Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/139

 REVIEWS 127

understand wholly, he develops his theory of impulse through contrast- ing the role of the two in society. The following can be gleaned from the discussion :

Activity is prompted either by desires or by impulses (p. 195). The aim of desire is satisfaction ; that of impulse, ends. Impulse is the psychic feeling accompanying the outgo of energy. Desire is the feel- ing accompanying the consumption of goods (p. 185). (Here it is clear that Dr. Patten confounds desire with its satisfaction.) Surplus energy stimulates impulse. Impulses are the motives that prompt complete adjustment. Thus, according to Dr. Patten, impulse is the progressive principle in human society. His impulse denotes the usual case in which the satisfaction of desire is not immediate, but where prolonged efforts are necessary for the attainment of the end, and it is in these efforts that the progressive principle resides. Through desire and its satisfaction which is immediate, society remains static. Impulse, which causes men to strive upward and onward toward the ideal, is the dynamic agent that transforms the type of the social structure. Desires are the outcome of past conditions and local situations, and as they become prominent they isolate men into the elementary groups out of which society came. Impulses spring from the new situations acquired through surplus energy. They blend the isolating elements, and give prominence to the new and the general toward which society is moving (p. 206). Society thus disintegrates on the side of desire and inte- grates on that of impulse (p. 206). Hence the only way to make a complex society continue progressive is to instil into all members of all classes the same impulses and ideals. If desire alone were observed in each of these classes of the heterogeneous society, the past, different for each class, would be accented and the disrupting forces alone set free. Hence the means of union in a mixed society are similar impulses and ideals tending toward a future common to all. This brings us to Dr. Patten's discussion of the origin and evolution of the group-ideal. The importance which he attaches to the function of the ideal is seen in the following :

The belief in a better-than-self is the binding element on whose ascend- ency the continuance of each social group and institution depends (p. 190). Self-repression is group-exaltation ; it makes clubs, unions, clans, parties, and churches, and these in turn pave the way for the feeling of nationality. A simple impulse thus produces great effects. Men with a large social surplus cannot remain normal except through changes that impute to the social type a higher personality than that found in