Chapter XVI:
Social Action

All objects on the surface of the earth, though supposed to consist of multitudes of molecules which are moving among themselves, and though known to be undergoing secular changes, and destined to manifest, sooner or later, wholly different forms without human agency, may nevertheless, so far as man's daily dealings with them are concerned, be regarded as in a state of repose or inertia. The forces of gravitation and chemical reaction have reduced them to a state of equilibrium. Though differing immensely in properties, in form, size, consistency, etc., they are most of them in so far tangible that they allow their relations to be changed at the hands of man. In short, they neither escape him, nor resist him, nor refuse to be subdivided, modified in form, or transported in space. Before the active efforts of man the materials of nature are wholly passive. The condition which they have naturally assumed is the statical one. The free forces of nature have already played upon them in antecedent dynamic states until they have at last been reduced to their present state. This is the one in which they are capable of producing the least effects upon surrounding objects. While their matter has been integrated their motion has been dissipated, until the matter and force of the universe—at least, of the part of it which man occupies—have, as it were, become separated or divorced, and exist and manifest themselves independently—such is the apparent, and, so far as human action is concerned, the practical condition.

Now, it would be reasonable to suppose that, since natural objects have been constantly borne down until they have been brought to assume the greatest degree of stability of which they are capable in the existing condition of the universe, any attempt to disturb that condition would remove them more or less from that stable state and render them less inert and less indifferent to the influences of the free forces still playing upon them. Such is, in fact, the case, and it is an indisputable truth that the great results achieved by man in operating upon the material objects of the earth have consisted in removing these objects from the still folds of material death in which he has found them, and so placing them that the surrounding influences which had consigned them to this state can again set up changes in them and, as it were, reanimate them. In scientific phrase, it is by the transfer of material objects from the statical to the dynamical state, from a condition of molar equilibrium to one of molar activity, that human civilization has been enabled to originate and to advance.—Dynamic Sociology, II, 379-380.

The history of man, if it should ever be written, would be an account of what man has done. The numerous changes that have been made in the position of certain imaginary lines on the earth's surface, called political boundaries, and the events that have given rise to such changes, would be recorded, but instead of making the bulk of human annals as they now do, they would occupy a very subordinate place. Such changes and their conditioning events are temporary, superficial, and unimportant. They leave no lasting impress and are soon swept by time completely from the real record of man's achievements. The major part of a true history of man would be devoted to the reproduction of this real record. Although it is written on the face of nature by the events themselves, very much as the cosmical history of the earth is written in the rocks, still the history of man needs to be studied from these natural records, interpreted by the facts there observed, and described in writing and by graphic representation as much as the history of the earth needs to be thus treated by the geologist. Human phenomena, or, as they are popularly called, social phenomena, differ in these respects from geological and other phenomena only in the nature of the forces which produce them. In these it is the psychic forces, as described in the last chapter. Man is the instrument through which these forces operate, and the immediate cause of the phenomena is human action. As man has been a social being during the greater part of his history, and as the principal results of his activities have been brought about by some form of social cooperation, it is customary and proper to designate such action as social action. The laws and principles of such action belong to social science, or sociology, and it thus becomes clear that sociology rests directly upon psychology, and especially upon subjective psychology.

Subjective psychology is a philosophy of action. Looked at retrospectively and from the standpoint of natural history it is seen that all the changes that have taken place either in the organism or the environment have been due to the action of the former under the influence of the psychic or vital forces, and that from the time that conscious desires began to determine action great transformations have taken place and are still going on. Not dwelling on the subhuman stage, it is obvious that man is the being that has most notably displayed this transforming power. An animal of rather inferior physical strength, endowed with few natural weapons of either offence or defence, lacking the powers of nocturnal vision, keen scent, fleetness in pursuit or escape, flight, or special skill in swimming, by which to aid him in migration, he has nevertheless almost completely changed the appearance and character of everything above, ground over half the land surface of the earth and established himself supreme over all else in all the habitable parts of the globe. All this is commonly and properly attributed to mind, and it will be shown in Part II. in what special ways mind has produced these results. But the present point of view is that of insisting that the motive power of mind has been his multiplied and ever-increasing wants, to supply which perpetual effort has been put forth and ceaseless activity has taken place. This purposeful activity is the middle term of the threefold psychologic succession, mediating between desire and feeling and the necessary condition to the satisfaction of the former in attaining the latter. Here more than anywhere else pleasure or happiness has been made an end, though only intended by nature as a means. But neither did the transformations wrought by man's activity constitute in any sense the purpose of that activity. The sum total of these transformations constitute what is meant by material civilization, but man never made civilization an end of his efforts. In so far as this has been a gain the sole beneficiary of that gain has been society, as shown in Chap. XIII.

