The elements of sociology; a text-book for colleges and schools

Front matter

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CORNELL

Preface

The present volume is what its title implies, an elementary text-book of Sociology. It has been written in response to a persistent and growing demand for an untechnical but scientific and reasonably complete statement of sociological theory, for the use of college and school classes.

No other subject calls for such serious attention from teachers and students of educational philosophy at the present time as that of the best preparation for an intelligent and responsible citizenship. Marvellous as the development of the United States has been during the century that is now closing, greater destinies are yet to be realized. Our task in furthering the civilization of the world is to be a large and responsible one ; no other nation can assume it for us or perform it if we fail. Delicate as our international relations have been during our attempt to establish a secure republic in a world of monarchies, they are to be more delicate and more difficult in the near future when the European powers attempt to rectify their colonial boundaries. Complicated as our financial problems have already been, they will hereafter call for greater wisdom than has been bestowed upon them hitherto. Difficult as has been the attempt to vi Preface

organize efficient, economical, and honest municipal government for cities numbering millions of inhabitants, the difficulties will continue to increase as population grows and wealth accumulates. Neither good luck nor any mere intuition of common sense will enable us to maintain the reality of republican freedom unless we have other resources to draw upon. Besides common sense and energy, we must have knowledge, training, and an unselfish devotion to the cause of human progress.

It is certain, however, that schools and colleges cannot furnish detailed courses in all branches of economic, legal, and political science. The field is too vast and the years of study are too brief. To a majority of teachers the alternative seems to be to give either a thorough course in some one subject — Political Economy, for example — or a superficial course in many subjects, including "Civics" (or Elementary Constitutional Law), International Law, and Political Ethics.

In the judgment of the present writer, it would be wise to devote a large part of the time available for such disciplines to a careful study of the nature and laws of human society. This study would familiarize the pupil with the principal forms of social organization ; with the thoughts, the sympathies, the purposes, and the virtues that make society possible ; with the benefits that society confers ; and with the conduct that worthy membership of society requires. These are the facts and principles that underlie all details of law and politics, all sound political economy, and all public morality. Well instructed in these rnatters, th? student j.s fittecj to continue his study of

Preface vii

society and public policy throughout life. Without this foundation, no acquaintance with legal or historical detail can give him a comprehensive grasp of social relations.

That this opinion is shared by many teachers the author has abundant evidence; and because of it the present text-book has been written. Sociology, as here set forth, is nothing more or less than an elementary description of society in clear and simple scientific terms. It will not be found more difficult as a class subject than Algebra, Chemistry, or Elementary Psychology.

This volume is not an abridgment of the author's "Principles of Sociology," but is a new book. Many paragraphs, however, and here and there entire pages, have been adapted from the larger work.

New York, August, 1898.

CHAPTER XI The Preeminent Social Class 113

CHAPTER Xn The Social Mind : Modes of Like-mindedness . . . . iig

CHAPTER Xni Sympathetic Like-mindedness and Impulsive Social Action . 129

CHAPTER XIV Formal Like-mindedness : Tradition and Conformity . . .141

CHAPTER XV Rational Like-mindedness : Public Opinion and Social Values . 155

CHAPTER XVI Social Organization ......... 172

CHAPTER XVII Component Societies . . . . . . . .170

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX The Character and Efficiency of Organization . . . .216

CHAPTER XX

The Early History of Society ;•..,,. ■2-i\

Table of Contents xi

CHAPTER XXI

V\K.K

CHAPTER XXn Civilization .......... 272

CHAPTER XXIII Progress 290

CHAPTER XXIV Democracy .......... 302

CHAPTER XXV The Theory of Society ........ 330

CHAPTER I Population and Society

The Groupings of Like Things. — If we wish to understand the world in which we live, we must cultivate the habit of noticing what things are like one another.

It is true that we must also notice what things are unlike one another. If we were unaware of differences, we should not know. If our eyes were not sensitive to differences of brightness and of colour, if our ears were deaf to gradations of sound, and if the nerves of the skin detected no inequalities of pressure, the external world would remain, for our minds, a blank. Discrimination, then, is the beginning of knowledge. Nevertheless, it is only a beginning.

If we knew nothing but the differences of things, we should soon reach the limit of the detail that our minds could hold. Endless progress in knowledge is possible only because we observe resemblances as well as' differences. As rapidly as we discover that things are alike, we put them together in our thought as a group, or class, or kind. This enables us to think about them collectively by a single effort of attention, instead of separately by innumerable efforts. We owe all science to this possibility of economizing our mental energies, by grouping things in our thoughts into classes or kinds.

