ir04.] MASOX— RIPEXIXG OF THOUGHTS IX COMMOX. 153 



and associations for cultivating the true, the beautiful, and the good, 

 in the moral and intellectual world ; to the family, the clan, the 

 tribe, the state, the nation, in the regulative world, with parlia- 

 ments, courts, administrations, armies and navies, to characterize 

 them as institutions for creating and preserving mental activities in 

 common — popular legislatures that never adjourn. They afford also 

 fields for their operation. When coincidences occur under their 

 sway, the causes lie in the very nature of society from the beginning. 



It is an error to think that social structures and their demands 

 become simplified as one descends from civilization, through barbar- 

 ism, to savagery. The abundant studies of Major Powell and his 

 colleagues among the tribes of America, and of Morgan among 

 savages in general, teach the contrary. Assuming that social 

 structures and functions among these tribes are in the main types 

 found in all primitive 'societies in the past, it is not difficult to 

 understand how at the very outset the first society developed a vast 

 number of thoughts in common that have persisted in all ages and 

 areas. To these must be added similar processes originating in 

 races and smaller groups. 



Recall how immensely stronger are the character and marks of 

 race than of individuals, how the latter vary in color, stature, via- 

 bility, number and sex of children, and so on. But the race 

 stature and number of births in males and females, as well as other 

 characteristics of the species, endure. 



'* So careful of the type she seems, 

 So careless of the single life." 



So long has nature moved by measured steps that there have 

 come about not only cosmic thoughts in common, animal communis 

 sensus, anthropic or human rhythm of mental action, but also rac- 

 ial idiosyncrasies, national impulses, civic likenesses, industrial 

 coincidences and inventions, and family likenesses. It is common 

 to hear such expressions as "the times are ripe," "the hour has 

 struck," for this or that scheme, meaning that thoughts, like heads 

 of wheat in summer time, have simultaneously ripened for the har- 

 vest. It accounts for revivals, the singing of masses, the frenzy of 

 crowds, and all such phenomena. The man of old who was wise 

 enough to foresee these maturing of thoughts in common was 

 recognized as a seer. If forceful enough he became a prophet, a 

 leader, a reformer, a culture-hero. 



