ARTICLE VIII. SOCIOLOGY A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY. BY PROFESSOR WALTER E. C. WRIGHT, D.D. SOCIOLOGY deals with human beings in their mutual relations. It investigates how men live together. Historical sociology is concerned with every detail of that which has been, and is, in the interactions of man upon man. Theoretical sociology, basing itself on history, does not refuse to consider any possible interrelation of individual men. It is interested in the individual, however, only in his relation to others. Crusoe on his island is not a subject of sociological study until joined by the man Friday. Nevertheless every characteristic of every individual is of sociological interest, for the way men will react on each other depends on what they are in themselves. The basal forces of sociology are the instincts, sentiments, and purposes that produce and influence associated life. These activities of the soul are conditioned by the powers man possesses for attaining their various ends. These powers again are conditioned and influenced by the forces of nature outside of man. Nothing that pertains to man within or without is foreign to sociology. Sumner has happily phrased this breadth of the science in saying, "Its elementary conditions are set by the nature of human beings and the nature of the earth." In this statement, "the nature of human beings" is properly put first, be cause it is fundamental; "the nature of the earth" is sec ondary, for it affects society only through its influence on human beings. 1 Sumner's Essays, p. 82. The physical conditions of the earth have set around some wide regions barriers that society has so far found. impassable. There is no society within hundreds of miles of the poles. There is none in several waterless regions of considerable extent in other zones. On the edge of the uninhabitable polar regions, and near the earth's absolute deserts, a scattered population maintains only a crude society. It cannot reach high development where there is lack of numbers and of physical resources. On the other hand, tropical islands of genial climate and great fertility have seldom been the theater of a highly developed social state. Too easy physical conditions tend to depress human activity, and fail to develop self-restraint. Without industry, prudence, and foresight in individuals, society can be little more than an embryo. It does not follow that sociology is a physical science, as Buckle argued a generation ago, attempting to find almost the entire explanation of history in soil and climate.1 Equally extreme was Dr. Draper, who made isothermal lines account for Catholicism and Protestantism, as well as for the Civil War in the United States.2 Sociology can never in this way be reduced to the simplicity of the physical sciences. The motions of the solar system come from the interaction of two constant, unchanging forces. Initial momentum and gravitation account for every movement, and are the data for predicting the future positions, of every member of the system. Nor Earth nor Mars nor Jupiter can increase nor diminish these forces. But in society the individual members by their very personality are centers of positive force. Not only does one great man often alter the face of society, but men in their combined activity change the very face of nature.3 1 History of Civilization in England. Introduction, Chap. ii. 3 Marsh, Man and Nature. Nor can sociology be reduced to the terms of either chemistry or biology. Chemistry is far more complicated than physics, for the elements are many, and each has various affinities, so that the combinations are practically infinite. Biology is still more intricate. Plants and animals must obey gravitation and every other physical force, and have their being amid the unceasing activity of all the chemical forces; but, at the same time, by their vital power, they use all these lower forces for higher ends. The oak tree is no rebel against gravitation and capillary attraction and endosmose and exosmose, nor against chemical affinity and the sun's actinic rays, when it lifts from the earth and gathers from the air the elements it shapes into woody fiber fit for the timbers of a war-ship. Yet the oak is higher than these forces it makes use of. Physics and chemistry will not tell the whole story of the oak. It belongs in the field of biology. Its story is a chapter of life. The whole story of human society cannot be told by physics and chemistry and biology. Man himself is higher than all these, though obedient to all their laws. He cannot sever himself from physical forces. But he can make use of these forces. He adjusts his waterwheel to the falling water, and makes the cataract grind his food corn. He turns this force of falling water into electricity, carries the electricity this way or that, and turns it back into mechanical force at the place where he wishes it, or transforms it into light for street or dwelling. He trims his sails and sets his rudder to make the north wind carry him east or west as he wills. Man cannot break away from the forces of chemistry. He uses those forces to turn brittle ore into tenacious iron and serviceable steel. He puts together the elements of gunpowder or dynamite, and uses either as he will, whether it be for beneficence or for mischief. What can he not do with chemical forces if the present rate of laboratory invention continues a little longer? It is equally true that man while under biological forces is also able with intelligent freedom to use them for his own purposes. Man cannot by taking thought add one cubit to his stature. He can choose for perpetuation and multiplication the useful variations of plant and animal. Man not only adapts his agriculture to the soil and climate of his locality, but by intelligent selection among natural varieties he has covered his fields with choice grains, and filled his orchards with trees that bear luscious fruit. He eats now bananas and oranges unencumbered with seeds and expects a seedless grape. His domesticated animals, horses, cattle, sheep, even swine, show what use his intelligent purpose can make of the forces of biology. According to man's varying desires he breeds draft horses for strength, or racers for speed; he rears in one place herds for dairy products, in another place for beef; or one flock of sheep to meet the need of clothing, and another to supply food for the table. In still another way man shows even more strikingly that he moves in a higher plane than that of biology. The highest type of man rules over his own instincts and impulses. His intelligence judges whether and how far they are safe guides. His will decides whether to give them at any time free rein or to curb and restrain them. Man's power of intelligent choice puts his life in a different category from the phenomena of biology. Personality is the supreme factor in men's life together. The study of sociology is a psychological study. While the nature of man himself as a rational and moral being is thus the most important force in producing the phenomena of society, the nature of the earth is also a contributory force of no small significance. Geographical influences can so work upon men as to produce great social results. Rich mines allure a different type of men from those that are attracted by fertile soil. The difference in the people thus drawn together insures a different social development in the mining camp from that of the farming community; or in the mild climate sought out by invalids from that in a region of frost and storm to which only the robust venture. This attractive force of conditions and resources is not the only means by which geography influences society. External conditions affect human character by inciting some elements to higher activity, and by either lulling others into inactivity where there is little occasion for their exercise, or even suppressing some latent elements through refusing them any possibility of achievement. The good harbors on the coast of Greece were a factor in early Greek society, because of their psychological influence on the men of Greece, inciting them to venture out upon the fickle sea, and developing strenuously the qualities that are exercised in navigation. The lack of thrift which so often stifles the social life of semi-tropical regions is readily accounted for by the fact that the shortness and mildness of the winter season renders it unnecessary to make any considerable provision against the cold. The genesis of the "hoodlum" in San Francisco has been explained by Professor Royce by the safety with which truant children can sleep out during the larger part of the year in that genial climate. Of whatever sort and however great these influences from physical geography are, they never can be a social force apart from human beings to act upon. We may call them factors, but the nature of the product is determined by the nature of the multiplicand. The impor 1 Shaler, Sea and Land, p. 153 ff. "See International Monthly for November, 1900, art. "The Pacific Coast: A Psychological Study of Influence," where Professor Royce sets forth, with great suggestiveness, the combined effect on both individual and social life of the geographical conditions of the Pacific Coast, and the conditions under which it was settled. Some of the influences he points out have only the force of opportunity, others are positive stimuli. |