Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, Vol.

44(1), 5976 Winter 2008 Published online in Wiley Interscience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/jhbs.20282 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

DEMYTHOLOGIZING THE MACHINE: PATRICK GEDDES, LEWIS MUMFORD, AND CLASSICAL SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY
CHRIS RENWICK AND RICHARD C. GUNN

This paper reconsiders the work of the Scottish biologist, sociologist, and town planner Patrick Geddes and his most famous intellectual disciple: the American independent scholar Lewis Mumford. It is argued that existing interpretations of their work, ranging from a dismissal of the two men as eccentric polymaths to the speculative emphasis on the importance of psychological theories in Mumfords oeuvre, are fundamentally flawed. Examining their writings and the letters they exchanged during their 17-year correspondence, this paper shows that the only way we can appreciate the scholarly conventions underpinning Geddess and Mumfords work, as well as the context in which it was produced, is by looking to the principles of classical sociological theory. 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

In April 1932 the Scottish biologist, sociologist, and town planner Patrick Geddes (18541932) wrote the final letter of his 17-year correspondence with the American independent scholar Lewis Mumford (18951990). Aged 78 and in increasingly poor health, Geddes sensed that he had only a short time left. Remember, he told Mumford, [I] have none like you, but you, to be my heir . . . so you must take over much of my further Sociology (Geddes to Mumford, 2 April 1932, Novack, 1995, p. 339). In this paper we will show how largely neglected statements such as these are crucial for our understanding of Geddess and Mumfords writings. Our claim is that the conventional scholarly underpinnings of their work and the often-forgotten context in which it was produced can be appreciated only by looking to the principles of classical sociological theory. Both Geddess and Mumfords prodigious output on a wide array of subjects has resulted in them often being described as polymaths. Geddes began his career in the mid-1870s as a student of the biological sciences under T. H. Huxleythe archetypal Victorian man of sciencein London. However, Geddes became widely known for a diverse range of activities. Amongst the most renowned elements of his work were the popular science publications he co-authored with his former student J. Arthur Thomson. These writings included their 1889 book The Evolution of Sex, which is now viewed as one of the first comprehensive studies of the role of sex in the organic world. Yet Geddess reputation also stemmed from his work on a large number of other subjects, including statistics, economics, and art criticism, as well as his role as one of the most important figures in British sociology at the beginning of the twentieth century. However, it is for his impact on town planning in the United Kingdom that he is most celebrated, with his 1915 book Cities in Evolution now being seen as hugely significant in shaping the field. In that monograph, Geddes outlined civics: a theory of town planning he regarded as a form of applied sociology, which called for minds to be focused on the social

CHRIS RENWICK is a graduate student working towards a PhD in the School of Philosophy at the University of Leeds, United Kingdom. His research interests are in the history of the social sciences and his doctoral dissertation examines the early disciplinary history of sociology in Britain. E-mail: C.P.M. Renwick03@leeds.ac.uk RICHARD C. GUNN is a graduate student in the School of Philosophy at the University of Leeds, United Kingdom. His research interests are in the philosophy of technology, including the work of Karl Marx and Max Weber. He is currently completing his doctoral dissertation examining the concept of machine, with particular focus on theories of bureaucracy. E-mail: Richardcgunn@hotmail.com

59

60

CHRIS RENWICK AND RICHARD C. GUNN

consequences of the poor condition of the urban environments inhabited by large numbers of people in the post-Industrial Revolution age. Embracing so many fields during a period that is often understood as one of professionalization and specialization, Geddes is, historiographically speaking, a polarizing figure. As Alex Law has noted, Geddes has come to be such an inspiration for some scholars that their assessments of his achievements often border on the hagiographic (Law, 2005). Yet for others, Geddes is someone to be dismissed as either an amateur or an eccentric (Abrams, 1968; Hawthorn, 1976). Consequently, there is a lack of historically sophisticated or critically engaged analyses of Geddess work. Scholars have also struggled in similar ways to make sense of Mumford, who was the most famous of Geddess disciples. Like Geddes, Mumford is known in a number of fields, including literary criticism and history and philosophy of technology, and, partly as a consequence of his decision to work outside the institutional confines of the academy, he is considered to be somewhat of a dilettante. The concerns with which he is most frequently associated, though, are architecture and city development. Mumford first signalled his interest in these areas in 1923, when he helped found the Regional Planning Association of America, and then in 1931, when he began what would turn out to be a 32-year role as the writer of the Skyline column for the New Yorker magazine. The burgeoning reputation he had earned through those activities as a historically-minded commentator on contemporary issues was confirmed during the highly productive middle years of his life when he published a quartet of books he called the Renewal of Life series, which appeared between 1934 and 1951 and featured the celebrated Technics and Civilization and The Culture of Cities. Then, in the later stages of his career, mainly through his critique of what he called Megatechnical society, Mumford became popular with political radicals. As a consequence, he has come to be regarded as a polemicist whose writings are bound up with a paranoid opposition to the state in Cold War America. This perception of Mumford, however, obscures the fact that much of his most famous work conformed to the highest standards of the respectable fields of which they were a part. Indeed, Mumford demonstrated his scholarly pedigree when he was awarded the prestigious American National Book Award for non-fiction, in 1962, for his work The City in History. While the impact that Geddes had on Mumford has been well documented (Mumford, 1982; Novack, 1995), the subtle yet significant way that Geddess sociology shaped Mumfords work has largely passed without comment. Scholars have been content to look no further than Mumfords use of Geddesian vocabulary and instead have attempted to find other sources to provide a structure for his writings. Eugene Rochberg-Halton, for example, argues that, while Mumfords ideas can be located within a recognizable sociological context, they should be understood only as an organicist alternative to structuralism, post-modernism, and classical theory (Rochberg-Halton, 1990). Alternatively, more recent attempts to understand Mumfords work suggest that his interpretation of psychological theories were of the utmost importance in shaping his writings, especially those on technology. Greg Morgan-Swer argues that it is only through an appreciation of Sigmund Freuds ideas that we can fully grasp how Mumfords Megamachine operates (Morgan-Swer, 2003, 2004). Even more speculatively, Adam Green suggests that it is in fact Carl Jung who provides the key to interpreting Mumfords work on Megatechnics (Green, 2006). While these accounts may tell us something of what Mumford read, they completely ignore the Geddesian roots of Mumfords organicist sociology. The result of such a glaring oversight is that little is known about the theoretical assumptions underpinning not just Mumfords work on technology but also his canon in its entirety. In the following five sections of this paper, we will challenge existing interpretations of Geddes, Mumford, and their relationship by demonstrating that we can only understand these subjects through a consideration of classical sociology. This argument will contribute, first, to
JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF THE BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES DOI: 10.1002/jhbs

