m . m 1 1 ' : - Hrfijj 1 : ''-". y ;.''"'- .-' I | 1 m ' r . , . ' ; :,;:, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES . -^ ^ 1 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. ARTHUR FAIRBANKS. NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS. PREFACE IN the present state of the science of sociology it is rash to venture beyond the monograph on some special topic, to discuss the subject as a whole. ' The present volume is not intended as a systematic reconstruction of the principles of sociology, even in outline. Its aim is rather practical. Several classes of students to-day are directing more and more attention to the science of society, with the purpose of finding a mdre scientific basis for their work. The minister would infuse religion into the social relations of every-day life, and seeks to under- stand society, which he would make Christian. Touched with a deep sense of human woe, "ethical" reformers find that material aid and education, and even friendship, cannot meet the wants of the individual, but that they must learn to know society, and work through society, in order to help the man. The effort to administer charity wisely ; the effort to make criminals into men, and to prevent men from becoming criminals ; the effort to develop a sounder municipal life in our cities, and a truer political sentiment in our nations these are but some of the lines of work in which men to-day are driven to study the science of society, in order that they may not do harm where they would do good. Moreover, students of politics, of economics, of psychology and philosophy, of History, are turning more and more viii PREFACE. attention to the sociological basis of their work. It has been my aim to furnish a brief introduction to the subject, which would make plain to the reader something of its scope and importance, and, it may be, aid him in farther study. That the specialist in sociological in- vestigation will find much here to advance the knowledge of the science, is not my expectation. It has seemed to me unwise to burden the page with many foot-notes. To take the place of these, both in directing the reader to farther material and in making general acknowledgement to scholars to whose works I have been indebted, I have added at the end of the book a bibliography, arranged in detail according to the chapters in the body of the work. I have received many suggestions in particular from Professor Giddings' papers; and regret that his Principles of Sociology only came into my hands when the present work was already in type. Finally, I desire to express my obligation to three friends and former colleagues Professors Colby, J. K. Lord, and Wells, of Dartmouth College for their help and encouragement. ARTHUR FAIRBANKS. YALE UNIVERSITY, April 22nd, 1896. TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION. PAGB I. WHAT is A SOCIETY ? AND WHY SHOULD SOCIAL PHENOMENA BE STUDIED ? . . . ... 12 II. RELATION OF SOCIOLOGY TO THE OTHER SOCIAL SCIENCES . 19 III. THE PROPER SPHERE OF SOCIOLOGY AS A SCIENCE . .117 CHAPTER I. THE ORGANIC CHARACTER OF A SOCIETY. Is Society an organism ? Biological Sociology. Meaning of " or- ganic," as applied to Society. A. General character of the social unit. I. Complexity and unity of a society. 2. The unity of a society is dynamic, rather than static. Dynamic interdependence of the parts of a society. 3. The unity of a society is determined from within. Its growth is governed by an internal law. B. A society and its environment. I. Physical and social environment of a society. 2. Each organism has its place in organic evolution, each society in social evolution. The danger and the value of the biological analogy. (Note on the differences between a society and a biological organism) . 31 CHAPTER II. THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF SOCIETY. The physical basis of life. The physical basis of society. Physical factors race and locality. A. Locality : Its general effect. Classification of external influences, i. Effect of the contour of the earth's surface. Contour determines (a) the size of the social group, (6) the isolation of social groups, (c) the lines of social movement. 2. Influence of climate light, temperature, moisture. 3. Society is modified by what it uses (a) inorganic materials, (6) effect of fauna, (c) effect of vegetation. x TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAGE B. Race : Race expansion, the theory of population. Present increase of population in Europe. Increase in uncivilised coun- tries. What is a race ? The race and blood-relationship. The unity of the race. Race-persistence in different environments 45 CHAPTER III. ASSOCIATION: THE RELATION OF MEN IN SOCIETY. The social group not merely physical. I. Bonds of feeling : Man not a social animal by nature. Influences for and against soci- ability. Natural selection favours the gregarious instinct in man. Sentiment as a social bond. 2. Bonds of common function. The unity of a biological organ is a unity of function. The unity of the social group a unity of function. Social evolution involves differentiation of activities and of groups. In this process the bonds uniting men become more definite, various, permanent. Solidarity of the family increased in the new forms of social activity. Increase in extent of expansive social groups. I. Attractive forces based in feeling. These forces part of the psychical character of individuals. 2. Functional bonds due to common activity. These bonds also part of the psychical character of the individual. Meaning of "association." Conditions favouring association. Influence of locality, of race, on association. Social and psychical factors favouring association (vocation, rank, &c.) . . . 6 1 CHAPTER IV. THE SOCIAL MIND. The solidarity of a society or social group. The psychical life of the social group, i. Language and thought common to the members of a social group. Beliefs, practical knowledge, methods of investigation and of proof, common to the social group. 2. Habits and virtues peculiar to each social group. Judgment of action by conscience a social fact. Ends of action and ideals common to the group. 3. Types of feeling mark the social group. 4. Self-consciousness of the social group, of the voli- tional group. The unity of the social mind and of the individual mind. " Social mind " a concrete phrase. Relation of the social mind and individual minds. The social mind exists in and through the individual minds composing it. The social mind the product of association. (Note on the science of society and the sciences of man. Sociology and history, especially the history of civilisation. Sociology and the genesis of psychical processes. Attention, comparison, generalisation, &c., from the standpoint of sociology. Sociology and logic and ethics) . . ... 76 TABLE OF CONTENTS. xi CHAPTER V. CAUSES OF SOCIAL ACTIVITY. PAGE Social groups depend on social activities. Social force versus stimuli to social activity. Needs of the individual stimulate social activities. Classification of social stimuli. A. Essential stimuli. I. Need of food as a stimulus to social activity. Need of protection against cold and wet. Fire as a socialiser. Need of food and clothing as economic stimuli. Fundamental character of these needs. Their wide range. 2. Need of protection against fellow-men as a social stimulus. This need varies with the position of the individual or tribe. The early state, as meeting this need. Need of protection in developed civilisation. Increasing need of protection within the state. 3. Emotions as causes of social activity: (a) Self-regarding emotions in primitive society, in developed society ; (b) General sympathetic emotions ; (c) Sympathetic emotions directed toward particular individuals. "Broad reach of emotions at the basis of family life. B. Non-essential or derived social stimuli. I. The love of the beautiful leads to social activity affects the ordinary needs of man. 2. Intellectual needs lead to social activity ; so do moral and religious needs. Conclusion . . , ,. 92 CHAPTER VI. MODES OF SOCIAL ACTIVITY. Variety of social phenomena. Genetic principle of classification. Its meaning, its value, and its application. I. Economic mode of social activity. Rise of economic activity. The three phases: (a) circulation, (b) consumption, (c) produc- tion. Rise of groups and institutions in economic activity. Relation of economic activity to other forms of social life. II. " Social " activity of society. Character of "social " groups. Custom the fundamental type of all social authority. Relation of " social " activity to other forms of social life. III. Political activity of society. Political life and other forms of social activity. IV. Psychical activity of society. I. Aesthetic. 2. Intellectual activity and institutions. Truth and beauty as social principles. 3. Moral activity and institutions. 4. Religious activity and institutions. Relation of psychical activity to other forms of social activity. Conclusion . . . 108 xii TABLE OF CONTENTS. CHAPTER VII. THE INDUSTRIAL ORGANISATION OF SOCIETY. PAGE Production the most important of the three factors in determining industrial organisation. Early industrial life. The stone age; the bronze and iron ages. Social importance of the development of tools. Early differentiation of industrial functions. Source of food as marking stages in development. The hunting stage, the nomad stage, and the agricultural stage. Influence of each on social life. Increase in the differentiation of labour. A. Exchange and the gradual development of the market. I. Institution of money. 2. Institutions of transportation. War, and the development of circulation. Effect of circulation on other modes of social activity. B. Consumption. The "economic man." Man's needs change in content, in imperativeness, and in variety. Physical needs determine economic life. The institution of property. Social importance of property. C. Production. Relation to circulation, to consumption. The institutions of production. Slavery, feudalism, the household unit, the factory system. Influence of industrial organisation on other modes of social activity. The ideal of the economic group. Influence of this ideal on social life. Fundamental character of the economic mode of social activity . . . .122 CHAPTER VIII. THE FAMILY AS A SOCIAL UNIT. The family and the state. Earlier theory of the rise of the state from the family. The family in the matriarchal stage. Results accepted by recent writers : (a) The principles of marriage unions ; (b) Polyandry, polygyny, and monogamy ; (c) Blood- affiliation and property rights in the formation of the family. I. The early family in the economic activity of society. Later forms of the family in the economic world. The economic future of the family. 2. The family and the "social" activity of society. 3. The family and the psychical activity of society : (a) Intellectual, (b) aesthetic, (c) moral moral life of parents, moral personality of child, developed in the family moral inheritance includes customs and social usages moral training in the family and in general society moral inheritance the basis of real progress ; (d) the religious unity of the family. Continuity and progress of religion depend on the family. 4. The function of the family in political life . . ' . 141 TABLE OF CONTENTS. CHAPTER IX. THE STATE AS AN ORGAN OF SOCIAL ACTIVITY. PAGE Methods used in the science of politics, (a) The beginnings of political life ; (b) the tribe state ; (c) the city state of the Greeks and Romans ; (d) the feudal state ; (e) the limited monarchy and democracy. Relation of law to the state. Early law based on custom and religion. Law as extended by the courts in later times. Law- making by legislatures. Sovereignty and the conception of the state. The functions of the modern state. Three forms of state activity: I. Diplomatic and military activity. 2. The state punishes crime, and defends the citizen in his rights. The prevention of crime. 3. The state protects the citizen in the exercise of civil rights. The state in relation to other modes of social activity : I. The state and economic activity ; direct interference with industry by the state. 2. The state and the family. 3. The state and higher social activities : (a) education ; (b) the state and moral life ; (c) the state and the church. Conclusion . . -157 CHAPTER X. THE INDIVIDUAL FROM THE STANDPOINT OF SOCIOLOGY. Welfare of the individual vs. the welfare of the social group. This conflict in the different spheres of social life. The teaching of history as to this antithesis. The group as a social unit. The place of the individual in society. The antithesis between the individual and the group is false. Psychical power involves dependence on society. Institutions as a source of power. Education proceeds on this principle. Egoism and altruism. The person is the concrete expression of the group-life. The element of individuality in persons. Individuality of persons and complexity of society. Individuality of environ- ment. The individual personality. The individual and social progress , , . . ... 174 CHAPTER XL EXTERNAL ACCOUNT OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT. Introduction to the second part ; social development. A. Continuity of social life. Continuity from the physical standpoint. Continuity of social life. Of institutions. The vr TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAGE generation of psychical life. Continuity and change. Social development from the standpoint of a supposed goal. B. Increasing unity and complexity of social life. Mr. Spencer's law of progress. Physical side of social development. General character of the early social group. Fundamental forms of social activity become distinct. The simple economic group. Beginning of separate economic functions and classes. Results of the more complex economic activity. Continuation of this process at the present time. Political activity becomes broader and more complex. Increasing complexity and unity in other lines. Conclusion . . ; 189 CHAPTER XII. PROCESSES OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT. Two theories of social development. The two processes exist side by side. A. Process of dispersion and differentiation, i. Race-increase. Historical evidence for centres of dispersion. Differentiation of physical types. Conclusion. 2. Differentiation and dispersion of forms of psychical life. The example of language. The example of religion. Statement of the first process. B. Process of agglomeration and assimilation. Civilisation lessens the number of social groups. Character of the second process. I. Physical side of the process. Persistence of race characteristics. Unification of culture. 2. Psychical side of the process, (a) Example of language. Tendencies to persistence and to assimilation, (b) Example of religion. Fusion of religious forms. Development stimulated by the contact of different religious types. Conclusion . . . 203 CHAPTER XIII. NATURAL SELECTION IN HUMAN SOCIETY. Discussion as to the real nature of progress. A. The biological theory of natural selection, (a) Multiplica- tion, (b) Heredity and variability, (c) Conflict. Result : The survival of the fittest. Modifications of the biological struggle. B. Modification of the struggle for existence in the case of man. I. The unity of the social group as a modifying factor. Examples. 2. Lines limiting struggle no longer territorial, but by classes. 3. Reason as a modifying factor. Resulting changes. C. Conditions of struggle and selection are present in human society. Multiplication, heredity, and variability follow biolo- gical law. Multiplication, joined with social ambition, must TABLE OF CONTENTS. produce struggle. Conditions of straggle in the different modes of social activity. Farther discussion of heredity and variation as basis of selection. Psychical heredity. Multiplication of social groups leads to a struggle of groups, in addition to struggle of individuals within each group. Multiplication of ideas and psychical struggle. Resume : Conditions present in society that inevitably lead to struggle and selection . . , , CHAPTER XIV. NATURAL SELECTION (Concluded). Discussion as to the real nature of progress continued. D. Struggle for existence in human society, i. Economic activity as a struggle for existence. Progress not from struggle, but to higher forms of struggle. 2. "Social" activity as a struggle for existence. 3. Political activity as struggle. Import- ance of the struggle between lesser political units. 4. Psychical life involves struggles, as to new ideas and inventions, new aesthetic and ethical and religious ideals. Changes in the form of struggle as society develops. I. Physical struggle is gradually raised to the psychical plane. 2. The aim comes to be not destruction, but supremacy. 3. Irrational and rational forms of struggle. Change in the competing units as the struggle becomes 'psychical. E. Survival of the fittest as the outcome of struggle. I. Sur- vival of the fittest individuals, (a) Biologically, the less fit perish, the fittest survive, and increase most rapidly, and rise in social position, (b) Economic survival ; social apparatus for determining it. (c) Political survival ; social apparatus for determining it. (d) Psychical survival ; social apparatus for determining it. 2. Survival of the fittest groups. Fitness of groups determined by their organisation. Type of family, industrial organisation, political principles, standard of right, of truth, of beauty : as elements of the organisation that determines the fitness of the group. Authority of each is made clear by the survival of the group which it helps to make fit. 3. The survival of the fittest institutions. Process of survival of social institutions. Authority and stability of institutions, together with principle of development. Progress by the survival of the fittest . . 239 BIBLIOGRAPHY . . ... 265 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY INTRODUCTION SOCIOLOGY is the name applied to a rather inchoate mass of materials which embodies our knowledge about society. Careful students and sentimental reformers Various meanings of alike profess devotion to the new science, the word Economics is to be a branch of sociology ; Sociology, theology is to be driven from the pulpit by the new religion of social reform ; law and morals may be put on a true foundation, the state at last may learn its true function, and the family its true meaning, because this new science has been discovered toward the close of the nineteenth century. Its forms are as yet varied, and perhaps would suggest a series of pseudo-sciences instead of one genuine science. Spencer uses the term sociology to mean the study of social institutions in their origin and development ; Letourneau applies it to the study of social beginnings, and it has been extended to cover a good deal of ethnology and anthropology; Comte, who has the honour of inventing the word sociologie, meant by it the goal and summation of all science as applied to the regulation of human society ; in America the name has been applied indifferently to any study of social condi- tions which aims to regenerate society. Such are some of the claims put forward by the devotees of this new science, and some of the various types which it has assumed. In view of all this confusion and perplexity, 2 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. it must be the first work of the student to define the scope of this science, if such it be, and to determine its relation to other sciences already recognised as such. Accordingly, I propose first to define the object to be studied, viz., society or the social group, and to indicate the importance of such a study ; secondly, to discuss the relation of the general science of society to the special sciences dealing with particular classes of social phe- nomena; and, thirdly, to enquire whether the study of society as thus defined deserves the name of a science. 1 Sociology claims to be the science of society, and the question immediately arises: What is society, or a society, this object which is to be studied? what is a Toolay many writers talk freely of society, and mean by it on one page, humanity ; on the next, a family, or a race; on the next, social intercourse. Those writers who regard society as an organism are perhaps the most careless in this matter, and confuse the reader by including in said organism at one time the world as a whole, and again, without notice of change, some small group of men who have united for a definite purpose. A society may be defined as a group of men who live together in relations more or less permanent. 2 For scientific purposes men are grouped in classes f 6 R 1 Tt which include those who are alike and exclude others ; such a group is not a society, for it exists only in the mind of the thinker. On the other hand the company in a railway car includes most diverse characters, but even so casual a relation may bind them into a sort of society. Persons in the same audience are 1 This "prolegomena" to the science of society should perhaps serve as an appendix rather than as an introduction. Certainly the third part may better be read after the remainder of the volume. 2 V. Gumplowicz, Grundriss der Sociologie, pp. 139, sqq. INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. 3 a society when their minds are united even temporarily by a common interest in the speaker. The family perpetuating the same life for generations, is a society. A society is a group of persons sharing a common life for a longer or shorter time; but inasmuch as there is an important distinction between the smaller societies developed to perform a definite function, and the larger society in which these exist, I shall frequently call the former " social organs " or " social groups." These inter- vene between the individual and the larger society to which he belongs; they constitute the framework or structure of that society ; in the language of biology they may be called its organs. The word " society " then may be applied to the larger body in which the social groups exist. A society differs A Society from these smaller groups in that it is riot and Social called into existence to perform any definite Groups. function, for apparently it exists to be served rather than to serve. It does not always coincide with a city or other local group, or with a nation, the political group ; the word covers more nearly the same ground as the term people. In general a society coincides with a type of culture. " Society " meant for the Jew, the Hebrew race; for the Greek, those whom Greek culture brought under its sway or made to contribute im- mediately to its progress; for the Eoman, the Eoman world, those who acknowledged the dominion of Rome. To-day "society," in the broad use of the term, means for us those who have yielded to the influence of Christian civilisation ; and we seem to foresee the day when all the larger and more important ethnic groups may be regarded as parts of one society, because they share the same culture and the same civilisation. Society The object which sociology proposes to study and Social is society as a whole, together with the smaller Classes. societies or social groups which are developed to perform special functions in the life of the larger 4 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. whole. But while it is only the group as a society which properly comes within the sphere of sociology, it is evident that various types of social classes must be examined in order to understand the groups which may be called societies. Life in the same locality and identity of race are the basis of classes which all but inevitably become social groups sharing a common psychical life, so that these classes cannot be neglected by sociology. In similar manner the classes which are developed in an advanced state of society, classes according to rank, according to occupation, according to economic and moral condition, etc., must be considered by sociology because of their influence on the groups which may be recognised distinctly as societies. After this has been granted, the student should never forget that the real object of sociological study is not classes of men that are alike, but groups of men who have come to share a common life. So important a subject as this has, of course, received some attention before the rise of a branch of science entirely devoted to the consideration of it. Even when the historian has commanded the reader's imagination by selecting great men for his .theme, the true student has recognised that it is the ideals of the nation which find expression in their lives. The study of leaders in thought and action deserves the name of history, not because these leaders are the only men worth studying, but because the study of their lives may let us see inside the real life of the nation. The real subject of history is the life of a people, the development of the groups which go to make up this life, and the way in which these groups act together to form the larger whole. The attempt to apply the doctrine of evo- Importance . vv J of the study lution to society and to the results of social of the Social life has shown the importance of the social Group. group as an object of study. It is the group quite as much as the individual which is subject to INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. 5 the law of natural selection and the survival of the fittest. Among savages these groups may be small and subject to change ; still it is groups, rather than individuals, which compete with each other for the means of existence. The members of a group shield each other from the full effect of the natural laws of survival, so that' the very existence of these laws has been questioned; but in the struggle of group with group they are seen operating in full force. The influences of climate and physical environment affect the size, activity, and energy of the group quite as much as they affect the individual life. Turning from primi- tive society to society highly civilised, we find that still the members of a group shield each other, while group struggles with group. The weakest child receives the most care in the family ; the trade-union means that labourer stands by labourer; the great function of the nation is to protect its citizens from internal lawlessness and from external attack. Every social institution unites men good and bad into one social group, which stands or falls as a unit in the struggle with similar competitors. The laws of natural selection apply to the social group, and this is therefore the important unit in the process of social evolution. But while the study of the social group has been recognised as important, and has been emphasised in some developments of modern thought, its the Social full meaning has been generally neglected. Factor in Law, philosophy, and especially religion, have study of the tended to exaggerate the importance of the individual as the social unit, and the vital connection between individuals has been overlooked. The example of psychology will illustrate the results of this atomistic study of individuals. We speak of the " old psychology," but psychology, both old and new, has ordinarily stopped with the individual mind ; the new psychology diilers from the old in that it 6 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. applies scientific methods to the study of mind as a physical organism in a physical environment ; it does not emphasise the environment of mind by mind, and it is inclined to overlook the distinctively human faculties which are developed in this psychical environ- ment. History tells us how psychologists have invented doctrines of innate ideas to cover what their study of the individual did not explain ; how language and religion have been regarded alternately as the gift of God, and the invention of cunning men ; how the highest ideals of the race, ideals of truth, of beauty, of goodness, have been at one time treated as intuitions implanted in the individuals by an extra-mundane power, at another time entirely overlooked or denied. In a word, man has been stripped of the psychical powers which are his inheritance as a social being, and upon the naked skeleton of a mind thus obtained, psychologists have thrust what garments they would. The individual person exists in society, and any true study of the individual must recognise the dependence of his habits, his ideals, and all his intellectual activity, upon the psychical life of the group of which he is a member. There may be some excuse for thinkers who have neglected the social factor in their study of the individual, Individual- but I can see no shadow of excuse for the istic study way in which individualistic ages, like the of Society. p resen fc } have sought to understand society without looking beyond the individuals which make up society. Two problems are proposed to the child under the name of mathematics : If one acre will yield twenty bushels of wheat, how much will six acres yield ? If a man can make one table a day, how many can ten men make? The vital difference between these two questions does not appear in the first chapters of the arithmetic. The ten men may labour as an association, and no study of the unit will suffice to determine the product of the group. The typical man of economics INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY, 7 is defined as having social instincts, but unless the social organs for production, distribution, etc., are carefully investigated, economics is one-sided, if not barren. The politics which began with the freedom and equality of all men, and yet forgot that they were brothers, has done good service, but its fruits do not justify its claim to scientific truth. Various types of social philosophy have failed, because their attention was centred on the individual. The theory of natural rights and natural law, and in like manner the social contract theory, suffered from this defect. They began with an abstraction, viz., individuals apart from society, and they ended with an abstraction, a " natural " or a " contractual " government. In contrast with these are the theories of the idealist philosophers, who would willingly make a place for society in their system. They have equipped the idealistic individual with countless social instincts and social notions, but even then they fail to explain society, for the . problem is not fairly stated. And I am inclined to think that even those students who have most clearly recognised the organic character of society, have been unable to escape entirely from the habit of studying primarily the individual. Mr. Spencer begins his Principles of Sociology with an elaborate reconstruction of the primi- tive man ; and Mr. Ward, in his study of the dynamics of society, hardly recognises social organs and activities at all, but devotes his attention to the individual as a potential member of society. It is not difficult to see that the study of human nature, of man as man, and the study of human society, study of run parallel, and should always complement Society and each other. The student of physical nature study of Man posits molecules and atoms as the individual ' units in the realm of nature, and he seeks to explain the aggregate and these units in terms of each other. The atom studied by itself cannot explain INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. the aggregate, for the atom is a mere abstraction never existing by itself. The forces at work in the crystal, or in the plant, are the forces which chemistry and physics have made most familiar to us ; but chemistry and physics are not the whole of natural science, for the study of atom and molecule by themselves does not reveal the properties of their combinations. In the study of physical nature, it is clear (i) that the unit and the aggregate are not separate things, and so are not to be studied as separate things, but rather as interacting parts in one whole; and (2) that the proper- ties of the combination cannot be fully ascertained by studying units which are formed by abstraction. It is equally true in the study of human nature that the individual and society are not separate things, so that neither can be fully understood when they are Individual ,. , , * , . ,, , and Society studied separately. It is easy to forget that are not the human individual, when separated from separate his mental and moral environment, is an unreal abstraction a mere possibility of becoming a man. Farther, it is true that society is a composite whole, the properties of which cannot be fully ascertained by any study of the single person. In the animal, atoms and molecules interact upon each other to produce new results, by reason of their organic relation, and the organic whole maintains a definite relation both to its component parts and to its environ- ment. In society, the units interact upon each other, and determine each other in new ways because of their relation. A man growing up in solitude would know some forms of pleasure and pain ; he could not under- stand all the phenomena of love and hate, of anger and pity, of sympathy and revenge, for these can only exist as man touches man in society. Again, society as a whole maintains a definite relation to its constituent factors. Laws and moral ideals, custom and public opinion, shape the lives of individuals ; and in these lives INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. g they are born anew, to determine the character of the whole. Finally, the social whole maintains an equi- librium in its environment, a unity in the midst of change, which might be termed its life. The church, the school, the factory, are not chance aggregates of men, but each realises a common life, each unifies the common religious, or intellectual, or economic activity of those whom its influence touches. Sociology, in the broad sense of the term, is the science which deals with social phenomena ; and it is in this Sociology sphere of social phenomena that the special and the features of human, in distinction from animal study of lif e> are to be found. On the basis of- the Ln ' above analysis, there will be no difficulty in stating the true relation between the sciences dealing with the individual mind (ethics and psychology as ordinarily treated) and the science of social phenomena. The individual mind does not exist until it is developed in society ; society means little more than herd or flock, until it has a psychical life in the personalities of those who compose it. Mind and an environment that is mental are continuously determining each other, so that they are not to be separated except for the sake of analysis. Psychology is to deal with man in society ; sociology deals with the psychical life which arises when men enter into organic union ; the subject of the two sciences is the same, and the difference between them is simply a difference of standpoint. II. Various sciences already exist which deal more or less directly with' certain classes of social phenomena, and i . any definition of the sphere of sociology is and the imperfect until it has determined the relation Social of sociology to these other sciences. Econo- Sciences. m ics, politics, and a series of so-called comparative sciences, deal each with a particular class io INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. of social phenomena; the student of history seeks to discover the relation of these different classes for one people and one age, and examines the development of a people from age to age. Sociology, defined as the science of social phenomena, includes all of these social sciences ; but in this general use of the term it is not a distinct science, but rather the name for a body of knowledge including several sciences. The more definite sphere of sociology as a science is indicated when we recognise that each of the sciences dealing with social phenomena involves a theory as to the nature of society, so that in order to proceed safely and correctly it must have a correct theory of society. One or two examples will make this plain. In the case of economics, the theory of society on which it has sought to proceed has perhaps been unduly TheSocio- emphasised. This theory has gone so far as logical Basis to abstract from all other human attributes, of Economic an( j to postulate as the economic man a being ruled by one desire the desire for wealth. Out of such units it has put together its social structure, and then has attempted to outline a " mechanics " of this economic society. In such a society, combinations and separations, amity and hostility, are explained by one and the same principle, just as the formation of worlds and their present position in the heavens might be explained according to one principle by a " celestial mechanics." Strange to say, the economic society thus outlined bore a remarkable resemblance to the industrial state of England during the early part of the present century, so that these prophets might claim honour in their own country, if not elsewhere. While this economic theory of society, like some other semi-mathematical abstrac- tions, has served good purpose in isolating one class of phenomena and even making them subject to measure- ment, it is fortunate that economic science has not followed its theory too closely. The varied needs, INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. \\ interests, and habits of men have never been completely ignored, and they have commanded increasing recognition. The rise of newer economic schools, as they would call themselves, has made it evident that if economics is to interpret industrial phenomena in any satisfactory manner, it must have some theory of society that is broader and more concrete than that which it has put forward in the past. The economic structure is really an abstraction from the general structure of society ; a necessary and useful abstraction, but nevertheless it cannot be fully understood by itself. The economic group or organ is a social group or organ, with an economic end in view ; and the principles of its existence and development can only be learned by a study of social organs in general. Economic progress is social progress viewed from one special standpoint ; it should be studied as one phase of the evolution of society. In a word, sociology is more fundamental than economics and the other sciences which deal with special classes of social phenomena. Naturally, it has arisen later than these sciences which handle more concrete problems, but they in turn are to become dependent on the general principles which it deduces. The general principles governing the life of men in society, are the basis on which economics will have to build its theory of the economic life of society. The necessity of some theory as to the nature of society, and the importance of a correct theory, may be illustrated farther by the example of linguis- ^ es< Until recent times, the study of language consisted in the collection of masses of material from which it was difficult to make genuine deductions, because no true principle of arrangement existed. The effect of the idea of evolution, and the application of the comparative method, have wrought marvellous changes by introducing such a principle. Grammatical forms are studied now as an evolution, i.e. later forms are descended 12 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. from earlier. The lexicographer is no longer content with grouping the meanings of a word as may seem to him convenient. He desires to trace the " evolution " of different meanings from the simple meaning of a postu- lated or original root; here, again, evolution has meant nothing more than descent; the problem has been to trace words back to their "arboreal ancestor." The history and theory of language are indissolubly connected with the history and the psychical capacity of man. Language is a social product, it is a function of all psychical activity, so that its underlie changes and its evolution are but one side of linguistic ^ e ev olution of society. Accordingly, different Theories. . , , ,. , . theories of social evolution are reflected in different theories of the development of language. Mr. Spencer teaches that social growth is subject to a law of differentiation and integration ; forms of social life tend to separate, and new organs are arising to perform special functions for the whole organism. In harmony with this theory, language should grow in definiteness and in com- plexity, for it is but one phase of social activity. Such a theory of the development of language prevailed widely, earlier in the century. Dr. Eobinson, in the preface to his translation of Gesenius's Hebrew Lexicon, described it as follows : "The historico-logical method of lexicography first investigates the primary and native significance of a word, and then deduces from it in logical order the subordinate meanings and shades of sense, as found in the usages of different ages and writers, which, in short, presents a logical and historical view of each word in all its varieties of significance and construction." The same principle prevailed in Passow's Greek Lexicon, and to a degree in the lexicon of Liddell and Scott, which was based on this. 1 Another thinker 2 explains 1 In fact, the preface to the first edition of Liddell and Scott blames Passow for paying too much attention to the context (especially in Homer) in determining the exact meaning of a word. Such a procedure is not " logico-historical." 2 Gumplowicz, L>er liassenkampf. INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. 13 social growth by the antagonism and amalgamation of elements originally heterogeneous ; one tribe reduces another to slavery ; the new group is more complex, for the tribe that was stronger has risen by subjecting the other to its own ends. Language would reflect such a process as this; its complexity would be due to the antagonism and amalgamation of different elements, while its extension and unification would represent the end rather than the beginning of its development. The new Hebrew Lexicon of Siegfried and Stade expressly repu- diates the principles on which its predecessors for half a century had been constructed. " On principle we have avoided setting up any so-called ground- meaning of words. For we are of the opinion that in a language the development of meanings does not proceed from a splitting up of a general and comprehensive idea, which special meanings, so to speak, represent the parts of the general conception, but rather that these special meanings arise by the transfer of a word with a special meaning to something else that is special, which appears similar to the former or is thought in connection with it. In our opinion, the general meanings represent weakened (verblasste) special mean- ings. Especially do we consider those general meanings, which in the last decades have decorated our Hebrew lexicons and com- mentaries, as products of modern thought, or, if you will, as phantoms, which never corresponded with anything real. And purposely, too, have we avoided giving the history of the develop- ment of meanings of the individual words through the various stages ; for we are too far removed from that time to make such an attempt successfully." The history of language may be our most important key to the development of culture, and the growth of the social organism; but language can never be under- stood except as a function of the growing organism. Each theory as to the development of society has its counterpart in the particular science of linguistics. Relation of ^he relation of sociology to other sciences Sociology to dealing with society, which I have attempted the Social ^o in us trate by the case of economics and of linguistics, may be briefly outlined as follows. Social phenomena are various and complex. Without 14 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. pressing the figure too far, we may say that society is a very complex organism in the course of development. No one observer, and no one method, will suffice for its study. One series of social sciences will deal each with a special class of social phenomena, noting their rise, development, and present character. Politics, for ex- ample, discusses the phenomena of the state, and com- parative religion the religious phenomena ; each science will include both a historical and a critical discussion of its phenomena. These may be regarded as the first series of social sciences. Again different eras, " cross-sections" of this process of development, may be studied by them- selves, in order to learn the relation of different classes of phenomena within such a section, and to trace in detail the causes of change from a preceding section. History, and more definitely the history of civilisation, is the inclusive name for the study of society in this second manner. Finally, special phases of this development, each of which touches various classes of phenomena, may be studied independently. The investigation of institutions such as the family and property hardly belongs to a science dealing with one class of social phenomena, for such an institution affects profoundly the structure of society itself, and all the different classes of phenomena which the first group of social sciences discuss. In the broad use of the term, sociology may include all these various sciences which deal with social phe- nomena. But after this study of special classes of social phenomena, of sections and phases of this development, has been fairly begun, it becomes possible to study in- telligently the general character and the general growth of the social " organism " as a whole. This latter study of general principles logically precedes the study of the social sciences, though chronologically it must follow them. It is my belief that such a "social biology" will work as profound changes in the social sciences, as the INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. 15 study of biology proper has wrought in the sciences dealing with plant and animal life. This last analogy may serve to indicate with some distinctness the exact sphere of sociology, and the results which may be expected from such a study of societ y- Bi lgy deals with the general phenomena of life, and the fundamental prin- ciples of life and growth ; it discusses also the evolution of new forms of life, and the laws governing this process. It may embrace all the biological sciences, but it refers in particular to the common basis of these sciences. In a similar way sociology may embrace all the sciences dealing with society, but it does not destroy the partial independence of any of these branches. It includes economics, politics, etc. ; but, instead of supplanting them, as Comte thought, its proper sphere is to lay the foundation for these particular social sciences. Denned from this standpoint, sociology will deal (i) with the general structure of society, its organs, and their functions; and (2) with the laws governing social progress, or the evolution of new and more complex forms of social life. The problems of social structure and of social activity will form the first part of the special science of Analysis of sociology. Social statics and social dynamics Social cannot be separated after the fashion of the Phenomena. sc h oo l of Comte, for all modern study of natural processes has tended to emphasise the interde- pendence of structure and function. The first question to which we desire an answer is the question as to the nature of the object to be studied. What is a society 1 It has been called an organism, and a comparison with the animal organism brings out distinctly some facts as to the nature of the social group, which it might be difficult to grasp without the use of this figure. The society or social group has a physical life ; it is in a physical environment, and the physical fact of heredity 16 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. gives the race a definite character. And yet as the word society or association indicates, we recognise that the true unity of a social group is not reached by a study of the physical side alone ; it is a psychical fact, and as such it depends on man's delight in the companionship of his fellows, and on his power to join his fellows in common activity. The phrase " social mind " is a convenient one to denote the psychical life which is gradually developed in the group, and in which lies the true unity of the group. If, then, the unity and character of a social group consists in a particular type of activity, the classification of social groups will depend on the classifi- cation of the social activities. To classify the modes of social activity, and the stimuli or causes of each mode of activity, is a comparatively simple task ; and from this standpoint we may classify also institutions, which are hardly more than habits of social activity, and the groups or organs which are developed in the course of their activities. Some of these groups require further study. The science of economics discusses the industrial organisation of society. In particular, the family and the state are groups the study of which throws much light on the general structure of society, as well as on many problems which seem to open before society to-day. Finally, the student is in position to determine the meaning of the individual personality from the stand- point of sociology, arid to understand the place of the individual in social life and growth. The second great problem of sociology is the question of social evolution; and this includes both a general study of description of the development of society Social and of the processes at work in this develop- Evolution. ment, and also a discussion of the causes and laws governing it. Viewed in a somewhat external way, the process of social evolution presents two general characteristics: (a) the principle of continuity in the midst of change, and (b) what Mr. Spencer calls the law INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY 17 of progress, namely, that social elements at first separate but not different in kind, gradually lose their separateness and become essentially different in function and character. In the general course of evolution, analysis finds two processes, each of which has been put forward as a theory of development : (a) the process of dispersion and differentiation, and (b) the process of agglomeration and gradual unification of social groups into larger and more complex unities. Natural selection among varieties constantly appearing is said to be the law of biological evolution. This law is to be tested in the sphere of social evolution; the conflicting units must be determined, the effect of struggle on both conqueror and conquered examined, and the differences between the working of this law in the social and the biological sphere carefully noted. III. There still remains a question more fundamental than those that have been considered. Is it possible to pursue Unscientific ^ s S ^ U( ^7 * n a scientific manner, such that the character result may fairly be called a science ? of much It may be granted to begin with, that Sociology, scarcely any of the study which has been devoted to society as a whole, deserves to be called scientific. Ordinarily it has been a practical interest which has directed men's attention to this object, and the result of their study has been an embodiment of their desires and aspirations in the account of a No-man's land. And if the thinker felt metaphysically inclined, he has no doubt justified his picture by adding a deduction of it from his metaphysical principles. Much of the worth- lessness of these results has been due, I believe, to a confusion of the science of society with the philosophy of society. These words science and philosophy are used in such varying senses that it is necessary for me to define my usage of them in order to make my meaning clear. C 1 8 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. It is generally agreed that science deals with the facts given in experience accurately describing them, classify- ing them, and deducing from them general Science as & the Empirical principles or laws. Philosophy studies that study of which' is not given in experience, but which Facts. Con- , T i -\ trast Philo- ex P erience presupposes ; it studies what under- sophic study lies experience, its so-called . postulates, and of ideals and t j ie goals or ideals which ought to be realised in experience. Science is empirical and objec- tive; it studies that which is. Philosophy has a more subjective and a nobler task; it seeks the meaning for man of that which is, it seeks the ends which man ought to make real in his world. On the basis of this definition everybody is a philosopher, while the scientific man is a late and rare development on our planet; the world received philosophical interpretation long before .there was any dawn of science. And it is easy to see that the emancipation of science from the metaphysical method must have been a slow task. The physical sciences succeeded in asserting this freedom first, and only in our own day have psychology and logic and ethics been able to secure any degree -of freedom from metaphysics. The example of logic will serve to illustrate the distinction between philosophy and science which 1 am trying to make clear. Logic properly begins with a study of the phenomena of thought ; it seeks its data from psychology, from the expression of thought in language, from the history of .language, and from any other available source ; these data it examines and classifies from, its own stand- point, and seeks to find the laws which govern the acquisition of knowledge by the individual and the growth of knowledge for the race. This task is purely scientific, and speculation would only hinder its success. But the facts thus secured will serve as a basis on which a genuine philosophy of knowledge may be formed, a philosophy which will at least be able to state the pre- suppositions of knowledge, and which can determine INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. 19 with some reasonableness the methods of correct thinking. Logic as science asks : What is thinking ? On this basis, and not without it, logic as philosophy asks : What is true thinking ? and, How can truth be reached ? We have had enough of the social philosophy which consists in a system of short-sighted wishes. It remains to be seen whether there can be a true science of society, for (as in the case of logic) this is the only possible basis on which a philosophy of society can have real value. Unless social phenomena are subject to law and can be studied by a rigid scientific method, any effort to control these phenomena by reason is absurd ; they must be left to caprice and self-interest in the future as in the past. The question as to the prevalence of natural law in human society is not at all a simple one, for various Human interests seem to be involved in it, and the Society and discussion of it has been obscured in the past Natural Law. ^ great looseness in the use of terms. Students of social phenomena have regarded society now as a natural order, now as a moral order, so-called ; and both the advocates and the opponents of the naturalistic view have confused the subject by discussing numerous questions under one and the same name. The phrase "natural order," when applied to society, properly means the interpretation of human society as part of the general order of nature; and except for the continued failure to recognise it, we should hardly think it necessary to add that "nature" is used in the larger sense of the word, and is by no means limited to physical, material, nature. When Aristotle discusses the different types of state as he finds them and attempts to trace the order of their development and the causes to which each is due; when Montesquievi finds in the nature of each people the explanation of its government and of the character of its laws; or when historians generally, following the course marked out by Lessing, have sought to go beyond the mere transcript of events and to explain 20 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. them by causes ; it has been the constant presupposition that society is a part of the order of nature. Nor would the question seem complex except for the great variety of misconceptions to which it has given rise. I need only remind the reader of a few of these. Earliest, and perhaps first in importance, was the conception of a jus naturale, which was afterward so Natural Law Deeply modified by the Stoic conception of as "Jus life. In this connection natural law came Naturale." to mean } aw that was universally binding, simple, reasonable the remaining fragments of the "law" of the golden age. To this theory, which influenced so profoundly the later developments of Roman law, may be traced the use of the word natural as equivalent both to primitive and to ideal. This current of thought was at its maximum in the eighteenth century, and in the person of Rousseau. Thinkers placed their ideal in the past, and assigning it universal authority they sought to institute the golden age once more by the very simple method of retrogression. In this state of nature men were free, for no tyrants had as ye.t risen to oppress them ; they were equal, for social differences had not yet had opportunity to arise and corrupt the simple life. Even to-day "natural" law suggests an absolute order based on principles of reason, 1 although this order mfly not be projected into the past. It still suggests that there is one definite " best " type, to which society ought to conform. When the word natural is used to mean that society is a part of nature, and so an object of scientific study, it is still necessary to repudiate this old meaning that was once attached to it. Natural Law Nor should the word natural be understood as Physical as referring particularly to physical nature. Law. xhe attention paid to physical science during the present century, and the wonderful results with which this study has been rewarded, have tended to 1 Maine, Ancient Law, p. 87. INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. 21 crowd out the sciences dealing with man, or to reduce them to physical sciences. Science, in the minds of many, has come to be equivalent to physical science, natural law to physical law ; to such, the study of society as a natural order, seems to mean the explana- tion of society from physical forces, as, for example, climate, without reference to psychical facts. There is a justifiable treatment of social phenomena from the physical standpoint, but writers who, in so doing, would neglect the psychical side of social life in their study of the physical, are guilty of deserting higher truth for what would be a lower truth if it were not put where it becomes error. It has been wisely remarked l tliat when the scientific concept " nature " is extended to include social facts, the meaning of this concept is also extended. The facts of social life we know as it were from inside, so that they cannot be placed on the same plane as facts in the external world of sense. In treating society as a part of nature, and the laws of its activity as natural laws, I am far from endorsing the method of Quetelet and Buckle as the true way to study society. Connected with this interpretation of natural law as physical law, is the belief that in a natural order the Natural Law course of events is determined without refer- as Mecbani- ence to any activity of mind. The mechanism caiiaw. O f physical nature is what it is, nor does it inevitably suggest the presence of intelligence or of will ; so that a natural order of society is interpreted as a social order existing as it is, and independent of mind. It is assumed that fatalism is the outcome of naturalism, and in the social sciences this fatalism has been made the. basis of a very emphatic laissez-faire, for natural order has been interpreted as meaning an order that is both necessary, and the best attainable. Beyond question, a natural order is one that cannot be changed by mere 1 Bernes, Rtvue d' Economic Folitique, March, 1894. 22 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY, wishes, or reversed by some new bit of legislation. The natural laws of society are simply the modes of activity necessary to attain ends, they are not prescriptions of duty coming from a law-making power and changeable at the will of such a power. It is difficult to apply the words good and bad to the order of nature, nor is this order necessary in the ordinary use of the word ; it is necessary in that man cannot change it, good in that man can use it the basis of social development, not the denial of all development. It is not fatalistic, for it is the basis required for intelligent activity, that by means of which a mind can accomplish its ends; it certainly is not an order such that human society must remain as it is, such that a reformer is an absurdity, and a new invention a crime. A fixed order and fixed unchanging laws in the world of physical nature are, though men have been slow enough to learn it, the very foundation of human intelligence. Perhaps the most potent factor in all human progress has been the patient, earnest inves- tigation of these laws, which has made the forces of nature subservient to human ends. The only secure basis for social progress lies in the recognition of natural law in the. social worl'd ; when such laws are sought out and discovered, then man can utilise them for his advancement. Natural laws, I repeat, do not assign duties, but they explain consequences and the belief in a natural order is a belief that these consequences do follow the actions, in spite of any amount of wishing or legislating. The fatalism which the phrase has suggested both to the opponents and the advocates of this belief, is an unjustifiable addition of an element that is wholly foreign to it. Natural ^ w ^ mention but one other wrong meaning Law and a which the phrase " natural order " may suggest, Mechanics of viz. : It has often suggested a social mechanics e -mteres . j.j age( j on p ure se lf_i ri terest, or on some other equally simple motive. The truth is that the easiest INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. 23 way to form a mechanics of society, is to take one simple and universal motive, and neglect all other motives to action. This course has often been pursued; and most systems of social mechanics are open to the charge of unfair abstractness and one-sidedness. Such a charge becomes really serious only when these systems claim to be something other than they are, only when their advocates forget that they are partial, and are suited only for the partial purpose with which they were formed. When they come to be regarded as true and complete statements of social phenomena, then they are evidently false ; and the conclusions which are drawn from them when so regarded, run the risk of being very pernicious. The study of society as a part of nature does not mean that the facts of social life are to be sacrificed to a convenient abstraction. By reason of the errors which have been associated with the phrases " natural law " and " natural order," The so-called there has arisen a habit of finding the basis Moral Order of society in a moral order as contrasted with of Society. a na t ur al order. 