The problem is the more difficult because, in some one or other of its aspects, human behavior involves processes which are characteristic of almost every form of nature. We sometimes speak, for example, of the human machine. Indeed, from one point of view human beings may be regarded as psycho-physical mechanisms for carrying on the vital processes of nutrition, reproduction, and movement. The human body is, in fact, an immensely complicated machine, whose operations involve an enormous number of chemical and physical reactions, all of which may be regarded as forms of human behavior.

Human beings are, however, not wholly or merely machines; they are living organisms and as such share with the plants and the lower animals certain forms of behavior which it has not thus far, at any rate, been possible to reduce to the exact and lucid formulas of either chemistry or physics.

Human beings are, however, not merely organisms: they are the home and the habitat of minuter organisms. The human body is, in a certain sense, an organization—a sort of social organization—of the minute and simple organisms of which it is composed, namely, the cells, each of which has its own characteristic mode of behavior. In fact, the life of human beings, just as the life of all other creatures above the simple unicellular organisms, may be said to consist of the corporate life of the smaller organisms of which it is composed. In human beings, as in some great city, the division of labor among the minuter organisms has been carried further, the interdependence of the individual parts is more complete, and the corporate life of the whole more complex.

It is not strange, therefore, that Lloyd Morgan begins his studies of animal behavior by a description of the behavior of the cells and Thorndike in his volume, The Original Nature of Man, is led to the conclusion that the original tendencies of man have their basis in the neurones, or nerve cells, and in the changes which these cells and their ancestors have undergone, as a result of the necessity of carrying on common and corporate existences as integral parts of the human organism. All acquired characteristics of men, everything that they learn, is due to mutual stimulations and associations of the neurones, just as sociologists are now disposed to explain civilization and progress as phenomena due to the interaction and association of human beings, rather than to any fundamental changes in human nature itself. In other words, the difference between a savage and a civilized man is not due to any fundamental differences in their brain cells but to the connections and mutual stimulations which are established by experience and education between those cells. In the savage those possibilities are not absent but latent. In the same way the difference between the civilization of Central Africa and that of Western Europe is due, not to the difference in native abilities of the individuals and the peoples who have created them, but rather to the form which the association and interaction between those individuals and groups of individuals has taken. We sometimes attribute the difference in culture which we meet among races to the climate and physical conditions generally, but, in the long run, the difference is determined by the way in which climate and physical condition determine the contacts and communications of individuals.

So, too, in the corporate life of the individual man it is the association of the nerve cells, their lines of connection and communication, that is responsible for the most of the differences between the ignorant and the educated, the savage and civilized man. The neurone, however, is a little unicellular animal, like the amoeba or the paramecium. Its life consists of: (1) eating, (2) excreting waste products, (3) growing, (4) being sensitive, and (5) movement, and, as Thorndike expresses it: "The safest provisional hypothesis about the action of the neurones singly is that they retain the modes of behavior common to unicellular animals, so far as consistent with the special conditions of their life as an element of man's nervous system."

In the widest sense of the term, behavior may be said to include all the chemical and physical changes that go on inside the organism, as well as every response to stimulus either from within or from without the organism. In recent studies of animal behavior, however, the word has acquired a special and technical meaning in which it is applied exclusively to those actions that have been, or may be, modified by conscious experience. What the animal does in its efforts to find food is behavior, but the processes of digestion are relegated to another field of observation, namely, physiology.

In all the forms of behavior thus far referred to, human and animal nature are not fundamentally distinguished. There are, however, ways of acting that are peculiar to human nature, forms of behavior that man does not share with the lower animals. One thing which seems to distinguish man from the brute is self-consciousness. One of the consequences of intercourse, as it exists among human beings, is that they are led to reflect upon their own impulses and motives for action, to set up standards by which they seek to govern themselves. The clock is such a standard. We all know from experience that time moves more slowly on dull days, when there is nothing doing, than in moments of excitement. On the other hand, when life is active and stirring, time flies. The clock standardizes our subjective tempos and we control ourselves by the clock. An animal never looks at the clock and this is typical of the different ways in which human beings and animals behave.

Human beings, so far as we have yet been able to learn, are the only creatures who habitually pass judgment upon their own actions, or who think of them as right or wrong. When these thoughts about our actions or the actions of others get themselves formulated and expressed they react back upon and control us. That is one reason we hang mottoes on the wall. That is why one sees on the desk of a busy man the legend "Do it now!" The brutes do not know these devices. They do not need them perhaps. They have no aim in life. They do not work.

What distinguishes the action of men from animals may best be expressed in the word "conduct." Conduct as it is ordinarily used is applied to actions which may be regarded as right or wrong, moral or immoral. As such it is hardly a descriptive term since there does not seem to be any distinctive mark about the actions which men have at different times and places called moral or immoral. I have used it here to distinguish the sort of behavior which may be regarded as distinctively and exclusively human, namely, that which is self-conscious and personal. In this sense blushing may be regarded as a form of conduct, quite as much as the manufacture of tools, trade and barter, conversation or prayer.

No doubt all these activities have their beginnings in, and are founded upon, forms of behavior of which we may find the rudiments in the lower animals. But there is in all distinctively human activities a conventional, one might almost say a contractual, element which is absent in action of other animals. Human actions are more often than not controlled by a sense or understanding of what they look like or appear to be to others. This sense and understanding gets itself embodied in some custom or ceremonial observance. In this form it is transmitted from generation to generation, becomes an object of sentimental respect, gets itself embodied in definite formulas, is an object not only of respect and reverence but of reflection and speculation as well. As such it constitutes the mores, or moral customs, of a group and is no longer to be regarded as an individual possession.

3. Instinct and Character[88]

In no part of the world, and at no period of time, do we find the behavior of men left to unchartered freedom. Everywhere human life is in a measure organized and directed by customs, laws, beliefs, ideals, which shape its ends and guide its activities. As this guidance of life by rule is universal in human society, so upon the whole it is peculiar to humanity. There is no reason to think that any animal except man can enunciate or apply general rules of conduct. Nevertheless, there is not wanting something that we can call an organization of life in the animal world. How much of intelligence underlies the social life of the higher animals is indeed extremely hard to determine. In the aid which they often render to one another, in their combined hunting, in their play, in the use of warning cries, and the employment of "sentinels," which is so frequent among birds and mammals, it would appear at first sight that a considerable measure of mutual understanding is implied, that we find at least an analogue to human custom, to the assignment of functions, the division of labor, which mutual reliance renders possible. How far the analogy may be pressed, and whether terms like "custom" and "mutual understanding," drawn from human experience, are rightly applicable to animal societies, are questions on which we shall touch presently. Let us observe first that as we descend the animal scale the sphere of intelligent activity is gradually narrowed down, and yet behavior is still regulated. The lowest organisms have their definite methods of action under given conditions. The amoeba shrinks into itself at a touch, withdraws the pseudopodium that is roughly handled, or makes its way round the small object which will serve it as food. Given the conditions, it acts in the way best suited to avoid danger or to secure nourishment. We are a long way from the intelligent regulation of conduct by a general principle, but we still find action adapted to the requirements of organic life.

When we come to human society we find the basis for a social organization of life already laid in the animal nature of man. Like others of the higher animals, man is a gregarious beast. His interests lie in his relations to his fellows, in his love for wife and children, in his companionship, possibly in his rivalry and striving with his fellow-men. His loves and hates, his joys and sorrows, his pride, his wrath, his gentleness, his boldness, his timidity—all these permanent qualities, which run through humanity and vary only in degree, belong to his inherited structure. Broadly speaking, they are of the nature of instincts, but instincts which have become highly plastic in their mode of operation and which need the stimulus of experience to call them forth and give them definite shape.

The mechanical methods of reaction which are so prominent low down in the animal scale fill quite a minor place in human life. The ordinary operations of the body, indeed, go upon their way mechanically enough. In walking or in running, in saving ourselves from a fall, in coughing, sneezing, or swallowing, we react as mechanically as do the lower animals; but in the distinctly human modes of behavior, the place taken by the inherited structure is very different. Hunger and thirst no doubt are of the nature of instincts, but the methods of satisfying hunger and thirst are acquired by experience or by teaching. Love and the whole family life have an instinctive basis, that is to say, they rest upon tendencies inherited with the brain and nerve structure; but everything that has to do with the satisfaction of these impulses is determined by the experience of the individual, the laws and customs of the society in which he lives, the woman whom he meets, the accidents of their intercourse, and so forth. Instinct, already plastic and modifiable in the higher animals, becomes in man a basis of character which determines how he will take his experience, but without experience is a mere blank form upon which nothing is yet written.

For example, it is an ingrained tendency of average human nature to be moved by the opinion of our neighbors. This is a powerful motive in conduct, but the kind of conduct to which it will incite clearly depends on the kind of thing that our neighbors approve. In some parts of the world ambition for renown will prompt a man to lie in wait for a woman or child in order to add a fresh skull to his collection. In other parts he may be urged by similar motives to pursue a science or paint a picture. In all these cases the same hereditary or instinctive element is at work, that quality of character which makes a man respond sensitively to the feelings which others manifest toward him. But the kind of conduct which this sensitiveness may dictate depends wholly on the social environment in which the man finds himself. Similarly it is, as the ordinary phrase quite justly puts it, "in human nature" to stand up for one's rights. A man will strive, that is, to secure that which he has counted on as his due. But as to what he counts upon, as to the actual treatment which he expects under given circumstances, his views are determined by the "custom of the country," by what he sees others insisting on and obtaining, by what has been promised him, and so forth. Even such an emotion as sexual jealousy, which seems deeply rooted in the animal nature, is largely limited in its exercise and determined in the form it takes by custom. A hospitable savage, who will lend his wife to a guest, would kill her for acting in the same way on her own motion. In the one case he exercises his rights of proprietorship; in the other, she transgresses them. It is the maintenance of a claim which jealousy concerns itself with, and the standard determining the claim is the custom of the country.

