Society: Its Origin and Development Part 24

351. =The Increasing Recognition of the Principle of Adaptation.=--This principle of adaptation has found limited application for a long time. Starting with individuals in the family and family groups in the clan, it extended until it included all the members of a state in their relations to each other. Many individual interests conflict in business and society and different opinions clash, but all points of difference within the nation are settled by due process of law, except when elemental pa.s.sions break out in a lynching, or a family feud is perpetuated among the hills. But war continued to be the mode of settling international difficulties.

Military force restrained a va.s.sal from hostile acts under the Roman peace. But the next necessary step was for states voluntarily to adjust their relations with one another. In some instances, even in ancient times, local differences were buried, and small federations, like the Achaean League of the Greeks and the Lombard League of the Middle Ages, were formed for common defense. These have been followed by greater alliances in modern times. But the striking instances of real interstate progress are found in the federation of such States as those that are included within the present United States of America, and within the new German Empire that was formed after the Franco-Prussian War. Sinking their differences and recognizing one another's rights and interests, the people of such united nations have become accustomed to a large national solidarity, and it ought not to require much instruction or persuasion to show them that what they have accomplished already for themselves is the correct principle for their guidance in world affairs.

352. =International Law and Peace.=--This principle of recognizing one another's rights and interests is the foundation of international law, which has been modified from time to time, but which from the publication of Hugo Grotius's _Law of War and Peace_ in the seventeenth century slowly has bound more closely together the civilized nations. There has come into existence a body of law for the conduct of nations that is less complete, but commands as great respect as the civil law of a single state. This law may be violated by a nation in the stress of conflict, as civil law may be derided by an individual lawbreaker or by an excited mob, but eventually it rea.s.serts itself and slowly extends its scope and power. Without international legislative organization, without a tribunal or a military force to carry out its provisions, by sheer force of international opinion and a growing regard for social justice it demands attention from the proudest nations. Text-books have been written and university chairs founded to present its claims, international a.s.sociations and conventions have met to define more accurately its code, and tentative steps have been taken to strengthen its position by two Hague Conferences that met in 1899 and 1907. Large contributions of money have been made to stimulate the cause of peace, and as many as two hundred and fifty peace societies have been organized.

353. =Arbitration and an International Court.=--Experiments have been tried at settling international disputes without resort to war. Great Britain and the United States have led the way in showing to the world during the last one hundred years that all kinds of vexatious differences can be settled peacefully by submitting them to arbitration. These successes have led the United States to propose general treaties of arbitration to other nations, and advance has been made in that direction. It was possible to establish at The Hague a permanent court of arbitration, and to refer to it really important cases. Such a calamity as the European war, of course, interrupts the progress of all such peaceful methods, but makes all the plainer the dire need of a better machinery for settling international differences. There is reasonable expectation that before many years there may be established a permanent international court of justice, an international parliament, and a sufficient international police force to restrain any one nation from breaking the peace. Only in this way can the dread of war be allayed and disarmament be undertaken; even then the success of such an experiment in government will depend on an increase of international understanding, respect, and consideration.

354. =Intercommunication and Its Rewards.=--The gain in social solidarity that has been achieved already is due first of all to improved communication between nations. In the days of slow sailing vessels it took several weeks to cross the Atlantic, and there was no quicker way to convey news. The news that peace had been arranged at Ghent in 1814 between Great Britain and the United States did not reach the armies on this side in time to prevent the battle of New Orleans. Even the results of the battle of Waterloo were not known in England for several days after Napoleon's overthrow. Now ocean leviathans keep pace with the storms that move across the waters, and the cable and the wireless flash their messages with the speed of the lightning. Power to put a girdle around the earth in a few minutes has made modern news agencies possible, and they have made the modern newspaper essential. The newspaper requires the railroad and the steams.h.i.+p for its distribution, and business men depend upon them all to carry out their plans. These physical agencies have made possible a commerce that is world-wide. There are ports that receive s.h.i.+ps from every nation east and west. Great freight terminal yards hold cars that belong to all the great transportation lines of the country.

Lombard Street and Wall Street feel the pulse of the world's trade as it beats through the channels of finance.

