Given that the aim of the book has been to make a useful contribution to practical social theorizing, this has two implications for the way in which it concludes. On the one hand, in now turning to the final phase of the morphogenetic cycle, the objective is to set out as clearly as possible the conditions under which morphogenesis versus morphostasis ensues from particular chains of socio-cultural interaction, as conditioned in a prior social context. Obviously, given the nature of society as an open system, these will only be tendential conditions which will have to be complemented by an analysis of concrete contingencies in every research undertaking. Nevertheless, this seems to be of considerably more use to the practical social analyst than either those deterministic prophecies which fail (the currency of upward and downward conflationism which only remains in circulation given ad lib support by ad hoc hypotheses), or the indeterminate assertion that the potential for both transformation and reproduction inheres in every instance (the uphelping hand that central conflationists extend to practical researchers, which fails to supply any directional guidance at all).

However, the second aim is even more precise, namely to account for the form (though not the substantive content) of social elaboration to take place. In other words, just as the concern in discussing Phase I (contextual conditioning) was precision in pin-pointing the processes guiding action in a particular direction, so in this final Phase III, the concern is to go beyond the conditions for transformation versus reproduction in general, and to account instead for the actual configuration of social elaboration.