the raw materials out of which individual personalities and the social
order are created. Both society and the persons who compose society are
the products of social processes working in and through the materials
which each new generation of men contributes to it.
Charles Cooley, who was the first to make the important distinction
between primary and secondary groups, has pointed out that the intimate,
face-to-face associations of primary groups, i.e., the family, the
neighborhood, and the village community, are fundamental in forming the
social nature and ideals of the individual.[53]
There is, however, an area of life in which the associations are more
intimate than those of the primary group as that group is ordinarily
conceived. Such are the relations between mother and child, particularly
in the period of infancy, and the relations between men and women under
the influence of the sexual instinct. These are the associations in
which the most lasting affections and the most violent antipathies are
formed. We may describe it as the area of touch relationships.
Finally, there is the area of secondary contacts, in which relationships
are relatively impersonal, formal, and conventional. It is in this
region of social life that the individual gains, at the same time, a
personal freedom and an opportunity for distinction that is denied him
in the primary group.
As a matter of fact, many, if not most, of our present social problems
have their source and origin in the transition of great masses of the
population--the immigrants, for example--out of a society based on
primary group relationships into the looser, freer, and less controlled
existence of life in great cities.
The "moral unrest" so deeply penetrating all western societies,
the growing vagueness and indecision of personalities, the
almost complete disappearance of the "strong and steady
character" of old times, in short, the rapid and general
increase of Bohemianism and Bolshevism in all societies, is an
effect of the fact that not only the early primary group
controlling all interests of its members on the general social
basis, not only the occupational group of the mediaeval type
controlling most of the interests of its members on a
professional basis, but even the special modern group dividing
with many others the task of organizing permanently the
attitudes of each of its members, is more and more losing
ground. The pace of social evolution has become so rapid that
special groups are ceasing to be permanent and stable enough to
organize and maintain organized complexes of attitudes of their
members which correspond to their common pursuits. In other
words, society is gradually losing all its old machinery for
the determination and stabilization of individual
characters.[54]
Every social group tends to create, from the individuals that compose
it, its own type of character, and the characters thus formed become
component parts of the social structure in which they are incorporated.
All the problems of social life are thus problems of the individual; and
all problems of the individual are at the same time problems of the
group. This point of view is already recognized in preventive medicine,
and to some extent in psychiatry. It is not yet adequately recognized in
the technique of social case work.
Further advance in the application of social principles to social
practice awaits a more thoroughgoing study of the problems, systematic
social research, and an experimental social science.
REPRESENTATIVE WORKS IN SYSTEMATIC SOCIOLOGY AND METHODS OF SOCIOLOGICAL
RESEARCH
I. THE SCIENCE OF PROGRESS
(1) Comte, Auguste. _Cours de philosophie positive_, 5th ed. 6 vols.
Paris, 1892.
(2) ----. _Positive Philosophy._ Translated by Harriet Martineau, 3d ed.
London, 1893.
(3) Spencer, Herbert. _Principles of Sociology._ 3d ed. 3 vols. New
York, 1906.
(4) Schaeffle, Albert. _Bau und Leben des socialen Körpers._ 2d ed., 2
vols. Tuebingen, 1896.
(5) Lilienfeld, Paul von. _Gedanken über die Socialwissenschaft der
Zukunft._ 5 vols. Mitau, 1873-81.
(6) Ward, Lester F. _Dynamic Sociology._ 2 vols. New York, 1883.
(7) De Greef, Guillaume. _Introduction à la sociologie._ 3 vols. Paris,
1886.
(8) Worms, René. _Organisme et société._ Paris, 1896.
II. THE SCHOOLS
A. _Realists_
(1) Ratzenhofer, Gustav. _Die sociologische Erkenntnis._ Leipzig, 1898.
(2) Small, Albion W. _General Sociology._ Chicago, 1905.
(3) Durkheim, Émile. _De la Division du travail social._ Paris, 1893.
(4) Simmel, Georg. _Soziologie._ Untersuchungen über die Formen der
Vergesellschaftung. Leipzig, 1908.
(5) Cooley, Charles Horton. _Social Organization._ A study of the larger
mind. New York, 1909.
(6) Ellwood, Charles A. _Sociology and Its Psychological Aspects._ New
York and London, 1912.
B. _Nominalists_
(1) Tarde, Gabriel. _Les Lois de l'imitation._ Paris, 1895.
(2) Giddings, Franklin H. _The Principles of Sociology._ New York, 1896.
(3) Ross, Edward Alsworth. _The Principles of Sociology._ New York,
1920.
C. _Collective Behavior_
(1) Le Bon, Gustave. _The Crowd._ A study of the popular mind. New York,
1903.
(2) Sighele, Scipio. _Psychologie des sectes._ Paris, 1898.
(3) Tarde, Gabriel. _L'Opinion et la foule._ Paris, 1901.
(4) McDougall, William. _The Group Mind._ Cambridge, 1920.
(5) Vincent, George E. _The Social Mind and Education._ New York, 1897.
III. METHODS OF SOCIOLOGICAL INVESTIGATION
A. _Critical Observation on Methods of Research_
(1) Small, Albion W. _The Meaning of Social Science._ Chicago, 1910.
(2) Durkheim, Émile. _Les Règles de la méthode sociologique._ Paris,
1904.
(3) Thomas, W. I., and Znaniecki, F. _The Polish Peasant in Europe and
America._ "Methodological Note," I, 1-86. 5 vols. Boston, 1918-20.
B. _Studies of Communities_
(1) Booth, Charles. _Labour and Life of the People: London._ 2 vols.
London, 1891.
(2) ----. _Life and Labour of the People in London._ 9 vols. London,
1892-97. 8 additional vols. London, 1902.
(3) _The Pittsburgh Survey._ Edited by Paul U. Kellogg. 6 vols. Russell
Sage Foundation. New York, 1909-14.
(4) _The Springfield Survey._ Edited by Shelby M. Harrison. 3 vols.
Russell Sage Foundation. New York, 1918-20.
(5) _Americanization Studies of the Carnegie Corporation of New York._
Edited by Allen T. Burns. 10 vols. New York, 1920-21.
(6) Chapin, F. Stuart. _Field Work and Social Research._ New York, 1920.
C. _Studies of the Individual_
(1) Healy, William. _The Individual Delinquent._ Boston, 1915.
(2) Thomas, W. I., and Znaniecki, F. _The Polish Peasant in Europe and
America._ "Life Record of an Immigrant," Vol. III. Boston, 1919.
(3) Richmond, Mary. _Social Diagnosis._ Russell Sage Foundation. New
York, 1917.
IV. PERIODICALS
(1) _American Journal of Sociology._ Chicago, University of Chicago
Press, 1896-.
(2) _American Sociological Society, Papers and Proceedings._ Chicago,
University of Chicago Press, 1907-.
(3) _Annales de l'institut international de sociologie._ Paris, M. Giard
et Cie., 1895.
(4) _L'Année sociologique._ Paris, F. Alcan, 1898-1912.
(5) _The Indian Journal of Sociology._ Baroda, India, The College,
1920-.
(6) _Kölner Vierteljahrshefte für Sozialwissenschaften._ Leipzig and
München, Duncker und Humblot, 1921-.
(7) _Rivista italiana di sociologia._ Roma, Fratelli Bocca, 1897-.
(8) _Revue del'institut de sociologie._ Bruxelles, l'Institut de
Sociologie, 1920-. [Successor to _Bulletin del'institut de sociologie
Solvay_. Bruxelles, 1910-14.]
(9) _Revue internationale de sociologie._ Paris, M. Giard et Cie.,
1893-.
(10) _The Sociological Review._ Manchester, Sherratt and Hughes, 1908-.
[Preceded by Sociological Papers, Sociological Society, London, 1905-7.]
(11) _Schmollers Jahrbuch für Gesetzgebung, Verwaltung und
Volkswirtschaft im deutschen Reiche._ Leipzig, Duncker und Humblot,
1877-.
(12) _Zeitschrift für Sozialwissenschaft._ Berlin, G. Reimer, 1898-.
TOPICS FOR WRITTEN THEMES
1. Comte's Conception of Humanity
2. Herbert Spencer on the Social Organism
3. The Social Process as Defined by Small
4. Imitation and Like-mindedness as Fundamental Social Facts
5. Social Control as a Sociological Problem
6. Group Consciousness and the Group Mind
7. Investigation and Research as Illustrated by the Pittsburgh Survey
and the Carnegie Americanization Studies
8. The Concept of the Group in Sociology
9. The Person, Personality, and Status
10. Sociology in Its Relation to Economics and to Politics
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
1. What do you understand was Comte's purpose in demanding for sociology
a place among the sciences?
2. Are social phenomena susceptible to scientific prevision? Compare
with physical phenomena.
3. What is Comte's order of the sciences? What is your explanation for
the late appearance of sociology in the series?
4. What do you understand by the term "positive" when applied to the
social sciences?
5. Can sociology become positive without becoming experimental?
6. "Natural science emphasizes the abstract, the historian is interested
in the concrete." Discuss.
7. How do you distinguish between the historical method and the method
of natural science in dealing with the following phenomena: (a)
electricity, (b) plants, (c) cattle, (d) cities?
8. Distinguish between history, natural history, and natural science.
9. Is Westermarck's _Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas_ history,
natural history, or sociology? Why?
10. "History is past politics, politics is present history." Do you
agree? Elaborate your position.
11. What is the value of history to the person?
12. Classify the following formulas of behavior under either (a)
natural law (social law in the scientific sense), and (b) moral law
(customary sanction, ethical principles), (c) civil law: "birds of a
feather flock together"; "thou shalt not kill"; an ordinance against
speeding; "honesty is the best policy"; monogamy; imitation tends to
spread in geometric ratio; "women first"; the Golden Rule; "walk in the
trodden paths"; the federal child-labor statute.
13. Give an illustration of a sociological hypothesis.
14. Of the following statements of fact, which are historical and which
sociological?
Auguste Comte suffered from myopia.
"Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains."
"Science works not at all for nationality or its spirit. It makes
entirely for cosmopolitanism."
15. How would you verify each of the foregoing statements? Distinguish
between the sociological and historical methods of verification.
16. Is the use of the comparative method that of history or that of
natural science?
17. "The social organism: humanity or Leviathan?" What is your reaction
to this alternative? Why?
18. What was the difference in the conception of the social organism
held by Comte and that held by Spencer?
19. "How does a mere collection of individuals succeed in acting in a
corporate and consistent way?" What was the answer to this question
given by Hobbes, Aristotle, Worms?
20. "Man and society are at the same time products of nature and of
human artifice." Explain.
21. What are the values and limitations of the following explanations of
the control of the group over the behavior of its members: (a)
homogeneity, (b) like-mindedness, (c) imitation, (d) common
purpose?
22. What bearing have the facts of a panic or a stampede upon the
theories of like-mindedness, imitation, and common purpose as
explanations of group behavior?
23. "The characteristic social phenomenon is just this control by the
group as a whole of the individuals which compose it. This fact of
control is the fundamental social fact." Give an illustration of the
control of the group over its members.
24. What is the difference between group mind and group consciousness as
indicated in current usage in the phrases "urban mind," "rural mind,"
"public mind," "race consciousness," "national consciousness," "class
consciousness"?
25. What do you understand by "a group in being"? Compare with the
nautical expression "a fleet in being." Is "a fleet in being" a social
organism? Has it a "social mind" and "social consciousness" in the sense
that we speak of "race consciousness", for example, or "group
consciousness"?
26. In what sense is public opinion objective? Analyze a selected case
where the opinion of the group as a whole is different from the opinion
of its members as individuals.
27. For what reason was the fact of "social control" interpreted in
terms of "the collective mind"?
28. Which is the social reality (a) that society is a collection of
like-minded persons, or (b) that society is a process and a product of
interaction? What is the bearing upon this point of the quotation from
Dewey: "Society may fairly be said to exist in transmission"?
29. What three steps were taken in the transformation of sociology from
a philosophy of history to a science of society?
30. What value do you perceive in a classification of social problems?
31. Classify the following studies under (a) administrative problems
or (b) problems of policy or (c) problems of human nature: a survey
to determine the feasibility of health insurance to meet the problem of
sickness; an investigation of the police force; a study of attitudes
toward war; a survey of the contacts of racial groups; an investigation
for the purpose of improving the technique of workers in a social
agency; a study of the experiments in self-government among prisoners in
penal institutions.
32. Is the description of great cities as "social laboratories" metaphor
or fact?
