Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/357

 THE SOCIAL WILL 341

little and learn ever so little, let it start to dig a hole or two toward China, and the thought that there is day always and night always comes into mind, and at once good-by to its swinging- pendulum view of history. But in like manner there is religion always and there is irreligion always, religion being more than anybody's credo or any era's ritual, exactly as the day is more than the light on anybody's birth-place, and the irreligion being- only the never-silent witness that religion is more. And there is socialism always and individualism always, society being more than either the programs or the institutions of any time, and individuality being the constant force that keeps society more. Why, if the teachers of rhetoric will allow me, I must express the wish that the pendulum historians now surviving at once set aside their frocks, assume man's attire, travel beyond the hills of their childhood's day and night, think a while, and then take to riding another horse. To any who can see only religion or only irreligion in any people or class of people or at any time, or as of more direct concern here who see only socialism or only individualism, there is, I think, no better advice than this: Start a hole to China. The hole will never get there, but their minds may.

So, again, we are impressed with the idea that society and individuality are not two realities, exclusive and independent, but one, or, if possibly two, so inseparable, being spatially and tem- porally concomitant, as to be only formally two, as to be virtually one ; and this idea involves a very fruitful conception of society. Thus it carries with it certain definite conclusions about the social consciousness, and about the history and progress of society, and about the functions of the many social institutions ; and, more than all, it implies a particular view of the social will. Before turning to this view, however, or to any of those other matters, we shall do well to consider the second of our two fundamental questions.

In general, what is will ? Adaptive activity that is at once conscious of its meaning and constrained by its consciousness. Creatures of will know what they are doing and are impelled in what they do to enact or apply what they know. Of course, this