that is abnormal; therefore, it is wicked to look elsewhere than to the church for social programs. It would be as profitless for Protestants to argue with this position as it would be to thresh out the old straw of theological differences. The Catholic and Protestant premises are as irreconcilable in the realm of sociology as in theology. Given a deep ground swell of human dissatisfaction, and a fierce demand for knowledge of what is the matter and what the remedy, yet Father Vaughan is unable to conceive the possibility that human conditions may not have been interpreted and programmed once for all by the Catholic church. Whatever their disabilities for other reasons, Protestants, unless they are merely self-deceived authoritarians, are not handicapped by any similar a priori. We may be as sure as Father Vaughan is that socialism as a program is chimerical, and that socialism as a diagnosis errs, but we may at the same time be as sure as the socialists are that capitalism rests on a social fallacy, and that no convincing formula for the correction of the fallacy is at present in sight.

The essential difference between the Jesuit propagandist and the Protestant professor of church history appears first in the fact that the latter is not obliged to beg the question at the outset, by assuming that the cardinal human institutions, family, state, private property, and the church, are essentially impeccable and unalterable; second, that he thinks he finds the remedy for social ills in Christianity, not as a finished creed but as a vital spirit. Professor Rauschenbusch does not fall into the banality of denying that there is something fundamentally wrong in our social order. Such a passage as the following may indicate the substance of his indictment:

In all the operations of capitalistic industry and commerce, the aim that controls and directs is not the purpose to supply human needs, but to make a profit for those who direct industry. This in itself is an irrational and un-Christian adjustment of the social order, for it sets money up as the prime aim and human life as something secondary, or as a means to secure money. The supremacy of Profit in Capitalism stamps it as a mammonistic organization with which Christianity can never be content. "Profit" commonly contains considerable elements of just reward for able work; it may contain nothing but that; but where it is large and dissociated from hard work, it is traceable to some kind of monopoly, privilege and power-either the power to withhold part of the earnings of the workers by the control of the means of production, or the ability to throw part of the expenses of business on the community or the power to overcharge the public. In so far as profit is derived from these sources, it is tribute collected by power from the helpless, a form of legalized graft, and a contradiction of Christian relations (p. 312).

The author's program is summed up in this paragraph:

Christianizing the social order means bringing it into harmony with the ethical convictions which we identify with Christ. A fairly definite body of moral convictions has taken shape in modern humanity. They express for collective consciences, our working religion. The present social order denies and flouts many of these principles of our ethical life and compels us in practice to outrage our better self. We demand therefore that the moral sense of humanity shall be put in control and shall be allowed to reshape the institutions of social life (p. 125).

There is no more stirring plea in our literature for renovation of our social system than Professor Rauschenbusch's appeal in this book. It is unequivocal, but after all it is not radical. Its indictment of capitalism proves to be an arraignment of workings, not a demonstration of false principles which foreordain the workings. While the Catholic and the Protestant set out from opposite directions, they virtually fail at the same point. Each reaches his limit in the conclusion, which in the one case was also the assumption, that the source of all existing social ills is not anything essentially defective in our social principles, but defiance of a competent moral guide in applying the principles. The one assumes that Christianity as represented by the Catholic church is a sufficient moral authority. The other assumes that Christianity as represented by a widely diffused moral consensus is a sufficient moral index. The one supposition is as unauthorized as the other. Neither the church nor christianized conscience can say anything conclusive about Panama tolls, for instance, until knowledge not now possessed by either has illuminated all the relations of cause and effect that would be affected by the possible alternatives. What is true of a casual incident in our social order is incalculably more true of relations fundamental to the order. Neither the church nor christianized conscience can say anything conclusive about capitalism as a peculiar social régime, until capitalism in all its moral connotations has been analyzed beyond our present insights, and until all its implications have been more completely exposed. There is much more potential mitigation of social ills in christianized conscience than has yet been realized, but there is not enough to catch up with the accelerated mischief-making of the false principles which are chiefly chargeable with the ills. Practically all modern consciences, no matter to what degree they are christianized (and by no means all who call themselves socialists are exceptions to the rule), are mortgaged to certain preposterous capitalistic presumptions. These underlying economic presuppositions remaining unrevolutionized,

the goodly fellowship of the apostles could not operate our industrial system and make its workings just.

Capitalism is rooted in the superstition that wealth produces wealth, and in the derived illusion that ownership confers upon the owner a just claim to more wealth. Capitalism is accordingly a system in which the title to dividends of some men who do not work is regarded as equally sacred with the title to wages of other men who do work. We have institutionalized these immoral assumptions in artificial personscorporations—and we have thus given ungovernable cumulative force to the injustice which they sanction. This central injustice of capitalism would be comparatively harmless if it were confined to application through natural persons. Incorporating the injustice has not only multiplied its power, but it has so diffused its stultifying effects that most of the thrifty members of society have unwittingly accepted retainers as supporters of the injustice. The illusion and the superstition that are the capitalistic breath of life are often more tenacious in the man with a hundred dollars in the savings bank than in the millionaire. That being the case, a task of economic enlightenment is first in order. Otherwise appeal to christianized conscience is merely recourse to charity vitiated by ignorance.

