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SOCIAL ORGANIZATION
BOOKS BY CHARLES HORTON COOLEY
PUBLISHED BY CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
=Social Organization; a Study of the Larger Mind= _net_, $1.50
=Human Nature and the Social Order= _net_, $1.50
SOCIAL ORGANIZATION
A STUDY OF THE LARGER MIND
BY
CHARLES HORTON COOLEY
PROFESSOR OF SOCIOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
AUTHOR OF “HUMAN NATURE AND THE SOCIAL ORDER”
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
1911
COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
Published April, 1909
[Illustration: Decoration]
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED
To E. J. C.
WHOSE INFLUENCE IS A CHIEF
SOURCE OF ANY LITERARY
MERIT IT MAY HAVE
PREFACE
Our life is all one human whole, and if we are to have any real
knowledge of it we must see it as such. If we cut it up it dies in
the process: and so I conceive that the various branches of research
that deal with this whole are properly distinguished by change in
the point of sight rather than by any division in the thing that is
seen. Accordingly, in a former book (Human Nature and Social Order), I
tried to see society as it exists in the social nature of man and to
display that in its main outlines. In this one the eye is focussed on
the enlargement and diversification of intercourse which I have called
Social Organization, the individual, though visible, remaining slightly
in the background.
It will be seen from my title and all my treatment that I apprehend
the subject on the mental rather than the material side. I by no
means, however, overlook or wish to depreciate the latter, to which
I am willing to ascribe all the importance that any one can require
for it. Our task as students of society is a large one, and each of
us, I suppose, may undertake any part of it to which he feels at all
competent.
ANN ARBOR, MICH., _February, 1909_.
CONTENTS
PART I—PRIMARY ASPECTS OF ORGANIZATION
CHAPTER I
SOCIAL AND INDIVIDUAL ASPECTS OF MIND
PAGE
Mind an Organic Whole—Conscious and Unconscious Relations—Does
Self-Consciousness Come First? _Cogito, Ergo Sum_—The
Larger Introspection—Self-Consciousness in Children—Public
Consciousness 3
CHAPTER II
SOCIAL AND INDIVIDUAL ASPECTS OF MIND—(CONTINUED)
Moral Aspect of the Organic View—It Implies that Reform
Should Be Based on Sympathy—Uses of Praise and Blame—Responsibility
Broadened but Not Lost—Moral Value of
a Larger View—Organic Morality Calls for Knowledge—Nature
of Social Organization 13
CHAPTER III
PRIMARY GROUPS
Meaning of Primary Groups—Family, Playground, and Neighborhood—How
Far Influenced by Larger Society—Meaning
and Permanence of “Human Nature”—Primary Groups the
Nursery of Human Nature 23
CHAPTER IV
PRIMARY IDEALS
Nature of Primary Idealism—The Ideal of a “We” or Moral
Unity—It Does Not Exclude Self-Assertion—Ideals Springing
from Hostility—Loyalty, Truth, Service—Kindness—Lawfulness—Freedom—
The Doctrine of Natural Right—Bearing
of Primary Idealism upon Education and Philanthropy 32
CHAPTER V
THE EXTENSION OF PRIMARY IDEALS
Primary Ideals Underlie Democracy and Christianity—Why
They Are Not Achieved on a Larger Scale—What They Require
from Personality—From Social Mechanism—The
Principle of Compensation 51
PART II—COMMUNICATION
CHAPTER VI
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF COMMUNICATION
Meaning of Communication—Its Relation to Human Nature—To
Society at Large 61
CHAPTER VII
THE GROWTH OF COMMUNICATION
Pre-Verbal Communication—The Rise of Speech—Its Mental
and Social Function—The Function of Writing—Printing
and the Modern World—The Non-Verbal Arts 66
CHAPTER VIII
MODERN COMMUNICATION: ENLARGEMENT AND ANIMATION
Character of Recent Changes—Their General Effect—The
Change in the United States—Organized Gossip—Public
Opinion, Democracy, Internationalism—The Value of
Diffusion—Enlargement of Feeling—Conclusion 80
CHAPTER IX
MODERN COMMUNICATION: INDIVIDUALITY
The Question—Why Communication Should Foster Individuality—The
Contrary or Dead-Level Theory—Reconciliation
