temperament and tradition than the Anglo-Saxon and the Negro, and yet
the Negro in the southern states, particularly where he was adopted into
the household as a family servant, learned in a comparatively short time
the manners and customs of his master's family. He very soon possessed
himself of so much of the language, religion, and the technique of the
civilization of his master as, in his station, he was fitted or
permitted to acquire. Eventually, also, Negro slaves transferred their
allegiance to the state of which they were only indirectly members, or
at least to their masters' families, with whom they felt themselves in
most things one in sentiment and interest.
The assimilation of the Negro field hand, where the contact of the slave
with his master and his master's family was less intimate, was naturally
less complete. On the large plantations, where an overseer stood between
the master and the majority of his slaves, and especially on the sea
island plantations off the coast of South Carolina, where the master and
his family were likely to be merely winter visitors, this distance
between master and slave was greatly increased. The consequence is that
the Negroes in these regions are less touched today by the white man's
influence and civilization than elsewhere in the southern states.
C. AMERICANIZATION AS A PROBLEM IN ASSIMILATION[247]
1. Americanization as Assimilation
The Americanization Study has assumed that the fundamental condition of
what we call "Americanization" is the participation of the immigrant in
the life of the community in which he lives. The point here emphasized
is that patriotism, loyalty, and common sense are neither created nor
transmitted by purely intellectual processes. Men must live and work and
fight together in order to create that community of interest and
sentiment which will enable them to meet the crises of their common life
with a common will.
It is evident, however, that the word "participation" as here employed
has a wide application, and it becomes important for working purposes to
give a more definite and concrete meaning to the term.
2. Language as a Means and a Product of Participation
Obviously any organized social activity whatever and any participation
in this activity implies "communication." In human, as distinguished
from animal, society common life is based on a common speech. To share a
common speech does not guarantee participation in the community life but
it is an instrument of participation, and its acquisition by the members
of an immigrant group is rightly considered a sign and a rough index of
Americanization.
It is, however, one of the ordinary experiences of social intercourse
that words and things do not have the same meanings with different
people, in different parts of the country, in different periods of time,
and, in general, in different contexts. The same "thing" has a different
meaning for the naïve person and the sophisticated person, for the child
and the philosopher; the new experience derives its significance from
the character and organization of the previous experiences. To the
peasant a comet, a plague, and an epileptic person may mean a divine
portent, a visitation of God, a possession by the devil; to the
scientific man they mean something quite different. The word "slavery"
had very different connotations in the ancient world and today. It has a
very different significance today in the southern states and in the
northern states. "Socialism" has a very different significance to the
immigrant from the Russian pale living on the "East Side" of New York
City, to the citizen on Riverside Drive, and to the native American in
the hills of Georgia.
Psychologists explain this difference in the connotation of the same
word among people using the same language in terms of difference in the
"apperception mass" in different individuals and different groups of
individuals. In their phraseology the "apperception mass" represents the
body of memories and meanings deposited in the consciousness of the
individual from the totality of his experiences. It is the body of
material with which every new datum of experience comes into contact, to
which it is related, and in connection with which it gets its meaning.
When persons interpret data on different grounds, when the apperception
mass is radically different, we say popularly that they live in
different worlds. The logician expresses this by saying that they occupy
different "universes of discourse"--that is, they cannot talk in the
same terms. The ecclesiastic, the artist, the mystic, the scientist, the
Philistine, the Bohemian, represent more or less different "universes of
discourse." Even social workers occupy universes of discourse not
mutually intelligible.
Similarly, different races and nationalities as wholes represent
different apperception masses and consequently different universes of
discourse and are not mutually intelligible. Even our remote forefathers
are with difficulty intelligible to us, though always more intelligible
than the Eastern immigrant because of the continuity of our tradition.
Still it is almost as difficult for us to comprehend _Elsie Dinsmore_ or
the _Westminster Catechism_ as the Koran or the Talmud.
It is apparent, therefore, that in the wide extension and vast
complexity of modern life, in which peoples of different races and
cultures are now coming into intimate contact, the divergences in the
meanings and values which individuals and groups attach to objects and
forms of behavior are deeper than anything expressed by differences in
language.
Actually common participation in common activities implies a common
"definition of the situation." In fact, every single act, and eventually
all moral life, is dependent upon the definition of the situation. A
definition of the situation precedes and limits any possible action, and
a redefinition of the situation changes the character of the action. An
abusive person, for example, provokes anger and possibly violence, but
if we realize that the man is insane this redefinition of the situation
results in totally different behavior.
Every social group develops systematic and unsystematic means of
defining the situation for its members. Among these means are the
"don'ts" of the mother, the gossip of the community, epithets ("liar,"
"traitor," "scab"), the sneer, the shrug, the newspaper, the theater,
the school, libraries, the law, and the gospel. Education in the widest
sense--intellectual, moral, aesthetic--is the process of defining the
situation. It is the process by which the definitions of an older
generation are transmitted to a younger. In the case of the immigrant it
is the process by which the definitions of one cultural group are
transmitted to another.
Differences in meanings and values, referred to above in terms of the
"apperception mass," grow out of the fact that different individuals and
different peoples have defined the situation in different ways. When we
speak of the different "heritages" or "traditions" which our different
immigrant groups bring, it means that, owing to different historical
circumstances, they have defined the situation differently. Certain
prominent personalities, schools of thought, bodies of doctrine,
historical events, have contributed in defining the situation and
determining the attitudes and values of our various immigrant groups in
characteristic ways in their home countries. To the Sicilian, for
example, marital infidelity means the stiletto; to the American, the
divorce court. And even when the immigrant thinks that he understands
us, he nevertheless does not do this completely. At the best he
interprets our cultural traditions in terms of his own. Actually the
situation is progressively redefined by the consequences of the actions,
provoked by the previous definitions, and a prison experience is
designed to provide a datum toward the redefinition of the situation.
It is evidently important that the people who compose a community and
share in the common life should have a sufficient body of common
memories to understand one another. This is particularly true in a
democracy, where it is intended that the public institutions should be
responsive to public opinion. There can be no public opinion except in
so far as the persons who compose the public are able to live in the
same world and speak and think in the same universe of discourse. For
that reason it seems desirable that the immigrants should not only speak
the language of the country but should know something of the history of
the people among whom they have chosen to dwell. For the same reason it
is important that native Americans should know the history and social
life of the countries from which the immigrants come.
It is important also that every individual should share as fully as
possible a fund of knowledge, experience, sentiments, and ideals common
to the whole community and himself contribute to this fund. It is for
this reason that we maintain and seek to maintain freedom of speech and
free schools. The function of literature, including poetry, romance, and
the newspaper, is to enable all to share victoriously and imaginatively
in the inner life of each. The function of science is to gather up,
classify, digest, and preserve, in a form in which they may become
available to the community as a whole, the ideas, inventions, and
technical experience of the individuals composing it. Thus not merely
the possession of a common language but the wide extension of the
opportunities for education become conditions of Americanization.
The immigration problem is unique in the sense that the immigrant brings
divergent definitions of the situation, and this renders his
participation in our activities difficult. At the same time this problem
is of the same general type as the one exemplified by "syndicalism,"
"bolshevism," "socialism," etc., where the definition of the situation
does not agree with the traditional one. The modern "social unrest,"
like the immigrant problem, is a sign of the lack of participation and
this is true to the degree that certain elements feel that violence is
the only available means of participating.
3. Assimilation and the Mediation of Individual Differences
In general, a period of unrest represents the stage in which a new
definition of the situation is being prepared. Emotion and unrest are
connected with situations where there is loss of control. Control is
secured on the basis of habits and habits are built up on the basis of
the definition of the situation. Habit represents a situation where the
definition is working. When control is lost it means that the habits are
no longer adequate, that the situation has changed and demands a
redefinition. This is the point at which we have unrest--a heightened
emotional state, random movements, unregulated behavior--and this
continues until the situation is redefined. The unrest is associated
with conditions in which the individual or society feels unable to act.
It represents energy, and the problem is to use it constructively.
The older societies tended to treat unrest by defining the situation in
terms of the suppression or postponement of the wish; they tried to make
the repudiation of the wish itself a wish. "Contentment," "conformity
to the will of God," ultimate "salvation" in a better world, are
representative of this. The founders of America defined the situation in
terms of participation, but this has actually taken too exclusively the
form of "political participation." The present tendency is to define the
situation in terms of social participation, including demand for the
improvement of social conditions to a degree which will enable all to
participate.
But, while it is important that the people who are members of the same
community should have a body of common memories and a common
apperception mass, so that they may talk intelligibly to one another, it
is neither possible nor necessary that everything should have the same
meaning for everyone. A perfectly homogeneous consciousness would mean a
tendency to define all situations rigidly and sacredly and once and
forever. Something like this did happen in the Slavic village
communities and among all savage people, and it was the ideal of the
medieval church, but it implies a low level of efficiency and a slow
rate of progress.
Mankind is distinguished, in fact, from the animal world by being
composed of persons of divergent types, of varied tastes and interests,
of different vocations and functions. Civilization is the product of an
association of widely different individuals, and with the progress of
civilization the divergence in individual human types has been and must
continue to be constantly multiplied. Our progress in the arts and
sciences and in the creation of values in general has been dependent on
specialists whose distinctive worth was precisely their divergence from
other individuals. It is even evident that we have been able to use
productively individuals who in a savage or peasant society would have
been classed as insane--who perhaps were indeed insane.
The ability to participate productively implies thus a diversity of
attitudes and values in the participants, but a diversity not so great
as to lower the morals of the community and to prevent effective
co-operation. It is important to have ready definitions for all
immediate situations, but progress is dependent on the constant
redefinitions for all immediate situations, and the ideal condition for
this is the presence of individuals with divergent definitions, who
contribute, in part consciously and in part unconsciously, through their
individualism and labors to a common task and a common end. It is only
in this way that an intelligible world, in which each can participate
according to his intelligence, comes into existence. For it is only
through their consequences that words get their meanings or that
situations become defined. It is through conflict and co-operation, or,
to use a current phrase of economists, through "competitive
co-operation," that a distinctively human type of society does anywhere
exist. Privacy and publicity, "society" and solitude, public ends and
private enterprises, are each and all distinctive factors in human
society everywhere. They are particularly characteristic of historic
American democracy.
In this whole connection it appears that the group consciousness and the
individual himself are formed by communication and participation, and
that the communication and participation are themselves dependent for
their meaning on common interests.
But it would be an error to assume that participation always implies an
intimate personal, face-to-face relation. Specialists participate
notably and productively in our common life, but this is evidently not
on the basis of personal association with their neighbors. Darwin was
assisted by Lyell, Owen, and other contemporaries in working out a new
definition of the situation, but these men were not his neighbors. When
Mayer worked out his theory of the transmutation of energy, his
neighbors in the village of Heilbronn were so far from participating
that they twice confined him in insane asylums. A postage stamp may be a
more efficient instrument of participation than a village meeting.
Defining the situation with reference to the participation of the
immigrant is of course not solving the problem of immigration. This
involves an analysis of the whole significance of the qualitative and
quantitative character of a population, with reference to any given
values--standards of living, individual level of efficiency, liberty and
determinism, etc. We have, for instance, in America a certain level of
culture, depending, let us say as a minimum, on the perpetuation of our
public-school system. But, if by some conceivable _lusus naturae_ the
birth rate was multiplied a hundred fold, or by some conceivable
cataclysm a hundred million African blacks were landed annually on our
eastern coast and an equal number of Chinese coolies on our western
coast, then we should have neither teachers enough nor buildings enough
nor material resources enough to impart even the three R's to a
fraction of the population, and the outlook of democracy, so far as it
is dependent upon participation, would become very dismal. On the other
hand, it is conceivable that certain immigrant populations in certain
numbers, with their special temperaments, endowments, and social
heritages, would contribute positively and increasingly to our stock of
civilization. These are questions to be determined, but certainly if the
immigrant is admitted on any basis whatever the condition of his
Americanization is that he shall have the widest and freest opportunity
to contribute in his own way to the common fund of knowledge, ideas, and
ideals which makes up the culture of our common country. It is only in
this way that the immigrant can "participate" in the fullest sense of
the term.
III. INVESTIGATIONS AND PROBLEMS
1. Assimilation and Amalgamation
The literature upon assimilation falls naturally under three main heads:
(1) assimilation and amalgamation; (2) the conflict and fusion of
cultures; and (3) immigration and Americanization.
Literature on assimilation is very largely a by-product of the
controversy in regard to the relative superiority and inferiority of
races. This controversy owes its existence, in the present century, to
the publication in 1854 of Gobineau's _The Inequality of Human Races_.
This treatise appeared at a time when the dominant peoples of Europe
were engaged in extending their benevolent protection over all the
"unprotected" lesser breeds, and this book offered a justification, on
biological grounds, of the domination of the "inferior" by the
"superior" races.
