bers of the club other persons, whether connected with the university or not, may be admitted to membership.

The purposes of the club are: "(a) co-operation in the study of current sociological literature, especially the periodicals of Europe and America; (6) exchange of information about books upon sociology; (c) formation of acquaintance with workers in the various kinds of social endeavor, whether theoretical or practical; (ɗ) mutual assistance, through criticism of studies upon sociological subjects presented by the members; (e) support, whenever practicable, of social efforts organized either by members of the university or by citizens of Chicago." Meetings are held every fortnight.

DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY.

42, 43. Sociology of ethics. This course will approach the problems of ethics from the standpoint of social organization. In the autumn the ethical problems relating to the various institutions of society will be discussed; in the winter the ethical problems relating to the connection of the individual and society. For graduate students. Two majors. Professor Dewey.

44. The psychology of ethics. This course will include particularly the ethics of self-control and self-realization, and the significance of psychological analysis for ethical theory. For graduate students. Major. Professor Dewey.

45, 46. The evolution of morality. This course will give a general review of the typical facts in the growth of moral customs and ideals. In the autumn quarter primitive human morality will be discussed, considering three or four types of tribal life, and the ethical development of institutions and the individual in these types. The method pursued is that of social psychology. In the winter quarter the Hebrew, Greek, and Roman civilizations will be discussed as regards their contributions to present moral practices and ideas. For graduate students. Two majors. Professor Dewey.

19. Contemporary social psychology. The development of social psychology from individual psychology will be traced, and its justification and methods discussed. Major. Associate Professor Mead.

DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL ECONOMY.

3. Economic and social history. The object of this course is to trace for students of history and political science, as well as of economics, the development of the economic organization of society down to the time of the so-called industrial revolution in the latter part of the eighteenth century. Preparation is thus afforded for the detailed examination of special phases of the more recent economic evolution provided for in the courses upon railways, banking, agriculture, industrial combinations, etc.

Major. Dr. Mitchell.

14. Economics of workingmen. The purpose is to treat of efforts made to improve the condition of workingmen, and the effects of co-operation, profit-sharing, building associations, manual training, trades unions, and the like. Major. Assistant Professor

Veblen.

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO.

FRANK L. TOLMAN.

[To be continued.]

REVIEWS.

The Theory of Prosperity. By SIMON N. PATTEN, PH.D. New York: The Macmillan Co.; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd.

DR. PATTEN is always virile, interesting, though at times eccentric, and the book before us is no exception. We are not surprised to find him following his favorite process of reasoning-deduction, but the patience of the reader is taxed more, perhaps, here than in any previous work. Assertions are made and laws are formulated with utmost complacency, yet where are the historical illustrations, the facts from experience on which they must be based to be of value? In the whole volume but five footnotes are given — but four authorities cited. The time for such speculative work in science is past. Truths can be established only on the basis of fact. In this respect Dr. Patten's book seems almost mediæval. Thus we are told that "wants grow more rapidly than productive power. This is an elementary law to which there are no exceptions" (p. 22). Perhaps this is true. It may be due to imitation. Yet Dr. Patten makes no mention of this or any other reason, but leaves us to accept the law on the ground of his authority alone.

The book is by no means free from fallacies. In his discussion of the conservation of the social surplus (p. 141), Dr. Patten makes function, rather than feeling, the mainspring for conscious effort, thus blurring the distinction so carefully drawn by Dr. Ward. Again he makes labor a purely physiological process-expenditure of energy and reproduction of energy-while it really is a psychological process— effort and satisfactions. To him work is normally a pleasurable activity and becomes irksome wholly because of the social stigma attaching to it. Here Dr. Patten makes the element of pleasure which undoubtedly accompanies the first hours of work the only factor in the process.

Throughout the work the method used is that of contrast. From the title itself, through the designations given Parts I and II "Income as Determined by Existing Conditions: A Study of Effort and Satisfactions," and "Income as Determined by Heredity: A Study of Discontent and its Remedy"-to the last page of the book Dr.

Patten uses this method of antithesis. The subject lends itself readily to this treatment, and the result is a style abounding in short, packed sentences full of well-chosen contrasts and happy distinctions — at times epigrammatic. As for instance: "Misery is not a product of nature; it is man-made" (p. 41); "Rent is a costless income, not a seized income" (p. 133); "Monopoly is bad, but the confusion of ignorance is worse" (p. 74); "The laws of heredity are mental and social; those of the environment are physical and economic" (p. 9). But Dr. Patten does not always escape the danger which lurks in this use of contrast and condensation. Clearness of thought is at times sacrificed to fitness of phrase, and many of the generalizations are too vague or too sweeping.

