Chapter VII: Social Forces (3)

The Freudian psychology is based on the doctrine of the "wish," just as physical science is based, today, on the concept of function. Both of these are what may be called dynamic concepts, rather than static; they envisage natural phenomena not as things but as processes and largely to this fact is due their pre-eminent explanatory value. Through the "wish" the "thing" aspect of mental phenomena, the more substantive "content of consciousness," becomes somewhat modified and reinterpreted. This "wish," which as a concept Freud does not analyze, includes all that would commonly be so classed, and also whatever would be called impulse, tendency, desire, purpose, attitude, and the like, not including, however, any emotional components thereof. Freud also acknowledges the existence of what he calls "negative wishes," and these are not fears but negative purposes. An exact definition of the "wish" is that it is _a course of action_ which some mechanism of the body is _set_ to carry out, whether it actually does so or does not. All emotions, as well as the feelings of pleasure and displeasure, are separable from the "wishes," and this precludes any thought of a merely hedonistic psychology. The wish is any purpose of project for _a course of action_, whether it is being merely entertained by the mind or is being actually executed--a distinction which is really of little importance. We shall do well if we consider this to be, as in fact it is, dependent on a _motor attitude_ of the physical body, which goes over into overt action and _conduct_ when the wish is carried into execution.

It is this "wish" which transforms the principal doctrines of psychology and recasts the science, much as the "atomic theory" and later the "ionic theory" have reshaped earlier conceptions of chemistry. This so-called "wish" becomes the unit of psychology, replacing the older unit commonly called "sensation," which latter, it is to be noted, was a _content_ of consciousness unit, whereas the "wish" is a more dynamic affair.

Unquestionably the mind is somehow "embodied" in the body. But how? Well, if the unit of mind and character is a "wish," it is easy enough to perceive how it is incorporated. It is, this "wish," something which the body as a piece of mechanism can do--a course of action with regard to the environment which the machinery of the body is capable of carrying out. This capacity resides clearly in the parts of which the body consists and in the way in which these are put together, not so much in the matter of which the body is composed, as in the forms which this matter assumes when organized.

In order to look at this more closely we must go a bit down the evolutionary series to the fields of biology and physiology. Here we find much talk of nerves and muscles, sense-organs, reflex arcs, stimulation, and muscular response, and we feel that somehow these things do not reach the core of the matter, and that they never can; that spirit is not nerve or muscle; and that intelligent conduct, to say nothing of conscious thought, can never be reduced to reflex arcs and the like--just as a printing press is not merely wheels and rollers, and still less is it chunks of iron. The biologist has only himself to thank if he has overlooked a thing which lay directly under his nose. He has overlooked the _form of organization_ of these his reflex arcs, has left out of account that step which assembles wheels and rollers into a printing press, and that which organizes reflex arcs, as we shall presently see, into an intelligent, conscious creature. Evolution took this important little step of organization ages ago, and thereby produced the rudimentary "wish."

Now in the reflex arc a sense-organ is stimulated and the energy of stimulation is transformed into nervous energy, which then passes along an afferent nerve to the central nervous system, passes through this and out by an efferent or motor nerve to a muscle, where the energy is again transformed and the muscle contracts. Stimulation at one point of the animal organism produces contraction at another. The principles of irritability and of motility are involved, but all further study of _this_ process will lead us only to the physics and chemistry of the energy transformations--will lead us, that is, in the direction of _analysis_. If, however, we inquire in what way such reflexes are combined or "integrated" into more complicated processes, we shall be led in exactly the opposite direction, that of _synthesis_, and here we soon come, as is not surprising, to a synthetic novelty. This is _specific response_ or _behavior_.

In this single reflex something is done to a sense-organ and the process within the organ is comparable to the process in any unstable substance when the foreign energy strikes it; it is strictly a chemical process, and so for the conducting nerve, likewise for the contracting muscle. It happens, as a physiological fact, that in this process stored energy is released so that a reflex contraction is literally comparable to the firing of a pistol. But the reflex arc is not "aware" of anything, and indeed there is nothing more to say about the process unless we should begin to analyze it. But even two such processes going on together in one organism are a very different matter. Two such processes require two sense-organs, two conduction paths, and two muscles; and since we are considering the result of the two in combination, the relative anatomical location of these six members is of importance. For simplicity I will take a hypothetical but strictly possible case. A small water animal has an eyespot located on each side of its anterior end; each spot is connected by a nerve with a vibratory silium or fin on the side of the posterior end; the thrust exerted by each fin is toward the rear. If, now, light strikes one eye, say the right, the left fin is set in motion and the animal's body is set rotating toward the right like a rowboat with one oar. This is all that one such reflex arc could do for the animal. Since, however, there are now two, when the animal comes to be turned far enough toward the right so that some of the light strikes the second eyespot (as will happen when the animal comes around facing the light), the second fin, on the right side, is set in motion, and the two together propel the animal forward in a straight line. The direction of this line will be that in which the animal lies when its two eyes receive equal amounts of light. In other words, by the combined operation of two reflexes the animal swims _toward the light_, while either reflex alone would only have set it spinning like a top. It now responds specifically in the direction of the light, whereas before it merely spun when lashed.

