Processofgovernm00bent PDF

THE PROCESS OF GOVERNMENT
THE PROCESS OF
GOVERNMENT
A STUDY OF SOCIAL
PRESSURES
By
ARTHUR
F.
BENTLEY
CHICAGO
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

1908
PRESS
Copyright
1908
By
The University of Chicago

Published March 1908
Composed and Printed By

The Universit)' of Chicago Press
Chicago,
Illinois,
U. S. A.
^Q20
TA
TO MY FATHER
33^55
This Book
Is
an Attempt to Fashion a Tool
ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS
PART I.
TO PREPARE THE WAY
Feelings and Faculties as Causes
Section I. As Used in Everyday Speech
Chapter
/ Illustrations
ties,!
of the use of feelings, especially
societiesr\
sympathy, and of facul-
as causes of present events, of progress,
between
PACE
...
....
I.
'^
and of
differences
tlie
with reference to conflicting facts, and with sug-
gestion of the difficulties involved.
Section
II.
Section
III.
Small
26
Spencer
37
Section IV.
Von Jhering
56
Section
Other
91
V.
Ward; Sex and food

Pearson; Woods.
Chapter
Illustrations
desires;
Westermarck; Gurewitsch; Guraplowicz;
Ideas and Ideals as Causes
II.
Section I. As Used in Everyday Speech

Stump speeches, party platforms, states' rights
(
theories,
no
no
sociaUsm
and individualism, as illustrations of pretentious ideas and

Typical quotations showing the trust in ideas.
ideals.
Section
II.
Section
III.
Morgan
123
Giddings
128
Section IV. Dicey
136
Chapter
III.
Social Will
Chapter
IV.
Political Science
Chapter
V.
154
1
Summary
f 165/
Criticism limited to purposes of scientific interpretation of society.
The
meanings and values which are inadequately indicated by

and ideas in the uses that have been criticized. Order,
coherency, system. Wherein the feeling and idea theories collapse.
social
feelings
Vanishing points.
Process and content.
162]
theoretical statement of the position assumed.
The
possibility of a
of the social values.
iz
more adequate statement
PART
II.
ANALYSIS OF GOVERNMENTAL PRESSURES

PAGE
The Raw Materials
Chapter VI.
l^The raw materials are always

of men.
"Relations" as activity^
175
nothing
activity,
The
else;
found
in
masses
The
values of activities.
search for values richer than those given by "feelings" and "ideas."
Language
activities,
an ordinary case of
social differentiation; commore minute examination of

the feeling and idea phases.
Ten-
parison with organized institutions.
with special reference to
activity,
dencies to activity as themselves activity.
and from public-corporation
activity
a phase of social
activity.
The
from anger
Illustration
activity.
The environment
physical environment.
as
Absurdity of
"social environment" in scientific study; likewise of "social heredity."
The
The
subjective
and the objective from the point
The
place of feelings and ideas.
Concerning the defining of governmental
Chapter
Group
VII.
of view of activity.
retention of their meaning.

activities.
Activities
200
Measurement. The best statement of the material will be that which

best favors measurement. (_The practical measuring process in society
itself.
Men in masses. Complexity of their activities. Illustrations
of the
way
Their
this is represented in
classification.
reasoning and argument.
Criss-cross
groups.
group
activities;
their nature.
Interests.
group's
own
same
fact.
valuation of
The
their
Represen-
these terms all
actual observed interest
itself in
',
Identitôf interests,
groups, activities, interest groups, group interests;

describe the
Groups.
giôups;
The economicBS5is.
relation to the underlying groups.

tative
Politjcal
is
neither the
speech, nor any "objective utility"
to be in it.
The solid ground in between. Groups can never
be defined absolutely, but always only in terms of each other. Factors of dominance; number, intensity, technique.-^The "habit back-
assumed
4^
ground;" "rules of the game." Future and past in terms jpf

background. The " social whole " in terms of this background^'
Chapter VIII.
this
Public Opinion and Leadership
Leadership and public opinion;
223
related phases of group process, j
which can best be studied together.^^Leadership of group by group.)

Express adhesion of full membership of represented groups not alway^
necessary.
Illustration;
legi slatu res,
socialism, a city ordinance.
Individual capacity for leadership an incidental fact.
Boss
leader-
and group phases. The boss and the machine.

Exploitation and mediation.
The machine and the public. The
accountability of the boss.
Demagogic leadership. Technique; relation of leader to his following.
Complexity of group; life-history
of group.
Comparison of boss and demagogic leadership. The
ruler or mediator; problem deferred .(Pu blic op inion.
It is activity.
ship.
Its personal
XI
PAGE
How it reflects, represents, or leads other activity.^

statement of
it
Inadequacy of any
Illustrations from
underlying groups and in opinion
as mere opinion.
"push."
Its
municipal ownership movement in
The
differentiation of public opinion; its stages.

Degree
and intensity of public opinion^ No unanimous opinion
Each opinion group opposed to other
representing the whole society.
group activities. The political party as both opinion and organization. JjfThe vaguer and wider and more pretentious the opinion group
group.
of generality
the greater the need of reducing
Ôpinion groups
Chapter IX.
it
to substantial representative terms.
groups^
are themselves interest
Individual
Endowment and Race Type
.Group activities las here portrayed are not "up in the air."
/
not
make tjiem^more
"endowment
real to attempt to hitch
as psychically
them on
It
The
substantial Mature of activity as here used.
245
to individual
The
nor as physically stated.
stated;
does
individual and social
statement of subsistence facts, of sex facts, of disease, of the use of

intoxicants.
The nervous
system;
brain power and brain work.
and social complexity

and human societies. The relatively trivial importance of degrees of brain power for social interpretation, so far as
Race type. The physical
differences have yet been proved to e.xist.
Race pictures in physical terms; their scientific
or anatomical race.
Impossibility of correlating nervous complexity
as between animal
significance.
Von
Jhering's analysis.
The
possibilities in the use of
mental types as tested by' Dewey's suggestions of method.

a broader term than mind as seen in this connection.
reality of race facts consists.
Group complexes.
when race
formations which are usually meant
Chapter X.
Government
Position thus far gained.
nomena
258
All
phenomena
No peculiar
of
technique for government.
The three senses
term government; government as adjustment of interests withthe governing body; the political pro-
out a dififerentiated agency;

cesses.
No
logically precise lines.
not concern us.
The
trivial
Why
the "state" as such does
place of "sovereignity"
among
the facts.
government as the adjustment of interests. Th^

marriage institution, and the interests that help to form it. The
group pressures in government. Illustrations of the content of governIllustrations of
ment.
Interests in government.
Chapter XI. Law

Law is government,
word law with senses
government.
The
272
differently
of
stated.
Comparison
word government.
activities
involved.
Law
of senses
of
in differentiated
iLaw, the halîtual activity
of groups, enforcing itself through organizea governmcnt.-t-Illustrations
**>
government are phePressure is group push and
of force, or, better, of pressure.
resistance.
of the
The deeper group

oppositions are dis-
Corollary as to character classes.
cussed.
>-
Activity
Wherein the
xii
PACK
law against murder;
of activity in
Dead-letter law,
statement in
its
minority group phases.

Its real
theoretically.
The system phase of law.

importance.
General
connection.
this
law against Sunday saloons.

terms of activity. Majority and
in
The
The group
law.
forces
representation
Indirect
that
in
of
definition
activities as striking at other activities.
courts.
filling in of details
Constitutions.
it is abused
government in
phenomena.
legal
Representative
maintain
Incidental
law.
Law
processes in
issues.
law maintenance through government.
How the forces work through the official.
The
How
differentiated
Socially indifferent activity.
by the governing body. Legal theory in the

Physical force as but one form of the pres-
sures underlying law.
The
Chapter XIL
Classification of Governments
298
In comparing governments, not merely the superficial aspects of the

technique of mediation, but the nature of the interests mediated
must be examined.- Material for classification is not the " state; Y

not the institutions of government abstractly taken by themselves.
Perfection of adjustment not a test.-^Typical interest group formacity-state and nation; locality groups; class oppositions.
Extreme hypothîcal types of government with reference to the
Technique of
interests mediatedX Range of governments studied.
mediation; ousting'the ruler; splitting him up into two or more
institutions; controlling certain of his activities by differentiated proMethods of classifying governments;
cess while he retains office.
Spencer; Jellinek; Bluntschli; Ratzenhofer; Leacock; Hobhouse;
tions;
Hammond.
Burgess;
of government.
It
Further
examination of despotism as a type
shows no peculiar "absolute power," and no

It involves always representative char-
peculiar "arbitrary will."
Taken
acteristics.
strictly
How
however, despotism has a value for comparisons.

class
foundation.
How
as technique of mediation of interests,
other
classes
are
indirectly
it
rests
on a
represented.
How
doubling of institutions is a function of doubling of classes on

an approximate equality of strength. Leadership and mediation.
Class-based government.
Government where
Tribal government.
the groups function freely.
Chapter XIIL The Separation of Governmental Agencies

/
The
tri-partite
div-ision into executive,
valid only for occasional governments.
must
cies
persons in
its
The
is
separation of the agen-
on activities as located roughly in different groups of

the governmental service.\lllustrations of varying forms
The
executive,
NTonventions,
and
and its
legislative,
its parties,
of control
The German RegierThe United States with
tribal goî^rnment.
England's cabinet and parliament.
method
and judiciary
rest
of separated agencies.
ung.
legislative,
judicial
agencies,
electorate.
by the "people."
The
its
constitutional
practical test in the
Criticism
of the distinction
321
xiii
PAGE
between the expression and the execution of the will of the people.
How the theory of the three powers works as itself an activity in the
governmental
field.
The Pressure
Chapter XIV.
of Interests in the Execu-
tive
330
Scope of the chapter.Înterests in a tribal government. African

Large monarchies, China, Russia, Rome, Greek tyrannies.
kinglets.
The
moperch in Germany, French government in this century,

England.(The executive in the United States. Play of interests
through the presidency; history of the

trations
from the
strike arbitration,
tariff issue.
Further
boat regulation.
tions
and limitations
lature
Two types
of exe cutive
The Pressure
The
and
varia-
of Interests in the Legis-
groups of the population.
all
and those
Argument one
The United
pressures;
Legislative
France.
The
States federal legislature;
The
ment.
An
bill of
1906.
its
structure as the resultant of
other agencies of
to
government;
the
analyzed in terms of the effective inter-
locality basis of representation
legislative process in
all legislatures;
in Rome.
The German
Commons, and Cabinet.
activity
British Lords,
actual relation
'Qie "unitary will"
of the technique of pressures in legislation.
and the pressures.
po wer.
in cities
360
Reichstag.
ests.
play of interests
of legislatures, those representing special classes,
providing free access to
form
detested forms;
Congress.
Log-rolling typical in
forms veiled by the process of argu-
illustration of the pressures of legislation in the statehood
Legislation as to education.
saloon-license ordinance.
Pressures
The judge and
in city councils.
Franchises.
Chapter XVI. The Pressure of Interests

his reasons. \ Influence 'of
in
the Judiciary
group pressures
in private
vengeance, clan vengeance, And in adjudication by monarchs and by

differentiated courts, as
shown
in the initiative, in the penalty,
and
in
the character qf proof required. -/-Illustrations from judicial process in
United States.
College case.
Chief Justice
'The Chicago
Marshall's work.
traction case.
of
law down to
specific
arguments
The Dartmouth
The work of legal
in the process of adjudication, in its various grades
phy
theory
from the philoso-
in given suits.
How
dif-
ferent phaseiJjf theory represent different phases of underlying group
complexes.
modern
^^^
illus-
trust-law enforcement; steaminterest
governments.
under
from the anthracite-
bill.f-The
groups
The executive and the
Presidents contrasted vwith despots.
state
Chapter XV.
illustration
and the meat-inspection
in routine presidential administration;
The presidency
man and the office;
office.
Roosevelt; background of the process; the
VPhp position
societics.^
of the court as itself
an
interest
group
in
382
XIV
PACE
Chapter XVII.
The po litical
Political Parties
part y as an agency of government;
"party development;
definition
of
organization
party superficial.
of
Parties
England;
in France.
The
group forces in the development o

Organization outside the legislature.^
together separated agencies of government
public opinion.
and
radical;
Summary
main
Chapter XVIII.
Groups
,
The
promineoT
interest
parties in binding
and separated locality

Policy and party;
characteristics of party.
Superficial classifications; reactionary, conservative^
and defensive;
offensive
of
the
Parties in despotic monarchies;
The party under a machine with its own group

Main features of party structure; the work of
Farther
as mediating
parties
Parties in class governments;
parties in the United States.
governments.
Burke's
the simplest societies;
in
and leadership;
discussion
loosing of parties from class bounds.

in
various stages of
the futility of theoretical objections.
personality groups.
structure;
400
and
liberal, feudal,
socialistic.
,'
features of party process.
The Electorate and
Semi-Political
423
unorganized forms; organized forms which are akin

to agencies of government.
The electorate as a representative body
in
electorate;
two
the
aspects;
underlying
suffrage.
sures.
as acting for the non-voters,
first,
groups
Technique
among
the
v oters
of electorate itself the
Semi-political groups
press.
and
free association
group pres-
and party
electorate
propaganda;
the
The
civic administrative leagues.
free speech.
The Gradation
Chapter XIX.
of
organization for direct influence on
reform associations;
legal phase;
and the
Discussion groups;
the other.
Organization groups;
legislation;
outcome
for
Woman's
lying between the underlying interests
as stated for themselves on the one side,
phenomena on
and second,
themselves.
of the Groups
434
Organization and discussion groups not sharply distinguished from
each other.
Their interactions.
Both must be reduced
Their relation not merely
to underlying groups,
serial.
and the representative-
ness of each in terms of the other must also be made clear.

Various
forms of discussion groups in various grades of representativeness
^Types representation organThe qualitative

the
cussion and organization groups, both being forms
representative
Their similarity as technique. The value
be attributed
illustrated in the case of socialism.
ization groups.
of
Class series.
in
similarity of
dis-
of
activity.
to discussion
to
and organization groups considered as independent.
Allowance for over-emphasis
in earlier chapters.
and the "plus as technique."
The
"
own
interest
Ultimate possibilities of analysis.
Chapter XX. Representative Government, Democracy,

and Control by "the People"
The
theory that the predominance of reasoning offers a test of govern-
447
xv
PACE
Why
ment.
here
sary
it
The
does not.
also.
The
analysis into underlying groups neces-
and the delegate analyzed.

"Con-
representative
Fallacy of regrets over transition from former to latter type.

trol
by the people"
is
groups the
phrase
"the
on the discussion
people"
level only.
make up government.
monopoly
commonly
used.
Concerning attempts to picture
societies with reference to perfection of
Chapter XXI.
The Underlying
\^The examination
"Pure democracy"
indicates.
of either representative
as those terms are
whole
Various structures of control indi-
and those developing. None of them

government or democracy ^
cated, both those established
are the
many
What
a phrase indicating but one phase of the
processes of control which together
exists
governmental process.
Conditions
460
of the underlying groups for themselves lies outside
the sphere of this work, which has to do only with their process
through the government.
Many conditions may
be found which
be looked upon abstractly as phases of group formation.

vital factors of the
members
of these societies;
may
So the
the physical environ-
ment; wealth conditions; industrial technique; mass of population;
and country; technique of organization

and finally the reactions of government itself.
city
Chapter XXII.
The Development
of underlying groups;
of Group Interpre-
tation
iGroup
465
interpretation
is itself
an
activity involved in the
Gumplowicz' great achievement;

The supplementary value Simmel's analysis group
Ratzenhofer. Less
marked developments.
Marx and
his class struggle.
its
limitations.
activities.
group process.
of
clearly
Chapter XXIII.
The group
of
Conclusion
481
and substantial parts of all

Once analyzed and given a statement
factors are the solid
tions of history.
interpretafree
from
the dross of psychic causation, they will provide a firm backbone

for all interpretations of social
life.
)
Appendix
I.
II.
III.
485
Municipal Ownership Interest Groups in Chicago
487
The Play
The Play
491
of Interests in a State Legislature

of Interests in a City Council
490
.
PART I
TO PREPARE THE WAY
CHAPTER
FEELINGS AND FACULTIES AS CAUSES

The most common way of explaining what goes on
including of course the processes of government,
men who make up
fechngs and ideas of the
we have heard a
last fifty years
biologically described
man.
much
For the purposes of
also about the
book the
this
their place with Httle difficulty.
old-fashioned feehngs and ideas which
much
of the time
make
As
can in
for the
the whole of inier-.
and which crop out awkwardly
all of
must be given thorough attention before our
the tirnc, they
work can
For the
will take care of itself, while the vital factors
due time be assigned

pretation
in terms of the
is
the society.
great deal about the environment
as a supplementary cause, and in later years
environment
in society,
They
begin.
are
real
and unmeasurable,
irresponsible
giving indeed an animistic semblance of explaining society, but

actually, to use their
much
as
nature.
as the
It is
own method
animism
up an interpretation out
hint
use
at,
of the forest
come
necessary to
annihilate their false
to
of speech, blocking explanation
would block the study
to close quarters with
before attempting
pretenses,
of the underlying facts
but never actually define.
many words and seem a
long
If in this
way from
of
them and
build
to
which they dimly
prcHminary task
the processes of govern-
ment which are my subject-matter, it is because

making sure against misinterpretation later.
I feel the
need
of
My
concern
is
at
no time with psychology, but always with the
process of social hfe, and this, while
it is always psychic, can at

no time be understood or explained with the catchwords and
verbal toys of psychology as the starting-point.
The
present chapter will deal with
of feelings
and
faculties;
interpretations in terms
the next chapter will deal similarly with
interpretations in terms of ideas
and
treat first of the use of the factors in

3
ideals.
common
In each case
I shall
speech for the every-
day purposes of
theories built
I
attempting impressionistically to reveal their
life,
and then pass
defects;
may
up out
now
say
examination of certain systematic
to close
of them.
as well as later that
have no care for the fme
discriminations which psychological terminology draws between

motives, feelings, desires, emotions, instincts, impulses, or similar
mental
states, elements, or qualities.
from ideas and ideals
two
it is
solely for
ill-defined types of social theory.
process that I
am
If I separate
such factors
convenience in discussing
It is not, I repeat,
psychic
going to discuss, but social hfe, which from the
The
point of view of functional psychology appears as content.
material
is
the same, but fine discriminations in psychological ter-
minology used as
criteria for classifying the content are not
merely
useless but positively harmful.
Section
In Everyday Speech
I.
We
life.
us.
are all of us engaged every day in interpreting our social

This person, we say, has deceived us; that one has helped
Here we gave way to anger, there we maintained our high
we
standard of conduct, elsewhere

forced
itself
upon
that other is corrupt
we
That man
us.
therefore
in
yielded to a temptation that
pubhc
life is
a charlatan, and
they acted in the
way
they did,
Here a reform could be accompHshed,

if only people would realize it; there you cannot expect anything
better of men; in some other place the physical Hmitations to this,
w'hich
disapprove.
that, or the other desired enterprise are
showing themselves.
Out of such material our interpretations of politics and government as well as of other phases of social life are worked up.
The one
answer
secure point in
fairly well for the
If experience
all
these interpretations is that they
immediate purposes we have in hand.
shows they do not answer
fairly well
we
re\'ise
them;
changing not their character but the proportions of their mixture.
For most of us
it
is
all
of the time, for all of us
quite sufficient to regard
human
most of the time,
beings as "persons" w-ho
possess quahties or motives which are phases of their character
and who
act in accordance with these qualities or this character,

under certain conditions of
the time
we subordinate
life
in
standing of the conditions of action
such an understanding
is
Much
which they are placed.
the conditions or ignore
Indeed the greater conditions are never known
When
is
them
of
entirely.
A full under-
to us.
as yet possessed by no one.
achieved
do not mean
in all
when the
the details in every hfe, but in principle, in technique
"conditions" are absorbed into the action, sociology
will
be an
estabhshcd science, not a struggle to found a science.
We put the main weight then upon the character, or the motives,
drama. A man is kind, or violent, or
of the actors in the social

careless, or
"smooth," or stupid, or dishonest, or
or clever, or trustworthy;
orfoohsh. These are
or,
more
generally,
They
his quahties.
tricky, or insincere,
good or bad, wise
designate "him."
They
are put forth not merely as habits of action, labeled by us, but as
All this in the current hfe of
his very personality.
judging the others around him.
have
built
up many
Out
one man,
of material of this kind
theories of the causes of
man's
we
activities in
society.
If
we
are going to
of government,
it will
what
come
to
an understanding
be necessary
first
of the process
of all to reckon with these
more to the point, with the material of which

they are built up. We must test them in social Hfe and activity to
discover what we can "do" with them scientifically, how we can
make them work. We must find out what use they are to us.
Where they are not of use or where they lead us into difficulties
and confusions, we must clear them away.
Let us begin by picking up a few illustrations from everyday
I am walking along the street and see a man bullying
experience.
a boy. Some big fellow steps out and knocks the street tyrant
down. A little crowd gathers and cheers the rescuer. I turn to
my friend and ask:
"What made him do it ? Why do they praise him ?"
"He's a big-hearted fellow," he answers. "It's sympathy for
theories, and,
others.
He's a credit
It is useless to
question.
is
He
to
show
our civiHzation."
my
friend that he has not
answered the
has used a word or words that describe the man's
act, that indicate
a difference between the action of the
That
question and the action of some other men.

interested in specifying.
tion,
If
he generahzes
pathy," concretely,
is
ignorant of the
is
show him
said, to
this particular
the point.
kind of "sym-
why
boy who
manifested in our social hfe today;
is
"sympathy" expresses
is
in
he
in terms of civiliza-
it
he goes far beyond his depth, but since he
deep water, it is useless, as I have

What I wanted to know was why
man
all
is
form of protecting a
itself in this
merely being hectored or tormented without serious hurt.
The man who
got the praise from the crowd
known
is
to
me.
Half a mile from where he hves there are wômen and children
working
an old
most
their
woman
Hves out for
Nearby
than a nourishing Hving.
starved to death a few days ago.
evil conditions is
making
less
common
in the city.
Child-labor under
friend of his is
burden by day and a horror by night.
his wife's Ufe a
Yet he does not intervene
to save the starving, or to alleviate the
condition of the half-fed workers.

for the prevention of child-labor.
He does not join the society

He does not use his influence
with his friend to show him the brutahty of his ways.

Is
it
pure "sympathy," pure "love of man," pure " big-hearted-
ness " that
made
the
definitions of the
is
a strange thing
man
go to the rescue of the boy
words are indeed

if it
can
exist as
The
inept.
our
If so
man"
"love of
a lump-sum quahty of our hero
and yet not influence him to give his aid where aid anyone will
admit is so much more needed. And indeed in earlier ages
this same man with his same physiological structure, as weH as
we can judge, would have shown the "sympathies," that were in
him
life
and
the egoism too
he along other
in
And
very different forms.
lines today, his
did his
sympathies would manifest
themselves differently.
When my
friend said that
sympathy had moved the man
act, he did, then, but restate in other
asked.
an
We
words the very question
cannot really put the question
intelligent
form
without
broadening
an inquiry about the existence
it
put
it,
that
out so as to
of the particular
to his
I
had
is,
make
in
it
form of sympathy
in the particular society, manifesting itself with greater or less \igor
We
through the various members of that society.

or modifying
it
That
conditions.
and
trary
it
is
method of popular speech, but it is arbiuses sympathy as the hypothesis for explana-
and then modifies the hypothesis
of every particular case brought
serve
for
limit-
in special cases tojcorrespond with external
the
artificial; it
tory purposes,
cannot avoid
by positing sympathy as such, and then
the difficulty merely
ing
up
to
meet the needs
for explanation.
not
It will
our purposes.
Again there
is
Let
the case of the ill-treatment of animals.
us choose terms for the illustration so that
it
will
be put more
socially, less individually.
Why are
horses treated with so
much more
gentleness
they have been at various times in the past
come
baiting
Why
rare ?
an end
to
is
Why
Why
has bear-
cock-fighting comparatively
is
the torture of cats
now than
and dogs a rare happening
instead of an almost daily sight in the streets and alleys of our

Is
city ?
it
because among Enghsh-speaking peoples in the
last
two hundred years there has been a net increase in some soul
quahty known as love, sympathy, kindness ? My friend would
compare Ehzabethan England with the manners of today and

answer out of hand, "Yes, the proof
is
there in the facts.
Men
are growing in sympathy."
And
yet I
am
not answered.
increasing so markedly,
why does
For
so
if
love of hving beings is
much
cruelty to animals con-
tinue without the sHghtcst degree of widely spread condemnation ?
Why
is
do we
torture .animals in the zoological garden cages
Why
the killing of cattle wholesale carried on with the greatest possible
regard for expedition and a lesser regard for the feelings of the
animals
Why
do our hunters shine in the chase of game,
enjoying social admiration, not social condemnation
Why,
in
some particular forms of street and alley torture suppressed and some immensely larger and more common forms of
public torture erected into institutions ? That pure innate quahty
short, are
of soul, love, sympathy, kindness, or whatever you wish to call

will
it,
have trouble in replying.
Is
it
some absolute humanity which our
city people possess in
unique measure which makes the pigeons so safe at a curbstone
newsboy will throw a peanut

Yes ? When those same news-*
in the crowded district that not even a
them with
shell at
hostile intent ?
boys are sleeping behind garbage boxes in the alleys
Keeping
still
to the love
and sympathy
of explaining the events of social

illustration
from the
field
child-labor legislation
qualities, in their function
life, let
us take a
have
show as
will
Httle of
extension of
found in every country in which the factory
is
Some backward
it.
states
Some
regions or
may
be able to
yet only the unsuccessful struggle to secure
have
it
in time,
broader
still
The
of social progress.
system of industry has become established.

states
and in whatever measure
is
But
it.
necessary
all
which
will be much the same for all.

some men and some women abandon their other concerns in Hfe and devote themselves, as it seems, altogether to this
one cause from which they can hope for no personal gain in any way
under similar conditions
We
see
proportional to the labor they expend.
They appeal
for laws in
name of humanity. They deplore the barbarism of

when they are failing to get their results. They praise
the
times
When
increase of humanity whenever they succeed.
and
some meliorism which
describe the progress of society they
quiet
My friend
says: "Yes,
But again
who most
am
is
do
founded on an improving
we
it
they
sit
in terms of
human
more humane."
know that some
the
the
nature.
are growing
not satisfied.
of the
men
grievously abuse the children in their factories are most
know that some of the

and bitter at times and
draught come from the honey hive, and
tender-hearted in other relations of hfe.
strongest workers for the reform are harsh

in places.
I see the bitter
the sweet savors
Nor is
come from rancid
Hfe.
most eager for the legislation

back in anger from a proposal which
means fewer deaths by starvation in our cities. I see them tolerate
abuses with indifference which would stir the heart of an Arab
that
I see the workers
all.
to protect child-labor shrink
tribe of raiders to its depths,
instant relief our
the
net
which would bring from the Arabs the
own society denies.

human kindness.
growth of
have
my
want
to
doubts about
know why
the
of loves and hates and wants which, we say, make

up man have taken this new form of action. And the mere say-so
that there is more of love in the mass tcUs me nothing.
Its existence is an inference, and if true its given working seems a strange
mixed mass
one to follow from the
Here
is
an
facts.
illustration of a different kind.
railway rebate
an act which, considered by itself, is in a class \\ath some simple

courtesy we show to a friend and not to a stranger. It is akin to
the act of the grocer who gives his best box of berries to a regular
customer and his worst to some stranger he never saw before and
is
we denounce
Rockefeller
is
itself it has no more wrong.

Yet
and rebate-taker as wicked men.
be a loathsome villain. But does not
In
expects never to see again.
the rebate-giver
made
the difference here
out to
lie
clearly in the
importance the two different
kinds of acts have for society at the given time and place
we admit
It
moments, some psychic quaUty

in Rockefeller that makes him different from the grocer.
Nor
is not,
is it
in our calmer
a higher morahty in us that makes us
social factors are there.
forms.
We
The
must deal with the
we depend on moral
condemn him.
The
content of our hves takes different

facts,
but we must be careful
qualities selected
to
suit
how
our momentary
view of the facts for our explanations.
Again we see the people

Chicago packers.
Those
rise against the "iniquities" of the
and
denounced as immoral.
The people imply that they themselves would never be so evil
lack of cleanhness.
in
hearts.
their
iniquities consist of trade tricks
The packers
are
Everyone knows that during the
last
strike
special houses of ill-fame were provided within the hmits of the
stockyards for the use of the strike-breakers.
Popular morahty
condemns such conduct in most stringent terms theoretically.

