876 SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 



"papist." Difference in speech is a serious bar to sympathy, for 

 at first another's speech always sounds to us like the gibberish 

 of a chattering ape. The higher type of man is struck by cultural 

 differences only, and detests those who are "savage/' "barbar- 

 ous," or "benighted." 



It would seem that the higher the plane of culture, the more 

 men are affected by agreement or difference in mental content. 

 Among the contents of the mind, religious beliefs are more at- 

 tended to than general ideas, and the ideals of life than religious 

 beliefs. The discovery of agreement in feeling is more socializing 

 than intellectual agreement. The common enthusiasm for a sym- 

 bol, or a common love for a chief or dynasty, is of marked social- 

 izing value. Unlike persons or groups draw together in fellow- 

 ship if they are embraced in the same envy or hatred by a third 

 party. Realizing that outsiders think of them as a group tends to 

 form persons into a group. The perception of a common purpose 

 gradually inspires sympathy, and thus are socialized those who 

 are physically different, but who nevertheless have a community 

 of interest. 



Still, it is not entirely clear under what conditions those who 

 have a vital common interest to promote will feel and act together. 

 We now understand fairly well the circumstances that favor or 

 oppose the rise of a group-individuality in local communities, pro- 

 vinces, sections, and nations. But the emergence of an individu- 

 ality in interpenetrating socio-economic classes will not be clear 

 until certain neglected factors are brought into consideration. 

 How is the attitude of a man toward the rest of his class affected 

 by the fact that socio-economic classes are in a hierarchy, and 

 individuals are constantly escaping from one class into a higher? 

 Does not the secret hope of rising prompt many a man to iden- 

 tify himself in imagination with the class he hopes to belong to 

 rather than the class he actually belongs to? Are not the con- 

 flicts that, in view of their clear oppositions of interest, one would 

 expect to break out between commoners and nobles, between 

 peasants and bourgeoisie, between workingmen and employers, 

 frequently averted because the natural leaders and molders of 

 opinion among the workingmen hope to become capitalists, the 

 peasants expect to see their sons in the professions, the rich com- 

 moners trust to work themselves or their families into the peer- 

 age? If this surmise be correct, the decomposition of the national 

 society into hostile classes need not ensue when the decline of na- 

 tional antagonism leaves in high relief the acute differentiation 

 of the population in respect to possessions and economic interests. 

 It may be that, besides the breaking-up of population into a social 

 spectrum, there is needed the further condition that the ascent 