Suppose, now, that it possess a _third_ reflex arc--a "heat spot" so connected with the same or other fins that when stimulated by a certain intensity of heat it initiates a nervous impulse which stops the forward propulsion. The animal is still "lashed," but nevertheless no light can force it to swim "blindly to its death" by scalding. It has the rudiments of "intelligence." But so it had before. For as soon as two reflex arcs capacitate it mechanically to swim _toward light_, it was no longer exactly like a pinwheel; it could respond specifically toward at least one thing in its environment.

It is this objective reference of a process of release that is significant. The mere reflex does not refer to anything beyond itself; if it drives an organism in a certain direction, it is only as a rocket ignited at random shoots off in some direction, depending on how it happened to lie. But specific response is not merely in some random direction, it is _toward an object_, and if this object is moved, the responding organism changes its direction and still moves after it. And the objective reference is that the organism is _moving with reference to some object or fact of the environment_. For the organism, while a very interesting mechanism in itself, is one whose movements turn on objects outside of itself, much as the orbit of the earth turns upon the sun; and these external, and sometimes very distant, objects are as much _constituents_ of the behavior process as is the organism which does the turning. It is this _pivotal outer object_, the object of specific response, which seems to me to have been overneglected.

It is not surprising, then, that in animals as highly organized reflexly as are many of the invertebrates, even though they should possess no other principle of action than that of specific response, the various life-activities should present an appearance of considerable intelligence. And I believe that in fact this intelligence is solely the product of accumulated specific responses. Our present point is that the specific response and the "wish" as Freud uses the term, are one and the same thing.

2. The Freudian Wish[167]

"If wishes were horses, beggars would ride" is a nursery saw which, in the light of recent developments in psychology, has come to have a much more universal application than it was formerly supposed to have. If the followers of the Freudian school of psychologists can be believed--and there are many reasons for believing them--all of us, no matter how apparently contented we are and how well we are supplied with the good things of the earth, are "beggars," because at one time or another and in one way or another we are daily betraying the presence of unfulfilled wishes. Many of these wishes are of such a character that we ourselves cannot put them into words. Indeed, if they were put into words for us, we should straightway deny that such a wish is or was ever harbored by us in our waking moments. But the stretch of time indicated by "waking moments" is only a minor part of the twenty-four hours. Even during the time we are not asleep we are often abstracted, day-dreaming, letting moments go by in reverie. Only during a limited part of our waking moments are we keenly and alertly "all there" in the possession of our faculties. There are thus, even apart from sleep, many unguarded moments when these so-called "repressed wishes" may show themselves.

In waking moments we wish only for the conventional things which will not run counter to our social traditions or code of living. But these open and above-board wishes are not very interesting to the psychologist. Since they are harmless and call for the kinds of things that everybody in our circle wishes for, we do not mind admitting them and talking about them. Open and uncensored wishes are best seen in children (though children at an early age begin to show repressions). Only tonight I heard a little girl of nine say: "I wish I were a boy and were sixteen years old--I'd marry Ann" (her nine-year old companion). And recently I heard a boy of eight say to his father: "I wish you would go away forever; then I could marry mother." The spontaneous and uncensored wishes of children gradually disappear as the children take on the speech conventions of the adult. But even though the crassness of the form of expression of the wish disappears with age, there is no reason to suppose that the human organism ever gets to the point where wishes just as unconventional as the above do not rise to trouble it. Such wishes, though, are immediately repressed; we never harbor them nor do we express them clearly to ourselves in our waking moments.

The steps by which repression takes place in the simpler cases are not especially difficult to understand. When the child wants something it ought not to have, its mother hands it something else and moves the object about until the child reaches out for it. When the adult strives for something which society denies him, his environment offers him, if he is normal, something which is "almost as good," although it may not wholly take the place of the thing he originally strove for. This in general is the process of substitution or sublimation. It is never complete from the first moment of childhood. Consequently it is natural to suppose that many of the things which have been denied us should at times beckon to us. But since they are banned they must beckon in devious ways. These sometime grim specters both of the present and of the past cannot break through the barriers of our staid and sober waking moments, so they exhibit themselves, at least to the initiated, in shadowy form in reverie, and in more substantial form in the slips we make in conversation and in writing, and in the things we laugh at; but clearest of all in dreams. I say the meaning is clear to the initiated because it does require special training and experience to analyze these seemingly nonsensical slips of tongue and pen, these highly elaborated and apparently meaningless dreams, into the wishes (instinct and habit impulses) which gave them birth. It is fortunate for us that we are protected in this way from having to face openly many of our own wishes and the wishes of our friends.

