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 210 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

fectly fair to such writers, we must conclude, not that they have really conceived of society as a psychic unity, but rather that, in the absence of any adequate conception of the social unity based upon analysis, in the midst of a confusion of thought, they assert that the social is a psychic unity, not clearly seeing the implica- tions of such a statement.

So far I have simply taken for granted the truth of the asser- tion that the mechanical, the biological, and the psychological statements of the social unity are merely analogies, crediting the writers in each case with a more or less vague feeling that they were analogies, and yet accusing them of a failure to state the unity in non-analogical terms, even when their superstructure has implied such a possible statement. At this time it is unnecessary to offer any argument to show that the assumption of their being mere analogies is true in the case of the first two ; but there is a considerable number of writers of repute who still maintain that the psychological analogy is not an analogy, that "the socio- logical organism is in the final analysis a psychic organism." *

While I have, for the sake of fairness, distinguished between the form of statement and the actual belief held by these writers, crediting them in most instances with better thinking than the form of statement would allow, I do not mean to hold the form of statement as a matter of small importance. Taking the most favorable view of an author's theory, it is still true that a false statement is the result of false, or confused, thinking. It is the purpose of this paper to criticise the psychological statement, showing that the social unity is not a psychic unity. An attempt will also be made to set forth the true nature of the social unity.

A discussion of the question of the nature of the social unity must be preceded by some consideration of the question of unity itself. 2 This cannot be done in any adequate way in this place, neither is it possible to avoid some statement of the position so

1 VINCENT, Tin Social Mind and Education, p. 92.

1 While not following him precisely, and while in some respects reaching a conclusion differing from his, I must acknowledge my indebtedness to J. S. Mackenzie for the general form of this analysis. See MACKENZIE, Introduction to Social Philosophy, chap. iii.