Other, but quite generally favorable, conditions for suggestions are universally at hand in the human society, whose individual members in contrast to the crowd are physically separated from each other but stand in a spiritual alliance to each other. Here obviously those preliminary conditions for the dissemination of psychical infections are lacking as they exist in the crowd, and the instruments of the voice, of mimicry, of gestures, which often fire the passions with lightning rapidity, are not allowed to assert themselves. There exists much rather a certain spiritual cohesion on the ground perhaps of common impressions (theatrical representations), a similar direction of thoughts (articles in periodicals, etc.). These conditions are quite sufficient to prepare the foundation on which similar feelings propagate themselves from individual to individual by the method of suggestion and auto-suggestion, and similar decisions for many are matured.

Things occur here more slowly, more peacefully, without those passionate outbreaks to which the crowd is subjected; but this slow infection establishes itself all the more surely in the feelings, while the infection of the crowd often only continues for a time until the latter is broken up.

Moreover, such contagious examples in the public do not usually lead to such unexpected movements as they easily induce in the crowd. But here, too, the infection frequently acts in defiance of a man's sound intelligence; complete points of view are accepted upon trust and faith, without further discussion, and frequently immature resolutions are formed. On the boards representing the stage of the world there are ever moving idols, who after the first storm of admiration which they call out, sink back into oblivion. The fame of the people's leaders maintains itself in quite the same way by means of psychical infection through the similar national interest of a unified group. It has often happened that their brightness was extinguished with the first opposition which the masses saw setting its face against their wishes and ideals. What we, however, see in close popular masses recurs to a certain degree in every social milieu, in every larger society.

Between the single elements of such social spheres there occur uninterrupted psychical infections and contra-infections. Ever according to the nature of the material of the infection that has been received, the individual feels himself attracted to the sublime and the noble, or to the lower and bestial. Is, then, the intercourse between teacher and pupil, between friends, between lovers, uninfluenced by reciprocal suggestion? Suicide pacts and other mutual acts present a certain participation of interacting suggestion. Yet more. Hardly a single deed whatever occurs that stands out over the everyday, hardly a crime is committed, without the concurrence of third persons, direct or indirect, not unseldom bearing a likeness to the effects of suggestion.

We must here admit that Tarde was right when he said that it is less difficult to find crimes of the crowd than to discover crimes which were not such and which would indicate no sort of promotion or participation of the environment. That is true to such a degree that one may ask whether there are any individual crimes at all, as the question is also conceivable whether there are any works of genius which do not have a collective character.

Many believe that crimes are always pondered. A closer insight into the behavior of criminals testifies, however, in many cases that even when there is a long period of indecision, a single encouraging word from the environment, an example with a suggestive effect, is quite sufficient to scatter all considerations and to bring the criminal intention to the deed. In organized societies, too, a mere nod from the chief may often lead with magic power to a crime.

The ideas, efforts, and behavior of the individual may by no means be looked on as something sharply distinct, individually peculiar, since from the form and manner of these ideas, efforts, and behavior, there shines forth ever, more or less, the influence of the milieu.

In close connection with this fact there stands also the so-called astringent effect of the milieu upon the individuals who are incapable of rising out of their environment, of stepping out of it. In society that bacillus for which one has found the name "suggestion" appears certainly as a leveling element, and, accordingly, whether the individual stands higher or lower than his environment, whether he becomes worse or better under its influence, he always loses or gains something from the contact with others. This is the basis of the great importance of suggestion as a factor in imposing a social uniformity upon individuals.

The power of suggestion and contra-suggestion, however, extends yet further. It enhances sentiments and aims and enkindles the activity of the masses to an unusual degree.

Many historical personages who knew how to embody in themselves the emotions and the desires of the masses—we may think of Jeanne d'Arc, Mahomet, Peter the Great, Napoleon I—were surrounded with a nimbus by the more or less blind belief of the people in their genius; this frequently acted with suggestive power upon the surrounding company which it carried away with a magic force to its leaders, and supported and aided the mission historically vested in the latter by means of their spiritual superiority. A nod from a beloved leader of any army is sufficient to enkindle anew the courage of the regiment and to lead them irresistibly into sure death.

Many, it is well known, are still inclined to deny the individual personality any influence upon the course of historic events. The individual is to them only an expression of the views of the mass, an embodiment of the epoch, something, therefore, that cannot actively strike at the course of history; he is much rather himself heaved up out of the mass by historic events, which, unaffected by the individual, proceed in the courses they have themselves chosen.

We forget in such a theory the influences of the suggestive factors which, independently of endowments and of energy, appear as a mighty lever in the hands of the fortunately situated nature and of those created to be the rulers of the masses. That the individual reflects his environment and his time, that the events of world-history only take their course upon an appropriately prepared basis and under appropriately favorable circumstances, no one will deny. There rests, however, in the masters of speech and writing, in the demagogues and the favorites of the people, in the great generals and statesmen, an inner power which welds together the masses for battle for an ideal, sweeps them away to heroism, and fires them to do deeds which leave enduring impressions in the history of humanity.

I believe, therefore, that suggestion as an active agent should be the object of the most attentive study for the historians and the sociologists. Where this factor is not reckoned with, a whole series of historical and social phenomena is threatened with the danger of incomplete, insufficient, and perhaps even incorrect elucidation.

III. INVESTIGATIONS AND PROBLEMS

1. The Process of Interaction

The concept of universal interaction was first formulated in philosophy. Kant listed community or reciprocity among his dynamic categories. In the Herbartian theory of a world of coexisting individuals, the notion of reciprocal action was central. The distinctive contribution of Lotze was his recognition that interaction of the parts implies the unity of the whole since external action implies internal changes in the interacting objects. Ormond in his book The Foundations of Knowledge completes this philosophical conception by embodying in it a conclusion based on social psychology. Just as society is constituted by interacting persons whose innermost nature, as a result of interaction, is internal to each, so the universe is constituted by the totality of interacting units internally predisposed to interaction as elements and products of the process.

In sociology, Gumplowicz arrived at the notions of a "natural social process" and of "reciprocal action of heterogeneous elements" in his study of the conflict of races. Ratzenhofer, Simmel, and Small place the social process and socialization central in their systems of sociology. Cooley's recent book The Social Process is an intimate and sympathetic exposition of "interaction" and the "social process." "Society is a complex of forms or processes each of which is living and growing by interaction with the others, the whole being so unified that what takes place in one part affects all the rest. It is a vast tissue of reciprocal activity, differentiated into innumerable systems, some of them quite distinct, others not readily traceable, and all interwoven to such a degree that you see different systems according to the point of view you take."[154]

This brief resume of the general literature upon the social process and social interaction is introductory to an examination of the more concrete material upon communication, imitation, and suggestion.

2. Communication

"Many works have been written on Expression, but a greater number on Physiognomy" wrote Charles Darwin in 1872. Physiognomy, or the interpretation of character through the observation of the features, has long been relegated by the scientific world to the limbo occupied by astrology, alchemy, phrenology, and the practice of charlatans.

While positive contributions to an appreciation of human expression were made before Darwin, as by Sir Charles Bell, Pierre Gratiolet, and Dr. Piderit, his volume on The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals marked an epoch in the thinking upon the subject. Although his three principles of utility, antithesis, and direct nervous discharge to explain the signs of emotions may be open to question, as the physiological psychologist, Wilhelm Wundt, asserts, the great value of his contribution is generally conceded. His convincing demonstration of the universal similarity of emotional expression in the various human races, a similarity based on a common human inheritance, prepared the way for further study.

Darwin assumed that the emotion was a mental state which preceded and caused its expression. According to the findings of later observation, popularly known as the James-Lange Theory, the emotion is the mental sign of a behavior change whose external aspects constitute the so-called "expression." The important point brought out by this new view of the emotion was an emphasis upon the nature of physiological changes involved in emotional response. Certain stimuli affect visceral processes and thereby modify the perception of external objects.

The impetus to research upon this subject given by Darwin was first manifest in the reports of observation upon the expression of different emotions. Fear, anger, joy, were made the subjects of individual monographs. Several brilliant essays, as those by Sully, Dugas, and Bergson, appeared in one field alone, that of laughter. In the last decade there has been a distinct tendency toward the experimental study of the physiological and chemical changes which constitute the inner aspect of emotional responses, as for example, the report of Cannon upon his studies in his book Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear, and Rage.

Simultaneous with this study of the physiological aspect of the emotional responses went further observation of its expression, the manifestation of the emotion. The research upon the communication of emotions and ideas proceeded from natural signs to gesture and finally to language. Genetic psychologists pointed out that the natural gesture is an abbreviated act. Mallery's investigation upon "Sign Language among North American Indians Compared with that among Other Peoples and Deaf Mutes" disclosed the high development of communication by gestures among Indian tribes. Wilhelm Wundt in his study of the origin of speech indicated the intimate relation between language and gesture in his conclusion that speech is vocal gesture. Similarly research in the origin of writing derives it, as indicated earlier in this chapter, through the intermediate form of pictographs from pictures.

The significance for social life of the extension of communication through inventions has impressed ethnologists, historians, and sociologists. The ethnologist determines the beginnings of ancient civilization by the invention of writing. Historians have noted and emphasized the relation of the printing press to the transition from medieval to modern society. Graham Wallas in his Great Society interprets modern society as a creation of the machine and of the artificial means of communication.

Sociological interest in language and writing is turning from studies of origins to investigations of their function in group life. Material is now available which indicates the extent to which the group may be studied through its language. Accordingly the point of view for the study of orthodox speech, or "correct" English, is that of the continuity of society; just as the standpoint for the study of heterodox language, or "slang," is that of the life of the group at the moment. The significance of the fact that "every group has its own language" is being recognized in its bearings upon research. Studies of dialects of isolated groups, of the argot of social classes, of the technical terms of occupational groups, of the precise terminology of scientific groups suggest the wide range of concrete materials. The expression "different universes of discourse" indicates how communication separates as well as unites persons and groups.

