Chapter I: Front Matter

HUMAN NATURE AND THE SOCIAL ORDER

BY

CHARLES HORTON COOLEY

INSTRUCTOR IN SOCIOLOGY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

NEW YORK

CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS

1902

COPYRIGHT, 1902, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS

Published, September, 1902

TROW DIRECTORY
PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY
NEW YORK

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

SOCIETY AND THE INDIVIDUAL
PAGE
Are Aspects of the Same Thing—The Fallacy of Setting Them in
Opposition—Various Forms of this Fallacy 1

CHAPTER II

SUGGESTION AND CHOICE

The Meaning of these Terms and their Relation to Each
Other—Individual and Social Aspects of Will or Choice—Suggestion
and Choice in Children—The Scope of Suggestion Commonly
Underestimated—Practical Limitations upon Deliberate
Choice—Illustrations of the Action of the _Milieu_—The Greater
or Less Activity of Choice Reflects the General State of
Society—Suggestibility 14

CHAPTER III

SOCIABILITY AND PERSONAL IDEAS

The Sociability of Children—Imaginary Conversation and its
Significance—The Nature of the Impulse to Communicate—There is
no Separation between Real and Imaginary Persons—Nor between
Thought and Intercourse—The Study and Interpretation of
Expression by Children—The Symbol or Sensuous Nucleus of
Personal Ideas—Personal Physiognomy in Art and Literature—In the
Idea of Social Groups—Sentiment in Personal Ideas—The Personal
Idea is the Immediate Social Reality—Society must be Studied in
the Imagination—The Possible Reality of Incorporeal Persons—The
Material Notion of Personality Contrasted with the Notion Based
on a Study of Personal Ideas—Self and Other in Personal
Ideas—Personal Opposition—Further Illustration and Defence of
the View of Persons and of Society Here Set Forth 45

CHAPTER IV

SYMPATHY OR COMMUNION AS AN ASPECT OF SOCIETY

The Meaning of Sympathy as here Used—Its Relation to Thought,
Sentiment, and Social Experience—The Range of Sympathy is a
Measure of Personality; _e.g._, as Regards Power, Goodness or
Badness, Sanity or Insanity—A Man’s Sympathies Reflect the
Social Order—Specialization and Breadth—Sympathy Reflects Social
Process in the Mingling of Likeness with Difference—Also in that
it is a Process of Selection Guided by Feeling—The Meaning of
Love in Social Discussion—Love in Relation to Self—The Study of
Sympathy Reveals the Vital Unity of Human Life 102

CHAPTER V

THE SOCIAL SELF—1. THE MEANING OF “I”

The “Empirical Self”—“I” as a State of Feeling—Does Not Ordinarily
Refer to the Body—As a Sense of Power or Causation—As a Sense of
Speciality or Differentiation in a General Life—The Reflected or
Looking-glass “I”—“I” is Rooted in the Past and Varies with
Social Conditions—Its Relation to Habit—To Disinterested
Love—How Children Learn the Meaning of “I”—The Speculative or
Metaphysical “I” in Children—The Looking-glass “I” in
Children—The Same in Adolescence—“I” in Relation to
Sex—Simplicity and Affectation—Social Self-feeling Universal 136

CHAPTER VI

THE SOCIAL SELF—2. VARIOUS PHASES OF “I”

Egotism and Selfishness—The Use of “I” in Literature and
Conversation—Intense Self-feeling Necessary to
Productivity—Other Phases of the Social Self—Pride versus
Vanity—Self-respect, Honor, Self-reverence—Humility—Maladies of
the Social Self—Withdrawal—Self-transformation—Phases of the
Self Caused by Incongruity between the Person and his
Surroundings 179

CHAPTER VII

HOSTILITY

Simple or Animal Anger—Social Anger—The Function of Hostility—The
Doctrine of Non-resistance—Control and Transformation of
Hostility by Reason—Hostility as Pleasure or Pain—The Importance
of Accepted Social Standards—Fear 232

CHAPTER VIII

EMULATION

Conformity—Non-conformity—The Two Viewed as Complementary Phases
of Life—Rivalry—Hero-worship 262

CHAPTER IX

LEADERSHIP OR PERSONAL ASCENDENCY

Leadership Defines and Organizes Vague Tendency—Power as Based
upon the Mental State of the Person Subject to It—The Mental
Traits of a Leader: Significance and Breadth—Why the Fame and
Power of a Man often Transcend his Real Character—Ascendency of
Belief and Hope—Mystery—Good Faith and Imposture—Does the Leader
really Lead? 283

CHAPTER X

THE SOCIAL ASPECT OF CONSCIENCE

The Right as the Rational—Significance of this View—The Right as
the Onward—The Right as Habit—Right is not the Social as against
the Individual—It is, in a Sense, the Social as against the
Sensual—The Right as a Synthesis of Personal Influences—Personal
Authority—Confession, Prayer, Publicity—Truth—Dependence of
Right upon Imagination—Conscience Reflects a Social Group—Ideal
Persons as Factors in Conscience 326

CHAPTER XI

PERSONAL DEGENERACY

Is a Phase of the Question of Right and Wrong—Relation to the Idea
of Development—Justification and Meaning of the Phrase “Personal
Degeneracy”—Hereditary and Social Factors in Personal
Degeneracy—Degeneracy as a Mental Trait—Conscience in
Degeneracy—Crime, Insanity, and Responsibility—General Aims in
the Treatment of Degeneracy 372

CHAPTER XII

FREEDOM

The Meaning of Freedom—Freedom and Discipline—Freedom as a Phase
of the Social Order—Freedom Involves Incidental Strain and
Degeneracy 392

INDEX 405

HUMAN NATURE AND THE
SOCIAL ORDER