PERSONALITY IN THE MAKING PERSONALITY IN THE MAKING BY JOSEPH HERSCHEL COFFIN, Ph.D. BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY IRiberstbe press Cambttbge 1923 COPYRIGHT, 1923, BY JOSEPH HERSCHEL COFFIN ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ®f)t &iberstt>e JJrcss CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS PRINTED IN THE U.S.A. TO P. D. C. CONTENTS INTRODUCTION Chapter I. The Problem of Personality S Something about the Author’s Point of View 3 What the Author would like to accomplish 14 What is the ‘Plain Man’s’ Idea of Personality? 15 Do all People possess Personality? 16 Chapter II. The Aspects of Personality 23 Does General Psychology give an Adequate Picture of Personality? 23 What Scientific Approaches can be made to Person- ality? 25 What are the Most Important Aspects of Person- ality? 41 Part I THE HISTORICAL LIFE Chapter III. The Historical Nature op Person- ality 47 What shall be our Method? 47 Why does not an Animal possess Personality? 48 What, then, is the Historical Life? 52 How is Personality achieved? 55 Chapter IV. The Development of Interpretation 57 What is the Problem of Interpretation? 57 What are the Laws Fundamental to Interpretation? 58 What are the Processes of Interpretation? 64 What are the Results of Interpretation? 69 Interpretation and Personal Development 81 VIII CONTENTS Chapter V. Development of Appreciation 83 What is meant by Appreciation? 83 What Place do the Emotions have in the Develop- ment of the Historical Life? 87 How do Sentiments further the Growth of Person- ality? 91 What, then, is Appreciation? 93 Summary and Application 101 Chapter VI. The Organization of Conduct 108 What is the Characteristic Type of Human Re- sponse? 108 What, then, is the Problem of Organization? Ill How is Habit related to the Historical Life? 115 But Volition represents the Supreme Type of Or- ganization 117 What is the Place of Organization in the Historical Life? 123 The Place of Self-Consciousness in Personality 129 Part II THE SOCIALIZING PROCESS Chapter VII. The Psycho-Social Organism 135 What does the Term ‘Psycho-Social Organism* mean? 135 Can the Statement that Mind has a Social Origin be justified? 137 But Social Organization also demonstrates the Same Fact from the Other Side 148 What does it mean to become socialized? 151 What then, are the Principles of Socialization? 154 What are the Chief Modes of Socialization? 159 Summary: The Meaning of the Psycho-Social Or- ganism 170 CONTENTS IX Chapter VIII. The Social Soil 172 What are the Psychical Elements of the Social Soil? 172 What are the Forms of the Group Mind and how do they help socialize the Individual? 179 How Personality develops from the Social Soil 208 Chapter IX. The Socializing Agencies 211 <, The Problem of the Chapter 211 What are the Institutions? 211 What is the Significance of the Secondary Institu- tions? 222 What is meant by the Community, and what is its Significance? 223 Part III PSYCHO-SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT Chapter X. Education 233 What does Education mean, from the Standpoint of the Historical Life? * 233 ‘Half-Educated People’ 236 Who, then, is fully educated? 238 An Adequate Philosophy of Life 240 The School as a Factor in Education 245 The School as a Socializing Agent •> 248 Chapter XI. The Vocation 252 What is meant by the Vocation? 252 How does Work affect Personality? 253 Selection of Proper Work 262 How does Work tend to socialize the Individual? 265 Avocation 267 Chapter XII. Moralization 274 What is the Meaning of Morality? ' 274 What is a Moral Situation in Terms of Psychology? 276 X CONTENTS What is a Moral Situation, defined in Social Terras? 280 The Proper Attitude of the Individual to these Two Aspects of the Moral Situation can be expressed by the Term ‘the Socialized Conscience’ 284 Morality and the Spiritual Life 288 Conclusion 296 Index 299 PERSONALITY IN THE MAKING INTRODUCTION PERSONALITY IN THE MAKING INTRODUCTION CHAPTER I THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY SOMETHING ABOUT THE AUTHOR’S POINT OF VIEW Every one must have his philosophy of life. All up and down the intellectual scale each person no doubt has some point of view or principle of explanation — no matter how inadequate — concerning the world in which he lives, concerning himself and his relation to the world. He entertains some hypothesis or other about the form of the earth, how it is operated, where life came from, what man’s place is in relation to other life, what the human mind and spirit are, what man’s destiny is, what God is and where. These and many other questions come to one at least occasionally, and no matter what one’s educational advantages may have been, almost every one has caught up a principle some- where along the way which to his mind explains at least in part these facts of the world and life. I imagine that for many persons who thus think oc- casionally about the problems of the world early reli- gious teachings provide the first principles. The ques- tion of origins, values, and destiny can scarcely have 4 INTRODUCTION escaped attention even if one’s religious education has been but meager. Then, of course, scientific informa- tion early supplies a point of view, and — unfortu- nately — this often seems to contradict religious expla- nations and finally displaces them. Ideas gained from popular science have been pieced together into a sort of loose mechanistic materialism which may be taken as representing the philosophy of life of the majority of the not-wholly educated people who are after all the substantial part of the community. Like others, I also have my point of view which it seems to me worth while stating concisely and briefly in order that the discussions that follow may be the clearer. In presenting any scientific description and explanation of facts the alleged scientific method (and therefore the accepted one) is: (1) To present facts impartially, without bias or prej- udice; (2) To deal with these facts according to the inexor- able laws of logic, treading the path of either in- duction or deduction straight to the necessary conclusion; (3) To refrain from dogmatism in the interpretation of facts and laws. And this is well. But here is a situation which is tremendously signif- icant and one which the scientist himself often over- looks; namely, the human mind is so constituted that a fact is a fact for it only as it has meaning — that is, only as it is interpreted in the light of its own ex- THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY 5 periences. While it is true that our experience as sepa- rate individuals is more alike than it is different, and that we therefore see facts for the most part alike, yet it is also true that each generation and each individual has his own preconceptions — idols, as Bacon called them — from which he cannot hope wholly to escape no mat- ter how scientific he may try to be. So it seems to me less dogmatic to state frankly the point of view from which the facts of personality are here consciously viewed than to present them from an alleged nonpar- tisan view in the hope that each one will form his own induction from them. So far as I can see, then, about the last test which we can make as to the truth of a proposition is whether it is consistent with the whole of human experience as an or- ganic unity; and I believe the onward move of human progress has many times been impeded by a lack of either clearness or frankness concerning the presupposi- tions implicit in much scientific literature. To take an illustration from the field of modern psychology, the stimulus-response formula of the Behaviorists has im- plicit in it a philosophy of life which simply does not fit into the larger organization of human experience, in its higher reaches of social and spiritual relationships. In so far, therefore, as behaviorism has gained currency as a complete psychology, its influence has been harmful. Even a scientific induction or deduction cannot be ul- timately true unless its implications work over the whole realm of human experience. Well, then, to come back to the question in hand, the 6 INTRODUCTION following are the four corner stones in that philosophy of life which constitutes the background of the discus- sions in this book: (1) I take the view that personality is the biggest fact in the universe. Marvelous as is the natural world as described by astronomy, geology, physics, chemistry, it seems to me that mental life as found in man is a far more remarkable reality. I frankly insist that a mind that can uncover the secrets of Nature and penetrate to her principles of organization, that can harness wind, water, gravity, steam, and electricity and make them do the lifting, pulling, pushing, and carrying which are nec- essary for man’s comfort and welfare, is greater in the ultimate scale of reality than the natural forces which are thus harnessed. Buildings, bridges, engines, ships, tunnels, come into being only as the product of men’s ideas and inventive genius, and in response to their effort to satisfy needs. Nature yields her strength and energy only when men subdue her by the superior power of intellect. From this, it will be clear that I do not share the easy materialism that seems to dominate the commercial life of our day. The most difficult thing in this difficult age is to live your life as a banker, merchant, or manufacturer and be conscious of the whole universe in which you live. The easiest and most natural thing is to see only half the world, and the little half at that, the material world and your fellow men as elements thereof; or, worse yet, to see the whole world inverted as the image appears on the ground glass of the camera, with the material order on top. THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY 7 (2) Next, let me state my conviction that personality is fundamentally spiritual in nature. Notwithstanding the area of function of the bio-chemical laws which oper- ate the human machine, as, for example, the glands of internal secretion in their effect upon intelligence and temperament, yet, when it comes to reading meaning into these and all other physical and mental processes, abso- lutely the only adequate mode of approach is from the assumption that man is a spiritual entity, and that bio- chemical laws and mental laws and all have meaning only in terms of a psycho-social-spiritual organism known as personality. This spiritual interpretation of man and likewise of his environment implies what the philosophers call teleology as opposed to mechanism. The idea of tel- eology runs throughout the following pages, for person- ality is conceived straight through as a teleological sys- tem itself. A fuller definition of the term will therefore be given in its place; but in the mean time let us think of any process as teleological which is moving in the di- rection of a previsioned end, and any object as having a teleological function which is a tool or agent in the achievement of such a purpose. One result of the modern scientific method has been to emphasize the mechanistic aspect of nature to the ex- clusion of the purposive aspect. We can have no quar- rel with science as an institution on this score, for that is precisely the office of natural science. But too often the scientists themselves have failed, perhaps, to see, and certainly to state clearly, that after all the natural world with its mechanism is only a means in a teleological sys- 8 INTRODUCTION tem. Mechanism has been treated as if it were complete in itself as an explanation of the world. In other words, mechanism in which every modern man must believe has been elevated to the position of a world philosophy, and thus made to carry a load which it is in no position to carry. This is one reason why the religious leaders of the last three hundred years have been in almost con- stant revolt against science and the scientific method. When it is once made clear that the world is ordered ac- cording to a plan and purpose, that it had an origin and is in the process of achieving a destiny, and that the whole mechanistic order is a means to a system of ends, and not an end in itself, both the scientist and the ec- clesiastic should be satisfied. The temptation to regard personality as a mere mechanism will then be removed and it will be easier to see it for what it is; namely, a teleological unity and consequently a spiritual fact. (3) The great hue and cry that has been raised in re- cent times concerning evolution seems to make refer- ence to this matter desirable in a statement of presuppo- sitions such as this. It is a fact that ours is a machine- made civilization; life is dominated by the machine. We get up by the alarm clock, clothe ourselves in machine- made stuffs, eat a patent breakfast food, while the electricity percolates the coffee and toasts the bread, whereas the egg we are about to devour was transported a thousand miles (and tastes like it!). We then rush, to the tune of gas or compressed steam, to factory, shop, office, or field where we manipulate one kind of tool, im- plement, or appliance or other all day long. That is our THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY 9 life work; and the freest of us is governed by standard time and hitched to the machine of commerce. And withal, the world of nature and of man seems to some but a vast machine in which blind energy pushes and pulls objects and men this way and that with reference to nothing outside itself. This whole complex process which we call civilization is the result of pure and applied science. The biggest re- cent episode in the scenario of human history is the modern scientific expansion that has taken place within the last three hundred years, which date is, indeed, warm off the reel of time in comparison with the whole of human history. But here it is! — a new method of human achievement, namely, the Scientific Method. The Scientific Method! A word to conjure with, indeed, because it is the basic factor in the swirling stream of the industrial civilization in which we float. The scientific method is what we live by now, and no one, unless he be a Buddhist or a Brahman, can escape it. But the scientific method has done more to the world of men than to turn it into a great machine for the pro- duction of commodities which in turn satisfy human wants. It has also suggested both directly and by anal- ogy that the universe itself is a mechanism, and it has thus colored the philosophy of life of whole nations. But while this false implication is to be marked down on the debit side, there is another concept which is entirely to the credit of the scientific method, namely, the con- cept of evolution. The theory of evolution and the sci- entific method are organic to each other and you cannot 10 INTRODUCTION have the advantages of telephones or steam engines without reckoning with evolution. You must either ac- cept it and be in harmony with the whole spirit of mod- ern civilization or reject it and be forever at war with the spirit and principles which have given you power machinery, printing, movies, and all the elements of your daily comfort and happiness. Evolution is to be re- garded simply and solely as the process of world change and progress. This process is going on in large and small throughout the tissue of the whole organism, here by way of the cooling of the crust of a planet and the devel- opment of a new and marvelous chemical compound — protoplasm; there by the gradual modification of a spe- cies; yonder in the synthesis of a new level of organic life, namely, mental life; again, by way of improvement in an educational system or a form of government. It is the process by which the teleological system is being realized and the method which makes mechanism avail- able in the teleological order. Evolution is the road that personality travels from its origin in the race and in the individual through its stages of development to its destiny. Perhaps it needs to be specifically said also that evolution is the concept that makes teleology tenable in these days of mechanical perfection; that it is the funnel through which spiritual meaning may be diffused throughout the whole material plant. The only hope of established religion to dominate the commercial nationalism of the day is to establish clearly (the absolutely justifiable claim) that it holds the key to the larger purposes and ideals of this teleologi- THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY 11 cal system, and that the only value of the scientific in- dustrial order is as means to these larger ends; further, that evolution is the process employed in the realization of these divine ends. This much-beset evolutionary process, therefore, and the wholly accepted mechanism of applied science really turn out to be supplementary tools in the hand of God in His eternal process of crea- tion. I started out by saying that personality seems to me to be the biggest fact in the universe, and so it does; it is the biggest end-value in this system of ends we have called the teleological system. And the historical or scientific view as versus the dogmatic theological view is the only one which places personality in the right per- spective in relation to the system as a whole. Man is thus not an incident or an accident in the world drama, but is indeed the crowning achievement of the creative process thus far. More than this, the mechanical order becomes a tool in the hand of man himself, in so far as he through his scientific insight can understand it and utilize it. Passing reference was made above to behaviorism in psychology, by way of illustrating the fact that the pre- suppositions underlying scientific writings often conflict with what we may call a sound philosophy of life. But I do not wish to be understood as repudiating behavior- ism. Behaviorism is a valuable step in the development of psychological science, and bears the same relation to the interpretation of mind in general as mechanism bears to teleology. Behaviorism becomes a menace only when it is elevated to the position of a philosophy of 12 INTRODUCTION mind. The stimulus-response formula of behaviorism when rightly viewed becomes a means in the larger complex of mind as a functional agency in the historical life of individuals and societies. (4) There will certainly be no one in these days to take the negative upon the proposition that the times are out of joint. Industrial disorder and business malad- justments have become chronic, not to mention the ex- traordinary social and political unrest. We have become so habituated to all these dislocations that they seem almost woven into the constitution of things and we might be tempted to settle down and accept them as in- evitable if it were possible. But this cannot be done. Human life cannot go on indefinitely upon the contra- dictory principles now operative. Hold the social mirror up to our civilization during the last one hundred and fifty years and what do we see? A picture something like this: SCIENTIFIC METHOD Growth of Pure and Applied Science Discoveries and Inventions The System The Social Results Steam engine Coal Power machinery Factory Organized industry Dispossession of small shop-owners Smash-up of guild system Creation of industrial class with no property or tool reserve Creation of cities Wage system vs. barter system Poverty class Unionism Revolution Commerce ' Money Credit Transportation Capitalization Corporations Trusts Aims: Profits THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY 13 This is not the place to attempt a diagnosis of our so- cial disease or to prescribe for it. The sole purpose of vis- ualizing the social situation is to provide a background for this item of my philosophy of life: namely, that per- sonality and peisonal values must be substituted for any and all other ends in our industrial process. We are bound to have revolution as long as human persons are used as means to the end of profit, as long as they are simply cogs in the machine, to be bought and sold and junked at the will of the mighty. If personality is, indeed, the biggest fact in the uni- verse, then it must be set up as the one value to be con- served and enhanced even in industry and the State as well as in the home, the school, and the church. It takes a Gargantuan stride of the imagination to picture an in- dustrial civilization devoted in all of its processes to the single task of developing the latent personalities of all the members of society who participate in its industry. For then coal will be mined, not only because it is a common necessity, but also because mining is one way by which the worker can, at his level of ability, best re- alize his whole self, instead of for the sake of the profit to the owner alone; steel will be made because the steel mill offers a means of self-development to the man who does the work, instead of a road to millionairedom on the part of a few capitalists. Does this look like an impos- sible Utopia? Perhaps so. But it is the big issue in our civilization at this time; it is the inarticulate motive in millions of restless men and women who express their discontent in strike and violence, in party and union, 14 INTRODUCTION and in agitation. And while the ideal seems an impos- sible dream, yet this is the problem of social and ethi- cal reconstruction which is ahead of us in this and the next generation. Palliative measures, such as superior organizations for purposes of charity, will not answer. Only a social reorganization, in which the potential per- sonality of every individual is the end to be achieved by the industrial process, is the thing that will satisfy. WHAT THE AUTHOR WOULD LIKE TO ACCOMPLISH In entering upon this discussion of personality I have in mind three fundamental questions, namely: (1) What native capacities or functions must be pres- ent in order that personality shall be possible in a given individual; how do these grow or expand; and how are they unified into personality? (2) To how great an extent and in what manner is the growth of personality conditioned by social con- tacts, and what is required of society, therefore, on behalf of personality? (3) To what extent and in what manner is the indi- vidual himself responsible for his personal devel- opment? These questions appear to me to pierce to the very heart of the whole problem, and if I can lead a discussion of these main problems, and of the part problems into which each of them will divide, and then gather the facts and conclusions thus arrived at, together with some- thing like a complete picture of personality, I shall have accomplished all and more than I have hoped for. He THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY 15 would be a bold man, though, who would promise a complete account of human personality with our present background of knowledge, for we very shortly reach the boundary of our knowledge in every direction as we pro- ject excursions into the unknown. Personality, after all, is at once the biggest miracle and the biggest fact in the universe; and at present we can only hope for a mere introduction to its intricacies. WHAT IS THE ‘ PLAIN MANV IDEA OF PERSONALITY ? Coming, then, in a tentative way to the fundamental question, we may make our approach by way of the common-sense view, and ask the ‘plain man’ for his analysis of personality. If he is not already aware of the fact he will discover that, while he feels comfortably at home with the word, and while he has been using it from time to time to describe his friend, his neighbor, his favor- ite physician, or his employer, yet in fact it is clothed in vagueness; he has mistaken his acquaintance with it for knowledge, and his familiarity with it for understanding. But if he can fix his attention upon it and crystallize his vague ideas into nouns before the mental repetition of the term leaves it but a meaningless symbol, he will prob- ably assert that personality consists of a group of quali- ties or characteristics such as appearance, bearing, atti- tude, manners, habits of speech and conduct, gestures, tone of voice, taste in dress, intelligence, energy, initia- tive, likes and dislikes, disposition, and sociableness, which are brought together in a given individual. In trying to visualize the personality of a friend, these and 16 INTRODUCTION other tricks and traits peculiar to the individual defile through the focus of consciousness. And yet a moment’s consideration shows that these are but surface markings or superficial idiosyncrasies of the one in question and do not touch the real essence of personality. What have appearance, bearing, or manner to do with the heart of a Lincoln; or what do habits of speech and conduct, gestures, tone of voice, or taste in dress contribute to the personality of the builder of the Panama Canal? Of course there is some connection in both cases, but it would be ridiculous to assert that had Lincoln been three inches shorter, or had Colonel Goe- thals preferred blue neckties to red, neither could have accomplished the great work he did. Of course, when we come to the question of intelligence, energy, and ini- tiative, we are very much nearer the heart of personal- ity. But even so, these terms themselves are almost as difficult of definition as personality itself, and in any case we are left in doubt and uncertainty. DO ALL PEOPLE POSSESS PERSONALITY ? This question can scarcely be answered in the affirma- tive, for there are many people who possess some or all of the characteristics enumerated by the ‘plain man’ who nevertheless are wholly or partially wanting in the more fundamental attributes which are essential to per- sonality in its true sense. An analysis of some of these types may serve to introduce us to this deeper meaning of the term. In his book on “The Psychology of Religious Experi- THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY 17 ence,” Professor Ames enumerates three classes of peo- ple who are non-religious (p. 359 If.). Without in the least doing violence to his analysis of these groups, we might adopt his portrayal of them as descriptive of individuals who are lacking, or almost lacking, in per- sonality, or in whom the potentialities of personality have been realized but imperfectly. “One class includes those who lack the mentality or the organization of impulses necessary to enable them to share in the ap- preciation and effective pursuit of ideals. . .. Idiots, imbeciles, the insane, many paupers and persons suffer- ing from hysteria and certain other diseases are of this type.” These people are abnormal or subnormal, and do not possess the psychical equipment necessary to enable them to attain sufficient education and culture to be- come a force of any kind. They do not possess the intel- ligence to appreciate the structure and function of soci- ety in its various forms; they therefore feel no obliga- tion, exert no energy toward cooperative labor, contrib- ute nothing toward the common good; they are a drag and a burden upon society. For the same reasons they are unmoral or non-moral. Like the animal or the little child they cannot experience the rational appeal of jus- tice, benevolence, cooperation, prudence, temperance, chastity, charity, or any other moral ideal. Like a dog, a child or man may be endowed with normal eyes, ears, touch end-organs, etc., and yet be so lacking in the abil- ity to generalize and to interpret in terms of laws and concepts, so deficient in ability to perceive time, space, cause and effect relations, relations of whole and part, 18 INTRODUCTION and the like, as to be mentally defective and, therefore, lacking in the groundwork of personality. Like the ani- mal, also, this individual may be aware of things, events, pains, and pleasures, but he is not self-conscious in the proper sense of the term. A second class of those who we may properly say have not attained personality “includes those who have more definite intellectual and habitual organization, and are consequently more powerful. These are the criminal classes, whose chief psychological characteristic is that they conceive other persons and society in such ways as to subordinate all other interests to some one or few de- sires which are low and narrow.” This includes not only the thief, the robber, the highwayman, the counter- feiter, the forger, and the murderer, whose knowledge of men, materials, tools, etc., becomes their greatest asset, but it also includes the high financier and all others who live by exploitation. A criminal of any of these classes, “to be successful, requires even greater imagination for the motives and mentality of other persons than does the honest capitalist or manager: for he must not only use the legitimate methods of business, but at certain points he must divert them from the proper channels and at the same time avoid detection. To escape with the plunder may require more brains than to seize it.” The criminal, at least of the more subtle type, must possess all of the mental capacities in high degree. Keen of sense, quick to associate and interpret, disciplined of action, he possesses the equipment for a high degree of personality. The difficulty is, in part, that his scheme THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY 19 of life, his system of values, is fallacious. He has set himself against the great forces which hold society to- gether, and which establish that inter-confidence and human credit without which civilization is impossible. The criminal is presumably obedient to the first law of life, namely, self-preservation; but with all the other laws he is in ultimate conflict. These facts he does not see and appreciate: this is the blight upon his potential personality. The criminal class, then, and all who live by their wits, represent an abortive type of personality in which the native psychological equipment was sufficient to have insured a high degree of personality had moral de- velopment been carried out normally. These classes — startlingly numerous when actually counted — are the most dangerous members of society both because they tear down her solid structures and because, to the imita- tive candidates for personality, the emoluments of can- criform personality often seem on the surface to be so great. A third class of non-persons includes “the inconse- quential individuals who live in the present, largely con- trolled by their sensuous impulses, without comprehen- sive purposes or standards. They are found at all levels of the social world, not only among the idle rich, but also among the improvident poor and the delinquents. The sporting element of the community, as described by Veblen, belongs here. He shows that habitual sportsmen represent an ‘archaic spiritual constitution,’ and an ‘ar- rested development of the man’s moral nature.’ Sports- INTRODUCTION 20 men are likely to credit themselves with a love of nature, a need of recreation, and to hide from themselves the real purposelessness of their sport. By these reflections and by other illusory impressions they convince them- selves that there is some genuine purpose in their ‘ dex- trous or emulative exertion.’ Veblen states it thus: ‘Sports — hunting, angling, athletic games, and the like — afford an exercise for dexterity and for the emulative ferocity and astuteness characteristic of predatory life. So long as his life is substantially a life of naive impul- sive action — so long the immediate and unreflected purposefulness of sports, in the way of an expression of dominance, will measurably satisfy his instinct for workmanship. This is especially true if his dominant impulses are unreflecting emulative propensities of the predaceous temperament.’ ” To the list of the professional sportsmen given by Veblen we might add the exaggerated automobilist, the society butterfly, the club zealot, and, in fact, every in- dividual or class whose chief aim in life is to avoid serious enterprise and to have a ‘good time.’ These individuals represent serious cases of arrested personality. They may have possessed in the beginning the necessary psy- cho-social equipment for normal and useful personali- ties, but because of social environment, or sudden inheri- tance of wealth, or sporadic temperament, they fail to gain, or they lose control of, themselves and their pow- ers. The professional sportsman or the matinee habitue is not necessarily lacking in powers of interpretation, or the other capacities necessary to personality. Indeed, THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY 21 the sentimental girl who sweetly weeps at the sad fate of the victimized working girl in the play, but who does her Christmas shopping in the afternoon of December 24th, is keenly susceptible to impressions of a certain sort; but her sense of proportion is distorted; her judg- ment of value is defective. To the eye of this class of sub-persons the lesser good obscures the greater; showy values are more attractive than the vital ones, and fixed aims and systematic purposes are sacrificed to sensuous satisfactions. Measured by the standards of personality, life of this kind is trivial and inconsequential; and, from the standpoint of control, instinct and impulse are given precedence over rational action. Impulsive desire — from the trifling wish for a box of candy to the passion for aeroplaning — everywhere thwarts solid purpose. Whatever fleeting glimpses of the possibilities of a higher and more useful life may come to consciousness are crowded out by the incessant appetite for excite- ment. As for the sportsman, his emulative or predatory instincts swarm in the foreground of life, and crowd out reflective and constructive pursuits. In happy contrast to these negative instances stand out many classes of normal, highly developed, socially efficient persons. These are the men of education, of cul- ture, of wise and generous citizenship who are to be found in every walk of life. The ranks of physician, law- yer, teacher, minister, business man, manufacturer, and laborer all yield their quota of men of rich personality. The heroism of true personality is not limited to the few spectacular individuals of a given generation. While 22 INTRODUCTION the Washingtons, the Lincolns, the Beechers, and the Eliots of the various classes must have developed per- sonalities, yet following closely upon them in the ranks are others of equally fine fiber who will step into their places as they go; and uncounted numbers of them may never be thrown into the particular combination of cir- cumstances which transmutes unheralded greatness and heroism into fame. CHAPTER II THE ASPECTS OF PERSONALITY DOES GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY GIVE AN ADEQUATE PICTURE OF PERSONALITY ? One naturally turns to psychology — the science of mental life — for an accurate and adequate delineation of personality. This is a justifiable expectation because the terms included in the ‘plain man’s’ list which come closest to the heart of personality — intelligence, en- ergy, initiative, likes and dislikes — are mental terms, designating various mental characteristics. But what- ever degree of warm enthusiasm one may bring to the study of psychology in the expectation of a solution of the problem of personality is almost certain to decrease as he glances down the table of contents of a psychology book. He looks in vain for the terms mentioned; they do not appear either as chapter headings or as subheadings; indeed, he may do well to find them in the index at the close of the book. Instead, he discovers chapters on sen- sation, perception, affection, image, memory, imagina- tion, association, habit, attention, emotion, volition, and the like, no one of which, nor all of which combined, describe for him the fact we call personality. While ‘psychology’ originally meant the ‘science of the soul/ he cannot find the word ‘soul’ in the modern psychology book. As a result, it is not to be wondered at if he feels that he has asked for bread and has been given a stone. 24 IN TRODU CTION But, on the other hand, the psychologist must not be harshly judged because of this fact, for the science of psychology is consciously limited to the study of one aspect of the complex entity called personality, namely, the experience aspect. The psychologist has set himself the task of analyzing human behavior with particular emphasis upon isolating, describing, and classifying the contents of the stream of consciousness, and of discov- ering such uniformities of sequence and relationships among them as may be stated in the form of mental laws. His interest is in describing and explaining the several types of mental processes as empirical facts, af- ter the manner in which any scientist would treat his particular data. He may even go so far as to show how the various mental processes function in the adjustment of the individual to his environment. But the empirical psychologist makes little or no attempt to treat the per- son as a purposive being, or to describe and explain per- sonality in terms of those directive tendencies within him by virtue of which he is human. Yet this is pre- cisely the point of view which is necessary in order adequately to describe human personality. As we have said, personality is a teleological system — an organism capable of setting up and striving for a system of ends. And the psychologist — as psychologist — cannot treat the individual in this manner, because other data than those given through introspection, on the one hand, or by mere observation of behavior, on the other hand, are necessary: namely, the deliverances of sociology, ethics, aesthetics, etc. In other words, psychology is not a nor- THE ASPECTS OF PERSONALITY 25 mative science, whereas a picture of personality must draw its colors from norms as well as from facts and laws. The conclusion to which we come, then, is that per- sonality is a synthesis of many factors, chiefly mental but in addition also social, moral, and aesthetic. The task to which we set ourselves in this book is to gather these factors together and weave them into as clear a picture of personality as may be. \ WHAT SCIENTIFIC APPROACHES CAN BE MADE TO PERSONALITY ? The sentences just completed must not be interpreted as meaning that psychology has little to offer in the ex- planation of personality. On the contrary, of all the dis- ciplines it contributes the most to this concept. There are other disciplines whose contributions are also basic to an understanding of personality, but it must be borne in mind that these other disciplines, with the exception of biology and physiology, all presuppose as their basis mind, which is the subject-matter of psychology. Besides the psychologist, then, the biologist, the phys- iologist, the sociologist, and the ethicist, if confronted with our question as to the meaning of personality, would each make answer in the terms peculiar to his special science. The biologist would talk in terms of the organism, the physiologist in terms of the body, the psy- chologist in terms of mental life, the sociologist in terms of social organization, and the ethicist in terms of mo- rality; but while the answers would all be different, they 26 INTRODUCTION would in no sense be contradictory; rather would they be supplementary. Just as a post may be painted a dif- ferent color on each of its four sides, thus making a view from each side necessary for a complete perception, so personality is highly complex, and an understanding of it necessitates a view from each of its sides. 1. The Biological Basis of Personality The biologist’s contribution to the definition is the most general of all. To him, personality appears as a highly complex organism with certain definite charac- teristics. Unlike a machine, an organism is a self-maintaining system. No matter how simple or how complex the organism, it is self-feeding, self-running, self-repairing within limits, self-changing, self-regulative, and self- reproducing. Even the most perfect and complete ma- chine must have the force which drives it generated out- side, and applied to it in the form of steam, electricity, the energy of a coiled spring, or some other agency. Be- sides this, the machine must be regulated, repaired, and managed by an outside force. In contrast with this the living organism performs all of these functions for itself by virtue of the inner laws of its own life. Organisms differ most widely in regard to the degree of their complexity. The amoeba, the earthworm, the crawfish, the reptile, the chick, the dog, and man, all represent different levels of organic development. The higher we ascend in the life series, the greater the num- ber of structures or organs we find, and the more numer- THE ASPECTS OF PERSONALITY 27 ous and delicate the functions; the greater the degree of complexity, the greater the specialization of structures. Corresponding with the diversity of organs is observable a higher and higher degree of unity, which is manifest in the fact that all structures and functions are focused upon and directed toward self-maintenance and self- direction. The organism is rendered self-running, self- feeding, self-repairing, self-changing, self-regulative, and self-reproducing because of the inner unity between the different structures and their functions; because of the cooperation between their parts. At the head of the series of organic life stands human personality, the most complex and highest type of life we know anything about. This is true because to the physical life which man has in common with all animals there is conjoined a mental life which vastly transcends everything of its kind in nature. In common with all or- ganisms, human personality possesses all the character- istics which have already been mentioned; like them, it is sensitive to stimuli from the environment; it reacts and adapts itself to the conditions of the latter; it is sub- ject to all the biological laws of heredity, growth, and development. Indeed, all of these processes are raised to their highest power in the life of man. „ 2. The Physiological Aspect The human organism gathers up and synthesizes all the forms of response which are represented in the whole biological series, from lowest to highest, including reflex, automatic, instinctive, impulsive, and volitional action. 28 INTRODUCTION And it is amazing how large a proportion of these re- sponses of the human organism are purely physiological and mechanical. These, of course, have little bearing upon personality, as compared with those which are conditioned by consciousness. And yet, the structure of the bodily equipment of man and its mode of function- ing is no small factor in personality. In elaborating this factor in personality, Woodworth1 remarks that “per- sonality depends in part on physique. . .. The mere size of a person affects his attitude toward other people and their attitude toward him — and it is in such social rela- tions that personality most clearly stands out. His size affects the individual’s behavior in subtle ways, since the big fellow dominates others easily just by virtue of his size, and so tends to be good-humored, while the lit- tle fellow is apt to be strenuous and self-assertive.” But from the physiological standpoint, the more basic fact is the elaborate mechanism for stimulation and response consisting of the system of sense-organs, the nervous sys- tem connecting these with the muscular system and with the glandular system, all of which is the normal inherit- ance of every individual, but which function with such subtle yet pronounced differences in different individuals. There can be no question that personality is largely determined by the types of response which are peculiar to the individual. It has long been recognized that indi- viduals differ greatly as to their native motor responses. While all have the same general outfit of instinctive tendencies, “these tendencies undoubtedly differ in 1 Psychology, p. 553. THE ASPECTS OF PERSONALITY 29 strength in different individuals. One is more gregarious than another . . . one more assertive and masterful than another, .. . one more ‘ motherly ’... while another is more prone to laugh, etc.”1 Besides these native motor tendencies there are also the acquired responses includ- ing the whole web of habits, skills, and attitudes. There can likewise be no question that an individual’s habits of posture, walking, gesticulating, articulation, enuncia- tion, forms of speech, as well as his various skills and techniques, each and every one modifies his personality and counts as a factor in the total impression which he makes upon his neighbors. But there is also a subtle kind of internal response which has only recently been taken into account and which is but imperfectly understood, namely, glandular secretion. The sight of food not only serves as a stimulus for a motor adjustment, but also causes the salivary glands to function: not only these, but the whole series of glands all along the alimentary tract respond in simi- lar fashion. Besides these duct-glands there is another important group of glands which are doubtless still more significant from the psychological standpoint — how important no one yet knows — namely, the glands of internal secre- tion or endocrine glands. The following extravagant statement indicates the significance that is attached to them by some: The chemistry of the soul! Magnificent phrase! It’s a long, long way to that goal. The exact formula is as yet far beyond 1 Woodworth, R. S.: Psychology, p. 554. 30 INTRODUCTION our reach.... The thyroid gland, the pituitary gland, the ad- renal glands, the thymus, the pineal, the sex glands, have yielded secrets. And certain great postulates have been estab- lished. The life of every individual, normal or abnormal, his physical appearance, and his psychic traits, are dominated largely by his internal secretions.. . . The internal secretion formula of an individual may, in the future, constitute his measurement which will place him accurately in the social system. ... The derangement of their function, causing an in- sufficiency of them, an excess, or an abnormality, upsets the entire equilibrium of the body, with transforming effect upon the mind and the organs. In short, they control human na- ture, and whoever controls them, controls human nature.1 Through the influence of the secretions of these glands upon the nervous system, they are thus said to have a profound influence upon the mental make-up of the in- dividual, upon his general intelligence, the quickness and continuity of mental response, and particularly upon his disposition and temperament. Take, for example, the secretions of the adrenal glands, that we found to be poured out during fear and anger and to have so much to do with the bodily condition of readiness for violent action and probably also with the “stirred-up” emotional state. What is more likely than that individuals differ in the strength of their adrenal secretions or in the readiness with which the glands are aroused to pour it out into the circula- tion? The excitable individual may be one with over-active adrenals. And in the same way the strenuous individual might be one with an unusually active thyroid gland, since there certainly seems to be some connection between this gland and the tendency to great activity.2 These considerations, therefore, on top of the usual evidence of physiological psychology that there is a 1 Berman, The Glands Regulating Personality, pp. 25, 26. * Woodworth, It. S.: Psychology, p. 554. THE ASPECTS OF PERSONALITY 31 close correlation between neural activity and mental process, serve to emphasize the fact that the physiologi- cal basis of personality is fundamental and vital. The least we can say is that personality is a psycho-physical organism, exhibiting a unified life of almost unbelievable complexity, in which the physical structures and func- tions condition the mental, but in which the mental also determines the physical. The physiological chemists have shown with considerable certainty that these endo- crine glands determine within limits the growth of body and mind, and the nature of the individual’s tempera- ment and disposition. What they have not shown as yet with equal clearness is that mind, through the higher processes of interpretation, appreciation, and organiza- tion, may, in turn, modify in some indirect way the very structure and function of these glands and the nervous and muscular systems themselves, by its superior influ- ence; all of which must be true if our concept of per- sonality as a teleological system is correct. Here is the great gap in our physiological knowledge which must be bridged in order that our teleology may have an uninterrupted scientific support. Investigations of this kind are very new, indeed, and it does not take a great deal of scientific faith to believe that this gap will be bridged. In this connection, there is some comfort to be derived from the final admission by Berman1 when he says: ... Your most rigid nomenclature will never abolish the mys- tic personal purpose in the equation, no matter how low the 1 The Glands Regulating Personality, p. 27. 32 INTRODUCTION step in the animal series to which you descend. The declara- tion that a man is dominated by certain glands within his body should not be taken to give aid and comfort to those who would banish mind from the universe. 3. The Psychological Aspect a. General statement. Here we come, then, to the great- est factor of all in the complex life of the organism called personality, namely, the mind in its highest level of self- consciousness. If our teleological view is correct, then the body mechanism must be regarded as a means in the hands of self-consciousness, to be utilized and perchance modified in the interest of conscious purpose. To recall a few distinctions will be helpful at this point. Organic life in general exhibits four main levels that may be designated respectively: vital, mental, conscious, and self-conscious; each one in the series involving those pre- ceding it: thus the second involves the first, the third in- volves the first and second, and the fourth involves the other three. By vital life we understand the activities of that chemical compound known as ‘protoplasm,’ by which it assimilates food, repairs waste, and reproduces itself. By mental life we mean the activities exhibited by a higher order of organism in which there is a mech- anism for stimulation and response. Here the organism “receives impressions from the outer world and acts accordingly. This characteristic interaction, through stimulation, adjustment, and response, is called men- tality, and the various activities involved in the process make up the creature’s mental life.” 1 In the higher levels 1 Warren: Human Psychology, p. 8. THE ASPECTS OF PERSONALITY 33 of mentality, as seen in the vertebrates, stimulation may result, not only in response (both motor and glandular), but in awareness also; awareness both of the stimu- lating object and of the organism’s response thereto. This awareness of the individual’s experience is con- sciousness, the third level in the hierarchy. Finally, in man the highest order of living being, the organism may not only respond to stimuli, and be conscious of the objective world, but may likewise be conscious of its ovm awareness. Here is self-consciousness. The individual distinguishes himself as the subject of his experiences with objects; in doing this he becomes an “ego” or an “I,” the process being attended by development in all those mental processes described in general psychology, such as sensation, perception, memory, imagination, reason, emotion, will, and the rest. Now it is only at this fourth level that personality is a possibility. Not until you arrive at this level do you find the necessary ability to condense experience into concepts, laws, and principles; to formulate plans for the future; to establish ideals of conduct; or the capacity for self-control, to say nothing of a rational control of the forces of nature which are all involved in personality. The thing in which we are primarily interested, there- fore, is this fourth level of self-consciousness, and its va- rious forms of functioning. This top level of organic life becomes the dominating factor of personality. It deeply overshadows all those physiological structures and func- tions; even the endocrine glands. While these may 34 INTRODUCTION greatly influence the mental and conscious life of animal and man, and even place their limitations upon self- consciousness, yet the final arbiter in the making of per- sonality is (self-conscious) mind itself. Given a fairly normal body machine, in all of its structures and func- tions, the achievement of personality is a function of mind alone. b. The function of self-consciousness. But to state the chief function of self-conscious mentality will clarify our concept of personality. This function may be summa- rized by mentioning three great services which mind renders to the organism, namely: (1) interpretation, (2) appreciation, and (3) organization. Those who are fa- miliar with general psychology will recognize these capac- ities as being based upon the familiar processes of sen- sation, affection, and reaction respectively. Analysis of a cross-sectional view of interpretation or appreciation will bring one eventually to sensation and affection as providing the content thereof; and simple reaction is pre- supposed in all activities of the higher sort. It must not be supposed, however, that a cataloguing of the sen- sations, affections, and simple reactions which different moments in the interpreting or appreciative process re- veal furnishes a description of these complicated factors in personality. Only a longitudinal view of mind which reveals the forms, directive tendencies, and principles of growth and development taken in conjunction with the ‘elements’ of mind, can supply such a description. Since these three capacities are to receive detailed dis- cussion in three subsequent chapters, the barest outline THE ASPECTS OF PERSONALITY 35 of the processes involved in each will be sufficient at this point. (1) Interpretation. As was just suggested, impressions through sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell — the fa- miliar sensation qualities — furnish the raw materials for interpretation. But they have meaning, and therefore significance for life, only after they have been set in rela- tion to each other, and the principle of their relationship made more explicit. For example, no eye, even when aided by a microscope, ever discovered to one a law. Law is not a perceivable thing, and mere impression is inadequate to bring it to consciousness. This funda- mental capacity which is organic to the human mind to read meaning into sensory material and to discover significant relationships between things is what we call interpretation. (2) Appreciation. Appreciation is at once the recog- nition of value, and the quest for it. Any object has value when its interpretation becomes a conditioning factor in life, and when its attainment furthers the inter- ests of the organism. In the more familiar language of psychology, an object has value — positive or negative — when the interpretation of it stirs up within one those fundamental feelings of pleasantness or unpleasantness. Value transforms an object into an aim, or an idea into an ideal. The significant thing about value is that it fur- nishes the motive for endeavor and sets the machinery of volition in action. (3) Organization. To endow human personality with these high capacities of interpretation and appreciation, 36 INTRODUCTION without providing a corresponding capacity of organized response, would be a monstrous injustice such as nature is never guilty of. In interpretation and appreciation nature has laid the foundation in human kind for supe- rior reaction, which in large degree enables it to control both itself and the environment. That knowledge which originates in impression, and is assigned value by appre- ciation, makes possible an adequate response by show- ing the means of control and by supplying the necessary motive for action. For example, interpretation and ap- preciation insure both the discovery of the cause of dis- ease and the desirability of its cure and prevention. The means of prevention or cure are revealed by the knowl- edge of its cause, and the motive for aggressive action is furnished in the desire to save life and prevent suffering. Thus control grows out of the other two capacities, and consists in putting into effective use the deliverances of these capacities, respectively. From the practical standpoint the power of control is basic to that initiative and ability to do and to accomplish which are essential to effective personality. Interpretation and appreciation are of little value unless transformed into effective energy. c. Further analysis of self-consciousness. Since this concept of self-consciousness is so important, a brief description of the process by which the mental and conscious life of the child are transformed into self-con- scious experience may be helpful. The dog is a psycho- physical organism also, being aware of objects, events, pains, and pleasures; having memory and the ability to THE ASPECTS OF PERSONALITY 37 associate. But we do not attribute to the dog self-con- sciousness; while it is aware of things, it is not aware that it is aware. The dog does not recognize itself as a dog, nor is it aware of itself as the percipient or subject of its own experience; neither does it have concepts of any class of animals or objects as being different from other classes and as possessing general characteristics. In con- trast with this, man is self-conscious—aware both of the objective world and of himself as percipient. He is an “I,” an “ego,” a “self,” and may look within his own mind and analyze there his own experience. Of course, this self-consciousness does not come ready- made to a man; it is the product of growth. The mental experience of a newborn child is probably a mere stream of impressions, which may be regarded as being individual, in being differentiated from any other stream, or as social, in being an undoubted product of inheritance and suggestion from human life at large; but it is not aware of itself or of society. Very soon, however, the mind begins to discriminate per- sonal impressions, and to become both naively self-conscious and naively conscious of society; that is, the child is aware, in an unreflective way, of a group and of his own special relation to it. He does not say “I,” nor does he name his mother, his sister, or his nurse, but he has images and feelings out of which these ideas will grow. Later comes the more reflective con- sciousness which names both himself and other people, and brings a fuller perception of the relations which constitute the unity of this small world.1 Finally the separate impressions which make up the stream of consciousness become interpreted, the inter- pretations are utilized as principles of control, and the 1 Cooley, C. H.: Social Organization, p. 8. 38 INTRODUCTION intelligent, appreciative, and self-directed individual is transformed into a person, or self, with an inward sense of its own worth, its potentialities, and its destiny. 4. The Sociological Basis of Personality The sociologist contributes still another part-idea to our concept of personality. By him personality is re- garded as the unit of a larger social whole. He insists that wherever we find people, there we find social organi- zation. Social organization is at basis a mental fact, of course, and leads to the idea of a social mind which transcends the individual minds which are its elements, much as your mind or my mind is the organic wholeness made up of our interpretations, appreciations, and ac- tions. Cooley, in the opening paragraph of his book on “Social Organization,” puts it in this way: Mind is an organic whole made up of cooperating individu- als, in somewhat the same way that the music of an orchestra is made up of divergent but related sound. No one would think it necessary or reasonable to divide the music into two kinds, that made by the whole and that of particular instru- ments, and no more are there two kinds of mind, the social and individual mind. When we study the social mind we merely fix our attention on larger aspects and relations rather than on the narrower ones of ordinary psychology. And in explaining the nature of social organization he adds: The unity of the social mind consists not in agreement but in organization, in the fact of reciprocal influence or causa- tion among its parts, by virtue of which everything that takes place in it is connected with everything else, and so is an out- THE ASPECTS OF PERSONALITY 39 come of the whole. Whether, like the orchestra, it gives forth harmony may be a matter of dispute, but that its sound, pleasing or otherwise, is the expression of a vital coopera- tion, cannot be denied. Certainly everything that I say or think is influenced by what others have said or thought, and, in one way or another, sends out an influence of its own in turn. In the view of the sociologist, then, personality is the social molecule, or, better, the social cell, which with many others constitutes society. These cells are organ- ized into the family, the school, the State, the vocation, the Church, and other so-called institutions. The soci- ologist, with the psychologist, also takes the biological point of view in regarding society as an organism. The great difference, however, between an organism as the biologist views it and society is that, while in a biologi- cal organism each particular cell is differentiated to per- form one particular function and therefore has a struc- ture of a particular nature, as, for example, bone, mus- cle, nerve, and blood cells, in society each unit has many functions and is an integral part of many social organizations. Each man is at once a member of a fam- ily, a state, a church, a vocation. Moreover, the social units — personalities — have a degree of individual freedom and initiative which is wholly unknown in the biological realm. The sentences quoted a moment ago from Cooley must not be interpreted as negating the in- dividuality and selfhood of the different members of so- ciety. The different personalities of society are not so many bean-poles brought together and bound around at the top with a social mind which interferes with the self- 40 INTRODUCTION expression and self-development of the individuals. On the contrary, the social mind is to be conceived as the sum-total of the organized and cooperative thought, feel- ing, and action of people. The sentiment against child labor, against political corruption, and against war; movements for better housing, sanitation, playgrounds, and better roads, etc., are all instances of corporate feeling and desire. Combining the psychological and sociological points of view, we get the perception of personality as a psy- chical organism which has a social origin as well as an individual beginning; which possesses self-identity, self- consciousness, self-direction, and is at the same time a cell in a larger whole; which is both cause and effect of that somewhat abstract but none the less real social mind. These two aspects of personality furnish the points of departure in our further discussion of the de- velopment of personality. It shall be our task to take the point of view of the psychologist — both the in- dividual psychologist and the social psychologist — and trace out the process by which a man becomes a person. 