ANTHROPOLOGIC SOCIOLOGY
Additional light upon the nature of sociological thought may be secured
by consulting the anthropologists, and particularly, the students
of social origins. The last mentioned group of scholars have been
unusually successful in making valuable contributions to sociological
thought, because they have used the psychological approach.
For more than a century the anthropologists have been searching
for materials and advancing theories concerning the origin of man,
of conflict and co-operative tendencies, and of the early ideas
and institutions of the human race. They have been aided by the
investigations of the geologists and especially of the paleontologists.
The ethnographers and ethnologists have also discovered important
data. The findings of all these groups of investigators, as far as
they relate to the main thread of this book, will be here treated
essentially as a unitary contribution. There is not space to deal
specifically with the work of anthropologists, such as Tylor, Morgan,
Pitt-Rivers, Haddon, Frazer, Goldenweiser, Keane, and a number of other
prominent authorities.
Anthropological social thought will be indicated here under several
headings. As far as possible the controversial and technical theories
in anthropology will be avoided. Certain of the ideas that have been
advanced by Sumner, Westermarck, Hobhouse, Wundt, Boas, and Thomas will
receive special attention, because they are unusually pertinent to the
main theme of this volume.
1. There is common agreement among anthropologists that man is the
descendant of a branch of higher animal life, and that the creation of
man took place by a slow, evolutionary process. The slowness of this
developmental process does not necessarily lessen the mysterious or
miraculous character of it. It places the origin of the human race at
a much earlier date than was once supposed--perhaps from 200,000 to
500,000 years ago. The animal inheritance of man need not lead anyone
to deny the correlative fact that man possesses spiritual qualities not
common to the highest developed animals.[XVIII-1]
Even the psychic equipment of man can be traced in its origins to the
primates with their individual and social instincts. The instinctive
bases of human conduct are hundreds of thousands of years old. They are
so intrinsically a part of human nature that no discussion of current
social problems will neglect the imperiousness of the ancient instinct
heritage of the human race.
2. There is extensive anthropologic evidence that mankind had a
common origin. The remains of the earliest human beings are found
in a region which extends through India from Java to England. From
these geographic centers primitive man seems to have migrated in
various directions--northeast, southwest, and finally to the Western
Hemisphere. Different climatic and environmental conditions affected
the migrating groups in different ways. Those who migrated into the
tropical regions were retarded because of the enervating climatic
factors. Those who reached the frigid zone were also retarded, or
subjected to recidivism for a different reason--a harshness of living
conditions and an excess of environmental obstacles. The north
temperate zone with its fertile lands and its invigorating climate
afforded the proper _milieu_ for the development of the race.
3. An important question relates to the alleged potential equality of
all races. The common origin of races is admitted, but the question
remains open whether, for example, the African races possess the same
innate mental abilities as the Caucasian races. The controversy here
is sharply drawn between the environmentalists and the eugenists. Each
side of the debate has collected a large body of evidence. In reality,
the question apparently boils down to this: Have the many centuries of
living under the enervating torrid zone conditions effected the African
races so deeply that under favorable cultural circumstances they have
become incapable of developing beyond a certain mental level which
is lower than that attained by the Caucasian races? In the past the
answer to this question has been a strong affirmative. The bulk of the
evidence that has been collected in recent years indicates that the
affirmative answer is incorrect.
4. It is becoming clear that every race is a composite of several
races. Ethnological data show that the five grand divisions of the
human race may be subdivided into racial stocks, and into races and
sub-races, until more than 600 races may be described; and furthermore,
that each of the 600 or more races represents an amalgamation of at
least three or four races. It is evident that no clear line of racial
demarcation can be drawn, and that purity of race may be a fictitious
term.
5. Intermarriage of the representatives of races belonging to similar
racial stocks seems advisable--according to the ethnologist. Pure
bloods apparently die out. The strongest races today are those in which
amalgamation has taken place recently--that is, within one thousand or
two thousand years, for example, the English, or the Scotch-Irish.