We get our clue to the dream as being a wish fulfilment by taking the dreams of children. Their dreams are as uncensored as is their conversation. Before Christmas my own children dreamed nightly that they had received the things they wanted for Christmas. The dreams were clear, logical, and open wishes. Why should the dreams of adults be less logical and less open unless they are to act as concealers of the wish? If the dream processes in the child run in an orderly and logical way, would it indeed not be curious to find the dream processes of the adult less logical and full of meaning?

This argument gives us good a priori grounds for supposing that the dreams of adults too are full of meaning and are logical; that there is a wish in every dream and that the wish is fulfilled in the dream. The reason dreams appear illogical is due to the fact that if the wish were to be expressed in its logical form it would not square with our everyday habits of thought and action. We should be disinclined to admit even to ourselves that we have such dreams. Immediately upon waking only so much of the dream is remembered, that is, put into ordinary speech, as will square with our life at the time. The dream is "censored," in other words.

The question immediately arises, who is the censor or what part of us does the censoring? The Freudians have made more or less of a "metaphysical entity" out of the censor. They suppose that when wishes are repressed, they are repressed into the "unconscious," and that this mysterious censor stands at the trapdoor lying between the conscious and the unconscious. Many of us do not believe in a world of the unconscious (a few of us even have grave doubts about the usefulness of the term consciousness), hence we try to explain censorship along ordinary biological lines. We believe that one group of habits can "down" another group of habits--or instincts. In this case our ordinary system of habits--those which we call expressive of our "real selves"--inhibit or quench (keep inactive or partially inactive) those habits and instinctive tendencies which belong largely in the past.

This conception of the dream as having both censored and uncensored features has led us to divide the dream into its specious or manifest content (face value, which is usually nonsensical) and its latent or logical content. We should say that while the manifest content of the dream is nonsensical, its true or latent content is usually logical and expressive of some wish that has been suppressed in the waking state.

On examination the manifest content of dreams is found to be full of symbols. As long as the dream does not have to be put into customary language, it is allowed to stand as it is dreamed--the symbolic features are uncensored. Symbolism is much more common than is ordinarily supposed. All early language was symbolic. The language of children and of savages abounds in symbolism. Symbolic modes of expression both in art and in literature are among the earliest forms of treating difficult situations in delicate and inoffensive ways. In other words, symbols in art are a necessity and serve the same purpose as does the censor in the dreams. Even those of us who have not an artistic education, however, have become familiar with the commoner forms of symbolism through our acquaintance with literature. In the dream, when the more finely controlled physiological processes are in abeyance, there is a tendency to revert to the symbolic modes of expression. This has its use, because on awaking the dream does not shock us, since we make no attempt to analyze or trace back in the dream the symbol's original meaning. Hence we find that the manifest content is often filled with symbols which occasionally give us the clue to the dream analysis.

The dream then brings surcease from our maladjustments: If we are denied power, influence, or love by society or by individuals, we can obtain these desiderata in our dreams. We can possess in dreams the things which we cannot have by day. In sleep the poor man becomes a Midas, the ugly woman handsome, the childless woman surrounded by children, and those who in daily life live upon a crust in their dreams dine like princes (after living upon canned goods for two months in the Dry Tortugas, the burden of my every dream was food). Where the wished-for things are compatible with our daily code, they are remembered on awaking as they were dreamed. Society, however, will not allow the unmarried woman to have children, however keen her desire for them. Hence her dreams in which the wish is gratified are remembered in meaningless words and symbols.

Long before the time Freud's doctrine saw the light of day, William James gave the key to what I believed to be the true explanation of the wish. Thirty years ago he wrote:

I am often confronted by the necessity of standing by one of my
selves and relinquishing the rest. Not that I would not, if I
could, be both handsome and fat and well dressed, and a great
athlete, and make a million a year, be a wit, a _bon vivant_,
and a lady-killer, as well as a philosopher, a philanthropist,
a statesman, a warrior, and African explorer, as well as a
"tone-poet" and a saint. But the thing is simply impossible.
The millionaire's work would run counter to the saint's; the
_bon vivant_ and the philanthropist would trip each other up;
the philosopher and the lady-killer could not well keep house
in the same tenement of clay. Such different characters may
conceivably at the outset of life be alike possible to a man.
But to make any one of them actual, the rest must more or less
be suppressed.