Improved communication has made possible the unification of a great political system like the British Empire. In the Parliament House and government offices of Westminster centre the political interests of Canada, Australia, South Africa, Egypt, and India, as well as of islands in every sea. Better communication has brought into closer relations the Pan-American states, so that they have met more than once for their mutual benefit.

Helpful social results have come from the travel that has grown enormously in volume since ease and cheapness of transportation have increased. The impulse to travel for pleasure keeps persons of wealth on the move, and the desire for knowledge sends the intellectually minded professional man or woman of small means globe-trotting. In this way the people of different nations learn from one another; they become able to converse in different languages and to get one another's point of view; they gain new wants while they lose some of their professional interests; they return home poorer in pocket but richer in experience, more interested in others, more tolerant. These are social values, certain to make their influence felt in days to come, and by no means unappreciable already.

355. =International Inst.i.tutions.=--These values are conserved by international inst.i.tutions. Societies are formed by like-minded persons for better acquaintance and for the advancement of knowledge.

The sciences are cherished internationally, interparliamentary unions and other agencies for the preservation of peace hold their conferences, working men meet to air their grievances or plan programmes, religious denominations consult for pus.h.i.+ng their campaigns. The organizations that grow out of these relations and conferences develop into inst.i.tutions that have standing. The international a.s.sociations of scholars are as much a part of the world's inst.i.tutional a.s.sets as the educational system is a recognized a.s.set of any country. They are clearing-houses of information, as necessary as an international clearing-house of finance. The World's Woman's Christian Temperance Union and the International Young Men's Christian a.s.sociation are moral agencies that bring together those who have at heart the same interests, and when they have once made good they must be reckoned among the established organizations that help to move the world forward. Not least among such inst.i.tutions are the religious organizations. The closely knit Roman Catholic Church, that has held together millions of faithful adherents in many lands for centuries, and whose canon law receives an unquestioning obedience as the law of a nation, is an ill.u.s.tration of what an international religious inst.i.tution may be. Protestant Churches, naturally more independent, have moved more slowly, but their world alliances and federations are increasing to the point where they, too, are likely to become true inst.i.tutions.

356. =Missions as a Social Inst.i.tution.=--Those inst.i.tutions and movements are most useful that aim definitely to stimulate the highest interests of all mankind. It is comparatively simple to provide local stimulus for a better community life, but to help move the world on to higher levels requires clear vision, patient hope, and a definite plan on a large scale. Christian missionaries are conspicuous for their lofty ideals, their personal devotion to an unselfish task, their persistent optimism, and their unswerving adherence to the programme marked out by the pioneers of the movement. It is no argument against them that they have not accomplished all that a few enthusiasts expected of them in a few years. To socialize and Christianize half the people of the world is the task of centuries. With broad statesmans.h.i.+p missionary leaders have undertaken to do both of these.

Mistakes in method or detail of operation do not invalidate the whole enterprise, and all criticism must keep in mind the n.o.ble purpose to lift to a higher level the social, moral, and religious ideas and practices of the most backward peoples. The purpose is certainly no less laudable than that of a Chinese mission to England to persuade Great Britain to end the opium traffic, or a diplomatic mission from the United States to stop civil strife in Mexico.

357. =Education as a Means to Internationalism.=--Internationalism rests on the broad basis of the social nature of mankind, a nature that cannot be unsocialized, but can be developed to a higher and more purposeful socialization. As there are degrees of perfection in the excellence of social relations, so there are degrees of obligation resting upon the nations of the world to give of their best to a general levelling up. The dependable means of international socialization is education, whether it comes through the press, the pulpit, or the school. Every commission that visits one country from another to learn of its industries, its inst.i.tutions, and its ideals, is a means to that important end. Every exchange professor between European and American universities helps to interpret one country to the other. Every Chinese, Mexican, or Filipino youth who attends an American school is borrowing stimulus for his own people. Every visitor who does not waste or abuse his opportunities is a unit in the process of improving the acquaintance of East and West, of North and South. Internationalism is not a social Utopia to be invented in a day; it is rather an att.i.tude of mind and a mode of living that come gradually but with gathering momentum as mutual understanding and sympathy increase.

READING REFERENCES

STRONG: _Our World_, pages 3-202.