A mooted question of world importance relates to the intermarriage
of the representatives of races widely different, such as the white
and the yellow races, or the white and the black races. No race has
yet developed out of such combinations. Race prejudices and social
distinctions have produced conflicts which thus far have prevented
the formation of such a race. Very few scientific data are available
regarding miscegenation.
Apparently, the interbreeding of whites and blacks leads ultimately
to the elimination of the racial characteristics of the blacks and
to the complete dominance of the whites. There are some writers who
assert that this process takes place to the gain of the lower race and
to the loss of the higher race. The last-mentioned point has not yet
been proved. Miscegenation between whites and blacks occurs under such
abnormal and vicious social conditions that the racial tendencies are
definitely obscured.
6. Conflict between races is primordial; conflict between races today
is illustrated in national wars and race persecutions. Weaker races
have often combined against a stronger race; from these experiences
there has come a growing sense of the value of co-operation. Nations
with high moral principles have united against a powerful neighbor
nation with bullying tendencies. Out of these temporary combinations
there has arisen a sense of need for permanent forms of national
co-operation. This common need will ultimately lead, undoubtedly, to a
permanent association of nations.
The conflict between the grand divisions of the human race will
probably continue for a long time to come. Sometimes it is concentrated
in an antagonism between the white and yellow races; and again, it is
expressed in the more fundamental struggle between Occidentalism and
Orientalism.
7. The origin and development of primitive ways of doing constitute
a well-cultivated field of study. Anthropologists have published an
endless amount of materials on the origin of languages, religions,
occupations, sex distinctions. A portion of this work has been done
without an accurate understanding of the psychological principles that
are involved, and hence has to be viewed with caution or neglected
entirely.
W. G. Sumner, whose argument in favor of individualism and of a
_laissez faire_ governmental policy was given in Chapter XI, published
in his _Folkways_ a minute and extended account of the nature of
primitive institutions.
In the development of his theories, Sumner began with the needs of
primitive peoples and with the attempts to meet these needs. Repetition
of these acts leads to established ways of doing, that is, to folkways.
Folkways are “the widest, most fundamental, and most important
operation by which the interests of men in groups are served.”[XVIII-2]
Societal life consists chiefly in making folkways and applying them.
Even the science of society might be defined as the study of folkways.
Folkways are the product of the trial and failure method of meeting
needs. They tend to become firmly established and to be passed on from
generation to generation. They become traditional. They acquire all
the authority which is attached to the memory of respected ancestors.
Even the ghosts of ancestors stalk the earth keeping guard over the
folkways. The folkways carry with them the conviction that they are
essential to human welfare. It is this conviction which gives them
the force of _mores_. Thus the folkways are not purposeful methods of
securing progress but unconscious ways of meeting current exigencies;
they are blindly and rigorously forced upon successive generations.
8. Races are guilty of ethnocentrism.[XVIII-3] Each race considers
itself the center of mankind. It judges all other races by its own
standards, and not by a higher standard that is determined by data that
are representative of the best interests of all races. Ethocentrism
compels each race to exaggerate the importance of its own folkways and
to depreciate the folkways of other races. For example, the Romans
and Greeks called all outsiders “barbarians.” The Jews considered
themselves “the chosen people,” and the Romans and Greeks as “pagans.”
9. Sumner divided the chief motives of human action into four classes:
Hunger, sex passion, vanity, and fear (of ghosts and spirits). Behind
each of these motives there is a set of interests. (1) Hunger led
primitive man to invent simple weapons and tools, such as arrows and
hoes, and then to produce and hoard more complex forms of wealth. A
strange peculiarity of wealth is its effect on its creator; it seems to
be stronger than its creator. It often bears him down to a slavish,
materialistic, and even selfish existence. Labor in the struggle
for existence is irksome and painful. Wealth and labor, however,
are both commendatory when they are used to increase human welfare.
