the absurdity of assigning to the term "social mind" such a content as it would imply.
Between these two extreme views lie a number of theories which may be considered either as modifications of the one or the other, or as representing independent points of view. We shall notice but two of these, though they are characteristic. The first is Professor Giddings' theory of the social mind. Professor Giddings identifies the social mind with " the simultaneous like action of the minds of like socii."[1] He says : "To the group of facts that may be. described as the simultaneous like mental-activity of two or more individuals in communication with one another, or as a concert of the emotion, thought, and will of two or more communicating individuals, we give the name social mind. This name, accordingly, should be regarded as meaning just this group of facts and nothing more."[2] Again: "In its simplest form, the social mind is nothing more or less than the simultaneous like responsiveness of like minds to the same stimulus. "[3] The social mind, then, according to Professor Giddings, reduces itself to the " like responsiveness of like minds to the same stimulus." There is no reference to a psychical process interrelating individual psychical processes; there is even no reference to a common life-process. Men might as well be so many radiometers exposed to the stimulus of the sun's rays. They would still exhibit the phenomena of the social mind in its simplest form, according to Professor Giddings' definition. The conception is mechanical, it is unorganic; it is, in fact, individualistic in a high degree. The individual is here still conceived as the independent entity which individualism has always asserted him to be. This is probably not due to Professor Giddings' individualistic bias, but rather to the individualistic and mechanical character of the psychology which he has adopted, and which colors all his thought quite as much as his theory of the social mind.[4] In common with the psychologists from whom he
- ↑ Elements of Sociology, p. 121.
- ↑ Ibid., p. 120.
- ↑ Ibid., p. 121.
- ↑ In his earlier work (Principles of Sociology) and in places in the work from which we have quoted, it is fair to say, there are implications that the social mind is something more than "like responsiveness of like minds to the same stimulus;" but these are not carried out, and the general impression of his readers is as we have stated it.
