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Title: Social process
Author: Charles Horton Cooley
Release date: January 23, 2025 [eBook #75188]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1918
Credits: Richard Tonsing, David Edwards, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOCIAL PROCESS ***
SOCIAL PROCESS
BY
CHARLES HORTON COOLEY
PROFESSOR OF SOCIOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
1918
COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
Published September, 1918
[Illustration: [Logo]]
CONTENTS
PART I—THE ORGANIC VIEW OF THE PROCESS OF HUMAN LIFE
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE TENTATIVE METHOD 3
II. ORGANIZATION 19
III. CYCLES 30
IV. CONFLICT AND CO-OPERATION 35
V. PARTICULARISM VERSUS THE ORGANIC VIEW 43
PART II—PERSONAL ASPECTS OF SOCIAL PROCESS
VI. OPPORTUNITY 55
VII. SOME PHASES OF CULTURE 67
VIII. OPPORTUNITY AND CLASS 78
IX. THE THEORY OF SUCCESS 88
X. SUCCESS AND MORALITY 99
XI. FAME 112
XII. THE COMPETITIVE SPIRIT 125
XIII. THE HIGHER EMULATION 137
XIV. DISCIPLINE 144
PART III—DEGENERATION
XV. AN ORGANIC VIEW OF DEGENERATION 153
XVI. DEGENERATION AND WILL 169
XVII. SOME FACTORS IN DEGENERATE PROCESS 180
PART IV—SOCIAL FACTORS IN BIOLOGICAL SURVIVAL
XVIII. PROCESS, BIOLOGICAL AND SOCIAL 197
XIX. SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE SURVIVAL OF TYPES 209
XX. ECONOMIC FACTORS; THE CLASSES ABOVE POVERTY 218
XXI. POVERTY AND PROPAGATION 226
PART V—GROUP CONFLICT
XXII. GROUP CONFLICT AND MODERN INTEGRATION 241
XXIII. SOCIAL CONTROL IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 255
XXIV. CLASS AND RACE 268
PART VI—VALUATION
XXV. VALUATION AS A SOCIAL PROCESS 283
XXVI. THE INSTITUTIONAL CHARACTER OF PECUNIARY VALUATION 293
XXVII. THE SPHERE OF PECUNIARY VALUATION 309
XXVIII. THE PROGRESS OF PECUNIARY VALUATION 329
PART VII—INTELLIGENT PROCESS
XXIX. INTELLIGENCE IN SOCIAL FUNCTION 351
XXX. THE DIVERSIFICATION AND CONFLICT OF IDEAS 363
XXXI. PUBLIC OPINION AS PROCESS 378
XXXII. RATIONAL CONTROL THROUGH STANDARDS 382
XXXIII. SOCIAL SCIENCE 395
XXXIV. THE TENTATIVE CHARACTER OF PROGRESS 405
XXXV. ART AND SOCIAL IDEALISM 410
INDEX 425
_PART I_
THE ORGANIC VIEW OF THE PROCESS
OF HUMAN LIFE
CHAPTER I
THE TENTATIVE METHOD
ADAPTIVE GROWTH—PERSONAL AND IMPERSONAL FORMS—IMPERSONAL FORMS ARE
ALIVE—INTERMEDIATE FORMS—THE TENTATIVE PROCESS—ILLUSTRATIONS OF
TENTATIVE GROWTH—ORGANIC TENDENCY—THE KINDLING OF MIND
We see around us in the world of men an onward movement of life. There
seems to be a vital impulse, of unknown origin, that tends to work ahead
in innumerable directions and manners, each continuous with something of
the same sort in the past. The whole thing appears to be a kind of
growth, and we might add that it is an _adaptive_ growth, meaning by
this that the forms of life we see—men, associations of men, traditions,
institutions, conventions, theories, ideals—are not separate or
independent, but that the growth of each takes place in contact and
interaction with that of others. Thus any one phase of the movement may
be regarded as a series of adaptations to other phases.
That the growth of persons is adaptive is apparent to every one. Each of
us has energy and character, but not for an hour do these develop except
by communication and adjustment with the persons and conditions about
us. And the case is not different with a social group, or with the ideas
which live in the common medium of communicative thought. Human life is
thus all one growing whole, unified by ceaseless currents of
interaction, but at the same time differentiated into those diverse
forms of energy which we see as men, factions, tendencies, doctrines,
and institutions.
The most evident distinction among these growing forms is that between
the personal and the impersonal. A man is a personal form of life; a
fashion or a myth is impersonal. This seems obvious enough, but there
are cases in which the line is not so plain, and it may be well to
consider more precisely what we mean by “personal” in this connection,
or rather in just what sense a form of human life can be impersonal.
An impersonal form, I should say, is one whose life history is not
identified with that of particular persons. A myth, for example, has a
history of its own which you would never discover in the biography of
individuals, and although it exists in the minds of men it cannot be
seen intelligibly except by regarding it as a distinct whole for which
human thought is only a medium. When an American Indian, let us say,
repeated with unconscious variations the story of Hiawatha, he did not
know he was participating in the growth of a myth; that was taking place
in and through him but quite apart from his personal consciousness. The
same is true of the growth of language. We know that the speech of any
people has a vital unity, offering to the philologist a world of
interesting structures and relations of which those who use the language
and contribute to its growth are as unaware as they are of the
physiology of their bodies. The difference between personal and
impersonal organisms, then, is above all practical, resting upon the
fact that many forms of life are not identified with personality and
cannot be understood, can hardly be seen at all, by one who will
interest himself only in persons. They exist in the human mind, but to
perceive them you must study this from an impersonal standpoint.
Observe the practical value, if we hope to do away with war, of
perceiving that the chief opponent of peace is something far more than
any one group of men, like the Prussian aristocracy, namely militarism,
an international organism existing everywhere in the form of aggressive
ideals, traditions, and anticipations. If we can learn to see this, and
see how we ourselves, perhaps, are contributing to it by our ignorance
of foreign nations and our lack of generous ideals for our own, we are
in a position to oppose it effectually.
We live, in fact, in the very midst of a rank growth of social
structures of which, since they are impersonal and do not appeal to our
interest in personality, we are mainly unaware. We can see that such a
growth has taken place in the past, and there is no reason to suppose
that it has ceased. The development of religious institutions during the
past thirty years has involved gradual changes in belief about such
matters as immortality, salvation, and the relation of God to man, of
which we have not been aware because they have not been the work of
definite thought and discussion, for the most part, but have been borne
in upon us by the mental currents of the time. We do not even now know
precisely what they are; but they are real and momentous, and it is of
such changes that the development of institutions chiefly consists.
It is noteworthy that however impersonal a phase of social growth may be
it appeals to our interest as soon as we see that it has a life history,
as one may find amusement in following the history of a word in one of
the books of etymology. There is something in the course of any sort of
life that holds our attention when we once get our eye upon it. How
willingly do we pursue the histories of arts, sciences, religions, and
philosophies if some one will only show us how one thing grows out of
another.
To say that a social form is impersonal does not mean that it is dead. A
language or a myth is verily alive; its life is human life; it has the
same flesh and blood and nerves that you and I have, only the
development of these is organized along lines other than those of
personal consciousness. When I speak, or even when I think, language
lives in me, and the part that lives in me is acting upon other parts
living in other persons, influencing the life of the whole of which I am
unconscious. And the same may be said of tradition, of the earlier and
less conscious history of institutions, and of many obscure movements of
contemporary life which may prove important notwithstanding their
obscurity.
It is evident that the personal and the impersonal forms must overlap,
since the same life enters into both. If you took away all the persons
there would be nothing left, the other systems would be gone too,
because their constituents are the same. What we may not so readily
admit (because of our special interest in personality) is that persons
are equally without a separate existence, and that if you take away from
a man’s mind all the unconscious and impersonal wholes there would be
nothing left—certainly no personality. The withdrawal of language alone
would leave him without a human self.
Between persons, on the one hand, and those forms of life that are
wholly impersonal, on the other, there are many intermediate forms that
have something of both characteristics. A family is perhaps as personal
as any group can be, because its members so commonly identify their
personality with it, but it may easily have an organic growth of its own
to which its members contribute without knowing. Every family has in
greater or less degree a moral continuity from generation to generation
through which we inherit the influence of our great grandfathers, and
there is none of which a history might not be written, as well as of the
Stuarts or Hohenzollerns, if we thought it worth while.
A small, closely knit community, like a primitive clan, or like a Jewish
colony in a Russian village, has a corporate life of much the same
personal character as the family; that is, the group comprehends almost
the whole personality of the individuals, and is not too large or too
complex for the individual to comprehend the group. Larger communities
and even nations are also thought of as aggregates of persons, but they
have a life history that must be seen as a whole and can never be
embraced in any study of persons as such.
Most of the voluntary associations of our modern life are of a character
chiefly impersonal; that is they tend to a specialization by which one
interest of the individual is allied with the similar interests of
others, leaving his personality as a whole outside the group. The
ordinary active citizen of our day joins a dozen or more organizations,
for profit, for culture, for philanthropy, or what-not, into each of
which he puts only a fragment of himself, and for which he feels no
serious responsibility. It is very commonly the case, however, that one
or a few individuals—zealous employees or unpaid enthusiasts for the
cause—do identify themselves with the life of the association and put
personality into it. And this may happen with those social growths which
we have noticed as peculiarly impersonal—even with language, as when an
enthusiast sets out to revive Irish or promote Volapük.
May we not say, indeed, that whenever two persons associate we have a
new whole whose life cannot altogether be understood by regarding it
merely as the sum of the two? This is clearly the case with husband and
wife, and no doubt, in measure, with other relations.
If we inquire more closely into the interaction and growth of these
forms of life we come upon what I will call the tentative process. This
is no other than what is vaguely known to popular thought as the process
of evolutionary “selection,” or the survival of the fittest, and is also
described as the method of trial and error, the pragmatic method, the
growth of that which “works” or functions, and by other terms similar to
these. Perhaps as simple a description as any is to say that it is a
process of experiment which is not necessarily conscious. That is, the
trial of various activities and the guidance of behavior by the result
of the trial may require no understanding of what is taking place.
The growth of social forms is for the most part roughly analogous to
that of the wild-grape vine which has extended itself over trellises and
fences and into trees in my back yard. This vine has received from its
ancestry a certain system of tendencies. There is, for example, the
vital impulse itself, the general bent to grow. Then there is its habit
of sending out straight, rapidly growing shoots with two-branched
tendrils at the end. These tendrils revolve slowly through the air, and
when one touches an obstacle, as a wire or branch, it hooks itself about
it and draws up in the form of a spiral spring, pulling the shoot up
after it. A shoot which thus gets a hold grows rapidly and sends out
more tendrils; if it fails to get a hold it by and by sags down and
ceases to grow. Thus it feels its way and has a system of behavior which
insures its growth along the line of successful experiment.
So in the human world we find that forms of life tending to act in
certain ways come into contact with situations which stimulate some of
their activities and repress others. Those that are stimulated increase,
this increase acts upon the structures involved in it—usually to augment
their growth—and so a “selective” development is set in motion.
Intelligence may have a part in this or it may not; nothing is essential
but active tendencies and conditions which guide their operation.
You may sometimes see one vine growing upon another, involving the
mutual adaptation of two living forms. In human life this is the usual
condition, the environment being not something fixed but another plastic
organism, interacting in turn with still other organisms, giving rise to
an endless system of reciprocal growth. One form of life feels about
among the various openings or stimuli offered by another, and responds
to those which are most congruous with its own tendencies. The two
experiment with each other and discover and develop some way, more or
less congenial, of getting along. This is evidently true of persons, and
the principle applies equally to groups, ideas, and institutions.
We have, at any given moment, a complex of personal and impersonal
wholes each of which is charged with energy and tendency in the form of
heredity and habit coming from its past. If we fix our attention upon
any particular whole—a person, a party, a state, a doctrine, a programme
of reform, a myth, a language—we shall find it in the act of making its
way, of growing if it can, in the direction of its tendencies. As we
have seen, it is alive, however impersonal, and has human flesh, blood,
and nerves to urge it on. It already has adapted structure—hands and
feet as Luther said of the Word of God—because if it had not developed
something of the sort, some fitness to live in the general stream of
human life, we should not in fact find it there. As its means of further
growth it has a repertory of available activities; and these,
consciously or otherwise, are tried upon the situation. If not guided by
something in the nature of intelligence they act blindly, and may
nevertheless act effectively. In general some one or some combination of
these activities will work better in the situation than others, finding
more scope or stimulus of some sort, and will grow accordingly; the
energies of the whole, so far as they are available, tending to find an
outlet at this point. Thus the more a thing works the more it is enabled
to work, since the fact that it functions draws more and more energy to
it. And the whole to which it belongs, in thus continuing and enhancing
the successful activity, behaves very much as if it were conducting a
deliberate experiment. The enhanced activity also involves changes in
the whole and in the situation at large; and thus we move on to new
situations and new operations of the same principle.
Take, for illustration, the growth of a man at any point of his career;
let us say a youth starting out to make his living. He has energies and
capacities of which he is for the most part but vaguely aware. Young
people wave their instincts and habits about for something to catch on
very much as a vine does its tendrils. Suggestions as to possible lines
of work, drawn from what he sees about him, are presented to his mind
and, considering these with such light as he may have, he seeks a job.
He selects as among his opportunities, and at the same time his
opportunities, in the form of possible employers, select as between him
and other seekers. Having undertaken a job he may find that he cannot do
the work, or that it is too repugnant to his inclinations, in which case
he presently drops it and tries another. But if he succeeds and likes it
his energy more and more flows into it, his whole mind is directed
toward it, he grows in that sense. And his success usually secures to
him a larger and larger part to play in his chosen field, thus opening
new opportunities for growth in the same direction. Life is constantly
revealing openings which we could not have anticipated. It is like
paddling toward the outlet of a lake, which you cannot locate until you
are almost in it. We think that our course must extend in one of two
directions; but further advance shows that there is a third more
practicable than either. A little idea that we have overlooked or deemed
insignificant often grows until it renders obsolete those we thought
great.
In the case of a group under personal leadership the process is not
greatly different. A political party, a business enterprise, a social
settlement, a church, a nation, develops by means of a mixture of
foresight and unforeseen experience. It feels its way, more or less
intelligently, until it finds an opening, in the form of policies that
prove popular, unexploited markets, neglected wrongs, more timely
doctrines, or the like; and then, through increased activity at the
point of success, develops in the propitious direction.
Fashion well illustrates the tentative growth of an impersonal form.
Thus fashions in women’s dress are initiated, it appears, at Paris, this
city having a great prestige in the matter which it has achieved by some
centuries of successful leadership. In Paris there are a large number of
professional designers of dress who are constantly endeavoring to
foresee the course of change, and to produce designs that will “take.”
They compete with one another in this, and those who succeed gain wealth
and reputation for themselves and the commercial establishments with
which they are connected. Although they initiate they by no means have
the power to do this arbitrarily, but have to adapt themselves to vague
but potent tendencies in the mind of their public. It is their business
to divine these and to produce something which will fit the
psychological situation. At the seasons when new styles are looked for
the rival artists are ready with their designs, which they try upon the
public by causing professional models, actresses, or other notabilities
to appear in them. Of the many so presented only a few come into vogue,
and no designer can be certain of success: no one can surely foresee
what will work and what will not. But the designs that win in Paris
spread almost without opposition over the rest of the fashionable earth.
In the sphere of ideas “working” is to be understood as the enhanced
thought which the introduction of an idea into the mental situation may
stimulate. An idea that makes us think, especially if we think
fruitfully, is a working idea. In order to do this it must be different
from the ideas we have, and yet cognate enough to suggest and stimulate
a synthesis. When this is the case the human mind, individual or
collective, is impelled to exert itself in order to clear the matter up
and find an open way of thinking and acting. Thus it strives on to a
fresh synthesis, which is a step in the mental growth of mankind.
Consider, for example, the working of the idea of evolution, of the
belief that the higher forms of life, including man, are descended from
lower. A pregnant, widely related idea of this sort has a complex growth
which is ever extending itself by selection and adaptation. We know that
various lines of study had united, during the earlier half of the
nineteenth century, to make it appear to bold thinkers that evolution
from lower forms was not improbable. This idea found a point of fruitful
growth when, in the thought of Darwin especially, it was brought into
contact with the geological evidence of change and with the knowledge of
heredity and variation accumulated by breeders of domestic species. Here
it worked so vigorously that it drew the attention and investigation
first of a small group and later of a great part of the scientific
thought of the time. Other ideas, like that of Malthus regarding the
excess of life and the struggle for existence, were co-ordinated with
it, new researches were undertaken; in short, the public mind began to
function largely about this doctrine and has continued to do so ever
since.
Just what is it that “works”? The idea implies that there is already in
operation an active tendency of some sort which encounters the situation
and whose character determines whether it will work there, and if so,
how. In the case of the vine it is the pre-existing tendency of the
tendrils to revolve in the air, to bend themselves about any object they
may meet, and then to draw together like a spiral spring, which causes
the vine to work as it does when it meets the wire. Indeed, to explain
fully its working many other tendencies would have to be taken into
account, such as that to grow more rapidly at the highest point
attained, or where the light is greatest, and so on. In fact the vine
has an organism of correlated tendencies whose operation under the
stimulus of the particular situation is the working in question.
When we speak of human life we are apt to assume that the existing
tendency is some conscious purpose, and that whatever goes to realize
this is “working,” and everything else is failure to work. In other
words, we make the whole matter voluntary and utilitarian. This is an
inadequate and for the most part a wrong conception of the case. The
working of a man, or of any other human whole, in a given situation is
much more nearly analogous to that of the vine than we perceive.
Although conscious purpose may play a central part in it, there is also
a whole organism of tendencies that feel their way about in the
situation, reacting in a complex and mainly unconscious way. To put it
shortly, it is a man’s character that works, and of this definite
purpose may or may not be a part.
In a similar way any form of human life, a group, institution, or idea,
has a character, a correlation of complex tendencies, a _Motiv_, genius,
soul or whatever you may choose to call it, which is the outcome of its
past history and works on to new issues in the present situation. These
things are very little understood. How a language will behave when it
has new forms of life to interpret will depend, we understand, upon its
“genius,” its historical organism of tendencies, but I presume the
operation of this is seldom known in advance. And likewise with our
country as it lives in the minds of the people, with our system of ideas
about God and the church, or about plants and animals. These are real
forms of life, intricate, fascinating, momentous, sure to behave in
remarkable ways, but our understanding of this branch of natural history
is very limited. The popular impression that nothing important can take
place in human life without the human will being at the bottom of it is
an illusion as complete as the old view that the universe revolved about
our planet.
Here is an example from Ruskin of the working of two styles of
architecture in contact with each other. He says that the history of the
early Venetian Gothic is “the history of the struggle of the Byzantine
manner with a contemporary style [Gothic] quite as perfectly organized
as itself, and far more energetic. And this struggle is exhibited partly
in the gradual change of the Byzantine architecture into other forms,
and partly by isolated examples of genuine Gothic taken prisoner, as it
were, in the contest; or rather entangled among the enemy’s forces, and
maintaining their ground till their friends came up to sustain them.”
The reality of such struggles and adaptations cannot be gainsaid by any
one acquainted with the history of art, nor the fact that they are the
outworking of complex antecedent tendencies. But I suppose that all the
individual builder perceived of this conflict was that men from the
north were making window-mouldings and other details in new forms which
he could use, if they pleased him, instead of other forms to which he
had been accustomed. Of either style as an organic whole with more or
less energy he probably knew nothing. But they were there, just as real
and active as two contending armies.[1]
One may sometimes discover in his own mind the working of complex
tendencies which he has not willed or understood. When one first plans a
book he feels but vaguely what material he wants, and collects notes
somewhat at random. But as he goes on, if his mind has some synthetic
energy, his thought gradually takes on a system, complex yet unified,
having a growth of its own, so that every suggestion in this department
comes to have a definite bearing upon some one of the many points at
which his mind is striving to develop. Every one who has been through
anything of this sort knows that the process is largely unintentional
and unconscious, and that, as many authors have testified, the growing
organism frequently develops with greatest vigor in unforeseen
directions. If this can happen right in our own mind, with matters in
which we have a special interest, so much the more can it with lines of
development to which we are indifferent.
As a matter of psychology the evident fact underlying this “working” is
that mental development requires the constant stimulus of fresh
suggestions, some of which have immensely more stimulating power than
others. We know how a word or a glance from a congenial person, the
quality of a voice, a poetic or heroic passage in a book, a glimpse of
strange life through an open door, a trait of biography, a metaphor, can
start a tumult of thought and feeling within us where a moment before
there was only apathy. This is “working,” and it seems that something
like it runs all through life. It is thus that Greek literature and art
have so often awakened the minds of later peoples. The human spirit
cannot advance far in any separate channel: there must be a group, a
fresh influence, a kindred excitement and reciprocation.
These psychical reactions are more like the kindling of a flame, as when
you touch a match to fine wood, than they are like the composition of
mechanical forces. You might also call it, by analogy, a kind of
sexuality or mating of impulses, which unites in a procreative whole
forces that are barren in separation.
This kindling or mating springs from the depths of life and is not
likely to be reduced to formulas. We can see, in a general way, that it
grows naturally out of the past. Our primary need is to live and grow,
and we are kindled by something that taps the energies of the spirit
where they are already pressing for an outlet. We are easily kindled in
the direction of our instincts, as an adolescent youth by the sight of a
pretty girl, or of our habits, as an archæologist by the discovery of a
new kind of burial urn.
It is in this way, apparently, that all initiation or variation takes
place. It is never produced out of nothing; there is always an
antecedent system of tendencies, some of which expand and fructify under
fresh suggestions. Initiation is nothing other than an especially
productive kind of working, one that proves to be the starting-point for
a significant development. A man of genius is one in whom, owing to some
happy combination of character and situation, old ideas are kindled into
new meaning and power. All inventions occur through the mating of
traditional knowledge with fecundating conditions. A new type of
institution such as our modern democracy, is but the expansion, in a
propitious epoch, of impulses that have been awaiting such an epoch for
thousands of years.
But let us confess that we have no wisdom to explain these motions in
detail or to predict just when and how they will take place. They are
deep-rooted, organic, obscure, and can be anticipated only by an
imagination that shares their impulse. There is no prospect, in my
opinion, of reducing them to computation. The statement, “that grows
which works,” is true and illuminating, but reveals more questions than
it solves. Perhaps this is the main use of it, that it leads us on to
inquire more searchingly what the social process actually is. It has, I
think, an advantage over “adaptation,” “selection,” or “survival of the
fittest” in that it gives a little more penetrating statement of what
immediately takes place, and also in that it is not so likely to let us
rest in mechanical or biological conceptions.
CHAPTER II
ORGANIZATION
ADAPTATION IS AN ORGANIZING PROCESS—UNCONSCIOUS ORGANIZATION IN
PERSONS—IMPERSONAL ORGANISMS—ORGANIC GROWTH MAY BE OPPOSED TO THE
WILL OF THE PERSONS INVOLVED—IN WHAT SENSE SOCIETY IS AN
ORGANISM—ORGANISM AND FREEDOM
A process of adaptive “working” such as I have described is a process
also of organization, because it tends to bring about a system of
co-ordinated activities fitted to the conditions, and that is what
organization is. If a theory, for example, is making its way into the
minds of men, and at each point where it is questioned or tested
arguments and experiments are being devised to support it, then it is in
course of organization. It is becoming an intricate whole of related
parts which work in the general mind and extend its influence. The
theory of evolution has its organs in every department of thought, the
doctrine of eugenics, for example, being one form in which it functions.
The same is true of any living whole. Whenever a person enters upon a
new course of life his mind begins to organize with reference to it; he
develops ways of thinking and acting that are necessary or convenient in
order that he may meet the new conditions. In this way each of us grows
to fit his job, acquiring habits that are in some way congruous with it.
A farmer, a teacher, a factory worker, a banker, is certain to have in
some respects an occupational system of thinking. So a group, if it is
lasting and important, like a state, or a church, or a political party,
develops an organization every part of which has arisen by adaptive
growth.
A university, if we look at it from this point of view, appears as a
theatre of multiform selective organization. The students, already
sifted by preparatory schools and entrance examinations, are subject to
further selection for membership in the various academic groups. They
must pass certain preliminary courses, or attain a certain standing
before they can take advanced courses or be admitted to honor societies.
The athletic, dramatic, and debating groups have also selective methods
whose function is to maintain their organized activities. And the
university as a whole, and especially its various technical departments,
acts as an agent of selection for society at large, determining in great
part who are fit for the different professions. It is also a centre for
the organization of ideas. Intellectual suggestions relating to every
branch of knowledge, brought from every part of the world by books and
periodicals as well as by the cosmopolitan body of teachers and
students, are compared, discussed, augmented, worked over, and thus
organized, presumably for the service of mankind.
This organization, of which we are a part, like the process that creates
it, is more largely unconscious than we are apt to perceive. We see
human activities co-operating ingeniously to achieve a common object,
and it is natural to suppose that this co-operation must be the result
of a plan: it is the kind of thing that may be done by prevision, and it
does not readily occur to us that it can be done in any other way. But
of course organization is something far more extended than
consciousness, since plants, for example, exhibit it in great intricacy.
Indeed one of the main tasks of Darwin was to overcome by a great array
of facts the idea, accepted by his contemporaries, that the curious and
subtle adaptations of animal and vegetable life must be due to the
action of a planning intelligence. He showed that although even more
curious and subtle than had been perceived, they might probably be
explained by the slow working of unconscious adaptation, without any
plan at all. No one deliberately set out to color the small birds like
the ground so that the hawk would not see them, but by the production of
birds of varying colors, and the survival and propagation of those that
had in some degree a protective resemblance, the latter was gradually
perfected and established. The same principle of unintentional
adaptation is at work in human life, and we need to be reminded of it
because the place of the will at the centre of our personal
consciousness leads us to exaggerate the sphere of its activity. The
social processes, though they result in a structure which seems
rational, perhaps, when it is perceived, are for the most part not
planned at all. Consciousness is at work in them, but seldom
consciousness of anything more than some immediate object, some detail
that contributes to the whole without the actor being aware of the fact.
Generally speaking, social organisms feel their way without explicit
consciousness of where they want to go or how they are to get there,
even though to the eye of an observer after the fact their proceedings
may have an appearance of rational prevision.
This is true in a large measure even of persons, though less true of
them than of the more impersonal wholes. We are seldom conscious of our
personal growth in any large way; we meet details and decide as best we
can, but the general flow of our time, our country, our class, our
temperament, carries us along without our being definitely aware of it.
It is hardly possible for us to know what is taking place in us until it
is already accomplished: contemporary history, in an individual as in a
nation, eludes our comprehension. A country girl finds work in a city
office, and presently discovers that she has taken on the hurry and
excitement of the town and cannot do without it; a student enters
college and at the end of the year finds himself a different man,
without having intended it, or knowing how it came about. We take one
rather than another of the paths opening before us: they do not seem to
diverge much, but one leads around to the west and another to the east.
We do not know what choices are important and what are not. In only a
few matters do we think out a policy, and in much fewer do we carry it
out. As Emerson said, there is less purpose in the careers of successful
men than we ascribe to them; and one could soon fill a note-book with
testimony that the man and his work often find each other by mere
chance. A man is hungry and plans how to get a dinner, in love and
schemes to get a wife, desires power and racks his brain for ways to get
it; but it can hardly be said that our intelligence is often directed to
the rational organization of our character as a whole. With some men it
is, certainly, but even they often find that they have failed to
understand their own tendency. Martin Luther declared that “No good work
comes about by our own wisdom; it begins in dire necessity. I was forced
into mine; but had I known then what I know now, ten wild horses would
not have drawn me into it.”
Although we are a part of the growth of impersonal forms of life we
seldom know anything about it until it is well in the past. We do not
know when—for obscure reasons that even the psychologist can hardly
detect—we use one word rather than another, or use an old word in a new
sense, that we are participating in the growth of the language organism.
And yet this organism is vast, complex, logical, a marvel, apparently,
of constructive ingenuity. It is the same with tradition and custom. We
never tell a story or repeat an act precisely as we heard or saw it;
everything is unconsciously modified by passing through us and the
social medium of which we are a part, and these modifications build
logical structures which human intelligence, in the course of time, may
or may not discover. The students of folk-lore and primitive culture
deal chiefly with such material. The working or vitality of one element
of a tradition over another consists in some power to stimulate impulses
in the human mind, which is, therefore, a selective agent in the
process, but we are no more aware of what is going on, usually, than we
are of the selective action of our digestive organs. The folkways and
_mores_ which Professor Sumner has so amply discussed are almost wholly
of this nature.
The commercialism of our time offers a modern instance. Nobody, I
suppose, has intended it: it has come upon us through the mechanical
inventions, the opening of new countries and other conditions which have
stimulated industry and commerce, these in turn imposing themselves upon
the minds and habits of men at the expense of other interests. An epoch,
like an individual, has its somewhat special functions, and a mind
somewhat subdued to what it works in. Such a development as that of the
Italian painting of the Renaissance, or of a particular school, like the
Venetian, is a real organism, fascinating to study in the interactions
and sequences of its activity, waxing and waning under the spur of
immediate influences without thought of the living whole which history
now discovers.
A city is a different sort of organism whose development is, for the
most part, equally unconscious. A frontier settlement, we will say, is
fortunately situated with reference to the growth of the country, its
water-power, its port facilities, or something of the sort making it a
functional point. The settlers may or may not perceive and co-operate
with this advantage, but in any case the town grows; trade and
manufactures increase, railroads seek it, immigration pours in,
street-railways are laid, the different elements segregate in different
localities, and we presently have a complex, co-ordinated structure and
life which, however faulty from the point of view of the civic reformer,
is a real organism, full of individuality and interest. Think of Chicago
or New Orleans, not to speak of the riper development of London, Venice,
or Rome. Here are social organisms with only gleams of general
consciousness, growing by tentative selection and synthesis. The case is
much the same with nations, with the Roman Empire, Spain, and Britain.
Any one who follows the large movements of history must perceive, I
think, that he is dealing mainly with unconscious systems and processes.
At a given time there is a social situation that is also a mental
situation, an intricate organization of thought. The growth of this
involves problems which the mind of the time is bound to work out, but
which it can know or meet only as details. Thus the history of the
Christian Church in the Middle Ages presents itself to the student as
the progressive struggle, interaction, and organization not only of
specifically Christian ideas and traditions, but of all the ideas and
traditions of the time working upon each other in this central
institution. Whatever beliefs men came to were the outcome of the whole
previous history of thought. Vast forces were contending and combining
in an organic movement which we can even now but dimly understand, and
which the men involved in it could no more see than a fish can see the
course of the river.
Feeling has an organic social growth which is, perhaps, still less
likely than that of thought to be conscious. The human mind is capable
of innumerable types and degrees of sentiment, and the question what
type shall be developed or how far it shall be carried depends upon
social incitement. If certain ways of feeling become traditional and are
fostered by customs, symbols, and the cult of examples, they may rise to
a high level in many individuals. In this way sentiment, even passion,
may have an institutional character. Of this too the various phases of
mediæval Christianity afford examples. Its emotions were slowly evolved
out of Roman, oriental, and barbarian, as well as Christian, sources.
It is notable that not only may the growth of a movement be unintended
by the persons involved in it, but it may even be opposed to their
wills. The oncoming of a commercial panic, with the growing apprehension
and mistrust which almost every one would arrest if he could, is a
familiar example. The mental or nervous epidemics which sometimes run
through orphan asylums and similar institutions are of somewhat the same
nature. They propagate themselves by their power to stimulate a certain
kind of nerve action and live in the human organism without its consent.
Indeed, are not all kinds of social degeneration—vice, crime, misery,
sensualism, pessimism—organic growths which we do not intend or desire,
and which are usually combated by at least a part of those afflicted?
There has been much discussion regarding the use of such words as
“organic,” “organization,” and “organism” with reference to society, the
last appearing specially objectionable to some persons, who feel that it
suggests a closer resemblance to animal or plant life than does in fact
exist. On the other hand, “organism” seems in many cases a fitter word
than “organization,” which is usually understood to imply conscious
purpose. It matters little, however, what term we use if only we have a
clear perception of the facts we are trying to describe. Let us, then,
consider shortly what we mean by such expressions.
If we take society to include the whole of human life, this may truly be
said to be organic, in the sense that influences may be and are
transmitted from one part to any other part, so that all parts are bound
together into an interdependent whole. We are all one life, and its
various phases—Asia, Europe, and America; democracy, militarism, and
socialism; state, church, and commerce; cities, villages, and families;
and so on to the particular persons, Tom, Dick, and Harry—may all be
regarded, without the slightest strain upon the facts, as organs of this
whole, growing and functioning under particular conditions, according to
the adaptive process already discussed. The total life being unified by
interaction, each phase of it must be and is, in some degree, an
expression of the whole system. My thought and action, for example, is
by no means uninfluenced by what is going on in Russia, and may truly be
said to be a special expression of the general thought of the time.
But within this great whole, and part of it, are innumerable special
systems of interaction, more or less distinct, more or less enduring,
more or less conscious and intelligent. Nations, institutions,
doctrines, parties, persons, are examples; but the whole number of
systems, especially of those that are transient or indefinite, is beyond
calculation. Every time I exchange glances with a man on the street a
little process of special interaction and growth is set up, which may
cease when we part or may be indefinitely continued in our thought. The
more distinct and permanent wholes, like nations, institutions, and
ruling ideas, attract peculiar study, but the less conspicuous forms are
equally vital in their way. As to persons, they interest us more than
all the rest, mainly because our consciousness has a bias in their
favor. That is, having for its main function the guidance of persons, it
is more vivid and choosing with reference to the personal phase of life
than to any other. We know life primarily as persons, and extend our
knowledge to other forms with some difficulty.
Another notable thing about this strange complex is the overlapping and
interpenetration of the various forms, so that each part of the whole
belongs to more than one organic system—somewhat as in one of those
picture-puzzles where the same lines form part of several faces, which
you must discover if you can. Thus one’s own personality is one organic
system; the persons he knows are others, and from one point of view all
human life is made up of such personal systems, which, however, will be
found on close inspection not to be separate but to interpenetrate one
another. I mean that each personality includes ideas and feelings
reflected from others. From another point of view the whole thing breaks
up into groups rather than persons—into families, communities, parties,
races, states. Each has a history and life of its own, and they also
overlap one another. A third standpoint shows us the same whole as a
complex of thoughts or thought-systems, whose _locus_, certainly, is the
human mind, but which have a life and growth of their own that cannot be
understood except by studying them as distinct phenomena. All are
equally real and all are aspects of a common whole.
Perhaps the first requisite in the making of a sociologist is that he
learn to see things habitually in this way.
If, then, we say that society is an organism, we mean, I suppose, that
it is a complex of forms or processes each of which is living and
growing by interaction with the others, the whole being so unified that
what takes place in one part affects all the rest. It is a vast tissue
of reciprocal activity, differentiated into innumerable systems, some of
them quite distinct, others not readily traceable, and all interwoven to
such a degree that you see different systems according to the point of
view you take.[2]
It is not the case, as many suppose, that there is anything in the idea
of organism necessarily opposed to the idea of freedom. The question of
freedom or unfreedom is rather one of the _kind_ of organism or of
organic process, whether it is mechanical and predetermined, or creative
and inscrutable. There may be an organic freedom, which exists in the
whole as well as in the parts, is a total as well as a particular
phenomenon. It may be of the very nature of life and found in all the
forms of life. Darwin seems to have believed in something of this kind,
as indicated by his unwillingness to regard the dinosaur as lacking in
free will.[3]
The organic view of freedom agrees with experience and common sense in
teaching that liberty can exist in the individual only as he is part of
a whole which is also free, that it is false to regard him as separate
from or antithetical to the larger unity. In other words the notion of
an opposition between organism and freedom is a phase of the
“individualistic” philosophy which regarded social unity as artificial
and restrictive.
CHAPTER III
CYCLES
THE CYCLICAL CHARACTER OF SOCIAL PROCESS—THE CYCLES ORGANIC, NOT
MECHANICAL—THE GROWTH AND DECAY OF NATIONS—DOES HISTORY REPEAT
ITSELF?
It is a familiar observation that there is a cyclical character in all
the movements of history. Every form of organization has its growth, its
vicissitudes, and sooner or later, probably, its decline and
disappearance. The mob assembles and disperses, fashions come in and go
out, business prosperity rises, flourishes, and gives way to depression,
the Roman Empire, after centuries of greatness, declines and falls.
This is a trait of life in general, and the explanation does not pertain
especially to sociology. Still, if we assume that social process is made
up of functional forms or organisms working onward by a tentative
method, we can see that their history is naturally cyclical. Any
particular form represents an experiment, conscious or otherwise, and is
never absolutely successful but has constantly to be modified in order
to meet better the conditions under which it functions. If it does this
successfully it grows, but even in the growing it usually becomes more
complex and systematic and hence more difficult to change as regards its
general type. In the course of time the type itself is likely to lose
its fitness to the conditions, and so the whole structure crumbles and
is resolved into elements from which new structures are nourished. The
parties, the doctrines, the institutions of the past are for the most
part as dead as the men.
Where institutions, like Christianity, have survived for a millennium or
two, it is commonly not their organization that has endured, but a very
general idea or sentiment which has vitalized successive systems, each
of which has had its cycle of prosperity and decay.
It does not follow that a social cycle is in any way mechanical or
predetermined, any more than it follows that the individual life is so
because each of us sooner or later declines and dies.
The word “rhythm” which has been used in this connection by Herbert
Spencer and others is questionable as implying a mechanical character
that does not exist. When we are told that a movement is rhythmical we
generally infer, I think, that certain phases recur at stated times, and
can be predicted on this basis, like the ebb and flow of tides.
But if this is what the word means then the idea of rhythm in the social
process appears to be a fiction. I doubt if any examples of it can be
given, except such as are immediately dependent upon some external
phenomenon, like our going to bed at night, or else are artificially
established, such as the cessation of work every seventh day, or the
celebration of the Fourth of July.
The course of the fashions, or of the periods of prosperity and
depression in business, are fair examples of the kind of phenomena
supposed to be rhythmical; but it does not appear, upon examination,
that these movements are mechanical or can be predicted by simple rules
of any sort. Can any one foretell the fashions more than two or three
months ahead, or by any method save that of inquiring what has already
got a start in London or Paris? Studies of their genesis show that even
the most expert are unable to tell in advance what designs will “take.”
Many have the impression that business cycles follow a regular course,
which can be plotted beforehand on curves, and some, I believe, put
sufficient faith in such curves to invest their money accordingly, but I
doubt if they are especially successful. My impression is that the few
men who succeed in speculation do not trust to any law of rhythm, but
make an intensive study of the actual state of the market, guiding
themselves somewhat by past records, but not forgetting that the present
condition is, after all, unique, and must be understood by a special
intellectual synthesis. I take it that those who trust to mechanical
formulas are much in the same class as those who expect to get rich at
Monte Carlo by the use of an arithmetical “system.”
A scientific study of business cycles, such as that carried out with
large scope and exhaustive detail by Professor Wesley C. Mitchell, shows
that they are complex organic movements, belonging to a common general
type—as indicated by successive periods of confidence and depression, of
high and low prices, and so on—but differing greatly from one another,
altering fundamentally with the development of business methods, and
showing no such pendulum-like regularity in time as is often supposed.
“The notion that crises have a regular period of recurrence,” it seems,
“is plainly mistaken.” “These cycles differ widely in duration, in
intensity, in the relative prominence of their various phenomena, and in
the sequence of their phases.”[4] Professor Mitchell’s work is an
excellent example of what a scientific study of social process, in the
economic sphere, should be, and of the uses and limits of the
statistical method.
The same sort of objection holds good against the idea that social
organisms of any sort, and more especially nations, are subject to a
_definite_ law of growth and decay, which enables us to predict their
fate in advance. No doubt they must all “have their closes” sooner or
later, but the process is complex and in part within the sphere of will,
so that there is no exact way of predicting how it will work out. So far
as nations have decayed in the past it has been because their systems
became too rigid for change, or took on a form which demoralized the
people, or proved unable to resist conquest, or in some other way failed
to work effectually. These dangers are difficult to avoid, and it is not
surprising that most nations have succumbed to them, but sound
institutions intelligently adapted to change might avert them
indefinitely. It may even be said that there are nations which have
lived throughout historical time. The Jews, for example, have kept their
national consciousness and their fundamental ideas. Some modern nations,
as France and England, have endured many centuries and show no lack of
vigor.
Predictions based on a supposed law of this nature are constantly
proving false. At almost any time during the last three centuries
English writers could be found likening the condition of their country
to that of imperial Rome, and predicting a similar downfall; and
recently America has been threatened with a like fate. Many have judged
France and Spain to be hopelessly on the downward path, and have
elaborated theories of the causes of their decay, which have proved
somewhat supererogatory.
My own impression is that the freer and more intelligent forms of
national life arising under modern conditions are likely, when well
established, to have a much longer life than older forms, the reason
being that they are plastic and capable of rational adaptation. There
will be ups and downs, but the actual dissolution of a self-conscious
modern nation is hard to conceive.
The idea that history repeats itself is similar to that of social
rhythm. Certain principles of human nature and social process operate
throughout history, and their working may be traced in one age as in
another. Thus when one nation is believed to be trying to dominate
others it is human nature that the latter should combine against it; and
in this sense it may be said that the Entente of 1914 was a repetition
of the league against Napoleon. But such resemblances are accompanied by
essential differences, so that the situation as a whole is new, and you
cannot predict the course of events except on the basis of a fresh
synthesis. It is easy to discover resemblances, and to overestimate
their importance.
I take it that life as a whole is not a series of futile repetitions,
but an eternal growth, an onward and upward development, if you please,
involving the continual transformation or elimination of details. Just
as humanity lives on while individuals perish, so the social
organization endures while particular forms of it pass away.
CHAPTER IV
CONFLICT AND CO-OPERATION
LIFE AS CONFLICT—CONFLICT AND ORGANIC GROWTH—CONFLICT INSTIGATES
CO-OPERATION—ORGANIZATION MAKES THE CONDITIONS OF CONFLICT—THE TWO
AS AN ORGANIC WHOLE—CONFLICT AND WASTE—CONFLICT AND PROGRESS
From the perennial discussion regarding the meaning of conflict in life
two facts clearly emerge: first, that conflict is inevitable, and,
second, that it is capable of a progress under which more humane,
rational, and co-operative forms supplant those which are less so. We
are born to struggle as the sparks fly upward, but not necessarily to
brutality and waste.
_Vivere militare est_; even the gentlest spirits have felt that life is
an eternal strife. Jesus came to bring not peace but a sword, and the
Christian life has always been likened to that of a soldier.
“Sure I must fight if I would reign,
Increase my courage, Lord!”
The thing is to fight a _good_ fight, one that leaves life better than
it found it. In the individual and in the race as a whole there is an
onward spirit that from birth to the grave is ever working against
opposition. A cloud of disease germs surrounds us which we beat off only
by the superior vigor of our own blood-corpuscles, and to which as our
organism weakens in age we inevitably succumb. It is much the same in
the psychological sphere. Every meeting with men is, in one way or
another, a demand on our energy, a form of conflict, and when we are
weakened and nervous we cannot withstand the eyes of mankind but seek to
avoid them by seclusion.
The love that pervades life, if it is affirmative and productive, works
itself out through struggle, and the best marriage is a kind of strife.
The sexes are as naturally antagonistic as they are complementary, and
it is precisely in their conflict that a passionate intimacy is found.
We require opposition to awaken and direct our faculties, and can hardly
exert ourselves without it. “What we agree with leaves us inactive,”
said Goethe, “but contradiction makes us productive.” Stanley, the
explorer of Africa, writes: “When a man returns home and finds for the
moment nothing to struggle against, the vast resolve which has sustained
him through a long and difficult enterprise dies away, burning as it
sinks in the heart; and thus the greatest successes are often
accompanied by a peculiar melancholy.”[5]
It is apparent that both conflict and co-operation have their places in
our process of organic growth. As forces become organized they
co-operate, but it is through a selective method, involving conflict,
that this is brought about. Such a method compares the available forces,
develops the ones most fitted to the situation, and compels others to
seek functions where, presumably, they can serve the organism better.
There seems to be no other way for life to move ahead. And a good kind
of co-operation is never static, but a _modus vivendi_ under which we go
on to new sorts of opposition and growth. People may be said to agree in
order that their conflict may be more intimate and fruitful, otherwise
there is no life in the relation.[6]
The two are easily seen to be inseparable in every-day practice. When,
for example, people have come together to promote social improvement,
the first thing to do is to elect officers. This may not involve a
conflict, but the principle is there, and the more earnestness there is,
the more likelihood of opposition. Then there must be a discussion of
principles and programme, with occasional ballots to see which view has
won. I remember reading of several rather serious conflicts within
societies for the promotion of peace, and churches and philanthropic
movements are not at all lacking in such incidents.
Co-operation within a whole is usually brought about by some conflict of
the whole with outside forces. Just as the individual is compelled to
self-control by the fact that he cannot win his way in life unless he
can make his energies work harmoniously, so in a group of any sort, from
a football-team to an empire, success demands coordination. The boys on
the playground learn not only that they must strive vigorously with
their fellows for their places on the team, but also that as soon as
their team meets another this kind of conflict must yield to a common
service of the whole. In no way do working people get more discipline in
fellowship and co-operation than in carrying through a strike. The more
intelligent students recognize some measure of conflict between capital
and labor as functional and probably lasting. Like the struggle of
political parties it is a normal process, through which issues are
defined and institutions developed.
And likewise with nations. Their enlargement and consolidation,
throughout history, including the remarkable development of internal
organization and external co-operation due to the great war, have almost
invariably been occasioned by the requirements of conflict. And if we
are to have a lasting world-federation it must preserve, while
controlling, the principle of national struggle.
A factor of co-operation, of organization, always presides over conflict
and fixes its conditions. There is never a state of utter chaos but
always a situation which is the outcome of the organic development of
the past, and to this the contestants of the hour must adjust themselves
in order to succeed. That this is the case when the situation includes
definite rules, as in athletic contests, is manifest. But the control of
the social organization over conflict goes far beyond such rules,
operating even more through a general situation in which certain modes
of conflict are conducive to success and others are not. In business the
customary practices and opinions must be observed as carefully as the
laws, if one would not find every man’s hand against him, and the same
is true in sports, in professional careers, in manual trades, in every
sphere whatsoever.
Even in war, which is the nearest approach to anarchy that we have on
any large scale, it is not the case that a presiding order is wholly
absent. Any nation which defies the rooted sentiment of mankind as to
what is fair in this form of conflict, regarding no law but that of
force, sets in operation against itself currents of distrust and
resentment that in the long run will overbear any temporary gain. The
most truculent states so far understand this that they try to give their
aggressions the appearance of justice.
The more one thinks of it the more he will see that conflict and
co-operation are not separable things, but phases of one process which
always involves something of both. Life, seen largely, is an onward
struggle in which now one of these phases and now another may be more
conspicuous, but from which neither can be absent.
You can resolve the social order into a great number of co-operative
wholes of various sorts, each of which includes conflicting elements
within itself upon which it is imposing some sort of harmony with a view
to conflict with other wholes. Thus the mind of a man is full of
wrangling impulses, but his struggle with the world requires that he act
as a unit. A labor-union is made up of competing and disputing members;
but they must manage to agree when it comes to a struggle with the
employer. And employer and employees, whatever their struggles, must and
do combine into a whole for the competition of their plant against
others. The competing plants, however, unite through boards of trade or
similar bodies to further the interests of their city against those of
other cities. And so the political factions of a nation may be at the
height of conflict, but if they are loyal they unite at once when war
breaks out with another country.
And war itself is not all conflict, but often generates a mutual
interest and respect, a “sympathy of concussion.” A scholar who perished
in the trenches of the German army in France wrote: “Precisely when one
has to face suffering as I do, it is then a bond of union enlaces me
with those who are over there—on the other side.... If I get out of
this—but I have little hope—my dearest duty will be to plunge into the
study of what those who have been our enemies think.” It is not
impossible to think of the battling nations as struggling onward toward
some common end which they cannot see. They slay one another, but they
put a common faith and loyalty into the conflict; and out of the latter
may come a clearer view of the common right. It is a moral experiment to
which each contributes and defends its own hypothesis, and if the
righteous cause wins, or the righteous elements in each cause, all will
profit by the result. So it was with the American Civil War, as we all
feel now. North and South say: “We differed as to what was right. It had
to be fought out. There might have been another way if our minds had
been otherwise, but as it was the way to unity lay through blood.”
Much has been said, from time to time, about our age being one of
combination, in the economic world at least, and of the decline of
competition. It would be more exact to say that both combination and
competition have been taking on new forms, but without any general
change in the relation between them. What happens, for example, when a
trust is formed to unite heretofore competing plants, is that
unification takes place along a new line for the purpose of aiding
certain interests in their conflict for aggrandizement. It is merely a
new alignment of forces, and has no tendency toward a general decline of
competition. Indeed every such trust not only fights outside
competitors, but deliberately fosters manifold competition within its
system, for the sake of exciting exertion and efficiency. The different
plants are still played off one against the other, as are also the
different departments, the different foremen in each department, and the
different workmen. By an elaborate system of accounting, every man and
every group is led to measure its work against that of other men and
other groups, and to struggle for superiority. And the great
combinations themselves have not been and will not be left at peace. If
they absorb all their competitors they will have to deal with the state,
which can never permit any form of power to go unchecked.
It is evident that the vigor of the struggle is proportionate to the
human energy that goes into it, and that we cannot expect tranquillity.
It does not follow, however, that the amount of conflict is a measure of
progress. The function of struggle is to work out new forms of
co-operation, and if it does not achieve this but goes on in a blind and
aimless way after the time for readjustment has arrived, it becomes mere
waste. Synthesis also takes energy, and very commonly a higher or more
rational form of energy than conflict. Critics of the present state of
things are wrong when they condemn competition altogether, but they are
right in condemning many present forms of it. Extravagant and fallacious
advertising, price-cutting conflicts, the exploitation of children and
squandering of natural resources, not to mention wars, indicate a
failure of the higher constructive functions. Indeed the irrational
continuance of such methods exhausts the energies that should put an end
to them, just as dissipation exhausts a man’s power of resistance, so
that the more he indulges himself the less able he is to stop.
Evidently progress is to be looked for not in the suppression of
conflict but in bringing it under rational control. To do this calls for
some sort of a social constitution, formal or informal, covering the
sphere of struggle, a whole that is greater than the conflicting
elements and capable of imposing regulation upon them. This regulation
must be based on principles broad enough to provide for pacific change
and adaptation, to meet new conditions. So far as we can achieve this we
may expect that struggle will rise to higher forms, war giving place to
judicial procedure, a selfish struggle for existence to emulation in
service, a wasteful and disorderly competition to one that is rational
and efficient. Our past development has been in this direction, and we
may hope to continue it.
But the current of events is ever bringing to pass unforeseen changes,
and if these are great and sudden they may again throw us into a
disorderly struggle, just as a panic in a theatre may convert an
assemblage of polite and considerate people into a ruthless mob.
Something of this kind has taken place in connection with the industrial
revolution, bringing on a confusion and demoralization from which we
have only partly emerged. Another case is where a conflict, for whose
orderly conduct the organization does not provide, having long developed
beneath the surface in the shape of antagonistic ideals and
institutions, breaks out disastrously at last, as did the Civil War in
the United States, or the great war in Europe. We can provide against
this only in the measure that we foresee and control the process in
which we live. If we can do this we may look for an era of deliberate
and assured progress, in which conflict is confined and utilized like
fire under the boiler.
CHAPTER V
PARTICULARISM _VERSUS_ THE ORGANIC VIEW
INTELLECTUAL PARTICULARISM—ITS FALLACY—ECONOMIC DETERMINISM—THE
ORGANIC VIEW AS AFFECTING METHODS OF STUDY—WHY PARTICULARISM IS
COMMON
We meet in social discussion a way of thinking opposed to the conception
of organic process as I have tried to expound it, which I will call
intellectual particularism.[7] It consists in holding some one phase of
the process to be the source of all the others, so that they may be
treated as subsidiary to it.
A form of particularism that until recently was quite general is one
that regards the personal wills of individual men, supplemented,
perhaps, by the similar will of a personal God, as the originative
factor in life from which all else comes. Everything took place, it was
assumed, because some one willed it so, and for the will there was no
explanation or antecedent history: it was the beginning, the creative
act. When this view prevailed there could be no science of human
affairs, because there was no notion of system or continuity in them;
life was kept going by a series of arbitrary impulses. As opposed to
this we have the organic idea that will is as much effect as cause, that
it always has a history, and is no more than one phase of a great whole.
In contrast to particularistic views of this sort we have others which
find the originative impulse in external conditions of life, such as
climate, soil, flora, and fauna; and regard intellectual and social
activities merely as the result of the physiological needs of men
seeking gratification under these conditions.
A doctrine of the latter character having wide acceptance at the present
time is “economic determinism,” which looks upon the production of
wealth and the competition for it as the process of which everything
else is the result. The teaching of Marxian socialism upon this point is
well known, and some economists who are not socialists nevertheless hold
that all important social questions grow out of the economic struggle,
and that all social institutions, including those of education, art, and
religion, should be judged according as they contribute to success in
this struggle. This is, indeed, a view natural to economists, who are
accustomed to look at life from this window, though most of them have
enough larger philosophy to avoid any extreme form of it.[8]
The fallacy of all such ideas lies in supposing that life is built up
from some one point, instead of being an organic whole which is
developing as a whole now and, so far as we know, always has done so in
the past. Nothing is fixed or independent, everything is plastic and
takes influence as well as gives it. No factor of life can exist for men
except as it is merged in the organic system and becomes an effect as
much as a cause of the total development. If you insist that there is a
centre from which the influence comes, all flowing in one direction, you
fly in the face of fact. What observation shows is a universal
interaction, in which no factor appears antecedent to the rest.
Any particularistic explanation of things, I should say, must be based
on the idea that most institutions, most phases of life, are passive,
receive force but do not impart it, are mere constructions and not
transitive processes. But where will you find such passive institutions
or phases? Are not all alive, all factors in the course of history as we
know it? It seems to me that if you think concretely, in terms of
experience, such an explanation cannot be definitely conceived.
I hold that the organic view is not a merely abstract theory about the
nature of life and of society, but is concrete and verifiable, giving a
more adequate general description than other theories of what we
actually see, and appealing to fact as the test of its value. It does
not attempt to say how things began, but claims that their actual
working, in the present and in the historical past, corresponds to the
organic conception.
Let any one fix his mind upon some one factor or group of factors which
may appear at first to be original, and see if, upon reflection, it does
not prove to be an outgrowth of the organic whole of history. Thus many
start their explanation of modern life with the industrial revolution in
England. But what made the industrial revolution? Was it brought into
the world by an act of special creation, or was it a natural sequence of
the preceding political, social, intellectual, and industrial
development? Evidently the latter: it is a historical fact, like
another, to be explained as the outcome of a total process, just as much
an effect of the mental and social conditions of the past as it came to
be a cause of those of the future. I think this will always prove to be
the case when we inquire into the antecedents of any factor in life.
There _is_ no beginning; we know nothing about beginnings; there is
always continuity with the past, and not with any one element only of
the past, but with the whole interacting organism of man.
If universal interaction is a fact, it follows that social life is a
whole which can be understood only by studying its total working, not by
fixing attention upon one activity and attempting to infer the rest. The
latter method implies an idea similar to that of special creation, an
idea that there is a starting-place, a break of continuity, a cause that
is not also an effect.
Such visible and tangible things as climate, fuel, soils, fruits,
grains, wild or domestic animals, and the like have for many a more
substantial appearance than ideas or institutions, and they are disposed
to lean upon these, or upon some human activity immediately connected
with them, as a solid support for their philosophy of life. But after
all such things exist _for us_ only as they have interacted with our
traditional organism of life and become a part of it. Climate, as it
actually touches us, may be said to be a social institution, of which
clothes, shelter, artificial heat, and irrigation are obvious aspects.
And so with our economic “environment.” What are deposits of iron and
coal, or fertility of soil, or navigable waters, or plants and animals
capable of domestication, except in conjunction with the traditional
arts and customs through which these are utilized? To a people with one
inheritance of ideas a coal-field means nothing at all, to a people with
another it means a special development of industry. Such conditions owe
their importance, like anything else, to the way they work in with the
process already going on.
Another reason for the popularity of material or economic determinism is
the industrial character of our time and of many of our more urgent
problems, which has caused our minds to be preoccupied with this class
of ideas. A society like ours produces such theories just as a
militarist society produces theories that make war the dominating
process.
It is easy to show that the “_mores_ of maintenance,” the way a people
gets its living, exercise an immense influence upon all their ideas and
institutions.[9] But what are the “_mores_ of maintenance”? Surely not
something external to their history and imposed upon them by their
material surroundings, as seems often to be assumed in this connection,
but simply their whole mental and social organism, functioning for
self-support through its interaction with these surroundings. They are
as much the effect as they can possibly be the cause of psychical
phenomena, and to argue economic determinism from their importance begs
the whole question. Material factors are essential in the organic whole
of life, but certainly no more so than the spiritual factors, the ideas,
and institutions of the group.
Professor W. G. Sumner, probably by way of protest against a merely
ideal view of history, said: “We have not made America; America has made
us.” Evidently we might turn this around, and it would be just as
plausible. “We” have made of America something very different from what
the American Indians made of it, or from what the Spaniards would
probably have made of it if it had fallen to them. “America” (the United
States) is the total outcome of all the complex spiritual and material
factors—the former chiefly derived from European sources—which have gone
into its development.
To treat the human mind as the primary factor in life, gradually
unfolding its innate tendencies under the moulding power of conditions,
is no less and no more plausible than to begin with the material. Why
should originative impulse be ascribed to things rather than to mind? I
see no warrant in observed fact for giving preference to either.[10]
It is the aim of the organic view to “see life whole,” or at least as
largely as our limitations permit. However, it by no means discredits
the study of society from particular standpoints, such as the economic,
the political, the military, the religious. This is profitable because
the whole is so vast that to get any grasp of it we need to approach it
now from one point of view, now from another, fixing our attention upon
each phase in turn, and then synthetizing it all as best we can.
Moreover, every phenomenon stands in more immediate relation to some
parts of the process than to others, making it necessary that these
parts should be especially studied in order to understand this
phenomenon. Hence it may be quite legitimate, with reference to a given
problem, to regard certain factors as of peculiar importance. I would
not deny that poverty, for example, is to be considered chiefly in
connection with the economic system; while I regard the attempt to
explain literature, art, or religion mainly from this standpoint as
fantastic. But when we are seeking a large view we should endeavor to
embrace the whole process. No study of a special chain of causes is more
than an incident in that perception of a reciprocating whole which I
take to be our great aim.
If we think in this way we shall approach the comprehension of a period
of history, or of any social situation, very much as we approach a work
of organic art, like a Gothic cathedral. We view the cathedral from many
points, and at our leisure, now the front and now the apse, now taking
in the whole from a distance, now lingering near at hand over the
details, living with it, if we can, for months, until gradually there
arises a conception of it which is confined to no one aspect, but is, so
far as the limits of our mind permit, the image of the whole in all its
unity and richness.
We must distinguish between the real particularist, who will not allow
that any other view but his own is tenable, and the specialist, who
merely develops a distinctive line of thought without imagining that it
is all-sufficing. The latter is a man you can work with, while the
former tries to rule the rest of us off the field. Of course he does not
succeed, and the invariable outcome is that men tire of him and retain
only such special illumination as his ardor may have cast; so that he
contributes his bit much like the specialist. Still, it would diminish
the chagrin that awaits him, and the confusion of his disciples, if he
would recognize that the life process is an evolving whole of mutually
interacting parts, any one of which is effect as well as cause.
It should be the outcome of the organic view that we embrace specialty
with ardor, and yet recognize that it is partial and tentative, needing
from time to time to be reabsorbed and reborn of the whole. The Babel of
conflicting particularisms resembles the condition of religious doctrine
a century ago, when every one took it for granted that there could be
but one true form of belief, and there were dozens of antagonistic
systems claiming to be this form. The organic conception, in any sphere,
requires that we pursue our differences in the sense of a larger unity.
I take it that what the particularist mainly needs is a philosophy and
general culture which shall enable him to see his own point of view in
something like its true relation to the whole of thought. It is hard to
believe, for example, that an economist who also reads Plato or Emerson
comprehendingly could adhere to economic determinism.
There are several rather evident reasons for the prevalence of
particularism. One is the convenience of a fixed starting-point for
thinking. Our minds find it much easier to move by a lineal method, in
one-two-three order, than to take in action and reaction, operating at
many points, in a single view. In fact, it is necessary to begin
somewhere, and when we have begun somewhere we soon come to feel that
that _is_ the beginning, for everybody, and not merely an arbitrary
selection of our own.
Very like this is what I may call the _illusion of centrality_, the fact
that if you are familiar with any one factor of life it presents itself
to you as a centre from which influence radiates in all directions,
somewhat in the same way that the trees in an orchard will appear to
radiate from any point where you happen to stand. Indeed it really is
such a centre; the illusion arises from not seeing that every other
factor is a centre also. The individual is a very real and active thing,
but so is the group or general tendency; it is true that you can see
life from the standpoint of imitation (several writers have centred upon
this) but so you can from the standpoint of competition or organization.
The economic process is as vital as anything can be, and there is
nothing in life that does not change when it changes; but the same is
true of the ideal processes; geography is important, but not more so
than the technical institutions through which we react upon it; and so
on.
Another root of particularism is the impulse of self-assertion. After we
have worked over an idea a while we identify ourselves with it, and are
impelled to make it as big as possible—to ourselves as well as to
others. There are few books on sociology, or any other subject, in which
this influence does not appear at least as clearly as anything which the
author intended to express. It is not possible or desirable to avoid
these ambitions, but they ought to be disciplined by a total view.
I have little hope of converting hardened particularists by argument;
but it would seem that the spectacle of other particularists maintaining
by similar reasoning views quite opposite to their own must, in time,
have some effect upon them.
_PART II_
PERSONAL ASPECTS OF SOCIAL
PROCESS
CHAPTER VI
OPPORTUNITY
THE ADAPTATION OF PERSONS ORGANIZES SOCIETY—PERSONAL COMPETITION
INEVITABLE—NEED OF INTELLIGENT ADAPTATION—OPPORTUNITY; WHAT IS
IT?—EFFECT OF MODERN TENDENCIES UPON OPPORTUNITY—THE PROLONGATION
OF IMMATURITY—OPPORTUNITY THROUGH EDUCATION—THE HUMAN
BASIS—VOCATIONAL SELECTION—OTHER ADAPTIVE AGENCIES
The most evident differentiation in the process of human life is that
into persons, each of whom strives forward in a direction related to but
never quite parallel with that of his neighbor. And this onward
striving, when we regard it largely, is seen to be an experimental and
selective process which is maintaining and developing the social
organization. Its general direction is continuous with the past, our
will to live and to express ourselves being moulded from infancy by the
system which is the outcome of ages of development. We feel our way into
this system, and in so doing become candidates for some one of the
functions of society. There are generally other candidates, and we have
to struggle, to adapt ourselves, to renounce and compromise, until we
reach some kind of a working adjustment with our fellows. The whole may
be regarded as a vast game, the aim of which is to arouse and direct
endeavor along lines of growth continuous with the past. The rules of
the game, its scale, and the spirit in which it is played, change from
year to year and from age to age; but its underlying function remains.
Society requires, in its very nature, a continuous reorganization of
persons: any statical condition, any fixed and lasting adjustment, is
out of the question. One reason for this is that with every period of
about fifty years there is a complete change in the active _personnel_
of the system; man by man one crew withdraws and a new one has to be
chosen and fitted to take its place. When we reflect upon the number of
social functions, the special training required for each, and the need
that this training should be allied with natural aptitude, it is
apparent that the task is a vast one and the time short.
It is not merely the death of persons or the decay of their faculties
that calls for reorganization, but also the changes in the social system
itself, to which persons must adapt themselves—the new industrial
methods, the migrations, the transformation of ideas and practices in
every sphere of life. These do not conform to the decay of individuals
but often strike a man in the midst of his career, compelling him to
begin again and make a new place for himself in the game—if he can.
All this comparison and selection cannot be managed without a large
measure of competition, however it may be mitigated. It would seem that
there must always be an element of conflict in our relation with others,
as well as one of mutual aid; the whole plan of life calls for it; our
very physiognomy reflects it, and love and strife sit side by side upon
the brow of man. The forms of opposition change, but the amount of it,
if not constant, is at any rate subject to no general law of diminution.
If we are to make the process of life rational there is nothing which
more requires our attention than the adaptive organization of persons.
At present it is, for the most part, a matter of rather blind
experimentation, unequal, from the point of view of individuals, and
inefficient from that of society. The child does not know what his part
in life is, or how to find it out: he looks to us to show him. But
neither do we know: we say he must work it out for himself. Meanwhile
the problem is solved badly, in great part, and to the detriment of all
of us. Moreover, since it becomes daily more difficult with the growing
complexity and specialization of life, the unconscious methods upon
which we have hitherto relied are less and less adequate to meet it.
The method, however we may improve it, must remain experimental,
involving comparison and selection as well as co-operation. The only
possible alternative, and that only a partial one, would be a system of
caste under which the function of the son would be determined by that of
his father. If the social system were stationary, so that the functions
themselves did not change, this method would insure order without
conflict, after a fashion; but I need not say that it would be an
inefficient fashion and an order contrary to the spirit of modern life.
For us the way plainly lies through the acceptance of the selective
method, and its scientific study and reconstruction.
What the individual demands with reference to this reorganizing process
is opportunity; that is, such freedom of conditions that he may find his
natural place, that he may serve society in the way for which his native
capacity and inclination, properly trained and measured with those of
others in fair competition, will fit him. In so far as he can have this
he can realize himself best, and do most for the general good. It is the
desirable condition from both the personal and the public points of
view.
But if we ask just how this freedom is to be had, we find that there is
no simple answer. It differs for every person and for every phase of his
growth, and is always the outcome not of one or two circumstances, but
of the whole system in which he lives. We cannot fix upon any particular
point in a man’s history as the one at which he is, once for all, given
or denied opportunity. He needs it all his life, and we may well demand
that he have it during his prenatal development as well as after birth;
or, going back still further, we may try, by controlling propagation, to
see that he has a good hereditary capacity to start with.
