DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIOLOGY 805 



nature of society, but their attention was too much fixed upon the 

 rounding out of their analogies. 1 They assumed what others have 

 sought to analyze. The concept of the social mind is playing a more 

 and more important part. It was a somewhat mystical idea with 

 the founders of Volkerpsychologie, Lazarus and Steinthal, but it has 

 become increasingly concrete and definite, until it may perhaps be 

 regarded as the most fruitful field of contemporary sociological 

 research. The need of such a theory was made clear by the failure 

 of the biological school to supply an adequate explanation of social 

 unity. Mere division of labor and an interdependence almost wholly 

 economic left too much to be desired. 



Beginning with a general statement like this from Lazarus, "A 

 people is a collection of men who regard themselves a people. It is 

 the spiritual achievement of those who compose it, who ceaselessly 

 create it," 2 it is instructive to trace the gradual closing-in upon the 

 problem. Lewes made several illuminating observations. Psycho- 

 logists like Wundt, James, and Baldwin were irresistibly drawn 

 over into the new field. The phenomena of group opinion, feeling, 

 and conduct began to be studied in earnest. Tarde announced his 

 process of imitation, opposition, and invention; Giddings contrib- 

 uted "consciousness of kind" and outlined the "integration of the 

 social mind; " Simmel based group-unity on common symbols, 

 obedience, loyalty, and consciousness of group-honor; 3 Hauriou 

 suggested the analysis into (1) grouping and the feeling of grouping, 

 (2) individuality and the feeling of individuality, and (3) concilia- 

 tion; 4 Baldwin offered his "dialectic" of personal and social growth; 

 and Ross published a keenly analytic study of social control. More- 

 over, Boris-Sidis, Le Bon, Ross, Tarde, and Sighele made important 

 contributions to the morbid psychology of the group, as displayed 

 in mental epidemics and mob violence. 



However various and conflicting these different theories may 

 seem at first glance, they are actually in most cases complementary, 

 and together they afford an admirable working theory. The r61e 

 of suggestion is recognized as fundamentally important; the sub- 

 ordination of reflection to feeling, the persistence of custom and 

 habit, the predominance of unconscious forces, the function of 

 leadership, the control by group ideals, the modification of these 

 ideals in adjustment to the changing conditions which the group 

 confronts, the devices by which the group cozens its members into 

 conformity all these aspects have been combined into a psycho- 



1 It should be noted, nevertheless, that Schaffle made important contributions 

 to social psychology in his studies of leadership and authority, and the reaction 

 upon them of the public or group. Loc. cit., vol. I, pp. 205-231. 



2 Lazarus, Das Leben der Seelen, vol. i, p. 372. 

 * Simmel, loc. cit., March, 1898, p. 66. 



4 Hauriou, La science sociale traaitionette (Paris, 1896), pp. 7 ff. 



