Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 50.djvu/179

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BIOLOGY, PSYCHOLOGY, AND SOCIOLOGY.
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served, there is no mention of biological data. Even without saying more, I should, I think, have furnished adequate disproof of the erroneous assertions quoted above. But now let me pass on from the programme of these works to the works themselves. The closing division of The Principles of Psychology, entitled "Corollaries" (as in the programme), opens with a chapter containing the following passages:—

"Having presently to follow out Evolution under those higher forms which societies present, the special psychology of Man, considered as the unit of which societies are composed, must be briefly outlined." . . . "It is manifest that the ability of men to co-operate in any degree as members of a society, presupposes certain intellectual faculties and certain emotions. . . . Hence, in preparation for the study of social evolution, there have to be dealt with various questions respecting the faculties it brings into play, and respecting the modes in which these are developed during continued social life." (§ 477.)

In pursuance of this announcement, there presently follows a chapter on "Language of the Emotions," which introduces a chapter entitled "Sociality and Sympathy." The manifest implication is that recognition of these mental factors must precede the interpretation of social phenomena. After indicating, as Prof. Giddings has recently done, the genesis of sociality, which in certain classes of animals becomes "naturally established as furthering the preservation of the species," I have gone on to say:—

"Sociality having thus commenced, and survival of the fittest tending ever to maintain and increase it, it will be further strengthened by the inherited effects of habit. The perception of kindred beings, perpetually seen, heard, and smelt, will come to form a predominant part of consciousness—so predominant a part that absence of it will inevitably cause discomfort." (§ 504.)

Here, it seems to me, there is described in other words, that "consciousness of kind "which Prof. Giddings regards as the "new datum which has been sought for hitherto without success" (p. 17); and that it is regarded by me as the primary datum is shown by a subsequent sentence running as follows:—

"Among creatures led step by step into gregariousness, there will little by little be established a pleasure in being together a pleasure in the consciousness of one another's presence—a pleasure simpler than, and quite distinct from, those higher ones which it makes possible."

After proceeding, through a dozen pages, to trace the development of sympathy as a result of gregariousness, there comes a brief statement of—

"The cardinal facts which it has been the aim of this chapter to bring to view, and which we must carry with us as aids to the interpretation of emotional development, and to the subsequent interpretation of the sociological phenomena accompanying emotional development." (§ 512.)