33. What do you understand by the statement: Sociology will become an
experimental science as soon as it can state its problems in such a way
that the results in one instance show what can be done in another?
34. What would be the effect upon political life if sociology were able
to predict with some precision the effects of political action, for
example, the effect of prohibition?
35. Would you favor turning over the government to control of experts as
soon as sociology became a positive science? Explain.
36. How far may the politician who makes a profession of controlling
elections be regarded as a practicing sociologist?
37. What is the distinction between sociology as an art and as a
science?
38. Distinguish between research and investigation as the terms are used
in the text.
39. What illustrations in American society occur to you of the (a)
autocratic and (b) democratic methods of social change?
40. "All social problems turn out finally to be problems of group life."
Are there any exceptions?
41. Select twelve groups at random and enter under the heads in the
classification of social groups. What groups are difficult to classify?
42. Study the organization and structure of one of the foregoing groups
in terms of (a) statistical facts about it; (b) its institutional
aspect; (c) its heritages; and (d) its collective opinion.
43. "All progress implies a certain amount of disorganization." Explain.
44. What do you understand to be the differences between the various
social processes: (a) historical, (b) cultural, (c) economic,
(d) political?
45. What is the significance of the relative diameters of the areas of
the cultural, political, and economic processes?
46. "The person is an individual who has status." Does an animal have
status?
47. "In a given group the status of every member is determined by his
relation to every other member of that group." Give an illustration.
48. Why are the problems of the person, problems of the group as well?
49. What does the organization of the bibliography and the sequence of
the volumes referred to suggest in regard to the development of
sociological science?
50. How far does it seem to you that the emphasis upon process rather
than progress accounts for the changes which have taken place in the
sociological theory and point of view?
FOOTNOTES:
[2] From Robert E. Park, "Sociology and the Social Sciences," _American
Journal of Sociology_, XXVI (1920-21), 401-24; XXVII (1921-22), 1-21;
169-83.
[3] Harriet Martineau, _The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte_,
freely translated and condensed (London, 1893), II, 61.
[4] Harriet Martineau, _op. cit._, II, 59-61.
[5] Montesquieu, Baron M. de Secondat, _The Spirit of Laws_, translated
by Thomas Nugent (Cincinnati, 1873), I, xxxi.
[6] David Hume, _Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding_, Part II, sec.
7.
[7] Condorcet, _Esquisse d'un tableau historique des progrès de l'esprit
humain_ (1795), 292. See Paul Barth, _Die Philosophie der Geschichte als
Sociologie_ (Leipzig, 1897), Part I, pp. 21-23.
[8] _Oeuvres de Saint-Simon et d'Enfantin_ (Paris, 1865-78), XVII, 228.
Paul Barth, _op. cit._, Part I, p. 23.
[9] Henry Adams, _The Degradation of the Democratic Dogma_ (New York,
1919), p. 126.
[10] James Harvey Robinson, _The New History, Essays Illustrating the
Modern Historical Outlook_ (New York, 1912), pp. 54-55.
[11] James Harvey Robinson, _op. cit._, p. 83.
[12] Wilhelm Windelband, _Geschichte und Naturwissenschaft, Rede zum
Antritt des Rectorats der Kaiser-Wilhelms Universität Strassburg_
(Strassburg, 1900). The logical principle outlined by Windelband has
been further elaborated by Heinrich Rickert in _Die Grenzen der
naturwissenschaftlichen Begriffsbildung, eine logische Einleitung in die
historischen Wissenschaften_ (Tübingen u. Leipzig, 1902). See also
Georg Simmel, _Die Probleme der Geschichtsphilosophie, eine
erkenntnistheoretische Studie_ (2d ed., Leipzig, 1915).
[13] J. Arthur Thomson, _The System of Animate Nature_ (New York, 1920),
pp. 8-9. See also Karl Pearson, _The Grammar of Science_ (2d ed.;
London, 1900), chap. iii, "The Scientific Law."
[14] Karl Pearson, _op. cit._, p. 359.
[15] Henry Adams, _op. cit._, p. 127.
[16] Professor Robertson Smith (_Nature_, XLIV, 270), criticizing
Westermarck's _History of Human Marriage_, complains that the author has
confused history with natural history. "The history of an institution,"
he writes, "which is controlled by public opinion and regulated by law
is not natural history. The true history of marriage begins where the
natural history of pairing ends.... To treat these topics (polyandry,
kinship through the female only, infanticide, exogamy) as essentially a
part of the natural history of pairing involves a tacit assumption that
the laws of society are at bottom mere formulated instincts, and this
assumption really underlies all our author's theories. His fundamental
position compels him, if he will be consistent with himself, to hold
that every institution connected with marriage that has universal
validity, or forms an integral part of the main line of development, is
rooted in instinct, and that institutions which are not based on
instinct are necessarily exceptional and unimportant for scientific
history."
[17] Edward Westermarck, _The History of Human Marriage_ (London, 1901),
p. 1.
[18] _Ibid._, p. 5.
[19] Jane Ellen Harrison, _Themis_, _A Study of the Social Origins of
Greek Religion_ (Cambridge, 1912), p. ix.
[20] Robert H. Lowie, _Primitive Society_ (New York, 1920), pp. 7-8.
[21] Wilhelm Wundt, _Völkerpsychologie, eine Untersuchung der
Entwicklungsgesetze von Sprache, Mythus und Sitte_. Erster Band, _Die
Sprache_, Erster Theil (Leipzig, 1900), p. 13. The name folk-psychology
was first used by Lazarus and Steinthal, _Zeitschrift für
Völkerpsychologie und Sprachwissenschaft_, I, 1860. Wundt's
folk-psychology is a continuation of the tradition of these earlier
writers.
[22] G. Tarde, _Social Laws, An Outline of Sociology_, translated from
the French by Howard C. Warren (New York, 1899), pp. 40-41.
[23] Hanns Oertel, "Some Present Problems and Tendencies in Comparative
Philology," _Congress of Arts and Science, Universal Exposition, St.
Louis, 1904_ (Boston, 1906), III, 59.
[24] Edward A. Freeman, _Comparative Politics_ (London, 1873), p. 23.
[25] L. Lévy-Bruhl, _The Philosophy of Auguste Comte_, authorized
translation; an Introduction by Frederic Harrison (New York, 1903), p.
337.
[26] _Ibid._, p. 234.
[27] Hobbes's statement is as follows: "For by art is created that great
_Leviathan_ called a _Commonwealth_, or _State_, in Latin _Civitas_,
which is but an artificial man; though of greater stature and strength
than the natural, for whose protection and defence it was intended; and
in which the _sovereignty_ is an artificial _soul_, as giving life and
motion to the whole body; the _magistrates_, and other _officers_ of
judicature, artificial _joints_; _reward_ and _punishment_, by which
fastened to the seat of the sovereignty every joint and member is moved
to perform his duty, are the _nerves_, that do the same in the body
natural." Spencer criticizes this conception of Hobbes as representing
society as a "factitious" and artificial rather than a "natural"
product. Herbert Spencer, _The Principles of Sociology_ (London, 1893),
I, 437, 579-80. See also chap. iii, "Social Growth," pp. 453-58.
[28] Herbert Spencer, _op. cit._, I, 437.
[29] _Ibid._, p. 440.
[30] _Ibid._, p. 450.
[31] _Ibid._, pp. 449-50.
[32] _Westminster Review_, January, 1860.
[33] René Worms, _Organisme et Société_, "Bibliothèque Sociologique
Internationale" (Paris, 1896), pp. 210-13.
[34] W. Trotter, _Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War_ (New York,
1916), pp. 29-30.
[35] _Ibid._, pp. 40-41.
[36] Franklin Henry Giddings, _The Concepts and Methods of Sociology_,
Congress of Arts and Science, Universal Exposition (St. Louis, 1904),
pp. 789-90.
[37] G. Tarde, _op. cit._, pp. 38-39.
[38] Émile Durkheim, _Elementary Forms of Religious Life_ (New York,
1915), pp. 206-8.
[39] John Dewey, _Democracy and Education_ (New York, 1916), p. 5.
[40] _Ibid._, pp. 6-7.
[41] Émile Durkheim, "Représentations individuelles et représentations
collectives," _Revue métaphysique_, VI (1898), 295. Quoted and
translated by Charles Elmer Gehlke, "Émile Durkheim's Contributions to
Sociological Theory," _Studies in History, Economics, and Public Law_,
LXIII, 29-30.
[42] Bliss Perry, _The American Mind_ (Boston, 1912), p. 47.
[43] James Mark Baldwin, _Mental Development in the Child and the Race_
(New York and London, 1895); Charles A. Ellwood, _Sociology in Its
Psychological Aspects_ (New York and London, 1912).
[44] _Labour and Life of the People_ (London, 1889), I, pp. 6-7.
[45] Thomas and Znaniecki, _The Polish Peasant in Europe and America_
(Boston, 1918), I, 3.
[46] Walter B. Bodenhafer, "The Comparative Rôle of the Group Concept in
Ward's Dynamic Sociology and Contemporary American Sociology," _American
Journal of Sociology_, XXVI (1920-21), 273-314; 425-74; 588-600; 716-43.
[47] _Stillwater, the Queen of the St. Croix_, a report of a social
survey, published by The Community Service of Stillwater, Minnesota,
1920, p. 71.
[48] Frank Tannenbaum, "Prison Democracy," _Atlantic Monthly_, October,
1920, pp. 438-39. (Psychology of the criminal group.)
[49] _Ibid._, pp. 443-46.
[50] Franz Oppenheimer, _The State_ (Indianapolis, 1914), p. 5.
[51] Thomas and Znaniecki, _op. cit._, III, 34-36.
[52] Original nature in its relation to social welfare and human
progress has been made the subject-matter of a special science,
eugenics. For a criticism of the claims of eugenics as a social science
see Leonard T. Hobhouse, _Social Evolution and Political Theory_
(Columbia University Press, 1917).
[53] Charles H. Cooley, _Social Organization_, p. 28.
[54] Thomas and Znaniecki, _op. cit._, III, 63-64.
CHAPTER II
HUMAN NATURE
I. INTRODUCTION
1. Human Interest in Human Nature
The human interest in human nature is proverbial. It is an original
tendency of man to be attentive to the behavior of other human beings.
Experience heightens this interest because of the dependence of the
individual upon other persons, not only for physical existence, but for
social life.
The literature of every people is to a large extent but the
crystallization of this persistent interest. Old saws and proverbs of
every people transmit from generation to generation shrewd
generalizations upon human behavior. In joke and in epigram, in
caricature and in burlesque, in farce and in comedy, men of all races
and times have enjoyed with keen relish the humor of the contrast
between the conventional and the natural motives in behavior. In Greek
mythology, individual traits of human nature are abstracted, idealized,
and personified into gods. The heroes of Norse sagas and Teutonic
legends are the gigantic symbols of primary emotions and sentiments.
Historical characters live in the social memory not alone because they
are identified with political, religious, or national movements but also
because they have come to typify human relationships. The loyalty of
Damon and Pythias, the grief of Rachel weeping for her children, the
cynical cruelty of the egocentric Nero, the perfidy of Benedict Arnold,
the comprehending sympathy of Abraham Lincoln, are proverbial, and as
such have become part of the common language of all the peoples who
participate in our occidental culture.
Poetry, drama, and the plastic arts are interesting and significant only
so far as they reveal in new and ever changing circumstances the
unchanging characteristics of a fundamental human nature. Illustrations
of this naïve and unreflecting interest in the study of mankind are
familiar enough in the experience and observation of any of us.
Intellectual interest in, and the scientific observation of, human
traits and human behavior have their origin in this natural interest and
unreflective observation by man of his fellows. History, ethnology,
folklore, all the comparative studies of single cultural traits, i.e.,
of language, of religion, and of law, are but the more systematic
pursuit of this universal interest of mankind in man.
2. Definition of Human Nature
The natural history of the expression "human nature" is interesting.
Usage has given it various shades of meaning. In defining the term more
precisely there is a tendency either unwarrantedly to narrow or unduly
to extend and overemphasize some one or another of the different senses
of the term. A survey of these varied uses reveals the common and
fundamental meaning of the phrase.
The use which common sense makes of the term human nature is
significant. It is used in varied contexts with the most divergent
implications but always by way of explanation of behavior that is
characteristically human. The phrase is sometimes employed with cynical
deprecation as, "Oh, that's human nature." Or as often, perhaps, as an
expression of approbation, "He's so human."