1 The phrase " moral order," when used to denote this contrast, seems to me neither a clear nor a happy one. It has found its justifi- cation mainly as an attack on some of the erroneous views which had attached themselves to the conception of a natural order. For example, laying stress on the fact of progress, the advocates of this position have claimed that society could be made better in the future, as it has been made better in the past, even to the extent of a social revolution; and they have forgotten that in nature, too, there is progress that we seem, to find revolutions even in nature. Laying stress on the pre- sence of mind as the very basis of social life, they havo forgotten that mind also is a part of nature without which organic nature, at least, cannot be understood. They have said that civilisation means the conquest of 1 V. Cohn, System der Nationalokonomie, I. 356 sqq. 24 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. nature, and progress the gradual subjection of nature to human ends ; that the characteristic feature of human society is not its obedience to natural law, but the fact that nature has been overcome ; that natural freedom is a contradiction in terms, for freedom depends on a moral order. In bringing to light the errors which have lurked behind the words natural order, and in empha- sising the place of psychical life as the very essence of human society, the advocates of this view have done good service. It is unnecessary to consider their position in greater detail, for I only wish to show that, as an antithesis to the idea of a natural order, the idea of society as a moral order is due to a misapprehension of what is meant by a natural order. Nothing has been brought forward by those who prefer the term moral, which is inconsistent with the "naturalistic" view when this is rightly understood. I reach the conclusion that the objections to the study of society as a part of nature do not hold good, Thescien- if "nature" is rightly understood. In so far tific study as social phenomena are subject to natural of Social law, science can use essentially the same ma " methods in dealing with them as in dealing with physical phenomena. Very much the same result has been reached in the actual prosecution of the social sciences. History, politics, the study of institutions, have proceeded on the supposition that the phenomena studied by each, respectively, were subject to law, and the main work of these sciences has been to discover the natural sequence of events under law in their different fields. At the same time, the presupposition has often been over- looked or denied, and it is part of the work of sociology to determine the exact place of natural law in the social sciences. Science and philosophy unite in making the postulate that this is one world. At length, this seems to be the INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. 25 necessary basis of all careful thinking ; yet it is hardly Society as possible to prove it, for even the proof of the part of the conservation of energy, the proof that the one World- W0 rld is one definite mechanical system, pre- process. , . , 1 , -HIT 1 supposes this postulate. Modern science starts from this postulate, and finds before it a single, some- what distinct task, because this is one world, and the same laws act in the same manner in all its parts. The modern belief in evolution has made this view much clearer, for it shows how we should conceive the relation between different objects and processes in the world. The world is studied as one process; this study is science, and each single science is the study of some part of the world-process, or the study of it from some particular standpoint. I see no reason to deny that society is a part of this order of nature, the crowning glory of the world- process, which has only been attained after ages of preparation. In society, natural forces are at work, and they are subject to natural law, although these forces and this law have risen to a higher plane of manifestation than the physical. The science of society, and the various sciences of social phenomena, are sciences because they study phases of the world as it is or rather as it is developing. The position that society is a part of nature, and so may be studied by means of scientific methods, is not one to be proved by deductive logic. It is simply the postulate on which alone social phenomena can be com- prehended ; but, when rightly understood, I think that habit will be the only obstacle to its acceptance. On this basis, the forms of social activity, the social organs and their relation, and social development, can be studied in exactly the same manner as the functions and organs and development of the animal organism. In bringing such a conception before the reader, I think it necessary to point out once more the fact that the social phenomena, which I would include in nature, are distinctly psychical in their character. The 26 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. psychology of the schools has often failed to notice that mind and reason only pertain to the individual Social Phe- * j ^ i v* nomeaa are as a member of society, and that social life distinctly means nothing less than psychical life. Man's Psychical m m j n( j j s connected in a wonderful way with Character. his brain ; and, similarly, the psychical life of society has a physical basis in the race and its environ- ment. In each case, the study of the physical is external and comparatively crude; the essential nature of the phenomena is evident only when they are studied as psychical in their character. The determining feature of a social group is its psychical life, in a broad sense of the term, its civilisation ; the different modes of social activity are so many forms of psychical activity; the development of society is the evolution of reason. The natural order which sociology studies is in the realm of psychical life. When this position is thus understood, the main obstacle to its acceptance is the habit of holding a crude view of the freedom of the will. This of Society * s no ^ ^ ne pl &ce to discuss such a vexed and the Free- question, but perhaps I can indicate three dom^ofthe j ineg along which the stu( j en t of society will justify himself in assuming that society is a part of nature, and that social phenomena, includ- ing the phenomena of volition, are subject to law. (i) Although this position is inconsistent with the com- mon belief in indeterminism, viz., the belief that the will is controlled by motives only in part, the student will point out that this common belief deserves to be called a popular theory rather than a practical belief, that it is at variance both with the carefully considered theories of the scientist and with the practical belief of all classes. A man may claim for himself the power to act with sovereign caprice, but even he seeks to influence his neighbours by rational- motives, even he finds that there are laws applying to human action. (2) Farther, the INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY, 27 student will point out that the position he advocates is the very opposite of fatalism. He does not exclude mind from nature ; he does not assert that some outside power determines a man's life for him ; the very object of his study is the manner in which a mind works out its ends in its environment. For him reason is the power to realise ends ; society wins his interest and claims his study because social life is the activity of reason working itself out in nature. (3) He will follow recent defenders of this position 1 in pointing out that freedom from lower impulses, the power to feel noble impulses and to achieve noble results, the sense of responsibility and of duty, are all of them social phenomena which could not exist apart from society. He will claim that true practical freedom is inconsistent with the popular theory of freedom. Such, I believe, are some of the lines along which the student of society will attempt to show that while the phenomena of volition are subject to law, still this does not mean the destruction of responsibility and the overthrow of morals. In advocating the study of social relations as they exist and as they arise, it is not my intention to cast any SociaiScience discredit either on the study of the ultimate and Social principles which underlie human society, or on Philosophy. the gtudy of the endg which may be realised in society. The science of the evolution of society gives some clue to the next stage of social evolution, but it is hardly fair to call any such foreshadowed future state a social ideal. The science of society, in the narrow sense of the term w r hich I have suggested, gives data by which I may pronounce the new form of society to be better or worse than those forms which have preceded ; but it contains no " ought," and in itself it lays no duties on any state or any church to bring in the future. The science studying facts and laws is, however, the source of 1 Riehl, Der Philosophischer Kriticismus, II. 2, 216-280. (Eng. tr., Theory of Science and Metaphysics, p. 206, sqq.). 28 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. our knowledge as to the results of action, so that it lies at the foundation of the individual's effort to discover true ideals and right rules of life in society. The study of the ends of which I ought to seek the realisation in society, is all-important, or dangerous nonsense, according as it has or has not a broad foundation and a true method. The confusion of maxims of social action with the scientific study of society, together with the use of the crude beginnings of social science as programmes for the renovation of society, has already cast great discredit on sociology. After the science of sociology has found solid basis in the study of social life as it is, the individual may depend on these results to guide his desires and his hopes. Rules of action and ideals which lack this foun- dation can have no permanent value. 1 Just as the study of social ideals assumes its proper place on the basis of a careful science of society ; so Social the meaning of social relations, and the Science the ultimate explanation of that process of nature basis of the i r v i r i_ j Philosophic wmc " science studies, can only be reached on study of the same basis. For example, the scientist Society. studies conscience as it is and as it has arisen ; he shows that it is a social fact, existing only in and through social relations, and coming into existence only through the intercourse of man with man, and of group with group ; to introduce the question of its essential validity, or its ultimate source, would interfere with the successful prosecution of his task. The scientist takes the same attitude toward the fundamental truths of mathematics and of logic, toward ideals of the beautiful, toward religious beliefs. In each case the first question to be considered is the scientific question as to the facts themselves, the question : What are the phenomena, and in what manner did they come into existence; and the investigation of this question is only 1 Cf. Wilson, "The Place of Social Philosophy," Journal of Social Science xxxii. Nov. 1894. INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. 29 confused and hindered when purely philosophic considera- tions are introduced into the discussion. The separation of these two modes of investigation is as important for philosophy and religion as it is for science. The scientist may assert that the ideas of time and space, norms of the beautiful, the conscience, are social products ; the philosopher and the religious believer may answer, This is not only untrue but absurd. But unless the scientist has gone beyond his proper sphere, he only means that he finds in the study of social development a complete and satisfactory account of the manner in which these ideas arose ; the philosopher and the believer are at liberty to interpret the meaning of these ideas as they find reason to. Let the two modes of investigation be kept separate, and the results of each will be of greatest importance to the other. This careful limitation of the task of sociology has been made necessary by the large claims made upon Necessity of it, and by the misunderstandings to which carefully ft nas gi ven r i se . if students of social rela- task of tions are to be able to form true ideals of a Sociology as better state of society, if they are to discover a Science. fa e rea ] causes of abnormal social conditions, and if they are to be successful in modifying these causes for the better, then patient, critical, apparently unsympathetic investigation must first prepare the way. If the philo- sopher would penetrate the last secrets of the universe, and, reaching forward, would interpret the world in terms of a goal yet to be attained, he cannot afford to neglect any of the data which science can furnish. Science may seem to be sapping the roots of religion when it tells the story of creation and leaves out the Creator; and the " scientific theist," the Christian evolutionist, and the Christian sociologist hasten forward to the rescue of God. But the reign of natural law suggests a nobler conception of God than the belief in a semi-divine chance ; if evolu- tion is the last word of science, it is a little more 3d INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. knowledge as to the way God works ; if society is a part of the natural order God has established, the use of strict scientific method in its study is the way for the student of society to draw near to God. Modern science is non-philosophical in order that the scientist may be a true philosopher ; it is non-religious, in order that the scientist may have a true religious faith. CHAPTER I. THE ORGANIC CHARACTER OF A SOCIETY. THE first work of the student of sociology is to form a general conception of the nature of a society or social group, that object which he proposes to study. an Organism 1 ^ considerable school of recent writers assert with confidence that a society is an organism. The figure is by no means a new one, for Plato and Aris- totle made it familiar to their readers, and the writings of Paul and John have kept it before the Christian church. This statement of the nature of society has the advantage of simplicity ; the analogy which it suggests is an ex- ceedingly attractive one; moreover, it gives sociology a distinct place in connection with the other sciences, by bringing it into close relation with biology. Such an explanation of society apparently solves some difficulties which beset the earnest student, by showing that many a fact which in itself seemed an imperfection or a blemish, had a really important place in the develop- ment of society as a whole. And it seems to furnish some clues to the social ideals which reformers of society may rightly aim to realise ; at any rate, social reformers of antithetic schools profess to find support, each for his own position, in the doctrines of biological sociology. Excellent as this analogy appears at first sight, the effort to construct a whole science on the basis of a mere analogy properly awakens suspicion. The Sociology so-called sociology which has been produced by this process in Germany, is hardly more than the description of social phenomena in biological 32 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. language, and the interpretation of them in terms of biological laws. It is neither biology nor sociology, and it can serve no scientific purpose. Mr. Herbert Spencer does not develop this analogy so minutely as the German writers just referred to, and in his hands it affords a means of pourtraying vividly some of the essential features of social life and social development. However, it remains an analogy, and such an analogy always tempts the writer to exaggerate apparent likeness. Social tissue, and social organs, and the social mind, are convenient phrases ; the question is whether they are true and the best expression for the truth. In Dr. SchafflJs scheme, property is the passive factor, and the individual man the active factor, in the social substance. The family is the simplest vital unity or cell. The "social substance" consists of (1) simple connective tissue unity of speech, belief, etc. ; and (2) differentiated tissue institutions for protection, industry, etc. Society has a mind, with sensi- tive and motive apparatus (e.g. the executive function of the state), with intellectual activity (schools, etc.), as well as aesthetic and ethical life. Mr. Spencer points out that animals have a three-fold system of organs ; correspondingly, society has a nutritive system in its industrial organisation, rulers and defenders constitute its nervous system, transportation and exchange its circulatory system. Animals (a) increase in size, (6) increase in differ- entiation of structure and function, while (c) no part can live in separation from the developed organism. Societies (a) increase in size both by internal multiplication and by union of groups ; (b) increasing differentiation is shown in the division of labour, and, as in the animal, the differentiated function gives rise to separate organs, and, finally, to a complex social apparatus ; and (c) separation from the developed organism is fatal. The question whether or not society is really a sort of biological organism is wont to receive undue emphasis . . to-day, by reason of the current discussion "Organic," between adherents and opponents of a bio- as applied to logical school of sociologists. The prior Society. question, and, indeed, the only question, of real importance, has to do with the truth which this THE ORGANIC CHARACTER OF A SOCIETY. 33 analogy is intended to convey. To the most superficial observer, society has some degree of unity, and it is made up of lesser units or groups. The general character of the larger unity is conveniently described by the word organic; and, in this opening chapter, I desire to unfold the meaning which should be associated with the word organic as applied to society. The analogy between society and an organism suggests (i) the general char- acter of the social unit, and (2) the relation of social units to each other and to their natural environment. I. As applied to a social group, the word "organic" means first that a society shows the same marvellous subjection of a complex structure to a single end that A 1 Com- f piexity and characterises a plant or animal. The animal Unity of organism consists of cellular material which Society. biology regards as one and the same in all its modifications, but this material assumes very different forms in the various parts and organs of the body. While each organ regarded by itself has a certain unity and independence, it is immediately connected with others in the same system or apparatus, and less closely with other parts of the same whole. The stomach has its own function, but this function is subordinated to the end or function of the whole digestive system, and this again is indissolubly associated with the functions of the other systems in the body. The further analysis is carried, the more complex the structure of an organism appears, and at the same time the unity of the whole stands out so much the more distinctly. There is not simply an analogy in general structure between the social group and the animal organism ; the complexity in which the unity finds expression is the same in both. A society consists of individuals who are essentially alike, although they become very different as they stand in different relations to the life of the whole. These 34 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. individuals live their life in groups social, industrial, and political. Each little group has some independence, but it is immediately connected with other groups in the same (industrial, or political, or intellectual) system, and this system again is co-ordinated with others in the complex life of society. In spite of the fact that the individual units seem so simple and familiar, it is quite impossible to cover in any analysis all the complex life in which each bears its part; but the fact that the common life has a unity of its own becomes more clear the more it is studied. For instance, common political life, the unity of a nation, is not fully comprehended in the few powers that may be directly exercised by the central government. Each dependent com- monwealth, county, and town represents to those whom it includes certain phases of the sovereignty of the whole. The energy and harmony of the state depend on the true vigour and vitality of each part, and of each citizen. At the same time, the political organisation of society stands in closest relation with its social, industrial, and intellectual structure. A state is not constituted by the presence of military power, nor yet can industry flourish and intellectual culture arise without the presence of some authority able to maintain order and to protect from attack. Secondly, in its application to the unity of a social group, the word "organic" reminds the student that a A 2. The society has not so much a structural unity as Unity of a the unity of a process. In the biological I) " 6 mi 18 organism, be it vegetable or animal, the cells rather than are constantly changing, and the structure is static. permanent only in its general outlines. Each part spends itself in performing its function for the whole, and is constantly restored through the natural activity of the other parts in the performance of their own functions. The animal is one because the different organs are so delicately adjusted to each other that they work together as parts of one process, which process is the animal's life. It is equally true of society that its THE ORGANIC CHARACTER OF A SOCIETY. 35 structure is constantly changing, and that its real unity consists of the common life in which all the social activities bear a part. In every society the units are constantly changing, young men come forward to take the place of the old. The institutions for accomplishing given ends change from age to age, and the general structure of society is always being slowly modified. For example, economic goods may be produced by the tribe, by the village, in the family, or in the factory ; in these different cases the structure of a society is pro- foundly different. The life and vigour of society depend upon change, but through all change a society preserves its real unity because its common life continues. Each social organ is spending itself in performing its function for the whole, and its energy is constantly restored as its members receive food and clothing, new satisfaction, and new incentive of every sort, because the other social organs are performing their proper functions. The larger society is one when all its parts depend on each other in one common life-process. The smaller social group, e.g., a trades -union, is one, not by reason of the particular organisation it may form, but because its members share a common life. The important corollary to the truth just stated, is that the different parts and activities of society stand in very Dynamic close relations of interdependence. This inter- interdepend- dependence often seems greater than in the case enceofthe r . , ,.. , JP . parts of a * animal hie, where the loss or a toot or an Society. eye may have no direct effect on the stomach, and even a part of the brain may be destroyed without any perceptible change in the other organs. The most familiar example of social interdependence is the economic life of society, with its balance of supply and demand, delicately adjusted and yet inexorable, controlling all the markets of the world and making the industrial world one. Injury to an economic class is immediately felt through all the economic world, and it has far- 36 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. reaching results in the spheres of social, moral, and intellectual life. A new invention in America may cheapen the food-supply of Europe, or affect the per- centage of crime in England. Similarly the health of a city is threatened by a single case of contagious disease, and a single crime widely advertised often produces a harvest of moral evil. It is claimed that the multiplica- tion of Homes for the Fallen in some parts of England has actually gone so far as to make vice easier and less repellent. Such a familiar fact as the dynamic inter- dependence of the different parts of society hardly needs illustration. The use of the word " organic " in applica- tion to a society as the expression of this fact, is justified both because the organism is the most familiar example of this kind of interdependence, and because no analysis can adequately express all the complex relations which exist in the developed society. The most striking difference between an organism, plant or animal, and any other object, is that the unity AS anc ^ ^ e growth of an organism seem to be Unity of a determined from within. 1 The unity of a hill Society is or a rock depends on our own definition ; the determined ^ f house rests back on the idea in the from within. ; mind of the builder; but a plant includes so much as is subject to the single life-principle within. The word "organic" as applied to a society means, thirdly, that any given society includes so much as is subject to the life of that society. The unity of a people is not determined by life in the same geographical locality; the Englishman and the Spaniard are to be found in all parts of the globe. Nor does it depend necessarily on the unity of political life; United Germany is a recent fact, and political union hardly succeeds in uniting Norway and Sweden. The unity of a people is the unity of a common life. The same language, the same customs and traditions, a love for the 1 Cf. Mackenzie, Introduction to Social Philosophy, chap. iii. THE ORGANIC CHARACTER OF A SOCIETY. 37 same past, these are important factors in a common life, although they do not express it all. A people is truly one only when it has come to recognise its unity, to be proud of custom and tradition because these express its own past, to be loyal to the institutions of the present because these are the form of its present life. A people is one when it has developed a self-consciousness of its own ; such a unity determined from within is fitly called " organic." Moreover, the growth of a plant, or an animal, is governed by an internal law. The word growth is not The Gr th directly applied to increasing geological forma- of a Society tion or to mechanical products ; the factory is governed extends as machinery is added and the old by an in- engines replaced by new, but it does not itself ternal Law. J grow. The organism proper unfolds irom within, in accordance with a type already determined in the germ, and growth is the development of this type, or character, when the germ is placed under favourable conditions. The clearest law of history is that a human society follows the same law of growth from within. Every age and every period of development sets the type for the succeeding period, determining its general character, if not the extent and rapidity of development. A church grows, not -when it is extended over new territory, but when it absorbs arid controls new peoples, by subjecting them to the power of its life; its growth is from within. The modern type of factory production may be traced from the inventions which made it possible, through various stages, to its present form, and it still has a future before it. All the economic and legal and political institutions that we prize, are parts of a process of growth; their authority is the outgrowth of the past, and their future form develops out of the present. One nation may conquer another in battle, but it remains to be seen whether the conquering people has in itself the genius to absorb the other people into its 38 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. own life. Crises come in the life of every nation, when some great political change seems to be suddenly intro- duced, yet it is hardly necessary to look beneath the surface to see that the new external order is simply the truer expression of the common life which gradually has come to demand the new form. The bud has been slowly developing as it absorbed the plant -juices ; and some morning the flower is open. The growth of a nation is determined from within ; in the life of a people is to be found the law of its development. II. The second thought suggested by the word organism is that a society is not an independent entity, but develops Bl. Society as P art f a larger process. The plant, or and its animal, is related to others which are included Environment. j n t j ie same species ; it is related, less closely but none the less really, to other organisms in the great whole of organic nature; it depends most intimately on its physical environment : in these different ways it takes its place in that one great process which we call Nature or the World. A society depends on its environment no less inti* mately than do the organisms of biology. Physical Physical En- environment does much to influence the vironment of character of a society by its influence on a Society. the p ersons wno compose it ; and, more directly still, physical environment affects society itself, determining the lines which social activity may follow, and stimulating or checking that activity. The broken coast of the Mediterranean brought very different peoples into comparatively close contact, and the resulting development of industry spread a democratic spirit in communities on the coast. Aryan tribes penetrating into Greece were necessarily broken into smaller groups, and the lack of communication between THE ORGANIC CHARACTER OF A SOCIETY. 39 narrow valleys made the culture of one group less and less like that of the others. Where food is sparse, and widely scattered, as in Australia, only four or five or six persons can find maintenance together, and the size of the social group is immediately determined. In times and places of plenty the tribe increases with abnormal rapidity till perhaps emigration is necessary to provide food for all. In all phases of its activity a society is linked most closely with physical nature outside itself, and the same analysis which often makes it convenient to speak of an organism and its environment, has constantly led the student to speak of the environ- ment the physical environment of society. If any given society is isolated and set in contrast with its environment, the most important phase of this Social En- environment is its social side, the environment vironment of by human societies with which the given a Society. society stands in connection. The military strength of a society is determined by its social environ- ment. In modern Europe enormous sums are spent that each nation may keep its relative place among its neighbours in reference to armament on land and sea. In all but the lowest stages of uncivilised life the same principle holds good; a tribe maintains its place among its neighbours by its fighting power, its numbers, or its strength of position ; among weaker neighbours it may be split by dissension, or lose its vigour, without running the risk of annihilation. The tools, and much of the skill in meeting wants and desires, which a tribe possesses, are determined by social environment. The bow and arrow have a given area, the boomerang a more limited area ; among tribes which use the one weapon a new tribe would adopt that, unless it brought with it a superior weapon which the other tribes might adopt. Customs have the same history. Forms of government, religious practices, rules of right action, and even the minutest details of custom in the simplest matters, are determined for the 40 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. social group in large measure by its social surroundings. In all its social life a society is connected with all the adjacent societies, and with the development of civilisation this connection is extended indefinitely. Secondly, the word " organic " suggests that the larger process to which each society belongs, may be described as an evolution. In the animal and vegetable Organism kingdoms the word " evolution " means that has its place organisms may be arranged in a series which in Organic represents, more or less perfectly, the history Evolution. ^ , . ' or their development. Ihe series converges as one goes backward, till hypothetically some simple form is reached, to which all the complex forms of life are traced back. In the earlier part of the series, there are presumably some well-marked stages, while in the latter part there could hardly be stages of development which would be identical for forms so diverse as birds, iishes, and mammals. And the word " evolution " means that we have reason to believe that this series really represents what we know of the history of organic life. The reason for believing that life has followed such a course of development, is that we find it still subject to the same laws and following the same course. These biological laws may (in part) be determined as a matter of experiment, so that the student can actually see the process of evolution going on. In like manner the complex forms of human societies now existing, may be traced to simpler antecedents, and . arranged in a series. The complex judicial has its place and legal institutions of modern society are in Social sa id to begin with a few simple rules by which a dispute is to be settled. Different forms of industrial organisation, from the barter of lowest savages down to the industrial life that now involves in one current all the civilised nations of the globe, may be arranged in a series representing the industrial evolu- tion of society. It has often been assumed that such a THE ORGANIC CHARACTER OF A SOCIETY, 41 series represents what we know of the history of the human race from some one simple beginning down to its present complex life. In any case it is a simple matter to point out some stages in the early history of a given division of the race, stages which, perhaps, arose independently in different places as the outcome of the same causes. Thus we speak of a stone age, and a bronze and iron age ; of a hunting age, and a nomad age, and an age of agriculture. But here, as before, the real reason for believing that human society developed under definite laws from some simple beginnings, is that it is possible to trace the process for a little way and to de- termine some of these laws. Within the period covered by historic records, we see each present growing out of its past, we discover some of the causes for each change in the form of social life, the general trend of the develop- ment becomes clear, and at least a few of the laws to which this social process is subject, may be determined. Any particular phase of social life can only be under- stood as part of the one great process of social develop- ment, and the larger process is best understood as an evolution of many complex forms out of a very few simple forms. That so striking an analogy as the analogy between a society and an organism should lead to false conclusions, Danger of * s ^7 no means surprising. " A society is the Bioiogi- either organic or inorganic," is Mr. Spencer's cai Analogy. (jii emma j i an( j as the society is quite unlike inorganic matter, he concludes that it is not only organic but is itself an organism, and that it differs from the animal only as the animal differs from the plant. " Organisms grow ; societies grow ; therefore society is an organism" the argument of the biological school of sociologists can be reduced to this simple form, and the fallacy which is evident in this statement, is not 1 H. Spencer, Principles of Sociology, pt. ii. chap. ii. 42 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY avoided by the rich and varied forms in which the argument is often presented. 1 The analogy between a society and a biological organism is far from perfect, so that the actual help which sociology Value of the can derive from biology is little enough. No Biological mere expansion of an analogy, even if it be Analogy. expanded through several volumes, deserves the name of a science ; moreover, this particular analogy has hindered the progress of sociology by the false and one-sided views which it has suggested. And yet, in spite of all that may be urged against it, the analogy continues to have real value as a very effective way of stating important truths. The complex unity of the social structure can never be fully stated in any analysis, however far it be carried. The dynamic interdependence of the different social elements in one great process is like the interdependence of functions in the life of an animal, in the fact that it is never fully described in the abstract propositions of science. In a word, the general nature of a social unit, and the character of its depen- dence on other units, are best described by the use of this figure. And as the student goes on to study the social group from different standpoints, to classify and examine the different forms of social activity, and to seek the laws of social development, the "organic" character of a society is constantly to be kept in mind. The word " organic " is used to describe : (I) The unity of a society. (1) Remarkable complexity of the single structure. (2) The real unity lies not in the structure, but in the one process in which all the parts depend intimately on each other. (3) The unity and the development of a society are determined from within. 1 A brief summary of the differences between a society and a biological organism is to be found in a note at the close of the present chapter. THE ORGANIC CHARACTER OF A SOCIETY. 43 (II) The fact that each social element is part of a larger process. (1) Each society depends on its environment, both physical and social. (2) Each social element and social function is under- stood only as part of a larger process, viz., the evolution of human society. NOTE ON THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN A SOCIETY AND A BIOLOGICAL ORGANISM. 1 The discussion of "Biological Sociology" does not fall within the scope of the present work, but it may be useful to summarise briefly the important differences between a society and an organism. (1) The original elements of society are more discrete than the original elements in a biological organism. The higher this organ- ism, the more closely all the parts are bound together in subordina- tion to the single life of the whole ; but as a society develops a higher and more intense life, the persons composing it acquire more and more individuality. In consequence of this (a) parts of a society can live alone when separated ; a Eobinson Crusoe on a " desert island " is possible when nature is reasonably lavish ; and (6) the loss of a considerable part is less dangerous to the whole. (2) The form of the social group is less fixed and permanent than is the structure of an animal or plant. The organs of an animal belong to a few definite series, and their functions remain about the same. In a society, the number and variety of social "organs" goes on increasing indefinitely ; and their particular structure and function do not continue the same. Consequently (a) social growth is less closely limited by time and place than is the growth of an organism proper. Unlike the life of an animal, the life of a society tends normally to become more stable, its power to adapt itself to changed conditions increases, and much as the form of its expres- sion may change, it is in reality continuous. And (ft) changes in the life of a society may be more various, more important, and more rapid, than in the animal or plant. An economic crisis changes in a few days the whole face of the industrial world, an election changes the personel of a government, and perhaps reverses its policy. (3) In the social organism, the interdependence of the original elements and their aggregates becomes even closer than in the 1 Cf. De Greef, Introduction a. la Sociologie, pt. i. chap. vi. 44 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. biological organism. Keally, the limited independence of each part or organ in the animal is quite as remarkable as its dependence. In society, the industrial activity, for instance, responds at once to the least change in any of the factors that enter into it, and all the other forms of social activity are affected with that which is properly industrial. The interdependence of social func- tions and social groups is so great as to transform the whole process of evolution. There is a survival of the fittest man in the tribe, but each member is cared for by the tribe. The fittest tribe survives, but each tribe speedily adopts from its opponents their . superior weapons and even their superior organisation. The result of the extreme sensitiveness of each element in society to the state of each other element, is to overbalance any lack of union which might result from the more flexible and variable character of social units, and even to utilise that flexibility in behalf of a more intimate common life. (4) The differences so far considered have been only relative, but the final distinction is qualitative and essential. In the animal, consciousness is an attribute of the whole organism. In a society, consciousness remains centered in the discrete individual elements. When men's thoughts come to move in the same channel, and a group learns its own unity, we speak of a " social consciousness " ; but the phrase never means that a society has a brain or a con- sciousness apart from the consciousness of the men who compose it. The present difference becomes even more marked in the process of development, for the animal development has meant a concen- tration of the more important nervous elements, and a merging of their separate activity into the common activity of a single consciousness. In the lower stages of society bodies of men are more easily swayed by a single common thought or emotion as when the mob first worshipped Paul and Barnabas as gods, and then drove them from the city. The development of society involves the development of individuality in each of its members, inasmuch as the growth of a larger common life is the condition of a truer and deeper self -consciousness. The history of industry is the history of increasing industrial liberty and increasing responsi- bility for the individual. The strong government rests on the sense of citizenship it has developed in the governed. In a word, the development of society is a development of persons ; the "social consciousness" only exists in the discrete social elements which have become individual. CHAPTER II. THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF SOCIETY: RACE AND LOCALITY. SOCIETY has been called the third stage of the aggrega- tion of matter. Such language is scarcely necessary to bring out clearly the fact that the life of Basis of Life soc i e ty> like all other life, has a physical basis. Modern physiology attempts to show that all the phenomena of life, the sensitive or psychical as well as the purely vegetative, are simply new transformations and combinations of physical energy. 1 There is no peculiar life-force, nor is there any part or function of the animal that is regarded as beyond the reach of the physical sciences. All the energy received by the animal is appropriated from its physical environment, and returns when expended to the fixed fund of energy in the world. If science is ever to understand life completely, it will simply be the complete statement of the transformations of energy which make up the life-process. Similarly, if there is to be a physical science of society, it will be necessary to show that all the distinctively The Physical social phenomena have a physical basis, and Basis of can be stated in terms of physical science as Society. transformations of physical energy. Physical science admits no peculiar social force, and it does not hesitate to offer its explanation of energy and activity as it appears in the social world. This energy depends immediately on the capacity of the individuals of which the society is composed. Its character and amount is 1 E.g. Huxley, Lay Sermons, Essay vii. ; Claude Bernard, Lemons sur les phenomenes de la vie, p. 22, sqq. 45 46 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. determined primarily by the individuals, secondly by tho power of union between these individuals, and thirdly by the environment in which they are placed. This energy, too, is appropriated from the physical universe, and is returned to this when expended. No part or function of social life lacks this physical basis, the study of which is the proper sphere of physical science. The truth of this study of society from the physical standpoint may be admitted without at all overlooking the fact that this is not the whole story, even if it does cover the whole ground. Other lines of approach may yield new r truth and shed new light on the matter, beyond what is accessible by the methods of pure physical science. 1 From the physical standpoint men may be grouped according to race or according to locality. Physically, Physical the ^ e an( ^ growth of society is to be ex- factors: Race plained in terms of these two factors. A race and Locality. is a < ( soc j a i organism" or a part in some such organism; the locality is the physical environment in which this so-called organism develops. The two stand in reciprocal relation, just as the eye is related to light or the stomach to food. This relationship is so complex that it is ordinarily impossible to trace particular effects to particular causes. The discussion in regard to such a relatively simple matter as race colour, illustrates this. In general the darkest races are found in regions rather low and not far from the equator. Very wild guesses have been hazarded to account for the dark colour; perhaps a fair sample of these is the theory that it is due to an excess of carbon in the system, and that this is 1 In the study of society., it is important to guard against the notion that physical lii'e and psychical life have no 'relation to each other. The same facts in nature may be studied from the standpoint of physical science and by its method ; and they may be studied from the stand- point of psychology and history and by the methods of these sciences. A clear statement of the critical view of the relation between physical and psychical phenomena may be found in Riehl, Philosophischer Kriticismus, II. 2, pp. 176, sqq. (Eng. tr., Science and Metaphysics, pp. 167, aqq.) THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF SOCIETY. 47 caused by the quality of the air ! Science is limited to the general statement, and can only prove that climate has a slight tendency to modify colour. 1 " Inorganic nature, even the lowest and the least com- plex, is the matrix where are fertilised and developed the A. General germs of all social forms and organisms, effect of which . . gradually rise . . . and develop out of the necessity of the physical medium, from which they came." 2 Progress in civilisation in- volves an increasing knowledge of the laws of nature and of the means of utilising natural forces. Among the lowest races man's life seems to be an almost passive element, moulded by the natural forces of its environment. Mountains and seas are impassable; drought means famine, disease means death ; no real resistance to the powers of nature is possible. Civilisation does not change natural laws, but it enables man to use these laws. Man reacts to the influences of his environment with the power that has been developed in society. The sea becomes his highway and mountains are tunnelled. Disease is grappled with, the means of sustaining life become more various and are more care- fully husbanded, so that the average length of life has been constantly and materially lengthened. These effects of climate, food, etc., are the more difficult to study because they are never simple but are modified by the constantly changing nature of man. Man cannot rise above his environment, but he does rise by using the forces which at first had blocked his progress. The factors of the physical environment of society may naturally be discussed under three heads: (i) the Classification effect of the contour of the earth's surface, of External (2) the effect of climate, and (3) the effect of Influences. ne things directly utilised by man, both inorganic and organic. Under the first heading, there 1 Waitz, Anthropologie, I. p. 38, sqq. 2 De Greef, Introduction A la Socioloyie, I. p. 50. 48 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. fall influences which affect a social group as a whole; under the second and third, influences which directly affect individuals, and through them modify the character of the societies which they constitute. Two eminent geologists, B. v. Cotta and Zittel, have explained the most striking difference between th*e French 1 Effect of anc ^ ^ e German peoples as the result of the the Contour contour of their respective lands. Paris is of the Earth's almost in the centre of a large basin including Surface. mO re than half of France ; by nature it is the political centre and the economic centre of all that region. The North German plain is the only consider- able geological district in Germany ; and each of the small districts has developed its own peculiar customs and industries, in fact its own culture. It is impossible that the common life of the people, or its national life, should be so centralised as in France. 1 The attempt to explain a people by its land is almost sure to end in gross exaggeration, but this is due to a tendency of human nature, not to any weakness of the method. The physical configuration of the surface is an im- portant factor in determining the size of the social group. Rich valleys separated by high ridges determines are the homes of small groups very distinct the Size of a from their neighbours. Among uncivilised Social Group. racegj r i v ers united more closely the tribes living on their banks, and mountain ranges proved an effectual barrier to intercourse of any sort. In all history these influences have had much the same effect. Greece was a country for small states, aside from the character of its people; the plains of the Nile and of the Euphrates were countries that favoured the develop- ment of a common life. Apart from the ease with which man's wants were supplied in the rich river basins of warm countries, the physical fact' of a considerable area sheltered from outside interference and easily traversed 1 Honegger, Allgemeinc Kutturgeschickte, I. S. 182. THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF SOCIETY. 49 by water or by land, rendered such basins the natural seats of early despotic civilisations. Farther, the physical configuration determines in large measure the isolation of the social group. Traces of the oldest civilisation in Europe are found in deep (6) Contour determines valleys of the Alps, which are so effectually the isolation separated that the people in one valley cannot of a Social easily understand the language of those in the next valley, and have an entirely different moral standard. 1 Bohemia is so surrounded by mountain ranges that the culture of its people has been effectually isolated; the Czechs are surrounded on every side by Germans, but their unity and national life have not been materially affected even by political union with a German people. As examples of the other side of this fact, the geographical position of Greece and its oppor- tunities for contact with other peoples, were a necessary condition of the development of Greek civilisation. It is said that every capital city in Europe is a port with direct access to the sea. Rome's power is not explained by referring to seven hills on the bank of a river, not far from its mouth, but it is evident enough that the rise and extension of this power depended largely on the natural facilities for intercourse with other nations. Finally, the contour of the surface determines the lines of social movement. Physical forces always follow the Contour li nes f least resistance. This is true alike of determines the projectile's regular curve, and the light- the Lines of ning's jagged path. The primitive horde gradually forms beaten paths about its abode. These paths and in fact all intercourse with other peoples, are determined by the easiest courses, and necessarily avoid all obstacles. Civilisation and culture follow these same lines, for they can only go where social and economic intercourse have preceded. Caravans still traverse the natural courses from Egypt int'o Palestine, 1 Marshall, Principles of Economics, I. p. 231. E 50 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. and from Babylonia up to Syria. These ancient avenues of civilisation, and even the direction which civilisation should take, were determined by the contour of the earth's surface. War and conquest have always followed lines marked out for them beforehand. Ancient and modern migration has been similarly directed. Some- times the course of an ancient horde overrunning a part of Europe, can be followed in detail, and each deviation from a straight course is explained by natural obstacles, or by the physical strength of those already in possession of the soil. 1 To-day, emigration is from some crowded quarter, along the lines of least resistance, to the spot which seems to offer opportunity for an easier and richer life. Every re-distribution of the parts of society has its physical side, and, like any re-distribution of matter, it follows the lines of least resistance. " The final and highest truths of the geographical sciences are included in the statement that the structure of the earth's surface, and the differences of climate dependent upon it, visibly rule the course of development for our race, and have determined the path for the changes of the seats of culture ; so that a glance at the earth's surface permits us to see the course of human history as determined (or, one may say, purposed) from the beginning, in the distribution of land and water, of plains and heights." 2 The second group of external influences affecting the development of a race are denoted by the word climate ; - and first among these climatic influences I of Climate : would mention light. The length of day may Light, Tem- vary but slightly the year through, or the perature, whole summer may be a day and all the e< winter a night. This of course affects social life, and by itself makes the polar regions very unfavour- able to the development of culture. Again, the absence of light from a tropical forest, as well as the absence of 1 Humboldt, quoted by Honegger, KuUurgeschichte, I. S. 184. 2 Feschel, Geschichtc der Erdkunde, S. xv. THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF SOCIETY. 51 protection from the rays of the sun on desert sands, can but affect the life of the individual and the habits of the tribe. A second climatic factor is ternperatufe : its absolute height, its range of variations, and the rapidity of its variations. The average height of temperature has a two - fold effect : direct, in that life requires far more . to sustain it in colder regions, and indirect, in that this nourishment is far more difficult to obtain in such regions. It requires comparatively little to sustain life in the Sandwich Islands, for instance, and the necessary fish and bananas cost but little effort. The general effect of a decidedly low temperature on man or animals, is to decrease the stature perceptibly, and to check rapidity of development, both physical and psychical. Among the Esquimaux, as among those Peruvians who dwell at a great height above the sea, the average stature is decidedly below the normal. Near the equator children are even more precocious than in the temperate zone, and it is in warm countries, e.g. in Mexico, that the ratio of births to the population is greatest. 1 These influences affect society directly as well as through the individual. In the regions of extreme cold cooperation is necessary in order to obtain a livelihood, while at best the effort to secure subsistence absorbs all the energy that is developed, so that there is no opportunity for progress. Near the equator the high temperature does not favour the habit of work; 2 uniformity of temperature tends to make monotonous lives ; 3 and with every want supplied, man is not obliged to cooperate with his fellows. The temperate zone, with moderate climate and considerable changes of temperature, proves most favourable for the development of man and of society. Such a climate makes many demands on men, and permits the develop- 1 Waitz, Anthropologie I. S. 43, sqq. Heusinger, Grundsuge d. vgl. fhysiulotjie, S. 211, sqq. 8 Waitz, 1. 395, sqq. 3 Crawfurd, quoted by Honegger, I. S. 188. 52 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. ment of the greatest energy to meet these demands. Here the individual may attain his highest development, but his progress is conditioned at every step by depen- dence on an advanced type of society. 1 A third climatic factor is the composition of the air, and in particular the amount of moisture it contains. A Greek proverb connects sluggishness and mental indifference with those who lived among the marshes of Boeotia. Much of the African coast means disease and death to foreigners who are not accustomed to its malarial breezes. Earity of the air, as well as its dryness, affects the throat and lungs ; and doubtless this is one reason for the fact so often asserted, that mountain races possess more vigour than races that inhabit low, damp plains. Perhaps, how- ever, the most important effect of moisture in the air is indirect, and is due to its influence on vegetation. Thirdly, the character of society is modified by its locality, because the forms of matter and of life, which are directly utilised by men, vary so much in is Modified different parts of the earth. Animal and by what it vegetable life depend immediately on the Utilises: (a) presence of water. Man may have reason Matfriahi to worsn ip water as the principle of life, as in Greece or ancient Babylonia; or to regard it as the principle which hinders creation, when it suggests to him impassable forests or marshes. In any case, life and civilisation depend upon its presence in suitable amount. Again, the distribution of minerals, especially the metals, has had a very important influence on the development of society. The discovery of the metals and of methods of utilising them, had such far-reaching effects that the phrase " iron age " or " bronze age " is still used to denote the new stage of culture which was introduced by the discovery and general use of the metals. The presence of a clay suitable for pottery is more common, but none the less important. To-day, 1 Colin, System der Nationaloekonomie, I. S. 218, A. i. THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF SOCIETY. 53 the existence of mineral wealth and of coal determines the industry of a country. .Still the direct influence of what the soil contains is far less than its indirect influence: the flora and the fauna of a district depend upon its soil. 1 Logically, the effect of vegetation would be considered before the effect of the fauna of a region, but as a matter of history, animal life has become a potent Fauna factor in civilisation long before vegetable life. Doubtless, roots, nuts, and in certain instances fruits, were the earliest food of man; but the lowest civilisations with which we are familiar have weapons of the chase as perhaps the only implements of civilisa- tion. A hunting people exists where there is game, and approximately in such numbers as the game of a given region will support. The domestication of animals is really the beginning of progress, and the first step in progress is always the most important. The constantly recurring want of a hunting people was relieved when a regular supply of milk was at hand, together with flesh when that was desired. A far larger number of individuals could be supported in the same region, when the animals that furnished food were regularly bred and pastured by man. A broader and more permanent social life was made possible when the food supply was a bond of union instead of a centrifugal force, and when property in herds required union for its defence. The absence of animals suitable for domestication on the American continent is one reason for the low state of civilisation indigenous there. The vegetation of a country, real and possible, deter- mines the form of industrial life ; and industrial life is at the basis of society. The steppes of Asia Vegetation naturally furnish food for flocks, and a nomadic people occupy them. Eich plains in the river valleys are utilised for agriculture. The discovery of the 1 Marshall, Principles of Economics, I. p. 329 54 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. cereals suitable for food was hardly less important than the discovery of the domestic animals ; and it marked an immense advance beyond the latter discovery, because it encouraged a settled life, and removed man still farther from subjection to the vicissitudes of nature. A given area devoted to agriculture will support a population many times greater than when it is devoted to grazing purposes. Moreover, agriculture not only encourages a settled life, but it almost demands a stable social organisa- tion. Cereal food is really the basis of civilisation. The effect of the soil, as the most important factor in the industrial environment, is no less to-day than in the past. However we may interpret the so-called Law of Diminish- ing Returns, there is no question that a definite density of population is most favourable for utilising the products of the soil, and that when the population rises above or falls below this degree of density, evil consequences ensue. 1 The movements of population also, both from old to new countries, and from the country to the city, are deter- mined primarily by the opportunities for cultivating new soils, and by the fact that barren soils are thereby thrown out of cultivation. Environment alone is but one factor in the physical life of society ; it is equally necessary to study the B. Race: Race correlative factor, the race that lives in this Expansion, environment. In the first place the facts of Theory of race persistence and race expansion demand opu a ion. at t en tion. The so-called doctrine of popula- tion is an attempt to state these facts. Speaking roughly, we may say that the growth of population is determined by the food-supply. As Malthus pointed out, plants as well as animals tend to reproduce themselves and multiply with extreme rapidity ; but the land available for wheat-culture is limited, and only a limited number of animals can find food, accordingly the available food-supply for man has only a limited t See for example, Marshall, Economics, I. pp. 191, 505 (217). THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF SOCIETY 55 increase from year to year. But man, as well as any other animal, tends to multiply far more rapidly than the food-supply would warrant, and unless this growth is checked in other ways, misery and famine will prove a most effective check. There are a few races which seem to have become unprolific, so that they are actually dying out ; apart from these exceptional cases, every race known to us has the capacity of multiplying much faster than the food-supply increases ; and, as a matter of fact, the net increase is frequently far in advance of the increase in food -supply of a given region. Malthus claimed that the natural positive checks formerly effective war, famine, infanticide, etc. were becoming less and less operative, and that if society did not voluntarily limit the number added to it, misery would constantly increase, and the race would degenerate instead of making progress. To-day Europe has a considerably larger population than its lands will support, as they are at present Present in- Cultivated, and the present net increase of crease of two and a half millions a year cannot con- Population tinue indefinitely to find support from other irope< sources. The more careful study of statistics in recent years seems to show that Malthus's discussion of " natural," " positive " checks, was imperfect, and that, as a matter of fact, the net increase in population follows quite accurately the increased means of subsistence. According to figures quoted by Prof. Marshall, from the Statistical Journal for 1885, the net increase per thousand is, in general, quite independent of the number of births per thousand. A few figures, selected from these tables, are sufficient to show the drift of the whole. Russia. Hungary. Saxony. Bavaria, Italy. England. Sweden. France. Births . . 