Abstract
To show that the laws of biology are followed in the domain of sociology has been attempted by many writers. Unfortunately, bio-sociological subjects are often taken up by naturalists who have little knowledge of social questions, or by sociologists having but a superficial acquaintance with biological realities, the result being unsound conclusions and exaggerated analogies. With the view to see the subject from different aspects, and produce a composite picture in which neither sociology nor biology is given undue prominence, the authors of this book have collaborated in its production. The result is not altogether satisfactory, for the book is really more sociological than biological, and not good at that. The general conclusions which the authors labour to prove are that evolution is at once progressive and retrogressive, that transformations of organs and institutions are always accompanied by retrogression, and that the same laws hold good in the changes of societies as well as organisms; all the actual forms undergoing transformation, and, in consequence, losing certain parts of their structure. The text of the book is the universal application of the principle of devolution, and in the exposition of it the authors have exercised their ingenuity to the utmost.
L'évolution régressive en biologie et en sociologie.
By Jean Demoor Jean Massart Prof. Émile Vandervelde. Pp. 324. (Paris: Félix Alcan, 1897.)
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L'évolution régressive en biologie et en sociologie. Nature 56, 292 (1897). https://doi.org/10.1038/056292a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/056292a0