Comparatively few persons make their mental groupings in a strictly methodical way. To observe systematically and classify with precision — that is, to group like things together with accuracy — is to be scientific.

Classification, then, is the foundation of all scientific knowledge; and classification consists simply in putting together in our thought those things that are truly and essentially alike.

When we have formed the habit of scientific observation, we presently discover that, in the world of external things, objects which are so much alike that we group them in our thought are usually grouped together also in space.

If we follow the windings of a stream through the meadows, and notice the various weeds and wild flowers that grow on its banks, the insects that wing over its stagnant pools, and the birds that nest in the thickets along its borders, we quickly learn that it is unusual to find only one object of the same kind in a given place. We are much more likely to come upon great masses of cowslips or violets, swarms of gnats, bands of butterflies, two or three dragon-flies darting about together, and pairs, or even flocks, of the same species of birds, than to encounter individual specimens.

In like manner, if we extend our observations over wide regions in the same country, and then over the entire surface of the globe, we find that particular rock formations, soils, and mineral deposits are found together in certain areas, and not scattered in a haphazard way

Population and Society 3

throughout the continents ; and that species of plants and animals have their well-known habitats or haunts, or, as the naturalists say, their areas of characterization.

The same is true of the varieties of mankind. The white, yellow, red, and black races are not indiscriminately mingled over the face of the earth; but each has its own fairly well-defined division. The natural home of the white races is Europe, northern Africa, and western Asia ; and from Europe they have spread to America, southern Asia, and Australia. The natural home of the yellow races is northern and eastern Asia. The natural home of the red races is America. The natural home of the black races is Africa, southern Asia, and the islands of the Pacific Ocean. Even of the national varieties of the white races this is true. The Semitic groups dwell together east of the Mediterranean, the Slavic in the east and north of Europe, the Scandinavian in northwestern Europe.

Population. — Any group of human beings of the same kind or description — that is, a group composed of persons who, in a number of important respects, resemble one another, and dwell together in a geographical area that can be fairly well-defined — may be called a population.

The most interesting peculiarity of populations is one that is to form the subject of our present study. The individuals that compose a population are endowed with intelligence, and therefore have the habit of noticing resemblances and differences, of which we have just been speaking. Among the resemblances and differences that they observe are those which they discover among themselves — and it is in these that they become chiefly interested. They become keen in noticing likenesses and unlikenesses of colour, race, and nationality, resemblances and differences of character and conduct, of tastes and habits. The individuals composing a population, like most other objects that are found in groups, are, to a great extent, alike; but unlike other objects, they also know that they are alike.

Besides knowing that they are alike, the individuals that make up a population usually find enjoyment in their resemblances, and are likely to quarrel and make themselves wretched over their differences. The white man, as a general thing, is glad that the men about him also are white men ; and white men often entertain feelings not altogether agreeable towards groups of black men with which they are obliged to have much contact. In like manner, men who believe or think alike about some question or interest that concerns them — for example, a question of religion, or of politics, or a question of political economy, hke that of gold or silver money, or of a protective tariff — find great pleasure in their intellectual sympathy, and habitually quarrel with those who differ from them.

Finally, men who thus recognize their resemblances and take pleasure in their agreements find that they can work together for common ends. It is possible for them to have similar purposes in life, to agree upon the best means of achieving them, to understand one another, and therefore to cooperate sympathetically and with success.

Of all the resemblances which the individuals of a population thus discover among themselves, and turn to good account, the most important are those mental and moral resemblances which thus make co5peration possible. Differences of race or of colour, of speech even, may be overlooked if there are agreements of thought and feeling.

Popidation and Society S

But without these, harmony, happiness, and successful cooperation are not possible.

Society. — The facts that we have here been describing are called social facts or facts of society.

The word "society" is derived from the Latin word socius, meaning a companion or associate. As soon as any person associates with another, or has a companion or friend, he is already aware of important resemblances between that companion and himself. He knows that they are interested in the same things or like to do the same things, or that they have similar tastes, beliefs, or sympathies ; or perhaps even that they are alike in all of these matters. He finds, however, that in some things they differ ; but that their acquaintance and conversation often bring them to agreement or sympathy upon subjects which, at first, divided them. This process of discovering both differences and similarities, and of coming to agreement upon various subjects, yields a large part of the charm of their friendship.

Just this process goes on in every population, not only between each person and some one other person or companion, but between each and many associates. That is to say, wherever many individuals dwell or mingle together in one place, there goes on an active interchange of ideas and sympathies, a cultivation of acquaintance and of like-mindedness. Consequently the word " society," which originally means companionship or association, has been extended to mean also this process of pleasurable conversation and cultivation of both acquaintance and like-mindedness.