In human society, then, the conditions regulating conduct are from the first greatly modified. Instinct, becoming vague and more general, has evolved into "character," while the intelligence finds itself confronted with customs to which it has to accommodate conduct. But how does custom arise? Let us first consider what custom is. It is not merely a habit of action; but it implies also a judgment upon action, and a judgment stated in general and impersonal terms. It would seem to imply a bystander or third party. If A hits B, B probably hits back. It is his "habit" so to do. But if C, looking on, pronounces that it was or was not a fair blow, he will probably appeal to the "custom" of the country—the traditional rules of fighting, for instance—as the ground of his judgment. That is, he will lay down a rule which is general in the sense that it would apply to other individuals under similar conditions, and by it he will, as an impartial third person, appraise the conduct of the contending parties. The formation of such rules, resting as it does on the power of framing and applying general conceptions, is the prime differentia of human morality from animal behavior. The fact that they arise and are handed on from generation to generation makes social tradition at once the dominating factor in the regulation of human conduct. Without such rules we can scarcely conceive society to exist, since it is only through the general conformity to custom that men can understand each other, that each can know how the other will act under given circumstances, and without this amount of understanding the reciprocity, which is the vital principle of society, disappears.

4. Collective Representation and Intellectual Life[89]

Logical thought is made up of concepts. Seeking how society can have played a role in the genesis of logical thought thus reduces itself to seeking how it can have taken a part in the formation of concepts.

The concept is opposed to sensual representations of every order—sensations, perceptions, or images—by the following properties.

Sensual representations are in a perpetual flux; they come after each other like the waves of a river, and even during the time that they last they do not remain the same thing. Each of them is an integral part of the precise instant when it takes place. We are never sure of again finding a perception such as we experienced it the first time; for if the thing perceived has not changed, it is we who are no longer the same. On the contrary, the concept is, as it were, outside of time and change; it is in the depths below all this agitation; it might be said that it is in a different portion of the mind, which is serener and calmer. It does not move of itself, by an internal and spontaneous evolution, but, on the contrary, it resists change. It is a manner of thinking that, at every moment of time, is fixed and crystallized. In so far as it is what it ought to be, it is immutable. If it changes, it is not because it is its nature to do so, but because we have discovered some imperfection in it; it is because it had to be rectified. The system of concepts with which we think in everyday life is that expressed by the vocabulary of our mother-tongue; for every word translates a concept. Now language is something fixed; it changes but very slowly, and consequently it is the same with the conceptual system which it expresses. The scholar finds himself in the same situation in regard to the special terminology employed by the science to which he has consecrated himself, and hence in regard to the special scheme of concepts to which this terminology corresponds. It is true that he can make innovations, but these are always a sort of violence done to the established ways of thinking.

And at the same time that it is relatively immutable, the concept is universal, or at least capable of becoming so. A concept is not my concept; I hold it in common with other men, or, in any case, can communicate it to them. It is impossible for me to make a sensation pass from my consciousness into that of another; it holds closely to my organism and personality and cannot be detached from them. All that I can do is to invite others to place themselves before the same object as myself and to leave themselves to its action. On the other hand, conversation and all intellectual communication between men is an exchange of concepts. The concept is an essentially impersonal representation; it is through it that human intelligences communicate.

The nature of the concept, thus defined, bespeaks its origin. If it is common to all, it is the work of the community. Since it bears the mark of no particular mind, it is clear that it was elaborated by a unique intelligence, where all others meet each other, and after a fashion, come to nourish themselves. If it has more stability than sensations or images, it is because the collective representations are more stable than the individual ones; for while an individual is conscious even of the slight changes which take place in his environment, only events of a greater gravity can succeed in affecting the mental status of a society. Every time that we are in the presence of a type of thought or action which is imposed uniformly upon particular wills or intelligences, this pressure exercised over the individual betrays the intervention of the group. Also, as we have already said, the concepts with which we ordinarily think are those of our vocabulary. Now it is unquestionable that language, and consequently the system of concepts which it translates, is the product of collective elaboration. What it expresses is the manner in which society as a whole represents the facts of experience. The ideas which correspond to the diverse elements of language are thus collective representations.

Even their contents bear witness to the same fact. In fact, there are scarcely any words among those which we usually employ whose meaning does not pass, to a greater or less extent, the limits of our personal experience. Very frequently a term expresses things which we have never perceived or experiences which we have never had or of which we have never been the witnesses. Even when we know some of the objects which it concerns, it is only as particular examples that they serve to illustrate the idea which they would never have been able to form by themselves. Thus there is a great deal of knowledge condensed in the word which I never collected, and which is not individual; it even surpasses me to such an extent that I cannot even completely appropriate all its results. Which of us knows all the words of the language he speaks and the entire signification of each?

This remark enables us to determine the sense in which we mean to say that concepts are collective representations. If they belong to a whole social group, it is not because they represent the average of the corresponding individual representations; for in that case they would be poorer than the latter in intellectual content, while, as a matter of fact, they contain much that surpasses the knowledge of the average individual. They are not abstractions which have a reality only in particular consciousnesses, but they are as concrete representations as an individual could form of his own personal environment; they correspond to the way in which this very special being, society, considers the things of its own proper experience. If, as a matter of fact, the concepts are nearly always general ideas, and if they express categories and classes rather than particular objects, it is because the unique and variable characteristics of things interest society but rarely; because of its very extent, it can scarcely be affected by more than their general and permanent qualities. Therefore it is to this aspect of affairs that it gives its attention: it is a part of its nature to see things in large and under the aspect which they ordinarily have. But this generality is not necessary for them, and, in any case, even when these representations have the generic character which they ordinarily have, they are the work of society and are enriched by its experience.

The collective consciousness is the highest form of the psychic life, since it is the consciousness of the consciousnesses. Being placed outside of and above individual and local contingencies, it sees things only in their permanent and essential aspects, which it crystallizes into communicable ideas. At the same time that it sees from above, it sees farther; at every moment of time, it embraces all known reality; that is why it alone can furnish the mind with the molds which are applicable to the totality of things and which make it possible to think of them. It does not create these molds artificially; it finds them within itself; it does nothing but become conscious of them. They translate the ways of being which are found in all the stages of reality but which appear in their full clarity only at the summit, because the extreme complexity of the psychic life which passes there necessitates a greater development of consciousness. Collective representations also contain subjective elements, and these must be progressively rooted out if we are to approach reality more closely. But howsoever crude these may have been at the beginning, the fact remains that with them the germ of a new mentality was given, to which the individual could never have raised himself by his own efforts; by them the way was opened to a stable, impersonal and organized thought which then had nothing to do except to develop its nature.

D. THE SOCIAL GROUP

1. Definition of the Group[90]

The term "group" serves as a convenient sociological designation for any number of people, larger or smaller, between whom such relations are discovered that they must be thought of together. The "group" is the most general and colorless term used in sociology for combinations of persons. A family, a mob, a picnic party, a trade union, a city precinct, a corporation, a state, a nation, the civilized or the uncivilized population of the world, may be treated as a group. Thus a "group" for sociology is a number of persons whose relations to each other are sufficiently impressive to demand attention. The term is merely a commonplace tool. It contains no mystery. It is only a handle with which to grasp the innumerable varieties of arrangements into which people are drawn by their variations of interest. The universal condition of association may be expressed in the same commonplace way: people always live in groups, and the same persons are likely to be members of many groups.

Individuals nowhere live in utter isolation. There is no such thing as a social vacuum. The few Robinson Crusoes are not exceptions to the rule. If they are, they are like the Irishman's horse. The moment they begin to get adjusted to the exceptional condition, they die. Actual persons always live and move and have their being in groups. These groups are more or less complex, more or less continuous, more or less rigid in character. The destinies of human beings are always bound up with the fate of the groups of which they are members. While the individuals are the real existences, and the groups are only relationships of individuals, yet to all intents and purposes the groups which people form are just as distinct and efficient molders of the lives of individuals as though they were entities that had existence entirely independent of the individuals.

The college fraternity or the college class, for instance, would be only a name, and presently not even that, if each of its members should withdraw. It is the members themselves, and not something outside of themselves. Yet to A, B, or C the fraternity or the class might as well be a river or a mountain by the side of which he stands, and which he is helpless to remove. He may modify it somewhat. He is surely modified by it somewhat; and the same is true of all the other groups in which A, B, or C belong. To a very considerable extent the question, Why does A, B, or C do so and so? is equivalent to the question, What are the peculiarities of the group to which A, B, or C belongs? It would never occur to A, B, or C to skulk from shadow to shadow of a night, with paint-pot and brush in hand, and to smear Arabic numerals of bill-poster size on sidewalk or buildings, if "class spirit" did not add stimulus to individual bent. Neither A, B, nor C would go out of his way to flatter and cajole a Freshman, if membership in a fraternity did not make a student something different from an individual. These are merely familiar cases which follow a universal law.