of These Views—The Outlook as Regards Individuality 91
CHAPTER X
MODERN COMMUNICATION: SUPERFICIALITY AND STRAIN
Stimulating Effect of Modern Life—Superficiality—Strain—Pathological
Effects 98
PART III—THE DEMOCRATIC MIND
CHAPTER XI
THE ENLARGEMENT OF CONSCIOUSNESS
Narrowness of Consciousness in Tribal Society—Importance of
Face-to-Face Assembly—Individuality—Subconscious Character
of Wider Relations—Enlargement of Consciousness—Irregularity
in Growth—Breadth of Modern Consciousness—Democracy 107
CHAPTER XII
THE THEORY OF PUBLIC OPINION
Public Opinion as Organization—Agreement Not Essential—Public
Opinion versus Popular Impression—Public Thought
Not an Average—A Group Is Capable of Expression through
Its Most Competent Members—General and Special Public
Opinion—The Sphere of the Former—Of the Latter—The
Two Are United in Personality—How Public Opinion Rules—Effective
Rule Based on Moral Unity 121
CHAPTER XIII
WHAT THE MASSES CONTRIBUTE
The Masses the Initiators of Sentiment—They Live in the Central
Current of Experience—Distinction or Privilege Apt to
Cause Isolation—Institutional Character of Upper Classes—The
Masses Shrewd Judges of Persons—This the Main
Ground for Expecting that the People Will Be Right in the
Long Run—Democracy Always Representative—Conclusion 135
CHAPTER XIV
DEMOCRACY AND CROWD EXCITEMENT
The Crowd-Theory of Modern Life—The Psychology of Crowds—Modern
Conditions Favor Psychological Contagion—Democracy
a Training in Self-Control—The Crowd Not Always
in the Wrong—Conclusion; the Case of France 149
CHAPTER XV
DEMOCRACY AND DISTINCTION
The Problem—Democracy Should Be Distinguished from
Transition—The Dead-Level Theory of Democracy—Confusion
and Its Effects—“Individualism” May Not Be Favorable
to Distinguished Individuality—Contemporary Uniformity—Relative
Advantages of America and Europe—Haste,
Superficiality, Strain—Spiritual Economy of a Settled
Order—Commercialism—Zeal for Diffusion—Conclusion 157
CHAPTER XVI
THE TREND OF SENTIMENT
Meaning and General Trend of Sentiment—Attenuation—Refinement—Sense
of Justice—Truth as Justice—As Realism
As Expediency—As Economy of Attention—Hopefulness 177
CHAPTER XVII
THE TREND OF SENTIMENT—(CONTINUED)
Nature of the Sentiment of Brotherhood—Favored by Communication
and Settled Principles—How Far Contemporary
Life Fosters It—How Far Uncongenial to It—General Outcome
in this Regard—The Spirit of Service—The Trend of
Manners—Brotherhood in Relation to Conflict—Blame—Democracy
and Christianity 189
PART IV—SOCIAL CLASSES
CHAPTER XVIII
THE HEREDITARY OR CASTE PRINCIPLE
Nature and Use of Classes—Inheritance and Competition the
Two Principles upon which Classes Are Based—Conditions
in Human Nature Making for Hereditary Classes—Caste
Spirit 209
CHAPTER XIX
CONDITIONS FAVORING OR OPPOSING THE GROWTH OF CASTE
Three Conditions Affecting the Increase or Diminution of Caste—
Race-Caste—Immigration and Conquest—Gradual Differentiation
of Functions; Mediæval Caste; India—Influence
of Settled Conditions—Influence of the State of
Communication and Enlightenment—Conclusion 217
CHAPTER XX
THE OUTLOOK REGARDING CASTE
The Question—How Far the Inheritance Principle Actually
Prevails—Influences Favoring Its Growth—Those Antagonizing
It—The Principles of Inheritance and Equal Opportunity
as Affecting Social Efficiency—Conclusion 229
CHAPTER XXI
OPEN CLASSES
The Nature of Open Classes—Whether Class-Consciousness Is
Desirable—Fellowship and Coöperation Deficient in Our
Society—Class Organization in Relation to Freedom 239
CHAPTER XXII
HOW FAR WEALTH IS THE BASIS OF OPEN CLASSES
Impersonal Character of Open Classes—Various Classifications—Classes,
as Commonly Understood, Based on Obvious Distinctions—Wealth
as Generalized Power—Economic Betterment
as an Ideal of the Ill-Paid Classes—Conclusion 248
CHAPTER XXIII
ON THE ASCENDENCY OF A CAPITALIST CLASS
The Capitalist Class—Its Lack of Caste Sentiment—In What
Sense “the Fittest”—Moral Traits—How Far Based on Service—Autocratic
and Democratic Principles in the Control
of Industry—Reasons for Expecting an Increase of the
Democratic Principle—Social Power in General—Organizing