3. Imitation

Bagehot's Physics and Politics published in 1872, with its chapter on "Imitation," was the first serious account of the nature of the role of imitation in social life. Gabriel Tarde, a French magistrate, becoming interested in imitation as an explanation of the behavior of criminals, undertook an extensive observation of its effects in the entire field of human activities. In his book Laws of Imitation, published in 1890, he made imitation synonymous with all intermental activity. "I have always given it (imitation) a very precise and characteristic meaning, that of the action at a distance of one mind upon another.... By imitation I mean every impression of interpsychical photography, so to speak, willed or not willed, passive or active."[155] "The unvarying characteristic of every social fact whatsoever is that it is imitative, and this characteristic belongs exclusively to social facts."[156]

In this unwarranted extension of the concept of imitation Tarde undeniably had committed the unpardonable sin of science, i.e., he substituted for the careful study and patient observation of imitative behavior, easy and glittering generalizations upon uniformities in society. Contributions to an understanding of the actual process of imitation came from psychologists. Baldwin brought forward the concept of circular reaction to explain the interrelation of stimulus and response in imitation. He also indicated the place of imitation in personal development in his description of the dialectic of personal growth where the self develops in a process of give-and-take with other selves. Dewey, Stout, Mead, Henderson, and others, emphasizing the futility of the mystical explanation of imitation by imitation, have pointed out the influence of interest and attention upon imitation as a learning process. Mead, with keen analysis of the social situation, interprets imitation as the process by which the person practices roles in social life. The studies of Thorndike may be mentioned as representative of the important experimental research upon this subject.

4. Suggestion

The reflective study of imitation originated in attempts at the explanation of uniformities in the behavior of individuals. Research in suggestion began in the narrow but mysterious field of the occult. In 1765 Mesmer secured widespread attention by advancing the theory that heavenly bodies influence human beings by means of a subtle fluid which he called "animal magnetism." Abbe Faria, who came to Paris from India in 1814-15, demonstrated by experiments that the cause of the hypnotic sleep was subjective. With the experiments in 1841 of Dr. James Braid, the originator of the term "hypnotism," the scientific phase of the development of hypnotism began. The acceptance of the facts of hypnotism by the scientific world was the result of the work of Charcot and his students of the so-called Nancy School of Psychology.

From the study of hypnotism to observation upon the role of suggestion in social life was a short step. Binet, Sidis, Muensterberg have formulated psychological definitions of suggestion and indicated its significance for an understanding of so-called crowd phenomena in human behavior. Bechterew in his monograph Die Bedeutung der Suggestion im Sozialen Leben has presented an interpretation of distinct value for sociological research. At the present time there are many promising developments in the study of suggestion in special fields, such as advertising, leadership, politics, religion.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. INTERACTION AND SOCIAL INTERACTION

(1) Lotze, Hermann. Metaphysic. Vol. I, chap, vi, "The Unity of Things." Oxford, 1887.

(2) Ormond, Alexander T. Foundations of Knowledge. Chap, vii, "Community or Interaction." London and New York, 1900.

(3) Gumplowicz, L. Der Rassenkampf. Sociologische Untersuchungen. Pp. 158-75. Innsbruck, 1883.

(4) Simmel, Georg. "Ueber sociale Differenzierung, sociologische und psychologische Untersuchungen." Staats- und Socialwissenschaftliche Forschungen, edited by G. Schmoller. Vol. X. Leipzig, 1891.

(5) Royce, J. The World and the Individual. 2d ser. "Nature, Man, and the Moral Order," Lecture IV. "Physical and Social Reality." London and New York, 1901.

(6) Boodin, J. E. "Social Systems," American Journal of Sociology, XXIII (May, 1918), 705-34.

(7) Tosti, Gustavo. "Social Psychology and Sociology," The Psychological Review, V (July, 1898), 348-61.

(8) Small, Albion W. General Sociology. Chicago, 1905.

(9) Cooley, Charles H. The Social Process. New York, 1918.

II. SOCIAL INTERACTION AND SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS

(1) Marshall, Henry R. Consciousness. Chap, vii, "Of Consciousnesses More Complex than Human Consciousnesses." New York and London, 1909.

(2) Baldwin, James Mark. Social and Ethical Interpretations in Mental Development. A study in social psychology. New York and London, 1906.

(3) Royce, Josiah. "Self-Consciousness, Social Consciousness and Nature," Philosophical Review, IV (1895), 465-85; 577-602.

(4) ——. "The External World and the Social Consciousness," Philosophical Review, III (1894), 513-45.

(5) Worms, Rene. Organisme et Societe. Chap. x, "Fonctions de Relation." Paris, 1896.

(6) Mead, G. H. "Social Consciousness and the Consciousness of Meaning," Psychological Bulletin, VII (Dec. 15, 1910), 397-405.

(7) ——. "Psychology of Social Consciousness Implied in Instruction," Science, N. S., XXI (1910), 688-93.

(8) Novicow, J. Conscience et volonte sociales. Paris, 1897.

(9) McDougall, W. The Group Mind. A sketch of the principles of collective psychology with some attempt to apply them to the interpretation of national life and character. New York and London, 1920.

(10) Ames, Edward S. "Religion in Terms of Social Consciousness," The Journal of Religion, I (1921), 264-70.

(11) Burgess, E. W. The Function of Socialization in Social Evolution. Chicago, 1916.

(12) Maciver, R. M. Community. A sociological study, being an attempt to set out the nature and fundamental laws of social life. London, 1917.

III. COMMUNICATION AND INTERACTION

A. The Emotions and Emotional Expression

(1) James, William. The Principles of Psychology. Vol. II, chap. xxv. New York, 1896.

(2) Dewey, John. "The Theory of Emotion," Psychological Review, I (1894), 553-69; II (1895), 13-32.

(3) Wundt, Wilhelm. Grundzuege der physiologischen Psychologie. 3 vols. 6th ed. Leipzig, 1908-11.

(4) Ribot, T. The Psychology of the Emotions. London and New York, 1898.

(5) Darwin, Charles. The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. London and New York, 1873.

(6) Rudolph, Heinrich. Der Ausdruck der Gemuetsbewegungen des Menschen dargestellt und erklaert auf Grund der Urformen-und der Gesetze des Ausdrucks und der Erregungen. Dresden, 1903.

(7) Piderit, T. Mimik und Physiognomik. Rev. ed. Detmold, 1886.

(8) Cannon, Walter B. Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear, and Rage. An account of recent researches into the function of emotional excitement. New York and London, 1915.

(9) Hirn, Yrjoe. The Origins of Art. A psychological and sociological, inquiry. London and New York, 1900.

(10) Bergson, H. Le Rire. Essai sur la signification du comique. Paris, 1900.

(11) Sully, James. An Essay on Laughter. Its forms, its causes, its development, and its value. London and New York, 1902.

(12) Dugas, L. Psychologie du rire. Paris, 1902.

(13) Groos, Karl. The Play of Man. Translated from the German by Elizabeth L. Baldwin. New York, 1901.

(14) ——. The Play of Animals. Translated from the German by Elizabeth L. Baldwin. New York, 1898.

(15) Royce, J. The Spirit of Modern Philosophy. An essay in the form of lectures. Chap. xii, "Physical Law and Freedom: The World of Description and the World of Appreciation." Boston, 1892.

(16) Buecher, Karl. Arbeit und Rhythmus. Leipzig, 1902.

(17) Mallery, Garrick. "Sign Language among North American Indians compared with That among Other Peoples and Deaf Mutes." United States Bureau of American Ethnology. First Annual Report. Washington, 1881.

B. Language and the Printing Press

(1) Schmoller, Gustav. Grundriss der allgemeinen Volkswirtschaftslehre. Chap, ii, 2, "Die psychophysischen Mittel menschlicher Verstaendigung: Sprache und Schrift." Leipzig, 1900.

(2) Lazarus, Moritz. "Das Leben der Seele," Geist und Sprache, Vol. II. Berlin, 1878.

(3) Wundt, Wilhelm. "Voelkerpsychologie." Eine Untersuchung der Entwicklungsgesetze von Sprache, Mythus, und Sitte. Die Sprache, Vol. I. Part i. Leipzig, 1900.

(4) Wuttke, Heinrich. Die deutschen Zeitschriften und die Entstehung der oeffentlichen Meinung. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Zeitungswesens. Leipzig, 1875.

(5) Mason, William A. A History of the Art of Writing. New York, 1920.

(6) Buecher, Carl. Industrial Evolution. Translated from the German by S. M. Wickett. Chap. vi, "The Genesis of Journalism." New York, 1901.

(7) Dibblee, G. Binney. The Newspaper. New York and London, 1913.

(8) Payne, George Henry. History of Journalism in the United States. New York and London, 1920.

(9) Kawabe, Kisaburo. The Press and Politics in Japan. A study of the relation between the newspaper and the political development of modern Japan. Chicago, 1921.

(10) Muensterberg, Hugo. The Photoplay. A psychological study. New York, 1916.

(11) Kingsbury, J. E. The Telephone and Telephone Exchanges. Their invention and development. London and New York, 1915.

(12) Borght, R. van der. Das Verkehrswesen. Leipzig, 1894.

(13) Mason, O. T. Primitive Travel and Transportation. New York, 1897.

C. Slang, Argot, and Universes of Discourse

(1) Farmer, John S. Slang and Its Analogues Past and Present. A dictionary, historical and comparative, of the heterodox speech of all classes of society for more than three hundred years. With synonyms in English, French, German, Italian, etc. London, 1890-1904.