DEMYTHOLOGIZING THE MACHINE

61

the historiography of Geddes and early British sociology through our rejection of the idea that sociologists in the United Kingdom eschewed the theoretical principles embraced by their more celebrated European counterparts. Contrary to those who maintain that he failed to separate the subject from other sciences (Meller, 2000, p. 39), we will show that Geddes possessed a systematic framework of sociology. In this respect, our argument shares common ground with the work of Maggie Studholme, who has recently called for Geddes to be reclaimed by sociologists as one of their own (Studholme, 2007). However, our account differs from Studholmes through its systematic consideration of the underlying features of Geddess writings, particularly his ontology of the social, which parallel those of sociologys classical canon. Second, by drawing on their correspondence, we will highlight the deficiencies in the accounts of Geddess and Mumfords relationship by showing how sociology was a major concern and subject of discussion for them both. Having reconsidered their relationship in this way, we will then contribute to the scholarship on Mumford by demonstrating that he must be thought of as a writer who systematically employed the theories, methods, and ontology of classical sociology. In the second section, we will explore Geddess sociology and demonstrate that, through his engagement with the problem of defining the subject matter of the field, he developed a sophisticated framework for his sociology that shared important theoretical assumptions with his more celebrated contemporaries, such as Emile Durkheim. In the third section, we will outline how a deep interest in sociology manifested itself not only in Geddess and Mumfords lengthy exchange of letters but also in Mumfords subsequent work. By drawing attention, in section four, to a distinction between Mumfords pre- and post-World War II writings, we then show that his later work, particularly his Myth of the Machine series, was reliant upon the same ontological assumptions as classical sociology. These continuities with classical theory, we will conclude, were the result of Mumfords immersion in Geddess approach to social investigation. However, so that its significance can later be seen, we must first explain what we mean when we refer to classical sociological theory. 1. CLASSICAL SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY Sociology is not the appendage of any other science, wrote Emile Durkheim, it is itself a distinct and autonomous science (Durkheim, 1895/1982, p. 162). This attempt to explicitly define sociology as a scientific discipline in its own right reflects the most fundamental aim of the fields classical approach. Such a science, argued Durkheim and his contemporaries, including Max Weber and Ferdinand Tnnies, could study the means by which social stability and change come about. In this sense, contemporary sociologists often portray classical sociologists and their desire to look beyond exclusively materialist explanations as responding to Karl Marxs understanding of social and economic change. However, to conceive of classical sociology as dealing with solely economic change and its effects is far too narrow an understanding. In the broadest sense of the term, classical sociology takes as its subject matter the social institution: be it the city, the family, or religion. However, the classical sociologist does not study the institution as an end in itself but uses it to locate the underlying structural features of a given society. For example, Durkheims analyses of suicide and the division of labor reveal the import of social solidarity, while Webers study of bureaucracy demonstrates the nature of power and rationality. The classical sociologist argues that it is through these structural principles that we can understand how social order is maintained, particularly in the face of rapid social change. Central to this classical approach to analyzing society is the belief that a distinct class of social phenomena exists that cannot be understood through the analysis of individuals. It was
JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF THE BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES DOI: 10.1002/jhbs

62

CHRIS RENWICK AND RICHARD C. GUNN

Durkheim who most famously attempted to substantiate this particular ontology by demonstrating, in Rules of Sociological Method (1895/1982), what constitutes the social, and how it should be studied. Sociology operates, he argued, at a supra-individual level and only as such can it be considered distinct from other sciences including biology and psychology (Durkheim, 1982, pp. 3940). According to Durkheims account, sociology is simply the systematic method of studying social facts, which he defined as external forces that act upon the individual and constrain his or her action. The significant ontological point about Durkheimian social facts is that they have a distinct reality and, he argued, should be treated as such (Durkheim, 1982, p. 60). In Suicide, his most important sociological work, Durkheim demonstrated how social facts should be considered as things existing at a social level (Durkheim, 1897/1952). While that volume can be viewed as an exemplar of statistical methods and quantification, such a description grasps only Durkheims methodology and not his overall concerns. Like The Division of Labour (1893/1984), Suicides substantive theme is social solidarity and how it is maintained in the face of rapid social change. Social solidarity is sustained by the coercive power of social forces acting upon individuals and therefore it is a concern that cannot be separated from Durkheims methodological and ontological commitments. Psychological motivations are unable to account for the constancy of the suicide rate in society and thus his main premise is that suicide is not simply an individual act but a social phenomenon. Through this approach, it becomes apparent that social solidarity has an objective status and can be studied as a social fact equivalent to any physical phenomenon. As a consequence, Durkheims analysis operates at a level that is only capable of comprehending the individual as part of a larger social whole: the individual is confined and constrained by forces and ideas not of his own making (Durkheim, 1982, pp. 5052). Ontologically, we can therefore see him as a realist about things such as social forces and collective representations. The Durkheimian method is typical of classical sociological theory in that it permits generalizations and broad distinctions among categoriessomething that was exemplified in The Division of Labour with Durkheims distinction between mechanical and organic solidarity (1984, chaps. 23). This kind of approach is also key in Webers ideal type methodology where typical features of the bureaucracy are outlined and distinctions made between, for example, traditional and legal-rational types of domination (Weber, 1956/1968, pp. 215216). Such generalizations are also employed extensively in Tnniess distinction between community and society in which formalized, contractual relations of society come to replace the informal ties of communities (Tnnies, 1887/1955, pp. 3739). Given that the late nineteenth-century societies these thinkers were studying had been subject to sweeping changes in short periods of time, the making of broad generalizations is only to be expected. As a method of social investigation, sociology was expected to possess the methodological and ontological tools to grasp such prevailing trends in collective life. Classical sociological theorists therefore became dedicated to outlining the underlying principles that demarcated the new industrialized society from any previous form. In so doing, sociologists forged the identity of their science by offering a specific understanding of these social phenomena. Turning now to the work of Patrick Geddes, we will show how these characteristics of classical sociology manifested themselves in the writings of someone often thought of as far removed from the classical canon. 2. PATRICK GEDDES AND CLASSICAL SOCIOLOGY In France and Germany of the early twentieth century, wrote the prominent American sociologist Edward Shils in 1985, powerful and learned minds thought about the nature of
JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF THE BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES DOI: 10.1002/jhbs

DEMYTHOLOGIZING THE MACHINE

63

society and tried to envisage modern society within the species of all the societies known to history. In Britain, however, Shils continued, sociology gathered the soft dust of libraries and bathed in the dim light of ancestral idolatry. Here and there during these sociologically sterile decades, there was a momentary pulse of life but it never spread and the air of death soon reasserted itself (Shils, 1985, p. 166). Since the publication of Talcott Parsonss The Structure of Social Action in 1937 there has been a persistent view of British sociology as the inferior relation to its European and American counterparts. Absent from all U.K. universities except the London School of Economics before the end of World War II, British sociology has been seen as theoretically bankrupt and portrayed by some as evidence of a national failing (Anderson, 1968). Indeed, the writings of British sociologists are still rarely studied abroad because, as the French sociologist Dominique Schnapper recently put it, the United Kingdom does not have any of the founding fathers who institutionalised the discipline. There are no Britons among the turn of the century generation . . . i.e., Weber, Durkheim or Pareto (Schnapper, 2005, p. 109). While it is true that British sociologys strength has always been empirical investigations, the historical picture with regard to the fields theoretical concerns is somewhat more complicated than received views suggest.1 During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the British were enthusiastic participants with an international outlook in the Europe-wide debate about the methods, scope, and aims of sociology. For example, at the Sociological Society, founded in 1903, social and natural scientists came together at the recently established London School of Economics in an effort to formulate and promote a program, for sociology in the United Kingdom. As well as receiving contributions from key British thinkers, including the eugenicist and biostatistician Francis Galton and the first British professor of sociology, L. T. Hobhouse, the Society heard contributions from such luminaries as Durkheim and Tnnies. Indeed, as Stefan Collini and Sandra Den Otter have both shown, an important part was played in those discussions by the British Idealists, a large and important group of thinkers and writers, including Bernard Bosanquet, who were inspired by the Oxford philosopher T. H. Green to develop organicist political and social philosophies (Collini, 1978; Den Otter, 1996). Moreover, as Lawrence Goldmans recent historical survey has shown, scholars such as Anderson have often failed to appreciate that many of the celebrated continental thinkers of the classical period were envious of their British counterparts in sociology (Goldman, 2007). Alongside Galton and Hobhouse, Patrick Geddes was, as R. J. Halliday and Philip Abrams showed some time ago, one of the most important figures involved in the early shaping of sociology in the United Kingdom (Halliday, 1968; Abrams, 1968). Although Geddes had begun his career in the late 1870s as a biologist, he had become widely known from the 1880s onwards as a writer on the social sciences. Having immersed himself in the writings of,

