Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 8.djvu/181

II. SOCIAL AUTOMATISM AND THE IMITATION THEORY. 1 BY B. BOSANQUET. 1. IN applying the psychological conception of Automa- tism to a human community, I have in mind such cases of secondary Automatism as dressing oneself, walking, read- ing and writing. It is an analogy drawn from habits of this type, that seems to throw light on a fundamental problem of political philosophy. In the individual life-history, such habits as these, we are told, subserve the end of an economy of attention. The greater part of our life depends upon actions which we have "learnt" with pains and exclusive preoccupation; but which, when once learnt, we can carry on while giving the bulk of our attention to something more worthy of a mature consciousness. Growth and progress of the mind depend on this relation. If we had never done learning to read and write, we should never be able to spare the attention needed to master a science or to compose a treatise. What can be done by machinery, is progressively handed over to machinery, while attention busies itself with the organisation of fresh experience. If the analogy is sound, which suggests itself between the individual and the community in this respect, the ideal of political nihilism is exploded. For our conception would indicate that social life is necessarily and increasingly con- stituted by adjustments which have become automatic, and are in a large measure withdrawn from public attention. The formation of such adjustments would then appear to be the condition of social progress. A definite habit of orderly action, which receives the imprimatur of the State, and is thus put beyond the range of discussion, effects an economy of attention. The public mind is no longer pre- occupied with it ; it becomes part of the rationalised sub- structure of conscious life, and subserves the social end, while, so far as it is concerned, setting free the social mind for new ideas. 1 Read before the Aristotelian Society.