NOTES AND ABSTRACTS 277
represents an economic and social independence that her non-paid labor at the hearth had never given. The economic independence of woman renders possible for the first time the realization of the highest human relations, based upon affection and above the suspicion of constraint and of the commercial spirit. Those who object to the married woman working in factories forget that her cares and hardships are none the less in the home. It is necessary that women organize themselves into mutual-aid societies, with or without the aid of the state, in order to secure a pecuniary aid at the period of maternity. All women who work should interrupt their occupations at the time of couches and during the months of nursing. It is necessary that they have a subvention for such interruptions, so that they may not be tempted to resort to vice for a livelihood. Under the regime of socialism this subvention would be granted by the state. Every adult, not physically incapacitated, would labor as a member of the community and be paid for the work done. A woman in giving to the state a new citizen would have a right to a payment under form of a subvention. At present, governments deem it better to spend the millions contributed by the people in manu- facturing destructive arms and in encouraging inventions designed to kill or wound the greatest number upon the field of battle. If by means of private organization or state aid women could have a subvention at the time of couches and a pension during the first year of the life of the infant, they would escape an economic slavery which, during the centuries, has had a most grievous influence. Under this insurance regime, the pension ceasing at the death of the infant, it is probable that many more of the little children would survive.
" In acting conformably to these principles the woman of the twentieth century will come out from her isolation and inconscience and will begin to enter in line with the progressive movement of the new century, which someone has predicted will be the century of the woman." DORA B. MONTEFIORE, " L'inde'pendance e*conomique de la femme au XX e siecle," in Humanite nouvelle, No. 47, May, 1903.
J. D.
Inter-Psychology. This expression, "social psychology," or its equivalent, " collective psychology," does not satisfy me. It is ambiguous. It has been abused by mystic spirits who have given currency to a certain conception of society making of it one gigantic brain composed of our smaller brains, with a social self distinct from each individual consciousness. Moreover, this expression presupposes in fact the existence of what is called a social environment, that is, a social group already formed and numerous enough for each individual self to receive in it, from the mass of the other selves joined in one confused whole, a suggestive influence which has become somehow impersonal and anonymous, and which, moreover, is usually reciprocal.
I think we should substitute the study of a science at once more general and more exact, and which may be called inter-mental or inter-cerebral psychology, but which I should prefer to call, more briefly, "inter-psychology." This term is more general, because it includes not only all social relationships, looked upon subjectively, but also many inter-cerebral relationships which are in no way social. Not all inter-psychic relationships are social phenomena. Many inter-mental actions, so far from being, in themselves and considered separately, social phenomena, are rather obstacles to the social bond ; e. g., the suggestion of hatred, or of cannibal appetite, or of fear, or of a cruel scientific or political experiment to be made in anima vili. It is quite otherwise with the suggestion of sympathy, of confidence, of obedience. When a living being, by his mere presence, fascinates or tames another, even of a different species, a social bond begins to be forged between them. Every social bond consists, directly or indirectly, in the reflection at a distance of one self in another self. Social psychology, of which sociology is the outgrowth and the objective complement, is only a part of inter-psychology the part dealing with imitation.
" Inter-psychology " is a more general and a more exact term than " social psy- chology." New distinctions must be made. When the object of our perception, thought or will, is itself a perceiving, thinking, and willing subject, the case is already, as we know, highly differentiated from all acts of perception, thought, and will which have for their object an inanimate thing. But further, when the person whom we perceive is perceived by us as perceiving us ; when we conceive the person we think of and seek to understand as thinking of us and trying to understand us ; when the
