Spencer Heath Archive

Item 1302

Carbon of letter to Moses J. Aronson, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, College of the City of New York, Convent Avenue at 139th Street, New York NY

May 15, 1939

 

 

 

 

 

Dear Doctor Aronson:

 

I hope I have not delayed too long in sending you my thanks for lending me Dr. Pearl’s latest volume and for the reprint of your article on “Cardozo’s Doctrine of Sociological Jurisprudence.” I mailed Dr. Pearl’s book back to you from New York a few days after receiving it. I trust it returned safely. I found this book of Dr. Pearl’s of exceeding great interest.

 

     I notice that Dr. Pearl gives his attention almost exclusively to birth and multiplication with death regarded as its antithesis. I do not think he ever mentions the span of life as having any reference to or effect upon reproductivity. I do not think he makes any reference to life span whatsoever. Neither does he make any reference to the rebuilding of the world by the life form, thus creating for itself a more favorable environment for its own higher growth and differentiation. Like Malthus, he places man on all fours with the beasts as regards his effect upon his environment, and therefore sees dire difficulties ahead if populations continue to increase. He plays up these difficulties pretty desperately, but in concluding he does sound a faintly optimistic note in his reference to the extreme adaptability of man under wide extremes of physical environment. Of social environment he seems to take very little account.

 

     I submitted to Dr. Pearl my little outline monograph, “The Energy Concept of Population.” He says he found it of a great deal of interest and that my idea of a co-efficient of social efficiency is a suggestive one. “More than this deponent saith not.”

 

     Thinking you may grasp more of the fundamental nature of my population concept, I am sending you a copy of the monograph I submitted to Dr. Pearl, and I invite your particular attention to my physical derivation of the qualitative as a special aspect of energy which it manifests in connection with its quantitative expression and form. It seems to me this may constitute a legitimate and valuable ground upon which to synthesize the quantitative and qualitative, that is, the scientific and the metaphysical modes of life and experience. This “Great Divide” is, of course, one that must be bridged before either science or religion, physics or metaphysics can be completely satisfied /satisfying?/ to man. If you find this energy concept of as much interest and value as I think you may, I hope you will give me your suggestions for bringing it to the attention of persons who may find it useful. Do you think it might be suitable or useful for publication in the “Journal of Social Philosophy?”

 

     I find your Cardozo article very interesting, indeed. I am impressed by your concluding comments “Summarized in the Contention that Sociological Jurisprudence is Still in the Formative Stage of Groping for a More Reliable Methodology Capable of Using Affirmative Principles to Guide the Judge and the Advocate.” This is in line with Crane Brinton’s review of Lynd in the May 6th Saturday Review of Literature, “What’s the Matter with Sociology?” He deplores the partisanship of its practitioners as improvers and preachers, their sinking of all objectivity in salvation by planning, their dependence for executive action “upon the domination of a relatively small group of enlightened superiors — sociologists perhaps — who must surely have to put over their plans by force or ruse.” Brinton remarks that there just isn’t any central core as yet in sociology. For my own purposes, I seem to find this central core in “The Energy Concept of Population.” My most satisfying interpretations of specific phenomena and institutions all seem to rest primarily on this. I wonder how upon reflection it will seem to you.

 

     I am dated for a Sociological Address and a Discussion in New York the latter part of this month. It will be pleasant if we can arrange some further contact or conversation at that time.  With best personal regards,