In this statement Sumner overlooked the fact that wealth in order
to be commendable must also be produced under constructively social
conditions, and that labor in order to be praiseworthy must in its
exercise be individually helpful. In other words, Sumner’s test of the
use to which wealth and labor are put is incomplete.
Sumner gave a new meaning to the term, slavery. He held that “men
of talent are constantly forced to serve the rest. They make the
discoveries and inventions, order the battles, write the books, and
produce the art.”[XVIII-4] Sumner deplored the tendency to call
whatever one does not like by the name of slavery. He felt that
marriage slavery, rent slavery, sin slavery are terms which are coined
by a too easily disgruntled people.
(2) The sex passion leads to sex _mores_ which cover the relations of
men and women to each other before marriage and in marriage, and the
obligations of married persons to society. The sex _mores_ determine
the nature of marriage and of divorce. Sumner derided sex equality. Man
has a more stable nervous system than woman, is more self-absorbed,
more egoistic, less tactful. Since man has greater physical strength
than woman, woman was educated by circumstances in primitive days
to adapt herself to the stronger sex, and to win by developing
charms where her lack of comparative strength rendered her helpless.
Resignation and endurance thus became acquired traits of women.
Neither renunciation nor license is the proper method of control of the
sex passions. Both produce unnecessary agony. License, for example,
“stimulates desire without limit, and ends in impotent agony.” Sumner
advocated temperance and regulation--a regulation which comes from
knowledge and judgment.
Women by necessity must bear an unequal share in the responsibilities
of sex and reproduction. Likewise, men must bear an unequal share of
the responsibilities of property, war, and politics. For the latter
types of duties women are hampered by a delicately adjusted and
cumbersome generative system which men do not possess.[XVIII-5]
Formerly women yielded to the will of men. Today, the marital state is
one of endless discussion, a defeat for one party or the other, with
unpleasant effects upon life and character. In ancient times women took
pride in the supervision which their husbands exercised over them and
valued themselves as hidden treasures.[XVIII-6] This protected position
was considered aristocratic. Under polygamy, women looked with pity and
disgust upon the man who cannot, or is unwilling to, support more than
one wife.
At this point it is interesting to note that W. I. Thomas has
distinguished between the sexes on the basis of differences in
metabolism--men being katabolic and women anabolic. Man consumes more
energy than woman.[XVIII-7] He is better fitted for bursts of energy,
while woman possesses more endurance. Man’s structural variability is
toward motion; woman’s, toward reproduction. Hence man seems to have
been assigned in primitive society to tasks requiring violence and
exertion, whereas to women fell the work requiring constant attention.
Civilization thus far has largely profited by the intelligence of man.
If to this situation it will develop and add the intelligence of women,
it will be supplanted by a higher type of civilization. Under these
conditions a large percentage of marriages will represent “the true
comradeship of like minds,” instead of being frequently, as now, an
arrangement in which woman is treated as a pet.
(3) The motive of vanity is all-powerful. “One likes to be separated
from the crowd by what is admired, and dislikes to be distinguished for
what is not admired.”[XVIII-8] To satisfy vanity, barbarian mothers
“deform their babies toward an adopted type of bodily perfection.”
Aristocracies grow up out of appeals to vanity. An aristocracy is a
group of persons closely united who define the possession of things
for which they are admired and which the masses do not possess. Vanity
leads to all types of absurdities and indecencies in dress. Teeth are
knocked out for the sake of appeasing vanity. An Indian woman puts a
board on the forehead of her baby to make the forehead recede.
(4) Fear as a motive rules the lives of primitives. Fear of ghosts and
spirits is peculiarly enslaving. Pestilence, defeat in war, bodily pain
were all considered the result of the wrath of the gods.
The mass phenomena of fear are especially pitiful. Manias of various
types rule whole masses. Witchcraft thrived for centuries on the
strength of fear. Pilgrimages and crusades were partly due to fear;
demonism was a product of fear. When fear became firmly established
in the folkways, it acted as an ever-ruling tyrant. In the _mores_
it became firmly entrenched and was a leading factor in moulding
character. Through religious practices and dogmas it defined a “hell”
and ruled with a fearful hand.
