PROBLEMS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 877 



from the red toward the violet end of this social spectrum shall be 

 too difficult and rare to tempt the e*lite of a lower grade to re- 

 nounce its present class-interest in favor of a higher class it hopes 

 at last to enter. 



With the growth of the social mind in extent and comprehen- 

 sion one cannot help wondering what will be the fate of personal 

 individuality. Will there be more room for spontaneity and choice, 

 or is the individual doomed to shrivel as social aggregates enlarge 

 and the mass of transmitted culture becomes huger and more in- 

 tegrated? As that cockle-shell, the individual soul, leaving the 

 tranquil pool of tribal life, passes first into the sheltered lake of 

 some city community, then into the perilous sea of national life, 

 and at last emerges upon the immense ocean of humanity's life, 

 does it enjoy an ever-widening scope for free movement and self- 

 direction, or does it, too frail to navigate the vaster expanses, be- 

 come more and more the sport of irresistible waves and currents? 



On the one hand it may be urged that, as one rises clear of bodily 

 wants and promptings, one's self-determination contracts, one's 

 life is more and more molded by conceptual rather than impul- 

 sive factors; that is to say, by ideas, ideals, beliefs, principles, 

 and the like. The growing preponderance of such factors subjects 

 a man more to his social environment, for these are just the things 

 that are easiest taken on by imitation or stamped in by educa- 

 tion. You say the stock of possessions to choose from grows with 

 each generation. True, but nevertheless the incompatible ideas 

 and ideals become fewer, because one of the incompatibles ex- 

 terminates the other. Consider, moreover, how the diversity in 

 the cultural elements offered one becomes less owing to the march 

 of adaptation. Spelling becomes definite; idiomatic flexible speech 

 falls under the tyranny of grammar and of style. The dictionary 

 expands, but the number of synonyms declines as meanings be- 

 come more shaded and precise. A religious ferment emancipates 

 souls, but out of it dogmas soon crystallize and close in on the mind. 

 In time unrelated dogmas are compared and sifted, and the com- 

 plementary ones are erected into an imposing theology, like that 

 of St. Thomas or Calvin, which from foundation to turret-stone 

 offers the believer no option. So from the discussions of jurists 

 emerge general principles which transform a mass of incongruous, 

 even contradictory, customs and statutes into a system of juris- 

 prudence from which inharmonious elements have been expelled 

 and which utterly dominates the ordinary intellect. Likewise un- 

 unified generalizations about the external world, each trailing off 

 into the unknown with many inviting paths of suggestion, are 

 integrated and the gaps filled in until there exists a body of articu- 

 lated propositions called a science; and the generalizations of the 