Supposing that we begin at birth, we may regard newborn children as
undeveloped organisms, each of which has aptitudes more or less
different from those of any other. These differences of aptitude are the
basis of the future social differentiation, but we have no means of
knowing what they are. Opportunity, if it is to be at all complete, must
begin right away; it should consist, apparently, in a continuous
process, lasting from birth to death, which shall awaken, encourage, and
nourish the individual in such a way as to enable his highest personal
and social development. The study of it means that our whole society
must be considered with a view to the manner in which it aids or hinders
this process.
The trend of social development is such as to make opportunity more and
more a matter of intelligent provision, less and less one which can take
care of itself. Recent history presents the growth of a complex,
specialized system, offering, as time goes on, more functions and
requiring more selection and preparation to perform them rightly. I say
“rightly” because many of them may be and are performed, after a
fashion, with very little selection or preparation; but the full human
and social function of the individual normally requires a personal
development proportionate to the development of the whole.
Formerly a boy growing up on a farm, let us say, had his social
possibilities in plain sight: he could either continue on the farm or
apprentice himself to one of several trades and professions in the
neighboring town. Nowadays a thousand careers are theoretically open to
him, but these are mostly out of sight, and there is no easy way of
finding out just what they are, whether they are suitable to him, or how
he may hope to attain them. The whole situation calls for a knowledge
and preparation far beyond what can be expected of unaided intelligence.
If we are really to have opportunity we must evidently make a science of
it, and apply this science to the actual interworking of the individual
with the social whole.
It is a well-known principle of evolution that the higher the animal in
the scale of life the longer must be the period of infancy. That is, the
higher the mental and social organism the longer it takes for the new
individual to grow to full membership in it. The human infant has the
longest period of helplessness because he has most to learn.
Following out this principle, the higher our form of society becomes the
more intelligence and responsibility it requires of its members, and
hence the longer must be the formative period during which they are
getting ready to meet these requirements. A civil engineer, for example,
must master a far greater body of knowledge now than fifty years ago. It
is true that specialized industry offers many occupations which, though
they contribute to a complex whole, are in themselves very simple, such
as tending the automatic machinery by which screws are made. But it
cannot be regarded as a permanent condition that intelligent labor
should be employed at work of this kind. Intelligence is greatly needed;
there is never enough of it; and to leave it unused is bad management.
“A man is worth most in the highest position he can fill.” Mechanical
work should be done by machines, and will be so done more and more as
men are trained for something higher. The lack of such training I take
to be one of the main reasons why men are kept at tasks which do not use
their intelligence. And even at such tasks they are rarely efficient
unless they understand the meaning of what they are doing, so that they
can fit it into the process as a whole. The man who lacks comprehension
and adaptability is of little use; and it is precisely to gain these
that preparation is required.
Moreover, beyond the technical requirements, we have the need that a man
should be prepared for social function of a larger sort, to make his way
in the vast and open field of modern life, to find his job, to care for
his family, to perform his duties as a citizen. That many are plunged
into the stress and confusion of life without such a preparation is an
evil of the same nature as when recruits are sent into battle without
previous instruction and discipline. The process of learning in action
will be destructive.
In early childhood, opportunity means all kinds of healthy
growth—physical, mental, moral, social. This, no doubt, is best secured
through a good family. But we cannot have good families without a good
community, and so it calls for general measures to create and maintain
standards of life. It seems a simple truth, but is one which we
disregard in practice, that “equality of opportunity” cannot exist, or
begin to exist, except as it extends to little children, and that it
cannot extend to them except through a somewhat paternal, or maternal,
vigilance on the part of society.
Our principal institution having opportunity for its object is
education, and accordingly this has an increasing function arising from
the increasing requirements that life makes upon it. Where it does not
perform this function adequately we see the result in social failure and
degeneration—armies of stunted children, privilege thriving upon the
lack of freedom, the poor tending to become a misery caste, the
prevalence of apathy and inefficiency.
Since opportunity is a different thing for every individual, and
requires that each have the right development _for him_, it is clear
that education should aim at a study and unfolding of individuality, and
that, in so far as we have uniform and wholesale methods, not dealing
understandingly with the individual as such, we are going wrong.
I recall that an able woman who had been a teacher in a state
institution for delinquent girls said to me that every such girl had a
desire, perhaps latent, to _be_ something, to express an individuality,
and that the recognition of this was the basis of a better system of
dealing with them. This is only human nature, and one way of stating
nearly all our social troubles is to say that individuality has not been
properly understood and evoked, has not had the right sort of
opportunity. To find a response in life, to discover that what is most
inwardly _you_, is wanted also in the world without, that you can serve
others in realizing yourself; this is what makes resolute and
self-respecting men and women of us, and what the school ought
unfailingly to afford. The people who drift and sag are those who have
never “found themselves.”
When, after hearing and reading many discussions about the conduct of
schools, I ask myself what I should feel was really essential if I were
intrusting a child of my own to a school, it seems to me that there are
two indispensable things: first, an intimate relation with a teacher who
can arouse and guide the child’s mental life, and, second, a good group
spirit among the children themselves, in which he may share. The first
meets the need we all have in our formative years for a friend and
confidant in whom we also feel wisdom and authority; and I assume that
we are not to rely upon the child’s finding such at home. The second,
equal membership in a group of our fellows, develops the democratic
spirit of loyalty, service, emulation, and discussion. These are the
primary conditions which the child as a human being requires for the
growth of his human nature; and if I could be sure of them I should not
be exacting about the curriculum, conceiving the harm done by mistakes
in this to be small compared with that resulting from defect in the
social basis of the child’s life. And it is the latter, it seems to me,
which, because of its inward and spiritual character, not to be
ascertained or tested in any definite way, we are most likely to
overlook.
It is apparent that our present methods are far too uniform and
impersonal, that we too commonly press the child into a mould and know
little about him except how nearly he conforms to it. And no doubt a
tendency to this will always exist, because it can be avoided only by a
liberal expenditure of attention, sympathy, and other costly resources,
to save which there is always a pressure to fall back upon the mould.
Opportunity cannot be realized without the ungrudging expenditure of
money and spirit in the shape of devoted and well-equipped teachers,
working without strain.
The study and evolution of the individual should be both sympathetic and
systematic. There is a movement, which seems to be in the right
direction, not only to have more and better teachers, but to continue
longer the relation between the teacher and the particular child, so
that it may have a chance to ripen into friendship, instead of being
merely perfunctory. And, on the side of system, a continuous record
should be kept which should accompany the child through the schools,
preserving not only marks but judgments of his character and ability,
and so helping both others and himself to understand him; for I see no
reason why the subject of such documents should not have access to them.
At present the school does not commonly act upon the child as a whole
dealing with a whole, but makes a series of somewhat disconnected
attempts upon those phases of him which come into contact with the
curriculum, the latter, rather than the individual, being the heart of
the organization. In this respect education is hardly so advanced as the
best practice in charity, which keeps a sympathetic history of each
person, and of his family and surroundings, making this the base of all
efforts to help him.
One who gives some study to current theories and practice in education
might well conclude that we were in a state of confusion, with little
prospect of the emergence of order. He may discover, however, one thread
which all good teachers are trying to keep hold of, namely, that of
adapting the school more understandingly to the mind and heart of the
child. Indeed our way of escape from the distraction of counsels
probably lies in focussing more sympathy and common sense upon the
individual boy or girl. This calls for more good teachers and more
confidence in them as against mechanism of any sort.
The later years of school life need a gradual preparation for definite
social function, the aim being to discover what line of service is most
probably suited to one’s capacities and inclinations, and to train him
for it. This preparation is itself a social process, and one into which
we cannot put too much intelligence, sympathy, and patience. Parents and
teachers can aid in it by interesting the child in the choice of a
career, offering suggestions and helping him to learn about his own
abilities and the opportunities open to them. He must feel that the
problem is his and that no one else can work it out for him.
Psychological tests should be of considerable help, and will no doubt
become more and more penetrating and reliable. I think, however, that
methods of this sort can never be more than ancillary to the process of
“trying out,” of gradual, progressive experimentation as to what one can
actually do. We must still feel our way into life, but by doing this
largely before we leave school, and in a more intelligent way, we can
prevent the rift between the school and the world from being the
alarming and often fatal chasm it now is.
Unless we can have real opportunity in the schools—through study of the
individual, training, culture, and vocational guidance, we cannot well
have it anywhere else. That is, if education does not solve at least
half the problem of selective adaptation there is little hope of rightly
solving the other half in later years. The absence of suitable
preparation makes competition unfair and disorderly. A boy leaving
school at sixteen, without having learned his own capacities or received
the training they require, is in no case to compete intelligently. It is
a rare chance if he finds his right place in the immense and complex
system. For the most part he takes up whatever work offers itself, too
commonly a blind-alley occupation which leads nowhere.
It is even worse with girls, who, regarding their work as temporary,
commonly take little interest in it. Anna Garlin Spencer, in her Woman’s
Share in Social Culture, describes the usual state of the working girl
as untrained, unambitious, shirking, and careless, and speaks of “the
positive injury to the work sense, the demoralization of the faculty of
true service, that her shallow and transitory connection with outside
trade occupation so often gives.”[11]
Competition means freedom and opportunity only on condition that the
individual is rightly prepared to compete. Otherwise it may mean waste,
exploitation and degeneracy, and this is what it does mean to a large
part of young men, and a larger part of girls and women.
Rational adaptation should be in operation everywhere, and not merely in
the schools. Employment bureaus, public and private, should afford
trained and sympathetic study of individuals and an honest effort to
place them where they belong. Vocational guidance bureaus will without
doubt be greatly extended in scope and efficiency, and private
industries will give more attention not only to the expert choice,
placing, and promotion of their employees, but also to affording them
recreation, technical instruction, and culture. As we come to see better
what opportunity means, public opinion and private conscience will
demand it in many forms now unthought of.
CHAPTER VII
SOME PHASES OF CULTURE
CULTURE AND TRAINING—CULTURE STUDIES—A CORE OF PURPOSE—CULTURE IN
SERVICE—ALL SHOULD HAVE AN ALMA MATER—RURAL CULTURE—SOCIAL AND
SPIRITUAL CULTURE—VARIETY IN CULTURE
The idea of life as an organic whole affords an illuminating view of the
old question of practical training _versus_ culture, letting us see that
these are departments, or rather aspects, of the process by which the
individual grows to full membership in the social order. They correspond
to two aspects, of differentiation and of unity, in that order itself.
In one of these society presents itself as an assemblage of special
functions, such as teaching, engineering, farming, and carpentry, for
each of which a special preparation is required. But in another it
appears a continuous and unified organism, with rich and varied
traditions, intricate co-operation, and a wide interplay of thought and
sentiment. Full participation in this calls for a general and human, as
well as a special and technical, adaptation; a development of
personality, of the _socius_, to the measure of the general life.
Under this view culture is growth to fuller membership in the human
organism; not a decoration or a refuge or a mystical superiority, but
the very blood of life, so practical that its vigor is quite as good a
measure as technical efficiency of the power of the social whole. Indeed
the practice of regarding the technical and the cultural as separate and
opposite is unintelligent. They are complements of each other, and
either must share in the other’s defect. A society of training without
culture would be a blind mechanism which could be created and maintained
only by an external force; while one of culture without training would
lack organs by which to live. The real thing in education is the organic
whole of personal development, corresponding to the organic whole of
social life; and of this culture and training are aspects which, far
from being set against each other as hostile principles, should be kept
in close union.
The process of culture, then, is one of enlarging membership in life
through the growth of personality and social comprehension. This
includes the academic idea of culture as the fruit of liberal studies,
such as literature, art, and history, because we get our initiation into
the greater life largely through these studies. The tradition which so
long identified culture with classical studies rested upon this
foundation. From the revival of learning until quite recent years it was
felt that the literatures and monuments of Greece and Rome were the
chief vehicles of the best the human spirit had attained (except,
perhaps, in religion, which was held to be a somewhat separate
province), and accordingly the study of the ancients was an
apprenticeship to the larger life, an initiation into the spiritual
organism. And whatever change has come as regards the classics, it is
still true that studies which, like literature, history, philosophy, and
the appreciation of the arts, aim directly at opening to us our
spiritual heritage, have a central place in real culture.
Culture must always mean, in part, that we rise above the special
atmosphere of our time and place to breathe the large air of great
traditions that move tranquilly on the upper levels. One should not
study contemporaries and competitors, said Goethe, but the great men of
antiquity, whose works have for centuries received equal homage and
consideration.[12]
So far as schools are concerned culture depends at least as much upon
the teacher as upon what purports to be taught. That is, it profits more
by the kindling of a spirit than by the acquirement of formal knowledge.
“Instruction does much, but inspiration does everything.” Any subject is
a culture subject when it is imparted through one who is living ardently
in the great life and knows how to pass the spark on. And on the other
hand it is too plain how technical and narrowing is the routine teaching
of literature, which widely operates to disgust the student with books
he might otherwise have enjoyed.
Indeed culture, in one view, is nothing other than the power to enter
into sympathy with enlarging personalities. We get our start in this
from face-to-face intercourse, and are fortunate if we have companions
who can open out a wider vision of life. But if we are to carry it far
we need the more select and various society that is accessible only
through books, and it often happens that for an eager mind leisure and a
library are the essential things. It seems to me a serious question
whether the present trend of our colleges to suppress idling by
requiring from the student a large quantity of tangible work is not
injurious to culture by crowding out spontaneity and a browsing
curiosity. Disciplinarians scoff at this, as they always will at
anything irregular, but some of us know that to us the chief benefit of
a college course was not anything we learned from the curriculum, but
the mere leisure and opportunity and delay, and we cannot doubt that
there are still students of the same kind. How can a man _vacare Deo_ if
he does conscientiously the “required reading” that his instructors try
to force upon him? I am inclined to think that the ingenuity of the
collegian is often well spent in thwarting these endeavors and securing
time to loaf in spite of the conspiracy against it. We require too much
and inspire too little.
If we view culture as a phase of the healthy growth of the mind, we may
expect that it will be most real when it is allied with serious
occupation and endeavor, provided these are spontaneous, rather than
when remaining apart. We travel to see the world; but one who stays at
home with a spirit-building task will see more of it than one who
travels without one. The reason is that hearty human life and work bring
us into intelligence of those realities that are everywhere if we live
deep enough to find them. The surest way to know men is to have simple
and necessary relations with them—as of buyer and seller, employer and
workman, teacher and scholar. It is not easy to know them when you have
no real business with them. Culture must be won by active participation
of some sort, by putting oneself into something—as Goethe won his by
taking up a dozen arts and sciences in succession, and working at each
as if he meant to make a profession of it. Any specialty, if one takes
it largely enough, may be a gate to wide provinces of culture. Thus the
study of law, which is merely a technical discipline to most students,
Burke found to be “one of the first and noblest of human sciences, a
science which does more to quicken and invigorate the understanding than
all the other kinds of learning put together.”[13]
Technical training in the schools would not prove hostile to a real
culture if it were associated with leisure and liberal studies, and if
the training itself were given in a large spirit which leads the mind
out to embrace the whole of which the specialty is a member. And
certainly manual arts are not deficient in this respect. I imagine that
I have derived considerable culture from the practice of amateur
carpentry and wood-carving; and I have no doubt that any one who has
cared for an occupation of this kind will have a similar feeling. There
is a whole department of life, full of delight and venerable
associations, to which handicraft is the key.
Indeed, nothing is more surely culture than any work in the spirit of
art. Since one is doing it for self-expression he puts himself into it;
he must also undergo discipline in the mastery of technic, and he has
the social zest of imparting joy to others and being appreciated by
them. It is real and vital as mere learning under instruction rarely is.
And one who has practised an art, though with small success, will have a
sense of what art is that the mere looker-on can never have.
It is quite true, in my opinion, that household training could be given
to girls in such a way that they would get more culture out of it than
nine-tenths of them now do from the perfunctory study of history,
languages, and music. It would only require teachers who could impart a
spirit of craftsmanship and a sense of human significance. An almost
universal trouble with both boys and girls in the present state of
society is that they are not given, in connection with their work,
enough of the general plan and movement of life to get interested in
that and in their part in it. The general movement is too much for them;
they do not see any plan in it, and merely catch on to it where they
can, work with it when they have to, and put their real interest into
crude amusement. We do not make it natural for the individual to
identify himself and his task with the whole. To do that would be
culture.
Possibly the view that culture is not opposed to technical studies may,
under the present ascendancy of the latter, tend practically to confirm
the subordination of culture; but I aim to state underlying principles,
and it seems to me that the right relation between the two is not much
forwarded by partisanship for either, but rather by showing that they
are complementary and suggesting a line of co-operation. The actual
hostility of technical and professional schools to culture arises from
their usually exacting and narrow character, which crowds everything
liberal out.
I may add in this connection that it is a great part of culture to learn
how to _do something well_, no matter what it is, to have the discipline
and insight that we get by persistent endeavor, undergoing alternate
success and failure, observing how, with time, the unconscious processes
come to our aid, and so gaining at last some degree of mastery; in
short, by experiencing how things are really done. Unfortunately many
students slip through a supposed liberal education without getting this
experience; and no wonder the colleges are discredited by their
subsequent performance. In these times when home life has widely ceased
to afford practical discipline it is peculiarly important that schools
should do so.
But the enlargement of the spirit, which is culture, calls for something
more than studies, of any kind. It needs also a hearty participation in
some sort of a common life. The merging of himself in the willing
service of a greater whole raises man to the higher function of human
nature.
We need to aim at this in all phases of our life, but nowhere is it
easier to attain or more fruitful of results than in connection with the
schools. Since the school environment is comparatively easy to control,
here is the place to create an ideal formative group, or system of
groups, which shall envelop the individual and mould his growth, a model
society by assimilation to which he may become fit to leaven the rest of
life. Here if anywhere we can insure his learning loyalty, discipline,
service, personal address, and democratic co-operation, all by willing
practice in the fellowship of his contemporaries. As a good family is an
ideal world in miniature, in respect of love and brotherhood, so the
school and playground should supply such a world in respect of
self-discipline and social organization. There is nothing now taking
place, it would seem, more promising of great results than the
development of groups which appeal to the young on the social and active
side of their natures and evoke a community spirit. They take eagerly to
such groups, under sympathetic leadership, finding self-expression in
them, and there seems to be no great obstacle to their becoming
universal and embracing all the youth of the land in a wholesome _esprit
de corps_ which would be a hundred times more real and potent with them
than any kind of moral instruction. The motive force is already there,
in the natural idealism of boyhood and adolescence; all we need to do,
apparently, is to provide the right channels for it. This is a field
where the harvest is plenteous, and which the laborers are only
beginning to discover.
All of us who have been at college know something of the spiritual value
of an _alma mater_, of memories, associations, and symbols to which we
can recur for the revival of fellowship and the ideals of youth. If we
ever have noble ideals it is when we are young, and if we keep them it
is apt to be by continuing early influences.
It seems, then, that every one ought to have an _alma mater_, that
whatever kind of school one leaves to enter the confusion and conflict
of the world, it should be enshrined within him by friendship, beauty,
ceremony, and high aims, and that these should be renewed by revisiting
the academic scene at occasional festivals. Our common schools, in town
and country, might thus play the part in the life of the mass of the
people that colleges do in that of a privileged class, providing
continuous groups charged with a high social spirit, and capable of
extending this spirit indefinitely. There is nothing we need more than
continuity and organization of higher influence, and hardly any way of
achieving this so practicable as through the schools.
Each community should have a centre of social culture connected with the
public schools, and the character of this would vary with that of the
community. There is especial need for building up in the country a type
of culture which is distinctively rural in character, and yet not
inferior to urban culture in its power to enlarge life. Country life
attracts the imagination by its comparative repose, by the stability and
dignity that one associates with living on the land, and by its
wholesome familiarity with plant and animal life. But these attractions
are offset at present by social and spiritual limitations which lead
most of those who have a choice to prefer the towns. If each district
had a culture centre where the finer needs of life might be gratified in
as great a measure as anywhere, and yet with a rural flavor and
individuality, the country would be more a place to live in and less one
to flee from as soon as you can afford to do so. These centres, we may
hope, will grow up about the centralized and enlarged schools that are
now beginning to replace the scattered one-room buildings, bringing
better and more various instruction, including studies especially
appropriate to rural life. Around the school might be grouped the rural
church; also consolidated, socialized, and made a real centre of
fellowship and co-operation; the public library, art gallery, and hall
for political and social gatherings. In a community enjoying such
institutions, with a spirit and traditions of its own, life ought to be
at least as livable as in town.
It will turn out, I believe, that the higher social culture is of a
kindred spirit with religion. The essence of religion, I suppose, is the
expansion of the soul into the sense of a Greater Life; and the way to
this is through that social expansion which, however less in extent, is
of the same nature. One who has developed a spirit of loyalty, service,
and sacrifice toward a social group, has only to transform this to a
larger conception in order to have a religious spirit. Indeed it is
clear that the more ardent kind of social devotion, like that of the
patriot for his country in extreme times, is hardly distinguishable from
devotion to God. His country, for the time being, is the incarnation of
God, and in some measure this is true of any group which embodies his
actual sense of a greater life than that of his own more confined
spirit. I think, then, that social culture through devotion to the
service and ideals of an inspiring group is in the direction of
religious culture, and probably, for most minds, the natural and healthy
road to the latter. I do not mean to suggest that school and community
groups should supplant the churches; but it seems to me that they may
supply a broad foundation upon which churches and other organizations
may set their more special structures.
Shall we not come to teaching every one, by concrete social experience,
a community spirit that shall be the basis at once of citizenship, of
morals, and of religion? Why should not the simple principles of
democracy and righteousness and worship be so humanized and popularized
in the life of the community and the school that the children shall
almost unconsciously learn and practise them? Do we not need, in these
matters, an alphabet of a few letters to replace the Chinese writing of
the past?
I may add that if every man had a suitable task of his own, for which he
was properly trained, and could see the relation of that task first to
larger work of the same sort and then to the general human life, it
would build up religious faith in a way not otherwise possible. Our work
is the most vital part of us, or should be, and if we can see it as one
with the ordered life of humanity, and divine a connection with the
Greater Life, we shall hardly lack religion. Religion is, for one thing,
the sense of a man’s self as member of a worthy whole, and his sense of
self is formed by his striving. On the other hand, anarchy of endeavor
breaks up faith.
It is perhaps unnecessary that we should agree upon definitions and
programmes of culture. Although it is always some kind of enlargement of
the spirit, it must vary with individuals and communities. The higher
literary culture, calling for mastery of languages and long immersion in
the great traditions, is only for a few, and yet it is essential for
some kinds of leadership and should always be open to those who show an
aptitude for it. The group culture in connection with the schools is of
great promise as affording a simple and genial way of spiritual growth
in which the least intellectual may share. The study and practice of
specialties is capable of indefinite development on the culture side. In
short, culture is itself a complex organic process which ought to
permeate life, but can never be reduced to rules.
CHAPTER VIII
OPPORTUNITY AND CLASS
EXISTENCE AND INFLUENCE OF CLASS—INHERITANCE CLASSES IN RELATION TO
THE FAMILY—HAS INHERITED PRIVILEGE A SOCIAL VALUE?—HOW FAR
INEQUALITIES OF WEALTH COULD BE PREVENTED BY EQUAL
OPPORTUNITY—ELIMINATION OF ORGANIZED MISERY—EQUAL OPPORTUNITY A
GOOD WORKING IDEAL—WHAT KIND OF EQUALITY IS ATTAINABLE
All societies are more or less stratified into classes, based on
differences in wealth, occupation, and enlightenment, which tend to be
passed on from parents to children; and this stratification creates and
perpetuates difference in opportunity. No one needs to be told that
extreme poverty may mean ill-nurture in childhood—resulting perhaps in
permanent enfeeblement—impaired school work, premature leaving of
school, practical exclusion from higher education, stunting labor in
early years followed by incapacity later, a restrictive and perhaps
degrading environment at all ages, and a hundred other conditions
destructive of free development. A somewhat better economic situation
may still involve disadvantages which, though not so crushing, are
sufficiently serious as bars to higher function.
Professor H. R. Seager, a careful economist, has suggested that the
population of the United States may be roughly divided into five classes
or strata, which are largely non-competing, in the sense that
individuals are in great part shut off from opportunities in classes
above their own. The highest class, enjoying family incomes of more than
three thousand dollars a year, has the fullest opportunity. In the
second class, with incomes of from one thousand five hundred dollars to
three thousand dollars, the boys begin work at sixteen or seventeen
years, and are handicapped in starting by lack of resources and outlook.
They are too apt to choose work which pays well at once, but does not
lead to advancement, and only a very small per cent rise above the
condition of their parents. A third class, with incomes of from six
hundred dollars to one thousand five hundred dollars, is marked by early
marriages, large families, early withdrawal from school, and lack of
outlook. Its members are rarely able to compete for the better positions
with classes one and two. A fourth class, of wage-earners at from one to
two dollars a day (at the time the book was published), shows the same
conditions accentuated. Their necessarily low standard of living and its
mental and social implications bar a rise in the world, and they
compete, as a rule, only for that grade of work to which they are born.
The fifth is a misery class, in which the most destructive and degrading
conditions prevail.[14]
I am not sure that this analysis is not somewhat one-sided, especially
in allowing too little influence to the relaxing effects of ease upon
those born in the upper class, but it is certainly nearer the truth than
the optimistic dogma that in this free country every one has an equal
chance.
And lack of pecuniary resource is by no means the only thing that
restricts opportunity and confines one within a class. To grow up where
the schools are poor and the neighborhood associations degrading, to
belong to a despised race, to come of an immigrant group not yet
assimilated to the language and customs of the country, or simply to
have vicious or unwise parents, may prevent healthy development
irrespective of economic resources.[15]
The existence of inherited stratification is due to the fact that the
child is involved in the situation of the family. As long as the latter
surrounds him, determining his economic support and social environment,
there must be a strong tendency for the condition of the parents to be
transmitted. And this merging of the child in the family is in itself no
evil, but arises naturally out of the functions of the family as the
group charged with the nurture of the coming generation.
In other words, there is a certain opposition between the ideal of equal
opportunity and that of family responsibility. Responsibility involves
autonomy, which will produce divergence among families, which, in turn,
will mean divergent conditions for the children; that is, unequal
opportunities. We all recognize that individuals will not remain equal
if they are allowed any freedom; and the same is true of families; even
if they started with the same opportunities they would make different
uses of them, and so create inequalities for the children. And we might
go further back, and say that so long as communities and
occupation-groups have any freedom and responsibility there will be
inequalities among them also, in which families and children will be
involved. A state of absolute equality of opportunity is incompatible
with social freedom and differentiation.
As society is now constituted, it recognizes the responsibility of the
family, in an economic sense at least, and makes the desire to provide
well for one’s children a chief inducement to industry, thrift, and
virtue in general. Unless we are prepared to change all this we must
allow a man to retain for his children any reasonable advantages he may
be able to win. It is only a question of what advantages are reasonable.
No one who thinks in full view of the facts will imagine that anything
like identity of opportunity is possible. There must be diversities of
environment, whether due to family or to other conditions, and these
will diversify the opportunities of the children. Equality is only one
among several phases of a sound social ideal, and must constantly submit
to compromise. There is much to be said for the view that we need to
work toward more definitely organized special environments and
traditions, because of the higher and finer achievement which these make
possible; and if we do, these can hardly fail to impress a greater
diversity upon those born into them.
It is on this ground of the need of special environments and traditions
to foster the finer kind of achievement that inherited privilege has
been most plausibly defended. Thus it is argued that the people who gain
wealth and power have, as a rule, ability above the average, and that
the inheritance of their wealth and position, and often of their
ability, makes possible the growth of a really superior class, with high
traditions and ideals, suitable for leadership in politics, art,
science, philanthropy, and other high functions which do not offer a
pecuniary reward. Certainly we need such a class, and if this is the way
to get it no petty jealousy ought to hinder us. There is no doubt that
the upper classes of Europe have grown up in this way, and have largely
performed these higher functions; and even in American democracy we owe
much of our finer leadership to inherited privilege.
This will probably continue to be the case, and yet there is no good
reason why we should relax our endeavors to make opportunity more equal.
If, through these endeavors, one kind of upper class becomes obsolete,
we may expect the rise of another, based on a freer principle.
The finer kinds of training and ideals may be secured otherwise than
through inherited privilege; namely, by having them organized in
continuing groups and institutions to which individuals are admitted not
through privilege, but freely, on the basis of proved capacity, the
institutions providing them with whatever income they need for their
function. In this way, for example, talented men and women, without
inherited advantage, work their way to careers in art, science, and
education, supported by fellowships and salaries. The fact that an
occupation-group is not hereditary does not at all prevent it from
having an effective class spirit and tradition, as we may see in the
medical or engineering professions. This is the method of open classes,
the ideal one for a modern society, and ought to be developed with the
aim of making all the higher kinds of service sufficiently paid, and so
capable of drawing the talent they need from wherever it may be found.
If the environment of a specially cultured family is at present
essential to the finest culture development, this is perhaps because the
general conditions of culture and early opportunity are not at all what
they might be. When the misery class is abolished and a more discerning
education fosters talent in children from all classes, the value of
special privilege will be reduced.
If opportunity were made as nearly equal as possible, consistently with
preserving the family, we might reasonably expect that the higher
functions of society would be better performed, because there would be a
wider selection of persons to perform them, and also that they would be
cheaper, because of the broader competition. Indeed many hold that we
might come to get the services of the best lawyers, doctors, business
men, and others whose work requires elaborate training, at prices not
much above what are now paid for skilled manual labor.
I think, however, that the latter expectation would be disappointed, and
that no conceivable equalization of opportunity would prevent great
differences in salaries and other gains. Such differences would arise
not only from unlikeness in ability, but also from the incalculable
nature of the social process, which is sure to act differently upon
different persons and result in diverse fortunes.
As regards the professions, even if the requisite education were made
accessible to all, successful practitioners would still, probably,
command large pay. A long technical preparation, such as is necessary
for law or surgery or metallurgy, would still be a difficult and
speculative enterprise, involving foresight, resolution, and risk of
failure, and this barrier would make competent practitioners
comparatively scarce. One cannot be sure that his abilities are of the
right sort, and while many make the venture who are not qualified to
succeed, so, without doubt, many who are qualified do not make it. It is
often a matter of mere luck whether a man discovers what he is fit for
or not, and it is not likely that vocational guidance can altogether
obviate this. The result is that only a part of the potential
competitors actually enter the field, and in the case of the less
settled professions this is apt to be a very small part.
And then such matters as the place where a man begins to practise, and
the connections he makes early in his career, are largely fortuitous and
have results beyond his foresight. One course of circumstances may lead
him into a position where his services are indispensable to a group of
wealthy clients, while another may result very differently. Men with an
ill-paying practice are not necessarily men of less ability than those
who are getting rich.
Still less can we expect that exorbitant gains in business could be
obviated by any possible equality of opportunity. In general such gains
imply not only ability but a fortunate conjunction of circumstances
which could not have been foreseen with any certainty when the man was
making his start. There is an element of luck and speculation in the
matter, the result of which is that of a thousand who started with equal
abilities and opportunities, perhaps only one or two will be on hand at
the right place and time, and with the right equipment to make the most
of an opening. When it appears there is commonly a small group of men in
range of it who are there rather by good fortune than foresight. Of
these the ablest, by endowment and training, will grasp it.
So long as the movements of life are free and unanticipated in anything
like the present measure, the individual will be like a swimmer upon the
surface of a torrent, able to make headway in this direction or that
according to his strength, but still very much at the mercy of the
stream. If he finds himself near a boat he may reach it and climb
aboard, but ninety-nine others who can swim just as well may have all
they can do to keep their heads above water.
This is fairly obvious in common observation. At a gathering, which I
was privileged to attend, of the principal men of a neighboring
commercial city, it seemed that the prevailing type was quite
commonplace. They appeared kindly and of a good business intelligence,
but hardly in such a degree as one might expect in the leading men of a
leading community. Apparently the city had grown and these men attached,
as it were, to the growing branches, had been lifted up accordingly.
I take it that large gains, and even gains that are unjust, so far as
individual merit is concerned, are inevitable, though some of the more
flagrant inequalities might be reduced by social reform. We must, then,
deal with them after they are made, and this points to a policy of
drastic taxation, the revenue to be used for the common welfare, and
also to moral control of the use of wealth through public opinion and
social ideals.
It is probably true that the poor, of a scattered and sporadic sort,
will always be with us; but organized poverty might be abolished. I mean
that the misery class, now existing at the bottom of the economic scale
and perpetuating itself through lack of opportunity for the children,
might be eliminated through minimum standards of family life and cognate
social reforms. For those who, for whatever reason, fall below the
standards there should be a special care designed to prevent their
condition becoming established in misery environments, and so passed on
to another generation. As it is now, lack of opportunity perpetuates
misery, which in turn prevents opportunity, and so on in a vicious
circle. The general result is a state of social degeneracy through which
ignorance, vice, inefficiency, squalor, and lack of ambition are
reproduced in the children. Families not far above the misery line also
need special care to prevent their being crowded over it. While it seems
likely that, in spite of all our precautions, misery will continue to be
generated, we ought to be able to prevent its organization in a
continuous class.
To do this we shall certainly have to proceed with the delicate task of
supplementing family responsibility without essentially impairing it. We
have already come far in this direction, with our compulsory education,
restrictions on child labor, removal from parents of abused or neglected
children, probation officers, mothers’ pensions, visiting nurses,
medical inspection in the schools, and so on. We need to do much more of
the same sort, and the question just how far we can go in a given
direction without doing more harm than good must be decided by
experience.
I think that equal opportunity, though not wholly practicable, is one of
our best working ideals. We are not likely to go too far in this
direction. There is a natural current of privilege, arising from the
tendency of advantages to flow in the family line, and any feasible
diversion into broader channels will probably be beneficial. The
unfailing tendency of possessors to hold on to their possessions and
pass them to their children is guaranty against excessive equalization.
Although dead-level equality is neither possible nor desirable, we may
hope for equality in the sense that every child may have the conditions
of healthy development, and a wide range of choice, including, if he has
the ability, some of the more intellectual occupations. There is such a
thing as a human equality—as distinguished from one that is
mechanical—which would consist in every one having, in one way or
another, a suitable field of growth and self-expression. This would be
reconcilable with great differences of environment and of wealth, but
not with ignorance or extreme poverty.
CHAPTER IX
THE THEORY OF SUCCESS
A SOCIOLOGICAL VIEW OF SUCCESS—SUCCESS AND THE SOCIAL
ORDER—INTELLIGENCE—AGGRESSIVE TRAITS—SYMPATHETIC
TRAITS—HANDICAPS—A TEST OF ABILITY
The question of success is a sociological question, in one phase at
least, because it concerns the relation of the individual to the group,
of the personal process to that of society at large. It should be
somewhat illuminating to regard it from this point of view.
What is success? To answer this rightly we must unite the idea of
personal self-realization with a just conception of the relation of this
to the larger human life. Perhaps we shall not be far wrong if we say
that success is self-development in social service. It must be the
former, certainly, and if it is true that the higher forms of the
personal life are found only in social function, it must be the latter
also.
This view well stands the test of ordinary experience. It is
self-development in social service that most surely, gives the _feeling_
of success, the fullest consciousness of personal existence and
efficacy. No matter what a man’s external fortunes may be, how slender
his purse or how humble his position, if he feels that he is living his
real life, playing his full part in the general movement of the human
spirit, he will be conscious of success. The martyrs who died rejoicing
at the stake had this consciousness, and so, at the present time, may
soldiers have it who perish in battle, and thousands of others, whose
work, if not so perilous, offers no prospect of material
reward—missionaries, social agitators, investigators, and artists. It is
not confined to any exceptional class but is found throughout humanity.
If a man is working zealously at a task worthy in itself and not
unsuited to his capacity, he has commonly the feeling of success.
Success of this sort meets another common-sense test in that it usually
gives the maximum influence over others of which one is capable. People
do not influence us in proportion to their external power, but in
proportion to what we feel to be their intrinsic significance for life;
their ideals, their fidelity to them, their love, courage, and hope. And
one who gives himself heartily to the highest service he feels competent
to, will attain his maximum significance.
Success, then, is a matter of effective participation in the social
process; and to get a clearer idea of it we may well consider further
what the latter calls for. The organization of society has two main
aspects, that of unity and that of differentiation, the aspect of
specialized functions and the aspect of a total life for which these
functions co-operate. The life of the individual, if it is to be one
with that of society, must share in these aspects, must have a
specialized development and at the same time a unifying wholeness. He
must be able, by endowment and training, to do well some one kind of
service, as carpentry, let us say, or farming, or banking; and must also
have a breadth of personality which participates largely in the general
life and makes him a good citizen. The social process is like a play in
that no actor can do his own part well except as he enters into the
spirit of the whole: he must be a true member, the organization needs to
be alive in every part. A nation is a poor thing unless the citizen is a
patriot, entering intelligently into its spirit and aims, and the
principle applies in various manners and degrees to a community, a shop,
a school—any whole in which one may share.
If one thinks of the human process at large, with its onward striving,
its experimentation, its conflicts and co-operations, its need for
foresight and for unity of spirit; and then asks what kind of an
individual it takes to do his full part in such a process, he will be on
the track of the secret of personal success. It calls for energy and
initiative, because these are the springs of the process; self-reliance
and tenacity, because these are required to discover and develop one’s
special function; sympathy and adaptability, because they enable one to
work his function in with the movement as a whole. And intelligence is
needed everywhere, in order that his mind may reflect and anticipate the
process, and so share effectively in it.
Whatever we are trying to do, we need a sound imagination and judgment,
and lack of these enters into nearly all cases of inefficacy and
failure. If a machinist, let us say, understands as a whole the piece of
work upon which he is engaged, he can do his part intelligently,
adaptively, and with a sense of power; and in so far is a successful
man. He serves well and develops himself. If, beyond this, he has the
mind to grasp as a whole the work of some department of the shop, so as
to see how it ought to go, if he has also the understanding of men,
based on imagination, which enables him to select and guide them; he is
fit to become a foreman. Similar powers of a larger range make a
competent superintendent. And so with social functions in general, large
or small. A good President of the United States is, first of all, one
who has the constructive social imagination to grasp, in its main
features, the real situation of the country, the vital problems, the
significant ideas and men, the deep currents of sentiment. Without this
there can be no real leader of the people. Likewise each of us has an
ever-changing social situation to deal with, and will succeed as he can
understand and co-operate with it.
A good administrative mind is a place where the organization of the
world goes on. It is the centre of the social process, where choices are
made and men and things assigned to their functions.
I have found it a main difference among men, and one not easy to discern
until you have observed them for some time, that some have a
constructive mind and some have not. One whom I think of has a
remarkably keen and independent intellect, and is not at all lacking in
ambition and self-assertion. Those who know him well have expected that
he would do remarkable things, and the only reason why he has not, that
I can see, is that his ideas do not seem to undergo the unconscious
gestation and organization required to make them work. There is
something obscurely sterile about him. On the other hand, I have known a
good many young men, not particularly promising, who have gradually
forged ahead just because their conceptions, though not brilliant,
seemed to have a certain native power of growth, like that of a sound
grain of corn. All life is an inscrutable and mainly unconscious growth,
and it is thus with that share of it that belongs to each of us.
Among the more aggressive traits that enter into success I might specify
courage, initiative, resolution, faith, and composure. These are
required in undertaking and carrying through the hazardous enterprises
of which every significant life must consist.
Success will always depend much upon that explorative energy which
brings one into practical knowledge and into contact with opportunity.
The man of courage and initiative is ever learning things about life
that the passive man never finds out. He learns, for example, that it is
almost as easy to do things on a great scale as on a small one, that
there are usually fewer competitors for big positions than little ones,
that few tasks are very difficult after you have broken your way into
them, that bold and resolute spirits rule the world without unusual
intellect, and that the ablest men commonly depend upon the quality
rather than the quantity of their exertions. Practical wisdom of this
sort is gained mainly by audacious experimentation.
In general, life is an exploring expedition, a struggle through the
wilderness, in which each of us, if he is to get anywhere, needs the
qualities of Columbus or Henry M. Stanley. He must make bold and shrewd
plans, he must throw himself confidently into the execution of them, he
must hang on doggedly in times of discouragement, and yet he must learn
by failure. We need all the opportunity that society can give us, but it
will do us little good without our own personal force, intelligence, and
persistence.
In our Anglo-Saxon tradition doggedness is a kind of institution. There
is a tacit understanding that the right thing to do is to undertake
something difficult and venturesome, and then to hang on to it, with or
without encouragement, until the last breath of power is spent. “So long
as I live,” said Stanley, about to start on one of his journeys across
Africa, “something will be done; and if I live long enough all will be
done.”
Traits like courage and initiative begin in a certain overflow of
energy, but they easily become habitual, like everything else. If in one
or two instances you overcome the inertia and apprehension that keeps
men stuck in their tracks, and discover that God helps those who help
themselves, you soon learn to continue on the same principle. Boldness
is as easy as timidity, indeed much easier, as it is easier for an army
to attack, than successfully to retreat. The militant attitude gives a
habitual advantage.
The higher kind of self-reliance is the same as faith; faith in one’s
intuitions, in life and the general trend of things, in God. I am
impressed by observation with the fact that success depends much upon a
living belief that the world does move, with or without our help, and
that the one thing for us to do is to move with it and, if possible,
help it on. If one has this belief it is easy and exhilarating to go
ahead with the procession, while dull and timid spirits think that life
is stationary and that there is no use trying to make it budge.
In 1856 Lincoln, who was endeavoring to arouse sentiment against the
extension of slavery, called a mass meeting at Springfield, Illinois, to
further his views; but only three persons attended, himself, his partner
Herndon, and one John Pain. When it was evident that no more were
coming, Lincoln arose and after some jocose remarks on the size of his
audience, went on to say: “While all seems dead, the age itself is not.
It liveth as sure as our Maker liveth. Under all this seeming want of
life the world does move, nevertheless. Be hopeful, and now let us
adjourn and appeal to the people.”[16]
Life is constantly developing and carrying us on in its growth. We do
not need to impel it so much as we sometimes think. A main thing for us
is to hang on to our higher hopes and standards and have faith that the
larger life will supply our deficiencies. God is a builder; to be
something we must build with him; understanding the plan if we can, but
building in any case.
Composure is partly a natural gift, but partly also an acquired habit,
enabling a man to exert himself to his full capacity without worry and
waste; to sleep soundly by night after doing his utmost by day, like the
Duke of Wellington, who declared, “I don’t like lying awake; it does no
good, I make it a point never to lie awake,” and who, if I remember
correctly, took a nap while waiting for the battle of Waterloo to begin.
The commanding positions of life are held by men of fighting capacity,
and this demands the ability to bear hard knocks, reverses and
uncertainty without too much disturbance. Richelieu said that if a man
had not more lead than quicksilver in his composition he was of no use
to the state.
There is a certain antagonism between composure and imagination, both of
which are prime factors in success. The latter tends to make one
sensitive and apprehensive, while the former requires that he take
things easily and cast out worry. The ideal would be to have a sensitive
imagination which could be turned off or on at will; but this is hardly
possible, though discipline and habit will do wonders in toughening the
spirit.
“For well the soul if stout within
Can arm impregnably the skin,”
we are assured by Emerson; but in fact there are many who cannot learn
to endure with equanimity the roughand-tumble of ordinary competition,
and need, if possible, to seclude themselves from it. This was
apparently the case with Darwin—who fell far short of Wellington’s
standard as to lying awake—and with a large part of the men who have
done creative work of a finer sort. Indeed such work, if pursued
incontinently, involves a mental and nervous strain and a morbid
sensibility which has brought many choice spirits to ruin.
The self-reliant and path making traits are more and more necessary as
society increases in freedom and complexity, because this increase means
an enlargement of the field of choice and exploration within which the
individual has to find his way. Instead of restricting individuality, as
many imagine, civilization, so far as it is a free civilization, works
quite the other way. We may apply to the modern citizen a good part of
what Bernhardi says of the individual soldier in modern war: “Almost all
the time he is in action he is left to himself. He himself must estimate
the distances, he himself must judge the ground and use it, select his
target and adjust his sights; he must know whither to advance; what
point in the enemy’s position he is to reach; with unswerving
determination he himself must strive to get there.”[17]
The sympathetic traits supplement the more aggressive by enabling one to
move easily among his fellows and gain their co-operation. Modern
conditions are more and more requiring that every man be a man of the
world; because they demand that he make himself at home in an
ever-enlarging social organism.
I suppose that if one were coaching a young man for success, no counsel
would be more useful than this: “Approach every man in a friendly and
cheerful spirit, trying to understand his point of view. Such a spirit
is contagious, and if you have it people will commonly meet you in the
same vein. Do not forget your own aims, but cultivate a belief that
others are disposed to do them justice.” We are too apt to waste energy
in apprehensive and resentful imaginations, which tend to create what
they depict. It is notable that the principle of Christian conduct,
namely, that of imagining yourself in the other person’s place, is also
a principle of practical success.
The spirit of a man is the most practical thing in the world. You cannot
touch or define it; it is an intimate mystery; yet it makes careers,
builds up enterprises, and draws salaries.
Retiring people who work conscientiously at their task but lack social
enterprise and facility, often feel a certain sense of injustice, I
think, at the more rapid advancement of those who have these traits but
are, perhaps, not so conscientious and well-grounded. A man of decidedly
good address and not wholly deficient in other respects can secure
profitable employment almost on sight, and be rapidly promoted over men,
otherwise fully equal to him, who lack this trait. And there may, after
all, be no injustice in this, because the selection is based on a real
superiority in any work calling for influence over other people. Perhaps
the best refuge for the retiring man is to reflect that character is a
main factor in such influence, and that if he has this and plucks up a
little more courage in asserting it, he may find that he has as much
address as others.
I believe that the more external and obvious handicaps to success are
much less serious than is ordinarily supposed. Such traits as deafness,
lameness, bad eyesight, ugliness, stammering, extreme shyness, and the
like, are often detrimental only in so far as they are allowed to
confine or intimidate the spirit, and will seldom prevent a courageous
person from accomplishing what is otherwise within his ability. They are
by no means such fatal obstacles to intercourse as they may appear. The
very fact that one has the heart to face the world on the open road
regardless of an obvious handicap may make him interesting, so that
while he may have to suffer an occasional rebuff from the vulgar, the
men of real significance will be all the more apt to respect and attend
to him.
And the effect on his own character may well be to define and
concentrate it, and give it an energy and discipline it would otherwise
have lacked. Those apparently fortunate people who have many facilities,
to whom every road seems open, are hardly to be envied; they seldom go
far in any direction. Except in some such way as this, how can we
explain the cases in which the totally blind, for example, have
succeeded in careers like medicine, natural science, or statesmanship? I
judge that they do it not because of superhuman abilities, but because
they have the hardihood to act on the view that the spirit of a man and
not his organs is the essential thing.
The most harmful thing about handicaps, especially in the children of
well-to-do parents, is often the injudicious commiseration and
sheltering they are apt to induce. This may well go so far as to deprive
such children of natural contact with reality and prevent their learning
betimes just what they have to contend with and how to overcome it.
The natural test of a man’s ability is to give him a novel task and
observe how he goes about it. If he is able he will commonly begin by
getting all the information within reach, reflecting upon it and making
a plan. It should be a bold plan, and yet not rash or impracticable,
though it may seem so; based in fact upon a just view of the conditions,
and especially of the personalities, with which he has to deal. It will
be, emphatically, his own plan, and an able man will generally prefer to
keep it to himself, because he knows that he may have to change it, and
that discussion may raise obstacles.
In carrying it out he will show a mixture of resolution and
adaptability; learning by experience, modifying his plan in details, but
in the main sticking to it even when he does not clearly see his way,
because he believes that courage and persistence find good luck. He
“plays the game” to the end, and if he fails he has too strong a sense
of the experimental character of life to be much discouraged.
CHAPTER X
SUCCESS AND MORALITY
DO THE WICKED PROSPER?—THE GENERAL ANSWER—APPARENT SUCCESS OF
UNRIGHTEOUSNESS—LACK OF GROUP STANDARDS—DIVERGENT STANDARDS—EFFECT
OF A NON-CONFORMING RIGHTEOUSNESS—MIGHT VERSUS RIGHT—MUTUAL
DEPENDENCE OF MIGHT AND RIGHT
Apparently the minds of men have always been troubled by the question
whether it really does pay to be righteous. One gets the impression from
certain of the Psalms and other passages in the Old Testament that the
Jews were constantly asking themselves and one another this question,
and that the psalmists and prophets strove to reassure them by declaring
that, though the wicked might seem to prosper, they would certainly be
come up with in the long run. “Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for
him: fret not thyself because of him who prospereth in his way, because
of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass.”[18] “I have seen the
wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a green bay tree, yet
he passed away, and, lo, he was not; yea I sought him but he could not
be found.”[19] “I have been young and now am old; yet have I not seen
the righteous forsaken nor his seed begging bread.”[20] The question is
also mooted by Plato, in the Republic and elsewhere, while Shakespeare,
in his 66th Sonnet, mentions “captive good attending captain ill” among
the things which make him cry for restful death. Even the Preacher says:
“Be not righteous overmuch, why shouldst thou destroy thyself?” _Is_
honesty the best policy, and, if so, in just what sense?
I would answer that there is never a conflict between a real or inner
righteousness and a real or inner success; they are much the same thing;
but there may easily be a conflict between either of them and an
apparent or conventional success. Conscious wrong-doing must always be
detrimental to a success measured by self-development and social
service. Its effect upon the wrong-doer himself is to impair
self-respect and force of character. He divides and disintegrates
himself, setting up a rebellion in his own camp, whereas success calls
for unity and discipline. A man who is bad, in this inner sense, is in
so far a weak and distracted man. As Emerson remarks, one who “stands
united with his thought” has a large opinion of himself, no matter what
the world may think.
It is also true that the sense of righteousness and integrity gives him
the maximum influence over others of which he is capable, and so the
greatest power to serve society. If we are weak and false to our own
conscience, this cannot be hidden, and causes us to lose the trust and
co-operation of others. It is not at all necessary to this that we
should be found out in any specific misdeed; our face and bearing
sufficiently reveal what we are, and induce a certain moral isolation,
or at least impair our significance and force. Character is judged by
little things, of which we ourselves are unaware, and rightly, because
it is in these that our habitual tendency is revealed. They register our
true spirit and mode of thinking, which cannot be concealed though we
are the best actors in the world. If there is anything disingenuous
about us, anything which will not bear the light, those who consider us
will feel its presence, even though they do not know what it is.
In so far as a man consciously does wrong he tears himself from that
social whole in which alone he can live and thrive. In this way it is
true that “The face of the Lord is against them that do evil.”[21]
I suppose that so long as it is kept on this high ground few would deny
the truth of the principle. Men generally admit that spiritual
significance is enhanced by moral integrity. Some, however, would
question whether it has much application to success in a more ordinary
and perhaps superficial sense of the word, to the attainment of wealth,
position, and the like.
But even here it is in great part sound. If we take the ordinary man,
whose moral conceptions do not differ much from those of his associates,
and place him in an ordinary environment, where there is a fairly
well-developed moral sense according to the standards of the group, it
will be true that righteousness tends, on the whole, to prosperity. The
lack of it puts one at odds with himself and his group in the manner
already noted. The unrighteous man is swimming against the current, and
though he may make headway for a while it is pretty sure to overcome him
in time. Men of experience almost always assert, sincerely and
truthfully, I believe, that honesty and morality are favorable to
success.
The sceptic, however, is apt to say that though the principle may be
plausible in itself and edifying for the graduating class of the high
school, common experience shows that it does not work in real life; and
he has no difficulty in pointing to cases where success seems to be
gained in defiance of morality. It may be worth while, therefore, to
discuss some of these. I think they may be brought under three classes:
those in which success is only apparent or temporary; those in which a
wrong-doer succeeds by uncommon ability, in spite of his wrong-doing;
and those which involve a lack or divergence of group standards.
It is always possible to gain an immediate advantage by disregarding the
rules that limit other people, but in so doing one defies the deeper
forces of life and sets the mills of the gods at work grinding out his
downfall. He may cheat in fulfilling a contract or in a college
examination, but he does this at the expense of his own character and
standing. “Look at things as they are,” we read in the Republic of
Plato, “and you will see that the clever unjust are in the case of
runners, who run well from the starting-place to the goal, but not back
again from the goal; they go off at a great pace, but in the end only
look foolish, slinking away with their ears down on their shoulders, and
without a crown; but the true runner comes to the finish and receives
the prize and is crowned.” Montaigne held with Plato, and said: “I have
seen in my time a thousand men of supple and ambiguous natures, and that
no one doubted but they were more worldly-wise than I, ruined where I
have saved myself: _Risi successu carere dolos_.”[22] I recall being
told by a man of business experience that “sharpness” in a young man was
not a trait that promised substantial success, because he was apt to
rely upon it and fail to cultivate more substantial qualities.
Saint Louis, who was the exemplar of all the virtues of his age,
enlarged his dominions, withstood aggression and built up his
administration all the more successfully for his saintly character. “He
was as good a king as he was a man,” and his unique position as the
first prince in Europe “was due not so much to his authority and
resources as to the ascendancy won by his personal character and
virtues.”[23]
Apparently the world is full of injustice; men often get and keep places
to which they have no moral right, as judged by the way they function;
but the unconscious forces inevitably set to work to correct the wrong,
and as a rule, and in due time, the apparent success is revealed as
failure. It is a wound against which the moral organism gradually
asserts its recuperative energy.
Again, wrong-doing is often associated with uncommon ability, which is
the real cause of a success that would probably be greater, certainly of
a higher kind, if the man were righteous. We cannot expect that a merely
passive morality—not to cheat, swear, steal, or the like—should suffice
for an active success. That requires positive qualities, like energy,
enterprise and tenacity, which are indeed moral forces of the highest
order, but may be associated with dishonesty or licentiousness. We might
easily offset Saint Louis with a list of great men, more in the style of
Napoleon, whose personal behavior was not at all edifying. Since life is
a process, and the great thing is to help it along, it is only just that
active qualities should succeed.
Those cases of successful wrong-doing where a lack of group standards is
involved can be understood if we take account of the network of
relations in which the man lives. The view that success and morality go
together supposes that he is surrounded by fairly definite and uniform
standards of right kept alive by the interplay of minds in a well-knit
group. This is the only guarantee that the individual will have a
conscience or a self-respect which will be hurt if he transgresses these
standards, or that the group will in any way punish him.
But the state of things may be so anarchical that there is no well-knit,
standard-making group, either to form the individual’s conscience or to
punish his transgressions. This will be more or less the case in any
condition of social transition and confusion, and is widely applicable
to our own time. If the economic system is disintegrated by rapid
changes, there will be a lack of clear sense of right and wrong relating
to it, and a lack of mechanism for enforcing what sense there is: so
that we need not be surprised if piratical methods in business go
unpunished, and are practised by men otherwise of decent character.
Beyond this an enormous amount of immorality of all kinds, in our time,
may be ascribed to the unsettled condition in which people live. They
become moral stragglers, not kept in line by the discipline of any
intimate group. This applies not only to those whose economic life
shifts from place to place, but also to those who have a stable economic
function, but, like many “travelling men,” lead a shifting,
irresponsible social life.
It is often much the same with men of genius. The very fact that they
have original impulses which they must assert against the indifference
or hostility of the world about them, compels them to a certain moral
isolation, and in hardening themselves against conformity they lose also
the wholesome sense of customary right and wrong. So they live in a kind
of anarchy which may be inseparable from their genius, but is
detrimental to their character, and more or less impairs their work.
You may, if you please, pursue the same principle into international
relations and the political philosophy of Machiavelli. Among nations bad
faith and other conduct regarded as immoral for individuals has
flourished because international public opinion has been faint and
without hands. This is more true of some epochs than others, and was
particularly the case among the small, despotic and transitory states of
Italy in the time of the Renaissance. Machiavelli, I suppose, desiring
above all things the rise of a Prince who, by gaining supreme power,
should unite and pacify the country, laid down for his guidance such
rules of success—immoral if applied to personal relations—as he believed
were likely to work in the midst of the moral anarchy which prevailed.
There is, however, no sound reason for erecting this opportunism into a
general principle and holding that international relations are outside
the moral sphere. They come within that sphere so fast as single nations
develop continuity and depth of life, and nations as a group become more
intimate. Then moral sentiment becomes a force which no nation can
safely disregard.
In many cases of what we judge to be bad conduct the man belongs to a
group whose standards are not the same as those of our own group by
which we judge him. If his own group is with him his conscience and
self-respect will not suffer, nor will he, so far as this group is
concerned, undergo any blame or moral isolation. Practically all
historical judgments are subject to this principle. I may believe that
slaveholding was wrong; but it would be very naïve of me to suppose that
slaveholders suffered from a bad conscience, or found this practice any
bar to their success. On the contrary, as it is conventional morality
that makes for conventional success, it would be the abolitionist who
would suffer in a slaveholding society. It is simply a question of the
_mores_, which, as Sumner so clearly showed, may make anything right or
anything wrong, so far as a particular group is concerned.
The conflict of group standards within a larger society is also a common
example. The political grafter, the unscrupulous man of business, the
burglar, or the bad boy, seldom stands alone in his delinquency, but is
usually associated with a group whose degenerate standards more or less
uphold him, and in which he may be so completely immersed as not to feel
the more general standards at all. If so, we cannot expect his
conscience will trouble or his group restrain him. That must be done by
the larger society, inflicting blame or punishment, and especially, if
possible, breaking up the degenerate group. In many, perhaps most, of
such cases the mind of the individual is divided; he is conscious of the
degenerate standards and also of those of the larger group; they contend
for his allegiance.
There is no question of this kind more interesting than that of the
effect upon success of a higher or non-conforming morality. What may one
expect when he breaks convention and strives to do better than the group
that surrounds him? Evidently his situation will in many respects be
like that of the wrong-doer; in fact he will usually be a wrong-doer in
the eyes of those about him, who have no means of distinguishing a
higher transgression from a lower.
In general this higher righteousness will contribute to an intrinsic
success, measured by character, self-respect, and influence, but may be
expected to involve some sacrifice of conventional objects like wealth
and position. These generally imply conformity to the group that has the
power to grant them.
The rewards of the first sort, if only a man has the resolution to put
his idea through, are beyond estimate—a worthy kind of pride, a high
sense of the reality and significance of his life, the respect and
appreciation of congenial spirits, the conviction that he is serving man
and God. The bold and constant innovators—whatever their external
fortunes may be—are surely as happy a set of men as there is, and we
need waste no pity upon them because they are now and then burned at the
stake.
The ability to put his idea through, however, depends on his maintaining
his faith and self-reliance in spite of the immediate environment, which
pours upon him a constant stream of undermining suggestions, tending to
make him doubt the reality of his ideas or the practicability of
carrying them out. The danger is not so much from assault, which often
arouses a wholesome counteraction, as from the indifference that is apt
to benumb him. Against these influences he may make head by forming a
more sympathetic environment through the aid of friends, of books, of
imaginary companions, of anything which may help him to cherish the
right kind of thoughts. From the mass of people he may expect only
disfavor.
The trouble with many of us is that, though we reject the customary, we
have not the resolution and the clearness of mind to carry out our own
ideals and accept the consequences. We try to serve two masters.
Conscious that we have deserved well of the world in striving for the
higher right, we are not quite content with the higher sort of success
appropriate to such a striving, but vaguely feel that we ought to have
external rewards too—which is quite unreasonable. This falling between
two stools is a much more common cause of failure than excessive
boldness. To gain wealth or popularity is success for some, and for them
it is a proper aim; but the man of a finer strain must be true to his
finer ideal. For him to “decline upon” these things is ruin.
Sir Thomas Browne remarks that “It is a most unjust ambition to desire
to engross the mercies of the Almighty” by demanding the goods of body
and fortune when we already have those of mind, and goes on to say that
God often deals with us like those parents who give most of their
material support to their weak or defective children, and leave those
that are strong to look out for themselves.[24] Ordinary success—wealth,
power, or standing coming as the prompt reward of endeavor—is, after
all, for second-rate men, those who do a little better than others the
jobs offered by the ruling institutions. The notably wise, good, or
original are in some measure protestants against these institutions, and
must expect their antagonism. The higher success always has been and
always must be attained at more or less sacrifice of the lower. The
blood of the martyrs is still the seed of the church.
We ought to be prepared for sacrifice; and yet in these more tolerant
times there may be less need for it than we anticipate, and many a young
man who has set out prepared to renounce the world for an ideal has
found that he was not so much ahead of his time as he thought. Sometimes
he has gained more honor and salary than was good for him, and has ended
in a moral relaxation and decline. I think that even if one were
advising a young man with a view to worldly success alone, and it were a
question between conformity and a bold pursuit of ideals, the latter
would usually be the course to recommend, since the gain in character
and intrinsic power in following it would more than offset, in most
cases, the advantage of conventional approval. Ministers who offend
churches by modern views, politicians who refuse to propitiate the
corrupt element, business men who will not make the usual compromises
with honesty, are as likely as not to profit by their course, though
they should be prepared for the opposite. That which appeals to the
individual as a higher right seldom appeals to him alone, but is likely
to be obscurely working in others also, and on the line of growth for
the group as a whole, which may therefore respond to his initiative and
make him a leader.
Perhaps this same principle may illuminate the general question of Might
_versus_ Right in the social process. We mean by might, I suppose, some
established and tangible form of power, like military force, wealth,
office, or the like; while right is that which is approved by
conscience, perhaps in defiance of all these things. It would seem at
first as if these two ought to coincide, that the good should also be
the strong.
But if we accept the idea that life is progress, it is easy to see that
no such coincidence is to be expected. If we are moving onward and
upward by the formation of higher ideals and the struggle to attain
them, then our conscience will always be going out from and discrediting
the actual forms of power. Whatever is will be wrong, at least to the
aspiring moral sense. We have, then, between might and right, a relation
like that between the mature man and the child, one strong in present
force and achievement, the other in promise. Right appeals to our
conscience somewhat as the child does, precisely because it is not
might, but needs our championship and protection in order that it may
live and grow. As time goes on it acquires might and gradually becomes
established and institutional, by which time it has ceased to be right
in the most vital sense, and something else has taken its place. In this
way right is might in the making, while might is right in its old age.
Unless we felt the established as wrong, we could not improve it. The
tendency of every form of settled power—ruling classes, the creeds of
the church, the formulas of the law, the dogmas of the lecture-room,
business customs—is bound to be at variance with our ideal. The conflict
between might and right is permanent, and is the very process by which
we get on.
This way of stating the case would seem to indicate that it is right
that precedes and makes might, that a thing comes to power because it
appeals to conscience. But it is equally true that might makes right,
because ruling conditions help to form our conscience. As our moral
ideals develop and we strive to carry them out, we are driven to
compromise and to accept as right, principles which will work; and what
will work depends in great part on the existing organization, that is,
on might. If an idea proves wholly and hopelessly impracticable, it will
presently cease to be looked upon as right. The belief in Christian
principles of conduct as right would never have persisted if they were
as impracticable as is often alleged; they are, on the contrary, widely
practised in simple relations, and so appeal to most of us as pointing
the way to reasonable improvement in life at large.
Might and right, then, are stages in the social process, the former
having more maturity of organization. They both spring from the general
organism of life, and interact upon each other. That which proves
hopelessly weak can hardly hold its place as right, but no more can
anything remain strong if it is irreconcilably opposed to conscience. A
heresy in religion is at first assailed by the powers that be as wrong,
but if it proves in the conflict to have an intrinsic might, based on
its fitness to meet the mental situation, it comes to be acknowledged as
right. On the other hand, a system, like militarism, may seem to be the
very incarnation of might, and yet if it is essentially at variance with
the trend of human life, it will prove to be weak. Behind both might and
right is something greater than either, to which both are responsible,
namely, the organic whole of onward life.
CHAPTER XI
FAME
FAME AS SURVIVAL—SYMBOLISM THE ROOT OF FAME—PRESENT SIGNIFICANCE
ESSENTIAL—THE ELEMENT OF MYTH—INFLUENCE OF THE LITERARY CLASS—THE
GROUP FACTOR—IS FAME JUST?—IS IT DECAYING?
Fame, I suppose, is a more extended leadership, the man’s name acting as
a symbol through which a personality, or rather the idea we form of it,
is kept alive and operative for indefinite time. As ideas about persons
are the most active part of our individual thought, so personal fames
are the most active part of the social tradition. They float on the
current of history not dissolved into impersonality but individual and
appealing, and often become more alive the longer the flesh is dead.
Biography, real or imaginary, is what we care for most in the past,
because it has the fullest message of life.
Evidently fame must arise by a process of survival; if one name has it
and another does not, it is because the former has in some way appealed
more effectively to a state of the human mind, and this not to one
person or one time only, but again and again, and to many persons, until
it has become a tradition. There must be something about it perennially
life-giving, something that has power to awaken latent possibility and
enable us to be what we could not be without it. The real fames, then,
as distinguished from the transitory reputations of the day, must have a
value for human nature itself, for those conditions of the mind that are
not created by passing fashions or institutions, but outlive these and
give rise to a permanent demand.
Or, if the appeal is to an institution, it must be to one of a lasting
sort, like a nation or the Christian Church. As Americans we cherish the
names of Washington and Lincoln because they symbolize and animate the
national history; but even these are felt to belong in the front rank
only in so far as they were great men and not merely great Americans.
The one great reason why men are famous is that in one way or another
they have come to symbolize traits of an ideal life. Their names are
charged with daring, hope, love, power, devotion, beauty, or truth, and
we cherish them because human nature is ever striving after these
things.
It will be hard to find any kind of fame that is wholly lacking in this
ideal element. All the known crimes and vices can be found attached to
famous names, but there is always something else, some splendid
self-confidence, some grandiose project, some faith, passion, or vision,
to give them power. It may not be quite true to say,
“One accent of the Holy Ghost
The heedless world hath never lost”;
but it is certain that there is nothing to which the ear of the world is
so sensitive as to such accents, or which, having heard, it is less
willing to forget. Every scrap of real inspiration, whether in art or
conduct, is treasured up, when once it has been recorded, and is fairly
certain to prove _ære perennius_.