In effect, the groups to which we belong might be as separate and independent of us as the streets and buildings of a city are from the population. If the inhabitants should migrate in a body, the streets and buildings would remain. This is not true of human groups, but their reaction upon the persons who compose them is no less real and evident. We are in large part what our social set, our church, our political party, our business and professional circles are. This has always been the case from the beginning of the world, and will always be the case. To understand what society is, either in its larger or its smaller parts, and why it is so, and how far it is possible to make it different, we must invariably explain groups on the one hand, no less than individuals on the other. There is a striking illustration in Chicago at present (summer, 1905). Within a short time a certain man has made a complete change in his group-relations. He was one of the most influential trade-union leaders in the city. He has now become the executive officer of an association of employers. In the elements that are not determined by his group-relationships he is the same man that he was before. Those are precisely the elements, however, that may be canceled out of the social problem. All the elements in his personal equation that give him a distinct meaning in the life of the city are given to him by his membership in the one group or the other. Till yesterday he gave all his strength to organizing labor against capital. Now he gives all his strength to the service of capital against labor.

Whatever social problem we confront, whatever persons come into our field of view, the first questions involved will always be: To what groups do these persons belong? What are the interests of these groups? What sort of means do the groups use to promote their interests? How strong are these groups, as compared with groups that have conflicting interests? These questions go to one tap root of all social interpretation, whether in the case of historical events far in the past, or of the most practical problems of our own neighborhood.

2. The Unity of the Social Group[91]

It has long been a cardinal problem in sociology to determine just how to conceive in objective terms so very real and palpable a thing as the continuity and persistence of social groups. Looked at as a physical object society appears to be made up of mobile and independent units. The problem is to understand the nature of the bonds that bind these independent units together and how these connections are maintained and transmitted.

Conceived of in its lowest terms the unity of the social group may be compared to that of the plant communities. In these communities, the relation between the individual species which compose it seems at first wholly fortuitous and external. Co-operation and community, so far as it exists, consists merely in the fact that within a given geographical area, certain species come together merely because each happens to provide by its presence an environment in which the life of the other is easier, more secure, than if they lived in isolation. It seems to be a fact, however, that this communal life of the associated plants fulfils, as in other forms of life, a typical series of changes which correspond to growth, decay and death. The plant community comes into existence, matures, grows old, and eventually dies. In doing this, however, it provides by its own death an environment in which another form of community finds its natural habitat. Each community thus precedes and prepares the way for its successor. Under such circumstances the succession of the individual communities itself assumes the character of a life-process.

In the case of the animal and human societies we have all these conditions and forces and something more. The individuals associated in an animal community not only provide, each for the other, a physical environment in which all may live, but the members of the community are organically pre-adapted to one another in ways which are not characteristic of the members of a plant community. As a consequence, the relations between the members of the animal community assume a much more organic character. It is, in fact, a characteristic of animal society that the members of a social group are organically adapted to one another and therefore the organization of animal society is almost wholly transmitted by physical inheritance.

In the case of human societies we discover not merely organically inherited adaptation, which characterizes animal societies, but, in addition, a great body of habits and accommodations which are transmitted in the form of social inheritance. Something that corresponds to social tradition exists, to be sure, in animal societies. Animals learn by imitation from one another, and there is evidence that this social tradition varies with changes in environment. In man, however, association is based on something more than habits or instinct. In human society, largely as a result of language, there exists a conscious community of purpose. We have not merely folkways, which by an extension of that term might be attributed to animals, but we have mores and formal standards of conduct.

In a recent notable volume on education, John Dewey has formulated a definition of the educational process which he identifies with the process by which the social tradition of human society is transmitted. Education, he says in effect, is a self-renewing process, a process in which and through which the social organism lives.

With the renewal of physical existence goes, in the case of human beings, the re-creation of beliefs, ideals, hopes, happiness, misery and practices. The continuity of experience, through renewal of the social group, is a literal fact. Education, in its broadest sense, is the means of this social continuity of life.

Under ordinary circumstances the transmission of the social tradition is from the parents to the children. Children are born into the society and take over its customs, habits, and standards of life simply, naturally, and without conflict. But it will at once occur to anyone that the physical life of society is not always continued and maintained in this natural way, i.e., by the succession of parents and children. New societies are formed by conquest and by the imposition of one people upon another. In such cases there arises a conflict of cultures, and as a result the process of fusion takes place slowly and is frequently not complete. New societies are frequently formed by colonization, in which case new cultures are grafted on to older ones. The work of missionary societies is essentially one of colonization in this sense. Finally we have societies growing up, as in the United States, by immigration. These immigrants, coming as they do from all parts of the world, bring with them fragments of divergent cultures. Here again the process of assimilation is slow, often painful, not always complete.

3. Types of Social Groups[92]

Between the two extreme poles—the crowd and the state (nation)—between these extreme links of the chain of human association, what are the other intermediate groups, and what are their distinctive characteristics?

Gustave Le Bon thus classifies the different types of crowds (aggregations):

A. Heterogeneous crowds 1. Anonymous (street crowds, for example) 2. Not anonymous (parliamentary assemblies, for example)

B. Homogeneous crowds 1. Sects (political, religious, etc.) 2. Castes (military, sacerdotal, etc.) 3. Classes (bourgeois, working-men, etc.)

This classification is open to criticism. First of all, it is inaccurate to give the name of crowd indiscriminately to every human group. Literally (from the etymological standpoint) this objection seems to me unanswerable. Tarde more exactly distinguishes between crowds, associations, and corporations.

But we retain the generic term of "crowd" because it indicates the first stage of the social group which is the source of all the others, and because with these successive distinctions it does not lend itself to equivocal meaning.

In the second place, it is difficult to understand why Le Bon terms the sect a homogeneous crowd, while he classifies parliamentary assemblies among the heterogeneous crowds. The members of a sect are usually far more different from one another in birth, education, profession, social status, than are generally the members of a political assembly.

Turning from this criticism to note without analyzing heterogeneous crowds, let us then proceed to determine the principal characteristics of the three large types of homogeneous crowds, the classes, the castes, the sects.

The heterogeneous crowd is composed of tout le monde, of people like you, like me, like the first passer-by. Chance unites these individuals physically, the occasion unites them psychologically; they do not know each other, and after the moment when they find themselves together, they may never see each other again. To use a metaphor, it is a psychological meteor, of the most unforeseen, ephemeral, and transitory kind.

On this accidental and fortuitous foundation are formed here and there other crowds, always heterogeneous, but with a certain character of stability or, at least, of periodicity. The audience at a theater, the members of a club, of a literary or social gathering, constitute also a crowd but a different crowd from that of the street. The members of these groups know each other a little; they have, if not a common aim, at least a common custom. They are nevertheless "anonymous crowds," as Le Bon calls them, because they do not have within themselves the nucleus of organization.

Proceeding further, we find crowds still heterogeneous, but not so anonymous—juries, for example, and assemblies. These small crowds experience a new sentiment, unknown to anonymous crowds, that of responsibility which may at times give to their actions a different orientation. Then the parliamentary crowds are to be distinguished from the others because, as Tarde observes with his habitual penetration, they are double crowds: they represent a majority in conflict with one or more minorities, which safeguards them in most cases from unanimity, the most menacing danger which faces crowds.

We come now to homogeneous crowds, of which the first type is the sect. Here are found again individuals differing in birth, in education, in profession, in social status, but united and, indeed, voluntarily cemented by an extremely strong bond, a common faith and ideal. Faith, religious, scientific, or political, rapidly creates a communion of sentiments capable of giving to those who possess it a high degree of homogeneity and power. History records the deeds of the barbarians under the influence of Christianity, and the Arabs transformed into a sect by Mahomet. Because of their sectarian organization, a prediction may be made of what the future holds in store for the socialists.

The sect is a crowd, picked out and permanent; the crowd is a transitory sect which has not chosen its members. The sect is a chronic kind of crowd; the crowd is an acute kind of sect. The crowd is composed of a multitude of grains of sand without cohesion; the sect is a block of marble which resists every effort. When a sentiment or an idea, having in itself a reason for existence, slips into the crowd, its members soon crystallize and form a sect. The sect is then the first crystallization of every doctrine. From the confused and amorphous state in which it manifests itself to the crowd, every idea is predestined to define itself in the more specific form of the sect, to become later a party, a school, or a church—scientific, political, or religious.

Any faith, whether it be Islamism, Buddhism, Christianity, patriotism, socialism, anarchy, cannot but pass through this sectarian phase. It is the first step, the point where the human group in leaving the twilight zone of the anonymous and mobile crowd raises itself to a definition and to an integration which then may lead up to the highest and most perfect human group, the nation.

If the sect is composed of individuals united by a common idea and aim, in spite of diversity of birth, education, and social status, the caste unites, on the contrary, those who could have—and who have sometimes—diverse ideas and aspirations, but who are brought together through identity of profession. The sect corresponds to the community of faith, the caste to the community of professional ideas. The sect is a spontaneous association; the caste is, in many ways, a forced association. After having chosen a profession—let it be priest, soldier, magistrate—a man belongs necessarily to a caste. A person, on the contrary, does not necessarily belong to a sect. And when one belongs to a caste—be he the most independent man in the world—he is more or less under the influence of that which is called esprit de corps.

