Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, November 1898: Volume 54, November 1898 — John Shaqi
Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, November 1898: Volume 54, November 1898Various
Science
Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, November 1898: Volume 54, November 1898
Various
Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals
I do not see how, having small liberty of quotation, I could do better
than take, as summarizing his meaning, this sentence which he gives as
dissipating "any doubt." But now let me repeat the paragraph in which I
have pointed out how distorted is Mr. Mallock's interpretation of this
sentence.
Every reader will assume that this extract is from some
passage treating of human societies. He will be wrong, however. It
forms part of a section describing Super-Organic Evolution at large
("Principles of Sociology," sec. 3), and treating, more especially,
of the social insects; the purpose of the section being to exclude
these from consideration. It is implied that the inquiry about to
be entered upon concerns societies formed of like units, and not
societies formed of units extremely unlike. It is pointed out that
among the _Termites_ there are six unlike forms, and among the
Sauba ants, besides the two sexually-developed forms, there are
three classes of workers--one indoor and two outdoor. The members
of such communities--queens, males, soldiers, workers--differ
widely in their structures, instincts, and powers. These
communities formed of units extremely unequal in their capacities
are contrasted with communities formed of units approximately equal
in their capacities--the human communities about to be dealt with.
When I thus distinguished between groups of individuals having
widely different sets of faculties, and groups of individuals
having similar sets of faculties (constituting their common human
nature), I never imagined that by speaking of these last as having
approximately equal capacities, in contrast with the first as
having extremely unequal ones, I might be supposed to deny that any
considerable differences existed among these last. Mr. Mallock,
however, detaching this passage from its context, represents it as
a deliberate characterization to be thereafter taken for granted;
and, on the strength of it, ascribes to me the absurd belief that
there are no marked superiorities and inferiorities among men! or,
that if there are, no social results flow from them![6]
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