For different reasons, both the books referred to should be read by every serious student of the social situation. By contrast they interpret each other. The Catholic writer is zealous for the glory of the church first, and incidentally for the well-being of men. The Protestant author is ardent for the well-being of men first, and secondarily for the church as a means to that end. The contrast will be most impressive if readers invert the order in which the books were named.

ALBION W. SMALL

Les opinions et les croyances. Par GUSTAVE LE BON. Paris: Ernest Flammarion, 26 Rue Racine, 1911. Pp. 340. Fr. 3.50. Though Le Bon repeats himself a great deal, this book on opinions and beliefs summarizes the fundamental principles of social psychology found in his other books, The Crowd, The Psychology of Socialism, and The Psychology of Peoples. The following extracts are designed to give his method and general conclusions.

Belief is an act of faith of unconscious origin which forces us to admit in toto an idea, opinion, explanation, or doctrine (p. 5). . . . . Knowledge is a conscious acquisition built up exclusively by rational methods, experience, and observation (p. 5). . . . . Knowledge constitutes an essential element of

Opinions

civilization, the great factor in its material development. Belief determines the thoughts, opinions, and as a consequence the conduct. generally represent small beliefs more or less transitory (p. 7).

After discussing his various psychological methods-introspection, psycho-physical, cerebral localization, questionnaire, pathological, and comparative psychology-he pronounces them insufficient for the study of the genesis and evolution of beliefs and opinions. His own method: "After studying the receptive grounds of beliefs-intelligence, sentiments, subconscious, etc.-we will analyze the diverse beliefs-religious, political, moral, etc.-and examine the rôle of each of their determining factors. History for the past, the facts of everyday life for the present will furnish the elements for this study" (p. 14).

Pleasure and pain are the springs of action in all living beings, psychic as well as vital. "The pleasure of Newton discovering the laws of gravitation was without doubt greater than if he had inherited the numerous wives of King Solomon" (p. 21). He answers William James' argument that we do not breathe for the pleasure of breathing: "the pain accompanying the cessation of breathing rigorously obliges us to that function" (p. 21).

Organic, affective, and intellectual life are three spheres of activity. While very distinct from one another they are always interdependent. Character consists of affective elements, emotions, sentiments, and passions superimposed upon one another and little mixed with intellectual elements" (p. 55). "Each people possesses a certain collective character common to most of its members, making of different nations different psychological species" (p. 57). "Character and not intelligence differentiates peoples" (p. 58).

The spheres of activity are further subdivided into biological, affective, collective, mystical, and rational. Each sphere is ruled by its own logic, which is defined as the

The biological rules over

art of reasoning and demonstration (p. 70). the preservation of beings and the creation of their forms without any influence of the will being the product of adaptations to forces unknown to us (p. 71). . . . . The affective is sharply distinguished from the rational, being unconscious and determining most of our acts, while the latter is conscious (p. 72).

. . The collective must not be confounded with the affective since man in a crowd conducts himself differently than when isolated (p. 72).

The mystical does not consider the causal connections of things but depends on superior beings or forces.

The rational is the art of voluntary association of ideas and images to discover their casual connections (p. 73). . These different forms of logic coexist. They may be superimposed, fused, or in conflict with one another (p. 73). . . . . In daily life the conflict of different forms of logic resolves itself into an equilibrium which is a superposition and not a fusion (p. 106). . This is seen also in superior persons trained rigorously in scientific methods. It is because in their scientific work they are ruled by the rational logic, and in their beliefs they are ruled by the mystical and affective logics. In the conflict the rational logic is rarely victorious (p. 107). . . . . While sentiments affect ideas greatly, ideas affect sentiments very little (p. 108). . . . . The true rôle of the intellect upon the sentiments is to isolate some of them by supporting mental representation thereby giving them more attention (p. 109). . Optimistic or pessimistic doctrines are the results of character more than of intellect (p. 131).

He agrees with William James that the history of philosophy is to a great extent a conflict of human temperaments.

In his social philosophy Le Bon, very much like Spencer, is an individualist.

The need of explanations accompanies man from the cradle to the grave. This need, however, is easily satisfied and becomes the source of many erroneous opinions and beliefs (p. 144). . . . . The discord between the prescriptions of blind legislators and the necessities which govern things becomes daily accentuated. French society actually lives in spite of the laws and not by the laws (p. 148). . . . . The two methods by which opinions are corrected are reason and experience (p. 152). . . . . The rôle of reason is preponderant in all the scientific and technical opinions. The mistake which psychologists and philosophers make is that the same is true in the domain of ordinary opinions (p. 153). . . . . The ideas capable of influencing the multitude are not rational but merely sentiments expressed in the form of rational ideas. The opinions of crowds today dictate to the legislators the laws for which they are to vote, and since these laws correspond to the ephemeral phantasies and not to the necessities, their final result is the disorganization of industrial, social, and economic life (p. 180).

Opinions and beliefs are influenced by race, environment, custom, and social groups (p. 168).

There are no pure races in the anthropological sense.

There are historical races resulting from ages of association under the influence of the same beliefs, institutions, laws, languages, morals, and religion (p. 169). . . . . Without prestige opinions and beliefs would not be born, without affirmation they would not be imposed, and without example and repetition they would not subsist (p. 202).