Gobineau's theory, and that of the schools which have perpetuated and
elaborated his doctrines, defined culture as an essentially racial
trait. Other races might accommodate themselves to, but could not
originate nor maintain a superior culture. This is the aristocratic
theory of the inequalities of races and, as might be expected, was
received with enthusiasm by the chauvinists of the "strong" nations.
The opposing school is disposed to treat the existing civilizations as
largely the result of historical accident. The superior peoples are
those who have had access to the accumulated cultural materials of the
peoples that preceded them. Modern Europe owes its civilization to the
fact that it went to school to the ancients. The inferior peoples are
those who did not have this advantage.
Ratzel was one of the first to venture the theory that the natural and
the cultural peoples were fundamentally alike and that the existing
differences, great as they are, were due to geographical and cultural
isolation of the less advanced races. Boas' _Mind of Primitive Man_ is
the most systematic and critical statement of that view of the matter.
The discussion which these rival theories provoked has led students to
closer studies of the effects of racial contacts and to a more
penetrating analysis of the cultural process.
The contacts of races have invariably led to racial intermixture, and
the mixed breed, as in the case of the mulatto, the result of the
white-Negro cross, has tended to create a distinct cultural as well as a
racial type. E. B. Reuter's volume on _The Mulatto_ is the first serious
attempt to study the mixed blood as a cultural type and define his rôle
in the conflict of races and cultures.
Historical cases of the assimilation of one group by another are
frequent. Kaindl's investigations of the German settlements in the
Carpathian lands are particularly instructive. The story of the manner
in which the early German settlers in Cracow, Galicia, were Polonized
mainly under the influence of the Polish nobility, is all the more
interesting when it is contrasted with the German colonists in the
Siebenbürgen, which have remained strongholds of the German language and
culture in the midst of a population of Roumanian peasants for nearly
eight hundred years. Still more interesting are the recent attempts of
the Prussians to Germanize the former province of Posen, now reunited to
Poland. Prussia's policy of colonization of German peasants in Posen
failed for several reasons, but it failed finally because the German
peasant, finding himself isolated in the midst of a Polish community,
either gave up the land the government had acquired for him and returned
to his native German province, or identified himself with the Polish
community and was thus lost to the cause of German nationalism. The
whole interesting history of that episode is related in Bernard's _Die
Polenfrage_, which is at the same time an account of the organization of
an autonomous Polish community within the limits of a German state.
The competition and survival of languages affords interesting material
for the study of cultural contacts and the conditions that determine
assimilation. Investigations of the racial origins of European peoples
have discovered a great number of curious cultural anomalies. There are
peoples like the Spreewälder who inhabit a little cultural island of
about 240 miles square in the Province of Brandenburg, Prussia.
Surviving remnants of a Slavic people, they still preserve their
language and their tribal costumes, and, although but thirty thousand in
number and surrounded by Germans, maintain a lively literary movement
all their own. On the other hand, the most vigorous and powerful of the
Germanic nationalities, the Prussian, bears the name of a conquered
Slavic people whose language, "Old Prussian," not spoken since the
seventeenth century, is preserved only in a few printed books, including
a catechism and German-Prussian vocabulary, which the German
philologists have rescued from oblivion.
2. The Conflict and Fusion of Cultures
The contacts and transmission of cultures have been investigated in
different regions of social life under different titles. The
ethnologists have investigated the process among primitive peoples under
the title acculturation. Among historical peoples, on the other hand,
acculturation has been called assimilation. The aim of missions has
been, on the whole, to bring the world under the domination of a single
moral order; but in seeking to accomplish this task they have
contributed greatly to the fusion and cross-fertilization of racial and
national cultures.
The problem of origin is the first and often the most perplexing problem
which the study of primitive cultures presents.[248] Was a given
cultural trait, i.e., a weapon, a tool, or a myth, borrowed or invented?
For example, there are several independent centers of origin and
propagation of the bow and arrow. Writing approached or reached
perfection in at least five different, widely separated regions. Other
problems of acculturation which have been studied include the following:
the degree and order of transmissibility of different cultural traits;
the persistence or the immunity against change of different traits; the
modification of cultural traits in the process of transmission; the
character of social contacts between cultural groups; the distance that
divides cultural levels; and the rôle of prestige in stimulating
imitation and copying.
The development of a world-commerce, the era of European colonization
and imperial expansion in America, Asia, and Africa and Australia, the
forward drive of occidental science and the Western system of
large-scale competitive industry have created racial contacts, cultural
changes, conflicts, and fusions of unprecedented and unforeseen extent,
intensity, and immediateness. The crash of a fallen social order in
Russia reverberates throughout the world; reports of the capitalization
of new enterprises indicate that India is copying the economic
organization of Europe; the feminist movement has invaded Japan;
representatives of close to fifty nations of the earth meet in conclave
in the assembly of the League of Nations.
So complete has been in recent years the interpenetration of peoples and
cultures that nations are now seeking to preserve their existence not
alone from assault from without by force of arms, but they are equally
concerned to protect themselves from the more insidious attacks of
propaganda from within. Under these circumstances the ancient liberties
of speech and press are being scrutinized and questioned. Particularly
is this true when this freedom of speech and press is exercised by alien
peoples, who criticize our institutions in a foreign tongue and claim
the right to reform native institutions before they have become citizens
and even before they are able to use the native language.
3. Immigration and Americanization
The presence of large groups of foreign-born in the United States was
first conceived of as a problem of immigration. From the period of the
large Irish immigration to this country in the decades following 1820
each new immigrant group called forth a popular literature of protest
against the evils its presence threatened. After 1890 the increasing
volume of immigration and the change in the source of the immigrants
from northwestern Europe to southeastern Europe intensified the general
concern. In 1907 the Congress of the United States created the
Immigration Commission to make "full inquiry, examination, and
investigation into the subject of immigration." The plan and scope of
the work as outlined by the Commission "included a study of the sources
of recent immigration in Europe, the general character of incoming
immigrants, the methods employed here and abroad to prevent the
immigration of persons classed as undesirable in the United States
immigration law, and finally a thorough investigation into the general
status of the more recent immigrants as residents of the United States,
and the effect of such immigration upon the institutions, industries,
and people of this country." In 1910 the Commission made a report of its
investigations and findings together with its conclusions and
recommendations which were published in forty-one volumes.
The European War focused the attention of the country upon the problem
of Americanization. The public mind became conscious of the fact that
"the stranger within our gates," whether naturalized or unnaturalized,
tended to maintain his loyalty to the land of his origin, even when it
seemed to conflict with loyalty to the country of his sojourn or his
adoption. A large number of superficial investigations called "surveys"
were made of immigrant colonies in the larger cities of the country.
Americanization work of many varieties developed apace. A vast
literature sprang up to meet the public demand for information and
instruction on this topic. In view of this situation the Carnegie
Corporation of New York City undertook in 1918 a "Study of the Methods
of Americanization or Fusion of Native and Foreign Born." The point of
view from which the study was made may be inferred from the following
statement by its director, Allen T. Burns:
Americanization is the uniting of new with native born
Americans in fuller common understanding and appreciation to
secure by means of self-government the highest welfare of all.
Such Americanization should produce no unchangeable political,
domestic, and economic régime delivered once for all to the
fathers, but a growing and broadening national life, inclusive
of the best wherever found. With all our rich heritages,
Americanism will develop through a mutual giving and taking of
contributions from both newer and older Americans in the
interest of the common weal. This study will follow such an
understanding of Americanization.
The study, as originally planned, was divided into ten divisions, as
follows: the schooling of the immigrant, the press and the theater,
adjustment of homes and family life, legal protection and correction,
health standards and care, naturalization and political life,
industrial and economic amalgamation, treatment of immigrant heritages,
neighborhood agencies, and rural developments. The findings of these
different parts of the study are presented in separate volumes.
This is the most recent important survey-investigation of the immigrant,
although there are many less imposing but significant studies in this
field. Among these are the interesting analyses of the assimilation
process in Julius Drachsler's _Democracy and Assimilation_ and in A. M.
Dushkin's study of _Jewish Education in New York City_.
The natural history of assimilation may be best studied in personal
narratives and documents, such as letters and autobiographies, or in
monographs upon urban and rural immigrant communities. In recent years a
series of personal narrative and autobiographical sketches have revealed
the intimate personal aspects of the assimilation process. The
expectancy and disillusionment of the first experiences, the consequent
nostalgia and homesickness, gradual accommodation to the new situation,
the first participations in American life, the fixation of wishes in the
opportunities of the American social environment, the ultimate
identification of the person with the memories, sentiments, and future
of his adopted country--all these steps in assimilation are portrayed in
such interesting books as _The Far Journey_ by Abraham Rihbany, _The
Promised Land_ by Mary Antin, _Out of the Shadow_ by Rose Cohen, _An
American in the Making_ by M. E. Ravage, _My Mother and I_ by E. C.
Stern.
The most reflective use of personal documents for the study of the
problems of the immigrant has been made by Thomas and Znaniecki in _The
Polish Peasant in Europe and America_. In these studies letters and
life-histories have been, for the first time, methodically employed to
exhibit the processes of adjustment in the transition from a European
peasant village to the immigrant colony of an American industrial
community.
The work of Thomas and Znaniecki is in a real sense a study of the
Polish community in Europe and America. Less ambitious studies have been
made of individual immigrant communities. Several religious communities
composed of isolated and unassimilated groups, such as the German
Mennonites, have been intensively studied.
Materials valuable for the study of certain immigrant communities,
assembled for quite other purposes, are contained in the almanacs,
yearbooks, and local histories of the various immigrant communities. The
most interesting of these are the _Jewish Communal Register_ of New York
and the studies made by the Norwegian Lutheran Church in America under
the direction of O. M. Norlie.[249]
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
I. ASSIMILATION AND AMALGAMATION
A. _The Psychology and Sociology of Assimilation_
(1) Wundt, Wilhelm. "Bermerkungen zur Associationslehre,"
_Philosophische Studien_, VII (1892), 329-61. ["Complication und
Assimilation," pp. 334-53.]
(2) ----. _Grundzüge der physiologischen Psychologie._ "Assimilationen,"
III, 528-35. 5th ed. Leipzig, 1903.
(3) Ward, James. "Association and Assimilation," _Mind_, N.S., II
(1893), 347-62; III (1894), 509-32.
(4) Baldwin, J. Mark. _Mental Development in the Child and the Race._
Methods and processes. "Assimilation, Recognition," pp. 308-19. New
York, 1895.
(5) Novicow, J. _Les Luttes entre sociétés humaines et leur phases
successives._ Book II, chap. vii, "La Dénationalisation," pp. 125-53.
Paris, 1893. [Definition of denationalization.]
(6) Ratzenhofer, Gustav. _Die sociologische Erkenntnis_, pp. 41-42.
Leipzig, 1898.
(7) Park, Robert E. "Racial Assimilation in Secondary Groups with
Particular Reference to the Negro," _American Journal of Sociology_, XIX
(1913-14), 606-23.
(8) Simons, Sarah E. "Social Assimilation," _American Journal of
Sociology_, VI (1900-1901), 790-822; VII (1901-2), 53-79, 234-48,
386-404, 539-56. [Bibliography.]
(9) Jenks, Albert E. "Assimilation in the Philippines as Interpreted in
Terms of Assimilation in America," _Publications of the American
Sociological Society_, VIII (1913), 140-58.
(10) McKenzie, F. A. "The Assimilation of the American Indian,"
_Publications of the American Sociological Society_, VIII (1913), 37-48.
[Bibliography.]
(11) Ciszewski, S. _Kunstliche Verwandschaft bei den Südslaven._
Leipzig, 1897.
(12) Windisch, H. _Taufe und Sünde im ältesten Christentum bis auf
Origines_. Ein Beitrag zur altchristlichen Dogmengeschichte. Tübingen,
1908.
B. _Assimilation and Amalgamation_
(1) Gumplowicz, Ludwig. _Der Rassenkampf._ Sociologische Untersuchungen,
sec. 38, "Wie die Amalgamirung vor sich geht," pp. 253-63. Innsbruck,
1883.
(2) Commons, John R. _Races and Immigrants in America._ Chap. ix,
"Amalgamation and Assimilation," pp. 198-238. New ed. New York, 1920.
[See also pp. 17-21.]
(3) Ripley, William Z. _The Races of Europe._ A sociological study.
Chap. ii, "Language, Nationality, and Race," pp. 15-36. Chap. xviii,
"European Origins: Race and Culture," pp. 486-512. New York, 1899.
(4) Fischer, Eugen. _Die Rehobother Bastards und das
Bastardierungsproblem beim Menschen._ Anthropologische und
ethnographische Studien am Rehobother Bastardvolk in Deutsch-Südwest
Afrika. Jena, 1913.
(5) Mayo-Smith, Richmond. "Theories of Mixture of Races and
Nationalities," _Yale Review_, III (1894), 166-86.
