Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/202

 1 90 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

before it existed as a fact. Each of the little inventive exploits which fuse into an achievement, like articulate speech, or the art of building, or the sewing machine, can be traced to the individual mind. It originates in a unique thought, not a more or less of something. It is not a chance outcome of the activities of several individuals. On the other hand, a social custom, relationship, institution, or grouping need not be conceived in thought before it exists in reality. It may be an unconscious development, the casual resultant of diverse factors. It may come about because the sum of the plus forces has come to exceed the minus forces. Aristotle feels justified in distinguishing monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, and in regarding the passage from one form to another as social change. Yet the basis for his classification of governments is purely quantitative difference whether power is in the hands of the One, the Few, or the Many. The town is a distinct social formation, yet it arises without forethought by man after man leaving his clod and gping- where Opportunity beckons. Spontaneous, likewise, is the origin of the division of labor between districts and between crafts. After tillage is begun, the blood-bond grows into the place-bond ; but who would think of saying that the hollow log grows into the canoe, or the candle grows into the arc light? The economist sharply con- trasts custom and competition, yet the transition from the one to the other never comes about through an individual's initiative. Polygamy and monogamy were not invented, nor did divorce begin with some bold spirit, as did tracheotomy and the use of ether. No one now believes that slavery came or went with a shifting of speculative ideas. The proverbial impotency of preaching shows that the standards which fix the moral plane of a people do not ordinarily spread abroad from some ethical inno- vator, but spring naturally from the life-situation in which the majority find themselves.

Again, it is an error to suppose that the series of transform- ing innovations are as many and as distinct as are the orders of social phenomena. This assumption overlooks the consensus that binds together the spheres of social life. Religion is changed not only by distinctively religious innovations, but- also