Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 15.djvu/761

 A THEORY OF SOCIAL MOTIVES 747

their feeling concomitant. From this we infer — and observation bears out the inference — that intimacy of association, because it multiplies perceptions, stimulates the cognitive processes of a population at the expense of the feeling-process. Thus city life is said to reduce the intensity of family, political, and religious feel- ing. On the other hand, among the rural population, the move- ment of states is slower, the feeling-element is more intense as compared with the cognitive element, and these feelings suggest images and ideas. Thus the Semitic peoples, largely rural, were more intensely religious than the Athenians. The rural popula- tion of today is more intensely religious than the urban.

Turning to the process of forceful cognition, we note that here the succession of states is not determined by the fact that they occur together in space or in time or that they are analogous one to another. Their succession is determined by their intrinsic relation to a leading idea. Feeling often plays an essential part in establishing a leading idea. For instance, our perception of an acquaintance is not merely of an individual of a certain height, and shape of nose and forehead. These characteristics do not all make the same impression upon us. The strongest impression is made by the eyes and the shape of the mouth because these stir the strongest instinctive feeling. This principle holds in more intricate cognitive processes. Thus, if, in discussing the trust problem, the teacher sets consumers against the trust, or if in discussing the labor problem, he sets capital against labor, he establishes a leading idea which holds the attention of students because it appeals to the feelings ; with the attention centered on this leading idea, students will follow a teacher through a train of reasoning as they would not otherwise. Again, when our isolated farmer awakens in the morning his leading idea is of his day's work and he attempts to intensify this idea by taking a stint and declaring he will finish that stint before the day is done or become a quitter. Having thus established a leading idea by associating it with strong forceful feeling, he begins, at breakfast, to plan the day's work, during which he is restless, the images suggesting instinctive movements. Then follows the active work of the day in which each plan is realized or modified and the total