A great vitality belongs, however, to anything which can bring the ideal
down out of its abstractness and make it active and dramatic. A dramatic
appeal is an appeal to human nature as a whole, instead of to a
specialized intellectual faculty, to plain men as well as educated, and
to educated men through that plainer part of them which is, after all,
the most fully alive. So men of action have always a first lien on fame,
other things being equal—Garibaldi, for example, with his picturesque
campaigns, red shirt and childlike personality, over the other heroes of
Italian liberation. And next to this comes the advantage of being
preserved for us in some form of art which makes the most of any
dramatic possibilities a man may have, and often adds to them by
invention. Gibbon, Macaulay, Scott, not to speak of Shakespeare, have
done much to guide the course of fame for English readers.
Perhaps it was this survival of salient personal traits, often trivial
or fictitious, that Bacon had in mind when he remarked “for the truth
is, that time seemeth to be of the nature of a river or stream, which
carrieth down to us that which is light and blown up, and drowneth that
which is weighty and solid.”[25] But, after all, traits of personality
may be as weighty and solid as anything else; and where they are
inspiring it is right that they should be immortal. The merely trivial,
of this kind, seldom endures except by association with something of
real significance.
It is noteworthy that what a man did for humanity in the past is not the
chief cause of fame, and not sufficient to insure it unless he can keep
on doing something in the present. The world has little or no gratitude.
If the past contribution is the only thing and there is nothing
presently animating in the living idea of a man, it will use the former,
without caring where it came from, and forget the latter.
The inventors who made possible the prodigious mechanical progress of
the past century are, for the most part, forgotten; only a few names,
such as those of Watt, Stephenson, Fulton, Whitney, and Morse being
known, and those dimly, to the public. Some, like Palissy the potter,
are remembered for the fascination of their biography, their heroic
persistence, strokes of good fortune or the like; and probably it is
safe to conclude that few men of this class would be famous for their
inventions alone.
As Doctor Johnson remarks in The Rambler,[26] the very fact that an idea
is wholly successful may cause its originator to be forgotten. “It often
happens that the general reception of a doctrine obscures the books in
which it was delivered. When any tenet is generally received and adopted
as an incontrovertible principle, we seldom look back to the arguments
upon which it was first established, or can bear that tediousness of
deduction and multiplicity of evidence by which its author was forced to
reconcile it to prejudice and fortify it in the weakness of novelty
against obstinacy and envy.” He instances “Boyle’s discovery of the
qualities of the air”; and I suppose that if Darwin’s views could have
been easily accepted, instead of meeting the bitter and enduring
opposition of theological and other traditions, his popular fame would
have been comparatively small. He is known to the many chiefly as the
symbol of a militant cause.
It is, then, present function, not past, which is the cause of fame, and
any change which diminishes or enhances this has a parallel effect upon
reputation. Thus the fame of Roger Bacon was renewed after an obscurity
of six centuries, because it came to be seen that he was a significant
forerunner of contemporary scientific thought; and Mendel, whose
discovery of a formula of heredity was at first ignored, became famous
when biology advanced to a point where it could appreciate his value.
There are many cases in the annals of art of men, like Tintoretto or
Rembrandt, whose greatest fame was not attained until the coming of a
later generation more in harmony with them than were their
contemporaries.
It is because fame exists for our present use and not to perpetuate a
dead past that myth enters so largely into it. What we need is a good
symbol to help us think and feel; and so, starting with an actual
personality which more or less meets this need, we gradually improve
upon it by a process of unconscious adaptation that omits the
inessential and adds whatever is necessary to round out the ideal. Thus
the human mind working through tradition is an artist, and creates types
which go beyond nature. In this way, no doubt, were built up such
legendary characters as Orpheus, Hercules, or King Arthur, while the
same factor enters into the fame of historical persons like Joan of Arc,
Richard I, Napoleon, and even Washington and Lincoln. It is merely an
extension of that idealization which we apply to all the objects of our
hero-worship, whether dead or living.
And where a historical character becomes the symbol of a perennial
ideal, as in the case of Jesus, his fame becomes a developing
institution, changing its forms with successive generations and modes of
thought, according to the needs of the human spirit. This, apparently,
is the genesis of all life-giving conceptions of divine personality.
There are aspects of fame that cannot be understood without considering
the special influence upon it of the literary class. This class has
control of the medium of communication through which fame chiefly works,
and so exerts a power over it somewhat analogous to the power of the
financial class over trade; in both cases the forces of demand and
supply are transformed by the interests of the mediating agent.
One result of this is that literary fame is, of all kinds, the most
justly assigned. Candidates for it, of any merit, are rarely overlooked,
because there is always a small society of inquiring experts eager and
able to rescue from oblivion any trait of kindred genius. They are not
exempt from conventionalism and party spirit, which may make them unjust
to contemporaries, but a second or third generation is sure to search
out anything that deserves to survive, and reject the unworthy. “There
is no luck in literary reputation. They who make up the final verdict
upon every book are not the partial and noisy readers of the hour when
it appears; but a court as of angels, a public not to be bribed, not to
be entreated, and not to be overawed, decides upon every man’s title to
fame. Only those books come down which deserve to last.”[27] In this
way, by the reiterated selection of an expert class with power to hand
on their judgments, there is a sure evolution of substantial fame.
“Was glaenzt ist für den Augenblick geboren,
Das Echte bleibt der Nachwelt unverloren.”[28]
The popular judgment of the hour has little to do with the matter, one
way or the other. An author may be a “best seller,” like Walter Scott,
or almost unread, like Wordsworth, and fare equally well with the higher
court; though in this as in all departments of life most contemporary
reputations prove transitory, because their “fitness” is to a special
and passing phase of the human mind, and not to its enduring needs.
However, literary reputation also has its symbolism, and a name may come
to be remembered as the type of a school or a tendency rather than
strictly on its own merits. Sainte-Beuve, an authority on such a matter,
remarks in his essay on Villon: “But the essential thing, I see clearly,
even in literature, is to become one of those names convenient to
posterity, which uses them constantly, which employs them as the
_résumé_ of many others, and which, as it becomes more remote, not being
able to reach the whole extent of the chain, measures the distance from
one point to another only by some shining link.”
Democracy does not in the least alter the fact that literary fame is
assigned by a small but perpetual group of experts. In one sense the
process is always democratic; in another it is never so: there is
democracy in that all may share in the making of fame who have
discrimination enough to make their opinion count, but the number of
these is always small, and they constitute, in this field, a kind of
self-made aristocracy, not of professed critics alone, but of select
readers intelligently seeking and enjoying the best. The fame of men of
letters, philosophers, artists, indeed of nearly all sorts of great men,
reaches the majority only as the people outside the grounds hear the
names of the players shouted by those within. We know who it was that
was great, but just why he was so we should, if put to it, be quite
unable to tell.
This certainty and justice of literary fame, which distinguish it
sharply from other kinds, depend not only upon the literary class but
upon the precision of the record—the fact that the deed upon which the
fame rests is imperishable and unalterable—and also upon the extremely
personal and intimate character of the achievement itself, which makes
it comparatively independent of external events, and capable of being
valued for its own sake at any time and by anybody competent to
appreciate it. It is more fortunate in this respect than political
achievement, which is involved with transient institutional conditions.
For similar reasons the other and non-literary sorts of fame are certain
and enduring very much in proportion as they interest the literary
class. The latter, being artists or critics of art, have a natural
predilection for other arts as well as their own, and cherish the fame
of painters, sculptors, actors, and musicians. Actors, especially, whose
art leaves no record of its own, would scarcely be remembered were it
not for the enthusiasm of literary admirers, like Lamb and Hazlitt and
Boswell. As to painting or sculpture, thousands of us who have little
direct knowledge or appreciation of the great names have learned to
cherish them at second hand through the fascination of what has been
written by admiring men of letters. On the other hand, the comparative
neglect of inventors, engineers, and the captains of industry and
commerce is due in great part to their not appealing strongly to the
literary type of mind.
If one’s work has no universal appeal to human nature, nor any special
attraction for the literary class, it may yet survive in memory if there
is a continuing technical group, with a recorded tradition, to which it
is significant. Professions, like law, surgery, and engineering; the
branches of scientific research, as astronomy, geology, and
bacteriology; long-lived practical interests, like horticulture and
breeding; even traditional sports and pastimes, like golf, yachting,
pugilism, and football, have their special records in which are
enshrined the names of heroes who will not be forgotten so long as the
group endures. A tradition of this kind has far more power over time
than the acclaim of all the newspapers of the day, which indeed, without
the support of a more considerate judgment, is _vox et præterea nihil_.
I can see no reason to expect that the men of our day who are notable
for vast riches, or even for substantial economic leadership in addition
to riches, will be remembered long after their deaths. This class of
people have been soon forgotten in the past, and the case is not now
essentially different. They have no lasting spiritual value to preserve
their names, nor yet do they appeal to the admiration and loyalty of a
continuous technical group. Their services, though possibly greater than
those of statesmen and soldiers who will be remembered, are of the sort
that the world appropriates without much commemoration.
A group which is important as a whole, and holds the eye of posterity
for that reason, preserves the names of many individual members of no
great importance in themselves. They help each other to burn, like
sticks in a heap, when each one by itself might go out. English
statesmen and men of letters have a great advantage over American in
this respect, because they belong to a more centralized and interrelated
society. To know Burke and Goldsmith and Johnson is also to know Garrick
and Boswell, and Mrs. Thrale, Fox, North, Pitt, Sheridan, Walpole, and
many others, who, like characters in a play, are far more taken together
than the mere sum of the individuals. Indeed a culture group and epoch
of this kind _is_ a sort of play, appealing to a complex historical and
dramatic interest, and animating personalities by their membership in
the whole. We love to domesticate ourselves in it, when we might not
care greatly for the individuals in separation.
So every “great epoch”—the Age of Pericles in Athens, of Augustus in
Rome, of the Medici in Florence, of Elizabeth in England, gives us a
group of names which shine by the general light of their time. And in
the same way a whole nation or civilization which has a unique value for
mankind may give immortality to a thousand persons and events which
might otherwise be insignificant. Of this the best illustration is, no
doubt, the Hebrew nation and history, as we have it in the Bible, which
unites patriarchs, kings, prophets, apostles and minor characters in one
vast symbol.
Another influence of similar character is the knowledge and feeling that
the fame in question is accepted and social, so that we are part of a
fellowship to be moved by it. I take it that much of the delight that
people have in reading Horace comes from the sense of being in the
company not only of Horace but of hundreds of Horace-spirited readers.
We love things more genially when we know that others have loved them
before us.
The question whether fame is just, considered as a reward to the
individual, must on the whole be answered: No, especially if, for the
reasons already given, we except the literary class. Justice in this
sense has little to do with the function of fame as a symbol for
impressing certain ideas and sentiments and arousing emulation. What
name best meets this purpose is determined partly by real service, but
largely by opportuneness, by publicity, by dramatic accessories, and by
other circumstances which, so far as the individual is concerned, may be
called luck. “So to order it that actions may be known and seen is
purely the work of fortune,” says Montaigne, “’tis chance that helps us
to glory.... A great many brave actions must be expected to be performed
without witness, and so lost, before one turns to account; a man is not
always on the top of a breach or at the head of an army, ... a man is
often surprised betwixt the hedge and the ditch; he must run the hazard
of his life against a hen-roost, he must dislodge four rascally
musketeers from a barn; ... and whoever will observe will, I believe,
find it experimentally true that occasions of the least lustre are ever
the most dangerous.”[29] It is no less true, I suppose, in the wars of
our day, and of a hundred soldiers equally brave and resourceful, only
one gets the cross of honor. In a high sense this is not only for the
man who happens to receive it, but for a company of nameless heroes of
whom he is the symbol.
And so in all history; it is partly a matter of chance which name the
myth crystallizes about, especially in those earlier times when the
critical study of biography was unknown. We are not certain that Solomon
was really the wisest man, or Orpheus the sweetest singer, or Sir Philip
Sidney the most perfect gentleman, but it is convenient to have names to
stand for these traits. In general, history is no doubt far more
individual, more a matter of a few great names, than is accomplishment.
Mankind does things and a few names get the credit. Sir Thomas Browne
expressed the truth very moderately when he said that there have been
more remarkable persons forgotten than remembered.
We hear rumors of the decay of fame: it is said that “modern life ...
favors less and less the growth and preservation of great
personalities”;[30] but I see no proof of it and doubt whether such a
decay is conformable to human nature. Other epochs far enough past to
give time for selection and idealization have left symbolic names, and
the burden of proof is upon those who hold that ours will not. I do not
doubt there is a change; we are coming to see life more in wholes than
formerly; but I conceive that our need to see it as persons is not
diminished.
Has there not come to be a feeling, especially during the Great War,
that the desire for fame is selfish and a little outgrown, that the good
soldier of humanity does not care for it? I think so; but it seems to me
that we must distinguish, as to this, between one who is borne up on a
great human whole that lives in the looks and voices of those about him,
like a soldier in a patriotic war, or a workman in the labor movement,
and one who is more or less isolated, as are nearly all men of unique
originality. The latter, I imagine, will always feel the need to believe
in the appreciation of posterity; they will appeal from the present to
the future and, like Dante, meditate _come l’uom s’eterna_.
The desire for fame is simply a larger form of personal ambition, and in
one respect, at least, nobler than other forms, in that it reflects the
need to associate ourselves with some enduring reality, raised above the
accidents of time. “Nay, I am persuaded that all men do all things, and
the better they are the more they do them, in hope of the glorious fame
of immortal virtue; for they desire the immortal.”[31]
It is the “last infirmity of noble minds,” if it be an infirmity at all,
and few of the greatest of the earth have been without it. All of us
would regard it as the mark of a superior mind to wish to _be_ something
of imperishable worth, but, social beings as we are, we can hardly
separate this wish from that for social recognition of the worth. The
alleged “vanity” of the desire for fame is vanity only in the sense that
all idealism is empty for those who can see the real only in the
tangible.
And yet it would be a finer thing to “desire the immortal” without
requiring it to be stained with the color of our own mortality.
CHAPTER XII
THE COMPETITIVE SPIRIT
ADVANTAGES OF COMPETITION—WHY MODERN CIVILIZATION DOES NOT
ENERVATE—COMPETITION AND SYMPATHY—HIGHER AND LOWER COMPETITIVE
SPIRIT—THE PECUNIARY MOTIVE—IS EMULATION IN SERVICE
PRACTICABLE?—LOWER MOTIVES INEFFICIENT—THE “ECONOMIC MAN”
There used to be much condemnation of our present state of society based
on the idea that competition is a bad thing in itself, a state of war
where we want a state of peace, generating hostile passions where we
need sympathy and love. It seems, however, that we are coming to
recognize that all life is struggle, that any system which is alive and
progressive must be, in some sense, competitive, and that the real
question at issue is that of the _kind_ of competition, whether it is
free, just, kindly, governed by good rules and worthy objects, or the
reverse.
The diffusion of personal opportunity, and of the competition through
which alone it can be realized, has a remarkable effect in awakening
energy and inciting ambition. In so far as a man can and does live
without any exacting test of himself he fails to achieve significant
character and self-reliant manhood. It is by permitting this and so
relaxing the tissue of personal character that static societies and
classes have decayed in the past. On the contrary, one who has made his
way in a competitive society has learned to choose his course, to select
and develop one class of influences and reject others, to measure the
result in practice, and so to gain self-knowledge and an effective will.
The simplest workman, accustomed to make his way, becomes something of a
diplomatist, a student of character, a man of the world.
It has been thought rather a mystery that modern civilization does not
enervate men as the ancient is believed to have done. In the case of the
Roman and earlier empires the natural course of things, apparently, was
for a vigorous nation, after a career of conquest, to become rich,
luxurious, degenerate, and finally to be conquered by tribes emerging
from savagery and hardihood to follow a similar course. In our days it
seems that a people may remain civilized for centuries without loss of
their militant energy, and, roughly speaking, the nations who have
advanced most in the arts of peace display also the most prowess in war.
The main reason for this I take to be that modern civilization preserves
within itself that element of conflict which gives the training in
courage and hardihood that was formerly possible only in a savage state.
The ancient civilizations were in their nature repressive; they could
achieve order and industry over wide areas only by imposing a mechanical
and coercive discipline, which left little room for individual
development and accustomed the mass of men to routine and servility.
Thus we read, regarding Rome, that “The despotic imperial administration
upheld for a long while the Roman Empire, and not without renown; but it
corrupted, enervated, and impoverished the Roman populations, and left
them, after five centuries, as incapable of defending themselves as they
were of governing.”[32]
Much has been said of the need of a moral equivalent for war, in order
that we may dispense with the latter without losing our virile traits;
but it may well be thought that as a sphere for individual
combativeness, for daring, resolution, self-reliance and pertinacity,
our civil life is, on the whole, far superior to war, which requires a
strict and somewhat mechanical type of discipline, putting only a
limited responsibility on the soldier. Indeed the attractiveness to the
imagination of military service lies largely in this very fact, that it
is non-competitive, that it promises to take one out of the turmoil of
individualistic struggle and give him a moral rest. It offers the repose
of subordination, the “peace of the yoke,” and many have enlisted, very
much as many others have sought the cloister, to escape from harassing
responsibilities and live under rule.
The idea that competition is always destructive of sympathy will not
bear examination. It may be destructive or it may not, depending, among
other things, on whether it is fair, whether the rules are well
understood and enforced, whether the objects striven for are ennobling
or otherwise, and whether the competitor has been properly trained to
run his course. Injustice, lack of standards, low aims and unfitness
generate bad feeling, because the individual has not the sense of doing
his part in a worthy whole. A good kind of competition will be felt to
be also a kind of co-operation, a working out, through selection, of
one’s special function in the common enterprise.
Indeed it is chiefly through competition that we come to know the world,
to get a various insight into peoples’ minds, and so to achieve a large
kind of sympathy; while those who lead a protected life generally lack a
robust breadth of view and sense of justice. A man, like Abraham
Lincoln, who has worked his way from bottom to top of a society
everywhere competitive, may still be, as he was, a man of notable
tenderness, as well as of a reach of sympathy which only this experience
could develop.
I take it, then, that real progress in this regard consists not in
abolishing the competitive spirit but in raising it to higher levels,
and that the questions just what this means, and whether it is
practicable, and how, are the ones we need to discuss.
Suppose that we make a rough division between _the lower self-seeking_
and _emulation in service_. The distinction is based mainly on whether
the self-assertion, present in both cases, is or is not suffused and
dominated by devotion to the common good. The lower spirit would include
all merely sensual impulses, as hunger, cold, and the like, and also
more imaginative motives, such as the fear of want, the greed of
acquisition, the love of power, the passion for display, the excitement
of rivalry, even the love of honor and renown, so long as these are
merely personal, and include no conscious loyalty and service to a
common ideal. It is lower, of course, not in the sense that it is always
morally wrong, but from the point of view of a higher or lower appeal to
human nature. In this respect we must regard as lower even the struggles
of a man to provide for his family, so long as he, with his family, form
a mere self-asserting unit with no sense of co-operation with other
units.
Emulation in service does not displace other impulses, but suffuses them
with a sense of devotion to a larger whole, so that they are modified,
elevated, controlled, or even suppressed by the immanence of this
greater idea. Rivalry and the pursuit of honor will remain, but under
the discipline of “team-work” so that the individual will always, at
need, prefer the good of the whole to his personal glory. A man will
strive to meet the wants of himself and his family, but along with
these, and more present to his imagination because larger and more
animating, will be the sense of service to some public and enduring
ideal.
I do not wish to overlook or depreciate the pecuniary motive. As a
symbol of control over the more tangible goods of life money rightly
plays a large part in guiding and stimulating our efforts. The motive
back of such efforts is in no way revealed by the fact that they seek to
work themselves out through pecuniary acquisition, but may be very
selfish or quite the opposite. A man may want money for drink, or opium,
or for a good book, or to help a friend, or to save the life of a sick
child. The money is rather a derivative than an original motive, except
as we may come to love it for its own sake; it is a mechanism
indispensable to the organization of life. And the precise measurement
and adjustment of pecuniary reward and service, in the more tangible
kinds of production, with increased pay for increased efficiency—such as
is attempted in the new science of management—is a logical development
of the price system and should have good results.
But this sort of motivation is wholly inadequate to the higher
incitement of human nature. It takes hold of us, for the most part, in a
somewhat superficial way, and if allowed to guide rather than follow the
deeper currents of character, it degrades us into avarice and
materialism. Certainly that is a poor sort of man to whom it offers the
only or the chief inducement to endeavor. He is not fully alive in his
higher parts, a mercenary recruit in the social army rather than a
patriot fighting for love and honor. The best men choose their
occupation because they love it, and believe they can do something
worthy and lasting in it, though, like nearly all of us, they are much
guided as to details by the pecuniary market.
We may, then, take for granted the working of this inducement, in its
proper sphere, and go on to consider the motives that lie deeper.[33]
I suppose most of us would admit that emulation in service is desirable
and is actually operative in some quarters, but would question whether
it is not too high to be generally practicable.
It does not appear, however, to be limited to exceptionally high kinds
of persons. It quite generally prevails in school and college athletics,
where much hard work and self-denial is undergone without inducement of
any kind except a collective enthusiasm which makes each one feel that
the success of the team is more than any glory that may come to himself.
Yet no one will claim that human nature in college students is much
above the average. And what shall we say of soldiers, who are ordinary
men, drawn from all classes of society, but who soon learn to value the
honor of their company or regiment so high that they are eager to risk
their lives for it, and that without any hope of private reward? Public
spirit is congenial to human nature, and we may expect everything from
it, even the utmost degree of self-sacrificing service, if only the
public cause is brought home to our hearts.
Even in our present confused and selfish scheme of economic life the
best work is largely done under the impulse of service emulation. This
is the case, for example, in most of the professions. Teachers are glad
to get as much money for their work as they can, but what all good
teachers are thinking about in the course of their labors, and what
sustains and elevates them, is the service they hope they are doing to
the common life. The same is true of doctors, engineers, men of science,
and, let us hope, lawyers, journalists, and public officials. The
library service has aptly been cited as an example of the energy and
efficiency which may be attained under the higher emulation with little
or no appeal to pecuniary ambition. Librarians are paid by salaries,
which are moderate at most, and not at all sure to increase with
success, yet in no social function, perhaps, has there been displayed
more zeal, devotion, and initiative, or more remarkable progress in
serving the public. I may add that the good books, to disseminate which
the library exists, were produced in a spirit of honor and service and
not, chiefly, for gain.
Nor can there be much doubt that a great part of mechanical workmen,
having a skilled trade into which it is possible to put interest and a
progressive spirit, are animated by the sense of sharing in a great
productive whole. Perhaps, like most of us, they need at times the spur
of knowing that they _must_ work, but this is not what is most present
to their imaginations or elicits their best endeavors. The wage
question, as the focus of controversy, is kept before our minds and
leads us, I believe, to exaggerate the part which pecuniary calculations
play in the mind of the handicraftsman. For the most part he resembles
the teacher or doctor in that he wishes to think no more about money in
connection with his work than he feels he has to. The mechanics I see
about me—plumbers, masons, furnace-men and the like—are as full of the
zest of life as any class; they like the struggle, the sense of hope and
power and honest service.
How far the same is true of business men I shall not attempt to say;
certainly more than theories of the “economic man” would lead us to
expect; yet here, without doubt, we have the class in which a pecuniary
individualism is most rife and in which there is most need to foster a
higher spirit.
There is a trend throughout society to substitute higher motives for
lower, and this is not only because the former are more agreeable, but
because they are more effectual. It was formerly thought that school
children would not learn to read, write, and spell without constant fear
and frequent experience of the rod; but now good schools dispense
entirely with this incentive, and find emulation and the pleasure of
achievement more efficacious. In the church the fear of hell fire is
being supplanted by appeals to love, loyalty, and service. Even those
convicted of crime, it is believed, can be more easily managed and with
better results to themselves by a discipline which appeals to their
self-respect and gives them a chance to show that they are men like the
rest of us. Fear is a poor motive, because it does not evoke those
energies that are bound up with ambition, sympathy, social imagination,
and hope.
It is gratifying to find that the organizers of industry are coming to
ascribe more and more value to human sympathy and the golden rule. In an
article by a manufacturer, published in a business magazine, I read that
the aim in handling men is to bring about a “family feeling.” “The best
way to hold them is to know them.... It is important not to drive. Fear
of the boss never inspired any real team-work, and no good working force
was ever built up without team-work. The men in positions of
responsibility must make the men under them really want to work with and
for them.”[34] Another manufacturer, a man of phenomenal success, says:
“It is the easiest thing in the world to inspire this loyalty, but it is
not to be done by any trick. It’s simply a matter of honest and sincere
understanding of the workman’s interests, a recognition of his ambitions
as a human being. If your men feel that is your attitude toward them
they will do their best every hour of the day.”[35]
In so far, then, as our social order fails to cultivate the sense of
willing service in a worthy whole it is failing in higher efficiency. In
great part the actual working is as if we formed an army of intelligent
and high-spirited men, and proceeded to drive them to their duty by the
lash, as was formerly done, instead of appealing to patriotism and the
emulation of regiments and companies, as in modern armies. It operates
on a low plane of discipline and without the spiritual co-operation of
the agent.
No doubt there are workers, under existing conditions, who take no pride
in their work and will not work at all, perhaps, except when they are
driven to it by the fear of want. But there is reason to think that
these are chiefly those who have had a brutalizing and discouraging
experience. A good military officer will recruit a company of just such
men, and after a few months of discipline have them eager to excel in
their duty and ready to face death. It is all a matter of how they are
appealed to. And is it not the case, also, that there is a large class
in industry who display more pride in their work and sense of duty and
service regarding it, than could reasonably be expected, in view of the
inconsiderate, mechanical, and selfish way in which they are commonly
treated? If a man finds that he is hired when he is a source of gain and
turned off when he is not; treated usually without personal appreciation
and often with harshness, and set at monotonous work whose value to the
world is not easy to feel; it would hardly be supposed that he would
show much loyalty or spirit of service, and yet many do, under just such
conditions. The truth is that human nature needs to believe in life, and
even as we see that people cling to the goodness of God when he seems to
send them nothing but misfortunes, so they often show more loyalty to
the economic order than it appears to deserve.
It is almost certain that the grosser forms of economic want and terror,
like corporal punishment in the schoolroom, paralyze rather than
stimulate the energies of society. This liability to starvation and
freezing, degradation and contempt for not having money in one’s pocket,
with no inquiry why, this nightmare of evil to be averted not by service
but by money, and only money, no matter how you get it—this is overdoing
the pecuniary motive. It brutalizes the imagination and creates an
unhuman dread that impels to sensuality and despair.
I do not deny that there will be shirkers under any system, but it seems
plain that their numbers are rather increased than diminished by
harshness and neglect, and will be reduced in proportion as we make the
whole life, from infancy onward, one that develops self-respect, hope
and ambition.
The argument for savagery—_facilis descensus Averni_—is much the same in
all spheres of life. A parent beats a child, and, finding him still
recalcitrant, thinks he needs more beating; a teacher whose suspicious
methods and appeals to fear have alienated his scholars is all for more
suspicion and intimidation; an employer who, having made no effort to
gain the confidence of his men, finds that they are disloyal, is
convinced that nothing but repression can solve the labor question; the
people that are trying to control the negro by terrorism and lynching
believe that more of these methods is the remedy for increasing negro
crime; governments exasperate each other into war by ill will and
hostile preparations, and then argue that, war being inevitable, ill
will and hostile preparations are the only rational course to take. We
shall never get out of these vicious circles until we take our stand on
the higher possibilities of human nature, as shown by experience under
right conditions, and proceed to develop these by faith and common
sense.
One of the main forces in keeping economic motive on a low moral level
has been the doctrine that selfishness is all we need or can hope to
have in this phase of life. Economists have too commonly taught that if
each man seeks his private interest the good of society will take care
of itself, and the somewhat anarchic conditions of the time have
discouraged a better theory. In this way we have been confirmed in a
pernicious state of belief and practice, for which discontent,
inefficiency, and revolt are the natural penalty. A social system based
on this doctrine deserves to fail.
When pressed regarding this matter economists have not denied that their
system rests on a partial and abstract view of human nature; but they
have held that this view is practically adequate in the economic field,
and have often seemed to believe that it sufficed for all but a
negligible part of human life. On the contrary, it is false even as
economics, and we shall never have an efficient system until we have one
that appeals to the imagination, the loyalty, and the self-expression of
the men who serve it.
CHAPTER XIII
THE HIGHER EMULATION
GENERAL CONDITIONS OF A HIGHER EMULATION—SUPPORT BY A GROUP SPIRIT—A
SENSE OF SECURITY—SELF-EXPRESSION—CONCLUSION
The condition under which human nature will be ruled by emulation in
service is, in general, simple. It is that one be immersed in a group
spirit and organization of which such emulation is a part. If we have
this, no unusual virtue is required to call out devotion and sacrifice,
only the ordinary traits of loyalty and suggestibility. In college
athletics or in a regiment a man is surrounded by good fellows with whom
he is in ardent sympathy, all whose thoughts are bent upon the success
of the group. It is not only that he knows he has his own glory or shame
at stake, but more than this, the spirit of the whole flows in upon him
and submerges his separate personality, until that spirit really is
himself. He does not count the cost but lives and acts in the larger
life. It is said of one of the national armies, “each man is for his
company, each company is for its regiment, each regiment is for the
army, and the army is for the collective honor of them all.”
The complete merging of self-consciousness is for times of special
enthusiasm, but if the intimate group is lasting it forms a habit of
thought and feeling that dominates the ambition and conscience of the
individual, so that what would otherwise be a selfish struggle for power
is raised to emulation in the service of the group. The man of science
toiling in his laboratory is ennobled and supported by the sense of a
great whole in which he is working, and of other men, his comrades and
rivals, whose opinions will reward and immortalize his discoveries. So
it is with the various branches of literature, with the fine arts, and
with all the true professions. Indeed this is just the distinguishing
trait of a true profession, that it should have a continuing spirit and
tradition capable of moulding to high issues the minds of its members.
And we might say that the aim of reform, as regards motivation, is to
make every social function a true profession. It would seem that there
is no function so distasteful that it might not conceivably be ennobled
in this way. What could be more repellent at first view than much of the
work of the surgeon or the nurse? Yet we see how it is transformed by
group consciousness and pride.
The existence of a group spirit and tradition implies several things
whose power to raise and animate the individual mind are manifest. Among
these are social emotion, standards of merit, and a certain sense of
security.
We all know how hard it is to get up steam if each of us has to build a
little fire of his own and cannot draw from any general reservoir of
heat. Few men can go ahead under such conditions, and those few do it at
a great expense of effort. On the other hand, nearly all of us delight
in sharing an emulative excitement, and a man who, from pure lethargy,
is almost worthless when working alone may easily prove efficient in a
group. I once employed to cut and pile wood a man whom I had seen doing
wonders in a gang, but I found that it was only in a gang that he would
do anything at all. The power to work energetically by oneself is a high
quality which we need to cultivate, but it exists only in limited
quantity, and even so is usually dependent upon imaginative contact with
a group.
As to standards, it is in the nature of the continuing thought of a
group to cherish heroes, to set up ideals and models of achievement, and
to impress these upon the members. The Christian Church has its central
Example and its noble army of saints and martyrs for the emulation of
the faithful, and every live organization, down to the gang of bad boys
in the alley, has something of the same sort.
These aims and symbols need to be high, definite, and appealing, in
order that they may instigate imagination and effort; and to bring them
to this condition requires time and co-operative endeavor in the group
as a whole. Contemporary life in almost every department is weak at this
point; even where there is the most ardent good-will it is apt to fail
of results because of crude and uncompelling standards.
By a sense of security I mean the feeling that there is a larger and
more enduring life surrounding, appreciating, upholding the individual,
and guaranteeing that his efforts and sacrifice will not be in vain. I
might almost say that it is a sense of immortality; if not that, it is
something akin to and looking toward it, something that relieves the
precariousness of the merely private self. It is rare that human nature
sustains a high standard of behavior without the consciousness of
opinions and sympathies that illuminate the standard and make it seem
worth while. It lies deep in the social nature of our minds that ideals
can hardly seem real without such corroboration.
In a still more tangible sense I mean a reasonable economic security. A
man can hardly have a good spirit if he feels that the ground is unsure
beneath his feet, that his social world may disown and forget him
to-morrow. There is scarcely anything more appalling to the human spirit
than this feeling, or more destructive of all generous impulses. It is
an old observation that fear shrinks the soul; and there is no fear like
this. The soldier who knows that he may be killed at any moment may yet
be perfectly secure in a psychological sense; secure of his duty and of
the sympathy of his fellows, his mind quite at peace; but this treachery
of the ground we stand on is like a bad dream. As one will shrink from
attaching himself in love and service to a person whom he feels he
cannot trust, so he will from giving his loyalty to an insecure
position. It is impossible that such tenure of function as now chiefly
prevails in the industrial world should not induce selfishness,
restlessness, and a service only mercenary.
The member of a professional group or of a labor-union gets security
largely from his standing in the group, which insures that if he is
unjustly ousted from one position he can rely upon getting another. It
is natural, however, that where this is the case his loyalty will be to
the group rather than to the employer. If the latter treats men as
machines he will get mechanical service. Moreover, it is not to be
expected that a man will give his full loyalty and service to an
employer merely as such, as the source of his pay. To enlist his higher
spirit he must feel that the work itself is honorable, that he is
serving his country, humanity, and God.
A nation can hardly preserve that interest and loyalty which makes it
truly strong unless it can so order things that the individual feels the
nation’s care for him, its eye upon his virtues and failings, its
appreciation of what he has done, and readiness to stand by him in
undeserved trouble. Well-devised systems of education, assistance in
finding work, protection against injustice, advice and temporary relief
in difficulties, insurance against sickness, accident, and old
age—measures of this kind, supplementing, but not supplanting, his own
efforts, will go far to make him a real patriot. An intricate society
calls for many helps which would formerly have been thought paternal.
The position of a university teacher, under prevalent conditions,
illustrates fairly well the benefits of a reasonable security. After a
period of probation, intended to be exacting, he is given a permanent
appointment which is understood to be forfeitable only by misconduct,
although his promotion, which is gradual and extends over a long period,
depends upon the degree of his achievement. An equal inducement to exert
himself is the hope of service, in teaching and research, and of the
appreciation of this by students and colleagues, a hope which is almost
certain to be realized if he does his part. He has reason, also, to
anticipate considerate treatment in sickness or other trouble, and is
often assured of a pension in old age. The plan seems to work well in
leading men to labor faithfully and in calling forth a higher quality of
service than would be elicited by more stringent treatment. One feels
that he has the duty and opportunity to put his very self into his
function—his faith, his aspiration, his originality, if he has any.
Whatever inefficiency may be found is to be attributed, I should say,
not to the principles of motivation, but either to defects in the
process by which men are chosen, or perhaps to the lack, in some lines
of teaching, of high and clear standards of achievement. The favorable
effect of a secure and yet animating environment is beyond question.
While it is not indispensable, in order to secure emulation in service,
that the work should allow of self-expression and so be attractive in
itself, yet in so far as we can make it self-expressive we release fresh
energies of the human mind. The ideal condition is to have something of
the spirit of art in every task, a sense of joyous individual creation.
We are formed for development, and an endless, hopeless repetition is
justly abhorrent. No matter how humble a man’s work, he will do it
better and in a better spirit if he sees that he can improve upon it and
hope to pass beyond it.
Judged by such standards, our present order is inefficient, because its
tasks are so largely narrow, drudging, meaningless, unhuman. An English
writer has described the pernicious influence of what he calls “the
resentful employee,” “the class of people who, without explanation,
adequate preparation, or any chance, have been shoved at an early age
into uncongenial work and never given a chance to escape.” “He becomes
an employee between thirteen and fifteen; he is made to do work he does
not like for no other purpose, so far as he can see, except the profit
and glory of a fortunate person called his employer, behind whom stand
church and state blessing and upholding the relationship.... He feels
put upon and cheated out of life.”[36]
We do not help the individual to feel that he is contributing, in his
own way, to an interesting whole. It seems that for this, as for so many
other reasons, we must aim at a greater sense of solidarity, to make the
common life more real and attractive, and the individual more conscious
of his part in it. The idea of freedom as developed in our present
institutions is somewhat empty, because negative; we are apt to give a
man the choice between drudgery and anarchy, and when we find that we
have more of the latter than other nations we think it is because we are
so free.
We need, then, a system of social groups, corresponding to the system of
functions in society, each group having _esprit de corps_, emulation and
standards within itself, and all animated with a spirit of loyalty and
service to the whole. To achieve this would call for no change in human
nature, but only in the instigation and direction of its impulses; it
would mean chiefly firmer association and clearer ideals of merit among
those pursuing the several functions. Pecuniary inducement would play a
large part in it, but would be dethroned from the sole and all-sufficing
position assigned to it in the prevalent economic philosophy. Freedom,
self-expression, and the competitive spirit would be cherished, but
could not degenerate into irresponsible individualism.
Much of our higher life is already organized in harmony with this ideal,
and we see it applied, in part at least, to many private undertakings
and to public enterprises like the building of the Panama Canal. I
believe that the principle of emulation in service is one whose
operation can gradually be extended so as to take in the great body of
productive activity.
CHAPTER XIV
DISCIPLINE
LACK OF EXTERNAL DISCIPLINE IN AMERICA—A FREE DISCIPLINE NEEDED—MUST
BE BASED ON PURPOSE—RÔLE OF THE COMMUNITY AND THE STATE—AN IDEAL
OF DEMOCRATIC DISCIPLINE
That American life, at least in times of peace, lacks external
discipline is grossly apparent. There is a wide-spread want of that
demeanor ordered by the sense of some higher whole, which gives purpose,
alertness, and dignity to personal behavior. Our society is full of
people, of all ages and classes, who have more liberty, in the sense of
unrestriction, than they know how to use. Having emancipated themselves
from restraint and lacking worthy ideals of what to do next, they spend
themselves in crude and inept behavior, not definitely harmful, perhaps,
but disgusting from the state of mind it displays.
I am inclined to think there is something deceptive about this apparent
laxity, and that the American compares well in real self-control with
the individual of more orderly societies. I feel quite sure from my own
observation that Germans, for example, young and old, give way to unruly
impulses more readily than Americans; indeed a German scholar, resident
in America, has fixed upon self-possession as our most distinctive
trait.[37] What we lack is external decorum and the marshalling of
individual self-controls into definite and visible forms of service.
American life is slipshod rather than anarchic.
Evidently what we need, what the whole world needs, is the growth of a
free type of discipline, based on emulation in service rather than on
coercion and mechanism. This, if you can get it, is more truly
disciplinary than anything external; it takes hold of the individual by
his higher impulses, and leads him to identify his very self with the
whole he serves. One great task laid upon us is to justify democracy by
proving that it has a constructive and disciplinary energy and is by no
means the mere individualism and spiritual disorder that its enemies
have charged.
I should say that of two societies suffering equally, one from too
little external discipline, and the other from too much, the former was
in a more hopeful condition. It is, other things equal, more adaptable,
in an earlier and more plastic stage of development. If the people are
not lacking in constructive power you may expect them to develop as much
discipline as they need. But a well-developed formalism, on the other
hand, is a mature, rigid thing, not likely to transform itself into
freedom by a gradual process, capable of reform only through revolution.
A free discipline is based upon a purpose; that is, the individual must
have an object which means so much to him that he will control and guide
his wayward impulses in its interest. Of the power of patriotism to do
this, in times of national stress and awakening, we have seen memorable
examples. It would be superficial, however, to imagine that it can be
secured by compulsory military training in times when the people are not
convinced of the imminence of military danger. The disciplinary value of
such training in Europe has been due to the fact that the people, on the
whole, have believed in it, regarding it as the instrument of patriotic
defense against the attack which they were taught to look upon as always
impending. I should say that only in so far as our future situation is
similar, can military preparation play a vital part in it. If the world
becomes peaceful, then peaceful service must be the motive of
discipline, though it may well include a training capable of being
turned to military use.
We get discipline from the activities that take hold of us because they
are real and functional. There is much of it in school, if the teaching
and atmosphere are such that the scholars put themselves into the work.
The home life also supplies it, in so far as it awakens a similar
spirit; and one underlying reason for the partial decay of discipline
among us is the fact that the family has so largely ceased to have
active and definite functions, requiring the co-operation of all the
members, and so impressing upon them a spirit of loyalty and service. It
is for this reason that we so commonly see a better discipline in the
hard-working families of the farming and laboring classes than among
people whose life is less strenuous.
There is no more effective means of discipline, in its province, than
organized play, mainly because it is voluntary and joyous, so that the
individual is eager to put himself into it, while at the same time it
requires perseverance and team-work. The chief objection to it, as we
have it in America, is the spectacular character it often has, the
multitude looking on with a vicarious and sterile excitement at the
performance of the few who alone get the discipline, which is itself
impaired by the excessive publicity.
Women most commonly get their serious discipline from the care of the
household and children, and we see girls who have grown up frivolously
in well-to-do families transformed by the responsibilities that follow
marriage. For young men bread-winning work is a great disciplinary
agent. The struggle to “make good” in trade, business, or profession,
and establish one’s right to the respect of his fellows and to a home
and family of his own, provides an object, commonly somewhat difficult
to attain, for the sake of which one must learn steadfastness and
self-control. This economic discipline is, on the whole, an admirable
thing in its way, and might be greatly extended and improved by a more
regular and adequate training, in the schools and after, and by the
development of occupational groups. At the best, however, a discipline
based merely on the purpose to make an income and position must be of a
somewhat narrow character, not necessarily leading up to any compelling
sense of loyalty to the community, the state, or mankind.
The problem of discipline and the problem of ideals are much the same.
If we can awaken in ourselves a social and socially religious spirit and
ideal, our discipline will come by the endeavor to give this spirit and
ideal expression.
Our great lack, as regards higher discipline, has been that we have had
no habitual and moving vision of our State. There has been a great deal
of a vague kind of patriotism, but it has generally lacked specific
ideal, purpose, and form. The ingrained habit of regarding government as
a minor part of life, a necessary evil, and the pursuit of second-rate
men, has diverted the spiritual energies of our people from public
channels, not only impairing our national life and discrediting
democracy, but leaving the individual without that sense of public
function which his own character requires. The religious ardor which men
willingly give to their country when they feel their identity with it is
the noblest basis for discipline, and it remains for us to find a means
of arousing this other than the gross and obsolescent one of threatened
war. We need, along with the growth of freedom and enlightenment, a
growing vision of the nation as the incarnation of our ideal, as an
upbuilder of great enterprises, as a friend and benefactor of other
nations, and as an honorable contestant in an international struggle for
leadership in industry, science, art, and every sort of higher service.
This might, perhaps, be made the motive for some sort of universal
service and training in connection with the schools, which should be as
peaceful in spirit as the times permit, though capable of taking a
warlike direction if necessary. What a state like Germany has done by
the aid of militarism and bureaucracy, yet with a large measure of
success, we ought to do in our own way, and do much better.
Our discipline needs to be as diverse as our society. A well-organized
plan of life should embrace a system of disciplinary groups
corresponding to the chief aspects of human endeavor, each one
surrounding the individual with an atmosphere of emulation and with
ideals of a particular sort. Democracy should not mean uniformity, but
the fullest measure of differentiation, a development everywhere of
special spirits—in communities, in occupations, in culture groups, in
distinctive personalities.
The ideal discipline for democracy, I think, is one that trusts
unreservedly to the democratic principle. It should begin in the family
by making the life as intimate and co-operative as possible, so that the
children may get the group feeling and become accustomed to act in view
of group purposes and ideals. Their training should come through
service, self-respect, and example, with as little coercion as possible.
In the schools, of all grades, control through self-government and
public opinion will probably more and more take the place of mechanism
and punishment, and the same plan will be applied to corrective
institutions. In the field of play spontaneous groups under wholesome
influences—boys’ and girls’ clubs, Boy Scouts, and the like—are capable
of an extension which shall bring the whole youth of the land under the
sway of their admirable discipline. And so in colleges; it seems to me
that we can better get what we want, in the way of health, bearing,
self-control, and capacity to meet military and other requirements, if
we work mainly through influence, example, and voluntary forms of
organization. Except in times of urgent crisis the sentiment of students
will resent compulsion and render it more or less ineffective.
It is the same in public life, in economic relations, and in every kind
of organization. We shall, in general, get a better discipline by
trusting democracy more rather than less, provided this trust is not
merely passive but includes a vigorous use of educative methods. Even
now, if the test of discipline is self-control, and the power to
function responsibly in behalf of any purpose the group may adopt, I
question whether we have not shown ourselves as well disciplined as any
people. In so far as we have honestly and thoroughly applied the
democratic idea it has not failed us.
_PART III_
DEGENERATION
CHAPTER XV
AN ORGANIC VIEW OF DEGENERATION
THE MEANING OF DEGENERATION—DOWNWARD GROWTH—AN ORGANIC PROCESS—ORGANIC
RESPONSIBILITY—PARTICULARISM IN SOCIAL REFORM—NARROW VIEWS OF
CAUSATION—THE ONE-CAUSE FALLACY—STATISTICAL ILLUSION—LIMITATIONS
OF THE STATISTICAL METHOD—STUDIES OF DEGENERATE EVOLUTION
The words degeneracy and degeneration are rooted in the Latin word
_genus_, and carry the idea of falling away from a type or standard; as
when, for example, we say that a child is degenerate, meaning that he
does not come up to the standard set by his ancestors. They are coming
to be used as general terms for a state or process of deterioration,
most of the words in more common use, such as wrong, evil, disease, and
sin, having special implications which it is desirable to avoid.
It is the nature of the human mind, working through social organization,
to form norms or standards in every department of life, and to
stigmatize whatever falls below these. Such norms are applied with
peculiar emphasis to human personality itself, and to the various kinds
of behavior in which it is expressed, because these are the matters in
which we are most interested. Whether our judgments will prove to be
permanently right or only a kind of moral fashion, it is impossible to
be sure. It seems to be understood, however, that the word degeneration
is used only with reference to standards which are believed to be of a
relatively permanent or well-grounded kind, so that it is hard to
imagine that the implied judgment could be wholly reversed. A man would
hardly be called degenerate for dressing in the fashion of ten years
ago, however absurd he might appear; but feeble-mindedness, disloyalty,
cruelty, irresponsibility, or gross dissipation might be so called,
since it would seem that these must always be detrimental to the common
life.
It is useful to distinguish between definite and indefinite degeneracy,
the former being such as is ascertainable in some recognized way, as by
medical examination or legal process—for example, idiocy, crime, and
alcoholism. The indefinite sort, such as dishonesty, selfishness,
instability of character, and sensuality—of kinds within the law—may be
strongly condemned although not ascertainable in the same way. Indeed
this latter may well be the more harmful, because it is less stigmatized
and isolated, more likely to mingle in the social current and exert a
pernicious influence. A feeble-minded person who is legally recognized
as such and put in a special institution is harmless compared with one
not so recognized who remains in the world to demoralize others and
breed a family of incompetent children; and in like manner the
out-and-out housebreakers and assassins do far less harm than the men of
ability and influence whose deeds are no better but who are clever
enough to escape a definite stigma.
It is natural that under certain conditions growth should be downward
rather than upward. For the most part our natural tendencies are morally
indeterminate, not tendencies to do good things or bad things, but to
strive for life and self-expression under the conditions which are
offered to us by the environment. These conditions may be such as to
appeal mainly to the lower trend and offer little or no stimulus to the
higher. Many children are depraved by sensual vices at an age when they
have practically no power to refuse them. Or intellect and ambition may
be aroused but led to work in directions opposed to the standards of
society. Studies of juvenile delinquents have shown how their life is
often such as to train good faculties in bad directions. Thus a boy may
have a father so unjust that the boy feels justified in resisting and
deceiving him. A little later a badly conducted school may make it
natural for him to transfer this attitude to his teachers, and so
continue to develop a spirit of resistance to authority. At the same
time he not improbably finds that his natural intimates, the boys of the
neighborhood, are banded together to thwart the police, who, at the
bidding of a municipality which has provided no other playground, are
repressing games on the street; and if he can help his fellows in this
they will make him a leader. Thus the best traits of human nature,
ambition, fellowship, self-expression, combine to urge him into what may
presently turn out to be a career of crime.
In general our principles of selective growth and organization, while
they are on the whole upbuilding and progressive, may easily work in an
opposite sense. The current as a whole sets onward, but there are many
eddies and stagnant places. And if a retrogressive movement is well
developed and organized it has the same power as any other to force
individuals and lesser movements to adapt themselves to it.
It is not necessary that an environment, in order to have a bad
influence on a person, should be bad when considered by itself. It is
rather a matter of the kind of interaction that takes place, and just as
two persons, neither of whom is bad in himself, may have the worst
influence on each other, so what would be called a good environment and
a good individual may make an unfortunate combination. A carefully
brought-up boy sometimes goes wrong at the university because he has not
developed self-control enough to make a good use of his freedom; or a
man may be driven to drink and despair by getting into an occupation
which to another would be quite congenial.
Degeneration, then, is part of the general organic process of life.
Every wrong has a history, both in the innate tendencies of individuals
and in the circumstances under which they have developed. We no longer
feel that we understand crime and vice when we know who are practising
them, and how, but we must trace them back to bad homes and
neighborhoods, want of wholesome play, inadequate education, and lack of
training for useful work. And we need to know also, if we can, what kind
of a hereditary outfit each person brought into the world with him, and
how it has reacted to his surroundings.
Moreover, the various kinds of wrong hang together in an organic whole;
they are due largely to the same causes and each tends to reinforce all
the others. Where poverty and apathy have become established we may
expect to find drunkenness and other sensual vices, idiocy, insanity,
pauperism, and delinquency.
There is no better illustration of this than the degenerate villages
that may be found, probably, in all parts of the country, but are most
common, perhaps, in regions which have been stranded outside the current
of economic progress. In these the hereditary stock is usually impaired
by the more enterprising people moving away, and also by the
interbreeding of the inferior strains that remain. Along with this goes
a deterioration of the environment in the form of decay of enterprise,
of wholesome public opinion, of health, decency, and morality. Drink,
gambling, and prostitution flourish; whatever decent people are left
tend to move out, and not uncommonly their places are taken by newcomers
of a degraded class who find it easier to get a footing in a place like
this than anywhere else. There may be another village five miles away
that is in just the opposite condition, the only explanation of the
difference being that in the former degeneracy in some way got started
and a downward growth set in, while in the latter growth was the other
way.
In the same way all real reform must be general, an advance all along
the line. Each particular evil is interwoven with others and with the
general process of life in such a way that if you treat it as a thing by
itself your work will be superficial and usually ineffective. The method
of reform that naturally follows from the organic view is one of
team-work, under which each reformer devotes himself to a special line
of effort, but always in co-operation with others working in different
lines, and always with an eye to the unity of the process in which all
are engaged. If one were to undertake the regeneration of such a village
as I have described, he would no doubt have to begin at some definite
point—with improvement in the school, say, or the church, or the
introduction of a new industry—but he would need also to start work at
as many other points as possible.
For similar reasons reform must be sympathetic, in the sense that it
must be based on a real understanding, an inside view, of the minds of
the people concerned. No social situation is understood until we can see
truly how the several parties think and feel at critical moments, and
see also something of the process by which they come to think and feel
in this way. In these states of the spirit we get the vital synthesis of
the various factors that have been at work, the actual process of life
here and now. If we have this basis we may hopefully take the next step
of imagining something that will help the process on. Of social workers
without imagination it may be said, as has been said of mediocre poets,
that neither men nor gods have any use for them.
Much breath is wasted in discussing the question whether society or the
individual is to be held responsible for social wrong. To clear thinking
no such problem exists. That is, so far as responsibility exists, it is
both social and individual, these terms merely indicating points of
view. The active individual is responsible, and yet he only sums up the
action of society at the given moment. On the other hand, society, which
has provided the antecedents of the wrong, is responsible, but this only
means a large number of individuals. If Sam Clarke grows up a criminal,
and you say society is responsible, you mean that you, I, and others who
might, among us, have provided better influences for him, failed to do
so. And, after all, Clarke himself has his individual responsibility for
what he does, like the rest of us. The essential change which the
organic view calls for is that we should see all these individual
responsibilities not as separable things, but as working together in one
living whole.
Questions involving personal responsibility can always be treated so as
to make it appear that this is the main factor, or, on the other hand,
that the individual is dominated by impersonal causes. If, for example,
we study unemployment with reference to the fluctuating character of
industry, the lack of rational adjustment between demand and supply, and
the inadequacy of vocational education and guidance, we shall come to
see it as a societal condition over which the individual has little or
no control; but if we take statistics of unemployment with reference to
steadiness, foresight, ambition, and thrift, we may find that the
unemployed largely lack these traits. The two sets of facts are not
contradictory; it is merely a matter of emphasizing one aspect or
another of the same organic condition. Unemployment goes up and down
with general conditions, but also selects the less competent.
Common sense usually recognizes, in practical matters, this
many-sidedness of responsibility. If a boy has done wrong we usually
insist, in talking to him, that his will is the cause, because we feel
that this point of view ought to be impressed upon him. But in speaking
to his parents we probably dwell upon their part in the matter, and
exhibit the boy as an almost passive agent. And again, when we come to
address the Civic Association upon juvenile delinquency, we shall take
both the boy and his parents for granted, treating the whole matter as
mainly one of better schools and playgrounds. This is a legitimate
variation of emphasis quite in accord with the organic view.
I should say that under this view responsibility is not so much
diminished or increased as reinterpreted and made a different kind of a
thing; you have to think of the whole question in a new way, which is
not less hopeful or animating than the old and much more in accord with
the facts of life. Responsibility becomes a universal and interdependent
function of mankind, in which each individual and group has its own part
to play, and must go ahead with this part, trusting that others will do
the like. The whole matter must be conceived in a spirit of fellowship.
We may blame and even punish other people; but it must be done, if it is
done rightly, with a kind of contrition, and a sense that we more or
less share their guilt, somewhat in the spirit of a good father
punishing his child. Treatment which involves the isolation or
repudiation of any individual, no matter how degenerate, can never stand
as right. We are all in one boat. Imprisonment, and perhaps even death,
may be inflicted in a way which carries an acknowledgment of social
membership, and makes it a kind of service.
It is well to emphasize this co-operative idea, because the minds of
those engaged in reform have in the past been much ruled by the opposite
view, which I call particularism, the view that there is some one reform
which is _the_ fundamental one, and that if we give our whole energy to
effecting this the others will follow as a matter of course. As each
group of reformers has a different conception as to what this
fundamental reform is, the natural result is a number of groups working
at cross-purposes, and each depreciating the others. Thus temperance
reformers, of the old pattern, held that the radical ill was drink, and
that when they had put an end to that, which they sought to do by the
most obvious and repressive methods, there would be little else left to
do. Others thought that the unjust distribution of wealth was the root
of evil, seeking to remedy this by socialism or communism of some kind
and depreciating other reforms as merely palliative. Another group, with
biological antecedents, saw in bad heredity the primal ill, and
advocated sterilization. Still others pinned their faith to religious
conversion, woman suffrage, or the single tax. Reformers, in short, went
to battle like one of the hordes of our Germanic forefathers, in small
units, by tribes and clans, each leader with a band of followers about
him as ready to fight their neighbors as the enemy, in a tumultuous,
loosely co-ordinated crowd, and not at all with the ordered efficiency
of a modern army.
It may be thought that narrowness of view is, after all, useful, because
a man who believes that a particular thing is the only thing worth doing
is likely to pursue that with more energy than if he took a broader
view. The fact, however, is that people who see only one thing can never
see that truly, and are not likely to act wisely with reference to it.
The truth of a matter lies in its relations to a hundred other matters,
and these are just what the particularist does not perceive. Specialized
effort is essential; it is a good thing that each reformer should devote
himself with particular zeal to the cause which appeals to him; but it
should start from a large understanding of the situation, and should
proceed in a spirit of co-operation with others.
It is from a kind of particularism that when anything is wrong we assume
there must be some one cause to which the whole or a definite part of
the trouble can be ascribed. Thus we say that twenty-five per cent of
poverty is due to drink, or sixty per cent of insanity to heredity; and
if these figures are, possibly, not quite correct, we do not doubt that
by more exact study we could find figures, equally definite, that are
correct. We do not see that there is no such separation of factors as
these calculations imply, and that instead of contributing to precision
of thought they impair it by introducing a false conception.
In social inquiries we are not dealing, usually, with distinct and
separately measurable forces, but with a complex of forces no one of
which can be understood or measured apart from the rest. Granting that
drinking to excess is present in one-fourth the cases of poverty, other
conditions will be present along with it, such as ill health, bad
housing, lack of training, lack of enterprise, low wages, unwholesome
work, and so on; and who shall define what part each of these plays, and
how far drink is an effect rather than a cause? For the most part
poverty is the outcome of a complex organic development, in the
individual, his family, and his general environment.
Or suppose that we are investigating the causes of insanity and find
that the ancestry show traces of it in sixty per cent of the cases. Who
can say in how many cases ancestral weakness would not have manifested
itself without the co-operation of such other factors as alcohol, drugs,
venereal disease, or nervous strain? Evidently to ascribe sixty per cent
to heredity alone would be misleading, and no real understanding of the
case is possible without a synthetic study of all the chief factors.
Such questions are the same, in principle, as the question of the cause
of the great European War. A dozen causes may be given—as the military
traditions and ideals of Prussia, the commercial ambitions of Germany
and England, the lack of international control, the grudge of the French
regarding Alsace-Lorraine, the struggle between democracy and autocracy,
secret diplomacy, the Eastern Question—all of them essential aspects of
a vast and complex situation which, _as a whole_, was the real source of
the outbreak.
This fallacy of “the cause” is so wide-spread and so insidious that it
may be worth while to consider somewhat further the theory of the
matter. Everything in life is dependent upon a complex system of
antecedents without which it could not have come to pass; and yet it may
often be proper, from a practical standpoint, to speak of “the cause” of
an event. Commonly we mean by this the exceptional or variant factor in
the course of things. There is a sound and regular process of some sort
which is broken in upon by something irregular and abnormal, as when a
man of habitually vigorous health is seized with weakness and chills
which prove to be due to an irruption of the germs of typhoid fever.
Something analogous is often found in social process, as when poverty
and a sequence of other ills are brought upon a normal family by a quite
exceptional event, like the failure of a bank, or an unforeseeable
accident, and it is right to speak of this as “the cause.”
Another example is where there is one and only one factor that we can
control, and so interest centres upon this, and we regard it as “the
cause” of things going one way or another. Thus, if a baby is sick and
needs a certain kind of food we may say that the getting or not getting
this food is the cause of its living or dying, although its natural
vitality, its previous nurture, the character of the disease, and many
other conditions enter. This might plausibly be given as a reason for
ascribing drunkenness to the saloon; that is, it might be said that the
other causes, such as moral weakness, discouragement, lack of better
recreation, and the like, were obscure and hard to get at, while the
saloon is something that we can abolish.
Now what I wish to say is that personal and social degeneration is not
ordinarily due to a wholly exceptional factor breaking in upon a sound
process, nor is it often the case that all the factors but one are
beyond our reach. Usually many conditions of a more or less unwholesome
tendency co-operate, and usually all of these are directly or indirectly
within our power to amend. The social process has a degenerate side that
is an organic part of it, and tends to break out wherever the better
influences are relaxed; and it has also a constructive energy that may
be applied wherever we see fit. The man who takes to drink is never
morally and physically sound, and it is within our power not only to
abolish the saloon but to work upon the economic misery, the bad
heredity, and other factors that are of equal importance. To attack one
of these conditions and not the others might result in a measure of
success, but it would be like the success an army may gain by piercing
the enemy’s line at only one point; an attempt to advance farther at
this point would be exposed to flank attacks by the enemy on each side.
If we repress degenerate factors at but one point they are pretty sure
to appear at others, and the only hope of permanent conquest lies in an
advance all along the line.
Recently the people of a neighboring city became alarmed at the growth
of juvenile crime, and a leading social worker did me the honor to ask
my opinion about the matter. He said that the chief of police laid it to
idleness; Father L. of the Catholic Charities to unsupervised
recreation; Mr. M. of the Boy Scouts to lack of recreation facilities,
and Mr. E. of the Boys’ Farm to wrong conditions in the home.
It seemed to me probable that all these conditions and others also had a
part in the trouble, and I suggested that a fundamental way to study the
question would be to take, say, a hundred typical cases of boys coming
before the courts, and have social workers, by gaining their confidence,
make an intimate study of their life-histories, trying to see just how
the conditions of the city had acted upon their development, and where
and why they had gone wrong. The cases would doubtless differ much from
one another, and all together would be likely to indicate a whole system
of improvements tending to make the community a better place for boys to
grow up in. Nothing adequate would be accomplished by working upon any
one cause.
I hold, then, that in all studies of degeneracy aiming to be thorough
and suggest thorough remedies, _the conception of “the cause” should
give way to that of organic development_. Even accidents, viewed
largely, are not isolated causes but the outcome of events which we can
understand and control.
It is easy for a person with a particular bias regarding causes of
degeneration to present statistics which seem to confirm his view: he
has only to display the facts in such a manner as to reveal the
operation of the cause in which he is interested, unconsciously
concealing the truth that others are equally operative. If he is a
student of heredity he will so present matters—and quite honestly,
too—that you will wonder you ever thought anything else of much
importance; but the next man, armed with facts just as cogent, will give
you the same impression regarding education. I suppose there is nothing
which more confuses and discourages the amateur student of society than
this illusive and contradictory character in what seem to be, and often
are, quite trustworthy facts. Unless he can get a commanding and
reconciling view, his case, as a thinker, is hopeless.
The practical truth, in all such cases, is that what we are to regard as
the cause, if we are to single out any one, is not an absolute matter
but relative to the special situation we have to meet. We are justified
in selecting any factor which we may hope to control and thus bring
about improvement, as the cause for the purpose in hand. If we are
discussing eugenic marriage it may be quite proper to say that
non-eugenic marriages are the cause of sixty per cent of insanity,
provided we can show a probability that this per cent might be
eliminated through the control of marriage. At the same time it might be
true that sixty per cent could be eliminated by abolishing alcohol and
venereal disease, and, again, that sixty per cent might be saved through
better education and training—notwithstanding the fact that these three
sixties added together are more than the total number of cases. To a
great extent these are alternative methods of treatment, any one of
which might be effective. It is on the same principle that a man who is
suffering from illness brought on by heavy eating, lack of exercise, and
hereditary weakness of the digestive organs, might be cured either by
less food or more exercise, or, if it were practicable, by getting a
better hereditary outfit.
I do not mean to depreciate the statistical study of degeneracy,
believing it to be of the utmost value, but its legitimate purpose I
take to be to contribute authentic details which the mind can use, along
with other facts, to help in forming a true picture of the social
process leading up to the condition we are interested in. The particular
facts and relations we get in this way are like the detailed studies a
landscape-painter makes of trunks of trees, leaves, rocks, and water
surfaces, which cannot be put directly into his painting, but which give
him a perception of details by the aid of which his constructive vision
can produce the whole which he strives to depict. The understanding of a
social situation is always such a creative or artistic working of the
mind and never a reproduction of statistics as such. I have before me
the report of an investigation of the feeble-minded in a certain State,
which contains carefully prepared tables and diagrams showing the number
and grade of the mentally defective, their sex, age, nativity, ancestry,
school progress, delinquency, physical condition, and many other
pertinent facts. Such a report is of great value to a capable mind which
already has a sound general understanding of the subject, and of its
relation to other subjects, but in the lack of these it is of little or
no use; it is a raw material which needs a trained imagination to give
it form and meaning. If there is any kind of knowledge for which a
highly specialized action of the mind suffices, it is not sociology,
which always calls for a large synthesis of life.
I think I do not go too far in saying that most current interpretation
of statistics is invalidated by inadequate views of the social process
as a whole. There is evident need, in practical work, of clearer views
of one’s field and of its relation to other fields. The common complaint
is of well-intentioned societies and institutions working ahead in a
narrow and somewhat futile way for lack of ideas and methods broad as
the facts themselves and adequate to effect co-operation. Sometimes vast
quantities of precise data are available which illuminate nothing for
lack of organizing conceptions. The social process itself being organic,
social knowledge must become so in order to deal with it.
If we aim at an understanding of any extended condition of degeneracy,
such as the prevalence of crime, vice, and misery in a group, there is
nothing adequate, I think, except a precise, sympathetic, and many-sided
study of the evolution of the condition, both in individuals and in the
group as a whole. _All_ the main factors must be gone into, both in
detail and in synthesis. For example, a survey might be made of a
degenerate village, or quarter of a city, which should not only describe
the actual condition from various points of view, but should trace its
history in the same way. And it would not be complete without a
collection of typical individual biographies. These should be
sympathetic, and should enable us really to understand, in a human way,
the course of personal life in its representative varieties. There is
much of a kind of formalism which shuns the merely human as sentimental
and prefers to rest in the external fact, not seeing that this is always
barren without a human interpretation. We are far too complaisant, in my
opinion, to that prejudice of the physical scientist which identifies
the personal with the vague, and wishes to have as little to do with it
as possible. Even psychologists are sometimes guilty of this, which for
them is a kind of treason.
CHAPTER XVI
DEGENERATION AND WILL
THE WILL MAY BE DEGENERATE—A COMMON-SENSE VIEW OF FREEDOM—BELIEF IN
ABSOLUTE FREEDOM NOT BENEFICIAL—EXPERIENCE MAY BREAK DOWN THE
WILL—IS TEMPTATION GOOD FOR US?—DEGENERACY IS BASED ON NORMAL
IMPULSES—“NATURAL DEPRAVITY”—THE CONSTRUCTIVE METHOD IN REFORM
The human will, I take it, is no separate faculty, but the whole mind
functioning as a guide to action, its power being shown in grasping the
material which life offers and moulding it to rational ends. A person
with a vigorous will shows an onward growth which is in great measure
foreseen and intentional; he forms ideals and strives to realize them.
It does not follow, however, that this striving is in a right direction.
