Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/839

 PROLEGOMENA TO SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 819

and illustrating the application of that point of view to the con- crete problems of social life.

In a similar manner the principles of interpretation furnished by a functional psychology may be applied to other social prob- lems. Though we can but roughly apply our principles in most instances, there is, so far as we have been able to discover, no case of change within a society to which such principles of inter- pretation will not apply, and upon which they will not throw some light, whether the transition be one occupjing a few years or a century. Let us now, for the sake of further illustration, take another concrete case in which the transition has been gradual and unattended by violent disturbance in the social process. The semi-patriarchal type of family which prevailed in Christen- dom up to the present century has been gradually breaking down. It has been unfitted to meet the new conditions of mod- ern life. The old social habit has been going to pieces, and the usual confusion, uncertainty, and disorganization, attendant upon the breakdown of an important habit, have been manifested. Divorces have increased, and irregular forms of union have been, perhaps, more common. But in the meanwhile a new type of family, a new social habit, has been forming. By discussion, continuous social suggestion, social selection of ideas and ideals — processes familiar in every period of transition in human soci- ety — a new social coordination is being built up. We have every reason to believe, therefore, that when the process of social selection has been completed, and ideas adequate to the construction of a new social coordination, adapted to the present life-conditions, have been found, there will be a return to com- parative fixity in the form of family life. A new type of family, in other words, will have emerged, a new social habit will have been formed. Present disturbances in family life, then, are to be regarded largely as phenomena attendant upon a transi- tionary stage, when an old social habit has broken down and a new habit has not yet been formed. Thus the principles of a functional social psychology may throw light upon present social phenomena and problems as well as upon those of the past. Hundreds of illustrations of the application of the principles