INSTINCTIVE ELEMENT IN HUMAN SOCIETY 271 



and controlled in their expression by economic conditions. The mere 

 fact that man's social life shows many traits in common with the social 

 life of animals, among which there are, strictly speaking, no economic 

 conditions, is in itself fairly good evidence that the native impulses are 

 by no means wholly controlled in their expression by economic condi- 

 tions, or any other single set of causes, but that they are in themselves, 

 given the spontaneity of human nature, a determining factor in many, 

 if not in all, social situations. 



The theoretical consequences of the recognition of instinct as a sub- 

 jective social factor are certainly not to be feared. On the contrary, 

 the recognition of instinct as a factor would greatly broaden and 

 deepen sociology and all of the other social sciences, and would bring 

 the psychological aspect of those sciences into harmony with their 

 biological aspects and with the biological sciences generally. The social 

 sciences have suffered unduly from intellectualistic views of human 

 nature and human society. As long as psychology was intellectualistic, 

 it was unavoidable that such a significant human relation as mother 

 and child, for example, should be explained in terms which now seem 

 to us trivial as well as superficial. As we grasp the biological view of 

 life and see clearly that all life is continuous, and that relations in- 

 volved in human association are the outcome of forces that have been 

 working upon life for myriads of years, and are therefore freighted with 

 meanings far bej^ond the individual life, we shall avoid trivial and 

 superficial explanations of things human. We shall see at once, for 

 example, that such a relation as mother and child can be explained only 

 in terms of instincts which have beei; created by age-long processes, and 

 not in terms of a superficial, intellectual pity of the mother for the 

 helplessness of her child. It should be manifest, therefore, that the 

 concept of instinct in the social sciences will give to those sciences a 

 vital relation to life generally. Deduction from biological and psy- 

 chological facts, if carried out with proper scientific safeguards, is not 

 to be feared in the social sciences ; for it is only by accepting the results 

 of the other positive sciences, and especially of the biological sciences, 

 that sociology can itself hope to become a positive science. 



It is only necessary to say a word in conclusion regarding the prac- 

 tical consequences of the recognition of the large role of instinct in 

 human social life. Scientific educators have recognized now for over 

 a decade the part which instinct plays in individual activities and 

 development, and scientific education has made the instinctive element 

 the basis for the scientific training of the individual. It is, perhaps, 

 too early to judge finally the results of this movement in education, but 

 thus far they appear to be wholly beneficent, and we are apparently 

 approaching scientific methods in the control of individual develop- 

 ment. The case is apparently not different in social development. 



