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Presents an obituary for sociologist Gustav Spiller.

This article explores the science of sociology. Sociology has not been inappropriately defined as the science of human interrelations. Accordingly, the object of a science of sociology may be said to be to offer a comprehensive and connected explanation of human interrelations and to furnish, by implication, a foundation for the specialized social sciences and for social reform. If we grant the above, it is manifestly incumbent on us to draw a sharp line between what individuals may legitimately ascribe to themselves and what they directly and indirectly owe to their fellows. Otherwise we shall not know what is specifically due to human interrelations. Since there has been thus far no considered attempt made to discover the precise nature and scope of the individual factor, it follows that the precise nature and scope of the social or interrelational factors which should account for the existence of human interrelations and their range, have also been left undetermined. In the latter connection it should be observed that the very term society has led to serious misapprehensions and because of this to an erroneous conception of the social factors. That term suggests that human societies are merely a somewhat higher type of animal societies, when, as a matter of fact, they differ fundamentally from the latter.

The article examines the accumulation of talent in families as espoused by sociologist Francis Galton's theory on hereditary genius. According to Galton over two-thirds of the scientific men pronounced themselves indebted to factors other than those of heredity and natural superiority. Vital and nervous energy are said to be influential factors in bringing a man to the front; whether a man is the first born son or not makes a considerable difference; and social customs apparently explain to a marked extent the laborious a ness which stamps some peoples and some families. The article concludes that noteworthiness is to be explained by cultural circumstances and not by inborn superiority. It also indicates that culture, broadly speaking, is one and does not presuppose special inborn aptitudes. Furthermore, the evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of the notion that since noteworthiness appears to be due to social causes acting on the individual, posterity will eventually so organize society as to raise the general level of humanity to the level at present occupied, by class three, intellectually, morally and aesthetically.

The article discusses about sociologist Charles Darwin and the theory of evolution. Darwin's theory, as presented by him in 1859, reflected the progress of the biological and geological sciences to his day and the evolutionary deductions there from, as is manifest from the intimate resemblance between his views. The marvelously close anatomical relations revealed by a natural classification, the structural ground plan observable in a general survey of the animal and plant kingdoms, the remarkable ladder of life leading from amoeba to man, the palaeontological record gradually approximating the present flora and fauna, geological and geographical distribution, the embryological recapitulation theory, the existence of rudiments and the occurrence of reversions, experiences with variation under domestication, adaptation to environment, a clearer conception of variation and the struggle for existence, all forced themselves more and more definitely on the attention of alert biologists, and would have unquestionably continued doing so independently of Darwin's treatise.

The article focuses on the adaptability of individuals by nature to highest level of culture. It seeks to show that it is illegitimate to deduce the nature and degree of the innate mental capacities of a people or person from the stage of culture. Sociology is provided with a virtually constant unit and with a basic explanation of social statics and dynamics. Charles Darwin and his followers, believing that the two factors which accounted for the process of evolution in the animal and vegetable kingdoms were the selection by the environment of spontaneous and acquired structural modifications, tacitly assumed that the laws of human progress were those of animal progression. Human progress is explained to be due to structural modifications passed on from generation to generation. Since the senses occupy an intermediate position between the body and mind it would be, on the Darwinian assumption, reasonable to believe that they are more or less highly developed according to the needs of a people. According to Darwin and his followers the observable temperamental differences in races are expressions of innate dispositions.

This article studies the mentality of the Australian native. The Australian native has been repeatedly chosen to illustrate the lowest point of human development. The lowest stage of all straight-haired men, and perhaps of all the human species, is occupied by the Australian aborigines or Austral Negro. Between the most highly developed animal souls and the lowest developed human souls, there exist only a small quantitative, but no qualitative difference, and this difference is much less than the difference between the lowest and highest human souls, or than the difference between the highest and the lowest animal souls. In disposition, the Australian aborigines are bright, laughter-loving folk, but they are treacherous, untruthful and hold human life cheaply. They have no great physical courage. They are mentally in the condition of children. None of them have an idea of what the West calls moral, except the simple one of right or wrong arising out of property. The mentality of the Australian aborigines really places them nearly on a level with the apes. It is found that a backward culture, such as that of the natives of Australia, has much more substance, and affords wider scope of mental activity.

The article discusses the relation between science and race prejudice. Civilization has been regarded as coextensive with the white man's domain. The white man has been a restless wanderer, penetrating into Egypt, Persia, India, Oceania, Japan and China and even to America in ancient times. The white blood in the veins of the yellow, brown and black people explains it is alleged, the achievements of populations not of European descent. It is evidently difficult to disprove this allegation, except by pursuing a parallel line of argument, namely, by averring that it is just as true that the Mongol races and the black and other races have penetrated everywhere, even to the heart of Europe. Three theories are discussed, one that says that the capacities of the different races are not unequal, but unlike, second favors the inequality of the races of mankind, the third believes in equality of races. Fortunately, a simple test is available by which to judge the theory of the substantial equality of races. The modern European and American university, including in this term institutions of equal rank with it, provides this test. The problem of race equality is no mere academic or economic question.