Abstract
THE first of a “Social Science Series” of pamphlets edited by W. P. Dreaper is entitled “The Future of Civilisation and Social Science” (London: E. T. Heron and Co., Ltd. 1s.)- In it Mr. Dreaper presents a study of the principles of scientific meliorism based on Jane Hume Clapperton's book published in 1885, in which socialism is defined as concerted aims for social ends, and scientific meliorism may be regarded as a form of socialism under which progress must come through the individual social unit and not by means of social veneer. Scientific meliorism discriminates between benevolence which is beneficial and that which is not, giving no support to charities which injure the independence of the poor, or relieve them of parental responsibility. It opposes the social forces of sympathetic selection which result in the survival of the unfit and seeks to promote intelligent selection which would result in the birth of the fit. It strenuously supports co-operation in industry as a means of progress and harmony of interests, and proper distribution as a means of improving human conditions. Scientific meliorism also advocates a rational treatment of crime, in which vindictiveness has no ultimate place, and calls for a similar rational attitude to such questions as manners, dress, the equality and relations of the sexes, marriage laws, laws of inheritance, etc., the regulation of population in relation to the natural and industrial position of a nation, and Mr. Dreaper briefly discusses the bearing of its principles on the study of international problems.
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Science and Socialism. Nature 141, 548 (1938). https://doi.org/10.1038/141548a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/141548a0