Introduction to the Science of Sociology Part 65

A.--_Family Forces._ Capacity of each member for Affection Training Endeavor Social development.

B.--_Personal Forces._ Kindred.

Friends.

C.--_Neighborhood Forces._ Neighbors, landlords, tradesmen.

Former and present employers.

Clergymen, Sunday-school teachers, fellow church members.

Doctors.

Trade-unions, fraternal and benefit societies, social clubs, fellow-workmen.

Libraries, educational clubs, cla.s.ses, settlements, etc.

Thrift agencies, savings-banks, stamp-savings, building and loan a.s.sociations.

D.--_Civic Forces._ School-teachers, truant officers.

Police, police magistrates, probation officers, reformatories.

Health department, sanitary inspectors, factory inspectors.

Postmen.

Parks, baths, etc.

E.--_Private Charitable Forces._ Charity organization society.

Church of denomination to which family belongs.

Benevolent individuals.

National, special, and general relief societies.

Charitable employment agencies and work-rooms.

Fresh-air society, children's aid society, society for protection of children, children's homes, etc.

District nurses, sick-diet kitchens, dispensaries, hospitals, etc.

Society for suppression of vice, prisoner's aid society, etc.

F.--_Public Relief Forces._ Almshouses.

Outdoor poor department.

Public hospitals and dispensaries.]

Ten years later a group of members in the National Conference of Social Work formed a division under the t.i.tle "The Organization of the Social Forces of the Community." The term community, in connection with that of social forces, suggests that every community may be conceived as a definite constellation of social forces. In this form the notion has been fruitful in suggesting a more abstract, intelligible, and, at the same time, sounder conception of the community life.

Most of the social surveys made in recent years are based upon this conception of the community as a complex of social forces embodied in inst.i.tutions and organizations. It is the specific task of every community survey to reveal the community in its separated and often isolated organs. The references to the literature on the community surveys at the conclusion of chapter iii, "Society and the Group,"[170]

will be of service in a further study of the application of the concept of social forces to the study of the community.

2. Social Forces and History

Historians, particularly in recent years, have frequently used the expression "social forces" although they have nowhere defined it. Kuno Francke, in the Preface of his book ent.i.tled _A History of German Literature as Determined by Social Forces_, states that it "is an honest attempt to a.n.a.lyze the social, religious, and moral forces which determined the growth of German literature as a whole." Taine in the Preface to _The Ancient Regime_ says: "Without taking any side, curiosity becomes scientific and centres on the secret forces which direct the wonderful process. These forces consist of the situations, the pa.s.sions, the ideas, and the wills of each group of actors, and which can be defined and almost measured."[171]

It is in the writings of historians, like Taine in France, Buckle in England, and Karl Lamprecht in Germany, who started out with the deliberate intention of writing history as if it were natural history, that we find the first serious attempts to use the concept of social forces in historical a.n.a.lysis. Writers of this school are quite as much interested in the historical process as they are in historical fact, and there is a constant striving to treat the individual as representative of the cla.s.s, and to define historical tendencies in general and abstract terms.

But history conceived in those terms tends to become sociology.

"History," says Lamprecht, "is a _socio-psychological science_. In the conflict between the old and the new tendencies in historical investigation, the main question has to do with social-psychic, as compared and contrasted with individual-psychic factors; or to speak somewhat generally, the understanding on the one hand of conditions, on the other of heroes, as the motive powers in the course of history."[172] It was Carlyle--whose conception of history is farthest removed from that of Lamprecht--who said, "Universal history is at bottom the history of great men."

The criticism of history by historians and the attempts, never quite successful, to make history positive furnish further interesting comment on this topic.[173]

3. Interest, Sentiments, and Att.i.tudes as Social Forces

More had been written, first and last, about human motives than any other aspect of human life. Only in very recent years, however, have psychologists and social psychologists had either a point of view or methods of investigation which enabled them to a.n.a.lyze and explain the facts. The tendency of the older introspective psychology was to refer in general terms to the motor tendencies and the will, but in the a.n.a.lysis of sensation and the intellectual processes, will disappeared.

The literature on this subject covers all that has been written by the students of animal behavior and instinct, Lloyd Morgan, Thorndike, Watson, and Loeb. It includes the interesting studies of human behavior by Bechterew, Pavlow, and the so-called objective school of psychology in Russia. It should include likewise writers like Graham Wallas in England, Carleton Parker and Ordway Tead in America, who are seeking to apply the new science of human nature to the problems of society.[174]

Every social science has been based upon some theory, implicit or explicit, of human motives. Economics, political science, and ethics, before any systematic attempt had been made to study the matter empirically, had formulated theories of human nature to justify their presuppositions and procedures.

