already been discovered. Ward was a strong advocate of the socialization of education.

In an article which appeared in the month following his death, Ward discussed his idea of social progress under the terms, eugenics, euthenics, and eudemics.XVII-42 He supplemented a theory of sound birth with a theory of sound environment. The practical result in society would be a state of eudemics, or a society of sound people.

Ward was an advocate of sociocracy. By sociocracy he did not mean a democracy or a rulership that is likely to be conducted selfishly by the individuals who exercise sovereign power. Sociocracy connotes a rulership of the people in which each individual is governed primarily not by his own interests but by the interests of society.

Achievement was a large concept in Ward’s mind. He made “achievement” one of the chief goals of human life. By achievement in behalf of human progress individuals gain social immortality. The masses of humanity are achieving little or nothing in behalf of society.

In this treatment of Ward’s sociological thought it has not been the aim of the writer to enter upon a dissertation regarding the abstract and philosophic implications that are involved in the subject matter. Neither has he attempted a polemic against the weaknesses in Ward’s thinking, except to note the defective monistic philosophy and the erroneous “faculty” psychology. It has been his purpose to let the strong, constructive elements in Ward’s system of sociology speak clearly and effectively for themselves.