Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 15.djvu/629

 PSYCHOLOGICAL VIEW OF SOCIETY 615

even if no attention is paid to the complaints entered in it. To many, the inhibitions and conformities exacted by our complicated society would be intolerable, but for the "kicking" and "knocking" with which they are able to solace themselves. Co-ordinated activities, then, instead of being the out- ward sign of inward harmony among men, may only record the pressure of circumstances or necessity upon the co-operators, and may actually swell the volume of criticism and controversy in which they seek to find relief.

H, P. Fairchild, Bowdoin College

There is one criticism which it seems to me might be made upon this excellent and suggestive paper. This is that the author has given undue emphasis to the conscious element in the change of social habits, customs, folkways — call them what you will — to the exclusion of the unconscious or subconscious element. If I caught his point correctly, he stated that the course of events was as follows : A certain social habit fails to meet the requirements; people observe that it is no longer serving its purpose; by means of conversation and communication, criticism and discussion take place; new ideas arise, and in the course of time public opinion is changed in respect to the matter and through the force of public opinion the social fiabit is changed. The truth of this proposition is indubitable, and I should not wish to question it. But is it not equally true that the social habits have an equally decisive effect in determining public opinion?

One of the greatest lessons whch Professor Sumner has taught us is that the social habits, or folkways, or mores — to use his own word — change and grow and develop in response to forces which defy detection or description by the human mind. To use his own simile, they are like a mass of shifting clouds, constantly changing, no one knows how or why. The forces which cause the changes in the mores are inherent in the mores themselves, and the mores are what determines public opinion.

We have here simply one of those great social paradoxes, against which the sociologist constantly comes in his efforts to solve the problem of society. Two apparently contradictory propositions appear to be equally true. There is no better illustration than that furnished by the old ques- tion whether the growth of language conditions thought, or the growth of thought conditions language. It is impossible to conceive of any developed thought without language, and just as impossible to conceive of any formu- lated language without developed thought. Yet if one chose to look at only one side, one might build up an impressive argument for the absolute supremacy of either one of these factors.

So it is, all through the field of sociology, and one of the profoundest mistakes to which the sociologist is liable is the failure to grasp the fact that two propositions which appear diametrically opposed may both be true.