Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/682

 IS SOCIETY A PSYCHICAL UNITY?

A REJOINDER

In the September issue of the American Journal of Sociology Dr. Romanzo Adams takes myself and others to task for defending the theory that society is a psychical unity. He says in effect that the unity of society is purely objective, and, hence, not psychic; that there are no inter-individual psychic processes ; that such phenomena as public opinion, tradition, and the Zeitgeist are not psychic phe- nomena at all, if viewed from the standpoint of their unity. 1 He thinks that the psychological sociologists have been guilty of con- fusing the unity of the social process with the unity of the psychic process, whereas there is only an analogy between them. He says : " If we attempt to describe the activity of several co-operating per- sons [i. e., a society] in terms of psychic processes, we have not unity, but plurality. If we conceive of the activity of all as a single unified process a social process we must describe it in objective, not in psychological, terms." 2 His conclusion is : " Society is not a sub- jectively organic whole. It is not a psychic whole." 8 But it is "an objectively organic unity whose constituent parts are psychic individuals." 4

Under ordinary circumstances, I should not ask to use the pages of this Journal to reply to any criticism made of my theories. But Mr. Adams's criticism is so fundamental, and is directed against other sociologists as well as myself, that I must beg space to reply. In my opinion, the whole future development of sociology, and of the social sciences as I conceive them, necessarily depends upon the acceptance or rejection of this theory that society is a psychical unity. Even though the question proves at bottom to be but a question of termin- ology and definitions, still in this formative stage of our science it is important that the whole matter be cleared up, so that in the future the confusion which now exists regarding the use of such terms may be avoided.

It is evident, even upon superficial consideration, that the main question at issue between Mr. Adams and myself is one of the defini-

1 American Journal of Sociology, VoL X, p. 225. 1 Ibid., p. 213. 'Ibid., p. 217. * Ibid., p. 227.

666