2 NOVEMBER 1901, Page 54

SOCIAL CONTROL.

Social Control. By Edward Alsworth Ross, Ph.D. (Mac- millan and Co. 5s. net.)—This collection of essays, which in original form were contributed mainly to the American Journal of Sociology, is well held together in organic unity by the concep- tion, which expresses itself in the title, that the individual is passing under the control of society through the process which is described as taking place in the phases of human development dealt with in the various papers. Mr. Ross's opinions are con- sistently carried through the book. Great emphasis is laid on the conception of sympathy, sociability, and "social religion" as the controlling factors in the process of social development. They certainly are considerable factors. We heard much in this strain in the middle decades of the nineteenth century, and much that Mr. Ross has to tell us falls on our ears nowadays with a certain ring of elementary optimism about it. We must get deeper than this for the controlling laws of the social process as a whole.