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 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924030365666 
 
Supplement to the Annai,s of The 
 American Academy oe Pouticai, and Sociai, Science, 
 
 January, 1896. 
 
 Theory of Social Forces 
 
 BY 
 
 Simon N. Patten, Ph.D., 
 
 Professor of Political Economy in the Wharton School of Finance and Economy. 
 University of Pennsylvania. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA : 
 AuBRzc&N Academy of Politicai. and Social Scisxtcb. 
 
 1896. , I / 
 
 i 'Ti/, 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 The Infi,uencb of thb Environment. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 ? I. The Relation of Economics to Biology, 7 
 
 I 2. The Causes of a Progressive Evolution, 9 
 
 I 3. The Obstacles to a Progressive Evolution, 11 
 
 ^ 4. The Requisites for Survival, 14 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 Race Psychoi,ogy. 
 
 ? I. The Mental Mechanism, . 18 
 
 I 2. The Classification of Ideas, 22 
 
 ^ 3. The Basis of the Present Hj^othesis 26 
 
 I 4. The Self-Conscious Centre 29 
 
 ^ 5. The Development of the Sensory Feelings, 31 
 
 ^ 6. A Classification of the Motor Feelings, 37 
 
 I 7. The Defects in the Reasoning of Locke and Hume About 
 
 the Powers of the Mind, 39 
 
 I 8. The Mechanism of Belief, 43 
 
 I 9. A Restatement, 45 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 Knowledge and Bei,ief. 
 
 ? I. Local and General Environments 49 
 
 I 2. The Subjective Environment 53 
 
 I 3. The Extension of Knowledge 55 
 
 ^ 4. The Theory of Conviction, 63 
 
 ^ 5. The Analysis of Reasoning 67 
 
 ^ 6. The Modification of Belief, 70 
 
 (3) 
 
|. Annaw of ths American Academy, 
 
 chapter iv. 
 
 A SOCIAI, COMMONWEAWH. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 I I. The Transition from a Pain Economy to a Pleasure Econ- 
 omy 75 
 
 ! 2. The Characteristics of a Pleasure Economy, 80 
 
 i 3. The Economic Bonds, 85 
 
 ; 4. The Social Bonds 9° 
 
 j 5. The Social Man 95 
 
 j 6. Social Morality 99 
 
 i 7. Social Religion 104 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 NoRMAii Progress. 
 
 : I. The Stages of Social Progress 109 
 
 ; 2. The Greater Humanity 115 
 
 (3. The Race Ideals 119 
 
 ; 4. The Misapplication of General Principles 126 
 
 ; 5. The Civic Instincts 133 
 
 ! 6. The Democratic Ideals 138 
 
 i 7. The Progress of Cities, 143 
 
THE THEORY OF SOCIAL FORCES. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The present essay is an attempt to recast current social 
 philosophy and to introduce into it elements which thus far 
 have been overlooked. In our social speculations we are still 
 dominated by eighteenth century philosophy. Even the 
 theory of evolution has had as yet but little influence on the 
 social concepts and ideals of the race. Individualism seems 
 as firmly established as ever and has on its side many of 
 the highest scientific authorities. 
 
 I question whether the hold which this social philosophy 
 has on the popular mind can be shaken, by an appeal to 
 inductive evidence. This hold depends upon certain con- 
 cepts and ideals which have received classical statement at 
 the hands of our ablest thinkers and which cannot be dis- 
 placed by unorganized facts. In order to have any degree 
 of success a new social philosophy must present doctrines 
 and ideals which are equally clear and have their elements 
 equally well correlated. 
 
 It is my belief that the older philosophy does not rest on 
 general principles, but is grotmded on the series of environ- 
 ments in which the race has lived. The present environ- 
 ment of the race is so different from its predecessors that 
 a new social philosophy is demanded to explain its effects. 
 A failure to recognize changes in the environment is the 
 main source of confusion in current discussions. My 
 method may not lead to the solution of all social problems, 
 but it at least clears the ground and shows how and where 
 subsequent work of a more inductive character can be done. 
 
 It is perhaps necessary to caution the reader against the 
 assumption that the social commonwealth which I have de- 
 scribed is, in my opinion, the highest or even a final social 
 state. While it is yet too early to predict what kind of a 
 society will follow it, we know enough of its tendencies to 
 
 (5) 
 
6 Annai<s of the American Academy. 
 
 see that it may not be able to satisfy all the aspirations of 
 men. If a progressive evolution continue, other societies 
 will be possible, each of which will differ from its prede- 
 cessor as radically as the society I describe differs from our 
 present society. The desire for a still higher form should 
 not be made the ground of an opposition to the study of the 
 social conditions resulting from the pursuit of pleasure. 
 Only when the more elementary facts about such a society 
 are understood can the foundations of higher social states be 
 discussed with profit. This essay attempts merely to start 
 discussion along the right track and not to describe the ulti- 
 mate form which society is to assume. 
 
 I feel that I must make an apology for injecting so much 
 pyschologic discussion into this essay. To many readers this 
 will seem foreign to the subject and may arouse prejudices 
 which will interfere with a correct appreciation of the other 
 parts. It should, however, be kept in mind that every 
 social philosophy has, as its basis, some theory of psychology. 
 The doctrines of I^ocke and Hume have proved a most 
 admirable basis for the old social philosophy. They ignore, 
 however, the elements upon which the social forces rest. 
 A new social philosophy cannot pass beyond the inductive 
 stage until these factors are recognized and a picture of 
 mental activity constructed which emphasizes the elements 
 neglected by the old philosophy. Even if the type of psy- 
 chology which I present is faulty, it can at least serve as a 
 provisional philosophy until psychologic research is far 
 enough advanced to furnish a better basis. The assump- 
 tions I make are neither different in kind nor greater in 
 number than those of the philosophy it seeks to displace. 
 If a few of its prominent ideas have in them elements of 
 truth, the correctness of the details is of less consequence. 
 They are inserted in order to create a definite picture of 
 mental phenomena and thus to give my ideas some of the 
 advantages which frequent restatement has given to the 
 familiar ideas of the older systems of thought. 
 
 — T 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 The Influence; of the; Environment. 
 § I . The Relation of Economics to Biology. 
 
 Evolution has thus far been studied as a problem of biol- 
 ogy. This has been due more to what I would call a happy- 
 accident than to any necessity of the situation. Darwin 
 admits that he obtained the clue to his theory through read- 
 ing Malthus' "Essay on Population," and in many respects 
 the attitude of the author of the "Origin of Species, " is that 
 of an economist. It is only by later writers that the eco- 
 nomic elements in the problem are neglected and that the 
 theory is based solely upon biologic evidence. The happy 
 accident to which I have referred is the fact that the history 
 of past organic life is so plainly recorded in the various 
 organisms of the present and in the fossil remains of earlier 
 forms. This enables the student to use the historical and 
 comparative method of investigation and from his series of 
 observations to infer what was the order of organic evolu- 
 tion. The organic world is not a world of causes but of 
 effects, and hence the historical method is the only one of 
 which the biologist can make use in studying the processes 
 of evolution. 
 
 The fundamental contrast in evolution is that of environ- 
 ment and organism. The environment is made up of a group 
 of conditions to which the organism must adjust itself. 
 These conditions are, as compared with the organism, per- 
 manent and in their ultimate form unchanging. The organ- 
 ism is mobile and short lived. If an adjustment is to be 
 made between the environment and an organism, it is the 
 latter that must change. We have, therefore, between the 
 two factors of evolution a causal connection. Causes lie in 
 the environment, effects show themselves in the organisms. 
 
 (7) 
 
8 Annals of the American Academy. 
 
 The facts of evolution can be studied deductively only by 
 beginning with the environment and tracing the influence 
 of its conditions upon the organisms seeking adjustment. 
 Inductive studies, however, must begin with facts about the 
 organism and from them the student must seek to discover 
 the conditions of the environment which has determined its 
 evolution. If evolution is studied through its effects on 
 organisms, the study is plainly in the field of biology. If, 
 however, we seek in the environment for the causes of evo- 
 lution, it is equally plain that the study lies in the field of 
 economics — the science of utilities and of goods. 
 
 The environment of an organism is not the whole objec- 
 tive world, but only those parts of it which affect its welfare. 
 The objects surrounding each organism may be divided into 
 three parts: Those that are the cause of pleasure or of 
 welfare, and therefore desirable; those that are the cause of 
 pain or of destruction, and therefore to be avoided; and 
 finally, all indifferent objects which are of no importance to 
 the organism. The first two classes of objects make up the 
 environment of an organism, which expands or contracts as 
 a greater or smaller number of objects affects its welfare. 
 
 The environment of a particular organism is not, therefore, 
 an unchanging whole made up of the sum of all objective 
 conditions, but consists of a varying number of desirable or 
 undesirable objects. There are, therefore, innumerable 
 possible environments to which organisms can adjust them- 
 selves. Each organism seeks for that environment where 
 there is a maximum of favorable and a minimum of unfavor- 
 able conditions. It desires to secure goods and to avoid 
 evils. The problem thus presented is an economic problem 
 and its study belongs to economic science. Every organism 
 has its economy based upon the objective conditions by 
 which it is affected. The economy of higher organisms is 
 much more complex than that of the lower organisms, but 
 the principles are not different. There is always an 
 endeavor to increase pleasure and to avoid pain if the animal 
 
The Influence of the Environment. 9 
 
 is conscious of these emotions ; and even if consciousness is 
 not j-et fully developed certain instincts and habits protect 
 the organism and lead it to avoid evils. 
 
 The theory of goods in economics is in reality a study of 
 the environments of organisms. It seeks to discover what 
 objects increase their welfare and what are the means by 
 which disagreeable objects can be avoided. Objects are of 
 importance to organisms not as objects but only as goods or 
 evils. The environment of each organism is the sum of its 
 economic conditions and the environment changes as these 
 conditions change. If this be true the causes of evolution 
 lie in economic conditions and their effects show themselves 
 in organisms. A series of organisms is a history of the 
 effects of evolution ; a series of groups of economic conditions 
 can give a picture of its causes. There are, therefore, two 
 methods of studying evolution — the one deductive, the 
 other inductive. Our knowledge of it will not be complete 
 until both economics and biology are fully utilized to throw 
 light upon its intricate problems. 
 
 § 2. The Causes of a Progressive Evolution. 
 
 The discussions on evolution have been largely concen- 
 trated on organisms and their development, and but little 
 attention has been given to the conditions in the environ- 
 ment which have produced these organisms.* For these 
 reasons a progressive evolution has been accepted as a fact 
 without any examination into its causes. It is possible to 
 imagine a planet on which the lower forms of life would be 
 supreme and where there would be no tendency for higher 
 types to displace the lower. If on our planet the higher 
 
 *" Throughout biology proper, the environment and its correlated phenomena 
 are either but tacitly recognized, or, if overtly and definitely recognized, are so 
 but occasionally; while the organism and its correlated phenomena practically 
 monopolize the attention." Spencer's " Psychology," Vol. i, p. 134. 
 
 " In brief, then, the propositions of biology, when they imply the environment 
 at all, imply almost exclusively its few general and constant phenomena, which, 
 because of their generality and constancy, may be left out of consideration." Ibid, 
 p. 135- 
 
lo Annai^ of thb American Academy. 
 
 forms of life tend to survive there must be conditions in 
 their surroundings which give them an advantage. It is of 
 no use to examine the organisms or the principles of life to 
 discover the cause of survival ; for organic life is plastic and 
 can assume many forms. If any one form tends to displace 
 others its survival is due to some external condition of which 
 other forms could not take advantage. 
 
 The environment of any organism is not the sum of all 
 the objects surrounding it. The mass of them are indiffer- 
 ent and relatively but few furnish the real environment of 
 any being. The goods and evils of each being are a definite 
 part of the objective world and its welfare depends upon 
 their abundance or scarcity. There are thus an indefinite 
 number of environments, each giving certain possibilities, 
 to animals adjusted to them. A progressive evolution 
 depends on the power of moving from one environment tO' 
 another, and thus avoiding the stress of competition. Any 
 one environment once occupied is soon filled with struggling- 
 beings. There is no hope of further progress unless a tran- 
 sition to some other environment is possible. But even a 
 multitude of environments would not lead to a progressive 
 evolution unless each member of the series presented slightly 
 more complex conditions so that animals of the lower orders- 
 would be shut out of the more complex environments and 
 thus compel a mental evolution to accompany each transi- 
 tion from one environment to another. 
 
 This proposition can be best illustrated by taking the food 
 supply as an example of the conditions determining the- 
 power to survive. With the lower animals the food supply 
 is so important an element that others may be overlooked. If 
 the food supply depended on such simple conditions that all of 
 it could be utilized by a low type of animal life a progressive 
 evolution would be impossible. The higher types of animals 
 would have no advantage over the lower and thus all prog- 
 ress would be blocked. In our world, however, the low 
 types of animals can acquire but a small part of the possible; 
 
The Influence of the Environment. ir 
 
 food supply, and hence their increase soon reaches definite 
 limits. Each higher type of animal finds a new supply of 
 food from which lower animals are shut out and thus has an 
 advantage and secures a separate environment in which it 
 can sur\ave. This new environment may be in another region 
 or it may mean a better utilization of the locality already 
 occupied. Each progressive nation passes through a series 
 of environments even though its geographical position has 
 not been changed. The English people of the Middle Ages 
 had not the same environment as the English people of 
 to-day, although they occupied the same island. The intro- 
 duction of root crops, machinery and railroads, the improve- 
 ment of live stock and waterways, the opening up of coal 
 and iron mines, the extension of commerce and the growth 
 of cities have made new objects of interest to the English 
 people and have thus given them a new environment in 
 each age. 
 
 A similar series of conditions determine the development 
 of other nations. Progress can continue only so long as 
 adjustments to new groups of conditions are possible. 
 
 § 3. The Obstacles to a Progressive Evolution. 
 
 An explanation of the process of evolution depends upon 
 our knowledge of three groups of facts, which are the sub- 
 ject-matter separately of biology, psychology and economics. 
 
 In the first place organisms must be studied so that the 
 relation of the organs to one another and the causes of their 
 growth and decay may be understood. These problems 
 belong to biology. With this group the psychic problems 
 are often placed. The psychic factors of evolution, how- 
 ever, have a peculiar place and deserve a rank equally with 
 the biologic factors. But it is not all of biology nor all of 
 psychology that has an importance in the theory of evolution. 
 The simple elements of each science have not the interest to 
 students of this theory that certain of their complex forms 
 have. In other words, it is the arrangement of the 
 
12 Annai<s oif THE American Academy. 
 
 elements of each science, and not the elements themselves, 
 that are of supreme importance. Darwin's "Origin of 
 Species, ' ' which did so much to establish the theory of evo- 
 lution, is not a discussion of cell life, of spontaneous genera- 
 tion, or of unicellular organisms. It is rather a discussion 
 of organs. The peculiarities of animals which determine 
 their species are mainly the arrangement and relative growth 
 of their organs. Organs were studied before cells and have 
 a more direct bearing on the problems of evolution. 
 
 In psychology also it is not the ultimate facts of con- 
 sciousness nor the composition of the nerve fibres and cur- 
 rents that need investigation by the evolutionist. It is the 
 mental mechanism in which his interest lies. By this I 
 mean the arrangement and co-ordination of the various nerve 
 centres so that effective results are produced by the psychic 
 processes. It is not consciousness, but a clear conscious- 
 ness, thai has an interest. So also the interest is not in mere 
 bodily activity, but in the definite motions which effect an 
 adjustment to the external conditions. Clear perceptions 
 of the environment and the power of definite adjustments 
 depend on the mental mechanism, and it, rather than the 
 ultimate facts of psychology, must be studied to show how 
 a mental evolution is possible. 
 
 The third group of facts demanding explanation come 
 from the objective world which forms the environment of 
 organisms. And here again the interest is not in the ulti- 
 mate facts about the atoms and forces which make up the 
 inorganic world, but the peculiar arrangements of these 
 atoms and forces. The atoms have aggregated themselves 
 into worlds and these worlds through a series of geological 
 changes have assumed a definite form. The static crust of 
 a given world forms the background of the evolution of the 
 particular organisms which inhabit it. They must adjust 
 themselves to its possibilities and have their progress deter- 
 mined by its peculiarities. If any of the elements of a pro- 
 gressive evolution are lacking or difficult of access because 
 
The; Infi^uencb of thb Environment. 13 
 
 of the peculiarities of this crust, the evolution of the crea- 
 tures on its surface is prevented or retarded. 
 
 It is necessary to emphasize the static character of the 
 crust of the earth because this fact is the cause of all the 
 peculiarities in the evolution of organisms. The definite 
 arrangement of the parts of this crust gives to organisms a 
 more or less complete series of environments by the aid of 
 which their evolution becomes possible. This series of 
 environments cannot be changed, and beings in passing to 
 the next in the series must undergo a double series of changes 
 — one to fit them for the peculiarities of the new environment 
 and the other to acquire the normal characteristics which 
 lead to progress. Oftentimes the next step in what might be 
 called the ladder of progress is lacking and then the being 
 must take an indirect route and pass through many changes 
 in its organs and mental mechanism which have no other 
 end than to supply the gap due to the missing step in the 
 ladder. Peculiar groupings in the inorganic mechanism de- 
 mand peculiar grouping of organs, nervous centres, ideas and 
 of men. When an obstacle is once overcome and the being 
 has returned to the normal line of progress it has no further 
 use for the peculiarities of the preceding stage of progress 
 and they become a block to progress, often being the cause 
 of still further irregularities in the subsequent evolution. 
 
 All obstacles to or peculiarities in progress have their 
 origin in the defects of this ladder of progress, that is, in 
 the imperfect series of environments which the crust of the 
 earth ailords. The organs and the mental mechanism of 
 beings are two factors of evolution which are plastic and 
 can be modified in any direction. They are, therefore, 
 constant factors in evolution, and if they alone were con- 
 cerned evolution might be easy, regular and rapid. They 
 are as dynamic as the crust of the earth to which adjustment 
 must be made is static. For possibilities of evolution, the 
 vital and psychic processes must be studied. For its 
 peculiarities and defects, however, the environment must be 
 
14 Annai^s of the American Academy. 
 
 studied. It shows the obstacles to progress and the relations 
 between the succeeding stages of evolution. 
 
 § 4. The Requisites for Survival. 
 
 An environment is usually thought of as a unit made up 
 of the totality of objective conditions. The adjustment to 
 these conditions is looked upon as the goal of progress, and 
 the process of adjustment is a slow one running through 
 many ages. The adjustment seems to depend upon a multi- 
 tude of minor conditions, each of which has a slight influ- 
 ence on the welfare of the organism and the sum of which, 
 compared with a similar sum to which a rival being is 
 adjusted, determines the power to survive. If, however, we 
 use the term environment in a more restricted sense, mean- 
 ing the sum of conditions upon which the welfare of an 
 animal at a given time depends, the emphasis is changed 
 from the gradual adjustment to an ideal environment to the 
 definite steps needed to transfer an animal from its present 
 environment to an adjacent one in which it will be more 
 protected from competition. 
 
 Static animals are always adjusted to their environment. 
 Among them competition is direct and survival depends on 
 superiority of physique. Progressive animals avoid com- 
 petition by surmounting some condition which will free 
 them from a struggle with equals or superiors. The pro- 
 gressive animal is not that one whose sum of adjustments 
 to the old environment is greatest, nor that one which 
 has the best average adjustment. Such animals remain 
 static because they can control the old environment. Prog- 
 ress depends rather upon the animal's possession of a capa- 
 city to adjust itself to a new environment and thus to escape 
 competition. 
 
 Progress is of two kinds. Static progress increases the 
 sum of adjustments or the average adjustment to a given 
 environment and thus gives to an animal the power to sur- 
 vive in this environment. This kind of progress is limited 
 
The Influence of the Environment. 15 
 
 and is usually of a phj-sical character. The animal grows 
 more vigorous and gets better means of defence, but its mental 
 powers remain the same. The second kind of progress is 
 dynamic and leads to the acquisition of new mental qualities 
 by which adjustment to a new environment is possible. 
 Some obstacle insurmountable to the static animal prevents 
 its acquisition of a new environment. The single aim of 
 progressive animals is to escape from competition ; the single 
 means is to secure control of that quality which opens to its 
 possessors a new environment. This essential quality for 
 success I shall call the requisite for sur\-ival. If the 
 obstacles to its acquisition are removed, all other obstacles 
 are easily surmounted. The requisite for survival may 
 assume many forms. It may be the means of increasing the 
 food supply, or it may be the means of securing safety. An 
 animal may have plenty of food in its environment, so that 
 it need not suffer on that score, j-et its enemies may press it 
 hard. If it sectures some means of avoiding them its wel- 
 fare is assured. In this case a place of safety is the requi- , 
 site for siu^ival since all the other conditions of success are 
 present in abundance. 
 
 If there were no obstacles delaying progress until the 
 proper requisites for survival were found, the older species 
 would be the most advanced and have the most intelligence. 
 Man, however, is thought by zoologists to have a shorter 
 line of ancestry than some other species over which he has 
 a mastery. The more rapid progress of the human species 
 does not seem to have been due to any inherent superi- 
 ority, but results from conditions giving to it a better series 
 of requisites for survival than other animals have had. 
 The carnivora and ungulata seem at one time to have had, 
 in this respect, an advantage over the ancestors of men.* 
 
 The relative progress which men had made in the new 
 and in the old world before the discovery of America, shows 
 
 *See Lester F. Ward's " Relation of Sociology to Anthropology. The American 
 Anthropologist, July 1895. 
 
1 6 Annals of the American Academy. 
 
 also how progress depends upon the requisites for survival. 
 The number of animals and vegetables of use to man were 
 much greater in the old world than in the new and the 
 greater progress of men in the old world seems to have been 
 due to this fact.* America possessed but few draft animals 
 and these were of an inferior character and limited to certain 
 localities. There were no animals which by domestication 
 could furnish a substantial supply of food. Nor were there 
 any animals valuable for their milk. The inhabitants of 
 the new world seem to have utilized their resources as well 
 as did those of the old world. The difference in the rate of 
 progress was due, not to differences in the races inhabiting^ 
 the two areas, but to differences in the aids which nature 
 gives to progress. America lacked certain requisites for 
 survival which were supplied to those living in Asia. 
 
 In the social relations of men this principle of a requisite 
 for survival is ever present. The different agents in pro- 
 duction have different rates of increase. There is always 
 one agent, the supply of which is relatively short and the 
 value of whose services command a monopoly price. There 
 is a stimulus for members of the society to develop those 
 qualities through which this agent is increased. The classes 
 having these qualities are freed from competition, while 
 classes without them suffer from the increased pressure of 
 competition. Capital, for example, in the first half of this 
 century was the most slowly increasing agent of production 
 and therefore the requisite for survival. The capitalistic 
 classes escaped from competition by developing the instinct 
 of saving, and thus pushed society into a better environ- 
 ment. At present, intelligence — the ability to manage large 
 industries — seems to be the requisite for survival. Through 
 the development of ability and intelligence the entrance 
 into a better environment is made possible. 
 
 When the need of a new requisite for survival becomes 
 apparent, the possession of old inherited qualities is of 
 
 * See Paj-ne's " History of America," Vol. i, p. 311. 
 
The Influence of the Environment. 17 
 
 little importance in the struggle for existence. No matter 
 how well developed, these do not relieve their possessors 
 from the stress of competition. These persons must expect 
 to see the benefits of progress fall into the hands of those 
 who possess the requisite for survival, while they may 
 themselves be worse off than if no progress had been made. 
 The new class may not only secure all the benefits of 
 increased prosperity, but compel the static classes to' give 
 up a part of what they would have secured if the old 
 conditions had continued. The requisite for survival is, 
 therefore, the all-important element in periods of transition. 
 The general adjustment of men or societies to nature is for 
 the moment of little importance. Some new obstacle bars 
 the way to progress and some new quality is needed to sur- 
 mount this obstacle. Upon this new quality the power of 
 surviving depends and all the forces of evolution further its 
 derelopment and reward those in whom it first appears. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 Race PsychoIvOGY. 
 An Hypothesis to Account for the Origin of the 
 
 Social Forces. 
 
 § I . The Mental Mechanism. 
 
 The obstacles to progress due to a series of requisites 
 for survival must be surmounted by the development of the 
 mind. The possibility of a progressive evolution depends 
 upon the conditions of the objective world creating a series 
 of requisites for survival, its realization , however, depends 
 upon the development of new mental qualities. The simple 
 elements of which the mind is made up must be combined in 
 new forms to meet these new conditions. There must 
 be an increase in the number of centres in which thought 
 is developed or these centres must be put into new relations 
 to one another so that the aggregate effect of mental activity 
 may be heightened. The society of centres, to use a social 
 analogy, must develop more intricate relations, and a divi- 
 sion of labor among them must increase the efficiency of their 
 activity. 
 
 The simple elements of the mental mechanism are few 
 and their power when in isolation small. The requisites 
 for survival could not be secured if these elements remained 
 in their simplest form. When united in certain ways they 
 create instincts, impulses, memory and imagination, and 
 these when organized become conscious thought. Each 
 requisite for survival demands a change in the mechanism 
 of the mind in some particular direction and when secured 
 a new quality is added to the mind which becomes in turn 
 a lever by which the next obstacle to progress is overcome. 
 
 A study of mental phenomena from this standpoint em- 
 phasizes the mechanism of the mind much more than does 
 
 (IS) 
 
Race Psychology. 19 
 
 an analysis of the elements of consciousness. An economic 
 illustration will make this distinction clear. Suppose society 
 to have developed an effective desire for more cloth than is 
 now produced. The increase may be secured in either of 
 two ways without increasing the amount of capital or labor 
 devoted to the cloth industry. The weavers and other per- 
 sons engaged in the manufacture of cloth may become more 
 intelligent and skillful, and so more efiScient producers ; or 
 there may be introduced a more minute and efficient division 
 of labor, workers with their present individual efficiency 
 being organized in such a way as to increase the product. 
 In the first case the units are changed ; in the second the 
 change takes place in the mechanism through which the 
 units act. 
 
 It has been customary to assmne that the mind is a unit; 
 that improvement is due to a change in the character of the 
 mind similar to those which are seen in a laborer who rises 
 from a lower to a higher grade. It has been overlooked 
 that the improvement may be due instead to changes in the 
 mechanism of the mind, i. e. , to changes, not in the qual- 
 ities of the centres which together create mental activity, but 
 in the relations which exist between these centres. 
 
 If it be considered permissible to regard the mind as a 
 complex resulting from the activity of a number of separate 
 centres, there wiU result two distinct lines of possible inves- 
 tigation. One is an examination into the construction of 
 the centres, the other is an examination into the mechan- 
 ism by which the centres are united and brought into har- 
 monious relation. If it proves possible to analyze the 
 centres into their simple elements it may be found that the 
 former of the proposed investigationswill resolve itself chiefly 
 into an examination of the changes in the mental mechan- 
 ism rather than of changes in the most elementary mental 
 elements. In this case all improvement in mental power 
 would ultimately be seen to result from improvement in 
 mental mechanism. There would then be no task for 
 
20 Annals of the American Academy. 
 
 introspective or physiological psychology except the dis- 
 covery of the simple elements of thought and their connec- 
 tion with the physiology of the nervous system. 
 
 It is upon this supposition that the reasoning of the 
 present essay is based. It is assumed that there are certain 
 simple elements of thought distinguished by introspection, 
 and certain elements of the nervous system discovered by 
 a physical analysis of the brain; and that by different 
 arrangements of these elements the various forms of mental 
 activity are secured. If these assumptions are even in a 
 measure correct, a new type of psychology arises which 
 concerns itself solely with the mechanism of the mind. 
 
 Sociology furnishes a useful illustration. Suppose one 
 who had no knowledge of the individuals that compose 
 society to be observing the operation of certain social insti- 
 tutions such as the church, the factory, the city, the nation. 
 It would be impossible for him to explain any one of these 
 phenomena in terms of the others. Churches do not when 
 aggregated become factories, factories do not constitute cities, 
 nor are cities the units out of which nations are made. 
 When, however, it is recognized that the unit from which 
 all the institutions are formed are men, then it is easy to 
 see the relations that exist between the institutions formed 
 by the aggregations of men on various principles. These 
 institutions are merely the mechanism of society, and the 
 problems of this mechanism are distinct from those which 
 relate to the qualities of the individual members of society. 
 The individual man may be studied profitably from various 
 standpoints, but his social nature cannot be understood 
 until there has been an analysis of social institutions. This 
 principle holds good in its application to the mechanism of 
 the mind and the elements of thought. It acquires even 
 greater importance because of the fact that the units cannot 
 be isolated and studied directly. They can be known only 
 by inference from the joint effects of all the units in their 
 various combinations. 
 
Race Psychology. 21 
 
 We are accustomed to the thought that society is an organ- 
 ism and should be studied by the methods of biology. I 
 desire to reverse the figure and to study the mind as if it 
 were a society of conscious units organized into a mechan- 
 ism for common ends. The difference between that society 
 of conscious imits which we call mind, and a society of 
 human beings on our planet, is in the completeness of the 
 mechanism. Many ages of mental progress have brought the 
 units of the mind into complete harmony with one another, 
 while in human society we have as j-et but an imperfect 
 manifestation of the possibilities of a social mechanism. 
 
 I shall make no attempt to explain why states of con- 
 sciousness accompany or result from the activity of nervous 
 centres. The connection between the two sides of mental 
 life will be accepted as a fact, the explanation of which 
 belongs to another department of psychology. It will be 
 assumed that in the development of an organism there is 
 a tendency to create a group of conscious centres. The 
 mental mechanism of beings is a result of this tendency. 
 These centres in advanced beings must be co-ordinated in a 
 way that gives clearness and vividness to thought. Not 
 mere consciousness, but definite consciousness, the power to 
 have clear concepts of the environment is the phenomenon 
 which race psychology has to explain. Just as the origin 
 of species needed to be studied apart from the problems of 
 cell life and of the possibility of spontaneous generation, 
 so the relations between conscious centres needs to be stud- 
 ied apart from problems concerning the contents of these 
 centres. Their relations must be understood before the 
 deeper problem of the origin of consciousness can be solved. 
 The connection between complex nervous relations and 
 complex conscious states can be explained without knowing 
 why or how a simple nervous ciurent can excite a state of 
 consciousness. Race psychology can explain only phenom- 
 ena that are of a complex nature. 
 
22 Annai^ op The American Academy. 
 
 § 2. The Classification of Ideas. 
 
 The test of a simple idea has, perhaps, seemed so obvious 
 to those who use the term that an accurate definition is not 
 needed. Yet there lurk in it two meanings which need to 
 be contrasted. 
 
 The mind is the means by which the organism keeps 
 itself adjusted to its environment. To effect this adjustment 
 two classes of ideas are necessary. The one class gives the 
 organism a more or less definite concept of surrounding 
 objects; enables it to discover its relations to the different 
 parts of its environment, to distinguish between them and 
 to determine their properties. In some way a correspond- 
 ence grows up between the ideas of the organism and the 
 parts of the environment, so that from the former the presence 
 of the latter may be inferred. These ideas are knowledge- 
 producing ideas, and upon their clearness and definiteness 
 the possibility of improved adjustments between the organ- 
 ism and its environment depends. 
 
 An organism needs, however, more than a knowledge of 
 its environment. It must have the power to create move- 
 ments which will lead to an adjustment to external condi- 
 tions. It must also have ideas of how these movements can 
 be made. These ideas of movements must be more than 
 mere knowledge. They must in and of themselves have 
 the power by which these movements are realized. Their 
 very presence must insure that the movement is made. 
 