5. The Ethical Basis of Personality To the ideas which have already been developed — all of which he accepts — the moralist adds the concep- tion that a person is a moral agent. This means that along with man’s psychical nature, side by side with his social structure — in fact, by virtue of both of these — man is so constituted as to evaluate as good or bad his THE ASPECTS OF PERSONALITY 41 own actions and the actions of others. He has standards by which he judges his own and others’ conduct, and he is susceptible to the appeal of the good. The animal, the child before the ‘age of accountability’ is reached, is not a moral agent. Neither has the power to discern the rationality of goodness; whatever distinction they seem to make between right and wrong is purely empirical; neither possesses conscience. In contrast to this the ‘person’ is one who perceives something of both his own psychical constitution and his relation to society, and who in conformity with this perception orders his life so as to develop his own highest self, and at the same time cooperates for the best interest of all other persons. This high appreciation of the latent possibilities of his own selfhood, and of the like capacities and desires of others, is the moral ideal toward which every real person strives. When the manager of the great industrial concern as- serts that “personality is the supreme power,” he has in mind this moral value of personality as well as the cold intellectual value of mechanical efficiency. WHAT ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT ASPECTS OF PERSONALITY? Bringing these considerations all together now, we must always consider man, first, as a psycho-physical organism. But so is a dog a psycho-physical organism; hence we must seek some higher characterization of per- sonality than this. This we find in two fundamental characteristics of self-conscious mind: namely, its sys- tematic continuity, and its essential sociableness. Thus 42 INTRODUCTION personality can be more truly characterized as a psycho- social organism. This continuity of self-consciousness is more than the continuity of a string; it is like the conti- nuity of a career in which issues are met and choices made, which in turn have consequences which bring on new issues which must be met. The continuity of a string has no history, but that of a career has. Similarly, every self-consciousness, every personality has its own inner history. This aspect of personality I have called “The Historical Life.” (Paulsen uses the term in his “System of Ethics.”) The way of general psychology is to make cross-sec- tional slides of the various types of human experience, as it were, such as perception, memory, imagination, emo- tion, etc., and then to stain them so as to make possible an accurate description of them. In Part I which deals with “The Historical Life,” it will be our purpose to make a longitudinal section of personality, and, assum- ing that the reader has already seen the cross-sectional views, attempt to show how the various types of experi- ence are related to each other sequentially, and how they are organized about a central system of ends which gives meaning and significance to life. Instead of de- scribing different moments of experience, we shall at- tempt to see life as a dynamic continuum. To this end we shall be obliged to draw not only upon psychology, of course, but upon the so-called normative sciences as well, especially upon ethics and education. Those val- ues which constitute the determining factors in life are of relative worth; and it is the office of these and other THE ASPECTS OF PERSONALITY 43 normative sciences to appraise the values which offer themselves for our appreciation. In Part II — “The Socializing Process” — personal- ity will be shown to be an organic unit of society, and, consequently, to demand a social soil in which to grow. Social psychology not only describes the forms and con- figurations of the social mind, but — what is more im- portant — it also shows how these forms and configura- tions are the conditioning factors in the development of the historical life. Finally, in Part III — “Psycho-Social Develop- ment ” — we shall trace personality through the three great modes of its development: the first of which, Education, chiefly concerns the child; the second of which, the Vocation, is most significant for the adult; and the third of which, Moralization, is intrinsic to the whole of life. PART I THE HISTORICAL LIFE CHAPTER III THE HISTORICAL NATURE OF PERSONALITY As suggested at the close of the last chapter, the method of general pyschology is to analyze and describe the various types of behavior and experience of the normal individual, as they occur from time to time. If the line in the figure may be taken to represent the ‘‘stream WHAT SHALL BE OUR METHOD Past Present Future of consciousness,” then general psychology examines memory experiences, let us say, as they recur one after another, the typical method of observation being to catch one’s self in the act of remembering at some pres- ent moment of experience, and to magnify and analyze this bit of experience (introspection) as well as to recall previous memory experiences for the purpose of analysis. It is as if you took a cross-sectional view of this stream of consciousness cutting it through at the place marked “Present,” which when enlarged would look like this: in which the center is the focus of attention and the rest “margin” or the “field of conscious- ness.” This method no doubt gives one a complete pic- ture of the several types of experience, and by persist- ently examining many successive present moments of experience, you may be pretty sure of catching and de- scribing all the different types of consciousness., 48 THE HISTORICAL LIFE But while you may infer logically that the sum of all these present-moment experiences gives you continuity, it is the continuity of a tower of children’s blocks, and not the living inner continuity of a career, as suggested before. Now it is this living, subjective unity of experi- ence we must get an insight into if we are to understand personality; this inner historical flow of consciousness which binds past, present, and future together into one living continuum. What we have to do, therefore, is to make a longitudinal section of human consciousness and see how it is put together lengthwise. This is the method which exhibits the teleological quality of personality. WHY DOES NOT AN ANIMAL POSSESS PERSONALITY ? The answer to this question may serve, by contrast, to show the meaning of “historical” as used here. The investigations so far made by the animal psy- chologists present no evidence of any historicalness in the mind of the animal. The mental life of animals, even the highest of them, seems to be made up, first, of a se- quence (not a series) of responses to the various stimuli from the environment. These responses are in the na- ture of native instincts, or instincts as modified by experience, or habits. Second, there are also flashes of awareness accompanying the responses, for the stimuli which result in motor reaction may also result in con- sciousness. Thus the rabbit that is being chased by a dog is reacting in an entirely instinctive fashion, but it is also keenly aware of the presence of the dog, and HISTORICAL NATURE OF PERSONALITY 49 experiences a vivid emotion. The animal thus goes through its daily repertory of stimuli and responses, some of which are on the conscious level. But the point is there is no conscious causal relation between the suc- cessive items in the repertory; the sequence is entirely fortuitous, being wholly dependent upon the exigencies of stimulation and inherited nervous connections. That is, what the animal does at any present moment does not depend upon any mental forecasting or planning. No dog ever decides to-day what he would like to have for dinner to-morrow, or arranges with another dog to meet on the vacant lot at three o’clock for a gambol. The conscious life of the animal is therefore made up of a sequence of flashes of awareness and is lacking in that inner conscious cow-sequence which is the core of per- sonality. Two further considerations may more fully justify this conclusion. The first is the case of instinct. James has defined instinct as “an inherited tendency to perform a useful act without prevision of the end.” (We may perhaps question the accuracy of the adjec- tive ‘useful,’ but in other respects the definition is ade- quate for our purpose.) This signifies that the bird in building its nest, the beaver in building its dam, the squirrel in collecting nuts, does not have conscious plans according to which it works. While these acts seem relevant to the future, and consequently seem to imply conscious purpose, yet these animals have not the ability voluntarily to imagine the conditions which make nests, dams, and stores of nuts necessary for the 50 THE HISTORICAL LIFE future. The animals would perform these acts efficiently the first season even if they were reared in captivity and had never seen nests, dams, or nuts. All that is neces- sary is that they have opportunity to become habituated to their proper environment. While these acts all look purposeful from the outside, and are purposeful from the biological standpoint, yet conscious plans, purposes, and ends for the future need form no part of the sub- jective experience of the animal. It may be admitted, of course, that if the animal has lived through several seasons, it will probably have profited by past experi- ence and modified its original instinctive tendencies; this is the function of consciousness. But this in no way invalidates the statement that conscious purpose is not the cause of the act. In the case of the squirrel, the sight of the nut is the stimulus, and he inevitably grabs it and runs in much the same way you jump when the door bangs. Past experience may teach him the easiest way of carrying the nut or the best place to put it and he may or may not remember where it was stored. But the tendency under certain conditions to secrete the nut was already there as an inherited nervous connection, and this is sufficient to account for the essential part of the animal’s behavior. If the animal psychologists are correct in their analysis of animal behavior, therefore, we must admit that, in so far as the mental life of animals is conscious life, consciousness is present as disparate moments and flashes of awareness. A longi- tudinal section of their mental life thus reveals no con- tinuity of conscious plan, purpose, or volition. In a HISTORICAL NATURE OF PERSONALITY 51 word, the animal mind is devoid of this inner historical quality. This same conclusion is borne out in the second place by an analysis of memory in animals. Three points are of interest in this connection: First, whatever memory images the animal may retain are probably of definite and concrete past experiences. The rabbit who happens upon the trail where it was formerly chased by the dog may have a fleeting memory image of the dog, and may even start and exhibit anew the symptoms of fright. But this is probably the limit of its memory life, for it has no “free ideas,” and does not, at the close of the day, run over the day’s experiences, and say to itself, “My! that was a narrow escape I had to-day from that dog.” That is, memories are concrete and are tied to the sen- sory stimuli with which they were originally connected, and lacking a repetition of the stimulus, or some part of it, the memory simply does not recur. Second, there is no evidence that animals localize events in the past. No dog could know that it was two years ago this month that he came to live with his present master, or say to himself, “This is where I caught that rabbit two weeks ago to-morrow.” If this is true, then, the animal is unable to reduce his memory experience to order and system or to reconstruct his own life story. Finally, if the animal has no concept of time, has no logically constructed past, the necessary inference is that neither has he any future, psychologically speaking. He is wanting in foresight and prevision, in the words of 52 THE HISTORICAL LIFE James’s definition of instinct, and from the psychologi- cal standpoint that is precisely what the future is — all of which means that there is no inner purposefulness or plan in the life of the animal. It further confirms our proposition that the conscious life of the animal is a suc- cession of disparate awarenesses or flashes of conscious- ness and that it lacks that continuity demanded in the historicalness of personality. WIIAT, THEN, IS THE HISTORICAL LIFE P Introspection reveals immediately how different the situation is in the case of man. Through the organizing power of thought and reason, it is possible for him to bind all the scattered elements of instinct, impulse, and desire which he shares with the animal into a unified whole, extending over the entire span of life. This he ac- complishes by constructing a system of ends, a policy of life, and by discovering the best means of realizing these ends. A man realizes his essential humanity in so far as he learns to control and organize his impulses so that he shall not be led aside by every passing desire, and in so far as he works consistently toward the attainment of some end — be it money, political power, or human service. To illustrate the meaning of a system of ends, let us suppose you are a student and that you are now reading this chapter because you wish to be prepared for the coming recitation; you desire to be prepared because you wish a passing mark at the end of the term; you de- sire the mark in order to graduate; you aspire to a col- lege education in the first place because it will make you HISTORICAL NATURE OF PERSONALITY 53 more efficient in your life work; you desire to be efficient in order to earn a good salary; and the good salary is desired because it will bring many other things which, in turn, will make still others possible; — a system of wheels within wheels, and ends within ends, some of which are immediate and others remote. Personality may be strong or weak in proportion to the vividness of the remote ends, and according to the initiative and effort which are put forth toward their realization. Per- sonality may be good or bad, depending upon the social- ness or anti-socialness, the helpfulness or selfishness, of the ends striven for. The present moment of the histor- ical life is the outgrowth of the past and the promise of the future; what character now is depends upon what has been attended to, imitated, and idealized in the past, and it is the promise of what is to be. The test of per- sonality, therefore, is the extent to which the experience of the individual has been rendered historical by the de- velopment of a system of ends and by the organization of life’s activities about this system. The society butterfly and the fashionable sportsman fail in attaining a high degree of personality at this point: they do not develop a true historical life. The impulsive, instinctive, sentient threads of life are not gathered up into the “single skein of a rational whole.” The reception, the party, the week-end trip, the polo game, the yachting trip of to-day or of the season, make up the succession of immediate ends which dominate life. And among the indigent ‘inconsequentials’ also the corresponding succession of lesser diversions con- 54 THE HISTORICAL LIFE stitute the high lights of life, though possibly inter- spersed with days of drudgery during which occurs the struggle to secure the means for their poor enjoyments. At neither extreme of this group are the members dom- inated by a single high purpose or devoted to a cause. Life for them is, almost as clearly as with the animal, a succession of ‘now’s/ the effort being to fill each ‘now’ as full as possible of sentient enjoyment, irrespective of the bearing of the present desire upon ideal selfhood. In the words of Seth,1 personality is this “self-con- sciousness, this power of turning back upon the cha- meleon-like impulsive, instinctive, sentient, or individual self, and gathering up all of the scattered threads of its life in the single skein of a rational whole.” The devel- opment of personality consists in taking the stream of sensations, affections, instincts, impulses, and desires, and moulding them into a unified, organized, and ‘pur- poseful’ life; in transforming the impulsive, vacillating, irresponsible child into the self-con trolled, steady, re- sponsible adult. The development of personality is the process of evolving an ‘historical life.’ The historical life, then, may be defined as the com- plete organization of all ideas, concepts, desires, ideals, impulses, and volitions about a central system of ends in the interest of complete self-realization. Thus defined, personality is an ideal, ever to be striven for, but never fully realized. But the striving and the ensuing prog- ress in its direction constitute the very heart and core of that eternal process we call education. 1 Ethical Principles, p. 200. HISTORICAL NATURE OF PERSONALITY 55 HOW IS PERSONALITY ACHIEVED? Obviously the newborn babe is devoid of personality: it inherits no knowledge, no feelings of value, and is utterly helpless. Illustrations have also been cited of grown people who have little or no personality. Some of these are wanting in personality because nature failed to provide them with the necessary equipment; others, because environment has operated so as to shunt their development in one undesirable direction or another, to unbalance them or give them an astigmatic view of life; still others, because they lack the power of self-control. Some of these sub-persons are socially harmless — being merely inconsequential; others are positively destruc- tive, or at best a social drag. It has been traditional among psychologists to dis- tinguish three aspects of self-conscious life: intellect, feeling, and will. And while we no longer employ these terms as they were originally defined, yet they are sug- gestive as points of view from which to look at person- ality. Every efficient and effective person must have a considerable knowledge of facts, both general and spe- cial; he must possess the ability to see relations be- tween these facts, and to draw conclusions; he must have the ability and the disposition to do independent think- ing. All this involves the intellectual processes, and may conveniently be called interpretation. A man of strong personality is also keenly sensitive to the differences between the values of things, events, and personal qualities. He puts a true evaluation upon the 56 THE HISTORICAL LIFE elements of his environment; his feelings are educated, and he habitually prefers the higher and finer among all the things which solicit his attention. For convenience we may designate this phase of personality as apprecia- tion. Finally, the effective person does not scatter his energies, nor dissipate his time and activity by irra- tional obedience to instinctive and impulsive tenden- cies. In popular speech, he has ‘initiative’; that is, each emergency suggests to his active mind the fitting thing to be done, and he possesses the self-control and steadi- ness of attention necessary to do that thing; for con- venience we may designate this dynamic aspect of per- sonality as organized conduct. Our task in the three following chapters shall be to analyze the psychical processes by which development of interpretation and appreciation, and the organiza- tion of conduct are effected: to show what the ability to think, to appreciate, and to organize conduct signifies for life; to follow the path along which the normal person must come in attaining the historical life. CHAPTER IV THE DEVELOPMENT OF INTERPRETATION WHAT IS THE PROBLEM OF INTERPRETATION? From the moment a fertilized ovum of human parentage begins its career of development, it has wrapped up within it the potentiality of all four levels of life men- tioned on page 32. Its first development is purely physical — vital. But later, when it has developed a nervous system of its own, it may make a limited number of responses even before birth. These responses represent the second level: that of bare mentality, which is much better exemplified, however, by the reflex and random movements of infancy. Soon after birth, when all the sense organs begin to function, we may as- sume that the conscious level has been reached, which continues to widen and grow in richness throughout childhood. Just when a given individual begins to show symptoms of arriving at the self-conscious level of men- tality is a question not easily answered. But with normal physical inheritance this level is approached somewhere near the beginning of the third year when infancy begins to give place to childhood. Personality starts on its career at this point: but — let us make no mistake about it — the achievement of personality is a matter of years, and, like perfection, is always still a little farther on. You do not arrive at personality as by an elevator which lets you off at the fourth floor, all of you having fully and completely arrived when there. 58 THE HISTORICAL LIFE Rather, the achievement of personality is a process of growth which may continue until perfection has been reached, which is — never. The psychologist asserts that the stimuli which pour in upon the infant from the environment, some or all of them, elicit motor or glandular responses: but that they may also elicit awareness or consciousness in the form of sensations or affections which accompany the reactions. And, of course, the longer the child lives, the greater the stock of these elemental experiences which accumulates. But personality does not consist alone in a sum-total of this material; rather does it begin to emerge when these elements enter into definite relations with each other, when they are combined and organized in such a way as to have meaning, purpose, function. But life then ceases to be merely mental and becomes self-consciously di- rected. Not that the person is always conscious of him- self in all his subsequent behavior, but that behavior is now relevant to a self. The problem then is: How do these organic elements — sensations and affections — of experience become interpreted, that is, acquire meaning, purpose, and func- tion? According to what laws do they become organized into self-directive personality? WHAT ARE THE LAWS FUNDAMENTAL TO INTERPRETATION? There are two laws operative here which are desig- nated as (1) the law of assimilation, and (2) the law of organization. DEVELOPMENT OF INTERPRETATION 59 1. Growth through assimilation Growth proceeds through assimilation. This is the general law covering all organic growth, whether it be plant growth, animal growth, or mental growth. The plant reaches out through root, stem, and leaf, and ex- tracts nourishment from soil and air. If the soil is richer in one direction than another, the plant expands in that direction; the potato sprout grows toward the light, and the roots of the tree seek the underground spring. In the same way sensations of hunger act as a stimulus to the animal, driving it to search its environment for those elements which satisfy its desires. Given an out- side environment possessing the requisite food and the other conditioning factors, such as proper moisture, light, and heat in the case of the plant, and fresh air and exercise in the case of an animal, and the process of as- similation will go forward, building up the organism. Just what that subtle chemistry of nature is by which non-living, inorganic matter is taken in and converted into living tissue, we do not know. This is nature’s great and continuous miracle, and the fact of it alone is sufficient for us at the moment. Mental growth also proceeds by means of the law of assimilation. The presence of a strange object in the child’s field of consciousness is a sufficient stimulus to him to cause him to react to it; he reaches out mentally as well as physically to assimilate it by relating it to his past experience. We call this kind of reaction curiosity, or interest, or apperception. He calls the pot of ferns a ‘pot of green feathers,’ or the snow, ‘pieces of white 60 THE HISTORICAL LIFE paper falling.* The scissors are ‘asleep* when closed and ‘awake’ when open. The object is perceived and clas- sified according to past knowledge; it becomes a living part of the assimilating mass. Mental growth, like physical, is dependent upon the presence in the environ- ment of adequate stimuli; in the case of consciousness these consist of things, events, ideas, and laws which may serve as stimuli to call forth reaction. Just as in the case of the amoeba, assimilation cannot take place until reaction has brought the organism into possession of the food particle, so mental assimilation in the human being cannot go forward until reaction has opened up a definite line of contact by way of curiosity, interest, or attention between mind and its object. 2. Development through Organization A distinction must be made between growth and de- velopment. Physical growth implies increase in size, bulk, number of cells, and strength; likewise, mental growth signifies increase in experience, information, or knowledge of facts. On the other hand, development, both physical and mental, connotes finer adjustment between parts, superior organization, greater differen- tiation, and integration. For example, the elephant grows to be much larger than the dog, but it is no more highly developed than the dog. Though somewhat for- midable, the terms ‘differentiation’ and ‘integration’ best express the chief factors of development. Different degrees of development may be illustrated by reference to the animal series; the amoeba is an almost homoge- DEVELOPMENT OF INTERPRETATION 61 neous mass, presenting very little if any differentiation; in the earthworm there are many more cells grouped to form a few rudimentary organs with special functions. A higher degree of differentiation is noticeable in this organism, and, in addition, the parts of the earthworm are more interdependent than was the case in the amoeba, implying a higher degree of integration. The crawfish, the reptile, the chick, and the dog all represent still higher degrees of differentiation and integration, respectively. At each step there appears an increasing specialization of organs; more organs with more specific functions to perform; while paralleling this increase in specialization there goes an increasing interdependence of one organ upon the others, and of the whole life upon each. If the earthworm is cut in two, each half will go on living and will develop into a whole organism. Not so with the dog. He is too highly specialized in structure and function and too closely integrated for one part to live unless all parts are doing their share in the total economy of life. The physical development of an or- ganism implies, then, not merely increase in size and weight, but a higher division of labor among the various organs and a closer integration between organs for the good of the whole. In like manner mental development proceeds through successive stages of mental differentiation or discrim- ination, and integration or organization. The mind of man, as compared with that of animals, shows these characteristics to a much higher degree. For example, a man and a dog may both be looking at an automobile. 62 THE HISTORICAL LIFE To the dog’s vague perception it is a big, odorous, noisy monster to bark at, or to get out of the way of; to the man’s keener perception it is an exceedingly complex, nicely adjusted vehicle, superbly obedient to his con- trol. The dog’s sense organs are as keen as the man’s; the difference lies in the man’s superior discrimination, in his ability to single out part after part, and to set things together in their cause-and-effect relations. The man’s mind is both highly differentiated in its functions and highly integrated in its adjustment processes. A lesser difference in degree of development is evident in the comparison of primitive with civilized minds. To the man of science the structure of the earth is totally different from what it is to the primitive mind, and the relation of the heavens to the earth a vastly more com- plicated matter to the mind of the one than to that of the other. To the savage the thunder is the voice of a god, and the lightning the flash of his eye; to the civil- ized mind the former is the report of an electrical dis- charge, while the latter is the incandescence of an elec- tric spark. The scientific explanation in either case in- volves a whole system of observations and laws which are totally beyond the primitive mind’s ability to com- prehend. Again, the difference is observable between the mind of the child and that of the adult. To the child a de- partment store is a blur of color, noise, motion, fixtures, and people. To the trained business man it is a highly specialized, intricate, smooth-running, and splendidly organized enterprise. To the child the locomotive is an DEVELOPMENT OF INTERPRETATION 63 awesome, animated object, bursting with noise and hidden power; to the engineer it is a sensitive and docile organism with every part of which he is intimately ac- quainted. Mental development is thus seen to be a process of making distinctions, more accurate discriminations, and deeper analysis of objects of sensory and ideational ex- periences that constitute the stream of consciousness. At the same time it is a process of reading these dis- tinctions and discriminations together into a unified whole; of a more thorough synthesis of parts; of the dis- covery of more subtle relations between the objects for which the ideas in the stream of experience stand. Regarded from this point of view the business of edu- cation is to give training and practice along the two lines of discrimination and organization. The world must cease to be a “big, blooming, buzzing confusion,” and must be seen clearly and as a whole; life must cease to be a disconnected series of instinctive and impulsive reactions to a multitude of sensory stimuli, and must become a systematic and orderly process. The material to be organized is not limited to the immediate data of sensory experience, but may be memory material or ideas which are the resultants of past experiences. Here lies an additional distinction between growth and de- velopment, for, while assimilation must always grind the grist of immediately presented sensation, organiza- tion — the process of development — goes forward by integrating and synthesizing the elements of experience from whatever source — memory and thought as well as 64 THE HISTORICAL LIFE perception. In any event, organization is the more sub- tle process of setting the different phases of conscious life in a certain relationship for the sake of a purpose or system of purposes. — Inasmuch as personality is defin- able in mental rather than physical terms, our chief in- terest from this point on will be with mental growth and development, and the remaining paragraphs of this chapter will deal with the dominant conditions under which growth and development take place, and with the chief modes of their processes. WHAT ARE THE PROCESSES OF INTERPRETATION ? While the principles of assimilation and organization account for the growth and development of the different types of experience; while they show the method by which meaning becomes attached to various sensations and symbols, yet they alone are not adequate to explain how a system of ends is constructed and how these meaningful experiences take on purpose and function. The higher levels of interpretation involve the com- plicated processes of setting the elements of experience into relation with each other according to certain prin- ciples and laws previously discovered or stated, the total process being called thinking. A complete analysis of the thinking process would in- volve a description of its technique as well as a state- ment of its function. It is not our purpose, however, to reproduce here the description of the various so-called intellectual processes, such as perception, memory, imagination, conception, judgment, and reasoning, DEVELOPMENT OF INTERPRETATION 65 which taken altogether make up the technique of think- ing.1 While the analysis of a complete act of thought into its subsidiary processes is essential to an under- standing of the function of interpretation, yet we must assume a knowledge of the results of such an analysis on the part of the reader and proceed to a brief statement of the function of thinking in its larger relations. The question which presses for an answer in this con- nection is: What is the function of thought in relation to the historical life and personality? But before the question can be answered, a distinction will have to be made, namely, the distinction between explanatory and teleological thinking. Perhaps this distinction may best be illustrated by the difference between two types of science, namely, descriptive and normative. Physics, chemistry, astronomy, geology, indeed, all the physical and biological sciences, are descriptive: that is, their task is to describe in detail and explain by reference to natural laws all the facts and phenomena which lie in their respective fields. It is their business to explain what is, and why. On the other hand, such sciences as logic, ethics, and aesthetics are devoted to the task of determining what ought to he: that is, the setting-up of norms, standards, or ideals of truth, or goodness, or 1 For the psychology of thinking consult: Dewey, John, Ilow We Think; especially chaps. I, VI. James, W., Psychology, Briefer Course, chap. ix. Miller, I. E., The Psychology of Thinking, chap. viii. Pillsbury, W. B., Essentials of Psychology, chap. ix. Titchener, E. B., Text-Book of Psychology, p. 505 ff. Warren, II. C., Elements of Human Psychology, chaps, xm, xiv. Woodworth, R. S., Psychology, chap. xvm. 66 THE HISTORICAL LIFE beauty. Some material can be treated from both the descriptive and normative standpoints; as, for example, sociology, education, economics, and even ethics and aesthetics themselves. Thus in the fields of human rela- tions thought is directed as often as not to the question of what ought to be: what would be superior or ideal principles of organization. Teleological and explanatory thinking thus differ, not as to the process itself, but in the nature of the problem. When one kind of problem is uppermost, thinking is explanatory; when another kind of problem is present, thinking is teleological. (1) Well, then, how does explanatory thinking aid in the construction of the historical life? WThile the teleological function of thought is of pri- mary significance to personal development, it is never- theless true that an understanding of the materials and forces of the environment must be had in order to plan one’s career intelligently. An integral part of the exe- cution of any system of plans is an understanding of natural forces and laws. The young man’s plan to be- come a physician includes an understanding of the laws underlying prevention and cure of disease. In order to explain or understand an event, it is essential to bring the specific case under a general law or concept. This process of bringing an isolated, disconnected fact or event under a general law or principle for explanation is called deduction. Of course, deduction presupposes that the law or principle has already been discovered or stated by a previous inductive process. Not only does thought render to the candidate for personality the DEVELOPMENT OF INTERPRETATION 67 service of explaining facts and events which are not understood up to date, but by virtue of the universality of the laws and principles which it employs in explain- ing, it may also transcend past and present experience and anticipate what will happen in the future provided certain conditions obtain. This ability to anticipate puts into the hands of man the power of control over nature and its forces which is so vital a part of the carry- ing-out of his plans for his own self-realization. (2) How does teleological thought operate in person- ality? Explanatory thinking has, during the history of the race, accumulated an imposing body of scientific knowledge that almost amounts to an institution. For this reason, and because writers of psychology books and books on logic have so exclusively drawn their illustrations from the fields of explanatory science, the inference is perfectly natural that explanatory thinking is the one and only type of thought that deserves the name scientific. But the fact is that each one of us in his own personal affairs uses teleological thought ten times to explanatory once, although the one may be quite as accurate and scientific as the other. The ques- tions here are, What ought I to do? What profession shall I choose? Shall I accept this position or seek an- other? What means shall I employ in achieving my ambition? These and hundreds of similar practical and very personal questions demand solution in the process of realizing one’s self. The kind of thought used is tel- eological, and it ought to be as precise and systematic as 68 THE HISTORICAL LIFE the kind of reasoning one performs in a scientific labora- tory. As we have seen, the historical life must be an ideal construction before it can ever become an actuality. Unlike a bridge, a person is a dynamic affair, and the architect must not only take into account spatial rela- tions as in the case of the bridge, but time relations as well. In planning an historical consciousness, both a backward and a forward view are demanded; and con- sistency of belief and conduct can be attained only as one refers from the present to both the past and the future, applying the while those principles of evaluation and action which express the individual’s philosophy of life. Those ideals of character and accomplishment which we project into the future, and which we then strive to achieve, are products of the thought process. Every one of them has been forged out of the materials of memory, perception, and imagination, the mental processes which refer to the past, present, and future, respectively. The barber who in his thirtieth year decides to change his occupation and enter college with the idea of making a lawyer of himself furnishes a typical example of the teleological function of thought. The change is insti- tuted only after long and careful thought and planning, for it is a bold venture to relinquish certain employment and income and to assume the risk of the new mode of life at his age with its increased responsibilities. The analytical thinking involved is precisely the kind that is required in the construction of the historical life, and DEVELOPMENT OF INTERPRETATION 69 must be as accurate and logical as any other scientific thinking. WHAT ARE THE RESULTS OF INTERPRETATION ? While thought thus interprets from hour to hour not only the elements of the environment, but also the various moments of the inner experience of the individ- ual by setting them in relation each to the other, it also furnishes the individual with a permanent residuum which functions in the future as a system of knowledge. Likewise, thought, in its teleological aspect, crystallizes into attitudes and points of view. What these terms mean, and how they function will still further enlarge our concept of interpretation. 1. Knowledge — the result of explanatory thinking The human organism is able to profit not only by con- crete past experience as are also the higher animals, but by the condensed experiences which result from the thinking process. The conclusions of previous thought processes directed toward an explanation or under- standing of the environment are retained and may be revived in the form of ideas, meaning, concepts, facts, or principles which may function in the solution of sub- sequent problems. These ‘contents’ of consciousness, when arranged in an orderly and systematic fashion, constitute what is called knowledge. This knowledge, which thus represents the accumulation of past experi- ences with problematic situations, becomes the vertebral column of the historical life. In terms of it one chooses 70 THE HISTORICAL LIFE one’s vocation, performs the daily tasks — in so far as they demand conscious guidance and are not merely combinations of habits — lays plans for the future, and selects the means for attaining one’s ends. Without undertaking the gratuitous task of giving a complete psychological analysis of the factors of knowledge just mentioned, a condensation of the essential points, as given by Bagley 1 may be repeated here: A concept, for our purposes, is simply a meaning. It may be either general or particular in its reference — it is, in any case, ultimately a “cue” to adjustment, or better a bundle of pos- sible “cues” to adjustment, the particular cue to be acted upon being determined by the situation or the problem. Thus my concept “water” is simply the center of a vast number of possibilities of conduct — drinking, bathing, swimming, drowning, pouring, rowing, sailing, looking at, admiring, etc. A fact is the statement of a relation between a particular concept and a general concept; for example, “This rock is granite”; or between two or more particular concepts, “The chair is behind the table.” A principle is the statement of a relation between general concepts: “Granite is an igneous rock.” When, as the result of reacting to a situation, I discover that water solidifies at a temperature below 32° F., my con- cept of water has been thereby enriched: its quota of potential cues has been increased; my control over future possible situa- tions — my potential ability to solve such situations satisfac- torily — has been widened and strengthened. In other words, as I identify, subsume, and relate meanings and situations through continued experience or adjustment, I reduce my ex- perience to the form of facts and principles, which, in turn, may make my future conduct more effective. Facts and principles, therefore, may be listed with ideas and meanings as conduct-controls that come out of experience. 1 Educational Values, pp. 35, 47, f. DEVELOPMENT OF INTERPRETATION 71 They constitute one of the most important forms in which the experience of the race is crystallized, and, in virtue of the pos- sibility of recording these resultants of experience in written and printed language, and in formula?, diagrams, pictures, and models, facts and principles form numerically the largest class of educative materials. As guides to conduct, facts and principles do not differ es- sentially from ideas and concepts. The fact, as the result of a particular judgment (“This substance is chloride of calcium”; “Darwin was born in 1809”), simply makes explicit an ele- ment of meaning that may later be implicit in the particular concept or idea. Thus, whatever “cues” attach to the mean- ing of chloride of lime come to attach to the particular sub- stance which I identify as chloride of lime. Once the predicate is intimately associated with the subject, the explicit relations expressed in the predicate come thereafter to be implied in the subject. Once I have learned that Darwin was born in 1809, whatever general meaning attaches to birth in 1809 attaches to my particular concept, Darwin. The principle as the result of a general judgment (for example, “All men are mortal”) similarly makes explicit a quality that will afterward be im- plicit in the general concept. The foregoing rather lengthy quotation clearly sets forth the fact that the thought process, from the simplest to the most complex, the latter involving both the inductive and deductive movements, plays two im- portant roles in the development of the historical life: it both acquires the necessary knowledge for adjustment, and utilizes this knowledge in the working-out of life’s plans; it discovers and perfects the means of adjustment, and organizes these means for the accomplishment of ends. The norms and standards, be they ethical, aes- thetic, or logical, which shunt the energies of life in this direction or that, and thus become the determin- 72 THE HISTORICAL LIFE ing factors of personality, are also the products of this thinking process. They become the principles by which the elements of the material and social environment are interpreted. The principle that the best advertisement is the one which attracts the most attention thus be- comes a constant determinant in the mind of the writer of advertisements. So does every principle hover about the margin of consciousness and jump to the center of attention again and again, day after day and year after year, each time to serve as a directive agent in the un- folding process of personal development. 2. Attitudes and Points of View — the Result of Teleo- logical Thinking But the intellectual phase of mind functions not alone through the use of knowledge, and by the bring- ing of past concrete or condensed experiences to bear upon present problematic situations. In addition to this there are also those vague and only partly understood facts of experience called ‘attitudes’ and ‘perspectives,’ ‘points of view’ and ‘habits of thought,’ which also exer- cise a determining influence upon the course of the his- torical life. Titchener1 has the following to say about the nature of attitudes: What precisely these attitudes are, in their psychological status, is still a matter of dispute. They are reported as vague and elusive processes, which carry as in a nutshell the entire meaning of a situation. They have now a predominantly emo- tive and now a predominantly intellectual character. They are indicated, designated, either by a single word, such as 1 Text-Book of Psychology, p. 505. DEVELOPMENT OF INTERPRETATION 73 ‘hesitation/ ‘vacillation/ ‘incapacity/ or by a phrase, such as ‘a realization that the division can be carried out without a remainder/ ‘ a remembrance that we talked it all over before and couldn’t reach any conclusion/ If the reader will now try to induce one of these consciousnesses in himself — the con- sciousness of a general helplessness in trying to understand a complicated argument, or the consciousness that twenty- seven will go evenly into two hundred forty-three — he will realize the nature of the conscious attitude, the disproportion of logical meaning to psychological content, and the conse- quent difficulty of analysis. Because attitude seems to carry so much significance for personality it seems necessary to attempt a further analysis of it despite the difficulty which Titchener mentions. Three questions immediately engage our at- tention as we approach the problem: a. How do attitudes originate? b. Can we make a classification of them? c. How do they affect one’s historical life and con- sequently personality? a. How attitudes originate (a) From native dispositions. It seems clear in the first place that attitudes stand out conspicuously among our acquired traits. They are never inherited. It seems equally clear, too, that the disposition of an individual is not wholly acquired, but is, in part at least, a native trait which in turn decidedly predisposes the individual to certain corresponding attitudes. Disposition and at- titudes seem to have much the same relation to each other that instinctive tendency and habit bear to each other. Support for the proposition that dispositions are 74 THE HISTORICAL LIFE native traits is found in the (probable) fact that the en- docrine glands have a determining influence upon such factors as mental vigor, growth of intelligence, excita- bility, emotional toning, the energy coefficient, and the like. And it is easy to suppose that an excitable or emotional or energetic disposition would facilitate the acquisition of corresponding attitudes. For example, the individual with the vigorous disposition might naturally be expected to develop an inquisitive or critical or scientific or intolerant attitude. Just which of these attitudes will be developed will depend upon other determining factors, such as the individual’s home atmosphere and educational environment. Like- wise the person with emotional disposition might be ex- pected to settle down into a characteristic attitude of cheerfulness or despondency or to have a settled tend- ency toward frivolity or exuberance or toward an op- timistic or pessimistic attitude. Or again, the one who has an energetic disposition will be bold or pugnacious or domineering or decisive, while the one with a low energy coefficient will be retiring, submissive, servile, or hesitant. So one source of attitudes may be looked for in the native disposition or the temperament of the in- dividual, which seems, in turn, to have a close correla- tion with the body chemistry. (b) Imitation and suggestion. But the child may have native predispositions in a number of different direc- tions and just which of these tendencies are selected for development will depend upon what attitudes are ex- hibited by his father and mother, and by all the mem- DEVELOPMENT OF INTERPRETATION 75 bers of the household. The individual begins to ac- quire attitudes very early. Not only does the child imi- tate specific acts which he sees performed, but he re- flects with startling accuracy the mental attitudes of those around him. A little girl of eight, whose mother is of the small-minded caliber, critical, supercilious, and addicted to back-fence gossip, copies by facial expres- sion, poise of head, shrugs, and bodily attitude, as well as by idea, precisely the mental attitude of the mother. A stranger could predict the exact type of dinner-table conversation of that home as accurately as the weather man can predict the weather. A boy of twelve whose father is curious, critical, intolerant, and domineering is not only a chip off the old block, but is being whittled day by day into the precise image of the block. This factor of imitation and suggestion is omnipres- ent from childhood to maturity, its peaks coming in early childhood, from three to six and again in early adolescence. During the early period “the disposition,” as far as the intellectual, emotional, and motor attitudes are concerned, is pretty largely fixed. Adolescence is the time during which the social, moral, and religious atti- tudes take shape. This is the age of hero worship and hero imitation, and the attitudes of his heroes are likely to become his own, in consequence. (c) Teleological thought. But not all attitudes just grow by the undirected process of imitation. Some are achieved. These are the results of sustained thought, and include attitudes such as the scientific, idealistic, 76 THE HISTORICAL LIFE cooperative, conscientious, devout, and the like. Some are the products of explanatory thinking, notably the scientific attitude: but most of this type are the out- come of teleological thinking. At any rate, as the higher reaches of self-consciousness are approached, one may criticize the attitudes one discovers one’s self to have adopted, and reinforce those which are constructive, as, for example, loyalty and cooperation, or charity and devotion; while others of an unfortunate nature may be suppressed. In the process of self-analysis and self-examination which must be engaged in from time to time by the can- didate for personality, one may get at least a partial realization as to which of his attitudes and points of view are helpful in the realization of his system of ends, and which are not. Every one discovers sooner or later that in order to realize his ends he must not only do such and such things, but he must be a certain kind of an in- dividual. And this reconstruction of one’s self by teleo- logical thought involves the modification of one’s atti- tudes. To take an extreme case, psychologically speak- ing, religious conversion is not only changing one’s con- duct, but it is a re-formation of one’s whole attitudinal life. It involves a new and higher quality of attitude toward truth, value, society, and God. While only a relatively few of the attitudes are the direct product of thought, yet teleological thought comes to be the censor and arbiter of attitudes just as it does of habit. But on the other hand, one’s attitudes, such as they are, will also predetermine, within limits, one’s mode of ap- DEVELOPMENT OF INTERPRETATION 77 proach, one’s standards of truth and value, in the prac- tical problems of life’s affairs. b. Classification of Attitudes It is futile to attempt anything like a complete clas- sification of attitudes in the present stage of our knowl- edge, for three reasons. First, so little is known, as yet, about the physiological basis of our native dispositions — for example, the precise mental effect of the glands of internal secretion; second, the consequent difficulty of distinguishing between dispositions themselves and attitudes; and, third, the fact that attitude seems in so many cases to depend upon the external situation. It is a good deal like trying to classify noises or odors; some one is constantly inventing new kinds of stimuli. Sim- ilarly, new situations are always confronting society and its individuals, and we cannot be sure we have taken cognizance of all the types of situations. Because of the apparently indefinite number of these specific attitudes, it seems necessary first to distinguish be- tween general attitudes and specific attitudes. The ac- companying table on page 78 may be suggestive of the variety and reach of our general attitudes. As for specific attitudes one can only say that every situation one meets calls forth a complex response from the individual. The situation itself is complex, having a variety of meanings, and every phase of its meaning is a determinant in the complex attitude-response. Think over your list of acquaintances and see what different facets of your personality you successively turn toward 78 THE HISTORICAL LIFE General Attitudes Intellectual Social Credulous — skeptical Naive — critical Scientific — superstitious Impartial — biased Tolerant — intolerant Sociable — individualistic Humble — superior Charitable — censorious Cheerful — depressed Optimistic — pessimistic Frivolous — serious Exuberant — cold Emotional Altruistic — egoistic Forgiving — revengeful Moral Motor Religious Assertive — submissive Persevering — vacillating Devout — impious Reverent — irreverent them. In the presence of one, you feel argumentative; in the presence of another, facetious; another, critical; another, censorious. Likewise, you approach problems with different attitudes: the feeling that it will be diffi- cult, that it is absurd or futile. In the same way you are impatient with the activities of the “wets” or the “drys,” the tariff-makers, or the labor unions. Prob- ably these specific attitudes are all complexes of the different types of general attitudes suggested in the table. Thus your attitude toward your friend the social climber is a mixture of superiority, censoriousness, re- sentfulness, and intolerance; while if you have a sense of humor you may be delivered from taking the matter seriously. DEVELOPMENT OF INTERPRETATION 79 c. The Function of Attitudes and Points of View Bagley 1 clearly illustrates the way in which attitudes determine the course of conduct in the following sen- tences : The concept of attitude is also illustrated by the difference between the effect which unusual natural phenomena have upon the ignorant and the effect which they have upon those who are ‘educated.’ Knowledge has ‘liberated’ mankind from the thralldom of mystery and fraud, but this enlightenment finds its commonest expression in an ‘ attitude ’ rather than in a series of reasoned judgments. Those phenomena which once aroused fear and dread, and stimulated mankind to mystify- ing interpretations and the consequent inadequate adjust- ments, no longer exert their irritating influence. They have been reduced to law and order — they have been given their proper place in the scheme of things. So far as the individual is concerned, the ‘understanding’ of such phenomena results in an attitude that might be termed ‘negative’ adjustment: situations that would otherwise impel one to an unnecessary or inadequate response are unheeded, and mental energy consequently ‘freed’ or ‘liberated’ and is available for other purposes. The attitude or point of view thus becomes a point of departure in the choice of one among many possible fairly self-consistent policies of life or plans of action. They determine what facts or principles shall be ac- cepted as significant, and what shall be regarded as negligible. Thus to one man the logic of the situation seems absolutely to demand military preparedness, while to another preparedness logically means an invi- tation of enmity and hostility; and, depending upon his point of view, each man espouses one cause or the other s Educational Values, p. G8. 80 THE HISTORICAL LIFE and throws the weight of his influence one way or the other. Whatever else may be said regarding the psycholog- ical nature of attitudes and points of view, it is clear that they most closely resemble habit in their influence upon life. If there were such a thing as a generalized habit, attitudes, perspectives, points of view might well be classified as generalized habits of mind.1 That is, they represent that settled mode of facing situations which characterizes the man of consistent action. A man may be ‘counted upon’ or ‘depended upon,’ not alone because he has acted thus and so in a specific instance in the past, but because he is also known to maintain such and such an attitude, or to entertain a certain point of view. The consistency which is presupposed in ‘count- ing upon ’ him is the index of the habitual mental set, or mental sets, which he has adopted. At worst these at- titudes just grow as any habit may appear; as, for ex- ample, a critical attitude which one may slip into with no intention and with scarcely any realization. At best, attitudes are the by-products of conscious self-direction. It is often asserted, for example, that to read good books results in an uplift of character. If this, indeed, does oc- cur, it is most likely because the individual’s attitudes toward life’s problems or his point of view have under- gone a change, too subtle to be accurately described, but which nevertheless works itself out in his behavior. The value to the individual of good literature is its ef- fect upon attitude and points of view rather than the 1 Compare Dewey, John: Human Nature and Conduct, chap. yi. DEVELOPMENT OF INTERPRETATION 81 knowledge in the form of ideas, concepts, and principles which may be gained therefrom. This indicates also how closely attitudes are related to appreciation. We shall emphasize in the following chapter the emotional aspect of attitudes which links them with appreciation of values. Attitudes and points of view thus constitute that general philosophy of life which determines in so large a measure the culture, the character, the influence, the socialness, and the usefulness of a man as well as give that peculiar quality or tang of impression made by one person upon another. INTERPRETATION AND PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT In concluding this discussion let us agree that per- sonal development is contingent upon development in the ability to interpret accurately. This ability, in turn, depends upon clear and straight thinking. A diagnosis of those individuals who fail to realize their potential personalities reveals the fact that they either neglect to think or refuse to think, and consequently follow the line of least resistance, or that they are betrayed into intellectual dishonesty by prejudice or intolerance. In neither case can personality be realized. On the other hand, the inconsequential may be transformed into a true person the moment he gets a great vision or the moment he gives himself to a worthy cause. The society butterfly has found her highest self in the service of the Red Cross, or a professional ball-player has become a great evangelist, and in either case the latent or scat- tered energies are brought up sharply and focused upon 82 THE HISTORICAL LIFE a great purpose; through a splendid self-control, atten- tion, association, and thought are all addressed to the attainment of the desired end. Both life and the world find their interpretation when seen from the vantage- point of a single point of view instead of from the vari- ous angles of momentary desire and impulse. Personality, therefore, in so far as it consists in “gath- ering up the scattered threads of instinctive and impul- sive desire, and weaving them into the single skein of a rational whole,” is made possible by and is dependent upon intellectual organization such as we have been de- scribing. Efficiency in meeting the problems of life can never be attained so long as there is inner strife between the various impulses and desires to which instinct gives rise. Inner unity can be gained only when all of these are interpreted by reference to a single system of purposes. It is only as ideals of duty, service, virtue, success, happiness, character, and all other worthy aims are or- ganized into a consistent whole that life runs smoothly and efficiently. “This means that one must have some sort of a philosophy of life and a moral code as well as standards of truth, taste, value, etc., that are harmon- ized with each other and with one’s conduct. When any one of these changes, it is necessary that the others shall change to harmonize with it, if a healthy unity of per- sonality is to be maintained.” 1 1 Kirkpatrick, E. A., The Individual in the Making, p. 9. CHAPTER V DEVELOPMENT OF APPRECIATION WHAT IS MEANT BY APPRECIATION ? As a starter, let us recall the statement about the four levels of organic life. They may be schematized thus: Self-Conscious Stimulus affection-value sensation-knowledge response-volition 41 Conscious=Stimulus affection-pleasant, unpleasant sensation-awareness response-instinct Conscious typjuosj^ 3 Mental Mental=Stimulus-!