(6) Smith, G. Elliot. "The Influence of Racial Admixture in Egypt,"
_Eugenics Review_, VII (1915-16), 163-83.
(7) Reuter, E. B. _The Mulatto in the United States._ Including a study
of the rôle of mixed-blood races throughout the world. Boston, 1918.
(8) Weatherly, Ulysses G. "The Racial Element in Social Assimilation,"
_Publications of the American Sociological Society_, V (1910), 57-76.
(9) ----. "Race and Marriage," _American Journal of Sociology_, XV
(1909-10), 433-53.
(10) Roosevelt, Theodore. "Brazil and the Negro," _Outlook_, CVI (1904),
409-11.
II. THE CONFLICT AND FUSION OF CULTURES
A. _Process of Acculturation_
(1) Ratzel, Friedrich. _The History of Mankind._ Vol. I, Book I, sec. 4,
"Nature, Rise and Spread of Civilization," pp. 20-30. Vol. II, Book II,
sec. 31, "Origin and Development of the Old American Civilization," pp.
160-70. Translated from the 2d German ed. by A. J. Butler. 3 vols.
London, 1896-98.
(2) Rivers, W. H. R. "The Ethnological Analysis of Culture," _Report of
the 81st Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of
Science_, 1911, pp. 490-99.
(3) Frobenius, L. _Der Ursprung der afrikanischen Kulturen._ Berlin,
1898.
(4) Boas, Franz. _The Mind of Primitive Man._ Chap. vi, "The
Universality of Cultural Traits," pp. 155-73. Chap. vii, "The
Evolutionary Viewpoint," pp. 174-96. New York, 1911.
(5) Vierkandt, A. _Die Stetigkeit im Kulturwandel._ Eine sociologische
Studie. Leipzig, 1908.
(6) McGee, W. J. "Piratical Acculturation," _American Anthropologist_,
XI (1898), 243-51.
(7) Crooke, W. "Method of Investigation and Folklore Origins,"
_Folklore_, XXIV (1913), 14-40.
(8) Graebner, F. "Die melanesische Bogenkultur und ihre Verwandten,"
_Anthropos_, IV (1909), 726-80, 998-1032.
(9) Lowie, Robert H. "On the Principle of Convergence in Ethnology,"
_Journal of American Folklore_, XXV (1912), 24-42.
(10) Goldenweiser, A. A. "The Principle of Limited Possibilities in the
Development of Culture," _Journal of American Folklore_, XXVI (1913),
259-90.
(11) Dixon, R. B. "The Independence of the Culture of the American
Indian," _Science_, N.S., XXXV (1912), 46-55.
(12) Johnson, W. _Folk-Memory._ Or the continuity of British
archaeology. Oxford, 1908.
(13) Wundt, Wilhelm. _Völkerpsychologie._ Eine Untersuchung der
Entwicklungsgesetze von Sprache, Mythus, und Sitte. Band I, "Die
Sprache." 3 vols. Leipzig, 1900-1909.
(14) Tarde, Gabriel. _The Laws of Imitation._ Translated from the 2d
French ed. by Elsie Clews Parsons. New York, 1903.
B. _Nationalization and Denationalization_
(1) Bauer, Otto. _Die Nationalitätenfrage und die Sozialdemokratie._
Wien, 1907. Chap. vi, sec. 30, "Der Sozialismus und das
Nationalitätsprinzip," pp. 507-21. (In: Adler, M. and Hildering, R.
_Marx-Studien; Blätter zur Theorie und Politik des wissenschaftlichen
Sozialismus._ Band II. Wien, 1904.
(2) Kerner, R. J. _Slavic Europe._ A selected bibliography in the
western European languages, comprising history, languages, and
literature. "The Slavs and Germanization," Nos. 2612-13, pp. 193-95.
Cambridge, Mass., 1918.
(3) Delbrück, Hans. "Das Polenthum," _Preussische Jahrbücher_, LXXVI
(April, 1894), 173-86.
(4) Warren, H. C. "Social Forces and International Ethics,"
_International Journal of Ethics_, XXVII (1917), 350-56.
(5) Prince, M. "A World Consciousness and Future Peace," _Journal of
Abnormal Psychology_, XI (1917), 287-304.
(6) Reich, Emil. _General History of Western Nations, from 5000 B.C. to
1900 A.D._ "Europeanization of Humanity," pp. 33-65, 480-82. (Vols. I-II
published.) London, 1908.
(7) Thomas, William I. "The Prussian-Polish Situation: an Experiment in
Assimilation," _American Journal of Sociology_, XIX (1913-14), 624-39.
(8) Parkman, Francis. _Conspiracy of Pontiac and the Indian Wars after
the Conquest of Canada._ 8th ed., 2 vols. Boston, 1877. [Discusses the
cultural effects of the mingling of French and Indians in Canada.]
(9) Moore, William H. _The Clash._ A study in nationalities. New York,
1919. [French and English cultural contacts in Canada.]
(10) Mayo-Smith, Richmond. "Assimilation of Nationalities in the United
States," _Political Science Quarterly_, IX (1894), 426-44, 649-70.
(11) Kelly, J. Liddell. "New Race in the Making; Many Nationalities in
the Territory of Hawaii--Process of Fusion Proceeding--the Coming
Pacific Race," _Westminster Review_, CLXXV (1911), 357-66.
(12) Kallen, H. M. _Structure of Lasting Peace._ An inquiry into the
motives of war and peace. Boston, 1918.
(13) Westermarck, Edward. "Finland and the Czar," _Contemporary Review_,
LXXV (1899), 652-59.
(14) Brandes, Georg. "Denmark and Germany," _Contemporary Review_, LXXVI
(1899), 92-104.
(15) Marvin, Francis S. _The Unity of Western Civilization._ Essays.
London and New York, 1915.
(16) Fishberg, Maurice. _The Jews: a Study in Race and Environment._
London and New York, 1911. [Chap. xxii deals with assimilation versus
nationalism.]
(17) Bailey, W. F., and Bates, Jean V. "The Early German Settlers in
Transylvania," _Fortnightly Review_, CVII (1917), 661-74.
(18) Auerbach, Bertrand. _Les Races et les nationalités en
Autriche-Hongrie._ Paris, 1898.
(19) Cunningham, William. _Alien Immigrants to England._ London and New
York, 1897.
(20) Kaindl, Raimund Friedrich. _Geschichte der Deutschen in den
Karpathenländern._ Vol. I, "Geschichte der Deutschen in Galizien bis
1772." 3 vols. in 2. Gotha, 1907-11.
C. _Missions_
(1) Moore, Edward C. _The Spread of Christianity in the Modern World._
Chicago, 1919. [Bibliography.]
(2) World Missionary Conference. _Report of the World Missionary
Conference, 1910._ 9 vols. Chicago, 1910.
(3) Robinson, Charles H. _History of Christian Missions._ New York,
1915.
(4) Speer, Robert E. _Missions and Modern History._ A study of the
missionary aspects of some great movements of the nineteenth century. 2
vols. New York, 1904.
(5) Warneck, Gustav. _Outline of a History of Protestant Missions from
the Reformation to the Present Time._ A contribution to modern church
history. Translated from the German by George Robson. Chicago, 1901.
(6) Creighton, Louise. _Missions._ Their rise and development. New York,
1912. [Bibliography.]
(7) Pascoe, C. F. _Two Hundred Years of the Society for the Propagation
of the Gospel, 1701-1900._ Based on a digest of the Society's records.
London, 1901.
(8) Parkman, Francis. _The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth
Century._ Part II. "France and England in North America." Boston, 1902.
(9) Bryce, James. _Impressions of South Africa._ Chap. xxii, "Missions,"
pp. 384-93. 3d ed. New York, 1900.
(10) Sumner, W. G. _Folkways._ "Missions and Antagonistic Mores," pp.
111-14, 629-31. New York, 1906.
(11) Coffin, Ernest W. "On the Education of Backward Races,"
_Pedagogical Seminary_, XV (1908), 1-62. [Bibliography.]
(12) Blackmar, Frank W. _Spanish Colonization in the South West._ "The
Mission System," pp. 28-48. "Johns Hopkins University Studies in
Historical and Political Science." Baltimore, 1890.
(13) Johnston, Harry H. _George Grenfell and the Congo._ A history and
description of the Congo Independent State and adjoining districts of
Congoland, together with some account of the native peoples and their
languages, the fauna and flora, and similar notes on the Cameroons, and
the Island of Fernando Pô, the whole founded on the diaries and
researches of the late Rev. George Grenfell, B.M.S., F.R.S.G.; and on
the records of the British Baptist Missionary society; and on additional
information contributed by the author, by the Rev. Lawson Forfeitt, Mr.
Emil Torday, and others. 2 vols. London, 1908.
(14) Kingsley, Mary H. _West African Studies._ Pp. 107-9, 272-75. 2d ed.
London, 1901.
(15) Morel, E. D. _Affairs of West Africa._ Chaps. xxii-xxiii, "Islam in
West Africa," pp. 208-37. London, 1902.
(16) Sapper, Karl. "Der Charakter der mittelamerikanischen Indianer,"
_Globus_, LXXXVII (1905), 128-31.
(17) Fleming, Daniel J. _Devolution in Mission Administration._ As
exemplified by the legislative history of five American missionary
societies in India. New York, 1916. [Bibliography.]
III. IMMIGRATION AND AMERICANIZATION
A. _Immigration and the Immigrant_
(1) United States Immigration Commission. _Reports of the Immigration
Commission._ 41 vols. Washington, 1911.
(2) Lauck, William J., and Jenks, Jeremiah. _The Immigration Problem._
New York, 1912.
(3) Commons, John R. _Races and Immigrants in America._ New ed. New
York, 1920.
(4) Fairchild, Henry P. _Immigration._ A world-movement and its American
significance. New York, 1913. [Bibliography.]
(5) Ross, E. A. _The Old World in the New._ The significance of past and
present immigration to the American people. New York, 1914.
(6) Abbott, Grace. _The Immigrant and the Community._ With an
introduction by Judge Julian W. Mack. New York, 1917.
(7) Steiner, Edward A. _On the Trail of the Immigrant._ New York, 1906.
(8) ----. _The Immigrant Tide, Its Ebb and Flow._ Chicago, 1909.
(9) Brandenburg, Broughton. _Imported Americans._ The story of the
experiences of a disguised American and his wife studying the
immigration question. New York, 1904.
(10) Kapp, Friedrich. _Immigration and the Commissioners of Emigration
of the State of New York._ New York, 1880.
B. _Immigrant Communities_
(1) Faust, Albert B. _The German Element in the United States._ With
special reference to its political, moral, social, and educational
influence. New York, 1909.
(2) Green, Samuel S. _The Scotch-Irish in America, 1895._ A paper read
as the report of the Council of the American Antiquarian Society, at the
semi-annual meeting, April 24, 1895, with correspondence called out by
the paper. Worcester, Mass., 1895.
(3) Hanna, Charles A. _The Scotch-Irish._ Or the Scot in North Britain,
North Ireland, and North America. New York and London, 1902.
(4) Jewish Publication Society of America. _The American Jewish
Yearbook._ Philadelphia, 1899.
(5) _Jewish Communal Register, 1917-1918._ 2d ed. Edited and published
by the Kehillah (Jewish Community) of New York City. New York, 1919.
(6) Balch, Emily G. _Our Slavic Fellow Citizens._ New York, 1910.
(7) Horak, Jakub. _Assimilation of Czechs in Chicago._ [In press.]
(8) Millis, Harry A. _The Japanese Problem in the United States._ An
investigation for the Commission on Relations with Japan appointed by
the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America. New York,
1915.
(9) Fairchild, Henry P. _Greek Immigration to the United States._ New
Haven, 1911.
(10) Burgess, Thomas. _Greeks in America._ An account of their coming,
progress, customs, living, and aspirations; with a historical
introduction and the stories of some famous American-Greeks. Boston,
1913.
(11) Coolidge, Mary R. _Chinese Immigration._ New York, 1909.
(12) Foerster, Robert F. _The Italian Emigration of Our Times._
Cambridge, Mass., 1919.
(13) Lord, Eliot, Trenor, John J. D., and Barrows, Samuel J. _The
Italian in America._ New York, 1905.
(14) DuBois, W. E. Burghardt. _The Philadelphia Negro, A Social Study._
Together with a special report on domestic service by Isabel Eaton.
"Publications of the University of Pennsylvania, Series in Political
Economy and Public Law," No. 14. Philadelphia, 1899.
(15) Williams, Daniel J. _The Welsh of Columbus, Ohio._ A study in
adaptation and assimilation. Oshkosh, Wis., 1913.
C. _Americanization_
(1) Drachsler, Julius. _Democracy and Assimilation._ The blending of
immigrant heritages in America. New York, 1920. [Bibliography.]
(2) Dushkin, Alexander M. _Jewish Education in New York City._ New York,
1918.
(3) Thompson, Frank V. _Schooling of the Immigrant._ New York, 1920.