What James is particularly emphasizing here is that the human organism is instinctively capable of developing along many different lines, but that due to the stress of civilization some of these instinctive capacities must be thwarted. In addition to these impulses which are instinctive, and therefore hereditary, there are many habit impulses which are equally strong and which for similar reasons must be given up. The systems of habits we form (i.e., the acts we learn to perform) at four years of age will not serve us when we are twelve, and those formed at the age of twelve will not serve us when we become adults. As we pass from childhood to man's estate, we are constantly having to give up thousands of activities which our nervous and muscular systems have a tendency to perform. Some of these instinctive tendencies born with use are poor heritages; some of the habits we early develop are equally poor possessions. But, whether they are "good" or "bad," they must give way as we put on the habits required of adults. Some of them yield with difficulty and we often get badly twisted in attempting to put them away, as every psychiatric clinic can testify. It is among these frustrated impulses that I would find the biological basis of the unfulfilled wish. Such "wishes" need never have been "conscious" and _need never have been suppressed into Freud's realm of the unconscious_. It may be inferred from this that there is no particular reason for applying the term "wish" to such tendencies. What we discover then in dreams and in conversational slips and other lapses are really at heart "reaction tendencies"--tendencies which we need never have faced nor put into words at any time. On Freud's theory these "wishes" have at one time been faced and put into words by the individual, and when faced they were recognized as not squaring with his ethical code. They were then immediately "repressed into the unconscious."

A few illustrations may help in understanding how thwarted tendencies may lay the basis for the so-called unfulfilled wish which later appears in the dream. One individual becomes a psychologist in spite of his strong interest in becoming a medical man, because at the time it was easier for him to get the training along psychological lines. Another pursues a business career, when, if he had had his choice, he would have become a writer of plays. Sometimes on account of the care of a mother or of younger brothers and sisters, a young man cannot marry, even though the mating instinct is normal; such a course of action necessarily leaves unfulfilled wishes and frustrated impulses in its train. Again a young man will marry and settle down when mature consideration would show that his career would advance much more rapidly if he were not burdened with a family. Again, an individual marries and without even admitting to himself that his marriage is a failure he gradually shuts himself off from any emotional expression--protects himself from the married state by sublimating his natural domestic ties, usually in some kind of engrossing work, but often in questionable ways--by hobbies, speed manias, and excesses of various kinds. In connection with this it is interesting to note that the automobile, quite apart from its utilitarian value, is coming to be a widely used means of repression or wish sublimation. I have been struck by the enormously increasing number of women drivers. Women in the present state of society have not the same access to absorbing kinds of works that men have (which will shortly come to be realized as a crime far worse than that of the Inquisition). Hence their chances of normal sublimation are limited. For this reason women seek an outlet by rushing to the war as nurses, in becoming social workers, pursuing aviation, etc. Now if I am right in this analysis these unexercised tendencies to do things other than we are doing are never quite got rid of. We cannot get rid of them unless we could build ourselves over again so that our organic machinery would work only along certain lines and only for certain occupations. Since we cannot completely live these tendencies down, we are all more or less "unadjusted" and ill adapted. These maladjustments are exhibited whenever the brakes are off, that is, whenever our higher and well-developed habits of speech and action are dormant, as in sleep, in emotional disturbances, etc.

Many but not all of these "wishes" can be traced to early childhood or to adolescence, which is a time of stress and strain and a period of great excitement. In childhood the boy often puts himself in his father's place; he wishes that he were grown like his father and could take his father's place, for then his mother would notice him more and he would not have to feel the weight of authority. The girl likewise often becomes closely attached to her father and wishes her mother would die (which in childhood means to disappear or go away) so that she could be all in all to her father. These wishes, from the standpoint of popular morality, are perfectly innocent; but as the children grow older they are told that such wishes are wrong and that they should not speak in such a "dreadful" way. Such wishes are, then, gradually suppressed--replaced by some other mode of expression. But the replacement is often imperfect. The apostle's saying, "When we become men we put away childish things" was written before the days of psychoanalysis.

3. The Person and His Wishes[168]

The human being has a great variety of "wishes," ranging from the desire to have food to the wish to serve humanity.

Anything capable of being appreciated (wished for) is a "value." Food, money, a poem, a political doctrine, a religious creed, a member of the other sex, etc., are values.

There are also negative values--things which exist but which the individual does not want, which he may even despise. Liquor or the Yiddish language may be a positive value for one person and a negative value for another.