But the people took no action. Was it just their morahty that
led them to strike at the beef trust when they did, and in the way
they did
In another sphere we find a group of

"plutocratic."
what we
call
Some
of
extremely
men whom we
them are frankly engaged

selfish
ends.
Among
call
in pursuing
them, however,
lO
arc others
who
in the
most detached manner imaginable aid them,

men whose influence could
argue for them, and vote with them
money
not be secured for
and we
plutocratic,
spirit,
as though
it
But we
or for any price.
them
call
all
talk of the increase or decrease of the plutocratic
were a quahty of the
them all in a lump for
the
most
human
We condemn
soul.
even though in calmer moments
part,
are willing grudgingly to admit of some few of them that they

But surely all of these " plutocrats "
are " plutocratic yet honest."
we
are
men
varieties of
we
the
There
character.
stamps them, that governs

If
They have
like the rest of us.
same
the
same mixed motives,
is
no soul-mark that
their action.
are going seriously to maintain that the increasing desire
what not
for riches, love of wealth, passion for fortune, or
thing that
man
is
is
the
ruining the country, as pulpit and press and book-
do maintain, we
so often
tight to avoid seeing
explanation
fits
how
shall
have
on the
and how,
little,
the facts,
to close
our eyes very
side of soul qualities,

rather,
it is
our
nothing more
than a rough verbalism adequate to indicate what the facts are

which we have under discussion, but not adequate to explain
them.
Again,
the city
is
we read
in our reform
newspaper that the "boss" of
a corrupt man, that his cohorts are corrupt, and that
if
they were not corrupt by nature and dishonest through and through
our political
corruption
exist
evils
is
would not be with
us.
I will
not deny that
a good w'ord to describe the facts, nor that facts
which can be conveniently labeled
us see whether
it is
in this
wickedness of the heart,
way.
But
let
us
evil of the character,
that will explain the acti\dties of the machine.
Here
is
a "boss," a well-known
man
of great
power
in one of
In the interval of his real work
the largest cities of the country.
as boss he serves as congressman at Washington, where he is

intelligent
and
fairly useful.
by no scandal, while
the minor leaders.
thing of value
it
At
marked
him among
least his record there is
his efficiency is
enough
to place
His local machine, however, annexes every-
can get
its
bribery, jobbery, or thievery
hands on.
on
its
If there is ever
any
side of the pohtical fence
local
which

it
has not
itself directly
grave oversight for

I
heard
say of
useful
organized and shared
ii
in, that will
count as a
it.
this boss's
most persistent enenTy (from the reform side)
him one day: "If X were only honest, he would be a very

man in pubhc hfe." But is X dishonest from moral defect
He is self-educated, self-controlled. He neither

drinks nor smokes. He cares most affectionately for his family.
All his pleasures are taken at his own fireside.
One never looks
He is engaged in
for him at the haunts of the "good fellows."
own nature
in his
Once he
various private business enterprises.
paid
all his
His credit
debts.
is
failed.
His word
of the best.
Later he
is
as good
word can be. If he ever operated any kind of

confidence game "on the side" as many "reputable" business
as a business man's
He
houses do, the fact has never leaked out.

friend.
never deceived a
His lieutenants need nothing from him beyond his simple
They
and are never deserted.

main hne of goods. The looting
He plans and campaigns and
of the public is his occupation.
snatches the booty with no more scruples of conscience than
if he were exploiting a gold mine, or deahng wholesale in clothes
word.
get their share in the spoils
But "spoils"
of course, his
is,
from the sweatshop, or running a "pure-food" factory

days before pure food legislation
income from a
nature,
if
fine
or
holding of valuable land.
If
his soul is corrupt, he has a queer
Take him
everywhere except in poHtics.
in
the
merely hving idly on the
X is dishonest by
way
of
all in all, I
showing
cannot
it
make
myself beUeve that the reason the people groan under the burden
of
ful
machine poHtics in
men
like
his city is because
him have wicked
It is perfectly true that if
he and some other force-
hearts.
he did not act in poHtics as he does,
how does that help us ? What

way he acts is due to his specific moral
Our problem is to fmd out why in a city-full
he would be acting differently, but

is there to
show
that the
quality or character
of
men known
to us in
terms of
all their
loving-grasping-vice-virtue
complexes of character there develops in the
form of systematized corruption.

evil in the hearts of
men
causes
it,
If
he
political field a certain
anyone says that a growing
is
as ignorant of the character
12
of the Fathers as he
his
is
blind to the
own times.
One more illustration,
of the
men
of
time drawn from a most mighty
this
manifestation of the social
full life activities
of America.
life
Through
the year
1905 the big mutual life-insurance companies of the country were
under
fire.
Everyone knows now how the
officials of
those
comman-
panies had been acting with perfect complaisance in the

agement of the enormous properties how favored men's incomes
had been swollen, how families had been built up in wealth, how
:,
had been withheld and squandered, how

legislatures had been bribed, how taxes had been dodged, how
books had been falsified, how pohtical campaign funds had been
When the facts became known a tremendous pubUc wrath
aided.
gathered and broke on the heads of the responsible men. It
denounced those men as evil and corrupt, as grafters and thieves
and swindlers. It compared them with all kinds of detested maleFinally, it thrust them out of their offices
factors in and out of jail.
and drove at least one to death, and others to sanitariums and to
It overpowered the legislature of New^ York State, supexile.
pressed there in a winter evils that had taken years to develop, and
drove a most efficient legislative machine into astonished servility,
The guilty companies meanbefore it was through with its rage.
while, wdth new officials, made some reforms, and more pretenses
of reform, and saved as much of the old system and its perquisites
policy-holders' dividends
as they could out of the disaster.
What
are
we
to say of the
various actors in these events
mental and moral quahties of the

?
Were
the presidents
who
did
wrong and paid the penalty men of lesser

the presidents of an earlier day when different customs prevailed ?
Did some mental or moral quahty decline and did its decline
bring about the evils and losses of which the nation justly complained ? Were the men who, in the pulpit, press, and platform,
moral stamina than
denounced the evil-doers men who themselves possessed a higher

morality, a greater quantum of the needed mental quahty ? Were
the new officers who took charge of the companies after the e\-ildoers had been driven out
men
of personally higher standards

Did the reform come,
in short, because the
been stopped and because an increase in

place
13
decHne in virtue had
\'irtue
had come
in its
For anyone who knows the Hves of the actors, who looks straight
moment of action, I think the answer

The reforms came. They brought new
and these new forms we call more moral and more
at their lives in the very
inevitably will be. No.
forms of action,
And
honest.
the old forms will certainly not recur in
all
their
moment and perhaps not at all. But as for a

men which brought these things about?
all, we know of it only by inference from the facts
crudity on the
change in the character of

if it is
here at
of the change itself.
of
It is
a figure of speech rather than a quahty
men useful to explain their deeds.

What was to be seen, in actual human
hfe, was a mass of men

making use of their opportunities. The insurance presidents and
trustees saw opportunities and used them.
Their enemies in
the fit time saw opportunities and used them.
The "pubhc" by
and by awoke to what it had suffered, saw its opportunities for
revenge and for future safeguards and used them. All these
things happened, all of them had causes, but those causes cannot
be found in a waxing and waning and change or transformation
of the psychic quahties of the actors.
Who
today with Aristotle's explanation of the rela-
will agree
and freemen
?
Slaves, he says, are slaves by nature.
Freemen are freemen by nature "From the hour of their birth,
some are marked out for subjection, others for rule."' "He who
participates in reason enough to apprehend, but not to have, reason,
is a slave by nature."^
"It is clear, then, that some men are by
nature free, and others slaves, and that for these latter slavery is
both expedient and right. "^ "For the slave has no dehberative
tions of slaves
faculty at all;
the
woman
has, but
it
"inconclusive"), and the child has, but
is
without authority
it is
Yet what Aristotle was doing in these passages was

relations
down
to
psychic quahties, just as
'
Aristotle, Politics (Jowctt trans.), I, S,
Ibid., I, 5, 9.
2.
(or>
immature. "-^
we
to trace social
trace
3 Ibid., I, 5,
11.
4 Ibid., I, 13, 7.
them today,
14
when we use psychic

The inadequacy of such an explanaclear to us when we disagree with the
so far as the method of the explanation goes,

factors to explain social
tion
becomes
strikingly
concrete use of
We
life.
it.
have been considering in the main
illustrations dealing
with the feelings or moral character of men.
Let us turn
phase of such interpretations and examine
to this latter
power or quality of the individual man;
intellect considered as a
directing attention
view to seeing just
Here
still
the
life
our everyday methods of speech with a
to
how much authority
man whom
is
who hvcs
These phrases of
concern not only character but intellectual capacity.
Aristotle's
they have.
Here
the world calls great.
The one produces
of a clod.
work, a great painting, a great poem; the other digs the
a foreman's orders and never

speech forms put
is
We
stupid.
it
rises
this
manner
The
mind power
theory with
practical purposes.
inadequacy we can take
"character" or the influences of the
quahfications works fairly

that
if
our
that in the acquirement of the education of the schools
easily explain
alertness
for
that idiots are similarly ineffective.
something that interests us
only with the greatest difficulty to another.

that
wêll
dog brains do not produce
We know
there are great differences between individuals.
we can
diflference
behind the respective achievements-
We know
We know
written poems.
We know
its
is
under
and the other
"environment," but we do not desert the theory that a

of brain or
soil
by quahfying
of statement
factors, so that in case of its manifest
into account variations of
another
Our ordinary
above such work.
that the one has a great intellect
modify
is
a great scientific
to
We
that
one man, but

readily forget
something different were being explained the relative
might be just the reverse.
lectual capacities, with
We
build
up a
scale of intel-
an Aristotle or a Shakespeare or a Kant
or a Goethe or a Darwin or a Lionardo or a Michelangelo at the

top,
and grade
But what
it
down
to the peasant or day laborer.

do we have upon which to base our judgments
ranks of different men, except just their accom-
after all
as to the relative

plished works
we
as
achievements
I
if
What
estimate them
am
we grading except
are
What
to explain the
not insisting that there
may
that phrase
their achievements,
is
no difference in "brain power,"
be used, between men.
would be foohsh indeed
it
against the future.
am
the
am
such differences can never, in some respects at

account;
we behind
personal factors have
achievements by
15
not saying that
least,
be taken into
to erect a verbal barricade
now
we ob-
only saying that as our knowledge
stands, within the range in which
we
find
men
in social
life,
serve nothing in the facts before us to justify the assertion that
any
achievement, as socially judged great or small, rests directly on an

intellectual capacity correspondingly great or small
is,
to justify the assertion scientifically,
may
phrases
suit
men who
today have world-wide fame were
neglected by their own generations, and

eration
may be
to
and
however well the common
our practical everyday needs.
Everyone knows how
in poverty
how the favorites of one gen-
A Rembrandt closed his life

A Mendelssohn has passed from idoHzation
forgotten by the next.

neglect.
comparative indifference inside of a century.
men have
passed into
recognize
our
own
this,
but
we continue
The
all
to
emit judgments as though
standpoint were the stable base to which
relate themselves as aberrations.
great school-
There are nation-wide and

the arts and in science too.
deep obscurity.
world-wide fads in literature and in
We
nothing, that
We
all
others
must
are apt to forget that
all
of these scales of valuation are relative; that, with but a sufficiently
long sweep, there
stratum of
is
scientific
reason to suspect that even our firmest sub-
knowledge would show the same
relativity;
and that we have no way of disproving in all this limitless variety

of different standards of judgment that possibly the man humblest
now would stand out most strikingly in another setting: and that
by
this very
itself,
token we must rest our judgment on the achievement
not on some alleged genius or ability lying behind the
achievement.'
' Tolstoi's
articles on " Shakespeare and the Drama " {Fortnightly Review,
December, 1906, January, 1907) are illuminating from this point of view; his own
outlook on life so clearly determines his entire criticism.
i6
am
I
is
perfectly well
aware that the point
am
make
trying to
utterly incliffercnt so far as the processes of ordinary speech are
show
on how very important
concerned, but
I will
the question
the exact interpretation of society,
is
later
are the methods of interpretation built
up out
when
it is
and how weak
of these speech
forms.
the
What few attempts have been made to estimate the capacity of

man behind his achievement only serve to show the tenuous
nature of the theory.
Laboratory studies in experimental psy-
chology do not hitch the

the
man on
achievement; at
to the social
most they indicate in a limited way
different degrees of fitness
in different persons for different kinds of achievement, something
there
is
no thought of denying.
throw no
light
on genius.
Measurements
Raymond
of skull capacity
Pearl as the result of an
elaborate statistical study of nationahties, concludes that "there is
no evidence that brain weight
sensibly correlated with intel-
is
Hansemann, in
same thing as the
Nor do studies of
lectual ability."^
his study of
brain, says the
result
investigation.^
long-headed, the broad-headed
do not
of the brain
differ
von Helmholtz'
different line of
the shape of the skull
give any
among
of a
The
aid.^
the
convolutions
different peoples.
The human
convolutions can be matched even in the brains of chimpanzees.

If a discriminative investigation is to
much deeper
stain has
yet
be
made
into the brain processes than
penetrated.
It
would take
it
must be pushed
any microscope or
statistics
of tens of
and even then who could say

that the structure showed the cause of the work that was done,
thousands of cases to give
results,
rather than being merely the track of the function which was the
work
itself
The
?"*
illustrations I
have given thus far in
this section
have been
chosen to show what kinds of explanation we currently make and

I
Biometrika, Vol. IV, p. 83.
XX,
Zeitschrijt fur Psychologie iind Physiologie der Sinnesorgane, Vol.
See, for example, Ripley, Races oj Europe, p. 40; Reid, Principles oj
ity, p.
292; Pearl, loc.
Compare
cit.,
p. 83.
also the criticism of Pearson in sec. v of this chapter.
p. 4.
Hered-

currently find satisfactory for events around us.
characteristic
is
some psychic
that
17
Their
common
quality, of goodness or badness,
some mixture
what the actors have done.
The explanations do not make impossible an attempt to go back
Some event
of the psychic qualities and ask what caused them.
kindshow
why
he
became
in Tom's career may be pointed out to
One
hearted, or his quality may be traced to "mental heredity."
of love or hate, of intelligence or lack of intelligence, or
of such qualities, is taken to explain
insurance
company
suffer for his sins,
But
himself.
president
and
usually
to
may
be said to have seen another
have learned from him
it is
not
felt
to
be a better
man
necessary to go behind the per-
sonal quahty.
Now
must
the feature of these personal qualities to which attention
upon as a
sort of
other "things" in the social world.
They
specially be given is that they are looked
"thing" acting
among
are a sort of "stuff," different, or not different, as one likes,
from
the material "stuff" of the world, but in either case interacting
with the latter in series of events that can be Unked together,

with each event in the series explaining the other that comes
For example,
after
it.
The
bully act
is
there
Tom
first.
sees the bully maltreating the boy.

It
knocks against Tom's "sym-
The sympathy makes Tom

The bullying is stopped by the
pathy."
act in a particular
ner.
impact.
soul
states,
forming
this "stuff"
it
is
all
Brain
man-
states, or
one in the practical
explanation.
The cue ball is

It is like billiard balls on a billiard table.
some moral or other feeling, or capacity, and it knocks against
another ball, which is some other person or thing or institution,
and shunts it off to knock in turn against a third ball, which may
be either a feeling or a thing.
to
Thus
the social process
is
supposed
go on.
Is this too
crude a statement of such explanations
I readily
But does not the ordinary discussion of the

Does it not
place of edutation in social life adopt just this theory ?
treat so many boys and girls as having so many minds made up of
admit
so
its
much
crudity.
feeUng- or thought-stutT
Docs
it
not say, Come,
let
us
l8
heap up thought-stuff
we desire
results
and ever wrong
forever
I
am
in such
on
later
?'
and such ways
And
is it
Does
it
anfl
existence,
its
produce the
way
ever get results in that
not denying that education exists and that
that there are good reasons for
will
it
not by the proof of experience
it
has
its
place
any more than
and
have
denied in the illustrations above that kind-hearted acts occur, that

child-labor laws are passed,
that bosses exist,
that insurance-
reform laws have been passed, or that great works of art have been
produced.
that
am
only denying the "stuff" theory or explanation
used in connection with them.
is
am
denying that such an
explanation explains anything.
The
ordinary question concerns the creating of
amount
quaUties, the increasing of the
The
suppressing of some other old ones.
we must
tion
change
their
face
is,
why
of
some
real question
the living, acting
forms of action, cease
to
new
psychic
old ones,
the
the ques-
men and women
do now what they did formerly,
use their "quaUties" in some places and not in others, in short

they do live. Whenever anybody
method by which he can show that there
actually exists at one time more of one of the psychic quaUties,
the "stuff," than at any other time, it will be perfectly legitimate
live the particular social lives
steps forward with any
to take
it
So long as such "stuff "
into account.
tion of the forms of our social actions on
we assume changes
changes in the modes of
that
in the "stuff"
is
used in explana-
no better ground than
from the mere
fact of the
It
may
answer the purpose of the bystander as he compares Tom with
Bill.
But
it
action, then
explains nothing at
it is
When
all.
no explanation.
real explanations begin to
appear, the use of the old forms ceases even to desers-e toleration as harmless.
It
becomes
positively harmful as continually
and comprehension, when no

It is only in the most
superstitious circles that people nowadays say a man is "lucky"
by nature, because they observe he has what they call luck; and
creating a false sense of security

security
and no comprehension
exist.
the doctrine of original sin as explaining men's shortcomings

I
and
For one among a hundred crass
tJie
Schools, pp.
vi,
37, 51, 52.
illustrations see J.
W.
is
Jenks, Citizenship
But both the luck and the original
not often seriously discussed.

sin are at
bottom
19
just as substantial as these soul qualities I
am
criticizing.
We
we are going to use this soul-stuff to explain

we must be able to show either qualitative changes
in it, or quantitative increases of some forms of it, or our explanaWhat is more, we must show this in
tion will come to nothing.
some other way than by mere inference from the facts we propose
If we are going to infer a soul quahty from the social
to explain.
fact and then use the quality to explain the fact, we put ourselves
find that if
social activities
on a level with animists in the most savage tribes. A branch falls.

Thunder
It was the Hfe in it or behind it that threw it down.
peals.
It is
such
we
is
The
a spirit speaking.
of the corn pushing
up.
The
his nature.
are growing
it
This
pigeons are
is
left
We
more humane.
grain grows.
man
It is
a slave.
the spirit
It is
unharmed.
It is
because
because
pass child-labor laws.
man
is
is
a boss at the head of a corrupt machine.
man
This
dishonest by nature.
because he had a giant
It is
It is
That
because we will not tolerate abuses our fathers tolerated.
because he
wrote a great book.
It is
intellect.
The stick, the storm,

The child -labor laws, the
the crop need
and even the great book
no spooks
to explain
them.
sparing of animal hfe, the corrupt pohtics,

will
not be explained while such spooks
interfere.
It
may
be said, however, that while these feehngs and capacities
do not manifest themselves so that we can make sure of them in

restricted areas
and
in brief periods, nevertheless a glance across
the ages or a comparison of high races with low races will bring an
underlying soul-stulT dilTerence to Hght.
some
of the facts
which
lie
on
tlie
Suppose we 'examine
surface with reference to this
hypothesis, not, of course, in order to
make an exhaustive study
of them, but merely to bring to light the character of the
that
is
It
problem
involved.
used commonly to be said that modern
brain power than
men
of "ancient-history" days.
men had
greater
Aristotle, in his
20
much the same feeling, for we find him contrasting

times "of old" when "men of eminent virtue were few," with
own period in which "many persons equal in merit arose,"*
generation, had
the
his
and even using
government.
But
few students now have any interest in such assertions.
The
crudity
is
this as the basis of a theory of
doubtful whether
it is
who
Hear, for instance, Ratzel,
too apparent.
we
says that
are today "in physical or intellectual
power, in virtue, in capacity, any farther ahead of our generations

of ancestors than the
Tubus
Suppose one should
are of theirs.""
try to get
hght on
this question
by comparing
Itahan art of the Renaissance with the Hallstatt culture or with
Etruscan
Could he possibly hope
art.
complex of
to disentangle
achievement anything that would
social
in saying that greater brain
power had been shown
Or suppose he should
than in the other?

Isaac Newton, or,
if
start
who
problem he had
proudly with Sir
men
himself not reduce
itself to
with the
Would
discovered the echpse period.
set
him
in one period
he Hked, with Darwin, and find himself
suddenly under necessity of comparing these

of Chaldea
from the
justify
men
the very
an absurdity
Or,
compare the steam locomotive of today

with the first seizure of iron from its concealment in the ore. Only
a bhnd confidence that he was deahng with the very basal problem
again, suppose he should
of society,
and that he must get an answer
of soul capacity,
If instead
tries to
would nerve him
of
to
to the question in
terms
produce one.
comparing antiquity with modern times one
make comparisons between
the races of today as to their
mental capacity, one must face at once such
difficulties as that
presented by Japan. Twenty years ago all the world "knew " that
Japan was lacking in brain capacity and that the Japanese were
And today ? Yet the Japanese
of a lower order of humanity.
people has not been physically or psychically remade in a generation.
But Japan
is
only an illustration on a great scale of what
manifest in isolated cases in a thousand places.

1
Politics (Jowett trans.), Ill, 15, 11.
History
oj
Mankind, Vol,
I, p. 4.
is
few months

ago a pure-blooded Zulu took
University.
first
2i
honors in oratory at Columbia
pure-blooded Indian, Benite Pablo Juarez, presi-
dent of Mexico, was a
man
of admittedly high rank
among
con-
Another pure-blooded Indian, a Mohawk,
structive statesmen.
was distinguished as a physician and as
the successful head of a
great mutual insurance society in Canada.
The Maoris
Zealand have taken to schooHng and civilized
life
of
New
with great ease.
There was a famous school of aborigines in Austraha that took

higher honors for a year's work, once upon a time, than any school
Our own
of white children.
schools in the
wonder-tales of acquisitiveness to send us.
Philippines have
These
illustrations
do not prove anything positively, but they throw the theory of

brain capacity into the most serious difficulties.
Permit a warning again. I am not denying that there may have
been in fact a development of nerve and brain structure since human
life began, any more than that there was such a development before.
Nor am
denying that by a process of selection a greater propor-
men of today may have a more complex structure than

men of the Stone Age. I am only insisting that there is
nothing in human achievement to prove the reality of either of
tion of the
of the
those possibilities, and that, inasmuch as they caimot be independently established,
is
it
purely arbitrary assumption
to
place
them as causes behind human achievements; and especially is

it arbitrary so long as the process of social life and achievement
has not been fully studied for itself, apart from any theory of brain
power behind
So much
it
for the
it.
for the
mental capacity in history.
sympathy
factors
Here
And now how
is
I will put together certain
current opinions with facts taken from the works of careful students
show how impossible it is

way the theory demands.
to
to locate
any growth of sympathy
in the
Mutual Aid, that storeand methods of co-opera-
First a bare reference to Kropotkin's
house of information about institutions
and assistance, covering not merely ancient village communities

and Middle Age guilds, but also animal communities. Kropotkin
tion
22
wrote,
theory,
own
misinterpretation of evolutionary
him no
farther than to substitute as the
true, to correct his
it is
and
his study led
underlying motive of society something broader than love or
sympathy, namely an "instinct of

of the
human
solidarity,"' a factor
His material, however, well
same kind as the former.
purpose here of indicating the ultimate mcaning-
serves our
lessness of all such interpretations in terms of instincts;
for
he
shows us sympathetic facts in great masses through the whole

range of social life, animal and human. Anyone who will may
turn through his pages for their bearing
upon
this point.
What-
ever inferences one may draw, certain it is that an inference that

sympathy as such has increased quantitatively throughout history
will not
among them.
be
I will cite
one or two illustrations from other sources.
Ameri-
cans, because of the wârs of the colonists wîth the Indians, con-
tinue to speak of the native tribes of their continent as cruel,
bloodthirsty savages.
And
of course
it
was
the "nature" of the
Here are a few passages to consider, all

Indians to be
with the authority of Lewis H. Morgan: "It is a reasonableconclusion .... that in all Indian villages and encampments
such.
without distinction the hungry wêre fed through the open hospitality
of those
who
"Ordinarily they try to have
possessed a surplus."^
"Crimes and
one year's provisions on hand."^
offenses
were
so infrequent under their social system that the Iroquois can scarcely
be said
to
have had a criminal
and brotherly
foresight,
Here we have benevolence,

more than Utopian. E\'idently
code."''
love,
one must be careful in the qualities he attributes to the IndiaiLin explanation of his conduct.
There
is
a good illustration in Letourneau comparing the
See the introduction to Mutual Aid, a Factor of Evolution, pp.
Morgan, Houses and House Lije
Samuel Gorman, Laguna Village Indians; quoted by Morgan, House
of
American Aborigines,
xiii,
xiv.
p. 56.
Life,
p. 74.
4
Morgan, League
For
of the Iroquois, edition of 1901, Vol.
illustrations of the discipline
may examine
and
I,
p. 321.
self-control of primitive peoples,
Crawley, The Mystic Rose, chap.
\'i.
one
^:

Indians with the early Germans, which
tempted
is
trace social development back
to
useful to
23
anyone who
is
to psychological qualities.
At the end of a chapter in \vhich he discusses the political condition

of "barbarous Europe," that is, of all European people except
Greece and Rome, in the time of Caesar, he mentions some of
most striking
the
in
common and
social characteristics
which these peoples had
then compares them with American Indian tribes.
He
In fundamental matters he finds a very close analogy.'
compares especially certain Scythian, German, Celtic, and Iberian

For our purposes we
quaHties with the Hurons and the Sioux.
impression
of the resemdo not need to go behind Letourneau's
blance as he states
Now
his scientific standing being quite sufhcient
it,
him
to justify calling
to witness.
the resemblance
if
character, one
was
would expect, so
there,
far as such psychic quahties count
as factors, that the lines of evolution
The
lines of evolution were,
one
has
reckoning at
says,
Rome
would be much the same.
however, so strikingly different that
in' bringing
difficulty
both in institutions and in
these
factors
similar
into
the
and this even though, as Letourneau himself
all;
played
much
Europe that the
the role in ancient
Europeans played toward indigenous America.^ Letourneau is

in the habit of interpreting in terms of instincts and similar factors,
and so
his
in this case in order to explain the inconsistency
own remarks draw

I
Letourneau,
"Vue dans
V Evolution
son ensemble
I'Europe preromaine
et
etait,
du Nord,
I'Americiuc
attention
politique
he assumes some additional
to,
dans
les
diver ses races humaines, p. 407
en ne tenant compte que des analogies fondamenlalfs,

pour I'etat social et politique, assez comparable k
alors
que Christophe Colomb
la decouvrit
ccla rappclle fort les moeurs des Sioux et des Hurons.
ressemblance
est plus
Ibid., p. 408:
which
Pour
Tout
I'etat politique, la
grande encore."
"Dans
I'Europe ancienne,
Rome
a joue
Ic
role des
Europeens
dans I'Amerique indigene."

3
in his
To show how
own
Letourneau himself depends on
interpretation, the following
is
in point:
instincts
"Old
and psychic characters
inherited instincts form
human mind, and the superposition of innate tendencies is exactly

comparable with that of the earth in geology. The spirit of progress and liberty
is only a thin bed scarce covering the mighty moral strata bequeathed to us by our
the basis of the
forefathers."
Property, Its Origin and Development, p. 352.
24
Germans which would have made them
"qualities'" in the
even
if left
He
uninfluenced by outsiders.
evolve
merely assumes these
quaUties for his purpose, but does not attempt to elaborate them.'
I refer to this here simply to show how such psychic factors
we have in mind are discovered by the persons who use them,
how they are put to work to give the appearance of explanation,
and how similar supplementary factors ad lihilum are dragged
From the given facts one infers
in to fill out the interpretation.
The qualities are supposed to produce the facts.
the quaUties.
But conflicts arise. Then one assumes other qualities to fit
as
the varying cases.