 There are then knowledge-producing ideas which give 
 information of the environment and action-producing ideas 
 which create the movements in the organism which lead to 
 an adjustment between it and the objects of which it has 
 knowledge. These two kinds of ideas cannot be classified 
 on the same plan. A simple element of knowledge is not 
 a simple element of action. We must classify each group 
 of ideas according to its own characteristics. 
 
 Knowledge ideas — those of the environment — are either 
 clear or obscure. An organism has a clear idea when some 
 
Race Psychoi,ogy. 23 
 
 element is so reproduced in its mind that its relations to this 
 portion of its environment are evident. It has obscure 
 ideas when its immediate environment is not reproduced in 
 its mind in such a way that definite adjustments are possi- 
 ble. Action ideas — those which produce movements in the 
 organism which lead to an adjustment, are vivid or faint. 
 Vivid ideas drive other ideas out of the consciousness and 
 force the organism to act in a particular way. Faint ideas 
 have no such power of acquiring exclusive attention and 
 either lead to no action or to actions which are of little ser- 
 vice to the organism. 
 
 It is not necessary that an organism which has vivid ideas 
 should have also clear ideas. Nor can it be said that clear 
 ideas are always vivid. One organism with very obscure 
 ideas of its environment may act with force and energy 
 whenever these ideas arouse its activity, while another organ- 
 ism with the clearest ideas of its environment may be 
 sluggish in its activities and fail to make those better ad- 
 justments which its clear ideas would permit. Clear ideas 
 may be faint and vivid ideas may be obscure. 
 
 From these facts it seems plain that ideas are the product 
 of the mechanism of the mind, and that this mechanism 
 is not single but double. One type of mental development 
 leads to more clear ideas of the environment, while another 
 type leads to more vivid ideas upon which action is based. 
 It seems probable also that this double mechanism for men- 
 tal activity corresponds to the double division of nervous 
 currents upon which mental activity depends. If the sensory 
 or ingoing currents are well organized they convey to the 
 mind clear ideas of the environment. If the motor or out- 
 going currents are highly developed, the organism has vivid 
 ideas and acts with vigor and promptness. The degree in 
 which the ideas of an organism are vivid and clear depends 
 upon the development of these two parts of its mental 
 mechanism. 
 
 It will, I think, be generally recognized that clear ideas 
 
24 Annals of the American Academy. 
 
 belong to the sensory mechanism and depend upon its de- 
 velopment. It will not, however, be so readily admitted 
 that vivid ideas are motor feelings and depend upon the 
 development of the motor mechanism. It is usually held — 
 at least by the empirical school of psychologists — that all 
 our feelings are sensory and depend upon the ingoing ner- 
 vous currents. Without stopping to discuss the philosophy 
 involved in this issue, it will, I think, be conceded that 
 there is an inductive connection between vivid ideas and 
 the development of the motor mechanism. Vivid ideas all 
 relate to the mental states of the organism and tell nothing 
 of the environment. They are the pleasures and pains of 
 the organism, its desires, its passions and its beliefs. They 
 are tendencies to activity, and if they are not motor feelings 
 they are so intimately connected with the motor mechanisni 
 and so different from other sensory feelings, that there cam 
 be no practical error in calling them motor feelings. 
 
 According to this classification, the sensory feelings con- 
 vey to the mind only ideas of the environment, while the 
 motor feelings give it only ideas of the organism. Clear 
 ideas relate to things objective to the organism ; vivid ideas 
 relate to its subjective states. The self of the organism is 
 revealed only in vivid ideas. Its clear ideas are all of things 
 external to the self. It is true that the higher organisms 
 have clear ideas of some of their parts, but they get these 
 clear ideas only by making the parts of which they have 
 clear ideas objective to themselves and thus a part of the 
 environment. We have, for example, clear ideas of our 
 hands. We think of them, in terms of the environment, as 
 being made of material and having form, color and weight. 
 This objectification of the parts of the organism, however, 
 is only possible when several senses are well developed. 
 The clear ideas we have of the hand do not come from it, 
 but indirectly from other organs when the organism is pas- 
 sive. To the eye, for example, the hand is objective — a 
 part of the environment. 
 
Race Psychology. 25 
 
 When, however, an organism is active all its clear ideas 
 relate to its environment, while all its ideas of itself or of 
 its parts are vivid. The hand ceases to be an object of 
 analysis and becomes again a part of self. It is known onlj' 
 through the vivid ideas which make it a means of promot- 
 ing the activity of the organism. Even when an organism 
 has clear ideas of itself the ideas are not simple ideas. 
 Some element of vividness is mixed with these clear ideas 
 before they can be predicated as a part of self. If I say, 
 for example, that my hand is long and thin, the feelings 
 back of these ideas are not all clear and sensory. There 
 are also some motor feelings present in consciousness which 
 blend with these clear ideas. If this is not the case the 
 hand is purely objective, a part of the environment and 
 not united in any way with the organism. The hand is 
 made a part of the organism, not through the clear ideas of 
 which the sensory nerves bring in, but through the vivid 
 ideas which the outgoing motor forces create. When " I, " 
 "my," or "me" is a part of the proposition the g^oup of 
 feelings for which it stands cannot be analyzed into clear 
 simple sensory ideas. Without a tincture of motor feelings 
 the proposition lacks reality and would not create conviction. 
 Vivid and clear ideas are, to say the least, organically diifer- 
 ent. They depend upon the development of different parts 
 of the mental mechanism. The peculiarities of this mechan- 
 ism may emphasize the one of these elements at the expense 
 of the other and thus give the basis for a defective philoso- 
 phy which neglects or ignores the other element. A more 
 careful investigation will, however, show the importance 
 of the neglected element and bring the two parts of every 
 organism into proper relation. Both the motor and sensory 
 forces show their effects in consciousness and create peculiar 
 ideas differing too widely to be brought into a single classi- 
 fication. 
 
 In many ways this difference between clear and vivid 
 ideas has been recognized but a confusion in the use of terms 
 
26 Annals of the American Academy. 
 
 has prevented the distinction from receiving general atten- 
 tion or assent, lyocke, for example, uses the term "idea" 
 in the sense of knowledge-producing ideas. His problem 
 is an analysis of knowledge, and this analysis is successful 
 so long as it relates to the environment. He ignores the 
 vivid organic ideas or at least fails to give an adequate ex- 
 planation of them. Hume, however, has as his problem, not 
 the explanation of knowledge, but of belief and conviction. 
 He uses the term ' ' idea' ' in harmony with his problem and 
 divides ideas into tv/o classes, vivid and faint. This classi- 
 fication is possible because his attention is given to the 
 action -producing ideas that create conviction. While he 
 often speaks in a general way of the sensations which pro- 
 duce knowledge ideas, he makes no attempt to analyze them. 
 His illustrations are all taken from action-producing ideas. 
 The analysis of the passions, desires and emotions monopo- 
 lize his attention, while he leaves the examination of ex- 
 ternal sensations to anatomists and natural philosophers.*" 
 He can, therefore, easily divide the ideas of interest to him 
 into two classes, vivid and faint. The knowledge-produc- 
 ing ideas of I,ocke are as completely ignored in this classi- 
 fication as are the action -producing ideas in I,ocke's classifi- 
 cation. The work of both these authors must be brought: 
 into some organic relation before all the mental forces are 
 explained. It is a common mistake to assume that their 
 problems were the same, and that their explanations relate 
 to the same set of phenomena. 
 
 § 3. The Basis of the Present Hypothesis. 
 
 The plan of the nervous system is simple. There are two 
 kinds of nerves, those which conduct cturents toward the 
 centre of the system and produce sensation, and those on 
 which currents move toward the surface of the body and. 
 produce motion. 
 
 The simplest form of activity is the nervous arc. An 
 
 * Hume's " Treatise of Human Nature." Book i., § 2. 
 
Race Psychoi^ogy. 27 
 
 afferent nerve carries a current from the surface of the body 
 to a nervous centre. There a reaction takes place and a return 
 current passes over an efferent nerve to some muscle, causing 
 it to contract. Innumerable duplications of this simple arc 
 make the basis of the nervous system. It is not complete, 
 however, until the various centres are connected with one 
 another so that excitations at any one centre are communi- 
 cated to other centres. Descriptions of the nervous system 
 are so familiar that I need not repeat them here. For my 
 purpose they are merely data upon which certain hypothe- 
 ses rest. 
 
 Nervous currents are either primary or secondary. The 
 primary current started at the surface of the body is carried 
 to a centre or to a series of centres. A secondary current 
 is due to the excitation of a centre by a primary current. 
 In this way a new current may be started which will in turn 
 stimulate some other centre or centres. Centres far from 
 the surface of the body may never feel the force of the pri- 
 mary currents. They are aroused to activity only by the 
 secondary currents started by primary currents. 
 
 In any network of centres like the human brain the sec- 
 ondary currents are of the greater importance. They bind 
 the various centres into a harmonious whole by reflecting 
 sensations from one centre to another. When any centre 
 is excited by a current, it creates a new current which im- 
 parts to neighboring centres the sensations it receives. The 
 whole mind is thus aroused to a similar activity and the 
 effects of the primary current become more pronounced. 
 
 Primary currents are strong but obscure. The process of 
 reflection separates from each other the elements which are 
 united in the obscure currents from the lower centres nearer 
 the surface. In this way these elements are purified by 
 isolation, and each one is carried to that centre most 
 fitted to receive it. The sensations of the higher centres* 
 
 *By higher centres I mean simply those whose contact with the outer world is 
 least direct. 
 
28 Annai,s op the American Academy. 
 
 are thus pure and clear because these centres are excited 
 only by some peculiar quality of the primary current. 
 The sensations of the lower centres are composite and 
 obscure because the currents which arouse their activity 
 are diverse in their composition. 
 
 In addition to the sensations due to the sensory currents, 
 feelings are also aroused in certain centres by the motor 
 currents that pass through them. If a centre is a part of a 
 complex mental mechanism, it may be excited to activity 
 by motor currents coming from the more central parts of 
 the system. I shall assume that motor and sensory cur- 
 rents create distinct feelings in consciousness, and that a 
 part of its complex phenomena is due to their interaction. 
 It would harmonize with my hypotheses if motor and 
 sensory currents differed only in their intensity, and in the 
 rapidity of their movement. The sensory currents move, 
 I think, more slowly and at a lower tension. The motor 
 currents are stronger, move more rapidly and make a more 
 vivid impression on consciousness. 
 
 Since the motor currents move more rapidly they produce 
 a shorter wave of consciousness. The feelings they excite 
 are thus less capable of analysis than are the feelings exci- 
 ted by the longer waves of the more slowly moving sensory 
 currents. They transform the content of thought, however, 
 by changing the passive states of sensation into tendencies. 
 Associations of ideas, instincts and emotions cotild not arise 
 out of mere perceptions if motor feelings did not accompany 
 the feelings of sensation. 
 
 I shall assume these differences between sensory and motor 
 currents and the consequences that flow from them without 
 further analysis. I wish merely to present a working hy- 
 pothesis and shall seek to verify my assumptions by showing 
 how completely they harmonize with the observed phenom- 
 ena of consciousness. 
 
Race Psychology. 29 
 
 § 4. The Self-Conscioiis Centre. 
 
 The clearness and vividness of sensory feelings are due 
 to the mental mechanism by which they are reinforced and 
 prolonged. After a sensory current is started at the surface 
 of the body it is reflected from centre to centre, and becomes 
 weaker and purer at each reproduction. The sensations 
 in the higher centres are intensified when two or more 
 cvurents reach it from the surface of the body at the 
 same time, but by different routes. If these currents blend 
 they create one wave of consciousness. The clearness of 
 the resulting consciousness depends upon the purity of the 
 wave, and this purity in turn depends upon the number of 
 centres through which the current has passed. 
 
 The wave of consciousness is prolonged when the cur- 
 rents blending at a centre traverse routes of unequal length. 
 If one current passes through four and another through 
 five centres, the latter will arrive a little later, and thus 
 sustain the wave a moment longer than if both currents 
 arrived at the same time. There is a loss of intensity of 
 consciousness in this case, but the greater length of the 
 wave allows a better analysis of the content of the passing 
 current. When several currents follow one another so 
 closely as to blend into one wave and thus to sustain the 
 consciousness of the centre, the beginning of the wave is 
 more obscure and vivid than the end, because the currents 
 first to arrive travel the more direct routes. This part of 
 the wave contains the impression and strikes the mind with 
 enough force to attract the attention from the receding cur- 
 rents which went before it. The purer part of the wave fol- 
 lowing so closely as to blend with it has traveled by a more in- 
 direct route and is usually reflected from some higher centre. 
 
 If the waves of consciousness follow one another so rap- 
 idly that a new wave arrives before the final portion of its 
 predecessor has disappeared, a continuous state of conscious- 
 ness is sustained. Centres which are so situated that only 
 
30 Annai,s of the American Academy. 
 
 a part of the currents started in a network of centres reach 
 them, have intermittent states of consciousness. It is only 
 in a very few favored centres — perhaps only at a single 
 centre — that the surrounding mechanism is so complete as 
 to create a continuous state of consciousness. 
 
 It will perhaps aid the reader to understand the mechan- 
 ism of the mind if I illustrate the network of centres I have 
 described by the aid of a diagram. These centres are 
 arrayed in a purely ideal manner without any desire to re- 
 produce the arrangement of a real mind. 
 
 In this diagram the dots represent the centres of an ideal 
 mind, and the lines represent the nerves along which the 
 sensory currents are carried. The lower portion of the lines 
 represent the extremities of the nerves near the surface of 
 the body. The nerve currents are supposed to start at the 
 lower ends of these lines and pass upward to the first series 
 of centres which are thus excited to activity. Reflected 
 or secondary currents start from these centres and move 
 along the upward lines to the next series of centres and 
 arouse them to activity. The third series of centres are next 
 aroused and then all the currents converge at a, the self- 
 conscious centre. 
 
 According to the plan of the diagram when the adjacent 
 surface receives an impression, six currents blend at a to 
 create a state of consciousness. They come in pairs, and 
 thus intensify or heighten the wave. Those from centres 3 and 
 
Race Psychology. 31 
 
 4 arrive first and are the most obscure (as to content) and 
 vivid; then currents from centres 2 and 5 come through 
 centres 8 and 9, and finally the currents from centres i and 
 6 come through centres 1 1 and 12, conveying the purest but 
 least vivid part of the wave of consciousness. Through 
 this mechanism consciousness is prolonged and analysis of 
 its contents made possible. 
 
 I have tried in this crude way to represent how some of 
 the mental states are formed, if my hypothesis is correct. 
 The ordinary mental states of men are much more complex 
 than these, but they contain no more elements. Increased 
 complexity or other forms of the mental mechanism blend 
 the sensory and motor currents in a thousand ways and 
 create that variety of thought and feeling with which we 
 are familiar. The more prominent of these demand further 
 analysis and to them we must now turn our attention. 
 
 § 5. The Development of the Sensory Feelings. 
 
 If it may be taken for granted that pleasures and pains 
 are motor feelings, it is less difiBcult to determine the order 
 of the development of the sensory feelings. The sensory 
 currents have a much lower tension than the motor currents 
 and their peculiarities cannot become objects of perception 
 until the motor currents have their own avenues of exit. 
 Then each sensory centre becomes a place where certain sen- 
 sations are perceived, and these sensations are reflected to 
 other centres where they are aggregated in fixed ways 
 according to the nature of the mental mechanism of the 
 organism. The obscure but vivid sensations become im- 
 pressions while the clearer but weaker sensations become 
 ideas in the centres to which they are reflected. The pro- 
 cess of reflecting sensations from centre to centre creates the 
 difference between impressions and clear ideas. In the 
 centres where they are felt the clear ideas are just as real 
 as are the impressions of the lower centres. The thinker 
 is not conscious of the refining process that has taken place 
 
32 Annals of the American Academy. 
 
 before the clear idea becomes an object of perception in the 
 self-conscious centre. All ideas undergo to some extent this 
 process of refinement, and hence impressions and clear ideas 
 differ not in kind but only in quality. To the thinker they 
 both seem original elements of thought differing merely in 
 clearness and vividness. 
 
 To explain the different kinds of sensory feelings pro- 
 duced by the mental mechanism, the distinction between 
 centres with intermittent and with constant states of con- 
 sciousness must be emphasized. If the states of conscious- 
 ness follow one another so rapidly that a centre is constantly 
 active it becomes a self-conscious centre. Few centres, 
 however, are so advantageously situated as to receive all 
 or even the greater part of the nervous currents that origi- 
 nate in the various parts of the nervous system. While the 
 attention is necessarily attracted to the self-conscious cen- 
 tre, it is the other centres that really give a definite form 
 to thought. These centres are aroused to activity only by 
 particular nervous currents, and when aroused, the reflected 
 currents which proceed from them have a definite character 
 and produce given sensations in the centres to which they 
 are reflected. The self-conscious centre receives the same 
 sensation every time a given centre with intermittent states 
 of consciousness is aroused to activity. Memory, imagina- 
 tion, forms of thought and ideals are not the products of 
 the self-conscious centre which perceives them. They are 
 the product of centres with intermittent states of conscious- 
 ness united through the mental mechanism with the self- 
 conscious centre. The products of the other centres are thus 
 reflected to the self-conscious centre, and are thought by it 
 to come from the outer world. Consciousness would be a 
 medley of confused sensations, but for this aid from the 
 mental mechanism. No one centre can at the same time 
 receive all classes of sensations and so co-ordinate them that 
 intelligent thought results. The self-conscious centre, capa- 
 ble of receiving all kinds of sensations must, therefore, 
 
IL\CE PSYCHOI<OGY. 33 
 
 be cut off from direct contact with the outer world and 
 receive its sensations indirectly from centres capable of 
 receiving only sensations of particular kinds. 
 
 Of these complex sensations reflected from centres with 
 intermittent states of consciousness two — forms of thought 
 and ideals-"— demand special attention. If an intermittent 
 centre is far away from the original source of sensation 
 and receives only ideas purified by repeated reflections, its 
 states of consciousness contain a definite group of clear 
 ideas and these ideas are always reflected in a body to the 
 self-conscious centre. The intermittent centre is so con- 
 nected with the lower centres that when the sensations it 
 receives contain one of its ideas it is aroused to activitj', 
 and all its ideas are reflected to the self-conscious centre. 
 Thought at the latter centre receives in this way a definite 
 form. Certain of its clear ideas are always perceived in 
 groups, and any sensations from lower centres containing 
 «ne of these ideas have immediately added to them the 
 other ideas of the group in question through the activity 
 of some intermittent centre. The concrete phenomena of 
 consciousness come from two sources. One element comes 
 from the lower centres in direct contact with the outer 
 world, and another element comes from certain intermittent 
 centres which are aroused to activity by currents reflected 
 from the lower centres. Concrete phenomena could not 
 reproduce objective conditions so clearly but for the addi- 
 tions made to them by the higher centres which create forms 
 of thought for the self-conscious centre. We could not 
 conceive of an outer world with definite relations always 
 existing between its parts but for this mental mechanism 
 which forces all perceptions of objective phenomena into 
 certain fixed moulds. 
 
 The way in which ideas of space and time are impressed 
 upon all sensations coming from the outer world furnishes 
 good examples of the action of centres creating forms 
 of thought for the self-conscious centre. Our mental 
 
34 Annals op the American Academy. 
 
 mechanism has been, I think, so developed that all the clear 
 ideas of space are perceived at a centre with intermittent 
 activity. This centre is aroused to activity by every sensation 
 ■coming from the outer world, even though it contains but 
 one of the elements which make up our ideas of space. This 
 single element arrives at the self-conscious centre at the 
 same time that all the clear ideas of space are reflected to 
 it from the intermittent centre which creates the space forms. 
 The two elements blend and seem to come as a unit from 
 the outer world. 
 
 It has been assumed by Kant and other German thinkers 
 that forms of thought are a part of the constitution of the 
 thinking unit in the self-conscious centre. This assumption 
 is, I think, erroneous. It overlooks the complexity of the 
 mind and the aid to clear thinking obtained by the self- 
 conscious centre from other centres with which it is joined 
 by the mental mechanism. However real the original think- 
 ing unit may be, it has not all the powers which are ordi- 
 narily attributed to it. We must know the part which the 
 mental mechanism plays in forming clear thoughts before 
 the powers of this original unit can be determined. 
 
 Space and time are not the only forms of thoughts. There 
 are also taste forms, musical forms and aesthetic forms, 
 and doubtless many other kinds are more or less fully de- 
 veloped. Our idea of the taste of an object does not depend 
 simply upon the sensations which contact with it arouses. 
 If the taste of the eater is cultivated he adds to the sensa- 
 tions aroused by direct contact many indirect ones coming 
 from intermittent centres of consciousness where taste sen- 
 sations are perceived. The supposed taste is the joint pro- 
 duct of these two elements. Some sensations of taste are 
 aroused only by sensations of odor. Contact with an object 
 fails to arouse these sensations but certain sensations of 
 odor can arouse the centres having the taste forms, and these 
 centres reflect to consciousness the proper sensations to sup- 
 plement those directly received. 
 
Race Psychoi,ogy. 35 
 
 The difference between a musical and an unmusical person 
 or between an aesthetic and unsesthetic person depends upon 
 the development of musical and aesthetic forms of thought. 
 The tones or colors perceived by undeveloped persons are 
 more nearly like the original impressions than are those 
 perceived by persons with more cultivated tastes. On the 
 one hand the process of repeated reflection which the sensa- 
 tions undergo purifies the ideas of the cultivated person and 
 shuts out the obscurer elements in the original impression. 
 On the other hand certain forms of thought are impressed 
 on the thinking centre so that the sensations it perceives 
 have other elements than those the original impression con- 
 tained. Order, beauty and harmony are thus secured to a 
 far higher degree than would be possible if the mental 
 mechanism for producing these sensations were more sim- 
 ple, and the original impressions were conveyed to the self- 
 conscious centre in a more direct manner. 
 
 Other centres reflect to the self-conscious centre definite 
 groups of ideas and are the source of our ideals. Ideals are 
 like forms of thought in that they are groups of clear ideas 
 generated in the higher centres. These ideas have become 
 purified through repeated reflection. In many respects, 
 however, ideals resemble memories because they contain 
 ideas grouped in a definite way. These ideas are so blended 
 that they seem almost as concrete as do memories. Mem- 
 ories might be compared to an original chemical compound 
 partly analyzed into its parts. Ideals are like a number of 
 isolated elements partly combined so as to seem a unit. 
 Their number and their definite relations give them an 
 air of concrete reality. 
 
 When these ideal-producing centres are aroused they add 
 to the object arousing them a number of qualities which it 
 does not and can not have in the present environment of 
 the individual perceiving them. Ideals are mainly social, 
 and need a unit of the social world to arouse them. They 
 create another environment for this unit, or add qualities 
 
36 Annals of the American Academy. 
 
 which the unit could have only in another environment. 
 In this way the mental mechanism gives to the thinker cer- 
 tain other environments to contrast with the present one or 
 adds new qualities to many of the persons or objects he sees 
 or hears of. 
 
 Heaven and purgatory, for example, are definite groups 
 of clear ideas reflected to the self-conscious centre from a 
 centre of intermittent activity. A thought or object which 
 arouses one of these centres has added to it the whole series 
 of ideas possessed by the centre, and the whole series is 
 impressed with such vividness and concreteness as to seem 
 to be a part of the real world. It becomes so nearly akin 
 to a memory that it has a like effect upon the actions and 
 conduct of the thinker. His character is as much modified 
 by these ideas as though they were facts of experience. 
 
 In the same way future welfare, home and the family 
 become ideals, adding elements to present experience and 
 forcing it into given forms that it could not take but for 
 the fact that these groups of ideas are impressed upon the 
 self-conscious centre every time that one of their elements 
 comes to the consciousness from external sensations. The 
 home of an individual is much more than the actual con- 
 tents of the dwelling house and the real persons that dwell 
 there. The possessor of a home cannot see its contents or 
 its intimates in the same light as an outsider. He is forced 
 to add elements that are impressed upon his consciousness 
 by his mental mechanism. The lover cannot look on the 
 object of his affection as other persons do and see her true 
 qualities. To those impressions conveyed by the senses, 
 he adds all the qualities possessed by his ideal woman. The 
 two elements blend so completely that he sees in her all the 
 qualities of his ideal. 
 
 Hero worship is due to the same causes. The qualities 
 of an ideal hero are impressed so vividly upon the self- 
 conscious centre that the defects of the real hero are over- 
 looked and other qualities added which he does not possess. 
 
Race Psychow)gy. 37 
 
 It is impossible to get the hero worshiper to see the hero 
 in his true character, because his mental mechanism trans- 
 forms the hero into a being other than that which he really 
 is. The king, the saint, the general, the nobilitj-, and other 
 persons become invested with a peculiar sanctity as soon as 
 they become ideals to their followers. The evidence of the 
 senses is no longer the criterion by which their virtues and 
 defects are determined. A subjective element blends with 
 the objective reality, giving the adored person a peculiar 
 halo which isolates him from ordinary mortals. 
 
 These facts show that ideals, like forms of thought, are due 
 to the constructive activity of the mental mechanism. They 
 are means of enriching the experience of individuals and of 
 giving to their thoughts a definite form, which an isolated 
 thought centre could not acquire. A mere association of 
 ideas could not arrive at such results. It might join ideas 
 in groups but it could not give them that objectivity which 
 belongs to forms of thought and ideals. 
 
 % 6. A Classification of the Motor Feelings. 
 
 If there were no mental mechanism there could be no 
 motor feelings. There could then be but one thought centre, 
 and all the nervous currents leading to it would be sensory 
 currents. The motor currents which start in this centre 
 would proceed directly to the surface of the body without 
 becoming objects of consciousness. It is only when a com- 
 plex mental mechanism is developed that the motor currents 
 of one thought centre can pass to other centres instead of 
 going directly to the muscles. In this case peculiar motor 
 feelings arise in the centre to which the motor current goes 
 which must be contrasted with the sensory feelings coming 
 from the surface of the bodj'. The motor currents, if my 
 analysis of them is correct, move more rapidly than do the 
 sensory currents and have a higher tension. They are less 
 capable of analysis because they pass through the self- 
 conscious centre so quickly. For this reason, however, they 
 
38 Annals of the American Academy. 
 
 have more force and a greater power to direct the attention 
 of the self-conscious centre to themselves. 
 
 There is no mechanism to reproduce motor feelings or to 
 strengthen or contrast them as there is in the case of sen- 
 sor3' feelings. There are, I think, no motor memories, 
 forms of thought, or ideals; these mechanical contrivances 
 belong to the sensory system. If motor feelings have any 
 influence on the content of consciousness after they pass 
 from consciousness, it is because they have some indirect 
 effect on the sensory ideals or forms of thought. Distinct 
 memories of a pleasure or a pain are possible only through 
 the bodily attitudes which accompany the pleasure or pain. 
 If we imagine ourselves in the same position as that in 
 which we enjoyed a pleasure or suffered a pain, a new feel- 
 ing of a like kind is aroused. The old feeling is gone for- 
 ever and cannot be revived by the memory alone. This 
 faculty can merely revive the sensory impressions which 
 accompany motor feelings, but can never restore the latter 
 except by creating new tendencies to activity. 
 
 Beliefs, like other motor feelings, are not by themselves 
 objects of memory. The definite relations in which the ideas 
 stand that produce the beliefs are objects of memory, but a 
 belief once gone from consciousness is never revived. The 
 same relation of ideas may produce the state of belief anew, 
 but it is this new state of which we are conscious and not 
 a memory of an old belief. 
 
 This lack of a mechanism to revive beliefs as ideas are 
 revived gives to our thinking many of its peculiarities. 
 We recollect the definite relations in which ideas stood to 
 one another at a given time, but not the bond which held 
 them together. We are apt, therefore, to confuse our 
 memory of facts and relations with the actual content of 
 consciousness when they were perceived, and to assert that 
 there was no more in the consciousness than there is in our 
 memory of our states of consciousness. When Hume 
 asserted that there were no bonds between ideas existing in 
 
Race Psychology. 39 
 
 a causal relation, he had in mind our memories of the states 
 of consciousness rather than the states of consciousness 
 themselves. These memories retain only the sensory ele- 
 ments of consciousness, and hence lack the motor elements, 
 the forces by which a belief in causal relations is created. 
 
 If the motor feelings have no mechanism by which they 
 can be revived their classification is more simple than if 
 such a mechanism existed. The only differences in them 
 are due to the differences in the centres from which they 
 come to the self-conscious centre. The passions are the 
 effects of the currents from lower motor centres. They are 
 indefinite promptings to actions which are aroused by the 
 mere presence of some object by which the lower centres are 
 excited to activity. The beliefs are due to the motor cur- 
 rents arising in the higher centres from which the ideas are 
 reflected to the self-conscious centre. When two ideas exist 
 in the mind in a given relation, we have a belief in the 
 reality of this relation if at the same time a motor current 
 creates a motor feeling to bind them together. 
 
 This classification of the motor feelings corresponds very 
 closely to Hume's classification of the contents of the mind. 
 The two plans have the same thought as their basis. Hume 
 thinks ideas differ only in the force and liveliness with 
 which they strike the mind. The motor feelings having no 
 mental mechanism to aid their retention or reproduction can 
 differ only in this way. They blend with or displace one 
 another and do not furnish those definite contrasts which 
 the sensory feelings with their complicated mechanism can 
 furnish. It was easy, therefore, for Hume and others to 
 overlook them or to assume that they were merely obscure 
 parts of the sensory feelings not worthy of analysis. 
 
 § 7. The Defects in the Reasoning of Locke and Hume 
 about the Powers of the Mind. 
 
 The Association school of psychologists, of which Locke 
 and Hume were the leading representatives, gave to the 
 
40 Annals of the American Academy. 
 
 world a consistent theory of the powers of the mind. As 
 the principles of this school are accepted by most writers on 
 social topics, it is necessary to contrast my picture of mental 
 activity with that of this group of thinkers and to point out 
 what appear to me to be defects in their mode of reasoning. 
 I agree with them in thinking that the mind has not the 
 power to originate ideas without the aid of sense perceptions, 
 and that the purest and best thoughts and ideals of men are 
 but complex forms of a few simple ideas which by them- 
 selves are insignificant and perhaps unworthy of attention. 
 The defects in their conclusions are not the fault of their 
 analytical mode of reasoning, but of their erroneous concept 
 of the mechanism of the mind. 
 
 It is assumed by the earlier writers of this school and 
 clearly stated by the later writers that the nervous system 
 conveys directly from the outer world to the self-conscious 
 centre the impressions which the outer world makes on the 
 nervous system. All the elaboration of these impressions 
 takes place within the self-conscious centre under the eye of 
 consciousness. Consciousness, therefore, is the judge of aU 
 mental processes beyond the creation of simple impressions. 
 When the consciousness arranges its ideas for inspection it 
 finds that they differ from the original impressions only im 
 vividness and clearness. All ideas are copies of impres- 
 sions, and any idea of which an original impression cannot 
 be found within the field of consciousness is ruled out as 
 fictitious. 
 
 Such is the reasoning of Hume. lyocke has the same 
 mental picture, but his attention is attracted to another 
 phase of the problem. He decides that there can be no 
 innate ideas because the consciousness has no power to origi- 
 nate ideas. This doctrine, correct in itself, is misapplied by 
 I<ocke, for he attempts by its aid to discredit all ideas which 
 do not have sense impressions going with them. 
 
 Practically Locke and Hume were both right, for they 
 were resisting the attempts of certain theorists to make innate^ 
 
Race Psychology. 41 
 
 the prominent race ideals, and thus to avoid a critical 
 examination of these ideals and their influences. They 
 were right in insisting that great things must come out of 
 small elements, but they were wrong in assuming that these 
 small elements could enter the mind only by one road — the 
 sensory nerves, which come directly from the outer world. 
 
