Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/581

 REVIEWS 561

the same time performs the useful social function of preserving type and eliminating degenerate variation. It is conceived of as develop- ing from an instinctive to a rational, ethical form. JEnjuJjtion is treated consistently from the personal point of view and is subdivided into conformity, rivalry, and hero-worship. In the case of so-called non -conformity there is not so much a personal protest against all social control as a conformity with some social group or set of ideas other than those immediately, physically present. Hero-worship is an imaginative construction of personal ideals which become true and effective social forces.

Leadership is characterized, not as the creation of original ideas, but as vivid definition and organization of vague tendencies already existent. The leader must have the power to construct in imagination by sympathy the personal lives of his followers. The leader is a true social cajise, as independent as a cause can be which is ajrjart of a living whole; "impersonal tendency" is a mere abstraction, and while the phrase may be used, the examination of such tendencies will always disclose personal nuclei.

Conscience in final analysis is always a group thing actually existent in persons. The right is the rational in the highest sense ; it is not individual as opposed to social, but rather the social as con- trasted with the sensual. The social and personal conscience grows as the result of combining personal influences into higher and higher wholes. Thus personal authority, immediate or indirect, plays the chief part in the moral life, yet this very idea oj the person is built up through intercourse, is a social thing. The group standard as a con- ception resolves itself into ideas about concrete persons.

Personal degeneracy is a variation from type due to failure to achieve personal synthesis. Here again to put heredity and environ- ment in opposition is to misrepresent their relation, which is one of intimate union and co-operation. It is a mistake to attribute remorse and other sentiments to degenerates who are usually at peace with the low grade of social conscience which they have achieved. Crime assumes another aspect when contemplated in this way.

Freedom is "opportunity for right development." Restraint is narrowing or contraction of personality. The person is seldom in conscious conflict with his social milieu because he realizes his higher personal ideals by means of it. Growth of freedom involves certain stress and strain with incidental degeneracy which can never be wholly eliminated, but may be indefinitely reduced.