FOSTER: _Arbitration and the Hague Court._

FAUNCE: _Social Aspects of Foreign Missions._

MAURENBRECKER: "The Moral and Social Tasks of World Politics,"

art. in _American Journal of Sociology_, 6: 307-315.

TRUEBLOOD: _Federation of the World_, pages 7-20, 91-149.

PART VI--SOCIAL a.n.a.lYSIS

CHAPTER XLV

PHYSICAL AND PERSONAL FACTORS IN THE LIFE OF SOCIETY

358. =Constant Factors in Social Phenomena.=--Our study of social life has made it plain that it is a complex affair, but it has been possible to cla.s.sify society in certain groups, to follow the gradual extension of relations from small groups to large, and to take note of the numerous activities and interests that enter into contemporary group life. It is now desirable to search for certain common elements that in all periods enter into the life of every group, whether temporary or permanent, so that we may discover the constant factors and the general principles that belong to the science of society. Some of these have been referred to already among the characteristics of social life, but in this connection it is useful to cla.s.sify them for closer examination.

First among these is the physical factor which conditions human activity but is not a compelling force, for man has often subdued his environment when it has put obstacles in his way. This physical element includes the geographical conditions of mountain, valley, or seash.o.r.e, the climate and the weather, the food and water supply, the physical inheritance of the individual and the laws that control physical development, and the physical const.i.tution of the group. A second factor is the psychic nature of human beings and the psychical interaction that goes on between individuals within the group and that produces reactions between groups.

359. =The Natural Environment.=--The early sociologists put the emphasis on the physical more than the psychic factors, and especially on biological a.n.a.logies in society. It seemed to them as if it was nature that brought men together. Mountains and ice-bound regions were inhospitable, impa.s.sable rivers and trackless forests limited the range of animals and men, violent storms and temperature changes made men afraid. Avoiding these dangers and seeking a food-supply where it was most plentiful, human beings met in the favored localities and learned by experience the principles of a.s.sociation. Everywhere man is still in contact with physical forces.

He has not yet learned to get along without the products of the earth, extracting food-supplies from the soil, gathering the fruits that nature provides, and mining the useful and precious metals. The city-dweller seems less dependent on nature than is the farmer, but the urban citizen relies on steam and electricity to turn the wheels of industry and transportation, depends on coal and gas for heat and light, and uses winter's harvest of ice to relieve the oppressive heat of summer. Rivers and seas are highways of his commerce. Everywhere man seems hedged about by physical forces and physical laws.

Yet with the prerogative of civilization he has become master rather than servant of nature. He has improved wild fruits and vegetables by cultivation, he has domesticated wild animals, he has harnessed the water of the streams and the winds of heaven. He has tunnelled the mountains, bridged the rivers, and laid his cables beneath the ocean.

He has learned to ride over land and sea and even to skim along the currents of the air. He has been able to discover the chemical elements that permeate matter and the nature and laws of physical forces. By numerous inventions he has made use of the materials and powers of nature. The physical universe is a challenge to human wits, a stimulus to thought and activity that shall result in the wonderful achievements of civilization.

360. =The Human Physique.=--Another element that enters into every calculation of success or failure in human life is the physical const.i.tution of the individual and the group. The individual's physique makes a great difference in his comfort and activity. The corpulent person finds it difficult to get about with ease, the cripple finds himself debarred from certain occupations, the person with weak lungs must shun certain climates and as far as possible must avoid indoor pursuits. By their power of ingenuity or by sheer force of will men have been able to overcome physical limitations, but it is necessary to reckon with those limitations, and they are always a handicap. The physical endowment of a race has been a deciding factor in certain times of crisis. The physical prowess of the Anakim kept back the timid Israelites from their intended conquest of Canaan until a more hardy generation had arisen among the invaders; the st.u.r.dy Germans won the lands of the Roman Empire in the West from the degenerate provincials; powerful vikings swept the Western seas and struck such terror into the peaceful Saxons that they cried out: "From the fury of the Northmen, good Lord, deliver us."