(4) Daniels, John. _America via the Neighborhood._ New York, 1920.
(5) Park, Robert E., and Miller, Herbert A. _Old World Traits
Transplanted._ New York, 1921.
(6) Speek, Peter A. _A Stake in the Land._ New York, 1921.
(7) Davis, Michael M. _Immigrant Health and the Community._ New York,
1921.
(8) Breckinridge, Sophonisba P. _New Homes for Old._ New York, 1921.
(9) Leiserson, William M. _Adjusting Immigrant and Industry._ [In
press.]
(10) Gavit, John P. _Americans by Choice._ [In press.]
(11) Claghorn, Kate H. _The Immigrant's Day in Court._ [In press.]
(12) Park, Robert E. _The Immigrant Press and Its Control._ [In press.]
New York, 1921.
(13) Burns, Allen T. _Summary of the Americanization Studies of the
Carnegie Corporation of New York._ [In press.]
(14) Miller, Herbert A. _The School and the Immigrant._ Cleveland
Education Survey. Cleveland, 1916.
(15) Kallen, Horace M. "Democracy versus the Melting-Pot, a Study of
American Nationality." _Nation_, C (1915), 190-94, 217-20.
(16) Gulick, Sidney L. _American Democracy and Asiatic Citizenship._ New
York, 1918.
(17) Talbot, Winthrop, editor. _Americanization._ Principles
of Americanism; essentials of Americanization; technic of
race-assimilation. New York, 1917. [Annotated bibliography.]
(18) Stead, W. T. _The Americanization of the World._ Or the trend of
the twentieth century. New York and London, 1901.
(19) Aronovici, Carol. _Americanization._ St. Paul, 1919. [Also in
_American Journal of Sociology_, XXV (1919-20), 695-730.]
D. _Personal Documents_
(1) Bridges, Horace. _On Becoming an American._ Some meditations of a
newly naturalized immigrant. Boston, 1919.
(2) Riis, Jacob A. _The Making of an American._ New York, 1901.
(3) Rihbany, Abraham Mitrie. _A Far Journey._ Boston, 1914.
(4) Hasanovitz, Elizabeth. _One of Them._ Chapters from a passionate
autobiography. Boston, 1918.
(5) Cohen, Rose. _Out of the Shadow._ New York, 1918.
(6) Ravage, M. E. _An American in the Making._ The life-story of an
immigrant. New York, 1917.
(7) Cahan, Abraham. _The Rise of David Levinsky._ A novel. New York,
1917.
(8) Antin, Mary. _The Promised Land._ New York, 1912.
(9) ----. _They Who Knock at Our Gates._ A complete gospel of
immigration. New York, 1914.
(10) Washington, Booker T. _Up from Slavery._ An autobiography. New
York, 1901.
(11) Steiner, Edward A. _From Alien to Citizen._ The story of my life in
America. New York, 1914.
(12) Stern, Mrs. Elizabeth Gertrude (Levin). _My Mother and I._ New
York, 1919.
(13) DuBois, W. E. Burghardt. _Darkwater: Voices from within the Veil._
New York, 1920.
(14) ----. _The Souls of Black Folk._ Essays and sketches. Chicago,
1903.
(15) Hapgood, Hutchins. _The Spirit of the Ghetto._ Studies of the
Jewish quarter in New York. Rev. ed. New York, 1909.
TOPICS FOR WRITTEN THEMES
1. Race and Culture, and the Problem of the Relative Superiority and
Inferiority of Races.
2. The Relation of Assimilation to Amalgamation.
3. The Mulatto as a Cultural Type.
4. Language as a Means of Assimilation and a Basis of National
Solidarity.
5. History and Literature as Means for Preserving National Solidarity.
6. Race Prejudice and Segregation in Their Relations to Assimilation and
Accommodation.
7. Domestic Slavery and the Assimilation of the Negro.
8. A Study of Historical Experiments in Denationalization; the
Germanization of Posen, the Russianization of Poland, the Japanese
Policy in Korea, etc.
9. The "Melting-Pot" versus "Hyphen" in Their Relation to
Americanization.
10. A Study of Policies, Programs, and Experiments in Americanization
from the Standpoint of Sociology.
11. The Immigrant Community as a Means of Americanization.
12. The Process of Assimilation as Revealed in Personal Documents, as
Antin, _The Promised Land_; Rihbany, _A Far Journey_; Ravage, _An
American in the Making_; etc.
13. Foreign Missions and Native Cultures.
14. The Rôle of Assimilation and Accommodation in the Personal
Development of the Individual Man.
15. Assimilation and Accommodation in Their Relations to the Educational
Process.
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
1. What do you understand Simons to mean by the term "assimilation"?
2. What is the difference between amalgamation and assimilation?
3. How are assimilation and amalgamation interrelated?
4. What do you consider to be the difference between Trotter's
explanation of human evolution and that of Crile?
5. What do you understand Trotter to mean by the gregarious instinct as
a mechanism controlling conduct?
6. Of what significance is the distinction made by Trotter between (a)
the three individual instincts, and (b) the gregarious instincts?
7. What is the significance of material and non-material cultural
elements for the study of race contact and intermixture?
8. How do you explain the difference in rapidity of assimilation of the
various types of cultural elements?
9. What factors promoted and impeded the extension of Roman culture in
Gaul?
10. What social factors were involved in the origin of the French
language?
11. To what extent does the extension of a cultural language involve
assimilation?
12. In what sense do the cultural languages compete with each other?
13. Do you agree with the prediction that within a century English will
be the vernacular of a quarter of the people of the world? Justify your
position.
14. Does Park's definition of assimilation differ from that of Simons?
15. What do you understand Park to mean when he says, "Social
institutions are not founded in similarities any more than they are
founded in differences, but in relations, and in the mutual
interdependence of the parts"? What is the relation of this principle to
the process of assimilation?
16. What do you understand to be the difference between the type of
assimilation (a) that makes for group solidarity and corporate action,
and (b) that makes for formal like-mindedness? What conditions favor
the one or the other type of assimilation?
17. What do you understand by the term "Americanization"?
18. Is there a difference between Americanization and Prussianization?
19. With what programs of Americanization are you familiar? Are they
adequate from the standpoint of the sociological interpretation of
assimilation?
20. In what way is language both a means and a product of assimilation?
21. What is meant by the phrases "apperception mass," "universes of
discourse," and "definitions of the situations"? What is their
significance for assimilation?
22. In what way does assimilation involve the mediation of individual
differences?
23. Does the segregation of immigrants make for or against assimilation?
24. In what ways do primary and secondary contacts, imitation and
suggestion, competition, conflict and accommodation, enter into the
process of assimilation?
FOOTNOTES:
[241] Adapted from Sarah E. Simons, "Social Assimilation," in the
_American Journal of Sociology_, VI (1901), 790-801.
[242] Adapted from W. Trotter, "Herd Instinct," in the _Sociological
Review_, I (1908), 231-42.
[243] From W. H. R. Rivers, "The Ethnological Analysis of Culture," in
_Nature_, LXXXVII (1911), 358-60.
[244] From John H. Cornyn, "French Language," in the _Encyclopedia
Americana_, XI (1919), 646-47.
[245] Adapted from E. H. Babbitt, "The Geography of the Great
Languages," in _World's Work_, XV (1907-8), 9903-7.
[246] From Robert E. Park, "Racial Assimilation in Secondary Groups," in
the _Publications of the American Sociological Society_, VIII (1914),
66-72.
[247] The three selections under this heading are adapted from
_Memorandum on Americanization_, prepared by the Division of Immigrant
Heritages, of the Study of Methods of Americanization, of the Carnegie
Corporation, New York City, 1919.
[248] See chap. i, pp. 16-24.
[249] See _Menighetskalenderen_. (Minneapolis, Minn.: Augsburg
Publishing Co. 1917.)
CHAPTER XII
SOCIAL CONTROL
I. INTRODUCTION
1. Social Control Defined
Social control has been studied, but, in the wide extension that
sociology has given to the term, it has not been defined. All social
problems turn out finally to be problems of social control. In the
introductory chapter to this volume social problems were divided into
three classes: Problems (a) of administration, (b) of policy and
polity, (c) of social forces and human nature.[250] Social control may
be studied in each one of these categories. It is with social forces and
human nature that sociology is mainly concerned. Therefore it is from
this point of view that social control will be considered in this
chapter.
In the four preceding chapters the process of interaction, in its four
typical forms, competition, conflict, accommodation, and assimilation,
has been analyzed and described. The community and the natural order
within the limits of the community, it appeared, are an effect of
competition. Social control and the mutual subordination of individual
members to the community have their origin in conflict, assume definite
organized forms in the process of accommodation, and are consolidated
and fixed in assimilation.
Through the medium of these processes, a community assumes the form of a
society. Incidentally, however, certain definite and quite spontaneous
forms of social control are developed. These forms are familiar under
various titles: tradition, custom, folkways, mores, ceremonial, myth,
religious and political beliefs, dogmas and creeds, and finally public
opinion and law. In this chapter it is proposed to define a little more
accurately certain of these typical mechanisms through which social
groups are enabled to act. In the chapter on "Collective Behavior" which
follows, materials will be presented to exhibit the group in action.
It is in action that the mechanisms of control are created, and the
materials under the title "Collective Behavior" are intended to
illustrate the stages, (a) social unrest, (b) mass movements, (c)
institutions in which society is formed and reformed. Finally, in the
chapter on "Progress," the relation of social change to social control
will be discussed and the rôle of science and collective representations
in the direction of social changes indicated.
The most obvious fact about social control is the machinery by which
laws are made and enforced, that is, the legislature, the courts, and
the police. When we think of social control, therefore, these are the
images in which we see it embodied and these are the terms in which we
seek to define it.
It is not quite so obvious that legislation and the police must, in the
long run, have the support of public opinion. Hume's statement that
governments, even the most despotic, have nothing but opinion to support
them, cannot be accepted without some definition of terms, but it is
essentially correct. Hume included under opinion what we would
distinguish from it, namely, the mores. He might have added, using
opinion in this broad sense, that the governed, no matter how numerous,
are helpless unless they too are united by "opinion."
A king or a political "boss," having an army or apolitical "machine" at
his command, can do much. It is possible, also, to confuse or mislead
public opinion, but neither the king nor the boss will, if he be wise,
challenge the mores and the common sense of the community.
Public opinion and the mores, however, representing as they do the
responses of the community to changing situations, are themselves
subject to change and variation. They are based, however, upon what we
have called fundamental human nature, that is, certain traits which in
some form or other are reproduced in every form of society.
During the past seventy years the various tribes, races, and
nationalities of mankind have been examined in detail by the
students of ethnology, and a comparison of the results shows
that the fundamental patterns of life and behavior are
everywhere the same, whether among the ancient Greeks, the
modern Italians, the Asiatic Mongols, the Australian blacks, or
the African Hottentots. All have a form of family life, moral
and legal regulations, a religious system, a form of
government, artistic practices, and so forth. An examination
of the moral code of any given group, say the African Kaffirs,
will disclose many identities with that of any other given
group, say the Hebrews. All groups have such "commandments" as
"Honor thy father and mother," "Thou shalt not kill," "Thou
shalt not steal." Formerly it was assumed that this similarity
was the result of borrowing between groups. When Bastian
recorded a Hawaiian myth resembling the one of Orpheus and
Eurydice, there was speculation as to how this story had been
carried so far from Greece. But it is now recognized that
similarities of culture are due, in the main, not to imitation,
but to parallel development. The nature of man is everywhere
essentially the same and tends to express itself everywhere in
similar sentiments and institutions.[251]
There are factors in social control more fundamental than the mores.
Herbert Spencer, in his chapter on "Ceremonial Government," has defined
social control from this more fundamental point of view. In that chapter
he refers to "the modified forms of action caused in men by the presence
of their fellows" as a form of control "out of which other more definite
controls are evolved." The spontaneous responses of one individual to
the presence of another which are finally fixed, conventionalized, and
transmitted as social ritual constitute that "primitive undifferentiated
kind of government from which political and religious government are
differentiated, and in which they continue immersed."
In putting this emphasis upon ceremonial and upon those forms of
behavior which spring directly and spontaneously out of the innate and
instinctive responses of the individual to a social situation, Spencer
is basing government on the springs of action which are fundamental, so
far, at any rate, as sociology is concerned.
2. Classification of the Materials
The selections on social control have been classified under three heads:
(a) elementary forms of social control, (b) public opinion, and
(c) institutions. This order of the readings indicates the development
of control from its spontaneous forms in the crowd, in ceremony,
prestige, and taboo; its more explicit expression in gossip, rumor,
news, and public opinion; to its more formal organization in law,
dogma, and in religious and political institutions. Ceremonial, public
opinion, and law are characteristic forms in which social life finds
expression as well as a means by which the actions of the individual are
co-ordinated and collective impulses are organized so that they issue in
behavior, that is, either (a) primarily expressive--play, for
example--or (b) positive action.