Capacity—Nature and Sources of Capitalist Power—Power
over the Press and over Public Sentiment—Upper Class
Atmosphere 256
CHAPTER XXIV
ON THE ASCENDENCY OF A CAPITALIST CLASS—(CONTINUED)
The Influence of Ambitious Young Men—Security of the Dominant
Class in an Open System—Is There Danger of Anarchy
and Spoliation?—Whether the Sway of Riches Is Greater
Now than Formerly—Whether Greater in America than in
England 273
CHAPTER XXV
THE ORGANIZATION OF THE ILL-PAID CLASSES
The Need of Class Organization—Uses and Dangers of Unions—General
Disposition of the Hand-Working Classes 284
CHAPTER XXVI
POVERTY
The Meaning of Poverty—Personal and General Causes—Poverty
in a Prosperous Society Due Chiefly to Maladjustment—Are
the Poor the “Unfit”?—Who Is to Blame for Poverty?—Attitude
of Society toward the Poor—Fundamental
Remedies 290
CHAPTER XXVII
HOSTILE FEELING BETWEEN CLASSES
Conditions Producing Class Animosity—The Spirit of Service
Allays Bitterness—Possible Decrease of the Prestige of
Wealth—Probability of a More Communal Spirit in the
Use of Wealth—Influence of Settled Rules for Social
Opposition—Importance of Face-to-Face Discussion 301
PART V—INSTITUTIONS
CHAPTER XXVIII
INSTITUTIONS AND THE INDIVIDUAL
The Nature of Institutions—Hereditary and Social Factors—The
Child and the World—Society and Personality—Personality
versus the Institution—The Institution as a Basis of
Personality—The Moral Aspect—Choice _versus_ Mechanism—Personality
the Life of Institutions—Institutions Becoming
Freer in Structure 313
CHAPTER XXIX
INSTITUTIONS AND THE INDIVIDUAL—(CONTINUED)
Innovation as a Personal Tendency—Innovation and Conservatism
as Public Habit—Solidarity—French and Anglo-Saxon
Solidarity—Tradition and Convention—Not so Opposite as
They Appear—Real Difference, in this Regard, between
Modern and Mediæval Society—Traditionalism and Conventionalism
in Modern Life 327
CHAPTER XXX
FORMALISM AND DISORGANIZATION
The Nature of Formalism—Its Effect upon Personality—Formalism
in Modern Life—Disorganization, “Individualism”—How
it Affects the Individual—Relation to Formalism—“Individualism”
Implies Defective Sympathy—Contemporary
“Individualism”—Restlessness under Discomfort—The
Better Aspect of Disorganization 342
CHAPTER XXXI
DISORGANIZATION: THE FAMILY
Old and New Régimes in the Family—The Declining Birth-Rate—“Spoiled”
Children—The Opening of New Careers to
Women—European and American Points of View—Personal
Factors in Divorce—Institutional Factors—Conclusion 356
CHAPTER XXXII
DISORGANIZATION: THE CHURCH
The Psychological View of Religion—The Need of Social
Structure—Creeds—Why Symbols Tend to Become Formal—Traits
of a Good System of Symbols—Contemporary
Need of Religion—Newer Tendencies in the Church 372
CHAPTER XXXIII
DISORGANIZATION: OTHER TRADITIONS
Disorder in the Economic System—In Education—In Higher
Culture—In the Fine Arts 383
PART VI—PUBLIC WILL
CHAPTER XXXIV
THE FUNCTION OF PUBLIC WILL
Public and Private Will—The Lack of Public Will—Social
Wrongs Commonly Not Willed at All 395
CHAPTER XXXV
GOVERNMENT AS PUBLIC WILL
Government Not the Only Agent of Public Will—The Relative
Point of View; Advantages of Government as an Agent—Mechanical
Tendency of Government—Characteristics Favorable
to Government Activity—Municipal Socialism—Self-Expression
the Fundamental Demand of the People—Actual
Extension of State Functions 402
CHAPTER XXXVI
SOME PHASES OF THE LARGER WILL
Growing Efficiency of the Intellectual Processes—Organic
Idealism—The Larger Morality—Indirect Service—Increasing
Simplicity and Flexibility in Social Structure—Public
Will Saves Part of the Cost of Change—Human Nature the
Guiding Force behind Public Will 411
Index 421
_PART I_
PRIMARY ASPECTS OF ORGANIZATION
SOCIAL ORGANIZATION
CHAPTER I
SOCIAL AND INDIVIDUAL ASPECTS OF MIND
MIND AN ORGANIC WHOLE—CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS RELATIONS—DOES
SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS COME FIRST? COGITO, ERGO SUM—THE LARGER
INTROSPECTION—SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS IN CHILDREN—PUBLIC CONSCIOUSNESS.