10. Upon simplest analyses, according to Sumner, four societal
values stand out with clearness: intellectual, moral, economic, and
physical.[XVIII-9] Each of these, however, is composite. The highest
societal value seems to result from a harmonious combination of the
four values enumerated. The best member of society is he in whom the
intellectual, moral, economic, and physical values are more or less
equally and harmoniously represented.
11. Sumner divided society into five main classes.[XVIII-10] (1)
The masses represent social mediocrity. They are of average social
usefulness. (2) Then there are the dependent and defective classes--a
drag upon society but not harmful or vicious. (3) The delinquent
classes are grossly harmful. They are anti-social and a grievous
burden. (4) Above the masses there are the people of talent, and (5)
above the talented are the geniuses. “A man of talent, practical
sense, industry, perseverance, and moral principle is worth more
to society than a genius who is not morally responsible, or not
industrious.”[XVIII-11]
It is a mistake to think of the masses as being at the base of society;
they are located at the core. They are traditional, conservative, and
the bearers of the _mores_. The lowest sections of the masses are a
dead weight of ignorance, disease, and crime.
12. A social institution is composed of an idea, notion, or interest,
and a resultant structure. The primary institutions are property,
marriage, and religion.[XVIII-12] These began as folkways; they became
customs. Social institutions can be modified only when the _mores_
are changed; they develop rituals, which are ceremonious, solemn, and
strongest when perfunctory and when exciting no thought.[XVIII-13]
Sumner boldly asserted that nothing but might has ever made right,
and that nothing but might makes right now.[XVIII-14] The fact that
property began in force is not proof that property is an unjust
institution. Marriage and religion also began in force, but the element
of justice in the existence of these institutions is not seriously
questioned today. Sumner, however, did not discriminate between force
as an agent or a tool, and force as a primary cause. He did not
distinguish clearly between hate and love as the dynamic factors behind
action that is decisive. He did not set forth the distinction between
harsh, material, immutable force and a kindly, spiritual, attracting
love.
13. The persistency of folkways and _mores_ is illustrated in a
thousand ways by Sumner. He described (1) their slow variability
under changed life conditions, (2) their sudden variability under
revolutionary conditions, (3) the possibility of changing them by
intelligent action, (4) the problems involved in adjusting one’s self
to the _mores_ of another group, (5) the conflicts between the _mores_
of different groups.[XVIII-15]
The _mores_ are powerful engines of societal selection. The most
important fact about the _mores_ is the power which they exert over the
individual. He does not know their source. He is born into them. He
accepts them in his early years uncritically. His habits and character
are moulded by them. If in adult life he challenges them, he is
ostracized by his group, labeled unpatriotic, and even trodden under
foot.[XVIII-16] The _mores_ develop powerful watch-words, slogans,
and even epithets of contempt and disapproval which only the most
independent and courageous individuals dare to face.
14. Ideals are entirely unscientific, declared Sumner.[XVIII-17]
They are phantasies little connected with fact. They are often formed
to pacify the restless, or to escape settling a question justly in
the present. The “poor” are told to look to the next life for their
rewards. The radicals are urged to accept the Christian virtues of
meekness and lowliness. Ideals are useful, chiefly, in homiletics,
in self-education _via_ auto-suggestion, in satisfying vanity, in
marriage. In these observations, Sumner undoubtedly pointed out genuine
weaknesses in ideals. He underestimated the psychological fact that
they spring from the very real affective phases of consciousness,
and that they can be projected rationally. He was right, however, in
deploring the chasm which exists between ideals and practices, and in
showing how ideals may become encysted in literature although not in
the _mores_. “The Greeks proved that people could sink very low while
talking very nobly.”
Immorality is conduct contrary to the _mores_ of the time and
place.[XVIII-18] Chastity is conformity to the current taboo on the
sex relation. “Modesty is reserve of behavior and sentiment.” Even
“nakedness is never shameful when it is unconscious,” that is, when
there is no consciousness of a difference between fact and the rule set
by the _mores_.
