Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/404

388 Psychologists say that some kinds of forms are more pleasurable than others, and those that are the most pleasurable exert the best influence upon the organism. Beautiful things elevate the tone of one's whole life, while ugliness depresses it. Then it becomes a need, hardly less urgent than that of getting food, to surround one's self with forms which will exalt life to the highest possible point. It is not optional with the individual to choose between the beautiful and the ugly; his choice will not be indifferent in its effects upon him; what he does will at once determine his well-being, and he chooses, of course, so as to obtain the greatest amount of pleasure. And the man who creates the beautiful things does so to gratify this need which all feel. He is not playing, nor is the patron who buys his work playing.

View it as one may, he sees that the relationships of human beings in civilized society are not the same in all respects as those of the animal living in the forest, and one will surely go astray if he seeks to make the principle of action of animal life explain all that is found in human life. The evolution of a social organism such as ours today has developed in the individual social needs hardly less urgent than his physical ones, and all the activities having for their aim the gratification of these social needs should be regarded as of a serious, workful character, though they may be performed in a spontaneous and joyous manner. The refining of the human organism so that it becomes more and more responsive to influences on the aesthetic side again gives rise to needs which the individual seeks to gratify by co-ordinating his powers in a serious way. And it seems highly probable that with the evolutions of the race social and aesthetic demands will be even greater relatively than they are now, and the organic demands of the average individual will occupy a less and less prominent place in his daily life. The feeling of compulsion in providing for these social needs is not precisely of a kind with that relating to the gratification of organic needs, but it is none the less real and insistent. Indeed, it is not unreasonable to say that the fulfilling of obligations in modern society involves greater strain and stress than attending to one's physical