Mind is an organic whole made up of coöperating individualities, in
somewhat the same way that the music of an orchestra is made up of
divergent but related sounds. No one would think it necessary or
reasonable to divide the music into two kinds, that made by the whole
and that of particular instruments, and no more are there two kinds of
mind, the social mind and the individual mind. When we study the social
mind we merely fix our attention on larger aspects and relations rather
than on the narrower ones of ordinary psychology.
The view that all mind acts together in a vital whole from which the
individual is never really separate flows naturally from our growing
knowledge of heredity and suggestion, which makes it increasingly clear
that every thought we have is linked with the thought of our ancestors
and associates, and through them with that of society at large. It is
also the only view consistent with the general standpoint of modern
science, which admits nothing isolate in nature.
The unity of the social mind consists not in agreement but in
organization, in the fact of reciprocal influence or causation among
its parts, by virtue of which everything that takes place in it is
connected with everything else, and so is an outcome of the whole.
Whether, like the orchestra, it gives forth harmony may be a matter of
dispute, but that its sound, pleasing or otherwise, is the expression
of a vital coöperation, cannot well be denied. Certainly everything
that I say or think is influenced by what others have said or thought,
and, in one way or another, sends out an influence of its own in turn.
This differentiated unity of mental or social life, present in the
simplest intercourse but capable of infinite growth and adaptation, is
what I mean in this work by social organization. It would be useless, I
think, to attempt a more elaborate definition. We have only to open our
eyes to _see_ organization; and if we cannot do that no definition will
help us.
In the social mind we may distinguish—very roughly of course—conscious
and unconscious relations, the unconscious being those of which we are
not aware, which for some reason escape our notice. A great part of
the influences at work upon us are of this character: our language,
our mechanical arts, our government and other institutions, we derive
chiefly from people to whom we are but indirectly and unconsciously
related. The larger movements of society—the progress and decadence
of nations, institutions and races—have seldom been a matter of
consciousness until they were past. And although the growth of social
consciousness is perhaps the greatest fact of history, it has still but
a narrow and fallible grasp of human life.
Social consciousness, or awareness of society, is inseparable from
self-consciousness, because we can hardly think of ourselves excepting
with reference to a social group of some sort, or of the group except
with reference to ourselves. The two things go together, and what we
are really aware of is a more or less complex personal or social whole,
of which now the particular, now the general, aspect is emphasized.
In general, then, most of our reflective consciousness, of our
wide-awake state of mind, is social consciousness, because a sense of
our relation to other persons, or of other persons to one another, can
hardly fail to be a part of it. Self and society are twin-born, we know
one as immediately as we know the other, and the notion of a separate
and independent ego is an illusion.
This view, which seems to me quite simple and in accord with
common-sense, is not the one most commonly held, for psychologists
and even sociologists are still much infected with the idea that
self-consciousness is in some way primary, and antecedent to social
consciousness, which must be derived by some recondite process of
combination or elimination. I venture, therefore, to give some further
exposition of it, based in part on first-hand observation of the growth
of social ideas in children.
