878 SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 



various sciences find a still higher synthesis in systems of philo- 

 sophy. 



On the other hand, there is certainly a progressive diversifica- 

 tion and enrichment of culture which offers one a greater number 

 of options and permits him to indulge his individual fancy. The 

 great variety of sects seems harbinger of the day when there will 

 be as many creeds as there are believers. Science, of course, be- 

 ing a verified transcript of reality, can be but one; but just as a 

 widening circle of light enlarges the ring of darkness, a growth of 

 the known gives fresh opportunities to speculate about the un- 

 known. The widening scope for the play of individuality is seen 

 in the coexistence in our Occidental culture of a greater number 

 of types of music, styles of painting or architecture, forms of litera- 

 ture, theories of life and conduct. Since these appeal to the needs 

 of diverse temperaments, it is unlikely that the spirit of uni- 

 fication will bring about the triumph of one over the rest or their 

 co-adaptation into one form. The Protestant will not absorb the 

 Catholic, nor the Methodist the Presbyterian. Italian and German 

 opera, lyric and dramatic poetry, realistic fiction and romance, 

 Stoicism and Epicureanism, marriage as sacrament and marriage 

 as contract, the "woman" ideal and the "lady" ideal, will persist 

 side by side because they meet the needs of different people. Just 

 as a developed society partly compensates for the cramping of 

 specialism by offering the individual a greater variety of vocations 

 to select from, so a developed culture affords multifarious opportun- 

 ities from which each can choose what is congenial to his nature. 



The question posed is, to be sure, part of a larger question, 

 namely, What are the influences and conditions that socialize or 

 individualize? St. Simon thinks the life of humanity alternates 

 between "organic" epochs and "critical" epochs. It may be there 

 is no such rhythm in history, but there are certainly upbuilding 

 forces and down-tearing forces, which shift their balance from 

 time to time. It is our business to discover which processes are 

 emancipating and which are limiting; to ascertain what institu- 

 tions and types of education conduce to self-determination, and 

 how far this is compatible with social unity; to inquire whether it 

 is well to standardize ideas, beliefs, and tastes, or, on the contrary, 

 to encourage variety, nonconformity, even eccentricity, for the 

 sake of having a culture that will provide for every sort of mind 

 its natural aliment. 



Leaving now the inter-individual that is to say, the strictly 

 "social" division of our science, we come to the special psych- 

 ology of nationalities and classes, in so far as they are of societal 

 rather than of natural origin. 