It
would be easy
to take
up many
of our
modern
characteristics
an
the
fallacy
and
show
in
our
own
times,
humanity
admirable spirit of
If hospitals are named,
of the inferences that are made for them.
or institutions which are relied on to prove the existence of
they can be offset by ancient "temples of health" and by the
I do not, of course, mean

by present standards, but for the function
bloodshed is mentioned and we are made out
spring hygienic festivals of savages

for efficiency as tested
they served.
If
be milder than our forefathers, there are our huge wars and our
factory death-rolls and even our Fourth of July celebrations to
to
take into account as three

to our alleged \drtue.
facts
If
among many
education
from Egyptian occultism
to
is
factors that give the lie
named, a great array of
Polynesian "initiations" should
Our modern forms of prostitution can hardly be

more humane than those of older ages. Do the nations of
be considered.
called
western civilization utiHze their resources as China utiHzes

resources, so far as the "virtues" of prudence
And when
I
benevolence
U Evolution
politique,
is
p.
and
foresight
its
go?
mentioned, what can we put forth to
408:
"Neanmoins
les
populations de I'Europe
possedaient d6jk des qualites natives, qui les auraient sdrement tirees de la barbaric.
Rome
Spontan^ment
elles auraient
6volue vers une civilisation plus relevee,
si
leur en avait laiss^ le temps."
One may
that the Aztecs
had such
get at this same problem on the opposite side by asking why

and the Red Indians, being apparently of the same ethnical
diferent histories,
if
psychic quahties determine development.
it
was
stock,

ofifset
Arab
hospitality or the care for the poor in
thousand tribes
The
truth
is
25
any one of a
?^
that
if
one should start out on the
theor}- that
such
psychic factors as these could be discovered and called into play

for explanatory purposes,
and
if
one should make a serious attempt
compare races and periods with a view to discovering them,

one would need to adopt a very elaborate and careful procedure.
It would be necessary to take two peoples and try to fit the one
to
into the exact circumstances of the other, barring only the factor
of race character, to see
merely
nor
what would develop.
to note that there are in fact differences
enough
is it
environment
as, for instance,
of
Bushmen to
number of
American babies, give them
and outside education, and

while a test vnth a hmited
possible,
it is
tribe into the
Even
it.
adult
lot of
environment
to take a selected
men
to see
the identical
all
test the results
number
home
on a large
of indi\iduals
may
training
scale.
But
be partially
manifestly impossible to transport a whole
Bushman
new environment on
bom into
fair
terms with persons
less is it possible to isolate the alleged soul qualities
of different races in scientific analysis so as to give

fair conclusion.
ment
not enough
between peoples,
bodily from their

what would happen,
Wall Street. One would perhaps have
Bushmen babies and an equal number
to transplant
to a strange
It is
If
ground
for a
one could think one race over into the environ-
of the other he
would
by the time he got it fully

it would no
with, but it would actually be that
he was trying to make would have
find that
enough into the other emaronment

longer be the race he started
other race, and the very test
for a fair analysis,
disappeared.
It is
easy enough to imagine the bodies of one set of
stituted for the bodies of another set.
We
men
sub-
can easily see that the
habitual social activities of one set would not be reproduced by the
other set forthwith.
But when we
try to give the
one
set a fair
Letourneau says that when a destitute Bedouin tells the chief of his need
summons the rich men of the tribe and says: "One of our brethren is in
want.
If you wish him to die, suffer me to kill him instead of hunger.
If not, go:
you know your duty." Whereupon the needy man is straightway equipped for a
new start toward prosperity. Property, p. 199.
I
the chief
26
'mi: I'RocESS
cliancr to juhipl itsilf lo
OF government
activities of the other set,
llu-
we know, and
the end that such activities are all
underlying "vital factor"

that imjjrobable lime
for us to deal with
left
comes when some tens
men, or other "low race," babies are
we
find in
that there is
of thousands of
l>rouf^ht uj) in
no
at least until
Bush-
American or
Euroi)ean homes with the identical love, care, and assimilation

that the born babies of the families receive.
I
am
perfectly well
superficial treatment.
was needed
When
first
aware that
of all
to
have given
my
this
the real problem
II, in
lies.
examination of the theoretical
systems constructed out of feelings and ideas

Part
whole matter a
that a superficial treatment
is
show wherein
have finished with
But the truth
shall return in
connection with direct examination of the process of
government as
it
actually goes forward under our eyes, to a con-
some
sideration of
of the real relations
and the conditions under which the
which the biological
man
social process is carried
on
bear to social interpretation.
Section
The
II.
Small
denial that the psychical qualities of individuals can be
used in explaining social activities
will
some
will
readers, while
former
who
will
to
others
it
say that the given fact in
perhaps appear absurd to
appear a quibble.
human
society
is
the
The
man
and that
it will be impossible to build up any interphenomena except by taking him with his given
psychical content or capacity, and learning how he "works."
The latter will say that I have been knocking down a straw man,
and that as a matter of fact nobody assumes such soul-stuflf as
desires
pretation of social
that to which I have entered objection.
While
cannot hope
fully to satisfy the
former
critics
till
reach the constructive chapters of this book, I shall nevertheless
now
to show how such soul-stuff is actually used by

and other investigators of social phenomena, and what
the difficulties are into which it leads them.
I shall do this through
proceed
sociologists
an examination of the positions of Small, Spencer, and Jhering,

followed by less extended references to some other writers.
W.
Professor Albion
27
Small interprets society by the aid of
social forces.
The
concept "social forces" has a real content [he says].
There are
reality.
range
in
They are the

vagrant whim that makes
social forces.
energy from the
It
represents
They
desires of persons.
the individual a temporary
discomfort to his group, to the inbred feelings that whole races share.
It is
with these subtle forces that social arrangements and the theories of social
arrangements have
He
to deal.'
classifies desires into six
(i) health;
(2)
kinds which he names desires of
wealth; (3) sociability; (4) knowledge
beauty,
(5)
and (6) rightness. Sometimes and for some purposes he calls

them interests instead of desires, and sometimes he uses the terms
motives or ends.^ He starts with them as qualities or characteristics of individual persons.
Occasionally he uses them as general
groups into which
he uses them as
many
var}'ing desires
But always he comes back

confusion lurking in
all
and takes the
to
Again
classified.
the soul-stutT idea.
phenomena.
There
his discussions of these desires,
cannot be cleared away,

entirely,
can be
tests for the classification of social
is
which
think, until he drops the soul-stuflF
facts simply as social
phenomena
at their
simple social value.

I shall criticize sharply his inconsistencies
but
do not want
interpretation.
At
to
times,
it
seems
to
me, he
quate use of "interests" as social forces.

only in the degree in which he strips
idea
and
and contradictions,
be taken as criticizing his entire method of
off"
rises to
But,
if
an
I
entirely ade-
am
right,
forgets all about the soul-stulT that he succeeds.
the knife
which are
is
it is
the "personal-qualities"
When
applied to this latter clement then the "interests"
left will
prove to be genuine
facts,
and
at the
same
time forces, of society.

'
Small, General Sociology, p. 536.
For a discussion of these terms
sec. ibid.,
pp. 435, 436, 445, 535.
pay no attention here to the question whether his classification of the

My whole criticism will concern solely the
interests into these si.x is well made.
validity of the use of any such interests in this manner, without regard to the par3 I
shall
ticular interests that are selected.
28
The
acquainted
In
this
])rcscntalion
earliest
is
of
his
theory
to be found in the Inlroduclion
with
to the
which
Study
am
of Society.
book we are given man as one of the two elements of
society,
To
the other being hind, i.e., the physical environment.
learn
man we must go to physiology and psychology. Psychology

shows us man as a bundle of wants, or desires. "Social interabout
pretation
must begin with an analysis of these
observe the conditions of their emergence.'"
desires,
and must
"History
record of social action with reference to conceptions of
wants.'"
wants.
the
The first duty of the sociologist is to classify these

The preliminary classification offered to us is as follows:
GROXJPS OF PERSONAL
a)
is
human
Wants immediately connected with
WANTS
the
activity
of
the
physical
functions.
Wants immediately connected with the use of material goods.

Wants immediately connected with the activity of social instinct.
Wants immediately connected with the activity of intellect.
Wants immediately connected with the activity of aesthetic judgment.
Wants immediately connected with the activity of conscience.
b)
c)
d)
e)
/)
These are immediately rechristened with the

mentioned,
health,'* wealth, sociability,
six
terms already
knowledge, beauty, right-
eousness (since called rightness).
Now
the
first
thing to note
is
that the criterion for this classi-
come from the individual physique or intellect.

We find the specific marks to be in one case "physical functions,"
in another the "using" of goods, in a third an instinct, and in the
fication
seems
to
three others faculties of the soul.
Apparently, then, the standards are of a kind which the

brings into society ready
soul-stuff.
to
abandon
ejBFect
But
if
that
is
made
in other words, his
the case Professor Small tends immediately
the position, for in his next paragraph he
that these wants are experienced
Small and Vincent,
Ibid., p. 174.
An
Sociology, p. 197.
by
tells
us in
different persons in
Introduction to the Study of Society, p. 173.

3
Ibid., p. 175.
The health interest includes such

and the "work interest," or impulses to
4
man
body and
various things as sexual desire, hunger,
play and to feats of skiU.
See General

we
very different and even contradictory ways, and
worked over
somewhat more
in the following
29
get the table
objective
form
CONCEPTIONS OF PERSONAL SATISFACTIONS

from unrestrained animalism to the
a) Satisfactions of physical functions,
perfect body, as
an instrument
of highest
life.
of possession, from "material possessions the ultimate

"the trusteeship of wealth."
c) Satisfactions of social instincts from wolfishness to brotherhood.
d) Satisfactions of mental activity; from being in servitude to the physical
to becoming the ultimate end of effort.
e) Satisfactions of aesthetic feehng; from delight in the hideous to deifib) Satisfactions
good"
to
cation of beauty.
/)
Satisfactions of conscience;
do not quote these
from fetichism to theosophy.'
tables to call attention to the curious
assumptions involved, though

cant,
all
of these assumptions are signifi-
and Professor Small has never been able
tangles they set for his feet.
must be
The
to get rid of the
old classification of "faculties"
and it must be capable of co-ordination with "physiand instincts, if the classification is to have any
value at all.
For each want in the sense of "thing wanted" there
must be a peculiar desire in a brain. This must be true down
to the finest shades of desire, and at the same time the "wants"
valid
cal functions"
and desires must be capable of classification in identical schemes,

and the most general terms describing desires must in a very
real sense, involving a certain psychical unity, include all the
lesser shadings of desires
There must be
under them.
six definite
number of definite varieties.

make is that if "wolfishness"
great desires, each including an infinite
The
point I wish particularly to
and "brotherhood" are two satisfactions flowing from one kind of

desire; if works of ugliness and works of beauty both satisfy the
same aesthetic feeling, if greed acts and benevolence acts are
similarly hnked together; we have ground for the suspicion that
what
is
here classified
is
not desires at
all,
but rather social
grouped with a rough empiricism, and attributed

in purely gratuitous
manner,
to desires
called into existence to match.
weakened by the
I
Introduction
And
activities
for their origin,
as soul-stutT which are
indeed this suspicion
is
not
fact that the three "faculties" are used as criteria
to the
Study
oj Society, p. 176.

30
in
thf
taMc
lir.st
rcison cnouj^h to believe thai those
Tlirrt- is
fiuulties themselves
OF GOVKRNMENT
I'ROCESS
lli;
have been empirically inferred
to exist
which they are
certain groups of social activities have been found
needed
on a
to exi)lain
^ôod old-fashioned soul-stufT basis.
say that what Professor Small's theory comes to llicn
may
\Vc
statin}^
is
that certain rough groups of social activities are
to
not merely his
own
contribution but also
each
that these
main
to
day
and that fmally
that all specific desires as found
men
in individual
it
activities
guess,
are brought under these six
asserted that because the six great desires
is
have been named, we are given
is
which
all
is
them a
in
classification of social
for that reason valid.
a vicious circle which starts with a rough, untested
and comes out
metaphysics
in
rough, untested guess, with nothing but
in a
between.
It
is
no better when
when it began, and no appeal to "desires"

soul makes it any more plausible.
Professor Small would no doubt say that
to take this early
finishes
it
to
show
than
it is
exceedingly unfair
the confusion at
it.
fountain
its
Later on he adopted the term "interests," which, I believe
docs not appear at
all in his first
the theory over, but only to
except at those times

straight
it
or other things in the
statement of his theory and judge him by
have however only taken

head.
taken; that
no matter how they quarrel when fastened together;
classes,
It
social setting
first
desires or wants are set up, six in
as the springs of social action;
from day
its
must be desires or wants corresfX)nding

number,
inferred next that there
it is
because
discussion.
fall
into deeper
when he
ahead with actual
disregards
With it he has worked

and deeper morasses,
it
entirely
and goes
social facts as they present themselves
to his trained eye.
To show
Professor Small's difficulties I will
first
of
all
quote a
few sentences from various parts of his writings.

Every desire that any
An interest
else.' ....
is
man
a plain
harbors [he says]
demand
for
is
a force.'
....
something regardless of everything
Central Sociology, p. 536.

Ibid., p. 201.
This sentence applies, Professor Small tells us, to interests
"in the most general sense" and also to interests "in the most particular sense."
'
'

modes
Interests are the simplest
human
duct of
motion which we can trace
of
making, sociology wants
All action that goes
of persons
on
con-
do with the individual when he is

him as the finished product.'
the movement and counter-movement
to
to start with
in society is
impelled by the
particular assortment of these feelings which
is
....
located in each.^
Before science that
is
must have taken
traits
in the
....
beings.'
While biology and psychology have

in the
31
....
properly social begins,
analysis of individual
into account all the peculiarities of individual action
which betray the individual impulses or springs of individual action which

are the units of force with which social science must deal.*
make
All of these quotations
the interests or desires, which-
ever they happen to be called, individual qualities, and so place
them
in the category of soul-stuff,
with 'everything that that
in-
evitably implies.
Compare now with
the above quotations the following, also
brought together from various parts of
Of
human interests is from the standpoint of the

human beings are not such prigs as to start
course this analysis of
Real
observer, not of the actor.
by saying:
"Go
to
now.
propose to secure health, wealth, sociability,
knowledge, beauty, and rightness."s
We
have mainly
to
his writings
do with
....
interests in the
same sense
in
which the
man
of affairs uses the term.'^

Interests in the sociological sense are not necessarily matters of attention
They
and choice
into
and occupy
All
human
afe indicated spheres of activity which persons enter
in the course of realizing their personality.'
experience
is
....
thus not merely a fabric of personal desires, but
those personal desires operate in a very large measure impersonally.^

I
Ibid., p. 426.
Small here
is
of an individual logically presocial,
not thinking of a social
"mode of motion."
"mode
of
motion" but
Hence, despite the phrasing,
he does not take a descriptive but a causal point of view with reference to the desires.
The
desires
remain for him forces
in the
metaphysical sense.
p. 480.
Ibid., p. 430.
American Journal
oj Sociology, Vol. IV, p. 381.
General Sociology,
p. 198.
tation in the
list
^ Ibid., p.
3 Ibid.,
just given, that
436.
(And this, within three pages of the second quofrom General Sociology, p. 201.)
Illustrations are the railroad interest, the tobacco interest, the
sugar interest, the labor interest, the
Cuban
interest, the
interest.
7
Ibid., p. 434.
8 Ibid., p. 539.
army
interest, the riin.il
32
Now
second
this
from the
loose
tends to break
set of sentences just as surely
soul-stulT conception as the first set
adhered
Professor Small finds the reconciliation which carries
gap
the
it.
a distinction between objective and subjective interests.'
in
But even
to
him over
if
he reaches a reconciliation for purposes of personal or
logical equilil)rium, for sociological purposes
He wants
genuine reconciliation.
to
make
he does not want a
the subjective side of
phenomena on the objective side, which

In doing it he
are sometimes institutions and sometimes not.
attempts to work out a calculus of desires. A few typical sentences
these interests explain the
to this
end now follow.
Here
is,
to start with,
method of using
ball
In
which
billiard-
interests:
brief, either the social

is
an excellent specimen of the
process in the large or that portion of the process
comprised within the limits of an individual
life
is
a resultant of
reactions between the six interests, primarily in their permutations within the
between individuals, and always
individual, secondarily in their permutations

in their varied reciprocity
Here
is
with the non -sentient environment.*
an itahcized proposition as
to the relation of interests
to everything else in society, the institutions, etc.:
At
all
events the appropriate order of procedure, from a sociological point
of approach,
is
analysis of social situations, in connection with analysis of
purposes of the persons involved in the situations, to the end of arriving at
and uniformities of sequence between types of

and types of human volitions.
generalizations of regularities
social situations
Here the purposes or

are set aside in one series
the desires or interests)
volitions
(i. e.,
and
an independent study of them
after
they must be used to explain the "situations" in the other series.
Again he writes:
it is
In order to have an adequate analysis of any social situation, past or present,

necessary to have an account of the precise content and proportions of the
several wants, both in typical persons of the society
Here
I
is
in the
group as a whole.
a sentence in which the things to be explained are set
General Sociology, pp. 431, 445
subjective
and
and objective see
Ibid., p. 446.
American Journal
fl.,
537.
For the possibilities in the use of

on von Jhering.
sec. iv of this chapter,

3 Ibid., p.
of Sociology, Vol.
649.
VIII, p. 206.

more
still
distinctly over against the desires
which are
33
to
be used
to explain them:
The
problem involves the task of discovering the general laws of
social
between the individual element in
interrelationship
terms of desire by the product a b
sented collectively by the product g h
Here the
first set
seven types
of
and the
},
i j
m.^
social
g-m, represent De Greef's
letters,
phenomena, economic,
need
illustrative of the social facts that
worth noticing
sponding
phenomena
De
to
be explained.
It is
as he has desires, each class corre-
one desire, he finds no
to
One more
difficulty in correlating his six
Greef's seven varieties of phenomena.
him
quotation will show
setting
up a
classification of
He
social facts to correspond with the six desires.
titles:
artistic,
normally Small should have as
in passing that while
classes of
desires with
We
genetic,
moral, juridical, and political, which are used simply as
beliefs,
many
society, represented in
institutional element, repre-
of letters, a-f, represent the health-rightness
while the last set of
series,
says:
might plan our description of human association under the following

(i) health associations;
ciations;
(4)
(2)
wealth associations;
knowledge associations;
(3) sociability
beauty associations;
(5)
asso-
(6) rightness
associations.*
This, he continues, would be the

to classify the
The
phenomena.
"most
what men as individuals want, not merely

principles implied in details
then
is
sure
difficult,
He
does not believe this
can ultimately be done despite
it
by
It will
indeed be
considering that the facts arc to be forced
to correspond to a sixfold
investigation
ideally"
in detail, but in the
" the tremendous difficulties of the undertaking."
tremendously
way
to discriminate the associa-
tions that cater to these several wants."
can be done today, but he
direct
process would be "to find out
scheme
on a hodge-podge
set
up
at the beginning of the
basis, instead of being classified
direct study as they exist.
Professor Small has not stopped with these general statements,
but he has attempted to indicate

of desires can be
I
Ibid., Vol.
IV,
worked out
p. 382.
how an "algebra"
or "calculus"
to explain the facts of social life.

2
ihid., Vol. VI, p. 493.
34
This c altulus
on ussumcd
rests
GOVERNxMENT
I'ROCKSS OF
III':
(|u;ilitativc
and quantitative changes

on quantitative varia-
ihr six kinds of interests, or, better suid,
in
Beginning at the so-called
tions within each of the six interests.
much-abused "horde"
bottom of the social scale,' he finds the

to consist of
"simply a mass of practically identical specimens of
a species, just
is
fests
alone
in
is
working
is
"So long
force, tliere
As the
individual.'"
he
about the only interest that mani-
is
the horde-men.
in
itself
supposed by
This
a herd of bufTaloes."
like a shoal of fish or
because the health interest
is
no such
as the health interest

fact present as a
human
sociologist surveys rising grades of society
this theory to see other varieties of interests
appear and develop themselves, here in one proportion, there in

anQther, and create
The
theory of increments of desire
places, for
we now have.
many
explicitly stated in
is
example thus:
We shall be very
far
sociology has to reckon
Human
or quality.
may
the multiform institutions
all
from taking for granted the real individual with
if
we
whom
picture either desires or wants as fixed in quantity
desires are not so
many mathematical points. They

many contiguous surfaces
rather be represented to our imagination as so
whose areas presently begin
stretching out from angles
and whose
to overlap
each other,
sides extend indefinitely.^
Or again
The problem
of changing the facts
interests (desires) that
and diplomacy
....
make
the facts
which convert
is
the problem of transforming the
....
the social pedagogy
more
less into
and
politics
social desires. "*
Also:
The ends which
may
call
Now
the groups pursue
vary in two ways, which
is
achieved.
We
are told for instance as a
In discussing the classification of governments and types of society later in
work the reason wUl appear why the horde
and how on the contrary
it
may
is
not necessarily a
be a highly perfected form of
the equilibration of interests.
we
by providing these desires with coefhcients and exponents
the social calculus
this
....
extension and content, s
General Sociology, p. 428.
3 Ibid., p.
446.
4 Ibid., p.
s
442.
Ibid., p. 541.
"bottom" form,
by
societj' as tested
35
hypothetical case that Athens in the age of Pericles
included
many
whose
individuals
may be
= a^ + bî + c^ + d^ + ev + f
Desire
A compound
desires
of individual desires might
may have
represented thus
vii.
show "as
to
content"
the social end of Athens at the time as follows:

Social
This
"a
is
end
= a"' + b'" + c" + dî" + ei + f W.

end which
qualitative
compound
speak, or better a chemical
by
its
members within
individual
is
the algebraic sum, so to
[sic]
of the desires cherished
the realm of the several great
interests."'
Now
is to
the practical outcome of this theory of Professor Small's
reduce the whole business of the use of
for the reason that although
an absurdity;
interpretation to
has been for a dozen years arguing

at
no time, so far as I
am
soul-stuflf for social
it
in print
aware, taken the slightest step to isolate
these desires or prove their existence apart from the social
ena they are intended
he
he has nowhere and
phenom-
His theory taps popular psy-
to explain.
chology and the practical terminology of everyday speech for some

It gets the rest
of the desires.
by a cursory inspection of
social
facts themselves.
The popular terms have been created by the
identical methods,
though in an even cruder use of
proved their
only for the purposes of distinguishing between
utility
it.
They have
Tom and Jack, and never for the purposes of explaining

Tom and Jack in their actual content of social life.
Moreover the
both
utter usclcssness of the theory for the sociologist's
purposes appears from the fact that Professor Small has never
accomplished anything by
tematized
bridged over the gaps in
it,
but he has not used

directly
it.
When
he takes the active
them without reference

I
He
aid.
its
Ibid., p. 543.
it,
he wants
men
has talked about
and tunneled the

to
Cf. ibid., p. 218,
and
sys-
study social phenomena
or groups of
to this soul-stulT.
it,
barriers,
He
men
as he finds
says in words
we
also the article attempting a mathematical
statement of the working of the desires by one of Professor Small's seminar students
(Amy Hewes, American Journal of Sociology, Vol. V, p. 393). In the latter article the
quantities dealt with are stated thus:
groups are the
sum
of the
"The
forces that produce motion in social
wants and desires of human beings."
36
have already
(|uc)lc(l:
same sense
the
this
in
"Wi- have mainly
which the
man
to
do with
interests in
But
of affairs uses the terms."
sense, as for example, the "railroad interest," indicates a

It indicates the
very complex piece of social structure.

hut not the individual soul's desire.
fact,
cannot actually be
It
or, better
built up, i)iece after piece, out of those soul's desires;

said, to avoid being too absolute
on the
social
point,
it
has not been so
by Professor Small or by anyone else. They have

hitched some of the desires to it, just as one might hitch a demon
to a thunderstorm, but they have not pushed the analysis through
up
built
either
anyone
to satisfy
What
really
else.
could Professor Small do, for example, that would be
worth while toward showing the transition from extermina-
tion of
enemies
He
to the institution of slavery in early times ?
could easily, of course, introduce a wealth desire (making the

prisoner work) in place of a health desire
slaughter).
But how
artificial
(self-protection
such a procedure
by
He would
is!
then have to assume something as to the reasons for the appearance

of this
new
transition
Of course
desire.
would be
the observed conditions of the
at his service,
and those conditions would be
certain relations of groups of primitive
men.
But how would he
gain by translating those conditions into terms of individual

desire
and then making the desire explain the resulting
institution,
over what he could accomplish by taking the group conditions

just
as they stood for his whole explanation
He would
continuing to keep "soul-stuff" at work in his system, and

is
considered a gain, well and good.'
But
for the rest
simply be making his interpretation vaguer and
might make
it
be
that
he would
less exact
than he
without such desires.
Without further argument,
it
seems
this theory of social interpretation
am
if
to
be sufficiently clear that
reduces
itself to
the identical
aware that the use of the word "gain" in this connection

me as an example of the very kind of interpretation to
which I am objecting. The point would be well taken except for one thing, which
is the heart of the whole matter.
I am nowhere objecting to such speech forms
as convenient shorhand devices in their proper places.
I am objecting exclusively
'
may be
perfectly well
brought up against
to the erection of such speech forms into pseudo-scientific systems of interpretation.

proposition,
A=A,
or in other words, to nothing at
37
all
except
verbiage.
If I
had wished
to criticize Professor Small's theory of social
causation on other than sociological grounds, the task would
have been much more quickly accomplished.
There are no
from content. There are no nerves
inward without at the same time carrying
desires nor interests apart
which carry
feelings
ideas (the terms are crude, but let that pass)
carry ideas without at the
can make a feeling
there are none which

same time carrying feelings. You never
alone explain an act not even in the
;
all
simplest case imaginable.
world into the reckoning.
And the ideas bring the whole outside

Then what is the use of building up
a complicated calculus of feelings as though
To separate
it
did explain activity
bunch by themselves
with the hope of explaining anything by them is much like cutting off one's arms at the shoulders for the sake of using them as
weapons against an enemy. One cannot throw them far nor strike
in society ?
the feelings in a
little
hard with them.
The
to
trapdoor that
through into
lets the sociologist
this pit is
be found at the spot where the complicated interest groups,
we actually find them in

Tom, the miser, and Jack, the
differing in individual adherents as
one another.
society, intercept
and therefore the partnership

an outside thing caused by miserliness in one and extravagance
in the other, and the metaphysics begins.
As a matter of fact,
spendthrift, go into partnership,
is
Tom
is
member
of a lot of interest groups,
In each of these groups they
some
to
which each belongs cross and
its
its
meaning,
phases.
will
so also
is
Jack.
world around them
In their partnerships some of the groups
in
of
and
reflect the social
interlace.
How
this is
and what
be discussed in detail later in the book.
Section
III.
Spencer
Herbert Spencer^ started his philosophic career with a proposition that he considered
I
fundamental as
to the relations
between
In criticizing Spencer's theory of feelings as the forces of society, I hope I

meaning to criticize his work as a whole. I have only
shall not be understood as
GOVERNMENT
rHK PROCESS OF
38
man and man
"Every man has freedom
in society:
do
to
that
all
he wills provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other
He came
man.'"
place.
thought of
He
out at the end of his
This with the wording a
on one
side,
changed
holding that his desires were one thing and
life
and the unachieved
He came out at
Each man has certain
He saw his desires " there"
thing.
"there" on the other
satisfactions
the end of his
side.
life
perfect society
started
desires, given or acquired.
place.
you can get
If
men you
will get
and not otherwise.
so,
man
believing that "the ultimate
life
same
at exactly the
the right mixture of desires inserted in these
He
the central
is
Principles of Ethics.
thi'
started
what he desired was another
that
same
at exactly the
life
little
will
be one
He will
own nature
whose private requirements coincide with public ones.

be that manner of
man who
spontaneously
fulfilling his
and
incidentally performs this function of a social unit;
only enabled so to
He came
like."
his
fulfil
own
nature by
out at the end of his
life
yet
is
others doing the
all
same
in exactly the
place,
choosing these words from Social Statics for the closing sentences
volume of the Sociology.
of the third
What
too
much
this
means
admiration of
logical reputation has
when
is
in
it
that Spencer did not learn to
many
of
its
the
many a sociomay seem that
phases, and I recognize that
been made with crumbs from his pages.
It
discard his psychology, his ethics, and his theory of the relation of the
On
individual to the state, I discard everything of importance.
the contrary, the
massive work he has achieved with so poor a mechanism marks the

fully for further work with a better mechanism.
I
know
wish to make now, just as
what similar avowal with regard

pretation
am
have already made
to the other writers
about to analyze in detail and
say that the
men
evil in their
works which
I criticize
I feel
it
me
in criticizing Small, a
whose methods
reject.
have been helpful to
way most
can
in
use-
some-
of social inter-
almost even,' case
vastly out of proportion to the
necessary to point out as a
means
myself against misunderstanding of the method of interpretation
of safeguarding
I shall later
advo-
cate.
As between Small and Spencer it may be remarked that Spencer is clear and
what he means, where Small is often confused and diffuse. But
Small faces much troublesome social material which Spencer simply shuts his eyes
to, and his ver\' honesty in facing it adds to the appearance of confusion.
precise as to
Social Sialics (.\mer. ed.,'^1865), chap,
vi, sec. i, p.
121.

