Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/518

 502 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

change in his article on " Consciousness of Kind " in the Baldwin Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology, which was published four years after his second work, and it will therefore be the one adopted in the discussion which is to follow.

In the attempt to find a metaphysical element in the principle of consciousness of kind, the definition given above and Professor Giddings' exposition of the principle in his two books will be made the basis of the discussion.

We have seen, in the first part of the present paper, that the units with which sociology has to deal are conscious individuals. Professor Wundt holds that, since social organization has indi- viduals for its final unities, and so personalities, we can call social organizations Personalorganisationen. 8 Consequently, it is only fitting that the present discussion should begin with a considera- tion of the place of the self in consciousness of kind.

The argument for the necessity of the self-notion in and the appreciative nature of consciousness of kind, which is to follow, might arouse in the mind of someone the question : Does Pro- fessor Giddings really deny the self-notion as a constituent of consciousness of kind ; does he deny that there is an appreciative moment necessary in it ; would he not be ready to admit all the contentions of the present paper ? Or, in other words, an objector might say that the following argument is aimed at a "man of straw," at an intellectual position that does not exist. In order to answer this, we shall quote portions from Professor Giddings' books which will show that his general point of view makes it utterly impossible for him to allow the presence of the self in consciousness of kind, since he holds that the only sort of really causal energy in social phenomena is purely physical energy. The purely physical nature which he ascribes to social process makes it altogether impossible for him to admit that the self is present in it as a motive power.

It may be said, in the first place, that in the preface to the third edition of Principles of Sociology, Professor Giddings very distinctly denies the accusation that his principle is a metaphysical abstraction. Furthermore, we must call to mind one of his

Wundt, Logik, ad ed., Vol. II, p. 603.