The state of mind of the individual toward a value is an "attitude." Love of money, desire for fame, appreciation of a given poem, reverence for God, hatred of the Jew, are attitudes.

We divide wishes into four classes: (1) the desire for new experience; (2) the desire for security; (3) the desire for recognition; (4) the desire for response.

1. The desire for new experience is seen in simple forms in the prowling and meddling activities of the child, and the love of adventure and travel in the boy and the man. It ranges in moral quality from the pursuit of game and the pursuit of pleasure to the pursuit of knowledge and the pursuit of ideals. It is found equally in the vagabond and the scientific explorer. Novels, theaters, motion pictures, etc., are means of satisfying this desire vicariously, and their popularity is a sign of the elemental force of this desire.

In its pure form the desire for new experience implies motion, change, danger, instability, social irresponsibility. The individual dominated by it shows a tendency to disregard prevailing standards and group interests. He may be a complete failure, on account of his instability; or a conspicuous success, if he converts his experiences into social values--puts them in the form of a poem, makes of them a contribution to science, etc.

2. The desire for security is opposed to the desire for new experience. It implies avoidance of danger and death, caution, conservatism. Incorporation in an organization (family, community, state) provides the greatest security. In certain animal societies (e.g., the ants) the organization and co-operation are very rigid. Similarly among the peasants of Europe, represented by our immigrant groups, all lines of behavior are predetermined for the individual by tradition. In such a group the individual is secure as long as the group organization is secure, but evidently he shows little originality or creativeness.

3. The desire for recognition expresses itself in devices for securing distinction in the eyes of the public. A list of the different modes of seeking recognition would be very long. It would include courageous behavior, showing off through ornament and dress, the pomp of kings, the display of opinions and knowledge, the possession of special attainments--in the arts, for example. It is expressed alike in arrogance and in humility, even in martyrdom. Certain modes of seeking recognition we define as "vanity," others as "ambition." The "will to power" belongs here. Perhaps there has been no spur to human activity so keen and no motive so naïvely avowed as the desire for "undying fame," and it would be difficult to estimate the rôle the desire for recognition has played in the creation of social values.

4. The desire for response is a craving, not for the recognition of the public at large, but for the more intimate appreciation of individuals. It is exemplified in mother-love (touch plays an important rôle in this connection), in romantic love, family affection, and other personal attachments. Homesickness and loneliness are expressions of it. Many of the devices for securing recognition are used also in securing response.

Apparently these four classes comprehend all the positive wishes. Such attitudes as anger, fear, hate, and prejudice are attitudes toward those objects which may frustrate a wish.

Our hopes, fears, inspirations, joys, sorrows are bound up with these wishes and issue from them. There is, of course, a kaleidoscopic mingling of wishes throughout life, and a single given act may contain a plurality of them. Thus when a peasant emigrates to America he may expect to have a good time and learn many things (new experience), to make a fortune (greater security), to have a higher social standing on his return (recognition), and to induce a certain person to marry him (response).

The "character" of the individual is determined by the nature of the organization of his wishes. The dominance of any one of the four types of wishes is the basis of our ordinary judgment of his character. Our appreciation (positive or negative) of the character of the individual is based on his display of certain wishes as against others, and on his modes of seeking their realization.

The individual's attitude toward the totality of his attitudes constitutes his conscious "personality." The conscious personality represents the conception of self, the individual's appreciation of his own character.

III. INVESTIGATIONS AND PROBLEMS

Literature on the concept of social forces falls under four heads: (1) popular notions of social forces; (2) social forces and history; (3) interests, sentiments, and attitudes as social forces; and (4) wishes as social forces.

1. Popular Notions of Social Forces

The term "social forces" first gained currency in America with the rise of the "reformers," so called, and with the growth of popular interest in the problems of city life; that is, labor and capital, municipal reform and social welfare, problems of social politics.

In the rural community the individual had counted; in the city he is likely to be lost. It was this declining weight of the individual in the life of great cities, as compared with that of impersonal social organizations, the parties, the unions, and the clubs, that first suggested, perhaps, the propriety of the term social forces. In 1897 Washington Gladden published a volume entitled _Social Facts and Forces: the Factory, the Labor Union, the Corporation, the Railway, the City, the Church_. The term soon gained wide currency and general acceptance.

At the twenty-eighth annual National Conference of Charities and Correction, at Washington, D.C., Mary E. Richmond read a paper upon "Charitable Co-operation" in which she presented a diagram and a classification of the social forces of the community from the point of view of the social worker[169] given on page 492.

