Herrick, Social Reaction. 119 



termed "society consciousness," meaning thereby the common 

 elements in the consciousness of the constituents of society or 

 the consensiis of society. In this way we avoid the ambiguity 

 of the term social consciousness, or, if that term must be used, 

 then by all means limit it to the social reactions within the indi- 

 vidual consciousness and use the necessary circumlocutions tb 

 express the consensus idea. 



Professor Baldwin, in his genetic series, lays great stress 

 on the "bipolar self." He shows that development of the ^^t? 

 goes pari passu vyith that of the alter; that self is social from 

 the start. But this is only a phase of the general psychological 

 law that self is reflexive. The wave of effort is met by an in- 

 flowing wave of resistance. Without both of these elements 

 experience would be impossible. Just as the simplest form of 

 subjectivity is coupled necessarily with an objectivity (substance), 

 so the most rudimentary personality involves the social ele- 

 ment. 



For ethical purposes it is necessary to note that every 

 moral act or thought has a social implication. This is part of 

 the meaning of Kant's well-known rules of morals. But psy- 

 chology has, or ought to have, something to say as to the ori- 

 gin of the social faculty. Much of this has been interpreted by 

 Professor Baldwin in his description of the projective and 

 ejective stages of social development. 



Perhaps, however, some attention should now be given to 

 the condition back of the projective activity, namely to the con- 

 tinuum habit, or, negatively expressed to fit its more common 

 manifestation, the hiatus effect} If the equilibrium theory of 

 consciousness be true, the elements in the equilibrium may be 

 roughly classified into relatively constant, and variable elements, 

 the a, b, c, series and the x, y, z series respectively. 



By a process of familiarization, one of the variables may 

 be converted into a constant and become a part of the usual 

 furniture of consciousness. The process of assimilation causes 

 the stimulus or group of stimuli increasingly to participate in 



^ The law of dynamogenesis is implied throughout. 



