theory, which presupposes a rigid and static organization and condition of society. All through the endless fluctuation and shifting of industrial forces and processes, when owner-employer gives way to manageremployer, who, in turn, disappears in the wake of the promoter and the financial agent under whose directive acumen industry has come to be the handmaiden of business, the author is marking time on a dry shoal up-stream and, with the serene complacency of an eighteenthcentury theologian, speaks of the "fact that the entrepreneur serves as a sort of insurance concern for the worker" (pages 520, 628). Such a conception of the entrepreneur seems somewhat out of place in a preface to a chapter dealing with the wage-system in the twentieth century. Quite in consonance with the assumptions and implications of the theology of a by-gone age, there is also present the didactic and apologetic gesture, presumably for the peace and comfort of the student (pages 305, 406). It is difficult to see what bearing this has on a study concerned with the description and analysis of the structure and functioning of economic organization.

The facts in modern economic and industrial society are in constant flux. They are subject to forced movements. Any attempt to clothe this category of facts in the garb of the metaphysical circumlocutions of current economic preconceptions is likely to result in a grotesque misrepresentation of industrial society. The Readings is conceived in the image of mail-order merchandising and quantity production. It stands to the study of industrial society in much the same relation as the multiplication table to the science of mathematics.

NEW YORK CITY.

LEON ARDZROONI.

Regulation of Railways. By SAMUEL O. DUNN. New York, D. Appleton and Company, 1918.-x, 354 pp.

Most readers of Mr. Dunn's book will agree with his conclusions as to the defects in the past methods of railroad regulation in the United States, but impartial readers will regret that his extreme bias has led him to give a distorted picture of the conditions upon which much of his criticism is based. He starts out with the long familiar discussion of the poverty of the railroads during the three years preceding 1916. Advancing costs of operation and "many idle cars in every yard" caused a serious decline in net revenues. He asserts that most students of transportation think that the relief granted to the carriers by the Interstate Commerce Commission, in the way of increased rates, was

inadequate. If some of these students of transportation would show, by an analysis of the statistics presented by the Commission in its decisions, that the rate advances permitted were too small, their views on the matter would command more respect. The condemnation of the Commission's action is never accompanied by such an analysis.

Most railroad experts do not carry the gloomy account of the financial reverses of the railroads beyond 1915, because of the difficulty of explaining the fact that the year 1916 was the most prosperous year the carriers ever had. Mr. Dunn does not dodge this problem, though he postpones its consideration until he has proved to his own satisfaction that the railroad troubles of the preceding years were caused by low rates. He finally explains the prosperity of 1916 by the statement that it was to some extent" artificial", because the railroads had made such small expenditures for equipment for several years that the investment upon which the percentage of return was computed in 1916 was much smaller than it would normally have been. One wonders why the railroads, "with many idle cars in every yard", should have spent money for new equipment during the lean traffic years, even had rates been high enough to provide the necessary means. Moreover, if such purchase had been thought desirable, the leading railroads of the country had an ample surplus from former years of prosperity to acquire more idle cars.

The fact can not be escaped that the general business depression following 1913 affected the railroads adversely, just as it affected many other lines of business adversely. The railroad interests think it desirable that they be permitted to avoid all loss during times of depression, and Mr. Dunn gives evidence of his sympathy for their attitude by making a government guarantee of net earnings the central feature of his program for railroad reform. He ascribes many of the ills of the carriers to "enforced competition". He endeavors to convey the impression that for many years the railroads have competed actively with one another in rates as well as in service, asserting that the Sherman Law and the Act to Regulate Commerce have "often accomplished the lawmakers' purpose of compelling unrestrained competition in rates", placing the railroads at the "mercy of big shippers", who were in a position to dictate their rates by threatening to divert traffic from a disobedient road. Mr. Dunn can not help knowing that, in spite of the provisions of the law against rate agreements, such agreements have been made and have been consistently maintained for many years. He knows, likewise, that competition in rates among the carriers was more active before the Act to Regulate Commerce was passed than

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after and that for several years such competition has been virtually unknown. He is complaining of a condition which no longer exists. Mr. Dunn's most surprising statement is that railroad pooling before 1887 had incidentally the effect of largely pooling facilities". This is a statement with which few students of transportation will agree. Pools were designed for the sole purpose of controlling rates, and competing lines were under just as strong inducements to maintain control of exclusive advantages in the days of pooling as afterward, since the percentages of traffic were annually readjusted on the basis of the showing made by the various members of the pools during the preceding year. In fact, one of the strong defences of pooling was that it did not prevent competition in service. Moreover, the law against pooling did not forbid joint operating activities, and Mr. Dunn is again laboring under a misapprehension in ascribing the failure of the Railroads' War Board to unify the operation of the roads, to "government regulation of one kind or another". In dozens of cities the carriers have bitterly opposed the efforts of the public to secure a unified terminal organization. Some of them refused to forego their competitive advantages after the war began. When the roads are returned to private operation, it will take more than mere "permission" to secure the unification of operating facilities.

