Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 6.djvu/342

328 persons—tends to produce rapid and radical degeneration. For example, intermarriages, such as those of the Jukes (described by Dugdale), the tribe of Ishmael (described by McCulloch), the Smoky Pilgrims (described by Blackmar,, January, 1897), the Bavarian royal family, the Virginia poor whites, etc., etc. Groups like these abstract themselves from the larger world and virtually live in a world of few people. Under the second head we may simply remark that the modifying effect of multiplicity of persons upon the thoughts, actions, and experiences of men is now so notorious that it has given rise to that section of social science which we name "mass-psychology." The scope of this science will be more particularly discussed in later papers. But we have to observe at this point that very familiar facts betray to the most casual observation the subtle action of mere numbers. Such instances as "students' night" at the Y. M. C. A. furnish cases in point. Whatever may be our opinion of the individual characteristics of the members of the crowd, we know that certain of these traits would not come to expression without the reinforcement of numbers. Again, it would be easy to fill a volume with observations upon the modifying effects of city life upon the manners and the characters of persons. This change is both positive and negative. There are stimulating and disciplinary results from mingling with large numbers of people, and there are the opposite effects of being lost in the crowd, the sense of irresponsibility, the feeling of license, the repudiation of former standards of morality, etc. No one has attempted to fix the precise point of equilibrium between small and large numbers in their healthful and unhealthful effect on persons. The probability is that this point varies in relation to different factors; but that there is such a point above and below which increasing or diminishing numbers exert rapidly changing influence is familiar to every student of society.

Accordingly, as we have argued before, when Durkheim, for instance, assigns to sociology the sphere in which there is the exercise of social constraint, and when DeGreef makes the