CHAPTER XLV

PHYSICAL AND PERSONAL FACTORS IN THE LIFE OF SOCIETY

358. =Constant Factors in Social Phenomena.=—Our study of social life has made it plain that it is a complex affair, but it has been possible to classify society in certain groups, to follow the gradual extension of relations from small groups to large, and to take note of the numerous activities and interests that enter into contemporary group life. It is now desirable to search for certain common elements that in all periods enter into the life of every group, whether temporary or permanent, so that we may discover the constant factors and the general principles that belong to the science of society. Some of these have been referred to already among the characteristics of social life, but in this connection it is useful to classify them for closer examination.

First among these is the physical factor which conditions human activity but is not a compelling force, for man has often subdued his environment when it has put obstacles in his way. This physical element includes the geographical conditions of mountain, valley, or seashore, the climate and the weather, the food and water supply, the physical inheritance of the individual and the laws that control physical development, and the physical constitution of the group. A second factor is the psychic nature of human beings and the psychical interaction that goes on between individuals within the group and that produces reactions between groups.

359. =The Natural Environment.=—The early sociologists put the emphasis on the physical more than the psychic factors, and especially on biological analogies in society. It seemed to them as if it was nature that brought men together. Mountains and ice-bound regions were inhospitable, impassable rivers and trackless forests limited the range of animals and men, violent storms and temperature changes made men afraid. Avoiding these dangers and seeking a food-supply where it was most plentiful, human beings met in the favored localities and learned by experience the principles of association. Everywhere man is still in contact with physical forces. He has not yet learned to get along without the products of the earth, extracting food-supplies from the soil, gathering the fruits that nature provides, and mining the useful and precious metals. The city-dweller seems less dependent on nature than is the farmer, but the urban citizen relies on steam and electricity to turn the wheels of industry and transportation, depends on coal and gas for heat and light, and uses winter's harvest of ice to relieve the oppressive heat of summer. Rivers and seas are highways of his commerce. Everywhere man seems hedged about by physical forces and physical laws.

Yet with the prerogative of civilization he has become master rather than servant of nature. He has improved wild fruits and vegetables by cultivation, he has domesticated wild animals, he has harnessed the water of the streams and the winds of heaven. He has tunnelled the mountains, bridged the rivers, and laid his cables beneath the ocean. He has learned to ride over land and sea and even to skim along the currents of the air. He has been able to discover the chemical elements that permeate matter and the nature and laws of physical forces. By numerous inventions he has made use of the materials and powers of nature. The physical universe is a challenge to human wits, a stimulus to thought and activity that shall result in the wonderful achievements of civilization.

360. =The Human Physique.=—Another element that enters into every calculation of success or failure in human life is the physical constitution of the individual and the group. The individual's physique makes a great difference in his comfort and activity. The corpulent person finds it difficult to get about with ease, the cripple finds himself debarred from certain occupations, the person with weak lungs must shun certain climates and as far as possible must avoid indoor pursuits. By their power of ingenuity or by sheer force of will men have been able to overcome physical limitations, but it is necessary to reckon with those limitations, and they are always a handicap. The physical endowment of a race has been a deciding factor in certain times of crisis. The physical prowess of the Anakim kept back the timid Israelites from their intended conquest of Canaan until a more hardy generation had arisen among the invaders; the sturdy Germans won the lands of the Roman Empire in the West from the degenerate provincials; powerful vikings swept the Western seas and struck such terror into the peaceful Saxons that they cried out: "From the fury of the Northmen, good Lord, deliver us."

361. =Biological Analogies.=—The physical factor in society received emphasis the more because society itself was thought of as an organism resembling physical organisms and dependent upon similar laws. As a man's physical frame was essential to his activity and limited his energies, so the visible structure of social organization was deemed more important than social activity and function. Particularly did the method of evolution that had become so famous in biology appeal to students of sociology as the only satisfactory explanation of social change. The study of animal evolution made it clear that heredity and environment played a large part in the development of animal life, and Darwin pointed out that progress came by the elimination of those individuals and species least fitted to survive in the struggle for existence and the perpetuation of those that best adapted themselves to environment. It was easy to find social analogies and to reach the conclusion that in the same way individuals and groups were creatures of heredity and environment, and the all-important task of society was to conform itself to environment. Of course, history disproved the universality of such a law, for more than once a race has risen above its environment or altered it, but it seemed a satisfactory working principle.