The weight of evidence as expressed in popular sayings is distinctly in
depreciation of man's nature.
It's human natur', p'raps,--if so,
Oh, isn't human natur' low,
are two lines from Gilbert's musical comedy "Babette's Love." "To err is
human, to forgive divine" reminds us of a familiar contrast. "Human
nature is like a bad clock; it might go right now and then, or be made
to strike the hour, but its inward frame is to go wrong," is a simile
that emphasizes the popular notion that man's behavior tends to the
perverse. An English divine settles the question with the statement,
"Human nature is a rogue and a scoundrel, or why would it perpetually
stand in need of laws and religion?"
Even those who see good in the natural man admit his native tendency to
err. Sir Thomas Browne asserts that "human nature knows naturally what
is good but naturally pursues what is evil." The Earl of Clarendon gives
the equivocal explanation that "if we did not take great pains to
corrupt our nature, our nature would never corrupt us." Addison, from
the detached position of an observer and critic of manners and men,
concludes that "as man is a creature made up of different extremes, he
has something in him very great and very mean."
The most commonly recognized distinction between man and the lower
animals lies in his possession of reason. Yet familiar sayings tend to
exclude the intellectual from the human attributes. Lord Bacon shrewdly
remarks that "there is in human nature, generally, more of the fool than
of the wise." The phrase "he is a child of nature" means that behavior
in social relations is impulsive, simple, and direct rather than
reflective, sophisticated, or consistent. Wordsworth depicts this human
type in his poem "She Was a Phantom of Delight":
A creature not too bright or good
For human nature's daily food;
For transient sorrows, simple wiles,
Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears and smiles.
The inconsistency between the rational professions and the impulsive
behavior of men is a matter of common observation. "That's not the
logic, reason, or philosophy of it, but it's the human nature of it." It
is now generally recognized that the older English conception of the
"economic man" and the "rational man," motivated by enlightened
self-interest, was far removed from the "natural man" impelled by
impulse, prejudice, and sentiment, in short, by human nature. Popular
criticism has been frequently directed against the reformer in politics,
the efficiency expert in industry, the formalist in religion and morals
on the ground that they overlook or neglect the so-called "human factor"
in the situation. Sir Arthur Helps says:
No doubt hard work is a great police-agent; if everybody were
worked from morning till night, and then carefully locked up,
the register of crimes might be greatly diminished. But what
would become of human nature? Where would be the room for
growth in such a system of things? It is through sorrow and
mirth, plenty and need, a variety of passions, circumstances,
and temptations, even through sin and misery, that men's
natures are developed.
Certain sayings already quoted imply that the nature of man is a fact to
be reckoned with in controlling his behavior. "There are limits to human
nature" which cannot lightly be overstepped. "Human nature," according
to Periander, "is hard to overcome." Yet we also recognize with Swift
that "it is the talent of human nature to run from one extreme to
another." Finally, nothing is more trite and familiar than the statement
that "human nature is the same all over the world." This fundamental
likeness of human nature, despite artificial and superficial cultural
differences, has found a classic expression in Kipling's line: "The
Colonel's Lady an' Judy O'Grady are sisters under their skins!"
Human nature, then, as distinct from the formal wishes of the individual
and the conventional order of society, is an aspect of human life that
must be reckoned with. Common sense has long recognized this, but until
recently no systematic attempt has been made to _isolate_, describe, and
explain the distinctively human factors in the life either of the
individual or of society.
Of all that has been written on this subject the most adequate statement
is that of Cooley. He has worked out with unusual penetration and
peculiar insight an interpretation of human nature as a product of group
life.
By human nature we may understand those sentiments and impulses
that are human in being superior to those of lower animals, and
also in the sense that they belong to mankind at large, and not
to any particular race or time. It means, particularly,
sympathy and the innumerable sentiments into which sympathy
enters, such as love, resentment, ambition, vanity,
hero-worship, and the feeling of social right and wrong.
Human nature in this sense is justly regarded as a
comparatively permanent element in society. Always and
everywhere men seek honor and dread ridicule, defer to public
opinion, cherish their goods and their children, and admire
courage, generosity, and success. It is always safe to assume
that people are and have been human.
Human nature is not something existing separately in the
individual, but a _group nature or primary phase of society_, a
relatively simple and general condition of the social mind. It
is something more, on the one hand, than the mere instinct that
is born in us--though that enters into it--and something less,
on the other, than the more elaborate development of ideas and
sentiments that makes up institutions. It is the nature which
is developed and expressed in those simple, face-to-face groups
that are somewhat alike in all societies; groups of the family,
the playground, and the neighborhood. In the essential
similarity of these is to be found the basis, in experience,
for similar ideas and sentiments in the human mind. In these,
everywhere, human nature comes into existence. Man does not
have it at birth; he cannot acquire it except through
fellowship, and it decays in isolation.[55]
3. Classification of the Materials
With the tacit acceptance by biologists, psychologists, and sociologists
of human behavior as a natural phenomenon, materials upon human nature
have rapidly accumulated. The wealth and variety of these materials are
all the greater because of the diversity of the points of view from
which workers in this field have attacked the problem. The value of the
results of these investigations is enhanced when they are brought
together, classified, and compared.
The materials fall naturally into two divisions: (a) "The Original
Nature of Man" and (b) "Human Nature and Social Life." This division
is based upon a distinction between traits that are inborn and
characters socially acquired; a distinction found necessary by students
in this field. Selections under the third heading, "Personality and the
Social Self" indicate the manner in which the individual develops under
the social influences, from the raw material of "instinct" into the
social product "the person." Materials in the fourth division,
"Biological and Social Inheritance," contrast the method of the
transmission of original tendencies through the germ plasm with the
communication of the social heritage through education.
a) _The original nature of man._--No one has stated more clearly than
Thorndike that human nature is a product of two factors, (a)
tendencies to response rooted in original nature and (b) the
accumulated effects of the stimuli of the external and social
environment. At birth man is a bundle of random tendencies to respond.
Through experience, and by means of the mechanisms of habit and
character, control is secured over instinctive reactions. In other
words, the original nature of man is, as Comte said, an abstraction. It
exists only in the psychic vacuum of antenatal life, or perhaps only in
the potentiality of the germ plasm. The fact of observation is that the
structure of the response is irrevocably changed in the process of
reaction to the stimulus. The _Biography of a Baby_ gives a concrete
picture of the development of the plastic infant in the environment of
the social group.
The three papers on differences between sexes, races, and individuals
serve as an introduction into the problem of differentiating the aspects
of behavior which are in _original nature_ from those that are
_acquired_ through social experience. Are the apparent differences
between men and women, white and colored, John and James, those which
arise from differences in the germ plasm or from differences in
education and in cultural contacts? The selections must not be taken as
giving the final word upon the subject. At best they represent merely
the conclusions reached by three investigators. Attempts to arrive at
positive differences in favor either of original nature or of education
are frequently made in the interest of preconceived opinion. The
problem, as far as science is concerned, is to discover what limitations
original nature places upon response to social copies, and the ways in
which the inborn potentialities find expression or repression in
differing types of social environment.
b) _Human nature and social life._--Original nature is represented in
human responses in so far as they are determined by the _innate
structure of the individual organism_. The materials assembled under
this head treat of inborn reactions as influenced, modified, and
reconstructed by the _structure of the social organization_.
The actual reorganization of human nature takes place in response to the
folkways and mores, the traditions and conventions, of the group. So
potentially fitted for social life is the natural man, however, so
manifold are the expressions that the plastic original tendencies may
take, that instinct is replaced by habit, precedent, personal taboo, and
good form. This remade structure of human nature, this objective mind,
as Hegel called it, is fixed and transmitted in the folkways and mores,
social ritual, i.e., _Sittlichkeit_, to use the German word, and
convention.
c) _Personality and the social self._--The selections upon
"Personality and the Social Self" bring together and compare the
different definitions of the term. These definitions fall under three
heads:
(1) _The organism as personality:_ This is a biological statement,
satisfactory as a definition only as preparatory to further analysis.
(2) _Personality as a complex:_ Personality defined in terms of the
unity of mental life is a conception that has grown up in the recent
"individual psychology," so called. Personality includes, in this case,
not only the memories of the individual and his stream of
consciousness, but also the characteristic organization of mental
complexes and trends which may be thought of as a supercomplex. The
phenomena of double and multiple personalities occur when this unity
becomes disorganized. Disorganization in releasing groups of complexes
from control may even permit the formation of independent organizations.
Morton Prince's book _The Dissociation of a Personality_ is a classic
case study of multiple personality. The selections upon "The Natural
Person versus the Social and Conventional Person" and "The Divided Self
and the Moral Consciousness" indicate the more usual and less extreme
conflicts of opposing sentiments and interests within the organization
of personality.
(3) _Personality as the rôle of the individual in the group:_ The word
personality is derived from the Latin _persona_, a mask used by actors.
The etymology of the term suggests that its meaning is to be found in
the rôle of the individual in the social group. By usage, personality
carries the implication of the social expression of behavior.
Personality may then be defined as the sum and organization of those
traits which determine the rôle of the individual in the group. The
following is a classification of the characteristics of the person which
affect his social status and efficiency:
(a) physical traits, as physique, physiognomy, etc.;
(b) temperament;
(c) character;
(d) social expression, as by facial expression, gesture, manner,
speech, writing, etc.;
(e) prestige, as by birth, past success, status, etc.;
(f) the individual's conception of his rôle.
The significance of these traits consists in the way in which they enter
into the rôle of the individual in his social milieu. Chief among these
may be considered the individual's conception of the part which he plays
among his fellows. Cooley's discriminating description of "the
looking-glass self" offers a picture of the process by which the person
conceives himself in terms of the attitudes of others toward him.
The reflected or looking-glass self seems to have three
principal elements: the imagination of our appearance to the
other person; the imagination of his judgment of that
appearance; and some sort of self-feeling, such as pride or
mortification. The comparison with a looking-glass self hardly
suggests the second element, the imagined judgment, which is
quite essential. The thing that moves us to pride or shame is
not the mere mechanical reflection of ourselves, but an imputed
sentiment, the imagined effect of this reflection upon
another's mind. This is evident from the fact that the
character and weight of that other, in whose mind we see
ourselves, makes all the difference with our feeling.[56]
Veblen has made a subtle analysis of the way in which conduct is
controlled by the individual's conception of his social rôle in his
analysis of "invidious comparison" and "conspicuous expenditure."[57]
d) _Biological and social inheritance._--The distinction between
biological and social inheritance is sharply made by the noted
biologist, J. Arthur Thomson, in the selection entitled "Nature and
Nurture." The so-called "acquired characters" or modifications of
original nature through experience, he points out, are transmitted not
through the germ plasm but through communication.
Thorndike's "Inventory of Original Tendencies" offers a detailed
classification of the traits transmitted biologically. Since there
exists no corresponding specific analysis of acquired traits, the
following brief inventory of types of social heritages is offered.
TYPES OF SOCIAL HERITAGES
(a) means of communication, as language, gesture, etc.;
(b) social attitudes, habits, wishes, etc.;
(c) character;
(d) social patterns, as folkways, mores, conventions, ideals,
etc.;
(e) technique;
(f) culture (as distinguished from technique, formal organization,
and machinery);
(g) social organization (primary group life, institutions, sects,
secondary groups, etc.).
On the basis of the work of Mendel, biologists have made marked progress
in determining the inheritance of specific traits of original nature.
The selection from a foremost American student of heredity and eugenics,
C. B. Davenport, entitled "Inheritance of Original Nature" indicates the
precision and accuracy with which the prediction of the inheritance of
individual innate traits is made.
The mechanism of the transmission of social heritages, while more open
to observation than biological inheritance, has not been subjected to as
intensive study. The transmission of the social heritage takes place by
communication, as Keller points out, through the medium of the various
senses. The various types of the social heritages are transmitted in two
ways: (a) by tradition, as from generation to generation, and (b) by
acculturation, as from group to group.
In the communication of the social heritages, either by tradition or by
acculturation, two aspects of the process may be distinguished: (a)
Because of temperament, interest, and run of attention of the members of
the group, the heritage, whether a word, an act of skill, or a social
attitude, may be selected, appropriated, and incorporated into its
culture. This is communication by _imitation_. (b) On the other hand,
the heritage may be imposed upon the members of the group through
authority and routine, by tabu and repression. This is communication by
_inculcation_. In any concrete situation the transmission of a social
heritage may combine varying elements of both processes. Education, as
the etymology of the term suggests, denotes culture of original
tendencies; yet the routine of a school system is frequently organized
about formal discipline rather than around interest, aptitude, and
attention.