(2) Sechrist, Frank K. The Psychology of Unconventional Language. Worcester, Mass., 1913.

(3) Ware, J. Redding. Passing English of the Victorian Era. A dictionary of heterodox English, slang and phrase. New York, 1909.

(4) Hotten, John C. A Dictionary of Modern Slang, Cant, and Vulgar Words. Used at the present day in the streets of London; the universities of Oxford and Cambridge; the houses of Parliament; the dens of St. Giles; and the palaces of St. James. Preceded by a history of cant and vulgar language; with glossaries of two secret languages, spoken by the wandering tribes of London, the costermongers, and the patterers. London, 1859.

(5) ——. The Slang Dictionary. Etymological, historical, and anecdotal. New York, 1898.

(6) Farmer, John S. The Public School Word-Book. A contribution to a historical glossary of words, phrases, and turns of expression, obsolete and in present use, peculiar to our great public schools, together with some that have been or are modish at the universities. London, 1900.

(7) A New Dictionary of the Terms Ancient and Modern of the Canting Crew. In its several tribes of gypsies, beggars, thieves, cheats, etc., with an addition of some proverbs, phrases, and figurative speeches, etc. London, 1690. Reprinted, 19—.

(8) Kluge, F. Rotwelsch. Quellen und Wortschatz der Gaunersprache und der verwandten Geheimsprachen. Strassburg, 1901.

(9) Barrere, Albert, and Leland, C. G., editors. A Dictionary of Slang, Jargon, and Cant. Embracing English, American, and Anglo-Indian slang, pidgin English, gypsies' jargon, and other irregular phraseology. 2 vols. London, 1897.

(10) Villatte, Cesaire. Parisismen. Alphabetisch geordnete Sammlung der eigenartigen Ausdrucksweisen des Pariser Argot. Ein Supplement zu allen franzoesisch-deutschen Woerterbuechern. Berlin, 1899.

(11) Delesalle, Georges. Dictionnaire argot-francais et francais-argot. Nouvelle Edition. Paris, 1899.

(12) Villon, Francois. Le jargon et jobelin de Francois Villon, suivi du jargon an theatre. Paris, 1888.

(13) Saineanu, Lazar. L'Argot ancien (1455-1850). Ses elements constitutifs, ses rapports avec les langues secretes de l'Europe meridionale et l'argot moderne, avec un appendice sur l'argot juge par Victor Hugo et Balzac; par Lazare Sainean, pseud. Paris, 1907.

(14) Dauzat, Albert. Les argots des metiers franco-provencaux. Paris, 1917.

(15) Leland, Charles G. The English Gypsies and Their Languages. 4th ed. New York, 1893.

(16) Dictionnaire des termes militaires et de l'argot poilu. Paris, 1916.

(17) Empey, Arthur Guy. Over the Top. By an American soldier who went, Arthur Guy Empey, machine gunner, serving in France; together with Tommy's dictionary of the trenches. New York and London, 1917.

(18) Smith, L. N. Lingo of No Man's Land; or, War Time Lexicon. Compiled by Sergt. Lorenzo N. Smith. Chicago, 1918.

(19) Saineanu, Lazar. L'Argot des tranchees. D'apres les lettres des poilus et les journaux du front. Paris, 1915.

(20) Horn, Paul. Die deutsche Soldatensprache. Giessen, 1905.

IV. IMITATION AND SUGGESTION

A. Imitation

(1) Bagehot, Walter. Physics and Politics; or, Thoughts on the Application of the Principles of "Natural Selection" and "Inheritance" to Political Society. New York, 1873.

(2) Tarde, Gabriel. The Laws of Imitation. Translated from the 2d. French ed. by Elsie Clews Parsons. New York, 1903.

(3) Baldwin, James M. Mental Development in the Child and the Race. Methods and processes. 3d. rev. ed. New York, 1906.

(4) ——. Social and Ethical Interpretations in Mental Development. A study in social psychology. 4th ed. New York, 1906.

(5) Royce, Josiah. Outlines of Psychology. An elementary treatise with some practical applications. New York, 1903.

(6) Henderson, Ernest N. A Text-Book in the Principles of Education. Chap. xi, "Imitation." New York, 1910.

(7) Thorndike, E. L. Educational Psychology. Vol. I., The Original Nature of Man. Chap. viii, pp. 108-22. New York, 1913.

(8) Hughes, Henry. Die Mimik des Menschen auf Grund voluntarischer Psychologie. Frankfurt a. M., 1900.

(9) Park, Robert E. Masse und Publikum. Eine methodologische und soziologische Untersuchung. Chap. ii, "Der soziologische Prozess," describes the historical development of the conception of imitation in its relation to sympathy and mimicry in the writings of Hume, Butler, and Dugald Stewart. Bern, 1904.

(10) Smith, Adam. The Theory of Moral Sentiments. To which is added a dissertation on the origin of languages. London, 1892.

(11) Ribot, T. The Psychology of the Emotions. Part II, chap. iv, "Sympathy and the Tender Emotions," pp. 230-38. Translated from the French, 2d ed. London, 1911.

(12) Dewey, John. "Imitation in Education," Cyclopedia of Education, III, 389-90.

(13) Him, Yrjoe. The Origins of Art. A psychological and sociological inquiry. Chap. vi, "Social Expression." London and New York, 1900.

B. Suggestion

(1) Moll, Albert. Hypnotism. Including a study of the chief points of psychotherapeutics and occultism. Translated from the 4th enl. ed. by A. F. Hopkirk. London and New York, 1909.

(2) Binet, A., and Fere, Ch. Animal Magnetism. New York, 1892.

(3) Janet, Pierre. L'Automisme psychologique. Essai de psychologie experimental sur les formes inferieures de l'activite humaine. Paris, 1889.

(4) Bernheim, H. Hypnotisme, Suggestion, Psychotherapie. Paris, 1891.

(5) Richet, Ch. Experimentelle Studien auf dem Gebiete der Gedankenuebertragung und des sogenannten Hellsehens. Deutsch von Frhrn. von Schrenck-Notzing. Stuttgart, 1891.

(6) Pfungst, Oskar. Clever Hans (The Horse of Mr. von Osten). A contribution to experimental animal and human psychology. New York, 1911. [Bibliography.]

(7) Hansen, F. C. C., and Lehmann, A. Ueber unwillkuerliches Fluestern. Philosophische Studien, Leipzig, XI (1895), 471-530.

(8) Fere, Ch. Sensation et mouvement. Chap, xix, pp. 120-24. Paris, 1887.

(9) Sidis, Boris. The Psychology of Suggestion. A research into the subconscious nature of man and society. New York, 1898.

(10) Bechterew, W. v. Die Bedeutung der Suggestion im Sozialen Leben. Grenzfragen des Nerven- und Seelenlebens. Wiesbaden, 1905.

(11) Stoll, Otto. Suggestion und Hypnotismus in der Voelkerpsychologie. Leipzig, 1904.

(12) Binet, Alfred. La Suggestibilite. Paris, 1900.

(13) Muensterberg, Hugo. Psychotherapy. Chap. v, "Suggestion and Hypnotism," pp. 85-124. New York, 1909.

(14) Cooley, Charles. Human Nature and the Social Order. Chap. ii. New York, 1902.

(15) Gulick, Sidney. The American Japanese Problem. A study of the racial relations of the East and the West. Pp. 118-68. New York, 1914.

(16) Fishberg, Maurice. The Jews. A study of race and environment. London and New York, 1911.

TOPICS FOR WRITTEN THEMES

1. A History of the Concept of Social Interaction.

2. Interaction and the Atomic Theory.

3. Interaction and Social Consciousness.

4. Interaction and Self-Consciousness.

5. Religion and Social Consciousness.

6. Publicity and Social Consciousness.

7. Interaction and the Limits of the Group.

8. The Senses and Communication: a Comparative Study of the Role of Touch, Smell, Sight, and Hearing in Social Intercourse.

9. Facial Expression as a Form of Communication.

10. Laughter and Blushing and Self-Consciousness.

11. The Sociology of Gesture.

12. The Subtler Forms of Interaction; "Mind-Reading," "Thought Transference."

13. Rapport, A Study of Mutual Influence in Intimate Associations.

14. A History of Imitation as a Sociological Theory.

15. Suggestion as an Explanation of Collective Behavior.

16. Adam Smith's Theory of the Relation of Sympathy and Moral Judgment.

17. Interest, Attention, and Imitation.

18. Imitation and Appreciation.

19. The History of Printing and of the Press.

20. Modem Extensions of Communication: the Telephone, the Telegraph, Radio, the Motion Picture, Popular Music.

21. An Explanation of Secondary Society in Terms of Secondary Devices of Communication.

22. Graham Wallas' Conception of the Problem of Social Heritages in Secondary Society.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. What do you understand Gumplowicz to mean by a "natural process"?

2. Do you think that the idea of a "natural process" is applicable to society?

3. Is Gumplowicz' principle of the interaction of social elements valid?

4. What do you understand Simmel to mean by society? by socialization?

5. Do you agree with Simmel when he says, "In and of themselves, these materials with which life is filled, these motivations which impel it, are not social in their nature"?

6. In what ways, according to Simmel, does interaction maintain the mechanism of the group in time?

7. What do you understand to be the distinction which Simmel makes between attitudes of appreciation and comprehension?

8. "The interaction of individuals based upon mutual glances is perhaps the most direct and purest reciprocity which exists." Explain.

9. Explain the sociology of the act of looking down to avoid the glance of the other.

10. In what way does Simmel's distinction between the reactions to other persons of the blind and the deaf-mute afford an explanation of the difference between the social life of the village and of the large city?