Beginning in October, 1906, there appeared for several years in the journal of social workers, _Charities and Commons_, now _The Survey_, editorial essays upon social, industrial, and civic questions under the heading "Social Forces." In the first article E. T. Devine made the following statement: "In this column the editor intends to have his say from month to month about the persons, books, and events which have significance as social forces.... Not all the social forces are obviously forces of good, although they are all under the ultimate control of a power which makes for righteousness."

A. Family Forces B. Personal Forces C. Neighborhood Forces D. Civic Forces E. Private Charitable Forces F. Public Relief Forces

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, classes, settlements, etc.
Thrift agencies, savings-banks, stamp-savings, building and
loan associations.
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 title "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 institutions 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 entitled _A History of German Literature as Determined by Social Forces_, states that it "is an honest attempt to analyze the social, religious, and moral forces which determined the growth of German literature as a whole." Taine in the Preface to _The Ancient Régime_ 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 passions, 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 analysis. 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 class, 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 Attitudes 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 analyze 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 analysis 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 classical 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 reasserted their individualistic origin, but explained altruistic sentiments as the slowly accumulated 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 emancipation 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 classical 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 competition 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, competition, 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 classification 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 Passions," has made a distinct contribution by distinguishing 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 attitude, which he defined as a "tendency to act." Incidentally he points out that attitudes 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 psychoanalytic school of psychiatrists have attempted to reduce all motives to one--the wish, or _libido_. Freud conceived that sex appetite 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 sex, 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 multitude of unrelated conscious desires in the fashion of the older sociological literature is no great advance beyond the findings of common sense. The distinctive value of the definition, and classification, of Thomas lies in the fact that it reduces the multitude 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 analysis 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, Washington. _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.

(5) Edie, Lionel D., Editor. _Current Social and Industrial Forces._ Introduction by James Harvey Robinson. New York, 1920.

(6) Burns, Allen T. "Organization of Community Forces for the Promotion of Social Programs," _Proceedings of the National Conference of Charities and Correction_, 1916, pp. 62-78.

(7) _Social Forces._ A topical outline with bibliography. Wisconsin Woman's Suffrage Association, Educational Committee. Madison, Wis., 1915.

(8) Wells, H. G. _Social Forces in England and America._ London and New York, 1914.

II. HISTORICAL TENDENCIES AS SOCIAL FORCES

(1) Lamprecht, Karl. _What Is History?_ Five lectures on the modern science of history. Translated from the German by E. A. Andrews. London and New York, 1905.

(2) Loria, A. _The Economic Foundations of Society._ Translated from the 2d French ed. by L. M. Keasbey. London and New York, 1899.

(3) Beard, Charles A. _An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States._ New York, 1913.

(4) Brandes, Georg. _Main Currents in Nineteenth-Century Literature._ 6 vols. London, 1906.

(5) Taine, H. A. _The Ancient Régime._ Translated from the French by John Durand. New York, 1891.

(6) Buckle, Henry Thomas. _History of Civilization in England._ 2 vols. New York, 1892.

(7) Lacombe, Paul. _De l'histoire considérée comme science._ Paris, 1894.

(8) Francke, Kuno. _Social Forces in German Literature._ A study in the history of civilization. New York, 1896.

(9) Hart, A. B. _Social and Economic Forces in American History._ From _The American Nation, A History_. London and New York, 1904.

(10) Turner, Frederick J. _Social Forces in American History, The American Historical Review_, XVI (1910-11), 217-33.

(11) Woods, F. A. _The Influence of Monarchs._ Steps in a new science of history. New York, 1913.

III. INTERESTS AND WANTS

A. _Interests, Desires, and Wants as Defined by the Sociologist_

(1) Ward, Lester F. _Dynamic Sociology, or Applied Social Science._ As based upon statical sociology and the less complex sciences. "The Social Forces," I, 468-699. New York, 1883.

(2) ----. _Pure Sociology._ A treatise on the origin and spontaneous development of society. Chap. xii, "Classification of the Social Forces," pp. 256-65. New York, 1903.

(3) ----. _The Psychic Factors of Civilization._ Chap. ix, "The Philosophy of Desire," pp. 50-58, chap. xviii, "The Social Forces," pp. 116-24. Boston, 1901.

(4) Small, Albion W. _General Sociology._ Chaps. xxvii and xxxi, pp. 372-94; 425-42. Chicago, 1905.

(5) Ross, Edward A. _The Principles of Sociology._ Part II, "Social Forces," pp. 41-73. New York, 1920.

(6) Blackmar, F. W., and Gillin, J. L. _Outlines of Sociology._ Part III, chap ii, "Social Forces," pp. 283-315. New York, 1915.

