_quantitative_ (in the number of social facts of one or another kind); (2) mutations which are also _qualitative_ consisting that is in changes in the rules themselves. Hence the _circle of social life_: rules, social facts arising under them; ideas, opinions, desires, efforts resulting from the facts; changes in the rules. When and how this circle originated, that is to say when and how social life arose on the earth, is a question for history, which does not concern the theorist. Between social life and non-social life there are no gradations, theoretically there is a gulf. But as long as social life exists, there is no escape from the circle described above. The form and matter of social life thus come into conflict, and from this conflict arises change. By what test can the issue of the conflict be decided? To appeal to facts, to invent a causal necessity which may agree with some ideal necessity is absurd. In addition to the law of social _causality_, which has been expounded, there must be a law of ends and ideals, _i.e._, a _social teleology_. According to Stammler, historical materialism identifies, nor would it be the only theory to attempt such an identification, _causality_ and _teleology_; but it, too, cannot escape from the logical contradictions which such assertions contain. Much praise has been given to that section of Professor Stammler's book in which he shows how teleological assumptions are constantly implied by historical materialism in all its assertions of a practical nature. But we confess that the discovery seems to us exceedingly easy, not to be compared to that of Columbus about the egg. Here again we must point out that the _pivot_ of the Marxian doctrine lies in the _practical problem_ and not in the _abstract theory_. The denial of finality is, at bottom, the denial of a merely subjective and peculiar finality. And here, too, although the criticism as applied to historical materialism seems to us hardly accurate, we agree with Stammler's conclusion, _i.e._, that it is necessary to construct, or better to reconstruct, with fresh material, a theory of social teleology.