Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/596

 itself is supposed to be a supernatural eternal being, and consequently existing not only in a real, but in an eminent sense.

But, of course, all feelings of this kind are but to a limited extent liable to retard the progress of a consciousness of individual interests, or, as it is commonly spoken of—with a taint of moral reproach—of selfishness. As a matter of fact, it is the natural ripening of consciousness and thinking itself which makes reflection prevail over sentiment, and which manifests itself, first and foremost, in reflection upon a man’s own personal interest, in the weighing and measuring of costs and results; but, secondly, also in a similar reflection upon some common interest or business which a person, from whatever motive, selfish or not, has made his own affair; and, thirdly, in that unbiased interest in and reflection upon the nature and causes of things and events, of man’s happiness and social existence, which we call scientific or philosophical.

All reflection is, in the first instance, analytical. I have spoken already of the dissolving principle which lies in the pursuing of one’s own personal affairs, of which the chase after profit is but the most characteristic form. But the same individualistic standpoint is the standpoint, or at least the prevailing tendency, of science also. It is nominalism which pervades science and opposes itself to all confused and obscure conceptions, closely connected, as it is, with a striving after distinctness and clearness and mathematical reasoning. This nominalism also penetrates into men’s supposed collective realities (supernatural or not), declaring them to be void and unreal, except in so far as individual and real men have consented to make such an artificial being, to construct it, and to build it up mentally. Knowledge and criticism oppose themselves to faith and intuition, in this as in most other respects, and try to supplant them. To know how a church or a state is created means the downfall of that belief in its supernatural essence and existence which manifestly is so natural to human feeling and intellect. The spirit of science is at the same time the spirit of freedom and of individualistic self-assertion, in contradiction and in opposition to the laws and ties of custom—as well as of religion, so intimately connected and homologous with custom—