The will, like every form of life, is tentative and may take a
degenerate course, that is, a course which the better moral judgment
will declare to be wrong. As we see will actually working, in
individuals, in nations, or in what form you please, it is a creative
power, to be sure, but uncertainly guided, feeling its way and liable to
err. We know that a boy may devote really first-rate powers to the
leadership of a pernicious gang, or a nation devote an admirable
organization to an unjust war.
We may, from this point of view, distinguish two types of degeneracy,
one a strong type, in which the will is vigorous, but at variance with
higher social standards, and a weak type, in which it is ineffectual,
though possibly directed toward the good. With the latter we are all
familiar, and it is perhaps more common than the other. Most of us who
fail to help the world along do so not because we do not mean well, but
because we lack force and persistency in well-doing.
As to freedom, I may say at once that I am no mechanist or
predestinationist, but believe that the human will, individual and
collective, an organic whole of onward life, is a true creative process,
whose working may perhaps be anticipated by the imagination, which
shares in its creative nature, but not by mere calculation. I do not
care, however, to discuss the metaphysics of the matter, but would wish
to present it in a common-sense way which would appeal to every one’s
observation.
If we consider fairly the question of what the will can actually do we
see that its strength, whatever our philosophy of it may be, is in fact
limited—though we cannot exactly define the limits—and is greater or
smaller according to our native force and the influences that help or
hinder us. Our freedom is not a power to escape from our history and
environment, but something that works along with these, enabling us to
do things original but not discontinuous. While I believe that the human
spirit is part of a creative onward whole, building up life to unknown
issues, I believe also that the growth of this whole is gradual and
connected.
The matter is not at all mysterious when you consider it in practice. Is
a man, for example, free to paint a good picture? We know that if he has
good natural gifts and lively ambition, has been trained in a good
school and inspired by great examples, he stands a good chance to do so;
but that if nature or circumstance has denied him any of these
essentials he stands little or no chance. History shows that good
pictures are never painted except when certain conditions concur. There
is nothing mystical about freedom in this case; it is just every-day
life.
The same principle applies to moral achievement. If we have a man of
natural energy and breadth of human sympathy whose experience has
afforded him noble suggestions and examples, we need not be astonished
at some exalted action; and if we know him intimately enough we shall be
able to trace some history of this action in his previous conduct. But
if he was born feeble-minded he cannot have large conceptions, and if
his associates have been wholly depraved—supposing that possible—his
conduct will share this depravity.
Free will, if you call it that, is then simply a power of creative
growth, which we all have in some degree, and starts from our actual
situation. No one is free to do anything he has not worked up to.
I hold, for many reasons, that it is a bad thing to teach absolute
freedom of the will, as bad as to teach fatalism. It leads to
discouraging judgments of conduct, both our own and that of others, and
to a neglect of the training process by which everything good must be
prepared. The logical outcome of the doctrine of unlimited freedom would
seem to be that one should make a great effort to achieve at once what
he wants, without regard to his preparation. The logical outcome of the
view I suggest is that one sets about moulding his whole life into a
process from which success will naturally flow. No thoughtful observer
will doubt which is the better method.
It is an open secret, which few seem willing to utter, that ardent
spirits often make too much effort, exhausting and disheartening
themselves by attempting the impossible. I know a man of eager
temperament and rather slender physique who, on asking himself what was
the most serious and pervading mistake of his early life, finds the
answer to be “I tried too hard.” The prevalence of the idea of
unconditional freedom works to the advantage of phlegmatic people, who
cannot be harmed by it, and to the prejudice of the more impressible.
The author of an article on The Handicapped, by One of Them, says: “It
was my own fate to be just strong enough to play about with the other
boys, and attempt all their games and ‘stunts,’ without being strong
enough actually to succeed in any of them. It never used to occur to me
that my failure and lack of skill were due to circumstances beyond my
control, but I would always impute them, in consequence of my rigid
Calvinistic bringing-up, I suppose, to some moral weakness of my own. I
never resigned myself to the inevitable, but over-exerted myself
constantly in a grim determination to succeed.... I simply tantalized
myself, and grew up with a deepening sense of failure.”[38]
The strongest men, I should say, usually understand that their strength
is limited, and husband it accordingly, taking care to keep a reserve
force, the mere appearance and consciousness of which win most of their
victories.
It is a fact of observation that social experience may be such as to
break down strength of will. A large part of it is confidence, and this
comes from the habit of success. A healthy will, if it tries and fails,
will try again, perhaps try harder. No one can say how many trials will
be made, but it is certain that one cannot go on indefinitely putting
forth his full strength in the face of uniform failure. A man may try a
dozen times to scramble over an eight-foot board fence; but if it proves
too much for him he will presently cease his efforts and avoid such
fences in the future. The process known as “losing your grip” is
primarily a loss of self-respect and self-confidence due to a series of
failures. Imagined loss of the respect of others enters largely into it,
and it is hastened by the inability to dress well and to keep clean,
also by poor food, anxiety, loss of sleep, and physical deterioration.
Sensual excitement is sought as a relief, and often completes the ruin.
Any candid man must, I think, admit that it is easy to imagine a course
of experience which would leave him as completely “down and out” as any
tramp. The habit of accomplishment and that alone gives self-respect,
hope, and courage to face the eyes of men. The disheartened man is no
man, and if kept disheartened for a long enough time he is matter for
the scrap-heap. The healthy growth of the will requires difficulty, to
be sure, and even failure, but only such failure and difficulty as can
be and are overcome in a sufficient proportion of cases to keep
confidence alive. The power to resist a given temptation is no more
absolute than the power to swim a mile; one can do it if his previous
life has been such as to train his strength to the requisite point;
otherwise not. It is as certain in the one case as in the other that
many simply cannot do it.
Each of us, I suppose, knows that he has weaknesses that his will has
been unable to overcome, that he has had times of defeat when the
assailing forces, if persistent, would have crushed his character, that
he has had friends, no worse than himself, whose characters have been
crushed. We had better, then, say nothing of the unlimited power of the
human will, but ascribe our escape to a preponderance of favoring
conditions.
It seems strange, when you think of it, that we have pity and hospitals
for the sick in body, but for sick spirits—often a more deadly
illness—we have no hospitals (except for the insane), few skilled
physicians, and very little understanding. I suppose it is because this
kind of trouble is not tangible enough to impress itself upon us, and
also because we shun the effort of the imagination that would be
required to understand it. Here, certainly, is a field for “social
work.”
One often encounters the doctrine that reforms are useless and even
harmful, because temptation alone can strengthen the will, as when Sir
Thomas Browne says that “They that endeavor to abolish Vice destroy also
Virtue; for contraries, although they destroy one another, are yet the
life of one another.” The argument is constantly used against the
restriction of prostitution and the liquor traffic.
Now, it is true that the will grows by exercise. Life is ever a
struggle, a struggle, moreover, in which there must always, probably, be
more or less failure. We may agree with Milton when he says, advocating
the knowledge of evil: “I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered
virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and seeks her
adversary, but slinks out of the race where that immortal garland is to
be run for, not without dust and heat.”[39] But what is commonly
overlooked is that, since this is an onward world, the struggle ought to
keep rising to higher levels, and that unnecessary struggle is mere
waste and dissipation. We do not need to preserve evil, as the English
preserve foxes, for the exercise of hunting it. And yet poverty, disease
and vice are frequently upheld on this ground.
There is no danger that struggle will disappear, so long as human energy
remains: if it is no longer against drink or licentiousness or war, it
can go on to something higher. Every temptation is a conflict, and if it
is not a necessary conflict it is a waste of strength: to contend over
and over again with the _same_ temptation is a sign of arrested
development. Solicitation merely defiles the mind, and a community which
tolerates preventable vice wrongs itself in the same way as a man who
reads a salacious book.
There is, no doubt, this much in the argument for undergoing temptation,
that if the general conditions are such that one is almost sure to be
exposed to it sooner or later, it is well to be armed against it by
previous knowledge and discipline. Thus the best preventives of
licentiousness are probably a wholesome social intercourse between boys
and girls from childhood, and a knowledge of and respect for the higher
functions of sex. But even here “sex-teaching” may easily be pernicious.
Degeneration does not spring from a special part of human nature, but is
based on normal impulses, which take a higher or lower direction
according as they are guided. Our native traits are for the most part
vague capacities which are morally indeterminate at the outset of life,
and out of which, for better or worse, the most various kinds of
behavior may grow. We know, for example, that the sexual impulses are
back of the family, and of all the good which the family at its best
brings with it; many psychologists, moreover, believe that these
instincts, contained and transformed, are the prime movers of nearly all
our higher life, of love, art, religion, and social aspiration. But if
we pervert or waste this energy it engenders the foulest things we know,
sensualism, prostitution, loathsome diseases, spiritual corruption, and
despair.
In the same way the need of excitement, relaxation, and change is ever
impelling us to new things, but whether to literature, art, and
wholesome sport, or to gambling, drink, and degrading shows, is largely
a matter of opportunity and education. The mere need of companionship,
the very element in which human nature lives, co-operates with a bad
environment to entice us into all kinds of evil courses. The boy is
bound to join a gang of some sort, and if the gangs in his neighborhood
are vicious and criminal the outlook for him is bad; while a girl who
has no better kind of society will be likely to frequent questionable
dance-halls and accept automobile rides with strange men.
There is, in fact, a certain practical truth in the idea of the “natural
depravity” of human nature. That is to say, the higher life of the human
mind is co-operative, is reached and sustained only through the higher
sort of social organization; and, in the absence of this, human nature,
thrown back upon crude impulse, falls into sensualism and disorder.
Lust, violence, greed, crude generosity, are natural in a sense that
self-control, consideration for others and observance of moral standards
are not so; they spring more immediately from primitive emotions, and
require no higher thought and discipline. In other words, righteousness,
in every form, is the difficult achievement of the social whole when
working at its best, and is impaired whenever this is impaired. A good
soldier can exist only as part of a good army, and a good Christian can
exist only as a member of a Christian community, visible or invisible.
How will a man’s mind work when he is released from the higher
incentives of society, from public ambitions, inspiring literature, the
oversight of opinion, the expectation of friends and the control of law?
Except in so far as he can carry these with him in his imagination he
must fall back upon unschooled impulses, such as those of sex, of
appetite for food and drink, of a crude sociability and craving for
excitement. We see how this works in frontier towns and in the confused
populations of our cities; and any one who leaves the restraints of home
to live among strangers is likely to feel a kind of irresponsibility and
moral decay setting in. Without the support of a moral order the
individual degenerates.
The great thing, then, if we aim to combat degeneracy in a large way, is
to build up an affirmative, constructive, many-sided community life,
that can draw the individual into its own current, and evoke his higher
possibilities. Any one who will look about him may see unnumbered
examples of the waste of human nature in our disorderly civilization,
the gross and futile expense of energies out of which a little
leadership and discipline might make the best things of life. We find
prosperous country towns, with almost no poverty, where the younger
people are given over to sexual and other vices, chiefly because no
organizing spirit has provided a higher outlet for their energies. The
prevalent feeling, as expressed in a student’s account, is, “Good Lord,
I wish we could scare up something to do,” and if the Lord does not
answer a prayer of this kind we know who does. In another town where
factory girls get high wages, they buy twenty-dollar hats and silk hose,
and have a reputation for being “tough.” I knew of two boys, aged about
seventeen, who started out with the manly purpose of sampling all the
kinds of intoxicating drinks that were sold in town. They were good
boys, and this seemed to them a high adventure. Many boys enter houses
of prostitution for the first time in a similar spirit.
A student who had helped conduct a boys’ club in a neglected part of
town made this answer to the question, Why should the boys have grown
worse without the club? “We merely reply that our experience with boys
of this age in the environment these boys are in, near the railroad and
near the shops and factories, and near some hell-hole saloons, tells us
that the boys, if they had been allowed to develop unguided, would have
followed the course of the boys of the generation next above them in
age, and formed into a semi-criminal gang, with no use for school or
order, and with a community of interest in the lower forms of
amusement.” Another student, who had been a school-teacher in a
lethargic and depraved rural community, speaks of the surprising effect
upon his pupils of hearing “a talented soprano singer.” “You could see
their souls, purged of all their hopeless provincial badness, shine in
their faces.” Even in our colleges, notwithstanding the social and
athletic activities of which we hear so much, there is a good deal of
dissipation ascribable to the fact that the need of companionship and
self-expression, among boys and girls cut off from former associations,
is after all very imperfectly met, and the freshman hungering for these
things is apt to find them most accessible in degenerate groups.
Any individual is a place where lower and higher tendencies are in
conflict, and how the battle goes depends, other things equal, on the
vigor and insistence with which the opposing suggestions are presented.
If vice is organized, urgent, skilfully advertised, while virtue is not,
it is certain that many balanced choices will swing the wrong way.
CHAPTER XVII
SOME FACTORS IN DEGENERATE PROCESS
DISPLACEMENT—ITS DIVERSE EFFECTS—MIGRATION—CHANGES IN THE ECONOMIC
SYSTEM—IN BELIEFS AND STANDARDS—DEMORALIZATION OF SAVAGE PEOPLES
BY CONTACT WITH CIVILIZATION—STAGNATION—ORGANIZED VICE
Probably the phases of degeneration most distinctive of our time are
those connected with social change. We live, as we constantly hear, in
an epoch of transition, and of the confusion and mental strain that go
with such an epoch. Although change may be progressive on the whole, it
is apt to break down established social relations and with them the
moral order and discipline upon which the individual depends.
We need to distinguish, in this connection, between moderate change,
which is usually wholesome, giving us the stimulus needed to keep our
minds awake, and radical change, involving displacement. By this term I
mean such a break in the conditions of personal life that one can
scarcely adapt himself to them by any gradual and normal process; there
is a kind of shock which may easily upset his character. We are
dependent for moral health upon intimate association with a group of
some sort, usually consisting of our family, neighbors, and other
friends. It is the interchange of ideas and feelings with this group,
and a constant sense of its opinions that makes standards of right and
wrong seem real to us. We may not wholly adopt its judgments, or that of
any member of it, but the social interplay is necessary to keep the
higher processes of the mind in action at all.
Now, it is the general effect of social displacement to tear us away
more or less completely, from such groups. When we move to town, or go
to another country, or get into a different social class, or adopt ideas
that alienate us from our former associates, it is not at all certain
that we shall form new relations equally intimate and cogent with the
old. A common result, therefore, is a partial moral isolation and
atrophy of moral sense. If the causes of change are at all general we
may have great populations made up largely of such displaced units, a
kind of “anarchy of spirits” among whom there is no ethos or settled
system of moral life at all, only a confused outbreak of impulses,
better or worse. Or the prevalent beliefs may break down under the
impact of strange ideas, and with them may go the ideals, sanctions,
standards, which have heretofore lived in the minds of men and sustained
their daily striving. Whole communities may thus be demoralized. Indeed
mental strain enters largely into all demoralization by change. The
adaptation of a social group to its conditions is normally a matter of
generations of experiment and adjustment. It is too much to think out
all at once, and no wonder if untrained minds, confused and discouraged
by attempting to do so, give it up and live by impulse.
It is probably the usual effect of displacement to both intensify and
disorganize the processes of selection; there is a livelier conflict of
persons and tendencies along with a lack of established institutions to
preside over this conflict and regulate the outcome. The result, as
regards individuals, is likely to be a greater diversity in their
fortunes than could exist under more orderly conditions; opportunity, of
certain kinds at least, may be increased, and those who have capacities
suited to take advantage of it, or who happen to be in favorable
situations, will prosper; others, who might have done as well as any in
quieter times, will be crowded down. A chance mixture of characters and
temperaments, brought into contact with a chance mixture of conditions
and opportunities, will naturally produce many new combinations, both
fortunate and unfortunate.
The principle applies to moral as well as economic struggles. The
unregulated freedom of action, forcing constant choice and
self-reliance, develops the mind rapidly, one way or the other, and is
likely to produce some characters of great vigor and independence, while
others, not necessarily of inferior capacity, may suffer decay. Those
who come out successfully may not be the best but simply the toughest,
the least sensitive and vulnerable. Miss Addams writes: “A settlement
constantly sees the deterioration of highly educated foreigners under
the strain of maladjustment, in marked contrast to the often rapid rise
of the families of illiterate immigrants.”[40]
In the international migrations of our day, which in some years have
brought more than a million strangers to the harbors of the United
States, the guiding motives are mainly economic, and these also cause
the immigrants to congregate in certain localities after they arrive. It
is true that part of them come in families, and that people from the
same provinces and neighborhoods often settle together; but the social
displacement, along with the total change in environment and modes of
work, is sufficient to cause wide-spread maladjustment and strain. It
has been said, with much appearance of truth, that it would be easier
for the immigrants to fight Indians, like the first settlers, than to
combat the perplexing social and economic conditions of the present
time. There is, perhaps, no topic of the kind on which the evidence is
more profuse and unanimous than this of the moral strain and partial
degeneration of our foreign element. It would be easy to collect any
number of passages like the following, from a settlement report:
The rude reversal of relationships, when parents depend more upon
children as interpreters than children upon parents for guidance; the
separation of husband from wife, father from children, for the first
time, under the necessity to seek a seasonable job at some
lumber-camp, railway section or shipping route; the transplanting of a
peasant family from their out-of-door life and work in a southern
climate to the indoor life in a crowded city tenement, and work in a
sweat-shop or factory; the ignorance of and inability to conform to
the difference in laws, customs, climate, clothing, diet, and
housing—these and many other experiences combine to make a situation
pitifully tragic.[41]
The Jews, because of their excellent family life and loyalty to their
traditions, probably stand change as well as any people; but they
acknowledge a considerable demoralization, and a writer in the
Pittsburgh Survey gives, as examples, wife desertion, laxity of
religious observance, gambling at the coffee-houses, occasional
licentiousness, and contempt for the ideals, customs, and beauties of
the traditional family and religious life. One of my Jewish students
writes: “I can take at random twenty of my friends, and out of these
twenty no more than five, I can say, are really interested in Judaism.
Yet all of them are the sons of pious Jewish parents.” The decay of
respect and discipline on the part of children is universally complained
of, and unites with other demoralizing conditions to explain the
prevalence of juvenile crime.
The movement from country to town is quite as trying, especially as most
of those who go are young men and girls who separate entirely from their
family and neighborhood connections, becoming subject to unusual stress
and temptation without the usual safeguards of association and public
opinion. Lonesomeness drives them into questionable companionship, and
organized vice of several kinds exists by exploiting them. It is well
known that urban prostitutes are recruited largely from girls who have
left country homes to work in the city.[42]
The radical changes in the economic system upset life even for those who
remain in the same place. It is rare nowadays that people earn their
bread in the same way that their fathers did; they have to turn to new
occupations, form new habits and think new thoughts. Even farming, the
ancient type of stability, is rapidly being transformed, and the farmer
with it. Moreover, it often happens that an occupation does not last a
lifetime; and one who has achieved efficiency and high pay in it feels
it drop from under him, leaving him to begin again as a common laborer.
This may happen several times to the same man. To all this we must add
the irregularity of employment due to the ups and downs of modern
industry and to labor troubles, the result being a rather general
condition of insecurity and strain. Men and families are thrown out of
the system, others are disquieted by apprehension, and nearly all feel
that their houses are builded on the sand, so that they cannot easily
have that confidence in the stability of their livelihood upon which
mental and moral stability largely depend. The principle that human
character deteriorates under irregular and uncertain employment is an
old one and, I believe, undisputed. There are innumerable cases like the
following: “When he moved to Peoria he had regular work for some months,
until a lull threw him out. Then he began to loaf on the corner, and has
never since desired anything more. ‘It’s easy,’ he said, ‘and I get
enough to live on. If I get sick there’s the hospitals.’” Where there is
a class of workers subject to such conditions, like the lumberjacks and
steamboat-hands of the Great Lakes, or the wheat-harvesters of the
Northwest, it is almost invariably found that their lives are morally as
well as industrially irregular; and though this may be partly due to the
fact that such work attracts an unstable class of men, there is no
reasonable doubt that the work itself causes instability.
The unemployment due to hard times, a great strike, or to other widely
acting causes, seems invariably to lead to an increase of vagrancy,
dissipation and crime in the class thus displaced. The panic of 1907 was
followed in 1909 by an increase of over thirty-four per cent in the
commitments to Elmira Reformatory, most of whose inmates come from New
York and other industrial cities.[43] An access of prosperity may be
equally demoralizing. Those who have made money rapidly, whether they
are actually rich or only relatively so compared with former straits,
furnish a large amount of moral degeneracy. Lacking ideals and
traditions that would teach them the better uses of their means, they
are apt to spend them in display and sensual dissipation, and the most
prosperous towns and families are often the least edifying in their
behavior. A very thriving city in this neighborhood, one that has grown
rich by the sudden growth of a line of manufacture, is credibly
described as in a far worse state of morals and culture than before the
boom. “Things move so fast that people become confused. There are few
standards, each gets what he can.”
Our deeper beliefs have for their function a mental adjustment to the
ruling conditions of life. Where the conditions are stable we gradually
attain modes of thought and action suitable to them, and are enabled to
live with some assurance. But if the conditions change rapidly these
modes of thought and action are discredited, because they no longer
“work,” and, since more suitable modes cannot be achieved in a day, we
fall into distraction, infidelity, pessimism, and lax conduct. “Where
there is no vision the people perish.”
No one doubts that this is a time of discredited beliefs and standards.
We have an industrial system which calls for new conceptions of right
and wrong and new methods of impressing these upon men. Otherwise we do
not see what right and wrong are, and either plunge into dangerous
experiments or fall back upon a crude selfishness. A few years ago the
officials of one of the great trade-unions, an intelligent body of men,
embarked upon a campaign of blowing up with dynamite the buildings of
those who opposed their commands. They had, apparently, no clear sense
that this was wrong, but had accepted the plausible view that they were
engaged in a “war,” and that violent means were justifiable. A
thoughtful and dispassionate mind easily sees the fallacy of this, but
men in difficult moral situations are seldom thoughtful and
dispassionate; they need to have the right defined for them in habits
and symbols; and our economic life is filled with men going wrong for
lack of such definition. Where there is anarchy in thought there will be
anarchy in conduct.
The same is true of the religious and moral institutions, whose special
function it is to give us a sound and stable basis of conduct. Churches,
creeds, standards, _mores_, every form of established righteousness,
have been shaken and discredited by their apparent unsuitability, so
that a large part of mankind, tacitly if not openly, treat all such
institutions as obsolete, and tend to the view that you may do anything
you like unless you encounter something strong enough to prevent it.
However one may trust in the power of human nature as a whole to weather
such a storm, it would be a foolish optimism to doubt that large numbers
will be lost in it. In fact we see on every hand individuals,
associations, schools of literature, art, and philosophy, even mighty
nations, struggling with one another, and with their own thoughts in the
endeavor to work a moral whole out of this confusion.
The principle of moral disintegration through abrupt change is the same
that acts so destructively in the contact of savage and civilized life.
Irrespective of any intentional aggression, and in spite, sometimes, of
a sincere aim to do good, the mere contact of civilization with the
social system of more primitive peoples is, generally speaking,
destructive of the latter, and of the character of the individuals
involved in it. The white man, whether he be soldier, settler, or
missionary, brings with him overwhelming evidences of superiority, in
power, knowledge, and resources. He may mean well, but he always wants
his own way, and that way is inevitably that of the traditions, ideals,
and organization of the white race. As the savage comes to feel this
superiority his own institutions are degraded in his eyes, and himself,
also, as inseparable from these institutions. Confused, displaced,
helpless, thrown back upon mere impulses without the dignity and
discipline of a corporate life, he falls into degeneration. “It is
really the great tragedy of civilization,” says Professor Stunner, “that
the contact of lower and higher is disastrous to the former, no matter
what may be the point of contact, or how little the civilized may desire
to do harm.”[44] Unbiassed observers are for the most part, I think, of
this opinion. Thus Spencer and Gillen, speaking of the tribes of Central
Australia, say that the white man “introduces a disturbing element into
the environment of the native, and from that moment degeneration sets
in.”[45] Old morals are lost and no new ones gained. Dudley Kidd says of
the Negroes of South Africa: “We have undermined the clan system right
and left, and have riddled its defenses through and through with the
explosive shells of civilization; we have removed nearly all the old
restraints which curbed the people, and have disintegrated their
religion, and so rendered it, comparatively speaking, useless.... With
the clan system have gone, or are going, some of the best traits in
Kafir character.[46]... If we would but leave them alone they could
easily set up a civilization that would give them unbounded
satisfaction. But our industrial requirements, no less than our moral
impulses, make that solution of the difficulty impossible.[47]... We
expose savages to the highly complex stimuli of individualism, labor
demands, economic pressure, violent legal changes, trade, clothing,
industries, a lofty spiritual religion; and to all these we add a wholly
unsuitable system of book-learning....”[48] There is a discipline under
the native system that is quite effective in its way. “Obedience to
parents hardly needs to be taught, for the children notice how every one
in the kraal is instinctively obedient to the old men: the children
catch this spirit without knowing it.”[49] This, of course, disappears
with the irruption of disorganizing ideas. Miss Kingsley, speaking of
the Negro tribes of the northwest coast, says: “Nothing strikes one so
much in studying the degeneration of these native tribes as the direct
effect that civilization and reformation has in hastening it.”[50] And
so Nansen tells of the degeneration of the Eskimo, in his account of The
First Crossing of Greenland. Their food-supply has been reduced, their
skill in seal-catching lost, sickness increased by poverty and wearing
clothes indoors, a demoralizing taste for luxury aroused, and their
self-respect and social unity undermined. All this notwithstanding that
they have been extremely well treated by the Danes.
Even Christian missions have served as the involuntary channel of
disintegrating forces. Not to speak of such crudities as compelling the
native to wear clothes under climatic and domestic conditions which make
them breeders of disease, the mere fact of discrediting rooted beliefs
and habits in order to substitute something unfamiliar is almost
inevitably destructive. Many individuals may be really Christianized,
wholly transplanted, as it were, from one social system into another,
while at the same time the overthrow of the native institutions is
causing another class, possibly much larger, to become irresponsible and
dissolute. The fact that white civilization was introduced into the
Hawaiian Islands under the auspices of American missionaries of the
highest character, whose descendants are now the ruling class, has not
prevented the moral and physical decay of the native race.
I should add, however, first, that missionaries have latterly come to
work in a more sociological spirit, and to recognize the duty of
treating native institutions with respect, and, second, that contact
with civilization is inevitable, and the missionaries are commonly the
class who are working most sincerely to make this contact as beneficial
to the native, or as little injurious, as possible. Without doubt the
situation would be far worse if they should withdraw their efforts.
The great oriental nations which are now assimilating the civilization
of the West are protected from moral dissolution by the strength of
their institutions and the loyalty with which they cherish them. In this
way their system of life, and the individuals who embody it, preserve
their continuity and self-respect; but even in China and Japan the
process is trying and, by all accounts, involves a good deal of
demoralization. It is the same story of the discrediting of old ethics
before the new has developed, and of the spread of a somewhat licentious
individualism. In India also degeneracy is rife among the numerous class
who have broken away from the caste organization, which, with whatever
defects, is still a system of moral control.
Displacement by change is no more harmful than the opposite extreme of
stagnation. One whose higher faculties are not aroused by fresh
situations and problems is thrown back upon the lower. While American
life is, on the whole, remarkably active, its activity is not regularly
distributed, and is, moreover, mostly of a somewhat narrow sort, lacking
in richness and higher appeal, so that it often fails to engage the real
interest of the actor. The result is that in the midst of our strenuous
civilization there is a large proportion of stagnant minds.
Degenerate villages, such as I have mentioned in another connection, are
to be found, apparently, all over the country, and I have notes of seven
or eight, in Michigan and neighboring States, that have been described
in students’ papers. One, for example, is a town of about one thousand
people, in a former lumbering district. When the lumbering declined the
more energetic families moved out, leaving a class of people lacking in
leadership and isolated from higher influences. There is no inspiration
or outlook for the young people, no clubs, libraries, athletics, or
Christian Associations. The schools are very poor, and the saloon with
its attendant vices has everything its own way. In such a place things
often go from bad to worse; families already degenerate move in, because
they can get a footing easier than elsewhere, and inbreeding, both
social and biological, tends to a continued deterioration.
In other cases the towns are prosperous, in the economic sense, but
sordid, narrow-minded, and lacking in all animating idealism. The
leading people are, perhaps, orthodox church-members, but they provide
no culture opportunities or wholesome recreation for the young, and seem
to have no ambition for them beyond pecuniary success. Sexual vice, with
or without drunkenness, seems to be the most salient form of corruption
under these circumstances, and careful observers, who have been teachers
in such communities, have furnished me convincing evidence that a
majority of the grown-up girls and young men are sometimes involved in
it.
A great city often induces degeneracy in neighboring small towns,
because, the towns becoming suburban in character, the real life of the
energetic people is drawn to the city, leaving the small place without
leadership, ideals, or community spirit. There is also the fact that
every large city produces a class of vicious pleasure-seekers who carry
on their revels in the outlying districts.
Again, there are rural populations of considerable extent, sometimes
immigrant, more often native, which, in one way or another, have fallen
into a degenerate condition, and are living quite apart from higher
civilization. A community of this sort is described as dwelling on
exhausted timber-lands in western Pennsylvania, its members shiftless,
uneducated, half wild in appearance, with no ownership in the land, and
believed to be generally licentious.
It is not at all necessary, however, to hunt out exceptional conditions
to find examples of moral stagnation. We may discover it among business
men, hand-workers, college students—wherever we may choose to look. Our
civilization, whatever its promise, is far from having solved the
problem of maintaining an upward striving in all its members.
The organization of society may not only fail to give human nature the
moral support it needs, but may be of such a kind as actively to promote
degeneration. On its worse side the whole system of commercialism,
characteristic of our time, is of this sort. That is, its spirit is
largely mechanical, unhuman, seeking to use mankind as an agent of
material production, with very little regard, in the case of the weak
classes, for breadth of life, self-expression, outlook, hope, or any
kind of higher life. Men, women, children, find themselves required to
work at tasks, usually uninteresting and often exhausting, amidst dreary
surroundings, and under such relations to the work as a whole that their
imagination and loyalty are little, if at all, aroused. Such a life
either atrophies the larger impulses of human nature or represses them
to such a degree that they break out, from time to time, in gross and
degrading forms of expression. I have in mind an investigation by a
woman student of the amusements of factory girls in a neighboring city.
It showed that the poorer class of them were overworked during the week,
were too tired to go out at night, and had unattractive homes. On
Saturday night many of them found their only emotional outlet in
commercial dance-halls, where the men were strangers and where the
surroundings were more or less vicious. The girls were of no worse
disposition than other girls, but many of them were deteriorating
morally under these conditions. This, of course, is what has been found
true in a hundred other cities.
The deliberate promotion of vice under the impulse of gain comes
naturally in to exploit the weak places in human nature. It has been
shown in the case of sexual licentiousness that the natural sensuality
and weakness of men and women but partly explain its prevalence; we have
to add the coaxing and stimulation of an organized propaganda. Miss
Addams, in her work A New Conscience and an Ancient Evil, describes the
corruption of children, intentional and unintentional, on a large scale.
Their minds are tainted by shows, dance-halls, overcrowding, contact
with the licentious class, and finally by deliberate training in vice.
Much the same may be said of drink, gambling, and theft, not to speak of
the more intangible forms of corruption rife in business and politics.
Organization of this sort arises spontaneously, as it were, out of the
universal appetite for gain and the obvious weaknesses of human nature;
it therefore almost always enters the field ahead of the organization
aiming to counteract it—the legal restrictions, educational and rescue
work, social centres, and the like—and is likely to flourish almost
unchecked in a raw civilization. It owes its strength no more to gross
passions than to the absence of alternatives that enables it to pervert
to base uses the finer impulses, those calling for companionship,
recreation, cheerful and unconstraining surroundings.
_PART IV_
SOCIAL FACTORS IN BIOLOGICAL
SURVIVAL
CHAPTER XVIII
PROCESS, BIOLOGICAL AND SOCIAL
HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT—THEIR DISTINCTIVE FUNCTIONS—THE SPECIAL
CHARACTER OF HUMAN HEREDITY—INTERACTION OF THE TWO
PROCESSES—POSSIBLE ANTAGONISM—THE MORAL ASPECT—PRACTICAL
DIFFICULTY OF DISTINGUISHING THE TWO—FUTILITY OF THE USUAL
CONTROVERSY
In a large view, heredity and environment are not opposing influences,
as is commonly imagined, but complementary and co-operating organs of
life, each having its appropriate part to play in the great whole. They
are like man and woman, in that the question regarding them is not which
is greater or more indispensable, but just what are their respective
functions, and how do they or should they work together. Those men of
science who, lacking comprehensive views, have stated the problem as one
of “nature _versus_ nurture” have merely fallen in with the popular
misapprehension. It is quite as if they had stated the problem of the
family as one of man _versus_ woman.
Heredity gives some men an ambitious spirit, and this is neither more
nor less important than the direction their ambition takes, which is a
matter of environment; they are different kinds of things and cannot
well be weighed against each other. No more was the military talent, let
us say, of General Grant more or less important to his life than the
outbreak of the Civil War, which gave it a chance to develop.
We have to do with two processes, or two branches of a common process,
going on side by side, and each contributing in its way to the total
movement of organic life. In the case of the biological process or
branch the material vehicle of life is the germ-plasm, a special kind of
cells set apart for the transmission of hereditary types. In this there
is a complex mingling and development of tendencies in accordance with
laws of heredity which are as yet obscure. The social phase of the
process takes place through the medium of psychical communication, the
vehicle being language, in the widest sense of the word, including
writing, printing, and every means for the transmission of thought.
Through this, social types are propagated somewhat as biological types
are believed to be in the germ-plasm. In each of these mediums there is
a kind of growth, of selection, of adaptation of types to one another,
and of survival of some at the expense of others. It should be our aim
to see the two as organs of a common whole and to explain how they are
related to each other.
The best way to get this larger view, probably, is to consider the
evolution of the matter and note how heredity and environment, as we see
them working in man, have developed from lower forms of life. Among
animals and plants the actions that enable a living being to cope with
its surroundings and thus survive are secured mainly by heredity, and
come into the world ready-made, as it were, with little or no need to be
fashioned by a supplementary social process. Animal conduct, as broadly
contrasted with human, is a system of fixed hereditary responses to
fixed stimuli; the instinct is like a hand-organ which will play certain
tunes whenever you turn the crank, and will play no others no matter
what you do. If this predetermined reaction meets the needs of life, if
the tune is in harmony with events, the life of the organism is
furthered. But this can scarcely be unless the conditions of life have
been nearly uniform through many generations, so that the instinctive
mechanism has had time to become adjusted to them by a series of
survivals and eliminations, such as is required for “natural selection.”
If a newly hatched chick has come to have the instinct to pick up and
swallow small objects of a certain appearance, this implies that such
objects, for ages past, have on the whole proved to be digestible and
supported life; if they ceased to do so the race of chickens, I suppose,
would die out.
The distinctive thing in human evolution, on the other hand, is the
development of a process which is not fixed but plastic, which adapts
itself directly to each particular situation, and is capable of an
indefinite number of appropriate and successful modes of action. This
happy result involves a change in the hereditary process, as well as the
rise of a new process to supplement it. The hereditary tendencies,
instead of remaining definite and fixed, have to become vague and
plastic in order that they may be moulded into the infinitely various
forms of human conduct. The hand-organ has to become a piano, which will
yield no tune at all except under the touch of a trained player, but
under such a touch is capable of infinite melody.
The player, to carry out the analogy, is the human intelligence trained
by working with the social environment. This is the agent through which
situations are understood and hereditary tendencies organized to meet
them. The instinctive life is no longer a mere mechanism
as—comparatively at least—it was before, but a plastic thing with a mind
to guide it. And this new, distinctively human process implies a complex
social life, with a system of communication, tradition, and education;
because it is through these that intelligence is enabled to develop and
to organize its control.
The human process, then, involves a plastic heredity prepared to submit
itself to the guidance of environment as interpreted by intelligence.
The distinctively human heredity is not an inborn tendency to do
definite things, but an inborn aptitude to learn to do whatever things
the situation may call for.
Just what is it, then, that we owe to heredity? In general it is
capacity, or, more exactly, _lines of teachability_. We must depend upon
the environment to stimulate and define this capacity, to supply
teaching along these lines. When we say that a child is a born musician
we mean, not that he can play or compose by nature alone, but that if he
has the right kind of teaching he can rapidly develop power in this
direction. In this sense, and in no other, a man may be a born lawyer,
or teacher, or poet, or, if you please, a born counterfeiter or burglar.
Suppose that twin children are born with precisely the same hereditary
tendencies, and that one of these is carried off and brought up in a
French family, while the other remains with its parents in America: how
would they be alike, and how different? Presumably their temperaments,
as energetic or sluggish, and their general lines of ability, so far as
these found any encouragement, would remain similar. But all definite
development would depend upon the environment. The former child would
speak French and not English; if he developed ambition the objects of it
would be suggested by the life around him, his whole system of ideas
would be French, he would enter body and soul into the social process of
France. And so it would be if he were taken to Germany, or China.
A good heredity is something very different from hereditary goodness, in
the sense of good conduct. The latter does not exist, while the former
is simply an inheritance of lines of capacity corresponding to the chief
lines of human function; a good raw material for social influence to
work up, just as sound timber is good for houses, ships, or what-not.
And this sort of heredity is a condition of biological survival because
it alone makes possible the education of individuals and their
organization into those plastic social wholes, with innumerable special
functions, upon which the life and power of man is based.
Along with this plastic heredity and inseparable from it we have the
social process, which does not antagonize the biological process, or
supplant it, but utilizes the change in its character to add a new world
of psychical interaction and growth. Like the older process it is
continuous through the ages, and builds up vast organic wholes, of which
the individual may seem only an insignificant detail. As we have
biological types, on the one hand, so, on the other, we now have types
of culture and institutions.
Thus the life of humanity comes to be a single vital process having two
parallel and interdependent subprocesses, the hereditary and the social.
Each of these has a sphere of its own, that of heredity being, in
general, the production of physical and mental aptitude, and that of
society the creation, by the aid of this aptitude, of a progressing
social order.
Each system acts selectively upon the other, determining what will work
and what will not. Hereditary types must in some way fit into the social
conditions or they cannot propagate themselves and must disappear. If a
man cannot, by hook or crook, manage to raise a family, that part of the
hereditary stream which flows in him is lost, and the type he represents
declines. In like manner, if a race, or a national stock, does not
succeed in developing such forms of personality and social organization
as to enable it to keep a footing and multiply its kind in the actual
conditions of life, it must diminish. The social organization sets
standards of fitness which the biological process must meet.
It is equally true, on the other hand, that the biological type acts
selectively in determining what social ideas and institutions will work,
and how. You may give the same lecture to a hundred students, but what
each one makes of it will depend, in part, on his natural gifts. Or you
may plant the same ideas of free government among the Americans, the
Swiss, the French, the people of the Argentine, and the Liberian
Negroes; but their growth will be very different, partly, again, because
of a difference in hereditary capacity.
If we wish for analogies to illustrate this relation we must look for
them among other cases of distinct but complementary organisms living
together in interaction and mutual adaptation, such as man and wife in
the family, the nervous and alimentary systems in the body, the state
and the church in the social system of mediæval Europe, or the national
and State governments in the American commonwealth—organisms which may
be regarded either as two or as one, according to the purpose in hand.
There may be a kind of conflict between the biological and the social
currents of life, just as there may between almost any two factors in a
co-operative whole. Men of genius, for example, rarely leave a normal
number of descendants; they develop themselves socially at the expense
of reproduction, though, if there is anything in Mr. Galton’s views,
reproduction is, in their case, peculiarly desirable.[51] The same is
perhaps true in general of the more intellectual and ambitious types of
men: it might be better for the race stock if they put more of their
energy into raising families and less into social achievement. At least,
this would be the immediate result: in the long run perhaps the social
achievement will indirectly contribute to improve the stock.
A rather striking example of opposition is found in the monastic system.
There is little doubt that this sprang from profound needs of the human
spirit and, at its best, played a great part in the higher life. But if
its social working was good its effect upon the race is believed to have
been detrimental, since for centuries it selected the most intellectual
and aspiring men and prevented their leaving offspring. Just as
hereditary stocks may flourish although bad for society, so social
movements may prosper that are bad for heredity.
The practical truth of the matter, from a moral standpoint, may largely
be contained in the statement that we get capacity from heredity,
conduct from society. The critical thing in the latter is the use that
is made of hereditary powers, whether they are to work upward or
downward, as judged by social standards. While it is true that no amount
or kind of education will take the place of initial capacity, it is true
also that there is no source of right development and function except
social teaching; the best heredity is powerless in this regard.
The question of crime offers good illustrations. There are kinds of
crime which depend upon defective heredity, because they involve
incapacity to acquire normal social functions. It is easier to
discriminate these in theory than in practice, but it is well known that
a considerable portion of our criminals are feeble-minded or ill
balanced. But if a criminal has normal capacity, as the majority have,
we must attribute his degeneracy to the fact that he has come under
worse social influences rather than better. And the more ability he has,
the more pernicious a criminal he makes. The same division may be made
in any line of human function; we can never dispense with capacity, but
there is no capacity of which we may not make a bad use.
While the theory of the matter is not difficult, when one approaches it
in this way, the applications are obscure, simply because it is hard to
get at the facts. That is, we ordinarily cannot tell with any precision
what the original hereditary outfit was, and just how it was developed
by social influences. Even if we could study every child at birth it
would not help us much, because, although the heredity is there, we have
no art to know what it is until it works out in life, and it works out
only in social development. Practically the two factors are always found
in co-operation, and our knowledge that they are separable is largely
derived from the lower forms of life where the social process is absent.
It is often possible, however, to reach useful conclusions from indirect
evidence. If, for example, hereditary stocks which are not remarkable
for crime and vice in one environment rapidly become so in another, we
may believe that the environment is the factor most in need of
correction. This is the case with the immigrant population in our badly
governed cities. On the other hand, if we find that individuals of a
certain stock generally turn out ill, no matter in what conditions they
may be placed, the argument for bad heredity is strong. This applies to
many studies of degenerate lines, for which Dugdale’s work on The Jukes
set the example.
Where the matter is in doubt, as it must be in most cases, our line of
action would seem to be somewhat as follows: If we are trying to better
the conduct of living men and women, whose heredity, for better or
worse, is already determined, we must proceed on the theory that
environment is to blame, and try to better that. But if we are dealing
with conditions that affect propagation, we should lean the other way. I
mean that, if we find people living in a degeneracy which cannot clearly
be ascribed to anything exceptional in the environment, we ought to hold
the stock suspect, and prevent its propagation if we can. The cause that
we have power over is always the one to emphasize.
The popular discussions of this matter proceed, for the most part, from
a misapprehension of its nature. Heredity and environment are usually
conceived as rival claimants to the control of life, and argument
consists in urging the importance of one or the other, very much as
boys’ debating societies sometimes discuss the question whether
Washington or Lincoln was the greater man.
The views of even scientific men on this point have been for the most
part crude and one-sided, owing chiefly to the fact that they have
approached it from the standpoint of a specialty and without sound
general conceptions. Biologists are apt to regard the stream of heredity
as the great thing, and the social process as quite a secondary matter,
important mainly as the means of a eugenic propaganda.[52] Sociologists,
on the other hand, naturally exalt the process with which they are
familiar, and seldom admit that the other is of equal moment. Both sides
often seem to share the popular view that heredity and environment,
society and the germ-plasm, are in some way opposites, so that whatever
is granted to the one must be taken from the other.
Most of the writers on eugenics have been biologists or physicians who
have never acquired that point of view which sees in society a
psychological organism with a life process of its own. They have thought
of human heredity as a tendency to definite modes of conduct, and of
environment as something that may aid or hinder, not remembering, what
they might have learned even from Darwin, that heredity takes on a
distinctively human character only by renouncing, as it were, the
function of predetermined adaptation and becoming plastic to the
environment. In this state of mind they are capable of expressions like
the following, from reputable authors: “Our experience is that nature
dominates nurture, and that inheritance is more vital than environment.”
“Education is to the man what manure is to the pea.”
Writers of this school are apt to think they have proved their case when
they have shown that environment cannot overcome heredity; but this is
as if one should argue that because a wife retains a personality of her
own she must have conquered her husband. No doubt, what we get in the
germ-cell is ours for life, and environment can only control, or perhaps
suppress, its development. But it is equally true that heredity cannot
overcome environment. If a man grows up in England no heredity will
enable him to speak Chinese; and in general he must build up his life
out of the arts, customs, and ideas supplied him by society.
Equally extravagant statements may be found on the other side; to the
effect, for example, that heredity has nothing to do with crime.
Socialists are apt to scoff at heredity because they wish to fix
attention upon capitalism and other economic factors. Evidently what is
needed is a larger view on both parts.
I might say that this topic affords a kind of _pons asinorum_ for one
phase of sociology, a test problem to determine whether an applicant is
capable of thinking clearly in this field. If so, then no one has
crossed the bridge who is capable of asserting, as a general
proposition, that heredity is more important or more powerful than
environment, or _vice versa_.
Such views are examples of the particularism that is so rife in social
discussion, and is the opposite of the organic conception, the latter
recognizing that the phenomena form an interdependent whole, every part
of which is a cause of all the other parts. The particularist follows
the line of causation from one point and in one direction from that
point; the organic thinker sees the necessity of following it from many
points and in all directions.
The lack of a good nomenclature is a serious bar to clear thinking upon
these matters. How can we differentiate the biological and social
processes when nearly all the words in general use may mean either?
Although “heredity” is coming to be understood chiefly in a biological
sense, there is a far older usage in the sense of social heirship, which
is established in law, and not likely to be abandoned. And the noun
“inheritance,” the verb “to inherit,” the adjectives “hereditary” and
“inheritable” are used indiscriminately and smother the distinction. It
would seem that the biologists, as the later comers, may fairly be
called upon to give us new terms for the process they are bringing to
light.
CHAPTER XIX
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE SURVIVAL OF TYPES[53]
ACTION OF THE SOCIAL ORDER ON SURVIVAL—SIZE OF A NORMAL FAMILY—SOCIAL
CHECKS ON THE IMPULSE TO PROPAGATION—THE FAMILY LINE AS AN
IDEAL—FACTORS IN MARRIAGE SELECTION—INFLUENCE OF THE WOMAN’S
MOVEMENT—UNSETTLED CONDITIONS
All the hereditary types or strains in a given society may be said to be
competing for survival, with the social system as the arbiter of
success. That is, a type can hold its own only as its individuals can
make themselves at home in the social environment and bring to maturity
at least an average number of offspring to continue it. Thus, as regards
merely physical needs, social conditions may involve either ample
nutrition and protection or starvation and exposure to destructive
climates and diseases. The wide-spread devastation of savage races in
recent times is explained in part by the social events which have
brought them in contact with European diseases and intoxicants, and
there is an analogous condition in the destructive influences acting
upon the very poor in all societies.
This, however, is only the more obvious part of the truth. More subtly
the social condition determines how any hereditary type develops and
whether it has a sort of life that is favorable to propagation. The
whole process of survival is, from one point of view, a matter of social
psychology. Psychological influences direct the development of the
instincts, guiding the selection of one sex by the other, and of both by
the social group.
The question just how a hereditary type must be related to the social
system in order to survive cannot be answered in any simple way. It is
not safe to say that the most successful types, in a social sense, have
the best chance of survival; such types often tend to sterility. This
may take place through the absorption of their energies in social
activities at the expense of propagation; also through overfeeding or
lack of incentive, leading to moral decay. Nor do the types that fail
socially necessarily fail to propagate, since traits like lack of
foresight, which diminish success, may increase the number of offspring.
In order that a hereditary type may survive equally with others the
individuals belonging to it must bring to maturity at least as many
children, in proportion to their number, as those of other types. It is
not sufficient that those having children should rear enough of them to
replace the parents; they must also compensate for several sources of
loss. A considerable proportion of persons, from lack of vitality or
other reasons, do not marry, or, being married, have no children, or
lose those they have by early death. And, beyond this, there must be
enough surplus of children to give the type they represent its share in
the general increase of population.
The failure of a part of the individuals of good stock to leave children
is not necessarily a fault: in some degree it is an elimination of the
weak that is essential to the welfare of the stock, whose vigor is not
the same in all. Many of the celibate or sterile are such because they
lack normal vitality. I think we can all find in our own circle of
acquaintance people of excellent descent who are healthy enough,
perhaps, but seem to lack that surplus of life which would make us feel
that they are born to be fathers or mothers. At any rate, others must do
what, for no matter what reason, they fail to do.
Just how many offspring the average family must have to meet these
requirements is not easy to calculate precisely, as the number varies
with the death-rate, the proportion of celibates and barren marriages,
the rate of general increase and other factors. I have consulted several
statistical experts, but found none of them willing to make a definite
estimate for the United States. I should say, roughly, that a stock
cannot hold its own in numbers with an average of less than four
children to a fertile marriage, and considering the large general rate
of increase in this country, five would probably be nearer the mark. A
family of three children or less, where the parents are of good descent
and, physically and as regards income, capable of having more, must be
reckoned a “race-suicide” family, not doing its share in keeping up the
stock.
It was formerly assumed that the impulse to propagation, in human as in
animal types, was to be taken for granted, the only question being how
far the economic conditions would allow this impulse to become
effective. A closer study shows that the control of society begins
further back, and can easily modify the development of the instincts
themselves in such a way that they cease to impel natural increase.
Gratification of the sexual impulses may be separated from reproduction,
and it may well come to pass that the classes in which they have the
fullest sway are the least prolific. The maternal instinct, though less
apt to lapse into sensuality, is not much more certain in its operation.
It may expend itself on one or two children, or even be directed to
other objects.
Modern conditions tend strongly to what is called birth-control, that
is, to making the number of children a matter of intention, and not of
mere physiology. This is in accord with the general increase of choice,
and we may hope that it will work out well in the long run, but it calls
for a new conscience and a new intelligence in this connection. The old
process did not require that people should know anything about eugenics,
or feel the duty of raising a good-sized family; that was left to
unconscious forces; but now that they are coming to have no more
children than they want, it is evident that, unless those who represent
the better strains want the requisite number, such strains must decline.
And as birth-control prevails most in the intelligent classes, the
possibility of deterioration is manifest. Only eugenic ideals and
conduct can save from depletion those stocks which share most fully in
the currents of progress.
The fact that intelligence saves on the death-rate and enables the type
to be maintained by a smaller number of births is of some moment, but we
must not imagine that any saving of this sort will enable families of
two or three children to keep up a thriving stock.
There seems to be some disposition to blink the quantitative side of
this problem, especially, perhaps, among women, upon whom the hardships
and anxieties of rearing children mainly fall. They are apt to be more
interested in taking better care of children than in having more of
them. And yet, from the standpoint of race welfare, and having regard to
the actual state of things in the well-to-do classes, the number is
pretty clearly the more urgent matter of the two. If the maternal
instinct expends itself upon solicitude for one or two or even three
children, refusing a larger number, it becomes accessory to the decline
of the type. It is mere confusion of thought to suppose that, in this
matter, quality can make up for lack of quantity.
And, so far as quality is concerned, there is good reason to think that
where the parents are not in actual poverty a family of four children or
more, large enough to create a vigorous group life, is better for the
development of a child than one of two or three.
It seems that what we mainly need in this connection is some
resuscitation, in a changed form, of the old ideal of the family line.
We have, from this point of view, gone too far in differentiating the
individual from his kin, having almost ceased to identify ourselves with
our ancestors or descendants, and to find self-expression in the size
and importance of the family group. People hardly comprehend any longer
the sentiment, quite general until within a century or two, that a man’s
position and repute were one with that of a continuing stock whose
traits were imputed to him as a matter of course. We no longer introduce
ourselves, as in Homer, by naming our descent, or rely upon our
posterity for credit. We cannot lose the sense of race without impairing
the fact of race.
I know that precisely this sense has been one of the main obstacles to
democracy, equality of opportunity, and the whole modern movement, so
that public opinion has come to identify it with reaction. Nor do I
think that the danger from it is altogether past. Nevertheless, progress
is to be had not by abandoning old ideals altogether, but by their
control and adaptation; and the race sentiment still has essential
functions. Where it flourishes success and fecundity tend to go
together: the stocks that gain social power and resource express these,
in part, by leaving a numerous offspring. And in so far as the
successful stocks are the better stocks, this means race-improvement.
If we assume, notwithstanding the foregoing, that marriage is, on the
whole, a step toward propagation, we arrive at the question of selection
in marriage. Any type of man or woman that is to hold its own in
heredity must be qualified to secure the co-operation of the other sex
in this relation.
The choice of the sexes in marriage is in great part an expression of
the values prevalent in the social group at large. It is impracticable
to separate the individual judgment from that of society. This is
evidently true where, as is so widely the case, marriages are based on
wealth, social position, or success in any of the forms admired by the
group. The valuation of a suitor, in the mind of a girl’s family, and
even in the mind of the girl herself, is largely a function of his
valuation by other people, and the same is true for the woman, whose
reputation, wealth, and capacity as a housewife are important factors in
her desirability. Even in the matter of sexual attraction there is a
large conventional element. We know how women are dazzled by prestige
and position on the part of men, while “style” and the like are almost
equally effective in their own case. The sexual emotions function in
connection with the mind as a whole, and that is moulded by the general
mind of the group. It is certain, however, that although sexual value is
largely an institutional value there is also a factor of immediate human
nature in it. I mean that there are, on both sides, vague but powerful
elements of sex attraction that spring from instinct and are little
subject to convention. It is hard to say just what these are, but we all
feel them in the other sex, and no one doubts that they come from an
immemorial evolution.
The tendency of the modern movement toward individuality and personal
choice has been to give freer play to preference in the man and woman
who are to marry, increasing the influence of the human-nature values
and rendering marriage, on the whole, more intimate and congenial. This
ought to make for the propagation of manly types of men and womanly
types of women, types strongly vital and sexual after their several
kinds. It really seems to work in this way, though the vagaries of
personal choice may often be inscrutable.
It is still true, however, that the outcome must depend much upon the
state of the public mind. If marriage is generally felt to be a social
institution, with grave public functions, so that everything connected
with it is judged by its bearing on the welfare of the next generation,
if heredity is regarded and the need of economic support given due
weight, without excluding those intuitions which the young may be
trusted not to neglect, then the better types ought to be chosen. But if
marriage is hasty and frivolous, if the prevalent opinion regards it as
a mere matter of personal gratification, if a child is looked upon as a
nuisance or a pet, then the biological outlook, as well as the social,
is bad. Which of these descriptions more nearly applies to our society I
leave the reader to judge; it is certain that we need to do all we can
to make the former true.
As to the effect of a larger participation by women in forming our ideas
regarding marriage selection, the number of children and the like, all
depends upon their developing, as a class, an organized wisdom in these
matters. Already they have more power in this sphere than they ever had
before, and the hope of their making a good use of it lies in their
ideals and organization. If the results of their enlargement are, so
far, not altogether reassuring, if there is much that seems anarchical
and reckless of race welfare in feminist tendencies, this may be because
we are in a transition state. Women have acquired power while still
somewhat unprepared to use it, and what they need is probably more
responsibility along with the training requisite to meet it. It is not
clear that there is any more extravagance in their movement than in
those for which men are responsible.
The hopeful theory is that women, as the bearers of maternal instinct
and functions, are the natural curators of the welfare of the race, and
that, if they are trained and trusted, they will prove adequate to this
function. We must at least admit that it is hard to see any other way
out. They have already so much freedom that it is hardly possible to
deny them more, in this direction where they have so strong a claim upon
it. Eugenics cannot now be forced upon them; if they do not bring it in,
or take a leading part in the work, no other agency can.
Another encouraging reflection is that there is no reason to believe
that women will, in the long run, reject any real wisdom that the male
mind may be able to contribute.
I am inclined to believe that much of the frivolity that seems to
prevail in marriage selection may be ascribed to a disorganization of
standards, such as we see in other phases of life. A confused time
naturally lacks settled habits of choice that reflect the underlying
social requirements. Where _mores_ are unformed, caprice flourishes. In
a society or class that has long been face to face with rather severe
conditions of life, such, for example, as the peasantry of all old
countries, we find customs and habits of thought that are suited to
survival in the face of such conditions. The personal traits that the
situation demands have come to be required in marriage—strength, energy,
and steadfastness in men, and maternal and domestic capacity in women.
These traits become typical of the class, and traits that conflict with
them are weeded out. But with us unsettled conditions and laxity of
standards have given course to mere impulse or meaningless currents of
fashion. There is such a thing as biological discipline, in which we are
perhaps as lacking as in social.
CHAPTER XX
ECONOMIC FACTORS; THE CLASSES ABOVE POVERTY
INCOME AND PROPAGATION IN THE WELL-TO-DO CLASS—CIVILIZATION AND RACE
EXHAUSTION—DOES SUCCESS INDICATE EUGENIC VALUE?—THE INTERMEDIATE
CLASS OR “PLAIN PEOPLE”
In order to discuss the economic factors affecting the propagation of
different types of men it may be well to divide the population roughly
into three classes: the well-to-do at one extreme, those in actual want
at the other, and the vast intermediate class who come under neither
description. Such a division is arbitrary, but may serve to indicate
certain influences bearing upon our question. Let us include in the
first, families whose income is $2,000 or more, in the second, those
whose income is less than $600, and in the third, families whose income
is between these amounts.[54]
The first class is the successful class, judged by pecuniary standards,
and includes not only prosperous business men, but the better paid of
the professional class, and of men living on salaries. The prevailing
tendency in this part of society, subject of course to many exceptions
and modifications, appears to be to sacrifice the size of the family to
other interests. This is the class which easily forms habits of luxury,
and develops costly and exacting ideals regarding the nurture and
education of its children. For the money spent upon them no pecuniary
return is expected, and the hardship and responsibility inseparable from
the rearing of a family appear greater by contrast with habits of ease.
It is also in this class that personal choice is most cultivated, and
the sophistication that applies this to limiting the number of children,
so that, although the death-rate is low, the birth-rate is scarcely
sufficient to offset it. Relatively to other and more prolific parts of
the population the stocks represented in this class may be regarded as
tending to decline.[55]
The biological significance of this depends upon the value of these
stocks, upon what distinctive biological traits, if any, are to be found
in well-to-do families as a group. The prevalent view among eugenic
writers, led by Galton, has been that the successful class, on the
whole, represents the ablest stocks, and that eugenic progress depends
mainly upon securing a high rate of increase among them. Galton himself
held that all other eugenic aims were of secondary importance. It should
be noted, however, that he did not propose to measure success merely by
income, but rather by established reputation among the group best able
to judge of a particular kind of merit. His eugenic aristocracy would
consist, for example, of those lawyers, artists, men of letters, men of
science, and even of those skilled artisans, who are regarded by their
colleagues as able men of their kind. The business group would no doubt
be included but would not be allowed an importance at all corresponding
to its wealth. At the apex of this aristocracy would be men of genius,
the test of genius being great and enduring reputation.[56]
This view of the eugenic superiority of the successful class, in
conjunction with the smallness of the families in this class, has led to
pessimistic views regarding the future of the race. Some writers hold
that civilization necessarily exhausts a stock, that such exhaustion has
been the main cause of the decay of great nations in the past, and that
the process was never so rapid as in our own time. Others think that,
although the decline is real, it has not yet gone very far, and that we
may be saved from it by a rational eugenics.
The argument that civilization, especially modern civilization, tends to
race deterioration is simple and, to say the least, plausible.
Civilization selects the best stocks and uses them up. The ablest types
of men, incited by ambition, achieve success and carry on the more
intellectual and exhausting functions of the social order. At the same
time their success subjects them to the upper-class conditions of luxury
and exacting ideals. The result is infecundity of the successful class,
and of the superior stocks which it represents. The best grain is eaten
and the next crop raised from inferior seed.
This process may be peculiarly rapid in a democracy like ours, because
it is our tendency, and indeed our ideal, to make the rise of natural
ability as free and rapid as possible. When life in general was
traditional, functions inherited or customary, and opportunity confined
to a few, the process by which natural ability rose to the top and
evaporated was slow and uncertain. But now, with our universal spurring
of ambition, our racial resources are rapidly spent, and, short of a
change in the ideals and way of life of the successful class, it is not
apparent how they can be saved.[57]
The opinion upon which all this depends, that the successful class
represents the best stocks, is, however, open to question. One criticism
of it is that opportunity and success are still mainly a matter of
privilege rather than of natural ability; and many assert that in spite
of our ideal of equal opportunity the ascendancy of privilege is
increasing, and that nothing short of a revolution can overthrow it. If
this view is at all correct it undermines the whole idea that the
present successful class represents an aristocracy of natural ability,
or has especial eugenic significance of any kind.
It is worth noting, however, that one may allow much present dominance
of privilege, but hold that, in spite of it, there is a continuous flow
of able stocks toward the top, so that the upper strata probably have a
considerable eugenic superiority. And if we believe that improvements in
education are increasing opportunity as against privilege, this
superiority should be growing. In that case it would be a great object
to insure fecundity in these strata.
Another line of criticism would question whether the hereditary traits
that make for success, as we now understand it, are after all the ones
we need to increase. Many feel a lively dissatisfaction with the people
who rule our economic and political institutions; they are criticised as
selfish, unsocial, predatory. “The successful man, it is alleged, is not
a success.” Indeed, as a matter of theory, it is by no means clear that
those who gain the economic prizes are those who are doing most for the
welfare of the race. The question might be put in this way: Is not the
desirable type the Christian type, using the term to designate those who
are swayed by a large fellow-feeling? And is the successful type
conspicuously Christian? The affirmative of this does not seem very
evident. “Many that are first shall be last.”
Besides selfish ambition, there are other traits that might push a man
upward but not be desirable to increase. Is not the successful class
deficient in domestic impulses? They appear to be unprolific, and this
may indicate that the instincts are weak, causing the sacrifice of
family life to ambition. Perhaps the infecundity of this class is only
the wholesome elimination of an unsocial type. The best type of man may
be too broadly human for economic success.
On the other hand, there is good sense in the view that success is
usually attained by qualities of general value, such as energy,
initiative, tenacity, and intelligence; and that, so far as it is
accompanied by selfishness, lack of domesticity, and the like, we may
ascribe this rather to environment than to any defect in the hereditary
type. There is much in success to make a man selfish.
The eugenic superiority of the upper economic class may also be
questioned on the ground that the conditions for _maintaining_ a
superior stock are not so good in this class as in a less prosperous
part of society. The tests are not so rigid; people who are supported by
inherited wealth may raise families whether they have shown any natural
ability or not. Their position is somewhat like that of the chronic
paupers at the other economic extreme, who raise degenerate families by
the aid of charity. Certainly there are many marriages of the sons and
daughters of the rich which do not seem based on personal merit, either
biologic or social.
I suppose the reader will feel, as I do, that it is hardly possible, in
view of these conflicting considerations, to form any precise idea of
the relative eugenic value of the upper economic class. My own
impression, derived mainly from general observation, is that it does,
after all, contain a large number of exceptionally able families, many
of which are becoming unprolific under the influences of prosperity. If
we can increase the fecundity of such families by diffusing a higher
sense of race obligation we shall be doing excellent work for the next
generation.
If we embrace in the intermediate class those who maintain themselves in
tolerable comfort, but only by steady work and close economy, never
being able to accumulate much surplus, it is by far the largest class of
the three, and one in which the conditions of survival seem favorable to
the increase of good types. The excess of births over deaths is greater
than among the upper class, on the one hand, or among the misery class
on the other.
The measure of success attained requires solid qualities, such as
intelligence and tenacity, in as great measure, often, as a more
brilliant career; and as there is no inherited “independence,” these
must be kept in constant operation. Helpmates and “good providers” are
appreciated in marriage, though sexual intuitions also play a large
part. Domestic sentiment is strong and seldom overshadowed by
extravagant ambition.
It seems that the selection of types and the maintenance of a sound
eugenic standard—so far as it is maintained—is chiefly accomplished
here. Writers on eugenics have given most of their attention to
extremes, as Galton in his work on Hereditary Genius, and Dugdale and
later writers in monographs on degenerate families; but while conditions
in these extremes are important they probably count less than those in
the far more numerous intermediate class. Galton’s argument that the
paramount eugenic object is to increase the fecundity of the highly
successful types rests entirely upon his premise that these types have
an all-around superiority proportionate to their success. If we reject
this and deny that it is possible to locate the source of future
supermen in a small class, then the “plain people” deserve our chief
attention. The type of man that can and will raise a family under medium
conditions is the type that must prevail in numbers, and there is little
reason to doubt that this is, on the whole, a good type, or rather a
variety of good types. The mass of men we wish to be, first of all,
well-proportioned in mind and body, with health, sound nerves,
intelligence, perseverance, adaptability, and strong social impulses.
All these are qualities favorable to normal success and fecundity.
The higher evolution of the hereditary type is also, in my judgment, to
be looked for mainly through the slow working of the requirements for
mediocre success. If the conditions of life are changing in such a
manner as to require greater intelligence, initiative, stability, and
force of character, as it seems to me likely that they are, it would
seem that these traits, so far as they are hereditary, should be
increased by the process of selection actually going on. In this way we
may hope that the human stock will improve in the future as it probably
has in the past. A higher type of society develops a higher type of man
to work it, biological as well as social. This view is somewhat
speculative, as I am aware that there is no proof that the breed of men
has changed at all during historic time,[58] but it seems to me the most
probable speculation.
And, as regards practical eugenics, I should say that one of our main
aims should be to uphold the comparatively healthy influences dominant
in the great intermediate class, as against the demoralizing ideals
prevalent among the rich.
CHAPTER XXI
POVERTY AND PROPAGATION
IS POVERTY BENEFICIAL? EXTREME VIEWS, BIOLOGICAL AND SOCIAL—FALLACY OF
THE FORMER—OF THE LATTER—DANGER OF IGNORING THE HEREDITARY
FACTOR—SOCIAL CONDITIONS FAVORING HEREDITARY IMPROVEMENT—BENEFITS
OF MODERATE HARDSHIP—POSSIBILITY OF SCIENTIFIC SELECTION—THE MORAL
CHECK AS AN ALTERNATIVE TO POVERTY
We need to know how poverty is related to the survival of types because
it is regarding this, especially, that we are required to have a
definite policy. The hardships of the very poor are felt as a call to do
something; but when we ask what we should do the answer depends upon how
we look upon their condition in relation to social process. Is it a
means to the “survival of the fittest,” and, if so, does it work in such
a way that the fit are the desirable? Can it be abolished? Ought it to
be abolished? Is there any other way of accomplishing whatever selective
function it may now perform?
