Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/230

 218 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

come to processes that can be described only in terms of indi- vidual activity. Thus we have the various industrial processes as partial social processes. Take one, say the food-producing process of a given society. This may be subdivided into its parts agriculture, manufacturing, and commerce. Take one of these, say manufacturing, and that may be subdivided into vari- ous stages and processes. Continuing this subdivision, we eventu- ally reach a process which is performed by an individual man shoveling coal, for instance. The partial processes involved in this individual activity are describable only in biological or psy- chological terms. On the one hand, there is a certain physical organism operating through its parts in such a way as to accomplish a certain objective result moving the coal. On the other hand, there is a certain process of consciousness. The indi- vidual feels in certain ways, he knows certain things, he has certain purposes and employs certain means to their attainment.

This analysis could be continued further, on both the objective and the subjective sides, but it is unnecessary for the present pur- pose. The important thing to be noticed is that at a certain stage of the analysis we reach the conscious individual, and that the real end of the whole process lies in such individuals. // is only as social ends are transmuted into conscious valuations that there is any real end. In the case of the plant, in order to find a real end it was necessary to look to a larger whole embracing some conscious individual. In the case of society, in order to find a real end it is necessary to look to a smaller whole, a part of society a conscious individual. In this respect the objectively organic unity of society differs from that of the biological unity.

So far the nature of the psychic unity has been taken for granted, and now it will need but brief statement in order to distinguish between it and the social unity. Psychology treats of consciousness as such. The psychic unity is the subjective individual. The individual is conscious of himself as a self. All the mental processes belong to him. To all of his experience he gives a self-reference. The individual perceives, remembers, imagines, reasons, feels, etc., and knows that he does these things. They are partial processes deriving their meaning from -their