11. In what sense are emotions expressive? To whom are they expressive?

12. What is the relation of emotional expression to communication?

13. Why would you say Darwin states that "blushing is the most peculiar and the most human of all expressions"?

14. Does a person ever blush in isolation?

15. What in your opinion is the bearing of the phenomenon of blushing upon interaction and communication?

16. What is the difference between the function of blushing and of laughing in social life?

17. In what sense is sympathy the "law of laughter"?

18. What determines the object of laughter?

19. What is the sociological explanation of the role of laughter and ridicule in social control?

20. What are the likenesses and differences between intercommunication among animals and language among men?

21. What is the criterion of the difference between man and the animal, according to Max Mueller?

22. In your opinion, was the situation in which language arose one of unanimity or diversity of attitude?

23. "Language and ideational processes developed together and are necessary to each other." Explain.

24. What is the relation of the evolution of writing as a form of communication (a) to the development of ideas, and (b) to social life?

25. What difference in function, if any, is there between communication carried on (a) merely through expressive signs, (b) language, (c) writing, (d) printing?

26. How does the evolution of publicity exhibit the extension of communication by human invention?

27. In what ways is the extension of communication related to primary and secondary contacts?

28. Does the growth of communication make for or against the development of individuality?

29. How do you define imitation?

30. What is the relation of attention and interest to the mechanism of imitation?

31. What is the relation of imitation to learning?

32. What is the relation of imitation to the three phases of sympathy differentiated by Ribot?

33. What do you understand by Smith's definition of sympathy? How does it differ from that of Ribot?

34. Under what conditions is the sentiment aroused in the observer likely to resemble that of the observed? When is it likely to be different?

35. In what sense is sympathy the basis for passing a moral judgment upon a person or an act?

36. What do you understand by "internal imitation"?

37. What is the significance of imitation for artistic appreciation?

38. What do you understand by the term "appreciation"? Distinguish between "appreciation" and "comprehension." (Compare Hirn's distinction with that made by Simmel.)

39. Upon what is the nature of suggestion based? How do you define suggestion?

40. What do you understand by Bechterew's distinction between active perception and passive perception?

41. Why can we speak of suggestion as a mental automatism?

42. How real is the analogy of suggestion to an infection or an inoculation?

43. What do you understand by the distinction between personal consciousness and general consciousness?

44. What is the significance of attention in determining the character of suggestion?

45. What is the relation of rapport to suggestion?

46. How would you distinguish suggestion from other forms of stimulus and response?

47. Is suggestion a term of individual or of social psychology?

48. What is the significance of the case of Clever Hans for the interpretation of so-called telepathy? of muscle reading?

49. How extensive, would you say, are the subtler forms of suggestion in normal life? What illustrations would you give?

50. What is the role of social contagion in mass action?

51. What do you understand Bechterew to mean by "the psychological processes of fusion"? "spiritual cohesion," etc.?

52. What does it mean to say that historical personages "embody in themselves the emotions and the desires of the masses"?

53. What, in your judgment, are the differentiating criteria of suggestion and imitation?

54. What do you understand is meant by speaking of imitation and suggestion as mechanisms of interaction?

FOOTNOTES:

[135] Pp. 70 and 72.

[136] Translated and adapted from Ludwig Gumplowicz, Der Rassenkampf, pp. 158-61. (Innsbruck: Wagnerische Univ. Buchhandlung, 1883.)

[137] Translated from Georg Simmel, Soziologie, by Albion W. Small, American Journal of Sociology, XV (1909), 296-98; III (1898), 667-83.

[138] Translated and adapted from Georg Simmel, Soziologie, pp. 646-51. (Leipzig: Duncker und Humblot, 1908.)

[139] Adapted from Charles Darwin, The Expression of the Emotions, pp. 350-67. (John Murray, 1873.)

[140] Adapted from Charles Darwin, The Expression of the Emotions, pp. 310-37. (John Murray, 1873.)

[141] Translated and adapted from L. Dugas, Psychologie du rire, pp. 32-153. (Felix Alcan, 1902.)

[142] Adapted from C. Lloyd Morgan, Animal Behaviour, pp. 193-205. (Edward Arnold, 1908.)

[143] Adapted from F. Max Mueller, The Science of Language, I, 520-27. (Longmans, Green & Co., 1891.)

[144] Adapted from Charles H. Judd, Psychology, pp. 219-24. (Ginn & Co., 1917.)

[145] Adapted from Carl Buecher, Industrial Evolution. Translated by S. Morley Wickett, pp. 216-43. (Henry Holt & Co., 1907.)

[146] From Charles H. Judd, "Imitation," in Monroe's Cyclopedia of Education, III, 388-89. (Published by The Macmillan Co., 1912. Reprinted by permission.)

[147] Adapted from G. F. Stout, A Manual of Psychology, pp. 390-91. (The University Tutorial Press, 1913.)

[148] Adapted from Th. Ribot, The Psychology of the Emotions, pp. 230-34. (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1898.)

[149] Adapted from Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, pp. 3-10. (G. Bell & Sons, 1893.)

[150] From Yrjoe Hirn, The Origins of Art, pp. 74-85. (Published by The Macmillan Co., 1900. Reprinted by permission.)

[151] Translated and adapted from the German, Die Bedeutung der Suggestion im Sozialen Leben, pp. 10-15, from the original Russian of W. v. Bechterew. (J. F. Bergmann, Wiesbaden, 1905.)

[152] Adapted from Albert Moll, Hypnotism, pp. 453-57. The Contemporary Science Series. (Walter Scott, 1909.)

[153] Translated and adapted from the German, Die Bedeutung der Suggestion im Sozialen Leben, pp. 134-42, from the original Russian of W. v. Bechterew. (Wiesbaden: J. F. Bergmann, 1905.)

[154] The Social Process, p. 28.

[155] P. xiv.

[156] P. 41.



CHAPTER VII

SOCIAL FORCES

I. INTRODUCTION

1. Sources of the Notion of Social Forces

The concept of interaction is an abstraction so remote from ordinary experience that it seems to have occurred only to scientists and philosophers. The idea of forces behind the manifestations of physical nature and of society is a notion which arises naturally out of the experience of the ordinary man. Historians, social reformers, and students of community life have used the term in the language of common sense to describe factors in social situations which they recognized but did not attempt to describe or define. Movements for social reform have usually met with unexpected obstacles. Public welfare programs have not infrequently been received with popular antagonism instead of popular support. Lack of success has led to the search for causes, and investigation has revealed the obstacles, as well as the aids, to reform embodied in influential persons, "political bosses," "union leaders," "the local magnate," and in powerful groups such as party organizations, unions, associations of commerce, etc. Social control, it appears, is resident, not in individuals as individuals, but as members of communities and social groups. Candid recognition of the role of these persons and groups led popular writers on social, political, and economic topics to give them the impersonal designation "social forces."

A student made the following crude and yet illuminating analysis of the social forces in a small community where he had lived: the community club, "the Davidson clique," and the "Jones clique" (these two large family groups are intensely hostile and divide village life); the community Methodist church; the Presbyterian church group (no church); the library; two soft-drink parlors where all kinds of beverages are sold; the daily train; the motion-picture show; the dance hall; a gambling clique; sex attraction; gossip; the "sporting" impulse; the impulse to be "decent."

"The result," he states, "is a disgrace to our modern civilization. It is one of the worst communities I ever saw."

The most significant type of community study has been the social survey, with a history which antedates its recent developments. Yet the survey movement from the Domesday Survey, initiated in 1085 by William the Conqueror, to the recent Study of Methods of Americanization by the Carnegie Corporation, has been based upon an implicit or explicit recognition of the interrelations of the community and its constituent groups. The Domesday Survey, although undertaken for financial and political purposes, gives a picture of the English nation as an organization of isolated local units, which the Norman Conquest first of all forced into closer unity. The surveys of the Russell Sage Foundation have laid insistent emphasis upon the study of social problems and of social institutions in their context within the life of the community. The central theme of the different divisions of the Carnegie Study of Methods of Americanization is the nature and the degree of the participation of the immigrant in our national and cultural life. In short, the survey, wittingly or unwittingly, has tended to penetrate beneath surface observations to discover the interrelations of social groups and institutions and has revealed community life as a constellation of social forces.

2. History of the Concept of Social Forces

The concept of social forces has had a history different from that of interaction. It was in the writings of the historians rather than of the sociologists that the term first gained currency. The historians, in their description and interpretation of persons and events, discerned definite motives or tendencies, which served to give to the mere temporal sequence of the events a significance which they did not otherwise possess. These tendencies historians called "social forces."

From the point of view and for the purposes of reformers social forces were conceived as embodied in institutions. For the purposes of the historian they are merely tendencies which combine to define the general trend of historical change. The logical motive, which has everywhere guided science in formulating its conceptions, is here revealed in its most naive and elementary form. Natural science invariably seeks to describe change in terms of process, that is to say, in terms of interaction of tendencies. These tendencies are what science calls forces.

For the purposes of an adequate description, however, it is necessary not merely to conceive change in terms of the interplay of forces, but to think of these forces as somehow objectively embodied, as social forces are conceived to be embodied in institutions, organizations, and persons. These objects in which the forces are, or seem to be, resident are not forces in any real or metaphysical sense, as the physicists tell us. They are mere points of reference which enable us to visualize the direction and measure the intensity of change.

Institutions and social organizations may, in any given situation, be regarded as social forces, but they are not ultimate nor elementary forces. One has but to carry the analysis of the community a little farther to discover the fact that institutions and organizations may be further resolved into factors of smaller and smaller denominations until we have arrived at individual men and women. For common sense the individual is quite evidently the ultimate factor in every community or social organization.