361. =Biological a.n.a.logies.=--The physical factor in society received emphasis the more because society itself was thought of as an organism resembling physical organisms and dependent upon similar laws. As a man's physical frame was essential to his activity and limited his energies, so the visible structure of social organization was deemed more important than social activity and function. Particularly did the method of evolution that had become so famous in biology appeal to students of sociology as the only satisfactory explanation of social change. The study of animal evolution made it clear that heredity and environment played a large part in the development of animal life, and Darwin pointed out that progress came by the elimination of those individuals and species least fitted to survive in the struggle for existence and the perpetuation of those that best adapted themselves to environment. It was easy to find social a.n.a.logies and to reach the conclusion that in the same way individuals and groups were creatures of heredity and environment, and the all-important task of society was to conform itself to environment. Of course, history disproved the universality of such a law, for more than once a race has risen above its environment or altered it, but it seemed a satisfactory working principle.

Biological a.n.a.logies, however, were overemphasized. It was a gain to know the workings of race traits and the relation of the individual to his ancestry, but to excuse crime on the ground of racial degeneracy or to despise a race and believe that none of its members can excel because it is conspicuous for certain race weaknesses has been unfortunate. Similarly there was advantage in remembering that environment is either a great help or a great hindrance to social progress, but it would be a social calamity to believe in a physical determinism that leaves to human beings no choice as to their manner of life. The important truth to keep in mind is that man and environment must be adapted to each other, but it often proves better to adapt environment to man than to force man into conformity to environment. It is the growing independence of environment through his own intellectual powers that has given to civilized man his ascendancy in the world. It is a mistake, also, to think that a struggle for existence is the only means of survival. As in the animal world, there comes a time in the process of evolution when the struggle for selfish existence becomes subordinated to effort to preserve the life of the young or to help the group by the sacrifice of the individual self, so in society it is reasonable to believe that the selfish struggle of individuals will give way by degrees to purposeful effort for social welfare, and that the solidarity of the group rather than the interest of the individual will seem the highest good. Then the group will care for the weak, and all will gain from the strength and prosperity of the whole.

362. =The Importance of the Individual.=--While it is true that individual interests are bound up with the prosperity of the group, and that the food that he eats, the clothes that he wears, and the money that he handles and uses are all his because social industry prevails, there is some danger of overlooking the importance of the individual. Though he does not exist alone, the individual with his distinctive personality is the unit of society. Without individuals there would be no society, without the action of the individual mind there would be no action of the social mind, without individual leaders.h.i.+p there would be little order or progress. The single cell that made up the lowest forms of animal life is still the unit of that complex thing that we call the human body, and the well-being of the single cell is essential to the health and even the existence of the whole body; so the single human being is fundamental to the existence and health of the social body. No a.n.a.lysis of society is at all complete that does not include a study of the individual man.

363. =The Psychology of the Individual.=--Self-examination during the course of a single day helps to explain the life forces that act upon other individuals now and that have forged human history. In such study of self it soon becomes apparent to the student that the physical factor is subordinate to the psychic, but that they are connected. As soon as he wakes in the morning his mental processes are at work. Something has called back his consciousness from sleep. The light s.h.i.+ning in at his window, the bell calling him to meet the day's schedule, the odor of food cooking in the kitchen, are physical stimuli calling out the response of his sense-perceptions; his mind begins at once to a.s.sociate these impressions and to react upon his will until he gets out of bed and proceeds to prepare himself for the day. These processes of sensation, a.s.sociation, and volition const.i.tute the simple basis of individual life upon which the complex structure of an active personality is built.

The individual will is moved to activity by many agencies. There is first the instinct. As a person inherits physical traits from his ancestors, so he gets certain mental traits. The demand for food is the cry of the instinct for self-preservation. The grimace of the infant in response to the mother's smile is an expression of the instinct for imitation. The reaching out of its hand to grasp the suns.h.i.+ne is in obedience to the instinct for acquisition. All human a.s.sociation is due primarily to the instinct for sociability. These instincts are inborn. They cannot be eradicated, but they can be modified and controlled.

Obedience to these native instincts produces fixed habits. These are not native but acquired, and so are not transmitted to posterity, in the belief of most scientists, but they are powerful factors in individual conduct. The individual early in the morning is hungry, and the appet.i.te for food recurs at intervals through the day; it becomes a habit to go at certain hours where he may obtain satisfaction. So it is with many activities throughout the day.