Sumner deduced an important principle when he asserted that the
“_mores_ can make anything right.” The _mores_ give usages a certain
order and form, and cover them with a protecting mantle of propriety.
The sanction of the _mores_ is utilized by the class in power in order
to maintain the established régime, even though it be one of injustice.
Sumner decried the importance which is ordinarily attached to book
learning,[XVIII-19] because it is addressed to the intellect rather
than to the feelings which are the springs of action. The real
education is that which comes through personal influence and example.
It is derived from “the habits and atmosphere of a school, not from the
school textbooks.”
15. Despite Sumner’s failure to appreciate the significance of a
thoroughgoing psychological approach to an analysis of folkways, his
description of these societal phenomena constitutes a unique and
valuable contribution to social thought. Sumner’s rigorous attitude
toward social life did not permit him to enter into an extensive
interpretation of the folkways in the light of folk ideals. He dealt
with what _is_ to the exclusion of what _ought to be_. He saw the past
so clearly, and the present so much as a reflection of the past, that
no enheartening forward look was possible. He rested his theories on
the inexorable work of the laws of biological evolution, modified
chiefly by his belief in a strong individualism.
Sumner’s fundamental theses have been developed and modified by A. G.
Kellor. Professor Kellor has projected the Darwinian principles of
variation, selection, transmission, and adaptation into societal
concepts. In fact, he has done this so well that he has given the
Darwinian principles full sway, not allowing sufficiently for the rise
and operation of complex psychic principles. He has made the folkways
the connecting link between organic and societal evolution, but has
not noted fully the new, countless, and often intangible but powerful
factors by which societal evolution is characterized.
16. The rôle that concepts of conduct have played in the evolution of
society, has been analyzed by E. A. Westermarck and L. T. Hobhouse.
The former is usually known as an anthropologist, and the latter
as a sociologist. Professor Westermarck has shown that, strictly
speaking, a custom is not merely the habit of a certain group of
people; it also involves a rule of conduct.[XVIII-21] It possesses two
characteristics--habitualness and obligatoriness.
Not every public habit, however, is a custom, involving an
obligation.[XVIII-22] There may be certain practices which are more
or less common in society, but which at the same time are generally
condemned. The disapproval of these is as a rule not very deep or
genuine.
Dr. Westermarck has indicated that there is a close similarity between
the conscience of a community and of an individual.[XVIII-23] If a
group commits a sin twice, it is likely to be considered allowable. In
order to get at the real nature of societal life, the “bad habits” as
well as the professed opinions of groups must be examined.
“Society” says Dr. Westermarck, “is the birthplace of the moral
consciousness.”[XVIII-24] Emotions which are felt by the community at
large tend to take the form of conduct standards. The moral emotions
lead to a variety of moral concepts. These fall into two main classes:
concepts of disapproval, such as the concepts, bad, vice, wrong; and
concepts of approval, such as good, virtue, and merit.
Professor Westermarck is convinced of the tremendous influence
that religious beliefs have exerted upon the moral ideas of
mankind.[XVIII-25] This influence has been exceedingly varied.
Religion has taught the principles of love and yet has indulged in
cruel persecutions. It has condemned murder and yet been a party to
child sacrifice. “It has emphasized the duty of truth-speaking, and
has itself been a cause of pious fraud.” Professor Westermarck has
contributed to social thought not only in his valuable descriptions
of the rise and evolution of moral ideas, but also in his _History of
Human Marriage_, to which reference will be made in Chapter XXIV.
