628 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XX. No. 515. 



any plural number of sentient creatures 

 more or less continuously subjected to com- 

 mon stimuli, to differing stimuli, and to 

 inter-stimulation, and responding thereto 

 in like behavior, concerted activity or co- 

 operation, as well as in unlike, or com- 

 petitive, activity ; and becoming, therefore, 

 with developing intelligence, coherent 

 through a dominating consciousness of 

 kind, while always sufficiently conscious of 

 difference to insure a measure of individual 

 liberty. 



"Which of these various conceptions of 

 the ultimate nature of the social relation 

 shall in the long run prevail must depend 

 upon a certain fitness to account for all 

 the phenomena of social life in the simplest 

 terms. That fitness can be determined only 

 through the further evolution of social 

 theory. 



But whatever the finally accepted view 

 may be, there are certain classifications of 

 social facts that may be accepted as among 

 the elementary notions of any sociological 

 system. 



And first there are tjrpes or kinds of 

 societies. The broadest groupings corre- 

 spond to the familiar demarkations made 

 by natural history. There are animal so- 

 cieties and human societies; and the hu- 

 man societies are further divided into the 

 ethnic — or communities of kindred, and 

 the civil— or communities composed of in- 

 dividuals that dwell and work together 

 without regard to their blood-relationships. 



More significant for the sociologist, how- 

 ever, is a classification based on psycholog- 

 ical characteristics. The fundamental divi- 

 sion now is into instinctive and rational 

 societies. The bands, swarms, flocks and 

 herds in which animals live and cooperate, 

 are held together by instinct and not by 

 rational comprehension of the utility of 

 association. Their like-response to stimu- 

 lus, their imitative acts, the frequent ap- 



pearance among them of impression and 

 submission, are all purely instinctive phe- 

 nomena. Not so are the social relations 

 of human beings. There is no human com- 

 munity in which instinctive like-response 

 to stimulation is not complicated by some 

 degree of rational comprehension of the 

 utility of association. 



The combinations, however, of instinct 

 and reason are of many gradations; and 

 the particular combination found in any 

 given community determines its modes of 

 like-response to stimulus and its conscious- 

 ness of kind— establishes for it a dominant 

 mode of the relation of mind to mind, or, 

 as Tarde would have phrased it, of inter- 

 mental activity. This dominant mode of 

 inter-mental activity — inclusive of like- 

 response and the consciousness of kind — 

 is the chief social bond of the given com- 

 munity, and it affords the best distinguish- 

 ing mark for a classification of any society 

 on psychological grounds. So discrim- 

 inated, the kinds of rational or human so- 

 cieties are eight, as follows : 



1. There is a homogeneous community 

 of blood-relatives, composed of individuals 

 that from infancy have been exposed to a 

 common environment and to like circum- 

 stances, and who, therefore, by heredity 

 and experience are alike. Always con- 

 scious of themselves as kindred, their chief 

 social bond is sympathy. The kind or type 

 of society, therefore, that is represented by 

 a group of kindred may be called the sym- 

 pathetic. 



2. There is a community made up of 

 like spirits, gathered perhaps from widely 

 distant points, and perhaps originally 

 strangers, but drawn together by their 

 common response to a belief or dogma, or 

 to an opportunity for pleasure or improve- 

 ment. Such is the religious colony, like 

 the 'Mayfiower' band, or the Latter-Day 

 Saints; such is the partisan political col- 

 ony, like the Missouri and the New Eng- 