Sociologists have carried the analysis a step farther. They have sought to meet the problem raised by two facts: (1) the same individual may be a member of different societies, communities, and social groups at the same time; (2) under certain circumstances his interests as a member of one group may conflict with his interests as a member of another group, so that the conflict between different social groups will be reflected in the mental and moral conflicts of the individual himself. Furthermore, it is evident that the individual is, as we frequently say, "not the same person" at different times and places. The phenomena of moods and of dual personality has sociological significance in just this connection.

From all this it is quite evident that the individual is not elementary in a sociological sense. It is for this reason that sociologists have invariably sought the sociological element, not in the individual but in his appetites, desires, wishes—the human motives which move him to action.

3. Classification of the Materials

The readings in this chapter are arranged in the natural order of the development of the notion of social forces. They were first thought of by historians as tendencies and trends. Then in the popular sociology social forces were identified with significant social objects in which the factors of the situations under consideration were embodied. This was a step in the direction of a definition of the elementary social forces. Later the terms interests, sentiments, and attitudes made their appearance in the literature of economics, social psychology, and sociology. Finally the concept of the wishes, first vaguely apprehended by sociologists under the name "desires," having gained a more adequate description and definition in the use made of it by psychoanalysis, has been reintroduced into sociology by W. I. Thomas under the title of the "four wishes." This brief statement is sufficient to indicate the motives determining the order of the materials included under "Social Forces."

In the list of social forces just enumerated, attitudes are, for the purposes of sociology, elementary. They are elementary because, being tendencies to act, they are expressive and communicable. They present us human motives in the only form in which we can know them objectively, namely, as behavior. Human motives become social forces only so far as they are communicable, only when they are communicated. Because attitudes have for the purposes of sociology this elementary character, it is desirable to define the term "attitude" before attempting to define its relation to the wishes and sentiments.

a) The social element defined.—What is an attitude? Attitudes are not instincts, nor appetites, nor habits, for these refer to specific tendencies to act that condition attitudes but do not define them. Attitudes are not the same as emotions or sentiments although attitudes always are emotionally toned and frequently supported by sentiments. Opinions are not attitudes. An opinion is rather a statement made to justify and make intelligible an existing attitude or bias. A wish is an inherited tendency or instinct which has been fixed by attention directed to objects, persons, or patterns of behavior, which objects then assume the character of values. An attitude is the tendency of the person to react positively or negatively to the total situation. Accordingly, attitudes may be defined as the mobilization of the will of the person.

Attitudes are as many and as varied as the situations to which they are a response. It is, of course, not to be gainsaid that instincts, appetites, habits, emotions, sentiments, opinions, and wishes are involved in and with the attitudes. Attitudes are mobilizations and organizations of the wishes with reference to definite situations. My wishes may be very positive and definite in a given situation, but my attitude may be wavering and undetermined. On the other hand, my attitude may be clearly defined in situations where my wishes are not greatly involved. It is characteristic of the so-called academic, as distinguished from the "practical" and emotional, attitude that, under its influence, the individual seeks to emphasize all the factors in the situation and thus qualifies and often weakens the will to act. The wishes enter into attitudes as components. How many, varied, ill-defined, and conflicting may be and have been the wishes that have determined at different times the attitudes and the sentiments of individuals and nations toward the issues of war and peace? The fundamental wishes, we may assume, are the same in all situations. The attitudes and sentiments, however, in which the wishes of the individual find expression are determined not merely by these wishes, but by other factors in the situation, the wishes of other individuals, for example. The desire for recognition is a permanent and universal trait of human nature, but in the case of an egocentric personality, this wish may take the form of an excessive humility or a pretentious boasting. The wish is the same but the attitudes in which it finds expression are different.

The attitudes which are elementary for sociological analysis may be resolved by psychological analysis into smaller factors so that we may think, if we choose, of attitudes as representing constellations of smaller components which we call wishes. In fact it has been one of the great contributions of psychoanalysis to our knowledge of human behavior that it has been able to show that attitudes may be analyzed into still more elementary components and that these components, like the attitudes, are involved in a process of interaction among themselves. In other words there is organization, tension, and change in the constituent elements of the attitudes. This accounts, in part, for their mutability.

b) Attitudes as behavior patterns.—If the attitude may be said to play the role in sociological analysis that the elementary substances play in chemical analysis, then the role of the wishes may be compared to that of the electrons.

The clearest way to think of attitudes is as behavior patterns or units of behavior. The two most elementary behavior patterns are the tendency to approach and the tendency to withdraw. Translated into terms of the individual organism these are tendencies to expand and to contract. As the self expands to include other selves, as in sympathy and in fellowship, there is an extension of self-feeling to the whole group. Self-consciousness passes over, in the rapport thus established, into group consciousness. In the expansive movements characteristic of individuals under the influence of crowd excitements the individual is submerged in the mass.

On the other hand, in movements of withdrawal or of recoil from other persons, characteristic of fear and embarrassment, there is a heightening of self-consciousness. The tendency to identify one's self with other selves, to lose one's self in the ecstasy of psychic union with others, is essentially a movement toward contact; while the inclination to differentiate one's self, to lead a self-sufficient existence, apart from others, is as distinctly a movement resulting in isolation.

The simplest and most fundamental types of behavior of individuals and of groups are represented in these contrasting tendencies to approach an object or to withdraw from it. If instead of thinking of these two tendencies as unrelated, they are thought of as conflicting responses to the same situation, where the tendency to approach is modified and complicated by a tendency to withdraw, we get the phenomenon of social distance. There is the tendency to approach, but not too near. There is a feeling of interest and sympathy of A for B, but only when B remains at a certain distance. Thus the Negro in the southern states is "all right in his place." The northern philanthropist is interested in the advancement of the Negro but wants him to remain in the South. At least he does not want him for a neighbor. The southern white man likes the Negro as an individual, but he is not willing to treat him as an equal. The northern white man is willing to treat the Negro as an equal but he does not want him too near. The wishes are in both cases essentially the same but the attitudes are different.

The accommodations between conflicting tendencies, so flagrantly displayed in the facts of race prejudice, are not confined to the relation of white men and black. The same mechanisms are involved in all the subordinations, exclusions, privacies, social distances, and reserves which we seek everywhere, by the subtle devices of taboo and social ritual, to maintain and defend. Where the situation calls forth rival or conflicting tendencies, the resulting attitude is likely to be an accommodation, in which what has been described as distance is the determining factor. When an accommodation takes the form of the domination of A and the submission of B, the original tendencies of approach and withdrawal are transformed into attitudes of superordination and subordination. If primary attitudes of expansion and of contraction are thought of in terms of lateral distance, then attitudes of superiority and inferiority may be charted in the vertical plane as illustrated by the following diagram:



This polar conception of attitudes, in which they are conceived in terms of movements of expansion and contraction, of approach and withdrawal, of attraction and repulsion, of domination and submission, may be applied in an analysis of the sentiments.

A sentiment, as defined by McDougall, is "an organized system of emotional dispositions centered about the idea of some object." The polarity of the sentiments is, however, one of its evident and striking characteristics. Love and hate, affection and dislike, attachment and aversion, self-esteem and humility have this character of polarity because each pair of sentiments and attitudes represents a different constellation of the same component wishes.

A significant feature of sentiments and attitudes is inner tension and consequent tendency to mutation. Love changes into hate, or dislike is transformed into affection, or humility is replaced by self-assertion. This mutability is explained by the fact, just mentioned, that the sentiment-attitude is a complex of wishes and desires organized around a person or object. In this complex one motive—love, for example—is for a moment the dominant component. In this case components which tend to excite repulsion, hostility, and disgust are for the moment suppressed. With a change in the situation, as in the distance, these suppressed components are released and, gaining control, convert the system into the opposite sentiment, as hate.

c) Attitudes and wishes.—The wishes, as popularly conceived, are as numerous as the objects or values toward which they are directed. As there are positive and negative values, so there are positive and negative wishes. Fears are negative wishes. The speculations of the Freudian school of psychology have attempted to reduce all wishes to one, the libido. In that case, the wishes, as we know them and as they present themselves to us in consciousness, are to be regarded as offshoots or, perhaps better, specifications of the one wish. As the one wish is directed to this or that object, it makes of that object a value and the object gives its name to the wish. In this way the one wish becomes many wishes.

Science demands, however, not a theory of the origin of the wishes but a classification based on fundamental natural differences; differences which it is necessary to take account of in explaining human behavior. Thomas' fourfold classification fulfils this purpose. The wish for security, the wish for new experience, the wish for response, and the wish for recognition are the permanent and fundamental unconscious motives of the person which find expression in the many and changing concrete and conscious wishes. As wishes find expression in characteristic forms of behavior they may also be thought of in spatial terms as tendencies to move toward or away from their specific objects. The wish for security may be represented by position, mere immobility; the wish for new experience by the greatest possible freedom of movement and constant change of position; the wish for response, by the number and closeness of points of contact; the wish for recognition, by the level desired or reached in the vertical plane of superordination and subordination.

The fundamental value for social research of the classification inheres in the fact that the wishes in one class cannot be substituted for wishes in another. The desire for response and affection cannot be satisfied by fame and recognition or only partially so. The wholesome individual is he who in some form or other realizes all the four fundamental wishes. The security and permanence of any society or association depends upon the extent to which it permits the individuals who compose it to realize their fundamental wishes. The restless individual is the individual whose wishes are not realized even in dreams.

This suggests the significance of the classification for the purposes of social science. Human nature, and personality as we know it, requires for its healthy growth security, new experience, response, and recognition. In all races and in all times these fundamental longings of human nature have manifested themselves; the particular patterns in which the wish finds expression and becomes fixed depends upon some special experience of the person, is influenced by individual differences in original nature, and is circumscribed by the folkways, the mores, the conventions, and the culture of his group.

