Page:Philosophical Review Volume 9.djvu/457

441 of society at the same time. The term 'society' usually denotes those permanent unions of individuals which directly or indirectly spring from blood relationship. Besides this form of society, however, there are societies which exist for the sake of religion, learning, etc. It is impossible to set a limit to the number of distinct forms of society that may arise in the future. Perhaps the best term that can be applied to this union of wills which we call society, is that of spiritual organism. Previous exponents of the view that society is an organism, have failed to recognize the spiritual nature pertaining to this organism, and have only attempted to trace, as far as possible, its identity with the physical organism. In spite of this necessary distinction, however, the conception of society as an organism is not a mere metaphor. In the attempt to causally relate historical conditions it is of supreme importance. If society is simply an aggregate, its changes are quite beyond the reach of explanation.

In this article the author considers some of the important facts brought out in Baldwin's Social and Ethical Interpretations of Mental Development, together with Professor Dewey's criticism of this work. The book attempts to show that the "principles of the development of the individual apply also to the evolution of society." The two chief results, which make the book one of the most important in the field of philosophy and psychology that have appeared in this decade, are that the self must be conceived as a socius, as a bipolar unity, as one term or end of a personal relation arising out of a common or identical thought-content or action-content, and that society is a psychological organization. The same psychological principles of imitation and generalization, of habit and accommodation, are present in both the social organization and in the personal mental organization. Professor Baldwin has successfully used the genetic method. He has not assumed self and society, but the fact of mental development, and shown that apart from the genetic method it is impossible to understand the nature of consciousness and of conscious processes. There is nothing stable about the self but the process of its growth in a social environment, and its imperative duty of affecting that environment. The uniqueness of his work consists in his exhibiting to us by the genetic method the workings of the social self. The importance of the work to positive psychology is in the fulness of detail with which he works out the relations of thought-process to action-process. He shows how great a part imitation plays both in the life of the individual and in that of society. We assimilate thoughts of individuals by first assimilating their actions. Thought is the chief matter of social organization, and, hence, society may be treated as a psychological organization. Personality is also treated from the genetic stand-point; it has no reality unless there is progress, and not alone progress of the individual, but progress of society as a whole.