862 SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 



of the rights of others are the occasion of the formulation of legal 

 and moral practice, and of the emergence of a class of persons 

 specially skilled in administering the practice. 



The mediation of crises of this nature leads, on the one hand, 

 to the development of morality, religion, custom, myth, invention, 

 art, and, on the other hand, to medicine-man, priest, lawgiver, 

 judge, physician, artist, philosopher, teacher, and investigator. 

 It leads also to the formation of special classes and castes, to the 

 concentration of knowledge, wealth, power, and technique in the 

 hands of particular classes and persons, and to the use of special 

 opportunity on the part of the few to manipulate and exploit the 

 many. Viewed merely as incidents, both the crises and the prac- 

 tices growing up about them are a part of the history of institu- 

 tions, but when viewed from the standpoint of attention and habit, 

 they are subject-matter of social psychology. 



It is in relation also to crisis, or the disturbance of habit, that 

 invention, imitation, and suggestion factors of the greatest 

 importance in social evolution may be studied to the best ad- 

 vantage. The crisis discloses the inadequacy of the habit, the in- 

 vention is the mental side of the readjustment, imitation is the 

 mode of reaction to the new condition or copy provided through 

 invention, and suggestion is the means by which the copies are 

 disseminated. Language is so rich a mine for the social psycho- 

 logist, and so important in the study of suggestion and imitation, 

 because it is not only a register of the consciousness of the race, 

 but it is, more than any other medium, the means by which sug- 

 gestion is operative, and by which the race-copies are handed on 

 from generation to generation. For this reason all culture and all 

 the history of culture may be said to be implicit in language. 



Another incident of profound importance to the state of con- 

 sciousness of the group is the emergence of a great personality. 

 The man of genius is a biological freak, \vhose appearance cannot 

 be anticipated or predetermined. All that we can say is that a cer- 

 tain number of individuals characterized by unusual artistic or 

 inventive faculty, great courage, will, and capacity for organiza- 

 tion, or unusual suggestibility in respect to religious and philo- 

 sophical questions do occasionally appear in every group, and that 

 they powerfully influence the life-direction and the conscious- 

 ness of their groups. Moses, Mohammed, Confucius, Christ, Aris- 

 totle, Peter the Great, Newton, Darwin, Shakespeare have left 

 ineffaceable impressions on the national life, and on the mental 

 states of individuals as well. The fact that a school of thinkers at 

 the present day grows up about a philosopher, or that a religious 

 teacher may gather about him a group of fanatically ^faithful ad- 

 herents, is a repetition of a principle of imitation which appar- 



