2 70 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



the instinctive plane, yet evidences of the workings of purely instinctive 

 elements are to be found, not only in the various forms of social con- 

 flict, but also in the forms of social attraction and of cooperation. 

 While there is no single " social instinct " which can be invoked to 

 explain the forms of man's social life, there is a whole series of reac- 

 tions connected with instinctive forms of sociability, beginning with 

 the parental instinct. That sociability is itself an instinctive, not an 

 acquired, trait has been amply demonstrated by the researches of prac- 

 tically all modern sociologists. Professor Giddings especially has 

 shown the instinctive attraction which exists between individuals of like 

 physical and mental traits; and that such instinctive sociability, along 

 with the acquired traits built immediately upon it, accounts for much 

 in our social life. More recently Mr. Trotter, a British sociologist, has 

 shown very conclusively the obscure reactions of the same instinctive 

 sociability in practically all phases of man's social life.^ Illustrations 

 of this sort might be indefinitely multiplied, but it is not necessary to 

 do so, because all this is what any thinker would expect who takes the 

 biological view of life. While the sociologist is not yet ready to trace 

 in any final way the workings of various instinctive reactions in human 

 society, there can be no doubt that such a task is scientifically feasible, 

 and will doubtless be accomplished in the near future. 



All of this, of course, in no wise denies either the influence of intel- 

 lect or of objective conditions upon social evolution. As the writer has 

 elsewhere emphasized,® it is the intellectual elements in human social 

 life which after all give it its distinctive character in contrast to the 

 social life which we find among animals. It should be remarked, how- 

 ever, that these intellectual elements quite as often work in line with 

 instinctive impulses as in the way of modifying them. Again, the in- 

 fluence of objective conditions is, of course, to be taken for granted in 

 considering human society from the standpoint of instinct, since no 

 instinctive reaction can develop unless the objective environment fur- 

 nishes the appropriate stimulus. It is a mistake, however, to consider 

 that such stimuli in the objective environment of themselves give rise 

 to the activity; for nothing is more clearly demonstrated in the psy- 

 chology of the present than that the organism frequently, indeed 

 usually, seeks the stimulus. The stimulus is not that which causes 

 action, but is rather the opportunity for action, the organism being self- 

 active; hence the error of those who would interpret social life and 

 movements entirely in terms of objective conditions. The " economic 

 determinists," for example, are under the burden of showing that all 

 the psychological and biological factors in human nature are mediated 



" See his article on ' ' Plerd Instinct ' ' in the Sociological Eeview for July, 

 1908. 



• See article on ' ' The Origin of Society ' ' in the American Journal of 

 Sociology, Vol. XV., November, 1909. 



