Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/673

 THE SOCIAL AND THE EXTRA-SOCIAL 653

say a whirlwind which blows away the isolated individuals; but the biological forces are the life processes in those which are left. The whirlwind is the condition by which the result has been in a measure negatively determined ; but who would say that the whirlwind is a biological force? At the most it is an intrusion of physics into the biological cycle. Just so with all the physical changes considered as influencing social life and development: they are conditions, intrusions from physics ; not social forces. The consideration of these extra-social conditions confirms us, therefore, in our view that only psychological sources of change' can be called "social forces," even in the figurative sense in which it is legitimate to use that word at a!l.° Other such conditions may be pointed out, but the examination of them will lead to the same conclusion.

(Sec. 169^2.) — The question may very well be asked at this point how the various so-called "self-thoughts" hitherto dis- tinguished are related to each other, and also how they are possible if the mind in all its development is proceeding with what has been called an identical content, in its thought of self. It is desirable, therefore, to make sure that we are not entangling ourselves in the meshes of our own details and distinctions. The matter straightens itself out when we recall to mind certain points already made out in what precedes.

First, we may recall the fact that a mental content may be considered either for itself or with regard to the attitudes, the

' And these of a particular sort. Inside of psychology the same distinction is to be made between "conditions" and "social forces." Not even all thoughts (as 1 have been represented as saying), but only certain thoughts (see Soc. and Etii. Inter- pretations, Sees. 325 f.), become social. Beliefs, desires, appetites, etc., are psycholog- ical conditions of the social.

'Figurative, since "force" is a physical conception. It means that which pro- duces a change of rest or motion ; and the sorts of forces are those producers of change which manifest themselves under different but constant physical conditions. We speak of mental, sociological, etc., forces in the analogous case of change in phenomena of one of these several orders ; and to give the term any intelligible meaning we must keep within the particular order of phenomena as strictly as does the physicist in defining his forces always in terms of motion in space which deter- mines other motion in space. In other words, the force is intrinsic or internal to the movement in which it is said to be manifested.