The writings of L. T. Hobhouse reveal a thorough, comparative study
of the conduct rules of mankind. Professor Hobhouse has described the
evolution of ethical consciousness as displayed in the habits, customs,
and principles that have arisen in human history for the regulation of
human conduct. He has shown how, in the lowest forms of the organic
world, behavior is regulated, and directed to some purpose.[XVIII-27]
This behavior is somewhat definitely determined by the structure of the
organism itself.[XVIII-28]
There are three forces which may be called social, or which tend to
keep society together. These social bonds are: (1) the principle
of kinship, (2) the principle of authority, and (3) the principle
of citizenship.[XVIII-29] Kinship is the moving force in primitive
society. The principle of authority becomes prominent when one tribe
captures and enslaves a weaker group. This principle is also invoked in
order to secure an integration of openly diverse attitudes within the
group, even of modern national groups. It is exemplified in the various
forms of absolutism in government. The principle of citizenship finds
expression when certain individuals within the group are delegated to
perform as servants and ministers of the public as a whole.[XVIII-30]
Personal rights and the common good are the two reigning ideals. Every
individual is recognized as having a right to the conditions requisite
for the full development of his social personality. The good in life
consists “in the bringing out into full bloom of those capacities of
each individual which help to maintain the common life.”[XVIII-31] The
third principle, that of citizenship, when carried to its conclusion
reveals the possibility of a world state.[XVIII-32]
It is the contention of Professor Hobhouse that there is a close
connection between the growth of law and justice and the prevalent
forms of social organization. Organized law has developed out of a
sense of community responsibility, which, however, has expressed itself
as a rule in crude ways, and without distinguishing between accident
and design. This sense of community responsibility in primitive groups
tends to hold in check the spirit of anarchy and of self-redress.
Sooner or later, the method of community self-redress yields to
the authority of a chief or of a council representing the whole
community.[XVIII-33] Ultimately the community develops a special social
organ for adjusting disputes and preventing crime. It is then that the
ethical idea becomes separated from the conflicting passions of the
collectivity. Thus, the foundations are laid for true judicial inquiry
by evidence and genuine proof, and for a system of scientific public
justice.
17. In applying the principles of folk psychology to the anthropologic
field, William Wundt has developed a new method and new theories. Folk
psychology is the study of “the relations which the intellectual,
moral, and other mental characteristics of peoples sustain to one
another.”[XVIII-34] The term was originated by Lazarus and Steinthal,
whose works will be referred to again in Chapter XXII. In the
masterpiece on the _Elements of Folk Psychology_, Wundt has given
a psychological description of the main processes and institutions
in society, tracing them from their beginnings in the processes of
nature; he has made a survey of human progress. His study opens with
a discussion of the processes which produced the digging stick, the
club, and the hammer; it ends with an analysis of world empire, world
culture, world religions, and world history. The intervening ages are
the totemic and the age of heroes and gods.
World empire affected primarily the material aspects of the life of
peoples. It led to world intercourse, which in turn multiplied the
needs of peoples. These multiplied needs were followed by exchanges of
the means of satisfying the needs. The external and material phases of
culture are survived by the spiritual phases--thus world culture is
a sequence of world empire. It may be said that the vicissitudes of
peoples under the rule of the world empire idea brings forth a unified
history. World culture in turn creates a common mental heritage for
mankind.[XVIII-36]
In the establishment of a world culture, world religions are the
leading forces. They have been foremost in creating the idea of a
universal human community. In particular, Christianity is based on
a belief in a God who makes no distinction between race or class or
occupation. Consequently, “it has regarded missionary activity among
heathen peoples as a task whose purpose it is finally to unite the
whole of mankind beneath the cross of Christ.”[XVIII-37]
For a long time in human history, religious development was considered
to be the main connecting link--such was the contention of St.
Augustine. In 1725, Vico argued that the development of language and
jurisprudence is of universal import.[XVIII-38] Finally, world history
has become an account of the mental life of peoples--“a psychological
account of the development of mankind.”
