Chapter XXII
. In the masterpiece on the _Elements of Folk Psychology_, Wundt has given a psychological description of the main processes and institutions in society, tracing them from their beginnings in the processes of nature; he has made a survey of human progress. His study opens with a discussion of the processes which produced the digging stick, the club, and the hammer; it ends with an analysis of world empire, world culture, world religions, and world history. The intervening ages are the totemic and the age of heroes and gods.
World empire affected primarily the material aspects of the life of peoples. It led to world intercourse, which in turn multiplied the needs of peoples. These multiplied needs were followed by exchanges of the means of satisfying the needs. The external and material phases of culture are survived by the spiritual phases--thus world culture is a sequence of world empire. It may be said that the vicissitudes of peoples under the rule of the world empire idea brings forth a unified history. World culture in turn creates a common mental heritage for mankind.[XVIII-36]
In the establishment of a world culture, world religions are the leading forces. They have been foremost in creating the idea of a universal human community. In particular, Christianity is based on a belief in a God who makes no distinction between race or class or occupation. Consequently, “it has regarded missionary activity among heathen peoples as a task whose purpose it is finally to unite the whole of mankind beneath the cross of Christ.”[XVIII-37]
For a long time in human history, religious development was considered to be the main connecting link--such was the contention of St. Augustine. In 1725, Vico argued that the development of language and jurisprudence is of universal import.[XVIII-38] Finally, world history has become an account of the mental life of peoples--“a psychological account of the development of mankind.”
18. The work of Professor Wundt is similar in many ways, although characterized by a distinctive starting point and by many differences, to the contributions of Franz Boas and W. I. Thomas. Professor Boas has declared his belief in man’s ability to dominate the laws of organic evolution as expressed in human life. He has brought forward a large amount of evidence in support of the theory that environment has caused differences between races. He has pointed out that race prejudice is largely a product of social environment, and that under changed conditions of life it has little place in the world. Boas is a strong advocate of the theory, already advanced in this chapter, that all races are potentially equal in ability, and that they would demonstrate the truth of this statement, if given a common cultural background and social opportunities. He has advanced the idea that “the organization of mind is practically identical among all races of men.”[XVIII-39]
Professor Boas has amassed considerable evidence to show that in the matter of inhibition of impulses, of power of attention, of ability to do original thinking, primitive man compares favorably with civilized man. Inasmuch as the social environment is powerful and education is effective in making over social environments, education can raise all races to the same high level, and at the same time unify them upon the same knowledge bases. This contention is similar to the position that Professor Hobhouse has made clear, namely: “While race has been relatively stagnant, society has rapidly developed.” Moreover, social progress is determined not by alterations or racial type, but by modifications of social cultures.[XVIII-40] These modifications are caused primarily by the interactions of social causes.
19. Noteworthy pioneering in the field of social anthropology and social origins has been done by W. I. Thomas. He has developed the theory that progress results from “crises.”[XVIII-41] As long as life runs along smoothly, a lack of interest is likely to ensue. The result is ennui. But a crisis in any of the life processes arouses the attention, that is, produces a concentration of psychic energy. A disturbance of any habit is a crisis. When the exigences of the crisis are solved through a focalization of consciousness, the situation is said to be controlled by the individual, who again lapses into a state of disinterestedness until another disturbance of habit occurs. The new method of control will be imitated. If imitated widely, it will mark a rise in the level of civilization.
It will be observed at once that the power of attention to meet crises is largely an individual matter and that the rôle of the individual is very important. The group level of culture limits the power of the mind to meet crises and to make adjustments.[XVIII-42] The mind is limited by the psychic fund which the group already possesses. If there is no knowledge of mathematics in the group, then a large banking system is impossible. Crises, attention, control--these are the three leading concepts in Thomas’ theory of social origins.
Control is the object of all purposeful activity.[XVIII-43] It is the end, and attention is the means. An animal differs from a plant in that it has a superior control over a larger environment than does the plant. “It does not wait for food, but goes after it.” Man differs from an animal partly in the fact that his fore limbs are free to secure new and varied forms of control. Moreover, man through his mind has a superior instrument of control. By the use of knowledge, mind is effective in controlling factors that are present in neither time nor space. Through its inventions, such as language, religious creeds, mechanical appliances, forms of government, man has risen to a high level of civilization.
Thomas has analyzed the social process in terms of social attitude and social values. An attitude is a process of individual consciousness that determines “the real or possible activity of the individual in the social world.”[XVIII-45] A social value, on the other hand, is any datum that has an empirical content accessible to the members of a social group and a meaning which may make it an object of activity.
## Activity is thus the bond between a social attitude and a social
value. The value is the meaning which a material or spiritual datum may have. An attitude is a real or implied going out after value. Social psychology is the science of social attitudes. At this point anthropologic social thought has merged into social psychology.
Until twenty-five years ago, anthropology interpreted societary origins pretty largely in terms of the individual. With the use of a social psychology such as Cooley represents, “anthropology has given more accurate explanations and become essentially a social anthropology.”
Before we discuss the different phases of psycho-sociologic thought, it will be well to make clear the recent advances that have been made in the biologic phases of social thought. The center of attention in this field is the relation of the laws of heredity to human progress, which constitutes the problem in eugenics. A discussion of eugenic social thought will bring forward in a scientific way the chief elements of an intellectual situation that was left, in Chapter XVI , in the unsatisfactory Spencerian formulae. A presentation of eugenic social thought will give a valuable background to the discussion which follows concerning psycho-sociologic thought.
##