Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 1.djvu/813

 NOTES AND ABSTRACTS 797

Swiss schools for neglected and delinquent children are on a simple family plan, as free as possible from the vast prison and asylum systems of other states, and the ideas

of Pestalozzi are fruitful in his own land He became a schoolmaster that he

might be a saviour. "Through all my life I desired nothing but the salvation of the

people whose misery I saw and felt I lived for years like a beggar in order to

learn how to make beggars live like men Myself sunk in trouble I learned to

understand the misery of the people more deeply than a fortunate person can learn." Statesmanship must protect society from thieves and murderers by preventive educa- tion. The inspiration of modern pedagogy is greatly due to philanthropy. Revue pfnitentiaire, February 1896, p. 287. Fliegende Blatter, aus dem Rauhen Hause, March 1896, p. 118.

The Morality that is. — An exposition of rationalistic ethics. When one lives with other people, his conduct helps and hinders them in various ways in the attain- ment of their ends, and they take means to make him practice the acts which help, and refrain from those which hinder them in the attainment of those ends. With the lapse of time and accumulation of experience, the members of a community become in a measure obedient to the general will. The individual learns to anticipate the community's judgment, and to judge himself by the same standards by which it has long since judged himself and others. To mark for social regulation acts which it is to the advantage of everybody to practice, would be folly. It is only when a line of conduct is repugnant to certain individuals that they need be forced to follow it. The individual's desires constitute but one factor in shaping his activity. Individual conduct is an abstraction, all conduct is social. The many prevail over the few and the vitally interested over the feebly interested. Wrong conduct is that by which the agent intends to profit at the expense of society. Aside from social interference, the individual tends to profit by the wrong he does and suffer by the right; to profit by the right other people do and suffer by the wrong. Society and not the individual is the ethical unit. As from the truth that breathing impure air is injurious there arises the precept to the individual not to breathe impure air, so from the truth that stealing is contrary to the interests of society there arises the precept to society, "suppress steal- ing;" and the command from society to the individual results from this, "Thou shalt not steal." Social morals are not advisory but coercive. There is then no reason for confounding the moral institutions of one society with those of another, and almost everything may be both right and wrong. Again, acts which the agent can perform on his own account are outside the sphere of morals altogether. Thus an utter conflict of obligations and ideals arises, and there is no rational ground for decision between them. — Alfred Hodder in International Journal of Ethics, April 1896.

Sociology and Democracy. — In utilizing the generalizations furnished by the social sciences, conjectures are formed about psychological phenomena. So a social psychology is built up. Many, e. g., Durkheim, hold that in association the individual ceases to think and act, the fusion of many minds giving birth to a psychical indi- vidualit)- of a new kind. Others, as Tarde, hold that a social logic which is not our own imposes constraints and suggestions upon the individual. Durkheim reasons as if the customs which an individual adopts from birth, which he has not formed, exist apart from the whole series of individuals who adopt them. M. Bougld in this Revue has applied this method to the problem of democracy. He lays down the theses: (l) The weakness of the popular intellect. (2) The all-powerfulness of the popular will. "Popular intellect" and " popular will " are not intelligible, except as poetic metaphors. "The popular will" is intelligible only if by it is meant the will of the totality of individuals who compose society. From conference and conflict of opinions a decision may be reached differing from any single opinion. From this sociologists conclude that there is a " collective spirit." Yet this spirit never directs the pens of secretaries of deliberative assemblies as spirits act upon mediums. Majority opinion conventionally passes for general opinion. Without giving this the force of law, the assembly would be dissolved. This indicates that there is no collective spirit. The mystic virtue of association appears to be that each benefits by the results -collectively