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 75 SOCIETY A PSYCHICAL VNITYT 669

individual processes. He finds those essential elements to be psychic ; he therefore calls the whole inter-individual process a psychical pro- cess. If he called it a psycho-physical process, his adjective would but serve to obscure the essential fact in the social process which the psychological sociologists have sought to reveal, viz., that it is at bottom psychical.

In thus naming his processes or phenomena from the dominating element in them, the sociologist is doing only what the psychologist frequently does. Thus the psycho-physical co-ordination, which some psychologists think is the fundamental fact in our mental life, is usually spoken of as a psychical fact. The same is true of " instinct," " habit," and many other phenomena and processes com- monly spoken of as " psychical " by psychologists. It is simply con- venient to speak of these as psychical in the broad sense because they are such essentially and because they get their meaning from their connection with our conscious life.

Are there, then, inter-individual psychical processes, and, if so, in what sense ? We have already answered this question by implication in discussing the definition of the term " psychical ; " but let us con- sider it more closely. The picture which modern psychology presents of the individual mind is that of an isolated entity, as it were, each mind being wholly unconnected with other minds except through the intervention of physical media. Moreover, no definite causal connec- tion can be made out between one mind and another ; but each mind responds to physical stimuli, and among these stimuli are the signs or symbols created in the physical medium by other minds. It is thus that one mind acts upon another mind, though this is, of course, but a crude description of the process. But because of the close similarity of all minds of a given society on account of their development under similar biologic and social conditions, this action and reaction of mind upon mind through the intermediation of physical stimuli, so far from being insignificant, becomes an orderly, well-defined, and practically continuous process. It is this which we call the "social process," and we name its various phases communication, suggestion, imitation, and the like. Now, if we analyze this process, what do we get ? We get a number of physical and psychical elements ; but the physical elements are wholly subsidiary they have no meaning apart from the psychical elements in which the process takes its beginning and in which it finds its goal. We are justified, therefore, in calling the whole process a psychical process on account of the