 Change the picture of the mental mechanism and the 
 falsity of such assumptions becomes apparent. If sensations 
 can come indirectly from other thought centres as well as 
 directly from the outer world, we can no longer assume that 
 the ideas received at a given centre are mere copies of the 
 impressions received directly from the outer world. We can 
 still say that there are no innate ideas or principles belong- 
 ing to the thinking unit because of its construction, but we 
 cannot say that the mechanism of the mind does not impress 
 on the self-conscious centre ideas which were not a part of 
 a given impression when it became an object of conscious- 
 ness. AU ideas may still be started by currents from the 
 outer world, but a part of this original current is so changed 
 in its journey through the other centres that it gives to the 
 self-conscious centre ideas which the original current could 
 not arouse. 
 
 So long as Locke makes war on the innate character of the 
 great race ideals he is on safe ground, but when he applies 
 his principle to more humble phenomena his errors become 
 apparent. He thinks he shows the absurdity of the innate 
 character of these ideals by showing that the same reasoning 
 would prove sweetness, bitterness and like qualities to be 
 innate and not the result of impressions received directly 
 from the outer world. There is, however, no nervous cur- 
 rent started by contact of the tongue with sugar that if con- 
 veyed in an unmodified form to the self-conscious centre 
 would arouse the sensation of sweetness. Taste, color, 
 sound, and other simple sensations are as much the product 
 of a complex mental mechanism as are the highest race 
 ideals. Clear definite impressions are always obtained by 
 
42 Annals op the American Academy. 
 
 adding elements that are not in the original nervous cur- 
 rent which produces the impression. When the mechanism 
 of the clear vivid sensations of taste, color and sound are 
 explained, no new forms of mental mechanism are needed 
 to create the highest race ideals. 
 
 The errors of the opponents of I^ocke lay in the attempt 
 to give to certain race ideals a basis different from that of the 
 more common ideas derived from material objects in the outer 
 world. They wished to invent a special faculty, whose 
 business was to perceive the great race ideas and certain 
 important principles and thus to give to them an objectivity 
 and truth which the ordinary mental processes could not 
 give them. It was assumed that reason was a special 
 faculty for the production of these ideals and principles, and 
 that by the aid of this faculty the thinker was put into a 
 position where he could see the truth and objectivity of 
 these ideals and principles without the need of the tests tO' 
 which the more common ideas and maxims were subjected, 
 lyocke was right in denying this claim and in subjecting 
 these higher products of thought to the same tests that are 
 applied to other kinds of knowledge. They are not different 
 in kind or in origin from the simpler ideas of every -day life 
 and need no special faculty for their production. They do, 
 however, contain elements not given by the impressions 
 coming directly from the outer world, and in this respect 
 they do not differ from other kinds of knowledge. 
 
 All clear concepts have elements which are added to the 
 original impression by the mental mechanism after the 
 original nervous current has arrived at the self-conscious 
 centre. These original currents are always so obscure that 
 they could not impress clear and definite ideas on the 
 thinking centre but for the secondary currents which come 
 from other centres. Elements, therefore, can be added to 
 the original impressions and such elements must always be 
 added to make the thought clear and vivid to the thinker. 
 It is wrong, however, from this clearness and vividness of 
 
Race Psychology. 43 
 
 ideas to infer that they have an existence and reality outside 
 of the mind. Such propositions need other proof than is 
 involved in their perception, and L,ocke and Hume were 
 right in objecting to the proof given by their advocates for 
 the existence of a special faculty for perceiving them. 
 
 § 8. The Mechanism of Belief. 
 
 Of the school of thinkers to which he belonged Hume 
 gave the clearest analysis of the causes of belief. I shall turn, 
 therefore, to his writings to secure a starting point in the 
 present discussion. His thesis is primarily that belief is 
 not due to intuition or to reasoning. His predecessors had 
 sought to find the source of belief largely, if not solely, in 
 the intellectual processes, of which reasoning is the best 
 example. It was supposed that when certain propositions 
 were placed in a given order a feeling of belief arose out of 
 the relations perceived between the various ideas contained 
 in the propositions. Hume denied that this was the origin 
 of belief and claimed that it was due to the way in which 
 the ideas of a given proposition were conceived. Ideas 
 differ from impressions only in the degree of their vivid- 
 ness. A belief is, therefore, "a lively idea related to or 
 associated with a present impression." The only way to 
 create a belief in a proposition is to give greater vivid- 
 ness to the ideas it contains. "The belief," he said, 
 "super-adds nothing to the idea, but only changes our 
 manner of conceiving it and renders it more strong and 
 lively. ' ' On its negative side I believe Hume's argument to 
 be sound . His predecessors and opponents gave to the reason- 
 ing process a power of creating belief, when it would have 
 been nearer right to have affirmed that its function was to 
 destroy belief. I shall describe the function of reasoning 
 in a later section, but at present it is enough to say that 
 these opponents gave no valid proof that the process of 
 reasoning is the source of belief, and that Hume had an 
 
44 Annai<s of thb American Academy. 
 
 easy task to overthrow their theory and to replace it with a 
 new one having an inductive basis. 
 
 Hume's theory that belief is onl}' a lively idea is based 
 on the assumption that the contents of the mind are limited 
 to impressions and ideas, the latter differing from the former 
 only in the fact that they strike the mind with less force and 
 vivacity. I have already pointed out objections to this 
 doctrine that the contents of the mind consist only of 
 impressions and their less vivid copies in the form of ideas. 
 It assumes that the mind receives no impressions except 
 those that come over the sensory nerves. These sensory 
 feelings differ only in vividness. If they make up the 
 whole contents of the mind, ideas can only be copied impres- 
 sions, and beliefs are only these weakened ideas made so 
 strong that they again resemble impressions and may be 
 mistaken for them. A more complicated mechanism of the 
 mind than that conceived by Hume would make room for 
 more possibilities, and suggest some other source of belief. 
 If we have motor feelings as well as sensory feelings, beliefs 
 may belong to the class of feelings which Hume overlooked 
 and may not, therefore, be merely one form of conceiving an 
 idea. In conformity with my hypothesis of mental activity I 
 shall assume that belief is the product of motor feelings 
 that accompany the activity of the higher thought centres 
 in which clear ideas, forms of thought, and ideals are created. 
 When these centres start nervous currents which reproduce 
 their ideas and forms of thought in the self-conscious centre, 
 motor currents are started also in these centres which tend 
 to create activity in the body. These motor currents are 
 reflected to the self-conscious centre. They arrive at the 
 same time and form a part of the same wave of consciousness 
 which produces the sensory ideas. As the sensory and 
 motor currents blend it is easy to mistake the impression 
 created by the motor current for a modification of the sensory 
 feelings. A belief, however, is not the same as a vivid 
 idea. Ideas about which we have no belief may be as vivid 
 
Race Psychology. 45 
 
 as those about which we have a belief. A thorough belief 
 in the existence of Paris may exist along with a dim impres- 
 sion of it, while a vivid impression of how it would look in 
 flames may be accompanied with no belief that it is on fire. 
 Belief is something more than the vividness and force of 
 ideas and demands some other explanation. 
 
 I should say that belief is primarily an unimpeded tend- 
 ency to activity. The centres creating the ideas for the 
 self-conscious centre start motor currents at the same time 
 that they start sensory currents. If these motor currents 
 are not obstructed before they are reflected to the self-con- 
 scious centre, they create the feeling of belief. If they are 
 obstructed before reaching this centre, the sensory currents 
 present ideas about which there is no belief. If they arrive 
 at the centre, but are met in it by opposing currents, a state 
 of arrest follows accompanied by a feeling of conflict and sus- 
 pense. Viewing belief in another way we may say that it is 
 an unimpeded tendency to objectify thought. When a sen- 
 sory feeling is accompanied by a motor feeling we think of 
 the object of thought as apart from or outside of ourselves. 
 Objectivity is not a kind of vividness of ideas but is a new 
 feeling due to our tendencies toward activity. If we were 
 never active nor a cause of bodily motion, we would have 
 no concept of the objectivity of our ideas and thoughts. 
 The motor currents in some way create the state of mind in 
 which we objectify our thoughts and there is no simpler way 
 of producing this effect than that which I have described. 
 
 % p. A Restatement. 
 
 Before closing this preliminary discussion it seems best to 
 restate some of its leading ideas. My main object is to dis- 
 cuss the origin of the social forces. But to do this properly 
 it was necessary to explain the psychologic basis upon which 
 these forces rest. Were psychology a perfect science this 
 would have been an easy task ; but the defects in psychology 
 are only too clearly shown in the light of the social sciences. 
 
46 Annai^s of the American Academy. 
 
 It -was necessary, therefore, first of all to present an hypoth- 
 esis of mental activity that -would emphasize the basis on 
 which the social forces rest. 
 
 The defects in current psychology are traceable to the 
 fact that analytic psychology has not kept pace with the 
 development of physiologic psychology. We now know 
 how complex the mind is on its physical side, that there 
 are numerous centres reacting on each other, and that many 
 of them have no connection with the outer world except 
 through the activity of related centres. We know too that 
 the sensory and motor nerves and centres have distinct 
 mechanisms, and that they react on one another in various 
 ways. In the analysis of the content of consciousness, 
 however, we have not changed our concept of mental activity 
 since the time of Locke and Hume. We proceed as if the 
 mind were a unicellular organism directly connected with the 
 outer world by a few sensory and motor nerves which do 
 not react on one another in any way. It is assumed that 
 the unity of sensory feelings is created within the field of 
 consciousness itself by a process of association of ideas. 
 There are in this scheme no motor feelings because the 
 motor nerves pass directly to the outer world, and we are 
 conscious of their effects only through the return of certain 
 sensory currents started by the changes in the outer world 
 caused by the motor currents. 
 
 A new analytic psychology should assume a greater com- 
 plexity of the mental mechanism than the old psychology 
 admitted and investigate whether the feelings of which 
 we are conscious have not a greater variety of causes than 
 were assumed by the old psychology. There should be an 
 inductive study of the field of consciousness and a new 
 classification of its contents. Only in this way can we deter- 
 mine whether or not the ideas of the mind are of as many 
 kinds as our present knowledge of the physical basis of the 
 mind would permit. 
 
 I^et me give, therefore, in outline, the kinds of feelings 
 
Race Psychology. 47 
 
 which a complex mental mechanism with many centres 
 would make possible. There could be both sensory and 
 motor feelings. If motor feelings are felt it is probable that 
 pleasures, pains and beliefs are due to them. These feelings 
 lack that concreteness and objectivity which are so character- 
 istic of sensory feeling. They lack also a definite mechanism 
 for their reproduction in memory. The best test of sensory 
 feelings is our power to remember them ; while these feelings 
 that I assume to be motor only appear in memory by their 
 effects on the outer world, which are conveyed to conscious- 
 ness over the sensory nerves. 
 
 The mechanism which produces motor feelings is doubtless 
 the older portion of the mind. Low forms of life depend 
 upon pleasures, pains and instinctive motor feelings to 
 guide actions. The sensory feelings were not yet differ- 
 entiated, and some low form of touch may have given them 
 their only ideas about the outer world. There was probably 
 a time when the mechanism of the motor feelings was as 
 much more developed than that of the sensory feelings as the 
 latter mechanism is now in human beings ahead of the former. 
 
 The pursuit of pleasure was, I think, the controlling 
 force which led to the development of the motor system. 
 The development of the sensory system, however, depended 
 upon the need of avoiding the sources of pain. To accom- 
 plish this end the sensory nerves had to convey more definite 
 impressions from the outer world, and the resulting ideas 
 had to be better co-ordinated and more firmly associated. A 
 memory of past events was one of the best means for this 
 end, and when the sensory mechanism had developed up to 
 this point it became of more importance as a requisite for 
 survival than the motor mechanism. But little further change 
 was made in the motor feelings. The new sensory mechanism 
 became the source of mental progress through that long 
 period in which the avoidance of pain was the first thought 
 of every creature. At length the sensory mechanism has 
 become so important that in human beings the motor 
 
48 Annals op the American Academy. 
 
 feelings lose their distinguishing characteristics and are 
 regarded as inere modifications of the sensory feelings. 
 
 The relative development of sensory and motor systems 
 depends upon the environment of the organism. If a 
 creature is in direct contact with a physical environment or 
 is the master of all the creatures in this environment, its 
 progress depends upon the development of its pleasures, and 
 this in turn on the development of its motor system. If, 
 however, this creature becomes the prey of other creatures 
 it is transferred from a pleasure to a pain environment. 
 Survival now depends on its power to avoid pains and this 
 end is best secured by a development of the sensory nerves 
 through which it becomes aware of the presence of enemies 
 and of the avenues of escape. The wider the range of its 
 perceptions, the better its memory, and the firmer the asso- 
 ciation of its ideas, the securer will be its position. 
 
 Human societies have at length emerged from the condi- 
 tion where the avoidance of pain is the requisite for stu:- 
 vival. Man is now placed in a pleasure world and his needs 
 demand a pleasure and not a pain economy. There must, 
 therefore, be more attention paid to the motor feelings upon 
 which success depends in such a world. The psychology of 
 I,ocke and Hume reflects the condition of the old pain 
 economy and emphasizes the importance of the sensory 
 mechanism. Impressions, ideas and the laws of their asso- 
 ciation form the sole topics of their investigations. Beliefs, 
 forms of thought, and ideals are overlooked or ignored. 
 This neglect is of especial importance to students of social 
 affairs because the social forces have their origin in these 
 complex forms of thought. They must free psychology 
 from these defects and errors before a sound basis for reason- 
 ing in the social sciences can be secured. The preceding 
 sections of this essay have endeavored to describe the foun- 
 dation on which social phenomena rest. The following 
 sections will try to trace the effects of these psychologic 
 premises in some of the leading departments of social science. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 KNOWIvEDGE AND BELIEF. 
 § I. Local and General E7ivironmenls. 
 
 In order to trace the development of the social forces from 
 their beginnings we must describe in greater detail the 
 physical peculiarities of the earth's crust upon which the ob- 
 jective environments of different individuals or societies 
 depend. These problems have been neglected because the 
 study of organic life has so largely absorbed the attention 
 of biologists. It is assumed that a few general conditions 
 make up the environment and that their influence is so con- 
 stant a factor that in the study of evolution they may be 
 overlooked without danger of error. When we throw aside 
 these presuppositions and look at the problem without 
 prejudice, it is clear that we must study the diverse condi- 
 tions which form environments. If organisms develop it is 
 not owing to internal conditions or to the laws of life, but 
 to some peculiarities of the surrounding conditions. 
 
 It is a well-known fact that the goods upon which animals 
 subsist are very unequally distributed over the surface of the 
 earth. The great geologic changes have produced mountains 
 and valleys, deserts and fertile plains. The direction of the 
 sun's rays and the location of oceans and mountains deter- 
 mine the climate, temperature, and rain-fall. Many local 
 conditions contribute to heighten the irregularities due to 
 these general forces and thus to give to certain localities 
 great advantages in food and climate over other less favored 
 regions. Each favored locality has some articles of food or 
 conditions of life in which it is superior to all other localities, 
 and animals fitted for such a region find in this locality the 
 best opportunities to live and thrive. 
 
 When animals in the process of development change from 
 one environment to another, the requisite for survival in this 
 
 (49) 
 
so Annai<s of the American Academy. 
 
 new environment is found in its best form in these favored 
 localities. The tendency to occupy these favored regions, 
 and to struggle for their possession is strong. This struggle 
 leads to the development of the conquering organisms, both 
 in function and in desire, and they acquire better bodies and 
 more intense desires for food and activity. 
 
 When economic conditions force a given species to strug- 
 gle for the possession of a few favored localities, their 
 environment is a local environment, because it depends so 
 fully upon the peculiar combinations of certain economic 
 conditions in this region. Objective conditions in this case 
 are the cause of progress, and but little depends upon the 
 choice of the individuals undergoing the evolution. It 
 matters little what the economic instincts of such creatures 
 are while their goods are furnished free by the environment. 
 Their power to survive depends solely on the intensity of 
 their desire for these free goods and upon their physical 
 power to monopolize a part of the region for their exclusive 
 use. Under such conditions aggressive instincts which put 
 a being in a state of opposition to his fellow creatures, are 
 of more value to him than economic instincts which cause 
 him to utilize more completely or to improve the conditions 
 of his environment. Greater bodily activity and an increase 
 in ability to experience pleasure go hand in hand, and 
 give to beings most developed in these respects a power 
 to survive in the favored localities where the economic 
 goods are free and do not, therefore, demand conscious 
 attention. 
 
 When the motor powers of animals are fully developed, 
 the requisites for survival are to be found, not on the motor 
 side of mental activity, but on the sensory side. The mem- 
 ory is developed; the power to analyze objective phenomena 
 into their material elements increases ; images and ideas of 
 absent conditions are formed ; and beliefs are generated which 
 determine the mental attitude of beings toward unseen 
 objects. Direct activities depend on the development of the 
 
Knowledge and Bei-ief. 51 
 
 motor powers, indirect activities depend on the develop- 
 ment of the sensory powers. When periods of time can be 
 contrasted and mental pictures of absent objects become so 
 vivid as to modify conduct, economic activities begin, and 
 the aggressive instincts of individuals are directed to the 
 subjugation of the common environment instead of against 
 other individuals. A new tendency shows itself to enlarge 
 the area from which sustenance is drawn, and to depend 
 less on the local environment where the objective condi- 
 tions are so complete that each individual is independent. 
 
 The development of the sensory powers gives to a being 
 a knowledge of the conditions of a larger area and creates 
 a tendency in him to seek for an adjustment to a wider 
 range of objective conditions. Less dependence is put on 
 the free goods of favored localities and the activities are now 
 exercised in bringing into harmony the many conditions of 
 the enlarged environment. In this new environment no 
 single element may be as good as the leading elements of 
 the old environment, but a proper combination of several 
 poorer elements yields to the individual a fuller life and 
 greater activity than the fewer elements of the old environ- 
 ment. 
 
 This tendency to make life depend upon a greater number 
 of conditions, although these conditions may be less com- 
 plete than the fewer conditions of the local environment, 
 lies at the basis of the movement of beings from favored 
 localities to a more general environment. With each addi- 
 tion to the sensory powers this general environment can be 
 enlarged and life can be made to depend on more complex 
 conditions. An isolated individual is not able to utilize 
 this enlarged environment. He must be supported by other 
 beings. Indirect activities must also displace the direct 
 activities of lower beings. This co-operation of beings and 
 the change in the direction of their activities depend upon 
 the growth of social feelings. The aggressive instincts 
 must be checked or turned into new channels. Habits, 
 
52 Annai^ of the American Academy. 
 
 customs, and modes of thought must be acquired which 
 will enable individuals to live in peace with one another 
 and to get pleasure out of one another's society. All these 
 changes depend on the development of the sensory powers, 
 and show the marked contrast which exists between beings 
 in whom the sensory powers are developed and those in 
 whom the motor powers are still dominant. 
 
 There are thus two stages of progress — the biologic and 
 the social — corresponding to the two possible environments. 
 In the biologic stage beings are pushed into a local environ- 
 ment where the objective conditions are so complete that 
 little thought is needed to supply the necessities of life. 
 Under, these conditions the development of the motor powers 
 determines who shall survive. The organism becomes a more 
 nearly perfect individual because of the growth of organs on 
 the one hand and an increase of desire on the other. In the 
 struggle for such an environment the beings with the su- 
 perior motor powers drive out those with inferior motor 
 powers. Some of the latter class are, however, better fitted 
 to occupy a general environment where their sensory powers 
 are of more use than in the local environment from which 
 they were driven. The conquered thus find a place to live 
 and by the development of some of the social forces create 
 for themselves a new society with new requisites for sur. 
 vival. When the struggle for existence begins within this 
 new environment, those with superior motor powers will 
 again survive, while those with an imperfect motor organ- 
 ization, but with improved sensory powers, will be forced 
 again into a more general environment where new social 
 instincts must be acquired. 
 
 The social beings with superior sensory powers are thus 
 repeatedly defeated and driven out by those whose motor 
 development is superior. Social progress can continue so 
 long as there is a more extended environment in which 
 highly developed sensory beings can find refuge. Biologic 
 progress is due to the struggle for existence within a given 
 
Knowledge and Belief. 53 
 
 environment. Social progress is due to the necessity of 
 breaking over from one environment to another. The one 
 tends to create a local environment in favored localities, 
 the other tends to create a general environment in which 
 more of the economic forces are utilized. The two stages 
 of progress supplement each other and together make up 
 the process of evolution. 
 
 § 2. The Subjective Environment. 
 
 In the preceding section the growth of social forces was 
 shown to depend upon objective facts, but no attempt was 
 made to point out the psychologic causes which lead to this 
 growth. Corresponding to objective conditions favoring 
 the growth of social forces, there must be certain subjective 
 conditions upon which it depends. The key to these changes 
 lies in the development of the mental mechanism. The 
 sensory nerves bring to the self-conscious centre not merely 
 the coarse products of external impressions, but also the 
 refined products of related centres. Each of these centres 
 adds certain elements to the external impressions which 
 arouse the centre to activity, and these are reflected to the 
 self-conscious centre and there blend with the impressions 
 coming from the outer world. 
 
 The self-conscious centre does not see the external world 
 as it is, but as modified by the activity of related centres. 
 Before a being with highly developed sensory powers has 
 time to act, its concept of its environment is changed by 
 additions from these related centres. Its whole environ- 
 ment is made up of two parts — the objective environment pre- 
 sented through the original impressions, and the subjective 
 environment created by the activity of related centres. Each 
 impression from the outer world has added to it certain ideas 
 from the subjective environment and the joint product is pro- 
 jected by the mind and seems a part of the objective world. 
 Customs, habits, social institutions and ideals are as as objec- 
 tive and real to individuals as any part of the outer world. 
 
54 Annals of the American Academy. 
 
 The mechanism by which these results are accomplished 
 is the result of the development of the sensory feelings. 
 Forms of thought and ideals are created for the social world 
 on the same plan that they are created for the physical 
 world. A single idea of any related group arouses to 
 activity some centre fitted for its reception and then the 
 whole group of ideas is reflected to the self-conscious centre 
 and so blended with the first impression that they all seem 
 to have come from the outer world. I call these ideas, 
 forms of thought, and ideals an environment because they 
 determine the action of individuals in the same manner that 
 the objective environment does. The meaning of an environ- 
 ment is that it limits and directs activity in certain fixed 
 channels. In a local environment nearly all the choices of 
 individuals are determined by the nature of the physical 
 conditions of the locality. There is a certain kind of food, 
 a certain kind of shelter, a given climate requiring certain 
 decisions to ward off its evils or to profit by its points of 
 superiority ; the enemies are of a given class, and to avoid 
 or to conquer them another series of activities arise and 
 become fixed. In almost every decision some physical con- 
 dition is faced which can be surmounted only by a fixed 
 series of acts. 
 
 When an animal moves out of a local environment into a 
 more general environment fewer of its acts are determined 
 by physical conditions. The choices of the animal would 
 be arbitrary if some new conditions were not created to sup- 
 plement the effect of the physical environment. Uncer- 
 tainty and confusion would result and no group of animals 
 could act together under such conditions. Yet co-operation 
 is a necessity for beings who would occupy a general envi- 
 ronment ; without it no social progress would be possible. 
 
 To remove this uncertainty and confusion a subjective 
 environment is created by the activity of the sensory centres. 
 Whenever, in a general environment, an objective condition 
 which determined the choice in a local environment is 
 
Knowledge and Belief. 55 
 
 removed, some idea, form of thought, or ideal is created by 
 the mental mechanism. New conditions thus arise which 
 make the actions of the individual as definite and certain as 
 before. Each individual projects and visualizes the same 
 subjective environment. The whole group act together and 
 their choices can be depended upon as fully as though the 
 surrounding conditions were all physical. 
 
 The subjective and objective environments thus supple- 
 ment each other and are so blended by the mechanism of the 
 mind that individuals cannot separate them in thought with- 
 out great effort. Each series of choices leading to a given 
 end has its parts presented in the proper order. Each choice 
 is fixed by the mental picture which the subjective environ- 
 ment presents at that moment. When indirect activities 
 become possible, the means by which ends are secured must 
 be pictured in the subjective environment as definitely as 
 the road which a person is to travel is pictured by the eye- 
 sight. Instead of seizing an opponent with the teeth or 
 claws, as direct activity would demand, the picture of a club, 
 axe, spear, pistol or some other weapon is presented, and 
 the choice is determined by this picture and not by more 
 direct promptings of passion. In this way the picturing 
 activity of related centres modifies the choices at the self- 
 conscious centre and creates harmony of action among the 
 members of a social group. 
 
 The movement of a society to a more general environ- 
 ment lessens the dependence of its members upon the 
 conditions of the objective environment and increases their 
 dependence upon the conditions of the subjective environ- 
 ment. The requisites for survival gradually become sub- 
 jective and progress depends more and more on the develop- 
 ment of the sensory powers. 
 
 § 3. The Extension of Knowledge . 
 
 It has been shown that mental progress depends upon a 
 series of requisites for survival which must be surmounted 
 
56 Annals of the American Academy. 
 
 if evolution is to be progressive. Each of these requisites 
 for survival forces an abrupt change in the activities and 
 interests of the beings undergoing the evolution. The 
 habits, beliefs and ideals needed for the new environment 
 are of such supreme importance that they must be acquired 
 in the easiest way and in the shortest time. Knowledge 
 acquired in the old environment is likely to be misleading 
 under the new conditions and tends to strengthen the habits 
 and beliefs fitted for it. When slight changes are to be 
 made, knowledge acquired in the past, and reasoning based 
 on it, are the safest guides to success. But when great 
 changes must be made with great rapidity, the person who 
 sets aside his acquired knowledge and modes of reasoning 
 and guides his activities solely by the new experience, will 
 surpass his more conservative competitors in the rapidity of 
 his adjustment to the new conditions. 
 
 There must, therefore, with such requisites for survival, be 
 a return to the primitive method of evolution. The organism 
 must act on dimly seen facts and beliefs so imperfect as t» 
 be merely semi-conscious impulses. Clear knowledge and 
 strong beliefs can only come at a later stage when an adjust- 
 ment has already been made to the more elementary of the 
 new conditions, and even then they are due to the experience 
 acquired in the new conditions and are in no way dependent 
 on the knowledge and beliefs of the earlier epochs of prog- 
 ress. Instead of any such dependence there is usually an 
 opposition between the old knowledge and beliefs and the 
 new, which must in some way become adjusted by a revision 
 of the older ideas and beliefs. 
 
 If a being guided by the sense of touch should secure the 
 conditions favorable to the perception of light, a new sense 
 would develop and a new area of knowledge would be opened 
 up, with which would come new feelings and beliefs. The 
 sensory feelings upon which this knowledge is based would 
 at first be very vague, yet these vague feelings would have 
 to be chosen as a basis of action instead of the more definite 
 
Knowledge and Beuef. 57 
 
 •sensations of touch. The new beliefs and impulses of the 
 sight area could not be derived from the beliefs and impulses 
 of the touch area. It would be the necessities of the new 
 situation that forced the new beliefs, and not any process of 
 carrying the results of the older area of knowledge into 
 the new area. 
 
 The first area of knowledge depends upon the sense of 
 ~touch. When an organism comes in contact with other 
 ■objects this sense will tell something of their qualities, and 
 thus enable the organism to avoid some of the disagreeable 
 elements of its environment and to assimilate others upon 
 which life depends. Such knowledge must be meagre, 
 leaving the organism without any means of knowing of 
 ■objects or places with which it is not in contact. 
 
 A new area of knowledge is acquired when the sense 
 •of touch is supplemented by the power to recognize the 
 differences in certain vibrations of the medium by which 
 the organism is surrounded. I,ight, sound and smell are 
 alike in that they are due, not to contact with external 
 •objects, but to vibrations in the medium which surrounds 
 both the organism and the external objects in which it has 
 an interest. In their primary form these vibrations are a 
 warning of the presence of moving beings. The inference 
 is that there is a movement for each vibration which the 
 organism perceives. A knowledge of a moving object can 
 thus be acquired before the being comes in contact with it. 
 As these vibrations precede the feeling of touch, the two 
 facts are related, and an expectation of the feeling of touch 
 follows the perception of these vibrations. This knowledge 
 is of immense importance to beings whose environment 
 is largely determined by hostile organisms. To such crea- 
 tures moving objects are usually sources of pain, and a 
 warning of their approach gives an opportunity for escape. 
 The perception of these vibrations thus becomes a requisite 
 for survival. Fear is the first sensation which a percep- 
 tion of these vibrations creates. Moving objects, fear and 
 
58 Annai^ of the American Academy. 
 
 pain, become a definite series of associations and througb- 
 them knowledge is greatly extended. 
 
 For these reasons the concept of beings in the external 
 world precedes that of passive material objects. Animate- 
 objects are recognized through the vibrations which pro- 
 ceed from them. Every object is regarded as animate 
 which is the cause of vibrations in the common medium 
 surrounding the observed and the observer. It is possible 
 to recognize objects as inanimate only when the observer is 
 able to see in them definite qualities apart from the sub- 
 stance in which they inhere. This power to perceive defi- 
 nite qualities in objects and to analyze these objects into- 
 their elements, demands a much higher development of the 
 sensory powers than beings have in the early stages of prog- 
 ress. They must also be able to combine into a unit qual- 
 ities derived from different senses. While the thought of a 
 moving object can come through one of the senses, the pas- 
 sive characteristics of material objects must be tested by 
 more than one sense. The observation of color, form, 
 weight and other qualities of the inanimate world demands- 
 from the observer a much greater development of the senses 
 than does the mere observation of motion. 
 
 There is much historical evidence to show that primitive 
 races think of the world as made up solely of animate - 
 objects. Each tree, plant or river is to them a living object, 
 having the qualities of other animate beings. This tendency 
 to view the world as a series of beings shows that a race is 
 just emerging from a state in which objects were recognized 
 only by the vibrations they created. As soon as sensory 
 powers are sufficiently well developed to see and analyze the 
 qualities of material objects, primitive man ceases to view the 
 world as animate and begins to think in terms of qualities of 
 objects and not in terms of undivided wholes. The more a 
 race analyzes the objects about it, and the smaller the units- 
 into which it divides these objects, the more materialistic 
 is its concept of the world. It cannot view the world in. 
 
Knowledge and Belief. 59 
 
 a material wa}- until it separates the motion of an object 
 from the object itself. While the thought of a passive 
 object stripped of its motion seems to us a simple concept, it 
 is not acquired by beings until long after the time when 
 they can recognize a moving object and unite to avoid it. 
 
 This extension of knowledge brings a being into what I 
 call a pain economy. I mean by this that all the endeavors 
 of the being are directed toward the avoidance of pain. 
 All the requisites for survival depend upon the power to 
 avoid enemies. The environment at this stage of progress 
 is largely a living environment because the conditions for 
 survival depend so largely upon each being's relations to 
 other beings. There are few points of contact with the 
 material world which are of importance in the struggle for 
 life. Food at this stage of progress is not a requisite for 
 survival. There is so much of it that it can be secured 
 readily if enemies can be avoided. The conscious thought 
 must, therefore, be directed toward the living beings in the 
 environment. Greater power to avoid contact with other 
 creatures is of more importance than greater power to secure 
 food. Pleasure remains a subordinate force in determining 
 action, while pain becomes the leading element and the 
 cause of progress. 
 
 Another extension of knowledge comes when beings can 
 analj'ze an object into its elements, and can recognize the 
 difference between passive material and active beings. This 
 change in attitude is due to a further development of the 
 sensory powers. Vibrations take definite shape in the 
 form of color, sound, smell, etc. Heat, light and motion 
 are thought of as qualities and not as entities. Numer- 
 ous other qualities are discovered, and the contrast of 
 substance and quality becomes clear and definite. The 
 attention is transferred from beings to matter. Even beings 
 are analyzed into their material constituents and thus a new 
 basis for the objective world is discovered in a few elements 
 about which there was little or no interest. This change 
 
6o Annai^ of the American Academy. 
 
 of interest from beings to matter is accompanied by a change 
 from a pain ecomony to a pleasure economy. With a living 
 environment of enemies the avoidance of pain is the first 
 requisite for survival. When these enemies have been for 
 the moment eluded, pleasure and food may be secured, but 
 the first interest is always in the enemy and the pain to be 
 avoided. 
 