In his discussion of railroad labor controversies, Mr. Dunn naturally assumes the view of the railroad manager. He believes in the limitation of the right to strike, solely because the employees have in recent times obstinately refused to accede to their employers' request for arbitration. The dozens of examples of the refusal of employers to meet the desires of the workers for arbitration receive no mention. In stating that the railroads "promptly" took the Adamson law "into court to test its constitutionality", he might at least have observed that they waited until the day after the November election.

It is unfortunate that Mr. Dunn has not shown a more impartial attitude in his presentation of the facts of the railroad problem, because in most particulars the conclusions he has reached with respect to our railroad policy could have been reached without the use of prejudiced testimony. In his consideration of the question of government ownership of railroads he has been more careful, and it would be difficult to find a clearer or more convincing argument against the adoption of such a policy than that which he has given.

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY.

T. W. VAN METRE.

Social Process. By CHARLES HORTON COOLEY. New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1918.—vi, 430 pp.

The "process" (a term which the author thinks preferable to "adaptation" or "selection" because it is more descriptive and obviates mechanical or biological implications) is the interaction and reciprocal growth of the forms of life-of the organic whole. To Professor Cooley "organic" connotes no biological analogy such as it does to Lilienfeld, Spencer or Schaffle, but means merely that society "includes the whole of human life in the sense that influences may be and are transmitted from one part to any other part so that all parts are bound together into an interdependent whole." Two classes of "forms" make up the organism. They are "personal", i. e., men, and "impersonal", including " associations of men, traditions, institutions, conventions, theories, ideals." These overlap with "the same life entering into both" forming the growing unity-society.

The "process" may be intelligent, but is, as a matter of fact, largely unconscious. The telic aspects of social evolution are largely illusions. Even personal growth, the author thinks, is, to a considerable degree, unconscious. The "tentative process" is no other than the natural or trial and error method. "One form of life feels about among the various openings or stimuli offered by another, and responds to those which are most congruous with its own tendencies." The "process" is to be viewed also as one of organization. It brings about a “system of coördinated activities fitted to the conditions." Structure having arisen, may appear as though planned, but for the most part it is an unconscious growth. There is variation or initiation attributable to an antecedent system of tendencies coming into contact with "fecundating conditions".

The greater part of Professor Cooley's thirty brief chapters is devoted to a detailed and suggestive discussion of various phases of the social process. Part i takes up the personal side of the process under such topics as opportunity, culture, class, success, morality, fame, competition, emulation and discipline. Degeneration, as a phase of social process, is treated in part iii. Statistical methods are criticised, and a plea is registered for "a large synthesis of life". Part iv deals with "Social Factors in Biological Survival". Heredity and environment are thought of as complementary and coöperating, instead of opposing, factors. A moderate struggle is held to be indispensable for the maintenance of the biological type. The best strains should be kept up, and quality is no substitute for quantity of offspring. In part v,

group conflict is looked upon as incidental to the integration of mankind. However, as "an organic international life" has developed, war has become obsolescent because when afflicting any part, it menaces the whole social organism. Sane observations on the race problem are here offered, but not all readers will be satisfied with the handling of class conflict. Part vi treats of "Valuation", which "is only another name for tentative organic process." This, I venture to think, is the most penetrating, challenging and original part of the volume. The last part is concerned with "Intelligent Process" as one aspect of the social whole. "Intelligence is presented as tentative in its method." It has to "feel its way" with the individual and with the group. A free conflict of ideas must be maintained. Rational control means setting standards and exercising oversight; it does not imply the substitution of a conscious for an unconscious process, and social science can never become exact; mechanical control based upon statistically determined laws is a false and futile aim. Also the idea that the growth of intelligent control constitutes progress is repudiated as a partial view.

The book is well done, like everything else from the pen of this classical scholar. It is perhaps not too much to say that the organic view is here adequately presented for the first time, and that it certainly invalidates all particularistic approaches, whether theoretical o practical. It is not, however, faultless. No doubt Professor Cooley himself would admit that it is only "tentative". This might indeed be called a book of opinions which could be challenged on good evidence by men of a contrary mind. Moreover, one gets from it an impression that the social process is an orderly affair, and that it takes place within an established order. Professor Cooley does not reckon with cataclysmic or revolutionary change. He does not allow place for a phenomenon unknown to the organic world—namely, a social revolution like that in Russia today. But surely this, too, is social process. Nevertheless, and after all criticisms are made, Social Process is a contribution to sociological knowledge of great merit and is distinctly exceptional.

THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA.

NEWELL L. SIMS.