Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/536

 $20 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

complex process at all. Such a complex psychological doctrine is by no means a requisite for the present contention. Suppose the social relationship is regarded as something much simpler than this, as simply a man-to-man intercourse without any thought of my notion of myself as including a notion of another, and so on. Going on this simple notion of social relationship, what would be the essential criterion on the basis of which the consciousness of kind is asserted? This would be found to be in a conscious give- and-take process in which the medium of exchange is thoughts. Just as soon as you throw out some thought and it brings a response from someone else, just so soon do you recognize him to be of like kind with yourself, since your own thought is, so to speak, directly reflected back to you; i. e., their reaction transmits thought-content to you. Animals do not give back a single thought. It is this conscious give-and-take process, this com- munity of thought, that binds people together; that makes ejective interpretation more than mere imagination ; that gives ejection its validity. This response is not indirect, but direct, since it takes place directly upon my own action. It is this direct and similar response to our thought that furnishes us with a criterion of judging others as of like kind with ourselves. If the objection to the preceding analysis of the social relationship was that it was too involved and abstract, it cannot hold here ; for nothing can be more intimate, more concrete, than the recognition of another by your throwing out a thought, and his immediate return of it to you in slightly changed form. When we try to explain it, how- ever, no matter how simple and direct it may seem, it will be found to require more than physical tendencies for its explanation. This is directly supported by Professor Royce's basing the judgment of the reality of other individuals our fellows and therefore individuals like ourselves, upon a value- judgment, upon appreciation. He says :

Our fellows are known to be real and to have an inner life, because they are for each of us the endless treasury of more ideas. They answer our ques- tions; they tell us news; they make comments; they pass judgments; they express novel combinations of feelings ; they relate to us stories ; they argue with us and take counsel with us. Or, to put the matter in a form still nearer