Society, then, as a mode of activity of intelligent individuals, is the cultivation of acquaintance and like-mindedness.

This mode of activity, of course, yields a certain result or product. It makes those who associate more and more alike in mental and moral qualities. Its product, therefore, is a group of like-minded persons who enjoy and keep up this mode of activity. Such a group or product is called a society.

A society, therefore, is any group or number of individuals who cultivate acquaintance and mental agreement ; that is to say, like-mindedness. It is a group of socii.

Such activity, however, as has already been intimated, is found only if there is a good degree of like-mindedness to begin with. Consequently, we need to enlarge and slightly modify our definition of a society as follows : —

A society is a number of like-minded individuals — socii — who know and enjoy their like-mindedness, and are therefore able to work together for common ends.

Kinds of Societies. — This is a general definition. Societies are of different kinds; and the word "society," therefore, has a number of special meanings, all of which are consistent with the general definition.

Natural Society. — A population, as has already been said, is a group or number of individuals who, in many important ways, are alike, and who live within the same fairly well-defined area. It has also been shown that the habit of cultivating acquaintance and like-mindedness, making them more nearly perfect, extends throughout the population. An entire population, therefore, is, or tends to become, a single social group or society. The process is a natural one, which goes on just the same whether individuals give much conscious attention to it or not. A population maintaining social activities may therefore be called a social population or natural society.

A natural society is a population that is composed of

Population and Society y

like-minded individuals who know and enjoy their like-mindedness, and are therefore able to work together for common ends.

Tke Integral Society. — A natural society which is large enough to carry on every known kind of social activity and cooperation, including such activities as government, industry, education, religion, science, and art, and which, independently of any other society, maintains control over the territory that it occupies, may be called an integral society. Thus, each of the great modern nations, the United States, England, France, Germany, for example, is an integral society.

Component Societies. — Within each integral society are to be found social groups that, in many respects, but not in all, are complete and independent. Each of these groups if left to itself could maintain its existence and perfect a complete social life. But in fact it is subordinate in certain matters to the larger society which includes it. Such social groups are the several commonwealths or states of the American Union, and the originally independent kingdoms of the now United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Such also are counties, townships, cities, and villages ; and such, finally, is the smallest social group that could, if left to itself, grow into an entire population or integral society, namely, the family.

Social groups that could exist as complete and independent societies, but which in fact are only component parts of integral societies to which they are, in certain respects, subordinate, may be called component societies.

Constittt-ent Societies. — Within each integral society, and within most of the component societies, are formed social groups of another kind. Their origin is always artificial. A certain number of individuals come together and, as they say, form or organize a society for achieving some purpose which they have in mind. Such a society, for example, is a business corporation ; such is a political party, a church, a scientific association, or a club. Societies of this kind carry on the work of the community by a division of labour. They are not independent of one another. None of them could exist unless others also existed. Together they make up or constitute the complete social organization of the integral society. They may, therefore, be called constituent societies.

Sociology. — In modern times every class of objects in the natural world, and every kind of human activity, has been made the subject of scientific study. Society and social activities were among the latest facts to be studied in a scientific spirit and by scientific methods. This was because a scientific study of society was possible only after a great deal of knowledge about other things had been accumulated. Social relations are more complicated than relations of any other kind. ' The scientific study of society is called Sociology.

The object of all scientific study is to arrive at a complete description of the thing studied. The word " description " is used in various ways, however, and we must be careful to distinguish scientific description from a description that is merely pictorial or dramatic. A scientific description does not stop when the different parts of an object have been successfully presented to the mental vision so that we see them in imagination as we might see a building or a city. In scientific description, we go on to show how an object behaves or acts, and to show further how different acts or events are related to one

Population and Society g

another in a complete system. We show also the proportions, numbers, or other quantitative facts that may be discovered in the relations which objects and events bear to one another. Scientific description thus results in the discovery of what are called causes and laws, which are simply certain uniformities of order, sequence, proportion, i and so on, among the facts that have been described.

Using the word " description" in this sense, we may say that Sociology is the scientific description of society.

TAe Unit of Investigation. — The scientific description of any object or group of facts must start from that imperfect discrimination which common knowledge has already made of the object itself from all other things. Thus the sciences of Chemistry, Astronomy, Geology, Botany, and Zoology start from the familiar distinctions between one and another of the changing forms of matter, between the heavenly bodies and the earth, between living and non-living objects, and between plants and animals.