Biological analogies, however, were overemphasized. It was a gain to know the workings of race traits and the relation of the individual to his ancestry, but to excuse crime on the ground of racial degeneracy or to despise a race and believe that none of its members can excel because it is conspicuous for certain race weaknesses has been unfortunate. Similarly there was advantage in remembering that environment is either a great help or a great hindrance to social progress, but it would be a social calamity to believe in a physical determinism that leaves to human beings no choice as to their manner of life. The important truth to keep in mind is that man and environment must be adapted to each other, but it often proves better to adapt environment to man than to force man into conformity to environment. It is the growing independence of environment through his own intellectual powers that has given to civilized man his ascendancy in the world. It is a mistake, also, to think that a struggle for existence is the only means of survival. As in the animal world, there comes a time in the process of evolution when the struggle for selfish existence becomes subordinated to effort to preserve the life of the young or to help the group by the sacrifice of the individual self, so in society it is reasonable to believe that the selfish struggle of individuals will give way by degrees to purposeful effort for social welfare, and that the solidarity of the group rather than the interest of the individual will seem the highest good. Then the group will care for the weak, and all will gain from the strength and prosperity of the whole.

362. =The Importance of the Individual.=—While it is true that individual interests are bound up with the prosperity of the group, and that the food that he eats, the clothes that he wears, and the money that he handles and uses are all his because social industry prevails, there is some danger of overlooking the importance of the individual. Though he does not exist alone, the individual with his distinctive personality is the unit of society. Without individuals there would be no society, without the action of the individual mind there would be no action of the social mind, without individual leadership there would be little order or progress. The single cell that made up the lowest forms of animal life is still the unit of that complex thing that we call the human body, and the well-being of the single cell is essential to the health and even the existence of the whole body; so the single human being is fundamental to the existence and health of the social body. No analysis of society is at all complete that does not include a study of the individual man.

363. =The Psychology of the Individual.=—Self-examination during the course of a single day helps to explain the life forces that act upon other individuals now and that have forged human history. In such study of self it soon becomes apparent to the student that the physical factor is subordinate to the psychic, but that they are connected. As soon as he wakes in the morning his mental processes are at work. Something has called back his consciousness from sleep. The light shining in at his window, the bell calling him to meet the day's schedule, the odor of food cooking in the kitchen, are physical stimuli calling out the response of his sense-perceptions; his mind begins at once to associate these impressions and to react upon his will until he gets out of bed and proceeds to prepare himself for the day. These processes of sensation, association, and volition constitute the simple basis of individual life upon which the complex structure of an active personality is built.

The individual will is moved to activity by many agencies. There is first the instinct. As a person inherits physical traits from his ancestors, so he gets certain mental traits. The demand for food is the cry of the instinct for self-preservation. The grimace of the infant in response to the mother's smile is an expression of the instinct for imitation. The reaching out of its hand to grasp the sunshine is in obedience to the instinct for acquisition. All human association is due primarily to the instinct for sociability. These instincts are inborn. They cannot be eradicated, but they can be modified and controlled.

Obedience to these native instincts produces fixed habits. These are not native but acquired, and so are not transmitted to posterity, in the belief of most scientists, but they are powerful factors in individual conduct. The individual early in the morning is hungry, and the appetite for food recurs at intervals through the day; it becomes a habit to go at certain hours where he may obtain satisfaction. So it is with many activities throughout the day.