 The recognition of the world as an aggregate of materials 
 shifts the interest from pains to pleasures. It is seen that 
 these materials may be united in many new ways and thus 
 protection may be secured from enemies and weapons formed 
 for self defence. Mere material may also be reshaped into 
 goods and thus be the source of greater pleasure. When 
 the possibility of transforming materials into goods is once 
 recognized, new avenues for activity are opened and an 
 interest is acquired in a much larger region than before. 
 Much of the material of which goods are made must come 
 from distant places, and thus the act of production extends 
 the field of knowledge so as to include the whole region 
 from which comes the material used in making goods. 
 Brazil, Cuba and China come within the scope of our sensory 
 powers as soon as coffee, sugar and tea become parts of 
 our food supply. 
 
 The connection between a material concept of the world 
 and a pleasure economy has not been suflSciently empha- 
 sized. The growing interest in a life of pleasure has been 
 the prime motive which has forced modem nations to 
 adopt an analytical and material attitude concerning the 
 composition of the external world. With each reduction in 
 the attention necessary to avoid pains and enemies, men 
 have become more conscious of the need of greater sources 
 of pleasure. But more pleasure can come only from a 
 greater power to separate the original masses into their ele- 
 ments and to reunite them in new ways. Pleasures come 
 from material sources and a seeker for pleasure must attain 
 his end by acquiring a material concept of nature. A 
 
Knowledge and Belief. 6r 
 
 love of pleasure and a belief in the materiality of the world 
 go hand in hand, just as a fear of pain is accompanied by a 
 belief that the ultimate units of the world are animate beings. 
 Each belief is an outcome of the environment in which the 
 thinker lives, and of the relative development of his sensory 
 powers. These are characteristic beliefs of beings having 
 different areas of knowledge. Much of the confusion and 
 contradiction in hiunan beliefs is easily explained when it 
 is recognized that mankind has but recently developed out 
 of a pain into a pleasure economy. 
 
 When a material concept of the world has been acquired, 
 another extension of knowledge becomes possible. The 
 distinction is now drawn between the natural and the super- 
 natural worlds. In the natural world the material concepts 
 of a pleasure economy are dominant, while the supernatural 
 world is still conceived of as a world of beings, just as in the 
 pain economy. The thought of higher and more powerful 
 beings than those of a human society is thus acquired and 
 distant worlds are peopled with such beings who are in more 
 or less frequent contact with human society. These higher 
 beings exert an influence upon human affairs by relieving 
 pain and by restraining crime and violence. The weaker 
 human beings seek for protection from enemies through the 
 power of their superiors, and in this way it is hoped that 
 the evils of a pain economy may be overcome. Belief in 
 higher beings and in their power to influence human affairs 
 is at the basis of this extension of knowledge. 
 
 So long as these beliefs remain there are definite ideals 
 and forms of thought created by the mental mechanism, 
 which modify all the original impressions coming from the 
 outer world. The content of the self-conscious centre is 
 thus enriched by certain ideas which become as much a part 
 of its knowledge of the external world as are the ideas 
 derived from any other source. Knowledge depends upon 
 the content of the self-conscious centre and this content is 
 to a greater extent the product of the activity of related 
 
62 Annai^ of the American Academy. 
 
 centres, than of the original impressions coming directly 
 from the outer world. 
 
 These four areas of knowledge depend upon the growing 
 definiteness of our ideas of space. They extend knowledge 
 outward from the individual until every part of the universe 
 is in some relation to him. The fifth area of knowledge 
 depends upon time relations. The past, the present and 
 the future become definite realities about each of which we 
 have some definite knowledge, and between which there 
 exists definite relations. The thought of a future world 
 is thus acquired and predicates are made concerning 
 it, depending on its supposed resemblance to the present 
 world. Social relations and indirect activities lie mainly in 
 this area of knowledge. The sensory feelings become so 
 developed that future welfare is pictured as definitely as 
 that of the past or present. Ideals and forms of thought 
 are acquired, through whose influence choices having pre- 
 sent welfare as their end seem less desirable than other 
 choices which take the future into consideration. 
 
 The tendency toward indirect activities depends upon 
 this development of the sensory powers. Definite pictures 
 of the future show the inadequacy of direct means and make 
 the indirect series of choices, pictured in the imagination, 
 more attractive than the direct promptings of passion. The 
 use of capital is one of the prominent results of this new 
 development of the sensory powers, and with its aid the 
 new requisites for survival are obtained which have made 
 modern nations possible. 
 
 If this analysis of the extension of knowledge is correct, 
 there are at least five areas of knowledge, which have 
 different roots and depend upon different stages in the devel- 
 opment of the sensory powers for their origin. Knowledge 
 has not grown up from a single nucleus of ideas to which 
 additions from time to time have been made by a logical 
 process. Such a process might have been possible if the 
 first being had been Adam-like, created with full mental 
 
KNOWLEDGE AND BELIEF. 63 
 
 powers. We have ceased to regard the ston,- of the crea- 
 tion of Adam as an historical fact, and yet we retain a con- 
 cept of the growth of knowledge which demands a societj' 
 of such men to make it a realitj\ 
 
 The growth of knowledge is not due to developed men 
 coming in contact with more of nature. It is due to beings 
 of limited sensor\- powers gradually increasing their pow- 
 ers as they are forced to know nature more intimately or to 
 come in contact with larger areas of the world. Each new 
 requisite for sur\-ival has caused the development of some 
 Tiew sensory power, and has thus created an area of knowl- 
 edge independent of the older areas, and in no logical con- 
 nection with them. Knowledge comes by leaps and bounds 
 when a new environment with new requisites for survival 
 is entered. The new sensory powers have the same mechan- 
 ism as the older powers have, but the ideas, forms of thought, 
 and ideals of the new centres develop out of the new material 
 without regard to the results of the activity of the older 
 centres. The pressure of the new situation and the need 
 of new sensorj' powers force into the background the pre- 
 viously acquired experience. There is no wa}' of blending 
 the more definite knowledge of the older centres which was 
 of use in other conditions and the less definite and more 
 instinctive feelings of the new but partially developed cen- 
 tres. Reasoned action is of great service in situations 
 which are thoroughly known, but is of little use in a strange 
 environment. The new and the old knowledge are thus in 
 opposition. The new centres must create their own exper- 
 ience and beliefs as they develop, and leave the blending 
 and harmonizing of the different areas of knowledge to a 
 later epoch. 
 
 § ^. The Theory of Conviction. 
 
 If this view of the extension of knowledge is correct, it 
 throws new light on the causes of belief and conviction. 
 Knowledge is extended by the development of the sensory 
 
64 Annals of the American Academy. 
 
 powers. New centres force new facts and pictures upott 
 the attention of the self-conscious centre, and the results of 
 the activities of these new centres are belief and conviction. 
 At the same time that these centres reflect sensory feelings, 
 which are translated into knowledge at the self-conscious, 
 centre, they also reflect motor feelings which become beliefs 
 and create a conviction of the reality and objectivity of the 
 knowledge that the sensory feelings have imparted. Beliefs 
 are unrestrained impulses to activity and these impulses, 
 arise as soon as the knowledge and activity of a related 
 centre becomes a requisite for survival. Belief is not some- 
 thing imparted from one idea to another at the self-con- 
 scious centre. This centre is as passive in its beliefs as it 
 is in its sensory perceptions. Both perceptions and beliefs, 
 are due to the activity of related centres and are reflected 
 to the self-conscious centre as soon as the activity of these 
 centres begins. Primary beliefs are as little related to one 
 another as are the different areas of knowledge. Each new- 
 requisite for survival modifies the mental mechanism and 
 brings into activity a new group of centres. A new series 
 of ideas and ideals is thus created and new impulses to 
 activity are started. The importance of the new requisite 
 for survival, upon which the creation of these new centres 
 depends, causes the motor currents started by these centres 
 to control the organism. The motor currents of the older 
 centres are subordinated to the new currents, not by any 
 process of reasoning but by necessity. It is a case of ele- 
 mentary evolution, a return to first principles. If the organ- 
 ism does not yield to the new impulses it cannot survive in 
 the new environment. Each group of ideas, of forms of 
 thought, and of ideals is created at a time when it must con- 
 trol the activity of the organism in order that the latter 
 shall survive. The new impulses remain unrestricted so 
 long as the requisites for survival which created them are 
 not displaced by other requisites. The sensory and motor 
 feelings of each epoch thus have time to blend and harmonize 
 
Knowledge and Belief. 65 
 
 and to grow stronger as they develop. In this way- 
 inseparable associations and beliefs are created which remain 
 a part of the mind's possessions until they are destroyed by 
 some opposition between them and other associations or 
 beliefs. 
 
 The thought I wish especially to emphasize is that beliefs 
 do not grow out of one another. There is no single stock 
 out of which all the mental beliefs can be derived. The 
 process of creating beliefs is not logical, nor is it the result 
 of activity at the self-conscious centre. Each new requisite 
 for survival starts new centres into activity and creates a 
 new group of ideas and beliefs. As many independent 
 beliefs are possible as there are requisites for survival 
 Bccessary for the progress of the race. If the beliefs 
 are less than this number, some of them have dropped out 
 because the early requisites for survival have lost their 
 importance, or because there has been an opposition between 
 tlie beliefs which different requisites for survival have 
 created. 
 
 It is not difficult therefore to account for the presence of 
 a great variety of beliefs among men, or for the ease with 
 which new beliefs are acquired. They are as much the 
 result of contact with the environment as are the ideas and 
 pictures of the sensory side of the mind. Each new group 
 of objective conditions leaves open certain avenues for activ- 
 ity and checks activity in other directions. The sensory 
 powers create a subjective environment to supplement these 
 objective conditions. The activity of the organism is thus 
 given a fixed direction and a belief is generated in the realitj"^ 
 and objectivity of the ideas and ideals of this subjective 
 environment, which directs the activity of the organism 
 along possible and safe channels. The success of the organ- 
 ism creates a belief in the means by which this success was 
 obtained. 
 
 If an organism always remained in one environment there 
 would be a harmony between its various beliefs. The 
 
66 Annaw op thb American Academy. 
 
 human race, however, has many times passed from one 
 environment to another, and in each it has found new 
 requisites for survival. The beliefs of these different epochs 
 are not in harmony, and are often the cause of internal con- 
 flict in the case of individuals and of external conflict 
 betv^een nations or classes in different stages of progress. 
 So long as given beliefs are requisites for survival the3' 
 are not called in question nor are they the cause of conflict. 
 But when the epoch has passed in which they are really 
 requisites for survival, or when their importance has been 
 diminished by the presence of new requisites, they must be 
 harmonized with the beliefs due to the new requisites and 
 with the beliefs still older than they. 
 
 There are thus many groups of beliefs, due to past requis- 
 ites for survival which are not now so important that they 
 may not be called in question. When men become con- 
 scious of the opposition between their beliefs, some of them 
 must be weeded out. The more important ones will still 
 survive. The test lies in their relative strength or in their 
 relation to the present requisites for stu-vival. Progressive 
 beings go through two stages of progress in each environ- 
 ment. In the first stage, because of new requisites for survi- 
 val, new sensory powers and new beliefs are acquired. In the 
 second stage the beliefs due to the requisites for survival of 
 the last stage become ordinary beliefs, and can have their 
 validity questioned. They must now be brought into har- 
 mony with other beliefs or some of them will be weeded out 
 by the struggle which this opposition involves. 
 
 This second stage in each epoch of progress is intellectual 
 and in it the reasoning powers are brought into activity. 
 Reasoning is a process of weeding out beliefs. If conflicting- 
 beliefs are brought into conscious opposition, the weaker is 
 rooted out, and in this way a harmony is restored among 
 the ideas and beliefs of the subjective environment. No 
 new beliefs, however, are created by reasoning. It is simply 
 a process of testing the strength of beliefs and their necessity 
 
Knowledge and Belief. 67 
 
 to the organism at the present time. Formal logic is 
 thus merely one form of scepticism. By its use the indi- 
 vidual compares the different parts of his subjective environ- 
 ment and adopts an objective test of their relative validity. 
 A host of conflicting ideas, axioms and intuitions, created at 
 different stages of progress, are eradicated, and the effici- 
 encj' of the organism is promoted by the harmony exist- 
 ing between the ideas and beliefs which remain. 
 
 § 5. The Analysis of Reasoning . 
 
 Belief is, as I have shown, an unimpeded tendency to 
 activity. When there is but one such tendency present in 
 the mind at a given moment, this tendency realizes itself in 
 the subsequent activity. If, however, two opposing tenden- 
 cies are present, one of these must give way. If the pro- 
 cess by which this result is secured is conscious, the act is 
 due to some form of reasoning. When we reason we arrange 
 the particulars under dispute so that they can have the full 
 support of the group of ideas, forms of thought, and ideals 
 to which they belong. We group particulars under general 
 propositions because these general propositions are the clear- 
 est forms of the group of ideas in question. In this way 
 each particular has imparted to it all the strength of more 
 vivid beliefs, and cannot be disproved except on evidence 
 which would eradicate the belief in the general proposition. 
 With the general propositions the process of reasoning has 
 nothing to do, unless thej^ in turn are the particulars of some 
 broader generalization from which they derive their force. 
 The primary beliefs are created by other causes and they 
 cannot be strengthened by reasoning. They may, however, 
 be weakened or eradicated by reasoning when they are 
 brought by this process into conscious opposition to other 
 primary beliefs of greater strength. Thus reasoning on the 
 one hand strengthens secondary beliefs by putting them into 
 conscious relation to the primary beliefs on which they 
 depend. On the other hand it weeds out the weaker of two 
 
68 Annai<s of the American Academy. 
 
 primary beliefs by bringing them into conscious opposition. 
 The end of reasoning is to bring the contents of the differ- 
 ent areas of knowledge into harmony. Each new requisite 
 for survival modifies the mechanism of the mind and adds 
 to its beliefs and knowledge. The new area of knowledge 
 is not the outcome of deductions from previously acquired 
 facts, but of new experience due to new sensory powers. 
 These new acquisitions must be secured before reasoning 
 begins. Reasoning does not extend knowledge ; it merely 
 solidifies and unifies knowledge. 
 
 Imagine, for example, a number of creatures, each of which 
 has acquired its knowledge through some one sense, one by 
 sight, the second by smell, the third by sound and the fourth 
 by touch. Each being will have a peculiar concept of the 
 external world depending on the impressions it has received. 
 It will also have certain impulses and beliefs upon which 
 its activity depends. In this case its actions will be mere 
 impulses without any basis in reason. When, however, all 
 these senses are possessed by one being there are four dis- 
 tinct areas of knowledge, and a conflict must arise between 
 the separate groups of impulses and beliefs which belong to 
 these areas. Reasoning will now begin. Each area of 
 knowledge will have its validity tested by facts obtained 
 from other areas of knowledge. Facts or events which can 
 be verified by an appeal to more than one area of knowledge 
 will have a higher validity than those for which no such 
 verification is possible. Beliefs and impulses which depend 
 entirely on the facts of one area of knowledge must give 
 way to those which are in harmony with the content of two 
 or more areas. Pacts and events which cannot be verified 
 in other areas of knowledge cease to be regarded as real and 
 objective, and are looked upon as mere fancies created by 
 the imagination. A being with but one sense could have 
 no concept of degrees of reality. Each concept would have 
 the same validity, and each impulse the same possibility of 
 realization. A creature whose controlling concepts are 
 
Knowledge and Belief. 69 
 
 obtained from the sense of sight, sees in each moving thing 
 an object of terror. It objectifies each motion into a being. 
 If, however, it obtains new senses and the power to ana- 
 lyze objects into their parts, it puts the mass of moving bodies 
 into the category of inanimate objects. The impulse to fear 
 moving objects is now checked by the facts of other areas 
 of knowledge and some verification outside of mere motion 
 is demanded, before a moving body is objectified as animate. 
 
 Reasoning is thus a process of giving a higher realitj- and 
 objectivit3' to concepts by verifying them through facts 
 obtained in different areas of knowledge. Each area of 
 knowledge adds to the feeling of reality and objectivit3' if 
 some of its concepts harmonize with those resulting from the 
 earlier areas of knowledge. It reduces the extent of the real 
 and objective in as far as there is conflict. One or the other 
 group of supposed objective concepts sinks to a lower plane 
 and is regarded as a fiction of the mind. The senses do 
 not predicate realit5' and objectivity. Only those concepts 
 are real and objective that stand the test of a verification in 
 several areas of knowledge. 
 
 Manj' of these tests are not due to the senses, but are of 
 a social nature. When knowledge is so extended that a 
 part of it is derived from other beings, a belief in their 
 veracity becomes a requisite for survival. This belief reacts 
 upon the areas of knowledge derived from the senses and 
 gives new tests of the objectivity of certain ideas. If the 
 observations of one individual are not verified by his com- 
 rades, he doubts the objectivity of these unverified concepts, 
 and thinks himself the victim of dreams and hallucinations. 
 The social impulses thus give a new lever to the reasoning 
 powers, and the impulse to objectify the products of the 
 senses yields to the stronger impulse upon which social co- 
 operation depends. If a social being attempts to objectify 
 ideas without the consent of his neighbors, the impulse is 
 brought into conscious opposition to the social impulses, 
 and must yield. An insane person differs from other 
 
70 Annai,s of the American Academy. 
 
 persons largely in the weakness of his social impulses. He 
 has lost the instinct of verifying the objectivity of ideas by 
 social evidence, and thus gives a reality to a host of ideas 
 which a sane person would reject even though the senses of 
 the latter gave the same testimony as those of the former. 
 Reasoning can never be an efiScient means of securing 
 harmony, except among persons with the same impulses. 
 No matter how clearly and logically the sensory powers may 
 arrange and contrast their ideas, no eradication or objectifi- 
 cation of ideas can take place without the aid of the motor 
 impulses. If the two opposing series of ideas do not call up 
 motor impulses they will remain mere mental pictures with- 
 out any power to displace each other or to influence conduct. 
 Reasoning is a development of the sensory side of the mind 
 and its function ceases when the sensory ideas have been 
 placed in a clear and definite relation to one another. When, 
 however, each of these groups of ideas is connected with 
 certain impulses the conflict for supremacy rests with these 
 impulses. Reasoning may bring more or stronger impulses 
 into activity, but the final contest is between the two groups 
 of impulses and not between the two groups of ideas. 
 
 § 6. The Modification of Beliefs. 
 
 If the foregoing analysis is correct, beliefs are due to the 
 activities which the environment of an organism permits. 
 An adjusted organism has its sensory mechanism so arranged 
 that clear ideas of the environment are formed, and its 
 motor mechanism so organized that its dominant tendencies 
 produce activities in harmony with its clear concepts of the 
 environment. There must always be a harmony between 
 the clear ideas of the sensory mechanism and the vivid, 
 action-producing ideas of the motor mechanism. If the 
 two mechanisms are not in harmony the activities of the 
 organism clash with its environment, and either the motor 
 mechanism must be modified so that other tendencies are 
 dominant or it will be displaced by its competitors whose 
 
Knowledge and Belief. 71 
 
 sensor\- and motor mechanisms are more in harmony. The 
 beliefs of an adjusted organism mnst, therefore, correspond 
 to its environment. These beliefs, however, are not a 
 thorough test of truth. They merely eliminate that part of 
 the false which the environment of the organism allows it 
 to test. 
 
 In progressive beings the adjustment between the sensory 
 and motor mechanisms is repeatedly disturbed by the passing 
 froin one environment to another in which there are new 
 requisites for survival. As a rule a local environment is 
 given up for a more general environment. In this case, 
 after the sensory mechanism has been developed to meet 
 the new conditions, a modification of the motor mechanism 
 creating new activities and beliefs weakens or destroys 
 those which are out of harmony with the new conditions. A 
 race of beings, however, which has passed through several 
 environments, has not the same activities and beliefs it 
 would have had if the adjustment to the last environment 
 had been complete and it had not advanced to the new 
 environment. Some of the beliefs of the earlier environ- 
 ments will be destroyed because incompatible with the new 
 conditions, but many of them wiU remain because they are 
 matters of indifference or of small moment. 
 
 There is another peculiarity of the beliefs of progressive 
 beings of even more importance. If a belief arising in an 
 early local environment is also useful in later environments, 
 it will retain the form in which it first appeared and seem to 
 depend upon these earlier conditions. The beliefs of a race 
 in this case will not be enlarged in ways now possible, but 
 they retain that cramped form which the older conditions 
 necessitated. Two evils having a social importance flow 
 from these facts. When a society is passing from a local to 
 a general environment, the conservative element resists the 
 change, because it involves the abandonment of certain old 
 beliefs and the modification of others. Their form does 
 not harmonize with the new conditions, and the radical 
 
72 Annals of the American Academy. 
 
 element in the society regards them as false or imperfect. 
 Some of the old beliefs, however, are in harmony with the 
 new environment, being such as would naturally be created 
 by it in the course of time. There is thus an opposition 
 between the historical conditions in which certain of these 
 old beliefs actually arose and the present conditions which 
 must, from now on, be their basis. 
 
 These facts make the transition to a more general 
 environment a difficult matter. The important beliefs seem 
 endangered, and many persons prefer a return to the old 
 conditions, where these beliefs had their origin and are on 
 safe ground, rather than to risk their ultimate verification 
 under the new conditions. Both reason and experience 
 seem to oppose the change; reason, because it shows the 
 discrepancies between the old proofs of these beliefs and the 
 new conditions; experience, because a brief period of life 
 under the new conditions plainly shows the evils involved 
 in the change. When the adjustment has been made to 
 the new conditions the new and more general beliefs become 
 requisites for survival and are more vivid than the old^ 
 beliefs due to earlier and more local conditions. These older 
 beliefs now tend to fade out and would disappear but for a. 
 process of reasoning which connects them with the more 
 vivid beliefs of the new environment. The sources from 
 which they were historically derived are forgotten or over- 
 looked and they are given a new life by being made to 
 appear like deductions from the new beliefs. 
 
 A good illustration of this tendency is given by the devel- 
 opment of those economic doctrines associated with the name 
 of Ricardo.* England during the first quarter of this 
 century was in a peculiar economic environment because of 
 the great inventions and the French wars. A series of 
 economic doctrines arose each of which had its basis in some 
 peculiar economic condition of the time, the basis being 
 
 * See the writer's article on "The Interpretation of Ricardo," Quarterly Journal of 
 Economics. April, 1S93. 
 
Knowledge and Bei.ief. 73 
 
 historical and inductive. At the end of the period a broad 
 generalization called the law of diminishing returns was 
 made, based on the new conditions toward which English 
 society was tending. As soon as this generalization was 
 thoroughly established, the particular doctrines of the 
 earlier epoch were made to appear as deductions from the 
 law of diminishing returns. Both the historical conditions 
 from which thej- were derived and the weakness of their 
 inductive support in the new environment were overlooked, 
 and they were given a new life through the chain of reason- 
 ing which linked them to the vital thought of the new 
 epoch. 
 
 In this way old beliefs are kept secure long after the 
 causes which originated them have passed away. This 
 tendency also leads to that type of reasoning called reason- 
 ing in a circle. When a broad generalization based on 
 a. more general environment first appears, it gets its support 
 from a series of particular propositions based on the condi- 
 tions of earlier local environments. It seems an outcome of 
 these propositions and, as they create the stronger beliefs, it 
 must depend on them. The changed conditions, however, in 
 time weaken the support of these particular propositions due 
 to local conditions and make vivid and independent the 
 broader generalization in harmony with the new conditions. 
 By reversing the reasoning and making the older proposi- 
 tions depend upon the new generalization a belief in them 
 is retained, although their inductive and historical basis is 
 weakened or gone. The vivid beliefs thus support the 
 more obscure beliefs. When reasoning in a circle is suc- 
 cessful the beliefs of the old and the new environments are 
 in turn made vivid by a, clear presentation of the conditions 
 on which they depend. If the reasoner imagines himself 
 to be in the old environment its beliefs seem more vivid 
 than the beliefs of the later epoch. When, however, the 
 new conditions are visualized the older beliefs seem the 
 weaker and need the support of those due to the newer 
 
74 Annals of the American Academy. 
 
 conditions. Reasoning in a circle always demands two such 
 pictures and so long as both of them can be readily visualized 
 they seem to support each other. 
 
 There are a few inferences from these facts which I wish 
 to state in a more concrete waj' because of their importance 
 in the subsequent discussion. When a race enters a new 
 and more general environment, a period of transition must 
 ensue during which the customs, habits and beliefs of 
 earlier epochs must be modified or disappear. The more 
 local the conditions to which given customs or beliefs 
 are due, the more probable it is that they will be displaced 
 by others in harmony with the new conditions. While the 
 more general beliefs may have their form affected, they are 
 not likely to have their content altered. Thej' have already 
 survived manj' changes from environment to environment, 
 and probably conform to the most general conditions that 
 our planet can furnish. They will, however, suffer from 
 the disproof of many of the more local beliefs with which 
 they have been artificially connected by chains of reasoning 
 and from which they may have historically arisen. General 
 beliefs are always stronger than they seem, because new con- 
 ditions would generate them anew even if, owing to the 
 weakness of their historical basis, they should fall into dis- 
 credit. I/Dcal beliefs are always weaker than they seem, in 
 spite of the mass of inductive and historical evidence they 
 always have on their side. Each new environment displaces 
 the local customs, habits and beliefs due to earlier epochs 
 and creates a new group to take their place. In time these 
 new beliefs wiU have the same solid array of inductive and 
 historical evidence back of them that their predecessors had, 
 and will harmonize as well with the general beliefs. A 
 static epoch gives an undue importance to the local and his- 
 torical and narrows the support of general principles until 
 they seem to depend upon present conditions alone. 
 
CHAPTER R'. 
 
 A SC-CI-U. COJIilOXWEALTH. 
 § I. The Transition frcm .: Pain £c'^':omr to j PU'osure 
 
 Before proceeding furtiier in the dijcussion of the social 
 forces the distiiiction between a pain and a pleasnre econ- 
 rany nmst again be emphasized. Beings in a pain economj'^ 
 have vigorons motor powers but a low development of the 
 sensory powers. As they pass from one environment to 
 another the requisites for snr^-ival are determined by the 
 enemies and pains to be avoided. Food and pleasure are 
 of course necessary, but they are not the main objects of con- 
 scions thought. TThen such beings have developed their 
 sensory pciwers far enough so that forms of thought and 
 ideals are created which aid them in their activities, there 
 is formed for them a pain society, the end of which is pro- 
 tection from enemies. There is a pain moralit}-. the purpose 
 of which is to keep persons from committing acts and 
 putting themselves in situations which lead to destmction. 
 There is also a pain religion, the purptKe of which is to 
 invoke the aid of higher beings in the ever recurring con- 
 tests with enemies and pain. 
 
 In describing the leading features of a pain economy, I do 
 not mean to imply that men in such an economy are con- 
 stantly thinking of pain and never of pleasure, but that aU 
 their institutions have as their basis the fear of enemies and 
 pain. The primitive state is formed, as Hobbes tells us. to 
 secure protection from enemies. The primitive morality is 
 some form of asceticism. When enemies abound the con- 
 scions pursuit of pleasure exposes a being to the attacks of 
 these enemies and the consequent evils. The choosing of 
 .smaller instead of greater pleasures, and the postponement of 
 
76 Annai^ of thb American Academy. 
 
 pleasures until the ends demanded for protection and secur- 
 ity are obtained become tlie best means of prolonging exist- 
 ence. By tlie aid of these social forces in a pain economy many 
 of the highest ideals of men have been formed. Connected 
 with these ideals is a series of impulses which prompt indi- 
 viduals to activities in harmony with the conditions under 
 which they have grown up. The most fundamental char- 
 acteristics of the human race belong in this realm, and to 
 the average individual they seem to be the only bulwarks 
 by which society, morality and religion can be defended. 
 Yet we are now in the transition stage from this pain econ- 
 omy to a pleasure economy, and it is necessary to see what 
 changes will ensue and in what way ideals, forms of thought 
 and impulses must be modified to meet the new conditions. 
 
 The causes of a pain economy lie in the environment. 
 Vigorous enemies deal out death and destruction so freely 
 that the thought of isolated individuals is concentrated on 
 the causes and remedies for pain. The development of 
 human society has gradually eliminated from the environ- 
 ment the sources of pain. The civilized world has been 
 freed from dangerous beasts and reptiles, and the growth of 
 large nations has cut off the danger of invasion by barbarous 
 and warlike human foes. The objective environment is now 
 merely the crust of the earth and its stock of materials and 
 goods. The sensory powers have free play in analyzing 
 this material into its elements, and in reorganizing these 
 elements into valuable goods. These changes make a pleas- 
 ure economy possible and destroy the conditions which made 
 the subjective environment of the old pain economy a 
 necessity. 
 
 It is not, however, to be assumed that the transition to a 
 pleasure economy is an easy one. On the contrary, it is a 
 most difficult process and one fraught with many evils and 
 dangers. So many of the fundamental ideas, ideals and 
 impulses of the race lose their efficiency through the change 
 that mankind seems almost without a rudder to guide it 
 
A Social Commonweai^th. 77 
 
 through its new difficulties. Historical evidence would 
 seem to prove that a pure pleasure economy is an impos- 
 sibility. Nation after nation has gone down when utilities 
 instead of pains have become the supreme object of inter- 
 est. Individuals as well as nations show the deteriorating 
 influence of pleasure as soon as they are freed from the re- 
 straints of a pain economy. This tendency to deterioration, 
 however, is an evil that belongs only to the period of 
 transition. A nation after undergoing the severe disci- 
 pline of an unfavorable environment, suddenly finds itself 
 transferred to a new environment where there is an abund- 
 ance of utilities and no fear of enemies. The old safeguards 
 to character are now inadequate, and it takes a long time to 
 construct a new series of safeguards suited to the new con- 
 ditions. In the meanwhile individuals sink into a state of 
 lethargy or of vice, and the nation is so weakened that some 
 new people, coming from a region where a pain economy 
 still prevails, find it an easy conquest. 
 
 Consequently in those regions where a pleasure economy 
 is possible nation after nation has risen and fallen, without 
 ever developing sufficient strength to resist the encroach- 
 ments of enemies disciplined by a pain economy. A pleasure 
 economy cannot be formed by any kind of a revolutionary 
 process. There must be a long period of transition in which 
 the leading elements of the old economy are gradually lost 
 and in their places the ideas, ideals and impulses of a pleas- 
 ure economy are substituted. The development of modern 
 nations has been along this path. Without a conscious 
 departure from the old ideals of state, morality and religion, 
 there has been a gradual substitution of certain ideals and 
 impulses of a pleasure economy, until now all of our leading 
 concepts are held in a dual form. One group of ideals 
 and impulses is the conservator of past conditions, while 
 blended with them is another group of ideals and impulses 
 which is the outcome of the new conditions. Such a state 
 of affairs cannot but be the cause of much confusion and 
 
78 Annai3 of the American Academy. 
 
 distress. The only hope of progress lies in separating the 
 present aggregate of forces into their elements and in find- 
 ing to which group each ideal and impulse really belongs. 
 
 The present situation can, perhaps, be better described by 
 returning to an elementary distinction. It has been shown 
 that progress is due to the passing from one environment to 
 another, each having certain requisites for survival. The 
 purpose of individuals in passing from environment to 
 environment is not progress, but an escape from competition. 
 The easiest way out of present difQculties is taken even 
 though some other path in the long run would better serve 
 the ends of the race. The line of least resistance often 
 forces progress to take a circuitous route, as when a river 
 cutting its way to the sea often makes long curves to traverse 
 a short distance because of some obstacle in the direct route. 
 
