The Complete Prose of T. S. Eliot: The Critical EditionVol. 1: Apprentice Years, 1905-1918

An unsigned review of Social Adaptation: A Study in the Development of the Doctrine of Adaptation as a Theory of Social Progress, by L. M. Bristol

Cambridge: Harvard UP; London: Humphrey Milford, 1915. Pp. xii + 356. ¹

The New Statesman, 7 (29 July 1916) 405

Professor Bristol’s method is historical. After an introductory discussion of the pioneers of sociology, Comte and Spencer, and an examination of several different methods, the author proceeds to summarise almost every subsequent writer of any importance who has touched upon sociological problems. ² Dr. Bristol uses a classification of Professor T. N. Carver’s; treating the various sociologists under the heads of passive material, passive spiritual, active material, and active spiritual adaptation. ³

In the first division he includes the theorists of biological adaptation: Lamarck, Darwin, Weismann, de Vries, Mendel. ⁴ The reader will find the book a useful compendium of the more important contemporary theories. The space devoted to Ward, Patten and Carver is perhaps excessive, but the analysis is not uncritical. ⁵ The author’s own social ideals are stated in the conclusion: he calls his theory “social-personalism.” It is an attempt to harmonise “self-development” with “social efficiency,” the “supreme worth of the individual” with the “social goal of functioning in a more inclusive unity,” a unity which shall end by embracing the whole of humanity [325-26].