Instincts and habits produce impulses. The savage eats as often as he feels like it, if he can find berries or fruit or bring down game; impulse alone governs his conduct. But two other elements enter in to modify impulse, as experience teaches wisdom. The self-indulgent man remembers after a little that indulgence of impulse has resulted sometimes in pain rather than satisfaction, and his imagination pictures a recurrence of the unhappy experience. Feeling becomes a guide to regulate impulse. Feeling in turn compels thought. Presently the individual who is going through the civilizing process formulates a resolve and a theory, a resolve to eat at regular times and to abstain from foods that injure him, a theory that intelligent restraint is better than unregulated indulgence. In a similar way the individual acts with reference to selecting his environment. Instinct and habit act conservatively, impelling the individual to remain in the place where he was born and reared, and to follow the occupation of his father. But he feels the discomforts of the climate or the restrictions of his particular environment, he thinks about it, bringing to bear all the knowledge that he possesses, and he makes his choice between going elsewhere or modifying his present environment. Discovery and invention are both products of such choices as these.

364. =Desires and Interests.=—These complexes of thinking, feeling, and willing make up the conscious desires and interests that mould the individual life. Through the processes of attention to the stimuli that act upon human nature, discrimination between them, association of impressions and ideas that come from present and past experience, and deliberate judgments of value, the mind moves to action for the satisfaction of personal desires and interests. These desires and interests have been classified in various ways. For our present purpose it is useful to classify them as those that centre in the self, and those that centre in others beyond the self. The primitive desires to get food and drink, to mate, and to engage in muscular activity, all look toward the self-satisfaction which comes from their indulgence. There are various acquired interests that likewise centre in the self. The individual goes to college for the social pleasure that he anticipates, for intellectual satisfaction, or to equip himself with a training that will enable him to win success in the competition of business. In the larger society outside of college the art-lover gathers about him many treasures for his own aesthetic delight, the politician exerts himself for the attainment of power and position, the religious devotee hopes for personal favors from the unseen powers. These are on different planes of value, they are estimated differently by different persons, but they all centre in the individual, and if society benefits it is only indirectly or accidentally.

As the individual rises in the scale of social intelligence, his interests become less self-centred, and as he extends his acquaintance and associations the scope of his interests enlarges. He begins to act with reference to the effect of his actions upon others. He sacrifices his own convenience for his roommate; he restrains his self-indulgence for the sake of the family that he might disgrace; he exerts himself in athletic prowess for the honor of the college to which he belongs; he is willing to risk his life on the battle-field in defense of the nation of which he is a citizen; he consecrates his life to missionary or scientific endeavor in a far land for the sake of humanity's gain. These are the social interests that dominate his activity. Mankind has risen from the brute by the process that leads the individual up from the low level of life moulded by primitive desires to the high plane of a life directed by the broad interests of society at large. It is the task of education to reveal this process, and to provide the stimuli that are needed for its continuance.

365. =Personality.=—No two persons are actuated alike in daily conduct. The pull of their individual desires is not the same, the influence of the various social interests is not in the same proportion. The situation is complicated by hereditary tendencies, and by physical and social environment. Consequently every human being possesses his own distinctive individuality or personality. Variations of personality can be classified and various persons resemble each other so much that types of personality are distinguished. Thus we distinguish between weak personality and forceful personality, according to the strength of individuation, a narrow or a broad personality according as interests are few and selfish or broadly social, a fixed or a changing personality according to conservatism or unsettled disposition. Personality is a distinction not always appreciated, a distinction that separates man from the brute because of his self-consciousness and power of self-direction by rational processes, and relieves him from the dead level that would exist in society if every individual were made after the same pattern. It is the secret of social as well as individual progress, for it is a great personality that sways the group. It is the great boon of present life and the great promise of continued life hereafter.

READING REFERENCES

ROSS: Foundations of Sociology, pages 165-181.

ELLWOOD: Sociology in its Psychological Aspects, pages 94-123.

DEALEY: Sociology, pages 96-98, 200-230.

NEARING AND WATSON: Economics, pages 60-98.

DARWIN: Descent of Man, chap. XXI.

DRUMMOND: Ascent of Man, pages 41-57, 189-266.

GIDDINGS: Inductive Sociology, pages 249-278.