In cla.s.sical political economy the single motive of human action was embodied in the abstraction "the economic man." The utilitarian school of ethics reduced all human motives to self-interest. Disinterested conduct was explained as enlightened self-interest. This theory was criticized as reducing the person to "an intellectual calculating machine." The theory of evolution suggested to Herbert Spencer a new interpretation of human motives which rea.s.serted their individualistic origin, but explained altruistic sentiments as the slowly acc.u.mulated products of evolution. Altruism to Spencer was the enlightened self-interest of the race.

It was the English economists of the eighteenth century who gave us the first systematic account of modern society in deterministic terms. The conception of society implicit in Adam Smith's _Wealth of Nations_ reflects at once the temper of the English people and of the age in which he lived.[175] The eighteenth century was the age of individualism, laissez faire and freedom. Everything was in process of emanc.i.p.ation except woman.

The attention of economists at this time was directed to that region of social life in which the behavior of the individual is most individualistic and least controlled, namely, the market place. The economic man, as the cla.s.sical economists conceived him, is more completely embodied in the trader in the auction pit, than in any other figure in any other situation in society. And the trader in that position performs a very important social function.[176]

There are, however, other social situations which have created other social types, and the sociologists have, from the very first, directed their attention to a very different aspect of social life, namely, its unity and solidarity. Comte conceived humanity in terms of the family, and most sociologists have been disposed to take the family as representative of the type of relations they are willing to call social.

Not the auction pit but the family has been the basis of the sociological conception of society. Not compet.i.tion but control has been the central fact and problem of sociology.

Socialization, when that word is used as a term of appreciation rather than of description, sets up as the goal of social effort a world in which conflict, compet.i.tion, and the externality of individuals, if they do not disappear altogether, will be so diminished that all men may live together as members of one family. This, also, is the goal of progress according to our present major prophet, H. G. Wells.[177]

It is intelligible, therefore, that sociologists should conceive of social forces in other terms than self-interest. If there had been no other human motives than those attributed to the economic man there would have been economics but no sociology, at least in the sense in which we conceive it today.

In the writings of Ratzenhofer and Small human interests are postulated as both the unconscious motives and the conscious ends of behavior.

Small's cla.s.sification of interests--health, wealth, sociability, knowledge, beauty, rightness--has secured general acceptance.

"Sentiment" was used by French writers, Ribot, Binet, and others, as a general term for the entire field of affective life. A. F. Shand in two articles in _Mind_, "Character and the Emotions" and "Ribot's Theory of the Pa.s.sions," has made a distinct contribution by distinguis.h.i.+ng the sentiments from the emotions. Shand pointed out that the sentiment, as a product of social experience, is an organization of emotions around the idea of an object. McDougall in his _Social Psychology_ adopted Shand's definition and described the organization of typical sentiments, as love and hate.

Thomas was the first to make fruitful use of the term att.i.tude, which he defined as a "tendency to act." Incidentally he points out that att.i.tudes are social, that is, the product of interaction.

4. Wishes and Social Forces

Ward had stated that "The social forces are wants seeking satisfaction through efforts, and are thus social motives or motors inspiring activities which either create social structures through social synergy or modify the structures already created through innovation and conation."[178] Elsewhere Ward says that "desire is the only motive to action."[179]

The psychoa.n.a.lytic school of psychiatrists have attempted to reduce all motives to one--the wish, or _libido_. Freud conceived that s.e.x appet.i.te and memories connected with it were the unconscious sources of some if not all of the significant forms of human behavior. Freud's interpretation of s.e.x, however, seemed to include the whole field of desires that have their origin in touch stimulations. To Jung the _libido_ is vital energy motivating the life-adjustments of the person.

Adler from his study of organic inferiority interpreted the _libido_ as the wish for completeness or perfection. Curiously enough, these critics of Freud, while not accepting his interpretation of the unconscious wish, still seek to reduce all motives to a single unit. To explain all behavior by one formula, however, is to explain nothing.

On the other hand, interpretation by a mult.i.tude of unrelated conscious desires in the fas.h.i.+on of the older sociological literature is no great advance beyond the findings of common sense. The distinctive value of the definition, and cla.s.sification, of Thomas lies in the fact that it reduces the mult.i.tude of desires to four. These four wishes, however, determine the simplest as well as the most complex behavior of persons.

The use made of this method in his study of the Polish peasant indicated its possibilities for the a.n.a.lysis of the organization of the life of persons and of social groups.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. POPULAR NOTION OF SOCIAL FORCES

(1) Patten, Simon N. _The Theory of Social Forces._ Philadelphia, 1896.

(2) Gladden, Was.h.i.+ngton. _Social Facts and Forces._ The factory, the labor union, the corporation, the railway, the city, the church. New York, 1897.

(3) Richmond, Mary. "Charitable Co-operation," _Proceedings of the National Conference of Charities and Correction_, 1901, pp. 298-313.

(Contains "Diagram of Forces with which Charity Worker may Co-operate.")

(4) Devine, Edward T. _Social Forces._ From the editor's page of _The Survey_. New York, 1910.