-Response (reflex) 2 Vital Vital=Organic 1 On the mental level (2) the mechanism for stimulus and response makes possible an adjustment of the or- ganism to its environment, the typical response being the reflex. In human life each individual rises by suc- cessive stages from this level to each of the others during the course of his development through infancy and childhood to maturity. Each level comprehends those which are inferior to it so that mature personality ex- hibits all these types of response. On the conscious level (3) the response is ordinarily more complex than on the mental level with the instinct as the type, for here 84 THE HISTORICAL LIFE the stimulus results also in well-organized sensations and affections. These sensations, together with some vague memory experience, constitute awareness, while the simple experiences of pleasantness and unpleasant- ness enrich consciousness and serve as important fac- tors in association and the learning process. Instinctive response at this level is not rigid, therefore, but is modifi- able on the basis of pleasant and unpleasant associa- tions. At the fourth level (4) the stimulus has still more complicated results. The characteristic response at this level of mentality is volition, and the stimulus may thus not issue immediately in response at all, but the response is delayed, long delayed in some cases, and de- termined in its nature by the complex mental processes based on association and affection. For here, sensations get interpreted into an elaborate system of knowledge which is utilized in turn in thinking, and thinking is the forerunner of volitional response. But the matter does not end there, for these simple affections — pleasantness and unpleasantness — are further complicated into an elaborate system of values which corresponds to and is correlated with the system of knowledge, and the final response (volition) is further conditioned by this system of values. So, when the response finally does come, it represents not only an elaborate process of interpreta- tion, but an equally elaborate process of appreciation; only interpretation and appreciation fuse into one complex conscious process. They are not two separate mills through which the stimulus must pass one after the other before it comes out as a finished response. DEVELOPMENT OF APPRECIATION 85 No. The stimulus (which does not even have to be an external one, but may be centrally aroused) is only one phase of a complex conscious process which is organic; the stimulus may even be absorbed in the modification, let us say, of an attitude, and issue as response only in so far as a changed attitude alters behavior, and at a time much removed from the original stimulus. Well, then, to go on with the matter of appreciation, knowledge is of no value in itself and the thinking proc- ess would be like an engine without a load if there were no matters of worth about which to think. The twofold significance of thinking in life is, first, that it helps de- termine what the supreme values are; and, second, it discovers the means by which these may be realized. But the appreciation of “value” is not an intellectual process alone; “value” appeals and attracts; the characteristic element in appreciation is affection — feeling tone, rather than cognition. Feeling is as basic a mental process as thinking, and furnishes the motive not only for overt reaction, but for all of the intellectual processes as well. The individual interprets the world not in terms of knowl- edge alone, but also in terms of feeling. He not only appre- hends truth or reality, but he is also affected by it as well. While knowledge is an instrument of control, feeling is the mo- tive force in life. Knowledge is the rudder, feeling the power that drives the machinery.1 The simple feelings of pleasantness and unpleasant- ness furnish the elements out of which our appreciation 1 Betts, G. II.: Social Principles of Education, p. 155. 86 THE HISTORICAL LIFE of things, events, and people is compounded, which vivify our judgments of value concerning them and delegate authority to our appreciation. It may be as true that (a + 6)2 = a2 + 2a6 + b2, as that I am hungry. But the latter fact is by all means more signifi- cant, more impelling, and more vital to me now than the first. The difference is that the second is infused with feeling; it is a warm, subjective attitude; the first is a cold, impersonal, unaffective fact. To one man a sunset is apperceived merely as meaning ‘ supper-time ’; to another it may be an object of transcendent beauty, freeing his mind wholly from organic sensations, and enriching him with supreme aesthetic delight. For both men the objective fact is the same; it is the same sunset; but the value assigned to it, the interpretation put upon it, is wholly and significantly different. In the making of personality the value assigned to the facts of experience becomes one of the most vital and far-reaching of all of the determining factors. Those concepts of duty, service, character, and success which condition the intellectual high-water mark of personal development are totally ineffective and powerless unless they are at the same time regarded as the highest and finest things of life, unless they are appreciated as things of most worth, and unless they appeal and at- tract so that they become motives to action. An ideal cannot be defined wholly in intellectual terms. “The development of an ideal is both an emotional and an in- tellectual process, but the emotional element is by far the most important. Ideals that lack the emotional coloring DEVELOPMENT OF APPRECIATION 87 are simply intellectual propositions, and have little directive force upon conduct.” 1 The development of personality demands, therefore, that side by side with in- tellectual growth and control shall go a corresponding or- ganization of the feeling life. The individual must come, through conscious direction, to a proper evaluation and appreciation of his world in order that his thought and action may have the proper motive force, if he would be an efficient and socially constructive personality. To the student of psychology it scarcely needs to be explained that the term ‘emotion,’ in the paragraphs preceding, is used in the generic sense to indicate the ‘feeling’-aspect of consciousness, as distinct from the ‘intellectual’ and ‘volitional’ aspects. The term ‘emotion’ is also used, however, in psychology to des- ignate a specific type of ‘feeling’-experience; namely, the instinctive psycho-physical reaction of the organism to a vital situation, in which extreme pleasantness or un- pleasantness, agreeableness or disagreeableness, over-lays the intellectual element. Another type of feeling-reaction is sentiment, which has been defined as “an affectively colored judgment.” Each of these types of feeling- experience has a direct relation to the development of the historical life, and, consequently, to personality. WHAT PLACE DO THE EMOTIONS HAVE IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE HISTORICAL LIFE ? Not only does emotion serve a biological end in the development of the race, but it also plays a definite role 1 Bagley, W. C.: The Educative Process, p. 223. 88 THE HISTORICAL LIFE in personalizing the individual. In the first place, the emotions of childhood help to bring one to self-conscious- ness. In the beginning the child is conscious of its en- vironment through its special senses; but it does not yet recognize itself as a conscious being. It can perform many reactions with nicety, and even acquire and use quite a vocabulary, before it becomes conscious that it is conscious; it may perform these adjustments long before distinguishing between itself as subject and the world as object of awareness. In a word, consciousness dawns very early, but self-consciousness appears much later; and emotion is an important factor in the development of this self-consciousness. Severe fright, keen joy, or even a violent outburst of anger, because of its vividness and extreme pleasantness or unpleasantness, may serve to ignite the first vague flicker of self-consciousness. Cooley 1 emphasizes this aspect of self-consciousness when he remarks that “The emotion or feeling of self may be regarded as an instinct, doubtless evolved in connection with its important function in stimulat- ing and unifying the special activities of the individ- ual.” Emotional experiences offer striking opportu- nities for setting the self over against the not-self; and, because self-consciousness means a conscious discrim- ination between subject and object, the emotional ex- perience is the entering wedge that makes the cleavage between the two, and this aids in the growth of per- sonality. 1 Human Nature and the Social Order, p. 139. DEVELOPMENT OF APPRECIATION 89 Again, emotional attitudes tend to give direction to attention, because prior to the acquisition of voluntary control they, together with the instincts, determine the interests of childhood. As a result ‘apperceptive sys- tems’ grow up around these original interests, and standpoints of interpretation are adopted. The emo- tional attitude, therefore, comes to exercise a great in- fluence on that type of mental organization called ‘apperception,’ and constitutes one of the dominant modes of mental growth. In the same way and at a later stage of development emotions help to crystallize one’s beliefs, ideals, and faiths. They furnish the nodal points in life about which experiences cluster, giving meaning and value to beliefs and ideals so that they become dynamic factors in life. In this connection we should also repeat that emotion furnishes the motive power for a large portion of human behavior. By virtue of their emotional value we defend our beliefs, pursue our ideals, and cling to our faiths. Even the most cursory glance reveals how great is the part of belief, ideal, and faith in the efficiency of a dynamic personality. Emotion — at least when rightly developed — also supplies that warmth of per- sonality which is the secret of true neighborliness, friendship, and brotherly love: factors which are at once so highly valued and so rarely found. The feelings both deliver mind from being merely a “clear, cold, logic engine,” and furnish the motive force which drives the engine. It must not be inferred from these statements, how- 90 THE HISTORICAL LIFE ever, that all emotional experiences are equally valu- able as personalizing factors. No one could successfully contend that fear or anger or hate is highly valuable for this end; these may be individualizing processes, but their personalizing value is negligible. All emotions are zmrational in the sense that while they hold sway all thinking and reason are held in abeyance. But some emotions are distinctly irrational; that is, they fly di- rectly in the face of rationality. This is largely true of those emotions just named. On the other hand, emo- tions such as joy, sympathy, humor, or grief are not so likely to come into direct conflict with the law of reason, and therefore possess a higher degree of personalizing value than the others. From the standpoint of the historical life the neces- sary condition is that, as the age of moral accountabil- ity approaches, those emotions which, though pardon- able in childhood, would disorganize the whole delicate machinery of personality in maturity, must be dis- ciplined and brought under control. Putting these things together, we may conclude with the statement that these instinctive emotional attitudes serve not only a biological function in race preservation, but a psychical function in the individual by helping to bring him to self-consciousness, by furnishing a frame- work upon which interests and ideals develop; by sup- plying the dynamics of life; and by softening and hu- manizing character. DEVELOPMENT OF APPRECIATION 91 HOW DO SENTIMENTS FURTHER THE GROWTH OF PERSONALITY? While emotion represents an inherited feeling-reac- tion to the primitive biological situations of life, sen- timent is an acquired feeling-reaction to the higher phases of the social environment. Being an affectively- colored judgment, sentiment is a reflective disposition suffused with agreeableness relative to some value- problem. The close relation between thinking and sentiment is shown by the fact that in the sentiment the mind is presented with some problem of value. We have seen that thinking is called forth in the face of any problem- atic situation; but in those cases in which the problem concerns some matter of value, as, for example, truth, beauty, or goodness, and has some personal reference so that the thought process and its conclusion are suffused with the glow of affection, we have the typical sen- timent. For example, almost every man is strongly favorable or unfavorable to the increase of armament. A man deliberates, weighs, constructs in imagination the probable consequences of both alternatives, judges and decides; and attending his decision is a strong affec- tive toning of agreeableness toward one alternative and of disagreeableness toward the other. This is primarily an instance of intellectual sentiment, the question be- ing: Is, or is not greater armament in the true interest of national welfare? Each man’s sentiment upon this question is his feeling regarding the truth of the matter. 92 THE HISTORICAL LIFE It is not unusual to make a classification of senti- ments on the basis of the kinds of problems presented. Thus, the intellectual sentiment is a feeling-attitude toward questions of truth; the aesthetic, to the question of beauty; the moral> to the question of goodness; and the religiouSy to God. In explanation of the use of the term ‘ attitude’ in this connection, it should be said that ‘attitude’ is probably never solely intellectual in character. Even such attitudes as ‘doubt,’ or ‘uncertainty,’ or ‘that it is on the tip of the tongue,* or ‘that it will be difficult’ — attitudes which are presumably chiefly intellectual -— all nevertheless embody a large element of agreea- bleness or disagreeableness; while such attitudes as ‘cheerfulness,’ ‘pessimism,’ or ‘exuberance’ are with- out question strongly effective in character. Even a ‘scientific’ attitude of mind is not without its effective value.1 And herein lies the great efficacy of attitude as a factor of the historical life: that the feeling-aspect of it transmutes the attitude into a system of motives which become effective when the appropriate situation arises. Thus the scientific attitude becomes a means of superior adjustment even though custom, or tradition, or superstition might provide an easier adjustment. Sentiment is, in its own right, a significant element in personality, first, because sentiment and emotion are largely reciprocal; that is, “Our sentiments predispose us to certain kinds of emotions, or, to put it more truly, are the predispositions to such emotions — whereas the 1 Compare Titchener, E. B.: A Text-Book of Psychology, p. 506. DEVELOPMENT OF APPRECIATION 93 cultivation of any emotion tends as a rule still further to fix the disposition which it reflects.” 1 But in the second place, sentiment is a higher and more rational kind of feeling-reaction than emotion, and therefore plays a larger part in the shaping of that steady sequence of ends and purposes which constitutes the core of personality. This it accomplishes by trans- forming these ends and purposes into ideals and emo- tionalized standards. But this brings us to the larger subject of appreciation which is the culmination of mental development on the feeling side, and which envelops and synthesizes all forms of feeling into one system of values. Sentiments are links in the chain of appreciation as judgments are links in the chain of reason. 1. Its Relation to Sentiment Briefly defined, appreciation is sentiment at work. As judgment is the active, dynamic, working point in thought, so is sentiment the dynamic evaluating func- tion within appreciation. As through judgment and the other reasoning processes we are able to construct a system of knowledge and a system of ends and pur- poses which shall govern action, on the intellectual side, so, on the appreciation side, through sentiment, we may evaluate this knowledge, and transform our sys- tem of ends and purposes into a system of ideals which enlarge, vivify, and enrich life. WHAT, THEN, IS APPRECIATION? 1 Augell, J. R.: Psychobgy, p. 392. 94 THE HISTORICAL LIFE As has already been shown, knowledge per se is of no ultimate value; it becomes valuable only when it is infused with affective tone and consequently trans- formed into motive. While it is convenient for the sake of analysis to distinguish between the interpretative and appreciational sides of consciousness, in real ex- perience these two phases are never so separated, for every real motive can be shown to have these two phases indissolubly bound up together. Life has been defined as a continuous process of ad- justment of inner factors to outer conditions, and the modification of outer conditions to meet inner needs. The environment in which the human organism lives and to which it must adjust itself is tremendously com- plex; it is not only a physical environment, but a mental, social, and spiritual one. Now it is inconceivable that a human organism could arrive anywhere in the com- plicated world without at least some idea as to where it wished to go. And to wish to go to some place or other implies value. Upon analysis the concept of value in- evitably runs over into the question of ethics, because moral value is ultimate, while all other values are means to the ethical end. Life — more complete and abundant life is the ultimate value, and is synony- mous with the ethical ideal. So that the “values” of the world consist in whatever will contribute to this end and to the making of character. All authorities agree upon this point, but they do not all agree as to the best means of achieving this end. For example, some have argued that the way to live the fullest, most satisfying DEVELOPMENT OF APPRECIATION 95 life, is to give free rein to all the impulsive and instinc- tive tendencies, to gratify all desires, whether sensory or ideational, and to give heed to the present alone, inas- much as the future is uncertain at best. Others have argued that only by completely inhibiting these tend- encies and desires, and by living a life of pure reason, can the ethical end be attained. The truth of the matter lies somewhere between these extremes. But the significant point is that in any case it is im- possible to steer through the eddying social sea without a chart upon which are plotted ideals and concepts of value of some kind which can be taken as objective points. No person can find his way through the social world without at least some faith in society and God. The development of personality itself involves the adop- tion of these ideals. The essential thing is that at some point in an individual’s development he must acquire these attitudes of reverence for truth, righteousness, character, appreciation of beauty, and the like, in order to make possible his own further personal development; in order that his own character may be enriched by the appreciation of things of ultimate worth. Without these ideals the threads of instinct and impulse will be tangled, and life will be at cross-purposes. Not only does society demand some degree of consistency and unity in one’s action, but the inner law of human de- velopment demands it also. There is thus a double demand not only for an intellectual point of view, but for a feeling-attitude toward life. 96 THE HISTORICAL LIFE 2. Appreciation as Evaluation As a basis for a deeper analysis of appreciation, let us agree that appreciation consists in the ability and the disposition to attend to and choose those values of life which are of greatest ultimate significance to the psycho-physical organism we call personality. Presi- dent Thwing fittingly defined it in these terms:1 Appreciation is what I call intellectual evaluation. It is the sense of proportion. I have also in mind a certain emo- tional receptivity which is able to accept all conditions and make the most of those conditions. By appreciation I mean culture ; I mean humanitas ; I mean paideia; I mean all that goes to constitute, in a large sense, the aesthetic. It must be granted at the outset that there are many degrees and varieties of values. However, two general types of value are distinguishable, which may be desig- nated as psychological values and ethical values. By psychological value we refer to the feeling-tone of any present experience: thus one situation pleases, and so has a positive psychological value; another displeases, and has a negative psychological value. You may lay it down as a general law that on the conscious level of organic life a stimulus from a beneficial object calls forth pleasant affection together with a reaction toward, while a stimulus from a harmful object elicits unpleas- antness and a reaction away from, the object. But it is perfectly obvious that in the case of self-consciousness the situation is scarcely ever so simple as this. It is complicated by the fact that the human mind can and 1 The American College, p. 226. DEVELOPMENT OF APPRECIATION 97 should take into account the remote consequents of the stimuli and responses as well as present affections. This is the function of man’s superior intelligence. Thus it turns out that not every response that yields pres- ent satisfaction is good for the psycho-social organ- ism in the long run, nor is everything that is imme- diately unpleasant bad for the organism in the long run. Here, then, is where the ethical values come in. They represent the stimuli and responses which have ultimate significance for psycho-social welfare. The distinction between these types of value can be seen in the light of the true meaning of happiness. It is often asserted that happiness consists of a maximum of pleasures; that happiness is directly proportionate in amount to the number of pleasures. Accordingly, the individual who realizes the greatest number of pleasures from eating, drinking, sensuality, from luxurious houses and fine clothes, motor cars, and elaborate amusements, must be the happiest. Happiness, on the contrary, con- sists, not in a sum of pleasures, but in a ‘harmony of pleasures.* Happiness may be understood as a harmonious arrange- ment of pleasures, a system or synthesis in which each of the constituent pleasures supplements and strengthens the rest. Within such a system no pleasure — no matter how intense — which conflicts with and weakens others, thus tending to de- stroy the unity and upset the equilibrium of the whole system, can find a place.1 From the psychological standpoint, value inheres, as we have said, in any object or act which pleases or 1 Wright, H. W.: Self-Realization, p. 292. 98 THE HISTORICAL LIFE satisfies desire.'But—to repeat—appreciation consists in the ability and disposition to choose and attend to those values which are of greatest significance to the historical life of the organism. Appreciation is the evaluation of the values which, as the analysis of happi- ness shows, present themselves for our acceptance, and which are sometimes mutually incompatible. The em- ployee who denies himself the pleasure of a game of golf and, because of a compelling ideal of duty, stays at the office, even though in the employer’s absence he might easily escape the stuffy building, manifests a high type of appreciation. To recognize the superior worth, permanent power to satisfy, in one claimant for attention, and to choose it as against a more intense but momentary satisfaction, is active appreciation. Our original definition of appreciation as sentiment at work will therefore have to be amended to read, ‘senti- ment at work upon value-situations,’ the purpose being to discover, not merely what is true, good, beautiful, and righteous, but what phases of truth, goodness, beauty, and righteousness are of greatest worth to the development of human personality. Theoretically the modes of appreciation should di- rectly correspond to the classes of sentiment; and while this is true for the most part, it seems necessary to add one mode of appreciation which finds no exact counter- part in sentiment. We may therefore speak of (1) in- tellectual appreciation, (2) aesthetic, (3) technical, (4) moral, and (5) religious appreciation. While apprecia- tion depends upon sentiment, it must also be under- DEVELOPMENT OF APPRECIATION 99 stood that appreciation is an ‘historical* feeling-judg- ment; that is, appreciation judges any value, not alone on the basis of its present appeal, but upon the basis of its ability to satisfy the demands of the historical life. For example, I may hold a certain theory as to the function of the visual purple in the retina of the eye, and feelingly defend it against all comers. Here is an intellectual sentiment; but in the scale of human values this is a minor matter compared with the sentiment as to whether or not democracy is the best form of govern- ment. And while no intellectual sentiment is worthless — since they all “lead us back to the common cause and ground of all” — yet those sentiments, moral, aesthetic, and religious, as well as intellectual, are of greatest worth which stand in closest relation to the highest forms of activity of the psycho-physical organism as it develops through the expansion of the historical life. In much the same manner, a Beethoven sonata is of more worth than a ‘Subway Glide,’ because it makes a permanent appeal, not only to the individual, but to the race. To appreciate the sonata is to recognize its permanent appeal and worth as contrasted with the other. By technical appreciation we have reference to the evaluation of superior methods of production of the goods of life. If one will but stop to think, one of the greatest achievements of the race is the machinery by which the fundamental needs of life are satisfied, and the necessary services rendered. For example, the modern superior means of lighting houses, or the 100 THE HISTORICAL LIFE methods of care and treatment of the teeth, as compared with the tallow candle or the turnkey method of treat- ment, afford an insight into the conservation of human forces which modern technical pursuits make possible. And who can say but that this superior technical ability is as fundamental an element in the higher evolution of the human species as is the reverence for truth itself; or that an Ingersoll Dollar Watch is typical of as great a human value as is the statement of the Copernican theory. Technical pursuits, dealing as they do with the raw materials of life, are likely to be overlooked by the eyes of appreciation, except as our attention is called to the fact that the great values of life surround us and lie at our feet, as well as inhabit the skies. As for moral and religious appreciation little need be said, except that of all the values these are the highest. They are the most inclusive of all, representing a syn- thesis of all the ultimate interests of human personality, and as such must command man’s highest appreciation. In conclusion, let us think of appreciation as consisting of the feelingful awareness of the kingdom of values, and as the mental allegiance to the system of ideals which make up the spiritual environment of the psycho-physi- cal organism. We have learned to regard the concept as the condensation of many experiences, each concept rep- resenting a system of previous sensory and reaction-ex- periences. In like manner an ideal represents a system of value-experiences; and to appreciate means to affirm the worth of the ideal by means of sentiment. DEVELOPMENT OF APPRECIATION 101 1. General Statement In this paragraph it remains for us to gather together in summary the points already brought out and to make the conclusion specific with illustrations. One of the prominent elements of the stream of expe- rience which makes up the historical life is affection. Un- der one form of organization affection is the characteris- tic element of emotion; under another, of sentiment. In either case affection is the element which gives worth and value to life, and as such is the basis of all the appre- ciation which suffuses with color and attractiveness the system of ends and purposes which is the backbone of the historical life. Realization of personality demands that those instinctive tendencies and inherited feel- ing-attitudes — emotions — which thwart the develop- ment of these ends and purposes shall be habitually inhibited. For example, in an outburst of anger, one might undo the work of years, and thwart one’s life pur- poses; so with many of the other primitive emotional re- actions, such as fear, hatred, envy, and the like. While these may be innocent enough in childhood, and may even serve the purpose of helping the individual to come to self-consciousness, yet in adulthood they must be brought under the control of the rational self. They must at least take the impersonal form; for example, an- ger must be redirected from individuals as its objects to conditions or abuses, because from the moral standpoint one may legitimately hate graft or iniquity in any form, SUMMARY AND APPLICATION 102 THE HISTORICAL LIFE but not the men who engage in it. The historical life demands that the emotional life shall be subject to the censorship of thought. When it comes to the question of sentiment, the case is somewhat different. None of the sentiments are such as to need inhibition; the sole necessity is that the think- ing and judgment which underlie them shall be correct and consistent. The historical life, to reach its highest development, must be bound together by a system of ends in which conflicting and contradictory concepts and ideals have been eliminated. Thus the man who has one code of ethics for his private life, and another for his public life, or the man who believes social evolution is dependent upon militarism, betrays an imperfect appre- ciation of morality and truth, and shows a lack of unity and consistency of thought which will be expressed in a warped life of action. Personal development, therefore, calls for growth, not only in the ability to think straight, but to feel consistently; to adopt the proper apprecia- tional attitude to the great social and spiritual verities of truth, goodness, and beauty. Indeed, the latter has been the more neglected in our educational system, and needs careful consideration at the hands of those whose task it is to develop proper educational aims and teach- ing methods. 2. Subjective Value of Appreciation Apart from the more objective value of a proper ap- preciation as measured by social standards of life, appre- ciation possesses two very marked subjective values. DEVELOPMENT OF APPRECIATION 103 First, it contributes directly to personal happiness. Indeed, it may be said that the degree of happiness is directly proportionate to the level of appreciation. The final analysis of happiness cannot be made until the organization of conduct has been discussed, but we may say at this point that happiness depends upon two things: namely, the degree of subjective unity between the intellectual, emotional, and volitional ele- ments of consciousness; and, second, the degree of ad- justment, objectively, between the person and society, and between the person and God. The mental conflict and inner unrest of the individual who attempts to cling to an eighteenth-century theology, and at the same time appropriate the conclusions of modern science, furnishes a case in point. The two systems of thought do not fit, and the religious and scientific selves of the individual constantly confront each other and dispute the right of way. Likewise the business man who holds a high ideal of personal morality, honesty, and honor, but who feels compelled to engage in the sharp practices which busi- ness ethics seem to allow, because ‘business is business/ also experiences an inner conflict which prevents com- plete happiness. To cling to two partial and incomplete systems of truth, when one inclusive and unified point of view is possible; to serve two groups of moral masters, when one comprehensive ideal of life is the prerogative of every person, is to miss the essence of happiness. In a word, lack of unity in appreciation is the greatest sub- jective source of unhappiness. Conversely, a unified intellectual point of view, and a consistent appreciative 104 THE HISTORICAL LIFE attitude toward the whole complex environment, is the finest foundation possible for that serenity of spirit which is the essence of happiness. The happiness-value of appreciation may be more fully illustrated by reference to the aesthetic sentiment, which, in its racial functioning, has given us that price- less heritage, art. Art is the result of this historical at- tempt of man to express his ideal of beauty in the form of literature, music, painting, sculpture, and architec- ture. The aesthetic ideal, like the moral, is progressive, and hence is never attained; but the world cherishes as its masterpieces those attempts which most nearly approximate that ideal. A Tennyson’s “Idyls of the King,” a Handel’s “Messiah,” a “Sistine Madonna,” a Greek temple, constitutes the highest and finest pleasure to him who can catch its inner meaning. The art of the world is valuable, not because of its coldly utilitarian value, but because of the happiness it brings man. But it can minister only to him who can ap- preciate it. An appreciation of art, therefore, opens the inner life of personality to all the ennobling, inspiring, warming, and humanizing influences of the whole of society, past and present. “The soul with a love for aes- thetic values is thus continually refreshed both through the elements of art in its environment, and through the quality of perfection which it introduces into its own world.” 1 And in thus ministering to the individual’s happiness, aesthetic appreciation directly increases the reach and depth of personality; it represents a clear gain 1 Horne, H. H.: Psychological Principles of Education, p. 244. DEVELOPMENT OF APPRECIATION 105 in the personalizing process. What is true of aesthetic appreciation is equally true of the other lines of appre- ciation; each type of sentiment, the intellectual, moral, and religious, as well as the aesthetic, makes its particu- lar contribution to the wealth and joy of life, and each adds its portion to the sum of personal happiness. But there is a second and more practical value of ap- preciation. Development of proper appreciation insures good taste in the individual. We have in mind no narrow interpretation of the term — not merely the selection of the proper cravat or waistcoat for a special occasion, but that larger ability to place the proper emphasis upon both the practical and the ideal values of life. It must include, of course, the matter of appropri- ateness in dress, on the one hand, but it extends also to matters of conduct and attitude. It is as inappropriate for the suffragist to turn a social gathering into a propa- gandist’s opportunity, as for the centripetally inclined society girl to wear an evening gown on a shopping tour. The following statement from Bagley shows the es- sential nature of taste, from the psychological stand- point: 1 Like prejudices, tastes are characterized by the propensity that was noted in connection with habits; that is, conditions which fail to satisfy standards that have been repeatedly applied to the evaluation of certain activities arouse a feeling of irritation and unpleasantness, which may indeed be only vaguely localized at the time. The person whose musical tastes have been highly ‘ culti- vated,’ for example, will react almost instinctively against 1 Bagley, W. Educational Values, p. 64. THE HISTORICAL LIFE 106 musical effects that fall below his standard. This is not a case of direct application of the standard to the effort in question; it is rather an immediate and unreasoned reaction. It is undoubtedly due, as has been suggested above, to a frequent conscious application of the standard: just as prejudices grow gradually out of the repeated conscious operations of ideals. While we do not assert that these matters of taste constitute the essence of personality, yet they are of tre- mendous practical importance because they do reveal the type of personality and uncover the characteristics of the individual in question. Every one is a consumer of many social products — clothing, household furniture, decorations, books, mag- azines, and papers; every one has his favorite amuse- ments and pastimes; and all of these are indexes of intel- lectual, moral, social, aesthetic, and even religious ideals and standards. Extremes or extravagance in dress, shrill- voiced laughter, vulgar amusements, disrespect, all pro- claim a jaded aesthetic palate, a warped appreciation of values, and are always so interpreted by people of bal- ance and perspective. While the individual in question may have the proper ‘stuff’ in him, yet with the handi- cap of poor taste, he is not likely to be given an oppor- tunity to demonstrate what he can do, because he must depend for his opening upon the social judgment. Obviously enough, the defective class of society has not the ability for interpretation and appreciation suffi- cient to develop personality. The same is largely true of the criminal class. The gentleman robber or the high financier may possess a sufficiently cultivated aesthetic taste in the narrow sense, but his profession is inconsist- DEVELOPMENT OF APPRECIATION 107 ent with a high appreciation of the finer moral and spirit- ual values, and his personality remains dwarfed or be- comes abnormal. The irresponsible and inconsequential members of society also largely fail in the realization of personality at this point. They are largely controlled by their impulses and native emotions; real sentiments they have not, but only sentimentalities. They live in the present, and overemphasize those situations which promise the most immediate and most intense pleasures. They have never got the long view of life and arranged the values of the world in an ascending order, but exam- ine each prospective experience with the myopic eye of self-gratification, and choose those which are big with present satisfaction. Once more, then, personal development demands a proper appreciation or evaluation of the qualities of character and the goods of life. One’s attractions and likings, one’s pleasures and satisfactions, one’s loyalties and ideals, one’s sympathies and faiths, all need organi- zation and control, as well as one’s thoughts and actions. The demand of the historical life cannot be satisfied until the feeling side of experience is reduced to order and system. Education, as the process of self-realization, has not done its perfect work until it teaches a man, not only to place a theoretical value upon these ideal values, but to demand them. It is not sufficient to mumble some second-hand sentiment about truth, and then devour the yellow journal; or to prate about the isms of art, and then paint one’s house pea green and trim it in purple. CHAPTER VI THE ORGANIZATION OF CONDUCT WHAT IS THE CHARACTERISTIC TYPE OF HUMAN RESPONSE? If a bit of food is introduced into the water near a craw- fish, a very definite reaction is observable in the animal. Food acts as a stimulus to the organism, causing it to react by moving toward the desirable material. On the other hand, if a bit of acid instead of food is injected into the water, the crawfish reacts as definitely as be- fore, but in the opposite direction and away from the stimulus. Here is simple stimulus and response, an instance of the lowest level of mental life. But the behavior of the crawfish in this instance may be taken as typical of a general mental law. All animal life manifests this tendency to react toward a beneficial object and away from a harmful one. In the case of the crawfish, the reaction is mechanical and unconscious, but in the higher animals, such as the horse or dog, adjustment may be highly conscious. The affections — pleasantness and unpleasantness — come to be impor- tant factors in the conscious process of the higher ani- mals, by providing a criterion of action as explained in the last chapter. In general, those actions which are beneficial to the organism are pleasant, while those which are harmful are unpleasant. This pleasantness and unpleasantness constitute the guiding principle in the animal’s conduct, and it accordingly does that THE ORGANIZATION OF CONDUCT 109 which is pleasant and avoids that which is unpleasant. There are doubtless many apparent exceptions to this rule; for example, the moth flies into the flame and pre- sumably suffers a primitive kind of pain. But if we re- gard the moth’s seeking the light as a biological mani- festation of the mating instinct, the action is then seen to have biological value, and may be presumed to yield satisfaction. While many individuals of the species may perhaps perish because this instinctive tendency leads them into the flame instead of merely to the light, yet, on the whole, the action is beneficial to the species and yields more pleasantness than pain. The different modes of reaction which are common to man — namely, the reflex, automatic, instinctive, and impulsive, together with the volitional or deliberative action — show that man is much like the crawfish and all other forms of animal life, in that he has this tend- ency to react toward pleasant and away from unpleas- ant things. In so far as his reactions are reflex, instinc- tive, or impulsive, the movement is always toward or away from some immediate pleasure or pain; instincts and impulses have no conscious reference to the future, but to the satisfaction of immediate need or desire. It is at this point that the all-important difference between man and the animal becomes apparent. Man has, in the deliberative action, the ability consciously and purpose- fully to control his action; it is the prerogative of man to resist the tendency to react for the sake of immediate pleasure, or to avoid a present unpleasant stimulus and to choose an act which, while not immediately pleasant, 110 THE HISTORICAL LIFE will insure a greater good for the future. The athlete who is in training can suppress the impulse to fill him- self up with Welsh rabbit at twelve o’clock at night; he can and does exercise a judicious choice in his food under all circumstances. His chosen reaction here is not in the interest of immediate satisfaction, but for the sake of a remote end which he values more highly than the pleas- ure of the moment. No animal has the ability to meas- ure one reaction against another, even in the case of two alternative reactions for the immediate present; much less has it the power to weigh the present act against a future one. The characteristic type of human response, therefore, is volition in which thought and evaluation precede action, giving it the central place in the organism in personal conduct. Animals never evaluate. In so far as their conduct is consciously motived, the motive relates to present satis- faction. This is also true in large measure of the young child. In the case of adult man, however, the situation is somewhat more complex. The adult shares with the animal and with the child the common heritage of in- stinctive and impulsive tendency; submerged in his nature are all the conquests of the race’s experience in the past in the form of inherited tendency, which serve as a sufficient guide for the satisfaction of his primitive needs. But interwoven with these is the further ability to perform volitional acts. This ability may remain rela- tively undeveloped, or it may become the most char- acteristic mark of the individual, depending upon his education and training. THE ORGANIZATION OF CONDUCT 111 WHAT, THEN, IS THE PROBLEM OF ORGANIZATION? The forms of human response are almost unlimited, particularly in civilized society. There are all the in- stinctive tendencies centering about the three great radi- ant points of life — self-preservation, race-preservation, and group-solidarity: the first including many of the acts of food-getting, of fear and fighting, and of provid- ing clothing, shelter, and warmth; the second, the elabo- rate manifestions of the sex instinct, including court- ship, marriage, much of personal adornment, and even of aesthetic impulse; and the third, such widely different tendencies as gregariousness, the desire for approval, rivalry, emulation, sympathy, altruism, jealousy, hate, and much of play. Besides these more or less definite instinctive tendencies there is a multitude of impulses of great variety which are altogether unpredictable, and are contingent upon the stimulus of the moment. They include the small boy’s impulse to trip up his neighbor in the schoolroom, the impulse of the nouveaux riches to give a monkey dinner, the impulse to buy candy or an automobile; to help a child across a street, or to assassi- nate a president. Indeed, there is no limit to the kinds of human reaction this side of the permutation and com- bination of all the circumstances which may call forth acts which would bring satisfaction or pleasure for the moment, or enable one to avoid an immediate unpleas- antness. Given this material, this infinite variety of instinct and impulse, what is the problem? From the standpoint 112 THE HISTORICAL LIFE of human development the problem is to organize these tendencies into a consistent system of conduct; to “gather up these scattered threads of instinctive and impulsive tendency and weave them into the single skein of a rational whole.” Among other things, organization of the life of action involves inhibition of many of the instinctive and im- pulsive tendencies, such as are mentioned in the preced- ing list. The life of impulse and instinct is apt to be heterogeneous and conflicting; the same stimulus might tend to arouse several different instincts or impulses at the same moment, and the result would be such an in- ner blocking as to cause delay or even abeyance of all ac- tion, or at best the result is a half-matured and ill-con- sidered or irrelevant action. We are sometimes tempted to confuse efficiency with mere energetics, with ‘busy- ness’ and nervous enterprise on the one hand, and to suppose that deliberateness of action is synonymous with slowness of accomplishment and inefficiency on the other. But nothing could be farther from the truth. The fact is that efficiency demands, not rapidity of reaction so much as nice control and carefully planned action. Rapidity is desirable, if it is not secured at the expense of accuracy and purposefulness. Again, most of the stimuli which besiege the individ- ual and which, if given attention, prompt to acts which satisfy a passing desire or deliver a momentary satisfac- tion, have small value. The act may bring immediate pleasure, but when weighed against a system of ends or purposes it contributes not the least; and even if these THE ORGANIZATION OF CONDUCT 113 are not directly at variance with the main purposes of life, they may levy a toll upon time and energy which one can ill afford. For example, a common kind of im- pulsive action in these days of advanced merchandising is to fall into the net of the skillful window decorator and impulsively spend a dime, a quarter, a dollar, for a sweet taste, a flash of color, or some other sensory satisfaction which bears no relation to the main issues of life. Let us not be misunderstood. It would be the great- est misfortune to inhibit the whole list of impulses. There are two classes of impulses, as there are of emo- tions: the non-rational, and the irrational; and the irra- tional are the ones which must be suppressed because they tear down and destroy the results of painstaking labor and jeopardize that system of ends and purposes which constitutes the framework of personality. A busi- ness man who has planned a campaign and is about to consummate an enterprise of importance could destroy the whole artifice by an impulsive word of anger or sus- picion, or by yielding to the desire for a game of golf at the critical moment. This is the meaning of the irra- tional impulse; it unwinds in a moment the skein that reason has been at such pains to wind. As to those non-rational impulses, we could probably sacrifice with profit many more of them than we do. And yet to suppress all of these would be to rob life of its zest and spontaneity. Society demands, not merely cold- blooded efficiency, but appreciates with it a dash of spice of impulse in one’s work. Impulse as thus intro- 114 THE HISTORICAL LIFE duced, however, does not clog the wheels of personal progress, but rather adds an effective lubricant. There is a further principle of the psychology of inter- pretation the importance of which is often underesti- mated; namely, that thinking is almost as much the re- sult of action as action is the result of thought. Hegel’s statement that the kind of philosophy one holds depends upon the kind of man one is, is true in every respect. The beggar who doubles up his good right leg, puts on a wooden stump, and assumes a stiff walking-stick actu- ally comes to feel hurt and neglected when you refuse to believe his pathetic story and come to his aid with a quarter. A partial reason for this is, no doubt, that intel- lectual consistency within one’s system of ends and pur- poses is conditioned by the consistency of his conduct. The real reason for this is somewhat difficult to state. But no man cares to be knowingly inconsistent; there is a sort of instinctive reaction against this; and many a man has been prejudiced or biased by his own impulsive or snap-shot reaction to some situation. A college stu- dent impulsively casts his lot with a rough crowd which celebrates an athletic victory by rowdyism and riot, and subsequently justifies his action and habitually follows out the course to which he has committed himself. Or a man in an argumentative mood takes a stand on some question — political, social, or religious — and thence- forth in the interest of consistency maintains the same standpoint, when he might have taken quite another had clear, unheated thought cast the die instead of dis- putatious emotion. In the case of both the student and THE ORGANIZATION OF CONDUCT 115 the man, his own ill-considered reaction becomes the ‘suggestion’ which later arouses his belief and deter- mines his point of view; and the point of view, again, determines his evaluations and systems of ends and purposes. The life, not only of action, therefore, but of interpretation and appreciation, is colored and moulded by the reactions one makes, whether impulsive or delib- erative. An act commits one to one kind of policy or other and this determines the nature of his historical life. Personal progress, therefore, depends upon the proper organization of the inherited and acquired tendencies — instincts, impulses, habits, volitions — into a system of conduct that shall be consistent, not only with one’s own purposes, but with the larger system of ends that the social group of which the individual is a member is striving to realize. HOW IS HABIT RELATED TO THE HISTORICAL LIFE? There are two types of action which, more than all others, furnish means to proper organization of conduct. These are habit and volition. The one is, when fully formed, unconscious and relatively simple; the other is the most acutely conscious and the highest form of reac- tion. But through both forms instinct and impulse are inhibited altogether, or transformed and utilized as serv- iceable and constructive factors in the historical life. There are two familiar considerations which bring out the organizing value of habit. First: Habit is an econo- mizer of time and energy. The difference in time re- 116 THE HISTORICAL LIFE quired for a novice to write a hundred words on a type- writer, and that required by an expert, is the measure of economy in time for this one instance. Experiment would also show that the amount of energy consumed by the expert is much less than that used by the novice in doing the same piece of work. The excess of energy put forth by the latter would be shown in random, meaning- less movements, the holding of breath, eye-strain, trial jabs here and there, and the like. While this is perhaps an extreme instance of the value of habit, it is neverthe- less typical of all habits. Though they may differ as to the amount of economy they effect, all habits are alike in that they represent economy of time and energy. The reason for this is clear; the habitual act is rapid, accurate, smooth-running, and easy, because it is sys- tematic and orderly; because it is well organized; many repetitions in the same sequence have stamped into the nervous system a certain order of responses, and the members of the series follow each other with ease and certainty. Second: In the words of James, habit is the great fly- wheel of life. Habit represents accumulated and stored- up energy which may carry one over a period of unusual moral, mental, or social stress by the sheer momentum which past experience has given it, just as the fly-wheel on the engine represents stored-up energy which is applied to help it through a sudden stress. The wireless operator in an injured vessel can stick to his task and do effective work amid danger and excitement because of the automatic character of his previously acquired THE ORGANIZATION OF CONDUCT 117 habits. So the student, merchant, professional man, in- deed every one, forges ahead to success because the en- gine of his thought processes, his ambitions, and his voli- tions is backed up and helped over the dead centers by the stored-up momentum of previously achieved habit. In summary, whether it is the matter of economy, the question of momentum, or of efficiency, habit is valuable in life because it is a definite mode of organizing our re- actions. All that is necessary is that the situation shall arise frequently and call for no new variations in adjust- ment, and habit will come forward as the most econom- ical and efficient organization of action. Habit is not only the fly-wheel of life, but the gyroscope as well; it not only carries us forward, but enables us to maintain our equilibrium among the complexities and intricacies of social life. BUT VOLITION REPRESENTS THE SUPREME TYPE OF ORGANIZATION 1. What are the Essential Characteristics of a Volitional Act? The psychology of volition may be laid bare at a stroke by the statement that its technique is the tech- nique of thinking and appreciation. The volitional act is demanded when in the course of adjustment a prob- lem is met; when, for example, one has two different impulses at once, or when an impulse is in conflict with an inhibitory idea; when it is a question of what to do, or whether to do anything. Volitional action is delib- erative action; its conscious condition is a period of 118 THE HISTORICAL LIFE thought followed by a decision. All of the intellectual processes may be called into requisition in the solution of the problem: sensation, perception, memory, imagina- tion, judgment, reason, evaluation — the whole of the mental machine. As an example of volition, suppose you had received in this morning’s mail a letter offering you a position to teach. What would be your behavior? You might say to yourself immediately and apparently without delib- eration, “No, I do not wish to teach. I already have a good opening for next year”; and you sit down and write an immediate reply to that effect. Or, you might say, “Ah! This is interesting; I have been looking for something like this. I must investigate this and see what there is in it for me.” In the former case the reason for the apparent simplicity is that the question was al- ready answered before it was asked. The system of plans and purposes which have already been operative made the proposed action impossible, because incompatible with these plans. The second instance shows more clearly the process of deciding. Here is a period of hesi- tation, doubt, investigation, decision, involving, as was said, all the technique of thinking. Now just which phase of these incidents constitutes the volitional act? The answer is: the whole transaction from beginning to end, in each instance; it includes everything from the interpretation of the word-symbols of the letter to the writing of the reply — a tremen- dously complicated process involving all the machinery of the mental organism. Under further analysis, sensa- THE ORGANIZATION OF CONDUCT 119 tion and perception are seen to be basic to the considera- tion all along; in the second instance, you rely upon them for the collection of data, through reading and interpret- ing word-symbols, in your inquiry of friends, in referring to maps and time-tables. You undertake to picture the situation to yourself in imagination: the physical sur- roundings, the people, the nature of the work; you form an opinion; that is, judge as to whether your training fits you for the position, whether the salary is satisfac- tory. All along you have been collecting information, writing letters, asking questions, and forming hypothe- ses (inductions); you draw conclusions from these and from known facts (deduction). You finally sign a con- tract, write and post your final letter. The volitional “act” was not simply the signing of your name or walking to the mail-box; it included the whole psycho-physical process of which signing the name and going to the mail-box were the concluding parts. These were the most obvious physical parts of the act; though we should have to include here also all of the neural processes in the brain, sense organs, and nerves throughout the whole transaction, as well as the muscular movements at the conclusion. We should, per- haps, do well at this point to remember the general truth that the human being is a psycho-physical organ- ism — a living unit, though a complex one. His life manifests itself in a series of reactions which may some- times be purely physical (reflex) and again psycho- physical, psychical control being needed when there is a problem and when the situation is complex. 120 THE HISTORICAL LIFE But there is another factor in the analysis that must be mentioned; namely, the feeling side. The ultimate criterion in terms of which the decision is finally reached is the factor of value. You accept the offer if you feel that all the interests of your life can at this stage be best served by accepting. The financial consideration is per- haps one of the main factors, but not the sole one. You take into consideration the nature of the town, kind of people, accessibility to libraries and music, parks, churches, friends, etc.; that is, the appreciation factor covering a wide range of elements looms large in your decision. And if you accept a position which is largely devoid of these values, you do it for one of two reasons: you take it under necessity, as a last resort, or you take it with the mental reservation that the financial consid- eration outweighs all others at the present stage of your life, and that it is in the interest of larger values later on. But in any case the feeling-factor, your appreciation of ideals, is bound to condition your decision. Not only does your knowledge in the form of fact, concept, together with your judgments of value, serve as the basis of your volition, but, in like manner, those crystals of past experience — both intellectual and emo- tional — which we called attitudes and points of view, also constitute a determining force. Your attitude of snobbishness or of helpfulness might predispose you to accept or reject the position, as soon as you learn certain facts regarding the community in question. Thus pre- viously acquired attitudes and points of view operate in the subsequent organization of the historical life.. THE ORGANIZATION OF CONDUCT 121 Putting these things together, it is clear that in the volitional act the whole of consciousness is brought to- gether and focused upon the solution of an adjustment problem; all of the sub-processes of interpretation and appreciation are woven together as strands into the com- plicated process which we call volition. 2. Volition as Organization We have now to consider volition from a slightly dif- ferent angle: namely, as a means of organization. Impulsive action can have no self-regulation, simply be- cause its sanction is necessity. Necessity knows no law, no rule, because it is itself another name for inviolable law. There can be, therefore, no question of a law of action to an individ- ual who acts purely from impulse. Capriciousness is his rule, and that is not a rule. So the only regulative or legislative re- straint to which such action may be brought is that which comes from the actor’s higher sanctions, those of intelligence or conscience, or from the sanctions of a social kind which are enforced upon the actor.1 This is equivalent to saying that the life of impulse is intrinsically capricious and unregulated, and that, as far as the individual himself is concerned, organization of con- duct can come only through intelligent volition. This is the fundamental thesis of this chapter. Introspection will reveal the fact that in point of number volitional adjustments are relatively rare when compared with habits, impulses, and instincts. But we may lay it down as a rule that the importance of voli- tion is in inverse proportion to its frequency. As was 1 Baldwin, J. M.: Social and Ethical Interpretations, p. 552. 122 THE HISTORICAL LIFE pointed out, habit functions in the realm of familiar and oft-recurring situations, but volition is demanded by the new and problematic situation; volition performs the function of blazing the trail in the way of life; its conquests of to-day become the habits of to-morrow, and the habits and inhibitions together with the attitudes and ideals which trail in the wake of volition constitute the individual’s permanent character. Volition is thus significant because through it the policies of life are determined, and because so many other detailed adjust- ments depend upon it. The illustration of the teaching position will show the value of the volitional act as an organizing agent. In the first place, the decision to accept grew logically out of the experience and training of the past. It was di- rectly dependent upon previous volitions — for exam- ple, the decision to go to college, to major in this subject or that — and it now becomes a part of a total scheme of life. If you accept the position, it will commit you to a certain policy — not that you cannot change later, but that any change may be wasteful. This decision, together with the others to which this one will lead, be- comes a great radiant point of life; to it the absorbing in- terests of life are related and relative to it future acts and events, ideas and purposes, have value. Or, to change the figure, this volitional act becomes an important part of the framework of life, and impulses, ideas, and acts are valuable which fit upon this skeleton, and all others are valueless no matter how immediately pleasant they may be. THE ORGANIZATION OF CONDUCT 123 The illustration we have used is perhaps more than usually important as a decision; it is accordingly more far-reaching in its influence than most volitions. But this does not make it any less typical. On the contrary, all volitions present these same characteristics and val- ues; they subserve the same function of organization within conduct and help to polarize the life in the same fashion. Volition appears simultaneously with the abil- ity to imagine and conceive future ends and weigh them against desires of instincts and impulses. “Volition proves to be, then, the formative and sustaining activity of conscious selfhood, or personality”; it is reason and appreciation made effective, and is therefore the unify- ing process in life. “It is volition that originates this unity among the contents of consciousness and main- tains it through the appropriation and assimilation of new objects.” 