There are two extreme views regarding this matter, and all manner of
intermediate modifications and compromises. The biologist who sees life
only in terms of his specialty is apt to hold that the sufferings of the
poor are simply one form of the struggle for existence among biological
types, that this struggle is the method of evolution here as everywhere;
that it is salutary, though painful, and that any attempt to interfere
with it can do only harm; that, in short, the net result of philanthropy
is the preservation of inferior types of mankind. This is supported by
statistics which aim to show that shiftless, vicious, diseased, and
defective persons are enabled by charity to raise large families of
children.
The other extreme is common among those who are moved by first-hand
knowledge of the poor, and feel so strongly the inadequacy of the
biological view that they are eager to reject it altogether. Poverty,
they say, is the chronic disease of a certain part of society, in which
people are involved as they are in an epidemic. To have it indicates no
inherent weakness, no biological trait of any kind; it does not
discriminate and has, therefore, no selective value. Moreover, it does
not eliminate, as it must in order to promote evolution. Those who
contract it, whether of inferior types or not, do not cease to
propagate, but increase more than the well-to-do, passing on their
misery to their children. And, beyond this, poverty is propagated
socially by the vice, squalor, shiftlessness and inefficiency which are
inseparable from it, and spread from one family to another. The whole
condition is described as a running sore, which poisons all it touches,
and should be cured as a whole by remedial and antiseptic treatment. The
theory underlying this view is that the sources of poverty are
environmental, and that difference of biological type has so little to
do with it as to be negligible. Or, assuming that it does play some
part, it is best got at by first removing the social causes, after which
any inferior hereditary types there may be can be discerned and
eliminated.
Under this view philanthropy, or, more generally, deliberate control of
social conditions, is not “interference” but an essential part of the
evolutionary process. It never has been nor can be absent so long as man
is human and feels his solidarity with his fellows. It has no doubt done
harm when unwise, but the remedy for this is not an impossible and
illogical “letting alone,” but the endeavor to make it wiser. Indeed the
biological particularists tacitly admit this by carrying on an
educational campaign.
No one with any unbiased knowledge of the facts can accept the crudely
biological view. It is essentially an _a priori_ interpretation, drawn
by analogy from subhuman life. Selection by a merely brutal struggle
(which even among the animals is, in fact, modified by mutual aid) is
out of place, retrogressive, impossible on a large scale, in human
society; and a biology intelligent enough to grasp the implications of
the social process must reject it.
To such an intelligent biology the ground for combating poverty, disease
and vice by social means is that this is part of a campaign for securing
conditions which _on the whole_ make for the survival of higher types.
We may lose something by it, we may preserve some who might better die,
but the general outcome of our campaign, if rightly planned, is
biologically good.
Sound charity does not knowingly aid the propagation of persons of
inferior stock. It aims to distinguish them from those who are merely
suffering from bad environment, and to set them apart in institutions or
colonies, while the others are given a chance in a better environment.
In no other way but by close and sympathetic study can this distinction
be made, so that the intelligent social worker is the real social
biologist, those who ignore the social factor being doctrinaires.
Moreover, except as we bring about good social conditions we have no
standard to tell what stocks _are_ socially desirable. Who are the “fit”
whom we wish to preserve? Fitness implies some general situation by
which it is tested, and the kind we want is fitness for the higher
social order we are trying to build up, for the wise, just, prosperous,
and spiritually progressing state. The only way to test for this is to
create as high a social order as we can, and give each competing type a
chance to function in it. To wipe out vast numbers by some crude process
on the assumption that it eliminates the “unfit” will not do, or will do
only so long as we are unable to substitute some better mode of
selection.
If all of our babies were subjected to the conditions that babies are
subjected to in Terra del Fuego, most of them, I suppose, would die of
exposure, and a very rapid “natural selection” would take place; but
there is no reason to suppose that, for civilized purposes, the
surviving type would be at all improved. The power to endure extreme
cold is only a small merit in modern life. In the same way, of two
children living in an infected tenement the one who dies may be of a
socially more desirable type than the one who lives. The facts collected
by Mr. Havelock Ellis and others regarding the feeble childhood of men
of genius show how easily, under such a test, the better types might
perish.
The extreme biological view involves the absurdity of requiring that we
tolerate indefinitely a bad state of society in order to produce a stock
that is fit for a good one. Evidently the true way is to endeavor to
better the society and the stock at the same time, expecting each to
react favorably upon the other.
I cannot, however, assent to the other extreme view, namely, that
poverty has nothing to do with hereditary degeneracy and cannot in any
manner or degree work against it. My impression is that destructive
conditions, like misery, disease, and vice, though their action is
largely indiscriminate, nevertheless attack degenerate stocks with
special virulence, and have some tendency to diminish them relatively to
those that are sounder. The process is crude and wasteful, needing to be
replaced by a better one, but it probably has had, and still has, an
important part in the evolution of the race.
Say what you will of environmental factors in success or failure, there
is no reasonable doubt that differences of natural capacity also enter.
Under like conditions one individual, because of inherent energy and
intelligence, may emerge from misery, while another, lacking these
traits, remains in it. And it is quite possible that the same traits may
lead the former on to a successful and well-ordered life, including the
raising of a normal family, while the latter remains unprolific.
It is not true, so far as I can judge from antecedent probability, or
from the evidence, that those who fall below the misery line have, as a
class, as large a natural increase as those who rise somewhat above it.
A steady young man who can earn good wages, a competent housewifely
girl, are types favored in marriage, and likely to rear families. And
those who “do well” are also less devitalized by exhaustion,
discouragement, and dissipation. They make good their place in the
intermediate class, have more children and bring a larger proportion of
them to maturity than they would if they had failed. The small families
of the rich have led many to overlook the fact that among less
prosperous people success and fecundity are in some degree connected. I
know the common impression regarding the large families of the shiftless
and degenerate and admit that they are often abnormally large. I think,
however, the impression is on the whole exaggerated, perhaps because of
our feeling that such families ought to have no children at all.
A standard work dealing with poverty in America remarks that “the
families of paupers or semi-paupers usually average smaller than those
of the population as a whole, partly because the number among classes
degenerate enough to be dependent is not so large as ordinarily
supposed, partly because of a high infant mortality, and partly because
the families of these classes tend to disintegrate rapidly.”[59]
Admitting what exceptions you please, I have little doubt that this will
hold true on the whole.
Of dissipation we may say much the same as of economic failure; heredity
is certainly a factor in it, however subordinate to environment, and the
dissipated are, without doubt, a comparatively unprolific class. Vice,
alcoholism, and irregularity of all kinds tend to diminish fecundity.
The sterility due to venereal disease alone is enormous, though not
confined, unfortunately, to the licentious themselves, but extending to
their wives and children, and to whomever else they may contaminate.
Alcoholism leads to sexual vice, and also lowers intelligence and
vitality. It is true that drunkards often have large families, but for
one such case you will find perhaps four of those who have formed no
stable marriage relation. It is a mere truism to say that, as a rule,
dissipation means a kind of life inconsistent with the raising of a
normal family.
I think, then, we ought not, in dealing with poverty, to ignore the
possibility that inferiority of hereditary type may be a factor in it.
If people who cannot support a family actually have children, I would
wish these to have as good a chance as any; but so far as possible I
would prevent such people from having children. I favor reforms aimed at
reducing the infant death-rate, but think they should be accompanied by
other reforms aimed at reducing the birth-rate among those who are
unable to maintain the social standards.
Let me suggest an actual problem. It is well known that the birth-rate
of the Negroes in the South is very high, so high that if it were not
largely offset by a very high infant death-rate, the colored people
would soon overwhelm the whites. Apparently, then, if social reforms
were rapidly introduced lowering the death-rate of colored children to
that of the whites, without other reforms tending to lower their
birth-rate, this overwhelming would actually take place. I ask, then,
whether, from the white standpoint at least, this one-sided reform would
not be worse than none, and whether we might not make a similar mistake
by pushing improvements in the care and feeding of infants without at
the same time pushing eugenic measures aimed at raising the standard of
heredity in the infants born.
No doubt the shifting conditions of our society may bring it to pass
that large numbers are living below the social standards from reasons
quite apart from natural incapacity. This is evidently the case with
immigrants coming from countries of lower standards and often undergoing
here exceptional economic and moral pressure. The presumption is that
any social inferiority they may exhibit is due to environmental rather
than hereditary causes. I suppose the fact that most social workers in
America deal largely or wholly with immigrants has much to do with the
prevalence among them of the view that the hereditary causes of poverty
are unimportant. The greater stress put upon the latter in England may
be connected with the different character of English poverty.
The social conditions best for the maintenance of the biological type
are neither very harsh nor very easy. We need a real struggle to supply
a test of what can make good in life, but the conditions of this
struggle should ameliorate with social progress. Any test should conform
to the normal conditions of the system for which the test is made; and
any social struggle that is on a lower plane is not a good test.
I have heard it asserted that the best types are those that can survive
under the worst conditions; but this is patently false. The test of
extreme physical hardship in infancy would probably tend to eliminate
the higher intellectual capacities. The best types are simply those
capable of the best function, and the more nearly we can make good
function on a high social level the test of survival the better.
Hardly anything gives rise to more confusion than discussing the
“struggle for existence” without a clear understanding of the relativity
of all struggle to conditions and standards. When you say, “The struggle
for existence is a good thing,” the thoughtless infer that the harsher
it is the better. On the other hand, when you say, “The struggle for
existence (under misery conditions) is degrading,” the thoughtless of
another bias conclude that it ought to be abolished and life made
comfortable to all, regardless of achievement. We need a struggle, with
standards to arouse exertion and to shut out incompetence; and these
standards should be the highest in social requirement, and their
enforcement the most humane that we are able to establish. I take it
that we are trying to pass from low standards and brutal or haphazard
means of enforcement to a higher condition in both respects.
We need to distinguish rather sharply between moderate hardship and a
really degrading poverty, or, if you please, between poverty and
misery,[60] between a state in which social standards _can_ be
maintained and one in which they inevitably break down. The latter means
general retrogression, and is accompanied by conditions, such as
ignorance, disease and vice, which are destructive of biological
standards as well as social. The former permits that real but not brutal
struggle for existence which is a part of the life of every people and
essential as a guarantee against degeneration.
Is it not true that moderate economic hardship acts as a frontier, a
fighting-line, where fundamental standards, both biological and social,
are maintained, and hardy and humane types of men are developed? There
are kinds and degrees of difficulty, sufficient to be exacting but not
enough to be destructive, that test and sift and reinvigorate the people
who pass through them.
The case of the present immigrant to America is not so different from
that of the pioneer as we are apt to think. He also comes from a crowded
place to a place of opportunity, and strives by a bold venture to better
his condition and enlarge the boundaries of life. Some succeed and some
fail; accident, we must admit, plays a great part. Many of the attendant
conditions are unfair and demoralizing—as was the case with the
pioneers. Nevertheless, the general outcome, even as things go now (and
we may hope to make them go much better), is the fostering of vigorous
types. The history of those who have been in this country for two or
three generations makes this fairly evident.
We need to watch this fighting-line and take care of the wounded—see to
it, that is, that those who fall into misery are given a chance to
recover, if they are capable of it, and at any rate are not allowed to
extend their condition to whole neighborhoods and form infectious misery
environments. Unless we can abolish the struggle altogether, which seems
neither possible nor desirable, I do not see how we can expect to avoid
sporadic misery as a by-product of it; but what we _can_ do is so to
standardize the conditions of the struggle and the care of those who
fail as to prevent the growth of a self-perpetuating misery class.
Scientific _a priori_ tests of fitness to propagate, such as may be
developed by the aid of family records or medical and psychological
examinations, will probably be found of increasing value in eliminating
the definitely degenerate by segregation or sterilization. It is not
probable, however, that they can ever meet the more general need of a
competitive standard of biological competence.
There are two fundamental and possibly permanent reasons why we cannot
select our hereditary types artificially: first, because we are not
likely to agree as to just what types are desirable, and, second,
because if we did agree there is no practicable method of ascertaining
the individuals belonging to these types and controlling their
propagation.
Selective breeding is a comparatively simple matter with domestic
animals, where what we seek is a definite and easily ascertained trait
like length or fineness of wool in sheep, weight in hogs or beef-cattle,
speed or strength in horses, laying capacity in fowls, and so on. But in
the case of man we do not know just what we want, and probably never
shall. We should not dare to set up a standard of physical vigor, for
fear of excluding psychical powers of more value; and the social and
moral traits which we might desire to increase do not manifest
themselves with certainty until rather late in life.
Moreover, it is clear that the desirable thing in human life is not one
good type but many, a diversity of types corresponding to multifarious
and unforeseeable functions. It is most unlikely that we shall ever
assume to define these types in advance.
These difficulties seem so insuperable that it is hardly necessary to go
on and show that, owing to the great share which environment has in
producing desirable types of character, it is difficult to see how we
could be sure what individuals lacked the requisite hereditary capacity.
Galton’s view that success is a fair test has little following, and no
other test is at hand. I conclude, then, that the sphere of a scientific
eugenics, which shall deliberately select some types for propagation and
reject others, should probably not extend much beyond the suppression of
clearly marked kinds of degeneracy.
It would seem that we must rely for our standards mainly upon the actual
test of social struggle, acting either through economic misery or
through some kind of moral pressure, in the nature of custom or public
opinion, which shall discourage from raising families those who do not
“make good,” and require a greater fecundity from those who do.
In the past we have made use, unconsciously, of misery, which was
rendered the more unjust and indiscriminate by the fact that those
subject to it were held in a lower class, having little real opportunity
to show their fitness for a higher condition. We seek to do away with
this, not only because of the injustice and indiscrimination, but also
because degradation impairs the whole state of society. At the same time
we must admit the possibility that we may make a bad situation worse by
abolishing the only selective agent we have.
Our chief reliance, apparently, must be upon substituting custom and
social pressure for misery in restricting the propagation of those who
cannot maintain their families at a normal standard of living.
Experience seems to show that the voluntary check easily comes into
operation along with the growth of intelligence and social ambition—so
easily that it is already carried to excess by the well-to-do in most
countries, and in at least one country—France—by the bulk of the people.
It appears not at all Utopian to think that this mild and indirect check
may in time not only take the place of destructive misery, but prove
more effective as a method of selection.
Meanwhile we have a difficult problem in that class of people who are
poor stock, but not so definitely degenerate that it is practicable to
interfere and prevent their propagation. Almost every village has such a
problem in the irresponsible procreation of families whom the community
knows to be incompetent. I have received trustworthy accounts of many
such from students.
It will appear to some that the whole plan of improvement breaks down at
this point through the inadequacy of social pressure to limit natural
increase. But we have come a long way since Malthus, and in a general
view of the situation it appears probable, though not demonstrable, that
social pressure will more and more meet the problem. A reasonable view
of irresponsible procreation is that it is confined chiefly to those
families which, through neglect, have not learned to feel the cogency of
higher standards of life, and that the best way to deal with it is to
make those standards universal. To fall back upon misery and vice for
elimination would probably, by increasing irresponsibility, make matters
worse rather than better. In other words, while the plan of dealing with
the whole situation by opportunity, standards, and moral control is not
free from difficulties, it is more promising, even at its weakest point,
than a policy of neglect.
_PART V_
GROUP CONFLICT
CHAPTER XXII
GROUP CONFLICT AND MODERN INTEGRATION
THE “PARTICULARISTIC” VIEW OF GROUP CONFLICT—WAR AS
REVEALER—PREHISTORIC TRIBAL CONFLICT—ITS CONTINUATION IN NATIONAL
WARS—LARGER CHARACTER OF THE MODERN PROCESS—TREND TOWARD
CONTROL—TREND TOWARD DEMOCRACY AND HUMANISM—DIFFERENTIATION OF
PERSONALITY FROM THE GROUP—GROUP OPPOSITION TENDS TO BECOME
IMPERSONAL—NUCLEATION IN GROUPS AND PERSONS—THE PERSISTENCE OF
PATRIOTISM—RELIGIOUS SYNTHESIS
The process of life is an organic whole every part of which is
interdependent with every other part. And it is all a struggle of some
sort—with climate and soil, between persons, nations, or other groups,
or among opposing ideas and institutions. In this strenuous whole, group
conflict plays a great part, but it is by no means the whole process,
nor can the latter be understood from this point of view alone.
There is a wide-spread doctrine, a sort of simplified and misunderstood
Darwinism, which unduly exalts conflict and makes the “struggle for
existence” between groups almost the sole principle of human life. In
the form of what may be called state-conflict particularism this idea
has had a considerable influence on recent history, through influencing,
largely, the policy of the German Empire, and leading up to the Great
War.
The evolution or progress of nations, according to this teaching, takes
place through a struggle for existence among the contending states, in
which the strongest and best survive, and impose their institutions on
others. This makes for the general good of mankind, because it is the
only way by which better forms of life can supplant the inferior. Might
is based on right and is the proof of it, since there is no kind of
virtue that does not count in the supreme test of war.
Thus the theory singles out the conflict of states from the rest of the
process, saying: “Here is the one thing needful; let us put our whole
energy into this; nothing else really counts.” Everything is bent toward
national power in the form of armaments and of militant industry and
trade—institutions, literature, art, research, education, family life,
the every-day thought and sentiment of the people, all are enlisted and
drilled.
It follows, moreover, that all morality is secondary to that success of
the state which is the supreme good. Where this is concerned scruples
are but weakness, and any method is right that gets results. Weak
nations cumber the earth and ought to succumb to strong ones. Their ruin
is painful, but salutary, even to themselves in the long run, for the
conquerors will make amends by incorporating them into their own better
system.
Under this creed a formidable organism is built up which may win in war
and peace, and thrive for generations, but is doomed to fail sooner or
later because it is adapted to only a part of life, and not to the whole
process. It neglects the dependence of nations upon one another, and
upon civilization as a whole. Its trend to force and to national egoism
presently alienates other states and prepares a hostile combination. The
outraged principle of moral unity reacts by imposing moral isolation,
with the external antagonism and inward degeneration which that
involves. The community of nations being aroused to assert itself
against the disloyal member, the theory proves misleading and action
upon it disastrous.
And yet we must use special points of view, and that of group conflict
has an advantage in the way it illumines the general situation. War is
not the whole of the drama, but, in the past at least, it has been the
crisis, the test that brought everything into action and showed what the
previous development had been. Growth goes on for generations and
peaceful struggles of many sorts take place—industrial rivalry,
competition of classes and parties, conflict of ideas and sentiments—all
having important results, which, however, remain for the most part
obscure. But let a war break out between rival groups and they summon
every element of power to the test, so that we soon learn where, as
regards the development of total force, we have arrived. It is a partial
view, but revealing, and even the moral elements are more fully
displayed than at other times.
The test of war is one that from the dawn of human life down to the
present hour every kind of society, from time to time, has had to meet.
For untold millenniums of prehistoric development the conflict of tribal
groups was a recurring condition for all types of men and forms of
organization, and those which were unsuited to it tended to be destroyed
or discredited. In every part of the inhabited world archæologists find
evidence that forgotten peoples have fought the ground over, and
succeeded one another in its occupation.
Although we cannot reproduce the process in detail, it is instructive to
ask ourselves what sort of men and of social structures might be
expected to hold their own through these millenniums, and so to emerge
into recorded history. We may perceive a variety of requirements,
according as we regard the conditions with reference to the individuals,
considered severally, the family, or the group as a whole.
Individually man must have developed personal prowess—strength, courage,
enterprise, endurance, cunning, and the like, since a tribe lacking in
any of these traits would be in that degree inferior and liable to be
destroyed or enslaved. And the family group must become such as to
insure the fecundity of the tribe and the early care of its children;
which means good mothers, at least, and perhaps also some measure of
constancy and affection in the fathers.
For the social system as a whole, the great thing is to achieve
effectual team-work. It must inculcate discipline, loyalty, and
industrial and social intelligence in the members, must embrace an
adequate system of communication for organizing and developing the
social mind, and also a body of special traditions and customs to meet
the exigencies to which the tribe is liable. Stability is a prime
necessity, and needs to be fortified by a conviction of the sanctity of
what comes down from the past; and yet the system must not be so rigid
as to be incapable of meeting new situations. The “folkways” must become
such as assist, or at least do not greatly hinder, in the struggles of
life. And of course the whole thing hangs together, individuals, family
and social system being inseparable aspects of an integral whole.
The ideas which make up the social order are impressed upon the member
mainly by sheer suggestion; they form the environment in which he lives.
In case of opposition, however, they must be reinforced by the pressure
of public opinion, by emulation, praise and blame. _Mores_ are set up
and the individual is made to feel that the great thing in life is to
conform to them. Disloyalty to them is universally abhorred. Thus virtue
is determined by what the mind of the group approves, which rests, in
great part, upon what has been found to work in the struggles of the
group, and especially in war.
In these respects the requirements of primitive conflict were not
essentially different from those of to-day. Life was simpler, cruder,
and on a smaller scale, but the main elements were much the
same—biological and social continuity, adaptive growth, individual
exertion, and institutional discipline. There was no riot of
irresponsible brute force, but then as now the man fit to survive was a
moral man, a “good” man in his relation to the life of the
group—devoted, law-abiding, and kindly, as well as strong and bold.
The influence of group conflict, actual or anticipated, upon social
development has continued in full vigor throughout history and down to
the present time. The growth of states in size and internal structure,
as civilization progresses, is natural on other grounds, but has been
immensely stimulated and directed by military requirements. France,
England, Germany—all the great modern nations, including the United
States—were consolidated largely in this way. It is a commonplace of
history. And the case is much the same with internal structure. On the
continent of Europe, where war has always been imminent if not present,
there are few institutions which do not bear its stamp. Even general
education arose for its military value as much as for any other reason.
The German Empire went beyond other states in adopting the ideal of
national power, attained through an all-embracing militant organization,
as the dominating conception of life. When the Great War broke out this
conception was so largely justified by military results that the more
“individualistic” nations—at first Great Britain and later the United
States—were forced to adopt it, at least in part and for the time being,
in order to hold their own; and we saw, accordingly, a growth of
centralized and partly compulsory organization that would have been
impossible in peace. At the same time the weak side of the
state-conflict idea was revealed by Germany’s moral isolation. We are
still in the midst of these changes and cannot be sure of their outcome,
but it is certain that war has illumined the whole situation and opened
a fresh cycle of growth.
The difference between tribal society and the modern system of life lies
mainly in the large-scale organic character of our whole social process.
Formerly we lived in many small societies the relations among which were
comparatively external and mechanical; now we live in one great society
the parts of which are vitally and consciously united. The instances of
this are familiar—the world-wide traffic, travel, and interchange of
thought; the universal fashions, the international markets, the
co-operation in science and in humanitarian movements. This is that
modern solidarity, so wonderfully increased within the memory of living
men, which makes the understanding of our life a new problem.
The process is still one of struggle—we have no reason to expect
anything else—but the forms of struggle take on a scale commensurate
with the new system of life, and are conditioned and limited by the
closer interdependence that has come to exist. The competitions of trade
are for world-markets; races are unloosed from their ancient seats and
encounter one another in all parts of the earth; and if a war comes the
solidarity of life tends to draw many nations into it, and to make it in
all respects more calamitous than war could have been at an earlier
period.
But along with this growth in the scale of conflict we have a
complication which makes it something essentially different from a mere
enlargement of the struggles of primitive tribes. Groups have become
multiform and intersecting, so that the national competition which
succeeds to the tribal is only one of a vast system of interactions.
There are groups of every size, from two or three persons up to
millions; their purposes are countless, their methods equally so. We can
no longer see mankind as broken up into distinct wholes struggling for
similar ends in a similar manner; we see many systems of struggle which
interpenetrate one another, the same men taking part in various systems,
so that the lines of alliance and opposition are inextricably entangled.
Modern life, even when viewed as conflict, is an organic whole which it
is impossible to break up into fragments.
Group struggle has, on the whole, tended to rise to higher levels of
intelligence and moral control in accordance with the increasing mental
and moral unification of life. History shows a general growth of
rational organization; and this means, for one thing, a general
situation in which intelligence and the control of the part in the
interest of the whole more and more condition every kind of success.
International struggles are affected by this trend, as are all other
kinds. Special associations which cross national lines, such as those of
commerce, labor, science and philanthropy, increase, and so also do the
informal bonds of literature, art and public sentiment. It is more and
more apparent that the national bond is only one, though in some
respects the most important one, in a growing network of relations.
It is the nature of solidarity to react upon and control destructive
forms of activity. In so far as life is organic a harm done to the part
comes to be a harm done to the whole, and to be felt as such. If it is
true that common interests of some kind unite every sort of men with
every other, then it is no longer possible to divide man into separate
and merely hostile wholes. There was never before so much to lose by an
outbreak of violence, and we have seen how a modern war can become a
world-calamity, arousing a universal determination to prevent its
repetition. And although this may prove ineffectual and war may recur,
it must be true, if man has power over his own destiny, that it is, on
the whole, obsolescent. The principle applies also to international or
interracial bad faith or ill will. It is not too much to say that the
whole world is becoming one body, so that evil appearing in one part is
felt as a menace to all the others.
Intimately bound up with the growth of rational control is the trend
toward democracy, in the sense of an active participation of the common
people in the social process. Our modern communication, with its
implications of popular discussion and education, is essentially
democratic; it means that the people are in reality participating,
whether formally so or not. I cannot affirm with any confidence that all
peoples are to have deliberative self-government, as that is understood
in England or America; democracy will be different for different races
and traditions. But everywhere, I conceive, there is coming to be a
public mind, a vital psychic whole, and the government, whatever its
precise methods, will be essentially the expression of this.
This emergence of the popular mind involves also a tendency to humanism,
in the sense of bringing all forms of life under the control of humane
ideals springing from the family and community groups in which the
people are nurtured. These primary ideals have been kept under in the
past by the need of harsh forms of control, the prevalence of war, the
domination of classes and the severity of economic conditions; but all
signs indicate that they are to have an increasing part in the future.
This modern enlargement and complication imply a kind of differentiation
of the person from the group. In primitive society membership is
intimate and inclusive, the individual putting his whole personality
into it. But as groups become numerous and complex there comes to be a
kind of parcelling out of personal activities into somewhat impersonal
functions, with special associates in each function. A person, while as
much dependent as ever upon the group system as a whole, grows less and
less identified with any one group. His relations become selective, each
man working out for himself a system of life different from that of any
other man, and not embraced in any one set of connections. Personality
becomes more and more an organization by itself, distinct from that of
any group, and forming itself by a special choice of influences. You
cannot sum up the social environment and mental outlook of a man of
to-day by saying that he is a farmer, or an artisan, or a priest, as you
might have done in the Middle Ages. He may be a farmer and also many
other things; a member of learned societies, an investor in remote
enterprises, a socialist, a poet; in short, a complex and unique
personality.
We are coming more and more to base our social order upon this selective
association. In accordance with the ideal of “equal opportunity,” we try
to facilitate special personal development in every possible way,
holding that it not only does the most for the individual, but enables
him to do the most for society. In this way modern society recognizes
and fosters individuality as the earlier epochs never thought of doing.
These conditions involve another of great practical interest, namely,
that the division of groups in modern life is, for the most part, not a
division of persons. I mean that although you may classify the
population, for example, as Republicans, Democrats, Progressives, and
Socialists, there are no separate groups of whole persons corresponding
to these distinctions. Although A may be a Republican and B a Democrat,
and their differences in this field may be quite irreconcilable, they
may yet belong to the same church, club, stock company, even to the same
family. Only a small part of them is separable on the political line,
and so with any other group line. To put it otherwise, there is no such
specialization of life into narrow classes as you might infer from the
large number of special groups, since these are not groups of whole
persons, but of interests, activities, opinions, or what-not, many of
which meet in a single person. The whole system is more intricately
unified, as well as more intricately specialized, than was formerly the
case.
The inclusive, essentially personal, groups persist to some extent, the
chief example being the family. But I need hardly point out that even
the family is far less an inclusive group than it used to be; that it no
longer absorbs the individual’s political status in its own, that it
does not control the marriages of its children or transmit occupations,
that it has abandoned many of its economic and educational functions,
and has become, in short, a comparatively specialized group whose main
functions are sociability and the nurture of young children. Nowhere
more clearly than in the family can we see the disintegrating effect of
the modern order upon any form of association which conflicts with
selective personal development.
In view of all this we see that the group struggles of modern life must
be more and more impersonal, conflicts of ideas rather than of people.
Perhaps the way to test the matter is to ask ourselves how many of the
group struggles in which we are concerned are of a nature to make us
feel that the men in the opposing groups are our enemies. Even in war we
do not always have this feeling: we have become conscious of too many
bonds of sympathy with the people of other countries. And in every-day
life we contend a great deal, but for the most part impersonally. If we
hate anybody it is more likely to be a matter of natural antipathy than
of social opposition.
And yet personality must be put into special enterprises in some way, or
they will fail. They require for success a kind of interest and devotion
that can come only from persons who do identify themselves with the
group. I may buy stock in a company and draw dividends without putting
myself into the work, but I could not do this unless others did put
themselves into it.
The result of this requirement, working alongside of the depersonalizing
tendency just mentioned, has been to make the characteristic form of
modern organization what I may call the nucleated group, a group, that
is, composed of a large number of members who put very little of
themselves into it, along with a few, or perhaps only one, who enlist
the main part of their personality. This gives a happy union of breadth
and concentration, and if one will reflect upon the associations to
which he belongs he will find, I imagine, that nearly all are conducted
in this way. It is the only way to meet the demand for multifarious
co-operation and specialization which modern life makes.
It is worth noting that the individual is nucleated as well as the
group. That is, he spreads his life out over many groups, but yet
concentrates his central personality upon two or three. A teacher, for
example, may own stock in several companies and belong to a number of
scientific, philanthropic and recreative associations, but after all he
lives mainly in his teaching and his family.
This concentration is agreeable to human nature, which craves devotion
to a cause. Life is energized by men throwing themselves into some one
of its innumerable purposes, making themselves the blazing head of that
particular comet while the rest of us gleam palely in the tail. In this
way scientific theories, educational reforms, and business
“propositions” are promoted with a personal ardor which reacts with
antagonism to whatever opposes its object.
It might seem that patriotism must play a diminishing part in modern
life, under the principle that personality is less and less embraced in
any one group, even though that group be the nation. There is reason to
think, however, that the need of devotion to a whole and of
self-abandonment, at times, to some sort of mass enthusiasm, is a trait
of human nature too strong to be overcome by the growing complexity of
life. Like the love of the sexes, it is something elemental, without
which life is felt to be baffled and incomplete. There is a deep need to
merge the “I” in a “We,” some vast “We,” on which one may float as on a
flood of larger life. The ordinary ambitions and specialties do not
satisfy this need, which is certainly a large part of the real religion
of mankind.
Collective emotion of this sort is always smouldering within us, and may
at any time break forth and melt into some kind of a whole the
differentiations of which our life appears to consist. It evidently does
so in times of warlike excitement, and may well give rise to other forms
of enthusiasm which we cannot now foresee. It produced the Crusades in
the past, and may produce future movements equally remote from our
recent experience.
The modern world makes distracting claims upon us. Shall we go with our
family and class, or break away in pursuit of a larger humanitarian
ideal? Is it better to “mind our own business” and go in for technical
excellence, or to try for culture? Shall we follow the morals of our
church or those of our profession? Shall we be national patriots or
international socialists?
There is no way out but to strive for a synthesis of these ideas in an
organic whole, in some supreme and inclusive allegiance, perhaps in some
conception of a God to whom one may look for leadership above the
divisions of nation, race, and sect. So long as we are conscious only of
our country, our family, our class, or our business, we may make a kind
of god of that, but conflicting ideals force us to seek a larger unity.
In the heat of war we may be all one flame of patriotism; but after a
while the rest of life asserts itself, and we ask what we are fighting
for, demanding that it be something for the good of all mankind.
CHAPTER XXIII
SOCIAL CONTROL IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
RECENT GROWTH IN ORGANIZATION; COMMUNICATION, NATIONALISM—DEMOCRACY,
DIFFUSION OF ORGANIZING CAPACITY—LESSONS OF THE WAR—WILL NATIONS
BEHAVE LIKE PERSONS?—NATIONS AS MEMBERS OF A GROUP ARE SOCIAL AND
MAY BECOME MORAL—NATIONAL HONOR IN THE PAST—AN ORGANIC
INTERNATIONAL LIFE—ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL CONDITIONS OF SUCH A
LIFE; FORCE
What ground have we for hoping that a society of nations has become
possible in our time, when all previous history shows failure to attain
it? Mankind has always cherished this aspiration, and if it is at last
to be realized, there must be some general change in conditions, making
practicable what has heretofore been merely visionary. I wish,
therefore, to recall certain developments in the social situation which
have taken place during the past century and seem to me to justify our
belief that the problem of international order may be not far from
solution. They are in the nature of a general growth in that
organization of human life of which international order is but one
phase.
I may note first that there has been a revolutionary change in the
social mechanism. The means of communication have been transformed,
enlarging and animating social relations and making possible, so far as
mechanism is concerned, any degree or kind of unity that we may be able
to achieve. In this respect alone we have a new world since the failure
of Prince Metternich’s scheme of pacification after the Napoleonic Wars.
The second change is the growth, and what appears to be the
establishment of nationality as the principle animating those members of
which a world-organism must be composed. This change is bound up with
the preceding, since nations are masses of men united by language,
literature, tradition, and local associations, and it is through the
growth of communication that they have come to feel their unity more and
more and to demand expression for it in a political whole.
I know there are some who hold that the national spirit is hostile to
world-organization, and who picture the present state of things as a
struggle between nationalism, on the one hand, and a higher principle,
such as internationalism, fraternalism, or socialism, on the other. It
seems, however, that, although the national spirit must be chastened and
regenerated before it is fit for the larger order, there is no
possibility of dispensing with it. Sound theory calls for a type of
organism intermediate between the individual or the family and the
world-whole which we hope to see arise.
A ripe nationality is favorable to international order for the same
reason that a ripe individuality is favorable to order in a small group.
It means that we have coherent, self-conscious, and more or less
self-controlled elements out of which to build our system. To destroy
nationality because it causes wars would be like killing people to get
rid of their selfishness. Our selves are poor things, but they are all
we have, and so with nations in the larger whole. So far as the world is
nationalized it is organized up to the point where supernationalism must
begin. Having achieved the substructure, we are ready to add the upper
stories. We seek a synthesis, and anything synthetic already achieved
and not hopelessly unavailable is so much gain. It is only too obvious
that, on account of their incoherence, those regions where a national
consciousness has not yet developed are a peril to any system we may
erect. The national state, supported by patriotism, is our central
disciplinary institution, the backbone of historical structure, which
could decay only at the cost of a vast collapse and disintegration
involving the degradation of human character. Even intermittent war
would be better than this.
And just as it takes ambitious and self-assertive persons to make a
vigorous group, so we need national emulation and struggle in a greater
society. A world-life that was altogether supernational, without
aggressive differentiation, would, I believe, be enervating, and I agree
with the militarists in so far as to find this an unsatisfying ideal. We
sometimes think of the Commonwealth of Man as likely to resemble the
United States on a greater scale; but it would not be well to have the
nations of the world so much alike, or even so harmonious, as our
States; nor is it likely that they will be. We need a more energetic
difference.
Another favoring change is the rise of democracy. This has been
contemporaneous with the rise of nationalism, and is likewise based upon
the new communication and education that have made it possible to
organize social consciousness on a great scale. Indeed nationalism and
democracy, although they may at times conflict, are phases of the same
development. In both the individual gets a congenial sphere of
expression. The people, awakened by the new intercourse, are no longer
inert and indifferent to the larger relations of life, but live more in
these relations and aspire to feel themselves members of great
sympathetic wholes. They find these in democratic groups united by the
spiritual bonds of language, ideal, and tradition; and strive,
accordingly, to make the actual organization correspond to such groups.
The view that democracy will insure international peace is, in my
opinion, not so certainly true as many think. It is not impossible that
a whole nation may become possessed by military ideals and passions, as
has at times been measurably true of France. And democracy affords no
guarantee that an energetic militant faction, even though a minority,
may not grasp the lead and rush a nation into war. Something of this
kind took place in the Southern States at the outbreak of the rebellion.
Would the world-war have been impossible if Germany had been as
democratically organized as France? I do not see that it would, though
it must, no doubt, have come on in a different way. The conflict of
ideas and ambitions would still have been there, with no adequate way to
settle it.
Yet there are practical reasons for thinking that democracy, on the
whole, will be pacific. It gives power to the masses, who are the chief
sufferers from war and normally the most kindly in sentiment. Homely and
friendly ideals of life have always had their stronghold among the
common people, and war has been fostered mainly by rulers and upper
classes, not merely for aggrandizement, but as a kind of sport to which
they were addicted for its own sake. It may safely be assumed that
modern democracy will not share this taste, but, although still subject
to martial excitement, will pursue, in the main, ideals more likely to
promote every-day happiness.
Another reason why democracy tends to international peace is that under
modern conditions it is necessary for content and equilibrium within a
nation. One of the main causes of recent wars has been the need of
sovereigns and ruling classes to forestall internal revolution by the
pressure of external conflict. Napoleon III, not only once but several
times, sought war in the hope of supporting his power by the prestige of
victory, and there is reason to believe that Russia, Germany, and
Austria were all influenced by this motive in the year 1914. Extending
radicalism was threatening to split these countries, and it was felt
that conflict without would close the rift within. We all know how true,
for the time at least, this proved to be.
As a fourth of these general changes favorable to the prospect of
enduring peace, I would reckon the diffusion of organizing capacity
among the people, not only by education and political democracy, but
quite as much through economic experience. The administration of
business in its innumerable branches and the participation in
labor-unions and other economic groups have developed on a great scale
that power of the individual to understand and create social machinery
which is essential to any well-knit organization. The industrial
nations, at least, are equipped with all kinds and degrees of organizing
ability, and if they do not organize peace it will be because they do
not want to.
The changes I have mentioned may all be summed up in the statement that
the world has been taking on a larger and higher organization, which now
demands expression in the international sphere. There is no doubt of the
preparation, and the time seems fully ripe for achievement.
And, finally, we have the lessons of the Great War. I am far from
presuming to expound these, but it is certain that there is scarcely
anything in the way of social ideas and institutions that has not been
tested and developed. We know the extent and disaster of modern war as
we could not before, and a fierce light has been cast upon all its
antecedents.
We hold that the war must establish at least one great principle,
fundamental to any tolerable plan of peace, namely, that no nation,
however powerful, can hope to thrive by power alone, without the
good-will of its neighbors. From this point of view the main purpose of
the war is to vindicate the moral unity of mankind against
self-assertion. We are resolved that it shall register the defeat of
self-sufficiency and domination, and so point the way to an
international group within which national struggle can go on under
general control.
Assuming that the general conditions have become favorable, I wish
further to inquire whether it is reasonable to expect that a society of
nations may be formed upon the same principles that we rely upon in the
association of individuals. How far is a group of nations like a group
of persons? Can we anticipate that the members will be guided, for
better or worse, by the ordinary impulses of human nature, or must we
have a new psychology for them?
Whether the behavior of a social whole will be personal or not depends
upon whether the members identify themselves heartily with it. If they
do, then, in times of aroused feeling, those sentiments and passions
which are similar in all men and are easily communicated will inflame
the whole group and be expressed in its behavior. It will act personally
in the sense that it is ruled by the live impulses of human nature and
not by mere routine or special interest. Most groups are far from
answering to this description, which, as a rule, applies only to those
that are small and intimate, like the family. But the case of the nation
is peculiar, since it is known to evoke the emotion of patriotism, which
has a special power to draw into itself the whole force of personality.
The psychological background of patriotism I take to be the need of
human nature to escape from the limitations of individuality and to
immerse the spirit in something felt to be larger, nobler, and more
enduring. This need is expressed also in devotion to leaders, like
Napoleon or Garibaldi; in the passion for causes, like socialism and the
labor movement, and in many forms of religious service. Its main object
in our time, however, is one’s country; and it is because of the
wholeness with which men put themselves into it that a nation comes to
have a collective self in which such sentiments as pride, resentment,
and aspiration are fully alive. A self-conscious nation is a true
_socius_, and consequently may unite with others in a social and moral
group. The whole doctrine of international relations might well start
from this point, that the units with which we deal are truly human and
not mere corporations or sovereignties.
It is true that their relations have been mostly selfish or hostile in
the past, but this is true also of persons except in so far as, by
working together, they have acquired habits and sentiments of
co-operation. And nations, even in their conflicts, confess their unity
by seeking one another’s admiration. Each wants to distinguish itself in
the eyes of the international audience, and war itself is waged largely
from this motive. We wish our country to be glorious, to excel in the
world-game; and the fact that the game is destructive does not destroy
the social character of the impulse. If this were not present, we should
not find our leaders instigating us by appeals to national honor,
resentment, and pride. Perhaps there is no better proof of the personal
nature of national feeling than the large part which “insults” play in
arousing it. An entity that can be insulted is essentially human.
If the national spirit is truly human and social it should be capable of
a moral development and of participating in a moral order similar to
that which prevails in personal relations. And perhaps the surest proof
that international social control is possible is that nations have shown
themselves capable of feeling and acting upon a sympathetic indignation
at aggression upon other nations, as in the case of Belgium. Such
indignation is in all societies the most active impulse making for the
enforcement of justice. There is an incredible doctrine taught by some
writers that the national self can feel greed and hate, but cannot rise
to justice, friendship, and magnanimity. Why should its human nature be
so one-sided? Is it not quite conceivable that we might come to demand
an even higher standard of honor and conduct from our country than we do
from ourselves, because the idea of country, like the idea of God, is
the symbol of a higher kind of life? The gods have been in the mud too,
and as they have risen from it to an ethical plane we may hope the same
of the nations.
If this view is sound, it follows that if we can change the ruling ideal
so that nations come to admire one another for being righteous,
magnanimous, and just, as well as strong and successful, we shall find
them as eager to live up to _this_ ideal as they now are to conform to a
lower one. It is all a matter of the standards of the group.
If there is a nation that has deliberately set out to be unsocial by
adopting a theory of national aggrandizement by _Macht_ alone, that
nation is believed to be Germany; but even here, however unlovely the
resulting type of self may appear to be, there can be little doubt that
it is a social self, ambitious to shine in the eyes of the world.
Strange as we may think it, the self-conscious part of Germany felt that
she was doing a glorious thing when in 1914 she assailed two great
nations and defied a third; and she looked confidently to others for
admiration. Perhaps we may expect that, having learned where she
misjudged the sentiment of the group, she will in the future conduct
herself in a manner more acceptable to it.
Nations, then, are normally moral agents, subject to control by the
ruling opinion of the period as to what is honorable and praiseworthy.
The trouble has been, in great part, that this ruling opinion has set
barbaric standards and approved a style of conduct such as prevails
among savage tribes or lawless frontiersmen in a new country. A nation
was held to be great in proportion as it extended its possessions, its
rule, and the dread of its arms. The expression “national honor” in the
history of the nineteenth century will be found to mean chiefly warlike
prestige, a reputation for valor and success, the power to punish
enemies or reward friends. It was sullied by failure to take revenge, by
declining a challenge or deserting an ally, but not by lawlessness,
arrogance, or greed. The ideal from which honor took its meaning was
national prowess, not the welfare of a group of nations; there was no
reference to a general right springing from organic unity. It was the
honor of Achilles or Rob Roy, not the team-work honor of a modern
soldier.
Temporary peace was obtained by a balance of power, that is, not by any
real unity, but by the clans being so nearly matched that each hesitated
to start a fight. Such hesitation might be expedient, but it was not in
itself honorable. Honor was to be won mainly by victorious conflict, on
no matter what occasion, and by displaying the power which followed.
Napoleon shone in this way and dazzled all Europe, including Goethe, who
was in many things the wisest man of his time. His nephew tried to do
the same and had no lack of honor so long as he seemed to succeed.
Bismarck did succeed, and the German Empire became the standard-bearer
of this type of honor, continuing to uphold it after it had been partly
abandoned by other nations.
The organic unity of Europe, real as it had become, was slow to
transform national idealism, and diplomacy as well as war remained a
game for mutual injury and humiliation. England, which was in a position
to lead the way, took some steps in a better path, but not enough to
convince the world. The old ways were too strong upon her; she upheld
Turkey and crushed the Boer republics, giving an indifferent example to
Germany, whose imperialism is largely an imitation, however distorted,
of that of England. The accepted ideal continued to be one which implied
war, open or covert, as the road to honor and success.
It is clear that this ideal is no longer congruous, as it once was, with
the general state of the world, but is a pernicious survival, unfit,
unevolutionary, and ripe for elimination. The obstacles to this are
institutional, not inherent in human nature, and if the momentum of
custom and the glamour of honor can be transferred from the ways of war
to those of peace, the hardest of the work will be done.
The logical outcome is an organic international life, in which each
nation and each national patriotism will be united, but not lost, as
individuals are united in an intimate group. Our national individuality
will subsist, but will derive its guidance and meaning from its relation
to the common whole, finding its ambition, emulation and honor in
serving that, as a boy does in the play group or a soldier in his
regiment. A spirit of team-work will be substituted, we may hope, for
that of unchastened self-assertion. There will be rivalry, not always of
the highest kind, and even war may be possible until we have worked out
the rules of the game and the means of applying them, but the moral
whole will assert itself with increasing power. The new system means
bringing the national state under social discipline, making it a
responsible member of a larger society. Its significance is not to
diminish, but to become of a somewhat different kind, like that of a
woman when she marries. Hitherto not Germany alone but all the nations
have clung to an individualism incompatible with any permanent
international order and with any discipline except force.
I do not look for any disappearance of national selfishness, even of the
grosser kinds. Human nature has various moods, most of them unedifying,
and the every-day grumbling, quarrelling routine of life will no doubt
go on among nations as among individuals. But in spite of this we have
idealism and a social order among persons, and we may expect that
nations will have them also. We must organize both ideals and selfish
interest, so that the former may work with as little friction on account
of the latter as possible. Fundamentally both depend for their
gratification upon a social order.
The unity of the international whole will be of a different quality from
that of the nation. It will be less intimate and passionate and will
lack the bond of emulation and conflict with other wholes like itself.
There is a kind of conflict, however, which even an all-inclusive whole
must undergo, namely, that with rebellious elements within itself, and
this struggle for unity will enhance self-consciousness, as the Civil
War did for the United States. The league of nations will not be merely
utilitarian, though its utility will be immense, but will appeal more
and more to the imagination by the grandeur of its ideal and the
sacrifices necessary to attain it; and, as it achieves concrete
existence in institutions, symbols, literature, and art, human thought
and sentiment will find a home in it. And just as patriotism is akin to
the more militant and evangelistic type of religion, so international
consciousness corresponds to religious feeling of a quieter and more
universal sort, to the idea of a God in whom all nations and sects find
a various unity.
I realize something of the immense importance and difficulty of the
economic and political problems involved with the question of an
international social order, which I must leave to abler hands. We must
do our best to provide equal economic opportunity for all nations, to
establish at least the beginnings of an international constitution, with
judicial, legislative, and executive branches, and also to provide a
process of orderly change by which the world may assimilate new
conditions and thus avoid fresh disaster. I think, however, that all
these questions need to be dealt with in view of the more general social
problem. We shall not have an international society unless we have
political and economic justice; but neither can these endure except as
the fruits of a real international solidarity.
We are likely to overestimate the part that force can play in keeping
international order. It will, no doubt, be necessary, especially at
first, to have a reserve of force to impress the less civilized nations,
and possibly the more civilized at times of exceptional tension. But our
discipline will fail, as it does in schools and families, unless we can
get good-will to support it. Force cannot succeed except as the
expression of general sentiment, and if we have that it will rarely be
necessary. To exalt it by brandishing a club is to exalt an idea whose
natural issue is war. A single powerful nation, whose heart remains
hostile to the system, will probably be able to defeat it, and certainly
will prevent its developing any spirit higher than that of a policeman.
The Commonwealth of Man must have force, but must mainly be based on
something higher; on tolerance, understanding, common ideals, common
interests, and common work.
CHAPTER XXIV
CLASS AND RACE
THE CLASS-CONFLICT THEORY CRITICISED—ECONOMIC SOLIDARITY OF
CLASSES—THE OUTLOOK—RACE; HEREDITARY AND SOCIAL FACTORS—WHAT
CONSTITUTES, PRACTICALLY, A RACE PROBLEM—RACE IN INTERNATIONAL
RELATIONS—MINGLING RACES; RACE CASTE
Class-conflict thinkers have conceived the social situation somewhat as
follows: There are practically two classes, the privileged and the
unprivileged. They are separate and irreconcilable and the rift between
them is growing wider. So soon as they clearly grasp this situation the
unprivileged, who are far more numerous and of equal natural ability,
will overcome the privileged and bring about a revolution. This will
obliterate the class line and permit the organization of a classless and
purely democratic society.
It is more in accord with the facts, I think, to hold that these
divisions, in American democracy at least, are subject to that principle
of modern life which keeps the person from being absorbed in the group,
insures his being a member of the organic whole as well as of a faction,
and makes social classes more and more like parties rather than distinct
organisms. Moreover, as parties, they probably have a permanent
function, and are not likely to be obliterated.
The fact that we all live in a common stream of suggestion and
discussion makes a total separation of classes impossible. Capitalists
and hand-workers read, in great part, the same newspaper despatches and
public speeches. There is a common general atmosphere which no man
interested in his fellows can escape. Wars, calamities, adventures,
athletic contests, heroic deeds, pathetic incidents, inventions,
discoveries, and the like appeal to everybody, and make a common element
into which class feeling enters very little. There are, of course, class
publications which often emphasize to the utmost the class view of every
occurrence; but few intelligent men are content with these alone. We all
love the broad current and seek it in the press. It seems that this is
more the case now than formerly; that men are less and less content with
the committed organs of any sort of opinion, but demand a large and free
view.
If the question of the moment happens to be a class question, the modern
way of treating it is by open discussion, in which each side strives to
understand the other’s point of view, if only to refute it. This
inestimable good has democracy brought us, among others, that we dare
not, cannot, ignore the other side; we must meet it in open discussion.
This, again, is a growing condition. All who can remember twenty-five or
thirty years back must be impressed with the tendency of everything to
come into the open. Formerly the domination of the rich was a covert
thing, very little being said about it because it was unobserved, or
accepted as part of the natural order. And the like was true of a
hundred other questionable or vicious conditions—political corruption,
sexual vice, and the like. At present the interest and intelligence
directed toward class questions is too great to permit of underhand or
secretive methods. Wrongs are brought to light sooner or later and react
against those who practise them. It would be hard to say whether labor
has been most hurt by venality and intimidation on the part of some of
its leaders, or capital by its corruption of politics and exploitation
of the people. Public opinion regards both with deep resentment, and is
determined to know the truth regarding them.
And when two parties are brought to discuss an issue before the public
as arbiter, they are in great degree reconciled or united by the
process. That is, they are brought to recognize and appeal to common
principles of justice which the public accepts as binding on all. The
airing of fundamental economic questions in our day is educative to all
concerned. The tendency of it is to draw our ideas and practices out of
the dimness of a class environment and show them in the white light of
the public square, where every passer-by is a critic; so that we
ourselves are led to take a universal view of them.
This would be true even if there were no authoritative expression of
public opinion in government, but it is all the more true because there
is such an expression. It is an excellent thing, as regards solidarity,
that every faction must stand well with the public under peril of
hostile regulation. This means, if only we can make the public mind
penetrating and intelligent, that it will not pay to do the things that
cannot bear the light.
Those who doubt our ability to control the capitalist class perhaps give
too little weight to the moral elements in the situation. The privileged
classes of the past have been strong because they were, or seemed to be,
essential to social order and the maintenance of the higher traditions.
If their function in this regard is diminishing, as there is reason to
think, then the moral position of any class attempting to continue the
old inequalities as against practicable reforms, will be extremely weak.
No merely selfish interest, under modern conditions, can long make head
against the general current of moral judgment.
It is true that class loyalty may, to some extent, enlist a spirit of
group devotion and militant ardor; but it does not, for the majority
offer the conditions needed to awake enthusiasm, and I do not see how it
ever can. Social classes, make what you will of them, have not separate
cultures, traditions, or currents of daily thought, and are not likely
to have. The class spirit has not been successful in subordinating the
spirit of nationality, even in time of peace; while in time of war, or
in the case of nationalities struggling with oppression, like the
Belgians, the Poles, or the Bohemians, class becomes quite a secondary
matter.[61]
The growing economic solidarity of classes tends in the same direction.
We hear it said with equal confidence that the interests of capital and
labor are opposed, and that they are the same. The solution, of course,
is that both statements are true. The two have a common interest in the
prosperity and stability of industry, and are mutually dependent upon
each other’s efficiency and fair dealing. At the same time there is a
real conflict of pecuniary interest as to the division of the product.
In general the solidarity and interdependence increase as industries
become more extensive and intricate, and require more intelligent and
harmonious co-operation. It is also increased by the diffusion of
investment, thrifty wage-earners becoming, to a large and increasing
degree, small capitalists as well. The outcome is an organic whole which
does not exclude opposition, but tends to limit it to what is
functional, and to bring it under the control of rule.
Under such conditions the relation between economic classes—capital and
labor, let us say, for simplicity—is that of two parties to a bargain so
advantageous for both that neither can afford to throw it up, but whose
precise terms are matter for controversy. Each side may have a motive
for disputing, for feeling out the other’s position, even for
temporarily refusing to trade, but not for going to extremes. Neither
can afford to push the other to desperation. Capital could starve out
labor, and labor could wreck the whole system, but in either case it
would be suicidal to do so.
The orderly development of industrial life calls for an organization of
process analogous to that of political democracy; that is, one providing
regular methods for investigation, discussion, conflict, decision, and
tentative advance on the chosen course. Disputes between capital and
labor are normal, and it should be part of our system to arrange for
their development and solution with the least possible misunderstanding,
hostility, and economic waste. Small differences may be aired and
adjusted before a permanent committee made up from both parties, while
more serious differences, involving principles, after being formulated
by each side, may be precisely and thoroughly investigated by a public
agency in which both sides have confidence, in order that the situation
may be clearly seen and agreement reached, if possible. And where
struggle proves inevitable it should take place under public control and
in accordance with rules expressing the paramount ideal of a common
service. I understand something of this kind to be the programme of
competent students of the labor problem; and there is the same need of
regular process on all lines of growth.
There is every reason, in the United States at least, to anticipate not
a class war but a continuance of the comparatively mild reconnoissances
and skirmishes that have long marked industrial conflicts—whether they
are carried into politics or remain purely industrial. The function of
these light engagements is to determine approximately the strength of
the parties in view of the whole economic, social, and moral situation,
and so to establish a _modus vivendi_. Violent or reactionary methods,
or any others not adapted to the general situation, will fail.
We may expect gradual but continuous progress in the direction of ideals
of social justice. Such ideals, as they are diffused, tried out, and
adapted, tend to become standards to which controversies are referred.
They are neither purely humanitarian nor purely economic, but represent
a working compromise between the two.
The total-cleavage theory of economic classes is taken most seriously in
Europe, owing to the fact that European classes are largely castes, an
inheritance from an older order, which actually do embrace almost the
whole being of the member; and also to repressive methods and the
comparative absence of democracy. It would be hard, I imagine, to find
an American writer of equal weight who would assent to the assertion of
the German economic historian, Karl Bücher, that “all modern industrial
development tends in the direction of producing a permanent laboring
class ... which in future will doubtless be as firmly attached to the
factory as were the servile laborers of the mediæval manor to the
glebe.”[62] I think that the division into two classes is on the whole
diminishing, and that while the society of the future will not be
classless, its classes will be mainly functional groups, increasingly
open to all through a democratic and selective system of education.
Class consciousness, however, is desirable, within limits, as a means to
the diminution of privilege, which still exists in great power and can
scarcely be overcome except as it is understood.
The question of race differs from that of nationality or of social class
in that it supposes a division among men springing not merely from
differences in history, environment, and culture, but rooted in their
biological nature.
Of such a hereditary division we have almost no _definite_ knowledge,
except as regards the somewhat superficial traits of color and
physiognomy. It is even possible to doubt whether there is any important
innate psychical difference among the several branches of mankind. It is
certain that different spirits are to be found in different races, that
there is a deep and ancient unlikeness in the whole inner life of the
Japanese, for example, and of the English. But the same is true of
peoples like the English and German, who are not of distinct races. In
other words, a group soul, a special _ethos_ or _mores_, is the sure
result of historical causes acting for centuries in a social system; so
that different souls will exist whether the race is different or not.
And as race differences, when present, are always accompanied by
historical differences, it is not possible to make out just how much is
due to them alone.
Many of us, to be sure, feel that the judgment of common sense, however
incapable of demonstration, shows us unlikenesses of temperament and
capacity, between Negroes and whites, for example, that cannot
altogether be accounted for by influences acting after birth. Admitting
that color is unimportant, the divergence in cranial and facial type may
reasonably be supposed to mean _something_, however unfair may be their
interpretation by white people.
It would be strange, reasoning from general principles, if races which
have been bred apart for thousands of years and, in some cases, have
become so different physically, should remain just alike as to innate
mental traits. Surely it is not in accordance with what we know of
heredity to suppose that millenniums of growth and adaptation in
different environments have no effect upon this most plastic part of the
organism. Or why should races be presumed equal in mental and moral
capacity when family stocks in the same race are so evidently unequal in
these respects?
The next easiest thing to accepting the apparent as true is to declare
it wholly false; and so in regard to races; if you have come to see that
many of the differences supposed to be racial are due to environment,
you will save yourself trouble by believing that all of them are of this
nature. But I cannot think that a patient consideration of the facts
justifies this conclusion.
However, judgments of race capacity are very open to bias, and have
proved so untrustworthy in the past that it is not surprising that some
students regard them as altogether illusory. Fortunately, it is seldom
necessary, in dealing with practical questions, to depend upon such
judgments.
In practice we never have to deal with race as a separate factor, but
always in intimate combination with social and historical conditions.
The essential thing, for most purposes, is to understand the working of
the combination as a whole. Accordingly, a race problem, as understood
in practical politics and sociology, does not mean one based upon a
strictly biological distinction, but one in which biological and social
factors, working together, produce lasting differences sufficient to
keep the groups apart. In Europe most of the cases where there is an
acute race situation—as between Germans and Poles in northern Prussia,
between Russians and Finns, Germans and Czechs, or English and Irish—are
cases where the strictly biological difference is probably not very
great; the question is mainly one of antagonistic traditions. In our own
Negro problem natural differences in color and physiognomy certainly
play a large part, if only by defining the race line and instigating
psychological attitudes. What we have to deal with, in any case, is the
total situation.
It follows from the importance of environment that differences which
make a race problem in Europe do not necessarily do so when the peoples
in question migrate to America and undergo in common the assimilating
influences of a democratic civilization. Germans and Czechs, for
example, do not form hostile groups here as they do in Bohemia. America
has demonstrated the impermanence of many Old World divisions, while
others seem to be as persistent here as anywhere. The only conclusive
test is that of experience.
In so far as races remain separate in different nationalities, with no
large or permanent intermigration, it is not apparent that their
relations offer any race problem distinct from those that attend the
contact of nations. Thus, as regards international questions, the
Americans and Japanese are simply two nations, like the Americans and
the French. There is no reason why their trade and diplomacy should be
affected by the difference in physiognomy, and if they should go to war
the issue will depend upon the energy, organization, and intelligence of
the two peoples, precisely as in the case of closely kindred nations
like the English and German. What may be the basis of the assumption of
certain writers that the mere existence of two races, even with the
Pacific between them, means war, it is not easy to understand. It would
seem that the motives impelling to peace or war would be about the same
as between nations of the same race; always excepting the possibility
that through more intimate contact by migration racial feeling might be
excited and might extend to the respective nations. I do not mean to
suggest that this last is a very great or an unavoidable danger, but
evidently it is one way, possibly the only way, in which international
relations might take on a racial character.
Another prospect, often brought forward with confidence, is that if
interracial migration is forbidden, the nation or nations representing
the more prolific race will go to war in order to secure an outlet for
their surplus population. But if they do this they will do it not as
races but as nations; and would do it quite as readily, perhaps, if
there were no difference in race. The nation, not the race, is the
organized militant unit, eager to plant colonies and extend its power
and prestige. The mere shedding of surplus racial population is not an
object of ambition, and so not in itself likely to be a motive to war.
In other words, it is not apparent why Japan and China, being peopled by
a distinct race, are any more likely to attack Canada, in case the
latter forbids immigration, than if they were peopled by Germans or
Scandinavians.
Another matter whose importance in this connection is perhaps
exaggerated is that of economy of subsistence. We are told regarding the
Japanese that “he can underlive, and therefore he can outlive, any
Occidental,” but I question whether the unique solidarity of his social
system, intimate, ardent, adaptable, is not a more formidable element of
power than his supposed ability to live on a cup of rice a day. If the
latter is real and advantageous it is merely a factor in national
efficiency, like others, with no peculiar and inevitable tendency to
bring on conflict.
It would seem, then, that in order to have a true race problem the races
must mingle in considerable numbers in the same political system. And in
that case the ruling factor is not the precise amount of strictly racial
difference, as distinct from social, but the actual attitude of the
groups toward each other. If this is such as to keep them separate and
perhaps hostile, it matters little, as regards the social situation,
whether it is based on sound ethnology or not. In the United States the
immigration of Europeans, even though they be of stocks considerably
different from the older inhabitants, as Italians, Slavs and Jews, seems
not to create a true race problem, experience indicating that
assimilation will take place within a generation or two. On the other
hand, the presence of the Negro in large numbers creates a race problem,
because assimilation is generally held undesirable, and does not, in
fact, take place. Whether the immigration of Orientals in large numbers
to our Pacific coast would create an enduring race question is, perhaps,
undetermined, but experience indicates that it would.
Permanent race groups in the same social system constitute race caste.
It seems to me that this is beyond comparison the most urgent race
question with which we have to deal; not only as regards its present
aspects, but because it is likely to have a rapid growth. Many
countries, including our own, already suffer from it, and the freedom of
movement given by modern conditions, together with the persistence of
race sentiment, tend to make it almost universal. That is, if the
Chinese, for example, can compete successfully with other races in
certain industrial functions, there is no reason, apart from legal
restriction, why they should not form colonies in every country where
those functions are in demand.
It is doubtful how far it may be possible to reconcile race caste with
the democracy and solidarity which are coming to be the ideals of modern
nations. In the Southern United States the caste feeling is not
diminishing, and while we hope that it is taking on forms more favorable
to the co-operation of the races on a plane of fair play and mutual
respect, the issue is somewhat in doubt. Certainly the present condition
is not in harmony with democratic ideals, and its defenders can hardly
claim more for it than that it makes the best of a difficult situation.
Much the same appears to be true of the contact of races in other parts
of the world, in South Africa, Australia, India, and even in Eastern
Europe.
As a matter of theory a society made up of race groups co-operating in
equality and good-will is not clearly impossible. But at the best it
would be more like an international federation than like a nation with a
single soul. We can imagine a harmonious Austria-Hungary, but should not
wish our own country to resemble it. And, as a matter of fact, it has
always been the case, so far as I know, that where there were race
castes under the same government one of them has domineered over the
rest. It is a situation by all means to be avoided if possible.
There are, then, quite apart from any comparison of races as to
superiority, excellent grounds of national policy for preventing their
mingling in large numbers in the same state. So far as we can judge by
experience, the race antagonism weakens that common spirit, that moral
unity, that willing subordination of the part to the whole, that are
requisite to a healthy national life. I see no reason why America and
Australia should not avoid the rise of an unnecessary caste problem by
restricting Oriental immigration, or why the Oriental nations should
not, on the same ground, discourage Occidental colonies. Such measures
would not imply anything derogatory to the other race, and, this being
understood, should give no offense.
_PART VI_
VALUATION
CHAPTER XXV
VALUATION AS A SOCIAL PROCESS
THE NATURE OF VALUATION—HUMAN-NATURE VALUES AND INSTITUTIONAL
VALUES—RELATION BETWEEN THE TWO—VALUES ARE PHASES OF AN ORGANIC
WHOLE—AN OBJECT MAY HAVE MANY KINDS OF VALUE—VALUATION MOSTLY
UNCONSCIOUS—DEFINITE VALUATION BY INSTITUTIONS
The idea of valuation, familiar to all of us in the buyings and sellings
of every-day life, and to students in its elaboration as the science of
political economy, has been extended beyond this field of tangible
exchanges until we hear discussion of values with reference to almost
any kind of human activity. Painters use the word in connection with
light and color, moralists in questions of conduct, and so on. Any man
or group of men, in any sphere of life, it appears, may be presumed to
act according to a scale of values.
This broad use of the term seems to rest on the feeling that the
judgment of worth is of much the same character, whether you apply it to
a choice between a dozen eggs and a pound of beef in the market-place,
or between shades of color or lines of conduct: it is a matter of
ascertaining how much the alternatives appeal to you.
In short, a system of values is a system of practical ideas or motives
to behavior, and the process of valuation by which we arrive at these
ideas is presumably that same process of social and mental competition,
selection and organization that we have all along been considering. Take
a simple example: suppose I wish to drive a nail and have no hammer by
me. I look at everything within reach with reference to its
hammer-value, that is, with reference to its power to meet the special
situation, and if the monkey-wrench promises more of this than any other
object available, its value rises, it fits the situation, it is
selected, it “works,” and becomes a more active factor in life. And it
is by analogous processes that men, nations, doctrines, what you will,
come to have various degrees and kinds of value.