But just because the scientific mind is dissatisfied with off-hand knowledge and abhors vagueness, it always begins its systematic classifying of things by trying to make its preliminary observations as exact as possible. This is done by stripping away from the subject of investigation all irrelevant, accidental, and occasional facts, and looking for what is simple, elementary, and persistent. The sim- , plest form of the subject-matter of a science is called the '' Unit of Investigation.

The chemists have long known that their science is con- , cerned with the elementary forms of matter ; namely, ' oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, aluminium, chlorine, sodium, and some sixty more, — their number, qualities, atomic weights, and combinations with one another. The lo The Elements of Sociology

element, then, is the unit of investigation in Chemistry. The astronomers have long known that the specific object of their investigation is not the heavens in general, but the particular planet or star, — its motion, shape, size, distance, composition, and history. The geologists have learned that their subject-matter is rock, — its composition, density, texture, shape, fracture, cleavage, position, stratification, and history. The biologists, both botanists and zoologists, have found their unit of investigation in the organic cell ; they observe its structure, development, and combinations. The psychologists have two units of investigation, because they study both consciousness and the activity of a particular form of matter ; namely, that which is found in nerve and brain. The unit of investigation in the study of consciousness is 'sensation, which is the simplest of all mental facts. The unit of investigation in the study of nerve and brain activity is the nerve cell and its reaction to irritation or stimulus.

What, now, is the unit of investigation in Sociology .■' The answer has already been partly disclosed. In its simplest form, society exists whenever an individual has a companion or associate. The socius, then, is the unit of any social group or society ; and his conduct is the unit of social activity. Every human being is at once an animal, a conscious individual mind, and a socius. As an animal he is studied by the anatomist and physiologist ; as a conscious mind he is studied by the psychologist ; as a socius, loving and seeking acquaintance, forming friendships and alliances with other socii like himself, imitating them and setting examples for them, teaching them and learning from them, and engaging with them in many forms of common activity, — he is studied by the sociologist.

Population and Society 1 1

The unit of investigation, then, in Sociology is the socius — that is to say, the individual who is not only an animal and a conscious mind, but also a companion, a learner, a teacher, and co-worker.

Sociology studies the nature of the socius, his habits ■ and his activities. Whether there are different kinds or classes of socii, how socii influence one another, how they combine and separate, what groups they form, — all these questions also are questions of Sociology.

The Problems of Sociology. — When a science has descriptively marked out its subject-matter and found its unit of investigation, it has accomplished the first of four tasks which every complete science must undertake.

The second task of science is carefully to examine the activities or processes that may be observed in the object, or group of things, or group of interests, under investigation. Thus the chemist, when he has discovered the elementary forms of matter, observes how each element behaves in all possible combinations with other elements. The biologist tries to discover all possible modes of cell formation and cell development.

The third task of science is to show what new products or combinations of facts or things are brought into existence as a result of the activities or processes. Thus the chemist tries to discover what complex products can be made by combining the chemical elements in all possible ways. The biologist observes all the forms of tissue, and the different kinds of organisms that are produced by the different combinations of living cells.

The fourth task of science is to discover and formulate the exact relations or laws which prevail among activities and in the evolution of their products.

In a rough general way, the first scientific task of Sociology has been performed in this chapter. We have shown what group of facts Sociology studies, and determined the unit of investigation. We have now to go on and examine more carefully the processes or activities of society, the products which result from them, and, finally, the laws which explain both activities and products.

PARALLEL STUDY Read Spencer's " Study of Sociology."

CHAPTER II Where Aggregations of People are Formed

Inhabitable Areas. — Natural societies are found only where the physical features of land and climate are favourable to the grouping of living beings in relatively large aggregations. There can be no social activity without communication and acquaintance; and these are impossible if individuals are so widely separated in space that they must pass most of their time in isolation.

Rather more than half of the land surface of the earth is unfavourable to any massing of population. Mountain ranges, deserts, tropical jungles, and the intensely cold regions of the Arctic zones together make up this forbidding part of the world. Natural societies flourish where soil is productive and elevation is not too great an obstacle to industry and communication, and where climate is endurable.

North America. — So far as climate is concerned, nearly every part of North America could be inhabited by man. But there are large areas here where subsistence could not easily be obtained.