1 And while it is not to be expected that volition will entirely succeed in organizing life, just be- cause personality is an ideal, yet the progressive levels of personal development which are attained are but the expression of the achievements of superior organization. WHAT IS THE PLACE OF ORGANIZATION IN THE HISTORICAL LIFE? The significance of volition for personality may per- haps be best emphasized by referring again to historical consciousness. The following analogy will serve as a starting-point: On a June evening, we are often attracted by the countless 1 Wright, H. W.: Self-Realization, p. 146. THE HISTORICAL LIFE 124 fireflies as they flash forth in points of light in the darkness and then disappear from view. Between these points of light there seems to be no connection, and the flashes appear in no apparent order. So consciousness might be pictured as sparks of intelligence glowing here and there on the dark background of the unconscious. This may be a true picture of the most primitive forms of intelligence, but with such intelligence the present discussion has nothing to do. The light of conscious- ness that we are to consider forms an uninterrupted train of brightness, and the point from which it issues and the goal in which it terminates can be traced with relative definiteness. Consciousness is an event, or, better, a series of related events, harmoniously joined and leading to a final conclusion.1 The analogy of the fireflies may be taken as a rela- tively true description of the consciousness of the animal or the young child, though even here there is some con- nection between the various conscious events through memory which binds portions of the past to the present. But the final definition of consciousness as given in the quotation is that of the developed normal adult mind —- self-consciousness — rather than that of child or animal. Let us imagine a longitudinal section of the child’s con- sciousness. In this we should doubtless see the darting illuminations of sensation, apperceptions, images, de- sires, impulses, instincts, appearing here and there firefly fashion, together with occasional streaks of memory ex- tending into the past, and faint rays of hope and expec- tation piercing into the future. But for the most part the cross-sections which represent the successive pres- ent moments of experience would be relatively sepa- rate and disconnected. In the mind of developed per- 1 Colvin, S. S.: The Learning Process, p. 5. THE ORGANIZATION OF CONDUCT 125 sonality we would still see many flashes of sensation, image, desire, impulse, and instinct, together with many strands of memory. But occupying the center of the picture and extending from adolescence to the present would be the bright band of a fixed policy; and grouped around it throughout its whole extent an intricate sys- tem of ends and purposes. Projected from the present into the future would be the dimmer outlines of the person’s ideals and notions of value. This is the historical life; a life in which the con- figuration of the experience of ‘now’ is the result of past configurations, and in which the configuration of ‘now’ determines in large measure what the experience of the future shall be. The development of the historical life is identical with the acquisition of this central band of ideals together with the supplementary system of more immediate ends. The historical life means personality; and the development of the latter is coincident with the development of the former. The central band of ideals is by no means a stationary and fixed thing. Conscious- ness is stream-like, and we shall have to think of the bands and dots of light as presenting a dissolving view which grows and develops, takes on brighter color and clearer contour as time goes on. But the historical life is more than a moving-picture show operated by some outside agency; it is an organic thing, a living verity, self-active, self-directive, and self-determining within limits. Now what special part does volition play in the de- velopment of personality? Simply this: volition is the 126 THE HISTORICAL LIFE dynamic factor which makes real the ideal, which trans- forms the desirable into the actual. As Wright puts it, volition is creative of self-conscious personality because through it the desires and values which are sanc- tioned by appreciation are made “actual possessions of the self; for it is only through the realization of its differ- ent ideas that the self becomes real.... Finally all the contents of consciousness are woven into one organized system when these purposes are made themselves in- strumental to the realization of a supreme and all- inclusive ideal.” 1 Of course, one’s ideals are never fully realized; they are only approximated. Although one may realize at a later stage what was his ideal at an earlier, his ideals in the mean time have advanced in geometrical ratio to his at- tainments. But volition is the executive factor which puts the potentially dynamic mental machine into ac- tion; and without the positive fiat of the will life’s pur- poses and plans, no matter how beautiful, must always remain as far from attainment as they now are. “The youth has a vision of the life he would like to live, of the service he would choose to render, of the power he would prefer to exercise; and for fifty years he pursues his vi- sion”; but the ennobling force of volition is the factor which executes with enthusiasm the dream of life. To carry out the figure used by Betts, quoted on page 85, we should say that “while knowledge is an instrument of control, and feeling is the motive force,” volition is the machinery which makes available the power of appreciation 1 Wright, H. W.: Self-Realization, p. 146. THE ORGANIZATION OF CONDUCT 127 and the guidance of reason. The upshot of impulsive and instinctive action is present affection; the function of volition is the suppression of the impulse with its imme- diate pleasantness for the sake of a remote value. Voli- tion, therefore, on the basis of interpretation and appre- ciation, becomes the chief organizer of conduct and the chief artificer of human personality. For illustration of the personalizing value of volition we may again refer to the three classes of people who have developed their personalities but imperfectly. The defective is actuated by the great primal instincts for food, for bodily comfort, and for sensual gratification; few of the refinements of motive and initiative enter into his experience; and there is little left to say except that he is incapable of volitional action, as the psycholo- gist understands the term. Volition is the synthesis of thought and appreciation; the defective is therefore precluded from the boon of personality on all three counts. As regards the criminal class, a great divergence in capacity for volition is found here, because all degrees of intelligence are represented in the class. Many crimi- nals of the lower order are also defectives, and present the psychological characteristics of others of this class. Among the aristocracy in crime, however, a high degree of volition is found. A campaign of theft or murder, or of criminal stock manipulation, requires a degree of intel- ligence, imagination, and initiative which would do the average man great credit. But no scheme or system of purposes which tends to be self-destructive, as does any 128 THE HISTORICAL LIFE criminal or immoral project, can in the long run be de- nominated a high type of volition. To be truly person- alized, a man’s volitions must all form a system, the parts of which are mutually constructive. The successful counterfeiter of five-dollar bank notes must possess an unusual degree of intelligence and initiative; his ability to devise, invent, imagine, plan, organize, and effect must be far beyond the ordinary. He may also be a con- noisseur in art, and carry on his enterprise in order to gratify his artistic taste, but such a system of volitions would fall dead, for if all men knew this man to be a counterfeiter his efforts would be worse than useless. Besides, while his activities seem to be in the service of higher desires and ends which in themselves may be laudable, yet the whole system of volitions is performed at the sacrifice of ideal selfhood and of the highest and most inclusive values. In like manner, the ‘inconsequential* is lacking in that ‘bright band of a fixed policy* which is central to the historical life. In so far as he has any purpose at all — which is implicit rather than explicit — it is to en- courage and to give precedence to his instinctive and impulsive tendencies and to seek the gratification of his sentient self. Not the least effort has been made to or- ganize his capacities about a central system of worthy ends or to direct his energies to the working-out of a consistent scheme of life. To him a genuine act of voli- tion, implying straight and critical thinking, and a sym- pathetic appreciation of values, is as foreign as a social- ized conscience is to a criminal. THE ORGANIZATION OF CONDUCT 129 THE PLACE OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS IN PERSONALITY It may scarcely seem worth while to dwell longer on the subject of personality, but we are now in a position to bring together, by way of summary, the various part- statements already made and get a synthetic view of it from the individual standpoint. The final definition can be given only after examining the social origin and na- ture of mind, but in the mean time personality may be defined as an historical life energizing toward a system of end-values. Personality is a temporal process, involv- ing past, present, and future; it signifies that thought processes are framed to which attach appreciation and ideas of value; likewise that the means for their realiza- tion are discovered; finally, it means systematic volition. From the psychological standpoint it may be further emphasized that personality always involves self-con- sciousness or consciousness of self as a thinking, appre- ciating, willing entity. We have already suggested that while the animal is conscious, it is not aware of its own consciousness as a unity of experience; while man pos- sesses self-consciousness as well as mere consciousness (or may do so; not all people do, fully). Man builds up a concept of his own psycho-physical selfhood upon the basis of experience, just as he develops concepts of houses, trees, and other classes of objects. His person is central to all percepts, feelings, and volitions; self is the common factor in all experiences; he recognizes his own identity each morning, and comes to feel his own life as 130 THE HISTORICAL LIFE process because of the continuity of experience. At first, “self” means chiefly the body because the latter seems to be the recipient of all experience, but soon conscious- ness is thought of as something existing in the body, and as such can be contrasted with the body; personality is accordingly now conceived in terms of mind, and the body becomes external to the real man; to have one’s hair cut or even a leg amputated does not subtract from personality. Cooley conjectures that: Ordinarily it will be found that in not more than ten cases in a hundred does “I” have reference to the body of the person speaking. It refers chiefly to opinions, purposes, desires, claims, and the like, concerning matters that involve no thought of the body. I think or feel so and so: I wish or intend so and so: 1 want this or that: are typical uses, the self-feeling being associated with the view, purpose, or object mentioned.1 But while this concept of personality is nearer the truth than the first naive idea that the body is the self, it is nevertheless partial and inadequate. The psychologi- cal conception of selfhood must include both the psychi- cal and the physical aspects of life. Selfhood is psycho- physical life in which the psychical processes constitute the planning, appreciating, determining functions while the body becomes the means to these ends. Psychologically regarded, then, personality is, in part, in Titchener’s definition of the self: “ the particular com- bination of talent, temperament, and character — of in- tellectual, emotive, and active mental constitution that makes up the individual mind.” 2 1 Cooley, C. H.: Human Nature and the Social Order, p. 144. 2 Titchener, E. B.: A Text-Book oj Psychology, p. 544. THE ORGANIZATION OF CONDUCT 131 But it is more than this: personality involves, on the part of the individual himself, the consciousness of the nature of the combination of his own talents, tempera- ment, etc., and it presupposes that one has deliberately set himself the task of disciplining and developing his own thought, his own appreciational, and his own voli- tional capacities, and that he has brought them up to the place where his life is planned, motived, and effectu- ated according to ideals of value. One has but to ana- lyze the life of a Matthew Arnold, a Huxley, or a Lin- coln to see how the elements of personal strength have emerged from their native capacities of impression, feel- ing, and control through self-discipline and self-culture. And the testimony of all who have risen to an enviable level of personality is that personality is an achievement, never a gift. Finally, it must now be clear that personality is, in- deed, a teleological system. It is an historical achieve- ment within the scope of the individual’s experience in which ends are set up, pursued, and achieved. This goes entirely beyond the possibility of a mechanism to ac- complish, and the mechanistic conception of man with which Behaviorism often seems to stop is wholly inade- quate to account for personality. To be sure, the body mechanism and the mechanism of stimulus and response as exemplified in habit and the like are present, but present as means to the ends consciously conceived. Mechanism is thus incorporated in this teleological sys- tem known as personality. One can scarcely resist the temptation to remark at this point, too, that personality 132 THE HISTORICAL LIFE as thus hitching mechanism to purpose in tandem in a teleological system is the exact duplication in miniature of the larger universe outside in which the forces of nature—energy—are hitched to infinite purpose in a teleological universe, all working together in an organ- ized manner in the evolution of a more perfect universe which is headed up and directed by the Supreme Person — God. It must also be clear that personality is spiritual in es- sence. The core of personality is the top level of the life series in which mind functions as reason, appreciation, and self-direction. That personality seen as a spiritual organism is also the greatest thing in the world seems clear from the fact that in personality typical forms of matter and energy (the body) are hitched together in a mechanism which is under the control of self-conscious- ness. Also from the fact that the matter and energy of the natural world is progressively falling under the con- trol of this same self-consciousness to be used as means in the achievement of that system of purposes which is the core of personality. PART II THE SOCIALIZING PROCESS CHAPTER VII WHAT DOES THE TERM ‘ PSYCHO-SOCIAL ORGANISM * MEAN? THE PSYCHO-SOCIAL ORGANISM The preceding discussions everywhere justify the state- ment that personality is definable in mental terms, rather than physical. The historical life is a self-con- scious, self-planned, self-directed life. While we have been dealing throughout with the psycho-physical or- ganism which lives by reshaping its inner character to suit external conditions, and by modifying external con- ditions to meet subjective needs — an elaborate and continuous process of adjustment — yet we have always regarded consciousness as the chief factor and the physio- logical machine as the means by which modification is actually effected in the environment. The two are but functional phases of a psycho-physical life in which the mental is everywhere the most significant. But this does not tell the whole story; it describes but one side of the process by which personality is finally developed. The other half of the story is that human personality is as fundamentally social as it is mental or physical. Personality is more than a psycho-physical organism; it is a physico-psycho-social organism. While the physical side of man is organic to the social as well as to the psychical, while it is the means through which the social processes are carried on, just as it is the 136 THE SOCIALIZING PROCESS means of mental impression and expression, while per- sonality expresses itself as a unit in the larger social or- ganism through the agency of physical processes, yet the relationship which is most essential to our considera- tion is that which exists between the mental and social. Briefly stated, man is rational by virtue of his sociality as truly as he is social by virtue of his rationality. These two phases of his nature have developed side by side, each being both the cause and the effect of the other. While there are many animal species which show a remarkable degree of social organization, yet we are driven to the conclusion that this organization finds its basis in the in- stinctive tendencies common to all members of the race rather than in intellectual processes. But, while sharing the instinctive social tendencies of the animals, man’s social organization is also based upon his rationality. Social organization for him is not alone a matter of in- stinctive inheritance; it is also an achievement, the prod- uct of rational insight. On the other hand, it is equally true, though not so obvious, that the successive levels of each individual’s mental development have been made possible by the achievement of the race and by the co- operation of the other members of his own generation. From this point on, therefore, while still mindful of the debt of both the mental and the social to the physical, we shall speak of the psycho-social organism. In the further explanation of the laws and processes of personal development it is essential more fully to justify our position that mind is rational by virtue of its sociality; and this leads to the following question. THE PSYCHO-SOCIAL ORGANISM 137 CAN THE STATEMENT THAT MIND HAS A SOCIAL ORIGIN BE JUSTIFIED? The particular thesis of this chapter is that mind has a social origin; that consciousness is through and through social in texture; and that human personality does not and cannot develop apart from society. The processes of interpretation, appreciation, and organization with which we have become familiar have meaning and valid- ity only in a social setting. On the first page of his book on “Human Nature and the Social Order,” Cooley says: A separate individual is an abstraction unknown to experi- ence, and so likewise is society when regarded as something apart from individuals. The real thing is Human Life, which may be considered either in an individual aspect or in a social, that is to say, general aspect; but it is always, as a matter of fact, both individual and social: these two aspects are organic to each other, and we cannot understand one in isolation from the other. We are particularly interested to discover all the principles by which an individual becomes a full-fledged, rounded personality; and in order to do this we are led into the question of the influence of the social upon the individual be- cause, paradoxical as it may seem, no man is fully personal- ized until he is thoroughly socialized. We have to say, therefore, that the child is born to be a member of society, in the same sense, precisely, that he is born with eyes and ears to see and hear the movements and sounds of the world, and with touch to feel the things of space: and as I hope to show later in detail, all views of the man as a total creature, a creation, must recognize him not as a single soul shut up in a single body to act, or to abstain from acting, upon others similarly shut up in similar bodies; but as a soul partly in his own body, partly in the bodies of others, to all intents 138 THE SOCIALIZING PROCESS and purposes, so intimate is this social bond — a service for which he pays in kind, since we see in his body, considered simply as a physical organism, preparation for the reception of the soul-life, the suggestions of mind and spirit, of those others. I do not see wherein the community of the senses to- gether, in a single life of nervous activity, differs very much in conception from this community of men bound together by the native ties which lie at the basis of their most abstract and developed social organizations.1 There are several considerations which show the fun- damental socialness of mind. (1) Self-consciousness is also social consciousness. In the companion book, “ Social Organization,” Cooley makes the further statement (p. 5) that: “Self and society are twinborn; we know one as immediately as we know the other, and the notion of a separate and independent ego is an illusion.” We must add to the conception we have already gained of the meaning of self-consciousness this idea that to be conscious of self as a unity of experience implies consciousness of other persons. This is partic- ularly true as we attempt to introspect and define the self. Whenever we use the personal pronouns T,’ ‘me,’ ‘my,’ we implicitly oppose self to the not-self, to other persons; and while this implication does not come to full consciousness except when we introspect, yet it is always there; to make self focal is to make society mar- ginal. One more quotation from Cooley2 will sufficiently summarize and impress this fact that self-consciousness is also social consciousness, after which we may proceed 1 Baldwin, J. M.: Mental Development, p. 153. 2 Social Organization, p. 9. THE PSYCHO-SOCIAL ORGANISM 139 to show in more detail how and why mind has a social origin. He says: I do not question that the individual is a differentiated cen- ter of psychical life, having a world of his own into which no other individual can fully enter; living in a stream of thought in which there is nothing quite like that in any other stream, neither his ‘I,’ nor his ‘you,’ nor his ‘we,’ nor even any mate- rial object; all, probably,as they exist for him, have something unique about them. But this uniqueness is no more apparent and verifiable than the fact — not at all inconsistent with it — that he is in the fullest sense a member of a whole, appear- ing such not only to scientific observation, but also to his own untrained consciousness. (2) Confirmation of the socialness of mind is also found in the deserted island hypothesis. The question is sometimes put in this way: Suppose it were possible to isolate a child of normal educated parents upon a de- serted island and provide for his physical needs so that he might come to physical maturity, never having seen or heard a human being. What would be his mental sta- tus? We may presume he has all the native capacities of the normal child, the only difference being that he never has the opportunity to communicate with any person, or to come in contact with any of the products of civiliza- tion. Could he come to mental maturity? If not, at what stage would he be arrested? Of course, the question can never receive an empirical answer; the experiment has never been tried, and never will be. But psychologists have a very definite opinion regarding it based upon other observations and experi- ments. Probably the most serious handicaps would be 140 THE SOCIALIZING PROCESS the loss of opportunity to learn a language. Language serves the double purpose of furnishing a mode of com- munication of ideas and feelings between the members of society, and as a vehicle of thought to the individual himself. Language arises in the beginning out of social contact, and the practical need for communication; it has a definite biological value in the group; and if there were no group a single individual would never invent words. He might come to use a few habitual grunts, vocalizations, and gestures to express his rudimentary emotional and instinctive experiences, such as fear, hun- ger, or contentment. But a child ordinarily learns a language under the pressure of imitation and constant encouragement; it becomes a practical and social neces- sity for him to enter into the common experience of the group; and if there were no pattern for imitation, if there were no encouragement or practical or social neces- sity for language, it is perfectly reasonable to assume that no language would develop, except the crudest an- imal sounds expressive of bodily comfort or discomfort. This lack of language and the mental processes which language brings to the normal individual would of itself doom him to the primitive level of sensory experience. He would be deprived of all the knowledge, information, ideas, ideals, purposes, and plans which are given or suggested to the normal individual through language. More than this, without the common vehicle of thought — language — it is doubtful whether he would be able to perform more than the most rudimentary thought processes. In a word, an individual bereft of the society THE PSYCHO-SOCIAL ORGANISM 141 of other human beings from birth would be little above the animal in mentality, and would have no personality and would not rise to the fourth level of self-conscious- ness. The data which make up the historical life would be denied him, and his mind would be arrested in its development at the third level of sensory experience. The myth which so persistently attracted the critical specu- lation of earlier generations, namely, the myth of the man growing up in absolute isolation from other human beings, is now recognized for what it is — a fiction of the philosophic imagination. No human being does thus grow up, and were he to do so, his mind would not be the normal human mind, but one beset with pathological disorders of innumerable sorts, which would appear the moment he was exposed to social conditions.1 A closer psychological analysis will show in a more positive manner that the content of the normally devel- oped or developing mind comes from social sources. To assert that mind has a social origin implies that all of the intellectual or cognitive processes, all appreciations and feelings of value, all motives and volitions arise from social contact, or at least that so many of them so arise that the individual mind could not develop were it cut off from these sources. This implication is, indeed, the fact, and so important a fact that more explicit state- ment of it is necessary. (3) The interpretative experiences of each person have their origin in large measure in the social life in which the individual is bathed. In support of this statement we may call attention to the fact, first, that the sensations 1 Angell, J. R.: Chapters from. Modern Psychology, p. 199. 142 THE SOCIALIZING PROCESS — the original data of knowledge — come very largely from social sources. As a matter of fact, sensations arise from two general sources: the natural environment, and social relations. The child and the man always live in a physical or material world; they are constantly be- sieged by sensations of sight, sound, taste, smell, tem- perature, pressure, and pain; besides these there are the kinsesthetic and organic sensations also which arise from the body itself. But bulking even larger than this group arising from outside objects or the body are the same qualities of sensation which arise out of social relations. Sight of people, hearing of voices, contact with others, figure more largely in the sensory experi- ence of every one, child or adult, than sensations from mere brute things. By far the major portion of the waking hours of each person is spent in the society of other people, or in contact with objects which have social origins. In the home, the school, or at play, the child is in sensory contact with others. Even the farmer in the field when out of speaking distance is utilizing the products of other men’s minds and hands, in the shape of plough, cultivator, or harvester; and the sensations which he receives speak to him at least in- directly of other people; and his occupation itself is directed toward social ends. The watch which the child delights to hold, look at, and listen to is, to be sure, a material object. The spring inside of it has been transformed by the social process from pig iron worth $10 a ton to spring steel worth $240,000 a ton; and the watch as a material object is an THE PSYCHO-SOCIAL ORGANISM 143 epitome of the entire social process, representing the cooperative labor of an organized society. The watch is the objective symbol of a system of ends and purposes which have social worth, and the child in sensing this object is coming into contact with the social process. We might go through the whole list of material things from which the child and the adult receive sensations, and show the all but universal fact that the objects which arouse sensory experience are either directly or indirectly social objects or events. The child’s tri- cycle, schoolbook, air-gun, baseball, and lead pencil, the man’s automobile, library, and typewriter, or the na- tion’s major leagues or dreadnaughts, all come within this category. But we can arrive at the same conclusion on the higher ground of ideas, knowledge, and thought. A bit of accurate introspection will reveal the fact that most of the ideas and knowledge which belong to those of us who do not engage in original research are the products of other men’s minds, or of the cooperative effort of groups of individuals. The ideas which I possess, or what I know regarding the World War, or politics, or science and philosophy, are the contribution of many men scattered over the world, to whom I may be but remotely and indirectly related. In the case of thought and reason the case may seem to be different; to in- trospection thought and reason seem distinctly indi- vidual and original. If there is any type of experience which is non-social, we find it in the original thought processes of a Darwin or a Kant. These are extreme 144 THE SOCIALIZING PROCESS cases, though, and represent a degree of originality which is seldom attained by man. After all, however, it is only a question of degree: thinking has been de- fined as the conscious adjustment of means to ends in problematic situations, and this holds of the thinking of the great scientist and of the ordinary person as well. But — and this is the point — in both cases, in greater or lesser degree, the means for the solution of the prob- lem are presented ready-made to the thinker. In the first place, society presents each new individual with a ready-made language which he may adopt as the vehicle of his thought. In it he finds the symbols which serve as the forms for his thought, each form carrying down to him from the past a rich content of meaning which preceding generations of thinkers have put there; and we may be certain that if each one were obliged to invent his own language his thought progress would be slow and of slight degree. Another illustration of the truth, that the means for the solution of problematic situations are social gifts, is found in the fact that the scientific laws which are used by a Darwin as well as by the plain man in the solution of their respective problems are social in their origin. The laws of gravitation, light, heat, and electricity, of mind and society, and all other tools of thought, are presented to each new problem-solver as the gift of the social mind. We are forced to the conclusion, therefore, that, in the most individual of our interpretative proc- esses, we are indebted to society for the forms which make us efficient thinkers. THE PSYCHO-SOCIAL ORGANISM 145 (4) It will be unnecessary to show in detail that our feelings of value and systems of appreciation are social in origin, for they are so closely correlated with the products of interpretation. To recall the classes of senti- ment which were mentioned in Chapter V is sufficient proof of the fact that the whole system of values is social to the core. The increased value of a city lot, the value of an invention, a new medicine, or a new theology, is in direct proportion to its ability to satisfy some com- mon human need. A threshing machine is not only a social product; it also satisfies a social demand. The thought processes and volitions which made the thresh- ing machine possible, in the first place, and that keep it running, were and are all directed toward a system of social values. The grist of the mental machine, there- fore, comes from the social field. That all values, intellectual, social, moral, religious, and technical, are social in origin may be illustrated more specifically by reference to the aesthetic. My ideal of music, and yours, and the standards by which we judge as to the merits of a composition, are the products of the social environment in which we have grown up. It requires considerable time and effort for a Chinaman to learn to appreciate European music, and it is a ques- tion whether the Occidental could ever acquire a real liking for the music of the Orient. Thus standards of appreciation in all fields have a social history, and though my particular ideas may vary slightly from those commonly held, yet I am at least indebted to the latter for a point of departure. 146 THE SOCIALIZING PROCESS (5) Finally, the action-life of every person contributes its testimony to the fact that self-consciousness is social in ori- gin. From the lowest forms — such as instinct — to the highest types of volition, action not only effects social ends, but arises out of the fundamental sociality of per- sonality. First, not only are there self-preservative instincts whose function is to guarantee the physical life of the individual — instincts of dodging a missile, throwing up the hands to ward off a blow, of self-protection, etc. — but there is a long list of social instincts as well. The slightest consideration of the human mind reveals it to be replete with instincts and impulses, which are not only so- cial in their effect, but which would be absolutely devoid of meaning were this social character withdrawn from them. Shyness, embarrassment, fear, anger, love, sympathy, sorrow, gratitude — these and dozens of other similarly instinctive traits cannot be understood save in so far as it is recognized that they have their origin in social relations.1 In the course of racial development these tendencies have proved valuable wherever present, and, in conse- quence, nature has stamped them into the nervous sys- tem of man in order that the race may have the benefit of the individual’s instinctive service, and that the indi- vidual may be fostered by racial benevolence. Not only do the thoughts and appreciations of the individual arise out of the social environment of the present, but the primary instincts and impulses of life arise out of the race’s experiences of the past. But, second, those high types of volition represented 1 Angell, J. R.: Chapters from Modern Psychology, p. 199. THE PSYCHO-SOCIAL ORGANISM 147 by the student’s decision to become a physician, the financier’s decision to back a certain enterprise, or a mayor’s resolve to clean up a town, are all prompted by social considerations. To enter a competitive contest is explicit recognition of the being and activity of other persons, and testifies to a personal eagerness to measure one’s abilities against those of others. The motive in the mind of the mayor may be anything from the desire for self-aggrandizement to a high and praiseworthy humanitarianism. But in any case the motive springs from social sources. Even self-aggrandizement has its social phase, because it implies a self-conscious desire for social prominence among those of one’s group. The degree of efficiency of the worker in any vocation to-day has been made possible by the corporate effort of society as it has refined its methods of satisfying human needs. The carpenter who builds your house does it in an infinitely shorter time, and, on the whole, in a better manner than he could were it necessary for him to make his own tools, collect his own materials, and work out his own plans. The social process in the shape of steel mills, tool manufactories, lumbering industries, and transportation facilities, lays down at his hand the whole equipment which is necessary for effi- cient work. The bricklayer must have brick and mortar placed at his hands so that he can reach brick with his left hand and mortar with his right with the least pos- sible waste of motion. The business of the hod-carrier is to lay the necessary materials within easy reach for the artisan. In an exactly analogous fashion society 148 THE SOCIALIZING PROCESS serves as the hod-carrier for every man, no matter what his vocation. Every worker, no matter what his work, accomplishes more and better work because society through its organized processes contributes not only the materials and the tools for his work, but also marks out for him in large degree the method which will prove most efficacious for him. This is a universal fact regard- ing human personality, because the principle holds as well of the man whose materials and tools are ideas and laws, as for him whose materials are wood and clay and iron, and whose tools are hammers and trowels and ma- chines — all of which considerations demonstrate clearly enough that self-conscious mentality has a social origin. BUT SOCIAL ORGANIZATION ALSO DEMONSTRATES THE SAME FACT FROM THE OTHER SIDE Wherever we find human beings grouped together, we find some form of social organization. Of course the degree of organization depends upon the degree of mentality possessed by the members of the group; but the other and correlative side of this truth is the one in which we are at the moment chiefly interested: namely, that the degree of personality which is to be realized by the separate members depends upon the degree of social organization. If we can show this to be indeed a fact, we shall have shown that human personality is indeed a psycho-social being. 1. In Primitive Society Even in primitive society there is a comparatively THE PSYCHO-SOCIAL ORGANISM 149 high degree of social organization. Primitive society dif- fers from civilized society not so much in being more loosely or vaguely organized. The activities which must be carried on in the primitive group are those pertain- ing to the necessities of life: the securing of food, avoidance of danger, the administration of justice, the performance of religious rites and ceremonies. And the feature of peculiar interest is that all these activities are carried on by the whole group in concert, as it were. In primitive society custom rules the individual mem- bers with an iron hand. Custom dictates what food and clothing shall be used; how it shall be procured and prepared; how food shall be eaten and clothing worn; it rules the religious and moral life of every man, and prescribes how his birth shall be celebrated, his education conducted, his marriage consummated, and his death mourned. There is no lack of social red tape; but it lacks the variety, the specialization, the wealth of interest and activity which characterize civilized society. But while there is this homogeneous and rigid social organization in primitive society, the homogeneity and rigidity themselves become limitations upon the further development of the members of the group. To be al- lowed but one way of doing everything, and to be frowned upon for violating in the least the customary modes, nips in the bud all tendencies toward individual- ity and places a Chinese foot-binding upon all progres- sive and initiatory tendencies. Personality needs a freer air, a more elastic social order in which to develop. 150 THE SOCIALIZING PROCESS 2. In Civilized Society In civilized society there is complicated social ma- chinery for accomplishing all human ends, including food, clothing, sanitary housing, amusement, education, culture, and worship. Society is highly organized and specialized for the purpose of cooperatively producing all the commodities which satisfy human wants. The interdependence of the members of civilized society may be exemplified by the loaf of bread which you buy at the bakery. The making of the loaf involves the labor of the farmer who raised the wheat, using implements that represent a whole mining and manufacturing sys- tem; the wheat was threshed and shipped to the mill; here other manufacturers and a railroad system are involved; the flour was finally shipped again to jobber and to baker; in the bakeshop there is a high degree of division of labor and many processes of specialized character. And the dime which you pay over the coun- ter for the loaf must, in turn, be distributed to all of these laborers. Civilized society is thus tremendously complex in all of its processes. This high type of social organization, not only with respect to the vocation, but with respect to the home life, the school life, and the civic and religious life, sup- plies the environment in which personality may best grow and develop. The great diversity of social benefac- tions answers the peculiar individual needs of every potential person. To be able to procure the loaf of bread and all other necessities of life, with so little labor comparatively, frees one from the long hours of unend- THE PSYCHO-SOCIAL ORGANISM 151 ing labor which our pioneer ancestors knew so intimately, and procures that leisure which, when rightly used, is so great a factor in development. Again, to know some- thing of the social processes which produce the loaf and all other commodities links a man with countless others, and initiates him into the brotherhood of human society. To know the social process and to have a con- scious part in it is to become socialized; and no one can experience full personality without it. To be rooted in a fertile social soil and to become socialized is so vital a part of the development process that, if you set the child of savage parents down in the highly organized civilized group, it will take on the mental form of the social organization under pressure of which it is placed; and, on the other hand, the child of civilized and edu- cated parentage will remain at the mental level of a primitive group and show to no better advantage than the average native child if exposed from birth to the inferior social organization. But social organization just in itself cannot be the great conditioning factor in personal development that it should unless the individual becomes rooted in the social soil, and integrated into the social tissue. In other words, psycho-social development demands socializa- tion. Gillette says: By socialization, in general, is meant the process by which an individual... is brought into conformity and cooperation with human society in its dominant interest and fundamental WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BECOME SOCIALIZED ?, 152 THE SOCIALIZING PROCESS nature. The socialization of the individual is perhaps best ex- emplified in the development of the child under the influence of the home. By imitation and assimilation in the hourly con- tact with parents, brothers, and sisters, he follows the example set; realizes in himself the copies exhibited; drinks in the spirit and ideals of the home; and consequently develops into almost exactly the same sort of person as are the elders. His average, his type, is that of the particular home in which he is reared.1 But socialization goes deeper than mere conformity to social forms and institutions. Assimilation and or- ganization are rather the key-notes of the process. The two processes are mutually supplementary; the only way completely to personalize an individual is to socialize him, and the only way completely to socialize him is to personalize him; these are obverse and reverse of the same development process. To socialize the self means, in the words of the definition just quoted, to drink in the essential spirit, not only of the home, but of all social institutions and processes. But it cannot stop there; not only must one work into the fabric of his life the ideas, knowledge, attitudes, and values which are cur- rent in society; he must in addition learn to think about, appreciate, and respond to these situations as social. Reference was made in the section on attitudes to the role which imitation and suggestion play in establishing attitudes. This is recognition of their social nature. He must not only assimilate these factors; he must also be conscious that he has done so, and recognize himself as a self in relation to society and feel an intellectual and moral responsibility therefor. In the words of 1 Gillette, J. M.: Vocational Education, p. 6. THE PSYCHO-SOCIAL ORGANISM 153 Professor Burgess, “socialization is the conscious and willing coordination of the person of his interests with those of the group.” Our previous analysis of self-consciousness shows that the self is a complicated concept of the whole historical life as viewed from the inside; it is the abiding meaning of the total stream of consciousness to the one who experiences it. But the final definition of selfhood will have to state the conditions under which this concept takes shape. Of course, the child’s experience with the extra-social environment contributes to his awareness of his own self as subject, but the process is hastened and clarified in immeasurable degree by his social con- tact. In the process of becoming self-conscious he soon identifies himself with other people rather than with other objects; and the actual content of his consciousness is always in larger or smaller measure social. The relations in which he finds himself are so- cial. The criteria for the reality of many things which he is called upon to accept are social. Language is social. By imita- tion he is plunged at once into social usages, and, did space permit and were it necessary, we might trace out the whole gamut of social influences which bound his selfhood on every side. But our primary point here is that the first definite self- consciousness of the child is a consciousness in which he de- fines himself in terms of agreement or disagreement with others.1 He comes to conceive of himself after the manner in which he imagines he is thought of by others and values himself accordingly. 1 AngeU, J. R.: Psychology, p. 387. 154 THE SOCIALIZING PROCESS The self is, therefore, to be regarded as social as well as personal. To become self-conscious signifies the abil- ity to discriminate between the self and the not-self; to become socialized means to discriminate the 'personal self as an organic part of society, conscious that it lives, makes its responses, and maintains its identity in the social at- mosphere. Personality is this selfhood in its whole social setting, as it assumes conscious relations to social forms and institutions. This in no way contradicts the fact that personality on the individual side is the synthesis of his own intellectual, appreciational, and volitional processes, but merely states the conditioning factors under which intellect, feeling, and will function. At this point, again, the inconsequential individual fails in the realization of personality. He is lacking in a vivid social consciousness, he does not see his organic relation to society, he feels no debt for his social inher- itance, nor does he recognize any obligation to society in his conduct. The inconsequential is self-centered and self-sufficient, immediate-minded, and without social purpose. WHAT, THEN, ARE THE PRINCIPLES OF SOCIALIZATION? 1. Every individual mind naturally seeks social contacts, and is stimulated by these to modes of expression which intricate him into society. This is instinctive. This principle is exemplified by the universal demand for communion, and the insatiable desire to share the ex- periences of others. The more aggressive individuals of a THE PSYCHO-SOCIAL ORGANISM 155 group at least possess a sort of native intellectual curi- osity which craves those facts, principles, and laws which together make up the common store of knowledge, which, in turn, is the intellectual currency of the group. To meet this demand society has its well-organized so- cial institutions, such as the school and the press, whose function it is to serve as a medium by which this com- munity of experience may be made available to every individual. But besides this instructional value of communion, there is another more intimate and subjective value. While the individual mind must have these items of knowledge and standards of truth and value for its growth, it also demands communion as a means of ex- pression as well. The well-worn psychological adage that growth comes by both impression and expression has a kernel of truth which is pertinent to this discussion. The normal mind must grow and expand toward society; like the sunflower, it must keep its face toward the sun from which the light comes. This is not merely a passive attitude, but an active demand. Social communion is thus a fundamental need both as a source of intake and outgo. Cooley speaks of this generous capacity and need for social contact, as ‘sociability.’ And the term is extremely suggestive of that essence of human life which makes this a social ‘world’: not merely an animated chaos. From the standpoint of psychology, sociability has two important aspects: First, the hereditary tendency to communicate and to share one’s mental furniture 156 THE SOCIALIZING PROCESS with another. It is a desire to discover a common de- nominator in one’s own experience and that of others. This is the explanation of most of the vapid ‘conversa- tion ’ between either acquaintances or strangers — the weather, one’s health, the latest novel, the theater, politics, etc. Here is the attempt to establish a mental speaking acquaintance, the lack of which gives one a feeling of isolation. James sees in the instinctive tend- ency for one to desire a back seat, or to have his back against a tree or wall, the survival of the ancient fear that any man might be one’s enemy and that danger is likely to approach from behind. But in sociability we have the antithesis of this hereditary fear; in this there is the persistent desire to get in on the ‘ground floor, ’ so- cially and mentally speaking, and remain there. “The mind is not a hermit’s cell, but a place of hospitality and intercourse.” This tendency manifests itself, not only in voluble conversation upon any topic whatsoever with a compan- ion whose only share in it may be to listen, but it takes the form of imaginary conversation, especially in chil- dren, and not infrequently in adults. Indeed, it would not be far from the truth to say that imaginary dis- course is not alone the result of thought, but almost uni- versally the form of thought. A little careful introspec- tion will convince almost any one that when he is busily engaged with some routine work his thoughts are put in more or less complete conversational form. He may be holding a dialogue with himself, or with an imaginary person, or with the materials with which he works. To THE PSYCHO-SOCIAL ORGANISM 157 charge one with talking to himself usually carries a certain suggestion of disparagement; and people are tempted to be not wholly honest in the matter. But whether or not one forms the words with mouth and tongue, or whispers them to himself, as is likely to be the case in moments of interest and excitement, espe- cially with motor-minded persons, imaginary conversa- tions are not an unusual form of mental process which reflect the socialness of the normal mind. A second aspect of sociability is one’s inherent desire to ‘see himself as others see him.’ Here one takes a sort of detached view of his imagined self in order to find what impression he makes upon the casual observer. The significance of sociability, whatever aspect is uppermost, is that communion is an insistent inner de- mand. This furnishes additional testimony to the fact that mind is fundamentally social in texture, and that for its growth contact with other minds is essential. More directly stated, sociability as a form of mental contact is the means by which both personal and social development take place; it is a fundamental principle of psycho-social progress. 2. Socialization is a process which runs parallel with personalization and interacts with it as cause and effect The principle that growth and development arise out of reaction to proper stimuli holds with respect to social- ization as well as with respect to the personalizing proc- ess. The only thing to be added is that the stimuli arise 158 THE SOCIALIZING PROCESS for the most part from the social environment, and that the knowledge, ideals, and concepts which result from interpretation introduce one into membership in society. All of the individual’s interpretative, appreciational, and volitional conquests assimilate him into society as well as contribute to his own mental growth. All of that change which we call personal progress when looked at from the inside is, when objectively viewed, the inte- gration of the person himself with and into the social matrix. Socialization, therefore, is a process which runs parallel with personalization, and interacts with it as cause and effect. One illustration from the field of general psychology will serve to show these parallel directions of develop- ment. For example, attention would always remain on the primary level unless there were enough social pres- sure upon the individual to cause him to acquire sec- ondary attention, and finally spontaneous or derived primary attention. The primitive needs of the organism could be very well cared for by the sort of adjustment to which primary attention leads. Only as the individual comes under the influence of society and feels the need of acquiring new interests does voluntary and finally spontaneous attention develop. Likewise social inter- course furnishes the bulk of the material for association to work upon. As you look back upon your own past the bulk of the material which you hold in memory is of a social order, association being the cementing force which binds together that system of ends which is the core of personality. THE PSYCHO-SOCIAL ORGANISM 159 WHAT ARE THE CHIEF MODES OF SOCIALIZATION? 1. Language Standing at the very basis of all communion, and making possible the operation of the principles of so- cialization just discussed is the ability to learn and use language. Language may perhaps be defined from the psycho- logical point of view as a set of symbols — oral, written, or manual — which may serve as a means of communi- cation and as a vehicle of thought. The word is an “artificial sign realized as representative of something besides itself.” And the ability to perceive words either visually or auditorially, and to use them as a mode of reaction, renders one largely independent of the environ- ment. A dog may indicate to his companion the pres- ence of food, or danger, or friends by one kind of bark or another, but he cannot describe to another dog, who lives on the next estate, the location of these things so he can find them unaided. The indicative sign is valu- able only when the two are within reach of the thing, whereas words and sentences, being symbolic, are valu- able under all conditions, and thus render one independ- ent of the environment. One of the chief differences be- tween animals and man is that animals have very little if any ability for symbolic perception, generalization, or expression; accordingly they can develop very little in the way of language. It is even probable that, if a child were deficient in the ability to learn and use a language, he could never 160 THE SOCIALIZING PROCESS develop a true human nature, but would remain in an “abnormal and nondescript state, neither human nor properly brutal.” Helen Keller affords a moving illus- tration of the probabilities in this direction. Deprived at the age of eighteen months of vision and audition — the two most useful channels of impression for the learn- ing and use of words — she was tardy in discovering that everything had a name and that she could share her thoughts and feelings with others. Prior to the great awakening, which finally came at about the age of eight, she seemed to be, as her teacher, Miss Sullivan, reluctantly and sympathetically admits, a ferocious little animal — stormy, petulant, crude, capricious, and ignorant. While she invented certain descriptive move- ments as symbols for bread and butter, a drink, etc., yet her mind was so nearly a blank that she afterwards remembered almost nothing that occurred previous to the awakening. And we may presume that, had the discovery of language never come, she would have re- mained in this condition throughout life. In the following words Miss Sullivan gives a vivid portrayal of the sudden mental expansion of Miss Keller when she discovered that symbols might be employed to convey ideas: This morning, while she was washing, she wanted to know the name of water. ... I spelled w-a-t-e-r, and thought no more about it until after breakfast. Then it occurred to me that with the help of this new word I might succeed in straight- ening out the mug-milk difficulty. We went out into the pump-house, and I made Helen hold her mug under the pump while I pumped. As the cold water gushed forth filling the THE PSYCHO-SOCIAL ORGANISM 161 mug, I spelled w-a-t-e-r in Helen’s free hand. The word com- ing so close upon the sensation of cold water rushing over her hand seemed to startle her. She dropped the mug and stood as one transfixed. A new light came into her face. She spelled water several times. Then she dropped on the ground and asked for its name, and pointed to the pump and the trellis, and suddenly turning round she asked my name. I spelled “teacher.” Just then the nurse brought Helen’s little sister into the pump-house, and Helen spelled “baby” and pointed to the nurse. All the way back to the house she was highly ex- cited, and learned the name of every object she touched, so that in a few hours she had added thirty new words to her vocabulary. On the following day: Helen got up this morning like a radiant fairy. She has flitted from object to object, asking the name of everything and kissing me for very gladness. And again: Everything must have a name now. . . . She drops the signs and pantomime she used before, so soon as she has words to supply their place, and the acquirement of a new word affords her the liveliest pleasure. And we notice that her face grows more expressive each day.1 Cooley clearly states the value of language to the individual mind in the following fine sentences: A word is a vehicle, a boat floating down from the past, laden with the thought of men we never saw; and in coming to understand it we enter not only into the minds of our contem- poraries, but into the general mind of humanity continuous through time. The popular notion of learning to speak is that the child first has the idea and then gets from others a sound to use in communicating it; but a closer study shows that this 1 Keller, Helen: The Story of My Life, pp. 316, 317, quoted by Cooley: Social Organization, p. 63. 162 THE SOCIALIZING PROCESS is hardly true even of the simplest ideas, and is nearly the re- verse of truth as regards developed thought. In that the word usually goes before, leading and kindling the idea — we should not have the latter if we did not have the word first. “This way,” says the word, “is an interesting thought; come and find it.” And so we are led on to rediscover old knowledge. Such words, for instance, as good, right, truth, love, home, justice, beauty, freedom, are powerful makers of what they stand for.1 In more somber phrase, Henderson says there are three ways in which language assists in thinking: (1) Language in the form of articulate speech compels con- stant reasoning by forcing analysis of new situations into fa- miliar concepts in order that they may be communicated; (2) the word increases enormously the power of the mind to re- member, and hence to deal effectively with the concept; (3) language brings social consciousness and social heredity to bear upon the mind of the individual.2 Since real education is based upon the ability to think, evaluate, and do, and not merely upon the ability to remember and reproduce, the first great step a child must take in his own educational process is to master a language which will enable him to profit by the experi- ence of the race, and which will at the same time serve him as a vehicle for his own thinking. Symbolic percep- tion of either the written or the spoken word introduces the child into the intricacies of a complicated physical and social environment without the pain of finding out for himself all the things and relationships it represents. He at once appropriates the tools and their meaning which are already in current use, and profits both by 1 Cooley, C. H.: Social Organization, p. 69. 2 Henderson, E. N : Text-Book in the Principles of Education, p. 360. THE PSYCHO-SOCIAL OPtGANISM 163 acquiring experience vicariously and by finding ready- made an elaborate vehicle for his own future thought. ‘Orange’ comes to be a rubric under which many partic- ular experiences may be classified; and the mode of ad- justment which is suitable for one orange is suitable for every member of the class. Words thus help the individ- ual to make adjustments, because each one represents a principle or law of response which has been given him by his predecessors. It is a vehicle of thought which comes to him already freighted with thought from the past from which he may profit. Language furnishes one of the very best means of organizing experience. The word itself, except the proper noun, offers a mode of classifying experiences, because it is symbolic, not alone of particular objects or experiences, but of types of experience. Language thus contributes a means for the growth of personality from childhood on, and a vehicle for the thought and expres- sion of the mature mind, whereby one may turn his personal accomplishments to social purposes. 