(7) Hayes, Edward C. "The 'Social Forces' Error," _American Journal of Sociology_, XVI (1910-11), 613-25; 636-44.

(8) Fouillée, Alfred. _Education from a National Standpoint._ Translated from the French by W. J. Greenstreet. Chap. i, pp. 10-27. New York, 1892.

(9) ----. _Morale des idées-forces._ 2d ed. Paris, 1908. [Book II, Part II, chap. iii, pp. 290-311, describes opinion, custom, law, education from the point of view of "Idea-Forces."]

B. _Interests and Wants as Defined by the Economist_

(1) Hermann, F. B. W. v. _Staatswirthschaftliche Untersuchungen._ Chap. ii. München, 1870. [First of the modern attempts to classify wants.]

(2) Walker, F. A. _Political Economy._ 3d ed. New York, 1888. [See discussion of competition, pp. 91-111.]

(3) Marshall, Alfred. _Principles of Economics._ An introductory volume. Chap. ii, "Wants in Relation to Activities," pp. 86-91. 6th ed. London, 1910.

(4) ----. "Some Aspects of Competition," _Journal of the Royal Statistical Society._ Sec. VII, "Modern Analysis of the Motives of Business Competition," LIII (1890), 634-37. [See also Sec. VIII, "Growing Importance of Public Opinion as an Economic Force," pp. 637-41.]

(5) Menger, Karl. _Grundsatze der Volkswirthschaftslehre._ Chap. ii, Wien, 1871.

(6) ----. _Untersuchungen über die Methode der Socialwissenschaften und der politischen Ökonomie insbesondere._ Chap. vii, "Über das Dogma," etc. Leipzig, 1883.

(7) Jevons, W. S. _The Theory of Political Economy._ Chap. ii, "Theory of Pleasure and Pain," pp. 28-36; "The Laws of Human Wants," pp. 39-43. 4th ed. London, 1911.

(8) Bentham, Jeremy. "A Table of the Springs of Action." Showing the several species of pleasures and pains of which man's nature is susceptible; together with the several species of _interests_, _desires_ and _motives_ respectively corresponding to them; and the several sets of appellatives, _neutral_, _eulogistic_, and _dyslogistic_, by which each species of _motive_ is wont to be designated. [First published in 1817.] _The Works of Jeremy Bentham_, I, 195-219. London, 1843.

C. _Wants and Values_

(1) Kreibig, Josef K. _Psychologische Grundlegung eines Systems der Wert-Theorie._ Wien, 1902.

(2) Simmel, Georg. _Einleitung in die Moralwissenschaft._ Eine Kritik der ethischen Grundbegriffe. Vol. I, chap. iv, "Die Glückseligkeit." 2 vols. Berlin, 1904-05.

(3) Meinong, Alexius. _Psychologische-ethische Untersuchungen zur Wert-Theorie._ Graz, 1894.

(4) Ehrenfels, Chrn. v. _System der Wert-Theorie._ 2 vols. Leipzig, 1897-98.

(5) Brentano, Franz. _Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkte._ Chap. vi-ix, pp. 256-350. Leipzig, 1874.

(6) Urban, Wilbur Marshall. _Valuation, Its Nature and Laws._ Being an introduction to the general theory of value. London, 1909.

(7) Cooley, Charles H. _Social Process._ Part VI, "Valuation," pp. 283-348. New York, 1918.

IV. SENTIMENTS, ATTITUDES, AND WISHES

(1) White, W. A. _Mechanisms of Character Formation._ An introduction to psychoanalysis. New York, 1916.

(2) Pfister, Oskar. _The Psychoanalytic Method._ Translated from the German by Dr. C.R. Payne. New York, 1917.

(3) Jung, Carl G. _Analytical Psychology._ Translated from the German by Dr. Constance E. Long. New York, 1916.

(4) Adler, Alfred. _The Neurotic Constitution._ Outlines of a comparative individualistic psychology and psychotherapy. Translated from the German by Bernard Glueck. New York, 1917.

(5) Freud, Sigmund. _General Introduction to Psychoanalysis._ New York, 1920.

(6) Tridon, André. _Psychoanalysis and Behavior._ New York, 1920.

(7) Holt, Edwin B. _The Freudian Wish and Its Place in Ethics._ New York, 1915.

(8) Mercier, C.A. _Conduct and Its Disorders Biologically Considered._ London, 1911.

(9) Bechterew, W. v. _La psychologie objective._ Translated from the Russian. Paris, 1913.

(10) Kostyleff, N. _Le mécanisme cérébral de la pensée._ Paris, 1914.