The Grainless North. — The northern limit of grain production is a line that extends from southeastern Labrador to near the head of Lake Superior, thence to the southern end of Lake Athabasca, and thence to the mouth of the Fraser River. North of this line, the winter cold, though severe and prolonged, is not unendurable. The summer is warm; but it is too short for the purposes of a varied agriculture. The primeval forests of this region are still the home of moose, musk oxen, and reindeer, and of many fur-bearing animals. Its rivers and lakes are well stocked with fish. Hunting tribes of Indians can live here ; but settlements of civilized white men can hardly be expected to flourish. So well informed a man as Professor Shaler predicts that this region will " remain a wilderness, unsought as the dwelling-place of civilized man."

The Western Desert. — Another part of North America at present unfavourable to population is the so-called great Western Desert. It is an arid region which lies westward from the one hundredth meridian to the coast ranges of the Pacific, and stretches from the Canadian border, where it is nearly a thousand miles wide, into Mexico, where it is three or four hundred miles wide. It would be unsafe to predict that this region will never be occupied by a dense population, since we know from the success of the Mormon settlements in Utah, that, by means of irrigation, the arid lands may be made habitable. Indeed, it is possible that they may yet become the seat of great and prosperous communities. As yet, however, the population of this fourth great desert of the world is less than two inhabitants to the square mile.

The Region of Fertility. — In wonderful contrast is the region east of the one hundredth meridian. Here the rainfall is greater than is necessary for agriculture ; and the fertility is of a degree almost unknown elsewhere outside of the tropics. In no other land of equal extent does the soil bring forth so great a variety of products fit for human use. Nowhere else are drought and flood so narrowly localized by topography and by the direction of atmospheric currents, as to make a general failure of the harvests so nearly impossible. The population of this region in 1790 was 3,929,214; in 1890, 59,594,637.

Local Areas. — Within this region, however, is a great variety of conditions and resources to which the local distribution of population conforms.

1. The Coast Swamps. — One subdivision is known as the Coast Swamps. These are found along the South Atlantic and Gulf coasts, from southeastern Virginia to the mouth of the Rio Grande in Texas. Their greatest breadth, occasionally as much as one hundred miles, is in North Carolina and Louisiana. While nearly level, these swamps have slope enough for drainage ; and in the Carolinas large areas of them are utilized for rice plantations. In colonial days one of their important products was indigo. In 1890 the Coast Swamps had a population of 21.5 to the square mile. It was composed mainly of negroes, who alone can successfully withstand the malarial climate.

2. The Atlantic Plain. — Another subdivision of the densely populated region east of the one hundredth meridian is called the Atlantic Plain. It is a strip of land lying beyond the Coast Swamps, and extending to a somewhat abrupt rise of the surface which is known as the fall line, because from New York down to the Gulf and as far as the Mississippi River, all the eastward-flowing rivers at this line drop by falls or rapids from a higher level extending westward. The Atlantic Plain is nearly level, seldom reaching an elevation of 200 feet above the sea; and, except where cleared by man, is covered by a growth of pine forests. Long since, however, most of it was cleared and reduced to cultivation ; and it is now the seat of the chief commercial and manufacturing towns of the East. Its surface is covered with a network of great railroad and telegraph lines; and wide areas of the rural spaces between cities and towns are devoted to market gardens under high cultivation. The population of the Atlantic Plain in 1890 was 74.4 to the square mile, and consisted chiefly of whites.

3. The Pied^nont Region. — Next in density to the Atlantic Plain is the so-called Piedmont Region, which comprises a strip of country extending from Maine to Alabama, and lying between the fall line on the east and the Blue Ridge Mountains on the west. It is a region of beautiful scenery and of varied products. Its sweet grasses make it the choicest dairy region of America. It yields every kind of fruit native to temperate regions. It is rich also in mineral wealth ; and, in a good degree, its water-power is utilized in manufacturing. Its population in 1890 was 69.5 to the square mile.

4. Mountain Regions. — The population of the New England Hills — a term applied to the northern part of New England, including the upper counties of Maine, the White Mountains of New Hampshire, the Green Mountains of Vermont, and the Adirondacks of New York, a broken mountainous country ranging in elevation from 1000 to 6000 feet, and covered with forests — was 40.7 to the square mile. Agriculture in this region is difficult, and the returns are meagre ; but timber lands and quarries are sources of wealth. A population of 49.8 to the square mile was found in the Appalachian Mountain region, which includes the Blue Ridge and the Appalachian valley north and west of it, and extends from New Jersey to Alabama and Georgia. The maximum elevation of this region, 6700 feet, is found in North Carolina. The Appalachian valley is drained in New Jersey and Pennsylvania by the Delaware and Susquehanna rivers, in Virginia by the Potomac, the James, and Kanawha rivers, and in Tennessee by the Tennessee River. Its occupations and sources of wealth are much like those of the New England Hills.