The caste represents the highest degree of organization to which the homogeneous crowd is susceptible. It is composed of individuals who by their tastes, their education, birth, and social status, resemble each other in the fundamental types of conduct and mores. There are even certain castes, the military and sacerdotal, for example, in which the members at last so resemble one another in appearance and bearing that no disguise can conceal the nature of their profession.

The caste offers to its members ideas already molded, rules of conduct already approved; it relieves them, in short, of the fatigue of thinking with their own brains. When the caste to which an individual belongs is known, all that is necessary is to press a button of his mental mechanism to release a series of opinions and of phrases already made which are identical in every individual of the same caste.

This harmonious collectivity, powerful and eminently conservative, is the most salient analogy which the nations of the Occident present to that of India. In India the caste is determined by birth, and it is distinguished by a characteristic trait: the persons of one caste can live with, eat with, and marry only individuals of the same caste.

In Europe it is not only birth, but circumstances and education which determine the entrance of an individual into a caste; to marry, to frequent, to invite to the same table only people of the same caste, exists practically in Europe as in India. In Europe the above-mentioned prescriptions are founded on convention, but they are none the less observed. We all live in a confined circle, where we find our friends, our guests, our sons- and daughters-in-law.

Misalliances are assuredly possible in Europe; they are impossible in India. But if there religion prohibits them, with us public opinion and convention render them very rare. And at bottom the analogy is complete.

The class is superior to the caste in extent. If the psychological bond of the sect is community of faith, and that of the caste community of profession, the psychological bond of the class is community of interests.

Less precise in its limits, more diffuse and less compact than the caste or the sect, the class represents today the veritable crowd in a dynamic state, which can in a moment's time descend from that place and become statically a crowd. And it is from the sociological standpoint the most terrible kind of crowd; it is that which today has taken a bellicose attitude, and which by its attitude and precepts prepares the brutal blows of mobs.

We speak of the "conflict of the classes," and from the theoretical point of view and in the normal and peaceful life that signifies only a contest of ideas by legal means. Always depending upon the occasion, the audacity of one or many men, the character of the situation, the conflict of the classes is transformed into something more material and more violent—into revolt or into revolution.

Finally we arrive at the state (nation). Tocqueville said that the classes which compose society form so many distinct nations. They are the greatest collectivities before coming to the nation, the state.

This is the most perfect type of organization of the crowd, and the final and supreme type, if there is not another collectivity superior in number and extension, the collectivity formed by race.

The bond which unites all the citizens of a state is language and nationality. Above the state there are only the crowds determined by race, which comprise many states. And these are, like the states and like the classes, human aggregates which in a moment could be transformed into violent crowds. But then, and justly, because their evolution and their organization are more developed, their mobs are called armies, and their violences are called wars, and they have the seal of legitimacy unknown in other crowds. In this order of ideas war could be defined as the supreme form of collective crimes.

4. Esprit de Corps, Morale, and Collective Representations of Social Groups[93]

War is no doubt the least human of human relationships. It can begin only when persuasion ends, when arguments fitted to move minds are replaced by the blasting-powder fitted to move rocks and hills. It means that one at least of the national wills concerned has deliberately set aside its human quality—as only a human will can do—and has made of itself just such a material obstruction or menace. Hence war seems, and is often called, a contest of brute forces. Certainly it is the extremest physical effort men make, every resource of vast populations bent to increase the sum of power at the front, where the two lines writhe like wrestlers laboring for the final fall.

Yet it is seldom physical force that decides a long war. For war summons skill against skill, head against head, staying-power against staying-power, as well as numbers and machines against machines and numbers. When an engine "exerts itself" it spends more power, eats more fuel, but uses no nerve; when a man exerts himself, he must bend his will to it. The extremer the physical effort, the greater the strain on the inner or moral powers. Hence the paradox of war: just because it calls for the maximum material performance, it calls out a maximum of moral resource. As long as guns and bayonets have men behind them, the quality of the men, the quality of their minds and wills, must be counted with the power of the weapons.

And as long as men fight in nations and armies, that subtle but mighty influence that passes from man to man, the temper and spirit of the group, must be counted with the quality of the individual citizen and soldier. But how much does this intangible, psychological factor count? Napoleon in his day reckoned it high: "In war, the moral is to the physical as three to one."

For war, completely seen, is no mere collision of physical forces; it is a collision of will against will. It is, after all, the mind and will of a nation—a thing intangible and invisible—that assembles the materials of war, the fighting forces, the ordnance, the whole physical array. It is this invisible thing that wages the war; it is this same invisible thing that on one side or the other must admit the finish and so end it. As things are now, it is the element of "morale" that controls the outcome.

I say, as things are now; for it is certainly not true as a rule of history that will-power is enough to win a war, even when supported by high fighting spirit, brains, and a good conscience: Belgium had all this, and yet was bound to fall before Germany had she stood alone. Her spirit worked miracles at Liege, delayed by ten days the marching program of the German armies, and thereby saved—perhaps Paris, perhaps Europe. But the day was saved because the issue raised in Serbia and in Belgium drew to their side material support until their forces could compare with the physical advantages of the enemy. Morale wins, not by itself, but by turning scales; it has a value like the power of a minority or of a mobile reserve. It adds to one side or the other the last ounce of force which is to its opponent the last straw that breaks its back.

Perhaps the simplest way of explaining the meaning of morale is to say that what "condition" is to the athlete's body, morale is to the mind. Morale is condition; good morale is good condition of the inner man: it is the state of will in which you can get most from the machinery, deliver blows with the greatest effect, take blows with the least depression, and hold out for the longest time. It is both fighting-power and staying-power and strength to resist the mental infections which fear, discouragement, and fatigue bring with them, such as eagerness for any kind of peace if only it gives momentary relief, or the irritability that sees large the defects in one's own side until they seem more important than the need of defeating the enemy. And it is the perpetual ability to come back.

From this it follows that good morale is not the same as good spirits or enthusiasm. It is anything but the cheerful optimism of early morning, or the tendency to be jubilant at every victory. It has nothing in common with the emotionalism dwelt on by psychologists of the "crowd." It is hardly to be discovered in the early stages of war. Its most searching test is found in the question, How does war-weariness affect you?

No one going from America to Europe in the last year could fail to notice the wide difference between the mind of nations long at war and that of a nation just entering. Over there, "crowd psychology" had spent itself. There was little flag-waving; the common purveyors of music were not everywhere playing (or allowed to play) the national airs. If in some Parisian cinema the Marseillaise was given, nobody stood or sang. The reports of atrocities roused little visible anger or even talk—they were taken for granted. In short, the simpler emotions had been worn out, or rather had resolved themselves into clear connections between knowledge and action. The people had found the mental gait that can be held indefinitely. Even a great advance finds them on their guard against too much joy. As the news from the second victory of the Marne begins to come in, we find this despatch: "Paris refrains from exultation."

And in the trenches the same is true in even greater degree. All the bravado and illusion of war are gone, also all the nervous revulsion; and in their places a grimly reliable resource of energy held in instant, almost mechanical, readiness to do what is necessary. The hazards which it is useless to speculate about, the miseries, delays, tediums, casualties, have lost their exclamatory value and have fallen into the sullen routine of the day's work. Here it is that morale begins to show in its more vital dimensions. Here the substantial differences between man and man, and between side and side, begin to appear as they can never appear in training camp.

Fitness and readiness to act, the positive element in morale, is a matter not of good and bad alone, but of degree. Persistence, courage, energy, initiative, may vary from zero upward without limit. Perhaps the most important dividing line—one that has already shown itself at various critical points—is that between the willingness to defend and the willingness to attack, between the defensive and the aggressive mentality. It is the difference between docility and enterprise, between a faith at second hand dependent on neighbor or leader, and a faith at first hand capable of assuming for itself the position of leadership.

But readiness to wait, the negative element in morale, is as important as readiness to act, and oftentimes it is a harder virtue. Patience, especially under conditions of ignorance of what may be brewing, is a torment for active and critical minds such as this people is made of. Yet impetuosity, exceeding of orders, unwillingness to retreat when the general situation demands it, are signs not of good morale but the reverse. They are signs that one's heart cannot be kept up except by the flattering stimulus of always going forward—a state of mind that may cause a commanding officer serious embarrassment, even to making impossible decisive strokes of strategy.

In fact, the better the morale, the more profound its mystery from the utilitarian angle of judgment. There is something miraculous in the power of a bald and unhesitating announcement of reverse to steel the temper of men attuned to making sacrifices and to meeting emergencies. No one can touch the deepest moral resources of an army or nation who does not know the fairly regal exaltation with which it is possible for men to face an issue—if they believe in it. There are times when men seem to have an appetite for suffering, when, to judge from their own demeanor, the best bait fortune could offer them is the chance to face death or to bear an inhuman load. This state of mind does not exist of itself; it is morale at its best, and it appears only when the occasion strikes a nerve which arouses the super-earthly vistas of human consciousness or subconsciousness. But it commonly appears at the summons of a leader who himself welcomes the challenge of the task he sets before his followers. It is the magic of King Alfred in his appeal to his chiefs to do battle with the Danes, when all that he could hold out to them was the prospect of his own vision,

This—that the sky grows darker yet And the sea rises higher.

Morale, for all the greater purposes of war, is a state of faith; and its logic will be the superb and elusive logic of human faith. It is for this reason that morale, while not identical with the righteousness of the cause, can never reach its height unless the aim of the war can be held intact in the undissembled moral sense of the people. This is one of the provisions in the deeper order of things for the slow predominance of the better brands of justice.