Historically, the scientific interest in the question of biological and
social inheritance has concerned itself with the rather sterile problem
of the weight to be attached on the one hand to physical heredity and on
the other to social heritage. The selection, "Temperament, Tradition,
and Nationality" suggests that a more important inquiry is to determine
how the behavior patterns and the culture of a racial group or a social
class are determined by the interaction of original nature and the
social tradition. According to this conception, racial temperament is an
active selective agency, determining interest and the direction of
attention. The group heritages on the other hand represent a detached
external social environment, a complex of stimuli, effective only in so
far as they call forth responses. The culture of a group is the sum
total and organization of the social heritages which have acquired a
social meaning because of racial temperament and of the historical life
of the group.
II. MATERIALS
A. THE ORIGINAL NATURE OF MAN
1. Original Nature Defined[58]
A man's nature and the changes that take place in it may be described in
terms of the responses--of thought, feeling, action, and attitude--which
he makes, and of the bonds by which these are connected with the
situations which life offers. Any fact of intellect, character, or skill
means a tendency to respond in a certain way to a certain
situation--involves a _situation_ or state of affairs influencing the
man, a _response_ or state of affairs in the man, and a _connection_ or
bond whereby the latter is the result of the former.
Any man possesses at the very start of his life--that is, at the moment
when the ovum and spermatozoön which are to produce him have
united--numerous well-defined tendencies to future behavior. Between the
situations which he will meet and the responses which he will make to
them, pre-formed bonds exist. It is already determined by the
constitution of these two germs that under certain circumstances he will
see and hear and feel and act in certain ways. His intellect and morals,
as well as his bodily organs and movements, are in part the consequence
of the nature of the embryo in the first moment of its life. What a man
is and does throughout life is a result of whatever constitution he has
at the start and of the forces that act upon it before and after birth.
I shall use the term "original nature" for the former and "environment"
for the latter. His original nature is thus a name for the nature of the
combined germ-cells from which he springs, and his environment is a name
for the rest of the universe, so far as it may, directly or indirectly,
influence him.
Three terms, reflexes, instincts, and inborn capacities, divide the work
of naming these unlearned tendencies. When the tendency concerns a very
definite and uniform response to a very simple sensory situation, and
when the connection between the situation and the response is very hard
to modify and is also very strong so that it is almost inevitable, the
connection or response to which it leads is called a reflex. Thus the
knee-jerk is a very definite and uniform response to the simple
sense-stimulus of sudden hard pressure against a certain spot.
When the response is more indefinite, the situation more complex, and
the connection more modifiable, instinct becomes the customary term.
Thus one's misery at being scorned is too indefinite a response to too
complex a situation and is too easily modifiable to be called a reflex.
When the tendency is to an extremely indefinite response or set of
responses to a very complex situation, as when the connection's final
degree of strength is commonly due to very large contributions from
training, it has seemed more appropriate to replace reflex and instinct
by some term like capacity, or tendency, or potentiality. Thus an
original tendency to respond to the circumstances of school education by
achievement in learning the arts and sciences is called the capacity for
scholarship.
There is, of course, no gap between reflexes and instincts, or between
instincts and the still less easily describable original tendencies. The
fact is that original tendencies range with respect to the nature of the
responses from such as are single, simple, definite, uniform within the
individual and only slightly variable amongst individuals, to responses
that are highly compound, complex, vague, and variable within one
individual's life and amongst individuals.
A typical reflex, or instinct, or capacity, as a whole, includes the
ability to be sensitive to a certain situation, the ability to make a
certain response, and the existence of a bond or connection whereby that
response is made to that situation. For instance, the young chick is
sensitive to the absence of other members of his species, is able to
peep, and is so organized that the absence of other members of the
species makes him peep. But the tendency to be sensitive to a certain
situation may exist without the existence of a connection therewith of
any further exclusive response, and the tendency to make a certain
response may exist without the existence of a connection limiting that
response exclusively to any single situation. The three-year-old child
is by inborn nature markedly sensitive to the presence and acts of other
human beings, but the exact nature of his response varies. The original
tendency to cry is very strong, but there is no one situation to which
it is exclusively bound. Original nature seems to decide that the
individual will respond somehow to certain situations more often than it
decides just what he will do, and to decide that he will make certain
responses more often than it decides just when he will make them. So,
for convenience in thinking about man's unlearned equipment, this
appearance of _multiple response_ to one same situation and _multiple
causation_ of one same response may be taken roughly as the fact.
2. Inventory of Original Tendencies[59]
I. _Sensory capacities_
II. _Original attentiveness_
III. _Gross bodily control_
IV. _Food getting and habitation_
A. Food getting
1. Eating. 2. Reaching, grasping, putting into the mouth.
3. Acquisition and possession. 4. Hunting (a) a small
escaping object, (b) a small or moderate-sized object not of
offensive mien, moving away from or past him. 5. Possible
specialized tendencies. 6. Collecting and hoarding.
7. Avoidance and repulsion. 8. Rivalry and co-operation
B. Habitation
1. Responses to confinement. 2. Migration and domesticity
V. _Fear, fighting, and anger_
A. Fear
1. Unpleasant expectation and dread. 2. Anxiety and
worry. 3. Dislike and avoidance. 4. Shock. 5. Flight,
paralysis, etc.
B. Fighting
1. Escape from restraint. 2. Overcoming a moving obstacle.
3. Counter-attack. 4. Irrational response to pain.
5. Combat in rivalry. 6. Resentment of presence of other
males in courtship. 7. Angry behavior at persistent
thwarting.
C. Anger
VI. _Responses to the behavior of other human beings_
A. Motherly behavior
B. Filial behavior
C. Responses to presence, approval, and scorn of men
1. Gregariousness. 2. Attention to human beings. 3. Attention-getting.
4. Responses to approval and scorn.
5. Responses by approval and scorn
D. Mastering and submissive behavior
1. Display. 2. Shyness. 3. Self-conscious behavior
E. Other social instincts
1. Sex behavior. 2. Secretiveness. 3. Rivalry. 4. Co-operation.
5. Suggestibility and opposition. 6. Envious
and jealous behavior. 7. Greed. 8. Ownership. 9. Kindliness.
10. Teasing, tormenting, and bullying
F. Imitation
1. General imitativeness. 2. Imitation of particular forms
of behavior
VII. _Original satisfiers and annoyers_
VIII. _Minor bodily movements and cerebral connections_
A. Vocalization
B. Visual exploration
C. Manipulation
D. Other possible specializations
1. Constructiveness. 2. Cleanliness. 3. Adornment and art
E. Curiosity and mental control
1. Curiosity. 2. The instinct of multiform mental activity.
3. The instinct of multiform physical activity.
4. The instinct of workmanship and the desire for excellence
F. Play
IX. _The emotions and their expression_
X. _Consciousness, learning, and remembering_
3. Man Not Born Human[60]
Man is not born human. It is only slowly and laboriously, in fruitful
contact, co-operation, and conflict with his fellows, that he attains
the distinctive qualities of human nature. In the course of his prenatal
life he has already passed roughly through, or, as the biologists say,
"recapitulated," the whole history of his animal ancestors. He brings
with him at birth a multitude of instincts and tendencies, many of which
persist during life and many of which are only what G. Stanley Hall
calls "vestigial traces" of his brute ancestry, as is shown by the fact
that they are no longer useful and soon disappear.
These non-volitional movements of earliest infancy and of later
childhood (such as licking things, clicking with the tongue,
grinding the teeth, biting the nails, shrugging corrugations,
pulling buttons, or twisting garments, strings, etc., twirling
pencils, etc.) are relics of past forms of utilities now
essentially obsolete. Ancient modes of locomotion, prehension,
balancing, defense, attack, sensuality, etc., are all
rehearsed, some quite fully and some only by the faintest
mimetic suggestion, flitting spasmodic tensions, gestures, or
facial expressions.
Human nature may therefore be regarded on the whole as a superstructure
founded on instincts, dispositions, and tendencies, inherited from a
long line of human and animal ancestors. It consists mainly in a higher
organization of forces, a more subtle distillation of potencies latent
in what Thorndike calls "the original nature of man."
The original nature of man is roughly what is common to all men
minus all adaptations to tools, houses, clothes, furniture,
words, beliefs, religions, laws, science, the arts, and to
whatever in other men's behavior is due to adaptations to them.
From human nature as we find it, take away, first, all that is
in the European but not in the Chinaman, all that is in the
Fiji Islander but not in the Esquimaux, all that is local or
temporary. Then take away also the effects of all products of
human art. What is left of human intellect and character is
largely original--not wholly, for all those elements of
knowledge which we call ideas and judgments must be subtracted
from his responses. Man originally possesses only capacities
which, after a given amount of education, will produce ideas
and judgments.
Such, in general, is the nature of human beings before that nature has
been modified by experience and formed by the education and the
discipline of contact and intercourse with their fellows.
Several writers, among them William James, have attempted to make a
rough inventory of the special instinctive tendencies with which human
beings are equipped at birth. First of all there are the simpler
reflexes such as "crying, sneezing, snoring, coughing, sighing,
sobbing, gagging, vomiting, hiccuping, starting, moving the limb in
response to its being tickled, touched or blown upon, spreading the toes
in response to its being touched, tickled, or stroked on the sole of the
foot, extending and raising the arms at any sudden sensory stimulus, or
the quick pulsation of the eyelid."
Then there are the more complex original tendencies such as sucking,
chewing, sitting up, and gurgling. Among the more general unlearned
responses of children are fear, anger, pugnacity, envy, jealousy,
curiosity, constructiveness, love of festivities, ceremonies and
ordeals, sociability and shyness, secretiveness, etc. Thorndike, who
quotes this list at length, has sought to give definiteness to its
descriptions by clearly defining and distinguishing the character of the
situation to which the behavior cited is a response. For example, to the
situation, "strange man or animal, to solitude, black things, dark
places, holes and corners, a human corpse," the native and unlearned
response is fear. The original response of man to being alone is an
experience of discomfort, to perceiving a crowd, "a tendency to join
them and do what they are doing and an unwillingness to leave off and go
home." It is part of man's original nature when he is in love to conceal
his love affairs, and so forth.
It is evident from this list that what is meant by original nature is
not confined to the behavior which manifests itself at birth, but
includes man's spontaneous and unlearned responses to situations as they
arise in the experience of the individual.
The widespread interest in the study of children has inspired in recent
years a considerable literature bearing upon the original and inherited
tendencies of human nature. The difficulty of distinguishing between
what is original and what is acquired among the forms of behavior
reported upon, and the further difficulty of obtaining accurate
descriptions of the situations to which the behavior described was a
response, has made much of this literature of doubtful value for
scientific purposes. These studies have, nevertheless, contributed to a
radical change in our conceptions of human nature. They have shown that
the distinction between the mind of man and that of the lower animals is
not so wide nor so profound as was once supposed. They have emphasized
the fact that human nature rests on animal nature, and the transition
from one to the other, in spite of the contrast in their separate
achievements, has been made by imperceptible gradations. In the same
way they have revealed, beneath differences in culture and individual
achievement, the outlines of a pervasive and relatively unchanging human
nature in which all races and individuals have a common share.
The study of human nature begins with description, but it goes on from
that point to explanation. If the descriptions which we have thus far
had of human nature are imperfect and lacking in precision, it is
equally true that the explanations thus far invented have, on the whole,
been inadequate. One reason for this has been the difficulty of the
task. The mechanisms which control human behavior are, as might be
expected, tremendously complicated, and the problem of analyzing them
into their elementary forms and reducing their varied manifestations to
precise and lucid formulas is both intricate and perplexing.
The foundation for the explanation of human nature has been laid,
however, by the studies of behavior in animals and the comparative study
of the physiology of the nervous system. Progress has been made, on the
one hand, by seeking for the precise psycho-chemical process involved in
the nervous reactions, and on the other, by reducing all higher mental
processes to elementary forms represented by the tropisms and reflex
actions.
In this, science has made a considerable advance upon common sense in
its interpretations of human behavior, but has introduced no new
principle; it has simply made its statements more detailed and exact.
