200 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
tinctions. To the northern man personal likes and dislikes, social inclusion or exclusion, will depend on the individual. His being a negro makes no more difference than his being a Spaniard or Italian or Russian or Englishman. To the southern man the idea of a socially acceptable negro is a contradiction in terms.
No argument on the merits of the case is implied in the illus- tration. The point is that these familiar mental attitudes are convenient evidences of the universal reality, viz., a spiritual tone, atmosphere, perspective, standard, which sets the limits of action for individuals in the community. 1
It is necessary to emphasize the fact of the spiritual environ- ment, partly because we have that familiarity with it which breeds contempt. It is so commonplace that we think it may be ignored. It is necessary, also, because in other cases the fact is like the pressure of the atmosphere. Each of us is affected by it most intimately, but few of us have discovered it. Just as every portion of space has its physical atmosphere, so every por- tion of society has its thought-atmosphere. This mental envel- ope largely explains habit and custom, impulse and endeavor, power and limitation within the society. To know the act, the person, the episode, the social situation, the social problem, the social movement in any single case, we must know the thought-environment or the spiritual environment in which it occurs. This is a requirement that is universal and without exceptions. 2
2. The personal units. Nothing more clearly signalizes the difference between present sociology and the older philosophies of history than the matter-of-fact analysis which we now make of the persons who compose society. We do not deal with the metaphysical conception of a fictitious individual, on the one hand, nor are we, on the other hand, any longer speculating about " society " as though it were an affair independent of persons,
1 Vid. above, Vol. VI, pp. 354-6, "A Subjective Environment."
" It has recently been made use of in a very forcible way by PROFESSOR JOHN DEWEY in a paper entitled "Interpretation of the Savage Mind," Psychological Review, May, 1902.