There are still officers in army and navy—not as many as formerly—who believe exclusively in the morale that works its way into every body of recruits through discipline and the sway of esprit de corps. "They know that they're here to can the Kaiser, and that's all they need to know," said one such officer to me very recently. "After a man has been here two months, the worst punishment you can give him is to tell him he can't go to France right away. The soldier is a man of action; and the less thinking he does, the better." There is an amount of practical wisdom in this; for the human mind has a large capacity for adopting beliefs that fit the trend of its habits and feelings, and this trend is powerfully molded by the unanimous direction of an army's purpose. There is an all but irresistible orthodoxy within a body committed to a war. And the current (pragmatic) psychology referred to, making the intelligence a mere instrument of the will, would seem to sanction the maxim, "First decide, and then think accordingly."

But there are two remarks to be made about this view; first, that in the actual creation of morale within an army corps much thinking is included, and nothing is accomplished without the consent of such thoughts as a man already has. Training does wonders in making morale, when nothing in the mind opposes it. Second, that the morale which is sufficient for purposes of training is not necessarily sufficient for the strains of the field.

The intrinsic weakness of "affective morale," as psychologists call it, is that it puts both sides on the same mental and moral footing: it either justifies our opponents as well as ourselves, or it makes both sides the creatures of irrational emotion.

Crowds are capable of doing reasonless things upon impulse and of adopting creeds without reflection. But an army is not a crowd; still less is a nation a crowd. A mob or crowd is an unorganized group of people governed by less than the average individual intelligence of its members. Armies and nations are groups of people so organized that they are controlled by an intelligence higher than the average. The instincts that lend, and must lend, their immense motive-power to the great purposes of war are the servants, not the masters, of that intelligence.

III. INVESTIGATIONS AND PROBLEMS

1. The Scientific Study of Societies

Interest in the study of "society as it is" has had its source in two different motives. Travelers' tales have always fascinated mankind. The ethnologists began their investigations by criticising and systematizing the novel and interesting observations of travelers in regard to customs, cultures, and behavior of people of different races and nationalities. Their later more systematic investigations were, on the whole, inspired by intellectual curiosity divorced from any overwhelming desire to change the manner of life and social organizations of the societies studied.

The second motive for the systematic observation of actual society came from persons who wanted social reforms but who were forced to realize the futility of Utopian projects. The science of sociology as conceived by Auguste Comte was to substitute fact for doctrines about society. But his attempt to interpret social evolution resulted in a philosophy of history, not a natural science of society.

Herbert Spencer appreciated the fact that the new science of sociology required an extensive body of materials as a basis for its generalizations. Through the work of assistants he set himself the monumental task of compiling historical and cultural materials not only upon primitive and barbarous peoples but also upon the Hebrews, the Phoenicians, the French and the English. These data were classified and published in eight large volumes under the title Descriptive Sociology.

The study of human societies was too great to be satisfactorily compassed by the work of one man. Besides that, Spencer, like most English sociologists, was more interested in the progress of civilization than in its processes. Spencer's Sociology is still a philosophy of history rather than a science of society. The philosophy of history took for its unit of investigation and interpretation the evolution of human society as a whole. The present trend in sociology is toward the study of societies rather than society. Sociological research has been directed less to a study of the stages of evolution than to the diagnosis and control of social problems.

Modern sociology's chief inheritance from Comte and Spencer was a problem in logic: What is a society?

Manifestly if the relations between individuals in society are not merely formal, and if society is something more than the sum of its parts, then these relations must be defined in terms of interaction, that is to say, in terms of process. What then is the social process; what are the social processes? How are social processes to be distinguished from physical, chemical, or biological processes? What is, in general, the nature of the relations that need to be established in order to make of individuals in society, members of society? These questions are fundamental since they define the point of view of sociology and describe the sort of facts with which the science seeks to deal. Upon these questions the schools have divided and up to the present time there is no very general consensus among sociologists in regard to them. The introductory chapter to this volume is at once a review of the points of view and an attempt to find answers. In the literature to which reference is made at the close of chapter iii the logical questions involved are discussed in a more thoroughgoing way than has been possible to do in this volume.

Fortunately science does not wait to define its points of view nor solve its theoretical problems before undertaking to analyze and collect the facts. The contrary is nearer the truth. Science collects facts and answers the theoretical questions afterward. In fact, it is just its success in analyzing and collecting facts which throw light upon human problems that in the end justifies the theories of science.

2. Surveys of Communities

The historian and the philosopher introduced the sociologist to the study of society. But it was the reformer, the social worker, and the business man who compelled him to study the community.

The study of the community is still in its beginnings. Nevertheless, there is already a rapidly growing literature on this topic. Ethnologists have presented us with vivid and detailed pictures of primitive communities as in McGee's The Seri Indians, Jenk's The Bontoc Igorot, Rivers' The Todas. Studies of the village communities of India, of Russia, and of early England have thrown new light upon the territorial factor in the organization of societies.

More recently the impact of social problems has led to the intensive study of modern communities. The monumental work of Charles Booth, Life and Labour of the People in London, is a comprehensive description of conditions of social life in terms of the community. In the United States, interest in community study is chiefly represented by the social-survey movement which received impetus from the Pittsburgh Survey of 1907. For sociological research of greater promise than the survey are the several monographs which seek to make a social analysis of the community, as Williams, An American Town, or Galpin, The Social Anatomy of an Agricultural Community. With due recognition of these auspicious beginnings, it must be confessed that there is no volume upon human communities comparable with several works upon plant and animal communities.

3. The Group as a Unit of Investigation

The study of societies is concerned primarily with types of social organization and with attitudes and cultural elements embodied in them. The survey of communities deals essentially with social situations and the problems connected with them.

The study of social groups was a natural outgrowth of the study of the individual. In order to understand the person it is necessary to consider the group. Attention first turned to social institutions, then to conflict groups, and finally to crowds and crowd influences.

Social institutions were naturally the first groups to be studied with some degree of detachment. The work of ethnologists stimulated an interest in social origins. Evolution, though at first a purely biological conception, provoked inquiry into the historical development of social structure. Differences in institutions in contemporary societies led to comparative study. Critics of institutions, both iconoclasts without and reformers within, forced a consideration of their more fundamental aspects.

The first written accounts of conflict groups were quite naturally of the propagandist type both by their defenders and by their opponents. Histories of nationalities, for example, originated in the patriotic motive of national glorification. With the acceptance of objective standards of historical criticism the ground was prepared for the sociological study of nationalities as conflict groups. A school of European sociologists represented by Gumplowicz, Ratzenhofer, and Novicow stressed conflict as the characteristic behavior of social groups. Beginnings, as indicated in the bibliography, have been made of the study of various conflict groups as gangs, labor unions, parties, and sects.

The interest in the mechanism of the control of the individual by the group has been focused upon the study of the crowd. Tarde and Le Bon in France, Sighele in Italy, and Ross in the United States were the pioneers in the description and interpretation of the behavior of mobs and crowds. The crowd phenomena of the Great War have stimulated the production of several books upon crowds and crowd influences which are, in the main, but superficial and popular elaborations of the interpretations of Tarde and Le Bon. Concrete material upon group behavior has rapidly accumulated, but little or no progress has been made in its sociological explanation.

At present there are many signs of an increasing interest in the study of group behavior. Contemporary literature is featuring realistic descriptions. Sinclair Lewis in Main Street describes concretely the routine of town life with its outward monotony and its inner zest. Newspapers and magazines are making surveys of the buying habits of their readers as a basis for advertising. The federal department of agriculture in co-operation with schools of agriculture is making intensive studies of rural communities. Social workers are conscious that a more fundamental understanding of social groups is a necessary basis for case work and community organization. Surveys of institutions and communities are now being made under many auspices and from varied points of view. All this is having a fruitful reaction upon the sociological theory.

4. The Study of the Family

The family is the earliest, the most elementary, and the most permanent of social groups. It has been more completely studied, in all its various aspects, than other forms of human association. Methods of investigation of family life are typical of methods that may be employed in the description of other forms of society. For that reason more attention is given here to studies of family life than it is possible or desirable to give to other and more transient types of social groups.

The descriptions of travelers, of ethnologists and of historians made the first contributions to our knowledge of marriage, ceremonials, and family organization among primitive and historical peoples. Early students of these data devised theories of stages in the evolution of the family. An anthology might be made of the conceptions that students have formulated of the original form of the family, for example, the theory of the matriarchate by Bachofen, of group marriage growing out of earlier promiscuous relations by Morgan, of the polygynous family by Darwin, of pair marriage by Westermarck. An example of the ingenious, but discarded method of arranging all types of families observed in a series representing stages of the evolution is to be found in Morgan's Ancient Society. A survey of families among primitive peoples by Hobhouse, Ginsberg, and Wheeler makes the point that even family life is most varied upon the lower levels of culture, and that the historical development of the family with any people must be studied in relation to the physical and social environment.

The evolutionary theory of the family has, however, furnished a somewhat detached point of view for the criticism of the modern family. Social reformers have used the evolutionary theory as a formula to justify attacks upon the family as an institution and to support the most varied proposals for its reconstruction. Books like Ellen Key's Love and Marriage and Meisel-Hess, The Sexual Crisis are not scientific studies of the family but rather social political philippics directed against marriage and the family.

