important question, and thought that medical men and biologists should take up and prosecute the investigation of comparative ovulation, menstruation, and sexual physiology.

Major Powell stated that the social life of savages had been much falsified by unscientific travelers seeking to invent large stories of their adventures among them; that in none of the tribes of North American Indians with which he was acquainted were children maltreated or women made slaves. On the contrary, the wife always belongs to a different gens from the husband, and he dare not harm her on penalty of vengeance from her own kinsfolk. He also said that there existed a fair division of labor between the sexes. The men provided for their families and the women performed the domestic service. He had seen much affection manifested between husbands and wives and by parents for children. cide were usually false. The theories of McLennan and Lubbock, relative to exogamy and endogamy, applied to none of our Indians, and he believed it to be wholly unsound, and due to superficial investigation, and especially to the confounding of the gens with the tribe. Marriage may occur within the tribe, but not within the gens; and different observers, utterly ignorant of their social system, have at times reported facts of the one and at times of the other of these classes, and created a totally false impression.

Stories of infanti

Mr. Dorsey made a few remarks strongly confirmatory of Major Powell's statements.

Dr. King asked whether the tribes under consideration did not occupy a comparatively high social position, and whether the theories combated might not hold true for much lower races.

Major Powell replied that for all tribes known to him, or from which any reliable accounts had been received, this was not the case.

THIRTY-SIXTH REGULAR MEETING, March 15, 1881.

Mr. Lester F. Ward read a paper entitled POLITICO-SOCIAL FUNCTIONS.1

1" Penn Monthly," Vol. XII, May, 1881, pp. 321-336.

The principal object of this paper was to point out the wide schism which exists at the present epoch between the theories of political economists and the practices of States. The former are dominated by the negative ideas of Adam Smith and the English doctrinaires which constitute nearly all the literature of the subject, and are taught and professed almost universally. Notwithstanding this it was shown by profuse illustrations from history and statistics that the policy pursued by the various governments of the world is totally opposed to these teachings, and scarcely at all affected by them. The political economists declare that the true province of government is simply to protect the spontaneous operation of natural laws working in society, which will then work out all the results of civilization, and that any interference with these natural operations will be either wholly inoperative or will result in mischief. They found their doctrines upon the observed phenomena of the physical world which are known to be uniform and invariable. This they hold to constitute true political science, analogous to all physical science.

Notwithstanding the unanimity of writers, past and present, on this subject, positive state regulation, especially during the last quarter of a century, has made rapid strides, and nearly all civilized governments are openly violating these economic rules. The post office, the telegraphs, and the railways of many countries are passing under government control, while national banking and national education are rapidly superseding private banking and private instruction.

It was further shown that the desire for positive regulation consists for the most part of a mere intuition, or social instinct, and coexists, even in the same individual, to a great extent with the incompatible belief in the laissez faire policy of the schools. This greatly complicates the problem, and renders it highly important that a clear exposition of the grounds on which the positive policy is conducted be made. In seeking to do this it was shown that the unrestrained operations of natural laws in social phenomena invariably result:

1. In unjustifiable inequalities in the distribution of wealth, due to the general truth that there is no necessary harmony between natural law and human advantage.

2. In enormous waste of created products, due to the ruinous excesses of competition, entailing failures and losses.

3. In artificially increased prices, due to over-supply, the result also of competition, especially in distributive industries.

4. In dangerous monopolies, whether industrial or financial, which threaten to enslave labor and dictate commerce.

These propositions were supported by statistics of corporations and of public and local debts. It was also argued that, from the standpoint of science and the laws of evolution, all these results are the normal and legitimate products of natural law, and that there is no tendency in unregulated nature to reverse the process and disentangle these complicated social phenomena.

It was moreover denied that all attempts at government regulation had proved failures or resulted in an excess of evil to society. The various industries which have been absorbed by government and successfully conducted were enumerated at length, and it was shown that there were many such in this country, still more in Great Britain, and a maximum number on the continent of Europe. The extent of State ownership and management of telegraph lines in England and in Europe generally, and of railroads in Germany, France, Belgium, and Italy was exhibited by facts and figures; the prevalence of national savings banks throughout Europe and the character of the systems of education of Germany, Austria, France, and England were adduced in support of this view, as also the tendency now manifest towards the protection of home industries throughout the world.

From this basis of facts and from history the broader generalization was then made, that all the now recognized government functions have once been under a system of private management, and have had, each in its turn, to pass through the stage of opposition from those who would keep them so, and one by one have gradu

ally taken their places as integral parts of the system of government. Finance and jurisprudence were given as examples of this truth, the former of which has scarely as yet and the latter only quite recently assumed its true position. This process is moreover destined to continue, until all truly public operations shall come more or less directly under the power of state regulation. Contrary to the general belief, this result is not often reached before the time is ripe for it. Such is the aversion to innovation that the evils of private management usually become well nigh intolerable before the state is able or willing to step in and relieve them.

The want of an adequate term for expressing this conception of the assumption by the state of the control of interests of a public nature was next pointed out, and it was proposed to designate the entire movement by the name Sociocracy, as a new word, etymologicaliy akin to sociology, and avoiding the stigma which attaches to all expressions for the government regulation of industries whose public nature is disputed. This term embraces all the functions of government, whether universally acquiesced in or not. It also conveys a distinctly different meaning from either democracy or socialism, and stands simply for positive social action as opposed to the negative or laissez faire policy of the predominant school of politico-economic doctrinaires. It recognizes all forms of government as legitimate, and, ignoring form, goes to the substance and denotes that, in whatever manner organized, it is the duty of society to act consciously and intelligently, as becomes an enlightened age, in the direction of guarding its own interests and working out its own destiny.

President Powell remarked that it was a curious fact that no college teaches the positive doctrines of political economy, carried out to so large an extent by the government. He said that the doctrines taught by Herbert Spencer and that school, would, at a rough estimate, if practiced, neutralize nine-tenths of the legislation of the world. Modern legislators, while professing to sub

scribe to these doctrines, are in practice chiefly employed in considering to what extent they shall be violated. He further pointed out the fact that the theories now prevailing became popular at a time when government was unpopular, which is not now the case, the latter having become representative in form. Former attempts at government regulation were impracticable, because they sought to control opinion. The form of control now exercised is of a very different kind, and is practicable and effective. He showed that the natural evolution of industry was legitimate and harmless so long as it was confined, as it must necessarily be at first, to simple differentiation, but when the differentiated parts commenced to become integrated, there arose grave social evils. He was not hostile to corporations, but held that they were the instruments through which nearly all the operations of society would eventually be performed. But they require regulation, and he thought that the principal work of legislation would ultimately be the adjustment of the relations of corporations to the public and to each other. Government has developed from its primary condition-the family. Feudalism was the transition stage from kinship government to property government. Modern civilized society is based on property, the unit being the individual. He believed that the social unit will eventually be a business corporation, and that there will be a hierarchy of corporations, the highest of which will embrace all the rest and constitute the government. The basis of society will then cease to be property, and will become industry.

Dr. Rock said that the policy and interests of all nations seemed to be growing more and more uniform, and he thought that this tendency was in the direction of an ultimate consolidation of all nations under one government. In South America nearly all industries were under the control of foreign companies and capitalists, and it was a common saying there that it made little difference how much was produced, the people could not retain any of it, as it all goes to London or some other wealthy foreign mart. Hence the necessity of nations being self-sustaining.