2. Suggestibility A second fundamental way through which social con- tacts are established and by means of which the paral- lel processes of personalization and socialization go for- ward is suggestibility. Suggestibility may be defined as the inherent tend- ency of every mind to believe in and to act upon any idea which comes fully to the focus of consciousness from an outside source. The outside source of the idea 164 THE SOCIALIZING PROCESS is called the suggestion. Thus the patient believes in his ultimate recovery, due to the confident attitude and the assurances of the physician; the layman accepts the word of the preacher, the student the statement of the teacher, as true, without question; the statement in the newspaper by its sheer presence creates the presumption of the reality of the fact stated. The tendency to act upon the idea in the focus of attention has been stated as the law of ‘dynamogenesis’ in terms similar to these: “every sensation or incoming process tends to bring about action or outgoing process” (stimulus-response). Impulsive actions furnish a splendid instance of the direct action of this law on the higher levels of mind. Thus, if one youth says to the others, “Let’s put that barber-shop pole in front of the beauty parlor,” the project is immediately carried out. While much of the discipline of education is directed toward the inhibition of the law of dynamogenesis, yet it never is completely inhibited, and we go through life with the tendency to put into deeds the ideas which come to consciousness. Of course we learn with more or less success to organize and direct this tendency; and the degree of attainment in this direction is an index of the degree of personality to which we attain, as was explained in the chapter on “Organization of Conduct.” There are the widest possible degrees of suggestibility, some extremely abnormal, others wholly normal and proper. It is customary to explain hypnosis, for example, as due to an exaggerated and abnormal receptivity to suggestion. Thus the Indian Yogi plants a mango, and THE PSYCHO-SOCIAL ORGANISM 165 immediately there grows up before the very eyes of his suggestible observers a fully developed mango tree. Or he seizes a rope, tossing one end into the air above him. The rope remains suspended from nothing and he climbs the suspended rope which lengthens out above him in- definitely as he ascends.1 Suggestibility also varies with race, with age, with temperament, and with sex. Southern Europeans are more suggestible than northern Europeans, children than adults, and women than men. Educators also dis- tinguish direct and indirect suggestion, positive and negative suggestion, and contrary suggestion, with the statements that indirect is to be preferred to direct, and positive to negative, while contrary suggestion is to be avoided. But no matter what the degree or the form of sugges- tion may be, the important point is that suggestibility is always a social phenomenon. Suggestibility is that subjective susceptibility of the individual to the objec- tive factor, the suggestion, which comes from another person or group of persons. The degree of subjective susceptibility varies with the volume of the objective factor. So true is this that Scarcely any one can help yielding to the current infatua- tions of his sect or party. For a short time — say some fort- night — he is resolute; he argues and objects; but, day by day, the poison thrives, and reason wanes. What he hears from his friends, what he reads in the party organ, produces its effect. The plain, palpable conclusion which every one around him believes has an influence greater and yet more subtle; that 1 See Ross, E. A.: Social Psychology, pp. 28-31. 166 THE SOCIALIZING PROCESS conclusion seems so solid and unmistakable; his own good ar- guments get daily more and more like a dream. Soon the gravest sage shares the folly of the party with which he acts and the sect with which he worships.1 . Each individual of the group thus possessing this sub- jective tendency to believe and act upon any idea com- ing in from the outside, there is a universal tendency for every member of the group to accept and express in ac- tion a common store of beliefs. Here is the real founda- tion for tradition and custom — subjects to be discussed in detail later on. But we find here the reason not only for participation in traditional beliefs and customary be- havior, but for that more thoroughgoing and fundamen- tal fact which we have called ‘socialization.* Those in- tellectual processes which culminate in ‘knowledge’ and ‘attitudes’ and ‘points of view’ are themselves in large measure the results of suggestibility. The thought proc- ess itself is stimulated and directed by suggestion. For example, how to prevent forest fires is a question which arises directly out of human needs and human contacts. And every problem which furnishes a starting-point for thought is directly or indirectly a social problem. Thus the facts, principles, and laws with which we seek to solve problems are all believed in and accepted as com- mon premises largely because of suggestibility. In like manner those habitual mental frontages which we have called ‘attitudes’ are the results of suggested acts often repeated in childhood and the whole period of develop- ment. A scientific attitude, or a critical or contrary atti- 1 Bagehot, quoted by Ross, E. A.: Social Psychology, p. 37. THE PSYCHO-SOCIAL ORGANISM 167 tude represents an emotional or intellectual disposition crystallized from many particular experiences. For ex- ample, in a child “the sight of hat and coat was the sig- nal for a tempest, although she enjoyed outdoor excur- sions. .. . And men and women often become so en- slaved to suggestions of the contrary that they seem only to wait for indications of the wishes of others in order to oppose and thwart them.” Not only are the knowledge, attitudes, and points of view largely the results of suggestibility, but the values which the individual holds as well. What kind of music one appreciates most will depend in large measure upon what he has most frequently heard praised and com- mended. His standards of value will most likely reflect the standards current in the group of which he is a part. Looked at from one point of view, these statements emphasize the fact that the subjective processes of per- sonal development are all determined in large measure by the subjective susceptibility of the individual to be- lieve in and act upon ideas coming from without. And this is, indeed, a significant fact. But the other half of the principle is equally significant; suggestibility is an unfailing means of socialization. To summarize this truth we have but to recall the statement that “Person- ality is this selfhood in its whole social setting, as it as- sumes conscious relations to social forms and institu- tions,” and to realize that suggestibility is one of the chief ways in which we become conscious of and accept relations to social forms and institutions. It is through 168 THE SOCIALIZING PROCESS suggestibility that the individual drinks in the essential spirit of every social institution and every social process. 3. Imitation A few pages back impulse was cited as furnishing good instances of the law of dynamogenesis, which, in turn, is a special case of suggestibility. Another excellent in- stance of dynamogenesis is found in imitation, which, because of its peculiar importance as a mode of social- ization, needs emphasis. Imitation is a peculiarly important channel to social- ness. The child or man who is a nonconformist in all matters of life, who either consciously or unconsciously clothes himself in differentness, is one apart; he is out- side the circle of sociability and sympathy. And while he may look with sophisticated eyes upon the banalities of society, “his social feeling-self is nevertheless hurt by an unfavorable view of himself that he attributes to others.” His self-imposed isolation thus cuts him off from the warmth of social approval which to the nor- mal person is one of the essential outward conditions for both personalization and further socialization. Of course, the interests of personality demand that one shall not become slavishly imitative; one of the greatest secrets of strong personality is initiative. But within limits conformity with social forms gives a common meeting-ground upon which to come face to face with other persons; and it may also be a source of economy in one’s own adjustments. We hear a great deal about the influence of the geographical peculiarities of a country THE PSYCHO-SOCIAL ORGANISM 169 upon the history of a people. But the mental geography about every person determines the direction and char- acter of his stream of consciousness, in a like degree. Not only the facts and items of information which he may gather from his contact with others, but the sugges- tions which they throw out are potent as a socializing force. These ideas, which may come in the nature of hypotheses or questions regarding any and all values of life, become the promontories which shunt the stream of experience in one direction or another. They determine not only the inner configuration of his thought, but his outward attitude toward society and its institutional life. All of these factors, then, of inner development are also factors in the determination of one’s relation to that human life in general, of which the individual is the particular form. 4. Play Finally, as the activity which furnishes the occasion par excellence for the operation of the two principles of socialization and as offering opportunities for sugges- tion and imitation to work, must be mentioned play. Of course play has its greatest significance for childhood, but if we include under the term all spontaneous or or- ganized acts performed for the mere pleasure they yield, including the social gatherings of youth and maturity, as well as organized games, we discover that the play- impulse sets free energy which may express itself through suggestibility and imitation from childhood on to old age. 170 THE SOCIALIZING PROCESS So much has been written about the educational and social significance of play that the topic does not require a review here. The following sentences from Baldwin seem to sum up the social side of the question: “Play is a most important method of realization of the social in- stincts. It is easy to see that by play the child not only gets into the habit of being social in the normal ways and degrees which his after life requires, but he learns also to give himself up to the social spirit.” From this it will be clear that it is not the play activity itself that is so important, but that these play activities employ and therefore develop those interpretative, appreciational, and organizing processes whose development is so in- trinsic to personality. And in like manner, it furnishes that social contact, out of which come such a profusion of suggestion and copy for imitation. For these reasons play holds such an important place as a mode of socia- bility. summary: the meaning of the psycho-social ORGANISM The fact that mind has a social origin, that its devel- opment is contingent upon the degree of organization within the group, that the principles of mental develop- ment are synchronous with the socializing process, all lend emphasis to the fact that human personality is indeed a psycho-social organism. The intellectual con- structs which constitute the vertebral column of per- sonality are as truly social in meaning as they are mental; assuming you are a student, for example, the THE PSYCHO-SOCIAL ORGANISM 171 system of ends represented in your reading this chap- ter— the desire to be prepared for the recitation, the desire for the final grade, and more remotely the di- ploma, the position, the good salary — is a social sys- tem. The various things desired have meaning only in social terms. Likewise with the values of life; the things just mentioned are all adopted as ends because they have value, because they have power to satisfy either immediately or remotely; and because of our common humanity the things which ultimately satisfy my will must also satisfy other wills; these values there- fore become social values. Again, since volition is but intellectual insight and appreciative feeling made dy- namic in choice and decision, volition itself is an expres- sion of the socialness of personality. One chooses the profession or decides to accept a position both because of the social significance of the system of ends repre- sented and because of the values offered. From whatever point of view one looks at it, human personality presents the two aspects: mental and social. These phases are each to be regarded both as cause and as effect; man is social by virtue of his high level of men- tality, but he is also mental because of his sociality. As we look at the two as constituting an organic unity, we view personality as a psycho-social organism. * CHAPTER VIII THE SOCIAL SOIL WHAT ARE THE PSYCHICAL ELEMENTS OF THE SOCIAL SOIL? The seed germinates only under proper conditions of temperature and moisture, and the plant can grow only as it is rooted in a fertile soil. If the plant loses contact with the soil, all possibility of receiving the chemical elements which are necessary to growth is cut off and the plant withers and dies. In like manner personality germinates and grows in a social soil; it could no more get the elements necessary to its growth if it were cut off from contact with the social soil than the plant could were it plucked up by the roots and suspended above ground. Our discussion of the deserted-island hypothesis in the chapter preceding lends emphasis to this statement. In the further study of the social- izing process, it is necessary to take into consideration the chemistry of this social soil; we must see what the psychological elements are which enter into its struc- ture, and what are some of the important complexes which are compounded of these elements. The old German aphorism, “ Mann ist was er iist,” con- tains a significant metaphorical truth for our discussion, because the nature of the psycho-social organism is de- termined in large degree by the elements which enter THE SOCIAL SOIL 173 into its constitution. Further description of the psy- chology of personality must therefore move in the direc- tion of an analysis of the soil which nourishes the grow- ing psycho-social organism. The social soil is a temporal reality instead of a spa- tial reality, and its dimensions are the past and present instead of length and breadth. The experience of the past comes to us in the form of social heredity, while the pres- ent takes the form of social process. But whether past or present, society owes its existence to the psychical life of humanity, and the social inheritance is social by virtue of its psychical character; likewise the social proc- ess of the present is definable alone in psychical terms. In order to emerge from his encasement of individual- ity and develop into personality, every individual must send his roots deep into the past and wide into the present; he must appropriate the social inheritance by assimilation, and become integrated with the social process of the present. The key to the analysis of the social soil, both past and present, is found in the nature of the human mind itself. We are now in the habit of regarding mind as pre- senting three great functions: interpretation, apprecia- tion, and organization. It is to be expected, therefore, that the achievements of the race, both in the past and present, will be along these three lines. As men have thought and have tried to arrive at the truth, the results of their efforts have been preserved in science; as they have felt and tried to express their ideas of value and ideals of beauty, art is the result; as they have willed and 174 THE SOCIALIZING PROCESS organized, their achievements have received permanent form in law and institutions. Says Horne: 1 Psychologists are agreed that the different ultimate modes of being conscious, the final phases of mental life, are three in number, viz., the mind knows, and feels, and wills; that is, it has an acquaintance with the external world in which it takes a certain pleasure or displeasure, and on which it works cer- tain energetic reactions. Consequently the three elements of the spiritual environment are the intellectual, what is known; the emotional, what is felt; and the volitional, what is willed. Considering the objects of these mental activities, the mind knows truth, and avoids error; it feels, as its highest object, beauty and ugliness; and it wills, in momentous issues, good- ness and avoids evil. These are the natural points of impinge- ment of the mind upon the external reality. .. . Truth, beauty, and goodness, then, are the race’s spiritual ideals, and the ad- justment of the child to these essential realities that the his- tory of the race has disclosed is the task of supreme moment which is set for education. It will be clear that this social inheritance is indeed so- cial in its origin. While a given man may write a book on astronomy which will be the last word on the subject, yet he is able to produce as he does only because he has assimilated the truth contained in other books which, in turn, represented an organization of the race’s knowledge up to date. If the man is able to contribute anything to the science, it is because he has already come up to the limit of the race’s knowledge. Or, to illustrate further, an artist is able to contribute something of value to the world’s store of art because he has first been inspired 1 The Philosophy of Education, p. 101. THE SOCIAL SOIL 175 and taught by the masterpieces which are already await- ing his appreciation. The progress or the present, there- fore, is made possible by the social achievements of the past. Any science, no matter what its subject-matter, con- stitutes society’s organized thought both of the past and present upon that phase of the world; the whole field of experience has been canvassed with the purpose of finding out the truth concerning every phase of the world. The inorganic world, the organic world, includ- ing the biological and pychological aspects, are organ- ized into the many special sciences, each of which attempts to get a microscopic view of its special subject- matter and to organize this in terms of law. The inclu- sive task of science, then, is to enable mankind to dis- cover the universal laws in terms of which the myriads of observable phenomena may be organized and ex- plained. This process of organization has been going on since the human race began, and the splendid achieve- ments of this generation in the realm of applied science is the fruition of the race’s earlier study. Not the least achievement in the realm of science is the discovery of a method of research. Indeed, the major portion of the work is in many instances the discovery of the proper method; the collection of the particular data is a simple task, once the proper method has been devised and the apparatus constructed. Thus the perfection of the micro- scope, the telescope, the spectroscope, and all other in- struments of precision is one of the greatest of human achievements. That progress in this direction is a social THE SOCIALIZING PROCESS 176 achievement is easily seen; the history of any particular scope or graph would abundantly attest this. An individual’s development is conditional upon his assimilating these elements of the social soil according to the principles described in the preceding chapter — to come into possession of this knowledge, or any portion of it; to learn the methods of science and to assimilate any part of its subject-matter, has a direct personalizing and socializing influence upon the individual. First, to read from books, or to obtain in any other way a descrip- tion and explanation of any phenomenon — to under- stand it — means that the individual himself thinks things together. Science becomes man’s intellectual teacher; even an elementary acquaintance with a wide field of science enables the shuttle of his thought to weave disparate elements of experience together into a system. As we have already seen, one of the important aspects of personal development consists in thinking things together and in receiving the discipline of so do- ing. If there is to be an inner consistency such as is de- manded by the historical life, an understanding of con- sistency as manifested in the outer world is necessary. A knowledge of science thus contributes both directly and indirectly to personal development. Second, a knowledge of science socializes the indi- vidual by bringing him into contact with the represent- ative men of all ages through a knowledge of their achievements. All that is required to establish intellec- tual kinship is for two minds to know each other; and while it is not possible for those of the past to know THE SOCIAL SOIL 177 those of the present, the latter are enriched by their knowledge of the former so that each new generation has the advantage of intellectual kinship with those that have gone. Likewise an appreciation of the values of the world, whether artistic, moral, intellectual, technical, or reli- gious, both personalizes one by enriching and polarizing his own experience, and socializes one by bringing him into sympathetic unity with all those who hold the same values. These value-elements of the social soil have a unique function as socializing agencies because, as Perry says concerning art:1 Art, like all forms of culture, and like the service of human- ity, provides for the highest type of social intercourse. The aesthetic interest is one of those rare interests which are com- mon to all men without being competitive. All men require bread, but since this interest requires exclusive possession of its object, its very commonness is a source of suspicion and en- mity. Similarly, all men require truth, beauty, and civiliza- tion, but these objects are enhanced by the fact that all may rejoice in them without their being divided or becoming the property of any man. They bring men together without rivalry or intrigue, and in the spirit of good-fellowship. The values of life not only enrich individual character, but bind men together in the interests of common ideals and causes. It is only when men forget the greater val- ues and strive in short-sighted selfishness for immediate ends that they come into conflict. Again, the volitional elements of the social soil are po- tent for both the development of the historical life and 1 The Moral Economy, p. 211. 178 THE SOCIALIZING PROCESS for socialization. Just as volition in individual experi- ence is knowledge and appreciation in operation, so in society the volitional element is the dynamic expression of society’s choices of those experiences which have proved of greatest value; and the various social institu- tions are monuments erected and dedicated to the serv- ice of the highest ideals and values which man has at- tained. The psycho-social influence of these upon the individual is at once apparent. Law becomes the broad channel within which the individual may exercise his own choice; it marks out the general direction in which individual volition should go, and places a negative upon harmful modes of behavior — harmful both to self and to others. It helps him to organize his own life by placing barriers in the way of an excessive dissipation of his en- ergies. While law possesses this ‘historical value,’ its primary function is to socialize him, to see that no man follows out purposes and plans which are inimical to the welfare of others. Law is society’s universal negative against those forms of conduct which racial experience has found to be detrimental to the common good. Law, then, as one of the volitional aspects of group con- sciousness becomes the instructor of each individual by helping to personalize and socialize his own volitions. Of the institutions which also result from the process of organization we shall have more to say in the following chapter. Once more, then, the social soil is made up of various dynamic elements of the intellectual, emotional, and volitional order. Personality develops and becomes so- THE SOCIAL SOIL 179 cialized as it is vitally rooted in this soil; to live an iso- lated life — isolated from the past and shut off from the pulsing life of the present — is to deprive the histor- ical life of its sustenance, to starve personality, and to cause the psycho-social organism to wither and die. WHAT ARE THE FORMS OF THE GROUP MIND AND HOW DO THEY HELP SOCIALIZE THE INDIVIDUAL? But besides these more or less institutionalized ele- ments of the social soil, there are other subtle elements which fill up the interstices, as it were. To carry the fig- ure further, these subtle elements constitute the mois- ture which acts as solvent for the bulkier elements and brings them within the reach of the developing mind. The factors thus referred to are the several forms of group-mindedness. Social psychology deals with two sets of quite distinct though closely related problems: first, social conscious- ness within the individual; and second, the various forms of group-mindedness. By the first I mean all our experiences in which the objects of thought and feeling are social relations, or in which the image of other per- sons or our ideals is the determining factor in our con- duct. Thus the housewife in planning a party is socially conscious, or the lawyer in preparing an argument, or the doctor in writing an article for a medical society, or the student in preparing a class report. In each case the person is framing his future conduct with respect to a group of other people; and their fancied likes and dis- likes, approvals and disapprovals, opinions and ideals in 180 THE SOCIALIZING PROCESS relation to his enterprise are determining factors in his course of action. This susceptibility of the individual to the social at- mosphere is the thing we tried to emphasize in the pre- ceding chapter. It is of primary importance in the mak- ing of personality. The second problem — that of the group mind — we are more directly concerned with in this chapter. We have already considered some of the substantial achieve- ments of the group mind as they come to us in the form of the social inheritance. We have just now called at- tention again to the susceptibility of the individual to the influence of the group mind, but we are particularly interested in the direct effect upon personality of con- tact with the group mind. Before proceding to this bit of analysis, however, let me explain that I do not posit a “social mind,” if by this is understood some sort of transcendental entity over and above or in addition to the individual minds of those concerned. I am not thinking of an “over-soul” or a social organism which somehow lives and has its being on some alleged higher level than that of self-con- scious personality. By group mind I mean, rather, the socio-mental organization into which persons arrange themselves when they are socially conscious — which, by the way, is their natural state. “It does not at all imply the direct transference of a psychic influence from one mind to another . . . but only the recognition of many signs as indicating that you and others are in agreement. Neither does it imply the mind of a social THE SOCIAL SOIL 181 organism, nor anything of the sort, which is by some assumed to coordinate and combine individuals. They coordinate because they are receiving essentially the same set of stimuli, because of an inter-stimulation among members of the group, and because of a sense of belonging together.”1 With this in mind the following scheme may assist in visualizing the whole system of socio-mental processes: Conspectus of Mind Individual Social Interpretation (Intellect) Thought Tradition (from the past) Public Opinion (present) Appreciation (Emotion) Emotion Sentiment Crowd feeling (temporary) Public Sentiment (more stable) Organization Volition Action Instinct Imitation Habit Volition Mob (temporary) Convention (permanent) Custom (permanent) Campaign (e.g., drive) (temporary) Organization (e.g., army) (permanent) That phase of the task of social psychology in which we are now interested is to analyze, describe, and explain the processes on the right side of the table above. But, as stated in the chapter on “Interpretation,” social psy- chology, sociology, ethics, education, and other social sciences can be treated as normative sciences as well as descriptive sciences, and while our discussion here 1 Robert H. Gault, Social Psychology, p. 24. 182 THE SOCIALIZING PROCESS makes absolutely no pretense of being a complete nor- mative treatment of social psychology, or any other social science, we will do well to limit our consideration to the normative side. In other words, the reader must go to such books as McDougal’s “Group Mind,” or Ross’s “Social Psychology,” for a complete description of the processes named above. Our question will, then, be: How do these processes of the group mind help to socialize the individual, and how do they affect his his- torical life? It will be convenient to take these up, not in the or- der suggested in the table, but in the following order: tradition, custom, convention, public opinion, crowd, mob, organization, and campaign. The reason for this order is that there is a large common factor in the first three (tradition, custom, convention); namely, a degree of permanence and rigidity due to the fact that they come largely ready-made from the past and present. On the other hand, the remaining forms pertain to the pres- ent moment and are rapidly flowing, dynamic, and shift- ing. Taking them in the order suggested, we have, first, tradition. 1. Tradition Tradition may be defined as the unsystematic infor- mation, opinion, or doctrine which is received second- hand by one generation from its predecessor. It differs from science in that it is not reflective and organic; it has not been thought out by the recipient, but consists of a mass of ready-made judgments. Tradition is a sort of THE SOCIAL SOIL 183 pseudo-interpretation, overlaid with a washed-out senti- ment. Illustrations of tradition are legion, the following being representative: the common opinion as to what subjects should constitute the school curriculum; what culture consists in; much of the “platform” of political parties; that men and women are not bound by the same moral code in matters of sex, games of chance, use of tobacco and liquor, etc.; religious beliefs for the most part; the belief that manual labor is degrading; that suc- cess in life is measured in terms of money; that social value is measured by pecuniary success; that the beauty of an object is proportionate to its cost; these and many others besides are examples of traditional beliefs.1 “When you stand in a well-planted field of corn all the rows converge at your feet, no matter where you are.” This is illustrative of the value of tradition in per- sonal and social beliefs. Tradition serves to align the experience of life, and give one a point of view regarding almost every aspect of existence. It furnishes a rough- and-ready, predigested philosophy of life which is ade- quate to most ordinary problems, but which usually breaks down under the test of rationality. As a result a large portion of society lives a communistic sort of life off of the social inheritance of the past, a mode which re- quires very little first-hand psychosis. Tradition thus supplies many, if not most, of the mental attitudes and points of view with which each individual starts. The attitudes and points of view discussed in Chapter IV were the results of the thinking process. But it should 1 Boss, E. A.: Social Psychology, chap. xii. 184 THE SOCIALIZING PROCESS now be said that we seldom fashion an attitude entirely out of whole cloth, but that what we do is to criticize and reconstruct by rationalizing those second-hand at- titudes and points of view bequeathed to us in the form of tradition. The temptation is, however, to rest satis- fied with the old, and follow the line of least resistance, which is the path of tradition. But to be content with the traditional point of view in all matters of life, to lack the critical insight necessary to a personal evaluation of experience, to have eyes and see not, ears and hear not, is of course to rest at a relatively low level of personal- ity; and yet the vast majority are content thus to ac- cept the modes of thought, feeling, and behavior of the majority and slide along in the groove of least resist- ance. It does not follow from this, however, that there would be no place for tradition in energetic personality, or in a dynamic, progressive society. There are suffi- ciently numerous non-vital situations in which tradition may furnish an adequate standpoint which may be adopted by the many with little effort; and in these in- stances tradition makes for mental economy without subtracting from possible efficiency. And, besides, tra- dition furnishes that broad platform upon which mem- bers of society may approach each other with ease and confidence. This is an important function because it is the basis for expression of sociability and sympathy which, as we have seen, are so essential to socialization. Indeed, the main value of tradition is its socializing function. The common traditional heritage of the race THE SOCIAL SOIL 185 makes all its members mentally akin; even the icon- oclast or reformer or propagandist is dependent upon this mental kinship for a hearing. 2. Custom Custom and tradition possess much in common. The chief differences are that tradition is belief, or mental attitude, or point of view, while custom is a mode of re- action or behavior which has been passed on from pre- ceding generations; the two march abreast and supple- ment each other in the social process. With regard to the origin of custom, while the genesis of a particular custom may be difficult to trace, the general law cover- ing the beginning and development of custom in a group is not so difficult of statement. We have but to remem- ber that to imitate the conduct of another is usually eas- ier than to think out the proper mode of action for one’s self. All that is necessary in order to establish a group custom is that some individual or group shall have hit upon a mode of performing some act which resulted satisfactorily, or at least not unpleasantly, through the trial-and-success method, or, perhaps, through reason. The bystanders will naturally imitate the action the first time the situation recurs, and with a few repetitions habit is developed. Custom is a group habit, and origi- nates in much the same manner and subserves the same purpose in the group which habit does in the individual. Custom is operative over the whole field of human ac- tivity; it permeates the whole social process. While it is not the sole conditioning factor, it is one of the most im- 186 THE SOCIALIZING PROCESS portant in the various fields of law, government, reli- gion, and morals; it governs the life, not only of primi- tive man, but of the civilized man as well. Legal proce- dure as observed in America is one of the best examples of a custom-encrusted process. For example, the lan- guage used in preparing any legal instrument — an in- dictment, a deed of transfer, or an oath — is an excel- lent instance of how a necessary process, which really should change as conditions change, accumulates a cake of antiquated form which holds the process itself to the same mould from generation to generation. Customary modes have clung so persistently to the necessary le- gal processes that any instrument written in simple, straightforward English would doubtless be thrown out on “technical” grounds. This is an extreme case, and yet all phases of life are hedged in as strongly, if not as picturesquely, by customary limitations. While, in the realm of the administration of law, jus- tice has no doubt many times been sacrificed on the al- tar of custom, it must not be supposed that custom is therefore an unconditional nuisance. Customs are the survivals of past useful reactions; as a usual thing they are discarded when they become a detriment to prog- ress; and in the case of the legal profession, those cus- toms which have outlived their usefulness will probably be abandoned when they become sufficiently detri- mental. In the mean time custom serves a very great purpose. In primitive society it binds the group together and furnishes a common response for common situations. It makes a more or less adequate re- THE SOCIAL SOIL 187 action possible in a society whose members are on so low an intellectual level that they could not survive by living alone and attempting to adjust themselves single-handed to a hos- tile environment. ... It furnishes that cementing force which makes it possible for primitive man to work for common ends, and to realize even a degree of inner peace and harmony. We not uncommonly think that might makes right without re- dress in primitive society; but custom delivers the group from the unrestrained tyranny of brute strength and guarantees at least a form of justice to its members.1 Custom thus lays the foundation for personal devel- opment. Even in civilized society, it plays an almost equally important role. It provides a more or less adequate response for familiar and un- essential situations; it reduces the amount of social friction, and makes group life tolerable by providing all members with a common reaction for frequently recurring situations. The customs of civilized society need to be continually subjected to the critical light of reason, however, in order that none of an irrational nature may survive and become a hindrance to further progress.2 Thus we see the personal and social values of custom. On the one hand, inasmuch as the customary mode of re- action is along the line of least resistance, it liberates the individual’s thought and volition from the task of figur- ing out in each instance what the efficient mode of con- duct is; it leaves him free to cope with those situations in which there is no customary suggestion for action. Be- sides this, custom, like tradition, suggests, on the posi- tive side, a system of reaction. The individual may ac- cept from the hands of society a ready-made formula for 1 Coffin, J. H.: The Socialized Conscience, p. 11. 2 Ibid., p. 15. 188 THE SOCIALIZING PROCESS the major part of life; custom raises the individual at once to the level of the average, and personalizes his life for him. The danger is in stopping just there, and ac- cepting custom as one’s permanent Baedeker, with no desire for a revised edition. Further, the interests of socialization are served by custom in a way similar to that in which tradition is effective. Tradition gives one an attitude toward the world; custom supplies one with modes of response simi- lar to those which will be used by others in the same sit- uations. A common ground of action as well as of know- ing and feeling is thus thrown open, and men approach each other on terms of equality and understanding. The person who finds himself at a dinner, dressed in his busi- ness suit while all others are dressed in evening clothes, knows the isolation, the lack of ease, and the feeling of not ‘belonging’ which his failure to observe a custom brings him. This is but illustrative of the sociability, sympathy, the common-mindedness which the observ- ance of custom makes possible, and which the lack of therewith takes away. 3. Conventionality Another group of social forms is that known as ‘con- ventionality.’ The difference between custom and con- ventionality is that the former is imitation of ancestors, while the latter is imitation of contemporaries. Because of the prestige of some one member of society, or that of a small group, all the others are willing to give up some habitual and customary mode and substitute for it a THE SOCIAL SOIL 189 new reaction; or when a new reaction is adopted by large blocks of society and is taken as a matter of course, it becomes convention. Present conventions, if transmit- ted from father to son, become customs. Conventional- ity, like custom, rests upon the inherent tendency in the individual to imitate and to follow up a suggested idea with the appropriate action. Thus there is the tendency for people to imitate those whom they suppose to be in positions of social superiority. In all societies, even the most democratic, where in theory, at least, all are equal, there is a gradation of social ranking: superiority is claimed by some and allowed by others; and the inferior always manifests a greater or lesser tendency to imitate the superior. This is particularly true, paradoxical as it may seem, in the most democratic societies, presumably because one can demonstrate his equality with another by imitating him at least in outward forms. The holder of power is ex officio a member of the superior group, and no matter what the form of his power — whether governmental, ecclesiastical, educational, or industrial — he becomes an object of imitation and suggestion over a wide area of society. Again success puts one into the upper class. This is particularly true in a free-for-all, industrial, and com- mercial country such as ours. One way of establishing one’s own superiority in the eyes of the world is to act and live as those who are admittedly successful. Like- wise the wealthy by virtue of their money are brought into the limelight of public attention; and the foibles of the rich become a perennial topic of interest. The 190 THE SOCIALIZING PROCESS society column of a metropolitan daily is eloquent tes- timony to the insatiable appetite of the proletariat for intimate knowledge of the rich; and their conduct be- comes the pattern for counterfeit the country over. Fashion is a good example of a volatile, rapid-fire sort of convention. It grows out of two tendencies: the first is the desire on the part of the social superior, the holder of power, the rich, the successful, to assert his superior- ity by being different; the second is the desire of the social inferior, the less successful, the less prominent, to show his equality with the former. Fashion extends to an immense number of things. It touches cravats, umbrellas, walking-sticks, visiting-cards, note-paper, toilet articles, docking horses’ tails, the high check- rein, the pug, the exaggerated bulldog, the German poodle “raised under a bureau, a dog-and-a-half-long-and-a-half-a- dog-high!” 1 And to this should be added the all-consuming subject of clothes. The particular characteristic of fashion in these latter machine-made days is the rapidity of change, and the extremeness with which fashion is wrought out. What, now, is the psycho-social influence of conven- tionality? The most outstanding point is the diversified uni- formity to which it leads. The illustrations cited show the wide range of conventional imitation and its per- vasiveness in life; the uniformity element comes out in the concerted action of society at any given time. The 1 Boss, E. A.: Social Psychology, p. 106. THE SOCIAL SOIL 191 direction of movement may change with the rapidity of changing fashion; but it practically means a redirection of the whole group because of the rapidity of communi- cation and transportation. The effect upon the indi- vidual is neither wholly good nor wholly bad. It adds variety and richness of experience, but at the same time the instability of fashion has a certain disorganizing influence in the process of building the historical life. The steady goal of a progressive ideal is not always adhered to because the “new departure is not made because it is better” as is always the case in progress. On the social side, however, convention has a decided value. The conventions of society serve as a social lubri- cant. They may not be matters essential to the develop- ment of personality in the deep sense, but they do make social intercourse easier; a judicious observance of them rounds off the sharp corners of personality which irritate and offend, and a man thus thoughtful has the advan- tage of procuring for himself a good hearing in society. An individual is not thoroughly socialized, therefore, who has not proclaimed to society his interest in it and his good intentions toward it by the observation of its conventions. When we look at the social mind from the standpoint of the present we find that it is much more fluid and less rigid than the historical point of view, as given in tradition and custom, would lead us to believe. The social mind is process; and in these latter days of rapid communication its processes are swift and iridescent. 192 THE SOCIALIZING PROCESS The glacier of the past melts under the warm glow of the present, and becomes the stream of social consciousness. Incidentally, it leaves behind it the moraine of outgrown beliefs, customs, and traditions. But the fluid mind of the present is not without form. On the contrary, it takes certain very definite configurations, all of which tend to give contour to the individual minds which make up the larger stream of consciousness. Let us examine, then, the psycho-social effect upon the individual of these forms of social pressure. 4 4. Public Opinion Public opinion is not merely the aggregate of the thought of the individual members of society; neither is it the mean or average, as some would have us think. It arises out of an issue, a social problem, and is formed in much the same way in which an individual arrives at a conclusion. Thought was defined as the conscious ad- justment of means to ends in a problematic situation; and all the machinery of attention, ideation, association, judgment, induction, and deduction is brought into play; one searches one’s mind for the suggestion which ‘works’ as a solution. The group makes up its mind in the same manner as the individual, except that the process is on a larger scale. Each individual must make up his own mind as before, but in doing so he has to deal not only with what was already in his thought and memory, but with fresh ideas that flow in from others whose minds are also aroused. Every one who has any fact, or thought, or feeling which he thinks is unknown, or in- sufficiently regarded, tries to impart it; and thus not only one THE SOCIAL SOIL 193 mind but all minds are searched for pertinent material, which is poured into the general stream of thought for each one to use as he can. In this manner the minds in a communicating group become a single organic whole.1 But it must not be supposed that the larger number of those who have little initiative or originality of thought therefore have no part in the formation of public opin- ion. The thoughtful, critical members of the community formulate the problems, state the issues, and probably divide upon the answers, taking different points of view respectively. Then suggestion gets in its work, and other members of the community in increasing numbers proclaim their loyalty to one or another of the positions already taken. It does not follow, therefore, that in order for pub- lic opinion to exist there must be complete unanimity among all members; it is unity, not necessarily of agree- ment, but the unity incident to organization. There are nearly always two or more sides to any question or issue; consequently there may exist side by side two or more public opinions; and the division may go much farther than that, so that each individual man has his own particular variation of idea. On the other hand, under these conditions where free discussion has brought for- ward so much evidence, the data with which each man deals are drawn from the same general stock as that which underlies every other man’s thought. Hence, the more clearly all sides are seen by all members, the more nearly do all approximate the same conclusion and the 1 Cooley, C. H.: Social Organization, p. 121. 194 THE SOCIALIZING PROCESS majority public opinion may eventually become the pub- lic opinion. The important point, however, is that in the formation of public opinion each person takes the social standpoint, and in attempting to see all sides of the issue is in a position to enter into greater sympathy with all others. Here, then, is a larger unity — one which includes the diversity of individual opinion in the socialness of its outlook. Where you have whole lumps of society feeling alike, urged by the same emotion, and surging in the same direction, you have not public opinion, but the crowd. Public opinion presupposes a rational attitude on the part of all. Discussion is a mark of rational considera- tion, but never of the crowd. Discussion is the inductive and deductive process of the group; it represents the gathering of data, the recall of past experience, the introduction of new evidence. One of the remarkable characteristics of the present age is our 'penchant for discussion — an era of specialists and of rapid transit of thought; as a result it is possible to have a wider basis of fact and principle upon which to establish conclusions. While to the pessimist it seems to be nothing but talk, yet the only hope for the solution of the endless number of new social problems lies in that sound and rational public opinion which arises out of wholesale discussion. What, now, is the influence of public opinion upon the psycho-social development of the individual? In the first place, to live outside the world of public opinion in isolation from the procession of events is to be an ‘old fogy,’ a ‘mossback’; or to be so encrusted THE SOCIAL SOIL 195 with tradition and custom as to resist the impress of social pressure renders one a hopeless conservative. Personal progress, therefore, demands that one throw himself into the current of affairs and himself furnish a certain rebound to the outside pressure. In this way his mind is not only given shape by public opinion, but it in turn helps make social pressure. There are three ways in which the individual profits by public opinion. First, the issues in which public opin- ion centers become the points of interest in his own self- organization. This gives breadth of view and largeness of sympathy. Society values a man of many interests, of wide acquaintance with affairs; and the way this quality of character is attained is by reacting along the line of one interest after another, first consciously, then by habit, to the pressures of public opinion. A man’s own personality expands and grows in proportion to his sensitiveness to the pressure of public opinion. Second, every man meets persistent problems in his own chosen field of work — problems of policy, of jus- tice, of morals — and it is safe to say that he needs the results of the cooperative thinking of the community upon typical problems similar to his own. There is no one who is not steadied and illuminated by the social thought of his own age; — unless perchance he has taken upon himself the ignominious task of rowing against the stream of social progress. Moreover, one is never fully able to evaluate his own opinions until he knows what society thinks of them. Third, since the historical life is the progressive result 196 THE SOCIALIZING PROCESS of psycho-social development, it must not alone be rooted in the institutional life of the past, but must receive its minuter contours from the pressure of the present; the system of ends and purposes which consti- tute the vertebral column of personality will in every instance take form from the social issues of the age in which a man lives, provided he throws himself into the stream of social life. If the issue is slavery, or economic justice, or religious liberty, personality will face one way or the other with respect to the issue or issues of the time. You are not the same person you would have been had ‘you’ been born with the same combinations of native capacities, a hundred years ago. And the differ- ence is the measure of the effect of the social pressure of your own generation. We have but to turn the subject around to see the socializing effect of public opinion upon the individual. The personalizing values just noticed also have their social values. These same interests which broaden tire individual’s horizon also widen his sympathies and give him points of contact with his neighbors, constituting so many efferent and afferent nerves binding him to all the other members of the social organism. They assimilate him into the community and make him one with it; while he profits by the cooperative thought of the group, he is ipso facto socialized by this form of contact. In psychological terms, public opinion upon any topic socializes the individual because, in the process of “searching all minds,” a new and firmer basis is laid for mutual understanding and sympathy. The discussion THE SOCIAL SOIL 197 which leads up to the formation of public opinion breaks down the barriers of bias and prejudice and establishes a broader foundation for sociability. 5. Crowd-Feeling Another form which the social mind takes is that known as ‘crowd-feeling/ In brief, the outstanding characteristics of the crowd are that it is essentially emotional and non-rational. Unlike public opinion, there is no deliberation, no discussion, no pooling of experience and interchange of ideas. The conditioning factors of crowd-feeling are the suggestibility of the individual, the submerging of one’s self and one’s plans and purposes, uniform attention of all upon some mov- ing topic, and a high degree of excitement. The sub- merging of self-consciousness needs special emphasis in this connection. The conditions for crowd-feeling are not propitious unless for the time being the personal plans and purposes of the individual are pushed from consciousness by some absorbing or stirring idea. As a throng of people becomes transformed into a crowd, the individuals concerned lose for the time their personality, their attention lapses into the primary order, and they are temporarily the slaves of the environment. In a rail- way station you may have a throng of people all of whom may be more or less excited and already highly suggestible; but, unless the primary attention of all is centered upon one object, it remains merely a throng. If, however, the news of a wreck down the road be spread abroad, instantly the attention of the whole 198 THE SOCIALIZING PROCESS group is polarized around one idea and the throng becomes a crowd. Good examples of the crowd-spirit may be found in the war-spirit, certain religious revivals, and the crazes and fads that sweep the country from time to time. One of the notable points regarding the crowd is that it is not necessary for people to be in physical contact or proximity for these symptoms to appear. A whole state or nation may be converted into a crowd as it sits about its fireside reading the evening paper; for example, the emotional toning of the whole country at the opening of the World War; or, in scarcely less degree, at the time of the race for the baseball pennant, are cases in point. Closely akin to the crowd is a phenomenon properly called public sentiment. The wave of sentiment against the liquor traffic, or white slavery, or graft, or in favor of woman’s suffrage, seems to stand midway between pub- lic opinion and crowd-feeling. For the most part such waves are either preceded or accompanied by a cam- paign of education of public opinion; they provoke dis- cussion. But at the same time they are highly emo- tional states of social consciousness also. Indeed, public opinion, unsupported by social feeling, is powerless to accomplish anything. Our great social reforms are the joint product of public opinion and social feeling; that is, they follow in the wake of social sentiment. 6. The Mob The term ‘mob’ is used to indicate the crowd in action. It presupposes the physical presence of a group with THE SOCIAL SOIL 199 attention centered upon a common object and a high degree of excitement. The mob is the crowd-spirit heated to the boiling point and issuing in concerted behavior. One immediately calls to mind the lynching scene as typical of the mob-spirit and behavior. While this is an extreme instance, it nevertheless presents the common characteristics of mob-consciousness. The per- sonality of the members, again, is pushed beyond the margin of consciousness, and with it the whole system of personal ends and purposes; emotion runs riot, and each individual becomes hypnotized by an idea which is sug- gested by the leader. The mob is unstable and fanatical; it spreads by the sheer force of its passion, because noth- ing is more suggestive and contagious than group emo- tion as written in the facial expression, gesture, and bodily attitude of its members; and the very mass of expression incident to the formation of a mob is suffi- cient to engulf every bystander, even if he came origi- nally merely out of curiosity. As other examples of the mob-spirit we may cite the bunch of college students following an athletic victory, the behavior of the army of strikers, the crusaders, and, in lesser degree, booms and panics. In all cases there is not only the high wave of feeling, but the tendency for all to do something in concert, following the example or suggestion of the leader. Neither the crowd nor the mob exercises a construc- tive influence upon the individual. Rather, their tend- ency is to tear down and disorganize personality; the augmented feeling-tone which both these forms of social 200 THE SOCIALIZING PROCESS pressure elicit in the individual is most likely to run counter to sound judgment and to ordinary rational systems of living; the mob-impulse may unwind in a moment the whole skein of life which has taken years of consistent work to wind. The one saving clause in the feeling and action of the social mind is the possible constructive force of public sentiment. Since this is supported by more deliberative public opinion, it may really represent an ideal. The ideals and concepts of value which are the personal pos- session of every disciplined individual are in no small measure the results of those ideals and values which are held in suspension in the social atmosphere. At least in so far as certain conventional standards of morals, beauty, politeness, and propriety are appropriated by the individual and given a reflective basis in his own mind, the individual is both personalized and socialized by the pressure which society puts upon him in the way of public sentiment. This process is constantly going on in the persons of the members of society, and is in no slight degree responsible for the high average level of the public sentiment in a fluid democracy such as ours. As for the crowd and the mob, every one is occasion- ally caught in its thralldom; its contagion is irresistible; his very humanity renders every man susceptible to its virus. But in the interests of socialized personality it is essential not to yield too far to its unreasoning intoxica- tion. There is no universal prophylactic against crowd and mob consciousness, except the tautological prin- ciple of building up a strong and stable personality. THE SOCIAL SOIL 201 This involves the whole psycho-social process thus far described. There are, however, a few specific points that may be mentioned as contributing to this end. Ross1 discusses in this connection the following conditions which favor the development of strong and stable per- sonalities “which are proof against mental contagion”: higher education; sound knowledge of body, mind, and society; familiarity with that which is classic; the influ- ence of sane teachers; avoidance of sensational news- papers; sports; country life; sound family life; ownership of property; participation in voluntary associations, such as clubs and societies; intellectual self-possession as an ideal; prideful morality; and vital religion. Without further explanation of the meaning and significance of these qualities, it is evident that the kinds of knowledge referred to, the values held up for appreciation, the things in the list suggested to be done, offer firm anchor- age for life, and constitute a system of interests which may well supplement the core of any man’s historical life. More than this, they promote sound social rela- tionships on the basis of sociability and mutual sym- pathy. If any one point needs emphasis above others in this connection, it is that the surest safeguard against mob-contagion is to be deeply rooted in the social soil which represents the vital experiences of the race in the past. 7. Organizations When we come to organizations we have arrived at 1 Social Psychology, p. 84 ff. 202 THE SOCIALIZING PROCESS the highest type of group-mindedness, and the most complex. Consider the quality and influence of the social mind as exhibited in religious denominations, secret orders such as the Ku Klux Klan, lodges, clubs, associations such as the Y.M.C.A., Greek-letter frater- nities, political parties, and, loosely, nations. In all these we have a degree of complexity, permanence, and organization which suggests the structure of the histor- ical life in the individual: a kind of group-historical- mindedness. This historical mind of the group is created and per- petuated by several factors. First, membership in the group is an overlapping affair in point of time. The group is maintained numerically by ‘taking in’ new members from each succeeding generation, who, in some cases, retain membership throughout life. Care is taken in a variety of ways by the older members to infuse the new members with the ideas, traditions, feelings, and attitudes which constitute the peculiar mental state of the group in question. Similarly, the organization has its list of offices which are permanent, although incum- bency in these offices is temporary; and each office has its precedents and usages. And in both these ways mental permanence and continuity are assured for the group. Again, in taking membership each individual is made conversant with the purposes, aims, and functions of the group, and the members are constantly reminded of these so that a high degree of group self-consciousness is developed and maintained. In some form or other each individual must subscribe to the doctrines and THE SOCIAL SOIL 203 ideals of the group before admission, and the main atti- tudes which he shall maintain are already prescribed. This procedure is an established order and further assures permanence and continuity. Finally, the func- tions of the group are ordinarily carried out by standing committees or individuals charged with special respon- sibility, and this specialization of function, with the precedents and customs which grow up around them as focal points, further guarantees the mental solidarity of the group. All forms of organization exhibit a kind of group-historical-mindedness: a kind of social machinery constructed about a central scheme of ends and pur- poses which in turn represent some sort of system of value, the organization presumably being a means of cooperatively achieving these values. That organizations are the most complex forms of group mind can further be seen from the fact that they represent a synthesis of all the other forms so far con- sidered. Perhaps no one organization will exhibit in equal degree all forms, but emphatic illustrations of these can be found in the various types of organization. Thus tradition, custom, conventionality, crowd-feeling, mob-action, public opinion, are all gathered together and exhibited in various phases of the life of an organi- zation at different times, and under varying conditions. For example, if you are looking for the apotheosis of custom, tradition, and convention in modern civilized society, you cannot do better than to consider the initia- tion ceremonies of masonic secret orders or fraternities- This for custom. For tradition denominational creeds 204 THE SOCIALIZING PROCESS and the ritual of secret orders will serve as illustrations; while the exaggerated uniforms, badges, absurd cos- tumes, and general flubdubery participated in by other- wise intelligent members of society when under the spell of their particular group mind will illustrate the place of convention. Many members of fraternities and secret orders doubtless find in these ridiculous customs, tradi- tions, and conventions an end in themselves. The ritu- alism is somehow supremely satisfying to them because it intimately identifies them with a group, and in the size and conspicuousness of the group they find their own importance and significance magnified. But even these organizations could scarcely maintain their per- manence and continuity if they were not organized about a core of purposes, which represent values of some kind. And in the minds of the leaders, at least, and in some groups more than others, there is a considerable amount of thought and judgment. The group as a group must meet issues from time to time and public opinion within the group must be the deciding process. This is the factor which formulates new policies. Again, almost any group may degenerate from a deliberating, responsible body into a crowd or mob. This is doubtless best seen when the group in question comes into com- petition with other groups, as in the case of the rivalry between political parties. At its worst you see the mob- spirit in an organization in many of the performances of the Ku Klux Klan. — Organizations, therefore, are the most highly complex forms of group mind because they offer the potentiality of a synthesis of all other forms into one. THE SOCIAL SOIL 205 Now, as to the effect of organizations upon the indi- vidual member, both from the standpoint of his person- ality and his social character, two things require to be said. First is the obvious fact that the effect will be either good or bad according as the purposes and methods of the organization are socially constructive or destructive. The second is that the effect depends in part also upon the attitude of the person toward the group. Concerning the first of these points, of course, it is impossible to name over the organizations of a com- munity and place on one side of a line those that can be called ‘good’ and on the other side those that are ‘bad.