Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 15.djvu/428

 REVIEWS

Social Organization^ a Study of the Larger Mind. By Charles

HoRTON CooLEY. New York: Scribners, 1909. Pp.

xvii+426.

Designed from the standpoint of method to place in a larger

setting the social person treated in the author's Human Nature and

the Social Order, this second volume is even more striking as a

survey of modern society in Western Europe and the United States.

In a way the book is a series of lucid and discriminatmg essays upon

the chief social problems of the day. But it is more, for running

through the whole is a ^leory which gives unity to a wide range

of topics. The thesis workeH out in the earlier volume that indi-'

t/ vidual and society are both abstractions from a single life process,

is reiterated and amplified in the later. To this theory is added the

leading idea that grganization is the clue to social evolution and

the hope of future progress.

Thirty-seven chapters, grouped into five parts, deal consecutively with face-to- face groups which are described as the source of primary ideals, e. g., loyalty, truth, service, lawfulness, etc. ; show how by communication these groups are unified over vast areas and how public opinion is co-operatively created by leaders and the masses ; then analyze castes and classes with discussions of capital- istic ascendency, organization of workers, the problem of poverty and the character of class hostility; next define institutions in rela- tion to individuals, to progress, and to disorganization with special reference to the family, the church, business, education, and art; and finally treat the public will as a slowly emerging force, finding only partial expression in government, and groping toward a more

' rational guidance of social evolution. Within the limits of a survey so comprehensive scores of social situations are legitimately men- tioned, used by way of illustration, or discussed. There are no ideas which could be called striking, and few if any that are new or

I original, but they all gain clearness and meaning from the setting in which they are placed. This is not to deny to the author freshness of treatment and charm of style. His manifest aim is not research

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