Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/234

 PROLEGOMENA TO SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY.

IV. THE CONCEPT OF THE SOCIAL MIND.

It must be admitted that the concept of a social mind does not appeal to the "plain man." If the "plain man's" judgment were our criterion of science, social psychology, along with the theory of a luminiferous ether in physics and many other nota- ble theories, would have to be consigned to the limbo of specula- tive fancies of over-erudite philosophers. There are others to whom, while not " plain-minded," the idea of a social mind will seem scarcely less absurd, either on account of some habit of thought or on account of a philosophic bias. Those who have been in the habit of associating with the word "mind" all that is usually implied in the English word "soul" will naturally be horrified on being told that societies have "minds." Again, a thorough-going individualist, fortified with k monadistic, Leib- nizian metaphysic, is hardly to be expected to find proof for the existence of socio-psychical processes in the facts of societary life ; for, according to his philosophic bias, are not individuals original and indestructible entities "without windows in their souls"? However, the social psychologist would get along very well if he had only to struggle with these two types of the learned and with the "plain man." But there is a third type of the learned whom he may well despair of convincing. These are those persons who, while able to see details, are not able to see the wider facts which connect the details. They cannot see unity in multiplicity, the whole process lying back of the more visible portions, or, as the old adage puts it, "the woods for the trees." They are not to be blamed for this, for their defect is due to their mental constitution rather than to an acquired bias. But because certain minds cannot see the truth in the percep- tions which social psychology is trying to enforce is no reason for rejecting them as mere fancies. This is especially true of the conception of a "social mind." The term is undoubtedly