Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/175

 CONCEPTS AND METHODS OF SOCIOLOGY 163

the organic conception be true and of scientific importance, it fails to get to the bottom of things. It assumes that, even if society is an organism, there is necessarily some interaction of individual with individual, or some form of activity common to all individuals that serves to bind them together in helpful and pleasurable relations, and that this activity, instead of being merely physical, like the cohesion of material cells, is a mental phenomenon. It assumes that all social bonds may be resolved into some common activity or some interactivity of individual minds. It is, in short, a view of society as a mode of mental activity.

This is the psychological conception in general terms. It takes, however, four specific forms in attempting to answer the ques- tion : What definite mode of mental action is the most elemen- tary form of the social relation ?

According to the most pretentious of these answers, one that dates back to Epicurus, and lies at the basis of all the covenant or social-contract theories of political philosophy, the psycho- logical origin of society is found in a perception of the utility of association. It assumes that men consciously and purposely create social relations to escape the ills of a " state of nature " and to reap the rewards of co-operation. This rationalistic theory offers a true explanation of highly artificial forms of social organization in a civil, especially an industrial, state, but it throws no light upon the nature of elemental, spontaneous co-operation. For this we must turn to the other three concep- tions all of them, I venture to think, modernized forms of certain very ancient notions.

According to one of these, the most elementary social fact is seen in the constraining power, the impression, the contagious influence that an aggregation, a mass, of living beings exerts upon each individual mind. Society is thus viewed as a phenom- enon closely allied to suggestion and hypnosis. This view of society is most fully set forth in the writings of Durkheim and Le Bon.

A third conception, identified with the life-work of our lamented colleague, Gabriel Tarde, assumes that impression,