Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/139

 INFLUENCE OF THE FORM OF SOCIAL CHANGE 125

The particular theme of this paper is that the emotionalism that seems to belong to certain times and peoples is definitely related to the form of the social evolution of the peoples con- cerned. The solution of this problem has important bearings on certain aspects of the psychology of religion.

The emotionalism that certain forms of religion at all times naturally tend to foster must be carefully distinguished from the social tendencies to emotion that appear at certain periods and in time pass away. The latter is due to the form of the social situation. The explanation of the former involves us in the question as to why religion has tended to select certain mental states as peculiarly expressive of its attitude and why it has excluded others. It involves the whole question of the psychol- ogy of the religious attitude and the functional relation of emo- tion to the entire mental economy. We are concerned with this aspect of the question only in so far as the tendency to select and emphasize certain emotional elements of experience as of special religious value has made religion particularly susceptible to those elements in any situation that predispose to emotionalism. That is, if a given situation can be described as tending to produce an emotional tone, the stimulus it offers will be readily responded to by religion from the fact of its natural leaning in that direc- tion. The main problem that concerns us here is as to the extent to which various combinations of influence may predispose to this emotional attitude.

From the functional point of view, emotion is connected with the interruption of previous co-ordinations, either habitual or instinctive, and under normal conditions it may be supposed to assist in the formation of new co-ordinations. The more readily the new co-ordinations are formed, the less consciousness is there of an emotional tone from the previously broken habit. This statement of the nature of emotion is usually confined in its reference to the individual, but it may, under certain conditions, apply on a larger scale to nations and races. Just as the break- ing up of the habitual or instinctive adjustments of the individual results in bringing to his consciousness the internal attitudes, physiological and psychical, that were previously organized with