49-4 . 43" . 42'4 . 39'5 . 36'8 . 35"! . 30'2 . 25'4 Deaths . . 357 . 38'2 . 29' . 30'6 . 29'1 . 21'4 . 18'9 . 23'8 Net increase 137 . 4'8 . 13'4 . 8.9 . 77 . 137 . 11'3 . 1'6 Apart from the exceptional case of France, these figures 56 INTRODUCTION 7O SOCIOLOGY. seem to show: (i) that the birth-rate of each people is more than sufficient to produce the number who can find subsistence under the conditions now actually existing; (2) that the death-rate rapidly increases with the larger birth-rate, so that the net increase corresponds closely to the increased means of sustaining human life ; (3) that, in general, the larger increase in population does not correspond with an increase in misery and degradation. It is only in Russia that the rapid increase has proved to be a source of danger, and perhaps of decline. 1 There can be no question that these facts, proved by statistics for modern Europe, are, in the main, true of Increase of primitive society. There has always been the Population in same lavish supply of human life, the same Uncivilised pressure of population upon food supply, lead- Societies. . .,* .,, * Jt ing to rapid expansion with every new source of food ; and though we may not be able to explain it, this pressure of population upon food supply has not, as a rule, been so close as to produce misery and degrada- tion. The check to real over-population is very severe, but actual famine is generally due to vicissitude in the supply of food rather than to over -population. We may suppose that in primitive society, as in later times, population will vary only slightly while the sources of food remain the same; that in places where the food supply is very abundant, the population will rapidly increase, and that this expansion will result in emigra- tion to districts less favoured ; finally, that every new device or practice which makes the food supply more abundant and more constant, will occasion a rapid in- crease in population. Turning from the comparatively simple matter of race expansion, we immediately find an obstacle to the farther 1 A. Dumont, Depopulation et civilisation, Paris, 1890, gives an interesting discussion of the special case of France, as well as farther statistics with reference to the general problem. The main value of the work lies in its careful analysis of local statistics in France. THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF SOCIETY. 57 study of the race, in that the word itself raises so many questions. In familiar language, the word race 8 * s use( ^ to Denote the fact that men are bound together by something more, by something that lies deeper in their nature, than the mere physical contiguity. But while this truth cannot be denied, and we continue to use the word race to denote it, still ethnologists have come to no agreement as to what constitutes a race, and are in dispute even as to the extent of acknowledged races. One thing at least is clear, namely, that, under ordinary conditions, men can only live in groups strong enough to protect themselves ; the unarmed individual is no match for other animals, even if he is able to obtain food and to protect himself against the weather. And, farther, these groups must be small enough so that the members can work together and not too large to find a supply of food in a comparatively limited area. Such a unit, which we may call the tribe, is the actual working unit of early society ; in it is developed and perpetuated the culture by which it comes to be essentially different from other tribes. This semi- political unit may contain individuals of such different character and antecedents that they are to be classified under different races, but in most cases a real likeness lies at the basis of the group, and is farther developed by the common life. On the other hand, the race will frequently extend beyond the tribe, for the tribe is definitely limited in number by its circumstances, while a prolific stock may speedily exceed these bounds, and make necessary a division of the tribe. The essential likeness which leads an observer to classify a group of men as a race, is ordinarily due to The Race blood-relationship. The physical character of and Blood- the individuals composing the group is origin- Beiationship. a jj v determined by their parents ; their indi- vidual energy is largely a matter of birth and training; the habits, the needs, and the ends towards which action 58 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. is ordinarily directed, are influenced but very slowly, if at all, by environment. These characteristics, which are grouped under the general name of heredity, may be called the internal factors correlative to the external influences of environment. Blood-relationship has a two-fold effect in the formation of social groups: (i) Descendants of the same ancestors have the same physical nature, and a tendency to develop the same psychical characteristics, so that social relations arise more easily between them, and can become more inti- mate; (2) Children require care from the mother for a considerable period in order that they may survive at all; and the common life during this period naturally develops into a higher social life later. 1 With the development of the family, and the distinct recognition of the importance of the blood-tie, the effect of blood- relationship on the formation of social groups becomes far more important On this basis of common blood, there arises a sense of relationship to others than the members of one's own tribe or city, and the race becomes the larger social unit within which new rights and new duties are to be realised. At the same time, a real or fictitious blood-relationship becomes the basis of a more rigid structure of the tribe itself. The origin of whatever unity the race may possess, has been made evident by the two preceding paragraphs. Men are or tend to be alike, when they have ^ e same ancestry. This likeness due to blood- relationship is realised and developed in a common life. In general, race-unity is simply a matter of likeness, accordingly the scientific observer may draw the lines much as he chooses ; it has depended largely on the temperament of the observer, whether he makes a few large races or numerous small races. The question 1 It is said that among animals those born of the same mother live together until there is some definite occasion for their separation. Espinas, Societes, pp. 459 sqq. THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF SOCIETY. 59 does not assume any great importance, except when the persistence of race characteristics is treated as the im- portant factor in the development of culture. Looking back over the course of history, we naturally speak of the work of the Hebrew race, or of the Greek race, and we postulate a genius of the race as the correlate of the work which it has accomplished. In these instances, however, and ordinarily when the race has accomplished some definite mission, the unity of the race is no mere fiction of the scientist, but it has come to be recognised by the race itself. A race which is conscious of itself becomes thereby a unit, and its institutions will bear the race-mark with increasing distinctness. When races that are quite distinct come into contact with each other, such self-consciousness is rapidly developed and becomes the determining feature of the social organisation. There are thus two factors determining the life of society, when this is considered from the physical stand- point : the external factor of locality, and the persistence i nterna ^ factor of heredity. The influences of locality are very strong in determining the course of social movements and the character of social organisation. In the new environment the individual develops differently, new modes of social activity arise, and the institutions that have originated under other circumstances, may be profoundly modified. After all this has been said, the facts of race-persistence remain and cannot be neglected. Two races may be crossed and become blended into one, as has been the case in Mexico, or the weaker race may gradually die away before the stronger. But the influences of locality alone have never been sufficient to assimilate two really different races ; in America the power of the same climate, the same language, and the same social institutions, has not proved sufficient by itself to obliterate former differences between Indo-European races. Without accepting the results of those writers who profess to be able to analyse the 60 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. population of England or of France into numerous distinct ethnic elements, we cannot fail to see that the effect of locality on the influences that are -grouped under the name of heredity, is measured only by centuries or by tens of centuries, and that new and higher races are generally formed by the amalgamation of races originally distinct. CHAPTER III. ASSOCIATION : THE RELATION OF MEN IN SOCIETY. IN the preceding chapter, the social group has been con- sidered as a physical object determined by physical causes ; The Social ^ut ^ e un ^y of a social group is not fully Group not explained by saying that it was " made so merely f rom outside," or that it was "born so." To stop here, is to let the lower truth take the place of the higher a result that is fatal to all science. Chemistry and physics do not take the place of biology, though familiarity with these sciences is the necessary basis of any advance to a broader and more scientific biology. The physiology of the brain is the basis of a true psychology; it can never take the place of psychology and logic, but it is rather the condition of progress in these branches. Similarly the study of society from the physical side is only the basis of a study that is both broader and more direct. A society is a group of men ; as such it must be studied and ex- plained, if sociology is to be more than an empty name. Two theories frequently advanced with reference to the relation of men in society, are suggested by the phrases, " man a social animal " and " social cohesion." Feeling: Man The study of society has often begun and not naturally ended with the statement that man is a social animal, as though this were a fact too Animal. . . . familiar to need discussion or criticism. Certainly civilisation makes man pre-eminently the social animal (u>oi> TTO\ITIKOV), but by nature he may 62 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. be a. very different being. The study of uncivilised races to-day shows clearly that this is possible ; the lower type of Veddahs in Ceylon and of Hottentots in Africa live in scattered groups of two or three or four, with no more sociability than is found among gorillas. If man is not necessarily and universally a social being, the phrase demands investigation before it can be accepted as the whole philosophy of society. In truth, both social and unsocial tendencies are at work in each stage of social development; some forces tending to draw men closer together in society, Influences . . for and and others tending to break up the societies against thus formed. In the world of any creature, o " lM * 4. ' l y> those of its own kind are the most prominent objects, and the beings about which sentiments of aversion or of pleasure are sure to cluster. In early stages of civilisation jealousy appears at least as soon and as commonly as sympathy, and anger is by no means a product of civilisation. The bitterest conflicts arise among those who are seeking the same thing, so that association itself leads to strife, and even in the effort to unite men are driven farther apart. But oftentimes co-operation is the only means of obtaining any success ; the individual alone cannot protect himself against attack, nor can he win from nature the means of subsistence. Under such circumstances the feeling of loneliness becomes unendurable, for it is associated with the sense of imminent danger. The mere presence of other men produces a feeling of security and satisfaction. The various forces of an advanced civilisation work in the same manner, strengthening the bonds that unite one group and weakening those that unite another. A few years ago, the workmen employed to unload vessels at the London docks were chosen each morning from among scores of hungry men who fought with one another to secure the chance to work. This unsocialising influence was entirely reversed when two or three able leaders THE RELATION OF MEN IN SOCIETY. 63 convinced the men that their ends were better gained by union ; and now the dock labour, like the older trades, is so organised that a common occupation binds the workers together. In the long run, the necessities of man's position decide between the influences that strengthen social bonds and those that tend to destroy society. Natural J . Selection Ordinarily, man must be a social being in favours the order to survive ; for progress, social life is Gregarious absolutely necessary. So far as primitive man is concerned, there is some reason for thinking that he was not of choice a gregarious animal, but that a certain low degree of social life was generally necessary for his survival. The process of natural selection clearly results in the development of a gregarious instinct, for those who do not learn to enjoy the presence of their fellows have to contend single-handed with hostile forces, both physical and human. And progress always pre- supposes the social instinct; a tribe makes progress by reason of its strength and its quickness to learn, and both strength and quickness to learn depend on the social instinct that binds a tribe together and keeps it in active relation with other tribes. Progress for the individual means a larger share in the developing common life, it pre-supposes the social man. Genuine progress of society demands increasing solidarity in the component social groups ; bonds of feeling, not simply of function, must unite these groups. Cases where this does not occur are abnormal if not uncommon, and such groups carry in themselves the seeds of their own disruption. The bond of sentiment that unites men in society may be fairly described as mutual delight in companionship Sentiment with each other. It involves readiness both as a Social to give and to receive, though the different Bond. elements perhaps never receive the same emphasis in any two persons. It involves the readiness to give; to give one's time and interest in the service 64 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. of others, to sympathise with their various emotions, to make allowance for their weaknesses, to recognise and admire what is excellent in them. On the other hand, it involves also a readiness to receive. Enjoyment of service and adulation is a sentiment that plays no small part in the social and, indeed, in the political world. But in the purest types of friendship, enjoyment of the service that love renders is as truly important as joy in serving. Reciprocal pleasure in companionship performs a most important function in welding together classes of men into real societies. It is not merely nature's stamp of approval on the utility of companionship ; it becomes an additional bond uniting men in society more firmly, and assisting in the constant assimilation of hetero- geneous factors. 1 "Social cohesion" is a second phrase sometimes used to describe the union of men in a social group. A phrase 2 Bonds of so conven i en t often serves instead of any common investigation of the facts, and satisfies those Function. wno are content with a new word as an explanation ; but it is just about as scientific as would be the phrase " biological cohesion." The parts of an animal are indeed bound together they have a physical relation depending on propinquity; but the whole question is why they are thus bound together. The metaphor from physical science is peculiarly inapt, because it implies that the component elements are uniform, and that the law of their relation is .very simple. In this sense it might be fair to speak of the cohesion of a flock of sheep ; but so far as organised society is concerned, all that the metaphor suggests beyond the mere fact of relation is false. Biology furnishes an analogy that is richer and much nearer the truth. The question as to the bonds which unite the molecules in an animal's lung or brain may 1 On the importance of Sentiment as a Social Bond, cf. Xovicow, Lcs luttea entre soctiUs humaines, livre II. chap. vi. THE RELATION OF MEN IN SOCIETY. 65 receive two answers. Undoubtedly the union can be The Bioloel- s ^ at even language itself, are developed in of Race on the group which regards itself as a race ; some Association. re jigi ons have become universal, each religion is in origin the product of a race. Eeceiving a similar physical nature from common ancestors, and sharing the psychical life which is their most valuable inheritance, members of the same race have by nature the strongest bonds of union, and union of any sort tends to develop closer psychical relationship. Only at certain periods in the history of the world have a race and a society become so far identical, that strangers who have come to share the culture of the society are at length regarded as members of the race. In a word, the physical group underlies the psychical group ; identity of race favours association. Hostile relations to other groups of men have been no small factor in the production of firmly united races. 1 Men may be born alike, but, ordinarily, they must be taught this likeness before they recognise it. Pressure from outside is necessary to produce a compact union. Social struggle has played a considerable part in the production even of races. Social and ^e physical conditions favouring associa- Psychicai tion, race and locality, are by far the most Factors important; but as society develops, there are favouring certain social and intellectual conditions which Association. , . . have such an important influence on associa- tion, that they cannot be overlooked. 1 The effect of war in uniting the different factors of an incipient nation has often been remarked in the case of the United States in the Revolu- tion of 1776, and in the case of Germany during the Franco-Prussian war. 74 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY, These are roughly classified in the following table : Social factors : Rank, e.g. Eulers and ruled ; slaves. Nobility, bourgeoisie, peasants. Vocation, e.g. Artisans, carpenters, metalworkers. Merchants, wholesale, retail. Intellectual pursuits, etc. Psychical factors : Thought and language. Beliefs and science. Temperament, morals, art. Religion. The most important bonds uniting men are the bonds of a common function, of a share in some common activity. So it needs no proof that identity \oc&tion ^ voca ti n > to whatever this may be due, is a very important influence favouring association. Men are led to choose their vocation quite generally by some particular taste or habit of mind, so that it is common to find a certain identity of temperament among those pursuing the same calling. The same work, and the pursuit of work along with companions, also tend to produce a similar habit of mind within a given group. But this bond due to similarity, is only half the story. Those in the same trade are united in the performance of the same function for society. The work of carpenters may leave them a considerable degree of independence, while men must unite in large factories to produce guns or carriages successfully. And yet, however great their apparent 'in- dependence, each class of workers is directly united in the performance of its common function for society. Nor is it difficult to see that those belonging to the same rank in society are naturally brought into association, whatever may be the principle by which rank * s Determined. Wherever society is somewhat stable, members of the same rank in society have received from their parents a physical nature peculiar to the class. Then they are trained in the THE RELATION OF MEN IN SOCIETY. 75 same habits of thought and action. Quite generally they have access only to particular callings, and indeed they have tastes suited only to these callings. Besides these conditions strongly favouring association, it is often possible to point out some general function for the service of society, in which members of the same rank are directly united. We have seen already that those who are thrown together, naturally tend to have the same language, ., ... the same range of thoughts, the same scien- Psychical Factors tific view of the world, the same aesthetic, favouring moral, and religious needs. Here it is only A * ** * a lon ' necessary to point out the fact that the con- verse of this is equally true. Identity of language, similarity of. thoughts, habits, and needs, are conditions strongly favouring the development of association. Such identity and similarity are not only products of associa- tion ; they are the most important factors in determining the farther development of association. CHAPTER IV. THE SOCIAL MIND. " The laws according to which the psychical activity of the individual is awakened and developed, may be called psychology. There must be similar laws also for the whole nation. The nation, as well as the individual man, is one being." Humboldt, Ges. Werke, IV. S. 427. THE first aim of sociology is to understand the character of the object with which it has to deal the society or The Soli- social group. In the preceding chapters it has darity of a been shown that this group may be described Society or as "organic;" that its character is, in a measure, Social Group. Determined by physical causes, but that, in its essential nature, it is truly an association of persons whose feelings and activities bring them together in the common social structure. A social group is mado one by the pleasure its members find in each other's companionship, and by the necessity of union in order that the group may perform its proper function. The solidarity which is primarily due to those causes and which is constantly reinforced by the same causes, gains a much wider range and takes a deeper hold than was indicated in the discussion of the principles of associa- tion. The proof then offered that the sources of social unity are psychical forces, was somewhat negative in character. It remains to be shown that the solidarity of a society embraces all phases of the psychical life that it develops ; that the social life of man is, in truth, the unfolding of reason ; that the unity of the social group is the unity of a social mind. THE SOCIAL MIND. 77 In any highly developed organism it is possible to study the life of the whole in its effect on the separate The Psvchi- e ^ emen ts of which it is composed. In the case cai Life of of society the temptation to adopt this course the Social nas proved almost irresistible. The character- Group, istics of the new life developed in the group, and the results gradually produced by this common life, are deposited in the individual mind; the leaders of thought and activity are, of necessity, individuals; the highest and most striking product of society is the personality which man feels to be himself. It is no wonder that logic and ethics, history and economics, are studied from the standpoint of the individual, while the social character of the truth thus studied is only vaguely indicated by an occasional reference to environment. Yet it is not difficult to see that all the distinctive characteristics of man, as man, are social products, both in their origin and in their present form. In the first place, intellectual possessions and capacity and activities belong to the group as a whole. For instance, language is never the invention of a A. Language . , , . and Thought Sln g^ e man, nor can any man claim it as a common to private possession. This is plain enough in the Members the case of different peoples, and attention is Group" frequently called to the fact that the popular dialect of a district is the peculiar property of that district; but we may go farther and say that each clearly marked social class, each trade group, and even each family, has its own language. So the range of thoughts possessed and used by any group is limited, and characterises one group in distinction from another. The teacher impresses his mind on the school, the father on the family, and the family or school becomes an intellectual group by itself. In religious matters, the range of thought in the denomination and in the indi- vidual church is limited. The words " soul," " revelation," " divine justice," have very different meanings for different 78 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. bodies of religious thinkers, but within a given church the meaning of each is practically the same. In a word, these ideas are the property of a social group. Only members of the same group can really understand each other. The same truth holds good of different ages. The philosophical, or scientific, or religious ideas of one age differ essentially from those of another ; the thoughts of any age are not directly and completely intelligible to an earlier or a later age. The primary beliefs which are generally accepted, and from which the thinker must start, are, in like manner, Beliefs the property of the group. Philosophical common to scepticism appears in certain ages, and affects the Group, particular classes. The belief of the peasant class in Europe as to matters physical and spiritual, mundane and heavenly, may be formulated without special difficulty; and it differs no less from the belief of the same class in some other type of civilisation, than from the belief of the educated class in Europe. Changes in these beliefs sweep over a whole country at times, as in the case of the appearance and disappearance of witchcraft in New England. Even in the mind of a trained thinker the evidence in favour of a given proposition rarely has the same weight as the statement that it is accepted by a class of minds which commands his respect. The common possessions of a group and of an age include in particular the practical knowledge, the tools, and the Pra tical methods of attaining the ends desired. Knowledge Students of primitive society speak of a common to stone age and a bronze age ; more limited oup ' periods are distinguished by the special forms of utensils, their decoration, and the skill shown in their manufacture. As civilisation advances, utensils vary more rapidly from age to age, and more widely in different groups in the same age. Weapons, tools, and utensils are the property of the social group, and no THE SOCIAL MIND. 79 individual possession. So the methods of agriculture and of hunting, of preparing food and partaking of it, of preparing and wearing clothing, are indeed followed by the individual, but they are the possession of the age and the social group in which he finds himself. Finally, intellectual activity may be predicated of the group with quite as much as truth as of the individual. Each age and each people one might even Methods of > ./ to . investigation Sa 7 eac h class has its own way or going at a and of Proof problem that demands solution. There are a common to p r j or i methods and empirical methods; one the Group. f . ^ age demands metaphysical proof; to-day we take pride in studying everything " inductively " ; one group uses concrete symbols, and another, abstract ideas, as its instruments of investigation. These methods and the activity which finds expression through them, are characteristic of social groups. Even the standard of truth varies with the social group. Many ages and peoples have regarded the miracle as the best possible proof of things supernatural ; to-day some classes find in miracles a stumbling-block to their faith. The proof of a metaphysical system often is only its own perfectness and beauty, but such systems have not lacked for followers. Tradition has been another standard of truth, physical authority yet another. None of these various standards of truth have belonged to individuals as such ; in fact it is by the very nature of things impossible that the test of what truth is, should belong to an individual. A proposition is said to be true when it commands assent, when it can be "proved"; and these words "assent" and " proof " mean assent by a group of men and proof that satisfies a group of men. Secondly, it is reasonable to assert that the social group has volitional characteristics, such as are commonly regarded as distinctive of the individual. Habits are the possession of an age and a class quite as truly as of a particular man. For instance, each social class in 8o INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. a given nation, at a given time, has common habits as to its food. The bill of fare does not vary and virtues niuc h from family to family ; sauerkraut, beef, common to Indian corn, stand for particular peoples in the social the mind of ey reader. The table fur- Group. nishings, number and time of meals, table manners, change as one turns from class to class, rather than from family to family. Habits of family organisa- tion, of marriage and divorce, mark one country and one age. Habits of social intercourse, such as the time and manner of calls, the character of social gatherings, the mode of entertainment and topics of conversation at such gatherings, the extent and character of the groups that have social intercourse with each other : all these are determined by the habits of the class and age in question. In particular, habits of virtue are the property of the group. It is part of the history of ethics, as yet largely unwritten, to show that the virtues men prize and cultivate have varied from age to age, in different nations, and even in different families. It is an evident fact that truth-telling, generosity, patience, pertinacity, justice, receive very different emphasis in different families ; the habits of virtue vary in these families, and the persons who go out from them ordinarily carry with them the virtues of the group in which their character has been formed. The history of virtues, like the history of other habits, can only be written from the standpoint of the group, never from the standpoint of the individual; this fact alone justifies the statement that habits belong to the group. And not merely the history of virtues, but the judg- ment of action as well, conscience itself, is a social fact. , , . Whatever the origin of conscience, it is to-day action by the application of the group's standard to the Conscience a action of the member of the group. " By the ocia act. j aw j g ^ e k now } ec ig e o f g^ j s nothing but a statement of the fact, that the sanction of the law of the state, or of the precept of the church, or of public THE SOCIAL MIND. 81 opinion, is the power that wakens conscience. The child's conscience is just as truly a family product as his power to use language. Whole races seem to us to lack conscience, either because we cannot understand the content of right and wrong which it enforces, or often- times because the common life and culture of the group is so little developed that the feeble germ of a future conscience cannot as yet be detected. 1 The religious man hears God's voice in the commands of duty as he hears it in the revelation of truth, but both the command or revelation and the power to apprehend them come through his share in social life. The earliest ethical reflection has generally taken the form of a search for the highest good; and this is natural, for a man's first conscious effort to regulate his Action and own l^ e i s ^ e effort to attain some definite ideals end. The immediate concrete end of action is common to evidently a social fact No boy cultivates skill the Group. . / J in playing marbles when his companions dis- dain it ; a man seeks to run his loom well, or tell a story well, because these accomplishments are prized by the group of which he is a member. And the great ends which are gradually being worked out in society, often unconsciously so far as the members of society are con- cerned, can never be the property of a single person. It is true that they find their highest realisation in the person of individuals, but only because such individuals are the genuine product of society. Spencer distinguishes military societies and industrial societies ; others have added to this list an ethical type, now supposed to be in process of realisation. In each case the type is a social product. To take a particular example, each church 1 Many efforts of a rather absurd character have been made to deduce conscience from other iactors of the individual's psychical life ; the real reason for their failure is to be found in the fact that conscience is not developed by the interaction of a group of feelings and ideas, be they ever so altruistic, but rather by the interaction of gradually developing personalities. G 82 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. to-day has a special type of religious experience which it seeks to cultivate among its members, and when one's view is extended beyond the present century, these types vary even more widely. Members of a church have a similar religious life, because that type is the' social product and the social possession of their church. Thirdly, the group may truly be said to have its own emotional life. Nothing develops the sense of c T . individuality so distinctly as the feeling of Feeling joy or sorrow, of satisfaction, or of eager mark the desire, which man calls most peculiarly his p ' own ; yet even these are not his individual possession. He develops the capacity for them by his intercourse with his fellows ; the immediate occasion of any particular feeling is quite generally found in some particular relation to the human world of which he is a part; and, whatever its occasion, each new feeling has a tendency to communicate itself to all that come in contact with it. The communication of feeling, of course, takes place most readily when a body of persons is subject to the same exciting cause of feeling. Empty benches do not inspire an orator, and what is even more true, they do not inspire the scattered members of the audience. The revivalist preacher gets his audience to sing together, and the wave of common feeling will respond to appeals of another character. Enthusiasm is a social product, just as coals burn together. Common types of feeling have come to mark each age and each nation. There was an age of chivalry, an age called the New Birth, the Eenaissance, and there has been many an age marked by doubt and despair. A nation, too, may be described by its tone of feeling the French people are called witty, gay, and careless, having much spirit, and little power of perseverance ; North Germany is said to be marked by a melancholy dreaminess, and by great energy and devotion when the people are once roused. Such characterisations are likely to contain quite as THE SOCIAL MIND. 83 much falsehood as truth; yet the fact is recognised by every traveller, that the types of feeling in the peoples among whom he goes are different enough from what he has been accustomed to at home. The final characteristic of the individual's mental life is his self -consciousness ; he learns to feel the unity of Self-con- himself, as over against the unity of his sciousness world. In some cases, the social group is of the wholly without this recognition of a common lp< mental life. Those who speak the same language are hardly likely to perceive that they share a mental life in common ; the consciousness of it only arises when a man meets those with whom he can converse freely, after passing some time in lands where only a strange language is heard. The different industrial classes and social classes in a city only recognise the common life of the class, when this life is emphasised by contrast with some other type, or by conflict of class with class. The recognition of a common life and of common ends in life is the true basis of the unity of a social group; until this takes place, the unity is a possi- bility to be realised, the common life is only incipient. Sometimes physical separateness suggests the fact that a group has a unity of its own. Children feel that the family has a common life, since the life of the home is separated at so many points from all the rest of the world. Or pleasure in a certain set of companions may emphasise the unity of that particular set; as when a school develops a common life that is not limited to the intellectual side. Frequently pressure from outside throws men together, and makes them feel that their only interests are such as are common to the whole class. The efforts of labourers to secure what they regard as their rights, unite them by firm bonds into a " union," and favour the belief that the iadividual has no interest apart from the class. Thus a somewhat exaggerated self -consciousness is developed under pressure. Finally, 84 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. it may be said that every society formed with the purpose of encouraging and developing some form of common life, presupposes recognition of a common life already existing. A church is formed by persons who have recognised that they already share a common religious life ; the friends of " law and order " form a society because such a union aids them to act together, but doubtless they have long been conscious that they shared with each other common thoughts, feelings, and purposes. The recognition that the group is by nature a unity is more distinct, however, when some element of pur- Seif-con- P^ e underlies the union. When a society sciousness of is definitely formed to carry out a definite the Volitional purpose, its members are separated from the rest of the world, their common life is em- phasised as the basis of this separateness, and this is done by their choice. Under these circumstances, the consciousness of a common life, a common self, some- times becomes quite as vivid as the individual's self- consciousness. The industrial corporation develops the common life and the consciousness of it along narrow lines ; the family, at the opposite extreme, develops a common life along the whole range of human interests, and the self-consciousness of such a group .may easily eclipse the individual self-consciousness of husband or wife. , Every great crusade against ignorance, corruption, or evil of any form, every earnest effort to realise high ideals in the world, demands union among those who would carry it forward ; the voluntary group thus formed cannot fail to have a vivid consciousness of its common life. The question as to the unity of the social The Unity of . , . n , the Social mind becomes clearer when the nature or the Mind and of unity of the individual mind is considered. thelndi- T } le m j nd O f the individual is, indeed, the ' function of a particular physical structure; but its true unity is rather psychical than physical. THE SOCIAL MIND. 85 The mind is a unity because all thoughts, feelings, acts, are referred to a common subject in self-consciousness ; the consciousness of this subject is gradually developed, thoughts and feelings are gradually organised, voluntary acts are brought more under the influence of a definite ideal, until at length the unity of a person stands out clearly in all the complexity of mental life. It may, of course, be possible to find a sort of physical unity of the social group; the question is unimportant, for the real unity of mind is not a physical but a psychical matter. Such a psychical unity is developed in the social group, though the development is gradual, and takes place in different degrees. Wherever a group is subject to influences developing its common life, the common thoughts and beliefs and feelings are gradually organised into a complex unity, more definite ideas control the active life of the group, and the consciousness of the essential unity of the whole at length pervades the life of each member. A society is no mere conglomerate of men that are alike, no mere association which men may share or leave at will; the solidarity of the social group that has been indefinitely and imperfectly described by the word "organic," finds its true explanation in the psychical life of the group. " Social mind " and " Zeitgeist " are phrases easy to use, particularly easy to use without any definite mean- " Social * n - ^ n ^6 ^ rst P ar ^ ^ ^is cna P ter I have Mind" a simply attempted to give a definite concrete Concrete meaning to the former phrase, so that it could Phrase be profitably used to describe the psychical character of the social group. The different groups which go to make up society in a given nation or -a given race, are determined in various ways ; physical contiguity or desire for companionship may have been the original deciding factor; but the real unity of each group con- sists in the common mental life which is gradually acquired. This is the true statement of the essential 86 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. nature of a society. A group of men becomes really one as a common mental life is developed among them ; they learn to call themselves one when at length they recog- nise this common mental life. At this point the question naturally arises whether it is advantageous for society that this unity express itself in the outward form of some institution. The cry is often raised that our age spends its life in conventions, associations, and the like, while the ends which really demand our effort are obscured by the machinery for accomplishing them. Undoubtedly the machine is often a form which takes the place of real Jife ; too easily it becomes an end in itself, and so can no longer justify its own existence. Still those who raise this cry may forget that the forms of social activity are really becoming more widely differentiated in this age as in the ages that have pre- ceded it, and institutions are necessary to the new forms of common life. In spite of all the dangers that attend insti- tutions, where a genuine common life demands an outward organisation as the means for realising its ends, the utility of such an organisation can hardly be doubted. The only recognition of the dependence of the in- dividual mind on the social medium which appears in current thought, is indicated by the word Eelatioa of 8 ,, ' *. the Social environment. The doctrine of environ- Mind and the ment simply recognises the fact of this Individual dependence on the social medium, without Mind. 5 going on to study its meaning either for the individual or for society. Animal life involves a series of changes in correspondence with the changing circum- stances in which it is placed ; these circumstances are called its environment, accordingly it is correct to say that its life is in large measure determined by its en- vironment. The metaphor from biology has only a partial truth, when it is applied to minds in their relation to the social medium. Its truth consists in the fact of constant vital dependence which marks this relation ; its error is that it always seems to separate the individual from that of which he really forms a part. THE SOCIAL MIND. 87 In biology this error is unimportant, for social relations are the least essential part of the influences which effect the physical life of an organism. When, however, the figure is transferred to the psychical sphere, the error is unduly exaggerated ; the environment which is by far the most potent to mould the developing mind, is just that common psychical life of which the individual is a constituent factor. 1 Indeed, the psychical environ- ment is nothing but a series of such minds, and the whole question to be solved is the principle of their relation. The common life of a social group is essentially the union of the ideas, the wills, and the feelings of men The Social wno nave ^ een thrown together in the attain- Mind exists ment of common ends. Such a union arises as m and ft\e result of a psychical change of individuals through In- dividual composing the group, so that perhaps it is Minds com- fair to say that it consists of the common posmg it. features in the mental life of these individuals. Psychical life is no secretion of a single man's brain; psychical life means that different minds are working together in the same activity, and this psychical life is a common life of the group. The factors of the social group are indeed distinct, and their real independence increases as it has larger field with the increasing psychical life ; the mental life of the group exists in and through its members. In a word, the social mind has no existence outside the minds of the members of the group, and these individuals have no real mental life, except as they enter into the common life of which they form a part. In carrying out this doctrine, it is of course important to bear in mind that the group in which the individual finds and develops his psychical life, is ordinarily not simple, but very complex, and that this relation is in large measure independent of time. In conclusion, I desire to remind the reader that the 1 Zeitschrift fur Volkerpsycholoyie, III. S. 53. 88 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. social mind and all its powers are the product of associa- te Social tion. As individuals enter into the psychical Mind the relation described by this word, psychical life Product of i s developed at the same time for the members ciation. an( j f or the g rou p as a whole. Accordingly, every thing that favours a more active interrelation of nascent minds, favours equally the development of the social mind which is the essence of society. When groups or individuals, with different training, are brought in contact with each other, the conditions of progress are fulfilled, for progress is the broadening and deepening of common life. In the com- plex relations of modern society there exists the best basis for mental achievement which the world has as yet produced, for this complex life means the constant and energetic inter-activity of factors by nature very different. THE SCIENCE OF SOCIETY, AND THE SCIENCES OF MAN. The fundamental importance of the science of society is most clearly seen from the standpoint of the present chapter. In general terms, the close relation of sociology, psychology, and history, could be outlined in the introduction. At this point, the character of the interrelation of the sciences is made more definite, and the contribution of sociology to their progress can be more distinctly outlined. The study of the social mind, the mind of the social group, has already made it evident that a true science of history will deal , with groups rather than with individuals. It is true an^History, enough that the great man, the leader in historical especially the changes, is the heightened example of the type of History of a c } asg . motives and influences may be more easily Civilisation. , ^ . . . , , . , . detected by studying such an example, and forces at work in history may thus be presented to the student with greater vividness. The fact remains that the real source of political changes is to be found in the life of the nation, and of the classes composing the nation ; and the thorough student of history must be equipped with what sociology has to teach as to the nature of the social group. The more limited history of civilisation deals solely with the social group ; and, in fact, its whole aim is to give a THE SOCIAL MIND. 89 record of the growing content of the social mind, together with the causes of the growth. It starts with the recognition of the social mind, and its success is conditioned by a knowledge of the nature of this mind. It studies the developing civilisation of a particular group, and here, too, its success depends on a knowledge of the laws that govern the development of social groups in all their various aspects. Volumes have been written to show how the complex processes of the developed mind hare been evolved out of some simple process, that can be explained in terms of simple Sociology and L A the Genesis of nervous action in the brain. Sometimes the child's Psychical development has been made the basis of this study ; Processes. more commonly it has proceeded on hypothetical grounds ; the end remains the same, viz., to explain the evolution of complex psychical processes out of simple elements. Much of this labour would have been spared, or, at any rate, it would have been turned into a profitable channel, if the student had recognised that this evolution is not a feature of the individual mind, but of the social mind. The individual mind receives these capacities as a gift from its social environment ; more exactly, it develops these capacities by sharing more and more completely in the social mind of which it is destined to form a part. The manner in which it develops these capacities and processes may or may not imitate the manner in which they were originally acquired ; in any case, the true place to solve the problems of psychogenesis is in the history of the social mind, and not in the history of the individual mind. Even the theory of natural selection, with all the new light it has shed on this matter, does not permit the student to lose sight of the social group. Races, or groups of men, rather than individual men, are the units to the survival of which progress is due ; and in this process the social mind which enables the group best to meet the conditions of life, is favoured and developed. A glance at races in different stages of development is sufficient to show that the interest in particular objects, and the power to Attention and concentrate attention upon particular objects, varies Comparison, greatly. This interest and power the individual shares Generalisation, with the group, and the factors at work in its develop- ment can only be understood by a study of the group- life. In a word, the power of abstraction and attention is the result of association. As men and groups of men with different training and education are brought into living relation with each other, the same objects come to be regarded from different side?, until their individuality stands out with greater distinctness. Each member 90 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY, of the new group brings an interest in a slightly different set of things, so that the range of interest for the group is enlarged. Finally, natural selection tends to perpetuate each genuine acquire- ment in breadth of interest, and particularly in the power to apprehend individual things with greater distinctness and definite- ness. The evolution of the power of attention is to be studied in the social mind, for it originates here. Similarly the power of generalisation and classification is a social product, not to be explained by any study of the individual mind. Different stages of civilisation show this power in very different degrees. The savage can count up to five, or, perhaps, ten. The Australians, it is said, have a rich vocabulary of words for birds and fishes, but no general word for bird or fish. Some tribes of North American Indians had different words for "my father" and "your father," not having reached so abstract a word as " father." This habit of mind, like the habit of attention to particular objects, the individual gets from society by taking the place open to him in the mental life of the group. It is in the social mind that its genesis is to be studied, for it is a product of association. The very desire to communicate with one's fellows, and the evolution of language to which this desire leads, have a great influence in training the mind to neglect unimportant differences, and to seize on the deeper likeness. By the thought-intercourse of different social factors, a scientific idea of the world is gradually formed and filled out ; in this process the individual's powers are ever being quickened and developed. The contact and amalgamation of different groups, whatever quickens intercourse, will thus have its effect on the development of the psychical powers. Here, again, natural selection tends to perpetuate real acquirements, for a higher and truer idea of the world enables a tribe better to cope with the physical and psychical world in which it has to win a place for itself. Memory, too ; the power of judg- ment by which worth is assigned to the parts of one's world ; the power of choice ; these, and all men's psychical powers are developed in society, and so their genesis must be studied in society. Finally, the study of fundamental principles and the study of norms and ideals, has much to gain from a study of the social mind. Sociology and Experience presupposes some a priori conceptions or Logic and principles, and without these it is entirely impossible to Ethics. understand it. While it is true that these principles which underlie experience, are not developed in experience, it is no less true that the knowledge of them has been acquired gradually ; this process is to be studied in the history of the social mind. The existence of such a thing as universally valid experience, and of universal principles which underlie this experience, is perhaps the THE SOCIAL MIND. 91 clearest evidence of the function of the social mind. A fact is true when it commends itself not merely to one, but to every mind which has the same evidence before it, and the same power of judging. Truth means that the social mind, at a certain stage of development, accepts some ideas and beliefs as absolutely valid ; the principles underlying experience work in and through the social mind, and truth is the stamp of agreement with, these principles which is set on facts by the social mind. It is equally true that norms and ideals exist in the social mind, and work through it. These do not yet have universal validity, but, we say, they ought to be universally true. Duty is imposed by the social mind ; an action is right, and is required, when the social mind sets on it the stamp of agreement with the norms and ideals which characterise this phase of society. To say that a truth comes from the social mind, is not to condemn it but to give the immediate explanation of it. Further example is unnecessary to show that the sciences dealing with man are concerned fundamentally with the social mind. The partial neglect of this fact, in certain periods, has led to the false statement of problems, and false methods of investigation. CHAPTER V. CAUSES OF SOCIAL ACTIVITY. SOCIAL groups, as has already been shown, are properly functional in character, i.e., the groups are distinct from SociaiGroups eac ^ otner > an( ^ have an existence of their own, depend on because the members of them have formed the Social habit of acting together. Accordingly, it is Activities. necessar y to study the different modes of social activity, and the causes of this activity, before it is possible to understand the true character of the social groups thus formed. Those writers who have recognised this dynamic character of society have generally discussed the topics of the present chapter under the title "social forces," and in choosing a different term I may properly point out the misconception which I believe is involved in the use of the former one. Social force properly denotes the energy of a social group. This force is essentially the same, and is to be determined in the same way, for each of the Social Force * versus ' different kinds of social groups. A political stimuli to group is strong to contend with other groups, political or economic or moral, when the ele- ments which compose it are strong, and when these different elements can work harmoniously together. The energy of an economic corporation, or of a school of thought in the intellectual world, is to be determined in the same manner. In other words, the force or energy of a social group is something wholly independent of the kind of group ; and while the study of the force of social 92 CAUSES OF SOCIAL ACTIVITY. 93 bodies is very important, it sheds no light on the real nature of the different kinds of social groups, or on the structure of the society which they form. Social forces do not exist, but only social force, and the study of this force belongs to the study of the general composition of a social group. Finally, social force is to be predicated of the group as a whole ; social stimuli act upon indi- viduals, and may be called social only because they lead to social activity. All social activity may be traced back to motives felt by the individual ; and the character of the activity, as Needs of the we ^ as * ts i n ^ ens ^y> ^ s determined by the individual stimulus from which it springs. While social stimulate force is purely quantitative, the stimuli to the Social soc i a i activity are first of all qualitative, and Activities are distinguished by their different qualities. Inasmuch as all social activity finds its starting-point and stimulus in the individual, the present chapter will be a study of man's desires and emotions as social stimuli. The life of society is so bound up with the life of the units which compose it, that a study of the individual's motives to action leads directly to the different forms of activity which characterise society. In general, the stimuli to social activity may be classi- fied as original and derived. The first class includes Classification those needs and emotions which are practically of Social universal, and which do not depend on a de- stimuli, veloped state of society for their existence. The derived stimuli include such needs and emotions as imply a somewhat advanced state of society, and only arise in the course of social development. The first class will include (a) the need of food and clothing, which gives rise to the sensations of hunger and of cold, (b) the need of protection against one's fellow-men, which occasions the feeling of fear; and (c) the need of com- panionship, and the emotions associated with the relation of individual men. The activity due to these stimuli 94 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. will vary exceedingly in the course of social development, but these needs of men remain the basis of all life in society. The second class may be called derived stimuli, for social life itself develops new desires, and these in turn lead to higher forms of social activity. Under this head, may be included aesthetic desires, intellectual needs, the need of moral approval, and, finally, the need of religious communion. The need of food is the original spur to social activity, and the last to lose its force. It was undoubtedly true . of early man, as it is true of wolves and vul- A 1. Need of J Food as a tures, that they joined in the pursuit of food stimulus whenever the greater results thus obtained to Social compensated for the difficulty of getting along Activity. V ^ , vv i together. Koots may be grubbed up and fruits gathered in their season by scattered individuals, but there are few animals which man could capture unarmed and alone. Tools can only be evolved and transmitted in society, and every permanent gain in the battle for sustenance must have been due to combined activity. The domestication of animals and the culti- vation of grains was possible only when man had learned to depend on his neighbour for constant aid as well as for protection. The need of food in constant supply and in sufficient variety has always led to associated activity, for it could only be satisfied by such associated activity. The same need has always continued to be a factor in social progress, because the more highly developed society is, the better it is able to meet the economic needs of its members. The need of protection against cold and wet is hardly less important than the need of food, in its effect on social Need of activity and on social progress. The common Protection form of clothing among the more primitive against Cold tribes is the skin of an animal, and in order an wet. ^ Q Q^^^ j^ several individuals have joined in the hunt. The rude cloth, which in many places CAUSES OF SOCIAL ACTIVITY. 95 succeeded fur as a garment, was both a social invention and a social product. Again, men come to need a dwell- ing, though caves and trees may serve the purpose for a while. The form of this dwelling is gradually perfected in society, and transmitted in social tradition. Generally the dwelling is put up by the group, requiring associated activity to produce it. Moreover the house is not in- habited by one man alone, but by a family or a group of families. Thus the need of protection against cold and wet tends to bring a group into closer and closer relations, until these units have sufficient solidarity to become factors in some permanent larger group. The dwelling has also an important influence on the character of the social group, in that it is the beginning of privacy. Neither virtue nor the individuality which virtue implies is possible when men live together without means of seclusion. This means of seclusion the dwelling may furnish, so that it may fittingly be called the beginning of civilisation. Man is the only animal so far as known which uses fire. Fire is important in satisfying both man's need of suitable food and his need of protection Sociaiiser a g ams t cold. In this latter capacity it serves the same purpose as the dwelling-house in bringing men together, and teaching them to enjoy each others society. Its warmth is genial, in that it renders those who gather about it genial toward each other and fond of each other's society. For every age the hearth is the symbol of the home. Somewhat difficult to obtain and to preserve, fire is distinctly a social possession, and those who would enjoy it must remain members of society. With the beginning of a proper economic activity, the need of food and of protection against cold and wet became even more potent factors in producing an active social life. This economic activity generally began with the introduction of slavery. Warriors preserved 96 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. their captives when they produced more food than they Need of food carr i ec ^ on their bones. The economic needs and clothing which formerly had been satisfied by labour or as Economic by plunder, now led to the introduction of that great institution which has been the starting- point of human culture. 