Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 1.djvu/530

518 or mutual help, but in play and festivity, we might well assert that the influence of group life on the likings, aversions and desires is more potent and pervasive than its influence on activities. But because the shaping pressure of the combined units on the individual is invisible and elusive, and causes inner changes not easily observed, while the structural and functional differentiation for economic effectiveness is visible and striking, and leads to readily observed outward changes in men's rank, actions and groupings, sociology has neglected the impalpable psychic effects of association for the trite phenomena of the economic aggregate.

As the moulding of the individual's feelings and desires to suit the needs of the group is the profoundest alteration of associated life, we must regard it as the highest and most difficult work of society, the achievement which most signally shows its presence and power. When an aggregate reacts on the aims of the individual, warping him out of his self-regarding course, and drawing his feet into the highway of common weal, it merits the title of "society," whether or not there be rule and obedience, division of labor and exchange. It may be literally true, that the chief formation of a long-drawn social life is not the relation of authority and subordination between parts of the group, not the gradation of its members into classes, not the systems of sustaining, transporting or regulating organs, but certain ideals and standards, certain likes and dislikes, certain admirations and abhorrences become common to its members. Here then, I venture to suggest, is the ultimate test of association. The abiding of men in the same neighborhood without conflict is mere aggregation. The mind to tolerate or even to make use of each other by cooperation does not compel us to admit association. Not until the feelings have been changed in force and direction, not until the crossing and clashing of many desires has neutralized opposing impulses and achieved a kind of artificial parallelism of wills, must we predicate the presence of society with all its characteristic workings.

We may regard the shaping received by the feelings and