The interest stimulated by ethnological observation, historical study, and propagandist essays has, however, turned the attention of certain students to serious study of the family and its problems. Howard's History of Matrimonial Institutions is a scholarly and comprehensive treatise upon the evolution of the legal status of the family. Annual statistics of marriage and divorce are now compiled and published by all the important countries except the United States government. In the United States, however, three studies of marriages and divorces have been made; one in 1887-88, by the Department of Labor, covering the twenty years from 1867-86 inclusive; another in 1906-7, by the Bureau of the Census, for the twenty years 1887-1906; and the last, also by the Bureau of the Census, for the year 1916.

The changes in family life resulting from the transition from home industry to the factory system have created new social problems. Problems of woman and child labor, unemployment, and poverty are a product of the machine industry. Attempts to relieve the distress under conditions of city life resulted in the formation of charity organization societies and other philanthropic institutions, and in attempts to control the behavior of the individuals and families assisted. The increasing body of experience gained by social agencies has gradually been incorporated in the technique of the workers. Mary Richmond in Social Diagnosis has analyzed and standardized the procedure of the social case worker.

Less direct but more fundamental studies of family life have been made by other investigators. Le Play, a French social economist, who lived with the families which he observed, introduced the method of the monographic study of the economic organization of family life. Ernst Engel, from his study of the expenditure of Saxon working-class families, formulated so-called "laws" of the relation between family income and family outlay. Recent studies of family incomes and budgets by Chapin, Ogburn, and others have thrown additional light upon the relationship between wages and the standard of living. Interest in the economics of the family is manifested by an increasing number of studies in dietetics, household administration and domestic science.

Westermarck in his History of Human Marriage attempted to write a sociology of the family. Particularly interesting is his attempt to compare the animal family with that of man. The effect of this was to emphasize instinctive and biological aspects of the family rather than its institutional character. The basis for a psychology of family life was first laid in the Studies in the Psychology of Sex by Havelock Ellis. The case studies of individuals by psychoanalysts often lead into family complexes and illuminate the structure of family attitudes and wishes.

The sociological study of the family as a natural and a cultural group is only now in its beginnings. An excellent theoretical study of the family as a unity of interacting members is presented in Bosanquet, The Family. The family as defined in the mores has been described and interpreted, as for example, by Thomas in his analysis of the organization of the large peasant family group in the first two volumes of the Polish Peasant. Materials upon the family in the United States have been brought together by Calhoun in his Social History of the American Family.

While the family is listed by Cooley among primary groups, the notion is gaining ground that it is primary in a unique sense which sets it apart from all other social groups. The biological interdependence and co-operation of the members of the family, intimacies of closest and most enduring contacts have no parallel among other human groups. The interplay of the attractions, tensions, and accommodations of personalities in the intimate bonds of family life have up to the present found no concrete description or adequate analysis in sociological inquiry.

The best case studies of family life at present are in fiction, not in the case records of social agencies, nor yet in sociological literature. Arnold Bennett's trilogy, Clayhanger, Hilda Lessways, and These Twain, suggests a pattern not unworthy of consideration by social workers and sociologists. The Pastor's Wife, by the author of Elizabeth and Her German Garden, is a delightful contrast of English and German mores in their effect upon the intimate relations of family life.

In the absence of case studies of the family as a natural and cultural group the following tentative outline for sociological study is offered:

1. Location and extent in time and space.—Genealogical tree as retained in the family memory; geographical distribution and movement of members of small family group and of large family group; stability or mobility of family; its rural or urban location.

2. Family traditions and ceremonials.—Family romance; family skeleton; family ritual, as demonstration of affection, family events, etc.

3. Family economics.—Family communism; division of labor between members of the family; effect of occupation of its members.

4. Family organization and control.—Conflicts and accommodation; superordination and subordination; typical forms of control—patriarchy, matriarchy, consensus, etc.; family esprit de corps, family morale, family objectives; status in community.

5. Family behavior.—Family life from the standpoint of the four wishes (security, response, recognition, and new experience); family crises; the family and the community; familism versus individualism; family life and the development of personality.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. THE DEFINITION OF SOCIETY

(1) Kistiakowski, Dr. Th. Gesellschaft und Einselwesen; eine methodologische Studie. Berlin, 1899. [A review and criticism of the principal conceptions of society with reference to their value for a natural science of society.]

(2) Barth, Paul. Die Philosophie der Geschichte als Sociologie. Leipzig, 1897. [A comparison of the different schools and an attempt to interpret them as essays in the philosophy of history.]

(3) Espinas, Alfred. Des societes animales. Paris, 1877. [A definition of society based upon a comparative study of animal associations, communities, and societies.]

(4) Spencer, Herbert. "The Social Organism," Essays, Scientific, Political and Speculative. I, 265-307. New York, 1892. [First published in The Westminster Review for January, 1860.]

(5) Lazarus, M., and Steinthal, H. "Einleitende Gedanken zur Voelkerpsychologie als Einladung zu einer Zeitschrift fuer Voelkerpsychologie und Sprachwissenschaft," Zeitschrift fuer Voelkerpsychologie und Sprachwissenschaft, I (1860), 1-73. [This is the most important early attempt to interpret social phenomena from a social psychological point of view. See p. 35 for definition of Volk "the people."]

(6) Knapp, G. Friedrich. "Quetelet als Theoretiker," Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik, XVIII (1872), 89-124.

(7) Lazarus, M. Das Leben der Seele in Monographien ueber seine Erscheinungen und Gesetze. Berlin, 1876.

(8) Durkheim, Emile. "Representations individuelles et representations collectives," Revue de metaphysique et de morale, VI (1898), 273-302.

(9) Simmel, Georg. Ueber sociale Differenzierung. Sociologische und psychologische Untersuchungen. Leipzig, 1890.

[See also in Bibliography, chap. i, volumes listed under Systematic Treatises.]

II. PLANT COMMUNITIES AND ANIMAL SOCIETIES

(1) Clements, Frederic E. Plant Succession. An analysis of the development of vegetation. Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1916.

(2) Wheeler, W. M. "The Ant-Colony as an Organism," Journal of Morphology, XXII (1911), 307-25.

(3) Parmelee, Maurice. The Science of Human Behavior. Biological and Psychological Foundations. New York, 1913. [Bibliography.]

(4) Massart, J., and Vandervelde, E. Parasitism, Organic and Social. 2d ed. Translated by W. Macdonald. Revised by J. Arthur Thomson. London, 1907.

(5) Warming, Eug. Oecology of Plants. An introduction to the study of plant communities. Oxford, 1909. [Bibliography.]

(6) Adams, Charles C. Guide to the Study of Animal Ecology. New York, 1913. [Bibliography.]

(7) Waxweiler, E. "Esquisse d'une sociologie," Travaux de l'Institut de Sociologie (Solvay), Notes et memoires, Fasc. 2. Bruxelles, 1906.

(8) Reinheimer, H. Symbiosis. A socio-physiological study of evolution. London, 1920.

III. THE CLASSIFICATION OF SOCIAL GROUPS

A. Types of Social Group

1. Non-territorial Groups:

(1) Le Bon, Gustave. The Crowd. A study of the popular mind. London, 1897.

(2) Sighele, S. Psychologie des sectes. Paris, 1898.

(3) Tarde, G. L'opinion et la foule. Paris, 1901.

(4) Fahlbeck, Pontus. Klasserna och Samhallet. Stockholm, 1920. (Book review in American Journal of Sociology, XXVI [1920-21], 633-34.)

(5) Nesfield, John C. Brief View of the Caste System of the North-western Provinces and Oudh. Allahabad, 1885.

2. Territorial Groups:

(1) Simmel, Georg. "Die Grossstaedte und das Geistesleben," Die Grossstadt, Vortraege und Aufsaetze zur Staedteausstellung, von K. Buecher, F. Ratzel, G. v. Mayr, H. Waentig, G. Simmel, Th. Peterman, und D. Schaefer. Dresden, 1903.

(2) Galpin, C. J. The Social Anatomy of an Agricultural Community. Madison, Wis., 1915. (Agricultural experiment station of the University of Wisconsin. Research Bulletin 34.) [See also Rural Life, New York, 1918.]

(3) Aronovici, Carol. The Social Survey. Philadelphia, 1916.

(4) McKenzie, R. D. The Neighborhood. A study of local life in Columbus, Ohio. Chicago, 1921 [in press].

(5) Park, Robert E. "The City. Suggestions for the Investigation of Human Behavior in the City Environment," American Journal of Sociology, XX (1914-15), 577-612.

(6) Sims, Newell L. The Rural Community, Ancient and Modern. New York, 1920.

B. Studies of Individual Communities:

(1) Maine, Sir Henry. Village-Communities in the East and West. London, 1871.

(2) Baden-Powell, H. The Indian Village Community. Examined with reference to the physical, ethnographic, and historical conditions of the provinces. London, 1896.

(3) Seebohm, Frederic. The English Village Community. Examined in its relations to the manorial and tribal systems and to the common or open field system of husbandry. An essay in economic history. London, 1883.

(4) McGee, W. J. "The Seri Indians," Bureau of American Ethnology 17th Annual Report 1895-96. Washington, 1898.

(5) Rivers, W. H. R. The Todas. London and New York, 1906.

(6) Jenks, Albert. The Bontoc Igorot. Manila, 1905.

(7) Stow, John. A Survey of London. Reprinted from the text of 1603 with introduction and notes by C. L. Kingsford. Oxford, 1908.

