Conflict bulks large in the sociology of Edward A. Ross. Any interference with the carrying out of the individual’s plans and with the satisfying of his interests creates opposition. The best characteristic of the phenomenon of opposition is that it awakens and stimulates.[XX-18] Competition operates according to psychologic laws; for example, the intensity of competition varies according (1) to the degree of personal liberty, (2) to the rate of social change, and (3) inversely as the efficiency of the selective agents.[XX-19] One of the most important forms of competition is found in industrialism. The invention and adoption of the power-driven machine has created an industrialism which is moulding and transforming society in startling ways, and which is causing “its members more and more to cluster at opposite poles of the social spindle.”[XX-20] Professor Ross expresses slight hope that the ownership of industrial capital will be disseminated through the working class according to the conflict rules of the present economic system. Other conflict theories will be presented in the following chapters; for example, the conflict theories of Gustav Ratzenhofer and Albion W. Small will be noted in the chapter on co-operation concepts, and Gabriel Tarde’s analysis of conflict will be taken up in the discussion of psycho-sociological thought. In general, the social conflict doctrines, when carried to the extreme, fail to recognize that conflict and co-operation are correlative social processes. Humanly speaking, one is as old as the other. Both spring from the deepest types of human needs. While the earliest types of associative life may have been characterized by a predominance of conflict, the highest stages are ruled by the co-operative spirit. This transition together with the leading co-operation theories of social progress will be taken up in the chapter which follows. Suffice it to say here that conflict and competition are essential to social advance. They are both highly useful when operating in the fields of production and service. CHAPTER XXI CO-OPERATION THEORIES IN SOCIOLOGY One of the first persons to work out a systematic interpretation of co-operation was Giovanni Vico (1668–1744), an Italian philosopher.[XXI-1] Vico rejected the social contract idea because he believed that it was a false interpretation of the true principle of co-operation. The concept of a social contract embodied an artificial and metaphysical notion of social life. In his chief work, _Principles of a New Science Concerning the Common Nature of Nations_, Vico inaugurated a study of actual social phenomena. He sought to discover possible social laws. He attempted to cast aside the accidental social elements and to organize the regularities of social phenomena into laws. He searched for the laws governing the growth and decay of societies. He undertook to analyze the history of human society.