1. Clarification must be given here concerning Herbert Spencer, whom many regard as the only Briton worthy of a place in the history of sociology. As the multi-volume Synthetic Philosophy series more than amply demonstrated, Spencer was a great theorizer, and thus his work further supports our refutation of the claim that British sociology was entirely empirical. However, he belongs to the generation of writers preceding that under consideration here. Spencer and his contemporaries, including August Comte, are considered important by current sociologists as writers who helped to establish and popularize the idea of a distinct science of society called sociology. Durkheim, Weber, and others writing at the very end of the nineteenth century are perceived by current sociologists to be the first to systematize the subject matter and methods of the discipline as it is now understood. Spencers role in the history of sociology is thus different in kind to those examined here. While sympathetic re-readings of Spencer should add further depth to the particular aspect of our argument forwarded here, it is in essence a diversion from our main aims in the paper as a whole.

JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF THE BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES DOI: 10.1002/jhbs

64

CHRIS RENWICK AND RICHARD C. GUNN

among others, August Comte, Herbert Spencer, and the French social surveyor Frdric Le Play, Geddess greatest interest was sociology and he dedicated much of his early work to the contemporary debates around it.2 Believing that the development of the subject was of huge importance, Geddes argued that sociology was dependent on the ability of sociologists to explain how it was distinct from existing ways of studying social phenomena. He insisted that it was sociologys subject matter that differentiated it from other social sciences including biology and psychology. All that concerns only the objective and bodily side of a man is purely biological, Geddes explained in 1884, and this may be summed up for a number of men, looked at simply as a herd or mass, without leaving the field of pure biology. Sociology, however, dealt with a specific aspect of human existence that could not be studied by such existing sciences. Sociology, he asserted, concerns itself with individualities of a higher order:with aggregates of men integrated into wholes for definite functions; as firm, bank, company, regiment, post office, and only considers the individual components in relation to these (Geddes, 18821884, p. 964). While we now tend to think of him as a town planner whose activities were based around empirical social surveys, Geddesprofessor of sociology and civics at the University of Bombay from 1919 to 1924was engaged for most of his life with the development of a deeply sophisticated sociological theory that he believed would embrace all of his activities and writings. As he told the Sociological Society in 1903, his work was a study of the community as an integrate [sic], with material and immaterial structures and functions, which we call the city (Geddes, 1904, p. 104). Geddes believed that there are a set of mutually dependent parts that make society what it is: an industrial base, a set of institutions, and what he called an associated system of ideals (Geddes, 1915, p. 66). Together these components form a complex that affects people and their environment in a variety of ways, including in terms of language, laws, and physical infrastructure, such as architecture or methods of transport. Writing at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries, Geddes was, like many of his contemporaries in sociology, concerned with the effect of industrialization on the social order. Drawing an analogy with how we once thought of there being a single Stone Age and later came to employ the terms Palaeolithic and Neolithic to distinguish between eras with different characteristics, Geddes made one of his most important innovations

2. Geddess biographers all give accounts of the wide range of writings and groups, including the Positivist Church in London, which he eagerly immersed himself in as a young man. See Defries (1927); Kitchen (1975); Mairet (1957); Boardman (1978); Meller (1990); Welter (2002). An exploration of these formative sources of inspiration is, however, unnecessary for the purposes of our argument in this paper. It is worth noting, though, that one should not assumeas his biographers and other commentators often havethat because he read Comte, for example, Geddess subsequent intellectual life was somehow influenced by a passive acceptance of the positivist philosophy. Despite his divergence from strictly biological enquiries at the beginning of the 1880s, Geddes always thought of himself as being in some sense a biologist. As Mumford put it, it is not as a bold innovator in urban planning, but as an ecologist, the patient investigator of historic filiations and dynamic biological and social interrelationships, that Geddes most important work on cities was done (Mumford, 1955, p. 111). Indeed, Geddess final monograph was the massive two-volume work Life: Outlines of General Biology (1932), which was co-authored with J. Arthur Thomson. We must thus appreciate that throughout his life, Geddess assessment of the ideas he came into contact with was always mediated by the framework of evolutionary naturalism he first developed as a young biologist. For example, his testimony (Geddes, 1926) and a letter sent by Richard Congreve, head of the London Positivist Church, to the Comtean political economist J. K. Ingramin which Congreve states that Geddes disagreed with him over biological evolutiondemonstrate that Geddes exercised caution towards positivism because of the movements scepticism of doctrines of biological evolution (Congreve, 1883). Moreover, the Le Playist triad of Place, Work, Folk, which scholars see as being especially important to him, was frequently presented by Geddes as Environment, Function, Organism. Given the number of Comtes ideas appropriated by Herbert Spencer, it may very well be advisable for scholars to look to the Synthetic Philosophy, which was saturated by evolutionary thought, for the inspiration of Geddess writings.

JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF THE BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES DOI: 10.1002/jhbs

DEMYTHOLOGIZING THE MACHINE

65

in social theory when he argued that there were two phases to industrialization. The neologisms he coined to describe these industrial ages were Paleotechnic and Neotechnic: terms that have subsequently become of huge importance in the study of technology. According to Geddess analysis in his 1915 book Cities in Evolution, the Paleotechnic and Neotechnic phases are associated systems of ideals of the kind described above. They have specific technologies, industries, and forms of social organization associated with them, and these manifest themselves in the world of ideas through particular political and social doctrines. The Paleotechnic phase, he wrote, was made up of collieries . . . together with the steam engine, and most of our staple manufactures . . . the railways and the markets, and above all the crowded and monotonous industrial towns to which all these have given rise. . . . Their corresponding abstract developments have been the traditional political economy on the one hand, and on the other that general body of political doctrine and endeavour which was so clearly formulated, so strenuously applied by the French Revolution and its exponents, but which in [Britain] has gone on bit by bit in association with our slower and longer Industrial Revolution. (Geddes, 1915, p. 64) This relationship between material and immaterial sociological elements was one that Geddes expended much time and effort trying to articulate. One of his favored methods was what he called thinking machines: a pedagogical tool he first created in 1879 as a new way of understanding and visually representing the dynamic relationship between different objects of study through systematising them on paper. A second and reciprocal of Geddess approaches was the museum-style exhibition, which, in his hands, eschewed the conventional emphasis on artifacts and instead took the form of a three-dimensional thinking machine. These exhibitions were first conceived and developed by Geddes during the 1890s in a building called the Outlook Tower. Located in the heart of Edinburgh and described in the American Journal of Sociology by the Chicago-based sociologist Charles Zueblin as the worlds first sociological laboratory (Zueblin, 1899), the Outlook Tower was Geddess headquarters, which he used as a venue to host activities and events promoting civics. In Figure 1, we can see a diagrammatic representation of one of Geddess exhibitions at the Outlook Tower in 1910, which was drawn by one of his closest associates, Victor Branford, who has recently received long-overdue scholarly attention from John Scott and Christopher T. Husbands (Branford, 1926; Scott and Husbands, 2007).3 This exhibition was an example of Geddess attempt to elaborate on the constituent parts of Paleotechnics and Neotechnics, including the transition between the two. On the top left-hand side of the diagram, next to political economy, we can see the prominent position of the natural sciences in the Paleotechnic order. Geddes believed the natural sciences to be one of the most important developments of the Paleotechnic order but his assessment of

