Chapter 32 A Dynamic Theory of History (1904) Summary

Adams works out the basic definitions for his dynamic theory of history. Progress is the "development and economy of forces." Force is "anything that does, or helps to do work." Man is " the sum of the forces that attract him." The entire theory is based on motivating forces resulting in work and or progress being accomplished.

Adams writes that man is attracted to energy and force and power; in the past, he called it divine and worshipped it - unable to define force, man symbolizes it an d pursues it. The present is not so different from the past, it is only more complex: instead of machines, early civilization had slaves, but the pursuit and use of force was the same. However, in the past, there were powerful intuitions that regulated the acceleration...