 When the race entered a pain economy it was forced out 
 of the direct line of social progress into a series of environ- 
 ments where the requisites for survival warded off pain 
 instead of promoting welfare. The early instincts, customs, 
 ideals and religious forms of the race were at bottom safe- 
 guards from enemies and pains. In time, however, the con- 
 ditions of a pain economy became less severe and some of 
 the requisites for survival came from a pleasure economy. 
 The line of progress then tended to come back to its normal 
 trend, and now after a long detour, the race finds itself at a 
 point on the normal line somewhat in advance of the point 
 of departure. The environment no longer demands a pain 
 economy, yet the instincts, habits and ideals of the race 
 have been acquired during this long period of abnormal prog- 
 ress, and there are no proper guides for activity in the new 
 pleasure economy into which the race is admitted. 
 
 To put itself into a normal condition, the race must con- 
 struct an artificial channel from the point where it left the 
 normal line of progress to the point where it now is. It 
 must create with design the same impulses, habits and ideals 
 which it would have had if the normal line of progress had 
 
A SociAi^ Commonwealth. 79 
 
 not been abandoned. The abnormal impulses and ideals of 
 the pain economy must be discarded or reconstructed on a 
 new basis. This necessity involves an enormous undertak- 
 iug for the abnormal course of events reaches back far 
 bej'ond the orgauization of men into societies. 
 
 It is often assumed that this reorganization is an easy one 
 to beings who have the faculty of reason to guide them. If 
 reason were that independent source of authority which 
 many metaphysicians hold it to be, something might be 
 hoped for from it. But reason acts only on the impulses 
 that lie back of it and thej' are the slow accumulations of 
 many ages. Doubtless a conscious progress can save the 
 race from many e^ils and economize much time, but it can- 
 not alter the order of development nor eliminate any of its 
 steps. Nations cannot become fitted for the conditions of 
 a pleasure econoni}' without passing through a stage of prog- 
 ress where the elerjentary ideas and impulses are adjusted 
 to one another by the crudest form of evolution. We are 
 repeating this early process at present with a great loss of 
 life and happiness. Individuals brought suddenlj- into a 
 pleasure economy, fail to react against their environment, 
 yield to temptation and sink into vice. The new impulses 
 and ideals appear but slowly, yet perhaps we are far enough 
 along to see something of their character and influence. As 
 I have said, they are already a part of our present stock of 
 ideas. The new, however, is so blended with the old that 
 it is hard to isolate them. Perhaps our religious ideals 
 show the effect of the transition from a pain to a pleasure 
 economy more plainlj"^ than any others. The concept of God 
 possessed by primitive races is but little separated from 
 their concept of earthly rulers. They serve Him as they 
 serve their rulers from fear of the consequences of disobedi- 
 ence. It is a rule of fear tempered with a hope of protec- 
 tion from enemies. With a clearer perception of spatial 
 relations their concept of God removes Him farther from the 
 sphere of earthly rulers, bvit He is still thought of as a God 
 
8o Annai3 of the American Academy. 
 
 of war and an avenger of evil deeds. When the develop- 
 ment of the sensory powers has progressed far enough to 
 create a concept of natural law and of the universe, God is 
 thought of as the creator of men and is supposed to use His 
 power and foresight to ward off the evils which come from 
 natural forces. When men advance far enough to see that 
 a natiu-al retribution does not follow evil deeds in this life, 
 God becomes the final judge of the deeds of men. So far 
 there has been a development of the ideas of a pain economy- 
 due to changes in the sensory powers of men. Force, power 
 and omniscience are the leading characteristics of the ideal 
 of God. 
 
 At length, however, a new thought appears in the form 
 of the Christ ideal. Christ is not the God of war and hate, 
 but the God of peace and love. He comes not as the ruler 
 of men, but as their servant. He has so little power that 
 a corporal's guard can crucify Him. With the appearance 
 of Christ there was brought into the world a new group of 
 religious ideas quite foreign to those previously entertained. 
 The old ideals were fitted for men whose foes were external 
 and from which they needed a protector. A God of power 
 who was an avenger of evil deeds was a fitting ideal for men 
 in such a condition. But when men are transferred to a 
 pleasure world their evils are internal. They are their own 
 foes. They want relief not from persecution, but from 
 temptation. The concepts of a powerful God and of a future 
 retribution are of little help to men in such a situation. 
 They want rather a model for imitation, one who remains 
 pure even though subject to the passions and temptations 
 of men. The likeness to man is emphasized in the Christ 
 ideal more than the likeness to God. He is a better ideal 
 because he is powerless and helpless. 
 
 § 2. The Characteristics of a Pleasure Economy. 
 
 Since the human race is now in a stage of transition from 
 a pain to a pleasure economy, it is useless to discuss 
 
A Social Commonweai<th. 8i 
 
 the social forces upon an inductive or historical basis. 
 Elustrations from history or inductions from present condi- 
 tions are defective because the facts upon which the>- rest 
 are the result of two groups of forces. It is not logical, 
 therefore, to assume that the same results would follow if 
 the conditions were so changed that the motives of a pleas- 
 ure economy were the sole or at least the dominant motives. 
 If we wish to discover the characteristics of a pleasure econ- 
 omy and explain its influence on the race we must make use 
 of a hypothetical method and try to determine what would 
 have happened if the past progress of the race had been due 
 to a pleasure economy instead of a pain economy. I shall 
 illustrate my method of investigation by using a diagram. 
 
 F.a.2. 
 o 
 
 i' . - • '^ 
 
 k 
 
 Let us assimie that the broken line A B represents the series 
 of environments through which the race passed before the 
 pain economy began and that after this epoch the race passed 
 through a series of environments represented by the broken 
 line BCD. During this epoch the race is in a pain econ- 
 omy, and as a result the line of development deviates from 
 its natural channel and passes by an indirect route from B 
 to D instead of going by the direct route (B E D). Finally 
 at the end of this epoch the race arrives at the point D and 
 once more tends to move along the normal line of progress 
 toward F. If while the race is at the point D we wish to 
 analyze the social forces and determine their character and 
 influence, we cannot use the historical method. The facts 
 
82 Annaxs of the American Academy. 
 
 of history all relate to the indirect route from B to D through 
 which the race has passed, and these facts were determined 
 by the forces of the pain economy. Such facts will be 
 deceptive and from them few valid deductions can be made 
 as to the future progress of the race. If we wish to find a 
 basis for speculating in regard to future progress we must 
 discover what would be the social forces if the line of pro- 
 gress from B to D had been through E and not through C. 
 If the direct route along the line BED had been taken, 
 the race would have been in a pleasure economy and all the 
 ideas, forms of thought and race ideals would have been 
 those harmonizing with a pleasure economy instead of those 
 suited to the conditions of a pain economy. 
 
 To illustrate my thought in another way let us suppose 
 that when the race had advanced to the point B, it was 
 divided into two parts, one of which located on the Western 
 Continent and the other on the Eastern Continent. Sup- 
 pose also that there was no further contact between the two 
 parts of the race, and that the conditions of the one conti- 
 nent created a pain economy and those of the other a pleasure 
 economy. Beginning at this point the development of the 
 two parts of the race would have been radically different. 
 Each part would have peculiar group of ideas, ideals and 
 institutions, fitted to the conditions under which it existed. 
 If at a later period when the psychic development of each 
 part of the race had brought it to the point D, the two parts 
 should again be brought into contact it would be possible to 
 contrast the ideas, ideals and institutions of the two parts 
 and thus determine by an historical and comparative method 
 what were the effects of a pleasure and of a pain economy 
 respectively. The development of the human race, however, 
 has not been in two such parts, and we cannot compare the 
 results of the two groups of forces working in isolation. 
 There has been no pleasure economy. We must, therefore, 
 resort to a hypothetical method and determine what would 
 have been the ideals and institutions of a rkce with similar 
 
A S0CIAI< COMMONWEAI,TH. 83 
 
 sensory powers but with so different an environment that a 
 pleasure economy would have been possible. 
 
 I,et us, therefore, try to construct a pure pleasure economy 
 and see if we cannot picture the progress of the race under 
 such conditions. To have a pleasure economy of the kind 
 I have suggested we will take an isolated island composed 
 of one fertile plain. There must be no mountains where 
 enemies maj^ hide, nor may there be any physical or clima- 
 tic variations through which differences in the people might 
 arise and be the cause of conflict. The island must be free 
 from all dangerous beasts and reptiles, so that no sensations 
 or instincts of fear may arise. There must be no severe 
 changes in climate nor irregularity in the crops. Short 
 crops or marked changes in external conditions would tend 
 to put the inhabitants in a state of opposition to each other 
 and thus create the instincts of a pain economy. In short, 
 there must be an absence of every physical difference which 
 would favor dissensions and conflict, and thus bring on a 
 state of war between the various individuals of this isolated 
 society. I do not mean that there should be no emulation 
 and rivalry between individuals or groups of individuals. 
 Such feelings might be strong and yet if they did not lead 
 to personal violence or to treacherous conduct there would 
 be no instincts of fear similar to those of a pain economy. 
 The essence of a pleasure economy is not absence of pain 
 but of fear. 
 
 If these objective dangers and the instincts born of them 
 were out of the way, the community would have its evo- 
 lution directed by its economic conditions and by the sub- 
 jective dangers which prosperity creates. An abundance of 
 economic goods and the pursuit of pleasure would give rise 
 to many forms of temptation, disease and vice. The surplus 
 population would be carried off in these ways and not by 
 any form of conflict or violence. No one would fear his 
 neighbor, but he would have to learn to guard himself 
 against the many short-sighted choices which would weaken 
 
84 Annai^ of the American Academy. 
 
 his physical strength, shorten his life, render him liableto 
 disease, or lead him into vice. The families or individuals 
 that did not succumb to these temptations would survive 
 and produce a new generation with instincts and habits better 
 fitted to the environment in which they exist. A series of 
 such generations would create a type of man with instincts, 
 ideals and institutions of such a nature that the temptations 
 of a pleasure economy could be resisted. Each tendency to 
 vice or disease would be counteracted by the influence of 
 habits, ideals and institutions which would limit the choices 
 of individuals in such ways that only innocent pleastu-es 
 and amusements would be chosen. 
 
 It must not be assumed that the only thought of such 
 people would be to increase their pleasures. While the 
 greatest sum of pleasures might be attractive to individ- 
 uals, yet their choices would of necessity conform to the 
 conditions of social welfare or the race could not survive. 
 The motives of a conscious calculating utilitarianism would 
 be checked by social impulses which tend to promote the 
 interests of the race. There would therefore be two promi- 
 nent groups of motives — the one prompting actions which 
 increase the pleasure of the individual, and the other prompt- 
 ing actions which promote the progress of the race. The 
 utilitarian instincts of individuals would be limited to 
 proper fields through the impulses which the social forces 
 generate. Each tendency to get pleasure at the expense of 
 social welfare would be counteracted by the formation of 
 some ideal or social institution with which would be coupled 
 impulses prompting to their realization. The requisites for 
 survival would be those social impulses which preserve 
 individuals from temptation, disease and crime. The num- 
 ber of ideals and institutions would be gradually increased 
 until their united effect would be strong enough to deter- 
 mine the choices of individuals and make their conduct con- 
 form to the interests of the race. 
 
 Such a society I shall call a social commonwealth. The 
 
A Social Commonwealth. 85 
 
 welfare of its members is its only end, yet this end is secured 
 not so much by conscious calculation as by social impulses. 
 In such a commonwealth the social forces would have free 
 play. They would arise in a natural order and their devel- 
 opment could be easily traced. All of these impulses would 
 be of one class, and the ideals with which they are con- 
 nected would be so harmonious that they would have a 
 cumulative effect. I mean to picture the conditions of this 
 social commonwealth and to contrast them with those of our 
 present society. I shall try to show how the economic, 
 aesthetic, moral and religious ideas and ideals of such a 
 society would differ from those of the present time. In this 
 way we can measure the influence of the forces of the pleas- 
 ure economy toward which the race is tending, and see 
 what effect the new conditions will have upon its ideals, 
 impulses and institutions. 
 
 § J. The Economic Bonds. 
 
 If a social commonwealth were formed under the condi- 
 tions I have named, the economic forces would constitute the 
 first and elementary bonds uniting the members of such a 
 society. These economic forces would be created by the con- 
 ditions of the environment and would begin to operate as 
 soon as individuals began a conscious pursuit of pleasure. 
 I have assumed that the members of the commonwealth are 
 not influenced by fear and that their only pains are due to 
 a misuse of the goods abundantly produced by their envi- 
 ronment. At first, therefore, there would be no bonds 
 except those created by self-interest. 
 
 The bonds of this class which have attracted the most 
 attention lie in the field of production. Men at a very early 
 stage of progress became conscious of the benefits of co- 
 operation. The knowledge that division of labor results in 
 increased productive power, soon becomes a force in uniting 
 men into productive groups and in holding them in fixed 
 social relations. The need for capital is felt as soon as the 
 
86 Annai<s of the American Academy. 
 
 division of labor begins, and capital cannot be secured except 
 by the protection of property on the one hand and by a 
 growing desire for future welfare on the other. The use of 
 capital opens the way to serial production and widens the 
 interval between the initial and the final stage of production. 
 Finally, owing to differences in soil, climate and mineral 
 products, commerce springs up, and thus the economic bonds 
 which unite the people of each community are extended so 
 that different communities have an interest in the welfare 
 of their neighbors. In order to survive, each person would 
 be compelled to join himself to some group of producers. 
 If his instincts kept him aloof from all social groups, his 
 productive power would be too small to enable him to hold 
 his own in the struggle. If we assume that the land of this 
 commonwealth is owned by the state or by a class of capital- 
 ists, such an individual would be unable to pay the rent 
 which members of productive groups could pay. Were the 
 land equally divided, such an isolated man would be unable 
 to live on the small plot which would be assigned to him as 
 his share. 
 
 The aid of capital would give a similar advantage to those 
 having the instinct to save and to provide for the future. 
 Groups of such individuals working together would be able 
 to undersell individuals working with their hands and by 
 themselves, and in time these latter would be forced into such 
 a condition of want that disease and vice would carry them 
 off. This same desire for economic welfare would force 
 communities to be social and friendly to one another. The 
 exchange of goods and the growth of credit would develop 
 in individuals and in communities the feeling of honor, the 
 love for truth and the desire to live up to their contracts. 
 These economic virtues appear as soon as the desire for 
 economic welfare becomes strong. The sacredness of prop- 
 erty and the right to undisturbed possession of the means 
 of production depend upon the same conditions. The 
 demand for economic justice and equality are the products 
 
A SOCIAi COMMON'AVEAI.TH. S7 
 
 of the desire for welfare. If no feelings of opposition be- 
 tween individuals or communities are aroused by the condi- 
 tions of a pain economy, the promptings of self-interest and 
 of personal -welfare are sufficient to unite individuals into 
 communities, and communities into a social commonwealth. 
 These ob\-ious bonds due to the conditions of production 
 are, however, not the only economic forces uniting men into 
 a society-. The conditions of constunption, especially \-ariety 
 in consumption, also create economic bonds. The earth is 
 more productive when a variet\- of goods is desired than 
 when only a single article or a few articles are demanded. 
 The cultivation of a variety of crops makes land more 
 pnaductive and demands less labor than any one crop. 
 If the diet of a people were composed solely of wheat, 
 potatoes or rice, a large part of the land would be worthless 
 and the productivity of the rest of the land would be much 
 less than if the diet were made up of many articles. Persons 
 with varied diet and many wants in harmony with the con- 
 ditions of their environment have a decided advantage over 
 persons with.simple diet and few wants. The latter class 
 would require a larger are.i of land to support a given 
 number of persons and would thus be at a disadvantage in an 
 economic contest for survival. On the other hand, a greater 
 variety of wants creates greater dependence upon other 
 places and groups of producers, and thus unites the different 
 communities and producers more closely than would simpler 
 and less numerous wants. The smaller the variety of the 
 wants is the stronger must they be in order that the indi\-idual 
 shall keep alive. A diet of potatoes or rice is possible on!y 
 for persons who have strong appetites for those articles. 
 They are so lacking in certain nntritiAe qualities that enor- 
 mous quantities of them must be eaten to supply all the 
 needs of the system for food. In a varied diet the different 
 elements supplement each other, and thus a smaller quantity 
 of food will satisfj- the needs of the system. A man with a 
 weaker appetite will, under these conditions, be \ngorov.s 
 
88 Annals of the American Academy. 
 
 enough to survive. He will also get more pleasure from 
 his food. The change from one kind of food to another 
 revives the appetite and raises the intensity of satisfaction 
 above what it would be if the consumption of some one 
 article were continued until the needs of the system were 
 satisfied. Groups of individuals with varied diets, there- 
 fore, will have an advantage over more primitive men with 
 simpler diets and stronger appetites, and in a strictly eco- 
 nomic competition will displace them. 
 
 The more primitive man with strong appetite is at a dis- 
 advantage even if his economic welfare is assured. The 
 strong appetite for a few articles leads him to use too large 
 a portion of his income for purchasing these articles. His 
 desire for them holds out so long that the needs of his sys- 
 tem are more than supplied and hence a tendency to disease 
 and vice arises. In a social commonwealth many diseases 
 and vices would arise from this source. Where economic 
 goods are abundant, any strong desire for single articles will 
 lead to an excessive consumption, and the tempted individ- 
 ual will in time suffer from disease or fall into vice. In this 
 society vice will be due to desires for particular goods so 
 strong as to be injurious to the consumer, and not to tend- 
 encies to injure other persons by hostile acts. Men with 
 strong appetites will, therefore, be especially liable to disease 
 and vice, and will be at a marked disadvantage in an eco- 
 nomic contest for survival. 
 
 In establishing economic bonds the harmony of consump- 
 tion is not less important than the variety of consumption. 
 We add much to our pleasure from what we consume by group- 
 ing goods in the right way. Certain articles when consumed 
 together create a joint utility far above what the articles 
 would give if consumed independentlJ^ It is necessary, 
 therefore, to cultivate correct habits in grouping the goods 
 we consume and to see that each article gets into its proper 
 place. At each stage of civilization some elements must be 
 given a dominant place in each department of consumption, 
 
A Social Commonwealth. 89 
 
 while other articles must harmonize with these leading 
 elements or be rejected. In food, in clothing, in home 
 decoration, in architecture, and in other departments of life 
 the importance of this principle is manifest. In deference 
 to it certain types of consumption are created to which all 
 individuals must conform or else do without a consider- 
 able part of their possible utilities. Certain standards 
 are thus created which determine the character of a civil- 
 ization.* 
 
 With the progress of the race these groups of harmonious 
 goods grow in size and constitute the basis for many social 
 institutions. The home, the church, the club and other 
 similar organizations are the means of supplying desirable 
 goods in harmonious groups in a manner that is out of the 
 reach of isolated individuals. By the pressure of their 
 wants individuals are compelled to unite into social 
 groups. The economic disadvantage of isolated individ- 
 uals is so marked that no other principle is needed to force 
 men into social relations. Not only must they unite into 
 social groups, but they must also continually tend to increase 
 the number and size of these groups. 
 
 In a social commonwealth two tendencies would show 
 themselves. The individuals with the stronger appetites 
 would have their consumption confined to a few articles, and 
 would seek to increase their pleasures by consuming increas- 
 ing quantities of these isolated and unharmonious articles. 
 Drinking and feasting would be their main sources of pleas- 
 ure, and the tendency to over-indulgence would create 
 disease and vice. The persons with weaker appetites would 
 seek to increase their pleasures through an increased variety 
 and harmony of consumption. They would be forced by 
 this tendency into many social groups and be compelled to 
 accept social standards for their conduct. These groups 
 would conform more fully than individuals could to the 
 
 * For a more complete discussion of this topic, see the writer's monographs on 
 "The Consumption of 'Wealth" and " The Theory of Dynamic Economics," 
 
90 Annai^ of the; American Academy. 
 
 conditions of the environment, and would have an advan- 
 tage in an economic contest for survival. 
 
 The economic forces, therefore, are sufficient to create 
 powerful bonds uniting the individuals into a social com- 
 monwealth even if they feel no other motives than those 
 due to the pursuit of pleasure. These motives, however, 
 must operate steadily and during a long period of time. 
 There must also be an absence of the instincts and habits of 
 a pain economy, and no possibility of those conflicts which 
 it occasions. Survival must depend upon the power of indi- 
 viduals to resist temptation, disease and vice, and not on 
 the power of a group or race to crush out and destroy its 
 enemies. The desire for welfare may compel progress if 
 each individual makes for himself the decisions upon which 
 his welfare depends. 
 
 § 4.. The Social Bonds. 
 
 The economic bonds are the effects of a more or less con- 
 scious calculus of utilities. A social commonwealth held 
 together by no other bonds might prosper, but it woidd 
 purchase prosperity at a great price. Each generation 
 would be forced to test for itself the various combinations of 
 goods and by experience learn whether they promote or 
 retard welfare. Each individual would have to face the 
 temptations connected with intense pleasures, out of har- 
 mony with permanent welfare, and resist them through con- 
 scious motives. There would be no check to the actions of 
 individuals when their interests conflicted with the welfare 
 of the race. Social ends would be subordinated to those of 
 individuals and progress would be checked long before it had 
 reached its goal. The social bonds supply this defect. The 
 permanent interests of the race cannot be left to the con- 
 scious calculations of individuals. Instead of this slow and 
 uncertain process of attaining results, a mental mechanism 
 would be created which would call into activity certain race 
 ideals and impulses to limit the area of conscious calculation. 
 
A Social Commonwealth. 91 
 
 and to facilitate choices in harmony with social welfare. 
 The pursuit of pleasure would remain the conscious end of 
 individuals, but choices dangerous to society would be shut 
 out by the visualization of race ideals and the impulses 
 they create. 
 
 The race ideals are an outgrowth of the same process 
 through which harmonious groups in consumption are 
 formed. To give an example, a home in primitive times 
 was simply an aggregate of goods having a definite sum of 
 utilities and was valued in the same way as other groups of 
 goods. In time, however, more goods are added to the 
 original stock of utilities and they all blend into a harmon- 
 ious group. The particular goods forming this group are 
 lost sight of, and the ideal of a home becomes more promi- 
 nent than its itemized elements. The ideal home is more 
 than the sum of its parts. Elements are added to it by the 
 mental mechanism which give it a more important place in 
 determining action than could belong to the sum of the util- 
 ities it creates. A home now becomes a requisite for survi- 
 val, and impulses and beliefs are created which protect it and 
 demand the realization of the ideal it presents. 
 
 Each group of capital goods has a definite value to a pro- 
 ducer, and adds a definite sum to his utilities. They are 
 produced and consumed in each period of production. Cap- 
 ital as an ideal is a permanent fund which, although its 
 parts are constantly replaced, is never used up. It is asso- 
 ciated with future welfare and becomes a requisite for survi- 
 val as soon as a vivid ideal of future welfare is created by 
 the mental mechanism. 
 
 I might give many examples of how groups of economic 
 goods with a definite sum of utilities are changed into 
 ideals and are no longer thought of as definite sums of util- 
 ity, but as requisites for survival. There is, however, little 
 need of details in the present case. I desire to explain the 
 process by which ideals are formed out of definite sums of 
 utility rather than to enumerate all the instances where such 
 
92 Annai3 op thb American AcADEwtY. 
 
 a transformation has taken place. It is enough to know that 
 when ideals are formed out of groups of goods, the end of 
 the ideal is realized by an impulse and not by conscious cal- 
 culation. Impulse and belief are the forces by which the 
 requisites for survival are secured. Reason and calculation 
 control action only when welfare and not survival is at 
 stake. 
 
 In a social commonwealth, after the formation of certain 
 economic ideals, the aesthetic ideals would be the first to 
 appear. They lie nearest to the economic world and are an 
 outgrowth of its intense pleasures. Simple aesthetic ideals 
 seem to be the result of the blending of distinct groups of 
 pleasures into one larger group. In this way the interest 
 and intensity of pleasure can be sustained for a much longer 
 period than if an object is the source of a single group of 
 pleasures. When the intensity of pleasure derived from one 
 group is lowered, the thought is transferred to some other 
 group, and the interest and pleasure are revived. If there 
 area number of such groups combined in an object, one after 
 another of them attracts the attention and becomes a fresh 
 source of intense pleasure. Esthetic goods may be said 
 to be goods without that point of satiety which is found in 
 simple economic goods. The marginal utility is sustained 
 by the transference of interest from one group of pleasures 
 to another. 
 
 Such simple aesthetic pleasures, however, are quite differ- 
 ent from the complex ones which attract attention in our 
 present civilization. Esthetic pleasures have never had an 
 opportunity for normal growth, because the social requisites 
 for survival sprang from morals or religion. The result is 
 that but few forms of aesthetic pleasure have been acquired 
 and these are so disconnected and complex that their devel- 
 opment is not easily traced. But in a social commonwealth 
 they would appear in as many forms as there are harmon- 
 ious groups of economic goods. The impulses they create 
 would be the first means of subordinating the interests of 
 
A Social Commonwealth. 93 
 
 individuals to that of society. Through them the crude 
 isolated pleasures of primitive men would be displaced by 
 harmonious groups of refined pleasures. Disease, dissipa- 
 tion and vice would be restrained and many temptations 
 would be eliminated. 
 
 ^Esthetic ideals are concerned only with the present. 
 They lead to the best utilization of all the goods by which 
 the members of a society are surrounded. If certain forms 
 of consumption are prevented or their utility reduced it is 
 because these pleasures shut out the enjoyment of other 
 pleasures and reduce the number of goods from which enjoy- 
 ment may be had. The aesthetic ideals secure the largest 
 harmonious g^roups of goods which the society can produce. 
 The ejected articles may give intense pleasure, but they 
 can be enjoyed only under conditions adverse to social 
 welfare. 
 
 ^Esthetic ideals would be supplemented by moral ideals as 
 soon as future welfare could be vividly contrasted with 
 present welfare. Definite ideals of permanent welfare are 
 formed, and conduct which does not tend to their realization 
 is stamped with moral disapproval. Strong impulses arise 
 to seciure a conformity between acts and the ideals projected 
 by the mental mechanism. In our present civilization the 
 moral ideals were developed at so early a stage of progress 
 that the aesthetic ideals, which in many instances should con- 
 trol conduct, were displaced. In a pain economy the pursuit 
 of pleasure is dangerous. In the intervals between wars 
 and conflicts a life of pleasure causes men to degenerate and 
 thus unfits them for future wars and conflicts. Moral ideals 
 must, therefore, create an impulse against the pursuit of 
 pleasure and limit the activities of individuals to those fields 
 where future welfare is prominent. In the short periods of 
 peace and economic prosperity there is no time for aesthetic 
 ideals and impulses to become sufficiently strong to free the 
 pursuit of pleasure from its temptations and evils. Esthetic 
 ideals cannot become requisites for survival until the 
 
94 AnnaivS of the American Academy. 
 
 conditions of a pleasure economy have endured for a long 
 period of time. 
 
 At present there seems to be an opposition between moral 
 and aesthetic ideals which would not be possible in a social 
 commonwealth. In it dissipation and vice would find their 
 strongest foes in the aesthetic ideals and impulses. The 
 influence of moral ideals would be limited to actions which 
 affect the future welfare of the race. Moral ideals would 
 have their character affected by this change, but their 
 importance would not be reduced. Some of the present 
 ideals would lose their force, but their places would be sup- 
 plied by new ideals which would control actions now left to 
 the uncertain results of conscious calculation. Esthetic 
 ideals are positive in their influence and tend to group the 
 consumption of individuals in the most harmonious manner. 
 Moral ideals are negative and tend to eject the discordant 
 elements and activities which prevent the realization of all 
 the possibilities of permanent welfare. 
 
 The religious ideals and impulses would be the third group 
 of social forces to appear in a social commonwealth. .Esthe- 
 tic ideals promote the best utilization of present conditions. 
 Moral ideals tend toward the realization of the permanent 
 possibilities of our planetary existence. The development 
 of the sensory powers, by which the extent of the universe 
 becomes manifest and the perception of the small part which 
 our planet must play in the history of the universe, cannot 
 but create ideals of greater possibilities than those which 
 can be realized on our planet. All parts of the universe 
 will be thought of as peopled with beings differing widely 
 from those living on our planet. In so vast an area with 
 the most diverse economic conditions all possible organisms 
 would have an opportunity to develop ; and somewhere in 
 the universe every possible type of being from the highest 
 to the lowest might be found. 
 
 The possibility of establishing relations with beings in 
 other parts of the universe could not but form an inspiring 
 
A SociAi, Commonwealth. 95 
 
 ideal. The feeling that a larger social commonwealth 
 already exists and that the higher beings in such a society 
 might establish relations with us and influence our progress, 
 would create ideals and expectations which would cause the 
 actions of individuals to deviate from what would otherwise 
 be the normal channels. Religious ideals are a necessary 
 consequence of the growth of the sensorj* powers, and the 
 resulting increase of knowledge of the forces and laws which 
 control and regulate the universe. The defects and limi- 
 tations of our planetarj' existence are thus made manifest, 
 and another world in which the possibilities of a perfect 
 existence can be realized, becomes a conscious ideal. 
 
 The feelings which these religious ideals create would 
 react upon and modify the moral ideals just as the moral 
 ideals exercise an influence on the aesthetic ideals. The 
 three classes of ideals, forming one harmonious group, would 
 create a series of limitations upon the tendency of certain 
 individuals to lose sight of social ends in the too eager pur- 
 suit of pleasure. All the social bonds in a social com- 
 monwealth could be analyzed into impulses made by one 
 or another of these classes of ideals. These ideals and 
 impulses would, however, differ largely from our present 
 ideals and impulses. They would be more simple and the 
 social element in them would be much more visible. The 
 influence of a pain economy has distorted the development 
 of our ideals and impulses and turned social progress out of 
 its nortaal path. We must, therefore, take up these problems 
 more in detail and try to show the normal path of progress. 
 
 §5. The Social Man. 
 
 The historical conditions resulting from a pain economy 
 have produced a wrong concept of the motives which would 
 control a social man and of the institutions by which he 
 would surround himself. The presence of foes on every side 
 and the need of strong national governments to resist their 
 encroachments, have compelled individuals to subordinate 
 
96 AnnaIvS of the American Academy. 
 
 themselves to the central authority. National existence is an 
 essential for survival, and all other institutions have had their- 
 growth dwarfed by the necessity of maintaining a strong gov- 
 ernment. When such a government is once established, it 
 is easier to use the power of the state to create other institu- 
 tions than to allow them to develop in a normal way out of 
 the economic conditions which foster their growth. In our 
 modern societies institutions are united into a single group 
 and made dependent upon a central authority in a way 
 which would have been impossible in a social commonwealth. 
 A reaction against this centralization of institutions has 
 created the tendency which we call individualism. The 
 individual seeks to throw ofE the yoke of this central author- 
 ity and to determine his actions for himself limited only by 
 the promptings of reason and utilitarian calculations. 
 
 This opposition between what we call individual and social" 
 instincts would be unknown to the citizen of a social 
 commonwealth. There would be for him no need of a strong 
 central power to protect from foreign foes, and hence no one 
 institution could become a requisite for survival, superior 
 to all others, and thus be able to subordinate all other insti- 
 tutions to itself. Institutional life would be the outcome of 
 the desire to avoid the temptations and evils of a life of 
 pleasure, and not the result of the fear of foreign foes. Each 
 economic necessity and each source of temptation would be 
 the basis upon which some institution might be built up. 
 An institution is the means of realizing an ideal. There 
 would be as many institutions as there are separate ideals 
 to be realized. When the mental mechanism projects 
 an ideal, the activities of a person are grouped in a 
 way tending toward its realization. Social relations are 
 entered into with other persons having similar tendencies, 
 and habits and customs are formed which produce in each 
 member of the group the same impulses. From this result 
 unity of action, a feeling of confidence in other persons and 
 a willingness to rely upon their promises. 
 