relation of the individual to society
He
social facts.
from
imported his view~6f
39
his life-long studv of
this relationship into his
philosophy at the start and he built the whole philosophy up
around
it
without even an attempt to
vidual's desire
satisfaction his
and
test it
as such.
If the indi-
his satisfaction (or, better said, in place of his
method of
satisfying his desires, this
method being
the typically social act) are not two separate things capable of
reciprocal action
of social
on one another, then Spencer's interpretation
stands not merely as
life
without any
prove
effort to
I will indicate his
false,
but as a bald, assumption,
it.
views by quotation in detail, show some of
them in the construction

point out more precisely the weak
the consequences that flow from
system, and finally
keeping always,
hope, to social facts as the
legislation
In talking of rational legislation he
"must recognize as a datum
He admits
action with feeling."
there are
spots,
test.
As simple a statement as any can be found

Sociology.
of his
in
The Study
tells
of
us that such
the direct connection of
some "automatic actions
which take place without feelings" and at the other extreme some
feelings
"so intense that they impede or arrest action."
can be disregarded as insignificant, and
so,
can say that "action and feeling vary together in
As
to the
more
thing
importance of these exceptions
to say later.
Here
am
These
speaking generally,
their
I shall
we
amounts.'"
have some-
interested in noting
that
Spencer takes his position in opposition to the views of those people
who
believe that
"knowledge
is
it
will
moving agent
in
conduct."
increases a person's
knowledge
the
He is interested in proving that if one
not influence his conduct, but that
person's feelings,
if
one operates on that
will influence his conduct.
it
that knowledge can be found that
he treats them for
all
is
He
does not say
not based on feelings.
practical purposes as separate.
But
few
pages farther on, he gives some examples of the application of this

principle
in
improvident.
in
legislation.
That
improvidence.
'
The Study
is
For instance, the English people are
because for ages they have been disciplined
Various factors have built up
of Sociology, p. 358.
this
trait
of
rilK
40
charaiUr
Once
lluin.
in
PROCESS OF GOVERNMENT
up
huill
it
is
You can
You
a fixed fact.
explain their actions by referring to this trait of character.
by various other things, but the
exj)lain a trait of character
can
trait is for all sociological
purposes as fixed and definite a thing
as, say, a i)oor law, or a house, or a
Spencer
shotgun, or a tavern.
does not state his position as crudely as
but the phrasing
this,
is
not unfair to him.
What
comes
to in the
case of the English he
Englishmen
in the
describing
is
is
ways of
living
poorhouse,
when
select out of all the
them certain ways that land them
oi)en to
if
it
that those
this:
they were not in their soul of souls "improvident" they would
even now select out of their opportunities other ways of liNnng
which would keep them comfortable
And
in their old age.
you
if
could only change those "feelings" of theirs, they would be able to
even under the same conditions of
get,
much more
industrial opportunities, ever so
not either here or anywhere else

tion of the feelings whatever
is
and with the same
life
out of
He does
life.
us that any desired altera-
tell
possible, the type of society being
fixed.
He
here and there, the actions will change with them in the
rather, that the change in society and the

must
go along hand in hand. But nevertheless
change in feelings
they are separate things, and if the feelings can be pushed forward
little
insists,
desired direction.
direct
outcome of
Hence
their progress will not
all their
ways
be simply the
of acting as such but
it
will
be
engineered through specific selected feelings.
Farther along in this same chapter Spencer takes up instances

in
which
feelings as such are selected
by the survival of the
fit.^
Also he argues that there are specific thoughts as well as specific

feelings
which are
built
up
in the individuals
and which control
their progress.
How
absurd [he says]
is
the supposition that there can be a rational inter-
combined actions without a previous interpretation of those

thoughts and feelings by which their individual actions are prompted.^ ....
Always the power which initiates a change is feeling separate or aggregated,
pretation of men's
guided to
its
ends by
intellect
How
then can there be a true account
of social action without a true account of those thoughts

I
The Study
of Sociology, p. 375.
Ibid., p. 382.
and sentiments
3
Ibid.
?^
41
Let us trace Spencer's theory of the action of the individual

and upon society through the volumes of his Synthetic Philosophy,
allowing the statement to be for the most part in his own words.
in
In the First Principles we are shown the individual's mind in

process of manufacture by the outer world.
The modes
of consciousness called pressure, motion, sound, light, heat,
are effects produced in us
by agencies which,
as otherwise expended, crush,
or fracture pieces of matter, generate vibrations.'
.... Hence
if
we regard
the changes of relative position, of aggregation, or of chemical state, thus
being transformed manifestations of the agencies from which they

must we regard the sensations which such agencies produce in us
arising, as
arise, so
as
new forms
of the forces producing them.*
....
Besides the correlation
and equivalence between external physical forces, and the mental forces generated by them in us under the form of sensations, there is a correlation and
equivalence between sensations and those physical forces which, in the shape
of bodily actions, result from them."^
Next as
to
....
thoughts and as to those feelings which arise from
"internal stimuli":
The
which we have seen
forces called vital,
to
be the correlates of the
forces called physical, are the immediate sources of these thoughts
and are expended
These
in
feelings
and the ideas that he builds out
Spencer definite "things," just as a sun, a
for
and
feelings,
producing them.*
They
in the physical world.
are psychical,
of
them become
crystal, or a tadpole
it
is
and how
true,
the physical things turn themselves into psychical
things
it
is
But we know that they do, and we

have just got to go ahead with them, he holds, on that basis.
The following passage, although it is taken somewhat out of order,
"impossible to fathom."
show
will
The
to
it
which
fairly well this concrete
it
only in infinite time),
is
different orders of activity
severally proportionate
and
\iew of mental states.
toward which emotional modification perpetually tends, and

must approach indefinitely near (though it can absolutely reach
limit
a combination of desires that correspond to
which the circiunstances of
all
the
desires
for
strength to the needs for these orders of activity,
by these orders of activity. In what we distinguish as

and in the moral differences of races and nations produced by
severally satisfied
acquired habits,
life call
First Principles, sec. 71.
"
Ibid.
Ibid.
* Ibid.
43
h;il)it.s
that
maintained through successive generations, we have countless
arc-
which can cease only with the
illustrations of this progressive adaptation,
establishment of a complete equilibrium between constitution and conditions.'
In the Biology there
seems
ment
to
of
have
that he
felt
He seems
life.
to
One
nothing that need detain us.
is
comment may however be made.
In his later years Spencer
had not been

have
felt
entirely fair in his treat-
that perhaps he
had not given
the animal or vegetable organism sufficient recognition as a pecul-
"center from which a differentiated division
iarly individualized
of the original force
is
again diffused."
system as
his Biology, revised after his
pleted, he interpolated a chapter (Part
So
it
I,
he said that "that which gives substance
chap,
to
a certain unspecified principle of activity,"^
he only gave
the start he
had naively given
to feeling,
among
stir
life
which
cast,
his entire philosophy
unknowable
Coming now
which
to
is
is
in its
In
which from
but his extra chapter
many
his followers,
to believe that in this chapter
the problem of the origin of
point the
in
and that "hfe
to life a little of that concreteness
created for a time a great
were inclined
vi, a),
our idea of Life
conceived in physico-chemical terms. "^
essence cannot be
this
in the last edition of
stands had been com-
of
whom
he had withdrawn
from the evolutionary mold in
and had permitted
at this
one
break through into the knowable.
to the Psychology^
we
are to learn how- the "multi-
tudinous, diverse forms of feeling have been evolved from a primitive,
simple sensibility."'*
Also
how
" The relational element of
ings.
The Spencerian mechanism

description,
He
tells
and besides
us that
it
is
up out
of feel-
the intellectual element."^
for this is too well
is
"no kind
ideas are built
mind
known
to
need
aside from our purpose.

of feelings, sensational or emotional,
can be wholly freed from the intellectual element."^ But this

does not mean for him any unity of the sensational-intellectual
process.
Feelings are one kind of "thing," and ideas are another
First Principles, sec. 174.
Biology, revised
Ibid., p. 120.
Psychology, sec. 60.
6 7Jj^_
and enlarged
edition, 1898, p. 114.

Ibid., sec. 209.

kind of "thing" superimposed on the feelings.
primary indecomposable states of consciousness
43
"Sensations are
while perceptions
are secondary decomposable states consisting of changes from one
primary state
to another.'"
large part of these feeling "things" are brought
individual
human
being bodily
world at his birth.
"The
use the word advisedly
doctrine that
by the
into the
the desires, all the
all
sentiments, are generated by the experiences of the individual

so glaringly at variance with the facts that I cannot but
how anyone
should ever have entertained
These inborn
of
it."^
and developed by the conditions

he holds, which the individual uses to make
feelings, modified
are the things,
life,
society.
is
wonder
They make
his acts,
and
his acts
worked together
into
a tangle with other people's acts are society.

It is
manifest that the ability of
men
any degree as members
to co-operate in
of a society presupposes certain intellectual faculties and certain emotions.

It
is
manifest that the efficiency of their co-operation
will,
other things being
amounts or proportions in which they possess these

required mental powers.
It is also manifest that by continuing to co-operate
under the conditions furnished by any social state the amounts and proportions
equal, be determined by the
may be modified, and some modified form of co-operamay hence result; which again reacting on the nature is itself again reacted
of these mental powers

tion
Hence
upon.
in preparation for the
study of social evolution there have to
be dealt with various questions representing the faculties
and representing the modes
in
it
brings into play,
which these are developed during continued
social Hfe."3
Now
all,
these "manifests"
except for the
first
and "hences" are not manifest
one of them, and that only
understood as
if
But
indicating a psychical process, not a soul-content.
more
later.
at
of that
Notice in passing the concrete character of these
powers or faculties in the individual, the quantitative increase of
them as "things," and the engineering
of society
by or through
them.
It is
he
when Spencer
classifies cognitions
reaches this stage in his psychology that
on the one
side
and
feelings
on the
other,
each into four groups, with the same group names in each series:
'
Ibid., sec. 211.
Ibid., sec. 216.
Ibid., sec. 477.
44
and
prcscntative-reprcsentative, representative,
prescntativc,
One can
representative.'
recall
what
all this
means
re-
sufficiently
would
well by the bare statement that a re-representative feeling
be such a feeling as the "love of property" as distinct from the
This
love of or desire for j)articular pieces of property.
him not
at all
cretely.
It is
Each one
a feeling thing that he means.

of these
whatever they arc
of course, those that have
first is
He
the progress of civilization.
facultative
or powers or feeling things or
faculties
excepting,
when man
already evolved
social life
for
is
love of property "in the abstract," but very con-
man has been

sets
forth that
men
been
up with
built
living in
and coming up through history gradually add to their

equipment such things as foresight, modifiability of
belief, abstract
conceptions, conceptions of property, of cause, of
uniformity, ideas of measure, definiteness of thought, exactness,
skepticism,
and
and
consciousness of
truth,
imagination,
reminiscent and then constructive.^
first
Intellectual evolution as
evolution, of
its
which
it is
it
goes on in the
at once a cause
criticism,
human
finally
race along with social
and a consequence,
is
thus,
under
all
aspects, a progress in representativeness of thought. ^
As always, however,
this last
statement must be taken to
mean
not
merely a process of experience, but the evolutionary creation of a
power which
faculty or
is
a thing which encounters, pushes, and
interacts with, other world-things.
Only
as social progress brings
more numerous and more heterogeneous
experiences can general ideas be evolved out of special ideas, and the faculty
of thinking
them acquired.
remark
I call attention here to his
in this connection that in
an increasing originality
on the individual arts, on science, and on literature;" and ask whether anyone can name an invention today that
can be compared for boldness and power with early man's inven-
later stages of social evolution "there is
which
tells
at once
tion of fire-using, field-tilling, or animal-domestication, or that
can be compared with the many social inventions of the bees,
Psychology, sec. 480.
Ibid.,
Part IX, chap.
3
iii.
Ibid., sec. 493.
4 Ibid., sec. 493.

which have produced
their
parable generically.
modern
complex
These things are com-
hive-life.
be a bold
It will
45
man who
inventive genius often equals them.
says that our
wish
to Spencer's illustration in this connection of the
to refer also
mental equip-
modern woman, which he compares in many ways with

that of primitive man.
This illustration seems to me a most
beautiful disproof of his theory.
Anyone who chooses to read the
passage can see that on inspection and enjoy it, especially if his
eye falls also on the troubled reference that is somewhere made
to George Eliot and her work.
Making express psychological preparation for his Sociology,
ment
of
Spencer next discusses sociahty.

evolution, but
paniment
it is
Sociality
is
the
product of
only possible through a specific mental accom-
which
feeling content,
it
"imphes and
cultivates;"
a feehng which "can begin only through some slight variation,"
and
is
"maintained and increased by the survival of the
This feeling which
lies at
the foundation of society
is
fittest."^
sympathy.
Sympathy can develop only in proportion as there is power of

Three causes of sympathy can be traced in
three sets of relations: (i) the relation between the members of a
species; (2) between male and female; (3) between parents and
offspring.
Sympathy accomplishes especially great work in human
society because there we find all the three causes just mentioned,
representation.^
"along with the coessential condition, elevated
"No
intelligence. "^
great social advance has been possible without
an increase
in this feeling.""*
Following these propositions Spencer gives a

of illustrations^ of the
working of sympathy
page or two
in society.
challenge
and point out from them where Spencer finds

any "sympathy" as a feeling thing which is not itself merely his
own bald inference from the external facts this sympathy is supanyone
to read these
posed to explain.
Watch him
which when found nowadays

pathetic."
1
Watch him
Ibid., sec. 504.

Ibid., sec. 507.
as he describes a primitive custom,
is
condemned
as cruel and
as he infers from
3
Ibid., sec. 509.
4 Ibid., sec. 510.
it
s
"unsym-
that the primitive
Ibid., sees.
509
fif.
'
46
whose custom
lH-()l)k'
was were weak
it
See him
sympathy.
in
here guilty of as llagrant a "bias" as ever he assailed in his
Study
We may
oj Sociology.
call
it,
if
we
please, in parallel to his
other forms of bias, the "civilization bias"

of feelings as they arc found today
ards of feelings for
On
/
'',
the
all
and
races
sets
takes the content
it
them up
as the stand-
times.
tangles himself badly in his explanations.
spot he
how weak were
After showing
and
all
the sympathies
"among
the lower
races," he starts to trace the evolution of greater sympathy.
goes beautifully while he
But when he turns
times.
portraying the good deeds of our
is
to the other side of the picture,
This
own
he fmds
that he has got to account for just the reverse condition of affairs
the cruelty of today
and he has only one way
to
do
it,
namely, by
Our human
institutions of today are due to the sympathy we have.
Our
inhuman institutions are due to the sympathy we lack. But are
deming modern
times the faculty of sympathy.
not these identical statements, from the given point of view, true
also of the
never
most primitive
lets its
mouth
is filled ?
And
if
to explain anything at
He
clan,
which
bloodthirsty in war, but
is
humblest member suffer from hunger while a luckier
tells us,
so,
how can sympathy
as such be relied
on
all ?
however, that
the relatively slowdevelopmentof sympathy during civilization, notwithstanding

the high degree of sociality
and the favorable domestic relations (i.e., monogamy),
has been in a considerable degree due to the slow development of representative

power.
It is
almost cruel here to refer back to his assertion about the
modern
increase in originality, quoted a few pages back, but the
inconsistency
he notes
is
we could not
ceasing,
is
that
too vital to be overlooked.
we
are
still
Another hindrance
a "predatory race," which, apparently,
exactly cease to be, but at least take a step toward
any day we wished, merely by taking an injection of
Dr. Spencer's choice extract of sympathy.
Now
Spencer finds the solution of
between theory and

'
Psychology, sec. 509
fact, in
this
unpleasant conflict
which sympathy as a "thing" must

explain society, and yet in every phase of society both
47
is
and
is
not at the same time, by striking a compromise between different
work on human character, the outcome of which is

"a speciahzation of the sympathies." We are sympathetic here
and unsympathetic there, all at the same time, and yet sympathy
influences at
a thing, a real thing, indeed the most real thing for inter-
itself is
pretative purposes.
Fellow feeling has been continually repressed in those directions where
social safety has involved the disregard of
in those directions
where
the society or has not hindered
This
perfectly true
is
moment
the
sympathy
but
in
it is
any way
while
has been allowed to grow
to tolerate the use of
such phrasing for
also true that Spencer here clearly

in
which
He
it is
abandons
worth having as an aid
has thrown
to the
it
aside, but does not
first
of all egoistic senti-
it.
We
might follow him as he builds up
ments and
fits
them on
to the social facts for
which he needs them,
then ego-altruistic feelings,
according to the lights of his theory;
The defect is
little puppets made by hand;
spooks miraculously appearing. They are all of them surBut what
and then altruistic feelings.

They are
the same throughout.
little
it
it.'
interpretation of society.
know
it;
has either positively conduced to the welfare of
it
is
the use
animism which Spencer himself studied so

among primitive men, and so scornfully condemned as
viving traces of the

carefully
violating all reason.
We
pass next to the Sociology.
(persons)
The
character of the units
and the conditions under which they
exist (the environ-
With the
we need not concern ourselves.^ They,
ment) are the primary factors as primarily divided.^

latter,
I
the external factors,
Ibid., sec. 510.
Sociology, sec. 6.
note in passing the " superorganic enAs

vironment," which determines the governmental organization of society, while inorganic and organic environments determine mainly the industrial organization
3
for these external factors
(Sociology, sec. 11).
work.
it
is
wc may
This distinction
is
The "secondary environment"
so typical of Spencer's whole
from the hand
of the
of social activity.
man who
uses
dogmatic and harmful to

(sec. 12) also
method
it
later constructive
deserves a reference because
of interpretation to divorce the tool
a divorce
fatal to
any clear interpretation
48
of course, hiive helped to create the internal factors, the people,
and they arc "there," outside,

internal factors
i.
c.,
all
the time pressing against the
Of
and interacting with them.
the internal factors,
man, we must take account, in addition to his

emotional and intellectual traits.' We are also
the individual
physique, of his
given an opportunity for that most interesting study, "the effect
whole on the
of the
and of the parts on the whole"*
parts,
naive investigation which would do credit to primitive man, which
indeed by
its
very announcement makes primitive
man
man
is
a living
reality to us.
As
to early
physically the most that Spencer
of him, in contrast with the

brutality
ties,
and
man
of today,
is
that
able to say
"some
traits of
inferiority exhibited in certain of these ancient varie-
have either disappeared or now occur only as unusual varia-
tions. "^
The
chapters'*
which deal with primitive man, emotional and
intellectual, indicate
these feeling
tion
how much and how
and compound
from the Psychology
the social
way.
life is
feeling, or idea, factors.
The
quota-
way
if it
were made to
forms of the psychic process through which
achieved.
Each item
can be done with
in the first section of the first of these
chapters^ could be accepted in a general

refer exclusively to the
little
But Spencer does not mean
that he mentions
is
it
in this
a mass of feeling, and
always masses of feeling he has in mind.
One
it is
or two instances
of his interpretation will bear fruit for our critical purpose, as

fully as
if
we took up every
'
Sociology, sec.
>
Ihid., sec. 10.
Compare
7.
instance in turn.
3
Take
for instance
Ibid., sec. 22.
4 Ibid.,
Part
I,
chaps,
vi, vii.
also the opening
paragraph of sec. 52, which sets up the "truth that

the laws of thought are everywhere the same; and that, given the data as known to
him, the primitive man's inference is the reasonable inference;" which would be a
5
if he adhered to it and did not make his whole interpretation

on an evolution of "faculties," including the faculty of reasoning, or getting
highly useful principle

rest
reasonable conclusions.
Practically he is always insisting that one must get more

"reason" or more mental what not in order to move society upward. Here his
words are in flat contradiction to his practice. This will not be considered a quibble
on my part, after I have pointed out the practical difficulties he gets into through
the use of his method.

his quotation
Compare
from Burton's description
of the
or in groups
Can
they not be easily matched, either separately
Indeed
if
the fairer comparison
parison, namely, between this description

similar in character, of the traits of
would be sharper
qualities as
tion
if
East African.'
the savage traits set forth with those of the people of our
present society.
sion
49
still
any
is made, a comand some description,
civilized people, the deci-
against Spencer's view.
Such soul
he mentions could only be useful for social interpreta-
they could be found, identified exactly, and verified indepen-
But when they are both inexact and knowable to us only

from the actions which are supposed to result from them, they are
dently.
utterly useless, and, as will
appear
later,
highly harmful.
quotation from Wallace about savage respect for law^
compared with the one
just
mentioned
Spencer's
may
be
for further illustration as to
the feelings of the primitives.
cannot
resist,
however, referring to one other passage in this
connection, that, namely, setting forth instances of "credulity"

the Indian choosing his totem, the negro choosing a god for the
moment,
deity
is
We
the
Veddah thinking
must regard
ments of a mental
far
enough
If these
ceive
his
arrow goes wrong because his
not propitiated.
[he says] the
state in
impHed convictions
as
normal accompani-
which the organization of experiences has not gone
to evolve the idea of causation.
savages do not have the idea of causation, I cannot con-
what causation means.
causation,
it is
true,
They have not
but perhaps,
all
Spencer's idea of
things considered, their
own
them under their own circumstances of life

than Spencer's would be, and if so it is to that extent more true.
We have our world strung together differently nowadays and the
great social change (mind, I do not say result) is manifest; but
as for the "faculties," there is at any rate nothing in the facts as
given to prove any difference.
Spencer continues with his well-known chapters on primitive
ideas which make up the great bulk of his Data of Sociology.
Perhaps the best test in his whole system is to take these "data" and
idea
is
more
useful to
Sociology, sec. 33.
Ibid., sec. 36.
Ibid., sec. 44.
PROCESS OF
rilK
50
api)ly thcin lo the rest of
GOVERNMENT
what
phenomena.
sociology with a view to seeing
liis
can be done with them in interpreting the social

It is hard lo keep any respect for the man when one experiments
"data" or "ideas" or
much as any of the
what not are forms
social structures he later describes; that the "ideas" do not have
an indej)endent life which creates social activity outside of them,
but that rather all social life is stated in terms of "ideas" by the
in this direction.
so clear that these
It is
of social action, just as
and that
actors,
social
life,
ideas have reference to nothing else except
all
even such ideas as the First Principles, even the "syn-
even the "unknowable."

merely quote one more well-known passage before leaving
thetic philosophy,"
I will
the Sociology.
While the conduct of the primitive man is in part determined by the

men around him it is in part determined by the
with which he regards
with which he regards
men who have
From
passed away.
feehngs, result two all-important sets of social factors.

living
becomes the root of the pohtical
feelings
feelings
these tivo sets of
\\Tiile the fear of the
control, the fear of the
dead becomes
the root of the religious control.'
If
be possible to find any factors more superficial than these
it
out of which to erect a system of social interpretation, I cannot

conceive what they are.
of the
dead"
social
facts,
alike are crude
hard
certain
ways
this
"fear
of stating certain very important

of
facts
form poor
crudities of statement
And
This "fear of the living" and
everyday existence.
Such
"causes" in sociology.
stuff for
yet Spencer says:
Setting out with social units as thus conditioned, as thus constituted physic-
emotionally, and intellectually,
ally,
and
as thus possessed of certain early
acquired notions and correlative feelings, the science of sociology has to give
an account of
Now
all
what
problems than
the
phenomena
that result from their
of the Ethics?
I confess I
combined
actions.*
have had few harder
way to place Spencer's Ethics in the proper

And the only way I have been able to
task has been by making the whole world of
to find a
relation to his sociology.
achieve this necessary

social activity as
I
it
Sociology, sec. 209.
presents
itself to
*
me
distort itself into con-
Ibid., sec. 210.

formity with Spencer's separation of his vivid
far-away "thing wanted"
"want" from
his
separation which he never got over
Even then much
all his life long.
51
difl&culty remains.
In the Ethics Spencer seems to distrust fundamentally the
adequacy of the
feelings as engineers of the social process.
Upon
more naive control of

we can set up a standard
the naive feelings he superimposes a

feelings.
His Ethics implies that
society,
and that we can doctor the
still
the
for
feelings of the individuals so
as to realize this standard in society.
These implications must be stated more

to
something
things (plus
like this:
We,
some complex idea
and
things)
They amount
made up of feeling
fully.
the individuals,
living in the
of a lot of outside things (other people included), can set
we
standard of what
all
ought
midst
up a
to be, either with reference to the
world of outside things made over and controlled the way we should
ultimately like to
absolute ethics;
have
pure pleasure existing unalloyed
it,
or with reference to the world of outside things
relative
who may
alike for ethical purposes we can
patched up in the best manner available for our

ethics.
By manipulating
own day
the feelings of the individuals
be regarded as conceivably
all
and work on toward the absolute.

This may be done, perhaps, by some social wisdom which plays
arrive at the relative standard,
on the
feelings of the individuals
together upward;
and continually
forces
them
all
perhaps, by presenting the truth to the indi-
vidual in Spencer's Principles of Ethics, or in
some other
fit
form,
the individual then seeing the desirability of starting out to
make
himself over on such lines;'
on the general
or perhaps,
principle
that morals guide society
and when you get morals understood
properly they will guide
correctly.
it
The
alternatives are vague
enough and mean httle,but they indicate possible points of approach.
The
"
following quotations bear on the technique of the Ethics:
Only by gradual remolding
social state
be made what
~^ Cf.
'
of
can either the private

it
human
life
nature into fitness for the
or the public
life
of each
man
should be."^
in Ethics, Vol.
Ethics, sec. 244.
I,
p. 561, the suggestion of
"moderation
in self-criticism."
52
"capacity
Ihc
of
SjKiiking
for
modification
which
makes
an approximately complete adjustment of the nature to

to be led,'" he tells us we can get a good idea of
it from the contrast between people who torment animals and people
who cannot be induced even to look on such tortures an illuspossible
the
life
which has
tration
which may do credit
in the treatment of animals,
but which shows a commovement toward humanity
to his heart,
plete forgetfulness of the history of the
and an ignorance of the true meaning
of that "specialization of sympathies" which was set forth
in
earlier quotations.
Happiness, which
is itself
ultimate moral aim."^
and guide the other

sciousness
is
a kind of feeling,
It is also the
feelings.
"The
is
inevitably "the
thing which ought to control

essential trait in
moral con-
some feeling or feelings by some other

Duty is an unpleasant kind of feeling that
the control of
feeling or feelings. "^
"will diminish as fast as moralization increases."'*
Conduct
in
its
highest form will take as guides innate perceptions of right,
duly enlightened and
made
by analytical intelligence; while conscious

supreme solely because they lead to the ulti-
precise
that these guides are proximately
mately supreme end, happiness, special and general. "s
So much for Spencer's system of interpreting social
life
by
individual feelings.
Now
what of the results that flow from it in the course of his

own work ? In the first place there are the inconsistencies which
have been mentioned from time to time above. If feelings are
to be specialized to fit each and every case in which they operate,
each
bit of specialization
is
a fresh bit of inconsistency in the
"amounts and proportions" of the feelings must

be made to vary so as to explain each and every social institution and
social change, then there is no reason whatever for pausing and
theory.
If the
calling the feelings the "causes."
We may
for all practical pur-
poses ignore them.
Another
difficulty that the feeling theory leads to is that if the
Ethics, sec. 244.
'
Ibid., Vol. I, p. 46.
Ibid., p. 113.
*Ibid., p. 127.
5
Ibid., pp. 172, 173.
made"
individual "as
is
the unit, then
it
53
natural to conclude,
is
by the use of pure reason, re-representatively or otherwise, that
may
individuals
all
made
alike in their feelings so
own
operate on society, or rather on their
far as these
activities.
ultimately be
social
This opens the way for a whole range of individualistic
speculation, which has the least possible relationship to inductive
Indeed
science.
be
set
up
to
up
it
for all
this
whole proposition that one standard can
men, and that
(or, alternatively, all
in accord
it
is
all men can conceivably be brought

men of any given society), however
with religious codes,
out on the world.

religions that
It conflicts
most earnestly
in
is
observations of every unbiased pair of
sharp conflict with the
human
eyes that ever looked
with the experience of the very
insist
on
it.
with other phenomena of social activity.
It conflicts
Men
selves in all kinds of groups all the time, each with
That
is
Even
the fact.
even more
them-
differentiate
its
own
standard.
the Spencerian individuahsts themselves
are forever asserting the right to disport themselves along the lines
of their passing feelings, not the duty of evolving toward the
Spencerian ethical
Even
ideal.
quoted in the opening paragraph of

greatest possible
amount
inconsistency
self-evident.
is
Spencerian ethical
the
this section, insists
ideal,
on the
of this individually defined liberty.
propositions as I have put
The Spencerian may

them above are
The
say that the
just the reverse of
what they ought to be properly to represent Spencer's views.

