Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 15.djvu/54

40 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY has been guilty of gross corruption and graft, but the sentiment is quite another thing than the opinion. Some sentiments, moreover, do not rest upon opinions at all. Such are those which are the product of prejudice, heredity, or tradition. You can scarcely refer the antipathy existing between the Frenchman and the German to any generally current opinion. It is a matter of heredity and tradition. The outburst of public opinion in England against the Roman Catholic Church, which demanded and secured the Ecclesiastical Titles Act, was founded much more on prejudice than anything else; it was not opinion proper, but sentiment.

If sentiment is often the product of opinion, desire is often the product of sentiment, but likewise is quite distinct. Our sentiment of outrage against the Standard Oil Company may lead us to desire its prosecution in the federal courts. Desire is not a process of reasoning, or an emotion, but an act of will.

Thus we have an ascending scale of mental acts which may be so common among the individuals composing a public as to be termed public opinion, public sentiment, or public will. To use the term public opinion for all is necessarily misleading but unavoidable. These are the only mental acts of which a public is capable; that is to say, the only mental acts which, being exercised by a large group of individuals, serve as a bond of union between them all. Imagination, for example, cannot be conceived of as affording such a bond; or perception, or attention. These may all contribute to the opinion, sentiment, or desire, but no bond of association is formed until we have a common opinion, a common sentiment, or a common desire. A group of individuals casually collected may all witness a dog fight, but the common perception does not constitute them a public. If, however, they have all come together for the purpose of seeing the dog fight there is something more than common perception, viz., the common opinion that it will prove interesting, the common sentiment of sport, and the common desire to see the fight. Such a group would be a public. Thus we speak quite correctly of a public at the theater. Such a body of individuals are brought together by mutual opinions, mutual sentiments, and mutual desires.