For example, common sense has observed that "the burnt child shuns the
fire," that "the moth seeks the flame." These are both statements of
truths of undoubted generality. In order to give them the validity of
scientific truth, however, we need to know what there is in the nature
of the processes involved that makes it inevitable that the child should
shun the fire and the moth should seek the flame. It is not sufficient
to say that the action in one case is instinctive and in the other
intelligent, unless we are able to give precise and definite meanings to
those terms; unless, in short, we are able to point out the precise
mechanisms through which these reactions are carried out. The following
illustration from Loeb's volume on the comparative physiology of the
brain will illustrate the distinction between the common sense and the
more precise scientific explanation of the behavior in man and the lower
animals.
It is a well-known fact that if an ant be removed from a nest
and afterward put back it will not be attacked, while almost
invariably an ant belonging to another nest will be attacked.
It has been customary to use the words memory, enmity,
friendship, in describing this fact. Now Bethe made the
following experiment: an ant was placed in the liquids (blood
and lymph) squeezed out from the bodies of nest companions and
was then put back into its nest; it was not attacked. It was
then put in the juice taken from the inmates of a "hostile"
nest and was at once attacked and killed. Bethe was able to
prove by special experiments that these reactions of ants are
not learned by experience, but are inherited. The "knowing" of
"friend and foe" among ants is thus reduced to different
reactions, depending upon the nature of the chemical stimulus
and in no way depending upon memory.
Here, again, there is no essential difference between the common sense
and the scientific explanation of the behavior of the ant except so far
as the scientific explanation is more accurate, defining the precise
mechanisms by which the recognition of "friend and foe" is effected, and
the limitations to which it is subject.
Another result of the study of the comparative behavior of man and the
lower animals has been to convince students that there is no fundamental
difference between what was formerly called intelligent and instinctive
behavior; that they may rather be reduced, as has been said, to the
elementary form of reaction represented by the simple reflex in animals
and the tropism in plants. Thus Loeb says:
A prominent psychologist has maintained that reflexes are to be
considered as the mechanical effects of acts of volition of
past generations. The ganglion-cell seems the only place where
such mechanical effects could be stored up. It has therefore
been considered the most essential element of the reflex
mechanism, the nerve-fibers being regarded, and probably
correctly, merely as conductors.
Both the authors who emphasize the purposefulness of the reflex
act, and those who see in it only a physical process, have
invariably looked upon the ganglion-cell as the principal
bearer of the structures for the complex co-ordinated movements
in reflex action.
I should have been as little inclined as any other physiologist
to doubt the correctness of this conception had not the
establishment of the identity of the reactions of animals and
plants to light proved the untenability of this view and at the
same time offered a different conception of reflexes. The
flight of the moth into the flame is a typical reflex process.
The light stimulates the peripheral sense organs, the stimulus
passes to the central nervous system, and from there to the
muscles of the wings, and the moth is caused to fly into the
flame. This reflex process agrees in every point with the
heliotropic effects of light on plant organs. Since plants
possess no nerves, this identity of animal with plant
heliotropism can offer but one inference--these heliotropic
effects must depend upon conditions which are common to both
animals and plants.
On the other hand, Watson, in his _Introduction to Comparative
Psychology_, defines the reflex as "a unit of analysis of instinct," and
this means that instinctive actions in man and in animals may be
regarded as combinations of simple reflex actions, that is to say of
"fairly definite and generally predictable but unlearned responses of
lower and higher organisms to stimuli." Many of these reflex responses
are not fixed, as they were formerly supposed to be, but "highly
unstable and indefinite." This fact makes possible the formation of
habits, by combination and fixation of these inherited responses.
These views in the radical form in which they are expressed by Loeb and
Watson have naturally enough been the subject of considerable
controversy, both on scientific and sentimental grounds. They seem to
reduce human behavior to a system of chemical and physical reactions,
and rob life of all its spiritual values. On the other hand, it must be
remembered that human beings, like other forms of nature, have this
mechanical aspect and it is precisely the business of natural science to
discover and lay them bare. It is only thus that we are able to gain
control over ourselves and of others. It is a matter of common
experience that we do form habits and that education and social control
are largely dependent upon our ability to establish habits in ourselves
and in others. Habit is, in fact, a characteristic example of just what
is meant by "mechanism," in the sense in which it is here used. It is
through the fixation of habit that we gain that control over our
"original nature," which lifts us above the brutes and gives human
nature its distinctive character as human. Character is nothing more
than the sum and co-ordination of those mechanisms which we call habit
and which are formed on the basis of the inherited and instinctive
tendencies and dispositions which we share in so large a measure with
the lower animals.
4. The Natural Man[61]
"Its first act is a cry, not of wrath, as Kant said, nor a shout of joy,
as Schwartz thought, but a snuffling, and then a long, thin, tearless
á-á, with the timbre of a Scotch bagpipe, purely automatic, but of
discomfort. With this monotonous and dismal cry, with its red,
shriveled, parboiled skin (for the child commonly loses weight the first
few days), squinting, cross-eyed, pot-bellied, and bow-legged, it is not
strange that, if the mother has not followed Froebel's exhortations and
come to love her child before birth, there is a brief interval
occasionally dangerous to the child before the maternal instinct is
fully aroused."
The most curious of all the monkey traits shown by the new-born baby is
the one investigated by Dr. Louis Robinson. It was suggested by _The
Luck of Roaring Camp_. The question was raised in conversation whether a
limp and molluscous baby, unable so much as to hold up its head on its
helpless little neck, could do anything so positive as to "rastle with"
Kentuck's finger; and the more knowing persons present insisted that a
young baby does, as a matter of fact, have a good firm hand-clasp. It
occurred to Dr. Robinson that if this was true it was a beautiful
Darwinian point, for clinging and swinging by the arms would naturally
have been a specialty with our ancestors if they ever lived a
monkey-like life in the trees. The baby that could cling best to its
mother as she used hands, feet, and tail to flee in the best time over
the trees, or to get at the more inaccessible fruits and eggs in time of
scarcity, would be the baby that lived to bequeath his traits to his
descendants; so that to this day our housed and cradled human babies
would keep in their clinging powers a reminiscence of our wild treetop
days.
There is another class of movements, often confused with the
reflex--that is, instinctive movements. Real grasping (as distinguished
from reflex grasping), biting, standing, walking, are examples of this
class. They are race movements, the habits of the species to which the
animal belongs, and every normal member of the species is bound to come
to them; yet they are not so fixed in the bodily mechanism as the reflex
movements.
The one instinct the human baby always brings into the world already
developed is half a mere reflex act--that of sucking. It is started as a
reflex would be, by the touch of some object--pencil, finger, or nipple,
it may be--between the lips; but it does not act like a reflex after
that. It continues and ceases without reference to this external
stimulus, and a little later often begins without it, or fails to begin
when the stimulus is given. If it has originally a reflex character,
that character fades out and leaves it a pure instinct.
My little niece evidently felt a difference between light and darkness
from the first hour, for she stopped crying when her face was exposed to
gentle light. Two or three report also a turning of the head toward the
light within the first week. The nurse, who was intelligent and exact,
thought she saw this in the case of my niece. I did not, but I saw
instead a constant turning of the eyes toward a person coming near
her--that is, toward a large dark mass that interrupted the light. No
other sign of vision appeared in the little one during the first
fortnight. The eyes were directed to nothing, fixed on nothing. They did
not wink if one made a pass at them. There was no change of focus for
near or distant seeing.
The baby showed no sign of hearing anything until the third day, when
she started violently at the sound of tearing paper, some eight feet
from her. After that, occasional harsh or sudden sounds--oftener the
rustling of paper than anything else--could make her start or cry. It is
well established by the careful tests of several physiologists that
babies are deaf for a period lasting from several hours to several days
after birth.
Taste and smell were senses that the baby gave no sign of owning till
much later. The satisfaction of hunger was quite enough to account for
the contentment she showed in nursing; and when she was not hungry she
would suck the most tasteless object as cheerfully as any other.
Our baby showed from the first that she was aware when she was touched.
She stopped crying when she was cuddled or patted. She showed comfort in
the bath, which may have been in part due to freedom from the contact of
clothes, and to liking for the soft touches of the water. She responded
with sucking motions to the first touch of the nipple on her lips.
Our baby showed temperament--luckily of the easy-going and cheerful
kind--from her first day, though we could hardly see this except by
looking backward. On the twenty-fifth day, toward evening, when the baby
was lying on her grandmother's knee by the fire, in a condition of high
well-being and content, gazing at her grandmother's face with an
expression of attention, I came and sat down close by, leaning over the
baby, so that my face must have come within the indirect range of her
vision. At that she turned her eyes to my face and gazed at it with the
same appearance of attention, and even of some effort, shown by the
slight tension of brows and lips, then turned her eyes back to her
grandmother's face, and again to mine, and so several times. The last
time she seemed to catch sight of my shoulder, on which a high light
struck from the lamp, and not only moved her eyes but threw her head far
back to see it better, and gazed for some time with a new expression on
her face--"a sort of dim and rudimentary eagerness," says my note. She
no longer stared, but really looked.
The baby's increased interest in seeing centered especially on the faces
about her, at which she gazed with rapt interest. Even during the period
of mere staring, faces had oftenest held her eyes, probably because they
were oftener brought within the range of her clearest seeing than other
light surfaces. The large, light, moving patch of the human face (as
Preyer has pointed out) coming and going in the field of vision, and
oftener chancing to hover at the point of clearest seeing than any other
object, embellished with a play of high lights on cheeks, teeth, and
eyes, is calculated to excite the highest degree of attention a baby is
capable of at a month old. So from the very first--before the baby has
yet really seen his mother--her face and that of his other nearest
friends become the most active agents in his development and the most
interesting things in his experience.
Our baby was at this time in a way aware of the difference between
companionship and solitude. In the latter days of the first month she
would lie contentedly in the room with people near by, but would fret if
left alone. But by the end of the month she was apt to fret when she was
laid down on a chair or lounge, and to become content only when taken
into the lap. This was not yet distinct memory and desire, but it showed
that associations of pleasure had been formed with the lap, and that
she felt a vague discomfort in the absence of these.
Nature has provided an educational appliance almost ideally adapted to
the child's sense condition, in the mother's face, hovering close above
him, smiling, laughing, nodding, with all manner of delightful changes
in the high lights; in the thousand little meaningless caressing sounds,
the singing, talking, calling, that proceed from it; the patting,
cuddling, lifting, and all the ministrations that the baby feels while
gazing at it, and associates with it, till finally they group together
and round out into the idea of his mother as a whole.
Our baby's mother rather resented the idea of being to her baby only a
collection of detached phenomena, instead of a mamma; but the more you
think of it, the more flattering it is to be thus, as it were, dissolved
into your elements and incorporated item by item into the very
foundations of your baby's mental life. Herein is hinted much of the
philosophy of personality; and Professor Baldwin has written a solid
book, mainly to show from the development of babies and little children
that all other people are part of each of us, and each of us is part of
all other people, and so there is really no separate personality, but we
are all one spirit, if we did but know it.
5. Sex Differences[62]
As children become physically differentiated in respect of sex, so also
does a mental differentiation ensue. Differences are observed in the
matter of occupation, of games, of movements, and numerous other
details. Since man is to play the active part in life, boys rejoice
especially in rough outdoor games. Girls, on the other hand, prefer such
games as correspond to their future occupations. Hence their inclination
to mother smaller children, and to play with dolls. Watch how a little
girl takes care of her doll, washes it, dresses and undresses it. When
only six or seven years of age she is often an excellent nurse. Her need
to occupy herself in such activities is often so great that she pretends
that her doll is ill.
In all kinds of ways, we see the little girl occupying herself in the
activities and inclinations of her future existence. She practices house
work; she has a little kitchen, in which she cooks for herself and her
doll. She is fond of needlework. The care of her own person, and more
especially its adornment, is not forgotten. I remember seeing a girl of
three who kept on interrupting her elders' conversation by crying out,
"New clothes!" and would not keep quiet until these latter had been duly
admired. The love of self-adornment is almost peculiar to female
children; boys, on the other hand, prefer rough outdoor games, in which
their muscles are actively employed, robber-games, soldier-games, and
the like. And whereas, in early childhood, both sexes are fond of very
noisy games, the fondness for these disappears earlier in girls than in
boys.
Differences between the sexes have been established also by means of
experimental psychology, based upon the examination of a very large
number of instances. Berthold Hartmann has studied the childish circle
of thought, by means of a series of experiments. Schoolboys to the
number of 660 and schoolgirls to the number of 652, at ages between five
and three-fourths and six and three-fourths years, were subjected to
examination. It was very remarkable to see how, in respect to certain
ideas, such as those of the triangle, cube, and circle, the girls
greatly excelled the boys; whereas in respect of animals, minerals, and
social ideas, the boys were better informed than the girls.