3. For more on thinking machines, including numerous reproductions, see Boardman (1976, pp. 465484). The diagram of the exhibition used here first appeared in Victor Branfords paper The Background of Survival and Tendency as Exposed in an Exhibition of Modern Ideas (1926), which was part of a special collection, including an article by Geddes, entitled Coal: Ways to Reconstruction. Branford explained in a note at the beginning of the paper how though now published for the first time, it was a work that dated back to lectures he had given in America in 1911. The thesis of the paper, he wrote, was based on an Exhibition of material laid out by Professor Geddes at the Outlook Tower, Edinburgh, in 1910 (Branford, 1926, p. 207n). While this diagram was probably drawn by Branford, it is a clear expression of Geddess ideas and work, specifically through its use of Geddess distinctive sociological vocabulary (Eutopia, biotechnics, etc.); a structuring of ideas identical to those found in his twentieth-century private notes and published writings (for example: town-science-industry and the positioning of electrical power in neotechnics); as well as the naming of writers, such as John Ruskin and William Morris, whose work Geddes admired and thought important enough to publish on. The diagram, as we present it here, thus serves as a visual representation of Geddes ideas about technics. See Branford (1926) for a description of the experience of walking through Geddess exhibition.

JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF THE BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES DOI: 10.1002/jhbs

66

CHRIS RENWICK AND RICHARD C. GUNN

FIGURE 1

JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF THE BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES DOI: 10.1002/jhbs

DEMYTHOLOGIZING THE MACHINE

67

its effects was always qualified. In an analysis that independently reflects the same concerns as Webers important sociological work on the iron cage of instrumental rationality in modern bureaucracy, Geddes described science as being very largely a matter of the advance of notations. But a notation is not simply a thought-help; it also only too easily becomes a thought-cage, hard to escape from (Geddes, 1915, p. 68). Aided by science, the Paleotechnic social mind is driven by a desire to count, weigh, and measure everything, and it considers that which cannot be dealt with in such a way unimportant. As Paleotects, Geddes wrote, we make it our prime endeavour to dig up coals, to run machinery, to produce cheap cotton, to clothe cheap people, to get up more coals, to run more machinery, and so on; and all this essentially towards extending markets (Geddes, 1915, p. 74). The right and middle areas of the diagram of Geddess exhibition, shown in Figure 1, display the corresponding areas of political thought and social institutions. On the right we can see how individuals, such as Thomas Hobbes, Thomas Malthus, David Hume, and Immanuel Kant, and ideas or fields, such as imperialism and finance, are identified as having contributed to the political doctrines that had dominated thought since the French and Industrial Revolutions. What these various strands of political thought had in common, Geddes argued, was their prioritization of the individual and his or her relationship to the state. The effect of this focus of political and social thought was an atomized conception of society that had been reinforced and promoted by a mutually supportive set of social institutions that are listed on the diagram as school, prison, barrack, and factory. Geddes own sociological analysis was developed as a challenge to the atomized social thought he saw as being both mistaken and prevalent in his own time. In his view, the individualist Paleotechnic order, regardless of its seeming financial success, creates a set of circumstances that result in the deterioration of humans, the environment, and society. As he wrote in 1915, our industry but maintains and multiplies our poor and dull existence though we thus have produced, out of all this exhaustion of the resources of Nature . . . whole new conurbations, towns, and pseudo-cities, these are predominantly . . . of Slum character . . . and in these the corresponding development of the various types of human deterioration congruent with such environment. (Geddes, 1915, pp. 7475) This connection between economics, technology, ideas, and the social sphere is one that Geddes represented in the top left-hand area of the exhibition, shown in Figure 1. He believed that these aspects of the Paleotechnic age were dominated by a philosophy of competition that created markets and ultimately led to the decaying city slum. Unemployment and constant pressure to make ends meet were regular experiences for many people in such an environment and the consequences were phenomena such as crime and alcoholism. All of these things, Geddes argued, were logically connected, inseparably connected, like the symptoms of a disease (Geddes, 1915, p. 86). Hence, to those who are struggling with disease and pain, with ignorance and defect, with vice, and with crime, he wrote, it is time to say that all these four evils are capable of being viewed together, and largely even treated together (Geddes, 1905, p. 96). As a reaction to the deterioration of society in the Paleotechnic age, Geddes believed that there was an incipient order built around new industries, technologies and ideas about social organization. This new phasethe Neotechnicwas to be characterized, he suggested, by the better use of resources and population towards the bettering of man and his environment together (Geddes, 1915, p. 73). The Neotechnic order has its roots in a realization that Paleotechnics ultimately leads to mans submission to the technologies and ideas that he
JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF THE BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES DOI: 10.1002/jhbs

68

CHRIS RENWICK AND RICHARD C. GUNN

himself created. Instead of competing with one another in the ruthless drive to extend the Paleotechnic market, the Neotechnic citizen understands that it is through cooperation that quality of life increasessomething that is difficult to quantify and, therefore, has no place in the Paleotechnic mind. People of the Neotechnic order, Geddes argued, control the resources at their disposal for positive long-term benefits aimed at improving themselves and the world around them. This shift can be illustrated, he wrote, by the Neotechnic economist, who, beginning with his careful economisation of national resources, his care, for instance, to plant trees to replace those that are cut down, and if possible a few more, is occupied with real savings. His forest is a true Bank, one very different from Messrs Rothschilds credit. (Geddes, 1915, p. 70) As we can see in the bottom half of the diagram in Figure 1, this coming order was outlined by Geddes in terms of both the potential and the more concrete developments of his own time. For example, we can see on the rightnext to the Neotechnic imperative of Conservation of Resourceselectric power. Geddes thought that electric power would eliminate the polluting aspects of Paleotechnic industry and therefore lead the way towards a new world. Indeed, this was an argument of Geddess later taken on by Mumford that would hold some sway in the debates about electrification in early twentieth-century America (Carey & Quirk, 1979). By building a new set of industries based on a new power source, a new associated system of ideals would arise, leading to what he called Eutopiaa place that was like a utopia in every respect except that it really existedwhich we can see on the top left of the Neotechnic half of the exhibition. For Geddes, the crucial aspect of the Neotechnic order was the fact that it could only come into being if people wanted it to. The route out of the Paleotechnic age was not a passive one, and it depended on a new and better understanding of the forces that shape society. In this respect, the social sciences were of particular importance because they offered humans the potential to comprehend and therefore guide the forces that mould them. Following this conviction of Geddess, we can see, on the bottom right-hand side of Figure 1, that he positioned sociology within the Neotechnic order. Because it explained society at its very highest level of organization, sociology was the science that he believed would play one of the most significant roles in the transition from Paleotechnics. This examination of Geddess writings has demonstrated that while many regard him as an eccentric polymath, there was a well thought-out foundation to his wide-ranging work. Furthermore, we must remind ourselves that, in developing the ideas that have been discussed in this section, Geddes thought of himself as a sociologist. Presenting his work in forums such as the Sociological Society, his writings show that he considered sociology to be an autonomous discipline with its own subject matter. Moreover, in arguing for an anti-atomistic sociology, as well as asserting that the material and immaterial both have a distinct and equal reality, Geddess conclusions were the same as classical sociologists such as Durkheim, whom we can find positioned on the bottom right of Figure 1. In the next section, we will examine the impact of these ideas on Mumford, but in preparation for that analysis we will initially explore how he first came to know Geddess writings. We will show that, while Geddes was active in a number of fields, Mumford read and interpreted his work not as empirical town planning but as sociology. 3. GEDDES AND MUMFORD According to his autobiography, the day that Mumford picked up a copy of Evolution in 1914 was one of the most decisive days of [his] life (Mumford, 1982, p. 144). Although
JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF THE BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES DOI: 10.1002/jhbs

