Lester Frank Ward can be called the father of American sociology. He was the first president of the American Sociological Association. He was not only a sociologist, but a botanist and paleontologist as well. He stands out against the other leading sociologists of the late 19th century, Herbert Spencer and Karl Marx. Spencer promoted theories of laissez-faire and the survival of the fittest. He was a spearhead of the conservative movement. Marx and Spencer disagreed upon many things, but they agreed on one thing – their systems were static, and they both believed that they had found immutable stages of development that all societies had to go through. Ward sought to breathe life back into sociology by emphasizing the spirit of scientific experimentation and by putting it in the service of man. Ward was a believer in the welfare state. He observed that its critics were often the wealthy classes who themselves sought government bailouts when their businesses failed. Ward was a strong believer in equal rights for women, and claimed that women were naturally superior to men. In many ways, he foreshadowed the feminist movement. In his 1893 book, "The Psychic Factors of Civilization", Ward wrote a section promoting sociocracy as a governance model. He also came up with the phrase "all-sided wisdom" to describe JS Mill: [[Philosophy is 'all-sided wisdom']] --- Source: [[Reference Notes/We the People]]