II. MATERIALS

A. TRENDS, TENDENCIES, AND PUBLIC OPINION

1. Social Forces in American History[157]

That political struggles are based upon economic interests is today disputed by few students of society. The attempt has been made in this work to trace the various interests that have arisen and struggled in each social stage and to determine the influence exercised by these contending interests in the creation of social institutions.

Back of every political party there has always stood a group or class which expected to profit by the activity and the success of that party. When any party has attained to power, it has been because it has tried to establish institutions or to modify existing ones in accord with its interests.

Changes in the industrial basis of society—inventions, new processes, and combinations and methods of producing and distributing goods—create new interests with new social classes to represent them. These improvements in the technique of production are the dynamic element that brings about what we call progress in society.

In this work I have sought to begin at the origin of each line of social progress. I have first endeavored to describe the steps in mechanical progress, then the social classes brought into prominence by the mechanical changes, then the struggle by which these new classes sought to gain social power, and, finally, the institutions which were created or the alterations made in existing institutions as a consequence of the struggle or as a result of the victory of a new class.

It has seemed to me that these underlying social forces are of more importance than the individuals that were forced to the front in the process of these struggles, or even than the laws that were established to record the results of the conflict. In short, I have tried to describe the dynamics of history rather than to record the accomplished facts, to answer the question, "Why did it happen?" as well as, "What happened?"

An inquiry into causes is manifestly a greater task than the recording of accomplished facts. To determine causes it is necessary to spend much time in the study of "original documents"—the newspapers, magazines, and pamphlet literature of each period. In these, rather than in the "musty documents" of state, do we find history in the making. Here we can see the clash of contending interests before they are crystallized into laws and institutions.

2. Social Tendencies as Social Forces[158]

The philosophy of the eighteenth century viewed external nature as the principal thing to be considered in a study of society, and not society itself. The great force in society was extraneous to society. But according to the philosophy of our times, the chief forces working in society are truly social forces, that is to say, they are immanent in society itself.

Let us briefly examine the social forces which are at work, either concentrating or diffusing the ownership of wealth. If it is true that, necessarily, there is going forward a concentration of property, that the rich are necessarily becoming richer, that wealth is passing into fewer and fewer hands, this gives a strong reason for believing that those are right who hold to the fact that every field of production must soon be controlled by monopoly. If, on the other hand, we find that the forces which make for diffusion are dominant, we may believe that it is quite possible for society to control the forces of production.

a) Forces operating in the direction of concentration of wealth: (1) The unearned increment of land, especially in cities, is no doubt a real force. (2) The trust movement is operating in its earlier phases, at least, in the direction of concentration. (3) In the third place, war, whenever it comes, carries with it forces which bring wealth to the few rather than to the many. (4) Arrangements of one kind and another may be mentioned by means of various trust devices to secure the ends of primogeniture and entail. (5) Another force operating to concentrate the ownership of wealth may be called economic inertia. According to the principle of inertia, forces continue to operate until they are checked by other forces coming into contact with them.

b) Forces which operate to diffuse wealth: (1) Education, broadly considered, should be mentioned first of all. (2) Next, mention must be made of the public control of corporations. (3) Changes in taxation are the third item in this enumeration of forces. (4) The development of the idea of property as a trust is next mentioned. (5) Profit-sharing and co-operation. (6) Sound currency is next mentioned. (7) Public ownership of public utilities is a further force. (8) Labor organizations. (9) Institutions, especially in the interest of the wage-earning and economically weaker elements in the community. (10) Savings institutions and insurance.

3. Public Opinion: School of Thought and Legislation in England[159]

Public legislative opinion, as it has existed in England during the nineteenth century, presents several noteworthy aspects or characteristics. They may conveniently be considered under five heads: the existence at any given period of a predominant public opinion; the origin of such opinion; the development and continuity thereof; the checks imposed on such opinion by the existence of counter-currents and cross-currents of opinion; the action of laws themselves as the creators of legislative opinion.

First, there exists at any given time a body of beliefs, convictions, sentiments, accepted principles, or firmly rooted prejudices, which, taken together, make up the public opinion of a particular era, or what we may call the reigning or predominant current of opinion, and, as regards at any rate the last three or four centuries, and especially the nineteenth century, the influence of this dominant current of opinion has, in England, if we look at the matter broadly, determined, directly or indirectly, the course of legislation.

Second, the opinion which affects the development of the law has, in modern England at least, often originated with some single thinker or school of thinkers. No doubt it is at times allowable to talk of a prevalent belief or opinion as "being in the air," by which expression is meant that a particular way of looking at things has become the common possession of all the world. But though a belief, when it prevails, may at last be adopted by the whole of a generation, it rarely happens that a widespread conviction has grown up spontaneously among the multitude. "The initiation," it has been said, "of all wise or noble things comes, and must come, from individuals; generally at first from some one individual," to which it ought surely to be added that the origination of a new folly or of a new form of baseness comes, and must in general come, at first from individuals or from some one individual. The peculiarity of individuals, as contrasted with the crowd, lies neither in virtue nor in wickedness but in originality. It is idle to credit minorities with all the good without ascribing to them most, at least, of the evils due to that rarest of all human qualities—inventiveness.

The course of events in England may often, at least, be thus described: A new and, let us assume, a true idea presents itself to some one man of originality or genius; the discoverer of the new conception, or some follower who has embraced it with enthusiasm, preaches it to his friends or disciples, they in their turn become impressed with its importance and its truth, and gradually a whole school accepts the new creed. These apostles of a new faith are either persons endowed with special ability or, what is quite as likely, they are persons who, owing to their peculiar position, are freed from a bias, whether moral or intellectual, in favor of prevalent errors. At last the preachers of truth make an impression, either directly upon the general public or upon some person of eminence, say a leading statesman, who stands in a position to impress ordinary people and thus to win the support of the nation. Success, however, in converting mankind to a new faith, whether religious or economical or political, depends but slightly on the strength of the reasoning by which the faith can be defended, or even on the enthusiasm of its adherents. A change of belief arises, in the main, from the occurrence of circumstances which incline the majority of the world to hear with favor theories which, at one time, men of common sense derided as absurdities or distrusted as paradoxes. The doctrine of free trade, for instance, has in England for about half a century held the field as an unassailable dogma of economic policy, but a historian would stand convicted of ignorance or folly who should imagine that the fallacies of protection were discovered by the intuitive good sense of the people, even if the existence of such a quality as the good sense of the people be more than a political fiction. The principle of free trade may, as far as Englishmen are concerned, be treated as the doctrine of Adam Smith. The reasons in its favor never have been, nor will, from the nature of things, be mastered by the majority of any people. The apology for freedom of commerce will always present, from one point of view, an air of paradox. Every man feels or thinks that protection would benefit his own business, and it is difficult to realize that what may be a benefit for any man taken alone may be of no benefit to a body of men looked at collectively. The obvious objections to free trade may, as free traders conceive, be met; but then the reasoning by which these objections are met is often elaborate and subtle and does not carry conviction to the crowd. It is idle to suppose that belief in freedom of trade—or indeed in any other creed—ever won its way among the majority of converts by the mere force of reasoning. The course of events was very different. The theory of free trade won by degrees the approval of statesmen of special insight, and adherents to the new economic religion were one by one gained among persons of intelligence. Cobden and Bright finally became potent advocates of truths of which they were in no sense the discoverers. This assertion in no way detracts from the credit due to these eminent men. They performed to admiration the proper function of popular leaders; by prodigies of energy and by seizing a favorable opportunity, of which they made the very most use that was possible, they gained the acceptance by the English people of truths which have rarely, in any country but England, acquired popularity. Much was due to the opportuneness of the time. Protection wears its most offensive guise when it can be identified with a tax on bread, and therefore can, without patent injustice, be described as the parent of famine and starvation. The unpopularity, moreover, inherent in a tax on corn is all but fatal to a protective tariff when the class which protection enriches is comparatively small, whilst the class which would suffer keenly from dearness of bread and would obtain benefit from free trade is large, and, having already acquired much, is certain soon to acquire more political power. Add to all this that the Irish famine made the suspension of the corn laws a patent necessity. It is easy, then, to see how great in England was the part played by external circumstances—one might almost say by accidental conditions—in determining the overthrow of protection. A student should further remark that after free trade became an established principle of English policy, the majority of the English people accepted it mainly on authority. Men who were neither land-owners nor farmers perceived with ease the obtrusive evils of a tax on corn, but they and their leaders were far less influenced by arguments against protection generally than by the immediate and almost visible advantage of cheapening the bread of artisans and laborers. What, however, weighed with most Englishmen, above every other consideration, was the harmony of the doctrine that commerce ought to be free, with that disbelief in the benefits of state intervention which in 1846 had been gaining ground for more than a generation.

It is impossible, indeed, to insist too strongly upon the consideration that whilst opinion controls legislation, public opinion is itself far less the result of reasoning or of argument than of the circumstances in which men are placed. Between 1783 and 1861 negro slavery was abolished—one might almost say ceased of itself to exist—in the northern states of the American Republic; in the South, on the other hand, the maintenance of slavery developed into a fixed policy, and before the War of Secession the "peculiar institution" had become the foundation stone of the social system. But the religious beliefs and, except as regards the existence of slavery, the political institutions prevalent throughout the whole of the United States were the same. The condemnation of slavery in the North, and the apologies for slavery in the South, must therefore be referred to difference of circumstances. Slave labor was obviously out of place in Massachusetts, Vermont, or New York; it appeared to be, even if in reality it was not, economically profitable in South Carolina. An institution, again, which was utterly incompatible with the social condition of the northern states harmonized, or appeared to harmonize, with the social conditions of the southern states. The arguments against the peculiar institution were in themselves equally strong in whatever part of the Union they were uttered, but they carried conviction to the white citizens of Massachusetts, whilst, even when heard or read, they did not carry conviction to the citizens of South Carolina. Belief, and, to speak fairly, honest belief, was to a great extent the result, not of argument, nor even of direct self-interest, but of circumstances. What was true in this instance holds good in others. There is no reason to suppose that in 1830 the squires of England were less patriotic than the manufacturers, or less capable of mastering the arguments in favor of or against the reform of Parliament. But everyone knows that, as a rule, the country gentlemen were Tories and anti-reformers, whilst the manufacturers were Radicals and reformers. Circumstances are the creators of most men's opinions.