DEMYTHOLOGIZING THE MACHINE

69

Geddes had co-authored the popular science book with J. Arthur Thomson for the Home University series, Mumford identified without difficulty the writer whose voice called him. Whereas Thomson wrote in a supple English style, Mumford observed that Geddess prose was more crabbed and cryptic: his was the audacity of an original mind, never content blindly to follow established conventions, still less fashions of the moment (Mumford, 1982, p. 145). Captivated by these writings, Mumford set about trying to find the author himself by writing to the Outlook Tower in 1915. Explaining how to Edinburgh I have been attracted by the sociological work of Professor Geddes, Mumford initially exchanged letters with the architect F. C. Mearsone of Geddess principal assistants in Edinburghas Geddes had recently relocated to India (Mumford to Outlook Tower, 15 November 1915, Novack, 1995, p. 43). In 1917, however, Geddes wrote back to Mumford, beginning a relationship that would last until Geddess death in 1932. While the correspondence between Geddes and Mumford has been commented on frequently, there is one important aspect of it that has largely gone without note: what Geddes termed our main common interest of Sociology and Civics (Geddes to Mumford, 10 January 1920, Novack, 1995, p. 61). As their relationship developed after 1917, Mumford increasingly became part of Geddess circle in British sociology, even serving as editor of the Sociological Review for six months in 1920 when he was living in Britain (see Mumford, 1982, pp. 252281). With Geddes approaching the age of 70 at the beginning of the 1920s, he frequently discussed with his enthusiastic American disciple what sociology would be like after he had passed. While still enthralled by the master, as he often addressed Geddes in his letters, Mumford was concerned both with the legacy that the increasingly cantankerous Scotsman seemed intent on leaving and with how he expected others to deal with it. Mumford had come to consider the Edinburgh School of Sociologyan aspirational term coined by Branford to describe the group formed around Geddesto be intellectually unhealthy. Their problem, Mumford diplomatically wrote to Geddes, was the weakness of the Aristotelian school after Aristotle: the work of the founder has been so comprehensive and magnificent and inspiring that it has in appearance left nothing for the scholars to do except to go over and annotate and dilute the masters work. (Mumford to Geddes, 9 May 1921, Novack, 1995, p. 100) This flaw was exacerbated by the fact that Geddes had never produced a sustained and focused piece of work on sociological methodology, la Durkheims Rules of the Sociological Method. Always a reluctant writer of books, managing only one as sole author in his lifetime, Geddes constantly talked about his intention to produce a lengthy work on sociology, but never did. This prolonged failure frustrated Mumford and he regularly attempted to coerce Geddes into action. In 1921, for example, we find Mumford telling him to at least get the analysis of society articulated, and the method itself established, from this starting point the [social scientists] . . . may set forth, each following the direction as far as the method will carry them. (Mumford to Geddes, 31 July 1921, Novack, 1995, p. 108) Mumford thought it important that peoples work was infused with the sound sociological method, and illuminated by the general outlook, that [Geddes had] developed and his own early writings can be understood in such terms (Mumford to Geddes, 9 May 1921, Novack, 1995, p. 101). This interpretation was most clearly evidenced by Technics and Civilization, the most famous of Mumfords pre-World War II books, which he had delayed
JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF THE BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES DOI: 10.1002/jhbs

70

CHRIS RENWICK AND RICHARD C. GUNN

publishing until after Geddess death.4 While Mumford never felt bound to respect the mere letter of [Geddes] teaching, he did feel the necessity of avoiding conflict with his master as he expanded on Geddess phases of technics (Mumford, 1940, p. 497). As well as adding a third age called the Eotechnicthe forms of pre-industrial production characterized by the use of wind and water as power sources and wood and stone as the main building materials Mumfords historiography of technology provided a far more detailed account of the Paleotechnic phase than Geddes ever managed to produce. Addressing the specific technological advances that characterize the period and elaborating on its general worldview, Mumford emphasized the significance of immaterial elements such as routinization and order (Mumford, 1934, pp. 4142). Examining mechanical ways of thinking and avoiding the conventional focus on artifacts, Mumfords history of technology was Geddesian in its concern with modes of thought and social organization as fundamental to the stages of technics. Even more than in Technics and Civilization, Mumford wrote in The Culture of Cities, his first monograph on the subject, my chief intellectual debt is to my master, Patrick Geddes (Mumford, 1940, p. 497). Utilizing the phases of technics, Mumford divided the history of the city into three stages: Eotechnic village life; the Paleotechnic industrial city, which ultimately leads to the vast Megalopolis; and Neotechnic cities based on organic principles and a more human scale. While this account was far more detailed than Geddess own work, Mumford claimed, somewhat humbly, that his understanding of the city only exceeded Geddess in one respect. With The Culture of Cities being published over a quarter of a century after Cities in Evolution, Mumford believed that he, unlike Geddes, had been able to witness the development and growth of Neotechnic methods (Mumford, 1940, p. 498). In both Technics and Civilization and the Culture of Cities, Mumford engaged in a critique of the Paleotechnic world and welcomed the rise of Neotechnics. As with Geddess writings, the normative aspect in Mumfords work therefore equates to a call for a renewal of life within a new phase of technics. The theme of organicism, as Robert Casillo quite rightly claims, can be seen as stemming directly from Mumfords interpretation of Geddess work (Casillo, 1992, pp. 9495). Indeed, as Leo Marx argues, at the most general level one can understand all of Mumfords work as incorporating a single overriding ideal: the championing of the organic over the mechanical (Marx, 1990, pp. 167, 172). Drawing on Geddess observation that the Paleotechnic worldview is typified by a mechanistic, instrumentally rational mode of thought, Mumford wrote at length about the rise in Europe of the Mechanical Philosophy and the regimented armed forces, followed by the birth of industrial methods. These factors constitute what Mumford termed the machine in his early work. He argued that the rise of the machine was accompanied by the rise of the city, resulting in the process of urban agglomeration, the formation of Megalopolis and, consequently, in the great

4. It would be uncontroversial to suggest that Mumfords output in the 1920s was not explicitly sociological in nature as he wrote on subjects such as American literature, utopias [sic], and architecture. One could interpret these works as an expression of the young Mumfords desire to strike out on his own and not to be bound by the teachings of his master. Christopher Lasch argues that Mumford chose at that point in time to become a writer rather than a sociologist (Lasch, 1980, p. 7). This observation does hold true for Mumfords work in the 1920s but it would be wrong to talk of a career choice as such, especially given Mumfords output immediately following Geddess death. Indeed, Lasch admits that Mumford remained true to the sociological mode of thought, eschewing [a] humanistic retreat throughout his work by concerning himself with the problems of modernity (Lasch, 1980, p. 28). In Laschs own words, Mumford went on to deal with the concrete historical problems associated with the rise of capitalism, the spread of the scientific worldview, the growth of industrial methods, the industrial revolution, and the eventual emergence of a bureaucratic, managerial type of capitalism that organizes even leisure and consumption along industrial lines (Lasch, 1980, p. 12).

JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF THE BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES DOI: 10.1002/jhbs

DEMYTHOLOGIZING THE MACHINE

71

urban decay. However, his hope was for Neotechnic methods to ultimately temper the rise of the machine and reassert the primacy of the organic. Mumfords early work on technology and the city is, then, clearly Geddesian in terms of both scope and content. If one is to accept that Geddes was a sociologist in the classical tradition then one must also accept that Mumford, in his pre-World War II work, was employing the same theoretical assumptions as his master. However, what we will now show is that Mumfords later and less explicitly Geddesian work also relied upon the principles of classical sociological theory. 4. THE MYTH OF THE MACHINE AS A SOCIOLOGICAL PHENOMENON Paralyzed like a monkey in the coil of a python, Mumford wrote in the Pentagon of Power, the immediate post-Hiroshima generation, unable to utter a rational sound, shut its eyes and waited for the end (Mumford, 1970, p. 267). It is perhaps in terms of statements such as thesefull of Cold War paranoia, railing against the authoritarian statethat the later Mumford is best known as a prophet of doom. However, in this final section, we will demythologize Mumford and show that conventional theoretical assumptions underpin his post-World War II work, specifically the two volumes that comprise The Myth of the Machine collection: Technics and Human Development (1967) and The Pentagon of Power (1970). The received reading of these books is that Mumford undertook a project that can be broadly termed a philosophy of technology, but with obvious historical and anthropological dimensions. While this interpretation is not inaccurate, it does not tell the full story, as Mumford adopted a number of assumptions, including an ontology of the social, that we have already identified with classical sociological theory. The relevance of classical sociology to Mumfords work has previously been considered by Eugene Rochberg-Halton (1990), who came to conclusions rather different to those we are arguing for here. Quite correctly, Rochberg-Halton claims that Mumford can be seen as working within the tradition of social theory. However, Rochberg-Halton goes on to suggest that major schisms exist between Mumford and the likes of Durkheim, with Mumfords critique of modernity setting him apart from the classical canon (Rochberg-Halton, 1990, pp. 127129). Rochberg-Halton argues that we should instead see Mumford as providing an organic, biocosmic alternative to classical theory (Rochberg-Halton, 1990, p. 150). This reading of Mumford and the classical tradition in general is rather odd. For the most part, classical sociological theory provides an analysis of modernity that is largely ambivalent: Its arrival is unavoidable, and it creates new possibilities, but it also has certain costs. Such a view is evident throughout Mumfords writings where Paleotechnics is a necessary condition for the arrival of Neotechnics. Even in the Myth of the Machine, Mumford is not opposed to modernity per se, but to particular modes of thought and organization found in specific societies. Yet to concentrate on such matters is to miss the broader picture, as one must look to the theoretical assumptions that underpin Mumfords work rather than to the individual claims he makes.5

5. For instance, Rochberg-Halton argues that the main difference between Weber and Mumford is that the former cites the importance of Protestantism, while the latter cites the importance of Catholicism, particularly the monastery, in the birth of capitalism (Rochberg-Halton, 1990). If one looks to broader themes in the work of both writers, one sees that both Weber and Mumford understand the power of ideas in shaping social organization. Religious belief is key in regulating and ordering human behavior, be it in the monastery or Protestant enterprise. As Weber notes, the asceticism of the monastery enabled the carrying out of a definite, methodical conduct of life (Weber, 1927, p. 364).

JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF THE BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES DOI: 10.1002/jhbs

72

CHRIS RENWICK AND RICHARD C. GUNN

On reading The Myth of the Machine, one is struck immediately by its theoretical vocabulary. Mumford jettisoned the Geddesian stages of technics and instead chose to base his analysis around two dimensions of the technological world: what he called the Megamachine and the Myth of the Machine. These features comprise what Mumford terms Megatechnics, which is characterized by highly organized authoritarian societies in which political and technical projects are indistinguishable. In Technics and Human Development he focused on the ancient world, while in The Pentagon of Power he looked to Cold War society, particularly that of the United States. In so doing, Mumford makes two key claims: first, that the highly ordered authoritarian society is not unique to the modern world; second, that the history of the modern authoritarian society can be traced through the European philosophical tradition from the twelfth century onwards. To support these claims, Mumford focuses throughout both volumes on the material and immaterial elements of Megatechnics. The material aspects of Megatechnics are manifested in the Megamachine: an elaborately organized system of animate and inanimate parts. The immaterial elements are found in the Myth of the Machine: the ideological underpinnings that inspire the creation and legitimate the continued existence of the Megamachine. Megamachine is a term employed literally by Mumford, and he implores the reader not to be limited by any preconceptions of machines as inanimate artifacts and to think of it as the big machine (Mumford, 1967, p. 191; 1970, p. 240). As his analysis subsequently makes clear, the Megamachine is a vast social machine comprised of human and non-human parts, capable of undertaking large-scale socio-technical projects, first instantiated in the pyramid building projects of Ancient Egypt and most recently in the nuclear superpower. What is obviously noticeable about Mumfords study is his desire to deal with social totalities and to consider the big questions concerning power and order, which we earlier discussed with regards to classical sociological theory. In an analysis that one could argue is Weberian in its scope, Mumford expresses his concern with power and order through an examination of hierarchical organization and the legitimate nature of domination. The Megamachine, he argued, is a means of regimenting and directing an entire society toward given collective ends. Thus, from the perspective of social theory, it is clear that Mumford was not merely engaging in theoretical abstraction but attempting to explain a distinct sociological phenomenon with particular social relations. Of course, it is not difficult for Mumford to be a realist about the Megamachine when he can point to particular physical instantiations of the phenomenon such as the pyramids of Egypt, space rockets, or the Pentagon itself (Mumford, 1970, pp. 300311). However, its material components are both human and inanimate, and one can only understand the artifacts produced by the Megamachine in terms of the human organization at its core. Indeed, Mumford stresses that the Megamachine of Ancient Egypt was invisible insofar as the power relations within the machine can now only be reconstructed from the visible physical evidence (Mumford, 1967, pp. 188189). The ideas held by those human parts are always invisible, yet one can only appreciate how the Megamachine operates by considering its ideological underpinnings. In turning to the Myth of the Machinethe immaterial elements upon which the Megamachine is reliantwe again see Mumfords theoretical and ontological commitments to be those common to classical sociological theory. In Ancient Egypt, the Myth of the Machine operated in a rudimentary form as a shared belief in the divinity of the Pharaoh that ensured his commands would be obeyed. Religious faith was essential in facilitating the operation of the Megamachine because, as Mumford explains, coercion alone is not sufficient to control such large populations (Mumford, 1967, p. 229). The importance of religion and its
JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF THE BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES DOI: 10.1002/jhbs