Granted, and yet the incohsistency will be as great as ever. In
other words, for
all
his
emphasis of the external environment,
Spencer, in his specific interpretations, persists in regarding individuals as individuals per
se,
not as individual factors or forms
in the particular social institutions in
which they actually
find
themselves, in which they always have found themselves, and in
which, so far as any student of facts has a right to say, they always
will find themselves.
A
is
third difficulty that flows
from Spencer's theory of
that which involves the "natural."
feelings
exemplified in
government and government functions. His followshow the difficulty in their positions. They can get anywhere
his views of
ers
It is best
'
54
whole range of social speculation by taking a good running
in llu-
from Spcncerian
start
"natural"
is
feelings.
They can reach
socialism or
reach anything they want to reach.
They can
anarchy.
not what
socially
is,
The
but what conforms to the "natu-
ral" feelings, as the individual upholder of the "natural" insists
work
they must
All this
out.
not science.
is
It is
an eighteenth-century
of a seventeenth-century deity, curiously garbing
distillation
a nine-
itself in
"knowable" force.
come those "innate perceptions of right," which
suddenly popped up in oncj of the passages from the Ethics quoted
Straight out of these Spcn-
teenth-century
cerian feelings
above.
The
true Spcncerian has plenty of other troubles besides these.
But these
wdll
do
our needs.
for
And now two more
The first will show what Spencer

The second will show what poor
render him, and how much better that
points.
leaves out of his social world.

service the feelings
little
service can be rendered without them.
in
Turn back to the early quotations from the Study of Sociology,

which Spencer put the feelings in quantitative relation to action,
but passed over as indifferent the whole range of "automatic"

action, as
something that could be disregarded without any harm
in social interpretation.
greater part of our social
Our
realm.
The unhappy
life is
feelings, after the
carried
truth for
on
him
is
that the
in just this discarded
Spcncerian mode, are seen pushing
and playing around some features

over big things and have free scope with
a little here, pulling a little there,

of
They make
life.
little
a fuss
things, but they
do not even
in superficial
appearance directly
secure results with the big things, and in the range of intermediate
activities
at
which make up the bulk of
social life they hardly
appear
all.
We
are living in days of great popular agitation over our forms
of government.
"Feelings" are red hot.
waves over the Supreme Court, and
They break
in others
in
some
over the Senate.
They reach in little waves our city councils and city pohce forces.
They pound away in a good many other places. But what are
55
our feelings doing with the great structural features of our American
constitution
The
Just nothing.
constitution
am
not talking
of the written document, nor of constitutional conventions, but
working everyday organization of
actual
of the
society
goes
hammering along
in
our
political
great features undisturbed
its
and uninfluenced,
unprodded by specific Spencerian feelings

Does anybody want the referendum ? All right,
The change would not be much. Or governlet him have it.
ment ownership of railroads? We can make a terrific noise
of any kind.
about
it,
and shake our
but the innovation,
if
feelings
till
established,
our hair stands straight up,
would be but a
trifle
compared
with the steady-moving, "automatic" functions of our government,
which Spencer deems negligible so

If all this process of
goes.
far as his theory of feelings
government were some "external"
now and then pushing

would be one thing. But such is not the case.
human, as much as anything we know of is
thing waiting to be pushed by feelings, or

feelings in return, that
"internal,"
It is
ing,
it is
and human.
And
good-by forever
to the
internal
The
moment
the
life,
taken into the reckon-
Spencerian interpretation.
case would be stronger
phases of our social
it is
still if
took up other and wider
which are touched very
emotional play as compared with government.

that, only to
little
But
by the
omit
I will
approach such phenomena immediately in a different
way.
What
service
interpretation
do the
feelings
render Spencer in his social
Well, they strive to hold together various forms
of activity into groups.
They
are
meant
to
make
all
the activities
of each individual stick together with the activities of the other
The
individuals in his particular tribe, state, or society.

raised to the higher powers,
stage, are
supposed
make them
cohere.
a feeble way.
and
to collect together
They
They keep
feelings
finally to the re-representative
many forms
of activity,
and
actually give this interpretative help in

the Spencerian social world from being
a house of cards, but they fjuickly break in pieces

used,
and then we have
have
to "specialize the feelings."
to shut
when
our eyes and open the

It is all over.
they are
throttle.
We
56
Is
processes of mentality that Spencer places at the
the
it
foundation of society
must be
filled
But
socially all the time.
Then
Well and good.
is it
But then these processes
They must be worked up
with a social content.
a content of individual mental states
The
they never can be worked up.
unfortunate manipulator
shoots off into the infmite at every step.

Just as Spencer flew to "feelings" to get rid of the "knowledge-
rules" theory,' so
we must
fly to
action
purely
positive
to get
rid of the abuses of the "feeling" theory.
The
interpretation that will hold scientifically will ignore these
feelings.
will
It
up, one unfolding
watch the
itself
social
only through these unfolding situations.
spook
in the wheat-field,
It will
look to the future
of social activity as
nor a brain-spook in the class war or the
it.
It
will
It will see
and
psychically functioned,
nothing concretely psychical that
dominating
not put a grain-
It will
reform of government or the social movement.

bit
themselves
build
situations
out of the other.
is
calmly,
it
every
will
see
independent of society and yet
"positively,"
in
the
Comtean
what they are, study them for

what they are, analyze and synthesize them for what they are,
and leave all the mental "spooks" for men and women so hard
sense, grasp social facts just for
pressed with the actual doing of things that they need convenient
catchwords and symbols to save them the trouble of pushing their

thinking back into a region that would inevitably send forth great
disturbance for the day's
work they have
Section IV.
It is
in
hand.
Von Jhering
a pleasure to pass from the confusions of Small and the
work of Rudolph
any man who has set out with equal
equal equipment, and equal scientific determination to
crudities of Spencer to the patiently powerful
von Jhering.^
ability,
If there is
face without flinching every difficulty in this field, I have not

I
The Study
The
of Sociology, pp. 365, 366.
quotations are from Der Zweck im Recht, 3d ed., Vol.
I, 1893; Vol. II,

1898; which will be referred to as Zweck; and from Geist des romischen Rechts auf
den verschkdenen Stufen seiner Entwicklung," Theil

4th ed., which will be referred to as Geist.
I,
5th ed., Theile II and III,

come
across his work.
57
Der Zweck im Recht must be reckoned
by everyone who seeks

process of government and the function of law
with, page for page,
yet with all admiration for the
work
to
understand the
in social
And-
life.
of this master I cannot but
think that the psychological system he has elaborated to function

the individual in society has achieved, not a success or even a
partial success, but a complete collapse.
With the great majority of his interpretations of laws, moral

and institutions, such as are found especially in the second
volume of Der Zweck im Recht and in The Evolution of the Aryan,
I feel so substantial a sympathy that I may say my only wish is
to go somewhat farther, abandoning the personified society and
the race character,' which he still retains, and making the interrules,
pretation entirely in terms of social groups.
With
and
his psychology, his technique of
"Zwecke," objective
subjective, used to connect the individual
processes in which he participates,

It is solely
deals.
it
is
man
with the social
a very different matter.
with this phase of his theory that the present section
must leave
it
to the
second part of
this
work
to
show how
society can be investigated without such a technique.
wish
to
show
his
own
Here
downfall, and the inherent impossibility of
solving the problem he set himself.
Jhering
first
came
to
close quarters with the psychological
problems of the origin and meaning of law at the close of his Geist
des romischen Rechts, or rather at the close of that portion of this
work which was
all
He had been
he ever wrote.
broadly in terms of national
spirit
and
interpreting
Now
folk psychology.
he declared himself for a theory of interest or
utility ("Interesse,"
"Nutzen"), the two words not being well distinguished, but the
one being used with a somewhat more subjective, the other with
a somewhat more objective, reference.
He
set himself in opposition
made laws
It
to theories
which
take their origin in any kind of absolute will power,
and on the other hand

might.
on the one hand
to theories
was the usefulness
See infra, Part
II,
chap.
ix.
which placed the origin
in
mere
of the law, he said, that counted.
THK PROCESS OF GOVERNMENT
58
StripjR'd of terminology
and dispulation,
this
came
lo
saying that
you cannot get law out of simple head work, and you cannot get
it
out of mere i)reponderance of force; law must always be goofi
for
something
to the society
good for something
is
which has
des
("Klage," "Rechtsschutz");
He
term habitual among the
whom
its
benefits pass.
"den
The "subject"
jurists, is the
The
of law, using the
person or organization to
protection of the law exists to assure
evident that at this time he was not at
distinction
protected
Intercsscn, Bcdiirfnis-
reaching the right place*
this benefit
It is
laws as legally
defined
said that they served
Zweckcn des Verkehrs."^
sen,
the
"Nutzen," "Vortheil," "Gewinn," "Sich-
Gcniisses."
and
it.'
of law he placed, at this time, in the legal
protection by right of action

substantial element in
interests,*
and that quality of being
the very essence of
The formal element
erhcit
it,
all
clear as to the
between the things the individuals wanted and the
He
things that were socially useful.
set forth that
he was dis-
cussing the "subjective" side of law, and yet most of the terms
he uses bear more on the objective
utility.
He had
in
mind much
such an objective usefulness as the biologist employs in his rough

interpretations of organic evolution, but he also insisted
relativity of laws,
on the
on a usefulness "as recognized" by the law-
giver. ^
1 Geist, Vol. Ill, p. 350:
"Kein Recht ist seiner selbst wegen, oder des Willens
wegen da, jades Recht findet seine Zweckbestimmung und seine Rechtfertigung
darin, dass es das Dasein oder das Wohlsein fordert, kurz in dem Nutzen in dem
oben angegebenen weitesten Sinn. Nicht der Wille oder die Macht bildet die
Substanz des Rechts, sondern der Nutzen die Bedeutung des Willens erschopft
sich lediglich darin dass er die Zweckbestimmung des Rechts fiir das Subject vermittelt, die der Macht, welche das Recht ihm gewiihrt, darin, dass er rechtlich daran
nicht gehindert wird."

2
Geist, Vol. Ill, p. 339.
Geist, Vol. Ill, p. 338.
"Rechte sind rechtlich

Cf. also p. 340:
Menschen irgend einen Vortheil gewahre,

sen,
geschiitzte Interessen."
Every law
exists
"dass es
dem
seine Bediirfnisse befriedige, seine Interes-
Zwecke, fordere."
* Geist, Vol. Ill, p. 336.
desselben
vom
anderen Zweck
5
als die
ist derjenige dem der Nutzen

Der Schutz des Rechts hat keinen
"Subject des Rechts
Gesetz zugedacht
Zuwendung
So, Geist, Vol. Ill, p. 343.
ist
dieses
Nutzens an ihn zu sichern."

FEELINGS AND FACXJLTIES AS CAUSES
Naturally enough he was not
He
satisfied.
working out a theory which would both make
felt
59
the need of
allowance for
full
and would bring individual interests and

one effective system. He had something of the
the relativity of law,

social utilities into
progress to
make
made
that the economists
of his
life to
gave most of the
and he never completed
the task,
revised theory, but
in disentangling their
He
idea of value from the idea of utility.
some
of
worst
its
difficulties
He
it.
set
remained
rest
up a
for the
chapters, or rather volumes, he did not live to write.
Fortunately or unfortunately, his language contained a word
which seemed a guiding
That word was "Zweck," already
star.
used without well-specified meaning in the Geist, a word with

great tangles of metaphysical implications which lent
itself all
too
and objective
readily to the jurists' distinction between subjective
law, between law as the social rule and law as the individual's
word "Zweck"
I shall use the
right.
directly in this discussion
without attempting to find an English word

object, intention, teleology
purpose,
to substitute for
aim, end,
it.
Jhering abandoned, then, "interest" as his chief verbal
and substituted
title-page of his
ganzen Rechts"
tool,'
"Zweck." The motto he placed on the

great work was "Der Zweck ist der Schopfer des
for
it
"Zweck"
is
the creator of
all
And
law.
to this
he added when he pursued his subject from law into morals:
"Der Zweck ist der Schopfer der ganzen sittlichen Ordnung"^

"Zweck" is the creator of all moral order. The change from
interest to "Zweck" was hardly so great as it appeared to be, for
it
was a change rather of words than
of substance,
and indeed a
considerable proportion of the old interest remained unassimilated
But such as
in the later system.

for us to see with
it is
what
The word "Zweck,"

subjective
and objective
Zweck, Vol.
For the
p. s;
chap,
was he
utilized
uses.^
'
Vols. I
vigorously
On
the indiîdual side
it
is
for
Ibid., Vol. II, p. 214.
between subjective and objective, see The Struggle for Law,
Entwicklungsgeschichte des romischen Rechts, pp.
and pp. 448, 449; Vol.

and II.
iii,
it
as I have said, lends itself readily to both
I, p. vii.
distinction
it
result.
II,
pp. 97
(T.,
135
ff.,
i,
21
ff.;
Zweck, Vol.
and the prefaces
to
I,
Zweck,
6o
11
IK
Jhcring the motive or end of action,
(')n
the objective side
it
is
value or meaning or f)urf)ose of the laws or institutions or
the-
customs
side,
it
may
is
on
called
to exjjlain.
Now
as
on
it,
its
subjective
be regarded by some analysts of the illusive psychological
vocabulary, as rather idea than feeling, and as
have grouped
men who interpret society through feelings rather

than with those who inter])ret it through ideas, some explanation
Whether necessary or
of this arrangement may be necessary.
Jhering with the
not
it
will
be useful as indicating where Jhering's theory actually
stands as to this point.
The
whom
writers
Giddings, and
I shall discuss in the
next chapter, Morgan,
Dicey, use ideas or ideals in interpreting society,
but they use them as capable of a highly generalized statement
which they appear detached from the individual
in
of course, they arc supposed to exist.

facts, to
be found by inspection of the general
The procedure
His aim
forms
tive
much
is
down
to the
tion falls
logical
field of social ideas.
too superficial for Jhering's purposes.
"Zwecke"
to link his
would not be true
It
is
is
souls, in which,
Their ideas are broad social
together,
from the broadest objec-
most intimately individual subjective forms.
to say that the
whole
stress of his interpreta-
on the individual, but certainly the
schematism of Zwecke
falls
true, personified society for
stress of this
on the individual.
many important
psycho-
He
has,
it
purposes, and no
one has insisted more strongly than he that the individual exists
for
and through world processes ("ich bin
fiir
die
Welt da");
but on the other hand he emphasizes the reverse of this statement
and
fiir
insists that the
and
world exists for the individual ("die Welt
He
mich da").^
ist
maintains the existence of this distinction,
airns continually to use the individual for his social interpre-
tations.
This
is
of the very essence of the difficulty in the other
He does not give the indi\'idual any

any more than does Spencer; the point
writers discussed in this chapter.

extra-social substantiality,
is
that he uses
dem
him very
Zweck, Vol.
For example,
I,
concretely in his social interpretations.^
p. 67.
ibid., p.
512:
"So
das Recht seine Wirksamkeit
ist
as
aiissert,
doch schliesslich das Individuum an

ihm kommt es zu gute, ihm legt es

This
be apparent from the specific character of the sub-
will
"Zwecke" which he uses in his theory. To mention the

important ones we have the two altruistic "Zwecke," duty and
jective
and the
love,
"Zwecke," compensation or reward, and

There are also egoistic motives which
egoistic
compulsion or coercion.
do what he regards as a more strictly individualized work than

His specific use of these qualities will be
those just named.
observed as our analysis proceeds.'
Let
me
problems
is
next give a prehminary sketch of his theory and of the
One
raises.
it
that there
is
of the
fijst
points
upon which he insists

Even when
no human action without a "Zweck."
we hand a purse
to
a highwayman at the
pistol's point
we have
our "Zweck" in so doing, namely to exchange our purse for safety,
which we value higher.
It is
only
when we
are physically con-
Beschrankungen auf." In Vol. I, p. 258, he speaks of "rein individuelles Dasein,"

and says " Unser Zielpunkt ist der Staat und das Recht, unser Ausgangspunkt das
Individuum." In Vol. I, p. 92, he asks the question: "welche Garantien besitzt
die Gesellschaft dass Jeder zu seinem Theil den Satz verwirkliche auf
Du
dem
ihr
mich da ?" and adds: "Darauf soil die folgende

Ausfiihrung die Antwort ertheilen." On p. 291 he says that "der letzle Keim des
Zwanges als einer socialen Institution .... liegt in dem Individuum," and adds
that "der Daseinszweck des Individuums .... ist der erste, und in ihm liegt
daher der Urkeim des Rechts als der rechten Gewalt." For a passage in which
he puts the individual at the end instead of at the beginning of the process, and
ganzes Dasein beruht:
bist fiir
therefore from one point of view contradicts the passages quoted, see Vol. II, p. 102;
"Auch
ich gelange
Sittliche als
dem
zu
schliesslich
Resultate,
Gesetz seiner selber in sich tragen
soil,
dass das Individuum das
and dass
es,
indem
es sittlich
handelt, nur sich selber behauptet, abcr ich gelange dazu, ich gehe nicht davon
aus."
I
Many
is
"Zweck" from action

and "Gedanke" (as in Vol.
his separation of
of the words, " Vorstellung "
as those to "der nackte Egoismus" (Vol.

fiihl " (Vol. I,
pp. 319
f.).
For
references to such specific use of psychic factors might be given.
example there
pp. 379
There
ff.),
is
to the
I,
(so, in
Vol.
I, p. 11);
p. 248,), to the
work
I,
p. 5); his
use
such references
of the "Rechtsge-
"moralische Macht des Staatsgedankcns" (Vol.
his appeal to
Ehre and similar factors (Vol.
I,
I,
pp. 444, 445),
the passage in Vol. II, p. 118, referring to "qualitativer Fortschritt," the concluding words of the
first
volume
in
which he asks what
it is
without detection, and
that holds a
man back from
many
remarks
in
con-
nection with his investigation of morals as portrayed by speech forms in the
first
doing wrong when he can do
it
part of the second volume (N0S..4-14).

objective
"Zweck" might
The whole
of his
contrast between subjective
also be appealed to, as for
example
it
is
phrased
and
in the
62
strained
we do not
iIklI
:ict
with a "Zwcck," and then
properly be said to "act" at

action.'
tions
that acting
we cannot
someone
are the object of
summed up in the proposi"Zweck" are one and the

and willing for a "Zweck" are the
and acting
and that willing
we
all;
This reasoning
else's
same;^
of government
I'ROCESS
'jiir;
is
for a
same.^
Interest (" Interesse ")
ing never fully stated
having been
left for
must
also be taken into account.
a chapter of his
He makes
it,
subjective
"Zweck."
Jher-
"Zweck," this discussion

work which was never written.*
relation to
its
apparently, the peculiarly personal desire side of the
He calls it the relation or reference ("Be"Zweck" to the actor, and elsewhere he defines
ziehung") of the
upon the surrounding

There must always be some "Interesse" with the
"Zweck," and he asserts, similarly to the sentences quoted a
it
as the feeling of the dependence of
life
conditions.^
preface to Vol. II, p.

I,
x.
Also his reasons
why "Zwang" remains
necessary
(Vol.
pp. 565 S.), "die mangelhafte Erkenntniss" and "der bose oder schwache Wille;"
and perhaps
p. 23.
of the
his
emphasis of " hervorragcnde Geister" in Entwicklungsgeschtchte,

I, p. 97, he distinctly contrasts "die praktische Bedeutung"
In Zweck, Vol.
"Zwecke"
for society with "die Art ihrer psychologischer
may
das Individuum."
work
felt justified
at short
range
Einwirkung auf
Bougie who studied Jhering's

in saying: "Toute tendance pour Jhering part des
also refer to the fact that
individus et revient aux individus" (Les sciences sociales en Allemagne, p. 125);

further that
all
causes are "cachees dans
veritable createur
du monde
les
social (p. 133);
ames (p. 123); that "le desir, c'est le

and that "le vrai moteur du monde
social reste le desir" (p. 105).

'
Zweck, Vol.
Ibid., p. 14:
I, p. 16.
"Handeln und
um
eines
Zweckes willen handeln
ist
gleichbe-
deutend."
3
end."
Ibid., p. 22:
"Wollen und um eines Zweckes halber woUen ist gleichbedeut"Kein Wollen oder was dasselbe, keine Handlung
Cf. also, Vol. I, p. 5:
ohne Zweck."
* Ibid.,
pp. 30, 52, 61.
I,
of course, regard the unwTitten chapter as really
unwTitable.
s
Ibid.,
p.
53:
"Die Beziehung des Zweckes auf den Handelnden."
also Geist, Vol. Ill, p. 341:
"Der
besonderer Beziehung auf die Zwecke und Verhaltnisse des Subjects."

is
"ein realcr Druck," Zweck, Vol.

^
Zweck, Vol.
I,
Cf.
InteressenbegrifiF erfasst die Wertheigenschaft in
I, p.
p. 30, " Gefiihl
51.
der Lebensbedingtheit."
Interest
moment
63
ago, that there can be no action without "Intcresse."'
Sometimes however "Interesse" appears as "objective."'
"Zweck" we find in it first of all the satisgives.

The satisfaction and the action are held
In analyzing the
faction the action
sharply apart as different orders of phenomena, with the satis-
He
faction as the thing that brings about the action.
does not
say the thing that "causes" the action, but only because he regards
the
"Zweck"
process as a sort of active causation, as distinguished
from the passive causation of the material world. ^ It is the

"Zweck" indeed that is the main thing; the action is merely the
"Zweck," which means
means
to the
the
satisfaction.
that all action
is
This
at
this stage of his progress
radically different
is
froiî
asserting
purposive, with purpose strictly as process, because
of the very separation which he establishes between the action
the purpose.
It is
on
It is in this separation that his unsolved,
problems
and
is
and
built up.
insoluble, puzzle
lie.s
"Zweck"
made
however, soon
is,
and indeed
tion,
system
this separation that his
in the
entirely stripped
of
its
very dilTerent from satisfac-
which
most objective forms
to
satisfaction aspect.
The "Zwecke"
it
rises is
of
nature come within Jhering's creed, though not within the immediate purview of his work, but the "Zwecke" of society as such
play a very important role in
'
Ibid., p.
Interesse,
ist
Vol.
So
I,
Interessen,"
3
and on
4 Ibid., p. 13.
ist
der
dern nur Mittel
Zweck"
(of
ist
It
fiir
appears as " gesellschaf tliches," in Vol.
he talks of the
Ibid., chap.
verspricht
p.
"Kampf
der Interessen;" on
work.
II, p.
285.
In
294 of "gemeinsame
372 of "praktisches Interesse."
"Die Befriedigung welche der WoUende sich von der Handlung

Zweck seines WoUens. Die Handlung selber ist nie Zweck, son-
zum Zweck."
animals)
is
Cf. also Vol.
I,
pp. 28, 29, where "der individucUe
said to be "pleasure;" p. 22,
where the "Entschluss"
"That"
For the positive discussion of "purposive action"

of social study, I can again only refer
as the material
p.
i.
separated from the "That," and p. 31, where the

5
include the social "condi-
den Zweck, oder sagen wir kurz:

Ein
Handlung
ein eben solches Unding als ein Handeln olane Zweck."
"Ein Sich-Interessiren"
52:
ibid., p. 38.
p. 257
They
die unerlassliche Voraussetzung einer jeden
Handeln ohne Interesse

2
it.
is
is
called "ausserc."
without the
separation
to Part II of the present
64
and the
tions of existence,"
organ
social
through the
ion.
sion, duty, love) to the
and even
church, and other forms of
stale, the
They grade all the way down from these

connecting link "Zwecke" (compensation, comjml-
/.at
immediately seen purposes of the individual
to desire in its
most individual statement.
For instance, he gives an
Many men
illustration of the building of a rail-
Each particistate has a share.

pant has his individual " Interesse;" perhaps no two have the same;
road.
and none
and the
have an "Interesse" that covers the whole enter-
will
The
prise.
join,
railroad
coincidence
But there
the "Zweck."'
itself is
the
of
individual
interests
exists
general
the
w'ith
"Zwcck."^'
With this great range of meanings for " Zweck " it is not strange
that we find him using now one, now another term, as synonymous
with
We
it.
We
have just seen "Interesse" so used.
also find
"Motive,"^ "Triebfeder"4 (spring of action), "Heber's
(lever),
"Mittel"*^ (means), and finally organization forms,' and conditions of existence.^
By means
life
which
is
"Zwecke"
of the term
significant.
"Zweck"
Life
Jhering gives a definition of
the practical application through
own
of the outer world to our
of the race as a whole can be

I
is
Zweck, Vol.
I, p.
43;
summed up
existence.^
The
life
as the substance or the
"Jeder hat sein eigenes Interesse im Auge: keiner den
Zweck."
"Coincidenz ihrer Interessen mit
'Ibid., p. 37:
also, p. 46;
allgemeinen Zweck;"
footnote.
3 Ibid., p. 28,
* Ibid.,
dam
"Coincidenz der beiderseitigen Zwecke und Interessen."
pp. 60, 94
Vol. II, p. 11,
and frequently elsewhere.
Ibid., Vol. I, pp. 60, 95.
6 Ibid., p. 96.
"!
Compare
Ibid., p. 42.
also p. 97
where
in defining
"Verkehr," he uses
motives, means, and form as distinct.

8 Ibid.,
<>
pp. 435
Ibid., p. 9:
eigene Dasein;"
welt
fiir
ff.
"Leben
ist
praktische Zweckbeziehung der Aussenwelt auf das
also Vol. II, p. 197;
das eigene Dasein."
"Leben
Cf. also Vol.
I,
ist
p.
Zweckverwendung der Aussen25, "In dem Zweck steckt der
Mensch, die Menschheit, die Geschichte," and Vol. II, p.

Zwecks
the unity of society "durch die Gemeinsamkeit des
178,
where he talks of
hergestellt."

essence of
all
human "Zwecke."^
definition of life in terms of
65
be noted that
It will
"Zweck," not
of
this is
"Zweck"
in
terms
He proposes to show the inner

dependency of the "Zwecke," how the higher are connected with
the lower, and how some of them by an inevitable "Zweck"
necessity give rise to the others in one great system." The foundaof
life,
which alone
possible.
is
by which one man's "Zweck" is

bound up with the interests of all.^ These interests must be found
converging on the common "Zweck."
tion of society Hes in the process
In
statement of Jhering's theory
this brief
we have observed
"
Zwecke " and " Interessen " which are not too sharply distinguished
from each other. We have found "Zwecke" (and "Interessen")
scattered through all the individuals in the society, where they
are, so to speak,
We
on a common
level, that is alike in quality
different levels, so to
The problem
tive.
speak
is
to
harmonize them
Zwecke " and
to
" Interessen " of
series
in all three hnes:
harmonize the "Zwecke" with the "Interessen;"

"
or kind.
on
becoming ever more and more objec-
have found "Zwecke" also running in an ascending
to
to
harmonize the
many individuals with one
another
harmonize the objective "Zwecke" with the subjective.

In order
to
pass a fair judgment
failure in effecting these
harmonies,
it
upon Jhering's success or

will
through his whole system of "Zwecke" in
be necessary to look
all its typical
presenta-
tions.
It is
through a "Systematik der menschlichen Zwecke" that
he works up his theory.

