Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 2.djvu/100

 86 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

negative, is the real force in the sentient world. It is the dynamic agent in the animal world including the human sphere, and therefore constitutes the social force. It is essentially psychic, and this is the bond which lashes sociology so directly and so firmly to psychology.

The same reason exists, and no better, for speaking of this phenomenon in the plural and recognizing the existence of social forces as we saw for speaking of the universal force in the plural and recognizing physical forces. Just as gravitation, heat, light, etc., are only so many modes of manifestation of the universal force, so the various social forces that may be separately con- sidered are only so many modes of manifestation of the one social or psychic force. Indeed, this psychic force itself is in its turn only a mode of manifestation of the universal force. "Desire is the all-pervading, world-animating principle, the universal nisus and pulse of nature, the mainspring of all action, and the life-power of the world. It is organic force. Its multiple forms, like the many forces of the physical world, are the varied expressions of one universal force. They are transmutable into one another. Their sum is unchanged thereby, and all vital energy is conserved. It is the basis of psychic physics and the only foundation for a science of mind.

It should, however, be added that the parallel between physics and psychics, as thus defined, fails at one point. While, so far as is known, there has never been any loss of psychic energy, it is certain that there has been an immense increase of it. Indeed, time was when none existed. It has developed or been evolved with all organic nature and has increased pari passu with the increase of mind and the development of brain. Complete analogy between the organic and inorganic forces is not reached until it is recognized that the former are derived from the latter, and that vital and psychic forces are simply additional forms of the universal force. The soul of man has come from the soul of the atom after passing through the great alembic of organic life." 1

1 Psychic Factors, pp. 55-56.