Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/361



in his Social and Ethical Interpretations of Mental Development has set forth a theory of psychic recapitulation supplementary to that which the biologists have developed. In aiming to prove that the mind of the child passes through certain definite stages corresponding to those which human society has followed, he finds in each the following three stages:

1. A primary or organic stage, corresponding to the prehuman or animal stage of physical strife and " instinctive coöperation."

2. The "spontaneous, or frank, trustful, 'free and easy,' social stage," corresponding to the "tendency to family life and the germinal beginnings of social and collective action which we see illustrated in some degree in the animal king- dom."

3. The self-conscious or reflective stage, beginning about the sixth year and corresponding to the period of distinctively intelligent social life which began with "the discovery of the arts of tilling the soil and living, for some of his meals at least, on vegetables. [Here] the social tide sets in. The quiet of domestic union and reciprocal service comes to comfort him, and his nomadic and agricultural habits are formed. He lives longer in one place, begins to have respect for the rights of property, gives and takes with his fellows by the bargain rather than by strife, and so learns to believe, trust, and fulfill the belief and trust." Here also is the rise of totemism and its accompanying recognition of a clan or public interest, as distinguished from mere private interest, a distinction to be found strongly "marked in the child's social development at the very beginning of his growth into real moral personality."