A Social Commonwealth. 97 
 
 These institutions are of two kinds. They are either 
 means of organization by which the amount and variety of 
 economic goods may be increased, or they are connected with 
 the consumption of goods and insure the best utilization of 
 what has been produced. Each trade and industry having^ 
 a peculiar organization or requiring special forms of skill 
 and knowledge would tend to produce a separate form of in- 
 stitutional life, through which the ends of the industry would 
 be promoted. Each of the evils to which the members of 
 such a society would be exposed — such as sickness, injury, 
 premature death, the loss of property by fire, the risks of 
 bnsiness — would cause a new institution to arise by which. 
 its evils could be obviated or its burden better distributed. 
 
 In the same way other institutions would arise within the 
 field of constunption, the end of which would be to correlate 
 and harmonize the pleasures of each person better than it 
 would be possible for him to do if he remained isolated. 
 Family life, the church, the club, labor xmions, trade organ- 
 izations and a great variety of associations designed for 
 special classes of men and for the gfratification of particular 
 desires, would spring up in a natural way, as soon as the 
 needs, desires and temptations of social life became apparent. 
 Each of these institutions would force those connected with 
 them to modify their conduct in certain particulars and to 
 acquire certain habits and modes of thought, which would 
 fit them for the social life which the institution creates. 
 
 The character of each individual would be moulded by the 
 group of institutions under which he chose to live. In each 
 of his activities he would be under the guidance of some 
 institution by which he would be prevented from wasting 
 his productive power or from falling victim to some momen- 
 tary imptdse. No one institution could acquire a dominant 
 place nor would a person be continuously under the influence 
 of any one institution. With each activity a new group of 
 ideas, modes of thought and ideals would be projected and 
 visualized by the mental mechanism which would control 
 
98 Annai^ of thb American Acadbmy. 
 
 the person so long as the motives which lead to this action 
 are dominant. When new motives make themselves felt, 
 the influence of this institution would be weakened, and the 
 individual would seek to realize the new ends under the 
 guidance of some other institution. The motives and 
 activities of each person would determine the number and 
 character of his institutions and the extent of the influence 
 of each of them. Individuals would be compelled to accept 
 these social institutions, not by external force, but by the 
 promptings of internal motives. Each person must become 
 social or reduce his productive power and subject himself to 
 temptations which he could not withstand. The less social 
 would thus be gradually weeded out, and those remaining 
 would give a willing compliance to the conditions which 
 their social institutions set for them. When new economic- 
 conditions made it possible to satisfy additional wants, 
 the pressure of new desires and the appearance of new 
 temptations would result in new institutions or extend the 
 influence of those already in existence. The institutions of 
 a race will conform to their wants and activities, tmless some 
 external condition cramps their development. 
 
 The citizens of a social commonwealth would not under- 
 stand what a state is if the word were used in its present 
 sense. Each institution would exert its own power in the 
 way in which the family, the church and many other social and 
 industrial organizations do at the present time. The mem- 
 bers of a board of trade and of many labor organizations are, 
 for example, under more restraint to-day from the rules of 
 these bodies than from the civil law. All social institutions 
 would exert a similar power over their own field if they 
 were created by economic conditions, and were not checked 
 in their development by extraneous causes. 
 
 In many respects the institutions of a social commonwealth 
 would operate in a manner more like those of the Middle 
 Ages than those of the present century. Each locality and 
 trade could make its own regulations, and these rules would 
 
A Social Commonwealth. 99 
 
 control the members of each organization. The guilds of 
 the Middle Ages controlled, however, only the productive 
 acts of its members. In a social commonwealth the con- 
 sumption of individuals and all their activities would be 
 under a similar control. There would be much less freedom 
 of choice than at present, even though there is an absence 
 of external force. That part of conduct controlled by impulse 
 would be greatly extended, and the field of conscious 
 calculation would be limited to acts so complicated and 
 irregular that no institution could be devised to regulate 
 them. 
 
 I have in this picture of a social man tried to illustrate 
 how he would act if the social forces were the only ones that 
 influenced his conduct. The weight of authority might 
 seem crushing to persons educated as are the people of the 
 present age, yet it would not resemble that which any 
 form of state socialism would exert. No institution would 
 have the dominant place which the state now has. State 
 socialism is an ideal of those who are suffering from the 
 evils of a pain economy, and wish a more speedy remedy from 
 present evils than the growth of social institutions can offer. 
 
 § 6. Social Morality. 
 
 Moral feelings, perhaps more than any other of the social 
 forces, have been diverted from their course of development 
 by the influence of the pain economy under which the race 
 has existed for so long a period. Where fear forms the 
 dominant motive in determining action it becomes the chief 
 agent by which moral doctrines are enforced. It is so much 
 easier to form vivid ideals of future evils than of future 
 welfare that the evil consequences of bad acts are pictured 
 instead of the good results of praiseworthy acts. Persons 
 are forced into right conduct, not because they are impressed 
 by its beauties, but because every other kind of action seems 
 so undesirable that the right act is the only available choice. 
 
 When the perception of future relations creates vivid 
 
loo Annai,s of the American Academy. 
 
 ideals of future misery and future welfare, the fear of misery, 
 instead of the hope of welfare, becomes the controlling 
 motive. All the possible sources of pain are brought to- 
 gether into one group, and so blended as to have an accumu- 
 lative effect. Retribution thus becomes the prominent means 
 of enforcing moral rules. An inferno of some sort is 
 created, in which the doer of evil deeds suffers a loss much 
 greater than the additional present pleasure secured by the 
 bad act. Right conduct is enforced by adding units of pain 
 to the misery side of the ledger instead of adding units of 
 pleasure to the welfare side. Thus a balance of pleasure is 
 secured for moral conduct, but it is at the expense of social 
 welfare.* 
 
 This type of morality is in harmony with the conditions 
 of a pain economy and is effective so long as these condi- 
 tions prevail. It loses its force as soon as a more complete 
 knowledge of the future destroys the unity and reality of 
 these ideals which fear and pain have created. The idea of 
 retribution had its origin in those primitive conditions where 
 each race, surrounded by bitter foes, resented with violence 
 any invasion of its rights. Retribution is the idealized 
 dread of these foes. Every act contrary to the interests 
 of the race is represented as the cause of the evils which 
 these foes cause. It is, therefore, possible to create, by 
 these indirect motives, the conditions of prosperity more 
 easily than by an appeal to future welfare. 
 
 The idealization of the conditions causing pain is so much 
 more simple than a like picturing of the conditions of pleas- 
 ure that for social purposes the former class of motives can 
 be made effective at a much earlier period in the development 
 of the race than can the latter class. No single pleasure is 
 as vivid as are single pains. It is only when the harmony 
 and variety of consumption become apparent and create the 
 great race ideals, that anticipated pleasures acquire more 
 force than anticipated pains. 
 
 * See Patten, " The Economic Causes of Moral Progress," Annaw, Sept., 1892. 
 
A SOCIAJU COMMONWEAWH. loi 
 
 The basis of morality is also obscured by other circum- 
 stances. The isolation in which the different parts of the 
 human race live and the presence of hostile races and nations 
 cause a part of the moral feelings to assume a peculiar form 
 which we call patriotism. The permanent interest of a part 
 of the race living in a local environment, with but a small 
 part of the possibilities for progress which are open to the 
 whole race, is made the standard for action and the basis for 
 ideals. These standards and ideals check the growth of 
 normal moral ideals and divide the field of morality into two 
 parts. National morality is associated with national interests 
 and contests. Because of the temporary and fluctuating 
 character of these motives, such morality cannot avoid having 
 a local coloring and being checked in its development before 
 it has become so enlarged as to represent the permanent 
 interests of the race. It must remain a low type of morality 
 because it reflects, as it were, the morality of a race on a planet 
 of much fewer possibilities of moral progress than are pre- 
 sented in our world. 
 
 Religious morality gets its motives not firom ideals in har- 
 mony with the permanent interests of the race on this planet, 
 but from the ideals created by the larger possibilities of the 
 whole universe. It is believed that when a person ceases by 
 death to be connected with a national unit he becomes a mem- 
 ber of an immortal society which controls the universe and 
 utilizes to the fullest extent all its possibilities. His interests 
 demand therefore that he prepare himself for this future state 
 rather than use his time in improving the conditions under 
 which his descendants will live. The loss of welfare for 
 himself in a future life becomes a more vivid ideal than the 
 loss of welfare by his successors in this life. The higher 
 moral interests are enforced by making their realization a part 
 of the conditions by which welfare in another world is secured , 
 instead of enforcing them by means of vivid ideals of the 
 permanent interests of the race in this world. Moralit}' is 
 thus subordinated to and blended with religion in a way that 
 
I02 AnnaIvS of thk American Academy. 
 
 destroys its independence. With strong national feelings on 
 the one hand and strong religious feelings on the other, the 
 true moral motives are dwarfed and their normal develop- 
 ment prevented. 
 
 In a social commonwealth there would be no national feel- 
 ings, because there could be none of those conflicts upon 
 which the growth of national feeling depends. The moral 
 ideals and impulses would precede in time the religious feel- 
 ings, and hence they would stand on their own basis and 
 have a normal line of progress. Moral ideals would be the 
 outgrowth of economic and aesthetic ideals, and would be 
 associated with them more intimately than with patriotism 
 and religion. The economic ideals create a willingness on 
 the part of isolated individuals to live and work together,, 
 and a desire to provide for the future. The aesthetic ideals 
 eliminate the cruder forms of consumption and increase the 
 utility of goods by adding to the harmony of their arrange- 
 ment. Moral ideals supplement these ideals by making the 
 conditions for the permanent welfare of the race prominent 
 motives in the actions of each generation. Because of them 
 there would be no national contests compelling the people 
 of one age to sacrifice the future interests of the race in 
 order to secure present existence. There would be no 
 religious motive causing persons to value individual redemp- 
 tion in a future life more highly than the improvement of 
 the condition of their descendants in this life. The highest 
 ideals would be those relating to the future of the race. The 
 more vividly these ideals were pictured by the mental 
 mechanism the more certain would be the survival of the 
 individual and his descendants. 
 
 To picture a normal society in this stage of its progress 
 we must assume a less complete development of the sensory 
 powers than men now have. They must not know that our 
 world is only a planet upon which, at some time, life will die 
 out. They must not be aware of the fact that there are 
 other worlds with greater possibilities. They must think 
 
A SociAi, Commonwealth. 103 
 
 the immortality of human beings upon this earth to be possi- 
 ble, or at least they must suppose that a human society is a 
 permanent reality with ever increasing possibilities and 
 length of life for its members. 
 
 That it is possible for human beings to foster such ideals 
 and make them a force in determining conduct is shown by 
 the vitality of the democratic philosophy prevalent at the 
 dose of the last century. Many of the leaders of the move- 
 ment that created the French Revolution believed in the 
 perfectibility of man and in the possibility of an immortal 
 state on the earth. They thought that if governmental 
 oppression and religious persecution were done away with, a 
 new society could be established and the basis secured for the 
 rapid development of a perfect man. Much of the force of 
 democratic ideals is due to these concepts, and if it had been 
 possible to promote the growth of these ideals without race 
 or class conflict, the thought of human perfectibility and 
 immortality would have remained among the ideals which 
 democracy hopes to realize. 
 
 Moral ideals, if unmodified by the conditions of a pain 
 economy, would create motives by which temptation would 
 be resisted rather than motives by which retribution would 
 be avoided. There would be in a social commonwealth no 
 enemies to avoid, no infernos to fear. The burden of sin 
 and the power of temptation would be more fully realized 
 than at present. Human shortcomings would be due to the 
 gratification of intense present pleasures at the expense of 
 future welfare. Acts of this character would involve social 
 condemnation, and also a feeling of intense angfuish, because 
 of the lack of conformity between these acts and the ruling 
 ideals of the delinquent. The feeling of sin and remorse 
 will always be intense when the acts and ideals of an indi- 
 vidual do not harmonize. The conflict between the flesh 
 and the spirit is ever present to a tempted individual. 
 
 This opposition between temporary and permanent inter- 
 ests is necessary to progressive beings in a pleasure economy. 
 
I04 Annate of thb American Academy. 
 
 It would not be a part of a pure pain economy. The 
 fear of punishment rests on the idea of enemies superior to 
 self. The feeling of remorse rests on the idea of a self-con- 
 demnation due to self-imposed standards and ideals. A dis- 
 gust with self follows weakness when tempted by pleasures. 
 The doctrine of human depravity is an induction based on 
 the shortcomings of men in a pleasure world; but for these 
 temptations consciousness of sin and remorse would be absent. 
 Under these conditions moral ideals would have in a social 
 commonwealth a restraining influence even greater than 
 that which they now exert. Each deviation from the con- 
 ditions of future welfare would be checked by the impulses 
 which the moral ideals create. Each economic motive and 
 ;£esthetic impulse would be supplemented by a moral impulse. 
 The unity and harmony of these three groups of forces 
 would give an advantage to those members of society in 
 whom they were the strongest and eliminate from it those 
 persons or classes who overestimate present happiness or 
 tend toward dissipation and vice. 
 
 § 7. Social Religion. 
 
 Religion was the first conscious force binding men 
 together, and yet in the normal order of development it 
 should have been the last of the social forces to appear. 
 The cause of its early appearance is found in the conditions 
 of a pain economy. When surrounded by vigorous living 
 foes the isolated individual feels helpless and demands a pro- 
 tector more powerful than himself. The need of leaders and 
 heroes is so urgent as to constitute them requisites for survi- 
 val. There springs up among the members of a group a 
 feeling of dependence, of loyalty for their leaders and 
 heroes who ward off pains and protect from foes. But for 
 this faith and confidence in superiors social life could not 
 develop in a pain economy. The presence of foes thus 
 tends to unite higher and lower classes of men into one 
 group and to create social feelings between them rather than 
 
A Social Commonwealth. 105 
 
 between the members of one class. The person who directs 
 and controls the group gradually increases his power over 
 his followers and also the distance between him and them, 
 until he becomes an absolute ruler and the dispenser of all 
 material goods. 
 
 The weak and helpless admire a display of power. 
 A people fearing foes and powerless before natural condi- 
 tions become hero worshipers and trust their welfare to 
 heroes rather than to their own united wisdom. There is in 
 this way a gulf created between the heroes and their follow- 
 ers. The heroes are external to the society they govern, 
 and have other powers and qualities than their subjects. In 
 cases of emergency and distress the hope of success and 
 relief is centred around the activity of heroes and not around 
 that of the people. In the idealization of these conditions 
 so as to build a concept of the universe, God is placed 
 ■outside of and behind the universe just as the heroes on 
 earth are external to and above the society they rule. He 
 is thought of as the creator of the universe and the source of 
 all life and power. In this way He is placed completely 
 •outside of society and is not subject to any of its laws. 
 Such a concept of deity is satisfactory to beings whose first 
 thought is to avoid pain and to secure protection from ene- 
 mies. By its aid primitive people create social forces which 
 imite them into groups and inspire them to action. 
 
 In a social commonwealth there would be no basis upon 
 which a development of this kind could take place. There 
 would be no fear and no need of protection. The higher 
 ideals of the people would be associated with progress and 
 with freedom from temptation. Social progress would be 
 thought of as due to the united action of all the members of 
 the society. The heroes of the tempted would not be power- 
 ful beings who never felt the force of temptation. Power is 
 needed for conflict, but self-control is more important to the 
 tempted than power. A tempted person will, therefore, 
 idealize in his hero a different group of qualities from 
 
io6 Annai^ of the American Academy. 
 
 those chosen by a person suffering from pain and oppres- 
 sion. 
 
 In a social commonwealth the grouping of individuals ta 
 secure common objects would be natural, and it would be 
 seen that united action was necessary to extend the control 
 of man over nature. Individuals would look to society as 
 the source of all power, superior to that which they could 
 exert in isolation. They would idealize society and make 
 it the source of the desired control over nature and 
 natural forces. No hero would acquire so high a place that 
 his power would compare with thatof the society of which he 
 was a part. Hero worship would not become so important 
 that the menibers of society would look to their heroes 
 rather than to their united action for the source of the power 
 from which future progress should come. 
 
 There would, however, be a cause for hero worship in the 
 need of intelligence to overcome the natm^al obstacles to 
 progress. Power would be thought of as an attribute of 
 society and nature, but intelligence to control society and 
 nature would be a personal attribute. Intelligence would 
 be idealized in a social commonwealth just as power is ideal- 
 ized in a pain economy. The God of that commonwealth, 
 would be a God of intelligence working through society and 
 nature. Force would be looked upon as the outcome of 
 mechtaical contrivances and not as an attribute of beings^ 
 Intelligence by using mechanisms becomes a power, but is. 
 not by itself a power. It is in fact the antithesis of power. 
 The less mechanical a being is, the greater is the possibility- 
 of its intelligence. Therefore, intelligence, to be idealized,, 
 must be separated in thought from the mechanisms through, 
 which it acquires power. An all-powerful being becomes a 
 mechanical concept to persons whose sensory powers are so 
 developed as to distinguish sharply between power and 
 intelligence. The latter alone is a personal attribute, the. 
 former belongs to the domain of nature. 
 
 When the members of a social commonwealth should finally" 
 
A Social Commonwealth. 107 
 
 discover the limitations to a society on this planet, and 
 begin to idealize the conditions of the whole universe in 
 the hope of realizing its larger possibilities, they would use 
 the stock of ideas and ideals already acquired in their past 
 development. Power would remain an attribute of society, 
 while intelligence and self-control would be the great vir- 
 tues. Men would conceive of a greater society to control 
 the forces of the universe similar to the lesser society which 
 has been the means of extending their power on this planet. 
 The heroes of this greater society would be beings endowed 
 with intelligence and self-control. They would be within 
 and a part of society, and not above and outside of it. The 
 possibility of greatness in heroes would, however, be 
 immensely extended, because this larger society would not 
 be homogeneous like the society on the earth. All kinds of 
 beings would be parts of this society, and not a single type 
 of beings as on this planet. The differences in beings 
 which here are the cause of a pain economy would there 
 be an added soturce of strength. Intelligence could oper- 
 ate in so many more ways that its power and influence 
 would be greatly extended. 
 
 There would be the same beliefs that now prevail with us 
 in regard to the relations between this greater society and the 
 social commonwealths. The higher society would be under 
 moral obligations to help the lower society. If such a society 
 exists it must at some time be expected to manifest itself in 
 some form to persons on this earth. There would, therefore, 
 be an anticipation that some revelation of the higher society 
 would be made, or a belief would exist that such revelations 
 had been made in the past. In short, the conditions would be 
 present upon which the belief in a revealed religion could be 
 built up. The Christ ideal would be a possible ideal and be 
 even more potent as a moral force than at present. Tempta- 
 tion, vice and dissipation would be the evils against which the 
 members of a pleasure economy must guard themselves; the 
 ideals which raise men's thoughts above temptation would 
 become the great social forces. 
 
I08 A.NNAI.S OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY. 
 
 The Christ ideal contains all the elements needed to 
 attract the tempted away from vice. Christ is the idealiza- 
 tion of the greatest possibilities of human beings. He rep- 
 resents the Incarnation of the highest form of life. He is 
 thought of as having desires like men and yet being as pure 
 as if He lived out of the world of temptation. He is helpless 
 in conflict and shows in His death the separation of power 
 and intelligence. His resxurrection tests the power of the 
 higher society to save its hero. The story of Christ could 
 not but have a great influence in a society in which the evils 
 of a pleasure economy were becoming apparent. In a social 
 commonwealth it would present the highest ideal to which 
 a society could reach and it would have a much greater 
 force as a model for imitation and as an inspiration to noble 
 action than at present. 
 
 Our religion is composed of two distinct elements — a 
 God of power due to an idealization of the conditions of a 
 pain economy, and a God of intelligence and love due to the 
 conditions of a pleasure economy. It is the latter ideal which 
 forms the basis of a social religjion and protects persons from 
 the evils of a social life in which pleasure is the prominent 
 element. As the social elements gfrow and men acquire 
 more confidence in the power of society to protect its mem- 
 bers and to advance their interests, this ideal cannot but gain 
 in force and in the clearness with which it is projected and 
 visualized as an element of the objective world. The hope 
 of a higher society to remedy the defects of our planet must 
 crystallize into a series of ideals not greatly difiering 
 from those which the progress of the Christian religion has 
 created. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 Normal Progress. 
 
 § I . The Stages of Social Progress. 
 
 It is only in a social commonwealth, such as I have de- 
 scribed, that the normal trend of progress can be seen. 
 When a race is for a long period under the influence of a 
 pain economy, ideas and ideals do not arise in their natural 
 order. The influence of pain and fear cause a much earlier 
 development of morality and religion than would otherwise 
 take place. Economic motives become a determining force 
 only afl;er the evils of a pain economy are sufficiently re- 
 moved to allow a conscious pursuit of pleasure. The aesthetic 
 motives which normally should follow aflier the economic 
 motives do not acquire sufficient importance to become requi- 
 sites for survival. Therefore there is but little weeding out 
 of the unfit from an economic and still less from an aesthetic 
 standpoint; nor are economic and aesthetic ideals impressed 
 upon the race in such a way as to make them effective. 
 
 The normal order of social forces must depend on the 
 order in which the mental powers of men develop. Institu- 
 tions, beliefe and ideals which depend on complex mental 
 states and on the union of many areas of knowledge should 
 foUow the more simple forms of the subjective environment 
 which demand a less complex mental mechanism for their 
 visualization. Peculiarities of the environment may contract 
 some of these stages or prevent their ftiU development, yet 
 if we look in the right places the beginnings, at least, of 
 their development will be found in their proper order. 
 
 Social progress assumes as a starting point a relatively 
 complete development of the motor powers and of those 
 simple motives which are created by intense pleasures and 
 pains. The stages of social progress depend upon the 
 
 (109) 
 
no Annai<s op thb Amsrican Academy. 
 
 growing clearness of sensory ideas and the new possibilities of 
 adjustment to the environment which these clearer ideas 
 permit. In the first of these stages — ^the economic — the 
 search for food is the main cause of mental development. 
 A limited food supply gives a relative advantage to those 
 beings whose sensory powers are so enlarged that they 
 can find sustenance in forms not available to their rivals. 
 The pressure of these economic wants leads, in two ways, 
 to a development of the mental mechanism. One kind of 
 progress depends on the visualization of indirect methods of 
 production. The pressure of a given want makes vivid not 
 merely the means of satisfying it, but also the series of steps 
 through which these means may be acquired. The longer 
 is this series of steps, the greater will be the being's power 
 to acquire food. Viewed objectively tools represent the 
 essence of indirect methods. The manufacture and use of 
 tools, however, demands a mental development in a direc- 
 tion the opposite of that on which the visualization of 
 indirect methods depends. Production is the result of an 
 analytic attitude through which wholes are thought of as 
 aggregates made up of elements. This attitude of mind 
 creates a material concept of the environment with its 
 elements capable of new combinations more suited to supply 
 the wants of men. To escape competition through increased 
 production men must both visualize the means by which 
 production takes place, and analyze into its elements the 
 material used up in production. Economic progress thus 
 depends upon two simple mental powers which could easily 
 become well developed before the appearance of the more 
 complex mental states upon which the later stages of social 
 progress depend. 
 
 Economic instincts result firom the methods pursued in 
 production. The aesthetic instincts result from the way in 
 which goods are consumed. Esthetic pleasures are com- 
 plementary pleasures and depend upon the relations which 
 exist between the goods consumed or between the difierent 
 
Normal Progress. hi 
 
 -uses to which the same good may be put. The pleasure 
 derived from a group of goods or from the different utilities of 
 the same good is more prolonged and more intense than the 
 pleasure that would flow from these goods or utilities if 
 they were enjoyed in isolation. These group pleasures 
 are more satisfying than isolated pleasures and lie at the basis 
 •of aesthetic feelings. 
 
 To secvure the full development of this second stage of pro- 
 :gress the food problem must be solved. A solution may result 
 from conscious processes which create an abundant supply 
 of food, or it may result from some peculiarity of the environ- 
 ment which keeps life down below the limit set by the possi- 
 Tjilities of the food supply. The latter condition naturally 
 leads to the earlier development of aesthetic pleasures and 
 is illustrated by those insects whose refined taste has done 
 so much to develop the beautiful forms in plant life. It 
 may seem odd to say that these insects do not reach the fuU 
 ■possibilities of their food supply, but when an organism 
 passes through several stages of development the Umit to its 
 -numbers may be in any one of these stages. In the other stages, 
 ■or in some of them at least, an abtmdance of food may not 
 in any way tend to increase the number of the species. The 
 limitations to the number of butterflies, for example, may not 
 lie in their food. They live at a season when nature is most 
 prolific in its supply of food. Their eggs and larvae must 
 •exist in the less favorable seasons and endure destruction 
 from a variety of causes. If this destruction is very great 
 it will limit so much the number of butterflies that no 
 struggle for food is necessary among them. 
 
 Insects select the finest flowers because the food which 
 the flowers offer is more abundant than they need. If food 
 were scarce they would fertilize all flowers, the plain as well 
 as the beautiful. Their aesthetic feelings are the outgrowth of 
 those conditions which permit them to choose the plants 
 giving with the food the most harmonious group of comple- 
 mentary pleasures. 
 
112 Annals of thb American Academy. 
 
 At least a partial relief from the pressure of hunger may 
 be secured by animals whose food supplj' is irregular. For 
 example, when the periods of plenty coincide with the breed- 
 ing period aesthetic feelings have an opportunity to develop, 
 and exercise an influence on the choices which are made. 
 Furthermore, the power to store up fat in the system may 
 be the source of a temporary reUef from the incessant gnaw- 
 ings of hunger and thus create a place for other activities. 
 An animal with this power may yield to other motives than 
 the desire for food if his strong feelings are aroused. 
 In these and in many other ways the environment of ani- 
 mals creates the conditions which lead to a more or less 
 complete development of the aesthetic feelings. They show 
 how simple are the sensory powers on which aesthetic feel- 
 ings depend. Man, however, is peculiar in that his early 
 environment was markedly deficient in these conditions. 
 To no other animal has the environment afforded so little- 
 relief from the constant pressure of wants. The food supply 
 of the early man did not expand and contract to the same 
 degree as that of other animals. There was no dormant 
 state to enable him to escape the evils of winter. The 
 pangs of hunger and the fear of enemies were ever present, 
 and thus confined the interest almost wholly to objects in the 
 economic world. This state of affairs led to a rapid devel- 
 opment in the use of indirect methods and to an analytic 
 rather than to a synthetic mental attitude, but it checked 
 to a like degree the growth of aesthetic feelings. The develop- 
 ment of these latter was delayed until the sensory powers 
 were so enlarged that personal ornamentation became pleas- 
 ing. But by this time man was ready for a moral evolu- 
 tion, and the requisites for survival were found in this latter 
 field. 
 
 In the simple economic and aesthetic stages of progress, 
 the conscious relations are between the organism and certain 
 definite objects in the environment visualized by the sensory 
 powers. Moral feelings depend upon the power to visualize- 
 
NoRMAi, Progress. 113 
 
 these objects as a whole. The moral man is conscious of an 
 environment in which a variety of objects have definite 
 relations to him and his kind. That conduct is moral 
 that best utilizes all the advantages of the environment. 
 Every moral judgment relates to a place — a group of sur- 
 rounding objects so intimately related that their best use 
 demands a definite series of choices. In this group time 
 relations occupy a prominent place. Objects and relations 
 endure to a greater or less extent, and the greater the power 
 of a man to visualize time relations the more definite does 
 his moral environment become, and the more readily will 
 feelings grow up which prompt him to make the best use 
 of these relations. 
 
 The conscious thought of an environment is an essential 
 element in all moral judgments. When we say, "Put your- 
 self in his place, " by "place" we mean the whole of that 
 group of conditions which make up the environment of the 
 man. Such judgments lead up to the thought of a common 
 environment for all men having economic relations. The 
 environments of different men thus blend into a social 
 environment for all men, and its full utilization by 
 society becomes the best means of securing the ends of indi- 
 viduals. 
 
 The rise of religious feelings demands of a man not only 
 the power to conceive the environment in which he exists, 
 but also the power to visualize another environment in 
 which existence is possible. A real environment is con- 
 trasted with an ideal one. The latter may be only a happy 
 hunting ground for the future, or a Golden Age in the dis- 
 tant past ; but in some form the mental mechanism must 
 create a contrast between the present and some other group 
 of conditions before religious feelings can appear. This 
 other environment may be one to which access is desired or 
 one which it is desirable to avoid. Both these types of 
 environments are visualized before the religious motives 
 become prominent. 
 
114 Annaw of TiiK Amsricax Acauumv. 
 
 lu a developed religion llic interest of the believer is cen- 
 tred ujion tlie l)eiii);s vvliieh people tiie ideal I'liviromiieiil, 
 yet it is the eoueept of this other eiiviroiimeiit that iiiukes 
 this intei'est possible. Men eiiiinot eoiu-eive of j.;ood or t'vil 
 beiii)j;s with higher |)owers until the menial nieeiianisni is 
 able to visuali/.e suitable (.■nvironiuenls i'or Iheni. l\eli).;ioii, 
 theiefoi'e, depends on iiiori' eoniplex eonditious than doc, 
 inoralily and should under normal eonditious follow and \uA 
 preeede it. Owing to the peeulialilies of a pain economy the 
 devi'lopnienl of reli(;ious fi'eliuj^s has been acceU'i'ati'd, while 
 the earlier slaj^'cs of l>roj;ress \\:wr bi'en ])asscd lhidU).;li loo 
 hiu'riedly. i;ivinn eui'mics wi're of so luueh more impoi 
 tanee in a i)aiu economy than a knowledge of Ihc euviinn 
 ment thai the reipiisites for survival centred aroiunl the 
 problems of hostiU' contact. Under tlu'se conditions vi\'id 
 religious concepts were better safe>;uar<ls a);aiusl I'vils th.aii 
 stronjj; ecouoiinc motives. 'I'lie barest scalTohlinj;, so to 
 speak, carried the race throuKh the early stages of j)roKre.ss, 
 and upon this scanty sn|)|)ort an elaborate sni)ersli uclure of 
 religious ideas was constructed. Jii this manner wi-re 
 overcome the difTiculties in the way of early |)rogii',s,s, 
 but it was at the exi)ense of later ])rogre,ss. 'iMie tern 
 porary scaffolding was ;i strong support for it'ligion ,so long 
 as the conditions of the early local environment of .society 
 continued, but their decay in the more general enviroiuneul 
 of modern times leaves religious ideals without a<k'i|uatr 
 snp])ort. 
 
 The dilTerence betwi'en normal and abnormal |iroj^ress 
 can, perha])S, be best illustrated by i-outrastiug llie Hebrew 
 with the (irt-ck civilization, 'i'he Ili'brew race fiom its 
 ])egiinnug was constantly in the sevi'rcst kind of a ]iain 
 economy. It was surroiunU'd by stron);er r.ices. 'Plie land 
 iuhabiled had no natural defeui-es, and l;iy on the highway 
 between the great nations of tin- east and west. I'A'eiy 
 movement of these nations was sure to bring to the Ilebrcw.s 
 some danger or disaster. They were always in a stale of 
 
NoRMAi< Progress. 115 
 
 unstable equilibrium because of their unfavorable environ- 
 ment. The strongest economic, aesthetic or moral bonds 
 could not suffice to hold the nation together under these 
 conditions. Their safety depended upon the clearness with 
 ■which they conceived of another environment radically dif- 
 ferent from their own, with a God able to thwart their 
 strongest enemies and to reward His followers for their 
 devotion to His cause. The weakness of man and the need 
 of a powerful protector could not have been better illustrated 
 than in Hebrew historj-, and all our religious ideas are 
 colored by it. 
 