It would seem that the essential things in the conception of value are
three: an organism, a situation, and an object. The organism is
necessary to give meaning to the idea; there must be worth _to_
something. It need not be a person; a group, an institution, a doctrine,
any organized form of life will do; and that it be conscious of the
values that motivate it is not at all essential. Anything which lives
and grows gives rise to a special system of values having reference to
that growth, and these values are real powers in life, whether persons
are aware of them or not; they are part of the character and tendency of
the organism. The growth of language, for example, or of forms of art,
is guided by valuations of which the people concerned in it commonly
know nothing. The idea might easily be extended to animal and plant
life, but I shall be content with some of its human applications.
The organism, whatever it may be, is the heart of the whole matter: we
are interested primarily in that because it is a system of life, _our_
system so long as we attend to it, and in the values because they
function in that life. The situation is the immediate occasion for
action, in view of which the organism integrates the various values
working within it (as a man does when he “makes up his mind”) and meets
the situation by an act of selection, which is a step in its own growth,
leading on to new values and new situations. Valuation is only another
name for tentative organic process.
The various classifications of value are based in one way or another on
that of the objects, organisms, or situations which the general idea of
value involves. Thus, taking the point of view of the object, we speak
of grain-values, stock-values, the values of books, of pictures, of
doctrines, of men. Evidently, however, these are indeterminate unless we
bring in the organism and the situation to define them. A book has
various kinds of value, as literary and pecuniary, and these again may
be different for different persons or groups.
As regards the forms of human life to which values are to be referred,
it seems to me of primary importance to make a distinction which I will
call that between human-nature values and institutional values.
The first are those which may be traced without great difficulty to
phases of universal human nature. The organism for which they have
weight is simply man in those comparatively permanent aspects which we
are accustomed to speak of as human nature, and to contrast with the
shifting institutions that are built upon it. The objects possessing
these values differ greatly from age to age, but the tests which are
applied to them are fundamentally much the same, because the organism
from which they spring is much the same. A bright color, a harmonious
sound, have a worth for all men, and we may also reckon the more
universal forms of beauty, those which men of any age and culture may
appreciate through merely becoming familiar with them, as human-nature
values.
Values of this kind are as various as human nature itself and may be
differentiated and classified in a hundred ways. There are some in which
particular senses are the conspicuous factors, as auditory and gustatory
values. Others spring from the social sentiments, like the values of
social self-feeling which underlie conformity, and those of love, fear,
ambition, honor, and loyalty. Of much the same sort are the more
universal religious and moral values, which, however, are usually
entangled with institutional values of a more transient and special
character. The same may be said of scientific, philosophical and ethical
values, and lasting achievement in any of these fields depends mainly on
the creation of values which are such for human nature, and not merely
for some transient institutional point of view.
The second sort of values are those which must be ascribed to an
institutional system of some sort. Human nature enters into them but is
so transformed in its operation by the system that we regard the latter
as their source, and are justified in doing so by the fact that social
organisms have a growth and values that cannot, practically, be
explained from the standpoint of general human nature. The distinction
is obvious enough if we take a clear instance of it, like the
distinction between religious and ecclesiastical values. Such general
traits of religious psychology as are treated in William James’s
Varieties of Religious Experience, give rise to values that we may call
values of human nature; the values established in the Roman Catholic
Church are a very different matter, though human nature certainly enters
into them. In the same way there are special values for every sort of
institutional development—legal values, political values, military
values, university values, and so on. All technical values come under
this head. Thus in every art there are not only human-nature values in
the shape of phases of beauty open to men at large, but technical
values, springing from the special history and methods of the art, which
only the expert can appreciate.
This distinction, as I have remarked, rests upon the fact that there are
forms of social life having a distinct organic growth, involving
distinct needs and values, which cannot be understood by direct
reference to universal human nature and the conditions that immediately
influence it. I am aware that it may be difficult to make in particular
cases. It resembles most psychological distinctions in offering no sharp
dividing-line, being simply a question of the amount and definiteness of
social tradition and structure involved. All human values are more or
less mediated by special social conditions: they might, perhaps, be
arranged in a scale as to the degree in which they are so mediated;
some, like the taste for salt, hardly at all; others, like the taste for
poetry, a great deal. In dealing with the latter kind we come to a point
on the scale where the social antecedents take on such definite form and
development as to constitute a distinct organism, which must be studied
as such before we can understand the value situation. In moral values,
for example, there are some, like those of loyalty, kindness, and
courage, which spring quite directly from human-nature; others, like the
obligation to go to church on Sunday, are evidently institutional.
I need hardly add that human and institutional values often conflict, or
that reform consists largely in readjusting them to each other. Nor need
I discuss in detail the familiar process by which human-nature values,
seeking realization through a complex social system, are led to take on
organization and an institutional character, which carries them far away
from human nature and in time calls for a reassertion of the latter,
through the initiative of individuals and small groups. Any one may see
such cycles in the history of the Christian church, or of any other
institution he may prefer to study.
The various human-nature and institutional values differ among
themselves as the phases of the human mind itself differ: that is,
however marked the differences, the values are after all expressions of
a common organic life. There is no clean-cut separation among them and
at times they merge indistinguishably one into another. An organic
mental-social life has for one of its phases an organic system of
values. For example, the æsthetic and moral values may seem quite
unconnected, as in the case of a man with a “fair outside” but a bad
character, and yet we feel that there is something beautiful about
perfect goodness and something good about perfect beauty. It is agreed,
I believe, that the best literature and art are moral, not, perhaps, by
intention, but because the two kinds of value are related and tend to
coincide in their completeness. Alongside of these we may put
truth-value, and say of the three that they are phases of the highest
form of human motive which often become indistinguishable.
The institutional values are also parts of this organic whole, and merge
into the human-nature values, as I have suggested, so that it may be
hard to distinguish between them. An institution, however, seldom or
never corresponds so closely to a phase of human nature that the
institutional values and the immediately human values on the whole
coincide. An idea, in becoming institutional, adapts itself to the whole
traditional structure of society, taking the past upon its shoulders,
and loses much of the breadth and spontaneity of our more immediate
life. There are no institutions that express adequately the inner need
for beauty, truth, righteousness, and religion as human nature requires
them at a given time: no church, for example, ever was or can be wholly
Christian.
Because of this organic character, values vary with the time, the group,
and the special situation. Every nation or epoch has its more or less
peculiar value system, made up of related parts; any one can see that
the system of the Middle Ages was very different from ours. Values are a
part of the _ethos_, the _mores_, or whatever you choose to call the
collective state of mind.[63] Each individual, also, has a system of
values of his own which is a differentiated member of the system of the
group. And these various group and individual aspects hang together in
such a way that no one aspect can be explained except by reference to
the whole out of which it grows. You can hardly understand how a man
feels about religion, for example, unless you understand also how he
feels about his industrial position and about other matters in which he
is deeply concerned; you must, so far as may be, grasp his life as a
whole. And you will hardly do this unless you grasp also the social
medium in which he lives. Any searching study of any sort of values must
be the study of an organic social life.
It is apparent that the same object may have many kinds of value,
perhaps all of those that I have mentioned. It is conceivable that man
may turn all phases of his life toward an object and appraise it
differently for each phase. Consider, for instance, an animal like the
ox, of immemorial interest to the human race. It may be regarded as
beautiful or ugly, may arouse the various emotions, as love, fear, or
anger, may give rise to moral and philosophical questions, may be the
object of religious feeling, as in India, and may have a value for the
senses of sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste. It has also,
especially among the pastoral peoples, notable institutional values;
plays a large part in law, ceremony, and worship, and, in our own
tradition, has an eponymous relation to pecuniary institutions.[64]
The process that generates value is mental but not ordinarily conscious;
it works by suggestion, influence, and the competition and survival of
ideas; but all this is constantly going on in and through us without our
knowing it. I may be wholly unaware of the genesis or even the existence
of values which live in my mind and guide my daily course; indeed this
is rather the rule than the exception. The common phrase, “I have come
to feel differently about it,” expresses well enough the way in which
values usually change. The psychology of the matter is intricate,
involving the influence of repetition, of subtle associations of ideas,
of the prestige of personalities, giving weight to their example, and
the like; but of all this we commonly know nothing. The idea of
punishment after death, for example, has been fading for a generation
past; its value for conduct has mostly gone; yet few have been aware of
its passing and fewer still can tell how this has come about. This trait
of the growth of values is of course well understood in the art of
advertising, which aims, first of all, to give an idea weight in the
subconscious processes, to familiarize it by repetition, to accredit it
by pleasing or imposing associations, to insinuate it somehow into the
current of thought without giving choice a chance to pass upon it at
all.
If the simpler phases of valuation, those that relate to the personal
aims of the individual, are usually subconscious, much more is this true
of the larger phases which relate to the development of complex
impersonal wholes. It is quite true that there are “great social values
whose motivating power directs the activities of nations, of great
industries, of literary and artistic ‘schools,’ of churches and other
social organizations, as well as the daily lives of every man and
woman—impelling them in paths which no individual man foresaw or
purposed.”[65]
The institutions, we may note in this connection, usually have rather
definite and precise methods for the appraisal of values in accordance
with their own organic needs. In the state, for example, we have
elaborate methods of electing or appointing persons, as well as
legislative, judicial, and scientific authorities for passing upon
ideas. The church has its tests of membership, its creeds, scriptures,
sacraments, penances, hierarchy of saints and dignitaries, and the like,
all of which serve as standards of value. The army has an analogous
system. On the institutional side of art we have exhibitions with
medals, prize competitions, election to academies and the verdict of
trained critics: in science much the same, with more emphasis on titles
and academic chairs. You will find something of the same sort in every
well-organized traditional structure. We have it in the universities,
not only in the official working of the institution, but in the
fraternities, athletic associations, and the like.
It is also noteworthy that institutional valuation is nearly always the
function of a special class. This is obviously the case with the
institutions mentioned, and it is equally true, though perhaps less
obviously, with pecuniary valuation.
CHAPTER XXVI
THE INSTITUTIONAL CHARACTER OF PECUNIARY VALUATION
A PHASE OF SOCIAL PROCESS—PECUNIARY VALUES INSTITUTIONAL—INADEQUATE
IDEA OF VALUATION IN ECONOMIC TREATISES—INTERACTION BETWEEN THE
INDIVIDUAL AND THE MARKET—ECONOMIC VALUES AN OUTCOME OF ECONOMIC
HISTORY—THE FACTOR OF CLASS—INFLUENCE OF UPPER-CLASS IDEALS—POWER
OF THE BUSINESS CLASS OVER VALUES
Pecuniary valuation is a phase of the general process of social thought,
having its special methods and significance, but not peculiar in nature;
the pecuniary estimates people set upon things are determined in a
movement of suggestion and discussion, varying with the group and the
time, like other phases of the public mind.
This is apparent _a fortiori_ if we take what appear to be the simplest
and most essential commodities. The estimation of wheaten bread as a
necessity of life, that prevails with us, is a matter of opinion and
custom; whether grounded in sound hygiene or not is irrelevant. Other
countries and times have thought differently, and we know that foods may
be regarded as necessary whose hygienic value is doubtful or negative,
like beer in Germany or coffee with us. Consider in this connection the
prepared foods known as cereals, for which vast sums are spent by all
classes of our people; their vogue and value is clearly a matter of
current, possibly transient, opinion, largely created by the
psychological process of advertising.
I need hardly go further into this. It is plain that even among the most
necessitous an existing scale of pecuniary values can be explained only
as a product of the same social forces which create other phases of
tradition and sentiment; and no one will expect anything different in
values prevailing among a richer class. I do not mean, of course, that
these forces work wholly in the air, but that, whatever physiological or
mechanical factors there may be in demand and supply, these become
active only through the mediation of a psychological process.
It is a common saying that values were formerly determined largely by
custom, but that competition has supplanted the latter; and no doubt
this is true in the sense that the stability of local custom is broken
up. In a somewhat different way, however, custom—the influence of the
past—is as great a factor in the market now as it ever was. Now as
always it is the main source of the habits of thought that control
demand and supply, and so value. An obvious case is that of funerals.
Why is it that so large a part of the expenditure of the poor goes for
this purpose, so large that a special branch of insurance is carried on
to meet it? Evidently the reasons are historical, reaching back in fact
to prehistoric society. And although this case appears exceptional,
because this particular convention has lost most of its force among the
educated classes, it is none the less true that we draw our values from
the current of historical influence. What we are willing to spend money
for, as individuals, as classes, as nations, can be understood only by a
study of historical influences and of their interaction and propagation
at the present time.
I have explained the distinction which I think should be made between
human-nature values and institutional values, the latter being those
which have social antecedents of so complicated a character that we
cannot understand them except as the outcome of a special institutional
development. It is apparent that the values of the pecuniary market fall
under the latter head. Their immediate source is a social mechanism,
whatever their indirect relation to human nature may be. You do not find
them wherever man is found, but only where there is a somewhat developed
system of exchange, a commodity recognized as money, and an active
market.
Pecuniary values, however, are by no means all upon the same level as
regards the degree in which they are institutional. All are so in the
sense just indicated—that they require the mechanism of the market to
define and develop them. But if we go back of this we find that some are
based (so far as demand is concerned) upon rather simple human-nature
values, in which the factors of special tradition and organization play
no very great part. It is remarkable, when you come to think of it, how
few such values there are; but those of meat and flour, of lumber, fuel,
and the simpler kinds of clothing are relatively of this sort. Some, on
the other hand, are the outgrowth of a complex institutional history
through which it is difficult to trace the threads which connect them
with the permanent needs of human nature. Such are the values of
ornamental or ceremonial dress, of many of our foods, of our more
elaborate houses and furniture, our amusements and dissipations, our
books; and those connected with our systems of education, our churches,
political institutions, and so on. The same difference runs through the
values set on the services of different kinds of men. Why society should
pay a substantial price for farmers and carpenters is obvious; but when
you come to lawyers, stock-brokers, promoters, men of science,
advertising men, and the like, not to speak of the holders of capital,
who seem to be paid large sums for doing nothing at all, it is clear
that the explanation is institutional, not to be reached without a study
of the organic growth and interaction of social forms. And it seems
clear also that values of this latter sort greatly and increasingly
preponderate in our social system.
There is a fallacious kind of reasoning often met with in discussions of
value, which consists in taking the simplest conceivable transactions,
generally those of an imaginary primitive life, noticing the principles
upon which they may have been based, and then assuming that the same
principles suffice for a general explanation of the complex transactions
of our own life. “It is the same thing now, only more intricate,” is the
supposition. This, of course, overlooks the fact that even granting that
such analyses are otherwise sound, which is very questionable, the
social complexity is for many purposes the essential thing in the actual
value process. It involves an institutional character, which changes
with the social type, which may be understood only through a knowledge
of institutional organisms, and which can be reformed only by working
upon and through such organisms. The study of value-making institutions
becomes, then, the principal means of arriving at practical truth.
The market (meaning by this the system of pecuniary transactions
regarded as one organic whole) is as much an institution as the state or
the church, which indeed it somewhat overshadows in modern life. I mean
that it is a vast and complicated social system, rooted in the past,
though grown enormously in recent times, wielding incalculable prestige,
and, though manned by individuals like other institutions, by no means
to be understood from a merely individual point of view. It would be as
reasonable to attempt to explain the theology of St. Thomas Aquinas, or
the Institutes of Calvin, by the immediate working of religious instinct
as to explain the market values of the present time by the immediate
working of natural wants.
This is one of many points of view from which we may see the
insufficiency of the usual treatment of the value-making process in
treatises of political economy. This treatment starts with demand as a
_datum_, assuming that each individual has made up his mind what he
wants and how much he wants it. There is seldom, I believe, any serious
attempt to go back of this, it being assumed, apparently, that these
wants spring from the inscrutable depths of the private mind. At any
rate it has not been customary to recognize that they are the expression
of an institutional development. From most of the standard works the
student would get the impression that if institutions and classes exist
at all they have nothing to do with valuation.
The truth, I suppose, is that the idea of institutions, classes, and the
like as organic forms or processes, having a significance and power not
to be grasped from the standpoint of individuals or of general human
nature, is alien to the philosophy underlying orthodox economics, and
hence difficult of assimilation with orthodox theory. So far as such
ideas are recognized they are, I should say, rather patched on, than
woven into, the original stuff of the garment.[66] Economists, however,
are latterly becoming aware of the somewhat obsolete character of the
philosophy involved in the orthodox tradition.[67]
At any rate the result of the individualistic treatment of pecuniary
value has been to saddle the whole institution—the market—upon human
nature. Commercialism as we find it had to be explained, and as there
was nothing else available poor human nature had to bear it. The simple
formula, “The people want it, and the law of supply and demand does the
rest,” will explain anything. But if we allow ourselves to ask why the
people want it, or just who the people are that want it, or why they can
make their wants effective, we discover that we have everything to
learn. The accepted economic treatment would seem to be equivalent to a
renunciation of any attempt to understand the relation of value to
society at large; or, in other words, of any attempt to understand value
itself, since to understand a thing is to perceive its more important
relations. I do not deny that the method of analysis in question has its
very important uses, but if it is allowed to be the only method it
becomes the source of the gravest errors.
Just what does it mean, from the individual’s standpoint, when we say
that the market, as a historical institution, is a main factor in
values? Not merely that pre-existing individual estimates are summed up
and equilibrated in accordance with the formulas of economic science,
though this is one phase of the matter, but also that the individual
estimates themselves are moulded by the market, at first in a general
way and then, in the process of price-making, drawn toward a somewhat
mechanical uniformity. The individual and the system act and react upon
each other until, in most cases, they agree, somewhat as in fashion, in
religious belief, and the like. The influence of the market is not
secondary either in time or importance to that of the person; it is a
continuous institution in which the individual lives and which is ever
forming his ideas. The actual transactions are potent suggestions for
new ones, and the actual transactions are the latest expressions of an
institutional development in which class rule and a confused and
one-sided commercialism have been chief factors. Thus the institution
largely dictates the valuations which it afterward equilibrates.
To neglect this and treat demand and supply as a summation of original
individual estimates involves an inadequacy of the same nature as there
would be in explaining fashion as due to a summation of individual ideas
about dress. The explanation would be true at a given instant, in
fashion as in the market, but in the case of the former no one could
fail to perceive how superficial, how delusive, it would be. This is
obvious in the case of fashion because its changes are so rapid and
conspicuous that we are compelled to notice them, and to see that the
individual takes his ideas from the social current. The slower movement
of ideas which determines our more stable wants is, however, of the same
character, and the superficiality of treating it as originating in the
individual is quite as great, amounting to no less than ignoring the
historical factors in pecuniary value. The relation of the individual to
the system is not essentially different in this case from what we may
see in any institution. The ordinary man is a conformer; he lives in the
institution and accepts its established valuations, though not without
impressing some degree of individuality upon them. In this way we get
our ideas and practices regarding religion, marriage, dress, and so on.
So in pecuniary matters one accepts in a general way the current values
but has a certain individuality in his choices which makes him to some
extent a special factor in the market. There is no absolute conformity;
we do everything a little differently from any one else; but this does
not prevent our being controlled, in a broad way, by the prevailing
institutions. This is what the usual economic analysis ignores, or
perhaps omits as beyond its proper range.
Along with this we have the phenomenon of non-conformity. Individuals of
special natural endowment, or unusual situation, or both, depart widely
from the type, and initiate new tendencies which, under favorable
conditions, may grow, and modify or destroy the old type. These new
movements are likely to derive more directly from human nature than the
old, and it is commonly true, though not always, that non-conformity
represents human-nature values in conflict with those that are more
institutional. We can see this process at the present time in the
church, in politics, and in the family. It is taking place no less in
pecuniary relations, and our expenditure is being humanized as
radically, perhaps, as anything else. Things that seemed indispensable
twenty-five years ago no longer seem worth while, and claims unthought
of then have become irresistible. What changes have come over the budget
of the household, of philanthropy, of the state and the church, during
this period!
One might say much on this topic, but it would amount simply to an
exposition, in this field, of the general relation between institutions
and human nature.
Without taking into account this life of the individual in the
institution we can never do justice to the general sway of the market,
as a historical organism, over society at large. It is, as I have
suggested, a structure as imposing as the political state itself,
filling the eye with the spectacle of established and unquestioned power
and impressing its estimates upon every mind.
We have to recognize, then, not merely that pecuniary value is, in
general, a social value which derives from the social development of the
past, but that it is the outcome, more particularly, of a special phase
of that development, namely, the comparatively recent growth of industry
and business, including also the growth of consumption. This is the
special institution from which, for better or worse, the pecuniary
values of to-day draw their character, very much as ecclesiastical
values draw theirs from the history of the church. The phenomena of any
institution are moulded in part by the general conditions of the time,
but they are moulded especially by their particular institutional
antecedents, which may be somewhat incongruous with the more general
conditions. If you attend a service of the Established Church you become
aware of points of view which may seem to you, as a man of to-day,
absurd and incomprehensible, except as you know something of their
history. The same may very well be true in the pecuniary world, though
we may not notice it because we are more used to it, because we are
ourselves members of this church.
And the method of criticism, in the market as in the church, is to take
as large a view of the institution as possible, discover in what
respects it is failing to function adequately in the general life, and
strive to bring about such changes as seem to be required.
It seems probable that the more we consider, in the light of an organic
view of society, the practice of discussing values apart from their
institutional antecedents, the more sterile, except for somewhat
narrowly technical purposes, this practice will appear. Certainly it
should have but a secondary place in inquiries which seek to throw light
upon ethics or social policy. It is, for example, but a frail basis for
a theory of distribution. The latter I take to be essentially a
historical and institutional phenomenon, economic technique being for
the most part only a mechanism through which social organization
expresses itself. I do not question the technical value of the current
treatises on distribution which more or less cut it off from its roots
in the social whole, but perhaps the time is coming for a treatment
which takes technical economics for granted and elucidates the larger
actualities of the question.
The principle that any social institution, and consequently any system
of valuation, must be administered by a class, which will largely
control its operation, is rather an obvious one. It was long overlooked,
however, in political theory, at least in the theory of democracy, and
is still overlooked, perhaps, in economic theory. At any rate it is a
fact that pecuniary valuation is by no means the work of the whole
people acting homogeneously, but is subject, very much like the
analogous function in politics, to concentration in a class.
Class control is exercised mainly in two ways: through control or
guidance of purchasing power, and so of the demand side of the market,
and through the actual administration of the business system, which
gives the class in possession command of the large personal (pecuniary)
values incident to this function, and the opportunity to increase these
by the use, direct and indirect, of their commanding position.[68]
The process of definite pecuniary valuation, the price-making function,
is based upon “effective demand” or the offer of money for goods;
perhaps we ought to say for consumers’ goods, as the value of producers’
goods may be regarded as secondary.[69] It is, therefore, the immediate
work of those who have money to spend. Just how far spending is
concentrated in a class I cannot pretend to say, but current estimates
indicate that about one-fifth of the families in the United States
absorb half the total income. No doubt, however, the proportion of
saving in this fifth is somewhat greater, and that of spending somewhat
less, than in the rest of the population.[70] In this respect pecuniary
value is, on the face of it, much more the work of a restricted class
than political value, in determining which all voters are nominally
equal. In either case, however, it would be most erroneous to suppose
that value-making power can be measured in any such numerical way. There
is always a psychological process of suggestion and discussion which
works underneath the market transactions.
By virtue of this the power of the richer classes over values is far
greater than that indicated by their relative expenditure. As people of
leisure and presumptive refinement, they have prestige in forming those
conventions by which expenditure is ruled. We see how cooks and
shop-girls dress in imitation of society women, and how clerks mortgage
their houses to buy automobiles. It is in fact notorious that the
expenditure of the poor follows the fashions of the rich, unless in
matters of the most direct and urgent necessity, and in no small degree
even in these.
If what has just been said is sound it would be necessary, in order to
understand contemporary values, to investigate, historically and
psychologically, the ideals, such as they are, now prevalent in the
richer classes.[71] It might be found, perhaps, that these are largely
of two sorts: ideals proper to commercialism—especially ideals of
pecuniary power and of display as an evidence of it—and caste ideals
taken over by the commercial aristocracy from an older order of society.
Commercialism tends to fix attention rather on the acquisition than the
use of wealth, and for ideals regarding the latter the successful class
has fallen back upon the traditions, so well-knit and so attractive to
the imagination, of a former hereditary aristocracy. We very
inadequately realize, I imagine, how much our modes of thought, and
hence our valuations, are dominated by English social ideals of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. We get these not only through the
social prestige, continuous to our own day, of the English upper
classes, but through history, literature, and art. Speaking roughly, the
best European literature, and especially the best English literature,
was produced under the dominance of an aristocratic class and is
permeated with its ideals. Thus culture, even now, means in no small
degree the absorption of these ideals.
They are, of course, in many respects high ideals, embracing conceptions
of personal character, culture and conduct which it would be a calamity
to lose; and yet these are interwoven with the postulate of an upper
class, enjoying of right an enormous preponderance of wealth and power,
and living in an affluence suitable to its appointed station. Thus it
happens that as a man acquires wealth he feels that it is becoming that
his family should assert its right of membership in the upper class by a
style of living that shall proclaim his opulence. He also feels, if he
has in any degree assimilated the finer part of the tradition, that a
corresponding advance in culture would be becoming to him, but this is a
thing by no means so readily purchased as material state; the general
conditions are not favorable to it, and his efforts, if he makes any,
are apt to be somewhat abortive.
Along with the preceding we have also a hopeful admixture of ideals
which reflect the dawn of a truly democratic régime of life—ideals of
the individual as existing for the whole, of power as justified only by
public service, compunctions regarding the inequalities of wealth and
opportunity, a lowly spirit in high places.
This sort of inquiry into the psychology of the upper class as a social
organism—however unimportant these suggestions may be—appears to be
indispensable if we are to form even an intelligent guess as to where we
stand in the matter of valuation.
Coming now to the control over values incident to the administration of
the business system, we note that the class in power, in spite of
constant changes in its membership, is for many purposes a real
historical organism acting collectively for its own aggrandizement. This
collective action is for the most part unconscious, and comes about as
the resultant of the striving of many individuals and small groups in
the same general direction. We are all, especially in pecuniary matters,
ready to join forces with those whose interest is parallel to our own:
bankers unite to promote the banking interest, manufacturers form
associations, and so on. The whole business world is a network of
associations, formal and informal, which aim to further the pecuniary
interest of the members. And while these groups, or members of the same
group, are often in competition with one another, this does not prevent
a general parallelism of effort as regards matters which concern the
interest of the business class as a whole. The larger the group the less
conscious, as a rule, is its co-operation, but it is not necessarily
less effective and it can hardly be denied that the capitalist-manager
class, or whatever we may call the class ascendant in business, acts
powerfully as a body in maintaining and increasing its advantages over
other classes. Nothing else can result from the desire of each to get
and keep all he can, and to exchange aid with others similarly
inclined.[72]
When I say that the class is, for this purpose, a historical organism, I
mean that its power, prestige, and methods come down from the past in a
continuous development like other forms of social life. This would be
the case even were individual membership in it quite free to every one
in proportion to his ability, for an open class, as we can see, for
instance, in the case of a priesthood, may yet be full of a spirit and
power derived from the past.
In fact, however, membership in the upper economic class is by no means
open to all in proportion to natural ability, and the command it enjoys
of lucrative opportunities contributes greatly to its ascendancy. It
controls the actual administration of the market much as the political
party in power used to control the offices, with the influence and
patronage pertaining to them—only the ascendancy in the economic world,
based largely on inherited wealth and connections, is greater and more
secure. The immediate effect of this is to enhance greatly the market
value of the persons having access to the opportunities: they are
enabled by their advantageous position to draw from the common store
salaries, fees, and profits not at all explicable by natural ability
alone. This effect is multiplied by the fact that limitation of the
number of competitors gives an additional scarcity value to the services
of the competent, which may raise their price almost incredibly. Thus it
is well known that during the period of rapid consolidation of the great
industries enormous fees, amounting in some cases to millions, were paid
to those who effected the consolidations. It may be that their services
were worth the price; but in so far as this is the fact it can be
explained only as an exorbitant scarcity value due to limitation of
opportunity. No one will contend, I suppose, that the native ability
required was of so transcendent a character as to get such a reward
under open conditions. Evidently of the thousands who might have been
competent to the service only a few were on hand with such training and
connections as to make them actual competitors. And the same principle
is quite generally required to explain the relatively large incomes of
the class in power, including those of the more lucrative professions.
They represent the value of good natural ability multiplied by
opportunity factors.[73]
The fact usually urged in this connection, that these lucrative
opportunities often fall to those who were not born in the upper class
but have made their way into it by their own energy, is not very much to
the point. It is not contended that our upper class is a closed caste,
nor does it have to be in order to act as a whole, or to exercise a
dominating and somewhat monopolistic influence over values. Though ill
defined, not undemocratic in sentiment, and partly free from the
hereditary character of European upper classes, it is yet a true
historical successor of the latter, and dominates the weaker classes in
much the same way as stronger classes have always done. Power is
concentrated about the functions of the dominant institutions, and the
powerful class use it, consciously or otherwise, for their individual
and class advantage. Surely one has only to open his eyes to see this. I
doubt whether there is a city, village, or township in the country where
there is not a group of men who constitute an upper class in this sense.
There is, it seems to me, a growing feeling that class, which the
prevalent economics has relegated to oblivion under some such category
as “imperfect freedom of competition,” is in fact at the very heart of
our problem.
It appears, then, that pecuniary valuation is a social institution no
less than the state or the church, and that its development must be
studied not only on the impersonal side but also in the traditions and
organization of the class that chiefly administers it.
CHAPTER XXVII
THE SPHERE OF PECUNIARY VALUATION
THE SPECIAL FUNCTION OF MONEY VALUATION—PECUNIARY VALUES NOT
NECESSARILY OF A LOWER SORT—THEY ARE FORMED, HOWEVER, BY A SPECIAL
INSTITUTION—AND PERPETUATE HISTORIC WRONG—THEY HAVE ONLY A LIMITED
CONTROL OF SOCIAL LIFE—MONEY REWARD VERSUS SELF-EXPRESSION—WE NEED
TO EXTEND THE SPHERE OF MONEY VALUES
It seems that the distinctive function of money valuation is to
generalize or assimilate values through a common measure. In this way it
gives them reach and flexibility, so that many sorts of value are
enabled to work freely together throughout the social system, instead of
being confined to a small province. And since values represent the
powers of society, the result is that these powers are organized in a
large way and enabled to co-operate in a vital whole. Any _market_ value
that I, for instance, may control ceases to be merely local in its
application and becomes a generalized force that I can apply anywhere.
If I can earn a thousand dollars teaching bacteriology, I can take the
money and go to Europe, exchanging my recondite knowledge for the
services, say, of guides in the Alps, who never heard of bacteriology.
Other values are similarly generalized and the result is a mobility that
enables many sorts of value, reduced to a common measure, to be applied
anywhere and anyhow that the holder may think desirable.
We have, then, to do with a value institution or process, far
transcending in reach any special sort of value, and participating in
the most diverse phases of our life. Its function resembles that of
language, and its ideal may be said to be to do for value what language
does for thought—furnish a universal medium of communicative growth. And
just as language and the social organization based upon it are extended
in their scope by the modern devices of cheap printing, mails,
telegraphy, telephones, and the like, so the function of pecuniary
valuation is extended by uniform money and by devices for credit and
transfer, until the natural obstacles of distance, lack of knowledge,
and lack of homogeneity are largely overcome.
This mobilization of values through the pecuniary measure tends to make
the latter an expression of the total life of society, so far as the
values that stand for this life have actually become mobilized or
translated into pecuniary terms. Although this translation is in fact
only partial and, as I have tried to show, institutional, still the wide
scope of pecuniary value, along with its precision, gives it a certain
title to its popular acceptance as value in a sense that no other kind
of value can claim.
This also gives it that place as a regulator of social activity which
economists have always claimed for it. Pecuniary value provides a motive
to serve the pecuniary organism, a motive that penetrates everywhere,
acts automatically, and adjusts itself delicately to the conditions of
demand and supply. If more oranges are wanted in New York, a higher
price is offered for them in California and Sicily; if more dentists are
needed, the rewards of the profession increase and young men are
attracted into it. Thus there is everywhere an inducement to supply
those goods and services which the buying power in society thinks it
wants, and this inducement largely guides production. At each point of
deficient supply a sort of suction is set up to draw available persons
and materials to that point and set them to work.
Thus our life, in one of its main aspects, is organized through this
central value institution or market, very much as in other aspects it is
organized through language, the state, the church, or the family.
It will be well to consider here the view that the sphere of pecuniary
value, however wide, is yet distinctly circumscribed and confined to a
special and, on the whole, inferior province of life. According to this
view only the coarser and more material values can be measured in money,
while the finer sorts, as of beauty, friendship, righteousness, and so
on, are in their nature private and untranslatable, and so out of the
reach of any generalizing process.
It seems doubtful whether we can admit that there is any such clear
circumscription of the pecuniary field. All values are interrelated, and
it may reasonably be held that none can stand apart and be wholly
incommensurable with the others. The idea of a common measure which, for
certain purposes at least, may be applied to _all_ values is by no means
absurd. The argument that such a measure is possible may be stated
somewhat as follows.
Since the function of values is to guide conduct, they are in their
nature comparable. Conduct is a matter of the total or synthetic
behavior of a living whole in view of a situation: it implies the
integration of all the motives bearing on the situation. Accordingly
when a crisis in conduct arises the values relating to it, no matter how
incommensurable they may seem, are in some way brought to a common
measure, weighed against one another, in order to determine which way
the scale inclines. This commensuration is psychical, not numerical, and
we are far from understanding its exact nature, but unless each
pertinent kind of value has a part in it of some sort it would seem that
the mind is not acting as a vital whole. If there were absolute values
that cannot be impaired or in any way influenced by the opposing action
of other values, they must apparently exist in separate compartments and
not in organic relation to the rest of the mind. It does not follow that
what we regard as a high motive, such as the sense of honor, must
necessarily be overcome by a sufficient accumulation of lower motives,
such as sensuous desires, but we may be prepared to find that if the two
are opposed the latter will, in one way or another, modify the conduct
required by the former, and this I believe is usually the fact. Thus
suppose a lower value, in the shape of temptation, is warring against a
higher in the shape of an ideal. Even if we concede nothing to the
former, even if we react far away from it, none the less it has entered
into our life and helped to mould it—as sensuality, for example, helps
to mould the ascetic.
And this weighing of one kind of value against another will take place
largely in terms of money, which exists for the very purpose of
facilitating such transactions. Thus honor is one of those values which
many would place outside the pecuniary sphere, and yet honor may call
for the saving of money to pay a debt, while sensuality would spend it
for a hearty dinner. In this case, then, we buy our honor with money, or
we sell it, through money, for something lower. In much the same way are
the larger choices of society, as, for example, between power devoted to
education and power devoted to warships, expressed in pecuniary terms.
In general we do, in fact, individually and collectively, weigh such
things as friendship, righteousness, and beauty against other matters,
and in terms of money. Beauty is on the market, however undervalued, in
the form, for example, of music, art, literature, flowers, and
dwelling-sites. A friendly personality has a market value in salesmen,
doctors, writers, and teachers; indeed in all occupations where ability
to influence persons is important—and there are few in which it is not.
I notice that if there is anything attractive about a man he soon learns
to collect pay for it. And not less is it true that the need for
righteousness finds expression in a willingness to pay a (reasonable)
price for it in the market-place. Convincing preachers and competent
social workers command salaries, and great sums go to beneficent
institutions.
The truth is that the values we think of as absolute are only, if I may
use the expression, relatively absolute. That is, they so far transcend
the values of every-day traffic that we think of them as belonging to a
wholly different order, but experience shows that they do not. Life
itself is not an absolute value, since we constantly see it sacrificed
to other ends; chastity is sold daily by people not radically different
in nature from the rest of us, and as for honor it would be hard to
imagine a kind which might not, in conceivable situations, be renounced
for some other and perhaps higher aim. The idea of the baseness of
weighing the higher sort of values in the same scale with money rests on
the assumption that the money is to be used to purchase values of a
lower sort; but if it is the indispensable means to still higher values
we shall justify the transaction. Such exchanges are constantly taking
place: only those who are protected by pecuniary affluence can imagine
otherwise. The health of mothers is sacrificed for money to support
their children, and the social opportunities of sisters given up to send
brothers to college. In the well-to-do classes, at least, the life of
possible children is often renounced on grounds of expense.
There are, no doubt, individuals who have set their hearts on particular
things for which they will sacrifice without consideration almost
anything else. These may be high things, like love, justice, and honor;
they are often ignoble things, like avarice or selfish ambition. And, in
a similar way, nations or institutions sometimes cherish values which
are almost absolute, like those of national independence, or the
authority of the Pope. But in general we may say that if _X_ and _Y_ be
among our most cherished objects, then situations may occur where,
through the medium of money, some sacrifice of _X_ will be made for the
sake of _Y_.
I conclude, then, that it is impossible to mark off sharply the
pecuniary sphere from that of other kinds of value. It is always
possible that the highest as well as the lowest things may be brought
within its scope.
And yet we all feel that the pecuniary sphere has limitations. The
character of these may be understood, I think, by recurring to the idea
that the market is a special institution in much the same sense that the
church is or the state. It has a somewhat distinct system of its own in
society at large much as it has in the mind of each individual. Our
buyings and sellings and savings, our pecuniary schemes and standards,
make in some degree a special tract of thought that often seems
unconnected with other tracts. Yet we constantly have to bring the ideas
of this tract into relation with those outside it; and likewise in
society the pecuniary institution is in constant interaction with other
institutions, this interaction frequently taking the form of a
translation of values. In general the social process is an organic whole
somewhat clearly differentiated into special systems, of which the
pecuniary is one.
There are many histories that fall mainly within this system and must be
studied chiefly from the pecuniary point of view, not forgetting,
however, that no social history is really understood until it is seen in
its place as a phase of the general process. The histories I mean are
those that have always been regarded as the peculiar business of the
economist: the course of wheat from the grain-field to the
breakfast-table, or of iron from the mine to the watch-spring, the
growth of the social organizations created for purposes of manufacture,
trade, banking, finance, and so on. There are other histories, like
those of books, educational institutions, religious faith, scientific
research, and the like, which must be understood chiefly from other
points of view, although they are never outside the reach of pecuniary
relations.
To say, then, that almost any kind of value may at times be measured in
pecuniary terms is by no means to say that the latter are a universal
and adequate expression of human nature and of society. On the contrary,
pecuniary value is, in the main, a specialized type of value, generated
within a specialized channel of the social process, and having decided
limitations corresponding to this fact. I shall try to indicate a little
more closely what some of these limitations are.
Let us notice, in the first place, that the pecuniary values of to-day
derive from the whole past of the pecuniary system, so that all the
wrongs that may have worked themselves into that system are implicit in
them. If a materialized ruling class is in the saddle, this fact will be
expressed in the large incomes of this class and their control not only
of the mechanism of the market but, through prestige, of the demand
which underlies its values. If drink, child labor, prostitution, and
corrupt politics are part of the institution, they will be demanded upon
the market as urgently as anything else. Evidently it would be fatuous
to assume that the market process expresses the _good_ of society. The
demand on which it is based is a turbid current coming down from the
past and bearing with it, for better or worse, the outcome of history.
All the evils of commercialism are present in it, and are transmitted
through demand to production and distribution. To accept this stream as
pure and to reform only the mechanism of distribution would be as if a
city drawing its drinking-water from a polluted river should expect to
escape typhoid by using clean pipes. We have reason, both in theory and
in observation, to expect that our pecuniary tradition, and the values
which express it, will need reform quite as much as anything else.
Indeed we cannot expect, do what we may to reform it, that the market
can ever become an adequate expression of ideal values. It is an
institution, and institutional values, in their nature, are
conservative, representing the achieved and established powers of
society rather than those which are young and look to the future. The
slow crystallization of historical tendencies in institutions is likely
at the best to lag behind our ideals and cannot be expected to set the
pace of progress.
Suppose, however, we assume for the time being that demand does
represent the good of society, and inquire next how far the market
process may be trusted to realize this good through the pecuniary
motive.
It seems clear that this motive can serve as an effective guide only in
the case of deliberate production, for the sake of gain, and with
ownership in the product. The production must be deliberate in order
that _any_ rational motive may control it, and the pecuniary motive will
not control it unless it is for the sake of gain and protected by
ownership. These limitations exclude such vast provinces of life that we
may well wonder at the extent of our trust in the market process.
They shut out the whole matter of the production and development of men,
of human and social life; that is, they indicate that however important
the pecuniary process may be in this field it can never be trusted to
control it, not even the economic side of it. This is a sphere in which
the market must be dominated by other kinds of organization.
If we take the two underlying factors, heredity and environment, as
these mould the life of men, we see that we cannot look to the market to
regulate the hereditary factor as regards either the total number of
children to be born, or the stocks from which they are to be drawn. I
know that there are men who still imagine that “natural selection,”
working through economic competition, operates effectively in this
field, but I doubt whether any one knows facts upon which such a view
can reasonably be based. In what regards population and eugenics it is
more and more apparent that rational control and selection, working
largely outside the market process, are indispensable.
The same may be said of the whole action of environment in forming
persons after birth, including the family, the community, the school,
the state, the church, and the unorganized working of suggestion and
example. None of these formative agencies is of a nature to be guided
adequately by pecuniary demand. The latter, even if its requirements be
high, offers no guarantee that men will be produced in accordance with
these requirements, since it does not control the course of their
development.
Let us observe, however, that even in this field the market may afford
essential guidance to other agencies of control. If, for example,
certain kinds of work do not yield a living wage, this may be because
the supply of this kind of work is in excess, and the state or some
other organization may proceed on this hint to adjust supply to demand
by vocational training and guidance. Or the method of reform may be to
put restrictions upon demand, as in the case of the minimum wage.
Although the market process is inadequate alone, it will usually have
some share in any plan of betterment.
Personal and social development must, in general, be sought through
rational organization having a far wider scope than the market, though
co-operating with that in every helpful way, and including, perhaps,
radical reforms in the pecuniary system itself. It would be hard to
formulate a principle more fallacious and harmful than the doctrine that
the latter is an adequate regulator of human life, or that its own
processes are superior to regulation. We are beginning to see that the
prevalence of such ideas has given us over to an unhuman commercialism.
What I have been saying of persons and personal development applies also
to natural resources and public improvements, to arts, sciences, and the
finer human values in general. All these have a pecuniary aspect, of
more or less importance, but a money demand alone cannot beget or
control them. Love, beauty, and righteousness may come on the market
under certain conditions, but they are not, in the full sense, market
commodities. Our faith in money is exemplified in these days by the
offer of money prizes for poetry, invention, the promotion of peace, and
for heroic deeds. I would not deprecate such offers, whose aim is
excellent and sometimes attains the mark. They are creditable to their
authors and diffuse a good spirit even though the method is too naïve to
be very effectual. If money is greatly to increase products of this kind
it must be applied, fundamentally and with all possible wisdom, to the
conditions that mould character.
These higher goods do not really come within the economic sphere. They
touch it only incidentally, their genesis and interaction belonging
mainly to a different kind of process, one in which ownership and
material exchange play a secondary part. The distinctively economic
commodities and values are those whose whole course of production is one
in which the factors are subject to legal ownership and controlled by a
money-seeking intelligence, so that the process is essentially
pecuniary. Thus we may say that ordinary typewriting is economic,
because it is a simple, standard service which is supplied in any
quantity according to demand. The work of a newspaper reporter is not
quite so clearly economic, because not so definitely standardized and
affording more room for intangible merits which pay cannot insure. And
when we come to magazine literature of the better sort we are in a field
where the process is for the most part non-pecuniary, depending, that
is, on an interplay of minds outside the market, the latter coming in
only to set its very questionable appraisal on the product. As to
literature in general, art, science, and religion, no one at all
conversant with the history of these things will claim that important
work in them has any close relation to pecuniary inducement. The
question whether the great man was rich and honored, like Rubens, or
worked in poverty and neglect, like Rembrandt in his later years, is of
only incidental interest in tracing the history of such achievement. The
ideals and disciplines which give birth to it are generated in
non-pecuniary tracts of thought and intercourse, and unless genius
actually starves, as it sometimes does, it fulfils its aim without much
regard to pay. I need hardly add that good judges have always held that
a moderate poverty was a condition favorable to intellectual and
spiritual achievement.
I would assign a very large and growing sphere to pecuniary valuation,
but we cannot be too clear in affirming that even at its best and
largest it can never be an adequate basis for general social
organization. It is an institution, like another, having important
functions but requiring, like all institutions, to be brought under
rational control by the aid of a comprehensive sociology, ethics, and
politics. It has no charter of autonomy, no right to exemption from
social control.
Thus even if market values were the best possible of their kind, we
could not commit the social system to their charge, and still less can
we do so when the value institution, owing to rapid and one-sided
growth, is in a somewhat confused and demoralized condition. Bearing
with it not only the general inheritance of human imperfection but also
the special sins of a narrow and somewhat inhuman commercialism, it by
no means reflects life in that broad way in which a market, with all its
limitations, might reflect it. The higher values remain for the most
part untranslated, even though translatable, and the material and
technical aspects of the process have acquired an undue ascendancy. In
general this institution, like others that might be named, is in such a
condition that its estimates are no trustworthy expression of the public
mind.
Having in mind these general limitations upon the sphere of pecuniary
value, let us consider it more particularly as a motive to stimulate
and guide the work of the individual. For this purpose we may
distinguish it broadly from the need of self-expression, using the
latter comprehensively to include all other influences that urge one
to productive work. Among these would be emulation and ambition, the
need of activity for its own sake, the love of workmanship and
creation, the impulse to assert one’s individuality, and the desire to
serve the social whole. Such motives enter intimately into one’s
self-consciousness and may, for our present purpose, be included under
the need of self-expression.
It is true that the pecuniary motive may also be, indirectly, a motive
of self-expression; that is, for example, a girl may work hard for ten
dollars with which to buy a pretty hat. It makes a great difference,
however, whether or not the work is _directly_ self-expressive, whether
the worker feels that what he does is joyous and rewarding in itself, so
that it would be worth doing whether he were paid for it or not. The
artist, the poet, the skilled craftsman in wood and iron, the born
teacher or lawyer, all have this feeling, and it is desirable that it
should become as common as possible. I admit that the line is not a
sharp one, but on the whole the pecuniary motive may be said to be an
extrinsic one, as compared with the more intrinsic character of those
others which I have called motives of self-expression.
When I say that self-expression is a regulator of productive activity I
mean that, like the pecuniary motive, though in a different way, it is
the expression of an organic whole, and not necessarily a less
authoritative expression. What a man feels to be self-expressive springs
in part from the instincts of human nature and in part from the form
given to those instincts by the social life in which his mind develops.
Both of these influences spring from the organic life of the human race.
The man of genius who opens new ways in poetry and art, the social
reformer who spends his life in conflict with inhuman conditions, the
individual anywhere or of any sort who tries to realize the needs of his
higher being, represents the common life of man in a way that may have a
stronger claim than the requirements of pecuniary demand. As a motive it
is quite as universal as the latter, and there is no one of us who has
not the capacity to feel it.
As regards the individual himself, self-expression is simply the deepest
need of his nature. It is required for self-respect and integrity of
character, and there can be no question more fundamental than that of so
ordering life that the mass of men may have a chance to find
self-expression in their principal activity.
These two motives are related much as are our old friends conformity and
individuality; we have to do in fact with a phase of the same
antithesis. Pecuniary valuation, like conformity, furnishes a somewhat
mechanical and external rule: it represents the social organization in
its more explicit and established phases, and especially, of course, the
pecuniary institution, which has a life somewhat distinct from that of
other phases of the establishment. It is based on those powers in
society which are readily translated into pecuniary terms, on wealth,
position, established industrial and business methods, and so on.
Self-expression springs from the deeper and more obscure currents of
life, from subconscious, unmechanized forces which are potent without
our understanding why. It represents humanity more immediately and its
values are, or may be, more vital and significant than those of the
market; we may look to them for art, for science, for religion, for
moral improvement, for all the fresher impulses to social progress. The
onward things of life usually come from men whose imperious
self-expression disregards the pecuniary market. In humbler tasks
self-expression is required to give the individual an immediate and
lively interest in his work; it is the motive of art and joy, the spring
of all vital achievement.
It is quite possible that these motives should work harmoniously
together; indeed they do so in no small proportion of cases. A man who
works because he wants money comes, under favorable conditions, to take
pleasure and pride in what he does. Or he takes up a certain sort of
work because he likes it, and finds that his zeal helps him to pecuniary
success. I suppose that there are few of us with whom the desire of
self-expression would alone be sufficient to incite regular production.
Most of us need a spur to do even that which we enjoy doing, or at any
rate to do it systematically. We are compelled to do something and many
of us are fortunate enough to find something that is self-expressive.
The market, it would seem, should put a gentle pressure upon men to
produce in certain directions, spurring the lazy and turning the
undecided into available lines of work. Those who have a clear inner
call should resist this pressure, as they always have done, and always
must if we are to have progress. This conflict between the pecuniary
system and the bias of the individual, though in some sort inevitable,
should not be harsh or destructive. The system should be as tolerant and
hospitable as its institutional nature permits. Values, like public
opinion to which they are so closely related, should be constantly
awakened, enlightened, enlarged, and made to embrace new sorts of
personal merit. There is nothing of more public value than the higher
sort of self-expression, and this should be elicited and rewarded in
every practicable way. It is possible to have institutions which are not
only tolerant but which, in a measure, anticipate and welcome useful
kinds of non-conformity.
Pecuniary valuation, represented by the offer of wages, will never
produce good work nor a contented people until it is allied with such
conditions that a man feels that his task is in some sense _his_, and
can put himself heartily into it. This means some sort of industrial
democracy—control of working conditions by the state or by unions,
co-operation, socialism—something that shall give the individual a human
share in the industrial whole of which he is a member.
Closely related to this is the sense of worthy service. No man can feel
that his work is self-expressive unless he believes that it is good work
and can see that it serves mankind. If the product is trivial or base he
can hardly respect himself, and the demand for such things, as Ruskin
used to say, is a demand for slavery. Or if the employer for whom a man
works and who is the immediate beneficiary of his labors is believed to
be self-seeking beyond what is held legitimate, and not working
honorably for the general good, the effect will be much the same. The
worst sufferers from such employers are the men who work for them,
whether their wages be high or low.
As regards the general relation in our time between market value and
self-expression, the fact seems to be something as follows: Our
industrial system has undergone an enormous expansion and an almost
total change of character. In the course of this, human nature has been
dragged along, as it were, by the hair of the head. It has been led or
driven into kinds of work and conditions of work that are repugnant to
it, especially repugnant in view of the growth of intelligence and of
democracy in other spheres of life. The agent in this has been the
pecuniary motive backed by the absence of alternatives. This pecuniary
motive has reflected a system of values determined under the ascendancy,
direct and indirect, of the commercial class naturally dominant in a
time of this kind. I will not say that as a result of this state of
things the condition of the hand-workers is worse than in a former
epoch; in some respects it seems worse, in many it is clearly better;
but certainly it is far from what it should be in view of the enormous
growth of human resources.
In the economic philosophy which has prevailed along with this
expansion, the pecuniary motive has been accepted as the legitimate
principle of industrial organization to the neglect of self-expression.
The human self, however, is not to be treated thus with impunity; it is
asserting itself in a somewhat general discontent and in many specific
forms of organized endeavor. The commercialism that accepts as
satisfactory present values and the method of establishing them is
clearly on the decline and we have begun to work for a more
self-expressive order.
Notwithstanding the insufficiencies of pecuniary valuation, the
character of modern life seems to call for an extension of its scope: it
would appear to be true, in a certain sense, that the principle that
everything has its price should be rather enlarged than restricted. The
ever-vaster and more interdependent system in which we live requires for
its organization a corresponding value mechanism, just as it requires a
mechanism of transportation and communication. And this means not only
that the value medium should be uniform, adaptable, and stable, but also
that the widest possible range of values should be convertible into it.
The wider the range the more fully does the market come to express and
energize the aims of society. It is a potent agent, and the more good
work we can get it to take hold of the better. Its limitations, then, by
no means justify us in assuming that it has nothing to do with ideals or
morals. On the contrary, the method of progress in every sphere is to
transfuse the higher values into the working institutions and keep the
latter on the rise. Just as the law exists to formulate and enforce
certain phases of righteousness, and is continually undergoing criticism
and revision based on moral judgments, so ought every institution, and
especially the pecuniary system, to have constant renewal from above. It
should be ever in process of moral regeneration, and the method that
separates it from the ethical sphere, while justifiable perhaps for
certain technical inquiries, becomes harmful when given a wider scope.
As regards responsibility to moral requirements there is no fundamental
difference between pecuniary valuation and the state, the church,
education, or any other institution. We cannot expect to make our money
values ideal, any more than our laws, our sermons, or our academic
lectures, but we can make them better, and this is done by bringing
higher values upon the market.
To put it otherwise, the fact that pecuniary values fail to express the
higher life of society creates a moral problem which may be met in
either of two ways. One is to depreciate money valuation altogether and
attempt to destroy its prestige. The other is to concede to it a very
large place in life, even larger, perhaps, than it occupies at present,
and to endeavor to regenerate it by the translation into it of the
higher values. The former way is analogous with that somewhat obsolete
form of religion which gave up this world to the devil and centred all
effort on keeping out of it, in preparation for a wholly different world
to be gained after death. The world and the flesh, which could not
really be escaped, were left to a neglected and riotous growth.
In like manner, perceiving that pecuniary values give in many respects a
debasing reflection of life, we are tempted to rule them out of the
ethical field and consign them to an inferior province. The price of a
thing, we say, is a material matter which has nothing to do with its
higher values, and never can have. This, however, is bad philosophy, in
economics as in religion. The pecuniary values are members of the same
general system as the moral and æsthetic values, and it is part of their
function to put the latter upon the market. To separate them is to
cripple both, and to cripple life itself by cutting off the healthy
interchange among its members. Our line of progress lies, in part at
least, not over commercialism but through it; the dollar is to be
reformed rather than suppressed. Our system of production and exchange
is a very great achievement, not more on the mechanical side than in the
social possibilities latent in it. Our next task seems to be to fulfil
these possibilities, to enlarge and humanize the system by bringing it
under the guidance of a comprehensive social and ethical policy.
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE PROGRESS OF PECUNIARY VALUATION
VALUES EXPRESS ORGANIZATION—DIFFERENT KINDS OF VALUE, HOW RELATED—ALL
KINDS ARE MENTALLY COMMENSURABLE—PECUNIARY VALUES SHOULD
APPARENTLY EXPRESS ALL OTHERS, BUT DO SO IMPERFECTLY—THEY ARE
MOULDED BY A SPECIAL INSTITUTIONAL PROCESS—CLASS AGAIN—ORGANIZED
RECOGNITION AND COMPETITION—CONDITIONS OF PROGRESS IN MARKET
VALUES—PROGRESS-VALUES—EXAMPLES OF UNPROGRESSIVE VALUES—NEED OF
SOCIAL GROUPS AND DISCIPLINES—INSTANCES OF PROGRESS—PROGRESS IN
THE PECUNIARY VALUATION OF MEN
To make clear what I mean by progress in pecuniary valuation, let me
recall something of the nature of values in general and of the relation
of the various kinds to one another.
Value is an expression of organization. The power of an object to
influence a man, or any other form of life, depends upon the established
tendencies of that form of life, and, accordingly, wherever we find a
system of values there is always a mental or social organization of some
kind corresponding to it. Thus in the simpler provinces of the mind
there are taste-values, touch-values, and smell-values, corresponding to
our physiological organization. In a higher sphere we have intellectual
and feeling values of many kinds, shown in our differential conduct as
regards persons, books, pictures, theories, or other influencing
objects, and indicating organized habits of thought and sentiment. So in
the larger or societal phase of life we see that each organized
tendency, the prevailing fashion, the dominant church or state, a school
of literature or painting, the general spirit of an epoch, involves a
corresponding system of values. You prefer Monet to David, or the German
view of the war to the English view, or the present style of dress to
hoop-skirts, because you are in one or another of these tendencies.
There are many ways of classifying values. In general, the kinds are
innumerable and their relations intricate: taken as a whole they express
the diversity and complex interdependence of life itself.
The question as to what are the differences among the various sorts of
value, as moral, æsthetic, legal, religious, or economic, is answered,
in general, by saying that they express differentiated phases of the
social system. If the phase is definitely organized we can usually
ascertain and distinguish the kind of value in question with
corresponding definiteness; if not, the values remain somewhat
indeterminate, though not necessarily lacking in power. Thus legal value
is a fairly definite thing, because there is a definite institution
corresponding to it and declaring it from time to time through courts,
legislatures, text-book writers, and the like. How you must draw your
will to make it legally valid is something a lawyer should be able to
tell you with precision. Economic values—if we understand economic to
mean pecuniary—are definite within the range of an active market. If
religious values mean ecclesiastical, they are easily distinguished; but
if they refer to the inclinations of the religious side of human nature,
they are not readily ascertained, because there is no definite
organization corresponding to them—or if there is, in the nature of the
mind, we know little about it. The values that are most potent over
conduct, among which the religious are to be reckoned, are often the
least definable. A psychologist, however, like the late William James,
who wrote a book on the human-nature aspect of religion, may succeed in
defining them more closely. Much the same may be said of moral and
æsthetic values. In the large human-nature sense, apart from particular
ethical conventions or schools of art, they are of the utmost interest
and moment, indeed, but do not lend themselves to precise ascertainment.
And all of these distinctions among kinds of value, whether definite or
not, are conditioned by the fact that the various kinds are, after all,
differentiated phases of a common life. It is natural that they should
overlap, that they should be largely aspects rather than separate
things. Values are motives; and we all know that the classification of a
man’s motives as economic, ethical, or æsthetic is somewhat formal and
arbitrary. The value to me of an engraving I have just bought may be
æsthetic, or economic, or perhaps ostentatious, or ethical. (We see in
Ruskin’s writings how easily an æsthetic value becomes ethical if one
takes it seriously.) It may well be all these: my impulse to cherish it
is a whole with various aspects.
In much the same way society at large has its various institutions and
tendencies, expressing themselves in values, which are more or less
distinct but whose operation you cannot wholly separate in a given case.
The distinctions among them are in the nature of organic
differentiations within a whole.
Observe, next, that there is a sort of commensurability throughout the
world of values, multifarious as it is. I mean that in a vague but real
way we are accustomed to weigh one kind of value against another and to
guide our conduct by the decision. Apart from any definite medium of
exchange there is a system of mental barter, as you might call it, in
universal operation, by which values are compared definitely enough to
make choice possible. You may say that the things that appeal to us are
often so different in kind that it is absurd to talk of comparing them;
but as a matter of fact we do it none the less. We choose between the
satisfaction of meeting a friend at the station and that of having our
dinner at the usual time, between spending an hour of æsthetic
improvement at the Metropolitan Museum and one of humanitarian expansion
at the University Settlement, between gratifying our sense of honor by
returning an excess of change and our greed by keeping it, between the
social approbation to be won by correct dress and bearing and the
physical ease of slouchiness. Almost any sort of value may come, in
practice, to be weighed against almost any other sort.
Indeed this is implied in the very conception of value as that which has
weight or worth in guiding behavior. Our behavior is a kind of synthesis
of the ideas, or values, that are working in us in face of a given
situation, and these may be any mixture that life supplies. The result
is that almost any sort of value may find itself mixed up and
synthetized with any other sort.
But the human mind, ever developing its instruments, has come to
supplement this psychical barter of values by something more precise,
communicable and uniform, and so we arrive at pecuniary valuation. This
is in some respects analogous to language, serving for organization and
growth through more exact communication; and just as language develops a
system of words, of means of record (writing, printing, and the like),
also of schools, and, withal, a literary and learned class to have
special charge of the institution, so pecuniary valuation has its money,
banks, markets, and its business class.
For our present purpose of discussing the general relation of pecuniary
to other values, as æsthetic or ethical, it is of no great importance, I
should say, to inquire minutely into the various kinds of the latter or
their precise relations to one another. The large fact to bear in mind,
in this connection, is that we have, on the one hand, a world of
psychical values, whose reality is shown in their power to influence
conduct, and, on the other, a world of prices, which apparently exists
to give all kinds of psychical value general validity and exact
expression, but which seems to do this in a partial and inadequate
manner.
This, indeed, may be called the root of the whole matter: the fact that
pecuniary value, whose functions of extension, of precision, of
motivation, of organization, are so essential and should be so
beneficent, appears in practice to ignore or depreciate many kinds of
value, and these often the highest, by withholding pecuniary
recognition; and, on the other hand, to create or exaggerate values
which seem to have little or no human merit to justify such appraisal.
Let us, then, inquire why its interpretation of life is so warped.
The answer to this I take to be, in general, that pecuniary valuation is
achieved through an institutional process, and, like all things, bears
the marks of its genesis. There are institutional conditions that
intervene between psychical values and their pecuniary expression. These
are, roughly, of two sorts, those that operate after pecuniary demand is
formed, within the processes of exchange, and those that operate
antecedently to the actual demand, in the larger social process. The
former are technical conditions within the economic organization, and
are studied by political economists; the latter spring from the social
organization as a whole, and are usually regarded as outside the
province of economics.
I may illustrate these two sorts of conditions by considering the
pecuniary value of a work of art. Thus if a sculptor cannot sell his
product for a price commensurate with its merit, this may be because,
owing to lack of information, he has not come into touch with the
market, although the market may be a good one. He has not found the
group of buyers willing to pay what his work is worth. On the other
hand, it may be because, owing to social conditions involving a low
state of taste, there _is_ no such group.
The former phase of the matter, since it lies within the familiar
provinces of economics, I need not say much about. We all know that the
processes of competition and exchange do not correspond to the economic
ideal; that they are impaired by immobility, ignorance, monopoly, lack
of intelligent organization, and other well-known defects. How serious
these are, on the whole, I need not now inquire, but will pass on to
those considerations that go behind pecuniary demand, and indicate why
this is itself no trustworthy expression of the human values actually
working in the minds of men at a given time.
Most conspicuous among them, perhaps, is the factor of class. The
pecuniary market taken as a whole, with its elaborate system of money,
credit, bargaining, accounting, forecasting of demand, business
administration, and so on, involving numerous recondite functions,
requires the existence of a technical class, which stands in the same
relation to the pecuniary institution as the clergy, politicians,
lawyers, doctors do to other institutions; that is, they have an
intimate knowledge and control of the system which enables them to guide
its working in partial independence of the rest of society. They do this
partly to the end of public service and partly to their own private
advantage; all technical classes, in one way or another, exploiting the
institutions in their charge for their own aggrandizement. If the clergy
have done this, we may assume that other classes will also: indeed it is
mostly unconscious and involves no peculiar moral reproach. Much also is
done that cannot be called exploitation, which may greatly affect
values. The commercially ascendant class has not only most of the
tangible power, but the prestige and initiative which, for better or
worse, may be even more influential. It sets fashions, perhaps of fine
ideals, perhaps of gross dissipations, which permeate society and
control the market.
To this we must, of course, add the concentration of actual buying power
in the richer class, which is largely the same as the commercial class.
The general result is that psychical values, in the course of getting
pecuniary expression, pass through and are moulded by the minds of
people of wealth and business function to an extent not easily
overstated.
In close connection with this factor of class we have the existence of
certain legal institutions, of which the rights of inheritance and
bequest are the most conspicuous, that enormously aid the concentration
of pecuniary power, and hence of control over pecuniary values, in a
comparatively small group. However defensible these rights may be, all
things considered, it is the simple truth that the concentration and
continuity they appear to involve seriously discredit, in practice, all
theories of economic freedom, and make it necessary to look for the
pecuniary recognition of values largely to the good-will of the class
that has most of the pecuniary power. The view that the administration
of the value system can be in any sense democratic must rest, under
these conditions, upon the belief that democratic ideals will permeate
the class in question, in spite of its somewhat oligarchic position.
Let us not forget, however, that class-control, of some kind or degree,
lies in the nature of organization, so that its presence in the
pecuniary institution is nothing extraordinary. Whether, or in what
respects, it is an evil calling for reform, I shall not now consider.
Interwoven with the influence of class is that of the institutional
process, of the fact that pecuniary valuation works through an
established mechanism, and that it can translate into pecuniary terms
only such values as have conformed to certain conditions. In general,
values can be expressed in the market only as they have become the
object of extended recognition in some exchangeable form, and so of
regular pecuniary competition. To attain to this they must be felt in
the organized opinion of a considerable social group, from which the
competitors are to come, and they must also, in a measure, be
standardized; that is, the degrees and kinds of value must be defined,
so that regular and precise transactions are possible.
Suppose that we consider again the case of the sculptor, and assume that
he is a young man who has begun to produce statues of a high and unique
æsthetic worth. In order that these shall have a pecuniary value
adequate to their merit, it is not sufficient that here and there an
isolated critic or connoisseur shall be strongly impressed by them. Such
a situation does not establish a market: there must be discussion, a
continuous communicating group must arise, including connoisseurs and
wealthy amateurs subject to their influence, the merits of the painter
and of his several works must be in a manner conventionalized, so that
regular competition is set up and a continuous series of prices
established.
A better illustration, for some purposes, would be one in which the
social group includes both consumers and producers, the latter
stimulated by the appreciation of the group, and at the same time
contributing to it by expert leadership, the group as a whole thus
advancing both the type of values and its pecuniary standing. This might
be the case with the painter and his public, but perhaps expert
golf-players and the makers of golf-clubs would be a better example. I
suppose that the sport is socially organized, in the sense just
indicated, and that this enables a regular progress in function and in
its pecuniary recognition. The makers turn out better and better clubs
and get well paid for them. Almost any branch of applied science will
also afford good illustrations, as mechanical engineering, or the
manufacture of electrical apparatus.
Something of this kind must take place with all new values seeking
pecuniary expression. It is not enough that they are felt by
individuals, no matter how many, in a vague and scattered way: they must
achieve a kind of system.
To put it otherwise, _the progress of market valuation, as a rule, is a
translation into pecuniary terms of values which have already become, in
some measure, a social institution_. A new design in dress, no matter
how attractive, means nothing on the market until it has become the
fashion (or is believed to be in a way to become so); then you can
hardly buy anything else; and the principle is of wide application.
Inventions and discoveries, however pregnant, will commonly have no
market standing except as they have an evident power to contribute to
pecuniary values already established. If you write an original treatise
in some branch of science, you are lucky if it pays the cost of
publication, but if you can prepare a text-book that meets the
institutional demand for the same science, you may look for affluence.
