DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIOLOGY 807 



"intrinsic" is that each gets its meaning from the other. The indi- 

 vidual can be understood only in relation to his group, and the latter 

 has no meaning apart from the persons who compose it. In this 

 view not only society but the individual is an abstraction from a 

 complex unity which includes both. 1 This general thesis has been 

 developed by several social psychologists, notably Baldwin and 

 Cooley. The former explains the growth of personality as a process of 

 give-and-take with the social group. This makes for a uniformity 

 which is prevented from becoming identity because of the inventions 

 or particularizations of individuals. Society grows by the generaliz- 

 ing or imitating of these particularizations. 2 The process as a whole 

 closely corresponds with Tarde's, but the latter's psychological 

 analysis of the social person is far less keen and detailed. This view 

 of the individual as at once a social product and a social factor is 

 a rational and scientific mean between the old individualism which 

 made the person almost independent of his group, and the social- 

 istic fatalism which represents the individual as merely the outcome 

 of social forces over which he has no control. 3 



The danger that the new social psychology might over-emphasize 

 uniforming tendencies and neglect the forces which individuate 

 the members of a group has not been realized. Of late the tend- 

 ency has been rather to investigate the facts and causes of indi- 

 vidual differences. The influence of sex, 4 race, disposition, and 

 occupation has been studied. Patten explains English evolution 

 in terms of four types dominant at different periods the clingers, 

 sensualists, stalwarts, and mugwumps. 5 Giddings classifies char- 

 acter into four categories the forceful, convivial, austere, and 

 rationally conscientious. 8 Ratzenhofer regards only congenital 

 differences which he assorts into nine subdivisions of three great 

 classes the normal, abnormal, and defective. 7 The differentiating 

 influence of social institutions and occupations has been analyzed 

 in a suggestive way by many investigators and students. While 

 most of these essays are merely tentative, they are full of promise. 

 The individual as to-day conceived by sociologists is a far cry from 

 the abstraction who with inalienable rights, a preternatural rationality, 

 and an unhampered will stalked out of the "social contract" into 

 the nineteenth century. 



1 Cooley, Human Nature and the Social Order (New York, 1902), chap. i. 



2 Baldwin, Social and Ethical Interpretations in Mental Development (New 

 York, 1897), pp. 7-9, 455-465. 



8 Afclear statement as to the transition from the old to the new theory of the 

 individual may be found in Professor Ormond's article The Social Individual, 

 Psychological Review, January, 1901. 



4 Thomas, On a Difference in the Metabolism of the Sexes, American Journal 

 of Sociology, July, 1897; March, 1898. 



5 Patten, The Development of English Thought (New York, 1899), pp. 2-32. 

 8 Giddings, Inductive Sociology (New York, 1901), pp. 82 ff. 



7 Ratzenhofer, Die sociologische Erkenntniss, pp. 260-271. 