(8) Booth, Charles. Life and Labour of the People in London, 9 vols. London and New York, 1892-97. 8 additional volumes, 1902.

(9) Kellogg, P. U., ed. The Pittsburgh Survey. Findings in 6 vols. Russell Sage Foundation, New York, 1909-14.

(10) Woods, Robert. The City Wilderness. A settlement study, south end of Boston. Boston, 1898. ——. Americans in Process. A settlement study, north and west ends of Boston. Boston, 1902.

(11) Kenngott, G. F. The Record of a City. A social survey of Lowell, Massachusetts. New York, 1912.

(12) Harrison, Shelby M., ed. The Springfield Survey. A study of social conditions in an American city. Findings in 3 vols. Russell Sage Foundation. New York, 1918.

(13) Roberts, Peter. Anthracite Coal Communities. A study of the demography, the social, educational, and moral life of the anthracite regions. New York and London, 1904.

(14) Williams, J. M. An American Town. A sociological study. New York, 1906.

(15) Wilson, Warren H. Quaker Hill. A sociological study. New York, 1907.

(16) Taylor, Graham R. Satellite Cities. A study of industrial suburbs. New York and London, 1915.

(17) Lewis, Sinclair. Main Street. New York, 1920.

(18) Kobrin, Leon. A Lithuanian Village. Translated from the Yiddish by Isaac Goldberg. New York, 1920.

IV. THE STUDY OF THE FAMILY

A. The Primitive Family

1. The Natural History of Marriage:

(1) Bachofen, J. J. Das Mutterrecht. Eine Untersuchung ueber die Gynaikokratie der alten Welt nach ihrer religioesen und rechtlichen Natur. Stuttgart, 1861.

(2) Westermarck, E. The History of Human Marriage. London, 1891.

(3) McLennan, J. F. Primitive Marriage. An inquiry into the origin of the form of capture in marriage ceremonies. Edinburgh, 1865.

(4) Tylor, E. B. "The Matriarchal Family System," Nineteenth Century, XL (1896), 81-96.

(5) Dargun, L. von. Mutterrecht und Vaterrecht. Leipzig, 1892.

(6) Maine, Sir Henry. Dissertations on Early Law and Custom. Chap. vii. London, 1883.

(7) Letourneau, C. The Evolution of Marriage and of the Family. (Trans.) New York, 1891.

(8) Kovalevsky, M. Tableau des origines et de l'evolution de la famille et de la propriete. Stockholm, 1890.

(9) Lowie, Robert H. Primitive Society. New York, 1920.

(10) Starcke, C. N. The Primitive Family in Its Origin and Development. New York, 1889.

(11) Hobhouse, L. T., Wheeler, G. C., and Ginsberg, M. The Material Culture and Social Institutions of the Simpler Peoples. London, 1915.

(12) Parsons, Elsie Clews. The Family. An ethnographical and historical outline. New York and London, 1906.

2. Studies of Family Life in Different Cultural Areas:

(1) Spencer, B., and Gillen, F. J. The Native Tribes of Central Australia. Chap. iii, "Certain Ceremonies Concerned with Marriage," pp. 92-111. London and New York, 1899.

(2) Rivers, W. H. R. Kinship and Social Organization. "Studies in Economics and Political Science," No. 36. In the series of monographs by writers connected with the London School of Economics and Political Science. London, 1914.

(3) Rivers, W. H. R. "Kinship," Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits, Report. V, 129-47, VI, 92-125.

(4) Kovalevsky, M. "La famille matriarcale au Caucase," L'Anthropologie, IV (1893), 259-78.

(5) Thomas, N. W. Kinship Organizations and Group Marriage in Australia. Cambridge, 1906.

(6) Malinowski, Bronislaw. The Family among the Australian Aborigines. A sociological study. London, 1913.

B. Materials for the Study of Familial Attitudes and Sentiments

(1) Frazer, J. G. Totemism and Exogamy. A treatise on certain early forms of superstition and society. London, 1910.

(2) Durkheim, E. "La prohibition de l'inceste et ses origines," L'annee sociologique. I (1896-97), 1-70.

(3) Ploss, H. Das Weib in der Natur- und Voelkerkunde. Leipzig, 1902.

(4) Lasch, R. "Der Selbstmord aus erotischen Motiven bei den primitiven Voelkern," Zeitschrift fuer Sozialwissenschaft, II (1899), 578-85.

(5) Jacobowski, L. "Das Weib in der Poesie der Hottentotten," Globus, LXX (1896), 173-76.

(6) Stoll, O. Das Geschlechtsleben in der Voelkerpsychologie. Leipzig, 1908.

(7) Crawley, A. E. "Sexual Taboo: A Study in the Relations of the Sexes," The Journal of the Anthropological Institute, XXIV (1894-95), 116-25; 219-35; 430-46.

(8) Simmel, G. "Zur Psychologie der Frauen," Zeitschrift fuer Voelkerpsychologie und Sprachwissenschaft, XX, 6-46.

(9) Finck, Henry T. Romantic Love and Personal Beauty. Their development, causal relations, historic and national peculiarities. London and New York, 1887.

(10) ——. Primitive Love and Love Stories. New York, 1899.

(11) Kline, L. W. "The Migratory Impulse versus Love of Home," American Journal of Psychology, X (1898-99), 1-81.

(12) Key, Ellen. Love and Marriage. Translated from the Swedish by A. G. Chater; with a critical and biographical introduction by Havelock Ellis. New York and London, 1912.

(13) Meisel-Hess, Grete. The Sexual Crisis. A critique of our sex life. Translated from the German by E. and C. Paul. New York, 1917.

(14) Bloch, Iwan. The Sexual Life of Our Time in Its Relation to Modern Civilization. Translated from the 6th German ed. by M. Eden Paul. Chap. viii, "The Individualization of Love," pp. 159-76. London, 1908.

C. Economics of the Family

(1) Grosse, Ernst. Die Formen der Familie und die Formen der Wirtschaft. Freiburg, 1896.

(2) Le Play, P. G. Frederic. Les ouvriers europeens. Etudes sur les travaux, la vie domestique, et la condition morale des populations ouvrieres de l'Europe. Precedees d'un expose de la methode d'observation. Paris, 1855. [Comprises a series of 36 monographs on the budgets of typical families selected from the most diverse industries.]

(3) Le Play, P. G. Frederic. L'organisation de la famille. Selon le vrai modele signale par l'histoire de toutes les races et de tous les temps. Paris, 1871.

(4) Engel, Ernst. Die Lebenskosten belgischer Arbeiter-Familien frueher und jetzt. Ermittelt aus Familien-Haushaltrechnungen und vergleichend zusammengestellt. Dresden, 1895.

(5) Chapin, Robert C. The Standard of Living among Workingmen's Families in New York City. Russell Sage Foundation. New York, 1909.

(6) Talbot, Marion, and Breckinridge, Sophonisba P. The Modern Household. Rev. ed. Boston, 1919. [Bibliography at the end of each chapter.]

(7) Nesbitt, Florence. Household Management. Preface by Mary E. Richmond. Russell Sage Foundation. New York, 1918.

D. The Sociology of the Family

1. Studies in Family Organization:

(1) Bosanquet, Helen. The Family. London and New York, 1906.

(2) Durkheim, E. "Introduction a la sociologie de la famille." Annales de la faculte des lettres de Bordeaux (1888), 257-81.

(3) ——. "La famille conjugale," Revue philosophique, XLI (1921), 1-14.

(4) Howard, G. E. A History of Matrimonial Institutions Chiefly in England and the United States. With an introductory analysis of the literature and theories of primitive marriage and the family. 3 vols. Chicago, 1904.

(5) Thwing, Charles F. and Carrie F. B. The Family. A historical and social study. Boston, 1887.

(6) Goodsell, Willystine. A History of the Family as a Social and Educational Institution. New York, 1915.

(7) Dealey, J. Q. The Family in Its Sociological Aspects. Boston, 1912.

(8) Calhoun, Arthur W. A Social History of the American Family from Colonial Times to the Present. 3 vols. Cleveland, 1917-19. [Bibliography.]

(9) Thomas, W. I., and Znaniecki, F. The Polish Peasant in Europe and America. "Primary-Group Organization," I, 87-524, II. Boston, 1918. [A study based on correspondence between members of the family in America and Poland.]

(10) Du Bois, W. E. B. The Negro American Family. Atlanta, 1908. [Bibliography.]

(11) Williams, James M. "Outline of a Theory of Social Motives," American Journal of Sociology, XV (1909-10), 741-80. [Theory of motives based upon observation of rural and urban families.]

2. Materials for the Study of Family Disorganization:

(1) Willcox, Walter F. The Divorce Problem. A study in statistics. ("Columbia University Studies in History, Economics and Public Law," Vol. I. New York, 1891.)

(2) Lichtenberger, J. P. Divorce. A study in social causation. New York, 1909.

(3) United States Bureau of the Census. Marriage and Divorce, 1867-1906. 2 vols. Washington, 1908-09. [Results of two federal investigations.]

(4) ——. Marriage and Divorce 1916. Washington, 1919.

(5) Eubank, Earle E. A Study in Family Desertion. Department of Public Welfare. Chicago, 1916. [Bibliography.]

(6) Breckinridge, Sophonisba P., and Abbott, Edith. The Delinquent Child and the Home. A study of the delinquent wards of the Juvenile Court of Chicago. Russell Sage Foundation. New York, 1912.