Third, the development of public opinion generally, and therefore of legislative opinion, has been in England at once gradual, or slow, and continuous. The qualities of slowness and continuity may conveniently be considered together, and are closely interconnected, but they are distinguishable and essentially different.

Legislative public opinion generally changes in England with unexpected slowness. Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations was published in 1776; the policy of free exchange was not completely accepted by England till 1846. All the strongest reasons in favor of Catholic emancipation were laid before the English world by Burke between 1760 and 1797; the Roman Catholic Relief Act was not carried till 1829.

The opinion which changes the law is in one sense the opinion of the time when the law is actually altered; in another sense it has often been in England the opinion prevalent some twenty or thirty years before that time; it has been as often as not in reality the opinion, not of today, but of yesterday.

Legislative opinion must be the opinion of the day, because, when laws are altered, the alteration is of necessity carried into effect by legislators who act under the belief that the change is an amendment; but this law-making opinion is also the opinion of yesterday, because the beliefs which have at last gained such hold on the legislature as to produce an alteration in the law have generally been created by thinkers or writers who exerted their influence long before the change in the law took place. Thus it may well happen that an innovation is carried through at a time when the teachers who supplied the arguments in its favor are in their graves, or even—and this is well worth noting—when in the world of speculation a movement has already set in against ideas which are exerting their full effect in the world of action and of legislation.

Law-making in England is the work of men well advanced in life; the politicians who guide the House of Commons, to say nothing of the peers who lead the House of Lords, are few of them below thirty, and most of them are above forty, years of age. They have formed or picked up their convictions, and, what is of more consequence, their prepossessions, in early manhood, which is the one period of life when men are easily impressed with new ideas. Hence English legislators retain the prejudices or modes of thinking which they acquired in their youth; and when, late in life, they take a share in actual legislation, they legislate in accordance with the doctrines which were current, either generally or in the society to which the law-givers belonged, in the days of their early manhood. The law-makers, therefore, of 1850 may give effect to the opinions of 1830, whilst the legislators of 1880 are likely enough to impress upon the statute book the beliefs of 1860, or rather the ideas which in the one case attracted the young men of 1830 and in the other the youth of 1860. We need not therefore be surprised to find that a current of opinion may exert its greatest legislative influence just when its force is beginning to decline. The tide turns when at its height; a school of thought or feeling which still governs law-makers has begun to lose its authority among men of a younger generation who are not yet able to influence legislation.

Fourth, the reigning legislative opinion of the day has never, at any rate during the nineteenth century, exerted absolute or despotic authority. Its power has always been diminished by the existence of counter-currents or cross-currents of opinion which were not in harmony with the prevalent opinion of the time.

A counter-current here means a body of opinion, belief, or sentiment more or less directly opposed to the dominant opinion of a particular era. Counter-currents of this kind have generally been supplied by the survival of ideas or convictions which are gradually losing their hold upon a given generation, and particularly the youthful part thereof. This kind of "conservatism" which prompts men to retain convictions which are losing their hold upon the mass of the world is found, it should be remarked, as much among the adherents of one religious or political creed as of another. Any Frenchman who clung to Protestantism during the reign of Louis the Fourteenth; any north-country squire who in the England of the eighteenth century adhered to the Roman Catholicism of his fathers; Samuel Johnson, standing forth as a Tory and a High Churchman amongst Whigs and Free Thinkers; the Abbe Gregoire, retaining in 1830 the attitude and the beliefs of a bishop of that constitutional church of France whereof the claims have been repudiated at once by the Church and by the State; James Mill, who, though the leader in 1832 of philosophic Radicals, the pioneers as they deemed themselves of democratic progress, was in truth the last "of the eighteenth century"—these are each and all of them examples of that intellectual and moral conservatism which everywhere, and especially in England, has always been a strong force. The past controls the present.

Counter-currents, again, may be supplied by new ideals which are beginning to influence the young. The hopes or dreams of the generation just coming into the field of public life undermine the energy of a dominant creed.

Counter-currents of opinion, whatever their source, have one certain and one possible effect. The certain effect is that a check is imposed upon the action of the dominant faith.

Fifth, laws foster or create law-making opinion. This assertion may sound, to one who has learned that laws are the outcome of public opinion, like a paradox; when properly understood, it is nothing but an undeniable, though sometimes neglected, truth.

B. INTERESTS, SENTIMENTS, AND ATTITUDES

1. Social Forces and Interaction[160]

We must guard at the outset against an illusion that has exerted a confusing influence. There are no social forces which are not at the same time forces lodged in individuals, deriving their energy from individuals and operating in and through individuals. There are no social forces that lurk in the containing ether, and affect persons without the agency of other persons. There are, to be sure, all the physical conditions that affect persons just as they affect all other forms of matter. So far, these are not social forces at all. They do not get to be social forces until they get into persons, and in these persons they take the form of feelings which impel them to react upon other persons. Persons are thus transmuters of physical forces into social forces; but all properly designated social forces are essentially personal. They are within some persons, and stimulate them to act upon other persons; or they are in other persons, and exert themselves as external stimuli upon otherwise inert persons. In either case social forces are personal influences passing from person to person and producing activities that give content to the association.

The conception of social forces was never challenged so long as it was merely an everyday commonplace. When it passed into technical forms of expression, doubts began to be urged. If anyone in the United States had questioned the existence of Mrs. Grundy fifty years ago, he would have been pitied and ignored as a harmless "natural." Social forces in the form of gossip, and personified in Mrs. Grundy, were real to everybody. But the particular species of social forces which Mrs. Grundy represented were neither more nor less real than the other social forces which had no name in folklore. Persons incessantly influence persons. The modes of this influence are indescribably varied. They are conscious and unconscious, accidental and momentary, or deliberate and persistent; they are conventional and continuous, the result of individual habit, or of customs crystallized into national or racial institutions.

The simple fact which the concept "social forces" stands for is that every individual acts and is acted upon in countless ways by the other persons with whom he associates. These modes of action and reaction between persons may be classified, and the more obvious and recurrent among them may be enumerated. More than this, the action of these social forces may be observed, and the results of observation may be organized into social laws. Indeed, there would be only two alternatives, if we did not discover the presence and action of social forces. On the one hand, social science would at most be a subdivision of natural science; on the other hand, the remaining alternative would be the impossibility of social science altogether.

But social forces are just as distinctly discernible as chemical forces. The fact that we are not familiar with them no more makes against their existence and their importance than general ignorance of the pressure of the atmosphere takes that phenomenon out of the physical world. They are not only the atmosphere but they are a very large part of the moral world in general. If we could compose a complete account of the social forces, we should at the same time have completed, from one point of attention at least, a science of everything involved in human society.

"All beings which can be said to perform actions do so in obedience to those mental states which are denominated desires." But we have gone back a step beyond the desires and have found it necessary to assume the existence of underlying interests. These have to desires very nearly the relation of substance to attribute, or, in a different figure, of genus to species. Our interests may be beyond or beneath our ken; our desires are strong and clear. I may not be conscious of my health interests in any deep sense, but the desires that my appetites assert are specific and concrete and real. The implicit interests, of which we may be very imperfectly aware, move us to desires which may correspond well or ill with the real content of the interests. At all events, it is these desires which make up the active social forces, whether they are more or less harmonious with the interests from which they spring. The desires that the persons associating actually feel are practically the elemental forces with which we have to reckon. They are just as real as the properties of matter. They have their ratios of energy, just as certainly as though they were physical forces. They have their peculiar modes of action, which may be formulated as distinctly as the various modes of chemical action.

Every desire that any man harbors is a force making or marring, strengthening or weakening, the structure and functions of the society of which he is a part. What the human desires are, what their relations are to each other, what their peculiar modifications are under different circumstances—these are questions of detail which must be answered in general by social psychology, and in particular by specific analysis of each social situation. The one consideration to be urged at this point is that the concept "social forces" has a real content. It represents reality. There are social forces. They are the desires of persons. They range in energy from the vagrant whim that makes the individual a temporary discomfort to his group, to the inbred feelings that whole races share. It is with these subtle forces that social arrangements and the theories of social arrangements have to deal.

2. Interests[161]

During the past generation, the conception of the "atom" has been of enormous use in physical discovery. Although no one has ever seen an atom, the supposition that there are ultimate particles of matter in which the "promise and potency" of all physical properties and actions reside has served as a means of investigation during the most intensive period of research in the history of thought. Without the hypothesis of the atom, physics and chemistry, and in a secondary sense biology, would have lacked chart and compass upon their voyages of exploration. Although the notion of the atom is rapidly changing, and the tendency of physical science is to construe physical facts in terms of motion rather than of the traditional atom, it is probably as needless as it is useless for us to concern ourselves as laymen with this refinement. Although we cannot avoid speaking of the smallest parts into which matter can be divided, and although we cannot imagine, on the other hand, how any portions of matter can exist and not be divisible into parts, we are probably quite as incapable of saving ourselves from paradox by resort to the vortex hypothesis in any form. That is, these subtleties are too wonderful for most minds. Without pushing analysis too far, and without resting any theory upon analogy with the atom of physical theory, it is necessary to find some starting-place from which to trace up the composition of sentient beings, just as the physicists assumed that they found their starting-place in the atom. The notion of interests is accordingly serving the same purpose in sociology which the notion of atoms has served in physical science. Interests are the stuff that men are made of. More accurately expressed, the last elements to which we can reduce the actions of human beings are units which we may conveniently name "interests." It is merely inverting the form of expression to say: Interests are the simplest modes of motion which we can trace in the conduct of human beings.