Characteristic of the differences between the sexes, according to
Meumann, from whom I take these details and some of those that follow,
is the fact that the idea of "marriage" was known to only 70 boys as
compared to 227 girls; whilst the idea of "infant baptism" was known to
180 boys as compared to 220 girls. The idea of "pleasure" was also much
better understood by girls than by boys. Examination of the memory has
also established the existence of differences between the sexes in
childhood. In boys the memory for objects appears to be at first the
best developed; to this succeeds the memory for words with a visual
content; in the case of girls, the reverse of this was observed. In
respect of numerous details, however, the authorities conflict. Very
striking is the fact, one upon which a very large number of
investigators are agreed, that girls have a superior knowledge of
colors.
There are additional psychological data relating to the differences
between the sexes in childhood. I may recall Stern's investigations
concerning the psychology of evidence, which showed that girls were much
more inaccurate than boys.
It has been widely assumed that these psychical differences between the
sexes result from education, and are not inborn. Others, however, assume
that the psychical characteristics by which the sexes are differentiated
result solely from individual differences in education. Stern believes
that in the case of one differential character, at least, he can prove
that for many centuries there has been no difference between the sexes
in the matter of education; this character is the capacity for drawing.
Kerschensteiner has studied the development of this gift, and considers
that his results have established beyond dispute that girls are greatly
inferior in this respect to boys of like age. Stern points out that
there can be no question here of cultivation leading to a sexual
differentiation of faculty, since there is no attempt at a general and
systematic teaching of draughtsmanship to the members of one sex to the
exclusion of members of the other.
I believe that we are justified in asserting that at the present time
the sexual differentiation manifested in respect of quite a number of
psychical qualities is the result of direct inheritance. It would be
quite wrong to assume that all these differences arise in each
individual in consequence of education. It does, indeed, appear to me to
be true that inherited tendencies may be increased or diminished by
individual education; and further, that when the inherited tendency is
not a very powerful one, it may in this way even be suppressed.
We must not forget the frequent intimate association between structure
and function. Rough outdoor games and wrestling thus correspond to the
physical constitution of the boy. So, also, it is by no means improbable
that the little girl, whose pelvis and hips have already begun to
indicate by their development their adaption for the supreme functions
of the sexually mature woman, should experience obscurely a certain
impulsion toward her predestined maternal occupation, and that her
inclinations and amusements should in this way be determined. Many,
indeed, and above all the extreme advocates of women's rights, prefer to
maintain that such sexually differentiated inclinations result solely
from differences in individual education: if the boy has no enduring
taste for dolls and cooking, this is because his mother and others have
told him, perhaps with mockery, that such amusements are unsuited to a
boy; whilst in a similar way the girl is dissuaded from the rough
sports of boyhood. Such an assumption is the expression of that general
psychological and educational tendency, which ascribes to the activity
of the will an overwhelmingly powerful influence upon the development of
the organs subserving the intellect, and secondarily also upon that of
the other organs of the body. We cannot dispute the fact that in such a
way the activity of the will may, within certain limits, be effective,
especially in cases in which the inherited tendency thus counteracted is
comparatively weak; but only within certain limits. Thus we can
understand how it is that in some cases, by means of education, a child
is impressed with characteristics normally foreign to its sex; qualities
and tendencies are thus developed which ordinarily appear only in a
child of the opposite sex. But even though we must admit that the
activity of the individual may operate in this way, none the less we are
compelled to assume that certain tendencies are inborn. The failure of
innumerable attempts to counteract such inborn tendencies by means of
education throws a strong light upon the limitations of the activity of
the individual will; and the same must be said of a large number of
other experiences.
Criminological experiences appear also to confirm the notion of an
inherited sexual differentiation, in children as well as in adults.
According to various statistics, embracing not only the period of
childhood, but including as well the period of youth, we learn that
girls constitute one-fifth only of the total number of youthful
criminals. A number of different explanations have been offered to
account for this disproportion. Thus, for instance, attention has been
drawn to the fact that a girl's physical weakness renders her incapable
of attempting violent assaults upon the person, and this would suffice
to explain why it is that girls so rarely commit such crimes. In the
case of offenses for which bodily strength is less requisite, such as
fraud, theft, etc., the number of youthful female offenders is
proportionately larger, although here also they are less numerous than
males of corresponding age charged with the like offenses. It has been
asserted that in the law courts girls find more sympathy than boys, and
that for this reason the former receive milder sentences than the
latter; hence it results that in appearance merely the criminality of
girls is less than that of boys. Others, again, refer the differences in
respect of criminality between the youthful members of the two sexes to
the influences of education and general environment. Morrison, however,
maintains that all these influences combined are yet insufficient to
account for the great disproportion between the sexes, and insists that
there exists in youth as well as in adult life a specific sexual
differentiation, based, for the most part, upon biological differences
of a mental and physical character.
Such a marked differentiation as there is between the adult man and the
adult woman certainly does not exist in childhood. Similarly in respect
of many other qualities, alike bodily and mental, in respect of many
inclinations and numerous activities, we find that in childhood sexual
differentiation is less marked than it is in adult life. None the less,
a number of sexual differences can be shown to exist even in childhood;
and as regards many other differences, though they are not yet apparent,
we are nevertheless compelled to assume that they already exist
potentially in the organs of the child.
6. Racial Differences[63]
The results of the Cambridge expedition to the Torres Straits have shown
that in acuteness of vision, hearing, smell, etc., these peoples are not
noticeably different from our own. We conclude that the remarkable tales
adduced to the contrary by various travelers are to be explained, not by
the acuteness of sensation, but by the acuteness of interpretation of
primitive peoples. Take the savage into the streets of a busy city and
see what a number of sights and sounds he will neglect because of their
meaninglessness to him. Take the sailor whose powers of discerning a
ship on the horizon appear to the landsman so extraordinary, and set him
to detect micro-organisms in the field of a microscope. Is it then
surprising that primitive man should be able to draw inferences which to
the stranger appear marvelous, from the merest specks in the far
distance or from the faintest sounds, odors, or tracks in the jungle?
Such behavior serves only to attest the extraordinary powers of
observation in primitive man with respect to things which are of use and
hence of interest to him. The same powers are shown in the vast number
of words he will coin to denote the same object, say a certain tree at
different stages of its growth.
We concluded, then, that no fundamental difference in powers of sensory
acuity, nor, indeed, in sensory discrimination, exists between primitive
and civilized communities. Further, there is no proof of any difference
in memory between them, save, perhaps, in a greater tendency for
primitive folk to use and to excel in mere mechanical learning, in
preference to rational learning. But this surely is also the
characteristic of the European peasant. He will never commit things to
memory by thinking of their meaning, if he can learn them by rote.
In temperament we meet with just the same variations in primitive as in
civilized communities. In every primitive society is to be found the
flighty, the staid, the energetic, the indolent, the cheerful, the
morose, the even-, the hot-tempered, the unthinking, the philosophical
individual. At the same time, the average differences between different
primitive peoples are as striking as those between the average German
and the average Italian.
It is a common but manifest error to suppose that primitive man is
distinguished from the civilized peasant in that he is freer and that
his conduct is less under control. On the contrary, the savage is
probably far more hidebound than we are by social regulations. His life
is one round of adherence to the demands of custom. For instance, he may
be compelled even to hand over his own children at their birth to
others; he may be prohibited from speaking to certain of his relatives;
his choice of a wife may be very strictly limited by traditional laws;
at every turn there are ceremonies to be performed and presents to be
made by him so that misfortune may be safely averted. As to the control
which primitive folk exercise over their conduct, this varies enormously
among different peoples; but if desired, I could bring many instances of
self-control before you which would put to shame the members even of our
most civilized communities.
Now since in all these various mental characters no appreciable
difference exists between primitive and advanced communities, the
question arises, what is the most important difference between them? I
shall be told, in the capacity for logical and abstract thought. But by
how much logical and abstract thought is the European peasant superior
to his primitive brother? Study our country folklore, study the actual
practices in regard to healing and religion which prevail in every
European peasant community today, and what essential differences are
discoverable? Of course, it will be urged that these practices are
continued unthinkingly, that they are merely vestiges of a period when
once they were believed and were full of meaning. But this, I am
convinced, is far from being generally true, and it also certainly
applies to many of the ceremonies and customs of primitive peoples.
It will be said that although the European peasant may not in the main
think more logically and abstractly, he has, nevertheless, the
potentiality for such thought, should only the conditions for its
manifestations--education and the like--ever be given. From such as he
have been produced the geniuses of Europe--the long line of artists and
inventors who have risen from the lowest ranks.
I will consider this objection later. At present it is sufficient for my
purpose to have secured the admission that the peasants of Europe do not
as a whole use their mental powers in a much more logical or abstract
manner than do primitive people. I maintain that such superiority as
they have is due to differences (1) of environment and (2) of
variability.
We must remember that the European peasant grows up in a (more or less)
civilized environment; he learns a (more or less) well-developed and
written language, which serves as an easier instrument and a stronger
inducement for abstract thought; he is born into a (more or less)
advanced religion. All these advantages and the advantage of a more
complex education the European peasant owes to his superiors in ability
and civilization. Rob the peasant of these opportunities, plunge him
into the social environment of present primitive man, and what
difference in thinking power will be left between them?
The answer to this question brings me to the second point of difference
which I have mentioned--the difference in variability. I have already
alluded to the divergencies in temperament to be found among the members
of every primitive community. But well marked as are these and other
individual differences, I suspect that they are less prominent among
primitive than among more advanced peoples. This difference in
variability, if really existent, is probably the outcome of more
frequent racial admixture and more complex social environment in
civilized communities. In another sense, the variability of the savage
is indicated by the comparative data afforded by certain psychological
investigations. A civilized community may not differ much from a
primitive one in the mean or average of a given character, but the
extreme deviations which it shows from that mean will be more numerous
and more pronounced. This kind of variability has probably another
source. The members of a primitive community behave toward the applied
test in the simplest manner, by the use of a mental process which we
will call A, whereas those of a more advanced civilization employ other
mental processes, in addition to A, say B, C, D, or E, each individual
using them in different degrees for the performance of one and the same
test. Finally, there is in all likelihood a third kind of variability,
whose origin is ultimately environmental, which is manifested by
extremes of nervous instability. Probably the exceptionally defective
and the exceptional genius are more common among civilized than among
primitive peoples.
Similar features undoubtedly meet us in the study of sexual differences.
The average results of various tests of mental ability applied to men
and women are not, on the whole, very different for the two sexes, but
the men always show considerably greater individual variation than the
women. And here, at all events, the relation between the frequency of
mental deficiency and genius in the two sexes is unquestionable. Our
asylums contain a considerably greater number of males than of females,
as a compensation for which genius is decidedly less frequent in females
than in males.
7. Individual Differences[64]
The life of a man is a double series--a series of effects produced in
him by the rest of the world, and a series of effects produced in that
world by him. A man's make-up or nature equals his tendencies to be
influenced in certain ways by the world and to react in certain ways to
it.
If we could thus adequately describe each of a million human beings--if,
for each one, we could prophesy just what the response would be to every
possible situation of life--the million men would be found to differ
widely. Probably no two out of the million would be so alike in mental
nature as to be indistinguishable by one who knew their entire natures.
Each has an individuality which marks him off from other men. We may
study a human being in respect to his common humanity, or in respect to
his individuality. In other words, we may study the features of
intellect and character which are common to all men, to man as a
species; or we may study the differences in intellect and character
which distinguish individual men.
Individuals are commonly considered as differing in respect to such
traits either quantitatively or qualitatively, either in degree or in
kind. A quantitative difference exists when the individuals have
different amounts of the same trait. Thus, "John is more attentive to
his teacher than James is"; "Mary loves dolls less than Lucy does"; "A
had greater devotion to his country than B had"; are reports of
quantitative differences, of differences in the amount of what is
assumed to be the same kind of thing. A qualitative difference exists
when some quality or trait possessed by one individual is lacking in the
other. Thus, "Tom knows German, Dick does not"; "A is artistic, B is
scientific"; "C is a man of thought, D is a man of action"; are reports
of the fact that Tom has some positive amount or degree of the trait
"knowledge of German" while Dick has none of it; that A has some
positive amount of ability and interest in art while B has zero; whereas
B has a positive amount of ability in science, of which A has none; and
so on.