(7) Colcord, Joanna. Broken Homes. A study of family desertion and its social treatment. Russell Sage Foundation. New York, 1919.

(8) Kammerer, Percy G. The Unmarried Mother. A study of five hundred cases. Boston, 1918.

(9) Ellis, Havelock. The Task of Social Hygiene. Boston, 1912.

(10) Myerson, Abraham. "Psychiatric Family Studies," American Journal of Insanity, LXXIV (April, 1918), 497-555.

(11) Morrow, Prince A. Social Diseases and Marriage. Social prophylaxis. New York, 1904.

(12) Periodicals on Social Hygiene:

Zeitschrift fuer Sexualwissenschaft, Bd. 1, April, 1914-, Bonn [1915-].

Social Hygiene, Vol. I, December, 1914-, New York [1915-].

Die Neuere Generation, Bd. I, 1908-Berlin [1908-]. Preceded by Mutterschutz, Vols. I-III.

TOPICS FOR WRITTEN THEMES

1. Society and the Individual: The Cardinal Problem of Sociology.

2. Historic Conceptions of Society: Aristotle, Hobbes, Rousseau, etc.

3. Plant Communities.

4. Animal Societies: The Ant Colony, the Bee Hive.

5. Animal Communities, or Studies in Animal Ecology.

6. Human Communities, Human Ecology, and Economics.

7. The Natural Areas of the City.

8. Studies in Group Consciousness: National, Sectional, State, Civic.

9. Co-operation versus Consensus.

10. Taming as a Form of Social Control.

11. Domestication among Plants, Animals, and Man.

12. Group Unity and the Different Forms of Consensus: Esprit de corps, Morale, Collective Representations.

13. The Social Nature of Concepts.

14. Conduct and Behavior.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. What, in your opinion, are the essential elements in Espinas' definition of society?

2. In what sense does society differ from association?

3. According to Espinas' definition, which of the following social relations would constitute society: robber and robbed; beggar and almsgiver; charity organization and recipients of relief; master and slave; employer and employee?

4. What illustrations of symbiosis in human society occur to you?

5. Are changes resulting from human symbiosis changes (a) of structure, or (b) of function?

6. What are the likenesses and the differences between social symbiosis in human and in ant society?

7. What is the difference between taming and domestication?

8. What is the relation of domestication to society?

9. Is man a tamed or a domesticated animal?

10. What are the likenesses between a plant and a human community? What are the differences?

11. What is the fundamental difference between a plant community and an ant society?

12. What are the differences between human and animal societies?

13. Does the ant have customs? ceremonies?

14. Do you think that there is anything akin to public sentiment in ant society?

15. What is the relation of education to social heredity?

16. In what way do you differentiate between the characteristic behavior of machines and human beings?

17. "Society not only continues to exist by transmission, by communication, but it may fairly be said to exist in transmission, in communication." Interpret.

18. How does Dewey's definition of society differ from that of Espinas? Which do you prefer? Why?

19. Is consensus synonymous with co-operation?

20. Under what conditions would Dewey characterize the following social relations as society: master and slave; employer and employee; parent and child; teacher and student?

21. In what sense does the communication of an experience to another person change the experience itself?

22. In what sense are concepts social in contrast with sensations which are individual? Would it be possible to have concepts outside of group life?

23. How does Park distinguish between behavior and conduct?

24. In what ways is human society in its origin and continuity based on conduct?

25. To what extent does "the animal nature of man" (Hobhouse) provide a basis for the social organization of life?

26. What, according to Hobhouse, are the differentia of human morality from animal behavior?

27. What do you understand by a collective representation?

28. How do you distinguish between the terms society, social community, and group? Can you name a society that could not be considered as a community? Can you name a community that is not a society?

29. In what, fundamentally, does the unity of the group consist?

30. What groups are omitted in Le Bon's classification of social groups? Make a list of all the groups, formal and informal, of which you are a member. Arrange these groups under the classification given in the General Introduction (p. 50). Compare this classification with that made by Le Bon.

31. How do you distinguish between esprit de corps, morale, and collective representation as forms of consensus?

32. Classify under esprit de corps, morale, or collective representation the following aspects of group behavior: rooting at a football game; army discipline; the flag; college spirit; the so-called "war psychosis"; the fourteen points of President Wilson; "the English never know when they are beaten"; slogans; "Paris refrains from exultation"; crowd enthusiasm; the Golden Rule; "where there's a will there's a way"; Grant's determination, "I'll fight it out this way if it takes all summer"; ideals.

33. "The human mind has a large capacity for adopting beliefs that fit the trends of its habits and feelings." Give concrete illustrations outside of army life.

34. What is the importance of the study of the family as a social group?

FOOTNOTES:

[80] See supra, chap. i, pp. 50-51.

[81] Translated from Alfred Espinas, Des societes animales (1878), pp. 157-60.

[82] Adapted from William M. Wheeler, Ants, Their Structure, Development, Behavior, pp. 339-424. (Columbia University Press, 1910.)

[83] Adapted from P. Chalmers Mitchell, The Childhood of Animals, pp. 204-21. (Frederick A. Stokes & Co., 1912.)

[84] Adapted from Eugenius Warming, Oecology of Plants, pp. 12-13, 91-95. (Oxford University Press, 1909.)

[85] Adapted from William E. Wheeler, Ants, Their Structure, Development, and Behavior, pp. 5-7. (Columbia University Press, 1910.)

[86] From John Dewey, Democracy and Education, pp. 1-7. (Published by The Macmillan Co., 1916. Reprinted by permission.)

[87] From Robert E. Park, Principles of Human Behavior, pp. 1-9. (The Zalaz Corporation, 1915.)

[88] Adapted from L. T. Hobhouse, Morals in Evolution, pp. 1-2, 10-12. (Henry Holt & Co., 1915.)

[89] Adapted from Emile Durkheim, Elementary Forms of Religious Life, pp. 432-37. (Allen & Unwin, 1915.)

[90] From Albion W. Small, General Sociology, pp. 495-97. (The University of Chicago Press, 1905.)

[91] From R. E. Park, "Education in Its Relation to the Conflict and Fusion of Cultures," in the Publications of the American Sociological Society, VIII (1918), 38-40.

[92] Translated from S. Sighele, Psychologie des Sectes, pp. 42-51. (M. Giard et Cie., 1898.)

[93] Adapted from William E. Hocking, Morale and Its Enemies, pp. 3-37. (Yale University Press, 1918.)



CHAPTER IV

I. INTRODUCTION

1. Geological and Biological Conceptions of Isolation

Relations of persons with persons, and of groups with groups, may be either those of isolation or those of contact. The emphasis in this chapter is placed upon isolation, in the next chapter upon contact in a comparison of their effects upon personal conduct and group behavior.

Absolute isolation of the person from the members of his group is unthinkable. Even biologically, two individuals of the higher animal species are the precondition to a new individual existence. In man, postnatal care by the parent for five or six years is necessary even for the physiological survival of the offspring. Not only biologically but sociologically complete isolation is a contradiction in terms. Sociologists following Aristotle have agreed with him that human nature develops within and decays outside of social relations. Isolation, then, in the social as well as the biological sense is relative, not absolute.

The term "isolation" was first employed in anthropogeography, the study of the relation of man to his physical environment. To natural barriers, as mountains, oceans, and deserts, was attributed an influence upon the location of races and the movements of peoples and the kind and the degree of cultural contact. The nature and the extent of separation of persons and groups was considered by geographers as a reflex of the physical environment.

In biology, isolation as a factor in the evolution and the life of the species, is studied from the standpoint of the animal group more than from that of the environment. Consequently, the separation of species from each other is regarded as the outcome not only of a sheer physical impossibility of contact, but even more of other factors as differences in physical structure, in habits of life, and in the instincts of the animal groups. J. Arthur Thomson in his work on "Heredity" presents the following compact and illuminating statement of isolation as a factor in inheritance.

The only other directive evolution-factor that biologists are at all agreed about, besides selection, is isolation—a general term for all the varied ways in which the radius of possible intercrossing is narrowed. As expounded by Wagner, Weismann, Romanes, Gulick, and others, isolation takes many forms—spatial, structural, habitudinal, and psychical—and it has various results.

It tends to the segregation of species into subspecies, it makes it easier for new variations to establish themselves, it promotes prepotency, or what the breeders call "transmitting power," it fixes characters. One of the most successful breeds of cattle (Polled Angus) seems to have had its source in one farmsteading; its early history is one of close inbreeding, its prepotency is remarkable, its success from our point of view has been great. It is difficult to get secure data as to the results of isolation in nature, but Gulick's recent volume on the subject abounds in concrete illustrations, and we seem warranted in believing that conditions of isolation have been and are of frequent occurrence.

Reibmayr has collected from human history a wealth of illustrations of various forms of isolation, and there seems much to be said for his thesis that the establishment of a successful race or stock requires the alternation of periods of inbreeding (endogamy) in which characters are fixed, and periods of outbreeding (exogamy) in which, by the introduction of fresh blood, new variations are promoted. Perhaps the Jews may serve to illustrate the influence of isolation in promoting stability of type and prepotency; perhaps the Americans may serve to illustrate the variability which a mixture of different stocks tends to bring about. In historical inquiry into the difficult problem of the origin of distinct races, it seems legitimate to think of periods of "mutation"—of discontinuous sporting—which led to numerous offshoots from the main stock, of the migration of these variants into new environments where in relative isolation they became prepotent and stable.[94]