Instincts and habits produce impulses. The savage eats as often as he feels like it, if he can find berries or fruit or bring down game; impulse alone governs his conduct. But two other elements enter in to modify impulse, as experience teaches wisdom. The self-indulgent man remembers after a little that indulgence of impulse has resulted sometimes in pain rather than satisfaction, and his imagination pictures a recurrence of the unhappy experience. Feeling becomes a guide to regulate impulse. Feeling in turn compels thought. Presently the individual who is going through the civilizing process formulates a resolve and a theory, a resolve to eat at regular times and to abstain from foods that injure him, a theory that intelligent restraint is better than unregulated indulgence. In a similar way the individual acts with reference to selecting his environment. Instinct and habit act conservatively, impelling the individual to remain in the place where he was born and reared, and to follow the occupation of his father. But he feels the discomforts of the climate or the restrictions of his particular environment, he thinks about it, bringing to bear all the knowledge that he possesses, and he makes his choice between going elsewhere or modifying his present environment.

Discovery and invention are both products of such choices as these.

364. =Desires and Interests.=--These complexes of thinking, feeling, and willing make up the conscious desires and interests that mould the individual life. Through the processes of attention to the stimuli that act upon human nature, discrimination between them, a.s.sociation of impressions and ideas that come from present and past experience, and deliberate judgments of value, the mind moves to action for the satisfaction of personal desires and interests. These desires and interests have been cla.s.sified in various ways. For our present purpose it is useful to cla.s.sify them as those that centre in the self, and those that centre in others beyond the self. The primitive desires to get food and drink, to mate, and to engage in muscular activity, all look toward the self-satisfaction which comes from their indulgence. There are various acquired interests that likewise centre in the self. The individual goes to college for the social pleasure that he antic.i.p.ates, for intellectual satisfaction, or to equip himself with a training that will enable him to win success in the compet.i.tion of business. In the larger society outside of college the art-lover gathers about him many treasures for his own aesthetic delight, the politician exerts himself for the attainment of power and position, the religious devotee hopes for personal favors from the unseen powers. These are on different planes of value, they are estimated differently by different persons, but they all centre in the individual, and if society benefits it is only indirectly or accidentally.

As the individual rises in the scale of social intelligence, his interests become less self-centred, and as he extends his acquaintance and a.s.sociations the scope of his interests enlarges. He begins to act with reference to the effect of his actions upon others. He sacrifices his own convenience for his roommate; he restrains his self-indulgence for the sake of the family that he might disgrace; he exerts himself in athletic prowess for the honor of the college to which he belongs; he is willing to risk his life on the battle-field in defense of the nation of which he is a citizen; he consecrates his life to missionary or scientific endeavor in a far land for the sake of humanity's gain.

These are the social interests that dominate his activity. Mankind has risen from the brute by the process that leads the individual up from the low level of life moulded by primitive desires to the high plane of a life directed by the broad interests of society at large. It is the task of education to reveal this process, and to provide the stimuli that are needed for its continuance.

365. =Personality.=--No two persons are actuated alike in daily conduct. The pull of their individual desires is not the same, the influence of the various social interests is not in the same proportion. The situation is complicated by hereditary tendencies, and by physical and social environment. Consequently every human being possesses his own distinctive individuality or personality. Variations of personality can be cla.s.sified and various persons resemble each other so much that types of personality are distinguished. Thus we distinguish between weak personality and forceful personality, according to the strength of individuation, a narrow or a broad personality according as interests are few and selfish or broadly social, a fixed or a changing personality according to conservatism or unsettled disposition. Personality is a distinction not always appreciated, a distinction that separates man from the brute because of his self-consciousness and power of self-direction by rational processes, and relieves him from the dead level that would exist in society if every individual were made after the same pattern. It is the secret of social as well as individual progress, for it is a great personality that sways the group. It is the great boon of present life and the great promise of continued life hereafter.

READING REFERENCES

ROSS: _Foundations of Sociology_, pages 165-181.

ELLWOOD: _Sociology in its Psychological Aspects_, pages 94-123.

DEALEY: _Sociology_, pages 96-98, 200-230.

NEARING AND WATSON: _Economics_, pages 60-98.

DARWIN: _Descent of Man_, chap. XXI.

DRUMMOND: _Ascent of Man_, pages 41-57, 189-266.

GIDDINGS: _Inductive Sociology_, pages 249-278.