A very much larger part of all human behavior than we ordinarily imagine
is merely expressive. Art, play, religious exercises, and political
activity are either wholly or almost wholly forms of expression, and
have, therefore, that symbolic and ceremonial character which belongs
especially to ritual and to art, but is characteristic of every activity
carried on for its own sake. Only work, action which has some ulterior
motive or is performed from a conscious sense of duty, falls wholly and
without reservation into the second class.
a) _Elementary forms of social control._--Control in the crowd, where
rapport is once established and every individual is immediately
responsive to every other, is the most elementary form of control.
Something like this same direct and spontaneous response of the
individual in the crowd to the crowd's dominant mood or impulse may be
seen in the herd and the flock, the "animal crowd."
Under the influence of the vague sense of alarm, or merely as an effect
of heat and thirst, cattle become restless and begin slowly moving about
in circles, "milling." This milling is a sort of collective gesture, an
expression of discomfort or of fear. But the very expression of the
unrest tends to intensify its expression and so increases the tension in
the herd. This continues up to the point where some sudden sound, the
firing of a pistol or a flash of lightning, plunges the herd into a wild
stampede.
Milling in the herd is a visible image of what goes on in subtler and
less obvious ways in human societies. Alarms or discomforts frequently
provoke social unrest. The very expression of this unrest tends to
magnify it. The situation is a vicious circle. Every attempt to deal
with it merely serves to aggravate it. Such a vicious circle we
witnessed in our history from 1830 to 1861, when every attempt to deal
with slavery served only to bring the inevitable conflict between the
states nearer. Finally there transpired what had for twenty years been
visibly preparing and the war broke.
Tolstoi in his great historical romance, _War and Peace_, describes, in
a manner which no historian has equaled, the events that led up to the
Franco-Russian War of 1812, and particularly the manner in which
Napoleon, in spite of his efforts to avoid it, was driven by social
forces over which he had no control to declare war on Russia, and so
bring about his own downfall.
The condition under which France was forced by Bismarck to declare war
on Prussia in 1870, and the circumstances under which Austria declared
war on Serbia in 1914 and so brought on the world-war, exhibit the same
fatal circle. In both cases, given the situation, the preparations that
had been made, the resolutions formed and the agreements entered into,
it seems clear that after a certain point had been reached every move
was forced.
This is the most fundamental and elementary form of control. It is the
control exercised by the mere play of elemental forces. These forces
may, to a certain extent, be manipulated, as is true of other natural
forces; but within certain limits, human nature being what it is, the
issue is fatally determined, just as, given the circumstances and the
nature of cattle, a stampede is inevitable. Historical crises are
invariably created by processes which, looked at abstractly, are very
much like milling in a herd. The vicious circle is the so-called
"psychological factor" in financial depressions and panics and is,
indeed, a factor in all collective action.
The effect of this circular form of interaction is to increase the
tensions in the group and, by creating a state of expectancy, to
mobilize its members for collective action. It is like the attention in
the individual: it is the way in which the group prepares to act.
Back of every other form of control--ceremonial, public opinion, or
law--there is always this interaction of the elementary social forces.
What we ordinarily mean by social control, however, is the arbitrary
intervention of some individual--official, functionary, or leader--in
the social process. A policeman arrests a criminal, an attorney sways
the jury with his eloquence, the judge passes sentence; these are the
familiar formal acts in which social control manifests itself. What
makes the control exercised in this way social, in the strict sense of
that term, is the fact that these acts are supported by custom, law, and
public opinion.
The distinction between control in the crowd and in other forms of
society is that the crowd has no tradition. It has no point of reference
in its own past to which its members can refer for guidance. It has
therefore neither symbols, ceremonies, rites, nor ritual; it imposes no
obligations and creates no loyalties.
Ceremonial is one method of reviving in the group a lively sense of the
past. It is a method of reinstating the excitements and the sentiments
which inspired an earlier collective action. The savage war dance is a
dramatic representation of battle and as such serves to rouse and
reawaken the warlike spirit. This is one way in which ceremonial becomes
a means of control. By reviving the memories of an earlier war, it
mobilizes the warriors for a new one.
Ernst Grosse, in _The Beginnings of Art_, has stated succinctly what has
impressed all first-hand observers, namely, the important rôle which the
dance plays in the lives of primitive peoples.
The dances of the hunting peoples are, as a rule, mass dances.
Generally the men of the tribe, not rarely the members of
several tribes, join in the exercises, and the whole assemblage
then moves according to one law in one time. All who have
described the dances have referred again and again to this
"wonderful" unison of the movements. In the heat of the dance
the several participants are fused together as into a single
being, which is stirred and moved as by one feeling. During the
dance they are in a condition of complete social unification,
and the dancing group feels and acts like a single organism.
_The social significance of the primitive dance lies precisely
in this effect of social unification._ It brings and accustoms
a number of men who, in their loose and precarious conditions
of life, are driven irregularly hither and thither by different
individual needs and desires, to act under one impulse with one
feeling for one object. It introduces order and connection, at
least occasionally, into the rambling, fluctuating life of the
hunting tribes. It is, besides wars, perhaps the only factor
that makes their solidarity vitally perceptible to the
adherents of a primitive tribe, and it is at the same time one
of the best preparations for war, for the gymnastic dances
correspond in more than one respect to our military exercises.
It would be hard to overestimate the importance of the
primitive dance in the culture development of mankind. All
higher civilization is conditioned upon the uniformly ordered
co-operation of individual social elements, and primitive men
are trained to this co-operation by the dance.[252]
The dance, which is so characteristic and so universal a feature of the
life of primitive man--at once a mode of collective expression and of
collective representation--is but a conventionalized form of the
circular reaction, which in its most primitive form is represented by
the milling of the herd.
b) _Public opinion._--We ordinarily think of public opinion as a sort
of social weather. At certain times, and under certain circumstances, we
observe strong, steady currents of opinion, moving apparently in a
definite direction and toward a definite goal. At other times, however,
we note flurries and eddies and counter-currents in this movement. Every
now and then there are storms, shifts, or dead calms. These sudden
shifts in public opinion, when expressed in terms of votes, are referred
to by the politicians as "landslides."
In all these movements, cross-currents and changes in direction which a
closer observation of public opinion reveals, it is always possible to
discern, but on a much grander scale, to be sure, that same type of
circular reaction which we have found elsewhere, whenever the group was
preparing to act. Always in the public, as in the crowd, there will be a
circle, sometimes wider, sometimes narrower, within which individuals
are mutually responsive to motives and interests of one another, so that
out of this interplay of social forces there may emerge at any time a
common motive and a common purpose that will dominate the whole.
Within the circle of the mutual influence described, there will be no
such complete rapport and no such complete domination of the individual
by the group as exists in a herd or a crowd in a state of excitement,
but there will be sufficient community of interest to insure a common
understanding. A public is, in fact, organized on the basis of a
universe of discourse, and within the limits of this universe of
discourse, language, statements of fact, news will have, for all
practical purposes, the same meanings. It is this circle of mutual
influence within which there is a universe of discourse that defines the
limits of the public.
A public like the crowd is not to be conceived as a formal organization
like a parliament or even a public meeting. It is always the widest area
over which there is conscious participation and consensus in the
formation of public opinion. The public has not only a circumference,
but it has a center. Within the area within which there is
participation and consensus there is always a focus of attention around
which the opinions of the individuals which compose the public seem to
revolve. This focus of attention, under ordinary circumstances, is
constantly shifting. The shifts of attention of the public constitute
what is meant by the changes in public opinion. When these changes take
a definite direction and have or seem to have a definite goal, we call
the phenomenon a social movement. If it were possible to plot this
movement in the form of maps and graphs, it would be possible to show
movement in two dimensions. There would be, for example, a movement in
space. The focus of public opinion, the point namely at which there is
the greatest "intensity" of opinion, tends to move from one part of the
country to another.[253] In America these movements, for reasons that
could perhaps be explained historically, are likely to be along the
meridians, east and west, rather than north and south. In the course of
this geographical movement of public opinion, however, we are likely to
observe changes in intensity and changes in direction (devagation).
Changes in intensity seem to be in direct proportion to the
area over which opinion on a given issue may be said to exist.
In minorities opinion is uniformly more intense than it is in
majorities and this is what gives minorities so much greater
influence in proportion to their numbers than majorities. While
changes in intensity have a definite relation to the area over
which public opinion on an issue may be said to exist, the
devagations of public opinion, as distinguished from the trend,
will probably turn out to have a direct relation to the
character of the parties that participate. Area as applied to
public opinion will have to be measured eventually in terms of
social rather than geographical distance, that is to say, in
terms of isolation and contact. The factor of numbers is also
involved in any such calculation. Geographical area,
communication, and the number of persons involved are in
general the factors that would determine the concept "area" as
it is used here. If party spirit is strong the general
direction or trend of public opinion will probably be
intersected by shifts and sudden transient changes in
direction, and these shifts will be in proportion to the
intensity of the party spirit. Charles E. Merriam's recent
study of political parties indicates that the minority parties
formulate most of the legislation in the United States.[254]
This is because there is not very great divergence in the
policies of the two great parties and party struggles are
fought out on irrelevant issues. So far as this is true it
insures against any sudden change in policy. New legislation is
adopted in response to the trend of public opinion, rather than
in response to the devagations and sudden shifts brought about
by the development of a radical party spirit.
All these phenomena may be observed, for example, in the Prohibition
Movement. Dicey's study of _Law and Public Opinion in England_ showed
that while the direction of opinion in regard to specific issues had
been very irregular, on the whole the movement had been in one general
direction. The trend of public opinion is the name we give to this
general movement. In defining the trend, shifts, cross-currents, and
flurries are not considered. When we speak of the tendency or direction
of public opinion we usually mean the trend over a definite period of
time.
When the focus of public attention ceases to move and shift, when it is
fixed, the circle which defines the limits of the public is narrowed. As
the circle narrows, opinion itself becomes more intense and
concentrated. This is the phenomenon of crisis. It is at this point that
the herd stampedes.
The effect of crisis is invariably to increase the dangers of
precipitate action. The most trivial incident, in such periods of
tension, may plunge a community into irretrievable disaster. It is under
conditions of crisis that dictatorships are at once possible and
necessary, not merely to enable the community to act energetically, but
in order to protect the community from the mere play of external forces.
The manner in which Bismarck, by a slight modification of the famous
telegram of Ems, provoked a crisis in France and compelled Napoleon III,
against his judgment and that of his advisers, to declare war on
Germany, is an illustration of this danger.[255]
It is this narrowing of the area over which a definite public opinion
may be said to exist that at once creates the possibility and defines
the limits of arbitrary control, so far as it is created or determined
by the existence of public opinion.
Thus far the public has been described almost wholly in terms that could
be applied to a crowd. The public has been frequently described as if it
were simply a great crowd, a crowd scattered as widely as news will
circulate and still be news.[256] But there is this difference. In the
heat and excitement of the crowd, as in the choral dances of primitive
people, there is for the moment what may be described as complete fusion
of the social forces. Rapport has, for the time being, made the crowd,
in a peculiarly intimate way, a social unit.
No such unity exists in the public. The sentiment and tendencies which
we call public opinion are never unqualified expressions of emotion. The
difference is that public opinion is determined by conflict and
discussion, and made up of the opinions of individuals not wholly at
one. In any conflict situation, where party spirit is aroused, the
spectators, who constitute the public, are bound to take sides. The
impulse to take sides is, in fact, in direct proportion to the
excitement and party spirit displayed. The result is, however, that both
sides of an issue get considered. Certain contentions are rejected
because they will not stand criticism. Public opinion formed in this way
has the character of a judgment, rather than a mere unmeditated
expression of emotion, as in the crowd. The public is never ecstatic. It
is always more or less rational. It is this fact of conflict, in the
form of discussion, that introduces into the control exercised by public
opinion the elements of rationality and of fact.
In the final judgment of the public upon a conflict or an issue, we
expect, to be sure, some sort of unanimity of judgment, but in the
general consensus there will be some individual differences of opinion
still unmediated, or only partially so, and final agreement of the
public will be more or less qualified by all the different opinions that
co-operated to form its judgment.
In the materials which follow a distinction is made between public
opinion and the mores, and this distinction is important. Custom and the
folkways, like habit in the individual, may be regarded as a mere
residuum of past practices. When folkways assume the character of mores,
they are no longer merely matters of fact and common sense, they are
judgments upon matters which were probably once live issues and as such
they may be regarded as the products of public opinion.
Ritual, religious or social, is probably the crystallization of forms of
behavior which, like the choral dance, are the direct expression of the
emotions and the instincts. The mores, on the other hand, in so far as
they contain a rational element, are the accumulations, the residuum,
not only of past practices, but of judgments such as find expression in
public opinion. The mores, as thus conceived, are the judgments of
public opinion in regard to issues that have been settled and forgotten.