'
Ibid., Vol. I, p. 57:
'*
"Das
All
human "Zwecke,"
raenschliche
Leben
in
he
diesem Sinn,
tells us, fall

d.
i.,
das Leben
der Gattung Mensch, nicht des Individuums, heisst der InbegrifF der gesammten
menschlichen Zwecke."
2
Ibid., p. 57:
He
proposes to show "den inneren
Zusammcnhang
in
dcm
sie
unter einander stehen," and further "wie einer an den andcrcn ankniipft, der
hohere an den niedern, and nicht bloss ankniipft sondern wie einer in der Consequenz seiner selbst mit zwingender Nothwendigkeit den anderen aus sich hervortreibt."
3 Ibid.,
Interesse.
p.
Auf
37;
"Die Verkniipfung des eigenen Zwecks mit dcm freniden
dieser
Staat, die Gesellschaft,

4 Ibid., pp.
58
fif.;
Formcl beruht unser ganzes menschlichcs Leben:

Handel und Verkehr."
pp. 94
fT.
der
THE rKoci:ss or government
00
two Krcat groups, those of the individual, and those of the

" Gemeinschaft," " Gesammtheit," "Gesellcollectivity (society)
into
not think that this distinction between the
One must
schaft."
individual and society

objective.
up
It
and the
objectively,
same as
that between subjective
social
"Zwecke" by a study
to get these
We
sup-
are
of the actual individual
They
dem Individuum").
as he exists ("grcifen sie aus
not prior to society, but are the actual

society.
and
"Zweckc" may be worked

"Zwecke" we shall find treated
individual
motives or "Tricbfeder."
largely as individual
posed
the
is
The
not.
is
"Zwecke"
are
men
of
in
<
The "Zwecke"
of the individual are those in
which the
indi-
vidual has merely himself in mind, not the society or any other
These arc
person.'
toward
directed
are
to
be called "egoistische Zwecke."
individual
or
They
self-maintenance
egoistical
There are many kinds of them, but

attention may be centered for the purposes of his work, he says,
("Selbstbehauptung").
on three kinds those that have to do with

nomic; and (3) legal self-maintenance.
:
The second
group, those of the collectivity,
"sociale Zwecke."
man
there
do with
A
is
They
nowhere
is
else for
them
to exist
but
they have to
Handeln").
group
Unorganized " Zwecke"
be found in the
and the organized.

scientific activity of
pushing along from their

sen,"
be called
subclassification (more objective) of this second
into the unorganized
may
may
are likewise borne in the individual
his social acti\dty ("sociale
first
(2) eco-
(i) physical;
own
men
all
the scientists
"Zwecke" and
personal
"Interes-
and building up a great scientific world or again in a politiwhich he conceives of as made up of a lot of separate
cal party,
men
with separate "Zwecke," combining in a social whole or
The organized "Zwecke"
"Zweck."^
form
in the state,
^Zweck, Vol.
die Gesellschaf t
Auge
'
I,
d.
which
p. 59:
i.,
is
are found in their typical
the crowTiing
work
of the organization
"bei denen das Individuum lediglich sich selbst, nicht
irgend eine andere Person oder einen hoheren
Zweck im
hat."
Ibid., p. 42:
The
political party
"beruht lediglich auf
Starke des Interesses in den einzelnen Mitgliedem."
dem Dasein und
der

of
They
"Zwecke."
appear in the church, the "Verein," the
also
and the
"Genossenschaft," the " Gesellschaf "
67
different sub-classification
legal "Person."'
(more subjective) of the "sociale
Zwecke" is into the egoistic and the ethical. The egoistic social
"Zwecke" here must not be confused with the egoistic individual
"Zwecke" above, although they are made out of the same stuff
("der uns bereits bekannte Egoismus"). They are egoism on its
social side, or in its social phase, and they appear in two forms,
"Lohn" (compensation or reward), and "Zwang" (compulsion
or coercion), the "Lohn Zwecke" having their typical manifestation in commerce in a very broad sense of the term ("Verkehr"),
and the "Zwang Zwecke" producing for us the state. Of the
those of the "ethical self-maintenance of the
ethical "Zwecke"
individual" we likewise find two forms, "Pflicht" (duty) and
" Liebe" (love).
compensation,
The
theory of these four form.s of social "Zwecke,"
compulsion, duty, and love,
is
"social
the
me-
chanics."^
The remainder
devoted
to
my
of
showing seriatim, how
then the four social "
and
mechanics
statement of Jhering's theory will be

first
Zwecke," arc
to build society
up out
individuals in their social bonds.
the indi\idual
utilized
"Zwecke,"
by him in his social

and to hold the
of individuals,
But
first
I will indicate briefly
the central line which criticism of the theory must follow.
The
four social
"Zwecke"
are variously called, as stated a few
pages back, motives, impulses, means, and levers, in addition to
The fact that they belong to an elaborate

"Zwecke" does not save them from being used very
being called "Zwecke."

hierarchy of
concretely, as "things" separated
appealed to to produce
it.
from the external "action" and
This despised "action"
is
nevertheless
ultimately or immediately the basis for the classification of the
"Zwecke," and since
it is
resorted to not clearly but obscurely,
not only takes the assumed causal (or
"Zwcck") value out
it
of the
' These "Zwecke" will appear at times as organization forms of "Zwecke,"

and some of them from a still different point of view, as "Zwecksubjecte."
'
Zweck,
federn
YoL
I,
p. g4:
und Miichte."
"Sociale
Mechanik" ....
" der Inbegrifif der Trieb-

68
"Zwccke," but throws the whole system askew. A classification

"Zwecke" into organized and unorganized is clearly a classiThe two ethical "Hebel," duty and love,
fication of institutions.
of
come from
The
the old ethics, retaining their specific "thingness."
"Rebel," compensation and compulsion, are
egoistic social
constructed to match duty and love in quality, for the express
shall see as
we go
commerce and the state, as we

The egoistic individual "Zwecke" are
to explain
purpose of being used
along.
kept separate from the egoistic social
purpose of an intermediate stage in the
matism more
In
plausible.
what coherency there
The individual
individual "Zwecke"
this, soul-stuff is
all
"ZweckJ^
(egoistic)
it
scries of "
Zwecke"
that he
and
We
later
bring
up now
("Person "
the
and
as follows:
is
" Vermogen "
foster
our personal
In the course of such endeavors
animate objects
to ourselves.
rights.
These
our properties into a system which
all
Thus we
guarantees each of us in the possession of his own.
have arrived at legal
sche-
(3) legal self-maintenance.
to protect
").'
welfare as physical creatures.
are property.
Taking
works up out of these
Person Property Law State

" Rccht " " Staat
We seek
we annex inanimate and
its
being used, and
be recalled that the classification was,
will
into (i) physical, (2) economic,
The
serve the
to
and make
verbal, not actual.
is, is
I.
"Zwecke"
scries,
Behind the law,
to
keep
it
in effective
Our egoistic "Zwecke"

evolve in the three stages and are working away for our wêlfare
all the time.
In this condensed statement I do not mean to imply
that Jhcring's theory is that we consciously create the institutions
which correspond to these "Zwecke" out of purely individual
working order, we estabhsh the
egoistic motives, or that
he
state.
treats
such motives ("Zwecke") as
furnishing a full explanation of this development.
But "Zwecke"
of this individual egoistic character are, he holds, continually at
work against and upon
the
social
presses forward without halting.^

>
'
Zweck, Vol.
Ibid., p. 74.
Recht den Staat:
I,
"
chap.
Wie
institutions;
the
WTiilc the individual
evolution
is
operat-
v.
die Person
und das Vermogen das Recht, so postulirt das

Zwecks driingt mit Nothwendig-
die praktische Triebkraft des

ing
on the world
("lediglich unter
makes
solely
dem
from the standpoint of
69
own
his
interest
Gcsichtspunkt seines Interesses"), he both
the world servaceablc ("dienstbar") to his interest,
his interest
The
2.
becomes serviceable
social
the individual
^^
and
to the world.'
Zwecke^^ {egoistic) " Lolui."
"Zwecke, " we have next
to
Passing now from
examine the
first
of
"Zwecke" or "Hebel," which Jhering makes use

"Lohn," compensation or reward. Whereas before he
the four social

It is
of.
was showing the
individual's interest, considered all
now aiming
by
itself,
in
show how a lot of different

individuals adapt themselves to one another and to the society.
The "Lohn Zweck," he believes, gives him the explanation for
all the phenomena of what he calls "Verkehr," which may be
translated either commerce, in a very broad sense, or intercourse, in
a speciahzed sense. "Verkehr" includes all forms of commerce
and all forms of voluntary association.^
The commerce and trade phenomena ("Tausch") are the lower
form of "Verkehr." Here the different individuals have different
"Zwecke," but by getting compensation from one another they
everything social, he
is
harmonize themselves.
to
In his proof Jhering uses
range of facts about individual surplus values and

Barter
economist uses in analyzing trade.

forms.
jNIoney
and
themselves on top of
credit
it,
is
much such
utilities
as the
the simplest of these
and the trades and professions build
and so
also all the commercial, financial,
and industrial customs and methods.
Competition
the social
is
under "Lohn," but also
The trades and professions are the

Not only material rewards are listed
"ideal," the latter including all the imma-
men
gain in their dealings with one another.
self-regulation of egoism.^
organization of "Lohn."'*
terial
goods which
Ideal compensation again

keit
may be
divided into external and inter-
dcm einen zum anderen." P. 76: "Der Zweckbegriff driingt von der
zum Vermogen, von beiden zum Recht, vom Recht zum Staat es ist kein
von
Person
Halten in dieser Evolution des Zweckgedankens, bis die hochste Spitze erreicht
-
>
Ibid., p. 76.
* Ibid.,
egoism."
p.
150.
Cf.
Ibid., chap. vii.
p.
117:
"Verkehr"
"is
ist."
Ibid., p. 135.
the
completed
system
of
70
nal, the foriiirr \)vuv^ illuslrak-d
higher form of "Verkchr," which
"Lohn Zweck,"
is
The
the identical purpose.
some common work.
As
all
Here instead of
the individual participants have
individuals line
up
side
by side for
"Zwecke"
illustrations of the special
may name
one
in the "Societal,"
making
public security, the
His terms are
is
having comi)lementary purposes
found
by soul
likewise the product of
voluntary association.
" Association. "=
"Societatsvertrag,"
"Socictat,"
the
latter
one kind and another.'
satisfactions of
by fame, and the
of
such things as care for
roads, the building
of schools,
care of the poor, provision for preachers, and the building of
churches;
when the
when voluntary combination
of these, of course, only
all
provide them and
state
is
does not
necessary.^
and associations from the lowest

church and state," are to be arrayed with
All co-operative organizations
"even
to the highest,
to
the "Societat."
Now although the "Societat" is from the point of view of

"Lohn," which is the "Zweck" or "Hebel" behind it, a second
form of " Verkehr," it is nevertheless an organization form of such
general applicability that
it is
deserving of being called the second
fundamental form or type of
social
society being of course the
fundamental form.
first
existence, "* the
people exhibiting " Gemeinsinn," which
egoism ("nur cine veredelte
meinsinn"
from egoism
Zweck, Vol.
'Ibid., pp.
"Tausch"
it we find
an ennobled form of
des Egoismus").^
This "Ge-
brought in by Jhering for use later in interpreting
is
the transition
Form
is
In
I,
208
to altruism,
and we
shall
meet
it
again.
pp. i8i S.
ff.
P.
208:
die Societat die Gleichheit des
"Der Tauschvertrag hat
Zwecks zur Voraussetzung."
die Verschiedenheit,
He
thinks (p. 126):
"der Gedanke einer gemeinschaftlichen Verkehrsoperation war^das Werk eines

findigen, denkenden Kopfes."
3 Ibid.,
pp. 209, 210.
"Die Association ist eine Form von der allgemeinsten AnwendThat das, wofiir ich sie oben ausgegeben: die zweite Grundform des gesellschafthchen Daseins." At p. 125, however, he calls it a "Grundform des Verkehrs," instead of "des gesellschafthchen Daseins," and the additional
statement is made: "Eine dritte Grundform gibt es nicht, kann es nicht geben."
4 Ibid., p. 215:
barkeit, sie
ist
in der
Ibid., p. 219.

One
further point about
says that
it is
71
"Verkehr" must be noted.
perhaps the only
bit of the
human
Jhering
world which
is
the natural product of the free development of the "Zwecke;"'
and while
am
trying to avoid inserting criticisms in the midst of
cannot forbear pointing out the
this description of his theory, I
striking contradictions in such a statement.
moment
ment
that while the state
is
"Lohn," and
shall find in a
mentioned as the highest develop-
of the second fundamental
his elaborate interpretation
We
form of "Verkehr," nevertheless
throws
it
outside the operation of
in the field of the operation of the next of the four
"Hebel," "Zwang" (compulsion).
And
with the state goes law.
Yet here we have him excluding the state and law from the "free
development" of the "Zwecke," in the very face of the fact that
"Zwecke," that they rest on a

"Zweck" ("Zwang"), and that the motto of his book is, "Zweck"
is the creator of all law.
It is but a sample of the contradictions
law and the
state are themselves
involved in his terminology.
The
3.
social
^^
Zwecke^
{egoistic)
^'
Zwang.''
So
much
for
"Lohn Zweck." We have next to examine

"Zwang Zweck" as it supplements "Lohn" in knitting the
the working of the
the
and as
indi\iduals together into society,

to
build
the
We
higher levels.
still
it
up
shall see
into the perfected state.
"Zwang" which
Jhering uses
word, to describe
psychical, but
all
is
it
carries the social process
up the "Societat" and

must be remembered that
take
It
not a mechanical, but a psychi-
He
compulsion, or coercion.
cal
it
uses "Gewalt," the broader
exertions of force, both mechanical
"Zwang" where
the force
is
and
applied by influencing
the wilL^"
We
must note
at this point.
this peculiarity in the
He
tells
us that
than "Lohn," but that nevertheless

1
Ibid., p. 97.
"Diese Organisation
working-out of his system
"Zwang"
ist
it is
is
"lower" and older
the basis of a "higher"
wie vielleicht kein anderes Stiick der
menschlichen Welt das natiirliche Product der freien Zweckentfaltung."

2
Ibid., pp.
234
die Verwirklichung
der
Begrifif
Wesen
ff.
So, p. 234,
eines
Zweckes
"Untcr Zwang im weitern Sinn vcrstehen wir

mittelst Bewaltigung cines fremden Willens,
des Zwanges setzt activ wie passiv ein Willenssubject, ein lebendes
voraus."

Tin: PROCESS
72
of government
As a motive he thinks that "Zwang"

among animals, but that "Lohn" is unknown to them.
Moreover "Zwang" is the basis of the earliest interactions among
men, while "Lohn" only appears later. On the other hand the
form of
is
social organization.'
found
"Zwang," the state with its law, comes later

more comj)lex and more highly evolved than the organizaHe
*tion through trade, commerce, and other "Verkehr" forms.
conceives of highly evolved commerce, structures, and organizaorganization through
and
is
"Zwang," while he
upon "Verkehr" society
and working up portions of it in a more effective way^ a point
of view which is a natural by-product of his dependence upon
"Zweckc," but which must be regarded as exceedingly unfortunate
considering what is now known of the solidarity of horde hfe, of
mutual aid in early organizations of living beings, and in general
of the community setting in which such institutions as private
tions as possible without the intervention of
conceives of the state as appearing in and
property develop.
"Zwang"
begins of course in the individual, and without
'Zwang" the individual cannot
"Zwang"
his
"Zweckc"
realize his
rise straight
up
"Zwecke," but through

law and to the state.^
to
Law and
the state are the organization of "Zwang," just as "Verkehr" was the organization of "Lohn," but there is also a field
of " unorganized " " Zwang, "^ a social as opposed to legal " Zwang,"
w^hich
we
meet
shall
later
interpretation of moral
when he
uses
In working up his organization through

it
necessary to
draw a
and a system of the

I
Zweck, Vol.
I,
in connection with his
it
phenomena.
distinction
"Zwang"
Jhering finds
between a system of "Zwecke,"
realization of
" Zwecke. "^
He
develops
pp. 96, 97, 238.
' Ibid., p. 232:

"Langst bevor der Staat sich erhob vom Lager .... hatte
der Handel schon ein gut Theil seines Tageswerkes voUbracht."
" Jeder der Zwecke den es (das Indmduum)
3 Ibid., p.
291
als
:
Lebensbedingung empfindet postulirt den Zwang. Mit diesem Postulate

das Recht postulirt als die Organisation des Zwanges."
4 Ibid., p.
236:
ung des Rechts, der
"Der
staatliche
Zwang
ist
aber
hat zu seinem Object die Verwirklich-
sociale, die des Sittlichen."
5 Ibid., p. 74;
also p. 311: "Die Organisation schliesst zwei Seiten in sich
die Herstellung des aiisseren Mechanismus der Gewalt, und die Aufstellung von
Grundsatzen welche den Gebrauch derselben regeln."
73
the distinction by discriminating between the elements of "Norm"

and "Gewalt." "Norm" is the rule or precept clement in law
and the state. "Gewalt" is the law-enforcement element. It
be noted that while
will
"Zwang"
is
psychic, nevertheless Jhering
it desirable to revert to "Gewalt" to describe the organized

power of the state. The change of terms does not speak well
for the adequacy of his "Zwang" as an agent of interpretation,
but it is usefully employed to set forth the "heavy hand" of the
He asserts a steady progression from " Norm "
state as a social fact.
"Gewalt"
to "Gewalt" and from "Gewalt" to "Norm."'
answers in a general way to conditions in a despotic state and
finds
"Norm"
to conditions in a republic.
I will proceed to describe first his position with regard to the
"Gewalt," then with regard
to the
"Norm"
element, and finally
his completed statement in terms of " Zwecksubjecte "
bensbedingungen," letting him speak for himself

as far as
is
and "Le-
in quotations
practicable.
His formal definition of the
state,
from the point of view of
force, is that the state is society as the possessor of the regulated
and disciphned "Zwangsgewalt": from
this point of
view law
is
the substance of the principles in accordance with which the state

so acts;
it
is
of Zwang.^
The
"Zwecke" of society rests
power ("Macht") which appHes the
the discipline or
organization of the
"Zwang"
apphed science
for the
on the building-up of the

"Zwangsgewalt and on the establishment of rules for its application^ "Gewalt" drives out of itself law as the measure of itself:
law as the politics of force* Law without "Gewalt" is an empty
name with no reality. ^ The state is the final form of the applicaIbid., pp. 248, 249: "Die Norm gelangt zur Gewalt, die Gewalt zur Norm."
I
'
und
Weise
dieser
3
thiitig
Ibid, p.
ausiibt,
236:
ist
die Gesellschaft als Inhaberin der geregelten
InbegrifF der Grundsiitze nach dencn cr in

wird: die Disciplin des Zwanges ist das Recht."
Der
"auf der Herstellung der Macht welche die Zwangsgewalt

iiber die Ausiibung derselben."
und der Aufstcllung von Rcgeln
* Ibid., p.
heraus
s
"Der Staat
Zwangsgewalt.
Ibid., p. 308:
disciplinirten
249:
das Recht
Ibid., p. 253:
Realitat."
die
Gewalt "treibt das Recht
als Politik der
als
Maass
ihrer selbst aus sich
Gewalt."
"Das Recht ohne
die
Gewalt
ist
ein Iccrcr
Name
ohne
alle
74
tion of
"Gewall"
for
human "Zwcckc." It is the social organiThe great "Zweck" of the state
zation of the "Zwangsgcwalt."'

is
The
The
nurture of the law
the vital function in the
is
"Zwang"
legal rule without legal
Looking back from the
is
a self-contradiction.^
state to the "Societat,"
called the prototype of the former, for in both of
of the regulation of
of the law-
of the state.'
is no test of law
power of the state.'*
recognition and realization by the
its
life
There
state is the single source of law.^
except
"Zweck," the formation and safeguarding
the law
"Gewalt" by "Interesse"
is
we find the latter

them the method
The
the same.^
"Societat" effects the transition between the unregulated form of
and the regulated form in the state.'

The one is built on "Lohn," and the other on "Zwang," but both
together make a single form of social organization as opposed to
that "free development" of the "Zwecke" which we saw in
"Gewalt"
in the individual
" Verkehr."
remember
To
appreciate the patchwork of his position
that the "Societat,"
form of Verkehr," became
which was at
later, as here,
we
rnay
a fundamental
first
a fundamental form of
social existence.
This " Staatsgewalt " would normally be maintained by the

majority of
the people of the state.
all
possessing and exercising

'
fiir
Zweck, Vol.
'Ibid., p. 309:
Form
we must add
this
der Verwendung der Gewalt
"derRechtszweck: die Gestaltung und Sicherung des Rechts.
Pflege des Rechts
ist
die vitale Lebensfunction des Staates."
320: "die alleinige Quelle des Rechts."
3 Ibid., p.
*Ibid., p. 321:
5 Ibid., p.
understand
find a minority
Zwecke, die sociale Organisation der Zwangsgcwalt."
die menschlichen
.... Die
To
"die endgiiltige
p. 307:
I,
it.
But often we
"Anerkennung und Verwirklichung durch
322: " Ein Rechtssatz ohne Rechtszwang
ist
ein
die Staatsgewalt."
Widerspruch
in sich
selbst."
"Soweit sonst auch der Staat und die Societat auseinander

Bezug auf die Regelung der Gewalt durch das Interesse ist
bei beiden ganz dasselbe
die Societat enthalt den Prototyp des Staates."
Com^ Ibid., p.
gehen, das
pare also p. 305
and
295:
Schema
:
"
in
Der Verein
where the
ist
die Organisationsform der Gesellschaft schlecht-
"Individuum, Verein, Staat,"

"geschichtHche Stufenleiter der gesellschaftlichen Zwecke."
hin,"
p. 307,
series,
is
made
the
7 Ibid., p. 295:. "Sie vermittelt den Uebergang von der ungeregelten Form der
Gewalt beim Individuum zur Regelung derselben durch den Staat."
75
to mere number.
The first is the organization
enabhng it to use its strength more effectively
("die Organisation der Macht in den Handen der Staatsgewalt").
two other factors

of the minority,
The second is the moral might of the state idea ("die moralische
Macht des Staatsgedankcns").' The "Staatsgewalt" can therefore be described as a differentiated portion of the
people
("ein ausgeschiedenes
Quantum
power
of the
der Volkskraft").
It
is
the preponderance of organized might over unorganized might
("
Uebergewicht der organisirten Macht uber die unorganisirte
Macht ").^
Given now
power, resting at times and
this differentiated state
places in a minority of the people, then the critical point in the
whole organization of law and of the

that of the preponderance of the
state, the kernel
common
the particular interest of the single individual.
upheld by
interests are
all
of us.
The
problem,
is
interests of all of us over
The common
particular interests have
With equality of strength

come to suppress the individual interests, and this
so much the more rapidly as the total number of members in the
society increases.
Power is brought upon the side of the common
only single individuals to uphold them.

all
of us will
interests. 3
I call attention in passing to this
of interests,
and more particularly
to the
statement in terms
moral might of the
idea mentioned in the preceding paragraph.
state
This "moral might"
1 Ibid.,
"Ich verstehe darunter alle diejenigen psychologischen
p. 319:
Motive .... die Einsicht in die Nothwendigkeit der staatlichen Ordnung,
den Sinn fiir Recht und Gesetz, die Angst vor der mil jeder Storung der
Ordnung verbundenen Bedrohung der Person und des Eigenthums, die Furcht
vor der Strafe."

2
Ibid., p. 316.
The "springender Punkt" is "das Uebergewicht der gemeinsamen Interessen AUer iiber das Partikularinteresse eines Einzelnen; fiir die gemeinsamen Interessen treten Alle ein; fiir das Partikularinteresse nur der Einzelnc.
3
Ibid., p. 294:
Die Macht Aller aber ist bei Gleichheit der Kriifte der des Einzelnen iiberlegen,
und sie wird es urn so mehr, je grosser die Zahl derselben ist." The "Schema
fiir die gesellschaftliche Organisation der Gewalt" becomes: "Uebergewicht der
dem
Interessc Aller dienstbaren
Interesse zur Vcrfiigung stehende
Gewalt
Maass
Allen gemeinsamen Interesses gebracht."
iiber
das bloss
derselben, die
dem
Macht
Einzelnen
ist
fiir
scin
auf Scilen des
TUK PROCESS OF GOVERNMENT
76
a factor akin
to the "
RichlsKcfuhr" soon
lo be introduced
is
assigned a very important function in his system, although only a
paragraph
brief
given to
is
It represents
treatment.
its
an area
of social fact never fully functioned in his theory.
We
Art":
now
pass
it
is
to the
A Norm
Norm.
there are the
is
a "Satz praktischer
Besides the legal norms
an "abstracter Imperativ."*
norms of morals ("Moral") and
of socially enforced
habit ("Sittc," as distinguished from mere social habit,
In law alone, however,
wohnheit").
it
is
"Ge-
the state that realizes
("verwirklicht") the norm, and in law alone does the state establish the
lished
norm, although there
by society
is
some law here and
and enforces it. The

the organized and unorganized "Zwang."
that both establishes
Among
among which
norms," and only the
last
command
in the sense that
to
whom
issues
it.
to
it
one
is
is
society
between
is
only the last two are "legal
perfected law.
an individual
This
vidualgebot").
of norms.
it is
distinction
"legal imperatives" Jhering distinguishes three grades,^
forming a hierarchy,
direct
there estab-
For "Moral" and "Sitte"
directly.
First there is the
do a particular act ("Indiconcrete, not abstract, and is a norm only
contains within
to
it
the undifferentiated material
Next comes the norm which
it is
directed, but not
This
is
abstract
and
is binding on the people

on the " Staatsgewalt " itself which
so a
norm, but not
full
law-
it is
Norm," binding in one direction only.

norm which is binding not only on the people
the "einseitig verbindende

Finally comes the
but on the state authorities as well, the "zweiseitig verbindende
Norm," binding in both directions. With this the "Staatsgewalt"

has come into subordination to its own laws,'' and now at last the
real "
Rechtszustand " has been reached.
Were we
to follow his analysis farther here
we should
find
under the "norms binding in one direction" an examination of

I Of course he insists:
"Nicht das Rechtsgefiihl hat das Recht erzeugt, sondern
das Recht das Rechtsgefiihl" (so p. xiv), and the same would of course apply for
the "moralische Macht des Staatsgedankens," but that is not sufficient.
'
Zweck, Vol.
I,
*Ibid., p. 358:
erlassenen Gesetze."
pp. 330, 331.
Ibid., p. 338.
"Die Unterordnung der Staatsgewalt unter
die von ihr selber
"
77
the order thereby estabhshed, of the measure of equahty produced,

and of the subjective ''Recht," or sense of legal rightness and
desire to obey the legally right, which is developed in the individUnder the "norms binding in both directions," the chief
uals.
problem raised concerns the reasons which hold the " Staatsgewalt
in subordination to
its
own
laws.
The motives
nation are placed in self-interest, inasmuch as law
for this subordiis
not merely the
pohtics of force, but the intelligent politics of force ("wohlver-
The
standene Politik der Gewalt").'
guaranties of the sub-
ordination are found in the developed legal consciousness (" Rechts-
and
gefiihl")
in the professional cultivation of the
The independence
pflege").^
law ("Rechts-
of the judiciar}^ receives consider-
and there is also a discussion of the proper

which is entirely apart from our present
Government respects its law, Jhering sums up, because
ation here as a factor,
limits of subordination
purpose.
power which
of the actual
lies
behind the law, a people which has
recognized in the law the condition of
an injury
may
to the
law as an injury
to its
its
rest assured, will in extremity take
in the end, he adds, the safety of the
existence,
own
self;
up arms
law
rests
and which
feels
we
Thus
a people which,
for its law.
on the energy of the
national consciousness of legal right.
Now
even with
feels that
facts.
To
"Norm" and "Zwang"
The
content ("Inhalt") of the law must
correspond with his definition of law
force
we now
We
of the state.'*
Ibid.,
p.
and the
get a definition in terms of content.
which the conditions of

1
thus analyzed Jhering
he has not yet got beyond a "formal" statement of the
social existence
have next
Cf. also
378.
be studied.
Law
is
the
form
assume under the guarantee
to discover
p^ 566:
still
state in terms of
what these conditions of
"Die Vereinigung der Einsichtigcn
unrl
Weitsichtigen gegen die Kurzsichtigen."

2
Ibid., pp.
379
ff.
pp. 381, 382: "Lediglich die reale Kraft die hintcr dem Gesctz stcht>
ein Volk, das in dem Recht die Bedingung seines Daseins erkannt hat, und dcssen
Verletzung als eine Verletzung seiner selbst cmpfindet, ein Volk von dem zu gewarti3 Ibid.,
So
gen ist, dass es aussersten Falls fiir sein Recht in die Schranken tritt
hangt die Sicherheit des Rechts schliesslich nur an der Energie des nationalen
Rechtsgefuhls."
" Die Form der durch die Zwangsgewalt des Staatcs beschafftcn
4 Ibid., p. 443
Sicherung der Lebensbedingungen der Gesellschaft."
:
THE
78
social existence
procp:ss
of government
("Lcbensbedingungen")
are,
and how they are
apportioned to certain "Zwecksubjecte" as their beneficiaries.