(11) Bentley, A. F. _The Process of Government._ A study of social pressures. Chicago, 1908.

(12) Veblen, T. _The Theory of the Leisure Class._ An economic study in the evolution of institutions. New York, 1899. [Discusses the wish for recognition.]

(13) ----. _The Instinct of Workmanship._ And the state of the industrial arts. New York, 1914. [Discusses the wish for recognition.]

(14) McDougall, William. _An Introduction to Social Psychology._ Chaps. v-vi, pp. 121-73. 13th ed. Boston, 1918.

(15) Shand, A. F. "Character and the Emotions," _Mind._, n. s., V (1896), 203-26.

(16) ----. "M. Ribot's Theory of the Passions," _Mind._, n. s., XVI (1907), 477-505.

(17) ----. _The Foundations of Character._ Being a study of the tendencies of the emotions and sentiments. Chaps. iv-v, "The Systems of the Sentiments," pp. 35-63. London, 1914.

(18) Thomas, W. I., and Znaniecki, F. _The Polish Peasant in Europe and America._ III, 5-81. Boston, 1919.

TOPICS FOR WRITTEN THEMES

1. The Concept of Forces in the Natural Sciences.

2. Historical Interpretation and Social Forces.

3. The Concept of Social Forces in Recent Studies of the Local Community.

4. Institutions as Social Forces: The Church, the Press, the School, etc.

5. Institutions as Organizations of Social Forces: Analysis of a Typical Institution, Its Organization, Dominant Personalities, etc.

6. Persons as Social Forces: Analysis of the Motives determining the Behavior of a Dominant Personality in a Typical Social Group.

7. Group Opinion as a Social Force.

8. Tendencies, Trends, and the Spirit of the Age.

9. History of the Concepts of Attitudes, Sentiments, and Wishes as Defined in Psychology, Psychoanalysis, and Sociology.

10. Attitudes as the Organizations of Wishes.

11. The Freudian Wish.

12. Personal and Social Disorganization from the Standpoint of the Four Wishes.

13. The Law of the Four Wishes: All the Wishes Must Be Realized. A Wish of One Type, Recognition, Is Not a Substitute for a Wish of Another Type, Response.

14. The Dominant Wish: Its Rôle in the Organization of the Person and of the Group.

15. Typical Attitudes: Familism, Individualism, "Oppressed Nationality Psychosis," Race Prejudice.

16. The Mutability of the Sentiment-Attitude: Love and Hate, Self-esteem and Humility, etc.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. Make a list of the outstanding social forces affecting social life in a community which you know. What is the value of such an analysis?

2. How does Simons use the term "social forces" in analyzing the course of events in American history?

3. In what sense do you understand Ely to use the term "social forces"?

4. Would there be, in your opinion, a social tendency without conflict with other tendencies?

5. How far is it correct to predict from present tendencies what the future will be?

6. What do you understand by _Zeitgeist_, "trend of the times," "spirit of the age"?

7. What do you understand by public opinion? How does it originate?

8. Is legislation in the United States always a result of public opinion?

9. Does the trend of public opinion determine corporate action?

10. Is public opinion the same as the sum of the opinion of the members of the group?

11. What is the relation of social forces to interaction?

12. Is it possible to study trends, tendencies, and public opinion as integrations of interests, sentiments, and attitudes?

13. Are desires the fundamental "social elements"?

14. What do you understand Small to mean when he says, "The last elements to which we can reduce the actions of human beings are units which we may conveniently name 'interests'"?

15. What is Small's classification of interests? Do you regard it as satisfactory?

16. What do you think is the difference between an impulse and an interest?

17. Do people behave according to their interests or their impulses?

18. Make a chart showing the difference in interests of six persons with whom you are acquainted.

19. Make a chart indicating the variations in interests of six selected groups.

20. What difference is there, in your opinion, between interests and social pressures?

21. Do you consider the following statement of Bentley's correct: "No slaves, not the worst abused of all, but help to form the government"?

22. Does the group exert social pressure upon its members? Give illustrations.

23. What do you understand to be the differences between an idea and an idea-force?

24. Give illustrations of idea-forces.

25. Are there any ideas that are not idea-forces?

26. What do you understand by a sentiment?

27. What is the difference between an interest and a sentiment? Give an illustration of each.

28. Are sentiments or interests more powerful in influencing the behavior of a person or of a group?

29. What do you understand by a social attitude?

30. What is a mental conflict?

31. To what extent does unconsciousness rather than consciousness determine the behavior of a person? Give an illustration where the behavior of a person was inconsistent with his rational determination.

32. What do you understand by mental complexes?

33. What is the relation of memory to mental complexes?