Descartes is, I suppose, the best-known exponent of the traditional
view regarding the primacy of self-consciousness. Seeking an
unquestionable basis for philosophy, he thought that he found it in the
proposition “I think, therefore I am” (_cogito, ergo sum_). This seemed
to him inevitable, though all else might be illusion. “I observed,” he
says, “that, whilst I thus wished to think that all was false, it was
absolutely necessary that I, who thus thought, should be somewhat; and
as I observed that this truth, _I think, hence I am_, was so certain
and of such evidence that no ground of doubt, however extravagant,
could be alleged by the sceptics capable of shaking it, I concluded
that I might, without scruple, accept it as the first principle of the
philosophy of which I was in search.”[1]
From our point of view this reasoning is unsatisfactory in two
essential respects. In the first place it seems to imply that
“I”-consciousness is a part of all consciousness, when, in fact, it
belongs only to a rather advanced stage of development. In the second
it is one-sided or “individualistic” in asserting the personal or “I”
aspect to the exclusion of the social or “we” aspect, which is equally
original with it.
Introspection is essential to psychological or social insight, but the
introspection of Descartes was, in this instance, a limited, almost
abnormal, sort of introspection—that of a self-absorbed philosopher
doing his best to isolate himself from other people and from all simple
and natural conditions of life. The mind into which he looked was in
a highly technical state, not likely to give him a just view of human
consciousness in general.
Introspection is of a larger sort in our day. There is a world of
things in the mind worth looking at, and the modern psychologist,
instead of fixing his attention wholly on an extreme form of
speculative self-consciousness, puts his mind through an infinite
variety of experiences, intellectual and emotional, simple and complex,
normal and abnormal, sociable and private, recording in each case
what he sees in it. He does this by subjecting it to suggestions or
incitements of various kinds, which awaken the activities he desires to
study.
In particular he does it largely by what may be called _sympathetic
introspection_, putting himself into intimate contact with various
sorts of persons and allowing them to awake in himself a life similar
to their own, which he afterwards, to the best of his ability, recalls
and describes. In this way he is more or less able to understand—always
by introspection—children, idiots, criminals, rich and poor,
conservative and radical—any phase of human nature not wholly alien to
his own.
This I conceive to be the principal method of the social psychologist.
One thing which this broader introspection reveals is that the
“I”-consciousness does not explicitly appear until the child is,
say, about two years old, and that when it does appear it comes in
inseparable conjunction with the consciousness of other persons and of
those relations which make up a social group. It is in fact simply one
phase of a body of personal thought which is self-consciousness in one
aspect and social consciousness in another.
The mental experience of a new-born child is probably a mere stream
of impressions, which may be regarded as being individual, in being
differentiated from any other stream, or as social, in being an
undoubted product of inheritance and suggestion from human life at
large; but is not aware either of itself or of society.
Very soon, however, the mind begins to discriminate personal
impressions and to become both naïvely self-conscious and naïvely
conscious of society; that is, the child is aware, in an unreflective
way, of a group and of his own special relation to it. He does not
say “I” nor does he name his mother, his sister or his nurse, but he
has images and feelings out of which these ideas will grow. Later
comes the more reflective consciousness which names both himself and
other people, and brings a fuller perception of the relations which
constitute the unity of this small world.[2]
And so on to the most elaborate phases of self-consciousness and
social consciousness, to the metaphysician pondering the Ego, or the
sociologist meditating on the Social Organism. Self and society go
together, as phases of a common whole. I am aware of the social groups
in which I live as immediately and authentically as I am aware of
myself; and Descartes might have said “We think,” _cogitamus_, on as
good grounds as he said _cogito_.
But, it may be said, this very consciousness that you are considering
is after all located in a particular person, and so are all similar
consciousnesses, so that what we see, if we take an objective view of
the matter, is merely an aggregate of individuals, however social those
individuals may be. Common-sense, most people think, assures us that
the separate person is the primary fact of life.
If so, is it not because common-sense has been trained by custom to
look at one aspect of things and not another? Common-sense, moderately
informed, assures us that the individual has his being only as part
of a whole. What does not come by heredity comes by communication and
intercourse; and the more closely we look the more apparent it is that
separateness is an illusion of the eye and community the inner truth.
