THE PROBLEMS OF SOCIAL STRUCTURE 829 



next one; which will not happen unless it be done on purpose by 

 teaching, and generally in the form of tradition. This evidently 

 presupposes human reason and human will, marking off sharply this 

 third genus from any kind of animal subhuman society. 



We are now to give closer attention to this conception. For 

 the most part, though not always, it is the conception of a unity 

 different from the aggregate of members; the idea of a psychical 

 or moral body, capable of willing and of acting like a single human 

 being; the idea of a self or person. This person, of course, is an 

 artificial or fictitious one. It represents indeed, as the former two 

 conceptions did, a unity persisting through the change of its parts; 

 but this unity and identity persisting in the multitude are neither 

 biological nor directly and properly psychological, but must, in 

 distinction from these, be considered as specifically sociological. 

 That is to say, while the second is the social consciousness or social 

 mind itself, this is the product of it, and can be understood only 

 by looking into the human soul, and by perceiving thoughts and 

 wills which not only have a common drift and tendency, but are 

 creators of a common work. 



The idea, however, of a body capable of willing and acting is, 

 as said above, not always, and not necessarily, implied in the idea 

 of a sociological unit. There is a conception preceding it, as pro- 

 toplasm precedes individual bodies; namely, the general idea of 

 a society (or a community, if this important distinction is adverted 

 to), which is not essentially different from our second idea of a 

 psychological unit, except in this one respect, accessory to it, that 

 the idea of this unit be present somehow in the minds of the people 

 who feel or know themselves as belonging to it. This conception 

 is of far-reaching significance, being the basis of all conceptions 

 of a social, as contrasted with a political, corporation. It there- 

 fore comprises especially those spheres of social life which are more 

 or less independent of political organization, among which the 

 economical activity of men is the most important, including, as 

 it does, domestic life as well as the most remote international re- 

 lations between those who are connected exclusively by the ties 

 of commercial interest. But practically it is of little consequence 

 whether this general idea be considered as psychological or as so- 

 ciological, unless we precisely contemplate men who consciously 

 maintain their own conception of their own social existence, in 

 distinction from other ideas relating to it, chiefly when it is put 

 in contrast to the idea of a political corporation, and the political 

 corporation of highest import is concerned the state. And it 

 was exactly in these its shifting relations to the state that the idea 

 of society proper though without recognition of its subjective 

 character was evolved about fifty years ago by some German 



