Spencer Heath Archive

Item 1253

Carbon of a letter from Heath to Harold H. Hutcheson, Department of Political Economy, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore MD

June 29, 1939.

 

 

 

 

 

Dear Doctor Hutcheson:

 

The writer has been struck by your being characterized in the public prints as a political scientist who has been more concerned to understand the structure of society and the functioning of the various parts of that structure than with any desire to amend or correct its operation.

Pursuant to a very strong but entirely non-professional interest in these matters, I have for some time indulged myself in the pleasure of trying to understand them, and to appreciate that form of beauty which appears in the functioning of parts together so as to constitute a unified whole. /Reminiscent of Heath’s love of designing machinery -Ed./ I have been rewarded by some observations and discoveries a few of which I have put in convenient form for communication to a few friends and correspondents.

I have found that my analysis of social institution have all rested upon the concept of energy existing in structures and being constantly transferred through and transformed by them. Recently I have tried to formulate this conception with specific application to the phenomena of populations, and still more particular application in an explanation of the institution of private property in land in its functional aspects.

This energy principle, as I have tried to utilize it to distinguish between the merely quantitative and passive aspects of things from that which is qualitative and positive is thought by some of my friendly critics to be a very promising approach.

A letter just received from Professor Crane Brinton whom you, doubtless, know as a non too amenable critic, contains the following reference:

“The paper on the Energy Concept of Population seems to me one of the most promising bits of social analysis I have seen recently, and I hope very much you will have it printed in one of the learned journals where it will be of readier access. I thoroughly appreciated your crack at Spencer on page 19 of your land pamphlet. Perhaps if you are ever in Cambridge, you will let me know and we could have lunch together. There is a good deal I should enjoy discussing with you.”

I wish to congratulate you on your recent appointment, and to express a hope of making your early acquaintance.

Very truly yours,