Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 6.djvu/371

 THE SCOPE OF SOCIOLOGY 357

Assenting in full to the general purport of the citation from Tarde, we furthermore concede at once that the fact to which we apply the term "social consciousness" is in one sense included in the fact which we have called above " subjective environment." All the content of the social consciousness in a given case is a part of the subjective environment of the persons in whom it occurs. At the same time, a very replete subjective environment in an individual or in an aggregation of individuals may contain but a minimum of social consciousness. Although the latter may be placed schematically as a species under the former as genus, each seems to be in fact a direct phase and expression of association, no more dependent on the other than each incident in our schedule is dependent upon all the rest.

The phrase "social consciousness" has been construed in various ways, and survival must render the verdict of fitness ; but there are certain plain facts which must not be confounded with each other, however we apply terms in dealing with them. The fact which is of most importance in this connection, to which we now apply the term "social consciousness," is that at some time or other, and with some degree of clearness or other, members of every group perceive that the group exists, that they condition it and are conditioned by it, that their individual interests are more or less bound up with the affairs of the group, and that the existence and prosperity of the group are depend- ent upon the conduct of its constituent individuals. All of this mental state, with its varying scope and intensity, that is in any individual's mind, is his social consciousness. If the group is composed of a thousand persons, and if in each of them the fact of the group-relationship has risen above the threshold of consciousness, to that extent social consciousness is a part of the subjective environment of that group. For instance, assum- ing that there is a common something in the minds of all the Frenchmen in an arrondissement when they shout, Vive la France! that common element may be called the group-opinion, the group-feeling, or the group-sentiment, and it would be a part of the subjective environment of the group. It might or might not contain elements of social consciousness. It is conceivable