come to processes that can be described only in terms of individual activity. Thus we have the various industrial processes as partial social processes. Take one, say the food-producing process of a given society. This may be subdivided into its parts —agriculture, manufacturing, and commerce. Take one of

these, say manufacturing, and that may be subdivided into various stages and processes. Continuing this subdivision, we eventually reach a process which is performed by an individual man— shoveling coal, for instance. The partial processes involved in this individual activity are describable only in biological or psychological terms. On the one hand, there is a certain physical organism operating through its parts in such a way as to accomplish a certain objective result-moving the coal. On the other hand, there is a certain process of consciousness. The individual feels in certain ways, he knows certain things, he has certain purposes and employs certain means to their attainment.

This analysis could be continued further, on both the objective and the subjective sides, but it is unnecessary for the present purpose. The important thing to be noticed is that at a certain stage of the analysis we reach the conscious individual, and that the real end of the whole process lies in such individuals. It is only as social ends are transmuted into conscious valuations that there is any real end. In the case of the plant, in order to find a real end it was necessary to look to a larger whole embracing some conscious individual. In the case of society, in order to find a real end it is necessary to look to a smaller whole, a part of society-a conscious individual. In this respect the objectively organic unity of society differs from that of the biological unity.

So far the nature of the psychic unity has been taken for granted, and now it will need but brief statement in order to distinguish between it and the social unity. Psychology treats of consciousness as such. The psychic unity is the subjective individual. The individual is conscious of himself as a self. All the mental processes belong to him. To all of his experience he gives a self-reference. The individual perceives, remembers, imagines, reasons, feels, etc., and knows that he does these things. They are partial processes deriving their meaning from their

relation to the mental process as a whole. The essential characteristic of the psychic unity is that it does have this self-reference, that its processes belong to a conscious individual and derive their meaning from their relation to the mental unity of individual experience.

The writers of what is here designated as the psychological school of sociologists find the unity of society in some psychological process. I do not include in this group psychologists who take into consideration the fact that individual consciousness is socially conditioned, or sociologists who seek to explain social phenomena by a more adequate analysis of individual psychic processes, but only those writers who expressly or by implication hold that the social unity is a psychic unity. Among such writers may be mentioned Le Bon, Giddings, Vincent, and Elwood. While these writers hold in many respects widely differing views, they are here placed together because they agree in finding the unity of society on the psychic side.

The theory that society is a psychic unity seems to arise out of a confusion of various possible meanings of the term "social consciousness," and so before presenting it for criticism it will be best to analyze this term. In this analysis I follow Dr. Dewey." By "social consciousness" may be meant a single conscious process corresponding on the subjective side to the whole objective social process. This conception would imply a social ego, a social sensorium, a social over-soul, an omniscient social individual.

A second view is that social consciousness is just the common objective content of consciousness of the various individuals in a social group. In a given situation a number of individuals may think about the same thing, may reach similar conclusions, and may experience similar feelings.

Again, the term "social consciousness" may be used to denote a oneness of interest or purpose. The conscious experience of two individuals may differ in certain ways, and this very difference may enable them to work together in such a way as to realize "Unpublished lectures, autumn of 1902.

an end that exists for both alike. Diversity of objective content contributes to one purposed result.

A fourth view is that any consciousness is social in so far as it is socially conditioned. In so far as individual consciousness is determined by the fact that the individual is a social individual, it is social consciousness. Social consciousness is consciousness with reference to a social situation. In this sense all individual consciousness is social.

Nearly all writers of this school specifically reject the first conception—the social over-soul—and still they do not wholly escape from it. There is from their standpoint one thing strongly in its favor. It does secure unity. If we admit the existence of a conscious over-soul whose psychic processes include all social phenomena, we have society a psychic unity without any further argument. While nearly all sociologists disclaim this view, many of the psychological sociologists in their search for a unity are constantly forced back to it. In one sentence they will deny it, thereby losing unity for society; in the next they will assert unity for the social process by implying an over-soul.

Le Bon in describing the mental phenomena of people in a crowd, or mob, says:

The sentiments and ideas of all the persons in the gathering take one and the same direction, and their conscious personality vanishes. A collective mind is formed, doubtless transitory, but presenting very clearly defined characteristics. It [the crowd] forms a single being and is subject to the law of the mental unity of crowds."

....

