Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 15.djvu/413

 THE ORIGIN OF SOCIETY 399

sciousness comes to be the chief connecting Hnk between indi- viduals living in association. As far back as we can go in mental evolution the psychic elements of life are a chief means of binding individuals of the same species together. Instincts, emotions, and sensations of one individual organism often seem made to fit into corresponding mental processes of another organ- ism; and varied means of interstimulation and response are developed. The mind seems to be social in its nature from the start, and to be at once a social product and a social instrument. The reason for this is now clear. Consciousness is concerned with the mediation of the activities of the life-process, particu- larly those of the food-process. But the life-process of the indi- vidual is only a part of the larger life-process of the group to which he belongs. The procuring of food and the protection against enemies, as we have seen, are activities which can be more successfully carried on by the group than by the individual. But consciousness is concerned with the mediation of these life activities. If they are carried on by groups it is evident that the only way the mind can control them is through some form of psychic interconnection between the individuals of the group. Hence have arisen the various forms of psychical interaction (interstimulation and response) between individuals. These forms of psychical interaction, in man at least, are so perfect that intelligence controls collective action almost as easily as individual action. Thus the social character of mind is an ex- pression of the fact that it has to do with the mediation of a process which is carried on by several co-operating individual units; while society, the psychical interrelations of these indi- viduals, means that there is one common process of living carried on by these co-operating units on the psychic plane, that is, on the plane of interstimulation and response.

THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN SOCIETY

The position already implied is that the processes involved in human association are fundamentally the same as in animal association; in other words, that animal society is the precursor of human society, and that, strictly speaking, human society is