Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 3.djvu/572

 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

and the society of German railroads. Another group of organs takes the social and economic point of view. They are represented by the national and circuit councils, with their standing committees and the committee of shippers. The latter are not legally responsible for the conduct of the railroads, but act as advisory bodies. They represent all the varied interests of the nation, and through them every citizen has not only an opportunity, but a right, to make his wants known.

' In tracing the development of the Prussian system, we should find that most of the railroads have been built from social and economic considerations, although political and military considerations have at times entered as factors. Right of construction has been surrounded by wholesome restrictions. Duties and responsibilities go hand in hand. The usefulness of any proposed line or system must be established before any application will receive consideration.

In the United States both the railroads and the public have gone to extremes, because neither understood the other. "A system like the Prussian reveals the rail- roads to the public and the public to the railroads. It tends to remove blind prejudice and violent measures on both sides. By reflecting accurately the existing condition, these conferences lead to tolerance, forbearance, and mutual concessions. The con- clusions reached often have as salutary an effect on industrial situations as suspended judgments of our courts on defendants. It would be difficult to find in Prussia today, among the representatives of any class or interest, objections to the entire railroad system which are not relatively insignificant. Both the public and the railroads have gained more and more as the system has developed. B. H. MEYER, Annals of the American Academy, November, 1897.

The Psychology of Social Organization. Two questions confront the thinker about society. The first question is concerning the matter or content of social organization. The second question is concerning the method of functioning and laws of organization of the social content or material. Under the caption matter or content of social organization we are concerned with what is organized, with what is passed about, duplicated, made use of in society, with what must be there for society to be. This content of social life is a changing, growing content, and interpretations of social phenomena must be based on this content. A growing, developing system results from the process of social organization.

" Progress is real, no matter what its direction, provided it results from the con- stant action of a uniform process of change in a uniform sort of material. This we find in social life, and is the prime requirement of social theory both in dealing with matter and in dealing with functions."

The imitation theory of Tarde, the constraint theory of Durkheim, the conscious- ness of kind theory of Giddings, and several other efforts at social interpretation, fail to give a satisfactory answer as to the matter of social organization, or give none at all. They all constantly confuse questions of matter and questions of method.

" The matter of social organization consists of thoughts; all kinds of knowledges and

informations These thoughts or knowledges or informations originate in the

mind of the individuals of the group as inventions, or more or less novel conceptions. At their origin, however, there is no reason for calling them social matter, since they are particular to the individual. They become social only when society that is, the other members of the social group, or some of them also thinks them, knows them, is informed of them. This reduces them from the individual and particular form to a general or social form, and it is only in this form that they furnish social material."

" It is only thoughts or knowledges which are imitable in the fruitful way required by a theory of progressive social organization." Beliefs and desires are not thus imitable. They are functions of knowledge contents about which they arise. "No belief can be induced in one individual by another except as the fact, truth, information believed is first induced. The imitator must first get the thought before he can imitate belief in the thought. So of desire. I cannot desire what you do, except as I think the desirable object somewhat as you do." The only alternative is to say that. beliefs and desires propagate themselves by the simple contagion of feeling and impulse. But the reign of feeling and impulse, whether it be by instinct or by sug-