L. T. Hobhouse, in his volume, _Morals in Evolution_, has described, in
a convincing way, the process by which, as he conceives it, custom is
modified and grows under the influence of the personal judgments of
individuals and of the public. Public opinion, as he defines it, is
simply the combined and sublimated judgments of individuals.
Most of these judgments are, to be sure, merely the repetition of old
formulas. But occasionally, when the subject of discussion touches us
more deeply, when it touches upon some matter in which we have had a
deeper and more intimate experience, the ordinary patter that passes as
public opinion is dissipated and we originate a moral judgment that not
only differs from, but is in conflict with, the prevailing opinion. In
that case "we become, as it were, centers from which judgments of one
kind or another radiate and from which they pass forth to fill the
atmosphere of opinion and take their place among the influences that
mould the judgments of men."
The manner in which public opinion issues from the interaction of
individuals, and moral judgments are formed that eventually become the
basis of law, may be gathered from the way in which the process goes on
in the daily life about us.
No sooner has the judgment escaped us--a winged word from our
own lips--than it impinges on the judgment similarly flying
forth to do its work from our next-door neighbor, and if the
subject is an exciting one the air is soon full of the winged
forces clashing, deflecting or reinforcing one another as the
case may be, and generally settling down toward some
preponderating opinion which is society's judgment on the case.
But in the course of the conflict many of the original
judgments are modified. Discussion, further consideration,
above all, the mere influence of our neighbour's opinion reacts
on each of us, with a stress that is proportioned to various
mental and moral characteristics of our own, our clearness of
vision, our firmness, or, perhaps, obstinacy of character, our
self-confidence, and so forth. Thus, the controversy will tend
to leave its mark, small or great, on those who took part in
it. It will tend to modify their modes of judgment, confirming
one, perhaps, in his former ways, shaping the confidence of
another, opening the eyes of a third. Similarly, it will tend
to set a precedent for future judgments. It will affect what
men say and think on the next question that turns up. It adds
its weight, of one grain it may be, to some force that is
turning the scale of opinion and preparing society for some new
departure. In any case, we have here in miniature at work every
day before our eyes the essential process by which moral
judgments arise and grow.[257]
c) _Institutions._--An institution, according to Sumner, consists of a
concept and a structure. The concept defines the purpose, interest, or
function of the institution. The structure embodies the idea of the
institution and furnishes the instrumentalities through which the idea
is put into action. The process by which purposes, whether they are
individual or collective, are embodied in structures is a continuous
one. But the structures thus formed are not physical, at least not
entirely so. Structure, in the sense that Sumner uses the term, belongs,
as he says, to a category of its own. "It is a category in which custom
produces continuity, coherence, and consistency, so that the word
'structure' may properly be applied to the fabric of relations and
prescribed positions with which functions are permanently connected."
Just as every individual member of a community participates in the
process by which custom and public opinion are made, so also he
participates in the creation of the structure, that "cake of custom"
which, when it embodies a definite social function, we call an
institution.
Institutions may be created just as laws are enacted, but only when a
social situation exists to which they correspond will they become
operative and effective. Institutions, like laws, rest upon the mores
and are supported by public opinion. Otherwise they remain mere paper
projects or artefacts that perform no real function. History records the
efforts of conquering peoples to impose upon the conquered their own
laws and institutions. The efforts are instructive, but not encouraging.
The most striking modern instance is the effort of King Leopold of
Belgium to introduce civilization into the Congo Free State.[258]
Law, like public opinion, owes its rational and secular character to the
fact that it arose out of an effort to compromise conflict and to
interpret matters which were in dispute.
To seek vengeance for a wrong committed was a natural impulse, and the
recognition of this fact in custom established it not merely as a right
but as a duty. War, the modern form of trial by battle, the vendetta,
and the duel are examples that have survived down to modern times of
this natural and primitive method of settling disputes.
In all these forms of conflict custom and the mores have tended to limit
the issues and define the conditions under which disputes might be
settled by force. At the same time public opinion, in passing judgment
on the issues, exercised a positive influence on the outcome of the
struggle.
Gradually, as men realized the losses which conflicts incurred, the
community has intervened to prevent them. At a time when the blood feud
was still sanctioned by the mores, cities of refuge and sanctuaries were
established to which one who had incurred a blood feud might flee until
his case could be investigated. If it then appeared that the wrong
committed had been unintentional or if there were other mitigating
circumstances, he might find in the sanctuary protection. Otherwise, if
a crime had been committed in cold blood, "lying in wait," or "in
enmity," as the ancient Jewish law books called it, he might be put to
death by the avenger of blood, "when he meeteth him."[259]
Thus, gradually, the principle became established that the community
might intervene, not merely to insure that vengeance was executed in due
form, but to determine the facts, and thus courts which determined by
legal process the guilt or innocence of the accused were established.
It does not appear that courts of justice were ever set up within the
kinship group for the trial of offenses, although efforts were made
there first of all, by the elders and the headmen, to compromise
quarrels and compose differences.
Courts first came into existence, the evidence indicates, when society
was organized over wider areas and after some authority had been
established outside of the local community. As society was organized
over a wider territory, control was extended to ever wider areas of
human life until we have at present a program for international courts
with power to intervene between nations to prevent wars.[260]
Society, like the individual man, moves and acts under the influence of
a multitude of minor impulses and tendencies which mutually interact to
produce a more general tendency which then dominates all the individuals
of the group. This explains the fact that a group, even a mere casual
collection of individuals like a crowd, is enabled to act more or less
as a unit. The crowd acts under the influence of such a dominant
tendency, unreflectively, without definite reference to a past or a
future. The crowd has no past and no future. The public introduces into
this vortex of impulses the factor of reflection. The public presupposes
the existence of a common impulse such as manifests itself in the crowd,
but it presupposes, also, the existence of individuals and groups of
individuals representing divergent tendencies. These individuals
interact upon one another _critically_. The public is, what the crowd is
not, a discussion group. The very existence of discussion presupposes
objective standards of truth and of fact. The action of the public is
based on a universe of discourse in which things, although they may and
do have for every individual somewhat different value, are describable
at any rate in terms that mean the same to all individuals. The public,
in other words, moves in an objective and intelligible world.
Law is based on custom. Custom is group habit. As the group acts it
creates custom. There is implicit in custom a conception and a rule of
action, which is regarded as right and proper in the circumstances. Law
makes this rule of action explicit. Law grows up, however, out of a
distinction between this rule of action and the facts. Custom is bound
up with the facts under which the custom grew up. Law is the result of
an effort to frame the rule of action implicit in custom in such general
terms that it can be made to apply to new situations, involving new sets
of facts. This distinction between the law and the facts did not exist
in primitive society. The evolution of law and jurisprudence has been in
the direction of an increasingly clearer recognition of this distinction
between law and the facts. This has meant in practice an increasing
recognition by the courts of the facts, and a disposition to act in
accordance with them. The present disposition of courts, as, for
example, the juvenile courts, to call to their assistance experts to
examine the mental condition of children who are brought before them and
to secure the assistance of juvenile-court officers to advise and assist
them in the enforcement of the law, is an illustration of an increasing
disposition to take account of the facts.
The increasing interest in the natural history of the law and of legal
institutions, and the increasing disposition to interpret it in
sociological terms, from the point of view of its function, is another
evidence of the same tendency.
II. MATERIALS
A. ELEMENTARY FORMS OF SOCIAL CONTROL
1. Control in the Crowd and the Public[261]
In August, 1914, I was a cowboy on a ranch in the interior of British
Columbia. How good a cowboy I would not undertake to say, because if
there were any errands off the ranch the foreman seemed better able to
spare me for them than anyone else in the outfit.
One ambition, and one only, possessed me in those days. And it was not
to own the ranch! All in the world I wanted was to accumulate money
enough to carry me to San Francisco when the Panama exposition opened in
the autumn. After that I didn't care. It would be time enough to worry
about another job when I had seen the fair.
Ordinarily I was riding the range five days in the week. Saturdays I was
sent on a 35-mile round trip for the mail. It was the most delightful
day of them all for me. The trail lay down the valley of the Fraser and
although I had been riding it for months it still wove a spell over me
that never could be broken. Slipping rapidly by as though escaping to
the sea from the grasp of the hills that hemmed it in on all sides, the
river always fascinated me. It was new every time I reached its edge.
An early Saturday morning in August found me jogging slowly along the
trail to Dog Creek. Dog Creek was our post-office and trading-center.
This morning, however, my mind was less on the beauties of the Fraser
than on the Dog Creek hotel. Every week I had my dinner there before
starting in mid-afternoon on my return to the ranch, and this day had
succeeded one of misunderstanding with "Cookie" wherein all the boys of
our outfit had come off second-best. I was hungry and that dinner at the
hotel was going to taste mighty good. Out there on the range we had
heard rumors of a war in Europe. We all talked it over in the evening
and decided it was another one of those fights that were always starting
in the Balkans. One had just been finished a few months before and we
thought it was about time another was under way, so we gave the matter
no particular thought. But when I got within sight of Dog Creek I knew
something was up. The first thing I heard was that somebody had
retreated from Mons and that the Germans were chasing them. So, the
Germans were fighting anyway. Then a big Indian came up to me as I was
getting off my pony and told me England's big white chief was going to
war, or had gone, he wasn't certain which, but he was going too. Would
I?
I laughed at him. "What do you mean, go to war?" I asked him.
I wasn't English; I wasn't Canadian. I was from the good old U.S.A. and
from all we could understand the States were neutral. So, I reasoned, I
ought to be neutral too, and I went in to see what there might be to
eat.
There was plenty of excitement in the dining-room. Under its influence I
began to look at the thing in a different light. While I was an alien, I
had lived in Canada. I had enjoyed her hospitality. Much of my education
was acquired in a Canadian school. Canadians were among my dearest
friends. Some of these very fellows, there in Dog Creek, were "going
down" to enlist.
All the afternoon we argued about it. Politics, economics, diplomacy;
none of them entered into the question. In fact we hadn't the faintest
idea what the war was all about. Our discussion hinged solely on what
we, personally, ought to do. England was at war. She had sent out a call
to all the Empire for men; for help. Dog Creek heard and was going to
answer that call. Even if I were an alien I had been in that district
for more than a year and I owed it to Dog Creek and the district to join
up with the rest. By that time I wanted to go. I was crazy to go! It
would be great to see London and maybe Paris and some of the other
famous old towns--if the war lasted long enough for us to get over
there. I began to bubble over with enthusiasm, just thinking about it.
So I made an appointment with some of the boys for the next evening,
rode back to the ranch and threw the mail and my job at the foreman.
A week later we were in Vancouver. Then things began to get plainer--to
some of the fellows. We heard of broken treaties, "scraps of paper,"
"Kultur," the rights of nations, big and small, "freedom of the seas,"
and other phrases that meant less than nothing to most of us. It was
enough for me, then, that the country which had given me the protection
of its laws wanted to help England. I trusted the government to know
what it was doing. Before we were in town an hour we found ourselves at
a recruiting office. By the simple expedient of moving my birthplace a
few hundred miles north I became a Canadian and a member of the
expeditionary force--a big word with a big meaning. Christmas came and I
was in a well-trained battalion of troops with no more knowledge of the
war than the retreat from Mons, the battles of the Marne and the Aisne,
and an occasional newspaper report of the capture of a hundred thousand
troops here and a couple of hundred thousand casualties somewhere else.
We knew, at that rate, it couldn't possibly last until we got to the
other side, but we prayed loudly that it would. In April we heard of the
gassing of the first Canadians at Ypres. Then the casualty lists from
that field arrived and hit Vancouver with a thud. Instantly a change
came over the city. Before that day, war had been a romance, a thing far
away about which to read and over which to wave flags. It was
intangible, impersonal. It was the same attitude the States exhibited in
the autumn of '17. Then suddenly it became real. This chap and that
chap; a neighbor boy, a fellow from the next block or the next desk.
Dead! Gassed! This was war; direct, personal, where you could count the
toll among your friends. Personally, I thought that what the Germans had
done was a terrible thing and I wondered what kind of people they might
be that they could, without warning, deliver such a foul blow. In a
prize ring the Kaiser would have lost the decision then and there. We
wondered about gas and discussed it by the hour in our barracks. Some of
us, bigger fools than the rest, insisted that the German nation would
repudiate its army. But days went by and nothing of the kind occurred.
It was then I began to take my soldiering a little more seriously. If a
nation wanted to win a war so badly that it would damn its good name
forever by using means ruled by all humanity as beyond the bounds of
civilized warfare, it must have a very big object in view. And I
started--late it is true--to obtain some clue to those objects.
May found us at our port of embarkation for the voyage to England. The
news of the "Lusitania" came over the wires and that evening our convoy
steamed. For the first time, I believe, I fully realized I was a soldier
in the greatest war of all the ages.