1 When once slavery became general, masters had the possibility of leisure for other forms of activity, and the complex fabric of truly human society began to arise. The same needs which led to the introduction of slavery contributed to sustain it. The master provided his slaves with food and clothing, they gathered about his hearth as members of his household, he possessed the fire where they found protection against the cold. Thus the patriarchal household was secure and stable because in its life master and slave alike found these fundamental needs satisfied. In the whole course of industrial progress these original needs of man have remained the strongest and most These Needs universally potent, and to-day they are still the Basis of fundamental. In regions naturally barren, or Society. where social conditions have made it difficult to secure sustenance, the higher forms of society have never prospered. Only when men are fed and warmed have they any leisure or interest for higher social activi- ties. And those who deal with the degenerate classes learn to appreciate the force of these needs as spurs to progress. The most hopeless cases are those which prac- tically have no standard of living and are ready to accept whatever fortune brings. The first work of the man who would help such cases is to make them feel new needs, to make them dissatisfied with having nothing, that, in the effort for something, the habit of effort may be formed. Upon these fundamental stimuli depends the whole industrial fabric. They are as potent to rouse men to activity when each individual performs some slight part 1 Article "Slavery," in Encyclopaedia Britannica. CAUSES OF SOCIAL ACTIVITY. 97 in preparing goods for the world -market, as when a These Needs sava e provides the food of a savage for him- as stimuli to self and his family. Stupendous economic in- developed stitutions have been called into being, the whole Activity world has become one vast society for the production and interchange of goods, and the stimuli which have given rise to the whole and still keep it in motion are these simple needs of man's physical nature. The economic structure is as universal as these needs practically no one can separate himself from it and live. And it will appear later that this structure is the basis of the higher forms of social life. Political life and the state have arisen in the effort to defend property as well as life. The economic struggle for existence has become fairly an intellectual struggle, and mind is de- veloped in the effort to maintain a position in the economic world. Moral rules and aesthetic ideals are not independent of economic life, but are rather its off- spring. Thus with the development of society the power of these needs becomes greater, the activity occasioned by _.., _ them grows more varied, and the range of this Wider Range . & of Activity activity is increased. The savage eats when stimulated he has game, and takes no thought of another meal in the future; hunger comes over him, and once more he feels an impulse stimulating him to activity. The civilised man feels the constant power of these stimuli, and all his life is governed with reference to the satisfaction of these needs as they recur. And with complex society these needs are no longer satisfied by what will merely sustain life and protect the body from extremes of temperature. Society has created a higher "standard of living" as it is called, and that determines the food and the clothing that are needed. The number of courses absolutely necessary for dinner depends on rank in society ; fashion decides what clothing is required ; the dwelling-house is not for protection but H 98 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. for " comfort." Under the altered conditions the activity stimulated by these needs changes its entire character. In order to supply the new needs more activity is neces- sary, and activity in a far greater and more complex social organisation. They can only be satisfied in a stable organisation, so that as they become more complex men hesitate more and more before lending countenance to schemes subversive of the existing social order. Finally, the ideals associated with the " standard of living " have an important influence in shaping other forms of social activity than the economic. The second original social stimulus is the need of protection against one's fellow beings. In all stages of society, but particularly in the lower, hostile 2. Need of . a , A . , Protection mn uences surround man. An animal must against have some means of defence, either strength Fellow-men to fight or speed to run away. Man lives in as a Social manv quarters of the globe where neither his Stimulus. J . speed nor his strength of arm can protect him from his foes. He must rely on some higher means of defence or perish ; and it is only as men fight in groups, and with the reason that is developed and transmitted by mutual intercourse, that they can hope to subdue to themselves the beasts of the field. But the worst foe of man is man himself. Under peculiar circumstances, some savage races have lived in such small and fluid groups that, on the whole, they have succeeded in avoid- ing each other. Ordinarily this is impossible, and man lias found protection from his fellows by uniting with his fellows. We find the same process as in the for- mation of physical units ; the component parts form temporary and ever-changing alliances in their ceaseless competitions with each other. For man protection means defensive strength ; and the need of this leads to union, to the beginnings of a common life that may become political. Such groups, with strength to defend the individual, are a necessity, and expulsion from the tribe CAUSES OF SOCIAL ACTIVITY. 99 may amount to a sentence of death. This need of protection manifests itself in the emotional life as fear, and the fear of hostility has come to have, as a part of its very being, the instinct for union, so that nothing is so potent as fear to kindle delight in the presence of others. Many savage tribes only unite in the presence of a common danger, and fear is always a potent force in developing functional bonds of union. The degree of strength (defensive or offensive) which a tribe is likely to attain, is in large measure determined by the demands made on it. The phrase, This Need ,,11 e i i Varies with balance of power, has scarcely any meaning the Position in the politics of savage tribes ; to find a place of the among strong tribes, a tribe must itself be strong, else it cannot preserve its indepen- dence. Nor is a tribe likely to develop great strength among weak neighbours ; where pressure from outside is lacking, an empire may break up through the very repulsion of its parts, so soon as the military power which constructed it grows weak. Thus the form in which this need of protection is met, is determined by natural selection. Strength is developed according to the need, and the tribe that fails to develop it goes to the wall. The rude political body thus formed as a protection for life, is a most important social unit. It is the germ The Early f the state, and under the protection of its state meets growing power we may expect to find the this Need, beginnings of true economic life, and the more rapid advancement of social and psychical life. In this group the individual finds, in the first place, protection from outside, a little world in which ordinarily he can live at peace; and such peace is the first condition of progress. Secondly, he is obliged to cultivate a modus vivendi with his fellows who are members of the same little world. Here we find the beginnings of property ; men agree to respect certain possessions of their neigh- loo INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. Lours. Here also are to be found the beginnings of law and rights, and perhaps the beginnings of ethics. With the development of society, the function of protection becomes even more important than at first, Need of ^ or ^ e n ^S ner stages of culture depend abso- Protection in lutely upon such a shelter from outside attack Developed as is afforded by the state. A higher civilisa- Civihsation. ^ Qn ^ ag go mucn more a t stake, as it rises from lower stages, that those who prize it will sacrifice correspondingly more to shelter it. Undoubtedly the cost of government is excessively great to-day, but comparatively few murmurs are heard against this. The debt of civilisation to the state takes form in the sentiment of patriotism, which is gradually developed as the strongest support of the state, and we only know the strength of this sentiment when some danger im- pends. At the same time the state continues to protect a man from his neighbours, for it is this need of protection Greater which keeps in motion the whole apparatus of need of law, both legislative and judiciary. Here the Protection stimulus has increased both in range and in withm the intensity. It is stronger to-day, for more is at stake. In primitive society it is a day's work only that may be stolen ; while now the accumulations of generations are to be protected by law. Its range is largely increased. The chief of a primitive tribe only gives advice which may aid in the settlement of disputes, and a man has hardly any rights which his neighbour is bound to respect. The individual's rights, with the liberties and the duties which they imply, are even to-day increasing rapidly in the highest civilisations we know ; and there is a corresponding increase in what society may undertake in securing to the individual his rights. Apart from all question as to the proper fields of state activity, the functions of the police and of the courts in the mere exercise of protection are many-fold CAUSES OF SOCIAL ACTIVITY. 101 greater than they were two or three centuries ago in civilised Europe. 1 The whole range of political activity goes back for its fundamental stimulus to the simple need of protection. This is not the place to trace in detail the emotions which at all times have determined man's attitude toward 3 Emotions ^ s feU ws - But while these emotions have as Causes not resulted in definite social institutions, of Social their influence has been felt as an aid 1 or a c ivi y. hindrance in all forms of activity, and in the development of all kinds of institutions. From the stand- point of sociological investigation, they may naturally be divided into two classes : the self-regarding, such as envy and anger ; and those which centre 011 others sympathy, friendship, and love. The conditions of primitive society favoured the de- velopment of self-regarding emotions, and did not supply ,. the checks which in later times have restrained (a.) Sell- regarding their operation. Egoism is a universal attri- Emotions in bate among savage races, and in many Primitive countries the strained effort to procure suste- Society. nance does not permit man to forget himself. Anger, not being subject to the restraints of later times, seems to be only destructive of justice; but anger becomes revenge, and, historically, revenge is the strong tap-root of what is to become justice. Envy and rivalry generally seem to be destructive of the slow-growing habits of civilisation. Envy of another's prosperity is a motive to slay him, until the prosperous man comes to fear even the envy of the gods. Kivalry between two tribes has often prolonged their feuds until both were crippled. And yet the activity produced by these stimuli has frequently been the very thing necessary lor progress ; for unless this or some other equally potent force had roused men from the inertia of the savage, and had broken the habit which had beconife a barrier to progress, 1 Leroy-Beaulieu, The Modern State, Bk. III. ch. ii. 102 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. a tribe would have fallen a victijn to the very progress it had made in the past. As civilisation has advanced, the destructive effects of anger and revenge have been in a measure controlled. Self- Justice is supposed to have passed beyond the regarding stage of vigilance committees and lynching. Emotions in None the less, the arm of justice still depends' Developed Qn a r jorht e0 iis anger to stimulate its action, Society. . . and it is only the coward who does not resent an insult. To-day rivalry and ambition are forces mighty to determine the lives of men and the course of society. Business life and political life are ruled by the desire to succeed ; scholars and artists pursue knowledge and art for their own personal ends ; and too often the highest forms of activity are marred by most petty jealousies. So the love of acquisition, vanity and the love of display, the love of praise, the whole list of self -regarding emotions, are stimuli to social activity; and the current of social life is directed by the feelings of individuals. It is unnecessary to dwell on the importance of sympathy and the love of companionship as stimuli to (6). General social activity. In their lowest form they are sympathetic manifested as sympathetic fear and sym- Emotions. pathetic pleasure; a group of men share the fear of one, or the glad state of one is infectious and determines the mood of all. The faculty of imitation is related to this form of sympathy ; we all have a tendency to act out what we think and what we see others doing, so that modes of action as well as feelings tend to spread through the group. Important as this instinctive sym- pathy is in uniting the primitive group and rendering it homogeneous, it is very far from the distinctly human love of companionship. The higher forms of friendship depend on personality, and personality is developed in society. The lower love of companionship manifests itself to-day in the club, and in many of the forms of activity known as " polite society." Friendship and love CAUSES OF SOCIAL ACTIVITY. 103 are higher developments of this emotion, and unite smaller groups in a closer, more permanent, union. Besides these general sympathetic emotions there are others, more or less closely associated with the sexual (c) Sym- instinct, which have as their object particular pathetic individuals. This class of emotions is by far Emotions ^IQ mos t direct stimulus to social activity, for towards ^ results in the family. The extent of the particular social group thus formed varies widely, and its individuals. character changes with its extent. It may consist of but two, who find special delight in each other's society. Among animals, as well as among men, it in- cludes also the offspring, for the young must be protected and fed. Finally the family clan may include all who believe they are descended from common parentage. The clan based on blood-relationship has quite generally preceded the tribe as the conserver of culture and the administrator of justice, so that the tie of blood has opened the way for various and most important social activities. The emotions connected with the sexual instincts are but the starting-point for the unity of the family, for the Broad reach individuals who are thus brought together of Emotions enter into new and broader relations. The developed in family proper constitutes a unit in which the different members perform different functions for the good of the whole. The "parental instinct," fostered by dependent children, increases indefinitely the power of the stimuli to economic and political activity already considered. The new relations of the family are the most powerful stimulus impelling man to look beyond the present and to provide for emergencies in the future ; and they are also a stimulus impelling him to look above the present. The family develops the habit of provi- dence and the habit of progress. In every stage of social development family interests are the strongest stimulus to activity for the good of others. Brother is ready to 104 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY die for brother, or the mother for her child, long before duties to a man as a man are recognised. Nor is there ever any stronger motive to the sacrifice of self for another than the love that is developed in the family. As civilisation advances, family life gains in power as a stimulus to social activities. Everything pure and noble centres in the home, and the relations of the family are the truest stimulus to the higher forms of activity, the intellectual, the moral, and the religious, activities. The non-essential or derived stimuli to social activity differ from those already discussed in that they are not so B. universal, and that their power seems to be Non-essential (j ue j n } ar rp e measure to civilisation itself. or derived . Social They exist only for men and for societies stimuli. which have developed the faculty of reason. In a highly developed state of society they may far exceed the lower stimuli in power, and even become the basis of society. The aesthetic desires of man, his love of the beautiful which is satisfied only by the perception of beautiful things, are important stimuli to social activity. 1. TheLoveof r . the Beautiful The sense of the beautiful is developed m leads to society, and remains a social possession. The desire to express ideals in forms of sense, and to make beautiful objects, leads to much social activity. The creation of ideals requires a know- ledge of the deepest problems of life, and obliges the artist to be in a large sense a social man. He must be in touch with life, or his work will not be living. While the stimulus comes from the deep appreciation of truth, the form in which the ideal is seen and in which it may be expressed, is no private possession. The artist must find artist companions ; the effort to create what is beautiful leads to peculiar types of social activity and of social classes. The power to appreciate beautiful objects is also a social possession, and stimulates social activity. Beautiful CAUSES OF SOCIAL ACTIVITY. 105 paintings and the products of plastic art cannot be fully known except by those who go over the civilised world to see them face to face. Yet to-day the dissemination of accurate reproductions has become a very important industry in itself. The drama is written for an audience to share. Music shows its real power when it makes a thousand hearers as one man, and takes full possession of this soul. A share in the same ideals, whatever be the form of their expression, produces new intimacies among individuals, and new social groups are directly formed as the result. The reaction of this love of the beautiful on the stimuli already considered cannot be overlooked. These desires presuppose the satisfaction of the lower ve needs before they have a real opportunity affects the to assert their power. Accordingly, the Ordinary cultivation of these higher needs is the most vital stimulus to satisfy lower needs, and, as it were, to set them aside. Two results have been noted from the attempt to introduce art education among the lower classes in England. 1 In the first place, even moderate success has resulted in a most powerful stimulus to shake off habits of poverty and inertia. Men who could make time for the satisfaction of higher needs, received just the necessary encourage- ment to do this. And, secondly, the recognition of the ideal in forms of sense has at times, even as Plato suggests, opened men's eyes for the higher truth in some of its other forms. Any genuine love of the beautiful modifies the whole of life. Men's intellectual needs are no small factor 2. Intellec- tual Needs in determining the character and intensity of lead to social life. The strength of these needs is shown by the institutions for the propaga- ActivitVt tion of truth, by institutions for investiga- tion, and by the intellectual intercourse to which 1 V. Bosanquet. Essays and Addresses, London, 1891, pp. 25 sqq. io6 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. they give rise. The first class of institutions include the school, the platform, and the press. They exist simply to satisfy man's need of truth, and of a mind developed to know the truth. We believe that the child should start in life with a certain mental equipment ; and the needs thus developed are a constant stimulus to intellectual intercourse, else they would be hardly worth developing. The second class of institutions express this need in a yet stronger form. The scholar studies for himself, because the spirit within him can only be satisfied by a constantly enlarging view of truth. And he studies for society ; the intellectual world awaits the communication of his discoveries. Every advance in literature or in science widens man's interests, and strengthens his need of truth. Society, in both the lower and higher forms of its activity, is profoundly affected by this stimulus. It is unnecessary to treat in detail the need of moral approval and the need of moral association, or the need of religious communion, as stimuli to social and activity. In some finely constituted minds Religious the sense of right and duty seems to be the Needs Lead only spring of activity. Apparently they can *^. ocia dispense with the stimulus due to any lower need, and even with the support to be drawn from communion with a higher power. The friendship based on love for the same moral ideals is one of the highest, purest, forms of friendship. The power of moral ideals to stimulate and control social life, is shown almost as clearly in the lower as in the higher stages of society. So man's need of religious communion with God, and religious association with his fellows, has always brought men together in common worship of God. The power of this motive is evident only when all the influence of culture and all the authority of the state have been exerted to prevent its normal expression in religious activity. But when it is allowed to develop in normal CAUSES OF SOCIAL ACTIVITY. 107 religious life, the institutions to which it gives rise and their influence on every side of social life, are a con- stant evidence of its social importance. Like the moral ideal, but with a more personal appeal, the religious need claims the right to absorb all the others and to stamp its impress on them. ' It so governs and con- trols the whole of life, that the history of religion may almost claim to be the history of society. To these various stimuli affecting the individuals who compose society, is due the life and activity of society. Two things are clear as the result of this discussion. First, the life of society centres in individuals ; and these two factors, society and indi- viduals, can only be understood by studying them as interacting factors. Secondly, the different forms of social activity, and the different social aggregates arising in each form, should be classified according to the simple stimuli to which each form of activity is due. CHAPTEE VI. THE MODES OF SOCIAL ACTIVITY. THE student desiring to understand the complex life of society and the lines of its development, finds himself Variety of i n difficulty at the outset, because of the con- Social fused variety of phenomena that present Phenomena, themselves to him. The first work of the new science of society, the classification of social phe- nomena, has not yet been done with any success. Earlier writers spoke of family, church, and state as the funda- mental social units ; for Comte, the individual, the family, and " society " are the social organs ; and Spencer would classify social activities and institutions according to the three " systems " of organs found in the higher animals. Frequently these classifications have involved the logical error of division according to more than one principle; but, apart from logical blunders, students of society have conspicuously failed to agree on any one classification, and this failure (to agree on some common foundation) has proved almost fatal to any real progress in the science. The scientific value of a true classification lies not so much in its convenience, or in its function as the basis of The Genetic anv successful union among students im- Principie of portant though these undoubtedly are as in Classification. the fact that it re p re sents in itself the funda- mental relations of the phenomena under consideration. Almost any sort of classification serves the former pur- 108 THE MODES OF SOCIAL ACTIVITY. 109 pose to some extent, but the theory of evolution has wrought a great change in the logic of natural science, by demonstrating that there is one really natural method of classification. If organisms of different species have sprung from one common stock, the genetic relation between them, wherever it can be discovered, determines the true, the natural classification. The evolution of social activities and social institutions bears a consider- able resemblance to the evolution of organisms ; and if complex social phenomena can be traced back to a few simple sources, it will give the key to the genetic classifi- cation which a natural science seeks. 1 In the last chapter it was shown that man's needs and emotions were the causes of social activity, and that these The ciassifi- stmiu li to social life were comparatively simple cation of and easily classified. Following this clue, we Social can give without hesitation the classification Phenomena. of gocial act i v i t j, es according to the stimuli from which they spring, in the following four groups : (1) Economic, (2) "Social" (including domestic), (3) Political (and legal), (4) Psychical. Social groups arise in the performance of definite social activities, and the most important bond of union consists of their common function (chap, iii.), consequently the principle for the classification of social activities is at the same time the principle for the classification of social groups. And social institutions, as I hope to show in the present and the following chapters, are in reality habits of some phase of social activity ; their influence extends far beyond the activities in which they arise, but they are classified according to the same principle as the forms of social activity. Finally, the complex forms of social activity can more easily be reduced to the simple forms from which they are derived, when the student is guided by 1 1 have discussed the question of the classification of social phenomena more fully in an article in the Bibliutheca Sacra for January, 1896. i io INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. the principle that has been stated. In this way we can hope to reach a classification of social phenomena that is final (for the present state of our knowledge), a classifi- cation that will prove the basis for common study of social life and the starting-point for a more complete understanding of social life. The fundamental mode of social activity is the economic or industrial. The need of food, which man shares with I The ^ e an i ma l > khe ntie d f protection against Economic c ld an d we ^, on which life itself depends ; Mode of and all the various modifications of these simple needs, which were considered in the preceding chapter, are the sources of this activity. It is as universal as are the simple needs of human nature, though its influence on other forms of social life is no doubt very different in crabbed northern climates from what it is in prolific lands near the equator. In the lowest forms of society which we can conceive if indeed we can call it society these needs cannot lead to any definite and lasting social activity. They are indeed present in full power ; but each individual or social group satisfies them as best it may; one eats the food he gets, and wears the skins he has prepared, but the economic form of social life hardly exists as yet. There is no value, for exchange has not begun ; no wealth, for each individual or clan simply satisfies its own needs without coming into comparison with anyone else ; true social life, really human life, exists only in germ. When circulation intervenes between the production of what satisfies want, and its immediate consumption, it is The Else of possible to speak of a true economic activity Economic of society. The simple bond of exchange Activity. unites men, at first rarely and for a brief moment, then more regularly and more permanently, in a common activity for the satisfaction of economic needs. The stimulus still acts on individuals, but it leads them to work together, till all that each one does must be con- THE MODES OF SOCIAL ACTIVITY. in sidered from the social standpoint as part of the in- dustrial activity of society. The needs are still universal, and the resulting social activity embraces the whole of society. No one escapes from it, for no one is free from the need of food and clothing ; no one can really isolate himself from the social activity that meets these needs, for the industrial activity of society is modified by the attitude of each individual toward it. The social activity resulting from economic needs, then, is coextensive with society, and every individual has his place in the economic or industrial life of society. The economic mode of social activity develops simul- taneously in three phases, which are commonly known as Three phases production, circulation, and consumption. The of Economic special science dealing with economic phe- Activity. nomena naturally considers these phases in the above order. It studies the production of goods, and traces them from their economic origin to their economic end. The science of society is concerned not with goods but with persons, so that it treats the subject in a different order. In the history of culture wealth begins with exchange, not with production ; it is the circulation of commodities which first unites individuals or groups in a common activity that deserves the name economic. For sociology circulation is the fundamental fact; con- sumption, or the working of the economic motives, the second fact to be considered ; chronologically as well as logically, production is to be considered last. Circulation is based on the fact that men are different ; different in their nature and capacities, and different in (a). Circuia- their surroundings. The needs of any one are tion. most easily met when several unite, each to supply what he is best able, to this end. Historically the supply of such a mineral as salt, or the possession of a good fishing-ground, or some other abundant source of food, commonly furnished the motive to meet the want of other things by exchange. So soon as society was 112 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. stable enough to permit the development of farther differences in skill, the range of exchange was much widened. Exchange, the circulation of goods, is the fundamental form of economic activity. It determines the limits of an economic society, and the structure of a larger economic group is mainly due to this phase of its common activity. The second phase of economic activity is ordinarily called "consumption." The "consumption of goods" (ft). Con- means for the economist the obtaining of sumption. goods from a market, and the devoting of them to the satisfaction of the want or desire which they were intended to satisfy. The importance of this branch of economics to the sociologist is due to the fact that here is the point where the economic stimuli find their application in producing economic activity. Economically it is the " desire to consume " that leads men to exchange what they possess, to produce for the purpose of exchange, and thus to obtain what they need. The study of the needs men feel, and the degree to which they feel them, is the direct key to an understanding of the particular forms of economic activity. Thirdly, economic activity is to be studied from the standpoint of production. Production for a market is (c). Produc- the direct result of the utility of exchange ; tion. men undertake to meet a market demand when that is the surest way of meeting their own needs. The possibility of the development of exchange, and of economic consumption, lies just here ; as production for a market develops and controls industrial life, circulation increases its range, and economic solidarity results from the increasing dependence of each individual on the society in which he lives his industrial life. The pro- duction of the goods men use is so much more of an affair than the exchange of goods or their consumption, that naturally the organisation of society for production, the so-called industrial organisation in the stricter sense THE MODES OF SOCIAL ACTIVITY. 113 of the term, sets its mark on all economic activity, and indeed on all the life of society. The three phases of economic activity must be con- sidered in another chapter more in detail, in order to Economic understand their development and their social Activity, importance. At this point I desire to empha- Groups 1 , s i se t| ie f ac t t na k economic stimuli cause an Institutions. ** M p j. i -n <- economic activity of society, embracing all of society because the needs in question exist for every individual. Economic activity appears in three phases, and in each phase particular groups are formed to per- form particular functions in each phase special institu- tions arise to meet special ends. The economic group like other social groups, is to be understood only from the standpoint of its function in the universal economic life of a society. The economic institution is in reality a habit of economic activity, and it accomplishes even more in facilitating and extending this activity than do the habits of the individual man, out of which grows his entire power to accomplish the ends he sets before him. The economic life of society proceeds from a few definite sources, and continues to depend on springs of Economic activity that are not difficult to analyse; it Activity and can be studied by itself, as is proved by the other forms existence of a science of economics. And yet cm i e. ^ ( j oeg no j. ex ^ st by it se if ; it is so closely interlinked with the "social" and domestic organisation of society, that neither the "social" nor the economic organisation of society can be truly explained when they are studied alone. Political influences favour or hinder economic development; the state rests back on the industrial life that a people has developed. Psychical life arises as an offshoot of the common life by which man's simplest needs are met, and at length supplies new motive and wiser direction to economic activity. In a word, economic activity springs from definite motives, and so it may be studied by itself ; but these motives are I 114 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. so interlaced with a variety of other motives in the man himself, that no one form of the activity in which he engages can be said to exist independently or can be understood independently. The second general standpoint from which the activity of society may be studied, deserves the name social in a II The special sense. All of society, as we have seen, "Social" falls into economic classes and has an econo- Activity of m [ c }if e - similarly all of society falls into social 16 y ' classes, classes for closer social intercourse, and such intercourse constitutes its distinctly social life. This social life also has its own peculiar stimuli, namely, the emotions and interests which draw a man to one neighbour, and repel him from another. The domestic life which results from these emotions, together with the emotions associated with the sexual and the parental instinct, is but one form of the general social life of the community. In fact, the family life is not directly included in what is known as " society," for in the close union of home life, members of the family easily lose that peculiar stimulus which comes from the contact of minds that contribute something new and fresh to each other in conversation. In broader social intercourse the mind is forcibly lifted out of common ruts, and quickened by new ideas and new points of view ; the desire for this new life gives rise to the distinctly social activity of society, and in this activity social groups are formed and social institutions arise. While there is usually some likeness to begin with among those who join in social intercourse, their associ- The charac- a ^ e( ^ ^ e can ^ u ^ result in a growing assimila- ter of the tion. The social group is a nursery of common "Social" habits, and it is these habits or customs which distinguish the group with increasing clearness from other allied groups. The common customs consti- tute the character of the group; they may become the key of admission, since those who have the habits which THE MODES OF SOCIAL ACTIVITY. 115 distinguish a particular class are easily received into the common activity of that class. Herein lies the value of rules of etiquette and ceremonial forms, for unless such forms facilitate social intercourse and bind men together in social classes, they are worse than useless. A more important characteristic of these social groups is the social ideals, ideals of politeness, of accessibility, liberality, and respect for others, which are developed in this social intercourse. Of these social groups the family is the only one which has become really definite and fixed, and to the discussion of this it is necessary to devote a follow- ing chapter. The social club, and all the " associations ** and "societies" of the present day, utilise the social desires, but frequently their main end is not distinctly social. The classes in what is generally known as society, or polite society, are the real groups for "social" life; and the " social scale " is one name for the social structure of a community. The customs and conventions which mark the social group may be described as habits of activity in the social Cust m the or g an i sm - They are a social fact, though their Fundamental point of application is the individual. The Type of all rise and fall of custom, and the authority of Social custom, constitute the most important question Authority. . , , . . A or social evolution ; it concerns the very nature of the group which becomes the proper unit of society. In developed society the line is not always sharply drawn between social duties and excellencies on the one hand, and moral duties and ideals on the other. Eeligious requirements, moral rules, la\vs enforced by the state, and customs enforced by social sanction, have sprung from the same root; the differentiation of these require- ments and their respective sanctions has not been fully accomplished even yet. The character of social life, and the material or content of custom, is undoubtedly deter- mined by the degree of civilisation. Social life may, perhaps, begin as a mere animal gregariousness ; with the ii6 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. reign of physical force, a rude political character may distinguish social life ; where economic interests are fore- most, social intercourse will bear an industrial stamp; the school and the press mean that social intercourse has risen to the intellectual plane, and the church, that such intercourse may rise to the religious plane. The relation of the distinctly social activity of the community to its psychical life is clear from the preceding paragraph : the intellectual, and the moral, and Relation of f "Social" ^ ne Wligioua lire oi a community are largely Activity specialisations of this social life. Accordingly, to other where a genuine social life is vigorous and orms o intense, conditions favour the development of the psychical life. In like manner, this social activity lies at the basis of political activity. The race, i.e., those who regard themselves as related to each other by reason of their common language, common customs, etc., is a social development ; and the nation always tends to become coincident with the race. The rules enforced by the power of the state are not different in kind ; often they do not differ in origin from the rules of custom whicli "society" enforces by its own peculiar sanction. Social activity is as universal and as fundamental as economic activity. Association in industrial pursuits both presupposes the faculty of association, and largely assists in developing this faculty. Social customs are a great bulwark of industry to render the industrial world stable ; social classes and industrial classes so far corres- pond, that the two relations work together in harmony to produce a fuller and richer common life within the group. The third form of social activity, according to the above classification, is the political. The stimulus to III. Political which this form of activity is due, is the need Activity of of protection, and the fear of hostile powers. Society. This stimulus has assumed a double form. It includes first the need of protection for the political group as a whole, and leads to the organisation of society THE MODES OF SOCIAL ACTIVITY 117 in such wise as to protect the tribe or the state from incursion or attack by other political groups. It includes also the need of protection within the tribe itself, and this leads to the recognition of such individual rights, and the development of such restraining laws, as best conduce to the unity and strength of the whole body. Accordingly, the political activity of society is the con- stant readjustment of the government to new internal conditions, and the adjustment of the state's military and diplomatic service to new external conditions. The various and complex forms which this activity assumes, centre in one all-embracing institution, the state. This topic is so important that the discussion of it is deferred to a separate chapter ; and, inasmuch as political activity and political structure really form one question, they will be discussed together. At this point, it only remains to speak of the relation of the political activity of society to the other forms of social activity. In a sense, the political life of a society may be regarded as the outcome of all the various forms of ,. social activity, and the focus in which they Political Life J> . J and other meet. Ihe nation has often seemed the most Modes of perfect social unit, and sociology has been described as a political science, or even as the political science. In time past, the industrial market has frequently coincided with the nation; the idea of humanity has been limited by the confines of the race and the nation, so that social life, and all the higher psychical life, were but phases of the people's national life. A state is no longer coincident with society, but industry continues to depend on the state for the pro- tection of those who engage in it ; common political interests are a powerful factor in the social world ; while the protection of a strong government is necessary for the higher developments of psychical life, and the type of government always reacts on the character of the moral and intellectual life. Ii8 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. Finally, the activity of society may be studied as a psychical activity. The stimuli to which this activity is IV Ps chical ^ ue aes t-hetic, intellectual, moral, and religious Activity of needs have been described in the preceding Society. chapter as the non-essential or derived stimuli. 1. Aesthetic. The love of the beautiful and the desire to enjoy beautiful things produce the aesthetic activity of society, the activity which arises in connection with the production and the appreciation of beautiful things. It gives rise to institutions such as the schools of art, in which a master's habits descend to his pupils and perhaps open the way for new creative masters; schools in which lovers of beauty are trained to see the beautiful in par- ticular forms and under particular conditions. These institutions are simply habitual ways in which the master creates, and his audience appreciates, the expression of beauty. They are social habits. Similarly, the need of intellectual intercourse, and the desire to know the truth, is the stimulus to the intellec- 2 intellec- ^ual activity of society. This intellectual tual Activity activity follows habitual modes, and thus and institu- gives rise to the institiitions for intellectual tions. intercourse which were mentioned in the last chapter. The platform and the press are such institu- tions for the spread of truth, while the university is intended to be an institution for research. But the intellectual activity of society is by no means limited to institutions of this sort, for it enters as one element into all social intercourse. Indeed, differences in the degree and character of intellectual training, are one of the most important factors in the differentiation of social classes. The sense for beauty and the desire for truth are social Truth and f acts - The truth that has been attained and that Beauty as finds expression in science and philosophy, and Social j n art, does not belong to any one individual, Principles. ^^ ^ Q society. Not only the desire to know the truth, but the very power to recognise what is true, is THE MODES OF SOCIAL ACTIVITY. 119 developed in society and is a social possession. A Eaphael and a Beethoven perceived the heautiful which their ages sought to grasp, and brought it to expression. Bacon and Newton and Faraday had that creative genius which could formulate the scientific truth to which their respective ages were advancing. The intellect does indeed centre in the individual, but individuality itself develops as a product of the intellectual activity of society. The psychical activity of society includes also the moral life which springs from the need of moral approval 3 Moral auc ^ moral association. This moral life ex- activity and presses itself first in the form of certain rules, Moral "in- which have been differentiated from the cus- ins ' toms that mark the social groups. Custom is enforced by the group and within the group, as the distinguishing characteristic of this body. A custom becomes a moral rule when it is regarded as universally binding, as necessary to society as a whole, and so en- forced by society as a whole. The observance of this custom is a duty, and anyone who neglects it is con- demned by society. It goes without saying that this transformation of custom into conscious rule is a gradual process, in which men of fine sense discern the right before their fellows, and can but slowly extend and purify the rules of right action. This process is the slowly developing moral life of society, and the "institutions" which arise in connection with it are known as duties. The moral life expresses itself also in moral ideals. Ideals are a social fact ; the ideals which men create for themselves are proposed to them by the social group. Noble intellects are trained by society to perceive the high ends which give to life its meaning, and through them these ideals are developed ; they are produced in society, as well as a social possession. We can never for- get that morality centres in the individual and aims to control his life ; nor should we forget that morality is a form of social life, a habit of the social group. 120 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. Almost universally in human society men have felt the need of communion with a God, and this has led to a 4 Religious re ligi us activity of society. New rules of Activity and right and new ideals (closely associated with Institutions moral rules and moral ideals) arise through ocie y. ne j n t roc [ uc ti on o f a new factor, relation to God. The social nature of these rules and ideals is evident from the redistributions of society which they have always caused. The history of religion discusses the institutions of sacrifice and purification, of churches and priesthoods, through which this religious activity has found expression. These institutions are the particular forms assumed by this kind of social activity ; they are habits which characterise social groups, and give rise to social groups. Religion centres in the individual, and stands for the relation of an individual to his God ; but the character of this relation is determined by society, and preserved in society. Neither religious reformers nor students of religious thought have failed to see the importance of religious fellowship in arousing and developing the individual's sense of relation to God. The religious life finds its normal expression in the church and, at least in theory, no social group is so closely knit together as is the church in it.s common love and common worship of God ; nor does any form of social activity claim such a comprehensive authority over all of life. Those who reduce the church to the place of a voluntary association, fail to see either its religious or its social meaning. To avoid any misapprehension, I may remind the reader of tho definition of the science of sociology ; as a science sociology studies processes, and explains the manner in which forms of psychical life arise in society, but it is not concerned with the origin or ultimate meaning of what it explains. So it studies religion and explains the manner in which it arises, but it neither denies nor affirms the real existence of God. The Christian student sees the working of the divine hand, not in religion alone, but in all the forms of social activity ; the religious life THE MODES OF SOCIAL ACTIVITY. 121 of society depends on God's revelation of himself, in exactly the same way in which all social life is the working out. of God's plans. Inasmuch as the true unity of society is psychical rather than physical, it is evident that all forms of social activity find their goal and their true explana- Relationof ,. . ,, ,. , . ,, ,. , ,. ., Psychical ^ lon ln e distinctly psychical activity or Activity to society. An industrial class becomes a society other forms only when its members come to share the same t -^ a psychical life ; directly such a development of psychical bonds makes the industrial class more stable, until sometimes its fixedness stands in the way of progress ; indirectly, the development of these higher forms of activity brings more potent stimuli to bear on the economic life, and lends to the economic structure of society that general stability which gradually unites those who share the same type of higher civilisation. And with the progress of civilisation, social and political life come to feel the same influences. The groups which are united in these forms of activity are at length determined rather by psychical differences than by any external law ; the social and the political structure become at the same time more complex and more stable by the growth of higher bonds of union ; while the presence of the highest ends and the highest motives may place the lower forms of social life on an entirely new plane. With reference to all the modes of social activity dis- cussed in the present chapter, it is important to bear in mind two points: (i) Each of these modes of Conclusion. .. . c ^ / . . . activity is due to stimuli acting on the in- dividual mind, and each finds its expression in individuals; and (2) they are distinctly forms of social activity, in which men are united in social groups or societies, while institutions are simply social habits arising in connection with these forms of activity. CHAPTER VII. THE INDUSTRIAL ORGANISATION OF SOCIETY. THE economic activity of society has been defined as the activity due to man's fundamental physical needs, the need of food and of clothing. Economic life Production develops, as we have seen, in the three phases tbe most Important * circulation, consumption, and production ; Factor in and the discussion of industrial organisation Determining an( j industrial institutions naturally follows Organisation tn ^ s threefold division. It is the more necessary to treat industrial organisation from this threefold standpoint, for the three phases of activity do not develop simultaneously, nor do they have a co-ordinate influence on other modes of social activity. In general, the forms of production are so important as to determine the general character of the industrial organisation. The history of labour is part of the study of production; tools and machinery are the instruments of production ; the stages of industrial development are marked by the development of methods and implements of production. At the same time, production can hardly be termed a form of economic activity till circulation intervenes and goods are produced for a market ; and the motive for production is always found in the desire to " consume." The history of man's nascent industrial life has ordinarily been written either as an account of the stone, and the bronze, and the iron ages according to the material of which implements are made or as an account INDUSTRIAL ORGANISATION OF SOCIETY. 123 of the hunting and fishing stage, the nomad stage, and Earl ^ ne industrial stage of economic development Industrial according to the main source of food. The Life of Man. former may be termed the archaeological, the (l.) stone latter the ethnological, standpoint for the study of primitive man. The earliest pre- historic traces of man, found in many parts of the earth, are the stone implements which he used. The rude stone club, the chipped flint that served as spear-head or as knife, are to be dated back to geologic ages, when the climate and the flora and fauna of the temperate zone were very different from what they are at present. The gradual development of the club into the hammer, the hatchet, and the adze ; of the chipped flint into the sharpened arrow-head, the polished knife, and chisel ; of the hollowed stone into the bowl, and at length into the mill for grinding corn: the gradual development of these stone implements can be traced in the fragments that have come down to us, and it throws much light on the dawn- ing reason which absolutely separated man from the other animals. The use of metal, bronze or iron, marks another distinct stage in early forms of industry. The metal knife or (2.) Bronze sword, the metal hatchet, are far superior to and Iron the best instruments of stone ; and the bowl A S es - or cup of beaten metal, would come to be always used, were it not for the invention of pottery which partly took the place of metal. No sharp line separates the bronze and the iron ages ; but when iron came to be smelted and worked with reasonable ease, the possibilities of metal tools were much increased and their cost diminished. Social im ^ ne social importance of the development portance of of tools lies in two directions. First, tools Development increase the range and variety, and conse- of Tools. quently the regularity, of the food supply. The use of the bone fish-hook and of the net means a new 124 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. source of food ; the arrow from a bow is surer and swifter than the best spear or lance ; fire gains much more general use in the preparation of food, when water can be boiled in pottery or metal vessels. Secondly, tools enable man better to secure himself against attacks of hostile beasts and hostile men. Almost every tool is also a weapon ; and the tool-making, tool-using animal is in the end superior to the animal that has itself the greater strength or speed. It is not so much the security of the individual, as the security of small societies, that is gained by the use of better weapons. The small group secures a measure of permanence by its ability to defend itself against the world, and the foundations of political and industrial society are laid. The development of tools has this farther effect on the beginnings of. industrial organisation, that it encourages the differentiation of industrial activity. The Differentia- original difference between the sexes has always tion of remained the basis of social differentiation ; Industrial ^^ even ^ s difference was made more marked by tools which busied the husband abroad, or gave wider range to what the wife should do at home. Again, not every man could make tools that required skill, and some would use one implement better than another. At length the small group of tool-users, the tribe or the village unit, would be a more compact unit because the different members depended on each other for the satisfaction of the common economic needs. The ethnologist is wont to view early economic history in a slightly different light. He finds the more back- Source of ward races of mankind depending on different Food marks sources of food. Some depend for food on stages in game, others on their flocks and herds, others eve opment. g ^j Qn ^g^, yearly crops. Agriculture surely goes along with a higher social life than is ordinarily found among hunting or nomad peoples, and the custom INDUSTRIAL ORGANISATION OF SOCIETY. 125 has arisen of referring to the three means of satisfying economic needs, as three stages of economic develop- ment. The view is only in part correct, but it suggests the very great importance of the source of food (and clothing) in determining the industrial organisation of a society. In different parts of the American continent are found tribes that depend mainly on game for food, all the way from the lowest savagery up to the very verge Hunting of civilisation. The effect of this mode of stage, its subsistence on social life varies, of course, Social with the abundance and regularity of the Influence. IP T_ i . j supply or game, but in general it produces societies of much the same type. The size of the group is necessarily limited, except where waters bring large shoals of fish within easy reach of the fisherman. Ordinarily, only a very scanty population could be supported ; and in cases where a tribe became large, it all but fell apart of itself, as its members travelled far in search of food. And these economic conditions do not especially favour the intercourse of different tribes, for the presence of the hunter in the domain of another tribe inevitably suggests trespass. Again, this form of "industry" favoured strongly an unsettled life. A fixed village was possible, and even common in some parts of the Western half of the continent, but more commonly the so-called Indian village was a sort of rendezvous where they settled at certain seasons of the year. In consequence of the roving life, the basis of the state was simply and only the ties of blood and custom, and the higher forms of social life had little or no opportunity of development. The manner of life of the successful hunter encouraged the virtues and excellencies of the individual. His own power to read nature and under- stand animals, his own cunning in outwitting them, his own endurance in their pursuit, these made the hunter an independent man by nature. Independence and 126 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. individuality, thus developed, affected the whole range of social life, and made the state entirely democratic in its character. On the American continent examples of nomad life are rare, because there were so few animals that proved suited for domestication. But in Asia and N mad * n man 7 parts of Africa, not only the dog stage, and and the hen, hut soon cattle and goats and the Kind of sheep were domesticated, and furnished man Society w ith a far more abundant and more regular supply of food than could be secured by hunting. The Hebrew accounts of shepherds in Palestine perhaps furnish the most familiar picture of the nomad life. Used for keeping flocks, the same area produced much more food for man, so that the population of nomad races became correspondingly denser than in the case of races living on game alone. This mode of life did not favour the individualism of the hunter's life, for no one man could keep cattle alone to good advan- tage. Groups of moderate size, which could care for their common herds and protect them together, were naturally best suited for this kind of life. So we find now the small clan, now the large family, living on the products of the herd that they owned and kept in common. The necessity of protection for property demanded a much more highly developed political life; and as different clans lived in closer proximity, the intercourse between them would commonly be more active. Before the cultivation of grass as a crop, the life of nornad peoples was unsettled, as they wandered in search of food for their herds ; so that, in spite of the more developed social life, the same obstacle to a high development of culture continued to exist. Eeturning again to North America, we find that tobacco and " Indian corn " were widely cultivated by tribes that still depended largely on game for food, while in Africa and Asia both hunting races and nomad races INDUSTRIAL ORGANISATION OF SOCIETY. 127 turned to agriculture for a better supply of food. Cattle (3 ) Agricul- cou ld be maintained better, and in larger num- turai stage ; bers, when the natural supply of grass was Influence on increased by artificial care. The cereals were Social Life. ., 1^1 j j more easily stored tor long periods, and furnished food when other sources failed. Moreover, agriculture permitted a far denser population than could have been maintained before, and people could live in closer quarters. Agriculture generally deserves to be regarded as the beginning of civilisation. It required a settled life, and permitted life in considerable towns; it required such political life as would grant ample protection to large areas of crops in the fields ; it was most successful when such social differentiation existed as permitted the utilisation of slave labour to prosecute the cultivation of the soil with regularity and persistence. In a word, it required civilised life before it could be undertaken, and it furnished strong motives to higher civilisation. The most marked feature of the change from the hunt- ing stage and the nomad stage to the agricultural stage, is the Increase in g re& t increase in the differentiation of labour, the Differen- In the hunting stage all men are theoretically tiation of equal, though differences of age, strength, and skill actually introduce some differences in their pursuits. The nomad life encourages the formation of small groups, in which one person is master, if not owner, while several others care for the flocks and the products of the flocks under his direction. In such a large family, household, or clan, the skill of one as carpenter or tent-maker, of another in preparing the rude utensils of their simple life, of others in other lines, would be utilised under the direction of the master, even while all united in the regular business of caring for the flocks. With the development of agriculture, and the consequent increase in size of the social group, the occasional differentiation of function becomes a true 128 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. differentiation of the labourers. When agriculture wns no longer a sporadic method of eking out the food supply, but the normal and regular source of food, the village community arose as the natural form of social organisa- tion. These communities, which mark the point to which the social life of civilised states can be traced back with any assurance, consisted of groups of families or clans, each of which was organised much like the group of nomad life, though on a smaller scale. Each family, or clan, cultivated its share of the fields of the community under the direction of its head but the heads of families were subject in turn to the chief of the village, and often- times farther differences of rank existed. The work of the house carpenter, and the cartwright, and the smith, was frequently the lot of particular individuals, who were in part supported from the fruit of the other's labour ; and while all the women might spin and weave, such arts as dyeing and special ornamentation, would often be carried on by one or two in behalf of the whole community. Some men, loosening their connection with any one community, would engage in commerce, bringing precious metals and jewels, fancy cloths, important minerals like salt, etc., from place to place. Such seems to have been the industrial organisation of the early community, which developed into the town or city and the larger state. The farther study of industrial organisation, industrial institutions, and their social importance, necessarily follows the threefold division according to and the ' which industrial activity develops. Begin- gradual ning, therefore with the subject of circulation Development or exchange, we recall the fact that this is * really the beginning of the particular form of social activity which deserves the name econo- mic. It is the idea of exchange, and somewhat regular exchange, which characterises economic activity as such. The general type of the early merchant still exists in the INDUSTRIAL ORGANISATION OF SOCIETY. 