Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/117

 PROLEGOMENA TO SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY I03

all the individual lives of the group, these socio-psychical prod- ucts could not possibly have arisen. The Zeitgeist, for example, is not merely an expression of individual mterests and activities ; it is much more an expression of the interest and activities of the national or cultural group as a whole. If it rested upon purely individual interests, it would be without a principle of organization and could not manifest those uniformities of devel- opment which have been so often noted by philosophers and his- torians. It is inconceivable, indeed, that any of the phenomena we have mentioned should either arise or exist unless there is some general process back of them which includes and organi- cally interrelates the psychical processes of individuals. The con- clusion, therefore, is that there could be no such phenomena as public opinion, the Zeitgeist, tradition, social ideals, and the like, if the individuals of asocial group were psychically autonomous and independent. But if there is a general social psychical pro- cess of which these phenomena are the expressions, then there can be no objection to examining the method or technique of that process ; and this constitutes the ample field of investiga- tion for social psychology.

Another argument that has been used to prove the reality of the psychical life of social groups, and especially of nations, has been the ap[)eal to direct experience. Every traveler, even under the homogeneous conditions of modern western civiliza- tion, has noted the immense difference between the psychical atmosphere of one country and that of another. He has found on crossing national boundaries, not only different institutions, customs, and beliefs, but he has found different ways of thinking, a different philosophy of life, different ideals, motives, and inter- ests, all so fundamentally at variance with his own, and yet so uniformly manifested throughout the national group, as to sug- gest that nations as well as individuals have a psychical life, dis- tinct from that of all other nations. These facts have been expressed in such sayings as, " Every nation is a state of mind," and in the common attribution of individuality to states. Of course, the appeal to direct experience in this case proves noth- ing ; it is only worthy of note because it indicates some truth