Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 6.djvu/753

 THEORY OF IMITATION IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 739

social life; and as such a mediator in the adjustment of individ- uals to each other and to society at large imitation plays a great role in human affairs.

The second point has reference to the matter or substance of social organization. If the interpretation of the social life implied in this paper is at all true; if the social process is, indeed, any part of the life-process, then, in the words of Professor Dewey,* "society cannot be adequately conceived as an organization of thoughts." "Thoughts are relevant to the life-process to func- tioning activities." Thought functions to control and mediate activities on their universal side, while feeling functions to evalu- ate activities on their individual side. An organization of thoughts or feelings in the abstract is, therefore, impossible, as it presup- poses an organization of activities, just as all psychical organization presupposes physiological organization. There is no tendency toward the organization of thoughts (or of feelings) save as there is need of the organization of activities in the process of living. Indeed, the organization of thought exists because of the organiz- ing or organization of functional activities which must be con- trolled. The family, for example, presents an organized life ; it is, as has often been said, " society in miniature." But it is impossible to conceive of the family as simply an organization of thoughts or even of feelings ; it is primarily an organization of activi- ties ; and just because it is an organization of activities it devel- ops a wonderful organization of thoughts and feelings, making the unity of its life on the psychical side complete. So of society; primarily an organization of activities, a "functional interdependency," it becomes in time an organization of feel- ing, and finally an organization of thought. Why Professor Baldwin holds that the matter or substance of social organiza- tion consists of thoughts 2 is difficult to understand, unless he con- ceives this position to be more strictly in accord with the abstract requirements of the imitation theory of social organization. Herein we agree with him. But in so far as we recognize that the social process is linked with the whole life-process, we must

1 New World, September, 1898.


 * Social and Ethical Interpretations, pp. 487-506.