129 case of bold adventurers who set forth into the wilds of Africa, it may be; they provide themselves with gay cloths and other products of civilisation that please the savage, hold a sort of market as they reach some savage tribe, and return at length with the stores of ivory and spices and perhaps slaves which they have gained by barter. As soon as visits of this sort come to be expected with any regularity, so that the savage prepares a stock of goods for the trader, genuine economic activity has begun on the basis of an occasional market. The next step toward a higher development of exchange is when a market, or fair, is held regularly at some definite place to which both buyers and sellers come. The Church feasts of the Middle Ages furnished such regular occasions for exchange, and gave the name " Messe" to the fairs that originated at times when mass was celebrated. The influence of the great annual fairs, at which all wholesale and most of the retail trade was conducted, has hardly disappeared in England, and is still very important on the Continent. Gradually the advantage of regular posts of trade, open and accessible at all times, has been recog- nised ; and the " shop " or " store " has taken the place of recurring markets as the ordinary method of exchange. In the process of exchange, two institutions arise which are very important objects of study for the science l. The insti- which deals with economic phenomena in de- tution of tail. The first of these is the institution of Money. money. Exchange is immensely facilitated by the use of some recognised standard of value. What the standard is, of course depends largely on the relative convenience of the different possible objects ; but it takes its place as the standard of value by a sort of social agreement. It is money when it is recognised and re- ceived as money. When a good standard of value comes into use, the sphere of exchange is indefinitely extended ; parties more distant from each other can enter into com- mercial relations; and the goods exchanged need not be K 130 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. limited by the present wants of the parties. In fact the standard of value of civilisation penetrates into the distant parts of the earth almost as soon as rum itself. The effect of this unity of the commercial world upon the higher forms of social life can hardly be estimated. Iden- tity of ideas and of tastes is preceded by identity of money. The second class of institutions arising in the process of exchange have to do with transportation. The amount 2 Institu- f gds exchanged at any given time, and the tions of possible range of a market, depend on the Transporta- facility with which goods are transported. According to Proudhon, "to draw a loaded cart on the natural soil requires one -quarter or one -fifth the energy necessary to carry the weight in question ; on good roads in ordinary condition, only X)8 of this amount of energy is necessary; on oak rails the figure is redrced to 'O22 ; finally, on steel rails in good condition it is only 005, or "003 of the original amount; . . . the increase in distance carried, in rapidity and regularity of transporta- tion, can hardly be estimated." Along with this apparatus for the transportation of merchandise, there has grown up an apparatus for the rapid transportation of intelligence, which is hardly less important in its effect on commerce. The post, which was originally a military affair, has come to serve primarily an economic purpose. The condition of any important market is made known all over the globe as quickly as in distant parts of the same city, and the London buyer does not have any considerable advan- tage in time over the New York buyer, when goods are offered for sale in London. Finally, the institutions for the transportation of money have kept pace with the means of transmitting intelligence. Orders on private! or government banks, which are received as readily as gold, are transmitted by mail or by telegraph, and the process of circulation is complete. For the purposes of business, space and time are all but annihilated, and the world is made in reality a single market. INDUSTRIAL ORGANISATION OF SOCIETY. 131 War has been the most important external factor in the origin and development of circulation, and this in- War and the fi lience nas been exerted in two ways. In the Development first place the earliest collections of goods to ofCircula- be distributed or exchanged, consisted of the tlon ' booty which a successful band of marauders brought home with them. Military leaders and their followers would desire to exchange the products of war, such as slaves, for the products of peace. And secondly war brought different tribes of people into contact with each other, and opened highways of communication between them. The world is enlarged, and men learn that their wants and the wants of their neighbours can be met most easily by exchange. For a strong man, to take a thing may seem the easiest way to get it ; but the first and perhaps the longest step in progress, is the recognition that this course is destructive, while fair interchange of goods benefits all the parties concerned. Violence breaks a path for progress, and commerce follows in the track of war. The first and most important effect of circulation, or the exchange of commodities on the other modes of social activity, is the well-known fact that the Circulation circulation of goods always favours the inter- on Other action of minds. Intellectual intercourse in Modes of its various forms follows commercial inter- course, so that the development of commerce Activity. . ' . is the immediate precursor of progress. In the settlement of a new country, the school and the church and the court, follow the pioneers of trade. In an older country the lack of good means of communica- tion results in stagnation ; custom is unchanging, and the past becomes a barrier to progress instead of the basis of advance. 1 The second effect of a widening 1 De Greef, Sociologie, II. p. 41, has drawn an instructive comparison between the New Greece on the one hand, and Roumania to-day or Greece a century ago, on the other. The new political life of Greece has 132 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. commerce on other forms of social life, is the enlarge- ment of the social world along other lines than the purely commercial-. The " world " in which we live, the social lines which bound that part of the race to which we feel akin, the psychical life of which we feel ourselves an integral part, the political world in which our state has its proper sphere of activity, all of these are enlarged with the enlargement of the commercial world. Civilisation follows commerce into the jungles, through the desert, and toward the poles. Civilisation will touch every part of the globe when trade has opened the way for it. And the third effect of commerce, with its complex bonds now uniting the whole world, is to develop closer and more complex bonds in all other forms of social activity. Economic activity could never have attained its present high development without the aid of political protection, and judicial arbitration, and the special restraints, as well as the special stimuli, of the moral code. Conversely, social rank depends on economic conditions ; the state is made stable and conservative, as well as progressive, by the economic interests which lie at its foundation ; the intellectual and the moral unity of society is a gradual achievement, for which the bonds of common economic function ever prepare the way. Men trade together and learn that they are brothers ; just as once they fought together and found that there existed other beings than themselves who deserved respect. The second standpoint from which the economic activity of society may be considered, is also marked by some measure of special organisation, and by . onsump- an jngtjtution o f far-reaching importance. "Economic Here, as we have seen, is the point where Man." economic stimuli find their direct application ; gone hand in hand with a new economic life ; the means of rapid transportation within Greece, and increased facilities for foreign commerce, constitute the basis of that progress which has been so remarkable. INDUSTRIAL ORGANISATION OF SOCIETY. 133 men produce that they may exchange their products for whai they desire to "consume"; in other words, the generalised expression for the economic motive is the desire to consume. The orthodox political economy has been wont to solve this whole question very simply, not to say summarily, by postulating an " economic man," a man ruled by the desire for wealth. Undoubtedly, this last expression has meant the desire for what wealth brings, and not simply love of money ; in other words, economics has started out with the important postulate that the units it is to consider, are governed by what it terms a desire to "consume." Such mathematical abstraction has brought with it both clearness and con- fusion ; clearness in that the motive force of economic life is reduced to a single unit; confusion in that this unreal abstraction has often been obliged to do duty for the richness of concrete truth. In fact, the true " economic man " is the product of his age ; his desires change as society develops ; nor is the change unimportant, for the whole face Man's Needs . \ , , Change in * economic lite changes with each change in Content, in the units that enter into it. This economic imperative- rnan j s ^he being whose needs and emotions ness, in were discussed in Chapter V., and consump- tion is simply the use of what is acquired in exchange to satisfy his needs and emotions. The particular content of man's needs changes entirely with his habit of life. Uncooked flesh is followed by roast or boiled meat as the hunter's diet, while the shepherd lives on the products of the animal milk, butter, and cheese ; vegetable diet changes from nuts and fruits to parched grains and cakes of crushed or ground corn. The need which a given man feels is not the need of food, but rather the need of the flesh or the dish of pottage, by which he has been wont to satisfy hunger; the desire for this particular object governs his action in the effort to acquire it. So the imperativeness of 134 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. man's need varies with the stage of social development. The savage goes for days on a most meagre diet, and then when he has game he gorges himself with food. It is only when the torpid sleep after such a feast has lasted for days that reviving hunger drives him to activity once more. But the civilised man requires " three meals a day," and the content of each one is imperatively determined by his social position. Nor is the change in the variety of his needs any less im- portant. Practically the simple demand for nourish- ment and warmth has been replaced by the complex need of the thousand and one things which constitute the standard of living ; a carriage may seem more necessary than bread, sealskin garments more necessary than blankets. The study of the particular forms which these needs assume, is the source of most valuable light on the Physical economic life of a given age. Such study defines Needs deter- at once the motives to economic activity, mine Eco- and the lines which this activity must follow, nomic Life. jj ere ^ ie s t u dent learns to understand the units of economic life, and it is on this basis alone that he can discover the relation of the units in the industrial organisation. The circulation and exchange of com- modities, intervening between the production of goods and their immediate consumption, follows man's im- mediate needs, so far as his needs find social recognition. Production, too, is to meet the market demand for the goods which men call for. The greatest change in the use to which men put their products, occurs when they begin to store them The Institu- ^ or future use, instead of applying them to the tion of satisfaction of immediate desire. The institu- Property tioii o f property, to which so much fruitful study has recently been devoted, had humble beginnings and developed but slowly. Its social origin is quite generally admitted. It is probable that property began INDUSTRIAL ORGANISATION OF SOCIETY. 135 with articles worn about the person, clothing, amulets, and especially adornments, at a time when even weapons and the simple utensils of cooking were the property of the clan or group. Along with the development of the idea of individuality came important extensions of the idea of individual property. Weapons and utensils, finally dwell- ing-places, flocks and herds, were reckoned by the tribe as the property of its individual members, though the mem- bers of a family have never lost all claim on the possessions of the head of the family; these articles became individual property because members of society so reckoned them. After a long period real estate also came to be reckoned as the property of individuals, though still in a somewhat restricted sense, for the state preserves certain rights over its territory. The social importance of property is universally recog- nised. It means a new form of consumption, a new use Social import-^ 01 " wealth goods may be effectively stored. ance of In connection with it there arises a new social Property stimulus, the love of acquisition. Property means power over one's fellow men, and the love of power is constantly acquiring range as an economic stimulus, while apparently it loses power as a political stimulus. When the idea of property centered in the clan, it helped to make the clan a compact unit. The gradual recognition of individual property was a great power in developing the nascent individualism of the members of the clan. Once developed, the idea of individual property sapped the roots of the elan life; it was a potent factor in over- throwing the matriarchal family, which was commonly so ^ closely connected with the elan relationship ; it became the basis of the higher type of psychical life. Perhaps its most important social effect has come to be in the fact that the possession of property is so generally the basis of social differentiation. In earlier times physical force, later institutions of caste, were the basis of differentia- tion in society. To-day, in the stable forms of society, 136 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. wealth is the most universally recognised source of power, so that social rank is often determined by the possession of wealth. In the study of industrial organisation, the third phase of economic activity is most important. Beginning within the early social group long before it C. Produc- * tion. Eeiation can " e called economic production, it is to Circula- gradually dominated by the demands of a tion, to Con- developing market, until in the modern city, the family finds it possible to give up abso- lutely every form of domestic production, and rely solely on what an extensive market will furnish. While it is, of course, the development of circulation and exchange which is responsible for so great a change in the character of production, the institution of property which has just been considered, is an indispensable condition. Property previously acquired must be used in production, if it be only to support the producer till he can reap the fruit of his labour in the exchange of his products ; capital, property utilised for the production of goods to be exchanged, is the very basis of economic production, and it is the growth of capital that has made possible the rapid development of industry during the present century. The institutions by means of which production has been carried on, have varied exceedingly in different ages, Institutions an( ^ eacn nas been the basis of a particular of Produc- type of social life. The earliest organisation tion. f or t n j s purpose was some form of slavery. Inertia is an almost universal characteristic of savage races; men only work under compulsion, either the compulsion of immediate need, or the compulsion of superior human force and the effort to satisfy immediate need is so spasmodic that it cannot be utilised for the production of any but the simplest objects. When cap- tives taken in war could be utilised for work instead of being destroyed or eaten, a genuine means of production was secured ; and unproductive as slave-labour seems to INDUSTRIAL ORGANISATION OF SOCIETY. 137 us, it was immensely more productive than labour to which the only spur was hunger. The early civilisations of the East show what has has been accomplished with this means of production; indeed, economic production rested on no other basis in Greece and Rome. Feudalism marks a decided advance on slavery, for the relation of master and servant was more permanent, and Feudalism the system required and developed greater as a Mode of ability in the servant. The serf had certain Production. j nterests o f hi s own> not wholly identical with his lord's, and his position depended largely on the way in which he cared for these interests. Thus the serf was trained for centuries in the school of partial freedom, till at length the power to work for a future reward was a greater stimulus than external compulsion. Then masters gradually learned that hired labour was more profitable than forced labour, and the principle of serfdom, like the principle of slavery before it, had to give way to a higher form of organisation for production. Naturally the change took place much earlier in the towns than in the country. Here, circumstances favoured the economical indepen- dence of the household, provided it paid the dues assessed, The House- an( ^ performed the military service required, hold Unit in The household became the unit for production, Production. anc [ j^ continued to be so until conditions were changed by the introduction of machinery. Often it was necessary for craftsmen to unite in guilds to secure their rights. Whether or not he was a member of a guild, the artisan was far enough from real freedom of initiative, nevertheless he was able to work for himself instead of working for another. Produc- ^ n the modern industrial system which has tionby grown up with the introduction of machinery Machinery an( j fine consequent organisation of produc- in Factories. , -, p , , . tion in large factories, scarcely a vestige of the formal external restraint remains. Ability to work 138 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. with vigour, continuity, and skill, is almost the only factor which determines the workman's position in the industrial system ; while the relation between employer and employed has been reduced, more and more, to a strictly economic basis. The removal of each phase of external restraint on labour, and the increasing free- dom of labourer and employer, have been attended at each stage by a wider differentiation of economic classes, so that the industrial world is more complex than ever before. Each of these forms of industrial organisation is the basis for a particular form of the higher kinds of social activity. Slavery means a sharp line of dis- Influence of ki nc tion between master and slave in " social " Organisation intercourse ; the tribe which keeps slaves has a on other different political development from the tribe Modes of without slaves, and it is just this difference oci i a . which separates most widely the developed states of antiquity from the modern state ; moreover, slavery cultivates certain habits of mind which control the psychical development both of masters and slaves. Under the feudal system an aristocracy of birth determines the lines of " social " intercourse, and gives rise to peculiar social institutions and peculiar social ideals ; the feudal state is a confederacy of feudal lords ; chivalry is but one of the peculiar psychical products of the system. Finally, in the present age of industrial freedom, differences in economic capacity are fully de- veloped; the difference between individuals and between families tends to increase from generation to genera- tion ; yet the dead level of barbarism still remains, so that every advance introduces wider differences into the economic world. Such a society fosters an aristocracy of wealth; political power is in the hands of the third estate ; business integrity and habits of hard work are the excellencies most highly prized. With the economic development of society, the peculiar INDUSTRIAL ORGANISATION OF SOCIETY. 139 character of the economic group has been growing more ideal of the an( ^ mor e distinct, until to-day the economic Economic ideal is exerting a great influence on the Group. character of other social groups. The econo- mic group proper is not marked by any real solidarity of life and interest, rather it has tended to drift away from this general solidarity as it has become distinct. Competition is commonly represented as the basis of modern industrial society, and competition involves free circulation of labour. The ideal of economic relationship is free association, that is, the group in economic life is composed of men who unite in common activity because they recognise that their interests are identical, and who feel entirely free to leave the group as soon as their economic interests diverge. The labourer is bound to his master by no tie except such as he voluntarily assumes ; he has all the rights and all the responsi- bility which belong to an independent economic unit. The trade union has only served to emphasise the in- dependence of the individual labourer by lending to each one the strength which comes from association. Attempts have, indeed, been made to bind individuals together in more permanent unions for economic purposes, as in the case of profit-sharing and co-operative societies, but they have been sporadic, and they have met with no lasting success. The ideal of the economic group is the absolute economic freedom of both master and labourer ; although the human interest that binds every man to those who become his neighbours, cannot fail to lend its sanction to the group united by economic interests. Historically it may be questioned whether the indi- vidualistic view of life, which is becoming clearlv the char- o */ Influence acteristic of the economic man, had its origin of this in economic relations. Practically, however, no Ideal on fervid preaching of the rights of the individual ocia i e. j^ j.j een so p 0wer f u i to affect society down to its very foundations as the constant enforcing of the 140 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. rights and responsibility of the individual in the indus- trial life of this industrial age. It tends to break down the old " social " relations, and even marriage is regarded as a temporary contract rather than the beginning of a common life. The democratic state is made little more than a "social contract," and the university and even the church are often regarded as associations of the economic type in another sphere of common life. The cause of this abnormal influence of economic ideals is to be found, I believe, in the present abnormal development of industrial interests, and it can only be remedied by a broader development of social life on higher planes. In conclusion, it is hardly too much to say that economic activity is at the very basis of society. Funda e tal Economic changes and crises result in changes Character of and crises in all phases of social life ; as for Economic example, the effect of. depression in business ctivity. Qn marr j a g e anc [ |ji r th rate, which Buckle has attempted to trace. Habits of industry are at the basis of political stability. Industrial connection has often preceded political connection, even as to-day commerce is the strongest influence in the development of inter- national law. Higher types of intellectual, moral, and religious life can only be developed where men are protected from the constant pressure of want and the constant fear of starvation. And the work-habit, de- veloped so slowly in the course of industrial progress, is no less necessary than leisure for genuine psychical progress. " The economic structure of society is the real basis on which the juridical and political superstructure is raised, and to which definite forms of social thought correspond ; in short, the mode of production determines the character of the social, political, and intellectual life generally." l 1 Quoted from Karl Marx: Kapitnl, on the title-page of Laf argue, The Evolution of Property. London, 1890. CHAPTER VIII. THE FAMILY AS A SOCIAL UNIT. THE family is the basis of the state. This phrase, so frequently repeated by the earlier students of society, The Family has been attacked in recent years by two and the classes of opponents by those who believe state. {. na j. c i v iii sec i society ought to rest on some other foundation, and by investigators who found that the theory of the historic relation of state and family, with which the phrase had been associated, was entirely false. But the very study which destroyed its old meaning has made it pregnant with new and deeper meaning. The older theory of the relation of the family to the state is simple enough. It began with the family, treated the clan as an enlarged patriarchal family, Theory of w ^ the patriarch frequently left out; the the Rise of tribe it regarded as an overgrown clan, and the the state beginning of the state was a tribe that had Famil * outgrown its former organisation. 1 Thus the family is literally the basis of the state. The argument in favour of this theory is mainly the argument " e consensu gentium," for the clan was traced back to a common ancestor, and the tribe and the nation to common ancestors yet further back, among the races best known to students. These races and accordingly those who studied them believed that descent was 1 Cf. L. Lange, Eomisclie Alterthumer, 3te Aufl. 1876. S. 102 sqq. t where the organisation of the Roman State is explained very much in this way. 142 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. always reckoned in the male line, for the father was the head of the family. The best and ablest defence of this position is found in the works of Sir Henry Maine, who argues from laws and institutions back to the time when they arose, and shows that they presuppose a patriarchal family. Nor has his argument been seriously impugned by later students. They have rather sought to show that Maine's results were far from ultimate, and that the history of another world remained to be written, a world existing before the date back to which Maine's investigations had reached. Bachofen was, I believe, the first to attack this earlier theory, then universally accepted. In his Mutterrecht The Family he called attention to some facts which had in the Matri- been misinterpreted by scholars, and to others archal stage. w hj cn were new, in proof of the thesis that a matriarchal family had quite generally preceded the patriarchal type. McLennan, in England, working inde- pendently, argued from the prevalence of wife-capture as a symbol back to the time when it was an actual fact, and connected with this the prohibition of marriage within the tribe. He attempted to prove, (i), that in early times all women were held in common by the tribe ; (2), that female infanticide often made wife-capture necessary, and frequently resulted in a polyandrous family, and (3), that in this polyandrous family the husbands of the same wife were gradually limited to brothers, and at length the patriarchal family arose with one man at its head. The argument in favour of these propositions included (i), examples of loose family relations in savage tribes (the author assigning the reason that in the polyandrous family the particular father is not known), and (2), some few and isolated examples of the two forms of polyandry which serve as types. The two main positions, namely, the absence of anything that might be called family relations in the early history of the clan, and the prevalence of the matriarchal family before the THE FAMILY AS A SOCIAL UNIT. 143 existence of the patriarchal family and monogamous marriage, have been widely illustrated by authors in England and on the continent, until they form the creed of a school. A third group of writers differ from those just mentioned mainly in their interpretation of the facts. Eesults Letourneau regards the primitive family as an accepted by early form of property, and explains its de- Eecent velopment on this basis. Starcke shows that the matriarchal family tends to produce heterogeneity, and so fails in itself to explain the forms of tribal relationship with which it is most closely associated. And Westermarck finds evidence that the monogamous family has been, perhaps, the commonest form during the whole history of the race. These writers agree in urging that (i), there is absolutely no evidence to prove a state of original promiscuity, though, as a rule, family ties are looser among less civilised tribes, and that (2), the matriarchate is not universal, and con- stitutes no evidence at all for the original absence of family relations. These researches have by no means led to conclusive results on all points, but the following points are fairly Eesults we ^ substantiated : First, there is no reason to i. The Prin- think that any human race was ever without cipiesof the idea and practice of comparatively per- arriage- ma nent marriage unions. In the struqgle for Unions. . existence, a species must be very prolific in order to survive, or else it must care for its young ; and this care must continue longer as the period of im- maturity becomes longer. Among many birds, and some higher apes, there seems to be monogamous marriage for life ; and many species of apes care for their young until they are several years old. In the lowest stages of human development marriage unions would continue only during the pleasure of the parties ; but what evidence we have rather tends to show that commonly 144 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. the parties chose to remain together, even for life. When a man gained the power to treat his wife as private property, the woman was naturally degraded and may often have lost all motive to chastity. But what was lost in the wife was more than made up in the husband, and this stage probably meant an increase in the stability of the family. When at length the wife was no longer a mere slave, though her husband still retained many rights over her, a truer union was again possible. This eleva- tion may have been due to the fact that the woman went to her husband from another protector, and thus was not so completely under his control. Finally, we have to-day at least the idea of a permanent affiliation, in which each member is complementary to the other, and on this basis marriage has received new meaning, moral and intel- lectual, civil and religious. The truth seems to be that while sexual relations have never been absolutely confined to the family, there has always been P. family ; and that as the principle of the family has advanced from animal association to property in women, then to limited rights of the husband, and finally to broader association in the higher developments of psychical life, the family has constantly gained in permanence and restraints to pro- miscuous intercourse of the sexes have been correspond- ingly strengthened. The question as to the number of persons involved in the marriage relation should fae made subordinate to 2. Polyan- the questions discussed in the preceding para- dry, Poly- graph. The polygynous family does indeed gyny, and mean a very different social organisation from mogamy. ^ polyandrous ; but the essential question is still whether the family is a form of property, or whether it is based on some lower or higher form of association. The relative numbers of men and women exert great influence on the marriage - relation. In earlier times polygyny was the result of success in wife-stealing, and polyandry was frequent when men THE FAMILY AS A SOCIAL UNIT. 145 outnumbered women. The reason is evident, for in an undeveloped society the sexes must ordinarily live together. Where descent was reckoned through females or not at all, either polyandry or polygyny could arise without difficulty, and the transition from one to the other would not necessarily be a violent one. The patriarchal family only permits some very limited form of polyandry, such as the possession of the same wife by brothers; on the other hand, based as it usually was on property rights, polygyny was perfectly normal. The monogamous family seems to have been always the commonest form, both because it was the most natural and practical, and because the numbers of the two sexes were generally about equal. The principle of property has, on the whole, favoured monogamy, as most men could support but one wife; and since the higher forms of the family are only possible as forms of union between one husband and one wife, this is the only type of family the sociological importance of which it will be necessary to discuss. Children have always been associated with parents, even among the higher animals, but the notion that the family includes more than two genera- tions, is a product of somewhat advanced Affiliation and Pro- human culture. By nature the child is far perty Eights more closely associated with the mother than m the with the father, and thus blood-relationship Formation of ,, ,, , , . ,, , ,. the Family wou ld naturally be traced in the female line ; uncertain paternity would also favour the family on the basis of the mother. On the other hand, when the sense for property had been developed, and had become the principle of the family, the children of the mother would naturally belong to the father because the mother belonged to him. Taking the family in the larger sense of stock, it may be matriarchal, in which case children derive position, or status, from the mother ; while, after her death, the elder brother assumes authority L 146 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. over his brothers and sisters, and over their children (his nephews and nieces). Or it may be patriarchal, the children belonging to the race of the father, remaining under his care and protection, and inheriting his property. In fact, traces of the matriarchal family and the matri- archal clan are to be found in every quarter of the globe, and in almost every race. The evidence seems to show that the matriarchal family or clan has ordinarily preceded the patriarchal, though the proof is not com- plete. The important fact is that two influences have been at work in the formation of the larger family, namely, blood affiliation and property rights; the former of the two was generally the earlier, the latter has conquered in the end by bringing the former into harmony with itself. In some interesting cases we may see the two principles at work simultaneously, as, for example, among those tribes of North American Indians which trace relationship through females, but permit the son, and not the nephew, to inherit his father's property. I have outlined the results of recent study of the family in its historical development, because a knowledge of the different principles on which the family m y has been based, is a necessary introduction to Economic any study of the family as a factor in society. Activity of The function of the family in the different Society : the mo( ] es O f S0 cial activity has varied widely as Family. ^ s character has changed. In the economic world the family has always been an im- portant factor. The lowest stage of what may be called the family resembles the highest yet developed, in that husband and wife were partners in the effort to satisfy the economic needs. In this partnership, undoubtedly, the greater share of drudgery fell to the wife, because the weaker one could be compelled to do more; this, however, does not mean that the lot of a savage's wife is always a hard one, except in localities where it is very difficult to secure the means of subsistence. The more THE FAMILY AS A S OCTAL UNIT. 147 strenuous effort of war and hunting fell to the husband, nor was protection and the supply of game an unim- portant factor in the economic unit. The reaction of these common economic interests upon the family unit had no great effect in making any one family permanent ; still, if one such partnership was dissolved, each party found it necessary to enter into another similar one in order to live with any comfort. The rise of the matri- archal family, with introduction of social status, gave the woman another position in society besides the position of a wife, and consequently made it possible for her to satisfy economic needs in some other way than as a wife. The immediate effect of this must have been to weaken the marriage relation as an economic bond, while, at the same time, it extended its reach. In the patriarchal family, the wife is the property of her husband, or at least entirely subordinate to him ; the Later Forms econom i c relation is equivalent to that of of the master and slaves. The economic needs to be Family in met are no longer the needs of individuals but the needs of the farnil y and ifc is the famil 7 in the person of its head which has to meet these needs. The family is an economic unit because all its members have disappeared from > the economic world except its head. This absolute dependence of the mem- bers of the family upon the father and master, must have had an important effect in making the family a true and stable unity, as viewed from other standpoints. The patriarchate was the beginning and the foundation of stable society. As the power of the husband and father decreased, the unity, and in like manner the economic function, of the family came to rest on a new basis. Again it became a sort of partnership in which each party possessed certain rights and performed certain functions ; again it became a social aggregate, and something more than a man and his goods. The modern family is a com plex unity in the economic world ; the husband is the 148 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. breadwinner, the wife is supposed to make the home, and the presence of children strengthens this complex unity by emphasising the difference between the work of father and mother, and by increasing the stimulus to the work of each. It is impossible to prophecy the future of the family in the economic world. Large changes are going on at the The Economic present time, as the result of the opening of Future of many new fields of economic activity to female the Family. i a i3 0ur> This movement, begun in part by philanthropists in order to enable women dependent on their own labour to support themselves, has been hastened rapidly by the low price of female labour, until to-day women are employed in almost every form of production suited to their capacity. Naturally the men who have been engaged in these forms of production, feel the result of this influx of new labour; some are displaced by women, all feel the effect of competition with persons ready to accept lower wages. The husband no longer receives sufficient wages to support his family, so that his wife is obliged to go into the factory with him ; in hard times, unless his labour is really superior to his wife's, he may be turned off before his wife, and the husband is supported by his wife*. The evil effects of such a change are, of course, exaggerated during the transition period ; but after all due allowance has been made for this fact, there can be no doubt that the change now going on is likely to have a most deleterious effect on family life. The necessity that the family be an economic unity is being destroyed; and whatever attacks the economic life of the family is sapping its foundation. This is a far more important problem in regard to the family than any laxness of the divorce laws. 1 De Lestrade, EUments de Soci.ologie, p. 75 sqq. , has pointed out some of the evils which have followed the opening to women of new spheres of economic activity. He claims that it has attracted many away from a natural family lii'e, instead of providing means of securing a honourable livelihood to those who could not otherwise provide for themselves. THE FAMILY AS A SOCIAL UNIT. 149 As for the distinctly social life of society, the family is the only fixed, stable unit that is here developed. The matriarchal family taught men that the child II The Family never entirely lost his connection with the and the mother who bore him. Lines were fixed, "Social" determining to a certain extent the course of social life ; blood-relationship became, and has ever remained, the basis of social relations. With the introduction of the patriarchal family the whole face of society was changed. The larger family had a tendency to become self-sufficient, if not exclusive ; social position was determined both by birth and by economic conditions; social relations arose among those of the same social status. The change produced in distinctly social relations by the development of the modern family, may be seen by comparing society in a Christian country with society in a Mohammedan country to-day. Woman, has been emancipated from the position of a chattel, society centres in her parlour, and the reciprocal courte- ous relations of husband and wife are the signal for similar relations among men and women generally. But no proof is needed to show that the character of society is .determined by the character of the family. Thirdly, the family unit has performed an important function in the psychical life of society. The family was the first school. It was true in the earlier Family and s ^ages of society as it is to-day, that a man and the Psychicaia woman unite two mental worlds in one ; the Life of horizon of each is widened to include that ociety. . W j 1 j c ] 1 the other has included, the desires and Intellectual. needs of each become the desires and needs of both. Every such union enlarges the mental vision of each party, and more than this, it increases the power of the stimuli to intellectual activity. The value of the family in stimulating the mind has always depended on the coordinate association of husband and wife, and in the absence of this the family may even be a hindrance to ISO INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. intellectual development ; it may have satisfied the need of companionship without stimulating the need of in- tellectual companionship. Farther, the intellectual life of society depends on the family for the transmission of intellectual acquirements, and especially of intellectual interests. The school proper is a very modern institu- tion ; the child of the savage receives the language and the lore of his tribe in the family. The patriarchal family came to include the schoolmaster as a frequent appendage. Even the present elaborate school-system accomplishes but little except where it supplements the intellectual life of the home. There is an intellectual heredity, which is far more important than the transmission of mere knowledge in the home, as it is more important than any bodily heredity. The child shares the intellectual Life of the home, his mind unfolds and is quickened into activity by its share in that life. Modes of thought peculiar to the father or mother reappear in the child; but, without doubt, the most valuable part of this mental inheritance are the intellectual needs, the love of truth, and the enjoyment of intellectual intercourse; occasionally these. may be kindled by later association, properly they are the product of the home. The family stands for in- tellectual progress. There is no school to be compared with the family for the development of aesthetic taste and the appreciation 2 The ^ ^ e Beautiful. The child who is not taught Family at home to sympathise with the varying moods trains the of Nature, and to enjoy the beautiful in his en- Aesthetic vironment, will probably go through life with eyes closed to half the world about him. Few teachers, except the parents, can develop the beginnings of literary taste in the child ; the " innate " love of music, and love of beautiful form and colour, is usually a product of the home life. The very relation of husband and wife tends to quicken the aesthetic sense. Outside the home, men are rubbing against each other, and every fibre of THE FAMILY AS A SOCIAL UNIT. 151 their nature is called into play in the bitter struggle for existence. The family is a charmed circle, shielded from the outside world ; here, if anywhere, in an atmosphere of sympathy and encouragement, the dor- mant love of beauty is quickened into life. The man whose days are spent in severe manual labour marries a factory girl ; neither of them had lived any life other than the long days of work, and an occasional evening of rude jollity. And yet the new home shows the presence of a spirit foreign to the earlier life of either; an effort for beauty, oftentimes crude enough, is apparent in all its arrangements; the common love is the beginning of a higher life. The most important social function of the family con- cerns the moral life of the community. The new relations of the family tend to develop the moral person- Family ality of husband and wife, father and mother, develops the In the first place, a new sense of responsibility Moral Life f s developed. The single man, or, indeed, the Parent single woman, may forget to-morrow ; however rashly they act, they alone suffer the con- sequences ; why should one's rooms be tidy, and one's wages be saved ? All this is changed by marriage, for each party has his sphere, and is responsible for two persons in that sphere. He cannot be careless of another's welfare, as he might be careless of his own. This is even more true as children come into the home. The husband and wife can suffer together, whether to attain some desired end, or to expiate some carelessness or sin ; but the responsibility for helpless children is the strongest motive to use the opportunities of life earnestly and wisely. Secondly, the family relationship trains the parents in the moral power of self-sacrifice. Husband and wife live for each other, but as parents they learn more truly the joy of serving those they love. Personal happiness is sacrificed both in direct care of the child, and in providing for its present and future happiness ; and in 152 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. this sacrifice new and higher joy is found. The moral personality may be developed by the child, even after the man has been hardened to all other influences. Finally, as has already been suggested, the ideal in life is kept alive by the family relations. Here one's sense of the dignity of life, and the dignity of virtue, is quickened ; men learn anew the sacredness of duty, the absolute worth of honour and of truth. The typical union means a union of the highest, truest life, which can never be shared except in the family, for here alone can it receive perfect sympathy. No man is so strong, morally, that he is not aided in his purpose of right by a wife's approval ; no man is so degraded as not to feel the power of love. The child owes his moral nature, his conscience, and the beginnings of character, to the family life. The _, , family is a moral unit; the moral life of the Moral . : Personality whole, as determined by the parents, is re- of the Child fleeted in the moral life of each member. The Developed in virtues prized by the parents, the rules of Lnu y> action which they lay down for themselves, the ideals which -ennoble their lives and give them meaning, these are the influences which mould the moral life of the child. The more completely this ideal of moral solidarity of the family is realised, the better it fulfils its mission. This moral solidarity does not at all mean that complete subjection of the family to one iron will, which is sometimes seen. Unless the sub- ordination of children to parents is such a social union as to develop to the fullest extent the moral personality of each one concerned, it entirely fails of its mission. The family has been a direct hindrance to progress when the rule has been complete subjection to parents during their entire life; it has accomplished nothing when the son has been kept a child morally, until he has suddenly been dropped into the world and entirely cut off from family influences, at the age of physical maturity. It is THE FAMILY AS A SOCIAL UNIT. 153 necessary that the family be indeed a union of moral personalities, if it is to develop moral personality. The spiritual inheritance which a child may expect to receive from his parents, includes not only intellectual training and intellectual desires, not only the heritance distinctly moral rules and moral ideals, but includes also the family traditions and customs and Customs and beliefs. These customs form, as it were, the setting for morality ; they are the background on which the moral rules stand out clearly ; at the same time they invest morality with a certain graciousness which never pertains to a morality learned from books, or from the rude experiences of life. These social usages not only render the moral life of the family attractive, but they constitute an additional safeguard and strength for the morality which has this source. Language and science may be learned in other schools ; other associations may develop the aesthetic sense ; moral habits and moral ideals depend in a peculiar Moral Train- .. r . ./ . ing in the wa y upon the family. Society itself trains Family versus but rudely in morals ; it recognises only gross Moral Train- an( j outward sins, it punishes harshly and un- ingm e a S y in p a th e tj ca i}y those who go astray. The fundamental conceptions of a true self- assertion and a generous self-sacrifice, are learned only in the family. The strong learn to respect the weaker, the weak are encouraged to develop their strength by using it, under the influence of family love. The temperament of bold assertion in one, the cunning pliancy of another who overcomes by yielding these are what society de- velops to supply the absence of this early training in the family. Again, the absoluteness of duty, and the true excellence of virtue, can be learned only in the family. Only a parent can say " thou shalt," and compel hearty obedience by the power of an overmastering love. The world says, " Honesty is the best policy," and the virtue it 154 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. demands cannot stand the strain when it no longer seems the best policy. " Nothing succeeds like success," men say, and success blots out every sin. Finally, those more delicate excellencies, honour, sympathy, and tact, are not to be learned outside the home. They rest of necessity on love of man, they can only develop under the shadow of a parent's love. The moral heritage of each generation is the true basis of progress. The son must be equipped with the best Moral manners and morals of his parents, or he Inheritance starts on a lower plane than he might. Were the Basis of ^ no t f or this spiritual heredity, each genera- rogress 'tion would be obliged to start at the very beginning, and to build a society without either bricks or mortar. It were bad enough if each generation had to invent its own language, and to work out a science and a philosophy with no gain from ages that had past. But the very basis of the progress of society is moral pro- gress, and moral progress depends on moral heredity working through the family. Hugo, speaking of S. Dumas, who died in defence of the right, says : " II e"tait le produit de cette magnifique loi d'ascension qui la Revolution a determined, et qui veut que le fils soit plus que le pere." 1 From the standpoint of religion, the family does the same important work that it does for the moral life. , Husband and wife may help one another in Religious other ways while holding different religious Unity of the convictions, but the true unity of the family Family. j g i m p OSS jbi e when the inmost life of each member is lived apart; even when the religious life of each expresses itself in different, apparently opposite, ways, they cannot help influencing each other's religious views, and a true family life can hardly fail to develop a religious side. In this intimate union, the religious life finds its best inspiration ; God comes nearest to his 1 Quoted by De Lestrade, Elements de Sociologic, p. 90. THE FAMILY AS A SOCIAL UNIT. 155 followers at the family altar, and the responsibilities and joys of the family open the heart to the divine life. Eeligion also is a part of that spiritual inheritance which the child receives from his parents. At the mother's knee, children learn to know God 111 y with a more vivid sense of his presence and Progress of his love than is gained in any other way ; Eeligion and far away as one may wander, it is to the depend on mother ' s Q od thafc he re t ur ns. The divine the Family. . . authority, and righteousness, and love, find their first meaning in the loving commands of a parent, and the philosopher and the theologian continue to speak of God as the Father in heaven. Sharing the religious life of the family, entering into its religious aspirations, as well as its modes of religious belief and worship, the child learns to know God for himself. Each false step is checked, each doubt is overcome in the presence of faith, each crisis resolved in higher life under the guidance of parental love. Here, again, progress is possible only when the family fulfils its duty in the development of spiritual life. Eeligion extends its sway over new territory, and brings new spheres of social activity under its influence, only when one generation quickens religious life in the generation that follows. The religious motive increases in strength, and enters more deeply into the lives of those who accept it, only when the child may start with the religious life of his family, and keep this alive in new family relations. I have refrained from speaking of the position of the family in the state and of its duty to the state until after treating the preceding topic, because the Function of political function of the family depends on its the Family place in the psychical life of society. The in Political f am ii v j s the basis of the state, because the Life citizen is the product of the family. For the state in particular, as for society in general, the principle of continuity and of progress finds its strongest support 156 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. in the family. Here alone do the civic sentiments and virtues find a natural soil favouring their growth ; loyalty to the state and love of one's country must be developed in the home if their roots are to penetrate deeper than self-interest. The sense of civic responsibility has no genuine vigour if it waits to be called out by wrongs actually suffered from a corrupt administration. To-day public evils persist under every form of government, because men can hardly ever be made to realise their duty to the state until the burdens brought upon them become excessive in each individual case. Again, the power of self-sacrifice in behalf of one's country is developed with other forms of self-sacrifice in the family. Prom the parents are learned both the value of the ends which may call forth self-devotion, and that moral energy which does not hesitate at any cost when the end justifies the sacrifice. Finally, the power to act with others is best learned in the family. This must be learned else- where, if not in the family; but he who goes into the world without it, must acquire it in the battle of life and at the cost of many severe blows. CHAPTER IX. THE STATE AS AN ORGAN OF SOCIAL ACTIVITY. THE state was the earliest form of social life to receive careful study, and it has commanded the attention of men Methods w ^ n verv different interests. By reason of the Used in the great divergence of views as to the real nature Science of o f the state, and also because discussions of this topic have ordinarily assumed a technical character, it is peculiarly difficult to give a brief intro- duction to the study of the state as a social organ. There is no general agreement even as to the method by which valid results may be reached. Among those who regard politics as a science, and who would study the facts of political life as they actually exist, some study the state of to-day, others the state as it has developed towards its present form. The former school, which may be called analytic, has reached very important results, and through the writings of Bentham and Austin, has exercised a very important influence on political life, especially in England. The historical school, in all its different forms, seeks to go back of what is seen to-day, and to explain present facts by showing how they arose. The writings of Sir Henry Maine have made this position familiar to English readers. Long before the careful usj of these scientific methods in politics, and in a measure since their introduction, philosophy has been ready to explain the phenomena of the state. In the name of "reason," systems of natural law have been propounded, deducing the state, its authority and its form, its functions and their organs, 158 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. from the nature of reasonable beings. Or again, a crude individualism has begun by postulating men without social relations, and then has introduced these relations by means of a social contract. Methods not very different from these in essential character are still used in France and Germany ; philosophic systems discuss the validity of law, and outline the perfect state on the basis of natural principles discovered by reason. Apart from all question as to the truth of these results, it is the work of science to determine what the state is, not what it ought to be ; and with this in view, I propose first to give an account of some typical earlier forms of the state, in order to show the principles on which the state has been based, and the functions which it has performed for society. The earliest germ of that political life which later develops into the state, is found in the temporary union A l The ^ men navm g some interests in common, for Beginnings the purposes of defence. The only source of of Political political cohesion was pressure from outside, and the only function of the temporary govern- ment was to defend members of the group from outside attack. The form of such a government might be a sort of oligarchy, since it was necessarily based on respect for those whose personal prowess and skill enabled the group to meet attack successfully. Even this slight beginning of political life can hardly arise until men recognise some common interests ; frequently it is associated with the early development of clan -relationship, and utilises these ties of blood even when it does not coincide with the clan. The next distinct type of political organisation may be termed the tribal state, the state on the basis of blood- relationship. Some type of family, in later times the patriarchal family, formed the basis Tribe Etate. r J ' of the tribal state ; this unit, held together by ties of blood and by economic ties, by a common authority and a common religion, was the stable element out of THE STATE AN ORGAN OF SOCIAL ACTIVITY. 159 which states were constructed. Naturally, then, the state was regarded as a larger family; common descent of all citizens from a fictitious ancestor was postulated, in order that political union might have the sacred- ness awarded to ties of blood ; a common religion arose, lending the sanction of another world the world of the gods to the duties and the ties of this world; trade with other nations was often forbidden, that the nation might be a self-sufficient economic unit; the king was invested with the absolute authority of a father, and with the duties of a father. The cohesion of such a state is simply the cohesion of the family on a larger scale, though a common religion and a common authority have more important functions. Military power does not make a nation, but the authority which can enforce obedience and develop the habit of submission, pertains to the very essence of the state. Eeligion, especially in the form of ancestor-worship, performed a very im- portant service, both in developing the babit of obedience, and by enforcing with supernatural sanctions all the customs of the past. Such a tribal state defended its citizens against attack from outside ; its military power guaranteed safety from human enemies, and by its religious ceremonies it retained the favour of the gods. To its internal functions no exact limit can be set. Theoretically it might exercise the authority of a father over the lives and possessions of its subjects ; practically the citizen has no protection against state-interference except the habit of non-interference that must charac- terise any state which seeks permanence by retaining the loyalty of its subjects. The tribal state may be governed by a king or by some sort of council, but whatever the form of government, the state is largely built up on the lines of the family, its authority can be compared to the authority of the father (when the family is organised on this basis), and its functions are the functions of a larger family. 