 The Greeks, on the contrars-, had a favorable environment. 
 They were by the nature and location of their country pro- 
 tected from enemies. Their excellent climate made them 
 vigorous. Their easy access b}' sea to other countries, and 
 the abvmdance of slave labor, gave them wealth and leisure. 
 Therefore, they were not forced through the various stages 
 of progress so rapidly as were the Hebrews. The aesthetic 
 stage of progress had an opportunitj- to develop in its nor- 
 mal place, and for this reason the art of the Greek has had 
 an influence on subsequent civilizations comparable to that 
 of the religion of the Hebrews. 
 
 § 2. A Greater Humanity. 
 
 Although certain religious ideals attained a leading place, 
 the causes which checked full development in other direc- 
 tions have also interfered with the growth of some of the 
 more important religious concepts. The ideals which have 
 been requisites for survival have been clearly grasped ; but 
 with them progress has stopped. So few have been the 
 number of religious ideals that thej' could not have been 
 effective if they had not been supplemented by and blended 
 with the moral ideals which became requisites for survival. 
 The paucity of these race ideals has been due to the con- 
 ditions of a pain economy. During the early history of the 
 race, there was a life and death struggle between man and 
 
ii6 Annates of the American Academy. 
 
 all other animals that were vigorous and intelligent enough 
 to be his rivals. The victory of man in this struggle has 
 been so complete that a great gulf now separates him from 
 the rest of the animal world. It is not likely that this gulf 
 would have been so wide had it not been for the opposition 
 of interests between man and the other animals. It does 
 not seem that there would have been any insurmountable ob- 
 stacle in the way of an increase in the intelligence of the lower 
 animals, if the more rapid progress of man had not blocked 
 the way. While it is hard to conceive how any other ani- 
 mal could have taken man's place, it is not probable that 
 the gfrowth of intelligence would have ceased if man had 
 been destroyed by some misfortune. 
 
 Man's progress has depended only to a slight extent on 
 the rest of the animal world. A few of the lower animals 
 have become beasts of burden, and others have been prized 
 for their flesh but these uses have only tended to exaggerate 
 the differences between man and the animals beneath him. 
 It is no wonder, then, that a sympathy for animals should 
 arise late in human history and even then be too weak to 
 serve as the basis of any race ideals. 
 
 During its early history the race was rich in its concepts 
 of beings higher than man. These beings were believed to 
 exist in great numbers and with a great variety of powers 
 which they freely used to aid or to injure man. But for the 
 variety and vividness of these concepts it is not probable 
 that the religious and moral development of the race would 
 have taken place as early nor have been as rapid as it was. 
 The same causes however which confined the intelligent 
 beings on earth to one species, reduced to one person the 
 number of higher beings which men believed to exist. The 
 thought of a single, immaterial God was so essential to the 
 race that all other concepts of higher beings had to be 
 dropped in the struggle to acquire this and give it proper 
 place. So strong has this tendency been to emphasize the 
 unity of God that even the Christ ideal has been retained by 
 
Normal Progress. 117 
 
 the race with great difficulty. The brotherhood of man and 
 the fatherhood of God were the only ideals to obtain an un- 
 questioned place. Thus man was isolated so far from God 
 on the one hand and the brute creation on the other that no 
 ideals could arise binding him to other creatures by ties of 
 interest and sympathy. He had to rely entirely on his kind 
 for that mastery over nature upon which social progress de- 
 pends. It is easy to conceive of conditions where this would not 
 have been the case. If some other creature had divided the 
 supremacy with man — each species having some mental and 
 physical powers which were denied the other — social feelings 
 and interests would in the end have united them. Together 
 they could have mastered nature to a degree far beyond the 
 possibilities of either species alone. 
 
 Suppose, again, that the several continents had been isola- 
 ted, and on each of them a species of man had developed as 
 distinct from the other species as birds, for example, differ 
 from one another. Each of them might then have obtained 
 a mastery over nature, in ways beyond the powers of the 
 others. If these species should be brought into contact and 
 should acquire the intelligence needed to act togther, a civili- 
 zation far richer in its possibilities than that of any single 
 race might have arisen. Magnify as we will the future of 
 man, yet it will be insignificant in comparison with what 
 a society of several distinct species might have accomplished 
 in the same physical environment. 
 
 The reduction of all beings to three isolated classes — God, 
 men and brutes — has prevented the growth of religious ideals 
 other than those relating to God. Tasks outside of the 
 power of man to accomplish are delegated to God, as the 
 only being whose power is superior to that of man. A 
 different concept of how to obtain the mastery over nature 
 may be arrived at by assuming a union of intelligent species 
 like man, each having special powers and faculties. Each 
 planet capable of sustaining life has doubtless some charac- 
 teristics which will give a peculiar development to the 
 
ii8 Annals of the American Academy. 
 
 beings who obtain the mastery in it. With the great variety 
 of environments which the universe offers, every possible 
 form of intelligent life somewhere might find an opportunity 
 to develop its full capabilities. 
 
 A complete mastery over nature would demand the co- 
 operation of all these forms of intelligent life. Each species 
 could perform tasks beyond the power of its fellow species, 
 and would thus supplement their efforts. The intelligent 
 union of all these efforts under an efficient control of higher 
 beings would give to the united group as permanent a place 
 and as desirable a lot as the laws of nature permit. The 
 length of life and lot of the individuals of each species might 
 vary to an unlimited extent, and yet if common feelings 
 prompted all of them to action, the society could endure and 
 accomplish its mission. Such a society would be a greater 
 humanity in which many of the sentiments, feelings and 
 ideals that are of little use on this planet would have free 
 scope and exert their full force. 
 
 This is not the place to discuss the probability or even the 
 possibility of such a society. Whether possible or not, it is 
 an ideal essential to a complete religion, and without it the 
 difference between morality and religion is not clear. Moral- 
 ity covers all the relations of a single species of intelligent 
 beings in one environment. The end of the morality of a 
 given species is the mastery of its environment — the in- 
 crease of its goods and the diminution of its evils. Moral 
 relations are all reversible. The act which is due from one 
 individual to another, is due in turn to the first individual 
 when the situation of the two individuals is changed. As 
 long as individuals are all of the same species and in the 
 same environment, having the same goods and evils, their 
 relative positions may easily change and their duties to each 
 other be reversed. 
 
 Religion, however, is concerned with the relations between 
 different species of beings in different environments. Its end 
 is the mastery of the universe through the united efforts of all 
 
Normal Progrkss. 119 
 
 intelligent beings. Its relations are never reversible. The 
 goods and evils of the different groups in the religious world 
 are so unlike that obligations can never be paid in kind. 
 Debts cannot even be reckoned in units of utility, nor can 
 the extent of the services demanded of individuals or of 
 groups be measured by any single standard. All the util- 
 ities and services of such groups are absolute utilities to the 
 whole society. The absence or inefficiency of any one group 
 would render useless the united efforts of the other groups. 
 The feelings which bind these dissimilar groups together 
 and make individuals subordinate themselves and their 
 group to the common ends of the whole society are the only 
 ones that, strictly speaking, are religious. If the efforts of 
 a species are not carried beyond the mastery of their own 
 environment, they do not rise above the moral stage of prog- 
 ress. They must submerge themselves in a greater human- 
 ity to reach the religious stage. If the race remains 
 dissatisfied with the limitations of its present environment, 
 this ideal has still to acquire a prominent place among the 
 race ideals. Our sensory powers are now too much developed 
 to permit us to hope that the great race ideals can be realized 
 upon this planet or by our race in isolation. The hope of 
 their realization may be kept alive only by the thought that 
 there is a greater humanity working together for the 
 mastery of nature. 
 
 § J. The Race Ideals. 
 
 Race ideals are the highest type of social forces. As pro- 
 jected and visualized by the mental mechanism they serve 
 to steady the choices of individuals in a general environ- 
 ment, where the influence of nature is too indirect to deter- 
 mine effectively the actions of men. In a local environ- 
 ment objective conditions are stem realities which so hem 
 in man that his alternatives in matters of conduct are few 
 and do not relate to questions of vital importance. When, 
 however, many local environments blend into one general 
 
120 Annai^ of the American Academy. 
 
 environment, and tlie race lias a wliole planet to wliicli to 
 adjust itself, objective conditions lose that direct control 
 over human activities which they possessed when the adjust- 
 ment was only to the conditions of one locality. New 
 motives must now be aroused which will dominate men as 
 fully as did the old conditions. 
 
 The ideals of a race represent its aspirations rather than 
 its knowledge. They may be said to be possibilities so 
 visualized that they rank higher than realities. To make 
 visualization possible an ideal must be made up of a 
 group of clear ideas; it must also be composed of vivid 
 ideas or it cannot influence the choices of men. Where 
 clearness and vividness are combined, motives are created 
 stronger than knowledge or passion can produce. In a 
 general environment knowledge is clear, but lacks in 
 vividness. Passion is vivid, but its lack of harmony with 
 the new conditions brings it into opposition to present wel- 
 fare, and thus weakens its force. 
 
 The growth of the sensory powers modifies the ideals of 
 a race by enlarging the sum of its knowledge, and thus 
 changing the area of its possibilities. Some of the old pos- 
 sibilities now become matters of demonstration, while others 
 of them are changed into impossibilities. But the addi- 
 tional knowledge opens up a new area of the possible, and 
 thus allows the creation of a new group of ideals which have 
 even greater clearness and vividness than those of the former 
 epoch. 
 
 The older race ideals have grown out of the conditions of 
 a pain economy, which for so long a time determined the 
 direction of social progress. The dangers from living ene- 
 mies turned men's attention from the material aspects of 
 their environment and led them to seek in other beings 
 more powerful than their enemies a protection from pain 
 and destruction. Out of these conditions many forms of 
 theistic religion grew up and formed the bulwark of a pro- 
 gressive movement in societ}-. The ontological ideals are 
 
Normal Progress. 121 
 
 best expressed by the terms God, free-will and immortality. 
 God is thought of as the creator of man and of the universe, 
 and hence has the power to ward off evils and to protect 
 from enemies. The thought of a free will contains the con- 
 cept of the relations between motives and acts by which the 
 responsibility for bad acts rests with the actor and not with 
 his creator. Man, and not God, is responsible for the evil 
 in the world. Immortality implies an indestructibility of 
 the soul, or essence of man, and the possibility of an existence 
 in another world from which his enemies are excluded. 
 
 The words in which these ideals are formulated mean 
 little unless they cause a pictiue of the tmiverse and the 
 relations of the beings in it to be visualized and projected 
 as realities. There is a unity to the scheme and a back- 
 ground of related ideas each of which is essential to the 
 whole. The concept of nature and natural law which this 
 picture contains is simple, yet it is as perfect as the sensory 
 powers of man at that time were able to furnish. 
 
 The transition of society from a pain to a pleasure econ- 
 omy and the accompanying enlargement of the sensory 
 powers of man have done much to mar the picture of the 
 universe which our ancestors had. With clearer ideas of 
 nature, the simple pictures of earlier men naturally become 
 inadequate for present needs. When the increased analytic 
 powers of men have resolved the material universe into 
 atoms, the act of creation becomes a difficult conception. 
 It may still be thought of as a fact, but it cannot be pictured 
 in the simple manner of earlier times. When the same 
 sensory powers seem to demonstrate a law of universal 
 causation, it is difficult to visualize a concept of man's 
 nature that will admit of his acts being an exception to the 
 general rule. When man discovers that he is an organism 
 made up of material parts, it is hard to see how indestruc- 
 tibility can be one of his qualities. 
 
 I do not mean to imply that there is not a satisfactory 
 proof for each of these ontological doctrines. I merely 
 
122 Annals of the American Academy. 
 
 desire to call attention to the fact that they cease to be 
 social ideals when they become theses needing proof. We 
 never ask proof for ideals that we can readily visualize. 
 The process of visualization of itself makes an ideal vivid, 
 and vividness creates belief and generates activities in har- 
 mony with the ideal. Clear proofs without a visualization 
 may be striking, but they are not belief-making, and hence 
 do not influence the activities of men in social relations. 
 
 There is another defect in the belief-making power of 
 these doctrines. The proofs rest not on direct evidence, 
 but on the failure of other concepts of the universe tO' 
 explain all the known facts. However convincing these 
 indirect proofs may be, at best they leave men without any 
 picture of the act of creation, of the mechanism of a free 
 will, or of how an organism can be indestructible. Not only 
 does the Creator in this way become a Great Unknown, but 
 also the essence of man is pushed back into a realm into, 
 which the sensory powers cannot reach. Such concepts lack 
 the clearness and vividness which social ideals must have. 
 They will still influence individuals, but they cannot become 
 social forces. Progress depends on the beliefs and ideals of 
 men, and not on mere knowledge. Clear ideas must be made 
 vivid by visualization to become effective forces in deter- 
 mining conduct. 
 
 The ideals of a pleasure economy must be safeguards, 
 against the evils of the new environment in which the en- 
 larged sensory powers of men have placed them. The old 
 evils were external and demanded, as a remedy, a powerful 
 protector and peculiar views of the universe and of man's 
 nature. The new evils are subjective and have their causes, 
 not in the nature of man or of the universe, but in the defec- 
 tive relations which exist between men or between man and 
 nature. They are evils of adjustment which no change in 
 the ultimate forms of the imiverse or of man can alter. 
 The remedy lies in the creation of ideals which will lift 
 men above temptation and inspire them with a desire for 
 
Normal Progress. 123 
 
 an increased mastery over nature. For men tempted 
 by many degrading pleasures the highest religious ideal 
 is a character capable of resisting evil and able to exemp- 
 lify the mastery over nature which intelligence exerts. 
 The Christ ideal has both these elements. The thought 
 of an Incarnation does not, like an act of creation, contain 
 ideas difficult to visualize. It expresses simply the rela- 
 tions existing between higher and lower forms of life and 
 the interest and sympathy which the higher has in the lower. 
 It predicates a mastery over nature, but in a way that in- 
 volves no necessary violation of natural law. 
 
 The increased vividness of religious concepts after the in- 
 troduction of Christianity shows in this respect the superiority 
 of the Christ ideal over the older concepts of deity. The 
 Gods of the earlier religions were powerful beings, — the cre- 
 ators of the world, the source of blessings and the protectors 
 from evils ; yet the growth of the sensory powers of men in the 
 early civilizations soon weakened the power to visualize 
 these concepts and thus produced a decay of religion. Even 
 at their best they were no safeguards against the degrad- 
 ing pleasures which the new civilizations brought. The 
 Christ ideal supplied these defects and made it again 
 possible for men to visualize the relations between them- 
 selves and higher beings. The use that art has made of 
 the story of Christ also shows how easy it is to visualize the 
 concepts of the new religion. God as creator cannot be pic- 
 tured to men of enlarged sensory power. Nor can mani- 
 festations of superior power be made visual. The lightning, 
 the storm, the earthquake, the pestilence, and similar events 
 seem to civilized men to be mere manifestations of natural 
 force and bring to them no higher thought. Christian art, 
 therefore, must confine itself to representations of scenes 
 within the field of human activities and strive through them 
 to create ideals of higher forms of life. Its success in this 
 respect shows the harmony between the Christian ideals and 
 the present sensory powers of men. 
 
124 Annai^ of the American Academy. 
 
 The thought of an Incarnation is the highest ideal of the 
 new economy, but it must be supplemented by others. The 
 belief in the mastery of nature by intelligence will be one, 
 and faith in a greater humanity another. One is the end of 
 all social activity, the other is the means by which the end 
 is secured. When these three ideals are made prominent 
 by the new conditions, they will give a renewed vitality to 
 religion, making it again the great social force. 
 
 In our present civilization clear and well-defined aesthetic 
 ideals are wanting. On the basis of the meagre data we 
 now possess, it would be diflScult to predict the form these 
 ideals assume in a pleasure economy. I have called atten- 
 tion already to the causes which prevented the growth of 
 sesthetic feelings at the time when their appearance was 
 most demanded. The social forces at present are much 
 weaker than they would have been if progress had been 
 normal and had created a group of sesthetic ideals to supple- 
 ment our present moral and religious ideals. This gap left 
 by the social forces we endeavor to fill up through reasoning. 
 By long series of deductions, based upon economic facts, 
 we seek to supply motives for conduct which would have 
 come directly from ideals in the aesthetic field. The impor- 
 tance and extent of the area of conduct, controlled by utili- 
 tarian motives, results from this defect. Many of the acts 
 now determined through a pleasure-pain calculus would 
 have been controlled by sesthetic ideals. 
 
 These ideals if fully developed would also have modified 
 and strengthened our religious concepts. Here, too, we now 
 resort to reasoning in order to escape the difiiculties growing 
 out of our analytic attitude. We seek to prove the exist- 
 ence of a Great Unknown hidden from view by a material 
 concept of the universe, when a more synthetic attitude due 
 to sesthetic ideals would have made the concept of God a 
 vivid reality. In a pleasure economy men would have risen 
 to the thought of God and heaven, not as manifestations of 
 power, but as the perfection of beauty and grandeur. They 
 
NoEMAi, Progress. 125 
 
 would have felt the need of a God, not so much to begin, as 
 to complete the universe. In this way the concept of God, 
 which has been weakened through the transition from 
 a pain to a pleasure economy, would have retained its vivid- 
 ness. 
 
 The evils of a pleasure economy have also modified the 
 moral ideals. The old concepts of a free will and immortal- 
 ity demand a view of the essence of man that cannot now 
 be readily visualized. This essence may be indestructible, 
 and outside of the reign of law when isolated from bodily 
 relations, but the evils of a pleasure economy lie in these 
 bodily relations. Moral ideals which do not lead to a higher 
 life under existing planetary conditions have little present 
 value. The end of morality is the best utilization of the 
 present environment, all of whose relations are destructible 
 and subject to law. Vivid moral ideals must be based on 
 these conditions and tend toward a realization of the highest 
 form of life they allow. 
 
 This utilization of present conditions is beyond the power 
 of the individual man, and hence moral ideals must assume 
 a social form. These ideals must picture men in those social 
 relations through which they acquire a mastery over nature 
 and over the temptations which the conquest of nature 
 brings. There are three moral ideals which comply with 
 these conditions: social solidarity, social responsibility and 
 social immortality. Social solidarity is a feeling that prog- 
 ress demands the united efforts of all the members of a 
 society. Social responsibility affirms that every individ- 
 ual is responsible for the failure to secure progress, and that 
 this responsibility cannot be avoided; it is not reduced, but 
 rather increased by the failure of others to do their part. 
 Social immortality implies more than an endless life. It 
 must be a desirable immortality and involves an existence 
 in a social environment. Such an immortality depends on 
 the acts, and not on the essence of man. However perma- 
 nent the essence of man may be he cannot of himself create 
 
126 Annaxs of the American Academy. 
 
 the social relations which would make an endless life enjoy- 
 able. He must depend upon the good-will of his fellows or 
 superiors for admission to the social circle, and this good- 
 will he must earn by his acts. 
 
 The thought of a social immortality contains no picture 
 of man's essence. The emphasis is placed on the environ- 
 ment to be secured and on the conditions demanded for 
 entrance. Nor does the ideal demand an endless life for all 
 members of a society. If the race is to endure, or if it is to 
 be an essential factor in the prosperity of a greater humanity 
 which has so mastered nature as to ensure its continuance, 
 the ideal will still be a force determining the activities of 
 individuals. Self-sacrifice is an essential element in all 
 social progress, and will steadily increase so long as it does 
 not thwart the end for which it exists. 
 
 If this view be correct the transition from a pain to a 
 pleasure economj' involves important modifications in the 
 • ideals of the race. But these changes are not of such a 
 character as to cause a break in the development of our 
 religious and moral ideas. The new ideals are already a 
 part of our subjective environment and stand out with more 
 or less clearness. The change will result in a transference 
 of emphasis from the old to the new ideals. The more 
 deeply the race becomes immersed in a pleasure economy 
 the more prominent will the new ideals become, and the less 
 urgent the need for extraneous proof, since requisites for 
 survival get their proof out of the conditions which bring 
 them into existence. 
 
 § 4.. The Misapplication of General Principles, 
 
 In the foregoing discussion the social forces have been 
 analj'zed into their elements, and their order of development 
 and their relations to one another have been pointed out. 
 An abstract method has been followed to reveal the work- 
 ing of these forces in their freest form. As regards prob- 
 lems of immediate interest, however, they do not have free 
 
Normal Progress. 127 
 
 «cope, but appear in various complicated forms and have 
 their action restricted and obscured by the peculiarities of 
 cur planet. This fact causes many wrong deductions to be 
 made from general principles, which must be rectified by 
 further discussion. 
 
 A large part of these wrong inferences is the result of 
 confounding the problems of human society with those of gen- 
 eral society. If the ideal of a mastery over nature is real- 
 ized it must be due to the activity of a greater humanity 
 T;orking under less restricted conditions than this planet 
 affords. Our sensory powers are now too far advanced to 
 accept the ideal of a paradise on earth. Human society 
 cannot, therefore, undertake so large a task, but must limit 
 itself to a much less ambitious scheme. It has a definitely 
 limited series of environments to operate in, and must have 
 for its end the evolution of a single species of beings — the 
 one best fitted for our planetary conditions. The more fully 
 human society limits itself to this end, the more probable is 
 it that the race can bean effective aid to that greater human- 
 ity of which it hopes to become a part. 
 
 The laws of human progress are not, therefore, the gen- 
 eral laws of social progress. A greater humanity, to attain 
 its ends, must differentiate into as many species as possible 
 and bind them together into a harmonious whole working 
 for common ends. Human society must, however, integrate 
 and narrow itself down to one type of a man. There must 
 be a continuous struggle between these types, some of which 
 must constantly displace others. 
 
 However inspiring may be the ideal of intelligent co- 
 operation among different species on this planet, the 
 struggle of a pain economy has been carried too far to make 
 its realization possible. The gap between man and other 
 species is now too wide to bridge, and the differences between 
 the races at the present time are not great enough to make 
 a permanent union desirable. The better race finds it 
 advantageous to displace other races, while the weaker races 
 
128 Annals op the American Academy. 
 
 yield too readily to the temptations which contact with a 
 higher race brings. The permanent co-operation of dis- 
 tinct races is possible only when each race has its habits, 
 customs and ideals so firmly set that they will not be weak- 
 ened or destroyed by contact with other races. If all of 
 the races give up some of their peculiarities, they will finally 
 blend into one race. The consumption, habits, pleasures 
 and temptations of the present races are too nearly alike to 
 permit a co-operation without an integration. They must, 
 therefore, stand in hostile relations to each other or finally 
 unite. 
 
 It will greatly simplify the study of human society if we 
 remember that our planet can furnish but a single series of 
 environments in which there is, at each epoch, room for only 
 one dominant race. The local environments were at least 
 numerous enough to start a great variety of organisms, but 
 as the conditions of life became more general, the number of 
 progressive species was rapidly reduced, until one dominant 
 species was formed in an environment so general as to 
 exclude all others. The study of these displaced races and 
 species throws light on the problems of a greater hmnanity, 
 but this knowledge is of little value in a study of human 
 progress. If the planet furnished a number of parallel series 
 of environments, each portion of the race might have found 
 a suitable series for its continuous progress until they were 
 all brought into harmonious relations. But then the earth 
 would have created a greater humanity and not a human 
 society like the present one. Even if a greater humanity 
 had been founded there would have been in the development 
 of each part a series of problems like those of human society. 
 Each species must tend toward a single type by means 
 similar to those which now cause human progress. 
 
 If this view is correct the general problems of society are 
 out of our reach except in some of their religious aspects. 
 The inductive data upon which to build a general social 
 science are very limited. The science of human progress 
 
Normal Progress. 129 
 
 must remain a stud)- of the dominant race in its most favor- 
 able environment. It is largely the static part of a com- 
 plete social science. The planetary conditions which limit 
 progress are static, and the goal of progress is a static type 
 of man fitted for the earth's best environment. A study with 
 these limitations cannot rank with biology and psychology 
 in the hierarchy of the sciences. For this general social 
 .•cience we need the data of many planets in which other 
 fivironments have made other types of society possible. 
 The organisms on our planet might perhaps have developed 
 1-.1 any direction in which it is possible for organisms to 
 eevelop, and the possibilities of the mental mechanisms of 
 these organisms are perhaps as great as nature permits. 
 Ve have, therefore, the data for the general sciences of 
 biology and psychology. But the lack of an unlimited num- 
 ber of possible environments prevents a study of the general 
 laws of society on an inductive basis. We do not have the 
 parallel development of different species in social relations 
 in the way that the lower organisms have developed in 
 adjacent environments. The different races of men do not 
 furnish the basis of a comparative study except in an early 
 stage of a pain economy when religious motives were domi- 
 nant. This period can help us much in the study of a 
 greater humanity, but it throws little light on other than 
 religious problems. Normal social progress came at so late 
 a period that there is but one advanced society in which to 
 study it. In every part of the civilized world a single type 
 of man either has acquired or is acquiring a dominant place. 
 The emphasis of the organic analogies in society is also 
 the outcome of a misconception of the province of human 
 society. The problems of a greater humanity are confused 
 with those of human society. The mastery of nature — the 
 ideal of a greater humanity — demands the co-operation of a 
 great many species, each of which has a special work to 
 perform. This greater society might with some justice be 
 called an organism. Each species might have as distinct a 
 
130 Annaw op the American Academy. 
 
 function as tliat of the organs of a human body. There 
 would also be the same subordination of lower species to the 
 higher that is characteristic of real organisms. The tend- 
 encies of a human society, however, are in an opposite direc- 
 tion. Its end is the creation of a single species with its 
 individuals having the same qualities. They must be alike 
 and have the mobility and capacity needed to take any place 
 in the society. No individual or group can become their 
 head in the way that some person or species must become 
 the head of the greater humanity. Human society piust 
 tend toward a mobile democracy. 
 
 So long as the different races could maintain their peculi- 
 arities in adjacent local environments and their members 
 were too immobile to migrate to distant lands, many organic 
 relations grew up between them. The blending of these 
 environments into one general environment has checked 
 the growth of these organic tendencies and has givea 
 increased vigor to democratic ideals. The immobility, 
 inequality, and subordination among individuals are reduced, 
 and all acquire the same habits, customs, rights and 
 duties. 
 
 In new societies where many races are brought int» 
 economic relations there is at first a tendency to form social 
 strata, each of which performs an organic function for 
 society. This tendency is however only temporary. The 
 differences in these races are not marked enough to enable 
 each of them to maintain those habits, ideas and pleasures 
 upon which the permanence of their type depends. A 
 single environment cannot afford the basis for different 
 groups of habits, customs and pleasures. There will in such 
 cases be strong tendencies toward a social degeneration 
 until those habits and pleasures out of harmony with the 
 new conditions are discarded, and then the society will inte- 
 grate into some single type more capable than any other of 
 utilizing all the surrounding advantages. The study of the 
 organic tendencies in new societies thus tends to create 
 
NoRMAi< Progress. 131 
 
 a wrong concept of human progress and to confuse its 
 problems with those of a greater humanity. 
 
 A similar error is due to a wrong application of some 
 of our religious ideals. When in early times our relig- 
 ious ideals took their rise, a narrow concept of the universe 
 made it appear as if this planet were co-extensive with the 
 universe and as if all God's creatures wera inhabitants of 
 the earth. The religious concepts of a greater humanity 
 were thus applied to the human races. They were to 
 be bound into an organic unitj' by religious ties, to live 
 side by side in harmony, and to work together for the 
 common interests of men and for the glory of God. It is 
 assumed that there is a place for each race and that it can 
 be of some use in furthering the interests of the united 
 whole. The Chinaman, the Turk, the Malay, the Bushman 
 and the Digger Indian must be preserved and made integral 
 parts of the whole. Earnest efforts to this end are therefore 
 demanded of all who desire the welfare of the race. 
 
 Broader concepts of religious problems and the recogni- 
 tion of the subordinate part which life on this planet must 
 play in the realization of religious ideals, should make 
 evident the fallacy of such arguments. If each of these 
 races were on a different planet, with conditions favorable 
 for the development of a distinct type of man, their preserva- 
 tion and elevation would contribute to the common ends of 
 a greater humanity. But when all these races are thrown 
 together in a single environment, it is not possible for the 
 peculiarities of each race so to develop as to make it a definite 
 type capable of rendering a distinct service in the cause 
 of the greater humanity. When the Chinese or the Indians 
 are admitted into a higher civilization, they do not compel 
 progress either for it or for themselves. They tend to 
 break down not only the habits which made them useful 
 parts of their own civilization, but also those habits and 
 ideals of the higher civilization upon which its future prog- 
 ress depends. The earth has but one general environment 
 
132 Annals of the American Academy. 
 
 and can bring to perfection but one type of man. Attempts 
 to preserve lower types of men, or to bring them into 
 organic relations with higher types, tend to make a society 
 static and thus check its progress. They may even result 
 in social degeneration through the introduction of new temp- 
 tations, vices and crimes. 
 
 Ethical discussions also show the same tendency to con- 
 fuse the problems of a greater humanity with those of 
 human society. It is stated, for example, by Herbert 
 Spencer that the ideal of moral life is a life without pain. 
 The gradual adjustment of man to nature, it is thought, will 
 finally lead to such an arrangement that a Ufe of unalloyed 
 pleasure can be secured by every person. The complete 
 mastery of nature which such a picture presents is indeed 
 an ideal of social progress, but it is not necessarily the 
 ideal of human progress. A greater humanity can obtain 
 for some of its members a complete freedom from pain. To 
 secure this end an extensive and varied series of environ- 
 ments must be found in which a steady development can 
 take place. The earth, however, has no series of environ- 
 ments so complete as to allow such a development. Nor is 
 it probable that a single species of men in any environment 
 could live so as to secure a complete freedom from pain. 
 The co-operation of many species in a greater humanity 
 could come much nearer the desired ideal. But even then it is 
 not probable that an exemption from pain could be secured for 
 more than a part of the whole society. If each species has 
 special tasks to perform in order to maintain a mastery over 
 nature, it is improbable that many of them can do their work 
 under conditions where pain can be avoided. The self- 
 sacrifice of many of the species would be demanded to place 
 the favored few in a state of unalloyed bliss. 
 
 Our moral ideas should harmonize with the conditions 
 under which men must live on this planet and with the type 
 of man which these conditions tend to create. No other 
 morality can promote the development of human society 
 
NoRMAi, Progress. 133 
 
 along its normal course. We must accept the limitations 
 imposed by this planet and reject ideals which do not tend 
 to produce men capable of enduring evils which result from 
 them. 
 
 §5. The Civic Instincts. 
 
 If the difference between human progress and that of the 
 greater humanity has now been made clear, it wUl be possi- 
 ble to take up some of the more concrete problems and to 
 show the forms in which the social forces appear in them. 
 All of the problems of a greater humanity — at least all of 
 them about which we have anj' inductive data — are religious. 
 All other social problems are civic. They include every- 
 thing relating to the preservation and perfection of the best 
 type of man for the one general environment that our planet 
 offers. There are no elementary civic forces. AH the 
 forces are moral, aesthetic and economic combined and 
 blended in many complex forms to meet the peculiar condi- 
 tions demanded by human progress. 
 
 The civic forces are made up mainly of three elements, 
 civic customs, civic ideals and civic instincts. Of these the 
 civic customs belong in a class by themselves because they 
 are so largely due to the conditions of a pain economy. 
 Customs are the means by which the aggressive instincts of 
 hostile individuals are restrained and peace is preserved. 
 They set up definite rules of action to prevent conflict. Our 
 legal system and the principles of parliamentary government 
 are the best instances of the jxjwer of ci\'ic customs. They 
 show themselves, however, in the small as well as in the 
 great affairs of life and prevent a return to the conditions of 
 a pain economy with its conflicts and disorders. 
 