* The case is never so simple as that, because there are so many factors that go to make up goodness or badness in a group. However, it is possible to name some char- acteristics which an organization must have if it is to exercise a beneficent influence upon personality, while the converse of these characteristics without question have the opposite effect upon personality. Perhaps these characteristics can be set down in opposition in the following manner: Beneficial Detrimental Good purposes Democratic Freedom of opinion Encourages initiative Encourages other social contacts Selfish ends Exclusive Prescribed doctrine Proscribes initiative Monopolizes social life By ‘good purposes’ is meant ends which if realized would not only lead toward greater personality in the 206 THE SOCIALIZING PROCESS members of the group themselves, but which would also be socially constructive, improving the chance of every member of society for personality, as far as the influence of the organization reached. As contrasted with this, groups organized for the pleasure or gain of the member- ship at the sacrifice of social welfare have nothing but a deleterious effect upon the personality of its members, not to mention their baneful effect upon society. Again, any organization whose requirements for membership are other than native ability, congeniality, and willing cooperation has great potentiality as a harmful influence upon personality. No one is so selfish and snobbish as the class-conscious individual who is a member of an exclusive clique, club, or society, and whose social con- tacts are limited to its membership. Likewise, an organ- ization which prescribes a creed or doctrine to which one must subscribe, and in subscribing sign away his pre- rogative of critical thinking, is the last word in malevo- lent group influence. To swear allegiance to an ‘invis- ible empire,’ for instance, which is pledged to class war- fare, is the best possible way to cauterize the growing point of personality. Again, any kind of a group organ- ization which prescribes to the last detail the daily routine of a boy or man and robs him of the opportunity to exercise his own initiative is not only artificial from a social standpoint, but — what is far worse — suppresses personal growth. Here is the great criticism of army life as far as personality is concerned. Its ‘discipline’ is exactly the kind of discipline which does not develop personality as that term has been described in these THE SOCIAL SOIL 207 pages. Finally, enlargement of social outlook and sym- pathy is to be sought through one’s contact with volun- tary organizations, and any organization with which one is affiliated ought to make its own distinct approach to the problem of social welfare, and contribute its share to that end. Every social organization which is worthy of one’s cooperation should be directed to the realization of the values suggested in our previous discussion concern- ing a philosophy of life, and every individual ought to find a group of like-minded persons with whom to affili- ate and cooperate for these common ends. And happy is that person who does find one or more organizations already dedicated to these ends with which he can unite. He will find in these associations not only stimulus for his own personal progress and an area for an avo- cation, but he will find concrete outlet for his social- mindedness. 8. Campaigns By campaigns we refer to those temporary organiza- tions for the purpose of putting through some particular project like the raising of an endowment fund or a Liberty Loan fund, winning an election, or a Red Cross Drive. Here the intellectual element is represented by propaganda which has come to have such a prominent place in our public consciousness. Wide and repeated publicity is given to facts pertaining to the drive, to show the need, and the end sought. Then the leaders deliberately resort to crowd and mob psychology, pump- ing up rivalry and enthusiasm which are to end in mass 208 THE SOCIALIZING PROCESS action. And the success of the drive is measured by the size of the social mass which can thus be moved. The question as to the effect of the never-ending series of campaigns and drives which so largely characterize present-day group life is a difficult one. In so far as the need represented is a genuine social need, and in so far as the immediate object of the campaign is accurately designed to meet that need, a person is probably under moral obligation to support the campaign. But, on the other hand, to be subject to the pile-driving of continu- ous propaganda, and to be shoved along by public pres- sure with no chance to perform a free volition, is not only exquisitely exasperating, but disintegrating. The result is likely to be, if a man has strong predilections of his own, that his native streak of stubbornness is greatly amplified, or, lacking native decisiveness, he will be easily victimized both intellectually and finan- cially. Besides, these multifarious “interests” are dis- tracting, and to maintain a consistent point of view, and to live by a constructive philosophy of life, becomes increasingly difficult under these conditions. HOW PERSONALITY DEVELOPS FROM THE SOCIAL SOIL Personality, then, is a form of psycho-social life which must be rooted in the social soil and derive the elements for both its psychical and social growth from this medium. We have seen that personality is proportion- ate in its development to the degree to which thinking is developed. It remains to be added at this point that the THE SOCIAL SOIL 209 pattern for each man’s thought lies in the logic, science, and philosophy which the race has worked out, and that the individual’s ability to think is conditioned upon his re-living the thought-experience of preceding genera- tions. But again, personal development is contingent upon the ability to evaluate and appreciate; and the only way to grow in this direction is to become ac- quainted with the products of other men’s ideals and faiths, which in turn can be accomplished only as one drinks in the spirit of the art and literature in which others have expressed their ideals. The final condition- ing factor is conscious organization of conduct in terms of the values and plans for which appreciation yearns and thought plans. But here again the individual is the pupil of the race. He must align himself with its institu- tions and laws so that the latter may guide his reactions and mould his character. Society not only provides the materials for personal growth in the social inheritance, but in her traditions, customs, and conventions she also suggests modes of reaction and assimilation. We are inclined to deprecate these social forms sometimes because they represent the conservatism of society; because of its resemblance to habit; custom, for example, holds group-action within the one plane of its rotation, and makes change and progress difficult. This is true; but the obverse is also deeply significant: custom, together with tradition and conventionality, constitute the runways which finally lead the members of society to the broad field of intel- lectual and moral freedom. They lead to this destina- 210 THE SOCIALIZING PROCESS tion because they help the individual to assimilate the wisdom of the past, and to mirror in his own conduct the average conduct of society under like circumstances. And this common belief and reaction furnish the founda- tion for individual thought and action; or, to change the figure, they constitute the points of departure for critical thinking and original conduct. For example, the tradi- tional moral sentiment that honesty is the best policy, while possibly not representing any real thought or original conviction to the average mind, yet functions as a practical guide to conduct in many instances; and if a man comes to the point where that saying constitutes a problem for him, he enjoys the advantage of having the problem already stated. Or, again: while the progressive educator encounters great resistance to educational ad- vance in the traditional idea as to what education or culture consists in, yet the universality of the traditional view delivers society from an intellectual chaos regard- ing this point and sets any individual thinker forward on the way to critical examination of the question. So, too, the permanent organizations in which a man may find membership have their effect upon his personal and social life. Every organization has its own ‘spirit,’ atmosphere, and its attitudes: and these inevitably mark a man as their own. CHAPTER IX THE SOCIALIZING AGENCIES We have already explained the meaning of socialization and we now come to a study of the agencies which tend to bring this about in the lives of all the more fortunate members of society. We shall not be able, however, to draw a hard-and-fast line between the processes by which the historical life is developed and the socializing processes, because, being organic to each other, they go forward at the same time and are mutually supplemen- tary. Besides the social soil and the forms of group mind, society has other configurations which possess socializing value. Chief among these are the social insti- tutions, and above all the community in which all social forms, pressures, and institutions are focused. No child who lives in society at all can escape the effect of these factors. Of all these, the institutions are perhaps the most highly self-conscious or most clearly directed and controlled through social volition. The specific problem of this chapter, then, is: What is the psycho-social effect upon the individual of the institutional modes of social organization and of community life? THE PROBLEM OF THE CHAPTER The social process includes all of the interrelated activities of men. By far the greater part of these activities are organ- WHAT ARE THE INSTITUTIONS ? THE SOCIALIZING PROCESS 212 ized into well-defined groups, each having its own particular structure of organization and technique of operation. We call these organized groups of activities institutions.1 If we may take the present social organization as typical, we discover five great well-defined institutions; namely, the home, the school, the vocation, the State, and the Church. Every community as a center of the social process possesses activities of these fundamental types; there are also certain other rather secondary institutions, such as the newspaper and the theater, which play an increasing part in social life, but which are nevertheless subsidiary to the fundamental types of group activity. These fundamental institutions begin to take shape as soon as man becomes human; in other words, at that point in the course of evolution at which the fourth level of organic life appears — namely, self- consciousness — and as soon as group life makes its ap- pearance; and, while at first they are not clearly differ- entiated nor well defined, they are present in human society in embryo from the beginning. The institutional forms of social life are both the mode and the result of social evolution. First, whatever prog- ress is made in the social process is made along one or more of these five lines. Society evolves by sanctifying the home, creating the school, developing industry, organizing the State, or perfecting the Church. But, second, perfection of these social institutions is the result of social evolution, and the status of any and all the institutions is the test of a race’s civilization. The 1 Betts, G. H.: Principles of Education, p. 55. THE SOCIALIZING AGENCIES 213 social purposes of a group work themselves out through its institutional life, and the institutions themselves progress as social purposes take shape and condition group activity. Again, the institutions are the conservators of the race’s experience of the past. We have shown that the elements of the social soil consist in the knowledge, ap- preciation, and volitions which the race has accumu- lated and passed on. The institutions are the containers, so to speak, of these elements; or, better, they are the channels through which these elements flow to us from the past. The experiences by which this generation profits are those which are gathered together in the home, or handed out by the school, or codified in the shape of law, or in some other form are preserved and made available to the present generation by some one of the institutions. The institutions are society’s organized agencies by means of which it brings the elements of the social soil to the threshold of each new generation. Looking at it from the standpoint of the individual, only as his life is rooted in each of these social compart- ments can he get the elements necessary for personal and social growth. There are certain interpretative, appre- ciational, and volitional elements in each of these in- stitutions to which he must react, and which he must assimilate in order to develop his own personality. In order to develop his own historical life, he must recapitu- late the mental evolution of the race by living over again in resume its own development; and, inasmuch as the race has developed along these five lines, he must come 214 THE SOCIALIZING PROCESS into vital contact with these forms of the social process. He needs the beneficent influence of the home, the in- struction of the school, the guidance of the Church, the control of the State; and finally he must work out his further development by securing his own advancement and contributing to the common good through the voca- tion. So, in the matter of socialization, the only way to come into harmony with the dominant social interests — which was our definition of socialization — is to live the social life, to assimilate its elements, and be bathed in its traditions, customs, and conventions. Sociability and sympathy arise out of social contact — contact with past and present — and in no other way. Let us now turn to a brief statement of the specific psycho-social value of each of these institutions to the individual, beginning with the home. 1. The Home In defining the process of socialization we have al- ready used the home as an illustration of the socializing agencies. But the subject is important enough to war- rant still further discussion. Sociologists tell us that the family, and not the individual, is the social unit. This is because the life of one individual is never a true micro- cosm of the social process. When one looks for the sim- plest and most fundamental aspect of the complicated social process, one comes inevitably to the family, be- cause neither man nor woman alone is complete in him- self. When the two are united in the little family com- munity, the social molecule comes into being, and when THE SOCIALIZING AGENCIES 215 the child enters the world he becomes immediately an organic part of this little community. The chief signifi- cance of the family or home, from the psycho-social standpoint, is its influence upon the child. There are two reasons why the home as an institution profoundly affects the personality of the members of society. First, it constitutes the child’s sole environment for a consider- able period; and, second, during this period the child’s predominant characteristic is plasticity. The home — if, indeed, it is a home and not merely a place to eat and sleep — is an epitome of the whole social process; being the scene of economic interests, or moral, religious, edu- cational, and cultural activities, it represents the essen- tial elements of social organization. Here the child is brought into his first contact with the intellectual, ap- preciational, and volitional elements of the social soil; from the beginning his sensory and ideational and his affective and volitional processes are stimulated by so- cial situations. His development in language is but the mirror of his mental processes; and through the conver- sation of the home, and later through the books and magazines which represent the ideals and standards of the family, he acquires that foundation of knowledge and appreciation which is to underlie his whole future thought, feeling, and conduct. Whatever of religious and moral training he assimilates is but the normal func- tioning of the home in these directions. In a word, dur- ing infancy personality slowly emerges from the cocoon of individual instincts, impulses, sensations, and emo- tions, and begins to take on the form of a rational, appre- 216 THE SOCIALIZING PROCESS ciative, and volitional life — and all within the confines of the home. Again, inasmuch as the home is the unit of society, through it the child comes into vicarious contact with the whole of society. He not only finds the pattern of his thought in the knowledge which is race property, ac- quires social standards of evaluation, learns obedience which later expands into respect for law and order, but he is further socialized by becoming acquainted with the folklore, the traditions, the customs, and the conven- tions which put him on a common platform with the rest of society. The principles of socialization, as de- scribed in the preceding chapter, find their sphere of operation in the home. It would not be correct to say that the socializing process is limited to the home, be- cause all the social institutions contribute to this end, but the home has the advantage of primacy and vivid- ness, and is accordingly chronologically as well as psy- chologically first in its influence. 2. The School A very brief and general statement of the psycho- social value of the school and the vocation will be suffi- cient at this point, because special chapters are to be devoted to these subjects. As social life has become more and more complex, as human wants have grown in number, and as the corre- sponding lines of endeavor have become more highly diversified and specialized, the home has been unable to provide all the necessary personalizing and socializing THE SOCIALIZING AGENCIES 217 factors. Hence the school has grown up to meet the need of education. Society has developed and set apart a special institution whose duty it is to carry on in a more systematic way the processes already begun in the home. The ideal of the school is to bring to full fruition mental and social efficiency. The question as to what the psy- chological and sociological principles are according to which this is being done, and whether or not the school is meeting the full need, we shall reserve for a subsequent chapter. In the mean time, let us see the significance of the other social institutions for personal and social development. 3. The Vocation If we are to use the term ‘vocation* as the name of a social institution, we must use it in a broad and inclusive sense to cover all of the diversified and organized labor of man. In the evolution of society there comes a time when the increasing number of physical and mental wants of man can no longer be supplied by individual ef- fort, or even by the cooperative effort within the family circle. Division of labor appears and men specialize and cooperate in the supplying of these needs. One group of men tills the soil, another transports the products of the soil, mine, and forest, another mills the grain. Another converts the flour into bread, another merchandises the food products, etc. So that there are literally thousands of different coordinated and mutually dependent occu- pations. This, then, is what we mean by the vocation: the diversified and organized labor of men. 218 THE SOCIALIZING PROCESS 1 There are two chief ways in which the vocation as thus defined serves as a socializing agency. First, each man in entering the vocation enters into voluntary co- operation with other men; he becomes dependent upon them for the satisfaction of most of his wants, while at the same time he assumes the responsibility of helping to satisfy their needs. This practical interchange of obli- gation and service satisfies in part our definition of socialization, in so far as it demands that he put himself in harmony with the social process. But, second, there is a theoretical way in which this vocation socializes a man. Not only is each one actually dependent upon vocational organization for the satisfac- tion of his needs, but an understanding of and an intel- lectual grasp of the intricacies of the world of labor links a man in thought and imagination to all others engaged in these common tasks. To acquire some insight into the structure and meaning of the vocation as an institu- tion must inevitably broaden the outlook and clarify the point of view of any man. The world of modern com- merce, made possible by modern methods of transpor- tation and communication, is an infinitely larger and richer world in which to live than the world of the primi- tive man, or indeed of the pioneer family of a century ago in our own country. Thus the vocation contributes its part to the socializing process without which no indi- vidual can realize his potential personality. 4. The State The State may be defined as “ society as organized for THE SOCIALIZING AGENCIES 219 the purpose of government.” Stated in its most general terms, the function of the State is to safeguard all the other institutions, and guarantee their validity. The State must guard the home from all those forces which tend to disrupt it; it must foster the school and regu- late and control the process of production and dis- tribution of the goods of life, guarantee to every man the right to worship according to the dictates of his own conscience, and in so doing minister both to the institutions of society and to the members who consti- tute them. While the State contributes to the psycho-social growth of its members indirectly by upholding and per- petuating all these other forms of social organization, it also has a more direct value. This has already been il- lustrated by reference to the value of law through which the sovereignty of the State is expressed. Law has both a personalizing and a socializing effect. The State not only guarantees a healthful social soil in which to grow, but it sets its seal of approval upon certain policies which may legitimately become the system of ends within the individual’s life, and fosters the best of racial experience — all the factors which made helpful inter- course easy and profitable. More specifically, the func- tion of the State is to guarantee justice and equality of opportunity to all members of society. This involves the restraint of anti-social members in the interest of the larger whole, and the correction of social configurations in which some are denied the chance for physical, men- tal, moral, social, and spiritual growth; if some have 220 THE SOCIALIZING PROCESS more than can be used in the interests of their own higher personalities, by the same token, others will most likely be denied the means for their own complete self-realiza- tion. The State thus seeks to personalize each member by socializing all the others. The psycho-social function of the State is especially conspicuous in relation to at least one group of non- persons, namely, criminals. Under our new conception of the proper way in which to treat the criminal, the ef- fort is made by the State to reform him and return him to society psycho-socially whole. When a boy or man perpetrates an anti-social act, such as theft, he is sent, not to dungeon or to solitary confinement, but to a re- formatory, where, under our most enlightened practice, he is taught a trade, if he knows none; is given as much liberty and responsibility as he can utilize; and finally, when he has demonstrated his growth toward sound per- sonality, is given complete freedom. But sound person- ality in this instance, as in all others, implies that the in- dividual has also been socialized. The State should not simply turn the individual back into society, having taught him a trade by which he may be self-supporting in case he is so minded, but should render him so disposi- tioned as well. The criminal must be shown the rational- ity of law, the futility of anti-social action, and the value of honor, honesty, and civic virtue. In a word, he must be made to appreciate all of the social values highly enough to be willing to work them out through his voli- tion. These are rather new ideas concerning the State’s relation to the criminal, and, while not yet consistently THE SOCIALIZING AGENCIES 221 applied in practice, they are constantly gaining ground in the popular mind. In so far as the public school is a State enterprise, the State also makes definite provision for the proper per- sonalization and socialization of the child. Even the de- fective child receives, at the hands of the State, expert guidance toward such proficiency as he is capable of. 5. The Church While the function of the State is chiefly negative in character, defining, as it does, limits beyond which men must not go in their conduct, the Church seeks to be a positive and constructive force in the lives of the mem- bers of society. If we limit our statement to Christian- ity, the Church adopts all those ideals and principles which are highest and most worthy. Through the Sun- day School and from the pulpit the Church attempts to show the child and the man the supreme value of ethical and spiritual ends, and the dignity and worth of the Christian virtues; it attempts to educate men’s apprecia- tions of the ultimate values of life to the end that they may execute, in their own thought, feelings, and action, the ideal of perfect personality. It sets as the pattern for all men the perfect personality of history — Jesus Christ; and admonishes them to adopt as their own the system of ends and purposes which dominated his life. None of the social institutions is perfect, and the Church has its share of imperfections, both in teaching and practice. Among these, the Church has failed to read the full social significance of the life and teachings 222 THE SOCIALIZING PROCESS of Jesus, in that it has tried to personalize its members without socializing them. But the individualistic and hedonistic interpretation of Christianity is giving place to the social view which regards true Christianity as a programme for social development as well as for individ- ual salvation. As evidence of its present value, not only to its indi- vidual members, but to the whole of society, we need but to recall that the moral standards and ideals, the cus- toms and conventions, the traditions and institutions of our civilization are nominally Christian, and to a de- gree exemplify the teachings of the Church. No matter whether a given individual is a ‘church member,’ the so- cial soil from which he sprang, his point of view regard- ing life, has already been fertilized and enriched by the teachings of Christianity. So the Church, like all the other institutions, exerts both a direct and an indirect effect upon each individual, calling him to higher levels of personality, and urging upon him the feeling that he is his brother’s keeper. WHAT IS THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE SECONDARY INSTITUTIONS? Among these secondary social forms which have de- veloped as a resultant of progress along the primary lines just considered are museums, libraries, art galler- ies, the daily and periodical press, concert and lecture courses, and the theater in its various forms. It will not be worth while to show the contribution of each of these to personal and social growth in its various phases; it THE SOCIALIZING AGENCIES 223 will be sufficient to make a general statement covering these facts. Libraries and museums represent the ac- cumulation of past wisdom and models of adjustment; through these one comes into intellectual and practical contact with past generations, gaining an acquaintance with their knowledge, customs, and traditions. The daily and periodical press is the intellectual circulatory system of the present generation; through it public opin- ion and sentiment become possible; through it the pres- ent groups, races, and interests are bound together into the enlarged community, and each may share in the advantages of knowledge which all others possess. Art galleries, in conjunction with libraries, preserve the things which have moved men in the past, which ob- jectify their highest ideals of truth and beauty, and express their concepts of value. The concert and the theater also serve as a partial mode of expressing the uni- versal feeling-life of the race. To come in contact with these is to be linked with mankind, to touch intellectual or emotional elbows with humanity. These institutions, therefore, have a very definite socializing function by furnishing an avenue of expression for social values, and put into the hands of the individual modes of ex- pression which put him in contact with the social forces. WHAT IS MEANT BY THE COMMUNITY, AND WHAT IS ITS SIGNIFICANCE? 1. The Focus of all Social Forces We have already seen that when individuals are thrown together into groups they naturally assume dif- 224 THE SOCIALIZING PROCESS ferent forms of group organization; not that the individ- ual loses his own validity as an entity, but that his personality takes form just in so far as he recognizes and reacts to the social environment. By analogy we may picture the social mind as a macrocosm of the individual mind, in which persons take the place of sen- sations and are organized into meaningful groups; public opinion and social sentiment replace personal beliefs and appreciations, and social interests correspond to per- sonal plans and purposes. In a word, the unity of per- sonality finds its analogue in the social unity of civiliza- tion. This leads to the important fact that the commu- nity is the center in which social consciousness focuses. Here is a smaller or larger group of society subdivided into families who are all under the authority of the State, all cooperating to educate their children, finding expression for their highest ideals in religious service, and all engaging in some form of specialized labor. In a word, all of the social interests, all of the means for co- operatively realizing them, all of the psychical elements and social forms and pressures are gathered together here and exert their influence in building up the person- ality of the members of society. The community is no longer definable by geographical limits, but rather extends to all those persons who are like-minded and like-intentioned. In earlier days, be- fore the era of the telegraph, telephone, daily paper, and rapid transit, geographical location largely determined the limits of the community; the community then con- sisted of the few families gathered about their common THE SOCIALIZING AGENCIES 225 school, church, store, and post-office; but now rapid communication and transit extend the borders of the community until it includes all who have common centers of interest and cooperative modes of attaining these. There is, of course, a certain danger incident to this expansion of community life; namely, that the com- munity will fall apart because of its own size and weight. One of the problems of social economy to-day is the problem of preventing this social disintegration and of conserving community life. 2. Its Psychological Value But inasmuch as all social interests, forms, and pres- sures center there, it is but natural to expect that the community will exert a powerful personalizing and so- cializing influence upon the individual members of soci- ety, as long as community life holds together. Commu- nity life furnishes the large part of the play experience of childhood. The children of each family mingle with those of the others in games and entertainment, indoors and out. They thus drink in the spirit, not only of their own homes, but of all the homes of the community, through this intimate contact. The multifarious pat- terns for the child’s imitation, and the suggestions for his beliefs and actions, are drawn from the community life in which he is immersed. The community also dis- ciplines him with its traditions, customs, and conven- tions, and subjects him to its opinions and sentiments. If it is customary in a given community to observe the Fourth of July with elaborate and expensive pyrotechnic 226 THE SOCIALIZING PROCESS displays, each child is taught one particular phase of the significance of the national holiday. If it does not lose its entire meaning, the day comes to stand for that nar- row form of patriotism which is embodied in militarism, and glorifies the noise and heroism of battle. Except in a negative way the day does not carry its true message of the ideal of democracy, of free institutions, and of liberty of thought and conscience, which a more rational observance would make possible. In like manner, every custom, tradition, and convention, by implication, be- comes the teacher of the new generation, and, while the ideals which are represented by most customs and tradi- tions are being outgrown by the progress of the present, they furnish the background, or the point of departure, for an onward movement of society, and personality. It is better, as a starting-point, that a child have even an inadequate idea of patriotism than none at all. Custom and tradition render the members of society sufficiently like-minded, sufficiently socially integrated so that con- certed action in the direction of progress is possible. From this standpoint, therefore, as the individual — child or adult — submits to these forms and pressures, he is in the process of becoming unified with society, or, in a word, socialized. Through these forces he comes to an understanding of the “customary, the authoritative, the appropriate, and the right,” and later, feeling the need to impress his own selfhood upon society, he wills these same ideas which are then transformed into be- havior. Psycho-social development demands of the individual THE SOCIALIZING AGENCIES 227 that he thus participate in the community life; that he become a part of the social process as found in the home, school, vocation, State, and Church; that he assimilate the elements of the social soil as presented through these agencies; that he react upon society both by learning and making use of its traditions, customs, conventions, opinions, and sentiments. These factors and forces must be accepted by him, not only as so many impressions, but they must be adopted as modes of reaction and expression. The moral standards of a community have great for- mative effect on the individual, first, “by suggestion and unconscious imitation, and later by conscious adjust- ment to their requirements. Saloons, gambling-halls, and dens of vice supply no worthy stimuli to youth, and even if not frequented have a constant tendency, by their very presence in the community, to dull the moral sense” of the individual. From the social standpoint also the individual first learns the meaning of “friend, neighbor, comrade, companion, playfellow, and chum” in his commerce with members of the community; and the socializing effect of these upon him is incalculable. These factors enter the individual’s consciousness not merely as cognitive material, but as determinants of conduct. To be more specific, the personal changes wrought in the individual by pressure of the community are of the three familiar kinds: intellectual, appreciational, and volitional. The community becomes a mental hothouse, and forces development along these lines at a more rapid 228 THE SOCIALIZING PROCESS rate than could be brought about by applying the vari- ous community forces singly; to this end the social soil has been purposely enriched and its temperature nicely adjusted to the needs of the individual, and the whole properly watered and cultivated. The secret of the power of community life upon the individual is that its forces are systematically and con- sciously applied to the oncoming generations. To illus- trate: the knowledge that is of most worth has already been selected on the basis of both experience and ideals; the community through the school has made this selec- tion and offers it in the form of the curriculum. Sample systems of plans and purposes are exhibited by every in- stitution, the youth’s attention being constantly called to them by parent, teacher, preacher, physician, artist, and successful man of affairs. The successful physician or lawyer or business man is a living example of what intelligence, persistence, ambition, and initiative will do, and the young man is constantly invited, both by pre- cept and example, to make use of his psycho-social op- portunities to build a life worth while. In like manner the values of the most inclusive order are repeatedly weighed and measured, in the presence of the youth, by those who have already attained the higher levels of selfhood, that he may see and choose those of ultimate worth. In a word, he is urged to choose the better part, and to pursue through active volition some system of worthy ends. Of course not all members of society, or all classes, are interested in the enterprises which build up personality THE SOCIALIZING AGENCIES 229 and conserve social welfare. There are those whose chief occupation is to secure the means and occasion for self- gratification, for pleasure in the sentient sense; here fall the inconsequentials. These individuals and classes constitute the moral problem of the day, and represent a dead weight which society must carry in its upward struggle. As time goes on, the number in this class, as in all classes of sub-persons, must be diminished. In the interest of the personal development of each the poten- tial personality of all must be brought to its highest possible development. PART III PSYCHO-SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER X EDUCATION WHAT DOES EDUCATION MEAN, FROM THE STANDPOINT OF THE HISTORICAL LIFE ? The story of the individual’s progress from infancy to- ward personality is the story of his education. And we cannot go farther in the analysis of psycho-social devel- opment without a more specific consideration of the ed- ucational process from the standpoint of the historical life. Were we to attempt a definition of education from this standpoint, we should have to hold that education is the process by which the individual develops an his- torical life, by which he is socialized, moralized, and rendered individually and socially efficient. With regard to the first of these processes, we have al- ready distinguished three levels of selfhood: the 'present self, the empirical self, and the personal self. While it may be taken as axiomatic that every one desires self- realization, the question is which self receives the prefer- ence. As far as the child is concerned, we may answer, the present self: that is, the child is naturally interested in and attentive to those things which satisfy his impul- sive and instinctive desires; the present self is the self of immediate desire; and to the child self-realization would mean a stream of such experiences as satisfy from mo- ment to moment these native tendencies. To substitute for the immediate ends of the present 234 PSYCHO-SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT self the more remote ends of the empirical self, and finally the ideal ends of the personal self, is the task of education. As one becomes willing to sacrifice the pres- ent ends for the sake of more remote material welfare, the second level of selfhood is approached. The boy who denies himself the immediate satisfaction which a bag of candy, an ice-cream cone, or attendance upon the “movies” would contribute to the present, and saves his nickels with the purpose of accumulating capital for future needs and investment; or who forsakes his play and engages in some form of work which has significance alone in terms of future plans, is achieving the first great triumph of education and is realizing empirical selfhood. The empirical self is the self of future desires, the self which desires wealth and position because they guarantee fine houses, fine clothes, automobiles, and varied and exciting amusements and pastimes. Its es- sence consists in that system of plans and policies which, when carried out, secure the greatest amount of material comfort and individual well-being. Prudence is its chief virtue; and thinking, appreciation, and volition all be- come means for enhancing self-interest for the future as well as the present. That this level of selfhood is higher than the first cannot be gainsaid; it demands at least a good degree of practical judgment, of appreciation, and of organization. But to accept this as the highest or ultimate self, and consecrate all the energies of life to its realization, is at once the common temptation and the great barrier to psycho-social growth. The development of the inconsequential individual is EDUCATION 235 retarded at this point. His dream of perfect content- ment is some day to be able to sign his name to a check with six ciphers and to command the material satisfac- tions for which this stands. Indeed, some members of this class of non-persons never get beyond the childish level of measuring all values in terms of their power to yield present gratification. But education must instill into the individual a dis- content with empirical selfhood as an end; the empirical self must become a means to personal selfhood instead of an end in itself. Personal selfhood is being attained when one begins to look critically at his present and em- pirical self, and to imagine, conceive, and will what he ought to be in the light of the larger social good. Mate- rial comforts, luxuries, and amusements must cease to be the all-inclusive ends of effort. While these factors do not intrinsically conflict with the interests of personal selfhood, they too frequently becloud the main issues of self-realization, in the same way in which the good al- ways obscures the view of the best. Royce, in his “The Philosophy of Loyalty,” shows that man is at his best and attains his highest moral worth when he gives him- self to some great cause. To ally one’s self with the temperance movement, to throw one’s self heart and soul into the struggle to eliminate graft, to join the forces against child labor; in a word, to be loyal to a sys- tem of ends which would benefit the community, is the only path to complete self-realization. To give one the large view of social and spiritual values, and to render one socially and spiritually dynamic, is the great task of 236 PSYCHO-SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT education. As we have so often insisted, personalization involves socialization. Present and empirical selfhood are both essentially selfish or egotistic, while true per- sonality is altruistic and humanitarian in its attitude and purpose. Personal selfhood no longer accepts social conditions and personal motives and plans just as they are, but desires and works for a transformation in individual and social conditions which might — to the good of all — be- come universal. Personal selfhood is the complete syn- thesis of the highest interpretation and appreciation in voluntary organization, and the whole self consciously devoted to the service of ideal ends. Education as the personalizing process has not been attained until this level of selfhood has been approximated. ‘half-educated people* That comparatively few people reach the full measure of personality as described under the term ‘personal selfhood * can be easily seen by standing on the main cor- ner of the town and scrutinizing the first thousand peo- ple who pass. In their faces you can read the story of their lives, and it is disheartening to discover that at best very many of them are only half-educated. Con- sider also the statistics of school elimination: that ap- proximately fifty per cent of the children drop out of school by the end of the fifth grade; that scarcely ten per cent go to high school; while less than one in a hundred ever goes to college. Not that education is the invariable correlate of going to school, but that a large per cent of EDUCATION 237 those who do go on to high school and college ought to exhibit the characteristics of the educated mind. But even this expectation is not justified, partly, no doubt, because the school has itself failed to accomplish its mis- sion with the individual, but largely also because parents and children seem bent upon securing but one advantage from school, namely, an increased facility for getting on in our materialistic industrial civilization. What they want at the hands of the school is the means of success. For themselves, empirical selfhood and its perquisites is the limit of their ideal. But even this does not tell the story, for those who have the capacity for and the opportunity of college training come out in ever larger proportions with a men- tal frontage to only a part of the world. Let this fact be illustrated from one standpoint by the following quotation from J. E. Clark’s “Education for Successful Living” (pp. 46-47): Four years ago I sent my son here for a college education, because it is my own college, and because I believed that he would receive here a full and satisfactory training in the funda- mentals of manhood. . . . On the day of his graduation I find that the one greatest thing in our education, as I regard it, is wanting in my boy. I refer to an enthusiastic religious convic- tion and life. ... I am not complaining about the fact of new ideas about theology or inspiration or miracles. What I am saying is that I left my son here to acquire the truth about life; and so far as the religious part of him is concerned, your teachers have not only failed to give him any enthusiasm about God and Jesus and the fundamentals of conduct, but they have succeeded in taking away the faith he once had without giving him anything to take its place. Granted that the religious faith he had when he left home was crude and 238 PSYCHO-SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT needed to be enlightened, I would not object to any such en- lightenment, but I do object to his being left without any light at all. Here, then, is a species of education that is only half an education “with the biggest part left out.” WHO, THEN, IS FULLY EDUCATED? K It is impossible to say who is fully educated. There are no objective standards or tests of personality which will indicate just where on a personality scale an individ- ual stands. You can ascertain easily enough who has gone ‘through* school, who has this degree or that, whose name is in “ Who’s Who.” There is also probably some correlation between an individual’s intelligence quotient and his capacity for education, but none of these, nor a combination of them, constitutes a measure of the individual’s education. Many factors are involved in education, and, because for different individuals these factors vary so profoundly, education becomes an indi- vidual and a relative matter — relative to all the factors. It is like the operation of the parallelogram of forces of which physics tells in which the I.Q. represents the original starting-point of the individual, and in which home influence, school influence, the pushes and pulls of State and Church, tradition, custom, convention, public opinion, crowd and mob-mindedness and all the social influences, together with the individual’s own initiative, are the several forces simultaneously playing upon him. The exact road which the individual travels, the rate of travel, and the exact location to which he finally comes EDUCATION 239 will depend upon the relative strength and direction of the forces which are operative. So if the individual in question is one of those sons of fortune who have a high I.Q. to begin with, and whose home surroundings and all his social and spiritual environment, together with his own initiative and efforts are all operating strongly in the same positive direction, you may expect personality of outstanding quality and power, the Beechers, Ab- botts, and Eliots of their generations. Again, if the I.Q. is only average, the same outside influences may result in a relatively equal achievement, although not as great objectively; whereas the individual with high native ability who never gets a vision, and consequently never puts forth effort, remains uneducated even though he floats through college. Finally, unwholesome home in- fluences which pull in the opposite direction from school and church may result in inconsequentiality or worse, even if native ability is first-class. So the appalling un- evenness of the personal development of the members of society can easily enough be accounted for, although the control of the determining factors is so far beyond us at the present. But since none of these factors can be ex- pressed in quantitative terms, there is no standardized test of personality possible by which to express in ob- jective terms the personality of an individual. All that is left, therefore, is to apply a list of adjectives or nouns naming the several characteristics which education ought to develop. This is comparatively easy, and any one can extend the list almost indefinitely. But the first dozen places in such a list ought surely to include the 240 PSYCHO-SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT following: imagination, good judgment, taste, tact, sym- pathy, ideals, purpose, tolerance, open-mindedness, rev- erence, direction, and sociableness. AN ADEQUATE PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE But there is one thing more that must be said by way of characterization of the educated individual, namely, that he has arrived at an adequate philosophy of life. Reference was made in the opening pages of this book to the fact that most people doubtless have some sort of life philosophy, but the trouble is these philosophies are too often inadequate, partial, and inconsistent, not to say cynical and pessimistic. But we cannot insist too strongly upon the necessity of an individual’s arriving at a point of view that shall include in its vista all the phases of the world and all the facts and values of expe- rience. It is a fact, a most deplorable fact, that our col- leges and universities themselves have contributed di- rectly in a measurable degree to the partialness of the education of many supposedly educated people, because in their classrooms and laboratories it is not good form to mention religion or religious values. If these things are mentioned, they must be smuggled in under some other term, or brought to the psychological dissecting-room, there to be killed in the process of analysis. More often they are dismissed with cynical nonchalance, or, what is even worse, simply ignored as if they did not exist. This is a scientific age, and we must be scientific. The reli- gionists themselves have said and repeatedly insisted that there is a warfare on between religion and science, EDUCATION 241 and that both cannot survive. Many of the protagonists of science have taken them at their word, and in the full consciousness of their own triumph in the world of affairs have proceeded to eliminate everything from their work- shop that has any spiritual or mystical flavor. And be- cause of the immense prestige of the scientific method and attitude, our civilization is on the verge of throwing over the whole system of ultimate values in favor of na- tionalistic imperialism, materialism, and Success. How many times have we heard in recent months that civili- zation is facing bankruptcy — not only economic, which is the least serious side — but spiritual bankruptcy? And if this is true it is simply because we have turned our attention from the spiritual values, which in reality are the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, and have become absorbed in the tremendous in- dustrial machine we have just succeeded in putting to- gether. Under the circumstances, therefore, it is an imperti- nence to apologize for insisting upon the fact that, if edu- cation is to be complete, it must be spiritual education. And I come back to the proposition that education de- mands an adequate philosophy of life with the intention of emphasizing specifically the paramount place which one’s spiritual outlook on life has, as an integral part of that which we are pleased to call one’s education. Just what your philosophy of life must be, I cannot dictate, and neither can any one else. It must be the de- liverance of your own interpretation and appreciation. But if it is to take account of all the facts and values of 242 PSYCHO-SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT life it seems to me it must include at least the following propositions as its foundations: That the world in which we live is not capricious, but lawful and orderly. That it is not impersonal and malevolent, but benefi- cent. That the universe is not a blind machine, but a place of purpose and beauty, man’s home in which are all the elements for his happiness.' That if the world seems a hard place, it is because men make it so. That man is not an accident or an incident on a mole- cule of star dust, but the final term in the mighty creative process, made in the image of God Himself. That he has within his self-conscious mind the capac- ity to understand his world, appreciate its beauty, and participate with its Creator in its further devel- opment. That no social system is right which does not nurture personality in all, and that the “power that makes for righteousness” is against a system that does not foster personality. That human suffering en masse is unnecessary, and that human society can be reconstructed so as to become a kingdom of heaven on earth. That the supreme achievement of personality is to put one’s self in conscious harmony with the Will that governs the universe; and that this is happiness. Such a philosophy of life issues in nothing more nor EDUCATION 243 less than a vital and dynamic Faith. Faith turns out to be the supreme function of education. But it must be an enlightened faith; blind credulity will not answer: faith in the constancy of the universe itself; faith in one’s self, in other people and in God; faith that the universe of which these are the factors is a moral order, and that it is in process of progressively realizing the divine pur- pose in the mind of the Absolute Person, God. Faith is the conviction that the ideal values of person- ality can be realized. It involves the conviction that the natural order is a means to personal progress for one’s self and for society; that an understanding of the natural world in order that it shall be controlled and utilized is a conditioning factor in personal growth; that progress is possible only when there is an ideal objective, and only as men appreciate the ultimate values of truth, goodness, beauty, friendship, and love, and supremely desire them; that men can so shape their group life as mutually to as- sist each other in the achievement of all these values, and that cooperation is the greatest hastener of progress; that man can utilize the power of the divine personality in his effort for perfection. But faith is venture as well as conviction. It is an act of volition as well as of interpretation and appreciation. It demands that one actually start operations on the as- sumptions that his beliefs and convictions are true to reality. No transaction is possible as long as the mer- chant insists that he will give the loaf to the customer as soon as he has the money in his hand, and not before; while the customer asserts that he will turn over the 244 PSYCHO-SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT money as soon as the loaf is in his hand, and no sooner. Venture is required on both sides; both the loaf and the money must be laid out on the counter in mutual con- fidence. Similarly no adjustment between capital and labor will be possible as long as the employer insists that he must have demonstration of the fair-mindedness and good-will of employees before he will make any conces- sion, while the employee stoutly makes his uncondi- tional demands. The whole problem of labor and capital at the present moment is psychological, not economic, or political. It is first a question of arriving at a set- tled conviction by both parties that personal values for all are indeed supreme, and the ones to be preferred; and, second, a venture in good-will on the part of both sides. No one will wish to underestimate the important role in education of the special knowledge, skill, and tech- nique which now so universally consume the teaching time and effort of our universities and colleges. But the institution which does not supplement this with a philosophy of life as the groundwork for a vital faith can lay no claim to giving a full education. Neither can a youth who may have gone through the forms of edu- cation and acquired the knowledge, skill, and technique of some profession or prevocational course claim to be educated, unless at the same time there has grown up in his mind a constructive philosophy of life, and unless he finds in his heart an abiding faith with which he can face life. Anything short of this is but half-education with the important half omitted. EDUCATION 245 THE SCHOOL AS A FACTOR IN EDUCATION No argument is necessary to show that the school ought to be and is one of the greatest factors in educa- tion. Whether it is the greatest or not depends upon the circumstances surrounding the individual child. Whether it is as great a factor as it ought to be is also a question. This is not the place, though, to attempt a criticism of the school, but it will be worth while to show what the individual has the right to expect from the school in the interest of personality. Whether the school does minister to these needs or not is a question of fact which we are under no obligation to establish. In terms of the definition of education suggested at the first of this chapter, the school is the agency which society has developed and consecrated to the task of carrying forward the personalizing process, the socializ- ing process, the moralizing process, in the individual, and to rendering him efficient. In connection with the first of these processes, development of interpretation, appreciation, and organization are necessary phases. It will be admitted, I suppose, that, of these three phases, the first has actually received the greatest atten- tion at the hands of the school, and it needs no argument to convince people that the gaining of knowledge and the discipline secured in its acquisition are valuable ele- ments in education. What we do need to emphasize here, though, is the necessity of accurate teleological thinking. But since this is involved in both appreciation and organization of conduct, let us consider it in relation to those processes. 