These conditions of social existence embrace all that is the goal
of
human
upon
and
slruf^glint^
striving:
which subjectively
life
in
they are the presuppositions
depends
the wider sense
life,
Dasein" and " Wohlthat is, as including both existence and

sein"); they arc the goods and enjoyments through which man
weal ("
Ideal as well as material blessings are
feels his life conditioned.'
included; and honor, freedom, nationality, love, activity, religion,

culture, art, and science are not to be omitted from the list.
Some of these "conditions" are non-legal in their method of
and some pure legal. Such a "con"thou shalt not steal" is pure legal. Of
mixed-legal conditions, he discusses four the maintenance of life,
on the basis of
the propagation of life, labor, and commerce
operation,
some mixed
legal,
dition of existence" as
three "Motive," the impulse to self-preservation, the sex impulse,
and the economic impulse.*
Now, he
says,
if all
legal precepts
have the safeguarding of the
social conditions of existence as their
as saying that society
word "Subject" from
its
"Zweck," that
old legal usage,
and gives
the
is
He
their "Zwecksubject."^
is
it
same
takes the
a meaning,
not with reference to the law of the codes, but with reference to
the ."Zwecke."
He makes
("lebendes Wescn");
to "indi\adual teleology;"
in a
way which we
society a
"person" or
living being
he develops a "social teleology" similar
and
in so
shall find to
the ultimate characterization
and
doing he personifies society
have very important results for

criticism of his system."*
I Zweck, Vol. I,
pp. 444, 445 " Sie umfassen alles was das Ziel des menschlichen
Ringens und Strebens bildet
Die Voraussetzungen an welche subjectiv
das Leben in diesem weitern Sinne gekniipft ist nenne ich Lebensbedingungen.
.... Die Giiter und Geniissedurch welche der Mensch sein Leben bedingt fiihlt."
:
'
Ibid., pp. 542-60.
3 Ibid., p.
"Wenn alle Rechtssatze die Sicherung der Lebensbedingungen

zum Zweck haben, so heisst das: die Gesellschaft ist das Zweck-
462.
der Gesellschaft
subject derselben."
* Ibid., Vol. II, p. 88:
"Ein Subject,
d. h. ein lebendes
Wesen."
"Princip
des Sittlichen kann nicht etwas Unpersonliches, sondern nur die Person, ein lebendes

But
it
79
does not satisfy him to say that society, personified for
the purpose,
He
carries his analysis
recognizes that for certain of the laws their
"Zwecksubject" must be looked
for directly in the individuals,
for others directly in the state, for
still
and
in
for others
finally
He
the subject of all law.
is
farther than that.
directly
others directly in the church,
voluntary associations (here
"Vereine"). But when all is said and done there are an immense
"
number of laws which cannot be attributed so far as their " Zwcck
is
concerned to any one of these four " Subjecte."
tion of
what he means
A good illustra-
can be found in property;' private property
has the particular individual for
its
"Subject;" government prop"
erty has the state, but the public uses of property as, for instance,
of public parks, or of state churches, cannot be located in either
To meet
one or the other.
such cases he brings into account as
an additional "Zwecksubjcct," society in the narrower sense of

the term (" Gesellschaft im engcrcn Sinne") which he distinguishes
sharply from society in the broad sense. ^ Society in the narrower
sense includes the mass of the people in their
He
individual) interests.
mass ("die unbestimmte
Adding
defines
it
Vielheit, die
this to the four other
common
(not separate
as the indefinite many, the
Masse").
"Zwecksubjecte," we have the
following series
"Individuum."
I.
"Staat."
"Kirche."
"Vereine."
"Gesellschaft (im engercn Sinne)."
5.
All of these, be
it
remembered are included
in society in the
wider sense, the state and society in the narrower sense being so
included just as
is
much
as the others.
In the wider sense society
the whole range of organized and unorganized social interaction.
The
state
Wesen
appears within
sein;" Vol. II, pp.
Gesellschaft
ist
durch Andere,"
I
150,
it,
for example, only as society specially

In contrast compare Vol.
193.
I,
p. 87:
zu definiren als die thatsachliche Organisation des Lebens

etc.
Ibid., Vol. I, pp.
446
ff.
'
Ibid., pp.
464
ff.
"Die
und
fiir
8o
organized to use comjjulsion ("Staat
The
zwingt).'"
five
"Subjecte"
die Gesellschaft welchc
ist
in the table
embrace the whole
range of society in the broader sense, and give a complete analysis

and legal institutions." Society in the
of the beneficiaries of law
narrower sense
to
one
the beneficiary of
is
laws not to be attributed
all
of the other four.
Discussing crime from the
view of the " Zwecksubjecte,"
i)oinl of
punishments are established wherever society
Jhi-ring asserts that
is
such legally marked
life
as cannot be warded
cannot get along without them; that crime

injury to the necessary conditions of social
off
without punishment; and that the scale of punishment
is
the
foot rule of social values.
("erschopfende")
His exhaustive
follows the earlier definitions as to
definition
of
law,
form and content
is:
which
Law
is
the substance of the conditions of social existence in the widest
sense of the
word
social as
through the power of the
The
4.
With
this
social
''
Zwecke''
>
Zweck, Vol.
Ibid., pp. 464, 465:

sie
secure by external compulsion
{ethical),
we have traversed society in
Recht:
made
state.'*
I, p.
"Pflichi" and
its
main
''
Liehe:'
outlines as far as
309.
"Auf
diese fiinf Zwecksubjecte bezieht sich das ganze
sind die personlichen Zweckcentren des
gesammten Rechts,
sammtliche Einrichtungen derselben gruppiren."
um die
sich
The "Zwecksubjecte" should
be distinguished from the bearers of the power of the state, the organs, namely, to
which is intrusted the duty of enforcing the law. Jhering does not regard any
law as directed at the people who must obey it. It is directed ("gerichtet") instead,
"an die Organe die mit der Handhabung des Zwanges betraut sind" (p. 336).
Compare also pp. 337, 338: "Die Rechtsnorm enthalt einen abstracten Imperativ
an die Organe der Staatsgewalt, und die externe Wirkung, d. i. die Befolgung
derselben von Seiten des Volks, soweit dazu Anlass geboten ist, muss von diesem
rein formaljuristischen
Gesichtspunkt (nicht
vom
teleologischen) jener primaren
gegcniibcr Icdiglich als secundiire bezcichnet werden."
We
da wo die Gesellschaft ohne

Verbrechen ist die von Seiten der Gesetzgebung constatirte nur durch Strafe abzuwehrende Gefahrdung der Lebensbedingungen der Gesellschaft
Der Tarif der Strafe ist der Werthmesser der
3 Ibid.,
sie nicht
pp. 490-92.
find "Strafe iiberall
auskommen kann
socialcn Giiter."
* Ibid., p.
die
511:
"Recht
ist
der Inbegriff der mittelst ausseren Zwanges durch
Staatsgewalt gesicherten Lebensbedingtmgen der
Sinnc des Wortes."
Gesellschaft
im weitesten
8l
it up out of "Lohn" and "Zwang,"

But he did not hold that these two
"Zwecke" gave a complete picture of society. There were still
phenomena beyond, which he could only explain by appeal to the
two ethical "Hebel," duty and love ("Pflicht" and ^'Liebe").
Duty and love were necessary motives both to complete the work
of "Lohn" and "Zwang" in the very fields of commerce and the
Jhering has been able to build
the two egoistic "Hebcl."
state,
and
hold
to
men
together socially in other fields lying outside
of these two.
Moral phenomena are according to Jhering just as completely

any others. They have their origin and function and
"Zweck" in society and are to be studied nowhere else than in
This is as
society and in no other way than through society.
true of them in their subjective aspects, that is as motives, as it
His purpose
is of them in their objective aspects, as social norms.
is now as before to get a system of objective "Zwecke" and a
system of subjective "Zwecke" built up, and to connect the two
with each other and also with individual interest. On the objective
side he sets himself the problems of the origin of the norms and of
their "Zweck," and on the subjective side the problem of the
social as
motives.
On
the subjective side he intended to build altruism
of egoism,
and while the exposition was
many
portion of his work,
he would have taken.
line
is
transformed, he
tells
altruistic quahties are
us,
left for
up out
the unfinished
sentences were written showing the
Egoism, which
by
history into
is
a work of nature,
its
opposite.*
The
very real qualities; they exist just as surely
as the egoistic qualities, once they have appeared,
be reckoned on just as surely.
and they can
The "Gemeinsinn,"
wliicli
he
ist in sein geradcs Gegenthcil umgcDie Aenderung, die hier vor sich gegangcn
ist qualitativer Art, die Geschichte bildet aus dcm Thone, dem Teigc den die Natur
ihr geliefert hat: dem natiirlichen Menschen, dem Thiere ein Wesen hbherer Art;
welches das gerade Widerspicl des urspriinglichen bildet: den sittlichen Menschen;
I
Ibid., Vol. II, p. ii8:
schlagcn.
der Egoist
Er hat
ist
das
"Der Egoismus
sich selber negirt.
Werk
der Natur, der sittliche Mensch das der Geschichte;''
"Wissen und Wollen dcs Sittlichen, das

Gesinnung sind das Werk der Gesellschaft."
p. 119:
sittliche
Gefuhl und die
sittliche
"^
82
rilK
showt'd as aj)jK\'irin^ in voluntary organization, the higher form

" Gemeinsinn "
of " Verkehr," will be recalled as a transition step.
was
"ennobled egoism."
set forth as
From
common
|)leasure in a
good he would have effected a transition to pleasure in others'
am
good ("die Freudc
He would have
fremden Gluck" he
thus worked out that
Once developed
in
it
one passage).
full identification of
the sub-
him
the essence
the ethical motives
become an
"Zweck" which
jective with the objective
of the moral."
calls
is
for
absolute postulate of the existence of society.'
Taking
field of
phenomena
the moral
objectively, he has to
do with a
unorganized compulsion as contrasted with the organized
compulsion of the
He
state.
phenomena from
distinguishes moral
"Sitte" (socially enforced custom) on the one side, and from law
on the other, and he adds
"Mode"
(fashion) as a further field
capable of investigation by similar methods.
large part of Vol.
Zweck im Recht is devoted to an analysis of the objective

"Zwecke" revealed in two forms of "Sitte," courtesy ("die Hoflichkeit") and propriety ("der Anstand").
II of the
The
" Zwecksubject " of the moral
Morality
is
society itself personified.
The moral
The
and welfare of
useful or necessary. ^
"Zweck"
is
the egoism of society.'*

existence
the socially
society
is
the
of all moral norms.
It is significant to
note in passing that despite the omnipotence
of the " Zw'eck " in all moral affairs, there are
Zweck, Vol.
some forms
p. 60: "vollige Einheit des subjectiven mit
I,
of "Sitte
can find no "Zweck,"^ and w^hich he
for w^hich Jhering

'
is
dem
is
com-
objectiven
Zweck."
Und
sie
"Sie bilden ein absolutes Postulat des Bestehens der

sind da."
and
p.
104:
Ibid., Vol. II, p.
Gesellschaft
3 Ibid., p.
156;
AUe
Sittlichen
12:
sittlichen
"Die Gesellschaft
Normen
bildet das Zwecksubject des
sind gesellschaftliche Imperative."
4 Ibid., p. 194.
s
Ibid., p.
"Sittlich
214:
ist
das gesellschaftlich Niitzliche oder Nothwen-
dige."
^ Ibid., p. 156:
Zweck
7
ality;
"Das Bestehen und
aller sittlichen
Ibid., pp.
p.
284:
280
die Wohlfahrt der
Gesellschaft
ist
der
Normen."
f.
"Einen
So with debts of honor and standards of excessive Ubergesellschaftlichen
Zweck kann
ich bei ihnen nicht ent-
decken." It is worth noting that he also finds points where "der

as with monarchs and juries, Vol. I, p. 329.
Zwang
versagt,"

pelled to assign to a realm of the morally indifferent.
All through
a predominance of
this part of his discussion there are traces of
"Zweck" which is nothing more than the appearance

from his own personal standpoint in it.
have devoted a great deal of space
ing's system,
two
its
although
it
to this
would have been easy
But
fundamental propositions.
of the world
account of Jher-
to state in
a page or
had taken the
if
83
latter
course I would have only been in a position to answer a theory
with a theory: and that would not be worth while.
show
right
on
his
own
social facts that his theory of
merely a mess of words.
It
pun upon
if
is,
may
so state
want
"Zwecke"
it,
to
is
merely one
word "Zweck," and as a theory

than any other pun.
Let us recall his great merits. He broke away from "pure
reason" as a principle of interpretation. He broke away from the
great elaborate
entitled to
no more
the
scientific respect
presocial or extra-social individual as a principle of interpretation.
With this he saved himself from falling into the worst crudities
which attend the extension of physical causation to the social
field.
(By physical causation
mean
that simplified statement of
causation which thus far has been adequate for most interpretations of physical facts.)
He brought moral phenomena
into a
systematic working relation to legal phenomena, and studied both
economic phenomena.
in cormection with
his interpretations in social
individual's psychic
life,
He
strove to
terms, explaining in this
both in
its
egoistic
and
make all
way the
altruistic phases.
His point of approach in this attempt was, I feel safe in saying,

far superior to that of Spencer's, for he did not merely project a
biological
man
into
an unreal and hazy
social world, but studied
a (comparatively speaking) very real social

special studies of laws, of morals,
and of
man
directly.
institutions
His
showed a
very rich insight into social meanings and values, and were indeed
epoch-making.
But
and
his individual
here
is
the crucial point for the
man, even
after he
had
"Zweck"
theory
socially interpreted him,
was
kept in concrete contrast to society wliich was personified in
o[)i)ositi()n to
j)retalion
GOVERNMENT
PROCESS OF
IIIH
84
and
the individual;
was made
his
whole theory of
throughout on just
to rest
social intcr-
this contrast or
opposition.'
The word "Zweck"

individual's pleasure,
which society
is
made
is
and
do duty at the one end for the

the other end for the social welfare
at
supposed
to
to seek,
"Interesse Aller,'"
for the
"das Wohl und Gedeihen der Gesellschaft,"^ "das Bestehen der

Gescllschaft,"'* "das Bestehen und die Wohlfahrt der Gesellschaft," "das gesellschaftlich Niitzliche oder Nothwendige."
Between these extremes it stands for a thousand things, among

them two classes to which we have given special attention; subjectively, the four "Hebel" ("Tricbfcdern," "Motive," "Mittel"),
"Lohn," "Zwang," "Pflicht," and "Liebe;" objectively, certain
institutions or forms of organization (some of which appear from
"Zwecksubjectc") and the immediate
certain points of view as
aims or objects of these institutions or organizations.
problem as
I suggested earlier in this section that Jhering's
he stated
it
required
him
harmonize the "Zwecke" with "Inter-
to
"Zwecke" and "Interessen"
essen," to harmonize the
individuals with each other,
the objective
and
We
"Zwecke."
to
of
many
harmonize the subjective with
have found nothing in our progress
show any clear distinction, to say nothing of harmony, between

"Zwecke" and "Interessen;" sometimes our author has used one
to
We
word, sometimes the other, without precision.
have found,
however, that the "Zwecke" and "Interessen" of the
many
harmony by him by a process
viduals arc brought into
indi-
of sub-
ordinating them to the objective "Zwecke," which seems to depend
on the very vagueness of meaning of the words "Zwecke"

and "Interessen" for its strength. We must approach the solu-
at times
tion of all these questions then through a consideration of the extent
of his success in harmonizing the subjective
"Zwecke."
We
must ask
for the subjective
and the objective
and
for the objective
In Vol. II, p. 157, he says that while the individualist theory has no room
for society the social theory has plenty of room for the individual.
Instead of
being a merit this
is
a defect for his form of social theory, for
individual opposed to society

'
Zweck, Vol.
I,
p. 315.
is
just
3
what
it
room
for a concrete
should not have.
Ibid.. Vol. II, p. 103.
4 Ibid., Vol. I, p. 250.

"Zwecke"
respectively
85
what the phenomena are which the words
he uses are intended to indicate, where he finds them, and
how he
analyzes them; and in short not merely what the words are which
he
fits
together, but
whether through one
We
vice versa.
what the
facts are, with a view to seeing
can be interpreted, or
on the two groups of "Zwecke"
set of facts the other
can best do
this
mentioned in the preceding paragraph, the four "Hebel" as subjective,
and the
The
institutions
and
world presented
social
institutional activity as objective.

itself to
This
four great groups of facts.
is
Jhering as composed of
not set forth explicitly in his
book, but
may
First there
were the phenomena of commerce, then the phenomena
easily be discovered
phenomena
of voluntary association, then the
and
by reading between the

of law
lines.
and the
state,
the
moral phenomena.
finally
Commerce
is
field
which the individual seems
in
to
ordinary observer commenting on the fact in ordinary speech
forms
to
be freely adopting lines of action as he wishes at each
and every step of

ization of
what
his course
is
and in which the structure or organ-
done seems
be the free result of
to
Voluntary organization
choosing.
men
vidual, once arranging with other
must,
it
is
this free
a field in which the indi-
a policy or line of action,
seems, continue on those lines unless he steps out of the
process altogether; and in which, so long as he continues to participate,
he shares on one or another basis the resulting satisfactions.
Law and
to
have
show us a
freedom and
the state
lost this
which the individual seems

be under compulsion to play the
field in
to
part he does under penalty of punishment.
Moral phenomena
are a field in which compulsion likewise appears to exist, but not

to be exerted in
wish
ficially,
an organized form on the
could state these four
fields of
phenomena
less super-
but I cannot, because at bottom Jhering distinguished
them from one another only from

vidual;
individual.
that
is
the point of view of the indi-
as groups of facts they presented themselves to
him fundamentally on an individual basis.

The phenomena of commerce were the simplest, but even here
it was apparent that they had a meaning or value beyond the
86
meanings which the individual participants put into them at the

time of action.
contrast to the
The illustration of the railroad as "Zweck" in

"Zwecke" ("Interessen") of the individual share-
But Jhering held firmly to the position

meaning or value was a meaning or value for men, although
the individit was a meaning which he could not state in terms of
meanings.
individual
of
conglomeration
uals, nor in terms of any
By using a common word, "Zweck," for both the social and the
holders will be recalled.
that this
individual meanings, he
was able
to
"value received" ("Lohn"),
to
approach, in his opinion,
By
coherent statement of the facts.
to
establishing a principle of
cover
the essential individual
all
acts of participation in the process, he felt that he effected the

transition
between the individual "Zwecke" and the higher
"Zweck."
And
this
social
higher "Zweck," being capable of statement
as detached from the individuals, could be called objective as
opposed
to the subjective
"Zwecke."
how was it with

Here there was equally that higher purpose
or meaning, which wâs human, but his "Lohn Zweck" as he had
defined it would not answer to interpret or bridge over the indiCompulsion was the prominent fact, and
vidual's relation to it.
To
pass voluntary association for the moment,
law and the
state ?
so compulsion
("Zwang") had
to
be
made
itself
"Zweck"
for
use as a connecting link.
The phenomena
of voluntary association occupied a peculiar
middle place between commerce and the

could withdraw;
his presence.
therefore
But while he remained
in
The
state.
"Lohn" might be
individual
taken to explain
he was identified with
his companions and under a certain regulation; therefore, we had

the application of a simple form of "Zwang," and voluntary organi-
was the prototype of the state.

But there were still the moral phenomena in which the proportion of "Lohn" was infinitesimal and the "Zwang" while clearly
zation
was not applied in organized forms. Neither of these

motives would do. But half-generalized agencies similar to the
present
other two could nevertheless be found in the moral impulses,
"Pflicht" and
"Liebe."
transition
to
these
from "Lohn"

could be found in the
" Gemcinsinn,"
87
which appeared under
voluntary association, and the schematism was complete.
What now
did Jhering really accomphsh in this way
us look at
"Zwang," where we
making.
How
see his
can anyone hope
schematism actually
"Zwang"
to find in
Let
in the
as a motive
anything more than a reflection of the social facts of law and the
which
state
they
assumed
is
it
know where
to find
Even people who think
to explain ?
duty and
love, or
even "Lohn," definitely,
specifically, concretely, as psychic qualities, will hesitate to point
to
any spot where "Zwang"
possession of the soul.
exists as a capacity or quality or
They know
"Zwang,"
some men on others.
plenty of facts of
actual compulsion and coercion as exercised by
Of course. With Jhering himself in early passages "Zwang"

was frequently synonymous with "Strafe" (punishment).' But
"Zwang"
"Zweck"?
as a
thing in and for
And even
and
as
itself it is
be found.
As a
fiction.
It is
an individualized
self -contradictory;
when
nowhere
a useless and self-contradictory

reflection of the facts,
which appeared
alongside of a system of
to
"Zwang"
in Jhering's
it
is
own words
(or " Verwirklichung")
he put a system of other "Zwecke," in the very state which
"Pflicht,"
and
appear
people
to
is
true of
of "Liebe,"
"Zwang"
is
amount
They come from
also true of
however difficult
much more
inter-
it
may
"Lohn," of
make this
be to
familiar with these latter words in
such a use, and accustomed by long habit

factory
is
"Zwang."
preted as the organization of
But that which
useless
to getting a fairly satis-
meaning out of them for everyday needs.

the same source, that is the social activity itself,
of
whatever prestige of antiquity they possess as words.
As Jhering
uses them, they are, so to speak, half individual psychology and

half social institutions.
They
arc not adequately stated from either
They do not
point of view.
really state the social
facts;
they
serve merely as a verbal bridge between two part statements,
make
a whole.
"Lohn" by
recalling
which, put together in this way, do not suffice to
We
can see how
Jhering's idea that "

'
Zweck, Vol.
I,
this is in the case of
Lohn "
pp. 60, 181.
alone can build up a complicated " Ver-
88
ktlir" systim,
frt-c
from
all
interference by
"Zwang"
motive, a system which precedes the state and

part indei)endent of
Now we know
it.
is
or any other
always in great
perfectly well
any such extra-legal commercial construction
ficial
made mention
already
of the defect
but
how
arti-
have
is
here the point
that
is
"Lohn," as reflection of " Verkchr" facts in this phase

is likewise artificial and abstract, and that Jhering's dependence
on it as a concrete thing seduced him into his unfortunate statements as to the free and independent development of the "Verhis motive
kehr" system.
To
put this criticism in a more generalized form,
"Lohn"
by itself; neither could "Zwang," nor

But putting these four together is not
"Pflicht," nor "Licbe."
like compounding four forces each of which would get somewhere,
could get nowhere at
all
and noting the resultant motion.' It is rather fitting the four

and getting the full picture from which
abstractions together again
it without any more advance in interprewe had when we started. Just because in the intermediate stages of the process we have imagined the various motives
we
started, but getting
tation than
as concrete possessions of the individuals of which the society
made
up,
pretation;
we cannot say that we have made an advance in

we have only advanced in the sense that we have
some
fied
between a
I
is
intersatis-
of our kindergarten wonderings about the relations

fictitious
and a
individual
fictitious society.
have already mentioned in footnotes or in the text a number
which Jhering uses "ZwTcke" or motives of one
of inslances in
kind or another with exceptional definiteness and concreteness.

I will
now
call attention to
one form of phrasing he uses in which
he erects these concrete "Zwecke" into the motive power, so to

speak, of his whole system.
He
tells
us that the lower
"Zwecke"
ine\itably drive the others forth out of themselves (" hervortrei-
ben"), that the "Zwecke" press ("drangen") upward, and that

there
'
a continuity in "Zweck" evolution.^ I will not accuse

mean this merely as a simile which illustrates a practical difiFerence. I
mean to pass judgment on the abstractions involved in all statements of
is
do not
causation.
a
Zweck, Vol.
I,
pp. 57, 74, 76, 98, 237.

him
of attempting to use this evolution deductively in interpreting
society, for his very latest
But
89
am deaUng
work
is
freest
from any such abuse.
here not with his special interpretations, but
with his theory of social process, and in this respect the statements
form a culminating point in his theory, at which its

more apparent. They are of a piece with
state Hfe in terms of " Zwecke," instead of " Zwecke "
just referred to
worthlessness becomes
his attempt to
in terms of hfe facts.

I think now it is sufficiently well estabhshed on Jhering's own
work that his distinction between the subjective and the objective
"Zwecke" breaks down, and that instead of reaching an interpretation of society by harmonizing the two he only succeeds in
making it clear that he should never have set up the hard and fast
distinction at all.
His objective "Zwecke" are at bottom nothing
more than institutions, social modes of action, poorly stated; had
he confined himself
to the
study of their meanings, values, functions,
just as they are, in society, just as
it is,
made up
of
human
beings,
he would have laid the foundations for an adequate interpretation.

His subjective "Zwecke" are
little
chunks
of institutions, variously
had he analyzed the psychic process as process he

field of study.
But he did neither of
these things clearly and cleanly.
Instead of studying the " Zweck "
generahzed;
would again have had a safe
process as process, he sought always
He
as anterior facts.
to speak,
and
at the
"Zwecke"
as causes, that
is,
coagulated the individual "Zwecke," so
same time stewed douTi the
social institutions
he got them into about the same consistency.
till
alike being called
nation.
And
it
"Zweck," he
is
felt
that he
Then, both
had attained his expla-
"Zweck" theory we
"Zweck" process and the
clear that with Jhering's
discard also his distinction between the
causal process, which

point of view, for the
merely a further gcneraHzation of his
is
"Zweck"
is
simply a faulty definition of the
activity itself.
Why
is it
that with all his painstaking
only confusion in the end
Is
it
work Jhering reaches
because his work has been poor
Most decidedly not. His work seems to me of the keenest, broadand most thorough, granted his presuppositions. His trouble
est,
9
lies (lcei)cT
than thai, and
works upon
his
Now
more
it
befog and bemire everyone
who
set himself a fictitious and hence

is
easy to answer insoluble problems
But the more
with stupid answers.

the etTort, the
He
lines.
insoluble problem.
will
it
brilliant
and more powerful
glaringly confused the result.
Jhering saw before him a world in which given masses of
men
were doing given things in given ways. I am quite confident that

he never saw or studied or came into any kind of contact with any
social
vision
phenomena that were not of this kind. Close under his

were phenomena of law, and especially of Roman law.
But he never learned to posit the simple answerable question:

"How are these masses and groups of men doing these things
in these
ways ?" which
asked:
"What
is
is
which makes them
men and
be doing these things which
can easily think they ought not
else,
He
the only scientific question.
there hidden in these
to
I,
always
in other
or
men
somebody
be wanting to do ?"
He
"Why are these men doing these things and not some other
things?" and not, "How are these processes of men w-orking?"
He asked, "Why does a society of men set up certain laws and then
why do these men obey these laws?" and not: "How do these
asked:
men
?
What are the
And how do these elements fit into one another and condition one another?" He
might as well have asked why is gold gold and not silver, and why
socially
and
legally organized
is silver silver
and
silver
and not gold, instead of simply studying
phenomena under
trying scientifically to
from
function along
their functioning?
various elements of
make
as
many
all
the gold
conditions as possible, and
out their similarities as distinguished
their diflferences.
He had an assumed
individual to start with.
As he progressed
he found himself compelled to assume and personify a society to

set
over against this individual.
His entire theory consisted in a
desperate struggle to bring his two assumptions into harmonious

relations.
And
harmony he estabHshed was

upon which he established it.
of course the
tious as the assumptions
If instead of setting the
concrete society, he
as
ficti-
concrete individual over against the
had taken the individual point
of
view and

the social point of view merely as points of view, that
91
is,
each as
covering the whole range of the social Hfe of men, he would have
had both his individual and his society capable of being broken
down, that is of being analyzed, without the interpolation of fictiHis personified society with its five comparttious "Zwecke."
ments (the "Zwecksubjecte") would have become capable of
statement as immediate social fact, without the confusions that
are involved in the distinctions between "Norm" and
between " Lebensbcdingungen " and " Zwecksubjecte."
"Zwang,"
He would
have had social force and the forms of force and the purposes of
all taken up in one unified
force and the beneficiaries of force,
come very much closer than his

Zweck im Recht comes, to an adequate reflection of the
method which he himself used practically in his own social
statement, which would have
interpretations.
Other Illustrations
Section V.
Feelings are used in so
more
many
widely
ways
diflfercnt
tliat
a few
I will give brief considera-
be profitable.
illustrations will
tion to one or two other general theories of the feelings, then
how
in a series of instances
by investigators
show
specific feelings are practically used
in special fields,
and
finally discuss certain recent
attempts to study feelings and faculties
statistically in their guise
of specific properties of living beings.

