Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 15.djvu/429

 REVIEWS 415

but the organization of ideas more or less familiar. His English recalls Bagehot and Balfour rather than Spencer and Ward.

Professor Cooley is emphatic about the nature of the public mind and of public opinion. "Descartes might have said we think, cogitamus, on as good grounds as he said cogito" (p. 9). One should not be disturbed by differences, dissensions, and conflicts in social groups, or look for identity, like-mindedness, constant consensus. "The unity of the social mind consists not in agreement but in organization" (p. 4), although in order that minds may influ- ence each other and so co-operate there must of course be an under- lying likeness of nature. "That all minds are different is a condition, not an obstacle to the unity that consists in a differentiated and co- operative life" (p. 11). This is a frank way of meeting the common objection that the social mind never achieves more than a partial unanimity, is often a majority lording it over a minority. Conscious- ness is said to have three phases: self-consciousness or what I think of myself; social consciousness (in its individual aspect) or what I think of other people; and public consciousness, or a collective view of the foregoing as organized in a communicating group" (p. 12). It is hard to see where this third form would, have its seat. There seems to be danger of objectifying such a concept until it becomes a thing abstract and lifeless. It reminds one of the Zeitgeist and other elusive notions of the early Volkerpsychologie. If Professor Cooley regards this "collective view" as a phase of personal consciousness the terms are not happy and are open to the charge of vagueness.

While Professor Cooley is in close accord with contemporary psychological sociology, he differs suggestively at several points in his interpretations. He is for example not at all impressed by the distinction insisted upon by Tarde and adopted heartily by Ross, between tradition and convention. It is only the rapidity of modern communication which seems to create this contrast between "looking backward" and "looking sideways." Within a group a tradition is also a convention, and conventions must also be traditions (p. 337). As to the relative susceptibility of rural and urban popula- tions to the crowd influence, Professor Cooley takes issue squarely with Ross. The former regards country-folk as more easily swept away by the mob spirit. Ross declares the city crowd is less likely to keep its head.^ Again Professor Cooley objects to the view that

^Social Psychology, p. 58.

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