18. The work of Professor Wundt is similar in many ways, although
characterized by a distinctive starting point and by many differences,
to the contributions of Franz Boas and W. I. Thomas. Professor Boas has
declared his belief in man’s ability to dominate the laws of organic
evolution as expressed in human life. He has brought forward a large
amount of evidence in support of the theory that environment has caused
differences between races. He has pointed out that race prejudice
is largely a product of social environment, and that under changed
conditions of life it has little place in the world. Boas is a strong
advocate of the theory, already advanced in this chapter, that all
races are potentially equal in ability, and that they would demonstrate
the truth of this statement, if given a common cultural background and
social opportunities. He has advanced the idea that “the organization
of mind is practically identical among all races of men.”[XVIII-39]
Professor Boas has amassed considerable evidence to show that in the
matter of inhibition of impulses, of power of attention, of ability to
do original thinking, primitive man compares favorably with civilized
man. Inasmuch as the social environment is powerful and education is
effective in making over social environments, education can raise all
races to the same high level, and at the same time unify them upon
the same knowledge bases. This contention is similar to the position
that Professor Hobhouse has made clear, namely: “While race has been
relatively stagnant, society has rapidly developed.” Moreover, social
progress is determined not by alterations or racial type, but by
modifications of social cultures.[XVIII-40] These modifications are
caused primarily by the interactions of social causes.
19. Noteworthy pioneering in the field of social anthropology and
social origins has been done by W. I. Thomas. He has developed the
theory that progress results from “crises.”[XVIII-41] As long as
life runs along smoothly, a lack of interest is likely to ensue. The
result is ennui. But a crisis in any of the life processes arouses
the attention, that is, produces a concentration of psychic energy. A
disturbance of any habit is a crisis. When the exigences of the crisis
are solved through a focalization of consciousness, the situation is
said to be controlled by the individual, who again lapses into a state
of disinterestedness until another disturbance of habit occurs. The new
method of control will be imitated. If imitated widely, it will mark a
rise in the level of civilization.
It will be observed at once that the power of attention to meet crises
is largely an individual matter and that the rôle of the individual is
very important. The group level of culture limits the power of the mind
to meet crises and to make adjustments.[XVIII-42] The mind is limited
by the psychic fund which the group already possesses. If there is no
knowledge of mathematics in the group, then a large banking system is
impossible. Crises, attention, control--these are the three leading
concepts in Thomas’ theory of social origins.
Control is the object of all purposeful activity.[XVIII-43] It is the
end, and attention is the means. An animal differs from a plant in
that it has a superior control over a larger environment than does the
plant. “It does not wait for food, but goes after it.” Man differs from
an animal partly in the fact that his fore limbs are free to secure
new and varied forms of control. Moreover, man through his mind has
a superior instrument of control. By the use of knowledge, mind is
effective in controlling factors that are present in neither time nor
space. Through its inventions, such as language, religious creeds,
mechanical appliances, forms of government, man has risen to a high
level of civilization.
Thomas has analyzed the social process in terms of social attitude and
social values. An attitude is a process of individual consciousness
that determines “the real or possible activity of the individual in
the social world.”[XVIII-45] A social value, on the other hand, is any
datum that has an empirical content accessible to the members of a
social group and a meaning which may make it an object of activity.
Activity is thus the bond between a social attitude and a social
value. The value is the meaning which a material or spiritual datum
may have. An attitude is a real or implied going out after value.
Social psychology is the science of social attitudes. At this point
anthropologic social thought has merged into social psychology.
Until twenty-five years ago, anthropology interpreted societary origins
pretty largely in terms of the individual. With the use of a social
psychology such as Cooley represents, “anthropology has given more
accurate explanations and become essentially a social anthropology.”
Before we discuss the different phases of psycho-sociologic thought, it
will be well to make clear the recent advances that have been made in
the biologic phases of social thought. The center of attention in this
field is the relation of the laws of heredity to human progress, which
constitutes the problem in eugenics. A discussion of eugenic social
thought will bring forward in a scientific way the chief elements
of an intellectual situation that was left, in Chapter XVI, in the
unsatisfactory Spencerian formulae. A presentation of eugenic social
thought will give a valuable background to the discussion which follows
concerning psycho-sociologic thought.