Between poker, "blackjack," and "crown and anchor" with the crew, we
talked over the two big things that had happened in our soldier
lives--gas and the "Lusitania." And to these we later added liquid fire.
Our arguments, our logic, may have been elemental, but I insist they
struck at the root. I may sum them up thus: Germany was not using the
methods of fighting that could be countenanced by a civilized nation. As
the nation stood behind its army in all this barbarism, there must be
something inherently lacking in it despite its wonderful music, its
divine poetry, its record in the sciences. It, too, must be barbarian at
heart. We agreed that if it should win this war it would be very
uncomfortable to belong to one of the allied nations, or even to live in
the world at all, since it was certain German manners and German methods
would not improve with victory. And we, as a battalion, were ready to
take our places in France to back up our words with deeds.
A week or so later we landed in England. A marked change had come over
the men since the day we left Halifax. Then most of us regarded the
whole war, or our part in it, as more or less of a lark. On landing we
were still for a lark, but something else had come into our
consciousness. We were soldiers fighting for a cause--a cause clear cut
and well defined--the saving of the world from a militarily mad country
without a conscience. At our camp in England we saw those boys of the
first division who had stood in their trenches in front of Ypres one
bright April morning and watched with great curiosity a peculiar looking
bank of fog roll toward them from the enemy's line. It rolled into their
trenches, and in a second those men were choking and gasping for breath.
Their lungs filled with the rotten stuff, and they were dying by dozens
in the most terrible agony, beating off even as they died a part of the
"brave" Prussian army as it came up behind those gas clouds; came up
with gas masks on and bayonets dripping with the blood of men lying on
the ground fighting, true, but for breath. A great army, that Prussian
army! And what a "glorious" victory! Truly should the Hun be proud! So
far as I am concerned, Germany did not lose the war at the battle of the
Marne, at the Aisne, or at the Yser. She lost it there at Ypres, on
April 22, 1915. It is no exaggeration when I say our eagerness to work,
to complete our training, to learn how to kill, so we could take our
places in the line, and help fight off those mad people, grew by the
hour. _They_ stiffened our backs and made us fighting mad. We saw what
they had done to our boys from Canada; they and their gas. The effect on
our battalion was the effect on the whole army, and, I am quite sure, on
the rest of the world. They put themselves beyond the pale. They
compelled the world to look on them as mad dogs, and to treat them as
mad dogs. We trained in England until August, when we went to France. To
all outward appearances we were still happy, carefree soldiers, all out
for a good time. We were happy! We were happy we were there, and down
deep there was solid satisfaction, not on account of the
different-colored books that were issuing from every chancellory in
Europe, but from a feeling rooted in white men's hearts, backed by the
knowledge of Germany's conduct, that we were there in a righteous cause.
Our second stop in our march toward the line was a little village which
had been occupied by the Boches in their mad dash toward Paris. Our
billet was a farm just on the edge of the village. The housewife
permitted us in her kitchen to do our cooking, at the same time selling
us coffee. We stayed there two or three days and became quite friendly
with her, even if she did scold us for our muddy boots. Two pretty
little kiddies played around the house, got in the way, were scolded and
spanked and in the next instant loved to death by Madame. Then she would
parade them before a picture of a clean-cut looking Frenchman in the
uniform of the army, and say something about "après la guerre." In a
little crib to one side of the room was a tiny baby, neglected by
Madame, except that she bathed and fed it. The neglect was so pronounced
that our curiosity was aroused. The explanation came through the
_estaminet_ gossip, and later from Madame herself. A Hun captain of
cavalry had stayed there a few days in August, '14, and not only had he
allowed his detachment full license in the village, but had abused his
position in the house in the accustomed manner of his bestial class. As
Madame told us her story; how her husband had rushed off to his unit
with the first call for reserves, leaving her alone with two children,
and how the blond beast had come, our fists clenched and we boiled with
rage. That is German war! but it is not all. What will be the stories
that come out of what is now occupied France? This Frenchwoman's story
was new to us then, but, like other things in the war, as we moved
through the country it became common enough, with here and there a
revolting detail more horrible than anything we had heard before.
Now and then Germany expresses astonishment at the persistence of the
British and the French. They are a funny people, the Germans. There are
so many things they do not, perhaps cannot, understand. They never could
understand why Americans, such as myself, who enlisted in a spirit of
adventure, and with not a single thought on the justice of the cause,
could experience such a marked change of feeling as to regard this
conflict as the most holy crusade in which a man could engage. It is a
holy crusade! Never in the history of the world was the cause of right
more certainly on the side of an army than it is today on the side of
the allies: We who have been through the furnace of France know this. I
only say what every other American who has been fighting under an alien
flag said when our country came in: "Thank God we have done it. Some
boy, Wilson, believe me!"
2. Ceremonial Control[262]
If, disregarding conduct that is entirely private, we consider only that
species of conduct which involves direct relations with other persons;
and if under the name government we include all control of conduct,
however arising; then we must say that the earliest kind of government,
the most general kind of government, and the government which is ever
spontaneously recommencing, is the government of ceremonial observance.
This kind of government, besides preceding other kinds, and besides
having in all places and times approached nearer to universality of
influence, has ever had, and continues to have, the largest share in
regulating men's lives.
Proof that the modifications of conduct called "manners" and "behavior"
arise before those which political and religious restraints cause is
yielded by the fact that, besides preceding social evolution, they
precede human evolution: they are traceable among the higher animals.
The dog afraid of being beaten comes crawling up to his master clearly
manifesting the desire to show submission. Nor is it solely to human
beings that dogs use such propitiatory actions. They do the like one to
another. All have occasionally seen how, on the approach of some
formidable Newfoundland or mastiff, a small spaniel, in the extremity of
its terror, throws itself on its back with legs in the air. Clearly
then, besides certain modes of behavior expressing affection, which are
established still earlier in creatures lower than man, there are
established certain modes of behavior expressing subjection.
After recognizing this fact, we shall be prepared to recognize the fact
that daily intercourse among the lowest savages, whose small loose
groups, scarcely to be called social, are without political or religious
regulation, is under a considerable amount of ceremonial regulation. No
ruling agency beyond that arising from personal superiority
characterizes a horde of Australians; but every such horde has
imperative observances. Strangers meeting must remain some time silent;
a mile from an encampment approach has to be heralded by loud _cooeys_;
a green bough is used as an emblem of peace; and brotherly feeling is
indicated by exchange of names. Ceremonial control is highly developed
in many places where other forms of control are but rudimentary. The
wild Comanche "exacts the observance of his rules of etiquette from
strangers," and "is greatly offended" by any breach of them. When
Araucanians meet, the inquiries, felicitations, and condolences which
custom demands are so elaborate that "the formality occupies ten or
fifteen minutes."
That ceremonial restraint, preceding other forms of restraint, continues
ever to be the most widely diffused form of restraint we are shown by
such facts as that in all intercourse between members of each society,
the decisively governmental actions are usually prefaced by this
government of observances. The embassy may fail, negotiation may be
brought to a close by war, coercion of one society by another may set up
wider political rule with its peremptory commands; but there is
habitually this more general and vague regulation of conduct preceding
the more special and definite. So within a community acts of relatively
stringent control coming from ruling agencies, civil and religious,
begin with and are qualified by this ceremonial control which not only
initiates but in a sense envelops all other. Functionaries,
ecclesiastical and political, coercive as their proceedings may be,
conform them in large measure to the requirements of courtesy. The
priest, however arrogant his assumption, makes a civil salute; and the
officer of the law performs his duty subject to certain propitiatory
words and movements.
Yet another indication of primordialism may be named. This species of
control establishes itself anew with every fresh relation among
individuals. Even between intimates greetings signifying continuance of
respect begin each renewal of intercourse. And in the presence of a
stranger, say in a railway carriage, a certain self-restraint, joined
with some small act like the offer of a newspaper, shows the spontaneous
rise of a propitiatory behavior such as even the rudest of mankind are
not without. So that the modified forms of action caused in men by the
presence of their fellows constitute that comparatively vague control
out of which other more definite controls are evolved--the primitive
undifferentiated kind of government from which the political and
religious governments are differentiated, and in which they ever
continue immersed.
3. Prestige[263]
Originally _prestige_--here, too, etymology proves to be an _enfant
terrible_--means delusion. It is derived from the Latin _praestigiae_
(_-arum_)--though it is found in the forms _praestigia_ (_-ae_) and
_praestigium_ (_-ii_) too: the juggler himself (dice-player,
rope-walker, "strong man," etc.) was called _praestigiator_ (_-oris_).
Latin authors and mediaeval writers of glossaries took the word to mean
"deceptive juggling tricks," and, as far as we know, did not use it in
its present signification. The _praestigiator_ threw dice or put coins
on a table, then passed them into a small vessel or box, moved the
latter about quickly and adroitly, till finally, when you thought they
were in a certain place, the coins turned up somewhere else: "The
looker-on is deceived by such innocent tricks, being often inclined to
presume the sleight of hand to be nothing more or less than magic art."
The practice of French writers in the oldest times was, so far as we
have been able to discover, to use the word _prestige_ at first in the
signification above assigned to the Latin "praestigiae" (_prestige_,
_prestigiateur_, _-trice_, _prestigieux_). The use of the word was not
restricted to the prestige of prophets, conjurers, demons, but was
transferred by analogy to delusions the cause of which is not regarded
any longer as supernatural. Diderot actually makes mention of the
prestige of harmony. The word "prestige" became transfigured, ennobled,
and writers and orators refined it so as to make it applicable to
analogies of the remotest character. Rousseau refers to the prestige of
our passions, which dazzles the intellect and deceives wisdom. Prestige
is the name continually given to every kind of spell, the effect of
which reminds us of "prestige" ("cet homme exerce une influence que
rassemble à une prestige"--Littre), and to all magic charms and
attractive power which is capable of dulling the intellect while it
enhances sensation. We may read of the prestige of fame, of the power
which, in default of prestige, is brute force; in 1869 numberless
placards proclaimed through the length and breadth of Paris that
Bourbeau, Minister of Public Instruction, though reputed to be a
splendid lawyer, "lacked prestige"--"Bourbeau manque de prestige." The
English and German languages make use of the word in the latter meaning
as opposed to the imaginary virtue of the conjurer; the same
signification is applied, generally speaking, to the Italian and Spanish
_prestigio_, only that the Italian _prestigiáo_ and the Spanish
_prestigiador_, just like the French _prestigiateur_, have, as opposed
to the more recent meaning, kept the older significance; neither of them
means anything more or less than conjurer or juggler.
The market clown, the rope-walker, the sword-swallower, the reciter of
long poems, the clever manipulator who defies imitation--all possess
prestige: but on the other hand, prestige surrounds demoniacal spells,
wizardry, and all effectiveness not comprehensible by logic.
We state something of someone when we say that he possesses prestige;
but our statement is not clear, and the predicate cannot be
distinguished from the subject. Of what is analysable, well-known,
commonplace, or what we succeed in understanding thoroughly, in
attaining or imitating, we do not say that it possesses prestige.
What is the relation between _prestige_ and _prejudice_? When what is
unintelligible, or mysterious, is at one time received with enthusiasm,
at another with indignation, _what renders necessary these two extreme
sentiments of appreciation_ which, though appearing under apparently
identical circumstances, are diametrically opposed to one another?
The most general form of social prejudice is that of race. A _foreigner_
is received with prejudice, conception, or prestige. If we put
"conception" aside, we find prejudice and prestige facing one another.
We see this split most clearly demonstrated if we observe the
differences of conduct in the reception of strangers by primitive
peoples. In Yrjö Hirn's _Origins of Art_ we are told that those
travellers who have learned the tongues of savages have often observed
that their persons were made the subjects of extemporized poems by the
respective savages. Sometimes these verses are of a derisive character;
at other times they glorify the white man. When do they deride, when
glorify?
Where strong prejudice values are present, as in the case of Negroes,
every conception of equality and nationalism incorporated in the
statute-book is perverted. All that _appears_ permanently divergent is
made the subject of damnatory prejudice; and the more apparent and
seeming, the more primitive the impression that restrains, the more
general the prejudice; smell affects more keenly than form, and form
more than mode of thought. If a member of a nation is not typical, but
exercises an exclusive, personal impression on us, he possesses
prestige; if he is typical, he is indifferent to us, or we look down
upon him and consider him comical. To sum up: the stranger whom we feel
to be divergent as compared with ourselves is indifferent or the object
of prejudice; the stranger whom we feel ourselves unable to measure by
our own standard, whose measure--not his qualities--we feel to be
different, we receive with prestige. We look with prejudice on the
stranger whom we dissociate, and receive with prestige the stranger who
is dissociated.
Even in the animal world we come across individuals consistently treated
with deference, of which, in his work on the psychical world of animals,
Perty has plenty to tell us: "Even in the animal world," he says, "there
are certain eminent individuals, which in comparison with the other
members of their species show a superiority of capability, brain power,
and force of will, and obtain a _predominance_ over the other animals."
