Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 1.djvu/640

628 a science and as such it deals with a field of phenomena controlled by certain forces. The social forces are human motives, and all motives, in the correct sense of the term have feeling as their end. To attain pleasure or avoid pain is the only incentive to action. All motives are desires, and the term which expresses the aggregate of desires is will. Desire, as I have formerly shown, is a true natural force. The motor of the social world is will. It is what I have called the dynamic agent in society. The full import of this truth will be brought out in the seventh paper. I have merely worked up to it here to show the direct manner in which sociology bears upon psychology.

Thus far we have confined ourselves exclusively to the affective side of the mind, or subjective psychology. It is in this region that the motive power of social operations has been found to reside. However trivial the affections may seem to the metaphysician, they are of primary importance to the sociologist. But while they constitute the source of power in social events this is their entire function. They constitute the dynamic agent and nothing else. To render this power effective a directive agent is required. This is furnished by the intellect. It is the guide of the feelings. It is useless to speculate as to the relative value of these two agencies. Both are absolutely essential to so complicated a mechanism as society. The familiar comparison of society to an ocean steamer remains the clearest that has been proposed. The feelings embodied in will are represented by the engines, while the intellect is typified in the helm. The former in both cases is clearly the primary constituent, and yet without the latter it would fail of its purpose.

It is, however, worthy of remark, that what has been said applies only to man and society. Lower in the scale of life we practically have the dynamic without the directive agent. Unreasoning beings are devoid of a guide. They follow their feelings only. They are like a ship without a rudder. The substitutes are, first, a close adaptation to their environment, so that there are, so to speak, no reefs, shoals, or rocks, upon which