160 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. The city-state of the Greeks and Romans is the out- come of this early tribal state, and shows the form 3 The Cit - wn ^ cn ^ assumes on a high plane of civilisa- state of the tion. The cohesion of the state is due to Greeks and bonds of the same character as before. Life Eomans. - n ^ ne same l oca iity does, indeed, accomplish more to unite men as society becomes more stable, but the ties of blood are still strong, and the fiction of relationship often lends its sanction to ties that had another origin ; moreover, a state-religion is still a bond of political union. The true guarantee of permanence, the real unity of the state, consists in the highly- developed life of the people. No longer is this limited to a few customs which differ slightly from the customs of a neighbouring tribe ; all that makes life worth living finds its expression in the common ^ife and culture of the group. The city - state performs the functions of defence against attack of man, and against the wrath of the divinities; while, as an enlarged family, it may direct all the common life of its members. The functions of the developed city-state differ from those of the earlier tribe generally in the greater regularity and permanence which characterise them, and the most im- portant change in detail is the administration of justice which the civilised state is gradually assuming. What- ever be the particular form of government, whether it be despotic, or aristocratic, or democratic in the old sense of the word, it is really government by a class; and it depends on a certain balance of power between the different classes in society. King or council governs all classes through the class that is strongest, or that is in the best position to control. The third type of state to become prominent in the political development of the Indo-European Feudal state races was tne feudal monarchy. Here personal allegiance takes precedence over the other fac- tors which bind society together, and an elaborate system THE STATE AND SOCIAL ACTIVITY. 161 of personal rights and duties constitutes the very frame- work of the state. It is no longer a larger family; it is rather an army, and government is a military institution, though blood and locality partly determine the composition of the army. The functions of the feudal state are, first, defence each chieftain, small or great, defends his subordinates from attack, and each dependent can be summoned to aid his superior in battle ; secondly, the administration of justice each chieftain enforces law and custom among his dependents, and brings his own wrongs before his superior for judg- ment; thirdly, the direction of affairs, many of which to-day would be called private, for economic production and distribution are conducted largely along feudal lines, and economic activity is, in large measure, controlled from above. The form of the feudal state is peculiar, in that it has the semblance of being organised from above. According to this ideal the king owns the whole state, nobles receive their fiefs at his hand, and distribute their lands among their subordinates, while themselves retaining the titles. Formerly men lived for the state; now they are called on to live for the king in whom the state has been concentrated. Moreover, consent to feudal authority is no longer due to inbred custom alone ; it certainly is not the free consent of reason; it is the consent of want, for the individual absolutely cannot live except in the place where he finds himself. The feudal type of government was never realised long at a time, but the ideas which it engendered have borne fruit in the aristocratic monarchies 5. The Limited which have succeeded the old feudal states. Monarchy Patriotism has often meant loyalty to the and king rather than loyalty to the state ; monarchs still continued to treat the state as their private property, and every concession and limitation of their authority has been secured with difficulty. Gradually the cohesion of the state has M 162 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. come to depend more and more on the highly-developed and differentiated common life, of which it is the political expression ; many and various ties bind men together, and patriotism is devotion to the state which protects men in the interests which make up their very life. The question as to the proper functions of government to-day requires separate consideration ; but it is easy to see that trade has been throwing off the yoke of political control, that government has but little to do with social relations, and that the intellectual, artistic, and religious life of every people is rapidly freeing itself from political influence and support. To-day, as in earlier times, governments have various forms, depending largely on their historic precedents ; but the principle on which the state rests is about the same in all. The sovereignty of the people is the real governing power, different as may be the form of its expression. The king is the minister of the people, not a superior being clothed with divine rights; and Parliament is forced to register the will of the people, or its character is changed until it does. The will of the people is expressed by means of representatives elected for the purpose, and responsible to the body which has delegated power to them. By this device the government is brought into closest relations with a large body of people ; it is theoretically possible for the people to choose men far wiser than the average to administer affairs of state, and, at the same time, each individual is encouraged to defend his own liberty. Having thus outlined some of the typical forms of the early state, we may now ask, What is the essential B. Relation nature of the state? With reference to this of Law to question, we get much light from the study the state. j aw> f or j aw j s t j )e or g an i se d body of rules which are enforced by the state. So intimate is the connection between the nature of a body of laws and the nature of the state which enforces these laws, that THE STATE AND SOCIAL ACTIVITY. 163 it is possible to argue safely from the one to the other. In earliest times, the basis of law is to be found in custom and religion. To make a law would be an act Earl Law as i m P ss i^ e as ^ was sacrilegious. The based on ideas of justice which the state enforces are Custom and to be found in an elaborate body of custom, igion. Q ^^h absolute validity is assigned. Priests often have the duty of preserving the knowledge of this custom, and the rules of procedure which it enjoins are frequently religious in their nature ; but the priest has no recognised power to make any change in them. The only principle of growth which we can discover lies in the power of king (or judiciary body) to decide new cases, provided he follows the established rules of pro- cedure. By means of these special cases the range of customary law might be widely extended, and it was so extended when the people felt the need of a more com- plete law. Law rested on the fact that a people assigned authority to certain principles of action. With the development of higher stages of civilisation, this reverence for custom did not entirely disappear, although the need of a more extended law was Law as Extended by constantly felt. Until comparatively modern the Courts times, this need was largely met by the courts, in Later ij< ne adjudication of particular cases continued to be the source of large additions to what was generally recognised as law or "right," and this process gradually assumed two forms. First, cases decided as coming under previously existing law fre- quently extended the scope of that law. And, secondly, new cases, of which the court was ready to take cog- nisance, might lead to a wide extension of the actual law of a people. The decisions of the Roman Praetor, together with the edicts announcing the principles which would govern these decisions, and the English Courts of Chancery, are the most striking examples of this kind 164 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. of law-making. In both these forms, a law is evidently a rule which the people recognise as binding, because their courts enforce it. In the modern state, almost all law has its source in legislative bodies formed for the purpose of pronouncing Law-making laws. Such bodies are said to have legal by sovereignty, i.e., they have the power to make Legislatures. ] awg w hj c h the judge and the lawyer are bound to recognise as valid (except where a constitu- tion is contravened). The ease with which a law seems to be "made" to-day, gives rise to the idea that law may really be manufactured without limit ; but a deeper study shows that the real foundation of law is still the will of the people. Unless public opinion stands behind a law, transgressors will not be brought before the courts, and even the courts themselves will be lax to adminster the law. And when the will of the people demands a new law to express a definitely formed opinion, no body of legislators can permanently stand in its way. The legislator is really the formulator of law, not its maker; legal sovereignty, the power to make valid laws, rests with the legislature ; but the real sovereignty is the will of the people, and no law continues to be effective unless the people recognise it as law, and consent to obey it as law. It is necessary to remember, however, that the " will of the people " does not mean a momentary majority, and perhaps not a majority at all, nor is it any capricious wish. Traditions of the past are a most potent factor in determining it ; temperament and education help to mould it ; the attitude of neighbouring states and the desire for the future prosperity of one's own state furnish additional motives ; and the people which has no common life sufficiently developed to produce a common will, can have no laws, for there is no basis for the state. Modern political science finds the real basis of the state's authority, as well as the basis of the authority THE STATE AND SOCIAL ACTIVITY. 165 of law, in the will of the people. When a people con- Sovereignty sen ^ ^ bey the state, the state has thereby and the the right to exercise authority ; and, inasmuch Conception of as t ne rea j w fn O f the people is formed gradually, and changes but slowly, the state has a comparatively stable foundation. The people, not a majority within a given territory, but the people as a definite society, are the basis of the state ; the state is simply the organ of society to accomplish certain ends, and it is distinguished from other social organs by the fact that it is the embodiment of social authority or sovereignty. The state may be defined as a society exercising authority over its members ; compared with the authority of other social institutions, the authority of the state is final ; and, for this reason, two states, as states, cannot exist in the same territory. The question as to the proper functions of the state and the limits to state activity, has been much discussed C The Func- during the P ast century. The cry for liberty tions of the has been a potent force in limiting the sphere Modern of government ; believers in the commune as the political unit, or in "state's rights," have resisted any increase of activity on the part of the central government ; individualists in philosophy and the liberal school of political economists, have resented any interference by the state in the sphere of -thought and the sphere of industry. But on the other hand, the less- favoured classes find some nations ready to lend them special aid, and they ask this aid of all ; legislatures seem to be omnipotent, so they are asked to make the world over ; all realise the solidarity of the nation as never before, and if all have a common interest, why should not the government seek to further that interest in any way at its command ? The commonly accepted idea of the state affords a general principle which throws light on this question, although it is not sufficient in itself to decide particular cases. The state, as we have seen, 1 66 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. is a society exercising authority over its members, and having final authority within a given territory. It is evident that forms of activity which demand the power of the whole society for their realisation, or, again, which require general rules enforced on all classes alike, come within the proper sphere of the state. On the other hand, an almost universal experience has shown that where freedom of initiative is required, political machinery is likely to stand in the way of success. The forms of state activity undertaken by the modern European state, may be classified under three heads : Three Forms ( a ) activity with reference to other states, of state guaranteeing protection from external attack Activity. or interference, (6) activity with reference to its citizens, guaranteeing them security and liberty, and (c) modification of other forms of social activity. Under the last heading comes the interference of the state in the sphere of economic life, and in the sphere of intellec- tual life, the propriety of which is being so generally discussed to-day. x The first necessity of a state is the power to assert a place for itself among its neighbours. The case of some I Diplo- ^ ^ ne sma ll er European States (e.g. Belgium) matic and shows that this power is not necessarily Military military force alone, yet ordinarily the state c 1V1 y> must, be able to defend its territory by military means. In this manner, the nation is isolated from other nations so far as it may think desirable, and its peculiar institutions have an opportunity for free development. The first condition of peace and security is this protection from external attack. The sphere of convention between different states has been 1 This classification corresponds roughly with the three ends of State activity proposed by von Holtzendortf (Principien der Politik, chapters vii., ix., and x.) namely, Machtzweck, Rcchtzwcck, and gesellschnftliche Culturzweck, although the definition of each differs radically from his. It seems to me quite unnecessary to discuss the ultimate ends of the State proposed by Bluntschli and Burgess. THE STATE AND SOCIAL ACTIVITY. 167 widely extended in modern times, so that a state to-day requires a wise diplomatic service in addition to mere military power, if it is to maintain its position with reference to other states. By this means states enter into union with each other for purposes of common advantage, and each state finds larger sphere for the exercise of its own individuality. So long as different states preserve their distinct national life, this two- fold form of activity will continue; and in spite of all that is justly urged against the great armaments of Europe, there can be no question that the necessity of maintaining its position does very much to develop the resources and the common life of each nation. The second fundamental form of political activity concerns the relation of citizens to each other and to the state, and its aim is to guarantee security and II. The State .. . . , * punishes liberty to each citizen and to protect the state Crimes and from the internal danger of vice and crime, defends the Evidently the sphere of law is two-fold; Ri htt ac ^ s w hih endanger the common life of the state are punished by the state, and also the individual is protected in the exercise of certain rights defined by the state. The punishment of crime clearly belongs to the state, for it requires the use of an authority which reaches to all parts of society. It is true that when the state has not protected men from crime, they have devised a way to protect themselves ; the system of family blood- vengeance afforded a rude means of protect- ing life in early times, and the trade societies of Flanders and Italy are an example of the same ends more perfectly secured in mediaeval periods of anarchy. But the punish- ment of crime is not likely to pass from the hands of the developed state, both because the state alone is really fitted to deal with crime, and because crime endangers the common life which finds expression in the state. Accordingly we find that the state not only provides machinery for determining justice and punishing the 168 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. convicted criminal, but it also establishes an elaborate police system to secure the criminal, and in the person of its own attorneys, it conducts the case against him. This has proved to be the only effective means of dealing with those who utterly refuse to regard the most fundamental rules of common life. The attempt has been made to limit the functions of the state to this single form of activity, viz., care for The Preven- internal safety, but this principle does not tion of furnish the simple means desired' for setting a Crime. right limit to governmental activity. Care for internal safety demands something more than the punish- ment of offences already committed ; many evils may be prevented by wise precautions, and more still would be prevented if the state could develop the moral character of its citizens to a higher stage. 1 But the modern state only finds it wise to interfere with the moral training of individuals, in the case of young persons who have already been convicted of crime ; and although it regulates such matters as the manufacture and use of dynamite, the ex- tension of police supervision is not unreasonably objected to by opponents of a paternal government. Besides punishing crime, the modern state protects its citizens in the exercise of certain well-defined rights. It enforces contracts when properly made; it Protects affords damages for accidents and for other Citizens in injuries ; it permits the formation of corporate the exercise bodies for business purposes, and defines the rights and duties of these societies ; it may even lend its stamp as a guarantee that goods come up to a particular standard of excellence, thus protecting individuals against fraud. All these various forms of activity may be carried on by private associa- tions, and some of them seem to be passing out of the hands of the government; but the government has an advantage over other forms of association, in that it can 1 W. v. Huiuboldt ; Gesam. Werke, VII. p. 50 sqq. THE STATE AND SOCIAL ACTIVITY. 169 establish universally binding rules, and can act through courts which command universal respect. In this manner the citizen finds through the state security of life and property, and liberty in the exercise of his rights. To some schools of thought, government has seemed to stand in the way of the liberty proper to man, but it has become very clear that true liberty is a different thing from the right to act without reference to any other man. A government in process of formation may seem to curtail individual freedom; but the right to be protected from the incursions of other states, the right to be protected against crime and against unjust interference on the part of any man, the right to all the economic, social, and intellectual privileges of civilised society these are civil rights guaranteed by the state. And as the sovereign state passes more and more into the hands of the people, as the individual has been secured against interference in wider and wider spheres of action, the history of develop- ing government has been the history of growing liberty. Even if the state does not go beyond the most limited sphere of activity, it renders very important service to all the other modes of social activity. But the state in ' m dern state does, as a matter of fact, inter- relation to fere directly to favour industry and even to other Modes carr y on some forms of industry ; the separa- c t a tion of state and church is by no means Activity. J universal; and the control of education has passed, to a considerable degree, into the hands of the state. If the present tendency toward socialistic measures should continue, direct care for the welfare of each citizen would come to be the most important sphere of state-activity. l The state ^he economic life of society is fundamental, and and common political life is not likely to arise Economic except where common economic interests bind 71 y ' men together, (chap. vi. p. 113.) But it is equally clear that industry demands the protection of i;o INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. the state. Peace and security are the necessary con- ditions of industrial development; and if the state does not provide these, industrial associations must perform as best they may the proper function of the state, or their existence is constantly threatened. Gradually the state has assumed the important function of defining and giving fixity to some economic institutions. The state- has never been an inventor of new economic forms, but when such forms or institutions have arisen, it has often preserved them and given them such definiteness that it could protect persons in the use of them. Thus the forms of contract grew up in economic intercourse, but the state has defined a legal contract, and when the contracting parties have complied with the law, it under- takes to enforce the contract. Money was used long before the state coined gold or stamped paper, but it was soon found convenient to have the degree of fineness and the weight of a piece of gold authoritatively deter- mined, and this the state undertook to do at an early date. In similar manner the state has benefited com- merce by giving a definiteness and sanction to banking institutions; in fact, it guards the rights of individual persons and the welfare of the community, by defining the manner in which any sort of corporation may be formed, and the legal rights and responsibilities of such a corporation. The state has invented none of these things, but it has aided economic activity by giving definite authoritative form to various economic insti- tutions. It is an open question how far the state should di- rectly interfere with economic matters. Quite generally D'r t Inter- ^ assumes the power to protect inventors by ference with granting them patents ; and, in many countries, Industry by it uses its power of taxation to aid some forms the state. of i n( j us try, and even to hinder other forms, which it regards as injurious. All modern states under- take the transmission of mail matter, and keep important THE STATE AND SOCIAL ACTIVITY. 171 roadways in order; many states go farther, and control the railways and the telegraph. "Public works" im- portant for the general welfare, such as the dredging of harbours, surveys of land, and charts of the shore, are generally undertaken by the state. And, to-day, the state is asked to go farther still, and to become an employer of labour in numerous forms of industry. It is generally agreed that the state is society as exercising final authority, and making rules which bind all classes alike. The limits of direct state activity in the economic sphere will be determined in the light of this principle; where final authority and universal rules are more advan- tageous than freedom of individual initiative, the state should assume control. Evidently the line will be drawn differently in different localities, and in different ages. In its relation to social institutions, particularly to the family, the state has much the same office as in relation 2. The state to economic institutions. The state has grown and the up along with the family, and has always Family. recognised its validity. In modern times, by making marriage a civil as well as a religious institution, it has given the family a definite status before the law. At the same time, it has defined the legal rights and duties of the members of the family, and thus has helped to make the relations in the family more definite and more permanent. At times the state has given its sanc- tion to other social institutions, and, in a measure, it still recognises rank in some countries. These institutions are not invented by the state, but the state may define them and give them permanent form. The relation of the state to the intellectual and Higher ^ e ^ society has varied greatly at different Social times. Undoubtedly the state derives some Activities, advantage from uniformity of language, opinion, (a) uca- an( j beijgf. an( j m ^ effoj-t to secure this, tion. the liberty of the press has been curtailed, universities have been brought under a dominant central 172 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. influence, as in France, and schools have been made instruments for securing intellectual uniformity, as in Alsace-Lorraine. The obstacles which any forcible effort for uniformity places in the way of a vigorous and growing intellectual life are so effective, that modern governments have been less and less inclined to interfere with the free expression of thought. Even the uni- versities under direct government control have secured a large degree of freedom. Along with this increase in intellectual liberty, another force has been at work impelling governments to bring the matter of education under more direct supervision. The modern state is democratic, and even as a matter of self-defence it is really compelled to educate its voters. In spite of many disadvantages, compulsory education, controlled by the state, has come to be the rule, and every child is com- pelled to do a certain amount of school-work. It is clear again that it is of the utmost importance to the modern state to have citizens of strong moral (6) The state character. The presence of the morally weak and Moral and the morally depraved is a constant menace Iife- to the state's existence. But moral character is not to be created by force, and any interference with morals on the part of authority is likely to sap the springs of character without accomplishing any but a temporary success. The moral and religious state of a Savonarola or a Calvin shows the utter futility of the effort to make, men moral. The- modern state has found it possible to remove some temptations to vice by forbidding the circulation of impure literature, by limiting the sale of intoxicating liquors, and (in America) by forbidding organisations which encourage gambling. More than this can hardly be accomplished by the use of authority, i.e. by the state. The question of the relation of state and church has never been settled. Ever since the political and the religious organisations of society became distinct in form, THE STATE AND SOCIAL ACTIVITY. 173 they have retained a close connection, and in European (c) The State countries this connection still continues. It and the is urged in its favour that if religious beliefs Church. are rue ^ {.^gy are a mos t important concern of the state, that the nation should fittingly appear before God in a national church, that the religious side of life cannot be so separated from the rest of life as to remove it entirely from the proper sphere of govern- ment. On the other hand it is evident that there can be but one final authority in external matters, that the use of authority in matters of religion helps to make religion formal and perfunctory, that the religious liberty for which so many have died, is not lightly to be thrown away. The question as to the proper limits of government activity is one of the most important questions of the day. It is the old question as to the proper Conclusion. ~* . r extent or external, authority which was at stake in the formation of the Protestant church, and in the war for the independence of the American colonies, as in so many contests before and since. The problem belongs to practical politics, but it receives more definite form from the general consent as to what the state is, viz., the organ of final authority, controlling all individuals within its territory. CHAPTER X. THE INDIVIDUAL FKOM THE STANDPOINT OF SOCIOLOGY. THEORIES of social organisation have taken very different views of the units out of which society is composed, and these differences have been reflected in the the i"d' - opinions of social reformers. Roughly speaking, vidual versus theoretical and practical thinkers are divided the Welfare i n t two opposing camps on the question of the Social ,,, ,, ,. P, , , . , Group whether the individual or the social group is the true unit for the sake of which society exists. This contest between the individualists and the socialists, as they would term themselves, is not limited to economic and political relations, but runs through the whole field of social activities. Moreover, the problem is twofold, although the two parts are intimately related. On the one hand is the question of fact, whether from the scientific standpoint the individual or the group is the bearer of culture and the true unit of society ; on the other hand is the question of worth, whether the indi- vidual or the social whole has ultimate value, and which should be developed at the expense of the other in case the two come into conflict. This conflict has received most emphasis in the economic sphere. On the one hand is the individualism of the This Conflict orthodox political economy ; the unit of in the differ- economic activity is the economic man, ruled ent Spheres by hi s desire for wealth ; the competition of ' the middle of the nineteenth century is exalted into a universal law, and the bitter struggle of man with THE INDIVIDUAL. 175 his neighbour is made the basis of all that is good and all that is just ; the doctrine of laissez-faire represents not only a present truth, but also an ideal, for a strong society depends on the strong citizens that are said to be developed under this regime. The other party has never been entirely unheard. In business no man lives to himself, but prosperity or adversity overspreads a whole nation at once ; confidence is at the basis of successful business activity ; employer and labourer suffer together ; practi- cally, the claim is made, the social group should intervene to protect *and encourage industry, for the interest of the part is in the advancement of the whole. The theory of economic 'socialism is that the individual is, and should be, a fraction of the whole. The same conflict appears in the sphere of "social" life in the narrower sense of the term. There is the comfortable belief in a sort of natural equilibrium, such that each man eventually finds his true associates ; the belief that men are very different, and that the differences in society are but the differences which necessarily exist between the men who enter into society ; the belief that the social world is, and that any attempt to make it better by wholesale, will be fraught with grave mischief. In opposition to this is the cry of the sentimental reformer that one class is "grinding another beneath its iron heel," that the " rich " will suffer unless they condescend to help the " poor," and that the " poor " have an inalienable right to the good things of this life. With reference to the intellectual and aesthetic life, there is the call for the " education of the masses," and over against it the belief that culture is won, not imparted, that the desire for knowledge must be awakened in the individual before one can speak of educating him. In the moral and religious life there is the ideal of virtue and of holiness which applies to the individual ; the appeal is directed to the individual to choose a right course of action, and to develop a right character in himself. There is also the ideal of self-sacrifice and love 176 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY, which bids men forget themselves in the service of others. Finally, the same antithesis appears in the state. Indi- vidualism says, Eights belong to those who can win them ; property, political rights, political power, fall into the hands of those best fitted to use them ; the state does exist for the man, and ought to. And there is a social- istic doctrine of fraternity and equality which claims to deal with classes rather than with men. Here, as else- where, the class is reached by neglecting the differences of individuals ; if individuals are by nature alike and equal, it should be the function of the state* to realise this likeness and equality in the perverted modern world. Adherents of both these views are accustomed to appeal to history in support of their opinions. Christian The Teaching^ 00 sts anc ^ Socialists of the chair in Ger- ot History many refer to early Hebrew institutions as as to this embodying their ideas ; de Laveleye shows how Antithesis. fftr we haye straye( j f rom t j le tvpe O f jjf e found in the early Aryan village communities. The individualist responds by quoting Sir Henry Maine's law, " from status to contract," with all the evidence that can be brought forward in its favour. But if one is ready to lay aside the spectacles of either party, two truths stand out with considerable clearness, (i) The earliest achieve- ment of the human race was the development of social groups. By the development of race ties, of common interests, and of centres of authority, men who had been separate animals became united in human groups. The physical subjugation of the individual to the power of the group was, of course, most apparent when the patriarchal family, the despotic state, and the despotic religious community seemed to obliterate the separateness of men. Yet the process of the subordination of man's physical self to the life of the community did not stop here ; the great eastern despotisms are not the truest examples of such subordination. The character of the THE INDIVIDUAL. 177 relation has indeed changed it has been incorporated more and more in the inner life of the individual ; but men have never before been so dependent on society as they are to-day. (2) History is, at the same time, the 1 record of the growing importance of the members of society, until to-day all the stress is laid on the individual as the intellectual and the moral element of society. This process has been far from regular, but it has grown clearer with each advance in civilisation. Beyond a question, the individual's psychical life has never had such stimulus to broad and full development as it has to-day. These two truths explain the ease with which both the so-called individualist and the socialist find in history the proof that their respective opinions are correct. At the same time they show that the antithesis between the two positions is falsely drawn. The preceding chapters have indicated with clearness, I hope, the solution of this question from the standpoint The Group of a scientific sociology. Culture, civilisation, as a Social are primarily the property of the social group. Unitl Language and science develop with the social mind, and exist in this mind. Political life is the life of the nation; the moral code and the enforcement of it is a possession of the social mind and a mode of its activity. Nor are the differences of psychical life primarily differences of individuals, but rather differences characterising one class and another. When changes occur when two types of culture are thrown in contact with each other, and gradually fused into a new whole it is no mere figure of speech which expresses this as the contact of two groups ; it is no conflict between indi- viduals, nor is the result a change in what is peculiar to the individual, but only in the life of the group in which they are included. Sociology teaches us that the group is the true unit of social life. This account of the position of the social group is but the half of what sociology has to say upon this question. i;8 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. Sociology does not annihilate the individual; rather it The Place snows that individuality is something more of the than physical separateness. As a member of Individual society man develops a psychical personality, siety. an( j ^g sc j ence o f society has to study man as a person. The great difficulty with socialism, as ordinarily stated, and, indeed, with the "social organ- ism" theory, is that it neglects this most important side of sociology. There is a social mind, but the social brain is a figment of the imagination; the in- dividual is the centre of consciousness, and the centre of will. The individual's needs and emotions are the stimuli to social activity; through his mind the social ideals become active and effective; the norms of ethics and of logic are social rules foi the man's thought and action. The psychical life of the class is not developed apart from the psychical life of the mem- bers of the class it is the same thing regarded from two standpoints. There can be no strong and well- developed society made up of weak men, for the society is nothing but the psychical life of its members. The individual is the centre of activity: this means that all modifications of social activity are operative through the individual, that progress is due to influences acting on the individual, and retrogression commences as soon as the individual ceases to feel the influence of higher motives and impulses. Even when a reform pretends to deal with whole classes at a time, it only accomplishes this by bringing influences to bear at once on all the particular members of these classes. The individual is the centre of consciousness : this means that all intellectual advance takes place through personal leaders. Truth is a social possession, but new truth comes through indi- vidual leaders of thought ; ideals affect all the members of a class, but it is the moral or religious leader who has the insight to see the needs of his age, and the way those needs may be met. THE INDIVIDUAL. 179 The study of sociology, as well as the study of history, suggest that the antithesis between the group and the individual is but partial, and has been falsely , e . ni ~ stated. Both lines of study make it evident tween the that personality and dependence on a personal Individual environment develop together pari passu in and the other words, that they are one and the same Group is ^ . . False thing essentially, llie individualistic and the socialistic theories are alike false, because both are built upon a false antithesis. The great truth which needs to be emphasised to-day is the fact that personality is the product of social life, and cannot exist apart from social life; the fact that each advance in psychical life and psychical power means a new dependence on one's personal environment. Life as a man, the very power to be an individual person, lies in the relation to this personal environment. As to the question of fact, both the individual and the group are social units, although the relations of each to the larger whole are so different that they are not in any sense homogeneous units. As to the question of worth, neither group nor individual has worth by itself (strictly speaking, neither exists by itself); it is the individual in society, the person or the group as the bearer of this psychical life, to which this concept of worth may properly be applied. 1 The thought that psychical power lies in a developed psychical relationship with a personal environment, demands some farther illustration. Perhaps Power the most familiar example of this truth is to involves be found in the relation of the individual to Dependence the gtate< The fa^Qt may d eman( i anything on Society. ..... . of his subject (in theory) ; in practice he receives little from him, and at most all he does for the subject is to protect him from the incursions of other nations. The development of the state has been a story of increasing dependence of the citizen on the state for 1 Of, T. H. Green, Prolegomena to Ethics, p. 200, p. 351. i8o INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. protection of life and of those habits of life which one may choose without interfering with the rights of others, for the protection of property, and of all the other insti- tutions of modern life. This growing dependence has meant a liberty constantly larger, for political liberty is not typified by the hermit's life, but rather by the power to act out one's purposes in concert with others. Liberty under authority is a truism, but its truth has too often been forgotten. True political freedom is the highest type of political dependence. In a similar way every institution means a new dependence of the individual upon society. Take for Institutions exam ple the institution of money. A cannot as a Source expect B to accept the proper amount of his of Power. wheat in payment for the manufactured goods that A needs ; B wants tokens with stamps of the Govern- ment on them to the effect that they are legal tender, and nothing else. Both A and B depend on society for a particular medium of exchange. Farther, there are special institutions which deal in this special ware of money ; and those who desire can depend on the banks to handle much of this commodity in their behalf. Con- nected with them are still other institutions on which the individual is obliged to depend, to the rules of which he is obliged to conform, if he is to engage in business in modern society. Each of these complex institutions arose and exists to-day, because the individual has found he has greater power when he depends on them. He depends on society for money, it may increase the range of busi- ness he controls a thousandfold ; he learns to depend on the banks, space no longer hinders him from paying for goods in Berlin as easily as in New York, and time no longer obliges him to wait till he can himself accumulate capital for his increasing business. . The individual's power increases as he learus to depend more completely on more perfect institutions. THE INDIVIDUAL. 181 This same principle, that power lies in a true subjection to society, lies at the basis of much of what we call Education education. The school brings the child's mind Proceeds into sympathy with the civilisation of his age, on this au( } subordinates it to the norms of this civili- sation. In language, in natural science, in mathematics, it bids the child accept the habits and views of this our nineteenth century, because it is through this living connection with the psychical world in which he lives that he may expect power, and by no other course can he expect it. Psychical life is developed by developing dependence on the psychical environment. The same error, which has appeared in the antithesis of the individual and the group, appears also in the antithesis between egoism and altruism, which 11 recent writers have emphasised until it is false. A dilemma is proposed : Men are either seeking their own good, or the good of some one else, and on this basis men are parcelled out more or less fortuitously into two opposing groups. That this is pure abstraction is evident at a glance, for no one can entirely forget other people in his so-called egoism, nor does the altruist live without the least reference to himself. In business, in political or in intellectual pursuits, men are living the life that is consonant with their nature and environment. They are governed, not by simple self-interest (if there be any such thing), but by the varied interests which have entered into their lives through a contact with various types of society. There is a sort of egoism in the child or in the savage who yields to each animal passion, because as yet no real humanity has been developed in him ; and that man may be called an egoist, whose semi-human desires have been made keener and stronger by contact with social life, while he himself has not taken up that truly human life into himself. In like manner there is an i82 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. altruism of the child or savage or animal whose action is guided by a social impulse to aid his companion as easily as by appetite or passion ; and there, is an altruism of the man whose sympathy with others has been developed in society rather at the expense of the full personality which is his right and his duty as a member of society. Still, it is entirely false to regard egoism and altruism as opposed ethical ideals. What the philosopher means by altruism as an ideal is ordinarily just that development of truly human life, of personality, in the man which distinguishes the psychical man from the animal man. The ideal is really the development of personality and not self-negation. While the primary object of sociological study is the life of the social group, it is necessary, even in order to attain this end, to form a clear conception ^ ^ ne ^dividual an( l hi g place in society. Expression of To the question What is a person ? the first the Group- an( j simplest answer from this standpoint is that the individual person is the concrete expression of the life of the group. The group is the bearer of culture, but this is not the culture of the group ; it is the men, members of the group, to whom this culture applies. So far is this the case that in attempting to analyse the social mind, the only practical course has been to follow the general divisions of the psychology of the individual mind. The person is the concrete expression of this psychical life. The name does not apply to the animal man. Animals are separate. A man as he develops psychical life in society becomes a person. Truth becomes a power controlling his intellectual life; righteousness is the norm of an incipient moral life ; he receives eyes to behold the beautiful. Still a part of nature, it is none the less true to say that he rises above nature and the natural ; he becomes lord of nature as he becomes lord of himself. He becomes a person, and the conception of worth arises to express the difference THE INDIVIDUAL. 183 between this new phenomenon and the rest of nature. This psychical life is a process, not a stationary fact ; it is ever growing in power and in complexity, so personality stands out with increasing clearness against the rest of nature, and becomes a more and more precious possession, as it expresses a higher psychical life. The imperfection of this statement of the case is evident at a glance, and yet it is about all that sociology has had The Element ^ Sa 7 with reference to the individual person, of Individu- It is very well to glorify personality, and the ahty in worth of personality ; but, one cannot help asking, does this worth really lie in sharing the life of other people, and in nothing else ? Persons are first individuals, and we are wont to prize rather highly this difference from everybody else. In reality this is only an antithesis between partial knowledge as to the meaning of dependence on society, and a partially developed feeling of the value of individuality : a clue to its solution is at hand in the fact that the individual is a member of numerous social groups. He never expresses the life of any single group perfectly, for the very reason that he is more than a member of this group. Pride in being different from other people is a very empty matter indeed, unless this difference consists in sharing some element of psychical life not so fully shared by one's companions. Differentiated personalities are the counter- part of differentiated society ; each presupposes the other, for they are but two sides of the same thing. The simplest evidence in favour of this account of individual personality is to be found in the familiar fact that, as a matter of history, the differentiation ality of f individuals does keep pace with the growing Persons and complexity of social life. When the scientific Complexity imagination constructs out of the materials at 16 y ' hand a picture of the earliest social group it is obliged to think of this group as theoretically homo- geneous. If it is really a human group, a degree of 1 84 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. psychical life is present ; this, however, is shared by all, and the only difference between these incipient persons will be at bottom a physical difference. The history of progress is a story of differentiation of function, and corresponding differentiation of social groups. The subjugation of a second group introduces a difference of rank ; the separation between the inner family and the larger family or tribe is the germ of i twofold position of each individual in society. As soon as church' and state, religious and political life are in any degree distinct, another mode of activity becomes to this degree independent, and the individual may take his place in a new set of institutions. So long as each social class enters, as a whole, into the new forms of social activity, the only perceptible change may be a tightening of the bonds which unite this class. Historically, it is not always easy to determine the causes which led to the overthrow of these classes, nor is the process by any means complete. Sometimes the prolonged conflict of parties or states that were nearly equal in strength has led to a dissolution and recrystallisation of political forces; sometimes a new force seems to be introduced into the social world, as when new machinery and new sources of power were applied to the textile industries a century ago, and in the face of this new fact old classes give way, and new ones are formed. In one way and another the separation of the different modes of social activity becomes real, and not merely formal , new insti- tutions and distinct classes arise in each separate mode, and individual persons can no longer be alike, because no one occupies exactly the same position as any other in the social world. A comparison of different countries shows at a glance that members of a given class differ most widely where the various modes of social activity are most widely differentiated ; they differ less and less in the lower stages of civilisation now known to us, where the modes of activity are not clearly distinguished. THE INDIVIDUAL. 185 If the phenomenon of individuality is connected with the separation of the modes of social activity, it is The Com- important to notice the form in which this piexity of separation arises. When the separation is Society. rea ^ an( j no j. mere iy formal, each mode of activity gives rise to a distinct class of men who are bound together by their common function. The groups of men engaged in different functions cross and recross ; to-day they are rarely identical in any two cases. It would be absurd enough to regard such complexity of society as an end in itself. Still, it is evident that the richness of society must depend in large measure on the number of these groups, each the bearer of a distinct psychical life, which intersect each other. The inter- action of these types of culture broadens each one and stimulates its development. In this atmosphere indi- viduality and personality arise together. Individual personality corresponds to peculiarity of environment. The groups engaged in different functions, individuality which cross and recross, cross in the person of Environ- of an individual. The same man is in one group from the standpoint of production, in another from that of consumption. His intellectual, religious, political life, differs in important particulars from that of any one of his companions in the factory ; and the first reason is that he belongs to intellectual and political groups more or less different from those to which they may belong. His present and his past environment is peculiar to himself; his life as a psychical person is even more individual than his life as a human animal, because to- day his psychical environment is so different from that of any one else. The individualism of the present generation means just this, that no man is bound by the traditions of any one class, but that influences from widely diver- gent sources unite to make him what he is. To-day the walls which have separated different civilisations have been broken down. There is but one psychical world, i86 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. and its parts are so intimately connected that the results of a very local change are felt in distant parts. Tracing out the forces of history., each thinker is led to believe that all those forces converge upon himself. In fact this is coming to be in large measure true. The widening currents of psychical life are bringing each a more definite and more distinct influence on persons, and, in consequence, individual characteristics are developed with increasing clearness. Persons cannot be alike, for no two have the same environment. In this individual environment individual personality is of necessity developed. And yet this is a very The defective statement of the case, for environ- Individual ment is a biological metaphor, and it intro- Personahty. ^ uces perhaps as much error as truth into the present discussion. Properly speaking, the person is not " environed " by psychical life ; his very personality consists in sharing the psychical life of the community. Psychical forces may, indeed, affect him as external influences, but the development of personal individuality is due not so much to such external influences as to the forces which reveal themselves through the indi- vidual as the centre of consciousness and of activity. It is the glory of personality that the psychical life of the past and of the present finds its true and adequate expression through the individual, and may be advanced to a higher degree of perfection through him. History, it was said truly, finds its goal in each person. This does not mean that all men will possess the same degree of psychical life and power. Necessarily, the life of the past and of the present, in making men different, will furnish some with peculiar richness and power. Such men can go forward only in the spirit of their age, but a unique development of intellectual and spiritual power enables them to advance far beyond their fellows. Such is individual personality from the standpoint of sociology : the psychical life of the ages THE INDIVIDUAL. 187 coming to expression in the individual centre of con- sciousness and of activity. A reference to the share of the individual in social progress will make a fitting link between the first and Tte the second parts of the present discussion. Individual The art of history -writing has largely dealt and Social ^ n discussion of the principal characters, to whose influence the rise or downfall of nations and their culture are attributed. We seem to see progress starting from individuals as centres, and gradually extending through the masses of the people. Eeal changes in the life of a people may often be overlooked by those whose interest is absorbed by the quarrels of kings; leaders of new movements may attract our attention away from the life which produced such leaders ; the truth of the common position still holds good. Progress does proceed from individuals. The age produces a better man, and he makes a new age. The first part of the process is what has just been described in the preceding paragraph. Psychical forces of the past and of the present centre upon an in- dividual, and he is endowed with the qualities of a leader. New truth opens to his keener vision; new possibilities of life appear in response to his quick sympathies and pure ideals. Looking back, we say of him : He lived before his time. Such leaders are the statesmen who see a broader political life as possible for the state, and who have the courage to strive for this ideal. To such men are due lasting reforms in religion and morals. Progress in science and philosophy lies in their hands. They are the true prophets, stoned probably by their own age, because they were not content with it, honoured by the later ages to which, in spirit, they belonged. The other half of progress is from such centres outward. The power of a large personality, the truth and the sympathy which such a personality brings with it, win adherents ; new social activities and a new class centre 188 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. about such a prophet. Great men cannot be made, but their lessons can be taught, and for this second half of progress, for education, each age may hold itself re- sponsible. It is the task of education to communicate, not merely the truth as cold fact, but also the psychical life in which truth and the ideal are realised. By such education the fruits of progress are diffused, and the seed is sown for still farther advance in the future. CHAPTER XL EXTERNAL DESCRIPTION OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT. THE first work of sociology is to make an analysis of social life as it exists to-day, in order to ascertain the Part II. factors entering into this life, as well as the Social laws governing the relation of these factors ; Development, j^t in the effort to accomplish this, our atten- tion has constantly been turned to the process by which these factors and these laws arose. While it has thus been impossible to draw any sharp line between the two parts of the study of society, the general description of social development and the more detailed examination of the processes of development have been postponed until the discussion of existing social life had been completed. The present chapter, which aims to give an external account of social development, falls into two divisions : (a) the continuity of social development, and (b) the unification of social life, attended by differentiation of the social elements. A. The Continuity of Social Life. From the physical standpoint all nature is a single multiform process which may be explained in terms of Continuity the universal laws of mechanics. The present from the is the outcome of the past and the source of Physical the future, because each present is but a an point. s k ac [i uin arbitrarily fixed in the single process which we know as the world. Human life is one part of 189 190 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. this process. After this part has been isolated from the rest, it still has a physical continuity and a physical unity, for each human being is a child and may become a parent, and it is only necessary to follow this thread back or forward a little way, in order to see that the individual is linked with an indefinite number of others. 1 But while the continuity of social life presupposes this physical basis, it is by no means identical with the continuity of the human race. It is rather a series of processes, each continuous, which may have had various beginnings, and which are only gradually being blended into one. Again, the physical unity of a race is largely due to a brief connection of children with parents, so that most of the race become quite independent of each other. The bond which unites the members of a society in their common life is never severed, and the broken process of changing human lives does not prevent the real continuity of social life. It is an old saying that the king never dies, which means nothing more or less than that the nation does not .die. Citizens change, but the state lives on. Continuity of c . Social Life and the change of those who compose it is the and Social very principle of its progressive development. Groups. rpj ie na t,ion's vigour may degenerate, its culture may be absorbed into that of a more powerful people its life receives a new form, but it does not die. After the most complete destruction which we can conceive, the influence of the state that has been destroyed can still be traced in a transformation of the forces that survive. It is doubtless part of the mythology which has been suggested by the phrase " social organism," when we are told that the social group is born, grows up, and at length decays and dies. But the simple fact that the present is the product of the past in the psychical world as in the physical world, is the key to an understanding of past progress and a basis for judging present movements. 