To the psychologist the individual is interesting primarily as a center of knowing, feeling, and willing. To the sociologist the individual begins to be interesting when he is thought as knowing, feeling, and willing something. In so far as a mere trick of emphasis may serve to distinguish problems, this ictus indicates the sociological starting-point. The individual given in experience is thought to the point at which he is available for sociological assumption, when he is recognized as a center of activities which make for something outside of the psychical series in which volition is a term. These activities must be referred primarily to desires, but the desires themselves may be further referred to certain universal interests. In this character the individual becomes one of the known or assumed terms of sociology. The individual as a center of active interests may be thought both as the lowest term in the social equation and as a composite term whose factors must be understood. These factors are either the more evident desires, or the more remote interests which the individual's desires in some way represent. At the same time, we must repeat the admission that these assumed interests are like the atom of physics. They are the metaphysical recourse of our minds in accounting for concrete facts. We have never seen or touched them. They are the hypothetical substratum of those regularities of conduct which the activities of individuals display.

We may start with the familiar popular expressions, "the farming interest," "the railroad interest," "the packing interest," "the milling interest," etc., etc. Everyone knows what the expressions mean. Our use of the term "interest" is not co-ordinate with these, but it may be approached by means of them. All the "interests" that are struggling for recognition in business and in politics are highly composite. The owner of a flour mill, for example, is a man before he is a miller. He becomes a miller at last because he is a man; i.e., because he has interests—in a deeper sense than that of the popular expressions—which impel him to act in order to gain satisfactions. The clue to all social activity is in this fact of individual interests. Every act that every man performs is to be traced back to an interest. We eat because there is a desire for food; but the desire is set in motion by a bodily interest in replacing exhausted force. We sleep because we are tired; but the weariness is a function of the bodily interest in rebuilding used-up tissue. We play because there is a bodily interest in use of the muscles. We study because there is a mental interest in satisfying curiosity. We mingle with our fellow-men because there is a mental interest in matching our personality against that of others. We go to market to supply an economic interest, and to war because of some social interest of whatever mixed or simple form.

With this introduction, we may venture an extremely abstract definition of our concept "interest." In general, an interest is an unsatisfied capacity, corresponding to an unrealized condition, and it is predisposition to such rearrangement as would tend to realize the indicated condition. Human needs and human wants are incidents in the series of events between the latent existence of human interest and the achievement of partial satisfaction. Human interests, then, are the ultimate terms of calculation in sociology. The whole life-process, so far as we know it, whether viewed in its individual or in its social phase, is at last the process of developing, adjusting, and satisfying interests.

No single term is of more constant use in recent sociology than this term "interests." We use it in the plural partly for the sake of distinguishing it from the same term in the sense which has become so familiar in modern pedagogy. The two uses of the term are closely related, but they are not precisely identical. The pedagogical emphasis is rather on the voluntary attitude toward a possible object of attention. The sociological emphasis is on attributes of persons which may be compared to the chemical affinities of different elements.

To distinguish the pedagogical from the sociological use of the term "interest," we may say pedagogically of a supposed case: "The boy has no interest in physical culture, or in shopwork, or in companionship with other boys, or in learning, or in art, or in morality." That is, attention and choice are essential elements of interest in the pedagogical sense. On the other hand, we may say of the same boy, in the sociological sense: "He has not discovered his health, wealth, sociability, knowledge, beauty, and rightness interests." We thus imply that interests, in the sociological sense, are not necessarily matters of attention and choice. They are affinities, latent in persons, pressing for satisfaction, whether the persons are conscious of them either generally or specifically, or not; they are indicated spheres of activity which persons enter into and occupy in the course of realizing their personality.

Accordingly, we have virtually said that interests are merely specifications in the make-up of the personal units. We have several times named the most general classes of interests which we find serviceable in sociology, viz.: health, wealth, sociability, knowledge, beauty, and rightness.

We need to emphasize, in addition, several considerations about these interests which are the motors of all individual and social action. First, there is a subjective and an objective aspect of them all. It would be easy to use terms of these interests in speculative arguments in such a way as to shift the sense fallaciously from the one aspect to the other; e.g., moral conduct, as an actual adjustment of the person in question with other persons, is that person's "interest," in the objective sense. On the other hand, we are obliged to think of something in the person himself impelling him, however unconsciously, toward that moral conduct, i.e., interest as "unsatisfied capacity" in the subjective sense. So with each of the other interests. The fact that these two senses of the term are always concerned must never be ignored; but, until we reach refinements of analysis which demand use for these discriminations, they may be left out of sight. Second, human interests pass more and more from the latent, subjective, unconscious state to the active, objective, conscious form. That is, before the baby is self-conscious, the baby's essential interest in bodily well-being is operating in performance of the organic functions. A little later the baby is old enough to understand that certain regulation of his diet, certain kinds of work or play, will help to make and keep him well and strong. Henceforth there is in him a co-operation of interest in the fundamental sense, and interest in the derived, secondary sense, involving attention and choice. If we could agree upon the use of terms, we might employ the word "desire" for this development of interest; i.e., physiological performance of function is, strictly speaking, the health interest; the desires which men actually pursue within the realm of bodily function may be normal or perverted, in an infinite scale of variety. So with each of the other interests. Third, with these qualifications provided for, resolution of human activities into pursuit of differentiated interests becomes the first clue to the combination that unlocks the mysteries of society. For our purposes in this argument we need not trouble ourselves very much about nice metaphysical distinctions between the aspects of interest, because we have mainly to do with interests in the same sense in which the man of affairs uses the term. The practical politician looks over the lobby at Washington and he classifies the elements that compose it. He says: "Here is the railroad interest, the sugar interest, the labor interest, the army interest, the canal interest, the Cuban interest, etc." He uses the term "interest" essentially in the sociological sense but in a relatively concrete form, and he has in mind little more than variations of the wealth interest. He would explain the legislation of a given session as the final balance between these conflicting pecuniary interests. He is right, in the main; and every social action is, in the same way, an accommodation of the various interests which are represented in the society concerned.

3. Social Pressures[162]

The phenomena of government are from start to finish phenomena of force. But force is an objectionable word. I prefer to use the word pressure instead of force, since it keeps the attention closely directed upon the groups themselves, instead of upon any mystical "realities" assumed to be underneath and supporting them, and since its connotation is not limited to the narrowly "physical." We frequently talk of "bringing pressure to bear" upon someone, and we can use the word here with but slight extension beyond this common meaning.

Pressure, as we shall use it, is always a group phenomenon. It indicates the push and resistance between groups. The balance of the group pressures is the existing state of society. Pressure is broad enough to include all forms of the group influence upon group, from battle and riot to abstract reasoning and sensitive morality. It takes up into itself "moral energy" and the finest discriminations of conscience as easily as bloodthirsty lust of power. It allows for humanitarian movements as easily as for political corruption. The tendencies to activity are pressures, as well as the more visible activities.

All phenomena of government are phenomena of groups pressing one another, forming one another, and pushing out new groups and group representatives (the organs or agencies of government) to mediate the adjustments. It is only as we isolate these group activities, determine their representative values, and get the whole process stated in terms of them that we approach to a satisfactory knowledge of government.

When we take such an agency of government as a despotic ruler, we cannot possibly advance to an understanding of him except in terms of the group activities of his society which are most directly represented through him, along with those which almost seem not to be represented through him at all, or to be represented to a different degree or in a different manner. And it is the same with democracies, even in their "purest" and simplest forms, as well as in their most complicated forms. We cannot fairly talk of despotisms or of democracies as though they were absolutely distinct types of government to be contrasted offhand with each other or with other types. All depends for each despotism and each democracy and each other form of government on the given interests, their relations, and their methods of interaction. The interest groups create the government and work through it; the government, as activity, works "for" the groups; the government, from the viewpoint of certain of the groups, may at times be their private tool; the government, from the viewpoint of others of the groups, seems at times their deadly enemy; but the process is all one, and the joint participation is always present, however it may be phrased in public opinion or clamor.

It is convenient most of the time in studying government to talk of these groups as interests. But I have already indicated with sufficient clearness that the interest is nothing other than the group activity itself. The words by which we name the interests often give the best expression to the value of the group activities in terms of other group activities: if I may be permitted that form of phrasing, they are more qualitative than quantitative in their implications. But that is sometimes a great evil as well as sometimes an advantage. We must always remember that there is nothing in the interests purely because of themselves and that we can depend on them only as they stand for groups which are acting or tending toward activity or pressing themselves along in their activity with other groups.

When we get the group activities on the lower planes worked out and show them as represented in various forms of higher groups, culminating in the political groups, then we make progress in our interpretations. Always and everywhere our study must be a study of the interests that work through government; otherwise we have not got down to facts. Nor will it suffice to take a single interest group and base our interpretation upon it, not even for a special time and a special place. No interest group has meaning except with reference to other interest groups; and those other interest groups are pressures; they count in the government process. The lowest of despised castes, deprived of rights to the protection of property and even life, will still be found to be a factor in the government, if only we can sweep the whole field and measure the caste in its true degree of power, direct or represented, in its potentiality of harm to the higher castes, and in its identification with them for some important purposes, however deeply hidden from ordinary view. No slaves, not the worst abused of all, but help to form the government. They are an interest group within it.