22 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. IX. No. 210. 



consists of all sorts of thoughts and knowl- 

 edges indiscriminately. It undoubtedly in- 

 cludes all sorts of thoughts and knowledges, 

 but not all sorts of thoughts and knowledges 

 in and of themselves make society or the 

 social stnlf. The social stuff, so far as it is 

 intellectual, is one kind of knowledge in 

 particular, namelj% knowledge of resem- 

 blances, knowledge of those modes of like- 

 mindedness that make cooperation possible. 

 The same logic that leads Professor Baldwin 

 to try to separate the social stuff from other 

 kinds of stuff should lead him further to 

 distinguish the thought that is essentially 

 social and capable of organizing all other 

 thoughts and knowledges into social ma- 

 terial from the thought and knowledge that 

 have no such inherent power. 



Perhaps, however, it is in his few remarks 

 about the social process that Professor Bald- 

 win has been most unjust to himself, and 

 has missed an opportunity to make a really 

 important contribution to social science. 

 He is willing to grant that the social pro- 

 cess consists in imitation. Yet, if the earlier 

 chapters of ' Social and Ethical Interpreta- 

 tions ' prove anything at all, they prove 

 that imitations are progressively controlled, 

 as individual development proceeds, by the 

 process of ejective interpretation. To carry 

 this thought into sociological interpretation 

 it is necessary to bear in mind the function 

 of resemblance, especially of mental and 

 moral resemblance, in controlling relation- 

 ships. In the ejective processes of the 

 ' dialectic of personal growth ' not all of 

 our acquaintances are indiscriminate! jr util- 

 ized. We detect the difference between 

 those who, in ways important to oui'selves, 

 resemble us and those who, in waj's im- 

 portant to ourselves, differ from us. Our 

 ejective interpretations, therefore, are ac- 

 companied at every step by a process of 

 ejective selection. These ejective selections 

 are the psychological basis of all social 

 groupings, not only of those of the more 



intimate sort, such as personal friendships, 

 but those also of the purely utilitarian sort, 

 like business partnerships. In a word, while 

 imitation is a process that penetrates so- 

 ciety thi'ough and through, it is not a dis- 

 tinctively social process. It is wider than 

 the social process, just as thought is more 

 comprehensive than the social stuff. The 

 distinctive social process is an ejective in- 

 terpretation and selection. In its widest 

 form it includes imitation controlled by or 

 made a function of ejective selection. 



I may now very briefly indicate the fur- 

 ther criticisms which, in pursuance of this 

 thought, must be made upon Professor 

 Baldwin's views — criticisms, namely, that 

 apply to his treatment of social policy. ISTo 

 exception is to be taken to the analysis 

 which describes the individual as the par- 

 ticularizing social force, and society in its 

 entirety as the generalizing social force. 

 But I fail to discover in Professor Baldwin's 

 account of the subject any adequate recogni- 

 tion of the social causation of individuality. 

 That causation must be sought in the phe- 

 noma of unlikeness in the social population. 

 Throughout human history individuality 

 and the possibility of social variation have 

 been due to the commingling of ethnic ele- 

 ments, or, within the same nationality, to 

 the commingling of elements long exposed 

 to dilferent local environments. The com- 

 mingling itself is brought about by emigra- 

 tion and immigration. If the biological 

 phenomenon of panmixia is all that Weis- 

 mann. Gallon and other investigators have 

 represented to be, its levelling eifects are 

 countei-acted and social progress is made 

 possible only by continual groupings and 

 regroupings in the population under the in- 

 fluence of ejective selection. 



Finally, there is no possible explanation 

 of social policy which leaves out of account 

 the facts of mental and moral resemblance 

 and the consciousness of kind. AVitbout 

 like-mindedness there can be neither spon- 