DEMYTHOLOGIZING THE MACHINE

73

social function is perhaps not a particularly controversial claim when applied to pyramid building. However, when applied to the twentieth century it appears to be far more radical as the modern Megamachine must also rely upon belief. Mumford argues that the modern Myth of the Machine exists as a faith in technological and scientific progress. There is no need to coerce people, nor are traditional religious forms of belief necessary, because the Myth of the Machine [has] taken hold of the modern mind (Mumford, 1970, p. 237). Moreover, it has done so because it operates at the collective level. When an ideology conveys such universal meanings and commands such obedience, he argued, it has become, in fact, a religion, and its imperatives have the dynamic form of a myth (Mumford, 1970, p. 157). The Myth of the Machine, in Mumfords analysis, is no abstraction or metaphor, nor is it a tendency or a trend. It is a belief that has a particular social reality and, for Mumford, it is no less real than the Megamachine. Having abandoned his commitment to Geddess phases of technics, Mumford was also able to trace the historical origins of highly organized machine production to a period long before the industrial age. Nevertheless, Mumford still drew on Geddesian principles such as the associated system of ideals: the claim that a particular age will be expressed in particular ways of thinking, which will be manifested, in turn, in various facets of the human world. This ontological commitment to the reality of ideas as things was something Mumford recognized as being a distinct and important part of the Geddesian intellectual tradition he saw himself as working in. Indeed, recent reinterpretations of Mumfords work seem even less plausible when we examine his autobiography and find his account of how Geddess philosophic structure had taken form before the publication of Freuds Interpretation of Dreams: for Geddes dreams, myths and esthetic symbols were as real as atoms or Roentgen rays (Mumford, 1982, p. 147). At the most general level, then, we must think of Mumfords analysis of Megatechnical society as upholding the Geddesian distinction between the immaterial and the material. It is a mistake to consider the Megamachine, as some scholars have, as somehow primary and the Myth of the Machine as secondary. The process of mechanization was furthered, Mumford wrote, by an ideology that gave absolute precedence and cosmic authority to the machine itself (Mumford, 1970, p. 157). It is in this sense that Mumfords philosophy of technology may confound those who expect a more conventional ontology. However, as we demonstrated earlier, such an ontology is conventional within the classical sociological approach. We can, therefore, see Mumfords reliance upon the same assumptions as Durkheim. In other words, the Geddesian ontology used by Mumford can be clearly understood in Durkheimian terms. The focus on Durkheim also allows us to appreciate Mumfords work in terms of the role played by collective belief in maintaining social order. In Mumfords account of ancient Megatechnics, religion upheld the legitimacy of the Egyptian Megamachine by producing shared belief that maintained social stability. The Myth of the Machine performs the same social function in the modern instantiation of Megatechnicsonly traditional religious belief is replaced by faith in the Megamachine itself. This analysis has clear and obvious similarities to Durkheims argument in The Division of Labour, in which secular ideology based around the cult of the individual comes to replace the traditional religious order (Durkheim, 1984, p. 85). For Durkheim, social solidarity is maintained through shared belief that upholds the legitimacy of the given social order, a phenomenon he termed the conscience collective (Durkheim, 1984, pp. 4243, 8485). Thus, both Mumford and Durkheim chart how traditional religious beliefs are replaced by a secular ideology that comes to serve a similar function. For both writers, collective belief is necessary to maintain social order in traditional and modern societies.
JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF THE BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES DOI: 10.1002/jhbs

74

CHRIS RENWICK AND RICHARD C. GUNN

It is only by examining ontological commitments such as these that one can truly understand Mumford as working in the classical sociological tradition. It is clear that the Myth of the Machine is not simply the sum of individual beliefs, but has a distinct reality. Thus, in Durkheimian terms, we can recognize the Myth of the Machine as a social fact in that it has recognizable effects and explanatory value, and is external to the individual. Not only does Mumford explain, through the Myth of the Machine, why human beings come to submit to conditions of existence that are seemingly harmful, but he also explains the legitimacy of Megatechnic organization by way of the collective hold that the Myth of the Machine has. With the Myth of the Machine acting as a technological consciousness that operates over and above the level of the individual, it is clear that Mumford makes similar ontological commitments to the reality of social phenomena as both Geddes and Durkheim. 5. CONCLUSION One objection a critic could attempt to level at the argument we have offered in this paper is that we have imposed an arbitrary framework on Patrick Geddes and Lewis Mumford. However, in grounding our analysis in the writings and letters of each man, we have faithfully recaptured the context in which their work was produced. We have shown that the consequences of this underused approach to studying Geddes and Mumford are new and valuable insights into the thought of both men as well as the nature of the relationship between them. It is in this sense that our reading of Geddes and Mumford is one rooted in the primary factors and concerns that shaped their writings rather than in the secondary issues that have dominated scholarship up until now. By focusing on Mumford solely as a philosopher of technology or theorist of the city, scholarship has tended to avoid asking whether there are issues that persist throughout his oeuvre. What we have shown is that he constantly aimed to explain how social order is maintained in his work on technology and the city from the 1930s onwards. In exploring this issue, Mumford regularly made a distinction between the material and the immaterial but, crucially, also insisted on their ontological equivalence. We have argued that, in this respect, he can be understood as employing the assumptions of classical sociology. Moreover, we have demonstrated that the reason for Mumfords use of these sociological tools was his intentional appropriation of the ideas of his single greatest intellectual inspiration: Patrick Geddes. Indeed, we have also shown how the common perception of the declining importance over time of Geddes to Mumfords writings is thoroughly misguided. Although the theoretical vocabulary Mumford deployed in his later work may have fundamentally altered, the Geddesian theoretical principles upon which he relied did not. In order to produce a more rounded picture of Mumford the thinker, it may be in some sense fruitful, as recent scholarship has suggested, to consider the role of writers other than Geddes in shaping his work. However, looking to Freud or Jung reveals little about the fundamental assumptions that underlie Mumfords later publications on technology. Quite simply, reference to the Megamachine and the Myth of the Machine without recognizing Mumfords specific ontology of the material and immaterial is an oversight that has impaired our understanding of his writings. The question that one can ask is why this feature of Mumfords work has been overlooked. Although we can only speculate on possible answers here, we suggest an unfamiliarity with the basics of sociological theory and with Geddess thought on the part of those who have thus far attempted to unravel Mumfords writings on technics. However, one reason why Mumfords grounding in classical sociology has been ignored must surely be that sociologists seldom think of Geddes as one of their own and, when they
JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF THE BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES DOI: 10.1002/jhbs