“Social organism,” using the term in no abstruse sense but merely to
mean a vital unity in human life, is a fact as obvious to enlightened
common-sense as individuality.
I do not question that the individual is a differentiated centre
of psychical life, having a world of his own into which no other
individual can fully enter; living in a stream of thought in which
there is nothing quite like that in any other stream, neither his
“I,” nor his “you,” nor his “we,” nor even any material object; all,
probably, as they exist for him, have something unique about them. But
this uniqueness is no more apparent and verifiable than the fact—not
at all inconsistent with it—that he is in the fullest sense member of
a whole, appearing such not only to scientific observation but also to
his own untrained consciousness.
There is then no mystery about social consciousness. The view that
there is something recondite about it and that it must be dug for with
metaphysics and drawn forth from the depths of speculation, springs
from a failure to grasp adequately the social nature of all higher
consciousness. What we need in this connection is only a better seeing
and understanding of rather ordinary and familiar facts.
We may view social consciousness either in a particular mind or as a
coöperative activity of many minds. The social ideas that I have are
closely connected with those that other people have, and act and react
upon them to form a whole. This gives us public consciousness, or to
use a more familiar term, public opinion, in the broad sense of a group
state of mind which is more or less distinctly aware of itself. By this
last phrase I mean such a mutual understanding of one another’s points
of view on the part of the individuals or groups concerned as naturally
results from discussion. There are all degrees of this awareness in the
various individuals. Generally speaking, it never embraces the whole in
all its complexity, but almost always some of the relations that enter
into the whole. The more intimate the communication of a group the more
complete, the more thoroughly knit together into a living whole, is its
public consciousness.
In a congenial family life, for example, there may be a public
consciousness which brings all the important thoughts and feelings of
the members into such a living and coöperative whole. In the mind of
each member, also, this same thing exists as a social consciousness
embracing a vivid sense of the personal traits and modes of thought and
feeling of the other members. And, finally, quite inseparable from all
this, is each one’s consciousness of himself, which is largely a direct
reflection of the ideas about himself he attributes to the others, and
is directly or indirectly altogether a product of social life. Thus all
consciousness hangs together, and the distinctions are chiefly based on
point of view.
The unity of public opinion, like all vital unity, is one not of
agreement but of organization, of interaction and mutual influence.
It is true that a certain underlying likeness of nature is necessary
in order that minds may influence one another and so coöperate in
forming a vital whole, but identity, even in the simplest process, is
unnecessary and probably impossible. The consciousness of the American
House of Representatives, for example, is by no means limited to the
common views, if there are any, shared by its members, but embraces
the whole consciousness of every member so far as this deals with the
activity of the House. It would be a poor conception of the whole which
left out the opposition, or even one dissentient individual. That all
minds are different is a condition, not an obstacle, to the unity that
consists in a differentiated and coöperative life.
Here is another illustration of what is meant by individual and
collective aspects of social consciousness. Some of us possess a good
many books relating to social questions of the day. Each of these
books, considered by itself, is the expression of a particular social
consciousness; the author has cleared up his ideas as well as he
can and printed them. But a library of such books expresses social
consciousness in a larger sense; it speaks for the epoch. And certainly
no one who reads the books will doubt that they form a whole, whatever
their differences. The radical and the reactionist are clearly part of
the same general situation.
There are, then, at least three aspects of consciousness which we may
usefully distinguish: self-consciousness, or what I think of myself;
social consciousness (in its individual aspect), or what I think of
other people; and public consciousness, or a collective view of the
foregoing as organized in a communicating group. And all three are
phases of a single whole.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Discourse on Method, part iv.
[2] There is much interest and significance in the matter of children’s
first learning the use of “I” and other self-words—just how they learn
them and what they mean by them. Some discussion of the matter, based
on observation of two children, will be found in Human Nature and
the Social Order; and more recently I have published a paper in the
Psychological Review (November, 1908) called A Study of the Early Use
of Self-Words by a Child. “I” seems to mean primarily the assertion
of will in a social medium of which the child is conscious and of
which his “I” is an inseparable part. It is thus a social idea and,
as stated in the text, arises by differentiation of a vague body of
personal thought which is self-consciousness in one phase and social
consciousness in another. It has no necessary reference to the body.