Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/370

 354 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

And once more, if somebody insists that, in the fact of indi- vidual leadership in society, there is evidence of a real, of a really undivided group-will, it is quite sufficient to say in reply that leadership on the monarchical plan is the only leadership which could ever afford such testimony, and that on that plan leader- ship has been weighed in the balance and found wanting. Leaders are always individuals, and by nature individuals are partial and abstractly idealistic in both views and actions, seeing and doing everything under the glamour of their special stand- points. Such partiality, however, with its accompanying abstrac- tions, needs, and always meets, a balance or a counteraction in kind, which asserts itself with some strength even in the life and consciousness of the individual himself or of his own immediate following, but always most effectively in the life and conscious- ness that is somewhat apart from his; for only so, that is to say, only by individuals and classes being in their partiality and abstraction mutually corrective or compensative, can the real life and the whole life of society be conserved ; only so can individuals be parties to a practical life. Leadership, then, prac- tical leadership, leadership all along the line, instead of giving evidence of a group- will, gives an almost opposite testimony; for it is, and it always has been, and it always must be, a divided labor.

But here the objectors begin to present themselves, and with replies to them I shall now in conclusion indicate more specifi- cally some of the consequences of the present conception of the social will to human affairs. The historian, realizing the very broad conception of human society and the social will which is entertained here, is the first to speak, and his protest, as I hear it, is not so vigorous as it probably would have been even ten or a dozen years ago. Thus he has, and he still values, his interesting distinction between historic and prehistoric man, and more particularly he is still disposed to treat nature and man, or natural man and civilized man, as independent sources for the explanation of historical phenomena, and accordingly he hesi- tates to accept a view that is doubtful, even about the methodo- logical worth of these distinctions. But certainly, to justify this