Or, to apply the principle to the highest sphere of all, there is a
sense in which it is true that the greater a moral value is the less is
its pecuniary recognition. That is, if righteous innovation, the moral
heroism of the heretics who foreshadow better institutions, is the
greatest good, then the greater the good the less the pay. This is not
because moral value is essentially non-pecuniary—people will pay for
righteousness as readily, perhaps, as for anything else, when they feel
it as such, and when it presents itself in negotiable form—but because
pecuniary valuation is essentially an institution, and values which are
anti-institutional naturally stand outside of it.
A value that is standard in a powerful institution never fails, I think,
of pecuniary recognition. In a certain church a certain type of
clergyman can get a good salary: to understand why, you must study the
history of the institution.
You may say that this is contrary to the well-known fact that a high
premium is everywhere put upon initiative and originality. But if you
look closer you will find that these qualities, in order to be well
paid, must have a demonstrable power to enhance pecuniary values already
on the market. An advertising man with a genius for novel and
efficacious appeal may demand a great salary, but if he devotes the same
genius to radical agitation he may not be allowed to hold any job at
all. It is possible, no doubt, to extend considerably the means by which
fruitful originality is anticipated and pecuniary recognition prepared
for it, as is done, for example, in the endowment of research. The
trouble here is to provide any standard of originality which shall not
become conventional, and so, in practice, merely perpetuate an
institution. Even the endowment of research, like fellowships in
theological institutions, has in some degree this effect.
We hear a great deal nowadays to the effect that the values of scholars
and teachers lack pecuniary appreciation and security in the
universities, that boards of trustees do not understand the finer kinds
of merit and often use the funds under their control to employ men of
business or administrative capacity rather than in evoking or attracting
notable men of the type to further which universities exist; also that
men are under pressure (indirectly pecuniary) not to teach anything
repugnant to the ascendant commercialism, which the authorities
unconsciously represent. In so far as this is true the remedy would seem
to be to define and promote the type, to make clear in academic groups
and in public opinion what the higher merits are, so that every board
will be intelligently eager to secure them; in a word, to foster the
institution, in the highest sense, and insist that complete freedom of
function shall be a part of it.
So the question of social betterment, in terms of valuation, is largely
a question of imparting to the psychical values that we believe to
represent betterment such precision and social recognition as shall give
them pecuniary standing, and add the inducement of market demand to
whatever other forces may be working for their realization. There are,
of course, other methods which may be of equal or greater efficacy; but
this is one with which no reform can altogether dispense. Thus the
movement which is making “social work” a regular profession, with
definite requirements of capacity and training, established methods and
ideals, and a market price in the way of salaries for those that are
competent, is a momentous thing in this field. Not only does it mean
pecuniary recognition for the humanitarian value of individuals, but,
through the institution of a class having such values at heart, all
kinds of ideas and measures working in this direction are assured of
organized support. The new profession should do for its province what
the legal profession (in spite of shortcomings) does for justice, or the
medical for health. No doubt something is lost in passing from the
heroic innovator to the standard worker on a salary; but it is thus that
we get ahead, and that the way is opened for higher kinds of innovation.
If we wish a general term to bring out the antithesis between pecuniary
values and those which are high, psychically, but non-pecuniary, we may
call the latter _progress-values_. Progress-values, in this somewhat
arbitrary sense, would be those which are not yet incorporated into the
pecuniary institution, but which, because of their intrinsic worth to
human life, deserve to be, and presumably will be. As that takes place
they will, of course, cease to be progress-values, because the pecuniary
institution will have caught up with them. Such values, otherwise
regarded, may be æsthetic, scientific, moral, industrial; may in fact
pertain to any field of life which admits of progress. The labor-saving
invention which no one, as yet, is willing to pay for has an industrial
progress-value, and similarly with the paintings of Corot before the
appreciating group has made a market for them.
It will be understood that the more obvious examples of non-pecuniary
progress-values are to be expected in those social processes which are
remote from or opposed to the economic institution, so that pecuniary
recognition is correspondingly impeded. In literature, science, and
religion they are ever conspicuous (in retrospect, that is), and still
more so in what relates to those fundamental social reforms of which the
pecuniary system, as a part of the establishment, is the natural enemy.
I need hardly add that progress-values belong, like moral and æsthetic
values, among those which have power over the human spirit, but which,
for the very reason that they are not the expression of a definite
institution, cannot be precisely ascertained.
Probably the more flagrant shortcomings of market valuation at the
present time are due in part to a rather anarchic state of the economic
system itself, considered as a mechanism, but also, quite as much, to a
weakness and confusion in the higher kinds of organization, of which
economic demand should be the expression. The market is largely under
the control of two sorts of values, both of which may be called
anti-progressive: institutional values of a somewhat outworn and
obstructive kind, and human-nature values whose crudity reflects the
present lack among us of the finer kinds of culture groups and
disciplines. By outworn institutional values I mean, for example, the
ideals of pecuniary self-assertion and display which we get, at least in
their more extravagant forms, from the regnant commercialism; also the
ideals of a superficial refinement, expressing social superiority rather
than beauty, which we inherit from a society based on caste. Crude
human-nature values may be illustrated by the various forms of
sensuality and unedifying amusement for which we spend so lavishly. The
road to something higher, in both these regards, seems to lie through
the growth of such group disciplines as I have suggested.
We particularly need such disciplines in those fields of production
which are most distinctly economic in that they are most completely
within the control of the pecuniary institution—production, chiefly, of
material goods for the ordinary uses of life. At the present time
producers, in great part, are guided by no ideals of group function and
service, but merely by the commercial principle of making what they can
sell. This attitude is anti-progressive, however matter-of-course it may
seem, because the social group in performance of a given function is
primarily responsible for its betterment. A shoe-manufacturer is no more
justified in making the worst shoes he can sell than an artist in
painting the worst pictures. Only as we all idealize our functions can
progress-values come in. And the consumers, upon whom the commercial
principle throws the whole responsibility, also lack high standards, and
organized means of enforcing those they have. The whole situation, so
far as it is of this kind, tends to the degradation of quality.
Production has not always lacked ideals, nor does it everywhere lack
them at present. They come when the producing group gets a corporate
consciousness and a sense of the social worth of its function. The
mediæval guilds developed high traditions and standards of workmanship,
and held their members to them. They thought of themselves in terms of
service, and not merely as purveyors to a demand. In our time the same
is to some extent true of trades and professions in which a sense of
workmanship has been developed by tradition and training. Doctors and
lawyers are not content to give us what we want in their line, but hold
it their duty to teach us what we ought to want, to refuse things that
are not for our best good and urge upon us those that are. Artists,
teachers, men of letters, do the same. A good carpenter, if you give him
the chance, will build a better house than the owner can appreciate; he
loves to do it and feels obscurely that it is his part to realize an
ideal of sound construction. The same principle ought to hold good
throughout society, each functional group forming ideals of its own
function and holding its members to them. Consuming and producing groups
should co-operate in this matter, each making requirements which the
other might overlook. The somewhat anarchical condition that is now
common we may hope to be transitory. The general rule is that a stable
group has a tendency to create for itself ideals of service in accord
with the ruling ideals of society at large.
Perhaps we shall succeed in achieving the higher values only as we
embody them in a system of appealing images by the aid of art. We need
to _see_ society—see it beautiful and inspiring—as a whole and in its
special meaning for us, building up the conception of democracy until it
stands before us with the grandeur and detail of great architecture.
Then we shall have a source of higher values from which the pecuniary
channels, as well as others, will be fed.[74]
The societies of the past have done this in their own way; they have had
the state and the church, heroes, dignitaries, traditions and symbols, a
visible whole which engaged the devotion of men and served as the spring
of ideal values. Montesquieu, with his eyes on France, wrote that honor
was the principle of monarchy, which “sets all the parts of the body
politic in motion,” the fount of honor being the king, and its awards
depending, ideally, on public service, as that was understood at the
time. We must do it in a new way, our own democratic way; but it must be
done. There must be the ideals, the symbols, the devotion, the detailed
and cogent interpretation for every phase of life.
It is not hard to find going on about us examples of the way in which an
onward movement, expressing itself in any of the social institutions,
may pass thence into the pecuniary system. Consider, for instance, the
movement for vocational selection and specialized education in the
schools. It is evident that the spirit of our democracy is bent on
developing competent leadership and technical efficiency in all phases
of its higher life. As this idea becomes organized it creates a demand
for teachers and specialists of every sort which the growth of society
is seen to require, and prices are set upon their services high enough
to insure the supply. If the public mind sees the need of forestry, a
supply of trained foresters, sufficiently well paid, is presently at
hand. These in turn, acting as leaders, stimulate and guide public
opinion, and a growth of organization and of values takes place along
the line of vital impulse.
Of the same character is the rise and effectuation of an art spirit,
which we are witnessing. The public mind, somewhat weary of a monotonous
commercialism, has begun to turn, vaguely but resolutely, toward
æsthetic production and enjoyment. There are a hundred manifestations of
this, but none more significant than the rise of art-handicraft teaching
in the schools. No one can say how far this will go, but there is no
apparent reason why it should stop short of restoring that union of life
with art which our recent development has so generally destroyed. If so,
the effect in creating higher types of commercial value, in commodities
and in men, will be beyond estimate. The spirit of art makes men desire
to surround themselves with objects upon which the craftsman has
impressed a joyous personal feeling, precisely as the lover of
literature needs to surround himself with books of which this is true.
It is essentially a demand for personal expression, and implies a real,
though perhaps indirect, understanding between the workman and the
consumer. In so far, then, as it prevails it evokes a class of
handicraftsmen whose work is individual and inspiriting, partly
counteracting the deadening effect of wholesale and impersonal methods.
Thus there will come to be a growing number of independent and well-paid
men, many of them dealing directly with the consumer, engaged upon work
as delightful as any that life affords.
Wholesale production will doubtless continue, because of its economy,
but even as regards this we note that variety and personal interest in
the work are coming to have a market value as they are seen to promote
contentment and efficiency in the worker.
The whole matter of fashion, especially of fashion in dress, might well
be discussed from this point of view. Although it has been the subject
of futile satire and protest so long as to seem hopeless, it is not so
unless we are prepared to admit that we are incapable of a real
self-expression in this part of life. Competent leadership, along with
the general growth of æsthetic culture and democratic sentiment, should
make this possible.
It is plain, also, that in any plan of reform of values through demand
the mind of women must have a great part. In so far as this mind seems
at present to fluctuate between conventionalism and anarchy, the cause,
perhaps, is that it lacks the guidance and discipline that might come
from the better organization of women as a social group. The working of
this should be analogous to that of the professional groups I have
cited, and should have a like power to raise the quality of the
pecuniary values which women control. The critical question here is,
will women, under conditions of freedom, develop a group consciousness
of their own, with high ideals of each function and power to discipline
the less responsible of their sex. It is hard to see how modern
civilization can dispense with something of this kind. We seem to have
abandoned compulsory discipline, and self-discipline is much needed to
take its place—or rather to do what the other could never have done:
make women full participants in democratic progress.
As regards a better pecuniary valuation of men, the same principles
hold, in general, as for other kinds of pecuniary progress. It calls for
the development of service values, along with the social organization
necessary to appreciate and define these and secure for them pecuniary
recognition. No social manipulation can be trusted to make people pay
high prices for poor service, nor will good service secure an adequate
reward without social structure to back it. The natural process is one
of the concomitant development, through a continuing group, of service
values and pecuniary appreciation.
Certainly we need a scientific and thoroughgoing cultivation of personal
productive power. This should include the study of potential capacity in
children, vocational guidance, practical training, and social culture.
We require also a practical eugenics, which shall diminish the
propagation of degenerate types and perhaps apply more searching tests
to immigrants. We need, in short, a comprehensive “scientific
management” of mankind, to the end of better personal opportunity and
social function in every possible line. But inseparable from this is the
whole question of democratic social development through the state and
other institutions, every phase of which should tend to improve the
general position, and through that the market power, of the unprivileged
masses of the people.
To put it otherwise, the institutional forces supporting market values
vary not only in different occupation groups, but along lines of general
class position, and in the case of those classes that are handicapped by
an unfavorable economic situation the weakness of these forces offers an
urgent problem, which the labor movement, in the largest sense, is an
endeavor to solve.
I do not anticipate that the struggle of classes over pecuniary
distribution will go to any great extremes. It seems more probable that
facility of intercourse, democratic education, underlying community of
interest, and the large human spirit that is growing upon us, will
maintain a working solidarity. Common ideals of some sort will pervade
the whole people; and they cannot be ideals dictated by any one class.
They must be such as can be made acceptable to an intelligent democracy,
and will rule the minds of rich and poor alike; no class will be able to
shut them out. They will be violated, but only in the clandestine way
that all accepted principles are violated. Whoever has wealth, whoever
has power, I am inclined to think that the sway of the public mind will
be such as to insure the use of these, in the main, for what is regarded
as the common welfare.
In spite of the rank growth of many abuses, our society is comparatively
free from the more stubborn obstacles to democratic betterment. I mean
long-settled habits and traditions whose spirit is opposed to such
betterment. Our theory, our formal organization, our training, are all
favorable to rational democracy. The domination of a commercial class,
so far as it exists, is but a mushroom growth, and those who, to their
own surprise, find themselves exercising it, have no deep belief in its
justice or permanence. It is an economic fact, but not a tradition or a
faith. It is but a slight thing compared with the indurated mediævalism
and militarism of Europe. Our people have not only democratic ideals,
but a well-grounded faith in their ability to realize them.
_PART VII_
INTELLIGENT PROCESS
CHAPTER XXIX
INTELLIGENCE IN SOCIAL FUNCTION
INTELLIGENCE AS FORESIGHT—A TENTATIVE PROCESS—A PHASE OF THE SOCIAL
PROCESS—GROUP INTELLIGENCE—INTELLIGENT PROCESS INCLUDES THE WHOLE
MIND—ITS DRAMATIC CHARACTER—RELATION TO DRAMATIC LITERATURE—MODERN
ENLARGEMENT OF INTELLIGENT PROCESS
The test of intelligence is the power to act successfully in new
situations. We judge a man to be intelligent when we see that in going
through the world he is not guided merely by routine or second-hand
ideas, but that when he meets a fresh difficulty he thinks out a fresh
line of action appropriate to it, which is justified by its success. We
value the faculty because it does succeed, because in the changing world
of human life we feel a constant need for it. In animal existence, where
situations repeat themselves day after day, and generation after
generation, with practical uniformity, a successful method of behavior
may be worked out by unintelligent adaptation, and may become fixed in
instinct or habit, but the power to deal effectively with intricate and
shifting forces belongs to intelligence alone.
It is, then, essentially a kind of foresight, a mental reaction that
anticipates the operation of the forces at work and is prepared in
advance to adjust itself to them. How is this possible when the
situation is a new one whose working cannot have been observed in the
past?
The answer is that the situation is new only as a whole, and that it
always has elements whose operation is familiar. Intelligence is the
power to anticipate how these elements will work in a novel combination:
it is a power of grasp, of synthesis, of constructive vision.[75]
It does not dispense with experience. A man who can take hold of a new
undertaking and make it go will commonly be a man who has prepared
himself by previous undertakings of a similar character: the more
pertinent experience he has had the better. If he is opening a business
agency in a strange city he will require a general acquaintance with the
business, such as he might gain at the home office, and will do well
also to learn all he can in advance about the city into which he goes.
But beyond this he will need the power to take a fresh, understanding
view of the situation as he actually finds it, the state of the market,
the people with whom he deals and the like, so as to perceive their
probable working in relation to his own designs.
Intelligence, then, is based on memories, but makes a free and
constructive use of these, as distinguished from a mechanical use. By an
act of mental synthesis it grasps the new combination as a going whole
and foresees how it must work. It apprehends life through an inner
organizing process of its own, corresponding to the outward process
which it needs to interpret, but working in advance of the latter and
anticipating the outcome.
You might say that memory supplies us with a thousand motion-picture
films showing what has happened in given sets of circumstances in the
past. Now, when a new set of circumstances occurs the unintelligent mind
picks out a film that shows something in common with it and, expecting a
repetition of that film, guides its course accordingly. The intelligent
mind, however, surveying many old films, is content with none of them,
but by a creative synthesis imagines a new film answering more closely
to the new situation, and foreshowing more nearly what will happen. It
is a work of art, depicting what never was on sea or land, yet more like
the truth than anything actually experienced.
I conceive that no mechanical theory of intelligence can be other than
illusive. It is essentially a process of dealing with the unknown, of
discovery. After its operations have taken place they may, perhaps, be
formulated; but they can be predicted in advance only by the parallel
operation of another intelligence. Behavior which can be formulated in
advance is not, in any high sense, intelligent.
Even the intelligence, however, works by a tentative method; it has to
feel its way. Its superiority lies in the fewness and effectiveness of
its experiments. Our mental staging of what is about to happen is almost
never completely true, but it approaches the truth, in proportion as we
are intelligent, so that our action comes somewhere near success, and we
can the more easily make the necessary corrections. Napoleon did not
always foresee how military operations would work out, but his prevision
was so much more nearly correct than that of other generals that his
rapid and sure experiments led to almost certain victory. In a similar
manner Darwin felt his way among observations and hypotheses, proving
all things and holding fast what was good, going slowly but surely up a
road where others could make no headway at all. It is the same, I
believe, with composers, sculptors, painters, and poets: their
occasionally rapid accomplishment is the fruit of a long discipline in
trial and error.
This selection and organization in the intelligent mind is also a
participation in the social process. As the mental and the social are
merely phases of the same life, this hardly needs proof, but an
illustration will do no harm.
Suppose, then, I am considering whether to send my son away from home to
a certain college. Here is a problem for my intelligence, and it is also
a social problem, a situation in a drama wherein my son and I and others
are characters, my aim being to understand and guide its development so
that it may issue as I wish. I bring before my mind all that I have been
able to learn about the teachers at the college, the traditions and
surrounding influences, as well as the disposition and previous history
of the boy, striving all the time to see how things will develop if I do
send him, and how this will be related to my own wishes for his welfare.
The better I can do this the more likely I am to act successfully in the
premises. The whole procedure is a staging in my mind of a scene in the
life of society.
The process that goes on in a case like this is the work not only of my
own private mind but of a social group. My information comes to me
through other people, and they share in forming my ideas. Quite probably
I discuss the matter with my friends; certainly with my wife: it may be
matter for a family council. Intelligence works through a social
process.
It is easy, then, to pass from what seems to be an act of merely private
intelligence through a series of steps by which it becomes distinctly
public or societal. The deliberations of a family council differ only in
continuity of organization from those of a wide nation, with newspapers,
legislatures, and an ancient constitution. There is nothing exclusively
individual about intelligence. It is part of our social heritage,
inseparably bound up with communication and discussion, and has always
functioned for that common life which embraces the most cogent interests
of the individual. The groups in which men have lived—the family, the
tribe, the clan, the secret society, the village community, and so on to
the multiform associations of our own time—have had a public
intelligence, working itself out through discussion and tradition, and
illuminating more or less the situations and endeavors of the group.
It is, indeed, a chief function of the institutions of society to
provide an organization on the basis of which public intelligence may
work effectively. They preserve the results of past experiment and
accumulate them about the principal lines of public endeavor, so that
intelligence working along these lines may use them. They supply also
specialized symbols, traditions, methods of discussion and decision, for
industry, science, literature, government, art, philosophy and other
departments of life. The growth of intelligence and the growth of a
differentiated social system are inseparable.
The movement of this larger or public intelligence is a social process
of somewhat the same character as the less conscious processes. It is
tentative, adaptive, has periods of conflict and of compromise, and
results in progressive organization. The difference is just that it is
more intelligent; that thinking and planning and forecasting play a
greater part in it, and that there is not so much waste and
misdirection. Its development requires a special psychological method,
including the initiation of ideas, discussion, modification, and
decision; which of course is absent on the lower plane of life.
It is essential, if we are to have a public intelligence, that
individuals should identify themselves with the public organism and
think from that point of view. If there is no consciousness of the whole
its experiments and adaptations cannot be truly intelligent, because, as
a whole, it makes no mental synthesis and prevision. A society of
“economic men,” that is, of men who regarded all questions only from the
standpoint of their individual pecuniary loss or gain, could never be an
intelligent whole. If it worked well, as economists formerly believed
that it would, this would be an unforeseen and unintended result, not a
direct work of intelligence. In fact, during the nineteenth century
England and America went largely upon the theory that a general
intelligence and control were unnecessary in the economic sphere—with
the result that all competent minds now perceive the theory to be false.
On the other hand, the act of larger intelligence need not take place
all at once or in the mind of only one individual. It is usually
co-operative and cumulative, the work of many individuals, all of them,
in some measure, thinking from the point of view of the whole and
building up their ideas and endeavors in a continuing structure.
Thus it may be said that in all modern nations the political life is
partly intelligent, because none of them, perhaps, is without a line of
patriots who, generation after generation, identify their thoughts with
the state, discuss aims and methods with one another, and maintain a
tradition of rational policy. It is so with any organism which attracts
the allegiance of a continuous group. The church, as a whole and in its
several branches, has a corporate intelligence maintained in this way,
and so have the various sciences; also, in a measure, political parties,
the fine arts, and the more enduring forms of industrial organization.
Human nature likes to merge itself in great wholes, and many a
corporation is served, better, perhaps, than it deserves, by men who
identify their spirits with it.
It would be a false conception of intelligence to regard it as something
apart from sentiment and passion. It is, rather, an organization of the
whole working of the mind, a development at the top of a process which
remains an interrelated whole. This is true of its individual aspect;
for our sentiments and passions furnish in great part the premises with
which intelligence works; they are the pigments, so to speak, with which
we paint the picture. And so with the collective aspect; discussion is
far more than an interchange of ideas; it is also an interaction of
feelings, which are sometimes conveyed by words and sometimes by
gesture, tones, glances of the eye, and by all sorts of deeds. The
obscure impulses that pass from man to man in this way have quite as
much to do with the building of the collective mind as has explicit
reasoning. The whole psychic current works itself up by complex
interaction and synthesis. And the power of collective intelligence in a
people is not to be measured by dialectic faculty alone; it rests quite
as much upon those qualities of sense and character which underlie
insight, judgment, and belief. Intelligence, in the fullest sense, is
wisdom, and wisdom draws upon every resource of the mind.
There is no way of telling whether a people is capable of intelligent
self-direction except by observing that they practise it. It may be true
that certain races or stocks do not have political capacity in
sufficient measure to meet the needs of modern organization, and will
fail to produce stable and efficient societies. It is a matter of
experiment, and our more optimistic theories may prove to be unsound.
For similar reasons no dividing-line can be drawn between what is
intelligent and what is ethical, however clearly they may be separated
in particular cases. That is, the intelligent view of situations is a
synthetic view which, if it is only synthetic enough, embracing in one
whole all the human interests at stake, tends to become an ethical view.
Righteousness is the completest intelligence in action, and we are
constantly finding that what appears intelligent to a narrow state of
mind is quite the opposite when our imaginations expand to take in a
wider range of life. There can be an unmoral kind of intelligence which
is very keen in its way, as, for that matter, there can be an
unintelligent kind of morality which is very conscientious in its way;
but the two tend to coincide as they become more complete. The question
of our higher development is all one question, of which the intellectual
and moral sides are aspects. We get on by forming intelligent ideals of
right, which are imaginative reconstructions and anticipations of life,
based upon experience. And in trying to realize these ideals we initiate
a new phase of the social process, which goes on through the usual
interactions to a fresh synthesis.
It seems that intelligence, as applied to social life, is essentially
dramatic in character. That is, it deals with men in all their human
complexity, and is required to forecast how they will act in relation to
one another and how the situation as a whole will work out. The most
intelligent man is he who can most adequately dramatize that part of the
social process with which he has to deal. If he is a social worker
dealing with a family he needs not only to sympathize with the members
individually, but to see them as a group in living interaction with one
another and with the neighbors, so that he may know how any fresh
influence he may bring to bear will actually work. If he is the
labor-manager of a factory he must have insight to see the play of
motive going on among the men, their attitude toward their work, toward
the foreman and toward the “office,” the whole group-psychology of the
situation. In the same way a business man must see a proposed
transaction as a living, moving whole, with all the parties to it in
their true human characters. I remember talking with an investigator for
one of the great commercial agencies who told me that in forming his
judgment of the reliability of a merchant he made a practice, after an
interview with him, of imagining him in various critical situations and
picturing to himself how such a man would behave—of dramatizing him. I
think that we all do this in forming our judgments of people.
Or what is the stock-market but a continuous drama, successful
participation in which depends upon the power to apprehend some phase of
it as a moving whole and foresee its tendency? And so with
statesmanship; the precise knowledge of history or statistics will
always and rightly be subordinate to the higher faculty of inspired
social imagination.
The literary drama, including fiction and whatever other forms have a
dramatic character, may be regarded as intelligence striving to
interpret the social process in art. It aims to present in
comprehensible form some phase of that cyclical movement of life which
otherwise is apt to seem unintelligible.
When the curtain rises we perceive, first of all, a number of persons,
charged with character and reciprocal tendency, each one standing for
something and all together constituting a dynamic situation. We feel
ourselves in the stress of life; conflict is implicit and expectation
aroused. The play proceeds and the forces begin to work themselves out;
there are interactions, mutual incitements and adjustments, with a
development both of persons and of the situation at large. At length the
interacting powers arrange themselves more or less distinctly about a
central question, and presently ensues that struggle for which our
expectation is strung; some decisive clash of human forces, which
satisfies our need to see the thing fought out, and releases our
excitement, to subside, perhaps, in reflection. And presently we have
the _dénouement_, a final and reconciling situation, a completer and
more stable organization of the forces that were implicit in the
beginning.
Conflict is the crisis of drama, as it is of the social process, and
there is hardly any great literature, whether dramatic in form or not,
which is not a literature of conflict. What would be left of the Bible
if you took away all that is inspired by it; from the Psalms, for
instance, all echoes of the struggles of Israel with other nations, of
upper with lower classes, or of the warring impulses within the mind of
the singer? The power of the story of Jesus centres about his faith, his
courage, his lonely struggle, his apparent failure, which is yet felt to
be a real success—the Cross. And so one might take Homer, Dante,
Shakespeare’s tragedies, Faust, as well as a thousand works of the
second order, finding conflict at the heart of all. Without this we are
not greatly moved.
Each type of society has particular forms of the drama setting forth
what it apprehends as most significant in its own life. Savages
dramatize battle and the chase, while plays of our own time depict the
conflict of industrial classes, of old ideas and conventions with new
ones, and of the individual with circumstances. The love game between
the sexes—a sort of conflict however you look at it—is of perennial
interest.
Forms like the play and the novel should be the most effective agents of
social discussion; and, in fact, the more searching, in a social and
moral sense, are the questions to be discussed, the more these forms are
in demand. In an ordinary political campaign, where there is little at
issue beyond a personal choice of candidates or some clash of pecuniary
interests, the usual appeals through newspaper editorials, interviews,
and speeches may suffice. But when people begin to be exercised about
really fundamental matters, such as the ethics of marriage, the
ascendancy of one social class over another, the contact of races or the
significance of vice and crime, they show a need to see these matters
through novels and plays. The immense vogue of literature of this sort
in recent years is good democracy; in no other way is it possible to
present such questions with so much of living truth, and yet so
simplified as to make a real impression.
In recent time there has been a great enlargement of the intelligent
process, which will doubtless continue in the future. As regards
mechanism, this is based on the extension and improvement of
communication, of printing, telegraphy, rapid travel, illustration, and
the like. These disseminate information and make a wider and quicker
discussion possible. At the same time there appears to have been an
advance in the power of organized intelligence to interpret life and
bring sound judgment to bear upon actual situations. No one would
dispute the truth of this as regards our dealings with the material
world, nor is there much doubt that it is in some degree true in the
sphere of social relations. We understand better how life works and
should be able to impress a more rational and humane character on the
whole process. At any rate this, I suppose, is what we are all striving
for.
But no achievement of this sort is likely to affect the preponderance of
the unintelligible. You might liken society to a party of men with
lanterns making their way by night through an immeasurable forest. The
light which the lanterns throw about each individual, and about the
party as a whole, showing them how to guide their immediate steps, may
increase indefinitely, illuminating more clearly a larger area; but
there will always remain, probably, the plutonian wilderness beyond.
CHAPTER XXX
THE DIVERSIFICATION AND CONFLICT OF IDEAS
DIVERSIFICATION IN SPECIAL GROUPS—DEMOCRACY VERSUS UNIFORMITY—FREEDOM
OF PROPOSAL AND DISCUSSION—THE VALUE OF PARTIAL
ISOLATION—IMMIGRATION—ORGANIC SELECTION OF IDEAS—IDEAS THAT DO NOT
FIT—TRANSIENT ERRORS—THE HARMFUL NOT ALWAYS ELIMINATED—THE
STRUGGLE OF IDEAS IN A TIME OF TRANSITION—GETTING DOWN TO
PRINCIPLES
The movement of intelligence in large social wholes is an intricate
organic process, in which many types of men participate, and also many
traditions and environments under the influence of which these types of
men are formed. From these diverse points of view come forecasts and
experiments in various directions, accompanied by a general process of
discussion in which all points of view are modified and a fresh
synthesis is worked out. Thus we think our way along from one stage to
another.
Accordingly, every group needs to have what we call in the individual “a
fertile mind”; so that, as new situations arise, a goodly number of
intelligent ideas may spring up to meet them, out of which the best
lines of action may be evolved through the usual methods of discussion
and trial. Thus, if a group of boys have to camp in a rocky place where
no tent-stakes can be driven, their success in putting up the tent will
depend upon having among their number those whose ingenuity or
experience will suggest good plans for using stones or logs instead of
stakes.
We need, then, to encourage the growth of special lines of tradition and
association in order that we may have expert guidance. So biologists may
suggest plans for improving the breed of animals and the quality and
yield of crops, bankers schemes of finance, and men trained in the labor
movement methods of conciliation. We cannot expect to reach high levels
of intelligence except through the medium of functional groups which, by
some adequate process of selection and training have come to represent
as nearly as may be the highest attainable faculty in a given direction.
These groups must be small, because there must be many of them and
because the members must be specially qualified; but there is nothing
undemocratic in them. Indeed the more democratic they are, that is, the
more selection is based on fair play and equal opportunity, the more
efficient they should be. It is essential, however, that they should
have a continuous organization, making possible a group spirit and a
regular development through tradition and discussion. There is no reason
why democracy should not express itself through such groups at least as
successfully as any other form of society.
Indeed few things are more obstructive of the understanding and
development of democracy than the popular idea of it as a uniform mass
of individuals without lasting group distinctions. If it is to work well
it must become differentiated into functional parts, although admission
to these, after suitable training, must be kept open. The conception of
a vast, level proletariat, which is to work out a uniform social system
on the principle of the greatest good to the greatest number is not only
repellent to all who look toward a richly diversified culture, but is
far from according with the probable development of democracy. Democracy
is primarily an increase of consciousness and personal choice in the
social system, which cannot take place except through the growth of
diversity. The higher organic life is based upon systematic
differentiation, and if differences are functional and adaptive the more
we have of them the better. If our democracy is somewhat uniform, this
is a defect which time, let us hope, will remedy.
I believe in democracy, but not in the philosophy by which it has often
been justified. It appeals to me as on the whole the best means of
enfranchising the human spirit and giving sway to those tendencies and
persons which, being truly strong in a higher sense, are fit to prevail.
I expect that a real democracy will prove to be a true aristocracy, in
which leadership will fall to those fit by nature and training to
exercise it, though I trust also to the sense and sentiment of the
masses. I doubt whether God is equally represented in all men, as some
maintain, though I believe that the men who represent him more than
others are as likely to be found in a lower social class as in a higher.
The encouragement of recognized lines of special thought is by no means
sufficient. It is equally important that we have the utmost freedom of
proposal and discussion for projects originating in unforeseen and
unaccredited quarters. The specialist, whether lawyer, economist,
biologist, business man, minister, socialist, anarchist, or what-not,
is, after all, likely to be an expression of what has already been
worked out, an organ of the institution, not confronting the new
situation in the naïve and unbiased manner which may give value to the
views of people of inferior training.
And, moreover, fruitful originality may come quite as much from urgent
contact with the situation as from more general knowledge. Workmen in
the shop have suggested innumerable improvements which the designer in
his office would never have thought of; and practicable ideas of
economic and social betterment originate largely with those who have
most reason to feel the wrong of the actual condition of things. At any
rate their point of view is essential to the formulation of a good plan,
and should have every facility to impress itself upon the general
process of thought.
The question of free speech is surrounded by a kind of illusion, as a
result of which we think of it as a matter that was important in the
past, and still is, perhaps, in other circles of society, but is not so
in our own environment. We are confident, if we think of the matter at
all, that we are not interfering with free speech, nor are any of those
other liberal-minded people our friends and associates.
But this is what people have always believed. We know how humane and
broad-minded the Emperor Marcus Aurelius was, and also how he regretted
the turbulence of the Christians and the severity he felt compelled to
use toward them—the same occurrences which have come down to us in the
Christian tradition as martyrdoms. Torquemada, of the Spanish
Inquisition, was a humane and liberal-minded man in his own view and
that of his associates, and so were the burners of witches, the German
officials in Belgium, and indeed nearly all of those we look upon as
persecutors.
The plain truth is that we are all engaged with more or less energy in
endeavoring to force upon others those modes of thought and behavior
which we, as a result of our habit and environment, have come to look
upon as decent and necessary. This is all that Torquemada did, and we,
as I say, are doing no less. The main difference is that we have become
more humane in our methods of suppression, and even somewhat aware,
vaguely and intermittently, of the illusion of which I speak, so that we
are inclined to admit, especially in matters remote from ourselves, the
importance of insisting upon freedom of speech.
It is indeed a matter for eternal vigilance and courage, not only in
resisting the unconscious encroachments of others but in keeping our own
minds open and tolerant. The question is a very real one in American
universities, where ideas that shock prevalent habits of thought can
hardly be advocated without resisting social and academic pressure, and,
perhaps, endangering one’s position, or advancement that might otherwise
be expected. This was true thirty or forty years ago as regards the
doctrine of evolution; it was true quite recently as regards socialism;
it is true now of other social and economic heresies, such as
birth-control, pacifism, or what-not, that in time may become entirely
respectable.
The need of tolerance has been greatly increased by the rise of a social
system which aims to be intelligent, recognizes change as rational, and
seeks to guide it by discussion. Under an older régime, as in the Middle
Ages, the prevalent doctrine was that there could be but one right way
of thinking and that others must be suppressed. And in a society not
organized for discussion there was more truth in this than the modern
reader of history is apt to admit. A thousand years ago freedom of
religious teaching, for example, would probably have resulted in
doctrinal and moral anarchy. Innumerable conflicting sects would have
sprung up, and there was no general organization of thought vigorous
enough to keep them within limits or maintain a voluntary unity. In
this, as in many other fields, we can dispense with a compulsory
discipline because we have developed one which is spontaneous: formerly,
if there was to be a moral whole it had to be authoritative. Even now
this is more or less true of unenlightened populations, and it is only
along with a campaign for enlightenment that we can safely demand
freedom of speech.
It is essential to the intelligent conduct of society that radical
groups, however small and unpopular, should develop and express their
views. Their proposals do good by forcing the discussion of principles
and so leading to an illumination otherwise impossible. The large and
moderate parties have a conforming tendency and usually differ but
little in principles, if indeed they are conscious of these at all. But
the radical programme is a challenge to thought, and can hardly fail to
be educative. For some time past the Socialists have been of the utmost
service in this way, and round their searching theories of human
betterment discussion has largely centred. I have often been impressed
by their value as a factor in clarifying the minds of college students.
Such theories are like the occupation of an advanced post by a
detachment of an army: they push forward the line of battle even if the
position occupied does not, in the long run, prove tenable. We easily
overlook the fact that an honest project is seldom wholly wrong, and
that even if it is there may be profit in discussing it.
The value of partial isolation as a factor in social intelligence is not
often recognized in a democracy, where, under the sway of the
brotherhood idea, we commonly assume that we cannot see too much of one
another. But if we are to have a rich organization of thought, including
many types of men, each good of its kind, we must have a corresponding
diversity of environments in which these types of men may get their
nurture. The culture of individuality, the need of which we are
beginning to recognize, cannot go far except as we also foster
distinctive groups. We need many kinds of family, of school, of church,
of community, of occupational and culture associations, each with a
tradition and spirit of its own.
There is much to be said in favor of our schools and universities
entering heartily into the lives of the communities that surround them;
but if the communities are of a spirit hostile or indifferent to culture
they may, and partly do, submerge the latter in their own barbarism. The
democratization of higher traditions must be on a plane of militant
leadership, not of concession, or it is pernicious. Better a real
culture, though in monasteries, than a general vulgarization.
The same considerations may serve to qualify our democratic criticism of
hereditary wealth and of the class differences based upon it. The man
with an inherited competence is in a position to separate himself from
the rush of competition enough to make a fresh estimate of things, and
to use his independence as a fulcrum for starting a new movement. No
doubt the great majority fail to do this; it requires other
qualifications than pecuniary; still, much fruitful initiative in
science, art, literature and social reform has in fact been supplied by
people having this advantage, and until we provide for leisure and
independence in some other way the argument for hereditary wealth will
have force. In the same way the finest ideals of life and conduct—as
distinguished, possibly, from the highest ideals—have often been the
tradition of an upper class, upon which their continuance depended. If
we are to dispense with upper classes we must at the same time provide
for continuous culture groups of a more democratic sort.
It is much the same with national variation as with that of individuals
and groups. Bagehot, in the earliest and perhaps the ablest attempt to
apply Darwinism to society, pointed out that “all great nations have
been prepared in privacy and in secret. They have been composed far away
from all distraction. Greece, Rome, Judea, were framed each by itself,
and the antipathy of each to men of different race and different speech
is one of their most marked peculiarities, and quite their strongest
common property.”[76] In modern life, however, as nations come to share
consciously and with good-will in a common organic life, this
differentiation should not be one of isolation or antipathy, but of
pride in a distinctive contribution to the higher life of the world. I
need hardly add that the independence and individuality of small
nations—which has seemed to be threatened—is essential to the general
good.
Immigration is another topic that might well be considered from the
standpoint of variety of ideas. We need as many kinds of people as
possible, provided they are good kinds, because their various
temperaments and capacities enrich our life. This seems true
biologically, as regards diversity of natural stocks, and applies also
to the ideals and habits of thought that immigrants bring with them. Our
self-esteem naturally depreciates these contributions, but it is fairly
clear that after a long course of pioneer life and crude industrialism
we are in a position to profit by culture elements that even the
peasantry of an older civilization may supply. The Slavs, Italians,
Jews, and others who have recently come to America in such numbers have
many things to learn from us, but beyond doubt they have also much to
teach.
Certainly it is a mistake to attempt to suppress foreign customs or
languages by any kind of coercion. It is true that a common language, at
least, is necessary to assimilation, but this will come naturally if our
social attitude is hospitable and our schools efficient. Moreover, a too
sudden or compulsory break with the past is a bad thing, impairing
self-respect and stability of character. Those who cherish what is best
in the old life will make all the better members of the new. Such
trouble as we have had with our immigrants, in regard to assimilation,
is almost negligible, compared with the complete failure of harsher
methods in Europe.
The larger discussion involves a struggle for survival among innumerable
ideas, springing from the innumerable diversities of person, class, and
situation. One naturally inquires what causes some of these ideas to
survive and prevail rather than others. What makes the success or
failure of a principle or a project?
Some writers will answer this question for us by pointing to specific
factors which they think are decisive—though they by no means agree as
to what these are—but I take it that the determining agent is nothing
less than the total situation, which we must grasp as a whole in order
to see the trend of things. The life of an idea depends upon the degree
and manner of its working in the actual complex state of the mind of the
people, consisting largely of impulses, habits, and traditions whose
sources are remote and obscure. Take, for example, the change in our
ideas regarding the functions and problems of women, indicated by the
contrast between the literature of the nineteenth century and that of
to-day. Certain reasons can be given for it, such as the growing
self-dependence and class-consciousness of women, their employment in
modern industry and the popularization of social and biological science.
These and many other elements are worked up by discussion, producing an
atmosphere in which the conventions of fifty years ago seem prudish and
absurd. A novel, a play, or a social programme will succeed now which
our fathers and mothers would have suppressed.
I doubt whether rules can be formulated which will help us much in
interpreting the state of the social mind and predicting what success a
given proposition will have. The attempts which have been made in this
direction, such as those of Tarde in his _Logique sociale_, seem to me
mechanical and unilluminating. If we accept the view that the higher
intelligence is a complex imaginative synthesis, there is little reason
for expecting help from such rules. What is necessary is that the
interpreter and prophet shall have the knowledge and vision to reproduce
in himself the essential influences of the time, and so, by a dramatic
process, carry on the movement in his imagination and foresee the
outcome. No formula of psychological selection will be of much use. Life
is not subject to such formulas.
If an idea is quite incapable of working in the actual situation, if
there is no soil in which it can grow, people will take no interest in
it, it will not “take hold” anywhere, but come and go as a mere flitting
impression, not even achieving definite statement. It is certain that
ideas not infrequently occur to men which will later be esteemed as
great truths, but are rejected by those to whom they occur because they
do not kindle in the actual trend of thought. This was the case with the
Darwinian idea of development through the survival of the fittest;
several persons who are known, and probably others who are not known,
having seen it vaguely long before Darwin, and it came to power only
when the situation was ripe.
It is particularly true of social and moral ideals, since these are
never novel or obscure in themselves, but are old thoughts renewed and
illuminated from time to time by successive waves of faith. The
Christian conception of a society of brothers with God as a loving
father, is probably older than civilization, and can never have been far
from men’s desires. The case is much the same with the idea of
democracy, with Rousseau’s idea of the nobility of human nature and the
depravity of institutions, and with Kant’s moral imperative.
Even if an idea impresses an individual here and there it can hardly
hold its ground without some kind of group support. Thus Hamerton says
of the development of ideas in art: “The taste and knowledge of their
contemporaries usually erect impassable barriers around artists. If
there is no feeling or desire for a certain order of truth on the part
of the public, the artist will have no stimulus to study that order of
truth; nay, if he does study and render it, he will incur insult and
abuse, and be thereby driven back into the line of subject and treatment
which his contemporaries understand.”[77]
However, an idea that gets possession of even one individual so that he
will formulate and defend it cannot be said to have failed. It takes its
part in the larger discussion, and, however contumeliously rejected, it
will leave some impress upon the ideas that are accepted. And the stone
that the builders reject may prove to be the cornerstone of to-morrow’s
edifice.
Educated men are often alarmed by the spread of superficial doctrines
which have a timely appeal to passion or interest, and seem likely to
sweep the people off their feet and into disaster. It is normal in the
history of the United States, or of any country where there is some
freedom of speech, that there should be a numerous party of radicals
advocating some social or economic heresy like populism, free silver,
revolutionary socialism, anarchism, or the like. And indeed we sometimes
narrowly escape being swamped by these waves of unreason.
But if the doctrine is really superficial it is likely to prove
transient. As time goes on people have opportunity to experiment with
it, usually on a small scale, and if they are fairly intelligent and
their social condition not desperately bad this gives rise to a sounder
judgment. In the meantime the particular situation which gave impetus to
the doctrine is likely to have changed, as the free-silver agitation,
for example, was undermined by the increased production of gold and the
advent of higher prices.
Another way by which unwise propositions tend to be eliminated is what
may be called cancellation. The multitude of frothy schemes that secure
a following might well discourage us did we not reflect that they are as
antagonistic to one another as they are to good sense, so that the net
resultant may be zero. If we have, on the one hand, extreme anarchists
who would break down all discipline, we have, on the other,
collectivists who would take away all freedom. It is in the very nature
of error to lack adaptability to the rest of life, so that it cannot
well form large wholes. The saying that no combination of wise men could
resist a combination of all the fools does not show much insight at the
best, and may be answered by saying that those who combine effectively
cannot be fools, since they are meeting one of the most exacting tests
of intelligence.
We cannot assert, however, that harmful ideas are necessarily eliminated
and that only the beneficial survive. All that we can say with
confidence in this direction is that social organisms are subject to a
struggle, and in order to survive have to exhibit a certain measure of
efficiency, or power to meet the struggle. If they have a long life it
shows that ideas and practices injurious with reference to the struggle
have been kept within limits. If we go beyond this and assert an onward
and upward tendency in life we must, I think, rely finally upon faith
rather than demonstration to support our belief.
Much that has shown a vigorous power of survival all through history we
believe to be harmful, as, for example, drink, prostitution, and many
forms of superstition. Scarcely anything has swept over the world more
triumphantly than the tobacco habit, which, to say the least, is under
suspicion. Professor Keller reminds us that there are such things as
harmful _mores_, and he instances a number of customs relating to
marriage that are clearly of this kind.[78] The scruples of the people
of India about killing poisonous snakes result in an immense increase of
these animals, and of human deaths. Many of the ancient beliefs
surviving in backward parts of our own country regarding the sowing of
crops only when the “sign of the moon” is favorable, and the like, are
of a similar nature.
The fact that extremes of riches and poverty, subjection of women and
domination of one class over another have existed throughout history is
no proof that such conditions are innocuous, but merely that they have
not been so destructive as to prevent survival. And, in general, we may
say of the social system that comes down to us from the past that, while
as a whole and in its longer tested parts it has proved capable of life,
we have no reason to think that this life is of the highest kind
practicable.
In a time of rapid change the struggle of ideas becomes both more
intense and more confused. The social whole is in somewhat the position
of a man who has been thrown out of his old occupation and is trying to
establish himself in a new one: many questions press upon him at once,
while the rules and habits he has been used to go by do not suit the
changed conditions. In a more settled time there are traditional beliefs
which serve as accepted standards of judgment—as the Scriptures or the
writings of the Fathers have served in the history of the church. But in
our own period—though we are no doubt too much in it to judge truly of
its character—it seems that hardly any authority remains, that we have
to create the law as well as make decisions under it.
The effort of intelligence to find a rational course in such a time
results in a somewhat anarchic conflict of diverse interpretations.
Extreme views of many sorts are urged, and there is no accredited
arbiter to decide among them.
“And a vast noise of rights, wrongs, powers, needs,
—Cries of new faiths that called ‘This way is plain,’
Grindings of upper against lower greeds,
Fond sighs for old things, shouts for new,—did reign.”[79]
In the midst of this the ordinary individual, who has no taste for
complex thought but longs only for peace with honor, is often in a sad
condition. He is like the little neutral country caught up into the
struggle of contending Powers and overrun by all of them, unable to
stand alone or to find a sure support.
But the more deeply the ground is rent the more fundamental are the
truths revealed. A conflict that destroys accepted principles almost
certainly brings to light others that are more general and permanent,
because after all life is rational, it seems, and the social mind, when
pushed to it, has usually been able to discover as much of this
rationality as it really needed. As regards religious belief we can
already see that ideas of a scope and depth that few could have attained
fifty years ago are now becoming domesticated in every-day thought. The
conflict in this field has resulted in the perception that none of the
contending creeds and forms is essential, but that the permanently human
and divine reality, not confined in any formulation, creates new
expression for itself along with the general growth of life.
Indeed it would seem that the struggles of the age have given us at
least one principle which change cannot easily overthrow; the principle,
namely, that life itself is a process rather than a state; so that we no
longer expect anything final, but look to discover in the movement
itself sufficient matter for reason and faith.
CHAPTER XXXI
PUBLIC OPINION AS PROCESS[80]
PUBLIC OPINION AN ORGANIC PROCESS RATHER THAN A CONSENSUS—DECISION—THE
SIGNIFICANCE OF MINORITIES
Public opinion, if we wish to see it as it is, should be regarded as an
organic process, and not merely as a state of agreement about some
question of the day. It is, in truth, a complex growth, always
continuous with the past, never becoming simple, and only partly unified
from time to time for the sake of definite action. Like other phases of
intelligence, it is of the nature of a drama, many characters taking
part in a variegated unity of action. The leaders of the day, not only
in politics but in every field, the class groups—capitalists,
socialists, organized labor, professional men, farmers and the like—the
various types of radicals and reactionaries; all these are members of an
intricate, progressing whole. And it is a whole for the same reason that
a play is, because the characters, though divergent and often
conflicting, interact upon one another and create a total movement which
the mind must follow by a total process. For practical uses as well as
for adequate thinking this conception is better than the idea of public
opinion as agreement. It aims to see the real thing, the developing
thought of men, in its genesis and tendencies, and with a view to its
probable operation.
The view that we have no public opinion except when, and in so far as,
people agree, is a remnant of that obsolete social philosophy which
regarded individuals as normally isolated, and social life as due to
their emerging partly from this isolation and coming together in certain
specific ways. It is this habit of thought, apparently, that makes it
difficult for most persons to understand that a group which has maturely
thought over and discussed a matter arrives at a public opinion
regarding it whether the members agree or not. That is, the mental
process has developed about the matter in question and there has come to
be a unity of action, as in a play, which insures that, however opinions
may differ, they make parts of a whole, each having helped to form all
the others. No one would deny unity of action to Macbeth because the
characters are various and conflicting; if they were not, the unity
would be too mechanical to be of interest; and so would it be with
opinion if it attained any such uniformity as is sometimes supposed.
It is true that a process of opinion can hardly exist without a certain
underlying like-mindedness, sufficient for mutual understanding and
influence, among the members of the group; if they are separated into
uncommunicating sections the unity of action is lost. Race difference
may do this (largely, perhaps, by making men think they are more unlike
than they are), religious division has done it, also traditional
hostility, as where one nation has subjugated another, and even social
caste. But communicated differences are the life of opinion, as
cross-breeding is of a natural stock.
The main argument for basing the idea of public opinion upon agreement
is that this is the only method of decision and consequently of action;
which is what all is for; in other words, that it is only as agreement
that opinion can function.
It is true that decision is a phase of the utmost importance,
corresponding to choice in the individual, and that the whole process of
attention, discussion, and democratic organization is, in a sense, a
preparation for it. It is equally true, however, that it is only a
partial and often a superficial act, involving compromise and adjusted
to a particular contingency. A real understanding of the human mind,
both in its individual and public aspects, requires that it be seen in
the whole process, of which majorities and decisions are but transient
phases. The choice of to-day is important; but the inchoate conditions
which are breeding the choices to come are at least equally so. We shall
be interested to find whether Democrats or Republicans win the next
election; but how much more interesting it would be to know what obscure
group of non-conformers is cherishing the idea that will prevail twenty
years from now.
The organic view seems to be the only one that does justice to the
significance of minorities. If you think of agreement as the essential
thing they appear as mere remnants, refractory and irreconcilable
factions of no great importance. But if you have an eye for organic
development, it is obvious that minorities, even small ones, may be the
most pregnant factors in the situation. All progress, all notable change
of any kind, begins with a few, and it is, accordingly, among the small
and beginning parties that we may always look for the tendencies that
are likely to dominate the future. Originality, faith, and the
resolution to make things better are always in a minority, while every
majority is made up for the most part of inert and dependent elements.
It is a fact of the utmost significance when a few, or even a single
individual, are so convinced of something that they are willing to stand
up for it in the midst of a hostile majority; their very isolation
insuring that they have more convincing grounds for their action than
the ordinary undecided and conforming citizen. So Liebknecht, who alone
in the German Reichstag opposed and denounced the war, was perhaps of
more significance than all the more docile mass of the Socialist party.
All great movements have in their early history heroes and often martyrs
who were the seed of their future success.
There is nothing more democratic than intelligent and devoted
non-conformity, because it means that the individual is giving his
freedom and courage to the service of the whole. Subservience, to
majorities, as to any other authority, tends to make vigorous democracy
impossible.
CHAPTER XXXII
RATIONAL CONTROL THROUGH STANDARDS
WHAT IS RATIONAL CONTROL?—STANDARDS AS TESTS OF FUNCTION—MINIMUM
STANDARDS—MECHANICAL TREND OF STANDARDIZATION—HIGHER FUNCTIONS NOT
NUMERICALLY MEASURABLE—THE JUDGMENT OF EXPERT GROUPS—NEED OF
STANDARD-SETTING GROUPS—UNIVERSITIES AS STANDARD-MAKERS—THE CRITIC
The ideal aim of intelligence seems to be the rational control of human
life. Just what do we mean by this? Surely not that a conscious process
must everywhere be substituted for an unconscious; common sense tells us
that this is impracticable or inexpedient. Perhaps a fair statement
would be that we mean by rational control a conduct of affairs such that
their working, in a large way, commends itself to intelligence, even
though not always guided by it.
A man’s every-day life runs, for the most part, on instinct and habit.
His digestion and other physiological functions, his routine work and
recreation, go on without much help from his thinking. Rational control
consists mainly in a certain watchfulness over these processes, which
awakes attention when anything goes wrong with them, and applies an
intelligent remedy if it can. It is quite as likely to be manifested by
judicious inactivity as by interference. So with the manager of a
factory: the secret of effective control, in his case, is to allow every
machine and every subordinate to do his own work, paying, for the most
part, no attention to the details, and yet carrying in his mind an ideal
of the working of the whole which enables him to see and correct
anything that goes wrong. Likewise with the social organization at
large. Its working consists, in great preponderance, of ideas, feelings,
actions that have no conscious reference to the system as a whole, but
are, from that point of view, merely mechanical; while rational control
calls for an intelligence and idealism that understands how the whole
ought to work, and exerts the necessary authority at the right time and
place.
There is a certain presumption in favor of letting the unconscious
processes alone. They are the outcome of a tentative development,
confused and blind for the most part, but resulting in something that
does, after a fashion, work; and this is no mean achievement. One of the
best fruits of our study of history is to perceive how little we know,
and how possible it is that what appears to us senseless and harmful
does serve some useful purpose. A conservatism like that of Burke is
always worth considering, whose later writings, as every one knows, are
largely an endeavor to make us conscious of the limits of consciousness,
in order that we may conserve the benefits that we owe to unconscious
growth. The traditional organisms of society—language, folkways, common
law and the like—exhibit on the whole an adaptability to conditions, a
workableness, that could not be equalled by reflective consciousness
alone. The latter may give us Volapük, but from the former we have the
English of Shakespeare.
Nevertheless there is an evident need of a competent intelligence to
watch and supplement the unconscious processes. George Meredith compares
the irregular and uncertain progress of the world to that of a drunkard
staggering toward home,
“Still that way bent albeit his legs are slack.”
No doubt it does get on, after a fashion, but the fashion is often one
that is disgraceful to a rational being. While there is a great deal of
truth in the idea of the involuntary beneficence of economic
competition, it is certain that under the too great sway of this idea
natural resources are wasted, children stunted and deprived of
opportunity, women exploited, and the unrighteous allowed to thrive.
If we consider how rational control may be achieved we are led at once
into the question of standards of service. If we could devise and apply,
in connection with every function, some sound test of performance, so
that all concerned might know just what good service is, and how the
service of one agent compares with that of another, the question of
control would become simple.
This would not only act directly to promote efficiency of every sort
through selecting the best men and methods, and holding them to a high
grade of work, but would have an immeasurably beneficent effect in
diffusing through the community order, contentment, clearness of
purpose, and good-will, instead of the confusion, unrest, and hostility
that now so largely prevail. Standards of any kind, if generally
accepted, have the same kind of effect that the use of money has in
economic exchanges: they make relations definite and thus facilitate
co-operation and allay disputes. Ill-feeling, whether toward other
persons or toward life in general, is based chiefly, perhaps, on
resentments and perplexities arising from the lack of settled
valuations. If we all knew what our place in life was and what our just
claims were, as compared with those of others, the confusion that now
prevails would subside.
We may distinguish, as regards human conduct, two sorts of standards:
the higher or emulative, instigating us to attain or approach an ideal,
and minimum standards or limits of toleration, conformity to which is
more or less compulsory. The former appeal to the more capable and
ambitious, the latter are imposed on the backward. One defines the type
at the bottom, the other at the top.
In almost every kind of activity it is harmful to tolerate those who
fall below a certain level of achievement: they not only set a bad
example and lower the grade of service, but impair co-operation and
_esprit de corps_. Even in competitive games, such as foot-racing,
jumping, golf, and the like, it is usual to classify the players so that
those in each group shall be sufficiently homogeneous to incite one
another to do their best; and every one knows how detrimental is the
influence of a player of a lower class. In the breeding of animals we
have the immemorial practice of eliminating individuals who lack certain
“points,” and the social science of eugenics aims, in a similar manner,
to set a standard of propagation for the human race. Our whole body of
penal law is a system of minimum requirements as to conduct, and the
conventions or _mores_ enforced by public sentiment have much the same
character.
The idea is ancient and familiar, its present interest arising largely
from a tendency to apply it more and more stringently in the control of
economic competition. It appears here in a great variety of forms, but
the general aim is to classify more definitely the kinds of economic
struggle, to determine who are and who are not legitimate participants
in each, and to see to it that all are carried on under proper rules for
the protection of the weak and the welfare of the public.
All competent students feel that there is urgent need of a rational
programme for the protection from crushing and degradation of those who,
for whatever reason, are not in a position to protect themselves. If
their weakness is intrinsic they need to be removed from the general
struggle and put in a class by themselves; if it is accidental they
require intelligent succor while they are recovering their strength.
The weak side of the standardization idea, as applied to society, is its
trend toward the numerical and mechanical. An external, visible test,
almost always superficial in this sphere, is easy to apply, and for that
reason recommends itself to all who seek precise results without an
exercise of the higher faculties of the mind. This, added to the
prestige which numerical methods have gained by their value to physical
science, has given rise to a formalism which intrudes them where they do
not belong, and inspires a confidence in results often in inverse ratio
to their value.
To the statistical type of mind precision is apt to seem in itself a
guaranty of truth, and it is common to see elaborate calculations based
on assumptions which will not bear scrutiny. The authors of such
structures instinctively avoid any kind of thinking except mathematical.
This was partly the case with Francis Galton, a man of real eminence,
who made a statistical study of men of genius, in which the numerical
part is logically dependent upon the postulate that practically all men
of genius become famous.[81] This view he does not examine adequately;
the bent of his mind unfitted him to do so. He had to have a standard
test of genius in order to open the way for statistical treatment; and
he easily convinced himself that fame was such a test. His postulate,
however, is pretty clearly false, and his calculations, consequently, of
doubtful value.
Many accept numerical system and precision as “science” without further
inquiry. I have seen a university faculty adopt without question a
resolution recommending as scientific the distribution of examination
marks according to the statistical curve of chance variations from a
mean, when probably few if any of those present had asked themselves
whether it was likely, in common sense, that the performances of the
students followed any such law.
Numerical tests may, no doubt, be used to compare the results of
processes which are in themselves nonmechanical and perhaps inscrutable.
Thus of two salesmen spending the same time on similar routes selling
the same goods at the same prices, one will sell twice as many as the
other; it is often impossible to say why. “Personality” does it; that
is, a complex of influences beyond the sphere of precise analysis. But
you can measure the results of its operation and be fairly sure they
will be repeated. It is the same with authors. When a new writer submits
the manuscript of a novel the publisher can make only a very uncertain
guess as to how many copies of it will sell; but when several novels
have been published and shown their power to interest the public a
reasonably safe prediction is possible. The statistical method does not
require that the process we are testing be understood, but only that it
be uniform. In that case its future working may be predicted from its
past. There is a large and legitimate field for ingenuity in thus
standardizing human function.
Formalism is apt to come in, however, by our taking a mechanical view of
the function itself, of the end to be sought, in order to make it more
easily measurable. This objection may be made, for example, to rating
and rewarding salesmen according to the amount of their sales. It seems
that this is not, in practice, a good plan, because their behavior
counts in many ways not covered by such a calculation. A merchant says:
“If you have five hundred sales-people working on a straight commission
basis, you have five hundred individuals who are, in principle, each one
in business for himself.... This means that there is no group spirit, no
sense of unity in the organization, no co-operative spirit present. It
works out very badly.” He suggests a modified test, also numerical,
which is inadequate in theory, however it may work. The complete
function of personality is never measurable. We have the same fallacy in
the attempts to measure the value of a professor by the number of
students electing his courses, or the number of hours he spends in his
classroom.
It seems to be a general truth that the higher a social or mental
function the less capable it is of numerical measurement; the reason
being that the higher functions are acts of creative organization that
can be appreciated only by a judgment of the same order. The work of a
lawyer, a teacher, a clergyman, a man of science, even of an artistic
craftsman, can be measured only by expert opinion. Our tests of the
mental capacity of children should be mechanical only in so far as they
relate to mechanical processes, like verbal memory or calculation. When
it comes to higher capacities, like the understanding of complex ideas
or sentiments, such as honor, the test, if it is to be of any value,
must be applied, not mechanically, but by some one of imagination to
understand what the child means by his answers.
I have little confidence in the more ambitious projects of some
psychologists in the way of measuring _a priori_ the capacity of the
mind for the various vocations. I do not doubt that many useful hints
can be gained by laboratory methods; but if a function is essentially
social the test should also be social: science should keep as close to
nature as possible. In civil service examinations such qualifications as
speed in typewriting may be ascertained by a mechanical test, but as
regards any sort of social ability, such as fitness for collecting labor
statistics, or conducting correspondence, the main reliance is
necessarily placed on success in actual work of a similar character.
In short, any merely mechanical test of the higher human faculties and
achievements is, and must remain, an illusion. The only real criterion
is the sympathetic and, as it were, participating judgment of a mind
qualified by capacity and training to understand these faculties and
share in their operation. Goethe maintained that the only competent
critic of literary work is the man who can do similar work himself, and
the principle is of wide application.
Is there, then, any way of testing the higher functions, involving
leadership and creative organization, so as to maintain a high level of
performance? There is no way that is precise or final, especially where
originality is in question—since it is the nature of originality to set
aside accepted tests—but higher functions of a somewhat settled
character may be kept up to the mark through the judgments of an expert
group. The various branches of natural science—say, astronomy, geology,
or physiology—offer good examples, in that each possesses a group of men
with high and definite ideals as to what is standard achievement in
their specialty, and with a disposition to apply these in exalting the
worthy and casting the unworthy out. It is much the same in all the
so-called learned professions. The principle applies also, though with a
somewhat looser discipline, in literature, sculpture, painting,
architecture, and music; that is, achievement in each of these is
appraised, more or less decisively, by a competent special group.
Such groups may act quite definitely. They may form associations and
appoint judges—let us say to accept or reject paintings for an
exposition, or to select among competing plans for a public building.
The judges, if they are competent, do not decide wholly according to old
models or traditions. They are men trained by active participation in
the artistic endeavors of the time, and they aim, by an effort of
creative appreciation, to understand what new achievement an artist has
sought, and the measure of his success.
In spheres like patriotism, philanthropy, and religion, the standards
are embodied in the lives and works of men whom the appreciative
imaginations of a kindred group recognize as bearers of the ideal. For
the Christian tradition the “glorious company of the apostles, the noble
army of martyrs,” and their successors incarnate the ideals of the group
in cherished examples.
In this regard society greatly needs a more various and closely knit
group organization. The modern enlargement of relations has in part
broken down the old groups, based chiefly on locality, family, and
class, and brought in a somewhat formless and unchannelled state of
things for which a remedy must apparently be sought in the development
of groups of a new kind. Only close and lasting co-operation can
discipline the individual and provide standards for every kind of
function.
It is peculiarly requisite to have vigorous and distinctive groups
devoted to achievement for which there is no commercial reward. We need
men who will passionately set themselves to do fine and ever finer work,
hungry for perfection, careless of popular recognition, inspired by
congenial example and appreciation, and creating higher standards for
those who follow.
The action of commercialism in repressing higher achievement is quite
simple: it merely sets up such a din that it is hard to hear anything
else. It is ever assailing us from newspapers and from the voices, eyes,
and actions of our associates. If we have no momentum of our own it
carries us along. It is scarcely possible for one to make separate
headway against it: we must have groups and environments, organized to
other ends, in which we may take refuge.
It is a frequent remark that it is the function of the universities to
set the standards of modern democracy. I suppose the idea of this is
that since we have abandoned the standard-setting leadership of a
hereditary class we must look for a substitute to groups trained and
inspired by the educational institutions. This implies a noble
conception of such institutions, and the more one thinks of it the more
reasonable it appears. It would mean that the universities should select
and train competent men in all the more intellectual functions,
including literature and the fine arts, inspiring them with ideals
which, as members of special groups, they would uphold and effectuate
for the good of society. Beyond this, it should mean for all students a
moral culture and spirit of devotion to their country and to humanity
fit to set the standards of the nation in these high regards. I do not
think that such supreme leadership or standard-setting can come from any
one source, but the universities, as the appointed organs of higher
culture, may aspire to take a large part in it. To their actual
achievement only moderate praise can be given.
When I am raking and burning leaves, as I have to in the fall and
spring, I often light one little pile, and, when it is well afire, I
pick from it a burning leaf or two on my rake and carry them to the next
pile, which thus catches their flame. It seems to me that this is what a
university should do for the higher life of our people. It should be on
fire, and each student who goes out should be a burning leaf to start
the flame in the community where he goes.
The working out of higher control turns much upon the critic, whose
function is no less than to incarnate intelligence, to embrace in his
mind the whole organism and process, and to evaluate the operation of
every part. In literature and art the competent critic—Goethe, let us
say, or Sainte-Beuve—aims to appreciate each man’s work as a function of
the universal spirit and declare its part in the whole. The same
principle applies to more special groups. In the army the critic is the
consummate officer who, in times of peace, observes carefully the tests
and evolutions and brings to bear upon every detail an expert judgment
of its significance with reference to that success in war which is his
supreme ideal. In industry, considered as production, he is the
efficiency expert. Considering it from the standpoint of human welfare
he is a social expert with or without official standing.
All the settled and interesting lines of human achievement naturally
produce critics, because contemplative men, familiar with the tradition,
find enjoyment in surveying the field as a whole, and appraising the
various contributions. The matter is bound up with organization, and
where that is lacking criticism is usually weak. For this reason,
largely, American culture is sadly deficient in it.
