Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/240

 226 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

of a social group become conscious of their solidarity as a group. This "group-consciousness," like the consciousness of the individual, manifests itself only when there is an interrup- tion in group-habits — only when it is necessary for the group as a whole to make some new adjustment. This consciousness or feeling of identity on the part of the members of a group may be regarded as the social consciousness par excellence, as it is that part of the consciousness of the individual which is par- ticularly concerned in the functioning of the group under diffi- culty, that is, when some problem confronts the group as a whole. Or, if we choose to consider all consciousness as social con- sciousness, as we undoubtedly may do from one point of view, then consciousness of social solidarity, of group unity, may be regarded as a sort of social self-consciousness. Such social self-consciousness, like the self-consciousness of the individual, tends to become more continuous and more vivid as the process of development advances, since the nature of that process is to increase the complexity of life-conditions, and-thereby the number of problems requiring new adjustments to be made. In a word, it shows the same laws of function and development as individual consciousness in general. This is the " social consciousness" which is referred to by most writers on social psychology; and as it is peculiarly the expression of the socio-psychical process, it may justly be regarded as entitled to the name, although its position in the socio-psychical process, as well as its relation to the individual psychical process, must not be forgotten. Mani- festly there is no sense other than the two mentioned in which the term "social consciousness" can be used with reference to reality. The socio-psychical process is not highly unified both structurally and functionally, like the psychical processes of the individual, and so does not form a single unified consciousness, a single center of experience, like the individual mind.

There is no social consciousness, then, which is apart from or more than individual consciousness. The individual, not the social group, rs, and from the very nature of the process of devel- opment must always remain, the center of experience. These propositions are so self-evident that it seems almost absurd even