 The civic ideals, or, to use a more familiar term, the demo- 
 cratic ideals, are tJie enduring elements of human progress. 
 They are the surviving concepts of a long series of subjec- 
 tive environments. They stand out more clearly after each 
 transition from environment to environment. Each change 
 breaks down some of the feelings, tendencies and ideas due 
 
134 Annai^ of the American Academy. 
 
 to past conditions and strips others of peculiarities due to 
 local conditions. The residue becomes more vivid with each 
 change, and gradually crystallizes into ideals. These ideals 
 represent the goal of human progress — a condition where 
 man's mastery over nature is complete. They become a 
 social force by picturing an ideal society and inspiring a 
 desire to make it real. 
 
 Civic instincts develop from conditions more local and less 
 permanent than the civic ideals. They are the effects of a 
 single environment and change as it changes. Ideals engen- 
 der a love for the objects associated with them. A civic 
 instinct, however, represents a reaction against something; 
 some particular group of conditions arouses an aggressive 
 activity. These conditions are always local. A race could 
 not, for example, have an instinct against food, but it might 
 have an instinct against eating frogs or rats. 
 
 Civic instincts are created by the standards of Ufe of each 
 society, and are a feeling of antipathy against the objects 
 or persons who violate them. Standards of life are always 
 relative; they represent the possible in the present environ- 
 ment. Kach new environment creates new possibilities and 
 thus modifies the standards which society can set for its citi- 
 zens. A standard represents the acts of the better class of 
 men and thus implies that there are some who do not live up 
 to it. Some persons or acts must be excluded and against 
 them the civic instincts are directed and exert their force. 
 
 The civic standards are the outcome of concrete economic,, 
 aesthetic and moral conditions. There are as many of them 
 as there are distinct groups of these conditions having a 
 direct bearing on human welfare. In production we find 
 standards of thrift, frugality, promptness, regularity and 
 trustworthiness. In commerce and trade there are standards 
 of commercial honor, honesty, truthfulness, fair dealing and 
 honest wares. In consumption there are standards of com- 
 fort, food, clothing, home life and privacy. In the realm 
 Gf aesthetics there are standards of cleanliness, neatness. 
 
Normal, Progress. 135 
 
 harmony and beauty. In morals there are standards of 
 chastity, fairness, uprightness, consistency and temperance. 
 
 A host of similar civic standards might be named each of 
 which is formed and modified by certain peculiarities of the 
 present enxnronment. Such standards are high when they 
 demand all that is possible at the present time. They are 
 low when a lax public sentiment allows the continuance of 
 acts which do not harmonize with public interests. The 
 firmness and height of the standards depend upon the 
 strength of the ci^ic instincts which resent their violation. 
 There is no standard unless there are feelings antagonistic 
 to the acts and persons which sink below it. A mere admira- 
 tion of certain acts or a desire to be virtuous for its own 
 sake or for its direct advantages, may have an influence on 
 individuals, but cannot become a social force inspiring all per- 
 sons li\'ing in a common environment. 
 
 The love of thrift, for example, may create a class of 
 thrifty persons in a community, but it is a dislike of the 
 thriftless that makes the standard of thrift for society and 
 forces every one to live up to it. The height of the stand- 
 ard depends not on the love of thrift, but on the dislike of 
 the thriftless. The standard of fair dealing and of honest 
 wares depends not on what individuals do or make, but on 
 what they dislike to see done or made. The standard of 
 cleanliness or of neatness depends upon the feelings we have 
 about the lax appearance of other persons. The standard of 
 harmony and beauty depends upon what we insist on exclud- 
 ing from our presence, and not on the degree of our feeUngs 
 for what we love. The standard of commercial honor 
 depends not on what we wiU do or not do, but on the acts which 
 will cause us to refuse to deal with other persons if they do 
 them. The standard of national honor or credit depends not 
 «n our love for the nation, but on the feeling of antagonism 
 against those who sacrifice its interests. The standard of 
 Bving depends not on what persons eat and drink them- 
 sehres, but on what they dislike to see other persons eat or 
 
136 Annai,s of the American Academy. 
 
 drink. Shoes are not made a part of the standard of life by 
 our wearing them ourselves, but by our ostracism of persons 
 who go barefooted. The standard of wages depends on what 
 we object to other persons working for, not on what we 
 refuse to work for ourselves. 
 
 A mere love of certain objects or conditions can never 
 make a standard. The civic instincts act in the subjective 
 environment just as do the objective conditions which become 
 requisites for survival. When survival depends on objec- 
 tive conditions, those who cannot master these conditions 
 perish. The lowest level of intelligence and organic effi- 
 ciency is set by these conditions and the surviving types must 
 be above this level. When social co-operation becomes a 
 requisite for stirvival those persons against whom the civic 
 instincts are aroused cannot remain a part of society. They 
 must depend on their own exertions and these efforts are not 
 sufficient to enable them to compete with those who are effi- 
 cient parts of a society. They are therefore pushed int« 
 such unfavorable conditions that they, or at least their 
 descendants, cannot live. 
 
 The civic instincts thus determine what standards shall be 
 requisites for survival and what shall be the height of these 
 standards. They divide the members of each community 
 into parts, giving increased advantages to the social, and 
 shutting out the unsocial from direct contact with nature 
 and natural resources. If the civic standards are high, many 
 fail who could succeed if allowed direct contact with the bet- 
 ter natural resources. Society so monopoUzes these better 
 resources for its members that isolated or less social individu- 
 als, boycotted by the civic instincts, must seek a poorer 
 environment than that which they could secure under more 
 primitive conditions. The less social are, therefore, gradu- 
 ally eliminated from society, and the surviving elements 
 become more united and homogenous. The higher the civic 
 standards are, the fewer are the types of men who can 
 survive, and the more pronounced are their social qualities. 
 
Normal Progekss. 137 
 
 Under these conditions dvic instincts become the dynamic 
 forces in society because they are the type-producing forces. 
 They keep society divided into two parts with the advan- 
 tages so plainly on the one side that the other fails to sur- 
 vive. WTien certain of the lower types of men are elimi- 
 nated by this process new civic instincts appear or the old 
 ones grow stronger, and then a new division is created in 
 society by which the less favored types of men are again 
 forced to the wall. 
 
 In a pain economy the struggles were mainly between 
 independent nations or between semi-independent classes in 
 one nation. When a nation or class acquired so dominant a 
 place as to encounter no further opposition, progress ceased. 
 There were no means by which a further ehmination of the 
 unfit could be carried on. Temptations, diseases and vices 
 are as apt to carry off those fit to survive as those who are 
 unfit. The goal of a ci^dlization based on a pain economy 
 is reached when a dominant nation or class is produced, or 
 when the antagonism between nations or classes dies out. 
 There are then no forces tending to create a higher type of 
 man. 
 
 The civic instincts creating the higher standards of life 
 in a pleasure economy replace the national and class hos- 
 tilities of earlier civilizations. They increase the opposition 
 between the different t3-pes of men and give to men with a 
 high standard of life that advantage which the dominant 
 nation or class had in former times. The intensity of this 
 antagonism determines the standard of citizenship. The 
 citizen of the future must be more than a mere inhabitant 
 of a region enjoying its advantages. He must be an inde- 
 pendent, self-supporting man with civic standards so high 
 and numerous as to arouse the admiration of his fellows. 
 Those whose standards are so low as to excite the civic in- 
 stincts of society against them cannot remain an integral 
 part of society and do not deserve the rights of citizenship. 
 Every one must either have the civic standards needed for 
 
138 Annai3 of the American Academy. 
 
 citizenship or become so isolated from social life and cut off 
 from its advantages that he will sink into the dependent 
 classes. Citizens and the dependent classes stand opposed 
 to each other in an advanced society. Progress depends on 
 the sharpness of the lines which separate them. 
 
 § 6. The Democratic Ideals. 
 
 The preceding discussion has made clear the goal toward 
 which human progress may tend. A planet with a single- 
 general environment can bring to perfection but one type of 
 man. This type must be developed through repeated dif- 
 ferentiations followed by the displacement of the less, 
 favored types. The dynamic forces in human progress,, 
 therefore, are not the same as those in the progress of a 
 greater humanity. This more general society tends to dif- 
 ferentiate its members into separate species and then to- 
 bring them into co-operation for common ends. There is 
 not in such an ideal that opposition of interests which the 
 progress of a planetary society demands. In a human 
 society the dominant race or class cannot share its advan- 
 tages with its rivals without a retardation of progress and if 
 this tendency is strong enough to enable every class to hold, 
 its own, social stagnation would result. 
 
 I do not mean, however, to assert that the struggle between 
 the dominant and the less favored classes must continue in- 
 those primitive forms of a pain economy where the lives and' 
 liberties of the contestants are at stake. In the pleasure 
 economy toward which we are tending, it is not probable 
 that any of the traditional natural rights of men will be 
 violated. The power to survive will be determined mainly- 
 by the industrial instincts which produce wealth or by social! 
 instincts which tend to reduce temptation and to limit the 
 inclination to indulge in intense pleasures. 
 
 Under these conditions there would not be that struggle 
 between rival races and classes which takes place in a 
 pain economy. The many local environments have eadt 
 
Normal Progress. 139 
 
 developed a peculiar race or class. When these are thrown 
 together in a general environment the power to survive is 
 determined by a crude appeal to objective conditions. In a 
 pleasure economy it is assumed that this struggle of rival 
 races and classes is finished. A single society has been 
 formed with moral and religious forces strong enough to 
 keep the peace and to allow the tendencies of a pleasure 
 economy to show themselves. The weaker portion of 
 society suffers, not from the oppression of the dominant 
 classes, but from the misery, diseases, temptations, and vice 
 which their lack of industrial and moral qualities permits. 
 Instead of the old struggles between independent classes 
 the opposition of interests now lies between society and the 
 dependent classes. No person can rightly be a member of 
 a society unless he not only is self-supporting but also con- 
 tributes in some way to the welfare of others. The surplus 
 earner makes society, the surplus consumers are the de- 
 pendent classes. These dependent classes cannot survive 
 unless society allows them to share in advantages which they 
 do not create. The number and welfare of dependent per- 
 sons depend upon the relative strength of two groups of 
 social feelings. The one group would prompt the self-sup- 
 porting members to increase their industrial efSciency and 
 to guard themselves by isolation from the crude pleasures, 
 temptations and vices of the less developed portion of 
 society. The other group would prompt them to share 
 their advantages with the dependent classes and thus to 
 promote equality among men and prevent further dif- 
 ferentiation. 
 
 In modem nations, and especially in a pleasure economy, 
 the strong feelings tending to help the dependent classes 
 are due to democratic ideals. The older ideals of this 
 group are justice, liberty, equality and fraternity. To 
 them may be added tendencies toward the referendum, the 
 initiative, and proportional representation in the sphere of 
 government, and in the economic world such ideals as a 
 
140 Annals of the American Academy. 
 
 living wage, surplus values, progressive taxation, the single 
 tax and the right to live, to work and to enjoy the fruits of 
 the earth. These ideals picture society as it may be in its 
 final environment, with the mastery of nature a completed 
 task, and thus they assume a much higher state of civiliza- 
 tion than we actually possess. 
 
 There is no field in which the tendencies away from a pain 
 economy show themselves more clearly than in these demo- 
 cratic ideals. They might with truth be called the first 
 fruits of a pleasure economy. They practically assume a life 
 of unalloyed pleasure by shutting out from view the pains 
 and suffering which a high civilization on our planet in- 
 volves. They represent the economic world as a garden of 
 Eden in which the gifts of nature are the most prominent 
 element. Even when labor is emphasized as the sole cause 
 of value, this labor is pictured as being so generously sup- 
 plemented by natural forces that it would become a pleasant 
 recreation if every one did his part. The difficulties of pro- 
 duction are lost sight of in the struggle over the distribution 
 of the bounties of nature, and thus the obstacles to progress 
 seem to lie in the latter and not in the former class of 
 problems. The recent discussions of land tenures illustrate 
 these tendencies. The land is represented by many writers 
 as the great source of wealth and its products as gifts 
 of nature to man. Each man is thought to have a right 
 to an equal share of this bounty, and the laws and cus- 
 toms which countenance any other disposition of it, are 
 regarded as infringements upon natural rights. The rent 
 of land thus becomes a social surplus of such a magnitude 
 that when justly distributed the labor of men can be so 
 reduced in time and in irksomeness as to eliminate its most 
 disagreeable features. 
 
 While the picture of the environment presented by these 
 ideals belongs to an advanced pleasure economy, there is one 
 prominent element in them which belongs to a pain economy. 
 The evils and pains of life are represented as coming, not 
 
Normal Progress. 141 
 
 from the environment or from the defects of human nature, 
 but from men. The strong and successful are pictured as 
 being in a never-ending conspiracy to defraud the weaker 
 and less successful. The oppression of the dominant classes 
 and their grasping nature are made vivid in a thousand ways 
 by those who represent popular movements. 
 
 Democratic ideals thus rest upon two prominent thoughts, 
 the gifts of nature and the oppression of men. In empha- 
 sizing the gifts of nature the environment of the distant 
 future is pictured, when the mastery over nature will be 
 complete. In visualizing the oppression of men the distant 
 past is pictured, when the conditions of a pain economy were 
 supreme. These ideals thus combine a prophecy of the 
 future with a history of the past. The historical man of 
 the distant past is put without change into the best environ- 
 ment of the distant future. The obstacles to progress thus 
 seem to come from the dominant classes vv'ho prevent an 
 equal distribution of the gifts of nature. There is a silence 
 as to pains and the obstacles to progress which come from 
 the environment and represent the cost of nature's bounties. 
 
 Such pictures of nature and of men have been the inspira- 
 tion of the leaders of democratic movements designed to 
 free society from control of its dominant classes. They 
 were especially vivid at the time of the French Revolution 
 and are presented with fresh.vigor in recent discussions. The 
 ideals of Godwin which aroused the opposition of Malthus 
 are similar to those of Henry George in his discussion of 
 the land problem. Some of Godwin's ideals, like that of 
 human immortality on earth, have been rendered im- 
 possible by the growth of knowledge, but the gap thus 
 opened has been filled in by the increased vigor and 
 clearness with which the idea of the social surplus can now 
 be presented. Man cannot live so long in nature's best 
 environment as Godwin supposed, but its increased beauties 
 as pictured by George compensate for this defect. These 
 writers emphasize the oppression of the ruling classes and 
 
142 Annals of the American Academy. 
 
 have tlie same belief that the pains, misery and vice of the less 
 favored classes are due to this cause. A humanity freed 
 from oppression could, it is thought, escape from these evils 
 and create a society in which the gifts of nature would be 
 abundant enough to supply every want. The conception of 
 both writers is the same as that of every reformer who 
 would rouse men to activity by a presentation of past 
 oppression and future welfare. 
 
 These democratic ideals are the static elements of a 
 pleasure economy, for they hinder further differentiation 
 and tend to keep in society all the classes it now contains. 
 They retard the displacement of the less efficient classes and 
 restrict the activity of the more efficient. They prevent the 
 integration of society and the development of the type of 
 men most fitted for the earth's best environment. 
 
 In the normal progress of a greater humanity all the social 
 forces are dynamic. They become static only when abnormal 
 conditions disturb the orderly progress of society. In human 
 society the struggles caused by the conditions of a pain 
 economy gave to the religious and democratic ideals great 
 strength and clearness. They were the means by which 
 race and class antagonisms were so reduced as to make a 
 unified society possible. The evils of a pleasure economy, 
 however, demand in addition to these ideals higher stan- 
 dards of life and stronger civic instincts. These standards 
 and instincts depend upon the peculiar conditions of the new 
 environment and could not grow until society entered a 
 pleasure economy. They are therefore at the present time 
 much weaker than the democratic ideals with which they 
 stand in opposition. The civic instincts direct the attention 
 to the evils of the present environment and demand a reUef 
 from them. The democratic ideals make vivid a future 
 environment, and oppose any activities not in harmony with 
 its conditions. They create sentiments opposed to the type- 
 producing tendencies needed for the development of the 
 man best fitted for the present conditions. 
 
NoRMAi, Progress. 143 
 
 These ideals at the present time seem to have an irresisti- 
 ble force, yet it must be remembered that they now have 
 their maximum strength, while the civic instincts, from 
 which other tendencies %vill spring, are only in their infancy. 
 The ci\'ic instincts, however, are not inactive and are grad- 
 ually establishing standards which must in time so separate 
 the citizens from the dependent classes that steady progress 
 will be possible. Even in America, where democratic 
 ideals have had undisputed sway, each class or section of the 
 nation is becoming conscious of an opposition between its 
 standards and the activities and tendencies of some less 
 developed class. The South has its negro, the city has its 
 slums, organized labor has its ' ' scab ' ' workman, and the tem- 
 perance movement has its drunkard and saloon-keeper. The 
 friends of American institutions fear the ignorant immi- 
 grant, and the workingman disUkes the Chinese. Every one 
 is beginning to differentiate those with proper qualifications 
 for citizenship from some class or classes which he wishes to 
 restrain or to exclude from society. The lines between citi- 
 zens and the dependent classes are not yet clearly or prop- 
 erly drawn, yet as now drawn they indicate the manner in 
 which the growing civic instincts will act. A new era of 
 our development will begin when these instincts are strong 
 enough to remodel public opinion. It will mark the begin- 
 ning of a social integration through which a truly American 
 society can be formed. 
 
 § 7. The Progress of Cities. 
 
 The transition to a pleasure economy modifies our civiliza- 
 tion in no way more strikingly than in the changes it causes 
 in the relative positions of country and city life. Under the 
 old conditions country people were looked upon as the main- 
 stay of morality, purity and industry, while city life was 
 regarded as a cesspool of pollution, corruption and vice. 
 The historical accounts of most nations start when the peo- 
 ple were mainly engaged in agriculture and were thus pure. 
 
144 Annai^ of the American Academy. 
 
 free and vigorous. The history is then followed through the 
 various stages of progress until wealth, power and influence 
 are to a large extent concentrated in a few cities. As this 
 latter period, when the nation is sinking into decay, coin- 
 cides with the period of city dominance, it is assumed that 
 city life is the source of corruption and decay, just as coun- 
 try life was at the beginning the source of vigor and purity. 
 Such accounts fail to tell how this pure country life origi- 
 nated or why city life is necessarily corrupt. They simply 
 take as an arbitrary starting point the time when country 
 life is at its best and follow out the history of the nation until 
 it is conquered or absorbed by some more vigorous nation. 
 
 The difference between the possibilities of city and coun- 
 try life lies largely in the different kinds of environment 
 they afEord. The country is a series of local environments, 
 each of which affords the conditions for the development of 
 a particular type of man. So long as the people in them are 
 isolated from other people, these local environments force a 
 sharp adjustment to their peculiarities and thus bring into 
 prominence certain moral, civic and industrial qualities 
 needed for their best utilization. Social beginnings are 
 easily made under these conditions, but they cannot be carried 
 far. Commerce, trade and intercourse with adjacent nations 
 break down this accurate adjustment to local surroundings 
 without supplying the conditions for further progress. These 
 corrupting influences soon bring the nation into a static con- 
 dition and render it weaker than its aggressive neighbors. 
 
 The country has many good local environments, but no 
 general environment. Cities, on the contrary, have no local 
 environments in which social beginnings can be made or 
 peculiar moral or industrial qualities preserved. They fur- 
 nish, however, a general environment in which alone a con- 
 tinuous progress is possible. It is difiicult to start a civiliza- 
 tion in cities, but it is impossible to continue one for any 
 length of time outside of them. It is necessary to transfer 
 to cities the civilization begun in the country, and this 
 
NoRMAt, Progress. 145 
 
 transference usually takes place when the nation is excliang- 
 ing the conditions of a pain for those of a pleasure economy. 
 The evils of the two periods of transition are thus combined 
 and coupled with other evils, due to the fact that adjacent 
 nations remaining in a pain economy are ready to plunder 
 and destroy the new civilization as soon as progress weakens 
 its power of defence. It is no wonder, therefore, that city 
 civilizations have come to grief and that many false general- 
 izations have been based on these failures. Only after a long 
 period has elapsed and the evils and difiBculties with which 
 city civilizations have to contend have been eliminated, can 
 there be any hope that the permanent conditions of progress 
 will be secured. Some of these conditions are so obvious 
 that it is possible to discuss them even before city life be- 
 comes a dominant element in modem civilization. 
 
 In the first place city progress demands an environment 
 so general that no marked outside influence can disturb its 
 progress. The forces shaping any civilization must be inter- 
 nal and a single environment must endure long enough to 
 allow the proper industrial qualities and civic instincts to 
 develop. The new city civilizations need isolation from out- 
 side influences as much as did the early country civilizations ; 
 but this isolation is secured by having so general an environ- 
 ment that the whole world is included in it. So long as city 
 life is disturbed by the irregular intrusion of external forces, 
 by the influx of people' hitherto outside of its influence, or 
 by temptations, vices or diseases generated by other condi- 
 tions, it must be so hampered in its development that nor- 
 mal progress is prevented or, at least, greatly delayed. All 
 these evils may be withstood and remedied if their sources 
 are internal so that a process of gradual adjustment is possi- 
 ble. It is the sudden intrusion of external factors, or of 
 those not subject to proper control, that interferes with the 
 conditions of normal progress and makes city life static or 
 even retrogressive. 
 
 These evils are also aggravated by the civic instincts 
 
146 Annai^ of the; American Academy. 
 
 whicli tlie inhabitants of cities have inherited from earlier 
 country conditions. Instincts should always be the outgrowth 
 of present conditions. The people in a new environment can 
 with advantage inherit the ideals of their ancestors, for these 
 ideals represent the general features of past environments. 
 Even these ideals must often be modified and made more 
 general that their vividness may be retained. Civic instincts, 
 however, must be local. They are the changeable part of 
 the subjective environment and are worse than useless unless 
 they correspond closely to the definite and prominent 
 features of the present epoch. 
 
 Few, if any, people in cities are free from the instincts due 
 to country life. The influx of people from the country 
 is so constant and the contact with the country so easy 
 that the ideals of country life remain vivid and city life is 
 forced to become an imperfect imitation of country civiliza- 
 tion. Cities are governed as if they were a group of coun- 
 try villages. The hierarchy of officials, their relations and 
 duties, are based on the needs of country life. City people 
 still want houses with grass plots in front, cellars under- 
 neath and dumping grounds for rubbish behind. They 
 still rely much on rain to wash away dirt and on isolation to 
 ward off disease. They grudgingly give up the well and 
 the spring for the hydrant, and close their eyes to the fact 
 that the soil under them is not, as in the country, a source 
 of all blessings, but the cause of their worst evils. They 
 heat their houses, cook their food and generate noises and 
 odors as if their neighbors were miles away. Their parlors 
 are not differentiated into places of comfort and inter- 
 course, but remain as much a combination of museum, art 
 gallery and storehouse as they would of necessity be if all 
 the family treasures were crowded together into a two-room 
 country cottage. Nor does home life free itself from the 
 foreign elements which country isolation has forced into it, 
 and thus put itself into touch with the many social institu- 
 tions which city life makes possible. 
 
NORMAIv PrOGRRSS. 147 
 
 The influence in cities of instincts due to a pain economy are 
 as prominent as those of country conditions. The mental 
 qualities and the type of morality most admired are those 
 calculated to preserve life and ward oS external dangers. 
 These are ideals better fitted for a military campaign than 
 for civic life. The fact that the best army officers so often 
 fail when assigned to civic duties shows how different are the 
 qualities which the two careers demand. A city morality, 
 however, must be an off-duty morality rather than an on-duty 
 morality. By this I mean that it is a morality less con- 
 nected with the activities which preserve life and secure 
 subsistence than with the periods between these activities, 
 when pleasure is the leading interest. It is the morality 
 of temptation rather than of danger; the morality of leisure 
 rather than of work. If city civilizations could control the 
 pleasures, amusements and temptations of the people, there 
 would be little difficulty in regulating their activities during 
 the working period. Even the lack of industrial efficiency 
 is largely due to the evils of leisure. 
 
 These evils of a pleasure economy demand for their cor- 
 rection the growth of civic instincts fitted for the new con- 
 ditions. No revival of or appeal to the instincts of a pain 
 economy can bring success. There must be a slow growth 
 of new instincts in harmony with the new conditions. A 
 primitive form of evolution must assert itself, in which the 
 less fit for city life are not shielded from evils by the in- 
 fluence of the democratic ideals tending to distribute equally 
 both the benefits and evils of city life, without regard to the 
 merit or demerit of the individual. Such tendencies destroy 
 the hope of a progressive evolution, which depends on the 
 possibility of shielding the fit from temptation and exposing 
 the unfit to some, at least, of the evils they create. If civic 
 instincts fitted for city life once became powerful, demo- 
 cratic ideals might be allowed full play without any detriment 
 to society, but at present their activity takes so much from the 
 advantage of the strong and adds so much to the welfare of 
 
148 Annai3 of the American Academy. 
 
 the weak, that the resulting equality retards the development 
 of a type of man whose civic instincts fit him for city life. 
 
 I do not mean that the democratic ideals are strong enough 
 to equalize the distribution of wealth, of working hours or 
 of the sources of enjoyment. The equality is not one of 
 advantages but of disadvantages, an equality of tempta- 
 tion, and of susceptibility to disease and vice. A primitive 
 evolution depends, not on the welfare of those who sur- 
 vive, but upon the conditions which determine who cannot 
 survive. If the death rate is the same in all classes the 
 type-producing tendencies on which progress depends are 
 thwarted and the city remains a mere aggregate without 
 any integrating tendencies. 
 
 The hindrances to city progress, however, lie more in an 
 equality of temptation than in an equality of the death rate 
 among the different classes. Temptation grows with wealth 
 and opportunity, causing each class to have about the same 
 percentage of those who are worthless to society. In the 
 single environment which a city affords there is no way by 
 which a class can isolate itself from these evils or from those 
 who create them. Relief can only come from the growth of 
 civic standards and of strong instincts against those who fail 
 to live up to the standards. A class cannot isolate itself from 
 society, but society can exclude from its privileges those 
 who make bad uses of them. 
 
 A lack of the feeling of social solidarity does much to 
 continue these evils. They cannot be avoided through the 
 endeavors of individuals or classes to protect themselves. 
 A sUght reduction in the force of temptation, disease and 
 vice in the whole community has much more permanent in- 
 fluence than a much larger change in the condition of indi- 
 viduals or of classes. Civic instincts must be general to be 
 efficient, but this generality is prevented by indi-^aduals who 
 have more confidence in their own endeavors than in those 
 of the public. Such acts may shift the evils to other per- 
 sons but they do not prevent or even reduce them. 
 
NoRMAi, Progress. 149 
 
 So long, for example, as the favored classes imagine 
 that they can avoid the evils of bad water by using filters, 
 ice, mineral waters or other substitutes, they have little 
 interest in the public water works and do not exert their 
 influence to improve them. If individuals were allowed to 
 establish private mails the public service would soon degen- 
 erate through the lack of interest which the favored classes 
 ■would have in it. Just as national feelings and interest 
 grow when the wealthy classes can no longer hire substi- 
 tutes for the army, so also will civic instincts grow when all 
 persons must seek protection from city evils through public 
 measures. Social solidarity is but another name for those 
 feelings which lead men to rely on general measures of relief 
 instead of relying on their own efforts. 
 
 This feeling of social solidarity must, to be effective, be 
 supplemented by the growth of aesthetic feelings. Crude 
 appetites and vices are best removed by a perception of the 
 harmony of consumption. The gratification of aesthetic 
 feelings depends upon public measures more clearly than 
 does the gratification of other feelings. Men may eat, drink 
 and sleep in private and care little for the enjoyment of their 
 neighbors. They must, however, enjoy their aesthetic 
 pleasures with others and suffer if the taste of their neigh- 
 bors is bad. We all see the same streets, have the same 
 amusements, and endure the same sights, noises and odors. 
 All the unaesthetic elements in city life are forced upon 
 every one's attention. No one can escape the evils which 
 low aesthetic standards suffer to exist. The rich may supply 
 their economic needs by private enterprise, but they cannot 
 thus gratify their aesthetic wants. They must beautify and 
 ornament the whole city and remove all its defects before 
 their own aesthetic feelings can be satisfied. Their interests 
 in this respect are the same as those of other people and 
 jnust lead to a desire for public measures to promote them. 
 
 Violation of aesthetic standards, more than that of any other 
 standard, arouses feelings of opposition and thus promotes 
 
150 Annai^s of the American Academy. 
 
 the growth of civic instincts. In this way unaesthetic objects, 
 acts and pleasures are driven from public places and are 
 aggregated in special localities isolated from the general 
 public. Those in whom the desires for these pleasures are 
 still strong find ready means of gratifying them. The well- 
 meaning citizen, however, has his temptations greatly re- 
 duced and his family can be reared without the depraving 
 tendencies which the constant contact with crude tempta- 
 tions creates. The causes which have isolated the liquor 
 traffic from other forms of business and driven it so largely 
 into back streets or behind screened doors are aesthetic. 
 The immorality of drinking intoxicants is as bad in one 
 place as in another, and so far as moral motives oppose 
 drinking they would prevent it entirely. 
 
 In the temperance agitation of the present time there are 
 two distinct elements, one aesthetic and the other moral. 
 The aesthetic feelings are disgusted by the disagreeable 
 effects of drinking. They are irritated by public rioting 
 and coarseness. The unaesthetic elements which drinking 
 forces into the family life also cause feelings of repugnance. 
 These feelings are satisfied when drinking is driven from 
 the home and from public places. They only demand that the 
 disagreeable objects be kept out of sight. There is no oppo- 
 sition to the evil-doer upon aesthetic grounds so long as he 
 does not force himself upon public attention. Moral feel- 
 ings, however, are aroused by the condition of the drinker 
 and not by the disagreeable effects of drinking upon other 
 people. They prompt endeavors to save the drunkard and 
 to punish those who profit by his depravity. They exert 
 their influence toward restoring the drunkard to his place 
 in society and would compel society to receive him even 
 to its detriment. Acting thus, moral feelings tend to check 
 social differentiation and often injure society. 
 
 The economic instincts in isolation may exert a like influ- 
 ence. While they produce a differentiation in wealth, 
 pleasures and consumption, they also in many cases tend 
 
NoRMAi< Progress. 151 
 
 toward an equality of temptation and disease, and thus do 
 not give any one type of man so marked an advantage as to 
 enable it to displace other types. The different classes 
 live side by side with no tendencies strong enough to unify 
 society. 
 
 It is therefore to the growth of aesthetic feelings that we 
 must look for the differentiating tendencies which compel 
 progress in city life. The aesthetic feelings lead to the devel- 
 opment of citizens with high standards of life and with civic 
 instincts strong enough to drive those with lower standards 
 into isolated localities. They free home life and public 
 places from their worst evils and temptations, and allow the 
 growth of more refined social feelings. The integrating 
 tendencies can thus produce higher tj'pes of men and give 
 them vantage ground for the displacement of the lower types. 
 .(Esthetic motives cannot create a perfect society, but they 
 can overcome the present static tendencies and elevate city 
 life to a plane where higher motives can become sources of 
 further progress. Our present civilization has given to city 
 people the possibility of satisfying their economic wants. 
 Past civilizations created for them moral and religious mo- 
 tives. Thus three of the elements of progress are assured. 
 The aesthetic forces alone are lacking. The residents of 
 cities must win for themselves this requisite of progress and 
 when they have secured it, the last obstacle in the way of 
 a civilization higher than any the world has yet known will 
 have been removed.