Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 15.djvu/628

 6l4 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

The reality which sociology is to explain is the process of interwoven activi- ties which condition each other and are conditioned also by the biological traits of the species and of its different races and individuals, and by the natural environments in which they live, and by the modifications of the physical environment produced by their own work. None of these con- ditioning phenomena can sociology explain save as an explanation of the direct consequences of social activities is involved in the explanation of those activities which themselves are the only ultimate objects of socio logical investigation.

May we convert the statement of Professor EUwood into this : Society is a process of interwoven activities mutually conditioned by their inter- relationships ?

E. A. Ross, The University of Wisconsin

I am in entire agreement with Dr. Ellwood in regarding society as essentially psychical. Sound in substance and admirable in form, his paper expresses, I think, the view upon which the best lines of sociological thought are converging. It is likely that the point I am about to make is a supplement rather than a criticism of his theory.

In some the paper may leave the impression that co-ordinated activity among men is but the visible consequence of agreements in beliefs or emotional attitudes. But this, I fancy, is altogether too simple a view of the matter. Men co-operate in order to realize certain obvious advan- tages or to avoid certain evils, but often they don't like it. They have had to force themselves to override their individual preferences, and so they seek redress by criticism and dissent. They take their revenge for having to make sacrifices and work together by indulging themselves in sharper opposition in the subjective sphere. For we are liable to forget what gnarly, rough-barked, cantankerous natures have to be brought into social co-operations. A certain German philosopher confesses that he de- tects in himself "a gentle, often scarcely conscious, and even immediately vanishing, impulse to say 'no' to an assertion or an appeal!" Recall the Irishman who was always "agin' the government." Recall Robert Fergue- son, of whom Macaulay said "His hostility was not to popery or to Protes- tantism, to monarchical government or to republican government, to the house of Stuart or to the house of Nassau, but to whatever was at the time established."

Such natures — and many of us have this streak — suffer when the steam roller of social co-ordination passes over them, and they "take :t out" in the psychical sphere by protest and contradiction. This is why free criticism of government averts revolt. A Douma may be a safety valve which, by giving vent to irritations, actually aids government to com- mand obedience. A Beschwerde-Buch is a -good thing to offer the public