There are those who maintain that civilization can only be achieved through the action of the individual, unconscious of the end, doing that which will conduce to the end. The present state of progress is adduced as proof that this is the necessary result. But while it is admitted that this has resulted in some parts of the world and in past history, it must be denied that the effect has been beneficial in all parts of the world or wholly so in any part, and also that any guaranty exists that it will continue indefinitely to be so, even where the actual benefits have been greatest. It can also be legitimately argued that much greater benefits might be secured if society were the conscious agent and had its improvement for its clearly perceived end. But this is an anticipation. This much needs however to be said, that in predicating action as the object of society the time has not yet come when it can be said to be conscious of its end. Society has not yet begun to seek its end. It has not reached the stage of psychic development attained by the Cretaceous insect, the Eocene bird, the Miocene mammal, or the Quaternary man, when conscious desire began to inspire activity in securing its satisfaction. The soul of society is not yet born. Yet none the less is society the beneficiary of the direct results of human action in so far as they are beneficial, albeit that action is directed solely toward the attainment of the object of the individual man, viz., happiness.

It is the essence of the doctrine of individualism that what is good for the individual must be good for society. This is based on the admitted fact that society exists only for the individual. Society is only an idea—a Platonic idea, like species, genus, order, etc., in natural history. The only real thing is the individual. And it is argued: Why strive to benefit that which has no feeling and therefore is incapable of being benefited? The argument is plausible. Only it proceeds from a misconception of what social reformers really mean when they talk of improving society. There are none so simple as literally to personify society and conceive it endowed with wants and passions. By the improvement of society they only mean such modifications in its constitution and structure as will in their opinion result in ameliorating the condition of its individual members. Therefore there is nothing illogical in their claim, and to answer them it must be shown in each case that the particular supposed reform that they are advocating will not as a matter of fact result in the alleged amelioration of the individual members of society. Arguments of this class are legitimate.

It would also be legitimate to argue that no possible altera­tion in the existing status of society can produce beneficial effects as thus defined, but I am not aware that anyone has ever taken that position. It is too obvious on the most super­ficial view that the evils that individuals suffer are often due to the constitution of society which entails them. This results from the constant changes that are going on in every direction through the activities of individuals seeking their ends, and from time to time causing the needs of the mass to outgrow the restrictions which society under very different previous circumstances was obliged to impose. So that if a state of perfect adaptation of the individual to society could be at any given moment conceived to exist it would not remain so very long, and new internal transformations would soon again throw the individual units out of harmony with the social aggregate. It is this inertia of society and its inability to keep pace with the growth of the living mass within it that gives rise to social reformers who are legitimate and necessary, nay, natural pro­ ducts of every country and age, and the ignoring of this fact by conservative writers who lay so great stress on the word natural, is one of the amusing absurdities of the present period.¹

So long, therefore, as society remains the unconscious product of the individual demands of each age, so long will the organized social state continue to be found out of accord with and lagging behind the real spirit of the age, often so intolerably so as to require more or less violent convulsions and social revolutions. But if ever an ideal social organization shall come to be a clearly defined conscious individual want, it will be possible to establish one that will have elements of flexibility sufficient to render it more or less permanent. But here, as everywhere else under the dominion of the psychic forces, the end of the individual or object of man, happiness, or some improvement in his personal condition, must be put vividly before him as the loadstone of desire and motive to action.

Notes

1. Laissez faire is 'translated' into 'blunt English' as meaning 'mind your own business,' and this injunction he drives home to almost every one who has ever done anything except to write about 'what social classes owe to each other'; the salutary reservation of Sir Joseph Porter, 'except me', seeming to be constantly kept in mind. .
   "Again in his severe condemnation of the ' friends of humanity', as he sneeringly calls all who believe in the attainment through human effort of a higher social state, he seems to forget that these very troublesome persons are merely products of society and natural. To hear him, remembering his premises, one would suppose that these men either had invaded the world from some outer planet or had artificially created themselves. But they belong to society as much as the hated paupers and worthless invalids whom he would turn over to nature. Why then not let them alone? Why meddle with the natural course of things? In fact what is the raison d'etre of this earnest book that wants to have so much done? On his own theory, the author should let his deluded victims alone, should laisser faire — we omit the 'translation.'" — Review of Prof. W. G. Summer's book, entitled: What Social Classes Owe to Each Other. Man, Vol. IV; New York, March 1, 1884.↩