Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 15.djvu/168

 154 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

that the social process is a complex, and cannot be interpreted by any single phrase. It includes all of the forces mentioned above, and more. "Imitation" is a powerful social factor, but it is hardly more important than inhibition. The "thou shalt nots" have played a large role in the life of the race, as they do still in the life of the individual. Similarly "conflict" and "contract" offset each other, and "consciousness of kind" is hardly more conspicuous as a social force than consciousness of difference. The reader who is interested in theories of the social process will find them fully discussed in Professor Small's General Sociology.

There is, however, a useful concept into which all activity can be translated, or to which it can at least be related, namely, control. Control is not a social force, but is the object, realized or unrealized, of all purposive activity. Food and reproduction are the two primal necessities, if the race is to exist. The whole design of nature with reference to organic life is to nourish the individual and provide a new generation before the death of the old, and the most elementary statement, as I take it, which can be made of individual and of social activity is that it is designed to secure that control of the environment which will assure these two results. I will illustrate my meaning by applying the con- cept of control to some of the steps in organic and social de- velopment.

The animal differs from the plant primarily in its superior control of the environment, secured through the power of motion. It does not wait for food, but goes after it. In this connection we have an explanation of the organs of sense and of prehension which characterize the animal. All the multitudinous and varied structures of animal life will, indeed, be found to answer to peculiar modes of control which are secured to the animal through them. In man the principle of motion and consequent control is extended through the use of animals and the various means of mechanical transportation which he has developed. With the use of free hands man immensely increased his con- trol, through the ability to make and use weapons and tools. Fire is a very precious element in control, since through its use