1 Dumont, Depopulation et Civilisation, p. 391, sqq. DESCRIPTION OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT. 191 The continuity of social life manifests itself first in the continuity of social institutions. Psychical life depends Continuity on institutions as a sort of skeleton or frame- of institu- work, and it is no more possible to produce tions. these all at once, and from outside, than to make the body of an animal. They are the product of a course of development, and they serve their purpose only because they have gradually acquired a considerable degree of resistance to change. This framework for the higher life to-day is an inheritance; the continuity of institutions is the basis of advancement. The fact that institutions continue from age to age may be illustrated in any sphere of life. In the religious life, the object with which one age and people has associated the idea of God, continues to be divine for the succeeding age; the place where God has appeared is the place where he may be expected to appear; sacrifice and other forms of cultus owe their sanctity and potency to an accumulated reverence they are the approved ways of seeking the gods ; the priest is a sacred man, because his predecessors have acquired the power or the right to stand between the people and their god ; religious authority is simply the habit of obedience passed on from generation to gene- ration, till it has entered into the life of the people. The economic institutions of property, of money, of banks and factories, are the product of the experience of many ages ; they possess a recognised authority, and they serve their purpose as the framework of economic life, because they have their sources in the distant past, and can be modified only gradually. Language is such an institution that is not made, but grows such are the methods and prin- ciples of science, and the ideals of the moral life ; they live on from age to age, and the power which they acquire is based on their continuity. The state and the family are institutions that have very slowly shaped themselves in the life of the race; the authority and the freedom which each makes possible are no modern acquisition, but 192 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. rather the slowly accumulated products of the ages brought to bear on the life of to-day. The fact that institutions owe their power to this principle of self- continuation is evident enough; nor is the importance of the fact any less clear, for it is only the external side of the truth that society is an evolution, that new forms of life are produced out of lower forms, that progress is out of the past even when it seems to contradict the past. But the continuity of social life means more than the fact that institutions pass on from age to age, and that The ^ ne ex ternal forms of life are not subject to Generation sudden change. It means also that the life of Psychical which uses these forms, and grows upon the e> skeleton of these institutions, is itself in a real sense continuous. Psychical life is not a product spon- taneously arising in each individual, but it is stimulated in the individual by personal contact with others in social life. In the family, the school, the church, there is constantly going on the process of the generation of psychical life. The teacher finds his stimulus in the never-dying power of masters who may have lived centuries ago, and quickens in his pupils the aspirations and energies which will make themselves felt when the pupils take their place in the world. Not simply the forms of life, but the energy the life which uses these forms has its sources in the far distant past. It in- creases and degenerates, its currents separate or come together, it finds men whose physical nature hinders or favours its development, but it is never created ex nihilo. Correlative to this last statement is the fact that psy- chical life does not lose its power. From the present standpoint, the law of its progress may almost be described as progress by multifold effect, for psychical life is not exhausted by generating similar life in others, but it even gains in power by this process. The achievements of the past in art, in philosophy, in religion, are ever new; age DESCRIPTION OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT. 193 after age derives its inspiration from them, and the truly great productions of the Greeks, the Hebrews, the Eomans, gain new mastery over us as we study them with truer appreciation. The comparison of society with the organism of biology has led observers to expect that society will follow a lixed -course of development with periodic Continuity , , , . . . and Change changes, as does the organism. JBut society is not an organism, and along with the continuity of its life there is an absence of rigidity, which is very important for its progressive development. If the organ- ism were able from time to time to substitute an organ of more youthful character for one that had grown old and to keep up this process until the whole body were re- newed, it would escape the necessity of growing old and dying; and if it could at the same time preserve the experience of the displaced organs for the benefit of the more youthful organs that succeeded them, it would em- body a principle of genuine and almost unlimited progress. What, from the very nature of the biological organism, is for it impossible, is true of the social organisation. In the life of a society new units are substituted for those that have grown old, and normally the process goes on so gradually that the experience of the past may serve as the basis of future development. The young persons of each new generation are plastic material which may be moulded in harmony with the higher ideals of the former age ; at the same time they do not hesitate to adopt new practices and to champion new ideas. I.e., the shortness of human life is the principle of change, which, when com- bined with the principle of continuity, is the basis of social progress. The new world of the generation that succeeds us is no mere copy of our world, but the living continuation of it. It has often been customary to limit the process here treated, and to interpret it as the gradual conquest of a world known as the realm of truth. The continuity 194 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. of institutions in that case is simply their harmony with an external perfect law, and the continuity De'veio ment ^ ^ e * s ^ ne g ra( ^ ua ^ embodiment in humanity from the f a knowledge of the truth. Some such standpoint position is natural, because human reason of a sup- ever asser t s a k m( j O f independence from posed Goal. time and space, and seeks to lend eternal universal validity to the knowledge it acquires. While this eternal and universal validity may be a natural postulate in behalf of our knowledge, the position is by no means so clear and unavoidable as it may appear at first sight. In fact, each addition to our knowledge affects our attitude toward all the things known befor t e, so that former knowledge is shifted, be it ever so slightly, from perfect agreement with the facts. We do indeed lend a universal validity to knowledge, in so far as it is perfect from our stand- point , but the ideal of absolute knowledge is, in reality, an ever-advancing goal, and no present fact. When the student treats this habit of human reason as an absolute fact, and finds the unity of social development only in an external world, he has left the field of science for that of metaphysics or of faith. The scientific study of society finds society to be a developing process, con- tinuous in its institutions and in its life. NOTE ON SOCIAL REFORM. It is hardly necessary to call attention to the fact that the present discussion has a very im- portant bearing on the matter of social reform. The doctrine here stated should not, of course, be understood as denying the reality of revolutions both in public sentiment and in the forms of social organisation. It does say that revolutions have their roots in the past, that they are the product of a long period of preparation, and are not manufactured to order. The con- sideration of this topic shows the utter absurdity of all schemes to introduce a new social order on short notice, and by purely external methods. At the same time, it shows that the effort to set true and high ideals before the world cannot fail to produce its effect in time. DESCRIPTION OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT. 195 B. Increasing Unity and Complexity of Social Life. In an Essay entitled "Progress : its Law and Cause," Mr. Spencer asserts that the essence of progress consists in Mr. Spencer's the transformation of the homogeneous into Law of the heterogeneous, and he goes so far as to Progress. ca j} ^his the law of progress. As the solar system was once a homogeneous mass of gaseous matter, but now has become a highly complex system of sun and planets; as the earth was once a fluid body, homo- geneous throughout, but has gradually developed a very complex crust with its various rocks and their strata, its mountains and ocean beds; so, we are told, mankind and its civilisation have been passing from a homogeneous to a heterogeneous state and this is progress. The phrase " homogeneous to heterogeneous " is evidently taken from some other sphere than the social, and in its application to the higher life of man its meaning is not at all the same as when it is used to describe physical nature; nevertheless, it is clear that the fact referred to is the most striking feature of human progress. To call this the " law " of social progress is a very loose use of words, for it is nothing more than an external description of a feature common to all forms of development. To state the fact more exactly, as society develops, the forms of social activity and the groups engaged in these activities become more distinct, and separate simple social groups unite into a very complex form of society. The objec- tions which hold good against Mr. Spencer's position are at once avoided by a more careful statement of the case. In the earliest state of society that we can picture to ourselves, men lived in small tribes or "hordes," which Physical Side ^&d but little to do with each other. These of Social tribes were small, because no principle of Development, common life had been developed to unite more than the few individuals who clung together for mutual protection; they were practically independent of each 196 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. other, for no interest extended beyond one tribe to con- nect it with another. From a physical standpoint, social activity consisted in a struggle with nature, and a struggle with similar tribes. In this struggle one tribe would go under, and another increase in size until it split; the only real change would be introduced when one tribe became strong enough and far-sighted enough to bring another tribe into permanent subjection to itself. The new unit came to include several smaller groups, and the original elements acquired different functions in relation to the newly-formed whole. Turning from the beginnings of society to the European civilisation of to-day, we see the same process at a far more advanced stage. Practically there are but seven or eight peoples in Europe to-day, and the common life of these peoples is more important than their separate life. Along with this integration social functions have become distinct and separate, and there is hardly any limit to the number of social groups which have arisen in this complex society to perform these functions. Considering the different modes of social activity in their relation to each other, we find that in early times they were all but identical. A later age says that in the General patriarch al family the father was farmer and Character of manufacturer, judge, king, and priest ; the fact the Early is, that all these functions originally are Social Group. un j^ e( j j n eacn person and in each group, because they do not yet exist as separate functions. So long as there is practically but one uniform type of social activity, there is no social influence to make the members of the group different from each other. Each person is like every other, joining in the hunt, seeking for food, making his hut or his weapon and the only differences are due to difference of sex or of strength. The early group or " horde " lacked both definiteness and compact unity, and the groups differed from each other only with the different demands of their physical environment. DESCRIPTION OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT. 197 Increasing social complexity may be considered from two standpoints : (a) the fundamental forms of social activity become distinct, thus introducing a Fundamental . i , . -, . Forms of more extensive and more complex social struc- Social ture, and (6) simultaneously within each of Activity these general modes of activity, greater com- plexity of function and structure is arising. Distinct. J The search for food and the effort for protec- tion become distinctly organised forms of activity, and the tribe assumes a definite structure with reference to each of them. Forms of social intercourse become fixed, the habit of respecting rights and enforcing rights arises, the need of protection against supernatural evils, and of communion with supernatural beings, leads to a distinctly religious activity; and with each new form of social activity the structure of society becomes more complex, and the dependence of one part upon another more intimate. While this change is often so gradual as to show no break, in many cases its results do seem to enter suddenly ; as, for instance, when the introduction of slavery constituted for the first time a distinct industrial organisation. From the second standpoint, the growth of social complexity and unity is even more striking. Men have always needed food, companionship, protection ; but the ways in which they have met these needs have varied exceedingly from age to age. The changes in the economic world, to take a typical example, show most clearly the differentiation and integration which are the outward mark of development. In the lower and earlier phases of society the need of food and of clothing is satisfied in the simplest manner The simple by the means which nature provides, and no Economic desires are as yet developed which reach out Group. beyond the clan or "horde." Each group supplied its own needs; all the numbers helped to build the huts which were to protect them from rain and cold, all worked together to secure weapons and tools, all shared 198 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. the product of the common chase. The industrial life of one such little group would be much like that of another, and within the group individuals would be very much alike, for even differences of sex could not yet lead to a uniformly different industrial life. Economic development began with the separation of economic activities, and we may point out three sources from which this sprang, viz. : (a) the differ- Separate ence between the strong and the skilled ; (b) Economic difference between the sexes ; and (c) differ- Functions eiices introduced by a new form of political and Classes. , , . , 1 organisation, in particular, slavery. A. The simple utensils of savage life required for their manufacture no skill which was beyond the reach of anyone, and conversely, no utensil requiring special skill could come into general use until some tribe was ready to support a class of toolmakers who should acquire and preserve this skill. The bow and arrow, or the canoe, could be made better when hunter and fisherman were ready to maintain someone who should devote himself to this work. Pottery, blankets, elaborate decorations, were not likely to attain any special degree of excellence until individuals could give their whole strength to particular forms of manufacture. In so far as the division of labour proved an advantage in meeting men's desires, or in making the tribe stronger to divert attack, the habit would tend to become permanent and widespread classes of manufacturers and of food producers would arise; a market would become necessary for the exchange of wares, and at length the growing business of exchange would call for a class of merchants, and a class of exporters. Division of labour tends to emphasise the differences of strength and of skill to which it was originally due; and as it becomes a necessity, the in- dustrial group must grow larger and more complex, in order that the simplest needs may be satisfied. B. The differences between the sexes played an im- DESCRIPTION OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT. 199 portant part in this process from almost the very beginning. Women could be compelled to work long before there were regular slaves, but they were less able to endure the fatigues of war and the chase. The advantages of this division of labour were so apparent, that it may have been an important factor in the development of more permanent family relations. The general line of division was between the outer world, and the inner world of the family which began to be formed. To the man fell the duties of protection from attacks of man and beast, and the procuring of game for food. The work of the home, such as the prepara- tion of food, the manufacture of garments, care for the children, the provision of whatever man may need or desire, this was commonly the woman's lot. This source of differentiation was no less important than the preced- ing, in providing the basis for a higher type of social organisation. C. The connection between the political and industrial organisation of society is always close, but under primitive conditions it is peculiarly intimate. The preservation of captives taken in war to serve as slaves, is a step equally important for the development of the state and for the development of industry. By the use of slaves, continuous labour and combined labour were pos- sible for the first time, and with the general institution of slavery, the foundation was laid for the civilisations of antiquity. This single illustration shows how a separation of political classes is the source of economic complexity, and consequently the cause of larger economic groups. . The necessary result of the separation of the more industrial activities is a more complex indus- Complex trial group. Each group requires all the Economic different forms of production to satisfy the needs and desires of its members, so that as soon as these forms are separated the group thereby 200 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. grows more complex. Complexity means the possibility, if not the necessity, of more members in the group ; the new form of industrial life tends to bring different groups together, where the earlier form had tended to separate them ; at the same time each group follows its own course of development, so that any two groups are far less likely to resemble each other than were two of the earlier simple groups. Moreover, the more com- plex life means a different industrial environment for each individual in the group, so that social influences tended to make men different, where before they had tended to make them alike. It is difficult to set any limit to this process of the increasing complexity of economic life and economic Continuation structure ; already it has gone so far that of this most of the human race stand in some sort Process. o f economic relation with each other. The reason of this process, in which any backward step is difficult, is twofold. From the standpoint of conscious purpose its advantages are so evident as to enlist in its favour the choice of thoughtful men. But evolution would be a slow and doubtful matter if it were left to thought and reasonable choice ; the results of this process and the absolute need of a complex economic organisation, become embedded in the very nature of the individual, so that he devotes himself to a limited sphere of economic activity, without conscious recognition of the broader reasons for this course. Economic evolution has always been marked by a growing complexity and unity of economic life; but even when dignified by the name of a " law " this change does not explain economic progress. The marks of social evolution, which have been dis- cussed for the case of economic activity, are none the less evident in the other modes of social activity. The earliest political organisation of society was absolutely simple ; and these simple political units were small, numerous, and in the same environment very much DESCRIPTION OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT. 201 alike. In the course of political development two forms of growing complexity may be distinguished. Political , ,, J . Activity ^ n ^ e s ^ P^ ace i " e state becomes composite, becomes Smaller centres of political life are developed Broader within the larger whole ; and, as the central authority is relieved from attention to detail, Complex. J it can perform the necessary functions of government for increasingly large bodies of men. Within the state there arise the province and the county, the town, the city, and the wards of the city ; or, again, it is found possible to unite smaller bodies into one larger body on the principle which we have learned to call local self-government; the result in either case is a separation of political functions, and an integration of the resulting political groups into larger and larger wholes. And, in the second place, the functions of the central governing power are separated, and the executive head is no longer clothed with legislative and judiciary powers. In consequence of this process the modern state is a very complex affair. Few states have taken the place of numerous tribes, and these states show marked differences from each other as the result of different lines of development. The evolution of social activity in aesthetic lines has been quite fully analysed by Mr. Spencer in the essay to which reference has been made. 1 The aesthetic Complexity enjoyment, which began in simple forms with and Unity narrow range, gradually assumed forms more in other an( j rnore complex, and simultaneously the sphere of its activity has been extending indefinitely. The evolution of intellectual activity has left its traces in the history of language. Under primi- tive conditions each group has its own. simple language suited to its very simple needs. So far as these needs were the same for different tribes, the different languages would have about the same structure and range; they 1 Spencer : Progress ; its Law and Cause (pp. 239-240,). 202 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. were very much alike, in that they served the same purposes in the same manner. Social evolution brought about a more complex intellectual life, and at the same time it tended to unite different groups in the same intellectual activity. A few languages, complex and unlike in structure and range, take the 'place of very many languages of the simplest character and very much alike. The new language is formed by taking up into itself elements from the languages which it supplants, and by this means it is able to meet the needs of the higher intellectual life. The same rule holds for every form of social activity increasing complexity and unity are the mark of social evolution. This process has continued until its results can be foreseen in clear outline. The unity of mankind, which c . . was once a prophetic vision, hidden from common eyes and accepted only upon faith, is at length being realised, as the most remote corners of the earth are brought under the influence of one civilisation. The process of integration has touched every race, and its farther advance will be toward a more intensive unity a more intimate unity of peoples already in contact. The result of greater complexity is an increasingly unique environment for each individual of the race, and every considerable advance in social evolution is marked not only by more sharply defined classes engaged in the different forms of social activity, but also by more distinct individuality among the members of these classes. The course of these processes is by no means even and un- interrupted, nor can we say as yet that this course coincides exactly with the diiferent stages of social evolu- tion. It remains true that the most striking character- istics of social evolution are the facts of continuity, and of growing unity and complexity; the outcome of these processes is a unified mankind made up of unique individuals. CHAPTEE XII. PROCESSES OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT. To the casual observer of society, it is evident that social development is continuous, and that society tends toward Two Theories a state of greater complexity with larger and of Social De- more comprehensive social groups. But if we veiopment. wou }(j look below the surface, and seek a more definite statement of the actual processes in this develop- ment, we are met at the outset by most diverse views. Many of these are purely fantastic, and need not detain us, but after such have been set aside, there remain two theories of social development, almost contradictory in their statement, and yet each claiming the support of a large mass of facts. On the one hand, there is the genealogical theory of progress, according to which types of culture are bred and scatter in the world, just as men are born and disperse ; science has the interesting task of tracing each form of civilisation up the genealogical tree to the common source of all, and thus the history of civilisation is made clear. On the other hand is the theory 1 that social development is a process of agglomer- ation and assimilation, such that each step in progress may be explained as the interaction of heterogeneous elements. The consideration of these two views will lead the student, I believe, to recognise that each of these theories is concerned with a real process going on in. society, but that neither deserves the name of the " theory " of social development. 1 This theory is presented with great vigour, and enforced with much illustrative material, by Gumplowicz in his Rassenkampf and Grundriss der Sociologic. 203 204 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. Perhaps the most natural account of the development of society would explain it as a process of dispersion and differentiation. In every age the family, more Dispersion* particularly the patriarchal family, has traced and Differen- its origin to some one ancestor, and his blood tiation. i n the veins of many descendants is supposed . ace n- ^ Q un ^ e them into one group. In this fni- crease. ment of society it is seen that the original pair has several children more or less different, and that each of these has children in turn, so that succeeding generations increase (theoretically) in a geometrical ratio, and characteristics which have arisen may easily be per- petuated and increased. This explanation which men are in the habit of applying to a small portion of developing society, may also be applied to the race as a whole. The biblical account of creation has made the Christian world familiar with the conception of an original single pair from whom all men are descended. Here, as in the example on a smaller scale, generations theoretically increase in a geometrical ratio, and differences are easily perpetuated and increased. In support of the view that the human race has at times followed the course indicated by this scheme of Historical development, we may point to the historical Evidence for evidence for such centres of distribution. It Centres of j^g been customary to speak of a cradle of on ' the race in the south-western part of Asia, and thus to give a certain scientific content to the biblical account of Paradise and the early development of the human race. Nor can we doubt that there was such a cradle of humanity where men multiplied, and from which successive waves of immigration swept to the westward. The study of language and of culture makes us acquainted with a few groups of peoples such as the Semitic and the Indo-Germanic, which are very wide-spread, and each of which seems to have come from one source. Used with the greatest care, this PROCESSES OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT. 205 evidence still seems to point to centres of dispersion from which each group originally came. On the American continent, we can point out at least one such swarming place for the Indian races. Fish and game were plenty in the region of the Great Lakes ; men multiplied rapidly, and as they became too numerous to find sufficient food even in such a place, one tribe after another seems to have separated from the parent stock, and gone forth to find a new home. Here again related languages and similar customs suggest a common source; while the appearance of the same sub-tribes and clans in each tribe, together with the same system of names and the same laws of relation, seem to indicate that each offshoot retained exactly the organisation of the parent tribe. From evidence of this character, I infer that dispersion was a real process; it is equally clear that we do not have and cannot have any such evidence that the ivhule human race came from one centre of this type. Those who have believed that the entire human race had a common origin have found it necessary to explain Differentia- ^ e important differences between ethnic tion of groups as the result of a long -continued Physical process of differentiation. Children of the ypes ' same parents differ, grandchildren may differ more widely ; and distant descendants, who have lived under different conditions, will show far greater differ- ences. All those differences of environment, which have been discussed in an earlier chapter (chap, ii.), have gradually affected the races that were subject to them. The temperature and the amount of moisture in the air affect the physical constitution ; some localities favour, and others hinder, intercourse of tribe with tribe ; the character of the food supply will modify the tribe from its industrial side; conditions of security or insecurity will affect its vigour; and, finally, with the rise of civilisation, the range of differences in the environment of individuals is indefinitely increased. 206 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. The facts already accessible with reference to the effects of very different surroundings upon the Spanish or the English race, confirm the impression that this process of differentiation is going on, and that the varieties best adapted to given conditions are likely to be perpetuated. At the same time, the effort to account for important ethnic differences by the long-continued effects of en- vironment is as yet very far from being successful. Very grave objections may be brought against the theory that the greater ethnic differences have arisen gradually among the descendants of a single The Process of Physical numan P a i r 5 but we find abundant evidence Differentia- that the differentiation and dispersion of tion and human races is a real process actually going ispersion; Qn ^ Q cau p j nt ou severa } centres of dispersion from which one race after another has gone out. We have good evidence that environment in and by itself has at least a limited direct influence both upon individuals and the race ; and we know that any differences, however slight, which benefit the in- dividual or the race in a given environment, are almost sure to be perpetuated in the struggle for existence. As a theory of human development, the theory under discussion is inadequate, if not misleading; as a process constantly going on, its truth cannot be denied. The same theory which has been discussed in the sphere of physical development, has also exercised a wide influence upon students of the various ation &TJ.& 1 1 ~^ orm& f psychical life. The history of such Dispersion of institutions as the state, or the history of Forms of social manners and customs, has been repre- serited by the figure of a genealogical tree; and any type has been "explained," when it is traced back to the common origin from which all have sprung. Two examples will make this clearer, and at the same time will illustrate the truth and the weakness of the explanation offered. PROCESSES OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT. 207 The discovery of the Sanscrit language by European scholars, and the light which it threw upon the relation of languages in Europe, gave a powerful im- (a.) Language: Dispersion, petus to the general study of the development of language. It was indeed a revelation that languages so different as the Slav and the German, the Celtic and the Greek, were intimately related as to root- meanings, inflectional endings, and sentence structure. The immediate inference from this group of new facts was that all these languages were descended from a common source, an original Indo- Germanic language, which, twenty years ago, scholars thought they could reconstruct with considerable accuracy. From the existence of this large group of languages, it was in- ferred farther that all languages could be classified in large genealogical groups; that each of these groups pointed to some common centre of dispersion ; and finally it was suggested that these groups had themselves a genealogical connection with a more distant common source, although few traces of this could be pointed out. It is now clear that many of these inferences were unjustifiable, and they have been abandoned. As a process, ever going on in the history of language, the spread of language is an all-important fact. Kaces carry their own languages with them as they migrate, and the effort to communicate with those who use other languages is likely to result in the gradual extension of the language which, under the circumstances, is best adapted to survive. As a theory of the development of language, however, the genealogical account of their descent is anything but satisfactory. Even apart from the influence of different environ- ment, language is never fixed and unchanging ; and if language : one S oes back to the period before the general Differentia- diffusion of printed books, and farther still, tion. ^Q the period before the general use of writing, he finds that language changes much more rapidly than 208 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. is possible to-day. The greatest difference between the dialects of one language to-day is a difference of pro- nunciation for the same vocables; and the change of pronunciation proceeds so rapidly, that the English spoken in the time of Shakespeare would not be easily intelligible to modern ears. The careful study of these changes may not reveal any universal laws, but it shows that these changes are all subject to law, and the laws which hold in a given place arid at a given time are being definitely formulated. Changes in the root mean- ings of words take place more slowly, but they are none the less real. Words of general meaning are restricted to particular uses, words applied to specific objects come to denote more general classes, literal use becomes metaphor, and the reverse. 1 Even more striking changes in vocab- ulary arise through the decay of some words, and the genesis of others to do their work. The main reason for these changes is evident, when one considers the way in which language is learned. The child learns but gradually to speak the language which he hears, and no two persons speak a language in exactly the same way. Differences existing in the case even of one person affect the ideal of the community with reference to language, so that every change has a slight tendency to perpetuate itself. Moreover, language is but the way in which a type of culture finds expression, and each change in the type of culture is immediately reflected in the language of the people in question. While then we cannot find traces of any direct tendency to differentiation in language, such that the meanings Languages f a word naturally split up within the same change and social group, we find numerous classes of separate. changes to which language is subject. When two languages derived from a common source have once lost the consciousness of their connection, these processes 1 Abundant illustration of these changes may be found in Whitney's Life and Growth of Language, chap. v.-viL PROCESSES OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT. 209 of change meet with no check, and constantly widen the breach between them. Nevertheless, these facts of change do not constitute any complete theory of the development of language. With the conception that the different ethnic religions are parts of one process, there has been associated the idea that these religions were related as the Dispersion 11 ' names ^ n a genealogical tree, and that they might be satisfactorily explained by reference to some common source. The comparative mythologists, who have made language the foundation of their study of myths, have naturally brought systems of mythology into the same relation as groups of languages. The name of a divinity recurring in different religions 1 suggests a common origin for these religions. The same types of divinity 2 at least suggest a common source from which their worship has spread, either as their worshippers migrated, or as other tribes came to recognise these divinities as their gods. The principles for the exact study of the dispersion of religions have not been determined with any definiteness, and the wild theories frequently propounded have cast discredit on this whole line of study. Nevertheless, we cannot avoid the belief that religion, like other phases of culture, has often been spread from common centres. With the migration of peoples from such centres, the religious side of their culture was spread abroad ; and we have abundant evidence that, at least within historic times, religions have had a remarkable power of extending over civilisa- tions to which they were originally foreign. _ . . , lieligious beliefs are intimately connected Differentia- with philosophical beliefs as to the nature of tion. the world and of the soul, and each change 1 The standing example of this is Dyaus-pitar, Zeus-pater, Ju-piter. 2 A goddess of love and generation (Astarte, Aphrodite, Venus), a god of the wine (Soma, Dionysos, Sabazios, Bacchus), a god of the sun, and another of the heavens. 210 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. in the latter is reflected in the beliefs that are more distinctly religious. Eeligious myth is almost as un- stable as other types of legend, except when it is in- timately connected with forms of religious practice; and even the explanations of religious practice become radi- cally different as a people advances to a new and higher stage of culture. No factor of religious life is so per- manent as the forms of sacred rites ; but even these change slowly from age to age. Forms which have become dead are cast aside, and new practices gradually gain the authority which was formerly possessed by others. If, then, two peoples start together, the par- ticular forms of religious life are likely to become different, and all hindrances to this differentiation are removed when the two peoples have lost consciousness of their earlier relation. The consideration of the development of language and of religion, as examples of the development of psychical . _ life, shows that the process of dispersion is real, The Process of Dispersion an d that constant changes are occurring, which and Differ- result in differences. Three facts stand out in entiation. t h e g enera l process, (a) The fact of continuity. Each phase of psychical life, like each living being in the physical world, is the direct product of its past, (b) The fact of dispersion. Forms of psychical life are frequently spread from common centres, both by the migration of races, and by the direct migration of their types of culture, (c) The fact of differentiation. Changes are constantly going on in every form of genuine psychical life, and these changes make the psychical life of one group different from that of another. This last fact is quite as important in a developed society as in earlier times, and the integration of distinct groups in the performance of different social activities helps on such a differentiation within any given society. As a theory of the development of culture, this genealogical account of society is inadequate and often misleading. PROCESSES OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT, 211 As processes constantly going on, dispersion and differ- entiation are real facts, and are playing a more important part in social evolution than ever before. In any comparison of civilised and uncivilised races as they exist to-day, the most striking difference relates to the size of a society. Among the Bush- . rocess men Q g ou th Africa, the groups or in- ation. Civil- cipient tribes are numerous, without organi- isation les- sation, and unstable. The lowest mountain sens number Bribes of India or in Central America show of Social . . . . Groups. the same. characteristics, lurnmg to civilisa- tion, we find to-day but one society ; it covers most of the globe, its organisation is very complex, and it has been comparatively stable for many centuries. Some smaller tribes have been exterminated by the " march of civilisation," but when the differences in culture have not been excessively great, the process has ordinarily been one of absorption and assimilation. The factors in the development of the Hebrew civilisation have left some traces in the later tribes, and the early history of the Greek city-state is an account of the fusing together of different elements into a larger whole. The condition of the uncivilised world to-day justifies us in assuming that the civilised society has been preceded by innumerable smaller societies ; and we have abundant proof with reference to each of the earlier civilisations that this assumption is correct. The more elaborate classifications of different types of social aggregates bring out this fact of agglomeration even more clearly, and show something of its Mr. Spencer's . a . i -c * e ? Classification im portance. Spencer s classification or different of different types of societies may serve as an illustration. 1 Types of j n m - s s l m pl e " society, " the parts co-operate, e "with or without a regulating centre, for certain public ends." In the " compound " societies "the simple groups have their respective chiefs under a 1 Spencer, Principles of Sociology, part ii. chap. x. 212 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. supreme chief." Such societies are naturally formed when one group asserts its superiority by subjecting other groups to its rule. As these compound societies get a more stable headship, and different parts come to depend more on each other, one of these may absorb others, and thus a doubly or a trebly compound society is formed. Without attributing too much weight to Mr. Spencer's abstractions and terminology, we recognise that each change is the result of a new agglomeration, and that the classes in the more compound society partially represent the component parts, the original groups which it has absorbed. This suggests another process besides simple dis- persion, and another figure which represents progress _. . . , more truly than the genealogical account of a Statement tf . * the Process patriarchal society. From a purely external of Agglomer- standpoint, human progress may be repre- ation. sented as a process of agglomeration and assimilation. Granted the existence of an indefinite number of small groups, such as we find among any uncivilised people, progress begins when one group is able to use another for its own ends in some other way than by eating those who compose it. From this stand- point the story of human progress is always the same. One tribe subdues another, absorbs it, and rises by pushing it down. The leverage for human progress is quite generally found in humanity, not in nature alone. This is followed by an assimilation of the different elements into a more homogeneous whole. Men are brought together in larger and larger societies, until the human race is one, for the real unity of the race is an achievement, whether or not it be descended from a single pair. Viewed on its physical side, this process starts with the fact of very numerous, all but independent, groups of men. When it is put forward as a theory, that is, to explain the differences between men by tracing them PROCESSES OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT. 213 back even farther than the beginnings of humanity, of course this process requires the polygenetic Process origin of our race. But in its more modest regarded form, it starts with the facts of uncivilised life from its as they exist all over the globe. The process _. ysica consists first in the agglomeration of these groups, either directly or indirectly ; directly, as one absorbs another in toto, indirectly, as exogamous marriage gradually unites the separate groups into one larger society. Such agglomeration takes place very easily and naturally when two savage hordes come into relation ; and it is none the less real when two civilised societies first touch, and then enter into connection with each other. It is only when two societies on very different planes of culture come into relation, that a true union seems to be difficult. 1 The process which we are thus led to consider is by no means inconsistent with the process of race-dispersion, but it is far more important than such dispersion in explaining the rise of civilised society, for it is distinctly synthetic, while the former process was analytic. In this general process we may distinguish two elements the persistence of race -characteristics, and Per i t ce ^ ie un i nca ^ion of different factors in a single of Race- complex social life. The theory of natural character- selection in its stricter form, like every other istics. careful theory of heredity, starts with the postulate that the characteristics of each individual tend to persist in all his descendants. The popular belief that increasing differentiation in the descendants of a single pair is independent of hereditary influences, is quite inconsistent with this position. In the attempt to' construct a science of sociology, any neglect of the 1 Celts and Teutons have remained distinct in Great Britain ; and the comparatively high civilisations of parts of East Africa and Central America have left no traces on the civilisation from Europe, by which they have been superseded. 214 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. scientific theory of heredity is exceedingly unfortunate, and the study of the process under discussion has done good service by bringing clearly into view the persistence of race -characteristics. The fact of differentiation it readily explains as due to the crossing of types already in existence. While anthropologists are inclined to question the reality of the genesis of new, independent physical types, the intermarriage of families and the agglomeration of tribes have led to constantly increasing sets of new combinations. The real source of the differ- ences in modern society is to be found in the different original elements which entered into its composition. Corresponding to the persistence of race-characteristics is the development of a wider and wider social life, in which these characteristics find expression. *; atl(m In truth, these original differences only find of Culture. ... J their true environment when one race comes to share the same common life with another race. If the races were exactly alike, when they were united there would be no basis for the development of a complex social structure, and the stability which results from interdependence in such a structure would be lacking. Different races contribute each its own element to the common life, and the life developed out of these factors tends to be permanent, because each factor comes to depend for its very life on every other. When two races come together, the characteristics of each persist, and a new, higher social life is developed out of the peculiar culture which had belonged to each independently ; the agglomeration of social groups is accompanied by an assimilation or unification of the life of each group into a life that is not only more complex, but richer. On turning from the consideration of man's physical development to the development of civilisation, we find the same process of agglomeration and assimilation, and its importance in the psychical world is no less than its importance in the realm of biology and ethnology. PROCESSES OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT. 215 The fundamental principle of union among the members of a group is essentially a psychical principle ; Process anc ^ wnen two social groups combine, the regarded psychical life of each tends to persist in the from the complex psychical life which is a result of Side a their union. This is very evident in the case of social institutions, which are but the ex- ternal forms in which the inner life finds expression. When two tribes unite, the institutions of each tend to persist; and the result is that each, institution is profoundly modified and enriched, or more commonly, that the institutions of one group prevail at one point, and those of the other group at other points. Take, for example, the results of the Doric migration into the Peloponnesus, as pictured by a recent historian of Greece. 1 Eude, vigorous tribes from the northern moun- tains conquered without great difficulty the weakened representatives of a civilisation which once had influ- enced all the shores of the ^Egean Sea. The conquerors brought with them their own political and social institutions, arid these they retained with but little change. The implements of warfare used by the con- quered people, and many of the arts they practised, were to a considerable degree adopted by the invaders, as being superior to their own; the religious rites of the Dorians seem to have been welded together with the rites which they found and retained. To such amalgamations of different elements the Greek people owed the excellence of their later civilisation. One of the curious phenomena of language is the variety of expressions which may be used with but (a) Aggiome- sli S ht difference of meaning. Not only ration and phrases, but single words are often duplicated Assimilation j n several synonyms. In the case of the anguages. } an g ua g es o f mo dern Europe this phenomenon is very easily explained; for the various expressions for 1 E. Meyer, Geschichte des Alterthums, Band II. Zwcites Buch. 216 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. one idea can often be directly traced to some local usage, or to elements of the language which seem farther apart in their origin. The real question is, not why the words or phrases mean much the same thing, but why they have been retained in the resulting language, when their mean- ing was so nearly alike. The very great number of nearly synonymous roots in Semitic languages can but be due to the same source, viz., the different original elements out of which the language has arisen; and the main differ- ence between these languages and the Indo-European consists merely in the fact that they retained so many roots with nearly identical meaning. An early step in this process may be found in the languages of the very lowest races. Here a great abundance of roots exist for the few concrete objects which require names, while there is little or no connection between the roots de- noting similar objects among tribes a little way apart. The examination of languages in use at different stages of culture suggests that agglomeration and assimilation are a most important process in the development of language. Different elements of language share the same tenden- cies to persistence and assimilation which mark all Tendency social institutions. When two languages to Persistence come together, they never fail to coalesce, and though the process may be gradual, and social Assimilation. geographical lines in separating the languages. 1 This process is not a single one, for each element in each language tends to persist, and exerts its influence on the result. Naturally the sentence-structure, and the vocabulary, and the modes of inflection of either language will not have each the same influence, and the result may be a highly complex combination. Thus the Babylonian language is analysed into several components ; the mode 1 The persistence of French and Saxon elements in different strata of the English people has been noted, for instance, in Scott's Ivanhoe. PROCESSES OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT. 217 of writing is said to be Accadian in origin, the sentence- structure is Semitic, and the vocabulary includes words from both sources. In explaining the development of language, the im- portance of the process of agglomeration and assimilation This Process mus ^ n t De overlooked. At least the more m the important differences between the various Development elements of a language are due to different anguage. sources j n tne r j cn an( j varied speech of modern civilisation, the results of this process may be preserved intact, so that they are easily traceable; but the process was no less important in earlier times. When two uncivilised languages come together, the same sound may preserve the very different meanings which had been assigned to it. in each of these languages, and often- times what we call the general meaning of the word is the result of more definite meanings modifying each other. Suppose a language dispersed with the tribes who speak it, from a common centre. Each group will adopt elements entirely new from the languages with which it comes in contact, and its own vocabulary and structure will be gradually modified by the influence of these languages. For instance, in the matter of vocabulary, the old word-meanings will be slightly deflected, both by words of similar sound, and by slight differences in the ideas which the words originally expressed. In this way many of the differences between the dialects of a language, originally one, may be explained ; and, by means of this process, each language is constantly en- riched by the elements which it incorporates into itself. Turning to the history of religion, we find that there is very much more to be explained than the mere fact (b) A lm- ^ ia ^ khe religions of different races are not ration in the the same. The religion of any civilised people History of is a very complex matter, and elements from Eeligion. different sources may be traced in the religion as well as in the language of such a people. The history 218 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. of early Greek religion tells of a persistent tendency to adopt religious beliefs and practices from Phenicia, from Thrace, from Asia Minor, and from Egypt. The Roman Empire followed the example of Babylon and of earlier states in Egypt, when it adopted the gods of Italy and of the conquered nations as members of its own pantheon. It is customary to trace the complex forms of modern Christian belief and practice back to three main sources ; the influences of Palestine, of Greece, and of Eome, but each nation which has accepted Christianity has in some measure modified its form, and within its catholic faith may be traced survivals of many primitive forms of religion. The complex character of civilised religions suggests (i) that they contain elements which differ radically because they came from different sources, and (2) that forms of religious faith and practice have a remarkable power of persistence. In fact the interaction of heterogeneous elements in religion and the fusion of these elements into new and Fusion of more complex forms is almost the whole Beiigious content of the external history of worship. Forms. The o bj ec ts with which the idea of God is associated, often show the traces of this process. Some of the composite idols of India may be readily analysed into their component parts. The gods of the developed Greek religion contain elements derived from local cults all over Greece, as well as many elements from foreign sources, and all the imagination of the Greek people failed to give them a clearly defined unity. A similar process of fusion may be followed in the development of belief in a, future life with its rewards and punishments. Persian, and Babylonian, and perhaps Egyptian ideas seem to have affected later Jewish conceptions, and in the early church these were profoundly modified by Greek lines of thought. Again, the same spot has often served as a holy place' for a heathen temple, a Christian church, and a Mohammedan mosque ; and not infrequently PROCESSES OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT. 219 much the same rites have been practised there from time immemorial, with only the adoption of some new elements as the religion nominally changed. The more careful study of religious history contirms the impression that the different factors of religion have a wonderful power of persistence, and that differences in the forms of a religion are in large measure due to an original difference of the religions which have gone before it. Finally, the effort to discover the reason for religious development leads thestudent back to the same line of Hetero- thought. New forms of religious belief and geneity the practice are due to the conjunction of earlier Condition of forms ; the forms which we are wont to call Progress. higher, arise through the interaction of forms that seem to us more crude. All the great ethnic religions of the world, like all the civilisations with which, they were associated, are the product of epochs and of countries where there was a vigorous interaction of different ethnic elements. The development of new and higher forms of thought and of life in Christianity itself may be traced to external stimulating influences of the same sort. The agglomeration and fusion of different elements is not only the cause of complexity, but the condition of genuine progress. 1 In the record of the development of the race and of its civilisation, the process which we have just been p f considering stands beside the process of dis- Agglomera- persion and differentiation. Alone it is no tion and adequate explanation of human progress, but Assimilation: ft j s a p rocess ever going on as one phase of Conclusion. , t . , , rl t i this development. It involves two principles. (i) Physical and psychical characteristics tend to persist indefinitely. (2) These characteristics are modified in- 1 No student will regard the process of agglomeration just described as a satisfactory explanation of progress. It is only the condition of development and progress. Least of all can the different elements that have entered into Christianity be regarded as the final explanation of the higher religious faith and life. 220 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. definitely by the contact of race with race, but each constituent element exercises its influence in the forma- tion of the new product. Consequently, physical and psychical differences in developed civilisation are, in the main, due (a) to different sources from which the product is derived, and (&) to new types which may have arisen by the combination of elements originally distinct. CHAPTER XIII. NATUEAL SELECTION IN HUMAN SOCIETY. THE processes in the development of human society which have thus far been discussed, give little or no clue to the The Real nature of the forces at work to produce this Nature of development. We may show that there is a Progress. unity between the present of society and its past ; that social relations are becoming more complex, and, at the same time, extending more widely; that a process of dispersion and differentiation, as well as a process of amalgamation, may be discovered by analysing the course of social development; but, even if these receive the name of " laws," they do not indicate the real nature of the fact to be explained. A race does change when placed in a different environment ; races do modify each other when they come in contact. But what has this to do with progress ? In the study of organisms, a set of facts quite similar to those just enumerated had long been somewhat familiar to biologists, and the conclusion that organic Biological species had arisen by a process of development Theory of had more than once been suggested ; but it remained for the discoverer of the law of natural selection to show the meaning of these facts, and thus to give a reasonable account of biological evolution. Popular ideas of evolution and the struggle for existence are so vague, that it is necessary to outline this theory before attempting to apply it to human society. The accepted theory of natural selection may 222 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. be stated in three propositions, (a) Organisms tend to multiply in some geometrical ratio, so that far greater numbers are produced than can find means of subsistence, (Z>) Offspring are essentially like their parents ; never- theless, they differ somewhat from either parent, and from each other. (c) In the competition with other organisms for the means of subsistence, those members of a given species which are best adapted to meet existing conditions will survive, and leave more abundant offspring. The survival of the more fit is the key to development. These propositions need but a few words of explanation. The theory of evohition starts with the fact that the normal rate of increase for any organism is such that (a) Multipli- th e num ber of offspring exceeds the number cation of of the parents, and that this increase tends Organisms. ^ j^ perpetuated. " There is no exception to the rule that every organic being increases at so high a rate, that if not destroyed, the earth would soon be covered by the progeny of a single pair." "The elephant is reckoned the slowest breeder of all known animals , . at its probable minimum of natural increase .... after a period of from 740 to 750 years, there would be nearly 19,000,000 elephants alive, descended from the first pair," in case each individual lived the normal length of life. 1 Such calculations show very clearly that the actual numbers of any given species do not depend on the normal number of its progeny, but rather on the conditions of life to which it is subject. The necessary result of this rate of increase is a direct or indirect competition between members of the same species, as well as between members of different species ; and the more rapid the rate of increase, the larger the number of individuals who perish in this competition. The very existence of fixed species depends on the 1 Darwin, Origin of Species, 6th ed. p. 51. Cf. Wallace, On Natural Selection, pp. 29-205. NATURAL SELECTION IN HUMAN SOCIETY. 223 familiar fact that offspring resemble their parents. This (b] Heredit resem blance would be even clearer, except and Varia- that the characteristics of either parent seem bility of to appear indifferently and in new combina- Organisms. ationg in the child) while characteristics of more remote ancestors may reappear after being latent for several generations. A general permanence of type is guaranteed by the fact that features of the type which may be lacking in one parent are ordinarily present in the other ; and again, by the lack of fertility which is common when both ' parents vary much from the . type. With this relative permanence of type is always asso- ciated some variation between even the offspring of the same parents. The different characteristics of the two parents combine to produce entirely new characteristics. It has often been maintained that the " law " of use and disuse affects these variations ; but whatever their source, the fact of variations is evident to every observer. " Every organ, every character, every feeling is individual ; that is to say, varies from the same organ, character, or feeling in every other individual." 1 In this variation is found the possibility of selection and of progress. Struggle is both the law of life and the law of progress. The organism stands in a sort of antithesis to nature, and its life is a constant assertion of partial (c) 10 ogica j nc [ e p enc [ ence over against the forces of nature, both inanimate and animate. This correspond- ence with environment includes adaptation to physical conditions of land, climate, &c. ; power to secure nourish- ment; power of defence against other organisms; power of propagation. In each relation the individual must maintain itself, and that better than its rivals. Placed 1 "Wallace, On Natural Selection, p. 266. On pp. 287-290, the uni- versality of this law of variation is widely illustrated for plants and animals. "The experience of all cultivators of plants and breeders of animals shows that when a sufficient number of individuals are examined, variations of any required kind can always be met with." Cf. Origin of Species, ch. i. ii. 224 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY, in competition with other organisms, it must not simply adapt itself to physical conditions, but so adapt itseli as to survive when others fall ; it must be endowed with power to secure sufficient nourishment more easily than its competitors; it must be able to defend itself from attack, either directly by weapons, or indirectly by power to escape, or finally, it must meet attack by producing offspring in such numbers that some may escape. "Struggle" may hardly seem the word to express the relation of one plant to another, and yet the metaphor is hardly forced, when the fact is that the plant perishes, unless it meets present conditions better than its com- petitors. 1 Combining these three points, it is evident that the immense destruction of life resulting from the lavish Biological production of life for a limited region is con- Survival of stantly a destruction of those less fitted to the Fittest. me et existing conditions. The fittest survive, and useful variations are multiplied by the same forces that originally preserved them. In the so-called conflict with inanimate nature, such varieties will survive as are fitted to meet these material conditions; and where the number of contending varieties is considerable, fitness to material conditions is constantly increased by weeding out the less fit. In the biological world, organisms must be able to secure themselves against the attack of other organisms; in this form of conflict, the less vigorous, the weaker in combat, the slower, the less cunning, perish, while those better able to defend themselves are the ones that survive and propagate their kind. Finally, within the same species, the struggle for females and sexual selection is only second to the forms of selection just mentioned. The law of biological evolution is the continual lavish production of life, and the multiform struggle, in which the weak perish, while the strong survive and propagate their kind. 1 Origin of Species, chap. iii. NATURAL SELECTION IN HUMAN SOCIETY. 