Cuvier observed the same in the case of a buck which had only one horn;
Grant tells us of a certain ourang-outang which got the upper hand of
the rest of the monkeys and often threatened them with the stick; from
Naumann we hear of a clever crane which ruled over all the domestic
animals and quickly settled any quarrels that arose among them. Far more
important than these somewhat obscure observations is the peculiar
social mechanism of the animal world to be found in the mechanical
following of the leaders of flocks and herds. But this obedience is so
conspicuously instinctive, so genuine, and so little varying in
substance and intensity, that it can hardly be identified with prestige.
Bees are strong royalists; but the extent to which their selection of a
queen is instinctive and strictly exclusive is proved by the fact that
the smell of a strange queen forced on them makes them hate her; they
kill her or torture her--though the same working bees prefer to die of
hunger rather than allow their own queen to starve.
Things are radically changed when animals are brought face to face with
man. Some animals sympathize with men, and like to take part in their
hunting and fighting, as the dog and the horse; others subject
themselves as a result of force. Consequently men have succeeded in
_domesticating_ a number of species of animals. It is here that we find
the first traces, in the animal world, of phenomena, reactions of
conduct in the course of development, which, to a certain extent, remind
us of the reception of prestige. The behaviour of a dog, says Darwin,
which returns to its master after being absent--or the conduct of a
monkey, when it returns to its beloved keeper--_is far different from
what these animals display towards beings of the same order as
themselves_. In the latter case the expressions of joy seem to be
somewhat less demonstrative, and all their actions evince a feeling of
equality. Even Professor Braubach declares that _a dog looks upon its
master as a divine person_. Brehm gives us a description of the tender
respect shown towards his children by a chimpanzee that had been brought
to his home and domesticated. "When we first introduced my little
six-weeks-old daughter to him," he says, "at first he regarded the child
with evident astonishment, as if desirous to convince himself of its
human character, then touched its face with one finger with remarkable
gentleness, and amiably offered to shake hands. This trifling
characteristic, which I observed in the case of all chimpanzees reared
in my house, is worthy of particular emphasis, because it seems to prove
that _our man-monkey descries and pays homage to that higher being, man,
even in the tiniest child. On the other hand, he by no means shows any
such friendly feelings towards creatures like himself--not even towards
little ones_."
In every stage of the development of savage peoples we come across
classical examples of mock kings--of the "primus inter pares," "duces ex
virtute," _not_ "ex nobilitate reges"--of rational and valued leaders.
The savages of Chile elect as their chief the man who is able to carry
the trunk of a tree farthest. In other places, military prowess, command
of words, crafts, a knowledge of spells are the causal sources of the
usually extremely trifling homage due to the chieftain. "Savage hordes
in the lowest stage of civilization are organized, like troops of
monkeys, on the basis of authority. The strongest old male by virtue of
his strength acquires a certain ascendancy, which lasts as long as his
physical strength is superior to that of every other male...."
Beyond that given by nature, primitive society recognizes no other
prestige, for the society of savages lacks the subjective conditions of
prestige--settlement in large numbers and permanency. The lack of
distance compels the savage to respect only persons who hold their own
in his presence: this conspicuous clearness of the estimation of
primitive peoples is the cause that has prevailed on us to dwell so long
on this point. That the cause of this want of prestige among savages is
the lack of concentration in masses, not any esoteric peculiarity, is
proved by the profound psychological appreciation of the distances
created by nature, and still more by the expansion of tribal life into a
barbarian one. The tenfold increase of the number of a tribe renders
difficult a logical, ethical, or aesthetic selection of a leader, as
well as an intuitive control of spells and superstitions.
The dramatic _mise en scène_ of human prestige coincides with the first
appearance of this concentration in masses, and triumphs with its
triumph.
4. Prestige and Status in South East Africa[264]
In no other land under the British flag, except, perhaps, in the Far
East, certainly in none of the great self-governing colonies with which
we rank ourselves, is the position of white man _qua_ white man so high,
his status so impugnable, as in South East Africa. Differing in much
else, the race instinct binds the whites together to demand recognition
as a member of the ruling and inviolable caste, even for the poorest,
the degraded of their race. And this position connotes freedom from all
manual and menial toil; without hesitation the white man demands this
freedom, without question the black man accedes and takes up the burden,
obeying the race command of one who may be his personal inferior. It is
difficult to convey to one who has never known this distinction the way
in which the very atmosphere is charged with it in South East Africa. A
white oligarchy, every member of the race an aristocrat; a black
proletariat, every member of the race a server; the line of cleavage as
clear and deep as the colours. The less able and vigorous of our race,
thus protected, find here an ease, a comfort, a recognition to which
their personal worth would never entitle them in a homogeneous white
population.
When uncontaminated by contact with the lower forms of our civilization,
the native is courteous and polite. Even today, changed for the worse as
he is declared to be by most authorities, a European could ride or walk
alone, unarmed even with a switch, all through the locations of Natal
and Zululand, scores of miles away from the house of any white man, and
receive nothing but courteous deference from the natives. If he met, as
he certainly would, troops of young men, dressed in all their barbaric
finery, going to wedding or dance, armed with sticks and shields, full
of hot young blood, they would still stand out of the narrow path,
giving to the white man the right of way and saluting as he passed. I
have thus travelled alone all over South East Africa, among thousands of
blacks and never a white man near, and I cannot remember the natives,
even if met in scores or hundreds, ever disputing the way for a moment.
All over Africa, winding and zigzagging over hill and dale, over
grassland and through forest, from kraal to kraal, and tribe to tribe,
go the paths of the natives. In these narrow paths worn in the grass by
the feet of the passers, you could travel from Natal to Benguela and
back again to Mombasa. Only wide enough for one to travel thereon, if
opposite parties meet one must give way; cheerfully, courteously,
without cringing, often with respectful salute, does the native stand on
one side allowing the white man to pass. One accepts it without thought;
it is the expected, but if pondered upon it is suggestive of much.
5. Taboo[265]
Rules of holiness in the sense just explained, i.e., a system of
restrictions on man's arbitrary use of natural things, enforced by the
dread of supernatural penalties, are found among all primitive peoples.
It is convenient to have a distinct name for this primitive institution,
to mark it off from the later developments of the idea of holiness in
advanced religions, and for this purpose the Polynesian term "taboo"
has been selected. The field covered by taboos among savage and
half-savage races is very wide, for there is no part of life in which
the savage does not feel himself to be surrounded by mysterious agencies
and recognise the need of walking warily. Moreover all taboos do not
belong to religion proper, that is, they are not always rules of conduct
for the regulation of man's contact with deities that, when taken in the
right way, may be counted on as friendly, but rather appear in many
cases to be precautions against the approach of malignant
enemies--against contact with evil spirits and the like. Thus alongside
of taboos that exactly correspond to rules of holiness, protecting the
inviolability of idols and sanctuaries, priest and chiefs, and generally
of all persons and things pertaining to the gods and their worship, we
find another kind of taboo which in the Semitic field has its parallel
in rules of uncleanness. Women after childbirth, men who have touched a
dead body, and so forth, are temporarily taboo and separated from human
society, just as the same persons are unclean in Semitic religion. In
these cases the person under taboo is not regarded as holy, for he is
separated from approach to the sanctuary as well as from contact with
men; but his act or condition is somehow associated with supernatural
dangers, arising, according to the common savage explanation, from the
presence of formidable spirits which are shunned like an infectious
disease. In most savage societies no sharp line seems to be drawn
between the two kinds of taboo just indicated, and even in more advanced
nations the notions of holiness and uncleanness often touch. Among the
Syrians, for example, swine's flesh was taboo, but it was an open
question whether this was because the animal was holy or because it was
unclean. But though not precise, the distinction between what is holy
and what is unclean is real; in rules of holiness the motive is respect
for the gods, in rules of uncleanliness it is primarily fear of an
unknown or hostile power, though ultimately, as we see in the Levitical
legislation, the law of clean and unclean may be brought within the
sphere of divine ordinances, on the view that uncleanness is hateful to
God and must be avoided by all that have to do with Him.
The fact that all the Semites have rules of uncleanness as well as rules
of holiness, that the boundary between the two is often vague, and that
the former as well as the latter present the most startling agreement
in point of detail with savage taboos, leaves no reasonable doubt as to
the origin and ultimate relations of the idea of holiness. On the other
hand, the fact that the Semites--or at least the northern
Semites--distinguish between the holy and the unclean, marks a real
advance above savagery. All taboos are inspired by awe of the
supernatural, but there is a great moral difference between precautions
against the invasion of mysterious hostile powers and precautions
founded on respect for the prerogative of a friendly god. The former
belong to magical superstition--the barrenest of all aberrations of the
savage imagination--which, being founded only on fear, acts merely as a
bar to progress and an impediment to the free use of nature by human
energy and industry. But the restrictions on individual licence which
are due to respect for a known and friendly power allied to man, however
trivial and absurd they may appear to us in their details, contain
within them germinant principles of social progress and moral order. To
know that one has the mysterious powers of nature on one's side so long
as one acts in conformity with certain rules, gives a man strength and
courage to pursue the task of the subjugation of nature to his service.
To restrain one's individual licence, not out of slavish fear, but from
respect for a higher and beneficent power, is a moral discipline of
which the value does not altogether depend on the reasonableness of
sacred restrictions; an English schoolboy is subject to many
unreasonable taboos, which are not without value in the formation of
character. But finally, and above all, the very association of the idea
of holiness with a beneficent deity, whose own interests are bound up
with the interests of a community, makes it inevitable that the laws of
social and moral order, as well as mere external precepts of physical
observance, shall be placed under the sanction of the god of the
community. Breaches of social order are recognised as offences against
the holiness of the deity, and the development of law and morals is made
possible, at a stage when human sanctions are still wanting, or too
imperfectly administered to have much power, by the belief that the
restrictions on human licence which are necessary to social well-being
are conditions imposed by the god for the maintenance of a good
understanding between himself and his worshippers.
Various parallels between savage taboos and Semitic rules of holiness
and uncleanness will come before us from time to time; but it may be
useful to bring together at this point some detailed evidences that the
two are in their origin indistinguishable.
Holy and unclean things have this in common, that in both cases certain
restrictions lie on men's use of and contact with them, and that the
breach of these restrictions involves supernatural dangers. The
difference between the two appears, not in their relation to man's
ordinary life, but in their relation to the gods. Holy things are not
free to man, because they pertain to the gods; uncleanness is shunned,
according to the view taken in the higher Semitic religions, because it
is hateful to the god, and therefore not to be tolerated in his
sanctuary, his worshippers, or his land. But that this explanation is
not primitive can hardly be doubted when we consider that the acts that
cause uncleanness are exactly the same which among savage nations place
a man under taboo, and that these acts are often involuntary, and often
innocent, or even necessary to society. The savage, accordingly, imposes
a taboo on a woman in childbed, or during her courses, and on the man
who touches a corpse, not out of any regard for the gods, but simply
because birth and everything connected with the propagation of the
species on the one hand, and disease and death on the other, seem to him
to involve the action of superhuman agencies of a dangerous kind. If he
attempts to explain, he does so by supposing that on these occasions
spirits of deadly power are present; at all events the persons involved
seem to him to be sources of mysterious danger, which has all the
characters of an infection and may extend to other people unless due
precautions are observed. This is not scientific, but it is perfectly
intelligible, and forms the basis of a consistent system of practice;
whereas, when the rules of uncleanness are made to rest on the will of
the gods, they appear altogether arbitrary and meaningless. The affinity
of such taboos with laws of uncleanness comes out most clearly when we
observe that uncleanness is treated like a contagion, which has to be
washed away or otherwise eliminated by physical means. Take the rules
about the uncleanness produced by the carcases of vermin in Lev. 11:32
ff.; whatever they touch must be washed; the water itself is then
unclean, and can propagate the contagion; nay, if the defilement affect
an (unglazed) earthen pot, it is supposed to sink into the pores, and
cannot be washed out, so that the pot must be broken. Rules like this
have nothing in common with the spirit of Hebrew religion; they can
only be remains of a primitive superstition, like that of the savage who
shuns the blood of uncleanness, and such like things, as a supernatural
and deadly virus. The antiquity of the Hebrew taboos, for such they are,
is shown by the way in which many of them reappear in Arabia; cf. for
example Deut. 21:12, 13, with the Arabian ceremonies for removing the
impurity of widowhood. In the Arabian form the ritual is of purely
savage type; the danger to life that made it unsafe for a man to marry
the woman was transferred in the most materialistic way to an animal,
which it was believed generally died in consequence, or to a bird.
B. PUBLIC OPINION
1. The Myth[266]
There is no process by which the future can be predicted scientifically,
nor even one which enables us to discuss whether one hypothesis about it
is better than another; it has been proved by too many memorable
examples that the greatest men have committed prodigious errors in thus
desiring to make predictions about even the least distant future.