246 PSYCHO-SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT 1. Appreciation One must believe that the great majority of the mem- bers of society have no definite convictions as to any of the values which are conventionally held; they are will- ing to accept at second hand the conventional attitude as to what is beautiful or true or good. But real educa- tion demands that an individual have a reflective basis for his faiths, beliefs, and sentiments. The school should present value-situations, reaction to which calls forth judgments of value. This offers peculiar difficulties, es- pecially under the present curriculum, and just how suc- cessful the schools have been in this particular we must leave it to the experts to say. But the kind of question in which we are interested is: How can the school really instill the principle that in the world at large cooperation and mutual helpfulness are prime virtues, while in its own processes it makes a crime of this kind of conduct? How can it lead the pupil adequately to appreciate the necessity and advantages of self-government, when it is monarchical in form? How can it teach the child prop- erly to evaluate independence of thought, when it em- phasizes reproductive memory? Can the school give the child a proper appreciation of morality without present- ing him with concrete and normal moral situations? Can it give him wholesome reverence for truth without teaching him to think? The only basis upon which a proper appreciation of the great values of life can be erected is the twofold prin- ciple of the development of the ability of teleological think- ing and of making school life reproduce the community life. EDUCATION 247 What is desired from the standpoint of appreciation is an interest in all forms of art — literature, painting, music, etc. — and of all values which contribute rich- ness and abundance of life. The point is that these factors must permeate the school as an atmosphere; they must come in from the community as the air comes in from out of doors. Too much dissection of the forms of art is fatal; analysis is valuable only in so far as art involves technique and as a knowledge of technique adds to appreciation. To this extent all appreciation rests upon the ability to think; but it also rests upon the subtler ability to ‘sense/ and to be affected by, beauty and truth and goodness and all the fundamental values of life. You cannot really teach an individual to skate or play tennis; the best you can do is to describe to him the technique, and perhaps demonstrate your meaning. He must then experience the kinsesthesis himself, and be guided in his progress by the ‘feel’ of the act in his own muscles. Similarly in ap- preciation: you cannot teach the individual to appreci- ate. You can only set the object of appreciation before him, and perhaps give him some insight into the tech- nique governing its production, and leave it to him, trusting that his own humanity and his own inner- feeling-apparatus will cause him to react to it as do you. It is for this reason that the schoolroom so much needs to reproduce the social environment; otherwise there is the danger that no reaction at all will occur, or, worse, that a pseudo-appreciation — a sentimentalism — will take the place of a vital and lasting feeling for values. 248 .1 PSYCHO-SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT 2. Conduct Conduct inconsistent with one’s profession, “going off half-cocked,” and inability to execute in intelligible form one’s ideas and beliefs, are all symptoms of defec- tive education. The only way in which a child can be evolved into a consistent, purposeful person is that from some source he shall acquire the ability to think, evalu- ate, and finally desire and will the things valued. Every- body has desires, but the trouble is the desires are so often conflicting in nature; some are the desires of the present self, some of the empirical self, and perchance some of the personal self. The educated man — the man of personality — has learned to inhibit the first two in order that the last may unfold, mature, and pollenize the fruit of his labor. The problem is, therefore, to secure the entertainment in the pupil’s mind of these higher de- sires, and, in conjunction with them, suggestions as to methods of attainment, to the end that life may be vo- litionalized and rendered efficient. Work is the means through which not only the inhibi- tion of impulses and instincts is secured, but through which the positive aspect of organization is produced. The supreme task of the school is to arouse the motive and give the technique for this. THE SCHOOL AS A SOCIALIZING AGENT But the school cannot stop with the effort to bring the historical life to birth; it must consciously plan for social- ization as well. We have already seen that mind has a social origin, and can develop only in a social soil. EDUCATION 249 To the vision of the best educators of our day the school must present a miniature of society, not only in its present organization, but as it ought to be. This is a vision which has as yet not been thoroughly worked out into actuality, but one toward which progress is daily made. While the school is itself a special institution, its fun- damental purpose is to bring children to psycho-social maturity; and it can do this only as it reproduces, on smaller scale, the social process which goes on outside. The school must not only reveal to children what they must think and feel and do when they get out into the community; but it must provide the environment neces- sary to make them think, feel, and do now as they should when they are mature. If children are thus to pre-live a social life, the school must be a replica of the larger community of which it is a part. To be more specific, the school must offer a community life in which that spirit of obedience and mutual helpful- ness which is the essence of home atmosphere is enlarged and socialized. No blind obedience to mere authority is demanded by the school, but obedience grounded upon a growing appreciation of the rationality of conformity to the social will. The vocation as a social institution ought also to find its replica in the school. The essential message of the political economist is that the industry, the commerce, and the service of the world are based upon the princi- ples of good faith, conscious interdependence, and diver- sified labor. And the school ought to mirror these ele- 250 PSYCHO-SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT mental principles of social organization, so that children might become habituated to them, and learn to use them in the ordering of their own conduct. The corner-stones of our political life are a deep re- spect for justice and the capacity for self-government. Here again the school ought to offer opportunity for practice-thinking and action. The personal and social qualities essential to good pupilship ought to be the same as for good citizenship, and the school ought to be so or- ganized in its disciplinary function as to demand these qualities. Pupil government is usually regarded as cor- rect in theory, but impracticable. There is no denying the fact that good order and discipline of a kind are more easily secured in the schoolroom by the exercise of im- mediate authority on the part of school officials, but in taking this path of least resistance the school is neglect- ing one of its cardinal duties. While it is placing a heavy demand upon school authorities to ask them to give the thought and persistent attention which are needed to devise a proper system of school government, in which pupils shall cooperate with officials in guarding the best interests of the school community, and to keep the sys- tem working, yet to do anything less than this is to take the path of least resistance regardless of obligation. Finally, as the by-product of its social organization, the school should instill into the child those social ideals of brotherly love and human service for which the Church stands. The duty of the school is not to teach religion, but the obligation of reflecting in its represent- ative life the Christian spirit which the Church is at- EDUCATION 251 tempting to interpret and infuse into social organization nevertheless devolves upon the school. The socialization of the child is dependent, then, not alone upon the subject-matter offered in the curriculum, but upon the faithfulness with which the school spirit epitomizes the community life and organization. Of course, the child has already acquired much experi- ence in the home, from the State — at least, the visible machinery of government — from the vocation as far as his own family is concerned with it, and perhaps from the Church through the Sunday School, when he enters school. But to him these experiences are as yet isolated facts; there is as yet no wholeness in life to his percep- tion; he has no single point of view from which to see the world-process in perspective and in its relative values. The business of the school should be to take this experi- ence as gained from the different sources, supplement it by its own curriculum, and help the child to weave the whole into a systematic picture of the psycho-social life. One cause of the social maladjustment of the present is the fact that men go through life with a half-dozen points of view instead of a single point of view, so that life seems an unending series of conflicting ends; they still live a compartmental life as they did in childhood. If the school could keep the child through the adolescent period, it could in a very large degree replace the many- faceted vision, common to society, with a binocular, self-accommodating vision, and much of the social diffi- culty would disappear as a result. For those who pass through the high school this ought to be regarded as an attainable goal. CHAPTER XI THE VOCATION WHAT IS MEANT BY THE VOCATION ? In the chapter on “The Socializing Agencies” the voca- tion was defined as the diversified and organized labor of man. Six grand divisions of this labor may be discerned, the classification being made on the basis of the kinds of ends achieved. These divisions are: industry, which deals with the raw materials of wealth, converting them into usable forms; business, which distributes these goods to the users; technological pursuits, which harness the laws of nature so that they do man’s bidding in cre- ating satisfactions; scientific, which discovers the laws which may thus be harnessed; professional service, which ministers to the physical, mental, moral, and spiritual needs of men as they labor; and artistic pursuits, which re-create and inspire men.1 Within each of these grand divisions, in turn, are al- most countless subdivisions of concrete types of labor, each of which contributes some special part to the production of the commodities or service which satisfy human needs. The point at which the individual member of society comes into contact with the vocation is his occupation, his specialized form of labor. Each of the many sub- types of labor just mentioned is participated in by great numbers of men, and as each individual chooses and en- 1 Compare Betts, G. H.: The Social Principles of Education, chap. vi. THE VOCATION 253 ters his occupation, he becomes a part of the social in- stitution of which his chosen occupation is a part. Work occupies a dominant part of the life of every normal adult, and its psycho-social influence upon him is com- mensurate with the time and attention it receives at his hands. What the school is to the child, the vocation is to the adult, and we may safely assert that no one can come to personal and social maturity who does not find his place in the vocations, and thus come into vital contact with society under this form of organization. This two- fold influence of the vocation upon the individual — the personalizing and the socializing — deserves further analysis. HOW DOES WORK AFFECT PERSONALITY ? 1. It should be a large factor in development “Man works for two very good and sufficient reasons: first, because he has to, and second, because he desires to.,, Necessity drives him to work, because “he who will not work may not eat.” Also, “man is too great to be satisfied with mere dawdling or the expenditure of his powers on the trivial and inconsequent. He is at his best only when some great purpose demands all his energies in fruitful toil. All human progress rests on toil and sac- rifice. Work has been the greatest formative influence in man’s evolution; it is the means by which he has created civilization.” 1 The second one of these reasons is the one we wish to emphasize here, namely, that work is a psychological as well as an economic necessity. 1 Betts, G. H.: Social Principles of Education, p. 95 ff. 254 PSYCHO-SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT The field in which a man develops and realizes that system of ends and purposes which is central to his per- sonality is the field of his daily work. For example, the young physician just out of medical school has already planned the general direction of his life, and carries in ideal construction the image of the man he would like to be. This ideal he transforms into actuality through per- sistent effort in his profession. He has constant need of new information in order to meet the growing problems of his profession; he reads, attends conferences and con- ventions, and is always on the alert for information which will enable him to be more efficient in his profes- sion. In attempting thus to meet the situation, he ex- periences as decided a mental growth as the schoolboy. He grows in his profession, and in so doing he becomes a bigger man intellectually. But his growth is not limited to the intellectual. As he progresses in this direction, he gets new insight into the significance of his work; he discovers anew the far- reaching value of it in terms of human welfare, both in- dividual and social. His sympathies enlarge, and he dreams of a hygienic Utopia in which disease and suffer- ing shall be reduced to the minimum, and human values raised to their highest power. He looks with new eyes upon all the attainments of the race, whether of science, art, or institution. On the volitional side, he works with new energy and enthusiasm; his increased knowledge be- comes wisdom, and his appreciation is transformed into benevolence. Through work he grows in his profession, and through professional growth he becomes a better and THE VOCATION 255 bigger man, a saner, wiser, and more courageous person whose life is increasingly polarized about an ideal and whose conduct is in the service of a system of related ends. Of course, it is possible for the physician to be a time-server and a drudge; but such a man has missed the thing that makes life most worth living. In like manner, all work which is performed in the proper spirit has a steadying, enlarging, polarizing effect upon the worker; it educates him — leads him out — by bringing him to a fuller self-consciousness and feeling of dignity, and by linking him more firmly to the society of which he is a part. Work is a human necessity, not only as a means to physical existence, but for mental, social, and spiritual growth and development. The ends worked for constitute a considerable portion of that “bright band of a fixed policy” which is central to personal development: they are the projected images of one’s future self, the pursuit of which is the weaving of the historical life. A man’s profession, a man’s busi- ness, a man’s trade, thus becomes the core about which are wrapped all the interests of life, and personality is magnetic and dynamic just in proportion to the value and definiteness of the ends, and to the efficiency with which they are pursued. I am even willing to venture the sweeping statement that the individual who has no chosen vocation has not entered upon the road to personality. This may at first seem a hard saying, when we remember the compara- tively large number of people who have the means of livelihood already provided and are not obliged to 256 PSYCHO-SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT “work for a living.” There are the sons and daughters of wealthy men, and others who through inheritance are permanently provided with a competence, who may or may not be engaged in useful employment, or have given themselves to a worthy cause. But it is just these who do not ally themselves with a cause, but squander time and money upon selfish indulgences, that constitute in large part the class of inconsequen- tials. The vocational field is broad, including artistic and philanthropic pursuits, as well as professional, tech- nical, scientific, commercial, and industrial, and the in- dividual who has not the interest and initiative to find a permanent and constructive life work somewhere along the line is not deserving of the name person. In addition to the characteristics of personality already mentioned, there is another which is as fundamental as any. Negatively stated, no one who is habitually self-centered can rise to the full dignity of personality. This is one of the fatal defects of the inconsequential in- dividual; positively stated, every candidate for person- ality must have become socialized and must manifest his socialness of outlook through efficient and construc- tive work. But can this statement of the value of work be recon- ciled with the specialized character of modern labor? It would appear at first sight that the high degree of specialization demanded by the modern vocation would tend toward narrowness in knowledge, point of view, at- titude, appreciation, and technical ability. And so it does, in some fields; just in proportion to the mechanical- THE VOCATION 257 ness of the work does it have this narrowing and deaden- ing effect. Thus the man who operates a machine that cuts threads on three-eighths-inch bolts eight hours a day, day after day and month after month, can secure little personal development from his labor. Here is another reason why you see so many half-educated people. This is also one of the most pressing social and moral problems of the day, the problem, namely, of how to humanize in- dustry and make a place in it for a man to express him- self in his work and thus find in it the joy of creative ac- tivity. Growth in personality can come about through work just in so far as one is at liberty to exercise one’s own initiative in planning and executing it. From this it is clear that, aside from the administrative offices in in- dustry and business, these divisions of the vocation have little to offer in the way of personal development, except that there is always the possibility of a man’s ‘ working up’ to these offices. The other four divisions of the vocation, however, offer much larger scope for personal initiative in the planning and execution of the work involved, which makes them far more attractive from the standpoint of personal progress. How they function in this respect is well told by H. W. Wright: 1 Achievement through the exercise of some special ability in the individual does not hinder, but rather encourages, the de- velopment of his other powers, provided this ability prepon- derates in his nature. So far from checking and frustrating the expression of his other capacities, the continued and successful use of this, his special talent, is the most effectual, yes, the 1 Self-Realization, p. 366. 258 PSYCHO-SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT only, method of enlivening and inspiring his whole nature, so that all his powers may function at their maximum of effi- ciency. The man who, for example, has marked musical gifts will not have his intellectual development cut short or his practical efficiency diminished by achievement in the line of his distinctive ability. On the contrary, without the stimulus of this achievement which his nature demands, his powers of thought will languish, his capacity for action will be deadened, and his whole personality be dwarfed and stunted; while, on the other hand, if his special talent be given the opportunity for expression, his intellectual perceptions are quickened, his technical skill increased, and his whole nature is vitalized and expanded. This does not mean that his intellectual and tech- nical development will equal his aesthetic achievement; but that inequality is rooted in his own nature, and to destroy it would be to destroy the proportions of his own individuality. The case is the same if the exceptional ability is of the intellec- tual or practical type rather than of the aesthetic. . . . Achieve- ment is consequently not to be regarded as the enemy of cul- ture. As culture is the culmination of individual development, so achievement is the apex and crown of culture, its very pinnacle, where the individual attains that triumphant mas- tery of objective conditions, that complete self-possession for which the will that is fundamental within him is ever yearning. From this it is evident that the problem is resolved into the practical question of insuring the highest degree of efficiency in the work of each person, by helping him find his place in the social process, in the first place, and, in the second place, by giving him the proper training to the end that he may use his native capacities to the greatest advantage. 2. Becoming efficient is a means of personal development The psychological nature of efficiency — a term which THE VOCATION 259 has fallen into disrepute, but one which nevertheless car- ries an important psychological meaning — involves a nice harmony and balance between the three phases of consciousness: interpretation, appreciation, and adjust- ment. An example will make the situation clear: A plumber’s apprentice may have acquired a certain skill in handling tools; he maybe able to cut pipe, cut threads, and make the various connections with sufficient accu- racy. He may even be competent to go out and do the common kinds of repairing. But if he is presented with a new situation, if the difficulty is unlike any he has met before, he is at a total loss. Suppose he is asked to set up and connect a new type of water-heater; he has the nec- essary manual skill and can make the necessary practical judgments, if some one will show him how it works. But he is lacking in the ability to perform conceptual judg- ments: that is, the ability to interpret in terms of princi- ples and laws. He is ignorant concerning the physical principles underlying the circulation of water and the ef- fect of heat upon this; and if he proceeds at all it is by the trial-and-error method, and at best his work is waste- ful and will most likely have to be done over. He might even have the empirical knowledge necessary to set up the heater, having seen it done at a previous time. But unless he knows the theory of it, unless he knows the principles which govern its operation, he is not an effi- cient workman. Efficiency demands that a man be able not only to meet the common ordinary run of circum- stances, but the unusual and extraordinary as well: he must know not only the what and the how, but the why. 260 PSYCHO-SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT The illustration shows the dependence of efficiency upon interpretation. It indicates how vitally the working-out of a life plan may depend upon accurate ex- planatory thinking. But it can be shown also that ap- preciation and volition are equally as fundamental as in- terpretative capacity. For example, efficiency of the highest degree demands that a man put something of ar- tistic appreciation into his work; that he know a good piece of work from a poor one; and that he have pride in performing his work with intelligence, neatness, and dis- patch. If you have a door to be hung, you will gladly employ a carpenter who looks upon his work with eyes of appreciation, at twice the figure for which a time- server and a bungler could be had. This is the measure of your valuation of appreciation in efficiency. In like manner, since volition is thought and apprecia- tion made dynamic, efficiency demands development, not only of understanding, and skill through habit, but initiative, steadiness, and enthusiasm which are the fruits of a developed will. There is the ‘typewriter type of mind ’ — the product partly of heredity, but chiefly of defective training — which is accurate to the last de- tail, sufficiently informed with fact, and willingly dis- posed, but which is ineffective and useless unless pushed and played upon by other persons. Having been explic- itly shown or directed as to the sequence of steps in the task to be performed, he can be relied upon to carry out the assignment with precision, but is powerless to make an approach to the work in an independent way, or to organize his own procedure. If the plumber’s apprentice THE VOCATION 261 is of this type, if he must be directed in the minutiae of his work, or goaded to his task, he is an inefficient worker. Every candidate for personality must discipline himself in these directions. It is an empirical fact that the efficient man is the one with personality, and one who expresses his personality in his work. From the standpoint of self-realization, the mental destitution of the inefficient is a fact supremely to be deplored. Not only do they suffer lack of proper food, clothing, and housing, which in itself is serious enough, but the mental and spiritual poverty which are almost universally incident to inefficiency is a still more serious condition. The means by which personality may be de- veloped are, without exception, social products which must be paid for by efficient labor, or its equivalent. If a family must spend all of its income for food, fuel, rent, clothing, and the other necessities of physical life, there is no surplus for the satisfactions of the higher mental, social, and spiritual desires; and the result is arrested devolepment in all — including parents and children. Books, papers, magazines, pictures, and household dec- orations, music, lectures, concerts, church attendance, and education, are some of the means which are abso- lutely necessary for the intellectual, emotional, and voli- tional development which transforms mere individuality into personality. The economic inefficients have not the means to procure these necessities, and the hand-to- mouth existence which they endure is the objective sign of their mental, spiritual, and social dwarfing. Large numbers of both rich and poor drift into the ‘inconse- 262 PSYCHO-SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT quential ’ class of society, even if they do not sink to the level of criminal or pauper, because they have never had the training and discipline which preparation for effi- cient work provides. The ‘jack of all trades,’ who con- tinually moves on from one ‘job’ to another, is a case in point. Even if well-intentioned, his personality never gets developed because all of his resources are consumed in the cyclic satisfaction of his bodily demands. SELECTION OF PROPER WORK There is one conditioning factor in the psycho-social value of work which deserves special mention; namely, the necessity of each individual’s finding his proper place in the vocational institution. If a man does not like his work, or if he is unfitted for it because of some mental or physical characteristic, he cannot be expected to be an efficient worker, or to find in his work that means of growth and development which it should af- ford him. At the present time there are three difficulties which stand in the way of a given individual’s finding his proper work. “In the first place, young people know very little about themselves and their abilities. When the day comes on which they discover their real strong points and weaknesses, it is often too late.” It is one of the tragedies of life that a young man must choose his life work at a time when he knows himself and the envi- ronment least, and when he has not the experience upon which to base a sound judgment upon such an important matter. And to make matters more difficult, “the entire THE VOCATION 263 scheme of education gives to the individual little chance to find himself.” A second difficulty is “ the fact that the individual usually knows only the most external condi- tions of the vocations from which he chooses. The most essential requisite for a truly perfect adaptation, namely, a real analysis of the vocational demands with reference to the desirable personal qualities, is so far not in exist- ence.” The third difficulty is the “abundance of trivial chance influences which become decisive in the choice of a vocation.... The choice of a vocation, determined by fugitive whims and chance fancies, by mere imitation, by a hope for quick earnings, by irresponsible recom- mendations, or by mere laziness, has no internal reason or excuse. Illusory ideas as to the prospects of a career, moreover, often falsify the whole vista; and if we con- sider all this, we can hardly be surprised that our total result is in many respects hardly better than if every- thing were left entirely to accident.” 1 The psychological ideal with regard to the problem is that some means should be at hand by which each indi- vidual might be tested and analyzed, and on the basis of the analysis directed into that vocation for which his na- tive capacities and previous training fit him. Or, better, rather than dictate to him what he must do, it should put him in possession of the facts regarding himself, so that he may choose intelligently and wisely. Experi- mental psychology offers a method which, when prop- erly developed and applied, will attempt to “show how much of one trait is combined in a special person with 1 MUnsterberg, H.: Psychology and Industrial Efficiency, p. 35. 264 PSYCHO-SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT how much of another, to show exactly what special form of a general trait is actually present, and, in short, to af- ford a kind of mental photography,”1 in the case of the different individuals of society. And we may dare fore- cast the time when applied psychology will not only be able to advise the individual as to what he is best fitted to do, but will also put at the disposal of the different professions, trades, and arts “adequate methods for as- certaining certain facts which it is important for them to know ” regarding individual persons. The movement for vocational guidance offers the nearest approach to an application of individual psy- chology that has yet been devised. While it is still in its infancy as an applied science, it holds the promise of the needed relief from chance selection of life work. Miin- sterberg has said that there are two important things which must be done before vocational guidance can really accomplish what it has set out to accomplish. First, it is necessary to analyze with great exactness the several hundred different vocational lines, to determine just what mental capacities are required in their per- formance. For example, what mental capacities are nec- essary for the efficient performance of the duties of tele- phone service? Is desultory memory preferable to log- ical; does practical judgment have an advantage over conceptual; is clear reasoning demanded; is a choleric temperament superior to a melancholic; is the motor- reaction type more desirable than the sensory? These and other questions relative to the type of individual 1 Angell, J. R.: Chapters from Modern Psychology, p. 156. THE VOCATION 265 who is needed in the performance of a certain kind of work, if answered, would materially assist young people in the selection of suitable work, provided corresponding means were available whereby each one might know with certainty what his own aptitudes are. This leads to the second essential test. In order to render the first ex- perimental contributions useful, it would be imperative to develop a better means of analysis of personal traits and dispositions of those who are candidates for posi- tions. In order to accomplish this, rigid experimental tests must supplant the questionnaire and crude hit-and- miss methods which have been used in the beginnings of vocational guidance practice. While we are yet very far from having reduced vocational guidance in its twofold aspect to the status of an exact science, yet the first nec- essary step has already been taken in stating the prob- lem and outlining the task more clearly. HOW DOES WORK TEND TO SOCIALIZE THE INDIVIDUAL? Besides the personalizing value of work which we have been considering, work also has its socializing value. This has already been referred to under the “Socializing Value of the Vocation,” on page 217, but it demands further elaboration here. Having been fostered and nurtured by society from birth, having profited by the knowledge the past genera- tions have wrought out, the values they have discovered and immortalized, the volitions they have objectified, and by the ministration of the present, each individual 266 PSYCHO-SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT owes a debt of obligation in return. This debt can best be discharged, at least in part, by intelligent and effi- cient labor in cooperation with other individuals all of whom are working for common ends. To the extent, therefore, to which a man maintains the attitude of conscious cooperation with organized so- ciety, as he attends to his daily task, is he becoming socialized, and incidentally is he contributing to social progress. The organic character of the relation between personality and society demands that each individual shall strive to become an efficient laborer, not merely as a means to self-advancement, but as a contribution to be made to the social good. At the hand of every one is re- quired socialized work, as a social and moral duty. But in the willing discharge of this duty his own social de- velopment is assured. Reference has already been made to this fact that reaction is one of the determining fac- tors in the establishment of an attitude. One means of insuring a social attitude is to engage in socially con- structive labor, bearing in mind that it is part and parcel of an inclusive social process. While we cannot pretend that all lines of endeavor offer the same degree of oppor- tunity for personal and social growth, yet all work has a social reference and puts into the hands of every one the means for social serviceability. From the social stand- point also there are different degrees of serviceability; indeed, there are kinds of work which when viewed in the light of ultimate social welfare are destructive; such, for example, as the labor that goes into the manufacture of alcoholic liquors, and which, in the large sense, cannot THE VOCATION 267 lay claim to social efficiency. For the most part, though, the work of the world is in greater or lesser degree socially constructive, ministering to the needs of human person- ality, and contributing to personal and social progress. The two great ends of mortality are self-realization and social service, the point to be emphasized here being that every man’s work ought to be a species of social service. Society has the right to expect that the mason, the carpenter, the clerk, or the teacher shall do with ac- curacy, dispatch, and intelligence the tasks assigned to him. If he ‘soldiers’ away time, or bungles in the work at which he has been set, society has to pay not only for the poor work, but for the time required to do the thing over, or it pays both for the time legitimately required plus the wasted time, and in either case it is the loser. By virtue of the high degree of specialization of modern society, every man’s efficiency depends upon the effi- ciency of all others who are doing any part of the same complex task. So that when any man does efficiently and intelligently his particular part he is at the same time contributing to the efficiency, and therefore the welfare, of every one else, and is accordingly rendering them a signal service. AVOCATION 1. What value has on avocation to a 'person? By avocation is meant that system of activities or in- terests to which an individual turns during his leisure hours. The usual order under modern vocational organ- ization is to allot certain hours of the day to the steady 268 PSYCHO-SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT pursuit of one’s occupational labor, allowing other defi- nite periods during the day to be employed as the indi- vidual desires. The temptation is to employ this leisure time in the unprofitable ways of mere amusement if not in positively detrimental self-indulgence. Indeed, one of the largest moral problems of the day centers in the use which large classes of society (the inconsequentials) make of their leisure time. Too frequently it is used wholly in the interest of impulsive and instinctive enjoy- ment, and accordingly cuts across the development of personality. Still further, “many persons, to whom such low forms of amusement would be repellent, fail, never- theless, to employ their leisure from work in such a way as to restore reduced physical and mental power. It is entirely possible for diversions, wholly innocent in them- selves so far as moral wrong is concerned, to result in a drain upon nervous energy or a dissatisfaction with the routine of daily work, and thereby prove a hindrance instead of a help to the individual.” 1 But we are particularly interested at this point in the potentiality of leisure as a positive developmental factor. Every individual ought to have a system of worthy interests and activities which are not only enjoyable, but which also re-create and reconstruct his personal efficiencies. In other words, he should have an avo- cation. The surplus money earned by increased effi- ciency must procure the means which, when properly used during leisure, result in growth and development. Leisure should be not only a time of recreation, but of 1 Betts, G. H.: Social Principles of Education, p. 114. THE VOCATION 269 creation. We sometimes get the idea that education is a matter limited to childhood, and that, once mature, the period of development is past. Nothing could be farther from the ideal. Growth, development, mental, social, and spiritual enlargement ought to go on continually till the faculties begin to fail in old age. The advantage of proper reading has been exploited so often that repeti- tion here is unnecessary. But from the psychological standpoint, reading offers the best possible method of in- creasing one’s general as well as special knowledge, of widening one’s interests in the appreciation of the best that men have thought and felt and done in the past, of widening one’s sympathies through an increased under- standing of the social process, of gaining a deeper philos- ophy of life, and a renewed enthusiasm for living. What is true of reading is scarcely less true of attendance upon church, lectures, recitals, and social intercourse. The air of refinement, the atmosphere of culture, the sense of the perfect, the love of the ideal, belong with the essential characterization of the educated person. They are the natural birthright of the human being, and neither economic op- portunity nor material prosperity nor unsesthetic education should steal away these unmarketable but priceless posses- sions from the soul of man.1 But neither should the lack of economic opportunity and material prosperity keep men from contact with the things which make for this mental development. It is for this reason that efficiency is demanded. Neither should efficiency nor economic opportunity nor material 1 Horne, H. II.: The Philosophy of Education, p. 236. 270 PSYCHO-SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT prosperity be made ends in themselves; they must be- come means in a larger system of ends. Every potential person needs early to learn the psychological signifi- cance of putting first things first. This does not imply an impractical agony for ‘cul- ture/ a soulful reverence for ‘art for art’s sake/ nor yet an anaemic dilettantism; it means, on the contrary, a vigorous work-and-play life in which work is shot through and through with intelligence and purpose, and in which there is red-blooded amusement together with mentally stimulating occupation for the remainder of the leisure hours. 2. Social Significance But one’s avocation should not only include activities which re-create the self; it should also include activities and interests which bring one into contact with other and larger social groups and which are socially construc- tive. In other words, the avocation should also possess a socializing value for the individual. The aspect of efficiency which most needs emphasis in these days of high pressure is that which springs from wide public interest — interest in the multiplicity of social problems which arise in connection with the dif- ferent aspects of institutional life. A man may be very individually efficient and be self-centered and unsym- pathetic; but to be socially efficient, he must have acquired an habitual attitude of open-mindedness and cooperation. The members of society ought to cooper- ate in the righting of social maladjustments as nicely as THE VOCATION 271 they do in making a loaf of bread or manufacturing a threshing-machine. In attempting to rid society of the ‘social evil,’ which every one admits is terribly wrong, all the good people of the community ought to work un- der as complete a social organization as is found in the Associated Press. This would require a tolerance, a sym- pathy, and a willingness to sacrifice individual opinion for the sake of unity in action which is not yet manifest in voluntary corporate activities. This kind of social efficiency demands tact, and the ability not only to work people, but to work with people. The deeper philosophy of this lies in the fact that the values which satisfy our individual life are not the only values we recognize. Or, to put it more truly, the values which we appreciate and work for we acknowledge as ac- tuating the life of every other person. But this is also the acknowledgment that the ends for which we strive are social ends. They are ends which can be achieved only as large numbers of individuals make the pursuit of them their steady avocation. Truth, beauty, goodness, and religious values are such ends; one wills to know the truth, or to act uprightly, not solely for his own personal benefit, but because truth and morality have ultimate worth in themselves. If I see a man in danger, I will to help him, not because of personal benefit, but because of that factor of greater worth, namely, the common re- spect for human life; and, if I take the risk, or make a sacrifice of personal well-being, it is in the light of the greater worth of the social value. The great need for this brand of socialized labor may 272 PSYCHO-SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT be emphasized by mentioning some of the kinds of so- cial maladjustments in which the ends of morality are at present defeated. The following are but typical of hun- dreds of similar situations in which the higher type of socialized cooperation is needed. Centering in the home as an institution is the divorce evil with its many causes. Without exaggeration we may assert that anything which threatens the sanctity of the home is undermining the foundations of personality and the integrity of soci- ety; and a glance at the statistics regarding divorce will convince any one that here is a serious and growing mal- adjustment. The whole question of the end and methods of education is under review, and there is a correspond- ing feeling in the minds of many students of sociology that inadequate education is the cause of much of the crime, poverty, and immorality which weigh society down. Under the head of the vocation there is an almost unending list of maladjustments. Among them are capital and labor troubles, child labor, the problem of woman labor, the problem of wages, unemployment, labor unions, and so forth. Besides these, as a result of the economic pressure, we face the stern fact that many individuals are driven out “in search of the means of subsistence before their faculties have had development or training”; that others are “prevented from discov- ering what their distinctive abilities are”; and that many more are prevented from entering those vocations which by all the tests of preference and adaptability they are best fitted to follow. In addition to these eco- nomic problems which challenge the best judgment and THE VOCATION 273 wisest volitions of every socially minded individual, the State also presents a long list of problems, such as graft, administrative inadequacy, crime, immigration, taxa- tion, and the like; while the Church has in large measure failed to make use of its tremendous power as an instru- ment for social righteousness, and has largely dissipated its energies in meaningless doctrinal strife. The existence of these lesions in the social tissue calls for the most devoted social service of which the members of society are capable; and no man can be accounted as fully personalized or socialized until he feels the urgency of the need of and shares the burden of readjustment. Every individual should, therefore, adopt as a part of his avocation some one of these moral and social causes and spend his leisure energy in hearty cooperation with others of similar interests in achieving social progress. Only by so doing can he achieve his own superior social- ization. CHAPTER XII MORALIZATION WHAT IS THE MEANING OF MORALITY ? Were this a textbook in ethics, we would emphasize the fact that the ethical end — morality — is the supreme and all-inclusive end in life as far as one’s social relations are concerned. All these values for which men strive in vocation, State, Church, are moral values and their eval- uation or appraisement is a moral judgment. In other words, the business of ethics as the science of moral conduct is to examine all the values of the world and arrange them in an ascending series with the ultimate values at the top. But while this is true, we are particularly interested in the more immediate processes of psycho-social growth; and while all true psycho-social growth leads toward the moral end, yet moralization is, in turn, a special phase of psycho-social development. We shall, therefore, take the narrower point of view which regards moralization as a special phase of the personalizing and socializing process, and leave the larger view of morality to the ethicist to present. But before leaving the more inclusive point of view, we must state more specifically the general problem of morality in order to have a basis for the discussion of the more immediate question. Accordingly, the task of ethical science is to designate what the highest aim of MORALIZATION 275 human attainment is, to define the moral situation, and to show what kind of ends men ought to pursue in both their personal and social relations. The question is what kind of a system of ends should one choose to serve as the core of one’s historical life: what are the right atti- tudes, and by what standards shall one judge as to their rightness; in a word, what are the greatest values in the world? As a matter of history the question as to the highest good of man has been answered in a variety of ways. Some have held that pleasure is the summum bonum; others, that virtue, self-realization, individual happiness, and social health, respectively, are the highest ends of life. It is beyond the scope of our present interest to ex- amine the arguments in behalf of these various ideals; but we may suggest that, in harmony with our doctrine of psycho-social development, the moral standard has two aspects: subjective and objective. On the one hand, morality involves the realization of one’s potential per- sonality by progressive approach toward ideal selfhood, and, on the other hand, it signifies a system of purposes which are socially constructive, constantly taking ac- count of the fact that other men are personalities with ends of their own. In a word, stated in the familiar terms of social psychology, the moral ideal is socialized 'per- sonality. Every man’s life is moral — in the generic sense — whether he realizes it or not; whether or not he wishes it to be. Society, including himself, puts a ticket of appre- ciation upon both the system of ends for which he strives 276 PSYCHO-SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT and the acts he performs in the service of these ends, and in so doing it brands him as a moral agent. Not only this, but society defines the good man as the one who not merely refrains from breaking the laws of the State, but one whose motive prompts him to perform psycho- socially constructive action. Again, the moral law is the necessary condition of personal and social welfare. Just as health — private or public — is conditioned upon observance of the laws of hygiene, so are personal growth and social advancement dependent upon observance of the moral law. From this standpoint an institution, a custom, or a public opinion may be subjected to the moral judgment, in so far as it is a conditioning factor in the welfare of the individual or group. This view presents the larger aspect of morality; but it also justifies the statement already made that moraliza- tion is one phase of psycho-social growth. “A smile and a face are two different things; but you cannot have a smile without a face.” In like manner socialization and moralization are two different things; but you cannot have the former without the latter. WHAT IS A MORAL SITUATION IN TERMS OF PSYCHOLOGY? The moral situation — that is, any situation in which the action will be adjudged as either right or wrong — is essentially one which is met by a deliberative choice- action. This is equivalent to saying that every moral situation must center around a volitional action. We MORALIZATION 277 have already analyzed this type of experience and know it to be the kind of action demanded when the person confronts a new problem. We must keep in mind the difference between explanatory and teleological think- ing; the theory of limits in mathematics is an example of the former, while the question as to whether one should invest his savings in bank stock is an example of the lat- ter. The moral situation is always a practical problem looking toward the achievement of some end or other; decision one way or another depends upon one’s ideals and policies of life, the decision itself adding momentum and weight to the policy in whose service the action is performed. Such a situation must be met by teleological thinking. But there are many situations, of course, in which the individual has no choice, being coerced by outside condi- tions, as, for example, a soldier in carrying out the order of his superior; here no moral responsibility rests upon the agent because the act is really not his own (except that his decision to become a soldier and surrender his right of private judgment was itself a moral act in the generic sense). Moral responsibility attaches to freedom of action, and without freedom of choice we cannot call a situation moral. There is one other important point to be taken into account; to wit: not all choices are centers of moral situ- ations; some are merely non-moral. For example, there is under ordinary circumstances no moral issue involved in my choice as to what necktie I shall wear to-day; com- pared with the larger issues which really determine the 278 PSYCIIO-SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT quality and character of the historical life, this choice cannot be vital enough to be called moral. While this is a species of choice, there is no principle at stake, nothing vital depending upon the choice one way or the other, and as a consequence we denominate this a non-moral situation. The law of the moral situation is that a vital choice is involved, the significance of this being that the action in question has some power, immediate or remote, to contribute to psycho-social welfare, or to detract from it. Dewey and Tufts define what we call vitalness in these terms: “Conduct as moral may thus be defined as activity called forth and directed by ideas of value or worth, where the values concerned are so mutually in- compatible as to require consideration and selection before an overt act is entered upon.” 1 Hence, the typical moral situation is one in which we not only have voluntary action, but one in which con- siderations of value enter, and in which one must choose between values which are incompatible or between lesser and greater values. Just what acts are vital — that is, just which contribute to greater length and breadth of life — and just what acts are non-vital, it is often dif- ficult to determine. The question is further complicated by the fact that the vitalness of an act is a relative mat- ter: an act which at one time and under one set of condi- tions would be vital might under other circumstances not be vital at all. For example, the question whether or not I shall play tennis to-day would be, under normal circumstances, a non-moral question. But if it has come 1 Dewey and Tufts: Ethics, p. 209. MORALIZATION 279 to the place where I must take time off for recreation or suffer a diminution of efficiency, or if I have on hand some enterprise of greater weight for which tennis would temporarily incapacitate me, then it becomes a vital, and accordingly a moral, situation. The point of greatest difficulty in the moral life is not merely to know what is right in a recognized moral situation, but to be able to dis- criminate a vital situation from a non-vital one, and to have the disposition to recognize it as moral. Good judgment and sound thinking, together with a proper reverence for right, are needed, not alone in deciding what is right within a consciously felt moral issue, but equally in de- termining whether or not it is a consideration of real worth. This definition of the moral situation raises the ques- tion as to whether habit is ever the subject of a moral judgment. Habitual action when fully formed is not a matter of choice; it is either marginal or automatic, and never focal, whereas choice is always a focal process. An exception to the general principle will, therefore, have to be made in the case of habit, for, as was pointed out earlier in the book, the office of habit is to care for those oft-recurring situations which must always be met in the same way. Accordingly a habit becomes a moral issue when there is a question as to whether it fits in with the moral purpose of life; whether it contributes to the carrying-out of the system of ends which has been adopted as the policy of life. For example, the habit of cigarette smoking may be presumed to lessen the general efficiency of an individual; it therefore interferes with 280 PSYCHO-SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT the administration of the historical life, and is morally bad to the extent to which it places either a personal or a social handicap upon the individual. And so with all habits; some are indifferent when looked at in this light; others contribute to personal or social efficiency, while still others detract from it. The moral value of any habit is to be measured in terms of its total influence upon psycho-social development and progress. WHAT IS A MORAL SITUATION, DEFINED IN SOCIAL TERMS? Morality is, in the last analysis, a personal affair. He who faces a moral situation giving it consideration and passing judgment is always a person, and upon his con- science falls the duty of judging whether a given situa- tion is a vital one, and what the right course of action is. But — and this is the vital point — while morality is essentially a personal affair, personality is essentially a social affair. Or, to state it more truly, personality is as essentially social as it is rational; and it is moral in virtue of both its rationality and its sociality. Morality repre- sents a synthesis of both personal ends and social values; it is the index of the relation between the two variable terms, ‘personality’ and ‘society.’ The necessary deduc- tion from this is that every moral situation is a social as well as a personal situation. The old idea that morality is a matter that concerns the individual alone, and that a man may develop a moral character inside his own shell, is no longer tenable. The moral life has to be lived out in the open; morality is simply a way of living; a cer- MORALIZATION 281 tain policy of life; the consistent pursuit of a system of ends in which the things of most worth are given their proper emphasis. We can carry the assertion still further. Attention has been called to the tremendously complicated inter- relatedness of social life to-day. Men are everywhere dependent upon other groups of men for their daily bread, for the clothing they wear, and for all of the satis- factions of life. But the socialness of the moral situation is raised to the nth degree by this very interdependence. And while morality is no less a personal matter than ever, its socialness has been increased to a degree corre- sponding to the increased complexity of social organiza- tion. Contrast the simplicity of the social structure of pioneer days before the steam engine and the resulting machinery introduced the industrial expansion, with our own telephone-switchboard civilization. The difference between the two is the coefficient of the socialness of the moral situation of to-day, as compared with former times. Bearing in mind that the individual concerned is himself a member of society, it is therefore fair to say that community life, being the focus of the whole social process, is the locus of the moral situation. This state- ment must not be allowed to dull the sense of personal obligation in the matter of morals; rather, it should give content to the concept of obligation and make the moral question concrete and vivid. These statements demand further elaboration. Com- munity life is the sum-total of all the community’s in- stitutional life, plus its other social consciousness, such 282 PSYCHO-SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT as tradition, public opinion, etc. Since institutional life, custom, tradition, etc., are both the mode and the result of social evolution, many readjustments will be de- manded in these same institutions as society progresses. For example, the home is the scene of a vital system of readjustments at the present time; it has always been so, and will continue to be until perfection is reached both in the individual and in society. But the prevalence of the divorce evil is evidence of a growing maladjustment in this institution at the present time; and the problem is not only a social one, but is a vitally moral one as well. To make the question concrete: for a considerable num- ber of people one of the persistent moral problems which has to be faced anew every morning is how to get along peaceably and harmoniously with husband or wife. While society is inclined to laugh these problems out of court, yet for many this is both a vital and a moral situation, and one which profoundly affects the person- alities of those concerned and indeed of the family as a social unit. This is not the place to go into the philosophy of the divorce evil; it is mentioned here to illustrate the socialness of the typical moral situation. Other illustrations bring out the same fact. The prob- lem of amusement, the theater, the moving-picture show, the daily press, “bootlegging,” are all socio- moral questions. The vocation to-day gives rise to literally thousands of moral situations which simply did not exist before the present intimate social organization was ushered in by the machine method of production. Take the problem MORALIZATION 283 of food. Since your loaf of bread goes through so many hands in its preparation, it is a matter of vital concern to you whether the various operations have been performed honestly and with cleanliness; since the sugar which goes into your coffee has passed through so many hands in the making and distribution, it is to your personal inter- est to know that the complexity of the process and the impersonal relation between producer and consumer has not been made the occasion for its adulteration; since the canned fruits and vegetables you eat have passed through countless hands in the preparation, your per- sonal efficiency demands that the increased number of opportunities for slovenly work shall not cause those who prepare them to adulterate them or preserve them with harmful drugs or make them foul with unsanitary processes. All these people who in any way serve you are morally responsible to you for the way in which they render that service. Not only this, but if any one along the line has taken from you more than a just recompense for his services, he robs you by so much of the possibility of satisfying your higher wants after your physical needs have been met, and thus robs you of the chance to de- velop your own personality to its completeness. This whole system of workers is therefore held under hourly moral obligation by you and all other consumers be- cause the things they do are of vital significance for your psycho-social welfare. But the principle works the other way also. You in turn are a unit in some other system of workers, and a thousand other persons are holding you morally respon- 284 PSYCHO-SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT sible for their psycho-social welfare, and your work and your play are bristling with situations which are vital to society, either in your own person or that of others. Most people probably accept as axiomatic the moral principle: “Thou shalt not kill — steal — lie,” etc. But the point is that our complicated social organization makes pos- sible an infinite number of modes of killing, stealing, ly- ing, etc., that were never dreamed of when these princi- ples were first enunciated. In other words, the moral life has become incomparably complex; and the moral situa- tions which confront this generation and all that are to follow are not only vastly more numerous, but essen- tially social in character as well. This analysis is suffi- cient to show not only that the moral situation is a so- cial situation, but that one of the most effective ways of solving these moral problems consists in pursuing as a vocation or an avocation some line of cooperative en- deavor which has as its aim the elimination of the condi- tions which foster immorality. Likewise a positive moral attitude of this kind is the safest prophylactic against those more subtle and personal types of immorality. THE PROPER ATTITUDE OF THE INDIVIDUAL TO THESE TWO ASPECTS OF THE MORAL SITUATION CAN BE EXPRESSED BY THE TERM *THE SOCIALIZED CONSCIENCE’ The judgment factor in socialized personality needs further emphasis; to phrase it in ethical terms, the indi- vidual must develop a conscience. A socialized con- science is the one common factor that is needed by all in MORALIZATION 285 order that each may have the best possible opportunity for proper development. A psychological analysis of conscience will help to make this clear. Conscience may be defined as the whole self-conscious 'personality as it functions in a moral situa- tion. There has always been a feeling on the part of some that conscience is a separate mental faculty; that it is a divine gift or an intuitive power, or kind of experience by which one may know immediately, and independently of the other regular mental processes, what is right and what wrong. The assumption was that conscience is a special mental machine that operates only when a moral problem is presented. Without raising the metaphysical question as to the ultimate significance of conscience, we may say that, from the scientific standpoint, conscience is not a sepa- rate compartment of consciousness or a specially devised mental machine which is never in mesh with the rest of the mental organism. Conscience must rather be re- garded as the name applied for convenience to the ordi- nary interpretative, appreciational, and volitional func- tion of the mind as it is engaged with a moral problem. Just as any conscious adjustment demands thought, just as decisions are arrived at by reference to certain accepted values, just as volition involves both these processes, so does the functioning of conscience demand this threefold function. Of course many of the dictates of conscience do not follow from real first-hand judgments. We accept in a second-hand manner many of our moral sentiments; and 286 PSYCHO-SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT while these are not bona-fide moral sentiments, but pseudo-sentiments as we have already called them, they nevertheless possess moral value because they serve as practical guides to conduct just as do custom and tradi- tion. In addition to the judgment or thinking factor, con- science implies the functioning of a system of values. Chief among the values are the moral: ideals of pru- dence, purpose, justice, good-will, altruism, and human- itarianism. The presence of these values in conscious- ness adds the feeling-element to the psychology of con- science. Besides these there is the direct affective mark of satisfaction in having chosen the better part, or the feel- ing of remorse in having failed to do so. Finally, con- science cannot be said to have fully functioned until thought and appreciation have issued in action. In other words, volition is needed to complete the transaction; merely to know what is right and to place a theoretical value upon it does not alone constitute conscience, but in addition mind must also will the good. The moral life is an organized life: organized in terms of the ultimate values, and conscience implies this organization. Con- science thus becomes the synthesis of mental activity in the face of a moral problematic situation. Now when we insist that a socialized conscience is the needed common factor in all, we mean that each individ- ual must be highly sensitized to the moral situation; he must be keen to identify a situation as moral, and must habitually take the social point of view in his moral judgments. The man with the socialized conscience will, r MORALIZATION 287 in the first place, adopt as his scheme of life a system of ends and purposes which is at no point hostile to the common good; second, his standards of appreciation call for efficient work which contributes directly to the en- richment of his own inner life, and at least indirectly to the enrichment of the community of which he is a part. His three outstanding virtues are purpose, intelligence, and good-will. In Chapter VI we had a good deal to say about the socializing process. To become socialized, we said, means that the individual comes consciously to co- ordinate his own interests with the interests of society. We must now incorporate this statement into our con- cept of socialized conscience. The socialized conscience is, then, not simply the whole of consciousness as it func- tions in a moral situation, but the consciousness of a person who has already coordinated his interests with those of society, adjusting himself to a moral situation. The discussion of a preceding section emphasizes the present need for the socialized conscience. Moral living is, if any difference, more difficult to-day than ever be- fore; the strain upon moral character is heavier than in the days of simpler social organization. But just be- cause the opportunities for wrongdoing are multiplied in number is it increasingly necessary that the members of society be firmly grounded in morality, and that the point of view regarding morals shall be the social point of view. Putting these things together, psycho-social develop- ment involves moral development. The all-inclusive aim of life, whether personal or social, is moral. Moral values 288 PSYCHO-SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT are ultimate values, and psycho-social evolution must eliminate those tendencies and those forms of maladjust- ment in society which militate against psycho-social development in the members of society. MORALITY AND THE SPIRITUAL LIFE In these final paragraphs we can do no better than to gather together the several threads of our argument and show that they are all strands in a new concept which at the same time embodies our philosophy of life. We have regarded personality as an organism: as an organism which stands at the apex of all organic life. The most general function of human personality, as also of other levels of mental life, is: response to stimulus. A glance at the zoological series shows that each higher level of mentality possesses increased sensitivity to the stimuli that play upon the organism from the material environment, in the form of the several types of natural energy: light, heat, sound waves, etc.; and that the types of response increase in complexity in correspondence with increase of sensitivity to stimulus. So that on the self-conscious level — personality — the organism is sensitive not only to a whole galaxy of natural stimuli as fed in through a system of highly specialized sense or- gans, but to a vastly greater number of stimuli which are presented in the shape of social and spiritual situa- tions. The fact that the self-conscious mind at every mo- ment of its progress has an elaborate background of experience which is present in the form of ideas, memo- MORALIZATION 289 ries, concepts, principles, attitudes, and ideals, and that the situations which confront it are so predominately social, lifts personality far and away above the material world — the world, however, in which it must still re- main rooted. This is to say, simply, that personal life is predominately spiritual life. In the words of stimulus and response, the typical stimulus reduced to its lowest terms is a form of energy playing on a sense organ (e.g., light on the eye), and the response is a specific mechani- cal muscular adjustment to the object from which the stimulus comes. But while you perform these simple mechanical responses a thousand times a day, this type of stimulus and response is not the significant kind as far as your personality is concerned. In a significant re- sponse, the light rays stimulating the retina are reflected from a picture of a starving Russian child, let us say, to your eye, resulting in a perception which means a whole social situation to you. In the act of being recognized, this stimulus is augmented and amplified and complicated by all that background of past experience and knowledge which is part of your historical-mindedness. This stimu- lus means to you, not simply a fact 'per se, but a fact together with its causes and effects; a fact set in a bed of emotions; a fact about which are arranged like spokes in a wheel such contributory conditions as famine, war, revolution, the egregiously selfish economic policy of the United States, the beneficent activites of the Russian Relief, and such like. So the significant stimulus as far as personality is concerned comes to mean, more often than not, elaborate social situations, to which adjust- 290 PSYCHO-SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT ment is demanded. And while your responses, many of them, are reflex, or instinctive, or habitual, yet the sig- nificant ones are again volitional and represent your ‘or- ganization’ with respect to society. So your response to this situation is not merely to consider how much you can give toward the Relief fund, but you consider fur- ther what you can do to prevent the recurrence of such horrors. You determine to do everything in your power to prevent war; to find what the causes of revolution are and to help eradicate them; to help form an intelligent public opinion regarding international relations. Thus your response is as complicated and far-reaching as was the stimulus. Now the truth I am anxious to emphasize by this analysis of stimulus and response in human personality is this: we are moral agents precisely because our re- sponses are adjustments of ourselves to social situations and reflect necessarily our system of values. Morality is, therefore, not something foisted upon mankind or buttered on by some outside agency, but is simply a set of relationships which are organic to man’s psycho-social nature. We have already seen how personality lives in a world of mentality and social relations; in a sort of social pla- centa made up of institutions and social processes. But this is not all. We have not finished with personality un- til we show it to be fundamentally a spiritual reality. In supporting this proposition I do not use the term ‘spirit- ual’ in the old and narrow religious sense, if by this is meant the life of some hypothetical, disconnected, static, MORALIZATION 291 ready-made entity called ‘soul’; but in the scientific sense. Soul = Self-Conscious Personality This is the equation which is supported by science, and which I have in mind when asserting that personality is spiritual. The remaining step to take, then, is to connect the three following things together in our thought: (1) That teleological system which is personality. (2) That teleological system which is society, (3) That teleological system which is the universe. We have seen that personality grows up around the historical life as its teleological core. It must also have been evident from what has preceded that society is like- wise historical and has its teleological end in ‘ideal soci- ety,* or some such term. And we have seen that person- ality in its growth must become socialized. That is, this teleological system known as ‘personality’ must be coor- dinated and harmonized with the larger teleological sys- tem known as ‘society.’ But — and here is the point — who is to say what the social ideal is, and what the ultimate grounds of morality are ? Well, probably no one can say as yet. But certainly those men who have the deepest insight into the fundamental nature of society and of the universe, of the processes of evolution and the personal- ity behind it, have a right to be heard; namely, the men with philosophical and religious insight. It is not enough to correlate the first teleological system with the second; 292 PSYCHO-SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT but both the first and second must be correlated with the third. This is philosophy. But one additional step trans- forms philosophy into religion, for, when a man assumes an attitude of reverence and of willing submission to this inclusive system and is moved by a profound desire to put his own historical life in harmony with the divine will as exhibited in the system, he is no longer merely a philosopher, but he is religious as well. Religion is thus the most inclusive point of view that can be taken. It is also the best way of living; it is the right attitude of ‘heart’; it is the final motive for all responses which en- rich one’s own personality and build up the personalities of society which make for invigorating group-mindedness and sanctify social institutions. In a word, religion con- stitutes ultimate value. Further, when one is convinced that Jesus Christ presented the ideal pattern for personal- ity; that his is the Way of Life, and so the way to God; that ideal society can be achieved only by the applica- tion of his principles, one is not only religious, but a Christian in a good deal more than the nominal sense. Thus the final sanction for morality is this spiritual interpretation of the universe itself. Not that there are not other and lesser sanctions located in society and operative in social relationships; for peoples can and have worked out by the trial-and-error method empiri- cal moral codes which have survival value and are there- fore obligatory upon the individuals making up the group. Any customary morality answers this descrip- tion. But only those moral standards work best in the long run which are found finally to accord with the prin- MORALIZATION 293 ciples implicit in the organization of the most inclusive of these teleological systems, and so may be interpreted as the will of God for mankind; to be specific, those which parallel the moral insight and teachings of the founder of Christianity himself. When it is asserted that morality implies the correla- tion of personality with society, it must not be supposed for a moment that what is traditional, customary, or conventional in society therefore represents the highest social values, or that public opinion itself is always right, and that a person therefore is under moral obligation to conform to it. Neither must it be supposed that the present social organization, as, for example, in the voca- tion, serves social welfare as an end better than any other possible mode of organization. In fact we may be pretty sure it does not. So, when we speak of the coor- dination of personality with society, we mean, not coor- dination with society as it is now, but as it ought to be were the welfare of all the members of society equally sought. Now what the ultimate pattern of human society ought to be can be determined only in the process of attempting to coordinate the teleological system repre- sented by society with that larger teleological system, namely, the universe. It is at this point that the essen- tial genius of the founder of the Christian religion shines forth. As the greatest interpreter of the personality be- hind the universe, he laid down the fundamental princi- ples which must become operative if any further social progress is to be expected. Psychology is one of the new- 294 PSYCHO-SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT est of the sciences. But it has been fairly well established now in the opinion of most minds that it is a science. And if there is one generalization which scientific psy- chology will support — animal psychology, child psy- chology, abnormal psychology, and social psychology — it is that human personality is not a mechanism, but an organism with a conscious teleological life; that this tele- ological life is possible only in relation to a larger teleo- logical system, namely, society. Further, if psychology has any suggestion whatever to turn over to the philos- opher to be used by him in his attempt to understand the universe, it is that this double-track principle of teleology must be extended and enlarged to include the whole world. But — let every one note — if the prin- ciple is thus enlarged and extended, the extension nec- essarily implies an Infinite Mind as the ground of the universe. The Christian philosopher immediately iden- tifies this Infinite Self-Consciousness with “God the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth.” And to this the psychologist can have no objection. It has not lately been regarded as scientific to take ac- count of religious values in planning public educational programmes and curriculums. And we are now, unhap- pily, reaping the reward of this omission. But a scien- tific conception of personality implies the validity of a spiritual interpretation of the world, its origin, the proc- ess of its evolution, and its destiny. To put it in reli- gious terminology, it is the business of every candidate for personality, not only to bring himself to mature self- hood and to seek to coordinate his life with ideal social MORALIZATION 295 welfare, but to seek to align both personality and society with the will of God. Thus religious values constitute the ultimate values, and all education should be religious education, and is religious education in so far as it is real education. While one immediate sanction for morality is found in the legitimate demands of society upon the individual, yet that kind of conduct is not necessarily good in the final analysis which tends to conserve social organization as now constructed. That conduct is good in the long run which is in keeping with the divine plan, and which therefore tends to bring personality and society to perfec- tion. To put it the other way, those values expressed in the teleology of the universe itself shadow forth the picture of the perfect pattern of society and at the same time constitute the sanction for morality. But this is only a somewhat abstract way of again saying that re- ligious values are final: that any philosophy of life which does not include a religious view and attitude is partial, and that complete personality with a socialized conscience is consciously religious. Sum it up in this way: Personality demands: (1) Subordination of the ends of the present and the empirical self to personal selfhood. (2) Adjustment of selfhood to society as it ought to be. (3) Coordination of personal self and society with the divine order. 296 PSYCHO-SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT This is not only morality at its best, but spiritual life as well. Morality includes, on the one hand, all those prob- lems which pertain to the proper development of per- sonality — personal problems — and, on the other, those problems of proper adjustment of personality to society. The spiritual life comprehends the moral, but also em- braces another set of relations; namely, the relation of personality and of society to the universal will. Spe- cifically, the spiritual life of a person involves his under- standing of and attitude toward that all-inclusive tele- ological system and the Divine Personality behind it, and his response to it. And of every candidate for per- sonality a religious interpretation attitude, and response, which taken together make spiritual life, are demanded. The original question with which we started was: What is the content of the term ‘personality*? What is implicit in the statement that a man must possess per- sonality who aspires to an eminent position in State, Church, or industry? We have now canvassed the question from all sides, and we have seen how deep into the human constitution we are led when we try to trace out with detail the implications of personality. No mere phrenological or chiromantical description is of any value; it is not suf- ficient to enumerate the physical characteristics or to catalogue the superficial traits of behavior. Deep into his thought-life we must go to discover whether or not he is a problem-solver; to his inmost heart of apprecia- CONCLUSION MORALIZATION 297 tion, to see what he values; into his dynamo room, to see how much power and initiative he can generate. On the outside we must discover whether he is rooted in the rich soil of the social inheritance, and whether the win- dows of his mind are open to the thought, the apprecia- tion, the will of the people that make up the world in which he lives, moves, and has his being. We must find whether he has drunk in the spirit of the institutions which stand close to him; whether or not he possesses the essence of spiritual insight and power which are the product of real education. We must look to see whether or not he manifests that fine sensitivity to the welfare of others and that susceptibility to the invitations of his own conscience to become his ideal self which mark the moralized person. As the final test of personality we must ascertain, first, the degree of efficiency with which he administers his own interests; whether he has learned to work and to utilize the fruits of his labor for his own personal up- building; second, whether he has dedicated his efficiency to the service of society and pays in the coin of his labor for the nurture he has received at its hands. Whether he has come out on that high plateau of vision from which he can see something of the meaning of the world- order, and whether his own system of plans telescopes with the larger system of society and the divine order. If he measures up to these searching tests, a man has fulfilled the conditions of personality. He has earned the respect, admiration, and honor of the community in token of which society bestows upon him its best emolu- 298 PSYCHO-SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT ments in money, friends, and position. But in addition to this recognition by society, he has earned that high self-respect and contentment which are the subjective symbols of true happiness. THE END INDEX INDEX Achievement, 257, 258. Action, has social origin and social ends, 146; the tendency to put ideas into, 164. Acts, vital and non-vital, 278, 279. Administrative inadequacy, the prob- lem of, 273. Adolescence, the age of the social, moral, and religious attitudes, 75. Adult, the, and the child, the mind of, 62; and evaluation, 110; pictures of the self-consciousness of, 124, 125. appreciation, 98, 99, 104; of social origin, 145. Affection, and appreciation, 34, 84, 85; in the historical life, 101; the ele- ment which gives worth and value to life, 101. Affections, how they become inter- preted, 58; provide criterion of action, 108. Ames, Professor E. S., his book “The Psychology of Religious Experi- ence” quoted, 16-20. Amusement, the problem of, 282. Angell, J. R., quoted on sentiments, 92, 93; quoted on the deserted- island hypothesis, 141; quoted on the social character of instincts and impulses, 146; quoted on self-con- sciousness, 153; quoted on testing of aptitudes, 263, 264. Animal, the, has awareness, but not self-consciousness, 37; the mental life of, 48-52; instinct in, 48-51; memory in, 51; and man, the differ- ence between, 109, 110, 159; never evaluates, 110; the consciousness of, 124. Apperception, 59, 60, 89. Appreciation, based on affection, 34, 35; and feeling, 56; attitudes re- lated to, 81; what is meant by, 83- 87; fuses with interpretation, 84; affection the characteristic ele- ment in, 85; is sentiment at work, 93-95; as evaluation, 96-100; is the choosing of the worth-while values, 96; is sentiment at work upon value-situations, 98; various modes of, 98; intellectual and aesthetic, 98, 99; technical, 99, 100; moral and religious, 100; subjective value of, 102-07; contributes to personal happiness, 103-05; proper, develop- ment of, insures good taste, 105; standards of, have a social history, 145; and the school, 246, 247; the only basis on which it can be erected, 246; rests upon the ability to ‘sense’ as well as to think, 247; cannot be taught, 247; and effi- ciency, 259, 260. Army life, its discipline does not de- velop personality, 206. Art, the historical attempt of man at his ideal of beauty, 104, 173; con- tributes to happiness, 104; provides for highest type of social inter- course, 177; an interest in all forms of, desired, 247; too much dissection of the forms of, fatal, 247. Art gallery, the, a socializing agency, 222, 223. Artistic pursuits, defined, 252. Assimilation, the law of, 58; growth through, 59, 60. Associated Press, the, 271. Association, 84, 158. Attention, 89, 158. Attitude, probably never solely in- tellectual, 92; the great efficacy of, in the historical life, 92. Attitudes, the nature of, 72, 73; how they originate, 73-77; are never inherited, 73; and disposition, 73, 74; from invitation and suggestion, 74, 75; the age of the intellectual, emotional, and motor, 75; the age of the social, moral, and religious, 75; as result of explanatory or of teleological thinking, 76; classi- 302 INDEX fication of, 77, 78; general and specific, 77, 78; the function of, 79- 81; the way in which they deter- mine the course of conduct, 79; resemble habit, 80; related to ap- preciation, 81; some should be in- hibited, 101; as result of suggesti- bility, 166; furnished by tradition, 183; social, 266. Automatic reaction, the, 109. Automatic response, the, 109. Automobilist, the exaggerated, 20. Avocation, defined, 267; every one should have an, 268; social signi- ficance of, 270-73. Awareness, 33, 84. Badges, 204. Bagehot, Walter, quoted on suggesti- bility, 165. Bagley, W. C., quoted on knowledge, 70, 71; quoted on attitudes, 79; quoted on ideals, 86, 87; quoted on taste, 105. Baldwin, J. M., quoted on impulse, 121; quoted on play, 170. Behaviorism, when it becomes a menace, 5, 11; inadequate to ac- count for personality, 131. Behaviorists, the, the stimulus- response formula of, 5. Berman, Louis, quoted on glands, 29-32. Betts, G. H., quoted on knowledge and feeling, 85; quoted on institu- tions, 211, 212; quoted on work, 253; quoted on amusements, 268. Biological basis of personality, the, 26, 27. “Bootlegging,” the problem of, 282. Burgess, Professor, quoted on social- ization, 153. Business, defined, 252. Business maladjustments, 12. Campaigns, 207, 208. Capital, and labor, the problem of, is psychological, 244; and labor, troubles of, a vocation-maladjust- ment, 272. Child, the, and the adult, the mind of, 62; evaluates little, 110; the con- sciousness of, 124; and the deserted- island hypothesis, 139-41; the so- cialization of, 251; his experience, the business of the school toward, 251. Child labor, 272. Choice, of moral and non-moral situations, 277, 278; a focal process, 279. Christian, what it is to be a, 292. Christianity, the social view of, 222. Church, the, a socializing agency, 221, 222; attendance upon, the im- portance of, 269. Civilization, the result of pure and applied science, 9; industrial, devel- oping personality, 13; social unity of, 224; on the verge of throwing over the whole system of ultimate values, 241. Clark, J. E., quoted on education, 237, 238. Coffin, J. H., quoted on custom, 186, 187. Colleges, not in good form to mention religion in, 240. Colvin, S. S., quoted on consciousness, 123, 124. Communion, an insistent inner de- mand, 154-57. Community, has a socializing value, 211; the center in which social con- sciousness focuses, 224; extends to all persons who are like-minded and like-intentioned, 224, 225; the moral standards of, 227; the per- sonal changes wrought in the in- dividual by pressure of, 227; the inconsequentials in, 229. Community life, danger in expansion of, 225; furnishes the play experi- ence of childhood, 225; concerted action in the direction of progress possible in, 225, 226; the individual must participate in, 226, 227; the secret of the power of, upon the in- dividual, 228; school life should rep- resent, 246; is the focus of the moral situation, 281. Concept, a, 70. Concert, the, a socializing agency, 222, 223. INDEX 303 Conduct, organized, 56; inconsistent with one’s profession, 248; good when in keeping with the divine plan, 295. Conscience, the socialized, 284-88; defined, 285; the functioning of, 285; implies the functioning of a system of values, 286; is the syn- thesis of mental activity in the face of a moral problematic situation, 286. Consciousness, the third level of or- ganic life, 33, 83, 84; types of, ob- tained by psychological method, 47; the two phases of, never sep- arated, 94; of the animal and the young child, picture of, 124; is social, 137. Consistency, an instinctive tendency toward, 114. Control, the power of, 36. Controls, conduct, 70. Convention, 189; illustrated by ex- aggerated uniforms, badges, etc., 204. Conventions, and customs, 189, 190; have a decided value, 191; the ob- verse and the reverse of, 209, 210. Conventionality, and custom, differ- ence between, 188; rests upon tend- ency to convert suggested ideas into action, 189; the psycho-social influence of, 190, 191; leads to diversified uniformity, 190, 191. Conversation, 156; imaginary, 156, 157. Conviction, in faith, 243. Cooley, C. H., quoted on self-con- sciousness, 37-39, 88; quoted on the “self,” 130; quoted on the individual and society, 137-39; quoted on the value of language to the individual mind, 161, 162; quoted on public opinion, 192, 193. Cooperation, 266, 270-73, 284. Costumes, absurd, 204. Creeds, denominational, the apothe- osis of tradition in, 203. Crime, the problem of, 273. Criminal, the, represents an abortive type of personality, 18, 19, 106; the volition of, 127, 128; the State and, 220. Crowd, the, characteristics of, 194, 197; and the throng, 197, 198; proximity of individuals not neces- sary to, 198; in action, the mob, 198, see Mob; exercises no con- structive influence, 199, 200; the contagion of, 200. Crowd-feeling, 197-201. “Cues,” 70, 71. Curiosity, 59, 60. Custom, in primitive society, 149; the foundation of, 166; and tradi- tion, differences between, 185; de- fined, 185; origin of, 185; a group habit, 185; widely operative, 185, 186; serves a great purpose, 186, 187; the personal and social values of, 187; socialization served by, 188; and conventionality, difference between, 188; the apotheosis of, in masonic secret orders, 203. Customs, 186; and conventions, 189; the obverse and the reverse of, 209, 210. Customary limitations, 186. Deduction, scientific, test of its truth, 5; the process of bringing a discon- nected fact under a general law, 66. Defective, the, 17, 106, 127, 221. Denominational creeds, the apotheosis of tradition in, 203. Deserted-island hypothesis, the, 139- 41. Desires, 248. Development, thorough organization, 60-64; and growth, a distinction between, 60, 63; physical and men- tal, 60-64; personal, and interpre- tation, 81, 82; personal, calls for growth in the ability to think straight and feel consistently, 102; personal, the demands of, 107; personal, depends on organization of inherited and acquired tenden- cies, 115; personal, and volition, 123; personal, and suggestibility, 167; personal, a knowledge of science contributes to, 176; per- sonal, custom lays the foundation 304 INDEX for, 187; work should be a large factor in, 253-58; personal, achieve- ment a means of, 258-62; should continue until the faculties fail, 269. Dewey (John) and Tufts (J. H.), quoted on moral conduct, 278. Differentiation, and integration, 60- 64. Discoveries and inventions, 12. Discrimination. See Differentiation. Discussion, 194. Dispositions, attitudes originate from, 73, 74; not wholly acquired, 73. Division of labor, 217. Divorce evil, the, 272, 282. Dog, the, has awareness, but not self- consciousness, 37. Drives, 207, 208. Dynamogenesis, 164, 168. Education, the heart and core of, 54; the business of, to give training in discrimination and organization, 63; should teach one to demand ideal values, 107; must begin with the learning of a language, 162; much of the discipline of, directed toward inhibition of the law of dynamogenesis, 164; the process by which the individual develops an historical life, 233; the task of, 234- 36; one which is but half an educa- tion, 237, 238; the measure of the individual’s, 238; many factors are involved in, 238; becomes an in- dividual and a relative matter, 238; characteristics which it ought to de- velop, 239, 240; gives an adequate philosophy of life, 240, 244; to be complete must be a spiritual educa- tion, 241; faith the supreme func- tion of, 243; the school ought to be one of the greatest factors in, 245; demands that the individual have a reflective basis for his faiths, 246; should continue until the faculties fail, 269; the ends and methods of, under review, 272; should be re- ligious, 295. Efficiency, demands nice control and carefully planned action, 112; of the worker, made possible by the cor- porate effort of society, 147, 148; the question of insuring the highest degree of, 258; a means of personal development, 258-62; the psycho- logical nature of, 258, 259; the de- pendence of, upon interpretation, 259, 260; requires appreciation, 259, 260; depends on volition, 259, 260; the aspect of, which most needs emphasis, 270; social, 271. Emotion, as used in psychology, 87; is an important factor in the de- velopment of self-consciousness, 88; tends to give direction to atten- tion, 89; exercises great influence on apperception, 89; furnishes mo- tive power for much of human be- havior, 89; induces friendship, 89. Emotions, in the development of the historical life, 87-90; all unrational, some irrational, 90; some should be inhibited, 101. Empirical self, the, 233-36. Ethical basis of personality, the, 40, 41. Ethical reconstruction, the problem of, 14. Ethics, the business of, 274, 275. Evaluation, appreciation as, 96-100; and the adult, 110. Evolution, due to the scientific method, 9; the process of world change and progress, 10; and mech- anism of applied science, are supplementary tools of God, 11. Fact, a, 70. Facts, have meaning only as inter- preted in the light of their own ex- periences, 4; and principles, as con- duct-controls, 70, 71. Faith, the supreme function of educa- tion, 243; is the conviction that the ideal values of personality can be realized, 243; what it involves, 243; is venture as well as convic- tion, 243. Family, the, 214, 224. Fashion, 190. Feeling, 55; a basic mental process, 85; and value, 86; organization of INDEX 305 life of, must go with intellectual growth, 87. Feeling-reaction, two types of, 87. Fourth of July, community celebra- tion of, 225, 226. Gault, Robert H., quoted on the group mind, 180, 181. Gillette, J. M., quoted on socializa- tion, 151, 152. Glands, duct and endocrine, 29, 30. Good, the highest, 275. Graft, the problem of, 273. Group-historical-mindedness, 202,203. Group mind, forms of the, 179; effect of contact with, upon personality, 180; what is meant by, 180; the processes of, their contribution to socialization and the historical life, 182; consideration of the forms of, 182-210. Group-solidarity, 111. Growth, through assimilation, 59, 60; organic and mental, 59, 60; and de- velopment, a distinction between, 60, 63; should continue until the faculties fail, 269. Habit, its relation to the historical life, 115-17; furnishes means to proper organization of conduct, 115; an economizer of time and energy, 115, 116; is the great fly- wheel of life, 116; group, 185; and the moral situation, 279, 280. Habits of thought, 72, 80. “Half-educated people,” 236-38, 244, 257. Happiness, consists in a harmony of pleasures, 97; the degree of, pro- portionate to the level of apprecia- tion, 103; two things on which it depends, 103, 104; art contributes to, 104; intellectual, moral, and re- ligious sentiments contribute to, 105; is to be in conscious harmony with God, 242; the subjective sym- bols of true, 298. Harmony of pleasures, happiness con- sists in, 97. Henderson, E. N., quoted on lan- guage, 162. Hereditary fear, and its antithesis, 155, 156. “Historical Life, The,” the name, 42. Historical life, the, 52-54; must be an ideal before it can become an actuality, 68; the vertebral column of, 69; the thought process plays two important roles in the develop- ment of, 71; the place of the emo- tions in the development of, 87-90; the great efficacy of attitude in, 92; affection in, 101; demands sub- jection of the emotional life to the censorship of thought, 102; must be bound together by a system of ends, 102; demands that the feeling side of experience be reduced to order, 107; the relation of habit to, 115-17; picture of, 125; means per- sonality, 125; the place of organiza- tion in, 123-28; is a self-conscious, self-planned, self-directed life, 135; contribution to, of the group mind, 182; and the agencies of sociali- zation, 213; education the process by which the individual develops, 233. Historical mind, of the group, 202. Historicalness of personality, what is meant by, 52. Home, the, a socializing agency, 214- 16. Home, H. H., quoted on the aesthetic sentiment, 104; quoted on the phases of mental life, 174; quoted on the educated person, 269. Hypnosis, 164. Ideal society, 291, 292. Ideals, 86; the development of per- sonality involves the adoption of, 95; never fully realized, 126. Ideas, of social origin, 143; the tend- ency to put them into action, 164. Idols, the Baconian, 5. Imitation, 74, 75, 168, 169. Immigration, the problem of, 273. Impulse, is capricious, 121. Impulses, and instincts, 111-15; some are to be inhibited, 112, 113, 164; non-rational and irrational, 113. 306 INDEX Impulsive reaction, the, 109. Inconsequential, the, a class of non- persons, 19-21; controlled by im- pulses and native emotions, 107; lacking in fixed policy, 128; lacking in vivid social consciousness, 154; the chief occupation of, to secure means for self-gratification, 229; the limit of his development, 234; unwholesome home influences may produce, 239; squanders time and money for selfish indulgences, 256; often due to lack of training and discipline, 261, 262; a moral prob- lem, 268. Individual, the, and personality, 14; the disposition of, not wholly ac- quired, 73; the mind of, seeks social contacts, 154-57; must participate in the community life, 226, 227; the moral standards of a commun- ity have great formative effect on, 227; the personal changes wrought in, by pressure of the community, 227; the secret of the power of the community life upon the, 228; must develop a conscience, 284. Induction, scientific, test of its truth, 5. Industrial disorder, 12. Industry, defined, 252; the human- izing of, 257. Inefficiency, 261, 262. Infinite Mind, an, 294. Inhibition, 101, 112, 113, 164, 248. Initiative, 56, 168, 257. Instinct, 83. Instinctive reaction, the, 109. Instincts, of the animal, 48-51; as de- fined by James, 49; and impulses, 111-15; self-preservative and social, 146, 147. Institutions, to meet the need for communion, 155; a result of man’s organizing, 173, 174; having a socializing value, 211; what they are, 211, 212; begin as soon as man becomes human, 212; are the mode and the result of social evolution, 212; the conservators of the race’s experience of the past, 213. Integration, and differentiation, 60-64. Intellect, 55. Intellectual appreciation, 98, 99, 105. Interest, 59, 60. Interpretation, based upon sensation, 34, 35; involves the intellectual processes, 55; the development of, 57, 58; the laws fundamental to, 58-64; the processes of, 64-68; the results of, 69-81; and personal de- velopment, 81, 82; the dependence of efficiency upon, 259, 260. Interpretative experiences, have their origin in large measure in social life, 141-44. Inventions and discoveries, 12. James, William, his definition of in- stinct, 49. Keller, Helen, 160, 161. Kirkpatrick, E. A., quoted on phi- losophy of life, 82. Knowledge, defined, 69; the factors of, 70, 71; the thought process ac- quires and utilizes, 71; of no value in itself, 85, 94; the product of society, 143; as result of suggesti- bility, 166. Ku Klux Klan, the, 204. Labor, divisionof, 217; and capital, the problem of, is psychological, 244; divisions of, 252; socialized, 271. Labor unions, the problem of, 272. Language, arises out of social contact, 140, 144; a mode of socialization, 159-63; defined, 159; service of, in the development of the mind, 160- 62; the three ways in which it assists in thinking, 162; furnishes one of the best means of organizing experience, 163. Law, not a perceivable thing, 35; a result of man’s willing, 173, 174; its socializing function, 178; its personalizing and socializing ef- fect, 219. Lecture, the, a socializing agency, 222, 223; the importance of attend- ance upon, 269. Legal procedure, in America, a cus- tom-encrusted process, 186. INDEX 307 Leisure time, the employment of, 268; the potentiality of, as a de- velopmental factor, 268; should be a time of creation as well as of rec- reation, 268, 269. Library, the, a socializing agency, 222, 223. Life, dominated by the machine, 8; vital, mental, conscious, and self- conscious, 32, 33, 83; the historical, 52-54, see Historical life; self-con- scious, three aspects of, 55; defi- nition of, 94; is the ultimate value, 94; the all-inclusive aim of, 287; personal, is spiritual, 289. Machine, life dominated by the, 8. Maladjustments, social, 272. Man, a spiritual entity, 7; the crown- ing achievement in the creative process thus far, 11; the personality of, the highest, 27; constructs a sys- tem of ends, 52; the mind of, com- pared with that of animals, shows greater differentiation and integra- tion, 61; modes of reaction common to, 109; and the animal, the differ- ence between, 109, 110, 159; his social organization based upon his rationality, 136; is not an accident, 242; has a self-conscious mind, 242. Masonic secret orders, the apotheosis of custom in, 203. Materialism, a loose mechanistic, the philosophy of life of the majority of not-wholly educated people, 4. Mechanism, has been elevated to the position of a world philosophy, 8. Memory, in animals, 51. Mental development, 60-64. Mental growth, through assimilation, 59, 60. Mental life, man’s, a remarkable real- ity, 6; second level of organic life, 32, 83. Mentality, 32, S3. Mind, may modify glands, 31; in its highest level of self-consciousness, 32; three services which it ren- ders to the organism, 34-36; the individual and the social, 38-40; the self-conscious, two fundamen- tal characteristics of, systematic continuity and essential sociable- ness, 41; of man, compared with that of animals, shows greater dif- ferentiation and integration, 61; the primitive and the civilized, 62; of the child and of the adult, 62; is rational by virtue of its socia- bility, 136; has a social origin, 137- 48; the individual, seeks social con- tacts, 154-57; presents three great functions, 173; conspectus of, 181; the social, of the present, is process, 191, 192. See Group mind, Social mind. Mob, the, and mob-contagion, 198- 201. Moral agent, every man a, 276, 290. Moral appreciation, 98, 100, 105. Moral ideal, the, is socialized person- ality, 275. Moral law, the, 276. Moral responsibility, 277. Moral situation, a, in terms of psy- chology, 276-80; a practical prob- lem, 277; met by teleological think- ing, 277; a vital choice involved in, 278, 279; and habit, 279, 280; in social terms, 280-84; is a moral as well as a personal situation, 280; community life is the focus of, 281, 282; of vocation, 282-84. Morality, defined, 274, 290; two as- pects of, 275, 276; a synthesis of personal ends and social values, 280,281; and the spiritual life, 288- 96; the ultimate grounds of, 291, 292; the final sanction for, 292; what it includes, 296. Moralization, a special phase of psycho-social development, 274, 276; and socialization, go together, 276. Moving-picture show, the problem of, 282. Miinsterberg, Hugo, quoted on voca- tion, 263. Museum, the, a socializing agency, 222, 223. Music, appreciation of, and the social environment, 145; and suggesti- bility, 167. 308 INDEX Nervous system, the, 28, 30. Newspaper, the, to meet the need of communion, 155; a socializing agency, 222, 223; the problem of, 282. Occupation, defined, 252. Organic growth, through assimila- tion, 59, 60. Organic life, four main levels of, vital, mental, conscious, self-conscious, 32, 83. Organism, a self-maintaining system, 26; the human, synthesizes all forms of response, 27, 28; and society, 39; psycho-social, the meaning of, 135, 136, 170, 171. Organisms, differ in regard to the degree of their complexity, 26, 27. Organization, based on reaction, 34- 36; and will, 56; the law of, 58; development through, 60-64; or integration, 61-64; of instinctive and impulsive tendencies, the prob- lem of, 111-15; volition the su- preme type of, 117-23; volition as, 121-23; of conduct, can come only through intelligent volition, 121; its place in the historical life, 123- 28; social, personality of individuals depends upon the degree of, 148-51. Organizations, the highest type of group-mindedness, 201, 202; how the historical mind of, is created and perpetuated, 202; represent a synthesis of all other forms of group mind, 203, 204; effect of, upon the individual member, 205; charac- teristics of good and bad, 205-07. Organized conduct, 56. “Over-soul,” 180. Ovum, the human, development of, 57. Patriotism, 226. Perry, R. B., quoted on art, 177. ‘Person,’ the, a moral agent, 40, 41. Personal development, and interpre- tation, 81, 82; calls for growth in the ability to think straight and feel consistently, 102; the demands of, 107; depends on proper organ- ization of inherited and acquired tendencies, 115; and volition, 123; and suggestibility, 167; knowledge of science contributes to, 176; custom lays the foundation for, 187; achievement a means of, 258- 62. Personal life, is spiritual life, 289. Personal self, the, 233-36. Personality, the biggest fact in the universe, 6, 15; fundamentally spiritual in nature, 7; is a teleo- logical unity, 8; the biggest end- value in the teleological system, 11; must be substituted for other ends in our industrial process, 13; must be conserved and enhanced, 13; ideal picture of industrial civilization developing, 13; three fundamental questions connected with, 14; and the individual, 14; and society, 14; the ‘plain man’s’ idea of, 15, 16; not all people possess it, 16-21,106, 107; those of rich, 21, 22; in- adequate picture of, given in books on psychology, 23; the experience aspect of, treated in books on psy- chology, 24; a synthesis of many factors, 25; the scientific approaches that can be made to, 25; the bio- logical basis of, 26, 27; human, at the head of the series of organic life, 27; the physiological aspect of, 27-32; largely determined by in- dividual types of response, 28, 29; the psychological aspect of, 32-38; and self-consciousness, 33; the sociological basis of, 38-40; from the combined psychological and sociological points of view, 40; the ethical basis of, 40, 41; a psycho- social organism, 42; every, has its own inner history, 42; three aspects under which it is to be treated, 42, 43; the method which exhibits the teleological quality of, 48; why an animal does not possess, 48-52; the historicalness of, 52; strong or weak, good or bad, 53; the test of, 53; the development of, the process of evolving an ‘historical life,’ 54; a matter of development, 57, 58; INDEX 309 emerges when the elements have acquired purpose, 58; dependent upon intellectual organization, 82; value of facts of experience to, 86; emotional experience aids in the growth of, 88; the sentiments in the growth of, 91-93; the contribution of art to the development of, 104; the significance of volition for, 123; the historical life means, 125; is an historical life energizing toward a system of end-values, 129; the place of self-consciousness in, 129-32; in- volves self-consciousness, 129; is an achievement, 131; a teleological system, 131; is spiritual in essence, 132; a physico-psycho-socia! or- ganism, 135; cannot develop apart from society, 137; of individuals, depends upon the degree of social organization, 148-51; is selfhood in its whole social setting, 154; and the tendency to put ideas into ac- tion, 164; two aspects of, mental and social, 171; germinates and grows in a social soil, 172; effect upon, of con- tact with the group mind, 180; ef- fect of public opinion upon, 195; con- ditions favoring the development of a strong and stable, 201; how it de- velops from the social soil, 208-10; and the agencies of socialization 213; emerges within the confines of the home, 215, 216; no social sys- tem is right which does not nurture, 242; the supreme achievement of, 242; how work affects, 253-62; socialized, 275; a social affair, 280; an organism which stands at the apex of all organic life, 288; the stimuli of, 288; a spiritual reality, 290, 291; self-conscious, is soul, 291; coordination of, with society, 293,294; complete, with a socialized conscience, is consciously religious, 295; a summing up of the demands of, 295; the tests of, 296-98. Personalization, socialization runs parallel with, 157, 158; law as an agency of, 219; the State as an agency of, 219, 221. Perspectives, 72. Philosophy, and religion, 292. Philosophy of life, every one has his, 3; the part of religious teachings and scientific information in, 3, 4; of the majority of the not-wholly educated people, 4; consistency in, 5; the four corner stones of the pres- ent, 6, 12; an educated individual has an adequate, 240, 244; the pro- positions it should include, 242; should issue in a vital and dynamic faith, 243; adequate, must include a religious view and attitude, 295. Physical development, 60, 61. Physical growth, 59, 60. Physiological aspect of personality, the, 27-32. Play, a mode of socialization, 169,170. Pleasantness and unpleasantness, 84, 85, 96, 97; the guiding principles of conduct, 108, 109. Points of view, 72; the function of, 79-81; as result of suggestibility, 166; furnished by tradition, 183. See Attitudes. Political parties, degenerate into crowds or mobs, 204. Political unrest, 12. Preconceptions, of different genera- tions and individuals, 5. Present self, the, 233-36. Press, the, to meet the need of com- munion, 155; a socializing agency, 222, 223; the problem of, 282. Principle, a, 70. Principles, facts and, as conduct- controls, 70, 71. Process, a teleological, 7. Professional service, defined, 252. Propaganda, 207. Proposition, the last test of the truth of, 5. Protoplasm, 32. Psychological aspect of personality, the, 32-38. Psychology, gives inadequate picture of personality, 23; limited to the treatment of the experience aspect of personality, 24; the method of, 42, 47; supports the generalization that human personality is not a mechanism, 293, 294. 310 INDEX “Psycho-Social Development,” the name, 43. Psycho-social organism, the meaning of, 135, 136, 170, 171. Public opinion, defined, 192; how formed, 192-94; arising out of dis- cussion, 194; its effect upon the psycho-social development of the individual, 194-97; three ways in which the individual profits by, 195, 196; in the community, re- placing personal beliefs in the in- dividual, 224. Public sentiment, 198, 200. Race-preservation, 111. Reaction, and organization, 34, 36; different modes of, common to man, 109; and attitude, 266. Reading, proper, the advantage of, 269. Reflex reaction, the, 83, 109. Religion, people who are without, 17-21; not in good form to mention it in colleges and universities, 240; and science, warfare between, 240; and philosophy, 292; constitutes ultimate value, 292, 295. Religious appreciation, 98, 100, 105. Religious conversion, 76. Religious teachings, provide the first principles in a philosophy of life, 3. Research, discovery of a method of, 175. Response, volition the characteristic type of human, 84, 110; stimulus and, 108, 164, 289; human, the forms of, almost unlimited, 111; a significant, 289, 290. Responses, of the human organism. 27-29. Ritualism, 204. Ross, E. A., quoted on fashion, 190. School, the, to meet the need of com- munion, 155; a socializing agency, 216, 217, 245, 248-51; origin of, 216, 217; the ideal of, 217; as a State enterprise, 221; what parents and children wish to secure from, 237; ought to be one of the greatest factors in education, 245; and appreciation, 246, 247; should pre- sent value-situations, 246; life of, should reproduce community life, 246, 247, 249; the supreme task of, 248; its fundamental purpose, 249; the vocation should find its replica in, 249; should offer opportunity for practice-thinking and action in political life, 250; pupil govern- ment in, 250; should instill ideas of brotherly love and human serv- ice, 250; should help the child weave his experiences into a syste- matic picture of the psycho-social life, 251. Science, one reason why religious leaders have been in revolt against, • 8; and civilization, 9; and evolu- tionary process, tools of God, 11; growth of pure and applied, 12; descriptive and normative, 65; the result of the effort to arrive at truth, 173; the inclusive task of, to enable mankind to discover the universal laws, 175; applied, 175; discovery of a method of research, a big achievement of, 175; a knowl- edge of, contributes to personal development, 176; a knowledge of, socializes the individual, 176; and religion, warfare between, 240. Sciences, the, 175. Scientific expansion, of last three hundred years, 9. Scientific information, as helping to form a philosophy of life, 4. Scientific labor, defined, 252. Scientific laws, are social in their origin, 144. Scientific literature, presuppositions implicit in, 5. Scientific method, the, 4; one result of the modern, 7; a new method of human achievement, 9; has sug- gested that the universe is a mech- anism, 9; has produced the con- cept of evolution, 9; table of, 12. Secret orders, ritual of, apotheosis of tradition in, 204. Secretion, glandular, 29, 30. Self, the meaning of, 130; and the not- self, 138, 154; is social as well as INDEX 311 personal, 154; the present, the em- pirical, and the personal, 233-36. Self-aggrandizement, 147. Self-analysis and self-examination, 76. Self-consciousness, the highest level of organic life, 33; the dominating factor in personality, 33, 34; the function of, 34-36; further analysis of, 36-38; emotion an important factor in the development of, 88; picture of, 124, 125; its place in personality, 129-32; has a social origin, 137-48; is also social con- sciousness, 138, 139; the beginning of, in the child, 153, 154. Selfhood, 130, 153; three levels of, 233-36. Self-preservation, 111. Self-preservative instincts, 146. Self-realization, 235, 261, 267. Sensation, the basis of interpreta- tion, 34, 35. Sensations, how they become inter- preted, 58; and awareness, 84; arise from natural environment and social relations, 141-43. Sense-organs, the system of, 28. Sentiment, an acquired feeling-re- action, 87, 91; the close relation between thinking and, 91; a signi- ficant element in personality, 92; is the dynamic evaluating function within appreciation, 93-95; at work upon value-situations, 98; the aesthetic, 104; public, 198. Sentiments, classification of, 92; are links in the chain of appreciation, 93; those of greatest worth, 99; should be based on correct thinking, 102. Sentimentalism, 247. Sentimentalities, 107. Seth, James, quoted on personality, 54. Situation, moral and non-moral, 276- 80; vital and non-vital, 278, 279. See Moral situation. Sociability, the capacity and need for social contact, 155; two aspects of, 155-57; the significance of, 157; arises out of social contact, 214. Social attitude, 266. Social communion, 154, 155. Social consciousness, 224. Social contacts, the individual mind seeks, 154-57; sociability and sym- pathy arise out of, 214. Social efficiency, 271. Social ends, 271. Social evil, the, 271. Social evolution, 212. Social institutions, to meet the de- mand for communion, 155; having a socializing value, 211. Social interests, 224. Social maladjustments, 272. Social mind, 180, 224. Social organization, at basis a mental fact, 38; an achievement, 136. Social psychology, deals with two sets of problems, 179. Social reconstruction, the problem of, 14. Social sentiment, in the community, replacing personal appreciations in the individual, 224. Social service, 267, 273. Social situation, the, visualization of, 12, 13. Social situations, moral situations are, 280-84. Social soil, the psychical elements of, 172-79; personality germinates and grows in, 172; is a temporal reality, 173; the key to the analysis of, 173; is indeed social, 174; ele- ments of, must be assimilated, 176; function of the value-elements of, 177; function of the volitional ele- ments of, 177, 178; the subtler ele- ments of, the forms of group- mindedness, 179; helpful as safe- guard against mob-contagion, 201; how personality develops from, 208-10. Social system, none is right which does not nurture personality in all, 242. Social unity of civilization, 224. Social unrest, 12. Socialization, its meaning, 151-54; the principles of, 154-58; runs parallel with personalization, 157, 158; the chief modes of, 159-70; 312 INDEX language a mode of, 159-63; sug- gestibility a mode of, 163-68; imi- tation a mode of, 168,169; play as a mode of, 169,170; through a knowl- edge of science, 176; through an appreciation of values, 177; through volitional-elements of the social soil, 177, 178; through law, 178; contribution to, of the group- mind, 182; as served by custom and tradition, 188; effect of public opinion upon the process of, 196; effect of public sentiment upon, 200; the agencies of, 211-29; the school as an agent of, 216, 217, 245, 248-51; of the child, 251; how work tends toward, 265-67; and moralization, go together, 276. Socialized conscience, the, 284-88; the three outstanding virtues of the man with, 286, 287; definition of, 287. Socialized cooperation, 272. Socialized labor, 271. Socialized personality, 275. “Socializing Process, The,” the name, 43. Society, and personality, 14; an or- ganism, 39; human personality cannot develop apart from, 137; and self-consciousness, 138-41; the origin of sensations in, 141-43; the origin of ideas and knowledge and the means of thinking in, 143, 144; and scientific laws, 144; and the system of values, 145; and actions, 146-48; primitive, social organiza- tion in, 148, 149; civilized, social organization in, 150, 151; human, can be made a kingdom of heaven on earth, 242; ideal, 291, 292; the ultimate pattern of human, 293; the perfect pattern of, 295. Society butterfly, the, 20, 53, 81. Sociological basis of personality, the, 38-40. Socio-mental processes, system of, 181. Socio-mental questions, 282. See Moral situation. ‘Soldiering,’ 267. ‘Soul,’ the word not to be found in modern books on psychology, 23; equals self-conscious personality, 291. Specialization, 256, 267. ‘Spiritual,’ the word, 290, 291. Spiritual life, morality and the, 288- 96; personal life is, 289. Sportsmen, a class of non-persons, 19, 20, 53, 81. State, the, defined, 218, 219; the function of, 219; its socializing value, 219, 221; and the criminal, 220. Stimulus, and response, 108, 164, 289, 290. Stimulus-response formula, of the Behaviorists, 5, 12. Suffering, human, en masse, is un- necessary, 242. Suggestibility, a mode of socializa- tion, 163-68; defined, 163; degrees of, 164, 165; varies with race, age, temperament, and sex, 165; forms of, 165; varies with the volume of the objective factor, 165. Suggestion, a source of attitudes, 74, 75; one’s own reactions as, 115; defined, 163, 164. Sullivan, Miss, quoted on the sudden mental expansion of Helen Keller, 160, 161. Summum bonum, the, 275. Sympathy, arises out of social con- tact, 214. System of ends and purposes, the meaning of, 52-54; the construction of, 64; the realization of, 76; inner unity and, 82; the core of personal- ity, 93, 112, 113, 132, 196; the backbone of the historical life, 101, 102, 275; intellectual consistency within, conditioned by consistency of conduct, 114; point of view de- termines, 115; in picture of devel- oped personality, 125; a self-de- structive, 127; personality is an historical life energizing toward, 129; the watch the objective sym- bol of, 143; a social system, 171; organization and, 203; and the State, 219; of Jesus, 221; self- realization and, 235; in daily work, INDEX 313 254; efficiency a means in a larger, 270; and the moral agent, 275; and habit, 279; and morality, 281; and the man with the socialized con- science, 287. Taste, good, insured by proper ap- preciation, 105; the nature of, 105, 106; poor, the handicap of, 106. Taxation, the problem of, 273. Technological pursuits, 252. Teleological system, 291, 294. Teleology, as opposed to mechanism, 7. See Thinking. Theater, the, a socializing agency, 222, 223; the problem of, 282. Thinking, the process of, 64; explan- atory and teleological, 65, 66, 277; explanatory, how it aids in the con- struction of the historical life, 66, 67; teleological, how it operates in personality, 67, 68; explanatory, knowledge the result of, 69-72; teleological, attitudes and points of view the result of, 72-81; the twofold significance of, 85; the close relation between sentiment and, 91; often the result of action, 114; the means of, of social origin, 143, 144; de- fined, 144; three ways in which language assists in, 162; process of, as result of suggestibility, 166; teleological, the development of the ability, the basis of appreciation, 246. Thought, the function of, in relation to the historical life and personal- ity, 65; process, plays two im- portant r61es in the development of the historical life, 71. See Think- ing. Throng, and crowd, 197, 198. Thwing, President C. F., quoted on appreciation, 96. Titchener, E. B., quoted on the nature of attitudes, 72, 73; his definition of self, 130. Tradition, the foundation of, 166; defined, 182; illustrations of, 183; supplies many mental attitudes, 183, 184; the main value of, its socializing function, 184; and cus- tom, differences between, 185; so- cialization served by, 188; the apo- theosis of, in denominational creeds and the ritual of secret orders, 203, 204. Traditions, the obverse and the re- verse of, 209, 210. Unemployment, the problem of, 272. Uniforms, exaggerated, 204. Universe. See World. Universities, not in good form to mention religion in, 240. Value, and appreciation, 35, 85; in the making of personality, 86. Values, are what contribute to the ethical ideal, 94; appreciation is the choosing of those that are worth-while, 96; many degrees and varieties of, 96; psychological and ethical, 96, 97; appreciation is the evaluation of the, 98; the system of, social, 145, 171; as result of suggestibility, 167; appreciation of, socializes one, 177; moral, the chief, 286; the presence of, in conscious- ness, 286. Veblen, T. B., on sportsmen, 19, 20. Venture, 243, 244. Vital life, 32. Vocation, the, what is meant by, 217, 252; two ways in which it serves as a socializing agency, 218; should be reproduced in the school, 249; what is meant by, 252, 253; the choice of a, 262-65; moral situations con- nected with, 282-84. Vocational guidance, 264, 265. Volition, the characteristic type of human response, 84, 110; furnishes means to proper organization of conduct, 115; the supreme type of organization, 117-23; its technique that of thinking and appreciation, 117; an example of, 118, 119; the feeling side of, 120; as organiza- tion, 121-23; the dynamic factor which makes real the ideal, 125, 126; the executive factor which puts the mental machine into action, 126; the chief organizer of conduct, 314 INDEX 127; of the defective, 127; of the criminal, 127, 128; of the incon- sequential, 128; an expression of the socialness of personality, 171; and efficiency, 259, 260. Volitional act, the essential charac- teristics of, 117-21, 277; the feeling side of, 120; a moral situation centers around, 276. Volitional-elements, of the social soil, 177, 178. Wages, the problem, 272. Warren, H. C., quoted on mentality, 32. Will,’ 55. Woman labor, 272. Woodworth, R. S., his “Psychology” quoted, 28-30. Words. See Language. Work, 248, 253; how it affects per- sonality, 253-62; a psychological as well as an economic necessity, 253; leads to fuller self-conscious- ness, 255; selection of proper, 262- 65; how it tends to socialize the in- dividual, 265-67. Work-and-play life, a vigorous, 270. Worker, the, efficiency of, made possible by the corporate effort of society, 147, 148. World, the, has a plan and a purpose, 8; is lawful and orderly, 242; is not a blind machine, 242; not a hard place, 242. Wright, H. W., quoted on happiness, 97; quoted on volition, 123, 126; quoted on achievement, 257, 258.