Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 15.djvu/762

 748 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

leading idea is thus worked out in detail. This is followed by a thrill of forceful feeling when at the close of the day he says to himself, "I have finished it." Just so the thinker, when he reaches the solution of a problem, exclaims with a thrill of force- ful feeling, "I've got it."

The scholar, also, sometimes owes his leading idea to the intense feeling it arouses. For instance, why is it that so many writers derive their leading ideas, not from an original observa- tion and classification of facts, but from a modification of the leading ideas of other writers ? They say they see no reason why they should do over again the work already done. But the reason why they regard the leading idea of a rival as representing work permanently done is, often, that it is the idea of a rival and as such holds the attention. Instead of making an original study of the facts on which the so-called "law" rests, they make a simple modification of it for controversial purposes and devote themselves to proving the truth of their modification. This entire process may be largely subconscious.

The experiences of the day's work, whether manual or scien- tific work, are related by the farmer or writer when he meets his fellows in the evening. He seems to seek his fellows as if they were the stimulus needed to set going this expansive cogni- tion. During the day, however, offers of companionship are resisted as interfering with attention to work. Expansive cogni- tion differs from forceful cognition in that the imagination covers the main experiences of the day with an impatience of the details which the attention emphasized during the day. This principle of the identity of expansive and forceful states, the difference between them being in the nature of the process in which they occur, is verified by investigations in other fields. Hirn notes that the serious work of peoples becomes the patterns from which they copy their art. He points out that the amuse- ments of warlike nations consist mainly of exercises which are preliminary to, or reminiscent of, battle. "Where the struggle for existence is a contest with nature and not with fellow-men, a hunting or fishing pantomime usually takes the place of these