We urgently need a criticism of our social system that shall be
competent to a somewhat authoritative estimate of the human value of the
various activities. In order to this it must be well instructed in
social science and history, familiar also with practical conditions,
courageous, judicious, and highly gifted by nature with insight and
faith. We have not attained this as yet; our judgments, like the
conditions themselves, are in much confusion. It is fairly apparent,
however, that social criticism is growing with the growth of research
and endeavor. Although social workers are ardent people, often with a
good deal of bias, yet their serious struggle with real conditions,
preceded, commonly, by academic training, has already enabled them to
illumine many obscure matters and put public sentiment in right tracks.
And the more retired students who deal with social psychology,
philosophy, and statistics are no doubt doing their part also. There is
a decline in that particularistic spirit that spent itself in the
advocacy of conflicting panaceas, and a growth in the larger spirit
which judges all schemes with reference to a common organic ideal.
CHAPTER XXXIII
SOCIAL SCIENCE
DRAMATIC CHARACTER OF THE SCIENCES OF LIFE—SPECIAL CHARACTER OF
SOCIOLOGY—NUMERICAL EXACTNESS NOT ITS IDEAL—QUALIFICATIONS OF A
SOCIOLOGIST—PRACTICAL VALUE OF SOCIOLOGY
We have seen that social intelligence is essentially an imaginative
grasp of the process going on about us, enabling us to carry this
forward into the future and anticipate how it will work. It is a
dramatic vision by which we see how the agents now operating must
interact upon one another and issue in a new situation. How shall we
apply this idea to social science? Shall we say that that too is
dramatic?
There would be nothing absurd in such a view. All science may be said to
work by a dramatic method when it takes the results of minute
observation and tries to build them into fresh wholes of knowledge.
This, we know, takes creative imagination; the intelligence must act in
sympathy with nature and foresee its operation. The work on the
evolution of life for which Darwin is most famous may justly be
described as an attempt to dramatize what mankind had come to know about
plants and animals. He took the painfully won details and showed how
they contributed to a living process whose operation could be traced in
the past, and possibly anticipated for the future. And, indeed, so
homogeneous is life, the phases he found in this process—divergence,
struggle, adaptation—are much the same as have always been recognized in
the drama.
Darwin regarded the study of fossils as a means to the better
understanding of life upon earth, as a way to _see what is going on_,
and in like manner the precise observation of individuals and families
in sociology is preparatory to a social synthesis whose aim also is to
see what is going on.
The routine conception of science as _merely_ precise study of details
is never a sound one, and is particularly barren in the social field. If
we are to arrive at principles or have any success at all in prediction
we must keep the imagination constantly at work. And even in detailed
studies we must dramatize more or less to make the facts intelligible.
An investigator of juvenile delinquency who was not armed with insight
as well as schedules would not report anything of much value.
There are marked differences, however, between biology and sociology,
considered as studies of process, of which I will note especially two.
One is that in biology essential change in types is chiefly slow and not
easily perceptible. For the most part we have to do with a moving
equilibrium of species and modes of life repeating itself generation
after generation. It took a Darwin to show, by comparing remote periods,
that nature was really evolving, dramatic, creative.
In social life, on the other hand, change is obvious and urgent; so that
the main practical object of our science is to understand and control
it. The dramatic element, which in biology is revealed only to a titanic
imagination, becomes the most familiar and intimate thing in experience.
Any real study of society must be first, last, and nearly all the time a
study of process.
Again, the sciences that deal with social life are unique in that we who
study them are a conscious part of the process. We can know it by
sympathetic participation, in a manner impossible in the study of plant
or animal life. Many indeed find this fact embarrassing, and are
inclined to escape it by trying to use only “objective” methods, or to
question whether it does not shut out sociology and introspective
psychology from the number of true sciences.
I should say that it puts these studies in a class by themselves:
whether you call them sciences or something else is of no great
importance. It is their unique privilege to approach life from the point
of view of conscious and familiar partaking of it. This involves unique
methods which must be worked out independently. The sooner we cease
circumscribing and testing ourselves by the canons of physical and
physiological science the better. Whatever we do that is worth while
will be done by discarding alien formulas and falling back upon our
natural bent to observation and reflection. Going ahead resolutely with
these we shall work out methods as we go. In fact sociology has already
developed at least one original method of the highest promise, namely
that of systematic social surveys.
The reason that students of the principles of sociology (as
distinguished from those whose aim is immediately practical) are
somewhat less preoccupied with the digging out of primary facts than
with their interpretation, is simply that, for the present, the latter
is the more difficult task. We have within easy reach facts which, if
fully digested and correlated, would probably be ample to illuminate the
whole subject. It is very much as in political economy, whose principles
have been worked out mainly by the closer and closer study and
interpretation of facts which, as details, every business man knows.
Knowledge requires both observation and interpretation, neither being
more scientific than the other. And each branch of science must be
worked out in its own way, which is mainly to be found in the actual
search for truth rather than by _a priori_ methodology. Sociology has as
ample a field of verifiable fact as any subject, and it is not clear
that the interpretations are more unsettled than they are elsewhere. The
chief reason why it has developed late and still appears uninviting to
many is the very abundance and apparent confusion of the material, which
seems to take away the hope of simple, sure, and lasting results. One
purpose in our study of principles is to restore this hope and give
order to this abundance. And while there are certainly special
difficulties, as in all sciences, our own is coming to afford, I think,
as great intellectual attraction as can be found in other studies, along
with a human and social character peculiar to itself. It will be strange
if an increasing proportion of good minds do not give themselves to it.
While I ascribe the utmost importance to precision in preparing the data
for social science, I do not think its true aim is to bring society
within the sphere of arithmetic. Exact prediction and mechanical control
for the social world I believe to be a false ideal inconsiderately
borrowed from the provinces of physical science. There is no real reason
to think that this sort of prediction or control will ever be possible.
Much has been made of the fact that human phenomena, when studied
statistically on a large scale, often show a marked numerical uniformity
from year to year; and some have even inferred that human spontaneity is
an illusion, and that we are really controlled by mathematical laws as
precise as those which guide the course of the planets. But I take it
that such uniformities as are to be observed in births, marriages,
suicides, and many other human phenomena do not indicate underlying
principles analogous to the laws of gravitation or chemical reaction.
They merely show that under a given social condition the number of
persons who will choose to perform certain definite acts within the year
may remain almost the same, or may be increased or diminished by certain
definite changes, such as the advent of war or economic hardship. They
no more prove that human conduct is subject to numerical law than does
the fact that I eat three meals a day, or that I shall spend more money
if my salary is raised, and less if it is diminished.
In other words statistical uniformities do not show that it is possible
to predict numerically the working of intelligence _in new situations_,
and of course that is the decisive test. Where exact prediction is
possible the whole basis of it I take to be the fact that the general
social situation remains the same, or is changed in ways which do not
involve new problems of choice in the field studied. In short, the more
the question is one of intelligence the less the numerical method can
cope with it.
Uniformity in the suicide rate, so far as it exists, shows that the
causes of suicide, whatever they may be, are operating in about the same
degree from year to year, that the social situation is static, or rather
in moving equilibrium. It reveals no law of suicide beyond the fact that
it is connected in some definite way with the social situation in
general. It does not help you to understand why Saul Jones killed
himself, or to predict whether Jonathan Smith will or not. All you know
is that if the general current of human trouble goes on about the same,
the number of cases is not likely to vary much.
Serious attempts to understand suicide and to predict its prevalence
under various conditions are based, if they are intelligent, upon
psychological theories of an imaginative character. Thus Dürkheim, in
his book upon the subject, develops the idea of “altruistic” suicide,
and enables us to understand how a disgraced army officer, for example,
might be driven to it by social pressure. To such studies statistics is
only an adjunct.
In the case of marriage you may be able to predict with some accuracy
the effect of the simpler sort of economic changes, such as larger or
smaller crops, but, if so, it is because marriage is a familiar problem,
settled in much the same way by one generation after the other, on the
basis of lasting instincts or conventions. You cannot, in the same way,
anticipate the outcome of the next presidential campaign, or of any
other transaction in which the human mind is confronting a fresh
situation.
The only instrument that can in any degree meet the test of prediction,
where new problems of higher choice confront the mind, is the instructed
imagination, which, by a kind of inspired intelligence, may anticipate
within itself the drama of social process, and so foresee the issue.
That this supreme act of the mind, never more than partly successful,
even in the simplest questions, can ever become, on a large scale, sure,
precise, and demonstrable before the event, there is no evidence or
probability. So far as we can now see or infer, social prediction, in
the higher provinces, must ever remain tentative, and I suspect that all
the sciences which deal with the life process are subject to a similar
limitation. Darwin’s suggestion regarding the “free will” of the
dinosaur would seem to indicate that this was his opinion.[82]
Intelligent social prediction is contradictory to determinism, because,
instead of ignoring the creative will, it accepts it and endeavors by
sympathy to enter into it and foresee its working. If I predict an
artistic or humanitarian movement, it is partly because I feel as if I
myself, with whatever freedom and creative power is in me, would choose
to share in such a movement.
The possibility of social science rests upon the hypothesis that social
life is in some sense rational and sequent. It has been assumed that
this can be true only if it is mechanically calculable. But there may
easily be another sort of rationality and sequence, not mechanical,
consistent with a kind of freedom, which makes possible an organized
development of social knowledge answering to the organic character of
the social process. The life of men has a unity and order of its own,
which may or may not prove to be the same in essence as that which rules
the stars. It seems to include a creative element which must be grasped
by the participating activity of the mind rather than by computations.
How far it can be known and predicted is a matter for trial. The right
method is the one that may be found to give the best results. Apparently
it is not, except in subordinate degree, the numerical method.
A sociologist must have the patient love of truth and the need to reduce
it to principles which all men of science require. Besides this,
however, he needs the fullest sympathy and participation in the currents
of life. He can no more stand aloof than can the novelist or the poet,
and all his work is, in a certain sense, autobiographic. I mean that it
is all based on perceptions which he has won by actual living. He should
know his groups as Mr. Bryce came to know America, with a real intimacy
due to long and considerate familiarity with individuals, families,
cities, and manifold opinions and traditions. He cannot be a specialist
in the same way that a chemist or a botanist can, because he cannot
narrow his life without narrowing his grasp of his subject. To attempt
to build up sociology as a technical tradition remote from the great
currents of literature and philosophy, would, in my opinion, be a fatal
error. It cannot avoid being difficult, but it should be as little
abstruse as possible. If it is not human it is nothing.
I have often thought that, in endowment, Goethe was almost the ideal
sociologist, and that one who added to more common traits his
comprehension, his disinterestedness and his sense for organic unity and
movement might accomplish almost anything.
The method of social improvement is likely to remain experimental, but
sociology is one of the means by which the experimentation becomes more
intelligent. I think, for example, that any one who studies the theory
of social classes—the various kinds, the conditions of their formation
and continuance, their effect in moulding the minds of those who belong
to them, and the like—using what has been written upon the subject to
stimulate his own observation and reflection, will find that the
contemporary situation is illumined for him and his grasp of the trend
of events enhanced.
By observation and thought we work out generalizations which help us to
understand where we are and what is going on. These are “principles of
sociology.” They are similar in nature to principles of economics, and
aid our social insight just as these aid our insight into business or
finance. They supply no ready-made solutions but give illumination and
perspective. A good sociologist might have poor judgment in philanthropy
or social legislation, just as a good political economist might have
poor judgment in investing his money. Yet, other things equal, the mind
trained in the theory of its subject will surpass in practical wisdom
one that is not.
At bottom any science is simply a more penetrating perception of facts,
gained largely by selecting those that are more universal and devoting
intensive study to them—as biologists are now studying the great fact of
hereditary transmission. In so far as we know these more general facts
we are the better prepared to work understandingly in the actual
complexities of life. Our study should enable us to discern underneath
the apparent confusion of things the working of enduring principles of
human nature and social process, simplifying the movement for us by
revealing its main currents, something as a general can follow the
course of a battle better by the aid of a map upon which the chief
operations are indicated and the distracting details left out. This will
not assure our control of life, but should enable us to devise measures
having a good chance of success. And in so far as they fail we should be
in a position to see what is wrong and do better next time.
I think, then, that the supreme aim of social science is to perceive the
drama of life more adequately than can be done by ordinary observation.
If it be objected that this is the task of an artist—a Shakespeare, a
Goethe, or a Balzac—rather than of a scientist, I may answer that an
undertaking so vast requires the co-operation of various sorts of
synthetic minds; artists, scientists, philosophers, and men of action.
Or I may say that the constructive part of science is, in truth, a form
of art.
Indeed one of the best things to be expected from our study is the power
of looking upon the movement of human life in a large, composed spirit,
of seeing it in something of ideal unity and beauty.
CHAPTER XXXIV
THE TENTATIVE CHARACTER OF PROGRESS
PROGRESS IS NOT IDENTICAL WITH GROWTH OF INTELLIGENT CONTROL—NOR IS IT
DEMONSTRABLE—IT IS ESSENTIALLY TENTATIVE
I cannot accept the view that progress is nothing more or other than the
growth of intelligent control. No doubt this is a large part of it; an
enlightened and organized public will is, perhaps, our most urgent need;
but, after all, life is more than intelligence, and a conception that
exalts this alone is sure to prove inadequate. Progress must be at least
as many-faceted as the life we already know. Moreover, it is one of
those ideas, like truth, beauty and right, which have an outlook upon
the infinite, and cannot, in the nature of the case, be circumscribed by
a definition.
The truth is that it is often one of the requisites of progress that we
trust to the vague, the instinctive, the emotional, rather than to what
is ascertained and intellectual. The spirit takes on form and clarity
only under the stress of experience: its newer outreachings are bound to
be somewhat obscure and inarticulate. The young man who does not trust
his vague intuitions as against the formulated wisdom of his elders will
do nothing original.
The opinion sometimes expressed that social science should set forth a
definite, tangible criterion of progress is also, I think, based on a
false conception of the matter, derived, perhaps, from mechanical
theories of evolution. Until man himself is a mechanism the lines of his
higher destiny can never be precisely foreseen. It is our part to form
ideals and try to realize them, and these ideals give us a working test
of progress, but there can be nothing certain or final about them.
The method of our advance is, perhaps, best indicated by that which
great individuals have used in the guidance of their own lives. Goethe,
for example, trusted to the spontaneous motions of his spirit, studying
these, however, and preparing for and guiding their expression. Each of
his works represented one of these motions, and he kept it by him for
years to work upon when the impulse should return. So the collective
intelligence must wait upon the motions of humanity, striving to
anticipate and further their higher working, but not presuming to impose
a formal programme upon them.
The question whether, after all, the world really does progress is not
one that can be settled by an intellectual demonstration of any kind. It
is possible to prove that mankind has gained and is gaining in material
power, in knowledge, and in the extent and diversity of social
organization; that history shows an enlarging perspective and that the
thoughts of men are, in truth, “broadened with the process of the suns”:
but it is always possible to deny that these changes are progress. We
seem to mean by this term something additional, a judgment, in fact,
that the changes, whatever they may be, are on the whole _good_. In
other words progress, as commonly understood, is essentially a moral
category, and the question whether it takes place or not is one of moral
judgment. Nothing of this kind is susceptible of incontrovertible
demonstration, because the moral judgment is not bound by definite
intellectual processes, nearly the same in all minds, but takes in the
most obscure and various impulses of human nature.
Suppose you compare the state of the first white settlers in America,
narrow and hard, physically, mentally, and socially, with the
comparatively easy and spacious life of their descendants at the present
time; or contrast the life of a European peasant, dwelling in mediæval
ignorance and bondage, with that of the same peasant and his family
after they have emigrated to the United States and come to a full share
in its intelligence and prosperity. It may seem clear to most people
that these changes, which are like those the world in general has been
undergoing, are for the better; but the matter is quite debatable. The
simpler lot of the pioneer and the peasant can easily be made to appear
desirable, and there are, and no doubt always will be, those who
maintain that we are no better off than we were.
Development, I should say, can be proved. That is, history reveals,
beyond question, a process of enlargement, diversification, and
organization, personal and social, that seems vaguely analogous to the
growth of plant and animal organisms; but whether we are to write our
moral indorsement on the back of all this is another matter. Is it
better to be man or the marine animal, “resembling the larvæ of existing
Ascidians,”[83] from which he is believed to have descended? In the end
it comes down to this: is life itself a good thing? We see it waxing and
shining all about us, and most of us are ready to pronounce that it is
good; but the pessimist can always say: “To me it is an evil thing, and
the more of it the worse.” And there is no way of convincing him of
error.
In short, the reality of progress is a matter of faith, not of
demonstration. We find ourselves in the midst of an onward movement of
which our own spirits are a part, and most of us are glad to be in it,
and to ascribe to it all the good we can conceive or divine. This seems
the brave thing to do, the hopeful, animating thing, the only thing that
makes life worth while, but it is an act rather of faith than of mere
intelligence.
I hold, then, that progress, like human life in every aspect, is
essentially tentative, that we work it out as we go along, and always
must; that it is a process rather than an attainment. The best is
forever indefinable; it is growth, renewal, onwardness, hope. The higher
life seems to be an upward struggle toward a good which we can never
secure, but of which we have glimpses in a hundred forms of love and
joy. In childhood, music, poetry, in transient hours of vision, we know
a fuller, richer life of which we are a part, but which we can grasp
only in this dim and flitting way. All history is a reaching out for, a
slow, partial realization of, such perceptions. The thing for us is to
believe in the reality of this larger life, seen or unseen, to cling to
all persons and activities that help to draw us into it, to trust that
though our individual hold upon it relax with age and be lost, yet the
great Whole, from which we are in some way inseparable, lives on in
growing splendor. _I_ may perish, but _We_ are immortal.
I look with wonder and reverence upon the great spirits of the past and
upon the expression of human nature in countless forms of art and
aspiration. It seems to me that back of all this must be a greater Life,
high and glorious beyond my imagination, which is trying to work itself
out through us. But this is in the nature of religion, and I do not
expect to impose it upon others by argument.
As regards the proximate future I see little to justify any form of
facile optimism, but conceive that, though the world does move, it moves
slowly, and seldom in just the direction we hope. There is something
rank and groping about human life, like the growth of plants in the
dark: if you peer intently into it you can make out weird shapes, the
expression of forces as yet inchoate and obscure; but the growth is
toward the light.
CHAPTER XXXV
ART AND SOCIAL IDEALISM
ART AS JOYOUS SELF-EXPRESSION—IT DISENGAGES THE IDEAL—ENLARGES
SYMPATHY—THE KINSHIP OF ART AND DEMOCRACY—ART AND
LEISURE—DEMOCRATIC ART—ART AND SPECIALIZATION—COMMUNITY IDEALS—THE
MERGING OF SOCIAL IDEALS IN RELIGIOUS
The art ideal is one of joyous self-expression. It appeals to the
imagination because it seeks to bring in a higher freedom by making our
activity individual and creative. There is nothing more inspiring, I
think, than the lives of brave artists; they seem the pioneers of a
better civilization. I am delighted to know that Ruysdael, by love and
devotion, put himself into his landscapes and expressed things which
others delight to find there. Indeed, I care much less for the
landscapes than for this fact of personal self-realization: it gives me
a breath of hope and joy, and encourages me in the practice of an art of
my own.
The pleasure of creative work and the sharing of this by those who
appreciate the product is in fact an almost unlimited source of possible
joy. Unlike the pleasure of possessing things we win from others, it
increases the more we share it, taking us out of the selfish atmosphere
of every-day competition. A work of art is every man’s friend and
benefactor, and when we hear a good violinist, or see a good play, or
read a good book, we are not punished for our pleasure by the sense of
having had it at some one else’s expense. The artist seems the divine
man; he is free and creative, like God, and gives without taking away.
It is everywhere the nature of art to show us order and beauty in life.
It takes the confused and distracting reality and, by omitting the
irrelevant and giving life and color to the significant, enables us to
see the real as the ideal. In every-day reality we are like ants in the
grass for the bigness of detail: in art we see the landscape. It
enlarges, supples, generalizes the mind, giving us life in selected and
simplified impressions. Thus almost any genuine art cheers and composes
the spirit. One of Millet’s peasants, “The Sower,” for example, or one
of Thomas Hardy’s people, differs from anything of the sort we might see
more directly as a mournful song differs from the jangle of actual
grief: it “reveals man in the repose of his unchanging characteristics,”
and deepens our sense of life. So in these noisy and unrestful times
people flock to the motion-picture shows, or buy cheap fiction, in an
eager quest of the ideal. How idle it is to deprecate, justly or
otherwise, the poor taste of the masses, as if art were a matter of mere
refinement, and not of urgent need!
Beyond this general function of disengaging the ideal, art has, more
particularly, that of defining and animating our ideals of human
progress. While the severest solitary thought is necessary in
understanding society and in framing plans for its improvement, we must
look to the drama and the novel, also to poetry, music, painting,
sculpture and architecture, to put flesh and blood upon these
abstractions and give them a real hold on the minds of the people. I
cannot imagine any broad and rich growth of democracy without a
corresponding development of popular art, and one of many indications
that our democracy is as yet immature and superficial is its failure to
achieve such a development. Our vision of our country is loyal, no
doubt, but not deep, mellow, many-colored. The flavor of our
civilization is like that of the thin maple-sap just from the tree, not
much condensed or deposited in saccharine crystals.
Again, nothing has more power than art to enlarge human sympathy and
unite the individual to his fellows. We feel this strongly now and then,
as when a multitude rises to sing a patriotic song, but it belongs to
all art whose material is drawn from the general human life. And it is
in the nature of the higher kinds of art to draw from this general life,
where alone idealism has any secure resting-place. So all great art
makes us feel our oneness with mankind, and the grandeur of the common
lot: the tragedy of King Lear, say, or the Book of Job, or the mediæval
churches, or the figures of Michelangelo, or the great symphonies. It is
full of noble reminiscence, and of “touches of things human till they
rise to touch the spheres.”
Beethoven said that “the purpose of music is to bring about a oneness of
emotion, and thus suggest to our minds the coming time of a universal
brotherhood,” and certainly nothing can do more than popular art to make
such a time possible. As music can melt us into a oneness of emotion, so
drama and fiction can arouse and enlarge our social imaginations until
we feel the common nature in people who before seemed strange or hostile
to us. In this way, for example, Americans learn to find interest and
value in the many-colored life of immigrants from Europe.
For much the same reason any high kind of social organization, one that
lives in the spirit of the people and is not a mere mechanism, must
exist largely through the medium of art, which chiefly has power to
animate collective ideals. Those nations whose national aspirations are
incarnated and glorified by poetry and painting may justly claim, in
this respect, a higher civilization than those whose achievements are
merely political, scientific, and industrial. If democracy is to do for
the world all it hopes to do, it must develop greatly on this side;
especially since a system that is to be worked by the masses is
peculiarly dependent upon the diffusion of its ideals.
There is the closest possible relation in principle between the idea of
art and that of democracy. The former, like the latter, exalts the inner
self-reliance of the individual, saying “look in thy heart and write,”
or paint, or sing, or whatever the mode of expression may be. The
artist, in the act of creation, is always free, he is attending to,
bringing to clearness and realizing that which is revealed to him alone,
unfolding his highest individuality in the service of the whole,
precisely as each citizen is called to do in a real democracy. And in
fact there is nothing more democratic than a community of artists, just
because of their preoccupation with what is intrinsic and individual.
Moreover the art spirit, accustomed to cherish individuality, tends to
make us impatient of social conditions that are hostile to it. It hates
repression and demands democracy as the basis of tolerable living. If we
find that our fellow citizens lack self-expression our own life
participates in their degradation. It is hardly imaginable that a real
artist should be a formalist or a snob. The fact that we are so largely
content with products that have no art or individuality in them really
indicates a lack of higher freedom in ourselves, a low sense of
personality and a domination by lifeless conventions.
If artists and lovers of art are often conservative as regards projects
of social improvement, this may perhaps be ascribed to the need of
sensitive natures for tranquillity, or to their sense of the value of
conventions as a foundation for perfected works.
It is true that art culture requires leisure, but not more than we all
ought to have, or than the majority, even now, do have. And idleness is
hostile to it, because spiritually unhealthy. A man who is in the habit
of doing an honest day’s work, manual or intellectual, will be in a
better state to appreciate music or painting, other things equal, than
one who is not. His whole being is more normal, more ethical, better
prepared for a higher life. And so private wealth is often more a
hindrance than a help.
If there be truth in the idea that only a minority can share the life of
art, which is questionable, at any rate this minority, in a democratic
society, will be one not of wealth or exceptional leisure, or even of
education, but of intrinsic sensibility.
There are those who think that something wholly new is to be looked for
in an art of democracy, and I suppose that in fact a larger human spirit
will be found in the ideals it expresses or implies, just as every
social product must reflect the spirit of the age. I do not see,
however, that the general conceptions and methods of art, as the great
tradition brings them to us, require any change.
Certainly art will never be commonplace or uniform, but always select,
distinctive, and as various as life—even as democracy itself is a larger
expression of human nature, and not the vulgarizing thing that its
opponents have tried to make it out.
Nor will art ever be cheap, in a spiritual sense, and if it is so in a
material sense it will be because it is supported and diffused by the
community. Devotion to an ideal, material sacrifice, and the higher
self-reliance, will always belong to the career of a real artist, as
they always have. And as to the appreciator, he must earn his joy by
attention, self-culture, and virtue. The only way that masses, under a
democratic or any other order, can rise into a higher life, is by
becoming worthy of it. A best seller or a motion-picture show appealing
to the superficial and undisciplined sentiment of a million people is
not the art we look for, though it may be better than none at all. I
take it that we should try for a real culture and self-expression
without concerning ourselves primarily with numbers, beyond providing
for the diffusion of opportunity. Walt Whitman’s verse, so far as it is
a noble expression of freedom and brotherhood, is good democratic art,
though it has never been popular; but there is nothing especially
democratic about the crudity which impairs it; and our New England poets
are in no respect more truly American and democratic than in a moral
refinement scarcely matched in any other school. If we are to have a
form of art that is good in itself and also popular, this will come
about, I suppose, by the mutual influence of a line of artists and an
appreciating public, each educating and stimulating the other, until the
movement penetrates the mass of the people, as has been the case with
certain forms of art in Renaissance Italy, or in contemporary France.
We must not forget that democracy is itself one of the arts of a free
people. I mean that the common man may find expression in a varied,
intelligent, and joyous participation in the community life, outside of
working-hours; in the conduct of towns, churches, schools, and other
popular institutions, and in communal sports and recreations. There is a
great deal of this now, and the possibilities are infinite.
And along with this we need a real art of democratic intercourse,
disciplined and considerate, which shall give all of us the joy of
self-expression and of feeling that others are expressing themselves in
like freedom.
There are many who doubt whether self-expression, and therefore an art
spirit, is possible along with the specialization of modern work. But it
is not clear that specialization as such can destroy this spirit, even
in the task itself, provided one is conscious of working for a worthy
whole. The mediæval cathedrals were built by groups of masons, each of
whom, no doubt, had his own special and for the most part humble task.
If all shared the productive joy, as it is thought they did, it must
have been because the work as a whole appealed nobly to the imagination,
because there was fellowship and _esprit de corps_ among the members of
the group, and because each man felt free to use his intelligence and
taste within his own sphere. If your work is suited to you, and you
delight in the whole to which it contributes, the chief conditions of an
art spirit are present.
It is not so certain as is often alleged that modern factory work, in
its actual detail, is and must remain mere drudgery. In general, it is
good management to give a man the most intelligent work he is fit for,
and, in general, this kind of work will evoke most interest and
self-expression. Much of what appears to be drudgery to an onlooker is
not really so—there is commonly more room for skill and individuality in
manual work than is apparent from the outside—and what is really so
should tend to be eliminated by better training and placing, more
considerate management, a better spirit of co-operation, and other
probable improvements.
No doubt the free play of individuality, for most of us, must be sought
outside of working-hours, but there should be something of
self-expression and the spirit of art in all work.
Perhaps the greatest weakness of our idealism is that it does not
imagine living social wholes. So strong is the individualist tradition
in America and England that we hardly permit ourselves to aspire toward
an ideal society directly, but think that we must approach it by some
distributive formula, like “the greatest good of the greatest number.”
Such formulas are unsatisfying to human nature, however justly they may
give one aspect of the truth. The ideal society must be an organic
whole, capable of being conceived directly, and requiring to be so
conceived if it is to lay hold upon our imaginations. Do we not all feel
the dispersive, numerical, uninspiring character of “the greatest good
of the greatest number” as a call to faith and action? It is like
covering a canvas with ten thousand human figures an inch high and
crying: “Behold the ideal man!” No number, however vast, and no
aggregation of merely individual good can satisfy the need of the
imagination for a unitary conception. It is well to dwell at times on
personal opportunity, comfort, self-expression, and the like, but at
other times, and especially times of spiritual exaltation, we must have
the vision of a larger good.
And our conception of life as a race in which every one must have a fair
start, is useful but inadequate. It overstresses competition and fails
to set before us worthy objects of endeavor. We need a conception more
affirmative and inspiring, which shall above all give us something worth
while to live for, something that appeals to imagination, hope, and
love.
I think those nations were not wholly wrong who, rejecting the extreme
doctrines of utilitarian individualism, have maintained the idea and
feeling of a transcendent collective reality. Hegel’s view that “the
state is the march of God in the world” appears mystical to us, but is
in reality no more so than our exaltation of the individual. It is true
that in Germany the dominant classes seized upon this doctrine of an
ideal whole and made it an instrument for exploiting the masses of the
people. But we constantly see that great truths are used for selfish
ends, and we have a close parallel in the exploitation of the idea of
individual freedom by English and American commercialism to maintain its
own ascendancy.
The idealization of the state, the impressing of a unitary life upon the
hearts of the people by tradition, poetry, music, architecture, national
celebrations and memorials, and by a religion and philosophy teaching
the individual that he is a member of a glorious whole to which he owes
devotion, is in line with the needs of human nature, however it may be
degraded in use by reactionary aims. Our country is backward, inferior
to countries far less fortunate, in the richness, beauty, and moral
authority of its public life. Our freedom is too commonly cold, harsh,
and spiritually poor, and hence not really free. Let us hope that no
theories may deter us from building up a national ideal of which love,
beauty, and religion can be a part. We need a collective life which,
without repressing individuality, personal or local, shall afford
central emblems that all may look up to and a discipline in which all
may share.
A deeper community spirit is needed throughout our society. Our towns,
cities, and country neighborhoods should have more unity, individuality,
and pride, with the local traditions, art, fellowship, and public
institutions that express these. We want popular choruses, pageants,
social centres, local arts and crafts, an indigenous painting,
architecture, and sculpture, a vivid communal life leading up from the
neighborhood to the nation.[84]
Our idea of our country has plenty of vigor but lacks definite forms
into which to flow. It does not sufficiently connect with real life,
and, in ordinary times, is too commonly ineffective in raising us out of
selfishness and confusion. Our picture of the republic is mostly a
child’s sketch, without beauty of form or depth and harmony of color.
The direct and moving vision of the nation is sometimes to be had in our
literature, though by no means in such various and familiar forms as we
need. You will find it, for example, in Lowell’s ode, read in 1865 to
commemorate Harvard students lost in the Civil War. I will not quote
from it at length because its spirit is too impassioned to be congruous
here, but read the ode as a whole, or the last two strophes, or even the
concluding lines, beginning—
“O Beautiful! my Country! ours once more!
Smoothing thy gold of war-dishevelled hair”
and you will see what I mean.
Ideals of human wholes like the community, the nation, the Commonwealth
of Man, merge indistinguishably into the conception of a greater life,
the object of faith and hope, continuous in some way with ours, but
immeasurably transcending it. The human mind must ever conceive some
kind of a life of God or “kingdom of heaven” answering to its need of a
satisfying universe. And this conception is of the same essence and
spirit as that of social wholes, which partake of this continuity, make
a like appeal to faith and hope, and a like demand for devotion and
sacrifice. If we put aside formal doctrine it seems clear that the kind
of religion the modern world appears to be embracing, one which feels
what is upward and onward in human life as our part in the life of God,
is a kind of higher patriotism, hardly separable from our nobler ideals
of our country. And patriotism, as it becomes exalted in times of trial,
takes on a religious spirit.
It seems likely that social and religious worship, if I may use that
term for both, will draw together again and abandon that somewhat
artificial separation which political exigencies have brought about. I
do not mean that ancient institutions now associated with them will lose
their separate identity, so that we shall have a state church or an
ecclesiastical state; forms of organization persist; but it would not be
surprising if a growing unity of spirit and principle should bring the
two into practical co-operation.
In the public schools the children learn group forms of play, in which
they are accustomed to strive for a whole, and to put its success above
their private aims; and they come to feel also that their personality is
inseparable from the life of the community of which the school is a
part. The spirit of mutual aid and public service should pass easily
from the playground to the city, the state, and the nation. Along with
this we look for a rise of communal art, in the form of music, plays,
pageants, and municipal decoration, which shall enlist the feelings and
hallow the larger life with cherished associations. To this we may add
whatever ritual of patriotism shall be found expressive of the national
spirit, a spirit animated, we hope, by membership in an international
federation. And it is only a continuation of this enlarging membership
and service to go on, by the aid of symbols and worship, from these
visible social wholes to the invisible wholes, also social, of religious
faith, to the Great Life in which our life is merged.
On the other side we see the church and the institutions connected with
it reaching out toward social ideals and functions, recognizing that the
salvation of the individual, possible only through that of society,
calls for co-operation and service, without which worship is partial and
unreal.
Indeed this spirit, whether we call it religious or social, is by no
means confined to the visible institutions of the state or the church.
It belongs to the spirit of the time, and may be felt in the several
branches of learning, in philanthropy, in socialism, in the labor
movement, and in the world of industry and trade. The conditions of life
favor it, and in spite of all setbacks we may expect it to have an
irresistible growth.
INDEX
Actors, fame of, 119
Adaptation, mutual, 9, 202;
intelligent, 351 ff.
See also Tentative Process and Selection
Addams, Jane, 182, 193
Address, a factor in success, 96
Advertising, 291
Agreement not essential to public opinion, 378 ff.
_Alma mater_, all should have one, 73 ff.
Anderson, B. M., Jr., 291, 298
Architecture, 15, 49
Art, 15, 16, 23, 49, 288, 291;
valuation of, 320, 333, 337;
suppression of originality in, 373;
and social idealism, 344, 410–422
Art spirit, in motivation, 142, 321;
rise of, 345
Art-work, as culture, 68, 71
Artists, fame of, 119
Athletics, 130, 146
Austria-Hungary, 279
Babies, natural selection among, 229
Bacon, Francis, 114
Bacon, Roger, 116
Bagehot, W., 370
Beethoven, 412
Belgium, 262, 271
Beliefs, in relation to degeneration, 186 f.
Bible, 10, 360
Biological process, 197–208
Biologists, particularism of, 205 ff., 226 f.
Biology, as study of process, 396
Birth-control, 212 f., 237
Bismarck, 264
Blackmar and Gillin, 44
Bohemians, 271
Boy Scouts, 149
Boyle, 115
Bristol, Lucius M., 37, 44
Browne, Sir T., 108, 123, 174
Bryce, James, 402
Bücher, Karl, 273
Burke, 70, 383
Burroughs, J., 123
Cancellation of impracticable ideas, 374
Caste, 57.
See also Classes
Cathedrals, building of, 416
Causation, in social process, 43 ff.;
in degeneration, 161 ff.
Centralization, under the influence of war, 245 f.
Change, social, as a source of degeneracy, 180 ff.
Character, is what “works,” 14;
judged by little things, 100
Charity, in relation to survival of types, 226 ff.
Children, in relation to opportunity, 57 ff.;
discipline of, 148 ff.
China, 190
Chinese, 279
Christianity, 31, 35, 110, 177, 189 f., 222
Church, mediæval, 24, 25, 109, 113, 132, 139, 187, 286, 288, 291, 301,
339, 367, 390, 421.
See also Religion
Cities, badly governed, 205
City, as an impersonal organism, 24
Civil War, American, 40, 42, 197, 258, 266
Civilization, modern, why it does not enervate, 126 f.;
and race exhaustion, 220 f.
Clan system, disintegration of, 188
Class-conflict, 268 ff.
Class-consciousness, 274
Classes, social, in relation to opportunity, 78–87;
in relation to propagation, 218–238, 249;
as a factor in valuation, 302 ff., 316, 334 ff., 347 f., 369 f.;
study of, 402, 418
Climate, as a social institution, 46
Collier, John, 419
Commercialism, 23, 192 f., 298, 304, 316, 325, 339, 391, 418
Communication, 198, 248, 255, 269, 361 f.
Community culture, 74
Community spirit, in education, 62;
in relation to culture, 72 ff., 130, 137 ff., 419 ff.
See also Team-work
Competition, 40 f., 55 ff., 83 ff., 125 ff., 294, 384, 385 f.
Competitive spirit, 125–136
Composure, a factor in success, 94
Conflict, 15;
place of in social process, 35–42, 56;
of standards, 106, 126, 127, 175, 179, 181;
between social and biological processes, 202 f.;
selection by, 228;
group, in relation to modern integration, 241–254;
of classes, 268 ff.;
in the drama, 360 f.;
of ideas, 371 ff.
Conformity, 109
Consciousness, in social process, 5, 6, 8, 10, 14, 15, 16, 20 ff.;
national, 257.
See also Intelligence
Conservatism, 383
Constructive method of reform, 177 f.
Control, rational, 41 f., 65, 317 ff., 382–394;
in relation to progress, 405 f.
Control, social, of propagation and the survival of types, 205,
209–317, 226–238;
of poverty, 227;
of group conflict, 247 f.;
in international relations, 255–267
Co-operation, in relation to conflict, 35–42.
See also Community spirit and Team-work
Courage, 91 ff., 95
Crime, 203 f., 207
Crisis, commercial, 25, 32
Criticism, 392 f.
Crusades, 253
Culture, 67–77, 369
Custom, in valuation, 294
Cycles, social, 30–34;
business, 32 ff.
Czechs, 276
Dante, 123
Darwin, 20, 29, 95, 115, 206, 353, 373, 395 f., 400, 407
Darwinism, and war, 241, 373
Degenerate Process, Some Factors in, 180–194
Degeneration, social, 25 f.;
of nations, 33 f., 126;
of groups, 106;
organic view of, 153–168;
and will, 169–179;
hereditary, in relation to poverty, 226 ff.;
to fecundity, 230 f.
Delinquency, juvenile, 155, 159
Democracy, 17, 118;
discipline in, 144–149;
and race exhaustion, 220 f.;
modern growth of, 248 f.;
favorable to internationalism, 257 ff.;
and classes, 269 ff., 348;
must be differentiated, 364 ff.;
in relation to art, 410–422 _passim_
Democratic spirit, 62, 73
Depravity of human nature, 176
Determinism, 44, 47 f., 401
Devine, E. T., 234
Discipline, 132 ff., 144–149, 183;
of women, 346 f.
Discussion, 357, 361, 363, 367, 371, 378 ff.
Displacement, a cause of degeneracy, 180 ff.
Dissipation, and fecundity, 231
Distribution, theory of, 302
Doggedness, 92
Drama, the, an interpretation of social process, 359 ff.;
community, 419
Dramatic, the, in relation to fame, 114, 121
Dramatic character, of intelligence, 358 ff.;
of public opinion, 378;
of social science, 395 ff.
Dugdale, Richard, 205, 224
Dürkheim, E., 400
Economic determinism, 44, 47 f.
Economic discipline, 147
Economic factors in biological survival, 218–238
Economic internationalism, 266
Economic man, 135, 356
Economic motives, 128 ff.
Economists, their narrow view of motivation, 135 f.
See also Political Economy
Education, and opportunity, 61 ff.;
individuality in, 61 ff.;
in relation to culture, 68 ff.;
should provide formative social groups, 73, 132, 146, 149, 206, 245,
421
Ellis, Havelock, 229
Ellwood, C. A., 44
Elmira Reformatory, 185
Emerson, 22, 50, 94, 100, 113, 117
Emulation in service, 128 ff., 137–143
England, 33, 45, 245, 246, 264;
poverty in, 233
English, the, 274
Environment, economic, 46 f., 101, 107;
in relation to heredity, 197–208;
as source of poverty, etc., 227, 236;
in modern life, 249 f.
Equality, of opportunity, 61 ff., 82 ff., 86;
as a social ideal, 81, 82, 86 f.
_Esprit de corps._ See Team-work, Community Spirit
Eugenic ideals, 212 f.
Eugenics, 166, 206, 216, 219 ff., 232, 317, 347, 385
Europe, modern unity of, 264;
caste in, 273
Evolution, doctrine of, its social growth, 13, 19.
See also Tentative Process, Selection, Survival, Progress, Darwinism
Experiment, 8 ff., 30, 55 ff.
Faith, 93, 94, 107, 408
Fame, 112–124
Family, social continuity of, 7;
in relation to opportunity, 80 f.;
discipline in, 146, 148;
normal, size of, 210 f.;
sentiment of, needed, 213;
degenerate, 224;
fecundity of degenerate, 230 f., 244;
place of in modern life, 251
Fashion, 12, 31 f., 299, 346
Fear, a poor motive, 132 f., 135
Feeble-minded, report on, 167
Finns, 276
Folkways, 244
Foods, valuation of, 293
Force, international, 267
Ford, Henry, 133
Formalism, in education, 62 f., 145, 168, 386 ff.
France, 33, 237, 258, 344, 415
Free speech, 365 ff.
Freedom, organic, 28 f.;
negative idea of, 143;
and discipline, 144 ff.;
of the will, 170 f., 182;
of women, 215 f.
Funerals, valuation of, 294
Galton, 203;
his scheme of eugenics, 219 f., 386 f.
Gangs, 176, 178
Garibaldi, 114, 261
Genius, 17, 104 f., 203, 220, 229, 339, 387
Germans, 144, 276, 277, 366
Germany, 148, 241, 245, 246, 258, 263, 264, 265, 274, 418
Gibbon, 114
Gillin, J. L., 44
God, 5, 14, 43, 93, 94, 107, 108, 134, 140, 253, 262, 365, 373, 418,
420
Goethe, 36, 69, 70, 117, 264, 389, 392, 402, 406
Golf-clubs, valuation of, 337
Grant, General, 197
Great epochs, 121
“Greatest good of the greatest number,” 417
Group play, 421
Groups, social, process of, 7, 9, 11;
organization of, 19 f., 28;
in education, 62, 73;
cultural, influence of upon fame, 120 ff.;
necessary to emulation, 138 ff.;
primary, 180 f.;
complication of, 247;
as a factor in valuation, 336 ff.;
need of specialized, 364, 369;
technical, 390, 391
Growth, adaptive, 3 ff.;
reciprocal, 9;
downward, 154 ff.
Guizot, 126
Hamerton, P. G., 373
Handicaps to success, 96 f., 172
Hardy, Thomas, 411
Hawaiian Islands, 190
Hayes, E. C., 44
Hegel, 418
Hereditary degeneracy, 156
Heredity and environment, 154 f., 197 ff.
History, does it repeat itself?, 34
Hobhouse, L. T., 352
Honor, national, 262 ff.;
as a value, 312, 313
Horace, 121
Human nature, motivation of, 125–143 _passim_;
in degeneracy, 155 ff.;
“depravity” of, 176 f.;
in nations, 260 ff.
Human-nature values, 285 ff., 295, 300, 342
Humanism, modern, 249
Idealism, social, and art, 410 ff.
Ideals, the basis of discipline, 147 f.;
primary, 258;
national, 261 ff.;
of the upper class, 304 ff.;
in production, 343
Ideas, their social process, 3 ff., 12 ff., 16, 19;
diversification and conflict of, 363–377 (See the synopsis on p. 363)
Illusion of centrality, 50
Imagination, social, 90, 94, 158
Imitation, 51
Immigrants, 204 ff., 232, 234, 412
Immigration, of alien races, 277 ff., 370 f.
Impersonal forms of life, 4 f., 6, 12 ff., 22 ff., 251
Income, of classes, 303
India, 190
Individual, as a factor in valuation, 289, 299 ff., 322 f.
See also Persons
Individualism, 29, 189, 190, 246, 418
Individuality, in education, 61 ff.;
in modern life, 249 f.;
national, 265, 369;
in relation to art, 413 f.
Industrial revolution, 45 f.
Infancy, prolongation of, 59
Inheritance, right of, 335 f.
Initiative, 91 ff., 95;
in valuation, 300, 338 ff.
Insanity, 161 f.
Instinct, 198 f.
Institutional values, 285 ff., 295, 333 ff., 342
Institutions, essential to intelligence, 355
Intelligence, 8, 9, 58 ff.;
as a factor in success, 90 f., 199;
in social function, 351–362
Internationalism, 255 ff.
Invention, 17
Inventions, valuation of, 338 f.
Inventors, not remembered, 115, 119
Investment, and class-conflict, 271
Isolation, moral, 181, 242, 246;
social value of, 368 ff.
Italy, 415
James, William, 286, 331
Japan, 190
Japanese, 274, 277 f.
Jesus, 35;
his fame an institution, 116, 139, 360
Jews, 7, 33, 99, 121, 183
Johnson, A. S., 344
Johnson, Doctor Samuel, 115
Kafirs, 188
Keller, A. G., 47, 375
Kidd, Dudley, 188
King, W. I., 218, 303
Kingsley, Miss, 189
Labor, 37, 60, 65;
motivation of, 131, 133 ff., 142 f.;
and degeneration, 184;
as a class, 268 ff.;
valuation of, 325, 347 f.
See also Classes
Language, as impersonal organism, 4, 6, 8, 14, 23, 284, 383;
analogous to pecuniary valuation, 310, 332 f.;
in assimilation, 371
Lanier, Sidney, 377
Law and culture, 70
Leadership, fame as, 112, 365
Leisure and art, 414
Librarians, motives of, 131
Liebknecht, 381
Lincoln, 93, 113, 116, 128
Literary class, influence of upon fame, 117 ff.
Literature, as culture, 68 f.;
and class, 304;
valuation of, 319 f.
Logan, James, 133
Lowell’s Ode, 419 f.
Luther, 10, 22
Macaulay, 114
Machiavelli, 105
Maladjustment, 180 ff.
Malthus, 13, 237
Marcus Aurelius, 366
Market, as an institution, 296 ff., 309 ff.
Marriage, selection in, 214 ff., 223;
statistics of, 400
Mastery, requisite for culture, 72
Maternal instinct, 213
Mendel, 116
Meredith, George, 383
Method, tentative, 3 ff., 30;
in the study of degeneration, 165 f.;
of sociology, 395–404
Metternich, 255
Middle Ages, values in, 289, 367
Might and Right, 109 ff., 242
Militarism, as impersonal organism, 5, 47, 111, 148, 242, 246, 258
Military training, compulsory, 145 f., 149
Millet (the painter), 411
Milton, 174
Minimum standards, 385 f.
Minorities, 380 f.
Misery, distinguished from poverty, 234;
and survival, 237
Missionaries, 187 ff., 190
Mitchell, Wesley C., 32
Monastic system, 203
Montaigne, 102, 122
Monte Carlo, 32
Montesquieu, 344
Moral unity of nations, 242 f., 260, 262
Morality, and success, 99–111, 203 f., 242, 358, 406
_Mores_, 23;
of maintenance, 47, 187, 217, 245, 289;
harmful, 375, 385
Motion-pictures, 415
_Motiv_, of social forms, 12
Motivation, 125–143;
by pecuniary values, 309 ff.;
by self-expression, 321 ff.
Myth, 4, 6;
in relation to fame, 116, 122
Nansen, 189
Napoleon I, 103, 116, 261, 264, 353
Napoleon III, 259
Nationality, principle of, 256 ff.
Nations, organization of by conflict, 38, 40, 245;
decay of, 33 f.;
morality of, 105, 187;
loyalty to, 141;
and discipline, 147 f.;
progress of, 241;
society of, 255 ff., 277, 356
Negroes, 188 f., 232, 275, 276, 278
Nomenclature, of inheritance, 207 f.
Non-conformity, 106 ff., 300, 338, 367, 373, 380 f.
Novicow, J., 37
Nucleation, of groups and persons in modern life, 252
Opportunity, 11, 55–66, 78–87, 125, 181, 220, 221, 237 f., 250, 307 f.
Organic view, as opposed to particularism, 43–51;
of degeneration, 153 ff.
Organism, impersonal, 4 ff.;
international, 5, 255 ff.;
meaning of social, 26 ff.;
in relation to freedom, 28 f.;
valuation by an impersonal, 284
Organization, social, unconscious, 16, 20 ff.;
as a process, 19–29, 36, 55 ff.;
cyclical character of, 30 ff.;
and culture, 67 f.;
and success, 89 f.;
must support human nature, 176 f.;
large-scale modern, 246 ff.;
international, 255 ff.;
and valuation, 309 ff., 329 ff., 336 ff.;
and art, 413
Organizing capacity, 259
Originality, 390
Overlapping, of social forms, 6, 27 f.
Ox, diverse values of, 289 f.
Painting, schools of, 23
Palissy, 115
Panama Canal, 143
Paris, 12, 32
Parmelee, Maurice, 44
Particularism, intellectual, 43–51;
in social reform, 160 ff.;
biological, 205 ff., 226 f.;
state-conflict, 241 ff., 394
Patriotism, and discipline, 145;
in modern life, 252 f.;
nature of, 261 ff.;
and religion, 418 ff.
Peace. See Control, Social
Pecuniary motive, 129 f., 143
Personality, in relation to groups, 7, 8;
a factor in culture, 69;
in success, 89 ff.;
great, alleged decline of, 123;
standards of, 153 f.;
and modern groups, 249 ff., 387
Persons, general relation of to social process, 3, 6, 8, 10 f., 16, 19,
20, 21 f., 27, 55 ff., 67 ff., 112, 154 ff.
Physical factors, 44, 46 f., 51
Plato, 50, 99, 102, 124
Play, organized, 146, 148
Poles, 271, 276
Political economy, 297 ff., 397, 403
_Pons asinorum_ of sociology, 207
Poverty, 48;
organized, might be abolished, 85 f., 161 f.;
and propagation, 226–238
Pragmatism, 8
Primary ideals, 249
Primary or intimate groups, 62, 73 ff., 137, 148 ff., 421
Privilege. See Classes
Professional spirit, 131 f., 138, 140
Progress, 35, 41;
group conflict theory of, 241 f.;
of pecuniary valuation, 326 f., 329–348;
tentative character of, 405–409
Progress-values, 341 ff.
Propagation, impulse to, 211 ff.;
and poverty, 226 ff.
Prostitution, 184
Psalms, on success and morality, 99
Psychological tests, 64, 235, 389
Public opinion, 270, 378–381
Punishment, 132, 160
Race, 202;
questions of, 274 ff., 358, 379
Race exhaustion, 220 f.
Race suicide, 211 ff., 218 f.
Races, contact of backward and civilized, 187 ff.;
loosed by communication, 247
Radicalism, value of, 368, 374
Reform, organic, 157 f.
Religion, 5, 14, 75;
and patriotism, 75 f., 253, 266, 76, 253 f., 289, 330 f., 377, 408
f., 420 f.
See also Christianity, Church
Rembrandt, 116
Responsibility, organic view of, 158 f.
Revolution, industrial, 45 f.;
and class, 268;
Russian, 271
Rhythm, in social process, 32 f.
Richelieu, 94
Roman Empire, 126
Ross, E. A., 209
Rousseau, 373
Rural culture, 74 f.
Rural degeneracy, 192
Ruskin, 15, 324
Russia, 271
Ruysdael, 410
Saint Louis (the King), 103
Sainte-Beuve, 118, 392
Savage peoples, demoralization of, 187, 209
Scott, Sir W., 114, 118
Seager, Henry R., 78, 308
Seasonal workers, 185
Security, sense of, in motivation, 139 ff.
Selection, in social process, 8 ff., 55 ff., 112, 117, 155, 181, 201
f.;
in marriage, 214 ff.;
artificial, 235 f., 284 f.;
of ideas, 371 ff.
Self-consciousness, merged in the group, 137
Self-development and success, 88 f., 100
Self-expression, as motive, 321 ff., 410, 416 f.
Self-possession, an American trait, 144
Self-reliance, 90, 93, 95, 107, 113, 182
Self-respect, loss of, 173
Self-seeking, lower and higher, 128
Sensualism, 176
Sentiment, organization of, 25;
a factor in discussion, 357
Service, social, a condition of success, 88 f., 100;
emulation in, 128 ff., 145
Sexes, conflict of, 36; choice of, 214 ff., 361
Sexual impulses, 175, 177, 211 f.
Sexual vice, 191 f., 269
Shakespeare, 99, 114
Small, Albion W., 28
Sociability, may lead to degeneration, 176, 194
Social science, 43, 389, 395–404 (see the synopsis on p. 395), 405
Social work, as a profession, 340, 359
Socialism, 44, 367, 368
Society, in what sense organic, 26 ff.
Sociologist, qualifications of, 28, 401
Sociology, scientific character of, 395–404.
See also Social science, Statistical method
_Socius_, in relation to culture, 67;
nation as, 261
Soldiers, motives of, 130, 140
Solidarity, modern, 246 ff.;
of classes, 271 ff.
“Soul” of impersonal organisms, 14
Spain, 33
Specialist, not a particularist, 49
Speculation, business, 32
Spencer, Anna Garlin, 65
Spencer, Herbert, 31
Spencer and Gillen, 188
Stagnation, 189 ff.
Standards, group, 102 ff.;
of higher emulation, 138, 143, 153 f., 181, 186 ff.;
in marriage, 216 f.;
eugenic, 224, 228 f., 232, 233 f., 238;
international, 262 ff., 343, 376;
of service, 384 ff.
Stanley, H. M., 36, 92
State, idealization of, 147 f., 417 ff.
Statistical method, 32, 165, 166 ff., 386 ff., 398 ff.
Sterilization, 235
Stock-market, 359
Strain, mental, 181, 184
Struggle for existence, 233 ff.;
among nations, 241 ff.
Success, theory of, 88–98;
and morality, 99–111;
necessary to confidence, 172;
and eugenics, 221 ff.;
and heredity, 230 f.;
national, 241 ff.
Suicide, statistical study of, 399 f.
Sumner, W. G., 23, 47, 188
Superficiality in education, 72
Survey, social, 168
Survival, of the fittest, 8;
biological, 201 ff., 209 ff.;
in relation to classes, 218–238;
of nations, 241 ff.
Symbolism, in fame, 116 ff., 139, 187
Sympathy, of concussion, 39;
and success, 95 f.;
and competition, 127;
in business, 132;
in reform, 157;
fostered by art, 412 ff.
Tarde, 372
Taxation, as a means of reform, 85
Teachability, due to heredity, 200
Teachers, 63, 131;
motivation of, 141
Team-work, 37, 129, 146, 157, 244, 264, 265, 388, 416.
See also Community spirit
Temptation, is it beneficial?, 174 f.
Tentative process, 3–18, 19 ff., 30, 36, 55 ff., 353, 355, 408.
See also Selection, Survival
Terra del Fuego, survival in, 229
Thompson, W. S., 219
Tintoretto, 116
Torquemada, 366
Transition, conflict of ideas in a time of, 376 f.
Trial and error, 8
Trusts, 40 f.
Twins, in different environments, 200 f.
Types, social, 198, 201;
hereditary, 198, 201, 209 ff.;
improvement of, 224 f.;
under poverty, 226 ff.;
social tests of, 233 f., 235 f.
Unconscious social process, 5, 14 ff., 20 ff., 103, 284
Unemployment, and responsibility, 158 f., 185
United States, 47 f., 144, 245, 246, 257, 266, 276, 278, 407
Universities, organizing process in, 20;
motivation in, 141, 292;
valuation in, 339 f., 367, 369;
as setters of standards, 391 f.
Vacher de Lapouge, 221
Valuation, sexual, 214 f.;
as a social process, 283–292;
pecuniary, institutional character of, 293–308;
sphere of pecuniary, 309–328;
progress of, 329–348
Variation, social, 17, 363 ff.
Vice, 177, 184, 193 f., 231
Villages, degenerate, 156 f., 168, 191
Vocational selection, 64 f., 83, 318, 344
Vocational training, 65, 67 f., 70 ff.
Voluntary association, 7, 149, 249
War, 38, 39 f.;
moral equivalent for, 126 f.;
industrial, 186;
as revealer, 243, 246;
prehistoric, 243;
modern, 247, 248, 259;
of classes, 273 ff.
War, the Great, 39 f., 42, 123, 162, 259
Ward, L. F., 37
Warner, A. G., 231
Wars, Napoleonic, 255
Washington, 113, 116
Wellington, composure of, 94
Wells, H. G., 142
Whitman, Walt, 415
Will, 21;
freedom of, 28 f., 170 ff.;
in degeneration, 169–179
Women, industrial education of, 65, 71;
change in ideas regarding, 372
Women’s movement, effect of on race welfare, 215 ff.;
on valuation, 346
Wordsworth, 118
“Working,” as a cause of growth, 8 ff., 12, 13 ff., 19, 23
-----
Footnote 1:
Compare the chapter on Gothic Palaces in Ruskin’s Stones of Venice.
Footnote 2:
Professor Albion W. Small puts it as follows: “Described with respect
to form rather than content, the social process is a tide of
separating and blending social processes, consisting of incessant
decomposition and recomposition of relations within persons and
between persons, in a continuous evolution of types of persons and of
associations.” (American Journal of Sociology, 18, 210.)
Footnote 3:
“I rather demur to _Dinosaurus_ not having ‘free will,’ as surely we
have.” (More Letters of Charles Darwin, vol. I, 155.)
Footnote 4:
W. C. Mitchell, Business Cycles, 581.
Footnote 5:
Autobiography of Henry M. Stanley, 535.
Footnote 6:
Among the writers who have expounded conflict and co-operation as
phases of a single organic process are J. Novicow, in Les luttes entre
sociétés humaines, and Lester F. Ward, in Pure Sociology. Professor L.
M. Bristol gives a summary of their views in his Social Adaptation.
Footnote 7:
The word means, in general, devotion to a small part as against the
whole, and is most commonly used in historical writing to describe
excessive attachment to localities or factions as against nations or
other larger unities.
Footnote 8:
American sociologists are, with a few exceptions, opponents of
particularism and upholders of the organic view. Among recent writers
of which this is notably true I may mention C. A. Ellwood, in his
Introduction to Social Psychology and other works, E. C. Hayes, in his
Introduction to the Study of Sociology and his papers on methodology,
Maurice Parmelee, in his works on poverty and criminology, L. M.
Bristol, in his Social Adaptation, Blackmar and Gillin, in their
Outlines of Sociology, and A. J. Todd, in his Theories of Social
Progress.
Footnote 9:
Compare the views of Professor A. G. Keller, as expressed in his
Societal Evolution, 141 _ff._
Footnote 10:
Other varieties of particularism are discussed in Chapters XV, XVIII,
XXI and XXII.
Footnote 11:
In chapter V of her work.
Footnote 12:
Conversations with Eckermann, April 1, 1827.
Footnote 13:
Morley’s Burke, 8.
Footnote 14:
See § 138 of his Introduction to Economics.
Footnote 15:
If the reader cares for my view as to whether social stratification
tends to increase or diminish, I beg to refer to the discussion of
that subject in part IV of my Social Organization.
Footnote 16:
Herndon and Weik, Abraham Lincoln, vol. II, 54, 55.
Footnote 17:
How Germany Makes War, 111.
Footnote 18:
Psalm 37.
Footnote 19:
_Ibid._
Footnote 20:
_Ibid._
Footnote 21:
I Peter 3:12.
Footnote 22:
See his Essay, Of Glory.
Footnote 23:
Tout, The Empire and the Papacy, 412.
Footnote 24:
Religio Medici, par. 18.
Footnote 25:
From the Advancement of Learning.
Footnote 26:
No. 106.
Footnote 27:
Emerson, Spiritual Laws.
Footnote 28:
Goethe.
Footnote 29:
Of Glory.
Footnote 30:
John Burroughs in his essay, Recent Phases of Literary Criticism.
Footnote 31:
Plato, Symposium.
Footnote 32:
Guizot, France, chap. V.
Footnote 33:
There is a fuller discussion in the chapter on The Sphere of Pecuniary
Valuation.
Footnote 34:
James Logan in System, December, 1916.
Footnote 35:
Henry Ford in System, November, 1916.
Footnote 36:
H. G. Wells.
Footnote 37:
Kuno Francke in the Atlantic Monthly, November, 1914.
Footnote 38:
The Atlantic Monthly, September, 1911.
Footnote 39:
Areopagitica.
Footnote 40:
The Survey, vol. 29, p. 419.
Footnote 41:
The Chicago Commons Year-Book, 1911.
Footnote 42:
Any one who cares for a moving yet trustworthy account of the way city
conditions affect the young may find it in Jane Addams’s books,
especially The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets, and A New
Conscience and an Ancient Evil.
Footnote 43:
See the Annual Report for 1909.
Footnote 44:
See his Folkways, sec. 115.
Footnote 45:
The Native Tribes of Central Australia, 7.
Footnote 46:
Kafir Socialism, 41, 42.
Footnote 47:
_Ibid._, 145.
Footnote 48:
_Ibid._, 192, 193.
Footnote 49:
Savage Childhood, 108.
Footnote 50:
Travels in West Africa, 403.
Footnote 51:
See his Hereditary Genius.
Footnote 52:
The very statement of the problem as one of “heredity and environment”
implies a biological point of view, because the biological factor,
heredity, is made central while the social is merely a surrounding
condition or “environment.”
Footnote 53:
Professor E. A. Ross, in his Foundations of Sociology, has a good
summary of the earlier literature of social selection, and a
bibliography. See pp. 327 _ff._
Footnote 54:
According to the estimates of W. I. King, in his Wealth and Income of
the People of the United States, the number of families in each of
these classes, excluding single men and women, would have been, in
1910: Well-to-do families, 1,437,190; families in want, 1,870,000;
families in an intermediate state, 14,970,000. See Chap. IX, Table
XLIII, from which these figures are computed.
Footnote 55:
See the three articles on Race Suicide in the United States, by W. S.
Thompson, The Scientific Monthly, July, August, and September, 1917.
Footnote 56:
Galton’s practical eugenic programme is given in Sociological Papers
(an early publication of the English Sociological Society), vol. I, 45
_ff._ For the general argument, see his Hereditary Genius.
Footnote 57:
The view that race degenerates under civilization is developed at
length and with much pessimistic ardor by G. Vacher de Lapouge in his
work, Les sélections sociales.
Footnote 58:
Apart from the mixture of races, or changes in their relative numbers.
Footnote 59:
A. G. Warner, American Charities (Revised Edition), 60.
Footnote 60:
Professor Edward T. Devine suggests this distinction in his book,
Misery and Its Causes.
Footnote 61:
I hardly need say, regarding the class revolution in Russia, that that
country was lacking in those conditions of intelligence,
communication, and economic development which my argument assumes to
exist.
Footnote 62:
See his Industrial Evolution, translation, p. 382.
Footnote 63:
The human-nature values, of course, vary much less than the
institutional values. Thus fashions vary infinitely, but conformity,
the human-nature basis of allegiance to fashion, remains much the
same.
Footnote 64:
_Pecunia_, from _pecus_, cattle.
Footnote 65:
B. M. Anderson, Jr., Social Value, p. 116.
Footnote 66:
They are recognized a great deal, and with the best results, by
economists interested, as most are, in practical reforms.
Footnote 67:
See, for example, the penetrating study of Social Value by B. M.
Anderson, Jr.
It is curious that although orthodox economics has mostly ignored the
importance of institutional processes, its own history offers as good
an illustration of this importance as could be desired. I mean that
the spirit and underlying ideas of the science can be understood only
as the product of a school of thought, of a special institutional
development.
Footnote 68:
By calling these values “personal” I mean merely that they tend to
enrich persons; their economic character is multifarious.
Footnote 69:
Production has a special institutional development of its own which I
shall not attempt to discuss in this connection.
Footnote 70:
Compare W. I. King, Wealth and Income of the People of the United
States, chap. IX.
Footnote 71:
In this connection the reader will, no doubt, recall the work of
Professor Veblen along this line.
Footnote 72:
Perhaps I may be allowed to refer in this connection to the more
extended, though inadequate, treatment of classes in my Social
Organization.
Footnote 73:
For a very strong statement by a conservative economist of the power
of class over opportunities and personal values, I may refer to the
treatment of the subject by Professor Seager in his Introduction to
Economics, § 138. Compare _ante_, Chapter VIII.
Footnote 74:
Professor A. S. Johnson in a Phi Beta Kappa address has vigorously
presented this line of thought. He holds that: “The ultimate need of
the new industrialism ... is ... artists and poets who shall translate
society and social man into terms of values worth serving.”
Footnote 75:
The most satisfactory account I know of the stages of synthesis in the
development of intelligence, from the simplest assimilation of
stimulus and consequence—as when a burnt child dreads the fire—to the
most complex purposive action—as in the development and application of
science—is found in L. T. Hobhouse’s Mind in Evolution, chaps. V-XIV.
Footnote 76:
Physics and Politics, 214.
Footnote 77:
Thoughts About Art, 255.
Footnote 78:
Societal Evolution, 63.
Footnote 79:
Lanier, To Richard Wagner.
Footnote 80:
I touch but briefly upon public opinion in this book because I have
already treated it at considerable length in my Social Organization.
Footnote 81:
See his Hereditary Genius. Among other criticisms of his views was a
pamphlet I published called Genius, Fame and the Comparison of Races
(No. 197 of the Publications of the American Academy of Political and
Social Science). There is a good account of the literature of the
subject in Lester F. Ward’s Applied Sociology.
Footnote 82:
Quoted _ante_, p. 29.
Footnote 83:
Darwin, Descent of Man, chap. IV.
Footnote 84:
“The dispositions of human nature which made synthetic drama at the
beginning are ready to make it again. They never needed drama as they
do now in their day of exile. A community drama which knew how to use
these varied dispositions toward expression—not only song and dance,
but the instinct of workmanship, the latent passion which is in
multitudes of people for shaping material things into beautiful forms
for social use—such a community theatre would become a profound
economic necessity, would command kinds of power and quantities of
power whose existence we scarcely guess, would create a new social
situation in the lives of all those it touched, and would in time be
the parent of new art forms and social forms unforeseen, propitious,
splendid.”—John Collier in The Survey, vol. 36, p. 259.
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