In the everyday world, in the city as we find it, what is the working
classification of ideas, the method of thought of its citizens? That
the citizens no more think of themselves as using any particular
sociological method than did M. Jourdain of talking prose does not
really matter, save that it makes our observation, both of them and it,
easier and more trustworthy.
They are speaking and thinking for the most part of [Page: 68] People
and of Affairs; much less of places. In the category of People, we
observe that individuals, self and others, and this in interest, perhaps
even more than in interests, commonly take precedence of groups.
Institutions and Government are, however, of general interest, the state
being much more prominent than is the church; the press, for many,
acting as the modern substitute for the latter. In the world of Affairs,
commerce takes precedence of industry, while sport runs hard upon both.
War, largely viewed by its distant spectators as the most vivid form of
sport, also bulks largely. Peace is not viewed as a positive ideal, but
essentially as a passive state, at best, of non-war, more generally of
latent war. Central among places are the bank, the market (in its
financial forms before the material ones). Second to these stand the
mines then the factories, etc.; and around these the fixed or floating
fortresses of defence. Of homes, that of the individual alone is
seriously considered, at most those of his friends, his "set," his
peers, but too rarely even of the street, much less the neighbourhood,
at least for their own sake, as distinguished from their reaction upon
individual and family status or comfort.
This set of views is obviously not easy of precise analysis of exact
classification. In broad outline, however, a summary may be made, and
even tabulated as follows:--