INSTINCTIVE ELEMENT IN HUMAN SOCIETY 263 



THE INSTINCTIVE ELEMENT IN HUMAN SOCIETY 



By Peofessok CHARLES A. ELLWOOD 



UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI 



FOR two decades or more sociologists have been proclaiming that 

 the development of their science must be through psychology 

 and must wait accordingly upon the development of that science. Now 

 that psychology has achieved a very considerable development and rela- 

 tive unanimity of opinion with regard to certain fundamentals, it is 

 strange to find sociologists, and workers in the social sciences generally, 

 loath to make use of some of its assured results. 



Perhaps no single truth in modern psychology is better assured than 

 that the whole mental life of man rests upon certain native reactions or 

 innate impulses which the psychologists term instincts. Instinct has 

 come to be recognized, then, as an all-important factor in the mental 

 life by psychologists; but at the very time that the recognition of the 

 importance of instinct in psychology has become universal certain 

 sociologists are questioning the importance of instinct as a factor in 

 human social life.^ 



This situation is serious enough to demand thoughtful consideration 

 on the part of all interested in the social sciences. For years the social 

 sciences, and especially sociology, have been striving for recognition as 

 positive sciences. Such recognition it would seem can only come when 

 sociology and the other social sciences openly rest their work upon 

 assured results in the now recognized positive sciences. Sociology, 

 indeed, as an intermediate science between the special social sciences 

 and the natural sciences, can not be anything more than a study of the 

 biological and psychological factors in human social life, with reference 

 to certain problems, such as the problems of social organization and 

 social evolution. It is difficult to see what place the sociologist has 

 among the laborers in positive science, unless it is a part of his business 

 at least to formulate the results of biology and psychology so as to 

 throw light upon problems of social organization and social evolution. 



Of course, as a matter of fact, students of the social sciences can 

 not escape making continual use of biological and psychological facts 

 and principles in their investigations and discussions. The trouble is 

 that they frequently prefer to study out these facts and principles for 

 themselves rather than make use of the consensus of opinion among the 



^ See, e. g., the American Journal of Sociology, Vol. XV., p. 616. Cf . also 

 tlie Political Science Quarterly, Vol. XXV., p. 514. 



