Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/684

 668 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

processes of consciousness. But psychologists are not wholly agreed that the " psychic " or " mental " is confined entirely to the conscious. There are still many psychologists, for example, who would not object to calling such a phenomenon as unconscious imitation (an admitted fact) a mental or psychical phenomenon. That it is such in a broad sense must be obvious from the absurdity of describing it merely as a physical phenomenon. Indeed, while the advantages of a narrow conception of the " psychical " may be great to those inter- ested in the exactness of psychological science, the disadvantages of such a narrow conception of psychical in the fields of sociology and philosophy must be manifest.

The broader meaning which must be given to the term "psy- chical " in sociology is simply the meaning which it has long had in scientific and philosophical terminology, viz., the opposite of " physi- cal." It is in this sense that I have always used the term, and I believe the same is true of all the psychological sociologists. For example, when the psychological sociologists have called society " a psychical organism," it cannot be supposed that they meant to say that it is a conscious organism. "Psychical," in this broad sense, includes, not only the conscious, but whatever pertains to, has refer- ence to, or gets its meaning from, consciousness. Thus a process may be largely physical, but because it emerges at some point in con- sciousness, and gets its meaning from its conscious part, it may be described as psychical. For example, the process of communication between two persons is always largely made up of physical elements ; but from the standpoint of its unity (and here I must remind Mr. Adams that unity is but " a limiting conception," " a whole of atten- tion ") we describe the process as psychical, because the whole process has reference to consciousness, gets its meaning from its purely psychical elements. Nor does it matter how far the communi- cating persons are separated in space ; communication still remains essentially a psychical process even if the individuals communicating are as far apart as the antipodes. Nor does it matter, either, how far the persons are separated in time. Thus, all tradition, which in the sociological sense includes all handing down of knowledge from the past, is a psychical process.

It does not help to call these social processes in which physical elements are involved psycho-physical processes. For the sociologist in seeking to explain the connections between individuals must fix attention upon the significant or essential elements in the inter-