The thesis of Part I is that economic prosperity depends upon the power of substitution; the thesis of Part II is that social progress depends upon the power and control of impulse. It is the latter half of the book that is of first interest to the sociologist, for it is here that the idea is worked out that impulse, a product of the social surplus, is the dynamic principle in society and produces progress. This is a contribution to the field of sociology. It is only to be regretted that the subject is not developed with more of the acumen and enthusiasm which Dr. Patten used in an oral discussion of the same, which it was the privilege of the reviewer to hear shortly before the book appeared. From the book alone one can scarcely gather that by impulse Dr. Patten means the same thing that Tarde expresses by the word invention, or so much of it as is due to pure surplus energy resulting from a satisfied state of the primary physical wants and as distinguished from invention as an intellectual process. This part at least, if not all, of Tarde's invention has been more correctly designated innovation by Dr. Ward. Dr. Patten's idea would have been much clearer had he used this or a similar term in place of impulse. But Dr. Patten seems practically to ignore the large movement that Tarde's works have started.

As a whole, however, this last contribution of Dr. Patten's is a work of keen analysis; one that will make a definite impression.

The introduction is no mere formal part of the treatise. It is an introduction in the true sense-necessary, not merely preliminary, to the book itself. Here is discovered the purpose of the work, which is to show that the assumption made by many social reformers, that "so-called social evils are economic in their origin," has no foundation in fact; but that social evils are due rather to non-adjustment to the environment. It is here that Dr. Patten strikes the keynote to his

theory of prosperity in the characteristically keen distinction which he draws between poverty and misery, the panacea for the one being treated in Part I, and the remedy for the other suggested in Part II. The introduction also contains the author's justification for the division of the book and the definition of the word income as used in the sub-titles. A careful reading of the introduction thus prepares us for what is to follow. Part I is a study of effort and satisfactions, and is treated in three chapters, each of which is outlined by marginal topics and illustrated by diagrams. It is highly technical, crowded with definitions and distinctions, many of them too abstruse or too finely spun to interest the general reader. The economist, however, will follow the discussion eagerly, for Dr. Patten's new point of departure in many cases leads to interesting, if sometimes startling, conclusions.

Dr. Patten's analysis of the social surplus and the origin of values in chap. i is based on his theory of pain-and-pleasure economy. It leads to the very remarkable statement that the only time in life when the sum of values does not exceed costs is when one has decided to make his own 66 quietus" with "a bare bodkin or some more up-todate weapon ! The large view sees the result of the economic process to be, not "goods," but vital energy making future production possible and pleasurable. The social surplus, which is defined as the difference between total utility and total costs (p. 19), is thus seen to be an enduring fund disappearing only to reappear in some new form (p. 42). The waste of surplus is reduced by each step in the adaptation of men to external conditions.

In promulgating his own theory of wages Dr. Patten does not hesitate utterly to cast aside the cost theory. His theory might be called the "option theory," for he makes the option of the best worker in each industrial group to withdraw into the next higher group, if his wages are reduced, the factor in setting the standard of wages. "The monopoly power of each group, gained through the options of its strongest members, is the sole determinant of wages, and is the one thing for which laborers should seek. New options can do what no amount of effort in other directions can accomplish" (p. 50). This discussion brings chap. i to a close, and leads up to Dr. Patten's theory of substitution, which is developed in the two following chapters.

The point of view is now shifted from the traditional one of producer to that of consumer. Hence the conclusions are new. According to this new view, substitution is the power determining the regulation of prices. The consumer can control prices by his power

of substitution, says Dr. Patten. If beef goes up, he can use more mutton. But the price of mutton will then go up, unless more mutton is produced. Dr. Patten fails to see that his new theory of price movement involves alertness and mobility of producer as well as consumer. Yet he has shown that the freedom of the consumer is as important in low prices as the freedom of the producer. Advocates of the old theory of competition among producers as regulating prices, however, probably will not give up all claims to competition as a factor in the operation, as Dr. Patten seems to demand.

His analysis of monopoly rests on the same potent factor of substitution :

If he [the consumer] had a complete power of substitution, that is, if several commodities could supply each want, or if several groups of producers could supply all his wants, there would be no monopoly. If he had no power of substitution, there being only one commodity that could supply each want, each commodity would be an independent monopoly (p. 86).

A new and certainly very broad view of the subject is taken when Dr. Patten declares that "the growth of one monopoly is always at the expense of other monopolies, never at the expense of the public" (p. 92). According to this view, farmers as owners of land are monopolists and the trades union is a monopoly, for he says "the rent of land held by small farmers and the gains of trades unions. are not different in kind from those of other monopolies " (p. 94). In fact, every group or class of which "the public" is composed constitutes a monopoly from a certain point of view; hence the living units of a certain monopoly suffer at the growth of some other monopoly, not as members of "the public," but as "monopolists." The distinction seems verbal rather than essential.

In chap. iii a most interesting discussion of the subject of "Investments" is given. Dr. Patten's treatment of labor and capital is also original and suggestive:

The true contrast with capital is labor force, using the latter term in so broad a sense that it will include every natural or human agency making capital productive (p. 120).

Labor force is made up of a number of concrete days' work and of a group of substitutes for labor. Wherever a natural force is utilized as a substitute for labor, or a new utilization of laborers is made not involving an increase in their number, the additions to the productivity of capital made in this way go to the persons controlling these forces. This increased productivity of capital is valued at the price of the labor for which they are sub