DEMYTHOLOGIZING THE MACHINE

75

do, it is almost never as a theorizer on a par with those who founded their discipline. While it is not our intention to suggest that Geddes was someone who should be considered an equal of Durkheim, Weber, or Tnnies in terms of shaping sociology, we do believe that he and his work are worthy of a long overdue reappraisal. As we showed in section two, Geddes was deeply concerned with the kinds of questions about the nature of sociology that the luminaries of the classical canon are celebrated for having asked. An examination of Geddess rarely studied writings shows that he possessed a theoretical framework that was explicitly thoughtout in terms of sociology as an independent and autonomous science. Indeed, in many of his conclusions about the nature and maintenance of social order, he was in total agreement with Durkheim, Weber, and classical sociology in general. The importance of this dimension of Geddess thought is one that must be appreciated not just in terms of its implications for our understanding of Mumford but also for the history of sociology in general. Because sociologists have almost exclusively been responsible for writing the history of their field, the standard view of how sociology developed has been often deeply misleading. While one consequence of this received history is an embracing of thinkers and writers, including Karl Marx, who would not have described themselves as sociologists, another is an exclusion of others, such as Geddes, who not only understood themselves as sociologists but also engaged with the very same problems as their more celebrated contemporaries. Although there is still much to be done in terms of bringing better historical sensibilities to bear on the history of sociology, our close study of Geddes and Mumford has shown that to do so will yield important results. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We must firstly recognize the financial assistance of the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the School of Philosophy, University of Leeds, United Kingdom. We are most grateful to Christopher Kenny, Jonathan Hodge, Steven Lovatt, and two anonymous reviewers for reading earlier drafts of this article and making many valuable suggestions for improvement. Our thanks must also go to everyone who attended the Leeds History and Philosophy of Science Informal Seminar and the 2006 HAPSAT conference at the University of Toronto, where earlier versions of this research were presented. Finally, we wish to thank Andrew Campbell for his help in locating sources. REFERENCES
Abrams, P. (1968). The origins of British sociology: 18341914. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Anderson, P. (1968). Components of national culture. The New Left Review, 50, 357. Boardman, P. (1978). The worlds of Patrick Geddes: Biologist, town planner, re-educator, peace-warrior. London: Routledge and Keegan-Paul. Branford, V. (1926). The background of survival and tendency as exposed in an exhibition of modern ideas. Sociological Review, 18, 207230. Carey, J., & Quirk, J. J. (1979). The mythos of the electronic revolution. American Scholar, 39, 219241, 395424. Casillo, R. (1992). Lewis Mumford and the organicist concept in social thought. Journal of the History of Ideas, 53, 91116. Collini, S. (1978). Sociology and idealism in Britain 18801920. Archives Europennes de Sociologie 19, 350. Congreve, R. (1883). Letter to J. K. Ingram, 30 December. Positivist Papers, MS 45233 f. 33, British Library, London, UK. Den Otter, S. M. (1996). British idealism and social explanation: A study in late Victorian thought. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press. Durkheim, E. (1952). Suicide: A study in sociology (J. A. Spaulding & G. Simpson, Trans.). London: Routledge & Keegan-Paul. (Original work published 1897.) Durkheim, E. (1982). The rules of sociological method (W. D. Halls, Trans.). New York: The Free Press. (Original work published 1895.)

JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF THE BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES DOI: 10.1002/jhbs

76

CHRIS RENWICK AND RICHARD C. GUNN

Durkheim, E. (1984). The division of labour in society (W. D. Halls, Trans.). Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan. (Original work published 1893.) Geddes, P. (18821884). An analysis of the principles of economics. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 12, 943980. Geddes, P. (1904). Civics: As applied sociology. Sociological Papers, 1, 101118. Geddes, P. (1905). Civics: As concrete and applied sociology (Part 2). Sociological Papers, 2, 57111. Geddes, P (1915). Cities in evolution: An introduction to the town planning movement and to the study of civics. London: Williams and Norgate. Geddes, P. (1926). Introduction. In S. Liveing, A nineteenth-century teacher: John Henry Bridges (pp. 119). London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co. Geddes, P., & Thomson, J. Arthur. (1931). Life: Outlines of general biology, 2 Vols. London: Williams and Norgate. Goldman, L. (2007). Foundations of British sociology 18801930: Contexts and biographies. Sociological Review 55, 431440. Green, A. (2006). Matter and psyche: Lewis Mumfords appropriation of Marx and Jung in his appraisal of the condition of man in technological civilization. History of the Human Sciences, 19, 3364. Halliday, R. J. (1968). The sociological movement, the Sociological Society and the genesis of academic sociology in Britain. Sociological Review, 16, 377398. Hawthorn, G. (1976). Enlightenment and despair. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kitchen, P. (1975). A most unsettling person: An introduction to the ideas and life of Patrick Geddes. London: Victor Gollancz. Lasch, C. (1980). Mumford and the myth of the machine. Salmagundi, 49, 428. Law, A. (2005). The ghost of Patrick Geddes: Civics as applied sociology. Sociological Research Online, 10. <http://www.socresonline.org.uk/10/2/law.html> Mairet, P. (1957). Pioneer of sociology: The life and letters of Patrick Geddes. London: Lund Humphries. Marx, L. (1990). Lewis Mumford: Prophet of organicism. In A. C. Hughes & T. P. Hughes (Eds.), Lewis Mumford: Public intellectual (pp. 164180). New York: Oxford University Press. Meller, H. (1990). Patrick Geddes: Social evolutionist and city planner. London: Routledge. Meller, H. (2000). Understanding the European city around 1900: The contribution of Patrick Geddes. In V . Welter & J. Lawson (Eds.), The city after Patrick Geddes (pp. 3555). Berlin: Peter Lang. Mumford, L. (1934). Technics and civilization. London: George Routledge & Sons. Mumford, L. (1940). The culture of cities (offset ed.). London: Secker & Warburg. Mumford, L. (1955). The human prospect. Boston: The Beacon Press. Mumford, L. (1967). The myth of the machine: Technics and human development. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Mumford, L. (1970). The myth of the machine: The pentagon of power. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Mumford, L. (1982). Sketches from life. The autobiography of Lewis Mumford: The early years. New York: Dial Press. Novack, F. (Ed.) (1995). Lewis Mumford and Patrick Geddes: The correspondence. London: Routledge. Rochberg-Halton, E. (1990). The transformation of social theory. In A. C. Hughes & T. P. Hughes (Eds.), Lewis Mumford: Public intellectual (pp. 127151). New York: Oxford University Press. Schnapper, D. (2005). A View from a French sociologist. In A. H. Halsey & W. G. Runciman (Eds.), British sociology seen from without and within (pp. 107108). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press for the British Academy. Scott, J., & Husbands, C. T. (2007). Victor Branford and the building of British sociology. Sociological Review, 55, 460484. Shils, E. (1985). On the eve: A prospect in retrospect. In M. Bulmer (Ed.), Essays on the history of British sociological research (pp. 165178). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Studholme, M. (2007). Patrick Geddes: Founder of environmental sociology. Sociological Review, 55, 441459. Swer, G. M (2003). The road to Necropolis: Technics and death in the philosophy of Lewis Mumford. History of the Human Sciences, 16, 3959. Swer, G. M. (2004). Technics and (para)praxis: The Freudian dimensions of Lewis Mumfords theories of technology. History of the Human Sciences, 17, 4568. Tnnies, F. (1955). Community and association (C.P. Loomis, Trans.). London: Routledge & Keegan Paul. (Original work published 1887.) Weber, M. (1927). General economic history (F. H. Knight, Trans.). Glencoe, IL: The Free Press. (Original work published 1923.) Weber, M. (1968). Economy and society: An outline of interpretative sociology, 3 Vols. (G. Roth & C. Wittich, Eds.; E. Fischoff, H. Gerth, A.M. Henderson, F. Kolegar, C. Wright Mills, T. Parsons, M. Rheinstein, G. Roth, E. Shils, C. Wittich, Trans.). New York: Bedminster Press. (Original work [German 4th edition] published 1956.) Welter, V. (2002). Biopolis: Patrick Geddes and the city of life. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. Zueblin, C. (1899). The worlds first sociological laboratory. American Journal of Sociology, 4, 577592.

JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF THE BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES DOI: 10.1002/jhbs