Here we have the mental unity of a social group based upon the sentiments and ideas of all the persons taking one and the same direction, and the vanishing of individual conscious personality. If this is taken merely as a rough figurative way of describing what takes place in a mob, there can be no objection to it. As a scientific description of what really occurs it is faulty in several respects. That the sentiments and ideas of all the persons in the gathering take one and the same direction is true. only in part. Doubtless there is a general similarity of sentiments and ideas, but if it were possible to get an accurate description of

The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind, p. 26.

each man's mental processes, a certain dissimilarity would be found. No two would be entirely alike. No matter with what power the circumstances control the minds of the people, each man's character and previous experiences will in some way modify his sentiments and ideas, thus giving him an individuality of his Conscious personality does not vanish. If it did, there would be no "persons in the gathering," and consequently no sentiments and ideas to "take one and the same direction." Of course, this similarity of sentiments and ideas is an important feature of the situation. But just as long as we consider ideas and sentiments, we get not unity, but plurality. The very lan

own.

99 66

guage of the statement "all the persons, same direction"

compels the reader to think plurality, not unity. This is not to deny unity to the crowd, but the unity is found entirely on the side of overt activity, not on the side of consciousness.

Similarly Professor Giddings's theory of social unity is based essentially upon the common content of consciousness and the common purpose of co-operating individuals. His position is best presented by means of a few quotations:

Believing that sociology is a psychological science, . . . . I have endeavored to direct attention chiefly to the psychic aspects of social phenomena.'

It [sociology] is a science that tries to conceive of society in its unity and attempts to explain it in terms of cosmic cause and law.

The central doctrine of this book is that the consciousness of kind distinguishes social from non-social phenomena, and is the principal cause of social conduct.'

As long as everybody talks about "public opinion," the "popular conscience," the "sovereign will of the people," and so on, nobody need be deceived by such terms as "the social consciousness," "the social mind," "the social memory," and the "social will." No careful reader of these pages will suppose that I believe in a social Ego, a social sensorium, or a transcendental somewhat over and above individual minds. My view of the whole subject is made perfectly clear, I hope, when I say that by the social will I mean nothing more and nothing less than the concert of individual wills." All true social facts are psychical in their nature."

It might be thought that sociology could meet this criticism [as to failure to demonstrate the underlying unity alleged] by surrendering all sub8 Ibid., p. 16.

'Principles of Sociology, 3d ed., Preface, p. v.

11 Ibid., p. 3.

jective explanations to other sciences, and by confining itself to an elaboration of the objective explanation. But this would be to abandon entirely the claim to the unity of social phenomena. The volitional process is obviously essential. If there is no unity here, there is none anywhere in society; apparent unity is a circumstance of the physical basis only."

We must carefully avoid associating false conceptions with the terms social mind and social consciousness. They do not stand for mere abstractions. The social mind is a concrete thing. It is more than any individual mind and dominates every individual will. Yet it exists only in individual minds, and we have no knowledge of any consciousness but that of individuals. The social consciousness, then, is nothing more than the feeling or the thought that appears at the same moment in all individuals, or that is propagated from one to another through the assembly or the community."

In a true social self-consciousness, which must be described rather than defined, the distinctive peculiarity is that each individual makes his neighbor's feeling or judgment an object of thought, at the same instant that he makes his own feeling or thought such an object; that he judges the two to be identical, and that he then acts with a full consciousness that his fellows have come to like conclusions, and will act in like ways."

14

A fruitful source of error with Professor Giddings is his failure to distinguish between a thinking process and the objective content of that process. He assumes that a feeling or thought is a thing which may appear in many individual minds at once. Of course, many persons may think about the same object, may reach similar conclusions, and as a result of such thinking may act in similar ways; but this does not mean that the many thinking processes constitute a single process, nor the many volitional processes a single volitional process, even if the objective contents are precisely the same and the conclusions and overt activities entirely similar. If each of ten men sees a fire, and all think and feel that it ought to be extinguished, and all co-operate in extinguishing it, we do not have, from a psychological standpoint, one thought, one feeling, nor one volitional process. Each man's experience is a whole experience and not a mere part. The unity of the group is to be found entirely on the side of the objective situation and the overt activity. For the psychologist, as such, thought has no meaning other than a thinking process. The objective content of thought is not the subject-matter of psy"Op. cit., p. 13.

12 Ibid., p. 13.

13 Ibid., p. 134.

14 Ibid., p. 137.

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