A qualitative difference in intellect or character is thus really a
quantitative difference wherein one term is zero, or a compound of two
or more quantitative differences. All intelligible differences are
ultimately quantitative. The difference between any two individuals, if
describable at all, is described by comparing the amounts which A
possesses of various traits with the amounts which B possesses of the
same traits. In intellect and character, differences of kind between one
individual and another turn out to be definable, if defined at all, as
compound differences of degree.
If we could list all the traits, each representing some one
characteristic of human nature, and measure the amount of each of them
possessed by a man, we could represent his nature--read his
character--in a great equation. John Smith would equal so many units of
this, plus so many units of that, and so on. Such a mental inventory
would express his individuality conceivably in its entirety and with
great exactitude. No such list has been made for any man, much less have
the exact amounts of each trait possessed by him been measured. But in
certain of the traits, many individuals have been measured; and certain
individuals have been measured, each in a large number of traits.
It is useless to recount the traits in which men have been found to
differ. For there is no trait in which they do not differ. Of course, if
the scale by which individuals are measured is very coarsely divided,
their differences may be hidden. If, for example, ability to learn is
measured on a scale with only two divisions, (1) "ability to learn less
than the average kitten can" and (2) "ability to learn more than the
average kitten can," all men may be put in class two, just as if their
heights were measured on a scale of one yard, two yards, or three yards,
nearly all men would alike be called two yards high. But whenever the
scale of measurement is made fine enough, differences at once appear.
Their existence is indubitable to any impartial observer. The early
psychologists neglected or failed to see them precisely because the
early psychology was partial. It believed in a typical or pattern mind,
after the manner of which all minds were created, and from whom they
differed only by rare accidents. It studied "the mind," and neglected
individual minds. It studied "the will" of "man," neglecting the
interests, impulses, and habits of actual men.
The differences exist at birth and commonly increase with progress
toward maturity. Individuality is already clearly manifest in children
of school age. The same situation evokes widely differing responses; the
same task is done at differing speeds and with different degrees of
success; the same treatment produces differing results. There can be
little doubt that of a thousand ten-year-olds taken at random, some will
be four times as energetic, industrious, quick, courageous, or honest as
others, or will possess four times as much refinement, knowledge of
arithmetic, power of self-control, sympathy, or the like. It has been
found that among children of the same age and, in essential respects, of
the same home training and school advantages, some do in the same time
six times as much, or do the same amount with only one-tenth as many
errors.
B. HUMAN NATURE AND SOCIAL LIFE
1. Human Nature and Its Remaking[65]
Human beings as we find them are artificial products; and for better or
for worse they must always be such. Nature has made us: social action
and our own efforts must continually remake us. Any attempt to reject
art for "nature" can only result in an artificial naturalness which is
far less genuine and less pleasing than the natural work of art.
Further, as self-consciousness varies, the amount or degree of this
remaking activity will vary. Among the extremely few respects in which
human history shows unquestionable growth we must include the degree and
range of self-consciousness. The gradual development of psychology as a
science and the persistent advance of the subjective or introspective
element in literature and in all fine art are tokens of this change. And
as a further indication and result, the art of human reshaping has taken
definite character, has left its incidental beginnings far behind, has
become an institution, a group of institutions.
Wherever a language exists, as a magazine of established meanings, there
will be found a repertoire of epithets of praise and blame, at once
results and implements of this social process. The simple existence of
such a vocabulary acts as a persistent force; but the effect of current
ideals is redoubled when a coherent agency, such as public religion,
assumes protection of the most searching social maxims and lends to them
the weight of all time, all space, all wonder, and all fear. For many
centuries religion held within itself the ripening self-knowledge and
self-discipline of the human mind. Now, beside this original agency we
have its offshoots, politics, education, legislation, the penal art. And
the philosophical sciences, including psychology and ethics, are the
especial servants of these arts.
As to structure, human nature is undoubtedly the most plastic part of
the living world, the most adaptable, the most educable. Of all animals,
it is man in whom heredity counts for least, and conscious building
forces for most. Consider that his infancy is longest, his instincts
least fixed, his brain most unfinished at birth, his powers of
habit-making and habit-changing most marked, his susceptibility to
social impressions keenest; and it becomes clear that in every way
nature, as a prescriptive power, has provided in him for her own
displacement. His major instincts and passions first appear on the
scene, not as controlling forces, but as elements of _play_, in a
prolonged life of play. Other creatures nature could largely finish: the
human creature must finish himself.
And as to history, it cannot be said that the results of man's attempts
at self-modeling appear to belie the liberty thus promised in his
constitution. If he has retired his natural integument in favor of a
device called clothing, capable of expressing endless nuances, not alone
of status and wealth, but of temper and taste as well--conservatism or
venturesomeness, solemnity, gaiety, profusion, color, dignity,
carelessness or whim, he has not failed to fashion his inner self into
equally various modes of character and custom. That is a hazardous
refutation of socialism which consists in pointing out that its success
would require a change in human nature. Under the spell of particular
ideas monastic communities have flourished, in comparison with whose
demands upon human nature the change required by socialism--so far as it
calls for purer altruism and not pure economic folly--is trivial. To any
one who asserts as a dogma that "human nature never changes," it is fair
to reply, "It is human nature to change itself."
When one reflects to what extent racial and national traits are manners
of the mind, fixed by social rather than by physical heredity, while the
bodily characters themselves may be due in no small measure to sexual
choices at first experimental, then imitative, then habitual, one is not
disposed to think lightly of the human capacity for self-modification.
But it is still possible to be skeptical as to the depth and permanence
of any changes which are genuinely voluntary. There are few maxims of
conduct, and few laws so contrary to nature that they could not be put
into momentary effect by individuals or by communities. Plato's Republic
has never been fairly tried; but fragments of this and other Utopias
have been common enough in history. No one presumes to limit what men
can _attempt_; one only inquires what the silent forces are which
determine what can _last_.
What, to be explicit, is the possible future of measures dealing with
divorce, with war, with political corruption, with prostitution, with
superstition? Enthusiastic idealism is too precious an energy to be
wasted if we can spare it false efforts by recognizing those permanent
ingredients of our being indicated by the words pugnacity, greed, sex,
fear. Machiavelli was not inclined to make little of what an unhampered
ruler could do with his subjects; yet he saw in such passions as these a
fixed limit to the power of the Prince. "It makes him hated above all
things to be rapacious, and to be violator of the property and women of
his subjects, from both of which he must abstain." And if Machiavelli's
despotism meets its master in the undercurrents of human instinct,
governments of less determined stripe, whether of states or of persons,
would hardly do well to treat these ultimate data with less respect.
2. Human Nature, Folkways, and the Mores[66]
It is generally taken for granted that men inherited some guiding
instincts from their beast ancestry, and it may be true, although it has
never been proved. If there were such inheritances, they controlled and
aided the first efforts to satisfy needs. Analogy makes it easy to
assume that the ways of beasts had produced channels of habit and
predisposition along which dexterities and other psycho-physical
activities would run easily. Experiments with new born animals show that
in the absence of any experience of the relation of means to ends,
efforts to satisfy needs are clumsy and blundering. The method is that
of trial and failure, which produces repeated pain, loss, and
disappointments. Nevertheless, it is the method of rude experiment and
selection. The earliest efforts of men were of this kind. Need was the
impelling force. Pleasure and pain, on the one side and the other, were
the rude constraints which defined the line on which efforts must
proceed. The ability to distinguish between pleasure and pain is the
only psychical power which is to be assumed. Thus ways of doing things
were selected which were expedient. They answered the purpose better
than other ways, or with less toil and pain. Along the course on which
efforts were compelled to go, habit, routine, and skill were developed.
The struggle to maintain existence was carried on, not individually, but
in groups. Each profited by the other's experience; hence there was
concurrence toward that which proved to be most expedient.
All at last adopted the same way for the same purpose; hence the ways
turned into customs and became mass phenomena. Instincts were developed
in connection with them. In this way folkways arise. The young learn
them by tradition, imitation, and authority. The folkways, at a time,
provide for all the needs of life then and there. They are uniform,
universal in the group, imperative, and invariable.
The operation by which folkways are produced consists in the frequent
repetition of petty acts, often by great numbers acting in concert or,
at least, acting in the same way when face to face with the same need.
The immediate motive is interest. It produces habit in the individual
and custom in the group. It is, therefore, in the highest degree
original and primitive. Out of the unconscious experiment which every
repetition of the ways includes, there issues pleasure or pain, and
then, so far as the men are capable of reflection, convictions that the
ways are conducive to social welfare. When this conviction as to the
relation to welfare is added to the folkways, they are converted into
mores, and, by virtue of the philosophical and ethical element added to
them, they win utility and importance and become the source of the
science and the art of living.
It is of the first importance to notice that, from the first acts by
which men try to satisfy needs, each act stands by itself, and looks no
further than immediate satisfaction. From recurrent needs arise habits
for the individual and customs for the group, but these results are
consequences which were never conscious and never foreseen or intended.
They are not noticed until they have long existed, and it is still
longer before they are appreciated. Another long time must pass, and a
higher stage of mental development must be reached, before they can be
used as a basis from which to deduce rules for meeting, in the future,
problems whose pressure can be foreseen. The folkways, therefore, are
not creations of human purpose and wit. They are like products of
natural forces which men unconsciously set in operation, or they are
like the instinctive ways of animals, which are developed out of
experience, which reach a final form of maximum adaptation to an
interest, which are handed down by tradition and admit of no exception
or variation, yet change to meet new conditions, still within the same
limited methods, and without rational reflection or purpose. From this
it results that all the life of human beings, in all ages and stages of
culture, is primarily controlled by a vast mass of folkways handed down
from the earliest existence of the race, having the nature of the ways
of other animals, only the topmost layers of which are subject to change
and control, and have been somewhat modified by human philosophy,
ethics, and religion, or by other acts of intelligent reflection. We are
told of savages that "it is difficult to exhaust the customs and small
ceremonial usages of a savage people. Custom regulates the whole of a
man's actions--his bathing, washing, cutting his hair, eating, drinking,
and fasting. From his cradle to his grave he is the slave of ancient
usage. In his life there is nothing free, nothing original, nothing
spontaneous, no progress toward a higher and better life, and no attempt
to improve his condition, mentally, morally, or spiritually." All men
act in this way, with only a little wider margin of voluntary variation.
The folkways are, therefore: (1) subject to a strain of improvement
toward better adaptation of means to ends, as long as the adaptation is
so imperfect that pain is produced. They are also (2) subject to a
strain of consistency with each other, because they all answer their
several purposes with less friction and antagonism when they co-operate
and support each other. The forms of industry, the forms of the family,
the notions of property, the constructions of rights, and the types of
religion show the strain of consistency with each other through the
whole history of civilization. The two great cultural divisions of the
human race are the oriental and occidental. Each is consistent
throughout; each has its own philosophy and spirit; they are separated
from top to bottom by different mores, different standpoints, different
ways, and different notions of what societal arrangements are
advantageous. In their contrast they keep before our minds the possible
range of divergence in the solution of the great problems of human life,
and in the views of earthly existence by which life-policy may be
controlled. If two planets were joined in one, their inhabitants could
not differ more widely as to what things are best worth seeking, or what
ways are most expedient for well-living.
Custom is the product of concurrent action through time. We find it
existent and in control at the extreme reach of our investigations.
Whence does it begin, and how does it come to be? How can it give
guidance "at the outset"? All mass actions seem to begin because the
mass wants to act together. The less they know what it is right and
best to do, the more open they are to suggestion from an incident in
nature, or from a chance act of one, or from the current doctrines of
ghost fear. A concurrent drift begins which is subject to later
correction. That being so, it is evident that instinctive action, under
the guidance of traditional folkways, is an operation of the first
importance in all societal matters. Since the custom never can be
antecedent to all action, what we should desire most is to see it arise
out of the first actions, but, inasmuch as that is impossible, the
course of the action after it is started is our field of study. The
origin of primitive customs is always lost in mystery, because when the
action begins the men are never conscious of historical action or of the
historical importance of what they are doing. When they become conscious
of the historical importance of their acts, the origin is already far
behind.