225 It is evident that even in the purely biological sphere these factors are not co-ordinate, and are subject to Modificati modifying influences. Sexual selection is not of the determined on the basis of physical strength Biological or cunning alone, and it may often work at variance with this. The gregarious instinct is a very important modifying factor. In the case of species which have developed this instinct, it may altogether outweigh individual strength ; it may even oppose the development of individual strength, when individualism is at variance with the needs of the flock. So the family instinct changes the working of natural selection as soon as it gains any strength. In general, the young of birds and mammals are not exposed to the full force of conflict till after some weeks or even months of protection ; and until that time, it is the whole family which as a unit enters into the struggle for existence. Such modifying influences break the force of struggle for the individual, and change the conditions of life for the species, by bringing larger units, groups or families, into competition. It is however merely a change of the conditions of struggle, a change in the meaning of what is fit, not the cessation of the struggle for existence. In view of these and other modifying factors, it is often convenient to consider the real struggle from an ideal standpoint, and to speak of it as a competition of types, rather than a contest of individuals. The word " fittest," as well as the word " struggle," has led to much misunderstanding. In the actual struggle for exist- ence, what seems most beautiful, what is best adapted for man's rise, what even seems highest, are by no means sure to be preserved. The weed has a great advantage over the wheat, the English sparrow over the thrush, because they are best adapted to given conditions. But with changes in conditions and the constant introduction of new competitors, useful variations are always preserved. In the accumulation of variations in all sorts of different directions, lies the possibility of the more complex organisms which are commonly called higher. 226 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. In the case of man, the factors which modify the simple working of biological law become far more im- portant, so that its whole character is changed. ^ these factors, three deserve special con- struggle for sideration. Social units are more numerous, Existence in 1110 re compact, and more lasting, than any the case of . Man gregarious groups among animals ; with the growth of society, competition is limited less by territorial lines, and more by new lines between differentiated forms of activity; and, thirdly, struggle and survival are raised gradually out of the physical into the psychical sphere. Even among animals, gregarious habits modify the simple action of natural selection. Birds which migrate together, fish that swim in shoals, protect 1. The Unity , , & , , , , . , of the Social themselves by their very numbers; and when Group as a the chamois, or the buffalo on the western Modifying plains, set a sentinel to watch while the herd Factor. grazes, the group protects itself as a whole more successfully. The groups among least civilised men are ordinarily more closely bound together than in the case of any animals, and they enter as a whole into the struggle for existence. The less civilised Indians formerly inhabiting the Pacific coast of North America, like the lower races in South Africa or Australia, lived in clans, the Family an( ^ ^ e clan-relationships were the most sacred thing in life. Within the clan there was some competition between individuals, but the real struggle for existence was the effort of the clan as a whole to secure food, and to protect itself from physical evils and attack by man or beast. As the family became more stable, till it could be called the very basis of human society, its close union shielded its members from the real brunt of the struggle of life. The family as a whole seeks protection for itself from cold and wet, and from attack ; all unite to protect and cherish the weakest member, so NATURAL SELECTION IN HUMAN SOCIETY. 227 that the only world in which he lives is the world made by the family. The family (chap, viii.) has been shown to be the normal unit in economic life, in social life, and even in the state. In these different forms of activity, families, or heads of families, are the acting units, and selection is primarily a selection of the family best adapted to given conditions. Or again, the local community, town or city, developing as it does a considerable degree of common life, has to The Town in mee t the conditions of life to which it is the struggle subject as a whole. A strong and genuine for Existence. mun icipal life is a guarantee of security to the citizens, it enables the city to prosecute public works easily and cheaply for the comfort of the citizens, it is a primary condition in making the city desirable for large manufacturing and business concerns; in a word, the true city protects its citizens from many phases of the struggle for existence when it proves its power to meet successfully the conditions of its municipal life. The community competes with other communities, and the " more fit " survives ; thus a part of the struggle for existence is taken off from individuals. The actual competition between communities is often ob- scured by the complexity of these relations, and the slowness with which its results appear. The reports as to the way inhabitants of Basel moved elsewhere to escape an odious income tax, and of the withdrawal of investments from the State of Colorado from fear of Populist rule, so far as the reports are true, illustrate the form that competition may take. It is unnecessary to discuss all the peculiar forms of social groups that arise in the economic life, the political Competition life> or the distinctl y psychical life of society, of Groups for in each case the same principle holds good. Modifies Groups compete, the factory, or bank, or school, f or political party that is best adapted to exist- ing conditions wins in this struggle ; and the individual is only a common soldier in the successful or 228 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. defeated army. Within the group the individual com- petes with his companions, but in the world at large the man has few battles to fight alone, for it is a contest of group with group. The conditions to which the survivor is best adapted, are no longer primarily physical, nor are they psychical in the narrow sense of the word; the conditions are social, and the man is ever being " selected," who is best adapted to the new life in society. The second important change in the working of natural selection is also a direct result of social development. 2 , Among animals the struggle for existence is limiting narrowly limited by territorial lines., The struggle are thistle and the grass compete for the same no longer -. Q g roun( j . f ooc j an( j c li ma te determine Territorial. for a given locality the animals that can flourish there. The growth of human society is a constant breaking down of territorial limitations, and with all that the state may do to " protect " its precious industries or to erect Chinese walls about its ancient institutions, it is no longer able to shut off its life from the current of the world's life. The old territorial lines are succeeded by far more complex lines of limitation that arise in the development of the social structure itself. The struggle for social position is between com- paratively few competitors, cut off from the rest of the world by lines above and below. The economic structure, which stands between human needs and the source from which these needs are to be met, illustrates the point even more clearly. The effort of the tribe, and much later of the feudal household, to supply the needs of its members, has been transformed into a manifold com- petitive activity in which the whole world is involved. With the disappearance of local lines, new lines of kind limit competition to a considerable degree. The individual iron-worker competes primarily only with a limited number of men who know how to perform the same task in the manufacture of iron products. The NATURAL SELECTION IN HUMAN SOCIETY. 229 miner in Pennsylvania competes with those who have the same skill; and the faet of distance has so little weight that men with the same skill in Wales or Hungary may underbid him for his position. The successful candidate for one chair in a German university is an American, for another, an Englishman born in South Africa. In the art-world of Rome or Paris men of every nationality meet on all but equal terms. In the world of thought and of art, as, indeed, in the political world, the local lines of struggle are largely supplanted by new lines of kind. The third important factor modifying the simple working of natural selection, is the fact that the main 3 Import- source f strength, and the standard of fitness ance of as well, are no longer physical but psychical. Eeason as a Gradually physical struggle is being supplanted nn S by competition on psychical lines. The con- flict with nature is entirely transformed by man's power of invention ; obstacles and hindrances are overcome by the power of reason, and are even utilised for human ends; the forces of nature are harnessed to do man's work for him. With the new psychical develop- ment of imitation, gains like these are passed on from place to place and from generation to generation. Love of association is developed into new and higher sentiment, and the new bonds of union no outside force can break. Habits become in man the foundation of character; when the infinite worth of moral character is once recognised, new ends demand the energy of the man and the social group, and struggle that is really social becomes an ethical struggle directed towards ethical ends. In fact all distinct and conscious recognition of the future, all effort to direct present activity in view of purposed ends, is the work of human reason modifying the simple struggle for existence. It has indeed been argued by Mr. Benjamin Kidd in a recent volume, that inasmuch as man's reason (i.e. his self-interest) affords no sanction for 230 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. the sacrifice of the individual for the good of the race, reason only tends to check the operation of natural selection. A larger view of man's reason, recognising that each gain in psychical power binds him more closely to his fellows, and impels him to work in and for society, would have prevented this error. The presence of reason entirely changes the form and sphere of natural selection, but the fact remains. The result of these new factors, modifying the simple force of natural struggle and selection, can hardly be over- estimated. John Fiske (Destiny of Man, p. 96) the struggle lks forward to the elimination of physical for Existence strife, and claims that this " means that the which these universal struggle for existence, having sue- new actors ceec [ e( j j n bringing forth that consummate make. product of creative energy, the human soul, has done its work, and will- presently cease." Darwin touches this question, at the close of his epoch-making book, 1 in the following words : " Important as the struggle for existence has been, and even still is, yet as far as the highest part of man's nature is concerned, there are other agencies more important. For the moral qualities are advanced, either directly or indirectly, much more through the effect of habit, the reasoning powers, instruction, religion, &c., than through natural selection." The change which Mr. Fiske, like Mr. Darwin be- fore him, has sought to signalise by limiting the phrase natural selection to the lower, physical plane, is indeed one of the greatest importance. The competing units are of an entirely different type, the lines limiting struggle and selection have altered, the power of reason and all that it implies have entirely changed the plane of struggle ; consequently the manner in which the fittest survive can no longer be the same; still, I believe, struggle remains as the very condition of life and progress. 1 Descent of Man, ed. 2, p. 618. NA TURAL SELECTION IN HUMAN SOCIETY. 231 The only case in which struggle seems to be eliminated is found in a few communities where two conditions are approxi- mately fulfilled (a) isolation from all the rest of the world, and (b) such a social crystallisation that each person accepts his definite position in the community with no thought of any competition with others. Much as the struggle for existence may be modified in the case of man, it is hardly conceivable that it should Natural no ^ a PP ear here, so long as the same conditions Selection are present alike in the animal world and in in Human the distinctly human world. In considering natural selection as the principle of social development, I desire to show (a) that the conditions which produce struggle and compel selection in the biological world are found in the world of human society ; (b) that here also struggle is the necessary result of these conditions, and that it is growing keener, rather than tending to disappear; and (c) that the consequent selection is at the basis of social development. 1 The condition of struggle is multiplication multipli- cation so rapid that the individual must vindicate his A. The place in the world by superiority to corn- Bioiogical panions for whom there is no place. The Conditions of struggle conditions of selection are heredity with v and Selection, variability, and a struggle in which only the selected strong survive. Variability is necessary, that there may be varieties between which to select ; heredity, that the selected variations may be preserved, 'and become the starting-point of other useful variations. For organisms proper, struggle, and selection, and pro- gress, are the necessary outcome of these conditions. In so far as the same conditions are present in human society, the result is necessarily the same struggle, selection, and progress through selection. Man is an animal, though " a spark of divinity dwell in his frame of dust " ; and as an animal, he is subject 1 The second and third points are discussed in the next chapter. 232 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. to the laws governing animal organisms. His rate of The M it' i ncrease i g sa id to be slower than that of any plication of other animal ; but " even slow-breeding man Man follows has doubled in twenty-five years, and at this rate, in less than a thousand years, there would literally not be standing-room for his progeny." 1 Statistics quoted in an earlier chapter (chapter ii. p. 55) prove that the rate is normally high enough to exert constant pressure on the food supply. Where this is not the case, the race degenerates; where this is not the case in a given class in society, that class must be recruited constantly from other classes, or it loses its social position. Mr. Galton, Hereditary Genius, p. 340, has shown theoreti- cally the doom of any class which multiplies less rapidly than the rest of the community. Other observers in France and Germany find that, as a matter of fact, the higher classes in any form of social activity are only maintained by constant recruits "selected" from the lower classes. In a word, the same set of facts are found here as in the case of the other animals ; and here also the necessary consequence of rapid multiplication is struggle for exist- ence. I need hardly add that progress is not favoured by an abnormally rapid rate of increase, either in the case of man or of animals ; natural selection itself favours the race that multiplies just rapidly enough to produce a healthy struggle. For man, as for some of the stronger animals, the rate is low enough so that relatively few actually perish in the struggle for existence. In like manner, the laws of heredity and variation are the same for man as for any other creature. Offspring f tend to be like their parents; differences in Heredity in the two parents, and perhaps other causes, the case of produce an indefinite number of slight varia- Man- tions in every child ; such variations as help the child to meet existing conditions are preserved, 1 Darwin, Origin of Species, p. 51. NA TURAL SELECTION IN HUMAN SOCIETY. 233 and ultimately increased. Social relationships, and in particular the human family, greatly modify the results that appear under these laws. The greatest change in the results, however, is due to the fact that the environ- ment, with reference to which selection is made, is primarily social. The source of man's strength lies in society; the variations that aid him in the struggle for existence are mainly psychical; consequently, physical variations of type are largely overlooked, and have relatively little result for man. 1 The multiplication of men, who are obliged to compete for place and food, is in itself enough to transform every mode of social activity into a form of social Multiplica- * tion as the struggle. In the economic world, constant re- Cause of adjustments in view of varying markets and Social new macn inery, obscure the simple facts as to the relation of competition and population. It is clear, however, that even in times of expansion and for the lowest positions in the industrial world, a certain degree of selection is possible. Among those who are at* the bottom of the scale, and indeed among the men in any one economic class, natural multi- plication is ordinarily rapid enough to lead to struggle for position. Even in the case of such an abnormally rapid industrial development as that which took place in England during the first half of the present century, population followed the growth of industry very closely ; workers multiplied quite as rapidly as the positions to be filled, and competition became keener, rather than less severe. In developed human society, the biological factor lead- ing to struggle is far less apparent than the social factor, by which I mean man's desire to secure a letter social position, in order that he may better satisfy his needs. Mr. George (quoted by Kidd, Social Evolution, p. 259, n. i) says of man, "He is the only animal whose desires 1 Cf. John Fiske, Destiny of Man, pp. 58-66. 234 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. increase as they are fed, the only animal that is never satisfied." The removal of barriers between social classes has gradually extended the reach of social ambition, till it has no more limits, except the power of the individual's imagination. The masters in the industrial world are, for the most part, men of far vision and iron will, who have striven toward a distant goal till it came within their grasp. In "social" life, in the political world, natural multiplication necessarily leads to struggle ; but ambition for " social " and political position is a far more important factor in making the struggle intense. The higher any one rises, the keener the struggle, for his competitors have tasted success, and revealed the power to win, and their appetite is only whetted for more. The social motive to struggle increases in something like geometrical ratio; the contest it produces in the higher classes is often so keen as to stand in the way of real development. In the distinctly psychical forms of social activity, a constantly increasing number of men seek to make a Conditions of P^ ace ^ or themselves. Whatever be the cause Struggle in that so large a number seek to make a Psychical place in the world of art, or of science, Llfe ' or again in the so-called learned pro- fessions, an increasing number of individuals, desiring to attain a comparatively limited number of positions, must meet the same fate as the units that multiply rapidly in the biological world. Rapid multiplication soon results in a struggle for existence, in which the weaker fall. The artists and the lawyers who fail, are simply those who have fallen out in the keen struggle for a particular kind of existence. The highly-educated German musician, who earns enough by copying music to pay a little for board at the poor-house, has failed because so many others, in some respect better fitted than he, have entered the lists with him, and made the contest too severe. Simple multiplication at any one point must lead to struggle ; but the second factor, the NATURAL SELECTION IN HUMAN SOCIETY. 235 desire to secure a better position, constantly reinforces the former, and its power increases rapidly as society develops. The second condition of selection in the world of biology, viz., heredity and variation, must also be fulfilled Heredity and^ ere ' ^ ^ 6 s ^ ru oo^ e tnus produced is to result Variation in real selection and progress in the social world, in the The laws of inheritance apply just as much Psychical to psychical characteristics as to physical ; qualities that aid parents in the forms of social struggle are preserved and intensified in their descendants. In a stock of good farmers are found at length the qualities demanded by their occupation ; and, when natural capacity is enforced by family tradition, the descendant of scholars or of statesmen may excel his parents in their chosen field. So many forces interfere with simple results like these, that their existence is often denied. The family of Bach, as musicians, of Adams, as statesmen, seem to be marked exceptions. The most careful investigation discovers that psychical ability has antecedents; that a family gradually lays the foundation of industrial, or intellectual, or ethical greatness ; although in its very success are many elements that threaten continued success. If development in the psychical sphere depended on biological heredity to preserve what had been won, it is hard to see how there could be any develop- Psychical Heredity ment at all. What physical heredity fails to do is accomplished by a sort of psychical heredity. The son's character and ability depend quite as much on home training as on any natural gifts ; the teacher's enthusiasm kindles the love of learning in some mind which will penetrate more deeply than his into the secrets of science ; the assistant physician, attending for years upon a master's work, can at length achieve yet more wonderful results. In a country where scholarship is honoured and fostered, the results of physical as well as 236 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. of this so-called psychical heredity are preserved as the basis of higher intellectual developments; and new variations which increase a scholar's power are preserved. The mantle of statesman or artist falls on the apt pupil, in whom new variations with the inheritance of tried qualities make farther advance possible. If now we turn from the semi-biological ground of individualism to what is distinctly a matter of sociology, still much the same conditions are found. e MU ti- r^ ne g rou p g -which are the proper organs of Social Groups social life show the same tendency to multiply leads to beyond the actual need for them ; and in the struggle struggle that ensues slight variations from the them ^ form determine the relative strength or weakness of the new forms. Here multiplica- tion beyond need leads to competition; variation within narrow limit is the basis of selection and so of develop- ment. In the industrial world facts of this class are almost too familiar to need illustration. Indeed, the very word which we have been using to denote human struggle, the word competition, is taken from the industrial sphere. In a time of prosperity, stores and factories multiply beyond the normal need of society ; all sorts of new industrial schemes are set on foot ; the unavoidable result sooner or later is a sharp struggle in which only the strongest industrial groups can maintain themselves. The new factories may some of them have been able to combine better machinery and better business methods with what has been found good in previous trials ; in that case the new variety is better adapted to the con- ditions of industrial success, and is " selected " by showing itself the stronger. To take an example from the intellectual activity of society, we may consider the planting of colleges, or indeed of churches, in a territory that is being rapidly settled. In the West states are interested in higher education as part of the state school system ; individuals NATURAL SELECTION IN HUMAN SOCIETY. 237 are interested in higher education; different religious denominations are interested in education as an element in Christian training. Colleges are planted by these different parties in such number as to more than meet any present demand on the part of students ; so large a number may or may not be a good thing for the interests of education, in any case it inevitably leads to sharp competition for students and for funds. Perhaps the greatest advances in social development have been along the line of greater stability; and this has ordinarily been attained by a shifting of u ipica- ^ e p r i nc jpi e o f multiplication and variation tion and Variation which we now are studying. The best example leading to of this is in the political sphere, though the struggle same change is taking place elsewhere. Among within the .... / .. . . 5 Social Group sava o e races political activity consists in a struggle of tribe with tribe, in which new political units are ever being formed in considerable number and the weaker are disappearing entirely in the struggle to maintain themselves. Greece and Home alike grappled unsuccessfully with the principle of stable government, and modern states have been brought to the verge of destruction by blindness to the same principle. To-day, however, it is generally recognised that stability may be secured by permitting growth from within. The multiplication of groups that stand for new political ideas is encouraged within the state; what could once only be accomplished by a revolution and overthrow of the existing government is accomplished by a change of party, the multiplication of political groups that leads to struggle is no longer multiplication of states, but a subordinate principle of growth within the state. The same change in the place of multiplication and variation of groups is appearing in intellectual life, in social life, and in economic life ; and the consequence is that these forms of struggle are undergoing a profound change with reference to the permanence of the social structure. 238 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. As the conditions of struggle and selection rise into the really psychical sphere, they may be studied simply as the multiplication of new institutions, new The Multi- . , , . , T , , . plication of ideals, new motive-ideas. In tact, the rise or Ideas and new groups in any form of social activity is Ideals ; always due in some measure to the rise of " a new ideas, and the higher the society, the Struggle. / ' more it depends on new ideas. In the psychical life of society is found the ultimate source of the conditions that lead to social struggle ; such being its source, we cannot expect that social struggle will ever disappear. In the biological world, multiplication and heredity, with slight variations, led to struggle and the possibility of selection. Considered from various stand- Resume: points, exactly the same conditions are fulfilled The Condi- , tions of m nunian society, and it seems inevitable struggle and that the multiplication of individuals lead to Selection are struggle between them ; that the multipli- Bn m cation of individuals in the same form of Human . , . . Society. social activity, seeking the same ends, trans- form the activity into a struggle; that the multiplication of groups for the same function, with the multiplication of the institutions and ideas for which the groups stand, result in a struggle of group with group. The new factors that enter into the struggle differ slightly from the earlier factors, so that struggle becomes a means of selection between the " varieties," and the " fittest " survive. CHAPTER XIV. NATURAL SELECTION IN HUMAN SOCIETY. (Continued.) HAVING seen that the conditions of struggle and selection are present in the distinctly human world, we may go B struggle on ^ cons ider the facts of struggle, and then and Selection f selection more in detail. The conditions in Human of struggle are all but universal in society, Society. go j-^at all social activity may be considered from this standpoint. Even writers who regard society as an organism, point out a degree of competition between different functions and organs in the animal organism, and profess no surprise that with the less rigid structure of society, this competition or struggle becomes a far more important phase of all activity. It will be con- venient for us to consider the forms of social activity that were described in an earlier chapter as forms of social struggle, and then to examine the different planes of social struggle, and the different ends by which it is dominated. It needs no second glance to satisfy one that the conditions considered in the last chapter render the . E . economic activity of society what is fittingly Activity as called a struggle. Follow some industrial a struggle product as economists are wont to do for Existence. f rom the f ac t orv up to the time when it is "consumed." The manufacturer of cotton goods chooses between competing places for his factory; the makers 239 240 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. of his machinery are struggling with each other to produce most economically engines, looms, &c., that are best adapted to his work ; raw products he buys from sellers competing in the open market; labour he hires from among men who bid against each other for his work ; transportation companies compete with one another in cheaply transferring his goods to market ; and in the market, seller is struggling with seller for the privilege of a sale with profit; buyer and seller bargain together, to agree on a price. The present century has seen barrier after barrier swept away, till the whole world enters more or less freely into the one struggle; family and social distinctions are being oblit- erated in the industrial world; customs and laws in restraint of trade have been set aside. The result of this sudden expansion of the industrial struggle is to force more clearly on thinkers the fact that civilisation moves, not away from Progress, struggle, but to new forms of struggle. And not from struggle, the efforts to deal with the many difficulties but to which have arisen from this sudden change, Higher make it clear that it is not by seeking to straggle prevent struggle, but by modifying its forms, that progress will be made. Strikes are ordered and settled in the presence, it may be, of military power merely to leave the industrial life of a community a blank ; the only genuine settlement of industrial difficulties has been gained when both sides were ready to listen to reason, and thus to elevate the clashing of interests to this higher plane. Labourers who suffered cruelly in an unequal struggle, have won their rights by combining and entering the struggle as a larger unit but only when they could shift the contest to a higher plane than that of brute force, and gain the sympathy of the community in their behalf. Groups of co-operating buyers have united to do away with the petty competition of retail stores, by elevating NATURAL SELECTION IN HUMAN SOCIETY. 241 competition to a more reasonable plane. Nor are the greatest monopolies of the day altogether free from the higher forms of pressure in the economic struggle, uncon- trolled as they may often seem for a time. " Social " activity means social struggle. Normally, the struggle of class with class on this line is not so 2 " Social" i n ^ ense as th e economic struggle, yet the Activity as same forces which have been removing a struggle geographical and political and social barriers for Existence. j n ^ Q econ omic world, have also been at work in the " social " world. In particular, the extension of the ballot, with the new idea of rights which goes with the ballot, and the increasing respect for the power that goes with wealth, have done much to break down old social lines. And when once the position of a class or an individual is questioned, it must constantly be asserted. Thus the struggle between social classes is intensified, the effort on the part of each family to secure " social position " becomes very earnest, and all social intercourse intensifies the struggle for position. In many parts of the earth, the contact of different races has roused social ambitions in the one, and hatreds in the other, till the very structure of society is threatened. The determining factor in this contest was once a military force that assigned each man his place ; the social power which all men recognise to-day is the power of wealth; still it is growing clearer that the real power behind the army and behind the wealth is intellectual, and it is on this plane of intellectual power that social recognition is to be sought in the future. With all the modification that civilisation brings, the struggle for females still remains as a competition between men for the hand of a desired wife. An "attractive" woman is one whose society many seek and enjoy ; the favoured suitor is he who best meets the woman's ideal of a husband. The contest remains, though it has been elevated from the domain of physical ft 242 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. force, and from the domain of a parent's power, to the sphere of choice. The contest between states for power is the earliest kind of human struggle to attract attention, and in the 3 Political ^ orm ^ war ^ ^ s ^ ne ^ ast k"^ ^ Struggle to Activity as a leave the purpose of destruction and the plane struggle for O f physical force. It should never be forgotten, Existence, however, that to-day it is the least important part of the contest between states which receives so much of public attention. The phrase " balance of power " may be no political ideal, but it expresses the statesman's recognition that the contest of states is something far more than the military form of this contest. Each state holds its own with reference to every other state by their consent and its power to win their consent; and the external life of the, state is a constant effort to increase its relative power and thus to raise its relative position. War may become less frequent, and men may fondly dream that it can be abolished. If this goal is ever attained, it will not be by putting an end to international contests, but by raising these contests to a higher and more rational plane. The fact of international struggle is simply the fact of international life. Within the state the contest of smaller political units (towns or " states ") for power is generally not important The stru le exce P^ when localities arid political parties between coincide. In the United States the interests Lesser Politi- of North and South may come into apparent caiTJnits. conflict, and lead to the bitterest civil war; "silver" states may be at variance with "capitalist" states, agricultural with manufacturing states but this is not a contest with reference to the relative power of these political sub-units so much as a contest of interests and of parties. Within the state the most important form of political struggle is the struggle between political parties. Their contest for power reaches from the smallest district to the whole nation. It is carried on NATURAL SELECTION IN HUMAN SOCIETY. 243 not only in the election of officers, but in the administra- tion of government and the legislation of assemblies. The party of the majority is the power behind the throne, and other parties are supposed to hold the first party to its true task even by their opposition. The very life of the modern state depends on the struggle of parties ; progress consists in the elevation of this struggle out of the sphere of physical force into the sphere of reason ; and in so far as this form of struggle is civilised and its plane elevated, it becomes the fit instrument for the expression of the people's will. Each of the forms of struggle that have just been considered, rises at times to the social or rational plane, 4 Ps chical anc ^ th en ik is properly called psychical. The Life as in- appeal to force does remain in the background, voiving and is a factor that cannot be neglected ; but struggle. we j iave geen exam pi es O f political parties based on principles, we have known economic arid social struggles to be raised to the intellectual plane, and to be settled at the bar of the people's reason. The tendency to bring down all psychical questions into the sphere of brute force, or, at least, to settle them by numerical majorities of unthinking voters, is a danger likely to become quite as great in the future as in the past. Yet contests of ideas and of ideals belong to the very nature of psychical life, and we could not avoid them even if foolishly we would. The intellectual life of a people is vigorous when new ideas are brought forward in prolific abundance, and sharply criticised. As for example one man Intellectual , , , . , , . , struggle nas ur g e d the view that the seat ot the race was originally at the North Pole, another has claimed that his lymph would cure consumption, and still others are urging that the adoption of a silver monetary standard, or the control of industry by the state, would be a panacea for social and economic evils. The attempt may be made to settle such questions by force, as Galileo 244 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. was cast into prison, and as advocates of the theory of evolution have been solemnly damned for all eternity. But when they are fairly discussed and judged by the standard of truth, the severest standard by which they can be judged, the intellectual contest over such ideas is the mark of intellectual life and intellectual progress. Sometimes the form of struggle under discussion is described as a contest of ideas themselves, but the value The Contest ^ the % ur e of speech is, to say the least, over New questionable. The process is somewhat as ideas. follows. One man, or it may be several men contemporaneously, perceives the inadequacy of an ac- cepted belief. He states the truth in a new and laryer form, and seeks to persuade the world that his statement is correct. .Darwin finds that the principle of natural selection explains in a new and more satisfactory way the facts as to the origin of species. At first only a few, whose thoughts had all but anticipated Darwin's, are ready to accept the view thus propounded. The little group win new adherents by urging their belief on popular attention ; the statement of its views is slightly modified as farther light is thrown on the question. After more than a generation has passed, the fundamental principle is generally accepted, and the contest is con- tinued between those who believe in the inheritance of acquired characteristics and the party who follow the lead of Weismann in denying it. The spread of education among the people has extended the number of those who engage in discussions of scientific questions, and has given rise to new dangers ; but, provided the discussion can be conducted on its proper plane, the widening of the intellectual struggle will be a widening and deepening of intellectual life. All progress in ethics and in art is due to the same principle. In a world which found slavery convenient and useful, the struggle in behalf of the new conception of humanity had to be prosecuted nearly two thousand NATURAL SELECTION IN HUMAN SOCIETY. 245 years before it could finally win. Wherever ethical life Ethical and was v ig orous tne war against the slaveholder Artistic Life was sharpest ; and, when the battle was won involves by reason, ancestral custom and economic ,rugg e ' interest could not long hold out against emancipation. Standards of right in business and in politics are being sharply criticised to-day. The struggle is sharper because these particular standards have fallen behind the real ethical standard of the day ; but the man or the party who represents a standard either in advance of public opinion, or behind public opinion, has the same sort of struggle to engage in. The effort to secure a wiser treatment of the dependent class, the agitation in favour of uniform and more strict marriage laws, the temperance movement, are different forms of the struggle for ethical standards in the life of the community. When John Howard discovered the evils, sanitary and moral, which characterised the prisons of France and of all Europe, it was no easy task to secure a higher standard for the treatment of prisoners. A life was spent and sacrificed in the cause of reform before much was accom- plished; and, after more than a century, the contest is still being waged between those who are content with lax methods and the party that demands a radical reformation in the treatment of criminals. Each new proposition as to conduct, each new ideal, has to win its way on grounds of reason; and when the ethical life of a society is vigorous, the contests may be intense and prolonged. The special intensity of the ethical struggle is due to the fact that each party believes it stands for the right; conscience is enlisted on each side, and the very basis of right itself seems to be at stake. The contest is carried on by parties, and, it may be, their strength is occasionally tested by vote ; but it is really a question as to principles, and the real conclusion can only be reached on the ground of reasonable discussion. Nor is the sphere of religion exempt from conflict. 246 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. Parties and schools of thought in the Eoman Church, sects as well as schools in the Protestant Struggle as the Principle Church, are signs of the effort to grasp truth of Develop- on different sides, and so to reach a deeper mentin knowledge of God. Questions as to the future state, the authority and inspiration of the scriptures, and the apostolic succession, are dis- cussed, sometimes it is true with bitterness, and yet with a genuine desire to reach the truth. Many a religion has been propagated by the sword, and the power of the majority vote is still invoked in some churches to determine what the truth must be, and what the right shall be. On the lower plane, struggle is divisive, and a hindrance to the work of the church ; and yet struggle is as necessary for religious life and religious growth as it is for advance in any other line. Here again the only question is with reference to the plane on which struggle shall be conducted. oo \ In considering the forms of social activity as forms of struggle, it has not been possible to overlook the fact Cha in that struggle in human society is undergoing a the Form of most important change. Like all other social struggle. phenomena, it grows more complex as new forms arise out of the old simpler forms ; but the change that has been forced on our attention is more important than any change in outward form. Social struggle changes its entire character as it is raised from the physical to the psychical plane, as it is actuated by social rather than biological ends, and as the units which enter into it become really human units. Even among animals, what we call " brute force " is by no means the only factor that determines the survivor; Physical but tne struggle is primarily a physical struggle struggle in in which the survivor grows fat and the Human weaker dies. With the development of human society, this side of struggle is only gradually forced into the background. In economic life, slavery NATURAL SELECTION IN HUMAN SOCIETY. 247 rested on the confessed basis of superior force, and even to-day the strike is often intended as a trial of strength between employer and employed. It is only dreamers who look forward to anything like the elimination of war in the near future. Even in the intellectual and the religious sphere the ballot is invoked as the power of the majority, rather than the power of reason. Germany undertakes to assimilate Alsace-Lorraine, as the German element in Austria-Hungary attempted to denationalise certain other elements of the population, by forcing its language and its institutions on the con- quered people. Struggle on the physical plane continues in the most advanced forms of human society, but it is gradually struggle being supplanted by struggle on a higher raised to plane. Cunning stratagem and the strength the Psychical that comes from union are important factors in the struggle of animals, and in the case of primitive man they become the decisive factors. As society develops, the slave gives way to the serf, and the serf to the hired servant, in economic life. The state gains many of its ends from other states by diplomatic means, and, where this fails, some questions are settled by arbitration. The Spanish Inquisition is gone, and the newspaper in some measure takes its place. On the higher plane, struggle is certainly more general ; rightly understood, it is keener than it could have been on the lower plane. At the same time, however, a spirit of harmony often exists between contending parties, as between knight-errants of old, and it is more evident than ever before that struggle is the normal form of development. Its Aim comes ^ s struggle in human society is raised from to be not De- the physical to the psychical plane, a new struction but en( j or purpose controls those who engage in Lacy ' it, and its whole character is changed. In the really human struggle for existence, the aim is 248 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. not destruction but supremacy ; man looks beyond the immediate present, he seeks not so much to meet his needs as to provide a way by which he and those who work with him may have their needs met regularly in the future. The difference to which I refer is the difference between the hunter and the herdsman, between the race that eats the bananas provided by nature and the race that cultivates wheat. The one destroys what he touches, the other becomes master of it and makes it subservient to his future needs. The one acts irrationally and independently of society, the other rationally, on the basis of society and for society. So in the struggle of man with man, the aim comes to be not destruction but supremacy. Savage man may be Irrati nal more cunning, and better able to unite with and Rational, his neighbour, and better able to profit by his Human, neighbour's experience, than even the higher Forms of animals , but in the struggle of man with man Struggle. the aim is to destroy adversaries, and pre- sumably to eat them. Very early in human history the truly human, rational, form of struggle must have begun, but the traces of it among savage races are hardly to be found, and its progress with the passing centuries has been slow enough at best. As it has gradually supplanted the lower, animal, type of struggle, the foundations of civilisation have been laid, and the reign of reason has begun. The man struggles with other men in many diverse lines that he may win supremacy, while he and they alike profit from the new relation. The captive is retained as a slave, and then as a servant ; in later times tribute is exacted, and the conquered people is left as a source of revenue ; at length it is enough that the authority of the conqueror be recognised, and the con- quered race is admitted to all the privileges of citizen- ship. In the first instance the conquered remain, but their civic life is destroyed ; the exaction of tribute cripples the independent existence of the conquered race, NATURAL SELECTION IN HUMAN SOCIETY. 249 and brings no lasting benefit to the conqueror ; but when at length the conquered race can be fused into the life of the superior race, the foundations of future greatness may be securely laid. The struggle for wealth follows much the same course as the struggle for power. First, destruction cf the fortunate to secure his good feeding- grounds; then repeated pillagings, destroying crops, but leaving those who will raise more ; then a regular tribute, or an effort to secure this by taxing imports ; and, finally, free commerce, for at length men recognise that this is the surest way for even the stronger to secure wealth. The new form of struggle deserves the name social, because it depends on present social conditions, and aims to extend rather than to destroy them. It is called rational, because it keeps in view the future as well as the present, and pursues the lines which will in the end be most sure to make society more human and more reasonable. Finally the change in the form of struggle modifies the competing units. The change from groups determined by territorial lines, to groups determined by angemt e c j agg ^ neg h as already been discussed in the Competing * Units as preceding chapter, and I need only refer to it struggle is once more at this point. Struggle on the raised to the j ower physical plane is carried on between Plane units that may be called physical; it makes little difference whether they are individuals or groups that find their unity in some physical cause (kinship or locality). The social group, in a more strict sense of the term, the true element in human society, arises in struggle on the psychical plane; and its character becomes more distinct and definite as human struggle assumes its proper form. The change from lower to higher stages in the development of society is often described as the growth of individualism, and the new duties and rights of the individual in the economic or the political world are brought in as evidence. The 250 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. truth is that a simple struggle between simple groups is being succeeded by a complex struggle between different kinds of units. The individual is freed from number- less territorial and social limitations that hampered and protected him, but the competition in which he engages is limited in a new way. Not only does increasing differentiation effectively limit the number with whom he competes, but much of the burden of struggle is shifted from the shoulders of the isolated individual to the group of which he is a member. Group competes with group, and the individual competes only with the other members of the group. The human family shields its members from all the rest of the world, but even here an emulation within the bonds of affectionate union is a source of strength. The town removes some phases of the struggle for existence from each citizen, the state removes many others ; but within each political unit other ends call out the energy of the individual citizen. The manufacturer, in competing with other manufacturing groups, removes from his workmen much of the stress of economic struggle, but, within definite lines, the workman has only the more bitter a battle to fight. In the higher form of social activity, the simple conflict of physical groups is supplanted by an exceedingly complex struggle, in which each individual and the group uniting to perform each phase of social activity, are the units that rise or fall according to their fitness. In the consideration of social struggle, which has thus far occupied our attention, it has been tacitly assumed that the outcome of struggle is the survival C. Survival . . u ., . UN. v, of the Fittest * the fittest, inasmuch as it was shown in as the Out- the preceding chapter that the conditions come of which cause survival of the fittest are present in the truly human world, as much as in the physical world. It is true that the definition of " fittest " has constantly changed, as struggle has been raised to NATURAL SELECTION IN HUMAN SOCIETY. 251 higher planes. Strength and speed once constituted fitness; they have been supplanted by cunning and alertness, and these in turn by intellectual keenness and the power of association. The environment of man has grown far more complex with civilisation, and with the standard of fitness the surviving kind has changed. None the less, the law of natural selection remains the same for man as for the biological organism ; the fittest show their character by surviving in the struggle for existence, struggle is a process of selection, and so of progress. The law applies, not alone to individual men, but to all the units that multiply with slight variation and compete in the social world. Individual men are " selected," as fitter for their place than their competitors. The fittest group in each form of social struggle shows its fitness by surviving, and with the group survive and are perpetuated its institutions. Language, and philo- sophy, and ethics, the form of state or of the family that make their respective groups "fittest," are the institutions that survive and are perpetuated, and their authority is the outcome of their success. The survival of the fittest can best be understood by l. Survival a study of the units that survive. I speak, of the Fittest therefore, of the survival of individuals, of Individuals. g rou p S) an( j o f institutions (using the word " institution " in a broad sense). The contest and survival of individuals is an out- growth of struggle and survival in the biological world, B - . . ,, and, as we have seen, it never entirely loses its the less Fit original character. In the competition of or- perish, the ganisms, those best adapted to given physical conditions survive and multiply their kind; disease, famine, and beasts of prey destroy the less fit. The same forces have not lost their power to destroy the less fit among men. Consumption, fever, or malaria find a footing in weaker constitutions ; and we know the survivors to be " tougher," from the fact that they 252 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. survive. Hunger and want and cold do not permit the more delicate to live ; the fittest to meet these conditions survive longest. The beast of prey, and man's most cruel enemy, who is man himself, catch the weaker, the faint- hearted, the head that is not cool. The young men enlisted in France in I894 1 were said to be a finer set of men physically than had ever been examined in that country before. It is said that a generation after any of the great wars of Europe, the population born of those who survived the war has been of higher grade than before or after. In the case of man, another factor is more important here than the mere continuation of the individual's life. The "Fit- Under different physical and social conditions, test " Type man's rate of increase differs as does that of increases no O ther animal. The survival of a type of y ' individual depends mainly on the relative number of children brought to maturity by those who represent that type. As Lapouge has pointed out, 2 if we suppose a difference in the number of mature off- spring of three in one family to four in another, and suppose this difference to be kept up, in the fifth generation the offspring of one family will number more than three times those of the other. And if we suppose the influence of a higher death-rate to be added to the influence of a lesser birth-rate, it becomes evident that one type of man may all but disappear before a type that is physically superior, in a very few generations. Perhaps it is quite unnecessary to remind the reader that the "fittest" type from this physical standpoint is not the highest type socially, or intellectually, or morally; nor yet is it the lowest. In Germany, the peasant class is called the basis of society ; in every country, the future of the nation depends primarily on that class which raises up men to inherit its culture, and to carry on its work. 1 V. Aram on, Die Gesellschaftsordnung und ihre naturliche Grund- lagen. S. 238. 2 Revue Internationale de Sociologie, I. NATURAL SELECTION IN HUMAN SOCIETY. 253 In the truly human struggle, comparatively few indi- viduals are thrown together in each form of struggle, ,, _,.. and the end is not mere survival, but social test" Type survival. I mean that man seeks not only rises in to get food, but to secure a better and better Social economic position He shows himself to be Struggles. "more fit" by surviving and having children, but also by holding his place, and securing a higher place in society as the outcome of struggle. The printer's boy advances by common sense, pluck, and skill, till he can set up for himself ; the small office becomes a large printing establishment ; and at length the successful printer ventures in the field of publishing, where the same qualities win him success a second time. In all his struggle, in all human struggle, the aim is "social" survival; he shows his fitness for the difficult and delicate duties of high position, and being the fittest, he survives all his competitors by rising out of the lower kind of competition. The actual outcome of the social process in which the more fit tend to survive and multiply (physical survival of the fittest), and. at the same time, to rise to Social . . : . . . . Apparatus higher positions in society (social survival or for determin- the fittest), depends largely on the organisa- ing the \>\ one d y nast y of the gods falls ' before a new and stronger dynasty. Such is the history of ideals and institutions in the process of social development. New ideals, born of the old, assert superior authority ; the good yields to the better ; but the stability of truth and the authority of right remain unquestioned. " Progress has been due to the opportunity of those individuals who are a little superior in some respects Progress by to their fellows of asserting their superiority, the Survival and of continuing to live, and of promulgating, of the as an inheritance, that superiority." 1 The Fittest doctrine of natural selection and the survival of the fittest in human society, represents simply the principle that those types best fitted to live are the ones that survive. This principle it applies, not to individuals alone, but also to social groups and to the ideals and institutions which social groups represent. In the simple principle of selection, the modern science of society finds the key to social development. In biology, selection meant development of new and higher types, because the conditions of life were constantly changing ; and the rise of new biological types was the basis for yet more complex and higher types of plants and animals. In human society, the principle of selection becomes in truth a principle of progress, because the development of higher social types produces those conditions which make yet higher types possible. As the conditions of social ex- istence become, not only more complex, but also more truly human, the type of the "best adapted" becomes higher ; with each step in development is given the stimulus to a farther and higher development. 1 Professor Flower, "Reply to an Address by the Trades Council, New- castle, September, 1889." Quoted by Mr. B. Kidd, Social Evolution^. 34. 264 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. Students of history have often sought to explain progress by pointing out the conditions of progress. The great lesson of the theory of natural selection, as applied to human society, is that it is not external conditions which account for progress. Eather in the selection of the better men, the better social groups, the better social institutions and ideals, the power of each social unit to utilise favourable conditions is developed and increased. The true key to progress is found in the development of the faculty to use the so-called external conditions of progress. BIBLIOGRAPHY THIS bibliography is intended simply as a list of the books which have been found useful in the preparation of the fore- going pages ; I have, however, added the titles of six or eight books and articles which have come to my notice while the book was in press. It is arranged according to the chapters that have preceded, in order to guide the reader in farther research alone the lines suggested. A. A. P. S. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. A. J. S. American Journal of Sociology. I. J. E. International Journal of Ethics. R. I. S. Retnie internal ionale de sociologie. Paris. Z. f. v. P. Zcitschrift j ur vergleichcnde Psychologic. GENERAL WOKKS Ammon, 0. Die Gesellschaftsordnung und ihre natiirlichen Grundlagen. Jena, 1895. Bagehot, W. Physics and Politics. New York, 1876. Carey, H. C. Principles of Social Science. Philadelphia, 1858-59. Comte, A. Cours de philosophie positive. Third Edition. Paris, 1869. Conrad, Elster, Lexis und Loerning. Handworterbuch der Slaatswis- senschaften. Durkheim, E. De la division du travail social. Paris, 1893. Fouillue, A. La science sociale contemporaine. Paris, 1885. Giddings, F. H. "The Theory of Sociology." Supplement, A. A. P. S. 1894. The Principles of Sociology. New York and London, 1896. de Greef, G. Introduction a la sociologie. Bruxelles et Paris. I. 1886 ; II. 1889. Les lois sociologiques. Gumplowicz, L. Der Rassenlcampf. Innsbruck, 1883. Grundriss der Sociologie. Wien, 1885. So A 266 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. Hansen, G. Die drei Bevolkerungsstufen. Miinchen, 1889. Lilienfeld, P. v. Gedanken ilber die Socialunssenschaft der Zukunft. Mitau, 1873-75. Mackenzie, J. S. Introduction to Social Philosophy. London and New York, 1890. Novicow, J. Les luttes entre societte humaines. Paris, 1 893. Patten, S. N. "The Theory of Social Forces." Supplement, A. A. P. S. 1896. Schaffle, A. Bau und Leben des socialen Korpers. Tubingen, 1875-77. Simmel, G. Uber sociale Differ enzierung. Leipzig, 1890. Spencer, H. Social Statics. London, 1851. First Principles of a New System of Philosophy. New York, 1874. Principles of Sociology. New York, 1891. Principles of Ethics. New York, 1892-93. Descriptive Sociology. New York, 1873-1881. Tarde, G. Les lois de I' imitation. Paris, 1890. La logique sociale. Paris, 1895. Tonnies, F. Oemeinschaft und Gesellschoft. Leipzig, 1887. Ward, L. F. Dynamic Sociology. New York, 1 883. The Psychic Factors of Civilization. Boston, 1893. See also the various Culturgeschichten published in Germany, also dis- cussions of Ethics (especially those by Hb'IFding, Paulsen, and Wundt), and of the Philosophy of History. BIBLIOGRAPHY FOE THE INTRODUCTION I. SOCIOLOGY THE STUDY OP THE SOCIETY OR SOCIAL GROUP Espinas, A. Des sodetes animales. Paris, 1878. Introduction, and Conclusion, p. 527, sqq. Gumplowicz. llassenkampf, 30, -et pass. Lazarus. Z. f. v. P. I. 32. " Was ist ein Volk ? " Pioger. R. I. S. February, 1894. "Theorie organique de la vie sociale." Worms, W. B. I. S. I. " La sociologie. " II. THE PLACE OF SOCIOLOGY AMONG THE SOCIAL SCIENCES Comte, A. Philosophic positive. I. " Introductory Principles." Fiamingo. R. I. S. June, 1894. "Une loi sociologique." Giddings, F. H. " Province of Sociology." A. A. P. S. 1891. "Sociological Character of Political Economy." American Economic Association, II. 129. "Sociology as a University Study." Polit. Sci. Quar. Vol. VI. 635. de Greef. Introduction a la sociologie, Vol. I. chap. vii. Les lois sociologiques. Gumplowicz, L. Soziologie und Politik. 1892. BIBLIOGRAPHY. 267 Leslie, T. E. C. Essays in Political and Moral Philosophy. Dublin, 1879. XXVI. " Political Economy and Sociology." Limanowski. R. I. S. July, 1894. " La classification des sciences et la sociologie." Patten, S. N. "The Relations of Sociology to Economics." Amer. Econ. Assoc. Vol. X. de Roberty, E. La sociologie. Paris, 1886. Small, A. W. "The Relation of Sociology to Economics." Amer. Econ. Assoc. Vol. X. Spencer, H. Principles of Sociology, Vol. I. Part ii. Sumner, W. G. Princeton Review, LVII. p. 303. "Sociology." Ward. Pol. Science Quar. Vol. X. "Static and Dynamic Sociology." A. J. S. Vol. I. "The Place of Sociology among the Sciences." Worms, R. R. I. S. I. 437. " Essai de classification des sciences sociales." R. I. S. June, 1894. "La sociologie et I'ecouomie politique." III. THE SCIENTIFIC CHARACTER OF SOCIOLOGY Bernes, M. Rev. d'Econ. Pol. 1894. " Les deux directions de la socio- logie contemporaine." Colin, G. System der Nationalokonomie. Bd. I. Stuttgart, 1880. " Einleitung." Durkheim, E. Les regies de la me'thodc sociologique. Paris. 1895. Espinas, A. Des societes animales. Paris, 1878. Introduction. Huntington, F. D. Human Society. Ne\v York, 1860. Chapter i.