3. Habit and Custom, the Individual and the General Will[67]
The term _Sitte_ (mores) is a synonym of habit and of usage, of
convention and tradition, but also of fashion, propriety, practise, and
the like. Those words which characterize the habitual are usually
regarded as having essentially unequivocal meanings. The truth is that
language, careless of the more fundamental distinctions, confuses widely
different connotations. For example, I find that custom--to return to
this most common expression--has a threefold significance, namely:
1. _The meaning of a simple objective matter of fact._--In this sense we
speak of the man with the habit of early rising, or of walking at a
particular time, or of taking an afternoon nap. By this we mean merely
that he is accustomed to do so, he does it regularly, it is a part of
his manner of life. It is easily understood how this meaning passes over
into the next:
2. _The meaning of a rule, of a norm which the man sets up for
himself._--For example, we say he has made this or that a custom, and in
a like meaning, he has made it a rule, or even a law; and we mean that
this habit works like a law or a precept. By it a person governs himself
and regards habit as an imperative command, a structure of subjective
kind, that, however, has objective form and recognition. The precept
will be formulated, the original will be copied. A rule may be presented
as enjoined, insisted upon, imposed as a command which brings up the
third meaning of habit:
3. _An expression for a thing willed, or a will._--This third meaning,
which is generally given the least consideration, is the most
significant. If, in truth, habit is the will of man, then this alone can
be his real will. In this sense the proverb is significant that habit is
called a second nature, and that man is a creature of habit. Habit is,
in fact, a psychic disposition, which drives and urges to a specific
act, and this is the will in its most outstanding form, as decision, or
as "fixed" purpose.
Imperceptibly, the habitual passes over into the instinctive and the
impulsive. What we are accustomed to do, that we do "automatically."
Likewise we automatically make gestures, movements of welcome and
aversion which we have never learned but which we do "naturally." They
have their springs of action in the instinct of self-preservation and in
the feelings connected with it. But what we are accustomed to do, we
must first have learned and practiced. It is just that practice, the
frequent repetition, that brings about the performance of the act "of
itself," like a reflex, rapidly and easily. The rope dancer is able to
walk the rope, because he is accustomed to it. Habit and practice are
also the reasons not only why a man can perform something but also why
he performs it with relatively less effort and attention. Habit is the
basis not only for our knowing something but also for our actually doing
it. Habit operates as a kind of stimulus, and, as may be said, as
necessity. The "power of habit" has often been described and often
condemned.
As a rule, opinions (mental attitudes) are dependent upon habit, by
which they are conditioned and circumscribed. Yet, of course, opinions
can also detach themselves from habit, and rise above it, and this is
done successfully when they become general opinions, principles,
convictions. As such they gain strength which may even break down and
overcome habit. Faith, taken in the conventional religious sense of
assurance of things hoped for, is a primitive form of will. While in
general habit and opinion on the whole agree, there is nevertheless in
their relations the seeds of conflict and struggle. Thought continually
tends to become the dominating element of the mind, and man thereby
becomes the more human.
The same meaning that the will, in the usual individual sense, has for
individual man, the social will has for any community or society,
whether there be a mere loose relationship, or a formal union and
permanent association. And what is this meaning? I have pointed this out
in my discussion of habit, and present here the more general statement:
The social will is the general volition which serves for the government
and regulation of individual wills. Every general volition can be
conceived as corresponding to a "thou shalt," and in so far as an
individual or an association of individuals directs this "thou shalt" to
itself, we recognize the autonomy and freedom of this individual or of
this association. The necessary consequence of this is that the
individual against all opposing inclinations and opinions, the
association against opposing individuals, wherever their opposition
manifests itself, attempt, at least, to carry through their will so that
they work as a constraint and exert pressure. And this is essentially
independent of the means which are used to that end. These pressures
extend, at least in the social sense, from measures of persuasion, which
appeal to a sense of honor and of shame, to actual coercion and
punishment which may take the form of physical compulsion. _Sitte_
develops into the most unbending, overpowering force.
4. The Law, Conscience, and the General Will[68]
In the English language we have no name for it (_Sittlichkeit_), and
this is unfortunate, for the lack of a distinctive name has occasioned
confusion both of thought and of expression. _Sittlichkeit_ is the
system of habitual or customary conduct, ethical rather than legal,
which embraces all those obligations of the citizen which it is "bad
form" or "not the thing" to disregard. Indeed, regard for these
obligations is frequently enjoined merely by the social penalty of being
"cut" or looked on askance. And yet the system is so generally accepted
and is held in so high regard, that no one can venture to disregard it
without in some way suffering at the hands of his neighbors for so
doing. If a man maltreats his wife and children, or habitually jostles
his fellow-citizens in the street, or does things flagrantly selfish or
in bad taste, he is pretty sure to find himself in a minority and the
worse off in the end. But not only does it not pay to do these things,
but the decent man does not wish to do them. A feeling analogous to what
arises from the dictates of his more private and individual conscience
restrains him. He finds himself so restrained in the ordinary affairs of
daily life. But he is guided in his conduct by no mere inward feeling,
as in the case of conscience. Conscience and, for that matter, law,
overlap parts of the sphere of social obligation about which I am
speaking. A rule of conduct may, indeed, appear in more than one sphere,
and may consequently have a twofold sanction. But the guide to which the
citizen mostly looks is just the standard recognized by the community, a
community made up mainly of those fellow-citizens whose good opinion he
respects and desires to have. He has everywhere round him an
object-lesson in the conduct of decent people toward each other and
toward the community to which they belong. Without such conduct and the
restraints which it imposes there could be no tolerable social life, and
real freedom from interference would not be enjoyed. It is the
instinctive sense of what to do and what not to do in daily life and
behavior that is the source of liberty and ease. And it is this
instinctive sense of obligation that is the chief foundation of society.
Its reality takes objective shape and displays itself in family life and
in our other civic and social institutions. It is not limited to any one
form, and it is capable of manifesting itself in new forms and of
developing and changing old forms. Indeed, the civic community is more
than a political fabric. It includes all the social institutions in and
by which the individual life is influenced--such as are the family, the
school, the church, the legislature, and the executive. None of these
can subsist in isolation from the rest; together they and other
institutions of the kind form a single organic whole, the whole which is
known as the nation. The spirit and habit of life which this organic
entirety inspires and compels are what, for my present purpose, I mean
by _Sittlichkeit_.
_Sitte_ is the German for custom, and _Sittlichkeit_ implies custom and
a habit of mind and action. It also implies a little more. Fichte
defines it in words which are worth quoting, and which I will put into
English:
What, to begin with, does _Sitte_ signify, and in what sense do
we use the word? It means for us, and means in every accurate
reference we make of it, those principles of conduct which
regulate people in their relations to each other, and which
have become matter of habit and second nature at the stage of
culture reached, and of which, therefore, we are not explicitly
conscious. Principles, we call them, because we do not refer to
the sort of conduct that is casual or is determined on casual
grounds, but to the hidden and uniform ground of action which
we assume to be present in the man whose action is not
deflected and from which we can pretty certainly predict what
he will do. Principles, we say, which have become a second
nature and of which we are not explicitly conscious. We thus
exclude all impulses and motives based on free individual
choice, the inward aspect of _Sittlichkeit_, that is to say,
morality, and also the outward side, or law, alike. For what a
man has first to reflect over and then freely to resolve is not
for him a habit in conduct; and in so far as habit in conduct
is associated with a particular age, it is regarded as the
unconscious instrument of the Time Spirit.
The system of ethical habit in a community is of a dominating character,
for the decision and influence of the whole community is embodied in
that social habit. Because such conduct is systematic and covers the
whole of the field of society, the individual will is closely related by
it to the will and the spirit of the community. And out of this relation
arises the power of adequately controlling the conduct of the
individual. If this power fails or becomes weak, the community
degenerates and may fall to pieces. Different nations excel in their
_Sittlichkeit_ in different fashions. The spirit of the community and
its ideals may vary greatly. There may be a low level of _Sittlichkeit_;
and we have the spectacle of nations which have even degenerated in this
respect. It may possibly conflict with law and morality, as in the case
of the duel. But when its level is high in a nation we admire the
system, for we see it not only guiding a people and binding them
together for national effort, but affording the greatest freedom of
thought and action for those who in daily life habitually act in harmony
with the General Will.
Thus we have in the case of a community, be it the city or be it the
state, an illustration of a sanction which is sufficient to compel
observance of a rule without any question of the application of force.
This kind of sanction may be of a highly compelling quality, and it
often extends so far as to make the individual prefer the good of the
community to his own. The development of many of our social
institutions, of our hospitals, of our universities, and of other
establishments of the kind, shows the extent to which it reaches and is
powerful. But it has yet higher forms in which it approaches very nearly
to the level of the obligation of conscience, although it is distinct
from that form of obligation. I will try to make clear what I mean by
illustrations. A man may be impelled to action of a high order by his
sense of unity with the society to which he belongs, action of which,
from the civic standpoint, all approve. What he does in such a case is
natural to him, and is done without thought of reward or punishment; but
it has reference to standards of conduct set up by society and accepted
just because society has set them up. There is a poem by the late Sir
Alfred Lyall which exemplifies the high level that may be reached in
such conduct. The poem is called _Theology in Extremis_, and it
describes the feelings of an Englishman who had been taken prisoner by
Mahometan rebels in the Indian Mutiny. He is face to face with a cruel
death. They offer him his life if he will repeat something from the
Koran. If he complies, no one is likely ever to hear of it, and he will
be free to return to England and to the woman he loves. Moreover, and
here is the real point, he is not a believer in Christianity, so that it
is no question of denying his Savior. What ought he to do? Deliverance
is easy, and the relief and advantage would be unspeakably great. But he
does not really hesitate, and every shadow of doubt disappears when he
hears his fellow-prisoner, a half-caste, pattering eagerly the words
demanded.
I will take another example, this time from the literature of ancient
Greece. In one of the shortest but not least impressive of his
_Dialogues_, the "Crito," Plato tells us of the character of Socrates,
not as a philosopher, but as a good citizen. He has been unjustly
condemned by the Athenians as an enemy to the good of the state. Crito
comes to him in prison to persuade him to escape. He urges on him many
arguments, his duty to his children included. But Socrates refuses. He
chooses to follow, not what anyone in the crowd might do, but the
example which the ideal citizen should set. It would be a breach of his
duty to fly from the judgment duly passed in the Athens to which he
belongs, even though he thinks the decree should have been different.
For it is the decree of the established justice of his city state. He
will not "play truant." He hears the words, "Listen, Socrates, to us who
have brought you up"; and in reply he refuses to go away, in these
final sentences: "This is the voice which I seem to hear murmuring in my
ears, like the sound of the flute in the ears of the mystic; that voice,
I say, is murmuring in my ears, and prevents me from hearing any other.
And I know that anything more which you may say will be vain."
Why do men of this stamp act so, it may be when leading the battle line,
it may be at critical moments of quite other kinds? It is, I think,
because they are more than mere individuals. Individual they are, but
completely real, even as individual, only in their relation to organic
and social wholes in which they are members, such as the family, the
city, the state. There is in every truly organized community a Common
Will which is willed by those who compose that community, and who in so
willing are more than isolated men and women. It is not, indeed, as
unrelated atoms that they have lived. They have grown, from the
receptive days of childhood up to maturity, in an atmosphere of example
and general custom, and their lives have widened out from one little
world to other and higher worlds, so that, through occupying successive
stations in life, they more and more come to make their own the life of
the social whole in which they move and have their being. They cannot
mark off or define their own individualities without reference to the
individualities of others. And so they unconsciously find themselves as
in truth pulse-beats of the whole system, and themselves the whole
system. It is real in them and they in it. They are real only because
they are social. The notion that the individual is the highest form of
reality, and that the relationship of individuals is one of mere
contract, the notion of Hobbes and of Bentham and of Austin, turns out
to be quite inadequate. Even of an everyday contract, that of marriage,
it has been well said that it is a contract to pass out of the sphere of
contract, and that it is possible only because the contracting parties
are already beyond and above that sphere. As a modern writer, F. H.
Bradley of Oxford, to whose investigations in these regions we owe much,
has finely said: "The moral organism is not a mere animal organism. In
the latter the member is not aware of itself as such, while in the
former it knows itself, and therefore knows the whole in itself. The
narrow external function of the man is not the whole man. He has a life
which we cannot see with our eyes, and there is no duty so mean that it
is not the realization of this, and knowable as such. What counts is
not the visible outer work so much as the spirit in which it is done.
The breadth of my life is not measured by the multitude of my pursuits,
nor the space I take up amongst other men; but by the fulness of the
whole life which I know as mine. It is true that less now depends on
each of us as this or that man; it is not true that our individuality is
therefore lessened; that therefore we have less in us."