First
his
to
consider
whole system
this part of his
is
rest
work
is
Professor Lester F. Ward.
on the
feelings,
most highly
He makes
and indeed he claims
original.
The
neglected factor, which he has brought to light.
that
feelings are the
We
will not,
however, examine the process of biologic evolution by which he
works them out and gets them ready
for action.
him, what he
for us in
is
able to
"do" with
it,
any other way than by being
for
it
useful.
will
what good
instead his classification of the feelings, and ask

to
We
take
it
is
can have no value

It will
appear,
think, that his classification satisfies crudely his desire to hitch
the social world
on
to the vital world,
purpose in his system.
but that
it
serves
no other
92
His classificulion of the feelings (desires, social forces)
as
is
follows
Physical Forces (function bodily)
Ontogenetic Forces
Positive, attractive (seeking pleasure)
Negative, protective (avoiding pain)
Phylogenetic Forces
Direct, sexual
Indirect, consanguineal
Spiritual P'orces (function psychic)
Sociogenetic Forces
Moral (seeking the
safe
and good)
Aesthetic (seeking the beautiful)

Intellectual (seeking the useful
and
true)'
Professor Ross regards this classification "for the purposes of

philosophy" as "by far the most helpful that has been made,'"
but he objects
to
as based too largely
it
on the functions
to
which
the desires prompt, and says that, "for practical purposes," he

prefers a classification "based more immediately upon the nature
Is
of the desires."
tion
is
in
no sense a
it
of the word, but that
Certainly this
and
pain,
is
and
not evident that Professor Ward's classifica-
it is
solely
and simply a grouping of
true of all but the
in a
meaning
classification of desires or forces in his
way
it is
first
acti\dtics ?
pair of "forces," pleasure
true even of them.
That
so far
is,
as they indicate activities they are entitled to a place in such a

table as
is
in question, but so far as they are regarded as feelings
abstractly, they are not entitled to a separate subdivision in the
but should rather be treated as cutting across
table,
all
the
others.
But
then
if
why
what Ward
really gives us is a
grouping of
activities,
posit desires behind them to correspond, and think
made
thereby to have
such desires as he
manifestations,
manifestations,
lists
progress in explanation
when they can merely be posited

one has no way to test them or
Compare
Pure Sociology,
'
Tlie Foundations oj Sociology, p. 167.
p. 261.
Certainly
when
cannot be detected independently of their
also
Dynamic
as behind those
to
handle them.
Sociology, Vol.
I, p.
472.

If
93
one uses them in interpretation the whole use must be hypotheti-
Of
cal.
course
if
the hypothesis
in understanding the operations
is
which gives us aid
of the kind
under examination, well and good.
But even with the two hundred pages of Professor Ward's Pure
Sociology, in which he works out a detailed treatment of the three
groups of forces, the ontogenetic, the phylogenetic, and the sociogenetic, lying before
his hypotheses
me,
am
compelled
to
my
opinion
have here a
sort of
say that in
We
do nothing of the kind.
evolutionary history of social man, described along three general

lines,
to, headed with the names

But how the theory of the under-
forming the three chapters referred
of the three groups of "forces."
lying feeling forces helps this history I utterly

history could have been built
up
just as
it is
fail
to see.
The
without the theory;
and the alleged "forces" represent merely the principle on which

the facts are classified by Dr. Ward, nothing more.
Another use of desires that
socialists
are the sole motors of
thing
is
very
is
and other writers who

life.'
tell
When
honest with himself he soon
common
found among the
is
us that sex and food desires

a
is
man who
does this sort of
forced to admit that there
are a lot of other desires which cannot be reduced as such into
and then his proposition becomes one to

that these are the two dominant motors and that all
one or other of the

the effect
pair,
others can be disregarded as negligible in serious study of society.
But we
really
have in
this
nothing more than an assertion that
sex and food institutions are the most important institutions of
and so no progress has been made toward interpretation by
society
dragging in the desires.
Human
In Westermarck's History of
Marriage we
find
some
apt illustrations of the misuse of solidified feelings and instincts.

I shall here, as before, leave
on one side the
solid
and substantial
portions of the book and confine what I have to say to the abuses
of interpretation in the use of the feelings
view
to
stand
and
showing why those factors arc brought
for.
My
belief
is,
it
is
instincts, with a
in
and what they
hardly necessary to repeat, that
they are brought in to satisfy the writer's need of systematizing
recent example
is
M.
A. Lane,
The Level
oj Social
Motion, pp. 46
ff.
94
his
to certain metaphj-sical problems,
work with reference
and
that they stand for ignorance.
At the
beginning Westermarck confesses frankly his
ver>'
on psychological
believe that the mere
and adds: "More especially

have played a ver\' important
His most
institutions and rules."*
reliance
factors,
do
instincts
part in the origin of social
important use of an instinct in interpretation

the theor>' of the origin of marriage
is
in connection with
After showing the
itself.
utter lack of proof for the existence of promiscuity
human
beings,
gence of social
"a more or
lasting
and
establishing satisfactorily that
man
less
among
upon
early
the emer-
our nsion, marriage existed in the sense of
to
durable connection between male and female,
beyond the mere act of propagation
offspring,'" he sets
up an
till
after the birth of
"instinct developed through the power-
ful influence of natural selection,"^ to explain this
"natural form
of the sexual relations of man."*
Now
the student of bird
life,
who
finds birds pairing with
almost unbroken habit, uses the term instinct to explain the coming
together of two birds, their nest-building, egg-caring,
feeding habit.
obser\-e,
is
He means by
not built up in
We
of the indi\-idual.
"instinct," because
obser\'ed
on
it
it
its
it
and
offspring-
conduct which, so far as he can
given form during the life-experience
need not quarrel with his use of the word

serves to
mark
off a set of facts
he has
but even here he should not be too positive in reliance
until
he has got into intimate touch with the relations of
and knows how much
birds to one another,
to attribute to that
factor.
But when we come

forms, the case
is
to
selection will account for
beings,
and
it is
human society, even in its most primitive

It may be perfectiy true that natural
the sunival of marr\-ing apes and human
different.
of course possible to use "instinct" to describe
the marn-ing fact in
its
for explanation just as
regularity.
much
But the
as before.
social
We
problem remains
have various
possibilities of lining, \-arious sets of conditions of life,

'
The History
Ibid., p. 19.
of
Human
3
Marriage, p.
Ibid., p. 537.
5.
4 Ibid., p. 70.
sets of
and a large

amount
95
of psychic process going on, including influences from
family to family, from larger group to family, and from larger
group
We
to larger group.
vital habit
till
cannot safely go back
to
an inherited
We
these have been taken into account.
want
to
know what happens and how, and what variations came and how.
When we are answered by the reply of "instinct," we are told Uttle
more than that the individuals have a tendency to do as they do.
We are merely shown the social action and referred to an individual
tendency alleged to conform to it; but all the group life that we
know
to exist
is left
marck or anybody
out of account.
am
not saying that Wcster-
else is at present in a position to give a helpful
explanation of the approximate universality of the Httle marriage
groups of early man, and
he did not do
it
defines
and
it,
am of course not attacking him because
but merely showing that his "instinct," although
states the problem, does not
fectly true that
habit of action occurring in a presocial

into a social
life,
may
lished.
manner
it
and projecting
life
itself
of using the jaws in eating under-
be properly emphasized where
But
It is per-
it.
without any more modification through social
experience than, say, the

goes,
answer
such an instinct treated merely as an organized
it
can be positively estab-
should be treated very tenderly and carefully,
as systematized action and as nothing more
and when one reaches
any stage of development in which, if indeed it really existed before,

it has been clearly wiped out or transformed, one should then make
a prompt ending with the
sense.
instinct,
even in
Moreover, when one remembers the
its
clear-cut activity
infinite
pains that a
must take with a chick, for example, to make sure

whether he is really studying an activity of prenatal derivation,
or one acquired through imitation and experience, he may well
naturalist
amount of confidence he
handed down in fixed form from
hesitate long before settling the exact

will place in a pairing activity, as
one generation of
human
beings to the next.
be asked whether such an
instinct
factor to be emphasized as "building
marriage as we
know
it,
or whether
must be broken down, or
at
Indeed
it
may
well
can properly be regarded as a
up"
it is
least
a social institution like
not rather a factor which
transformed
by
society,
11
(/,
what wc
before
no
GOVERNMENT
I'ROCKSS or
social
the
as
(k-scribc
can take
evolution
its
start.'
Wislermarck does not, however, limit himself to instincts that

have come to us from a])e ancestors. He makes use of instincts
and
that arise in us through natural selection during social life,
here his fault
is
much more
very
is
and
his explanation of incest
tion of
serious.
marriage between kindred.
because they are taught to do so;'"
it is
not a case of law, customs,
The
education, or any other form of "social" control.

to marriage
between kindred
but that
together,
it
is
itself
For such an
the kin
make
questionable supposition must be
made
that such marriages of kin
are physically injurious to the offspring;
the destruction
in
made
live closely
the greater proportion.
develop through natural selection, the
instinct to
supposition must be
and repulses
who
repulses the "household," those
among whom
repulsion
"instinctive," not in the sense,
however, that the instinct recognizes kinship

it,
striking case
not "avoid incestuous marriages only
men do
are not social:
The most
problem of the prohibiThese prohibitions, he insists,
the whole
the
more questionable
enough to cause
that they are injurious
competition at least
of groups that
make
much
stronger
than any mere love of variety, must be assumed as a very
common
such marriages
a repulsion to the sexually familiar,
the possibility that such a repulsion
occurrence over the earth;
can get "set" physically
not
merely socially
and
transmitted
and its strength

to generation must be assumed
must be made so great that it lasts through life and only under
the most extreme cases can be broken down by any conditions of
from generation
living in
'
which
In Part
II,
tribes
and people may be placed.
chaps, ix and xxi, the place material of this kind occupies in group
interpretation will be indicated.
there arc
many
may
be observed here, however, that whereas

and organized
probably the beaver. See Letourneau, UEvo-
It
pairing animals, the only one that has both pairing
social habits at the
same time
is
liUion politique, pp. ii, 12.

'
Westcrmarck, op.
cit.,
absolutely that this instinct

that a similar instinct
may
is
pp. 319, 544.
Westermarck does not indeed say
of strictly social origin.
He
possibly have been of presocial
thinks (pp. 352, 353)
origin, but he has no

reasons to offer, and he goes on to say, "it must necessarily have risen at a stage
when family tics became comparatively strong and children remained with their
parents until the age of puberty or even longer."

Given
these assumptions
all
toward explaining
why
little
97
made
progress has been
the varying forms of these prohibitions
appear, clan maternal or paternal, phratry, recognized kinship

in
many
degrees or few;
nor
why
villages miles apart arc
some-
times included in the close living together, while huts side by side
are not;
nor
why indeed
the hut
and
village contrast
can some-
times be found in the same tribe at the same time.
make up the whole

phenomena to be explained, social factors must be superimposed on the alleged "instinct." I have no hesitation in asserting that when we have these social factors completely worked out
we will have our full explanation of all problems of marriage
prohibitions, and the "instinct" will drop away as a useless bit of
In other words, when we have marriage interpreted as a
verbiage.
To
explain these variations, which together
of the
form or
groups,
resting
set of
we
forms of the ordering or control of interests in
will
on any
be done with our inquiry.
human
If there is a selection
real injuriousness in the marriage of kin,
it
wiU be
a "social selection" not a "natural selection," in the sense in
which Westermarck uses the phrase.'

might give a long
list
of feelings
to for help in explanation.
woman's feehngs"^ and this even in the face of all

There is an "instinct" of wômen to select the
exceptions.
\iolation of
the
which Westermarck appeals
For example, polygyny "implies a
I While this matter of exogamy is under view, a method of explaining it which

seems to me particularly naive is worth noting. In the Zeitschrift fur Socialwissenschajt, Vol. V, p. 15 (cf. also American Journal oj Sociology, Vol. Ill, p. 756),
Professor W. I. Thomas asserts that since desire weakens for familiar things, since
familiarity breeds contempt, and since love at first sight is the warmest love, therefore we may argue specifically that men "like" strange women better than well-
known women;
that they gradually get the habit of getting their wives abroad,
and hence that they build up exogamy as a social institution. Of course he does
nothing more than to assume a feeling to fit the fact; in other words he spins the
answer out of the term he selects to start the reasoning with. Since he makes the
marriage institution as a whole rest on the sex instinct, it is fair to point out the
contradiction that at once grows out of his argument. Clearly, the moment exogamy was established, the home women, being forbidden, would become infinitely
more desirable than the foreign women from whom the wives are taken. If any
such instinct or feeUng as he assumes could estabUsh exogamy one day it would
smash it to pieces the next.
The History
0}
Human
Marriage,
p. 495.
"
98
I'KOCESS
'nil'.
strong
I'aniKuay institutions bend
In
nicn.'
Jealousy
stronger passions.'"
up
T'lic
institutions.'
OF GOVERNMENT
as survivals of the
is
a pervading motive in building
sjjring ])rocreation
i)rimilive
under "woman's
human
festivals are explained
"absorbing i)assion for one "otherwise the "true

instinct" is
l)encv()lence"
is
The laws
tic
of
j)owerful
obstacle
some
conditions.*^
their origin in
an "idealis-
"Endogamy
religious commandment. "^
"Fraternal
polygyny. s
to
resjwnsible for polyandry under
Kurope against divorce took
The
monogamous
"rutting" instinct/
is
due
to a
want of
symi)athv, and has declined before altruism and religious toleraIn
tion."'*
all
cases he takes a psychic factor to correspond with one
set of customs, which happens to be the prevading one, and then

says that all customs that do not correspond are due to perversions
of that factor, or to
On
the other
its
suppression by some other psychic factor.'
hand when Westermarck
in current use as
finds a feeling or instinct
an explanation of something or other, and his
broader knowledge of facts enables him
to annihilate
forms the operation with pleasure and precision.

is
it,
he per-
Thus
his study of the relation of clothing to the feeling of
there
shame, in
which he reverses the causal order of everyday explanation and

proves that "the modesty which shows itself in covering is not
an
instinct in the
example,
shame
is
an
same sense
which the aversion
in
instinct;"*" insisting that "it
is
to incest, for
not the feeling of
that has provoked the covering, but the covering that has
provoked the feeling of shame.""
Similarly he objects to
"Dar-
win's inexplicable aesthetic sense" in sexual selection.
Human
Marriage,
Tilt History of
Ibid., p. 502.
'
Ibid., p. 158.
(>
Ibid., p. 516.
Ibid., p. 132.
Ibid., p. 536.
* Ibid.,
pp. 28
p. 256.
8 Ibid., p.
ff.
546.
Die Erde und das Leben, Vol.

He says that if two peoples join together to form a state, then " iiberII, p. 669.
nimmt das politisch begabtere die Leitung." But of course the only way he can
know which is "politically more gifted" is by the outcome in fact.
' Westermarck, op. cit., p. 211.
"
similar illustration can be
found
may be added
in Ratzel,
that that very "desire for self -decoration

theory (pp. 165 S.) is itself simply a "soulstufT" reflection of the fact of decoration activity, and is manifestly of no use in
explaining the particular forms of decoration adopted.
Ibid., p. 208.
It
which Westermarck uses
in his clothes

Every one of
own
his
99
interpretations in terms of instinct of
to the same demolition, on further

"
examination, that he has proved for the "shame " feeling. " Shame
feeling
however, open
is,
was inserted by others

instinct against
marriage with close
Demolishment
Westermarck.
same way that the

companions is inserted by
to explain clothing in the
not the special fate of the one
is
or the other under scientific investigation.
It is the
sure fate of
such elements when used as independently existing "causes"
all
of anything whatever.
It is interesting to
of
some
when an
note what happens
special problem,
who
investigator
accepts the instincts and feelings
make a general
multitude of phenomena all
unhesitatingly as the causes of action, tries to
statement of cause in such terms for a

in the
An
same group.
Gurewitsch,
who has
illuminating case in this respect
is
that of
studied that perennial puzzle problem about
the relative priority of needs
and division
Which came
of labor. '
he asks, the needs, or the division of labor by which those
first,
needs are supplied
And
this
problem: Which came
first,
of supplying the needs
indeed expands into the wider
the needs, or the technical
We
must understand,
methods
of course, not
generalized needs, but specific needs, as a need for milk, for rye
bread, for a meat diet, and so forth.
Now Gurewitsch knows perfectly well the pitfalls of this question.

In discussing that great problem as
tic
to
herds, for example, he puts the
way:
If early
man had
how men came

dilemma
If,
keep domes-
of the needs in this
plenty of flesh food, then
take the trouble to raise flocks
to
why should he
on the contrary, he did not
have plenty, then what could induce him
to spare part of the little
that he needed for immediate use, in the
hope of getting ultimate
advantage
If
one
is
using psychic factors in interpretation, and
faces the difficulty squarely, such insoluble problems as this will
appear on every hand, and indeed nothing
am
I
I
else will appear.
not going to follow Gurcwitsch's study in details, since
"Die Entwicklung der menschlichen
Bediirfnisse
und
die sociale Gliederung
der Gesellschaft," Staats- und socialwissenschajtlicJie Forschungen, Vol.
No.
4.
XIX,
lOO
I'ROCESS
llli;
OF GOVERNMENT
what he has accomplished, but
his interest for us licrc lies not in
what he has
in
failed to
After having recognized so
accomplish.
specific cases, he nevertheless does not
away from them

he bases
entirely,
on a hypothetical "striving
it
or whatever
it
just as
is
is,
have the courage
but when he comes to
Macht"), seemingly unaware that
for
much open
sum up
in
break
his theory
psychic tendency,
any of
to confusions as
He
law' to the elTect that the "development of
sets
up
human
a complicated
needs (and
all
depends on "the continuous abolishing and
social evolution)"
restoration of the social-economic equilibrium,"
depends on the "Streben nach Macht,"

itself
to
power" ("Streben nach
this motive, or
the "need" elements he has excluded.
manifesting
when used
psychic factors
clearly the contradictions of the
not merely in
efiforts to
which in turn
"Streben,"
this
finally,
perfect both needs
and
labor arrangements necessary to their satisfaction, but also in creating the social differentiation, which
human
of
is
the basis of the development
needs.
In other words, instead of letting his work stand for

he makes
it all
work out
what we may
itself,
an "in-and-inwith a hypothetical "Streben nach Macht"
breeding" definition,
into
call
all because he has not yet succeeded in

weaning himself from the psychic factor a factor which after
as the vital principle:
having shown
itself
ludicrous in every particular use, at last takes
refuge in bare tautology, as
its
sole safeguard against
being com-
pletely discarded.^
Finally,
when
stuff, here, there,
all is said and done, if one drives out the souland everywhere in its specialized forms, from use
in social interpretation,
but
still
leaves
it
lying around as socially
unassimilated matter, one will most probably
sum it all up in
some one broad general principle of self-maintenance. This, for
instance, is what Gumplowicz does when he sets up the "Selbstbehauptungstrieb."^
covers
'
all social
If
one arrives at a motive so general that
phenomena, one has
Guri'witsch, op.
cii.,
at the
p. 128.
Giddings* "consciousness of kind" is in similar case.

kin's "social instinct" already referred to.
'
Die
it
same moment arrived
sociologiscJie Staatsidee,
2d ed., p. i6i.
And
so also Kropot-
"

which
at a motive
is
merely
to indulge in
It is just as
exist
adequate
and
utterly useless
is
To
of social interpretation.
a passing personification of social activity.
because they strive to
The
exist.
way
striving for existence cannot
that will
add meaning
tence, the activity, the process, considered
The outcome
it.
negligible for purposes
talk of a " Selbstbehauptungstrieb
to say that social activities exist as to say they
be used anywhere or in any
"Trieb" behind
loi
of
to the exis-
apart from the
as fact,
any process of simplifying a
system of motives into one great dominating motive
is
the annihila-
tion of the use of motives in interpretation.
One
other method of using mental qualities and capacities in
scientific
and
work remains, which

It is
criticize.
Karl Pearson and
and which
try briefly to characterize
Galton started, which
by such an American work as that
Adams Woods, on Mental and Moral
Frederick
These investigators
Royalty.
ties
must
his associates of Biometrika are laboring with,
illustrated
is
that which Francis
treat feelings
and
intellectual capaci-
They seek
as definite "things,"^ and try to measure them.
show
exactly
how
between race and race.

is
to
they are inherited and what the correlations are
between parents and children, between brothers and

eugenics
of
Heredity in
Galton's
in part an outgrowth of
cerned here with any attempt to
fix
this
and
sisters,
propaganda
interesting
work, but
am
for
not con-
the social value of his practical
The assumptions of the theory and its confusions can

best be shown in the studies made by Pearson or under his direction,
teaching.
with some additional illustration from Woods.
doubt as
is
to the validity of
none of
my
There
is
some
Pearson's mathematics, but that again
business here.
Pearson has comparatively smooth sailing with his study of the

correlations^ of physical characteristics in plants
1
They may deny
and animals, such

I am concerned
that they are dealing with "soul-stuff."
however, not with what they say about their position, but with what
i.
e.,
practically,
2
it
actually,
is.
For the technique of the study
of correlations see Pearson's
Grammar
of
Science, 2d ed.; Bowley, Elemetits of Statistics; E. L. Thorndike, An Introduction

to the Theory of Mental and Social Measurements; the article on "Heredity" in
Buck's Reference Handbook
of
Medical Sciences, or the
files
of Biometrika.

of government
nil: PROCESS
I02
number
us the
of beans in a pod, the
number
of ribs in a leaf, the
length of certain bones, or the shape of the skull.
Advancing
into trouble in
to
more complex
nuiterial,
So far so good.
however, he at once gets
two ways.
studying the color of the hair or eyes, he is able to get

correlations, not of definite facts, but of vaguely judged facts.
First
Ne-xt, studying fertility in
men
or in the thoroughbred horse,'
he conducts his investigations on material which is affected in

very important ways by "social" influences, although he has no
way
to separate the social
from the
vital in his
material or in his
calculations.
When
he comes to the study of the inheritance of mental

way.
qualities or capacities, both of these difficulties are in his
He
dealing, not with his material direct, but with very doubtful
is
judgments about
it^"
his vital qualities, or
tions in
and he has no means whatever of
even of making a rough estimate of the propor-
which they appear
in his material.
single one of the investigations
show
and Moral Characters
this.
suflicient to
The
in
made under
paper, "
that
is,
to the
studies not
tical
On
An
analysis of a
his direction will
measure
to
itself to fraternal correlations,
resemblances of brothers and
among adults, but among
sisters,
and even
this
The statis-
school children.
material put under examination consists of school-teachers'
reports
on some thousands of brother-brother,
brother-sister,
or sister-sister pairs, obtained only with great labor

delays.
The
and long
children were classified as to ability into the quick-
intelligent, the intelligent, the slow-intelligent, the slow, the
be
the Inheritance of ^Mental
Man,"^ does not attempt
parental correlations, but confines
it
isolating
Philosophical Transactions, Royal Society of London, Series
do not mean
slow-
1899.
measurements with his psychical

judgments as though they were distinct ranges of phenomena. The distinction is
practical.
In his skull shapes he has measurements that have scientific value.
In his psychical characters he has no such measurements, or, to put it in terms of
vocabularies, in the first instance he has a word equipment
the millimeter series
which has practical results; in the other he has no such word equipment
to contrast his physical
merely vague general phrases with indefinite meanings.

3
Biometrika, Vol. III.

dull,
and the very
dull.
A seventh
class, the
The moral
ignored in the returns.
whether
it
was keen or
was
whether
whether self-conscious or unself-
and temper, whether quick,

Handwriting, as an indication of charac-
good-natured, or sullen.
ter,
on had
assertiveness,
popularity, whether popular or unpopular; conscien-
conscious;
tiousness,
inaccurate erratic was
qualities reported
regard to vivacity, whether noisy or quiet;

self-assertive or shy; introspection,
103
dull;
also estimated in six degrees,
and the head measurements
were taken, as well as certain other physical characters.
To
these facts Pearson applied his formulas,
the correlation in all cases as around 0.5, which
and worked out
is
just
about what
the correlation for physical characteristics as between brothers
and
sisters
should be.
"There
can, I think," he concludes,
"be
small doubt that intelligence or ability follows precisely the same
laws of inheritance as general health, and both the same laws as

cephalic index, or any other physical character."'
Now
this result
priori to find the
was a
surprise to him, for he
home environment
had "expected a
largely affecting the resem-
blance in moral qualities of brothers and sisters."^
That
is,
he
expected the ratio of correlation to show the effect of heredity plus
environment, and so to be unusually large.
Since
it is
not large
he at once draws the inference that home environment counts for

nothing at all. He writes:
We
are forced, I think literally forced, to the general conclusion that the
man
physical and psychical characters in

the
same manner, and with the same
ment, the average parental influence
is
are inherited within broad lines in
intensity.
The average home
environ-
in itself part of the heritage of the stock
and not an extraneous and additional
factor emphasizing the resemblance
between children from the same home.^
But now consider. His material is the judgments of schoolteachers upon the children as these are revealed to them in the
When abihty in school is under consideration,
school work.
suppose it should happen that two children from one family
were alike ill-fed or over-fed suppose they had ahke contracted
some vice; suppose their home surroundings had given them
;
Biometrika, Vol. Ill, p. 149.
ibid., p. 153.
Ibid., p. 156.
Till-
I04
I'KOCESS
which make;
interests
routine of a British school peculiarly
tlic
These things arc not improbable;
repulsive to tlum.
rather almost
OF GOVERNMENT
inevitable
many
in
ditions a {orrciation mit^ht be
shown, but
it
they are
Under such con-
instances.
would certainly not
be a correlation of the kind that Professor Pearson thinks he has

shown. And further than this, the "ability" that he deals with
is
merely ability for the particular kind of school work in question,
and not ability in general.

Bad as all this is, we can
judgments as
to
allow weight to the teachers'
still
abihty in far greater degree than
judgments as to the moral quaUties;
for these
we can
to their
judgments as
to
moral characters are peculiarly personal, each such "moral charitself a relation between two or more persons,
acter" being indeed
and not necessarily equivalent to the relation that would arise

between the given child and some other person. We are, then,
in reality offered statistics not on certain qualities or faculties of
the children, but
which may be
on certain
social
called, not so
judgments about the children,
much
falUble, as partial reflections
from the \'iew-point of a small comer in the social
of the facts
mass.
Nor
this all.
is
There
homes and
children and
is
a certain
amount
of
schools, such as that
learn rapidly of one teacher,
known
fact
about
some children can
when they cannot
of another;
that
children vary in the ease w'ith which they can be controlled

different people;
that w^hen
to another, a- considerable
interpret
change
it,
is
it.
in their actual
If therefore
containing real facts
compelled
may
given to us in observation, and Professor Pearson's
home environment does
not do away
we should accept his statistical material as
about children, we should nevertheless be
denial of the influence of the
with
may be worked
This fact of the reality of disciphne, howêver we
conduct.
by
moved from one home en\ironment
conclude that his ratio of correlation must be reto allow for this, and that the correlation of
to
duced somewhat
psychic characters he shows us would therefore be less than the

correlation of physical characters.
However,
cannot allow to Professor Pearson's work even this

vague degree of
validity.
strictly social material.
The
material he has investigated
environment," since the environment

material under
One
itself is strictly
heredity, as that
it is
part of the
could as fairly conclude from
was a showing
the results offered us that the whole thing
ment without
is
to talk of "heredity plus
It is foolish
investigation.
105
of en\aron-
a showing of heredity without
environment, and indeed one could more fairly conclude thus.'
And
He
this leads us to
knowledge of the source of his inferences.
wrote frankly in the article to which I have referred

I cannot free myself from the conception that imderlying every psychical
state there
is
a physical state and from that conception follows at once the con-
clusion that there
must be a
close association
recurrence of certain psychical states, which
between the succession or the

is
what we judge mental and
moral characteristics by, and an imderlying physical conformation, be

brain or
And
liver.
it
of
again,
it desirable to draw very rigid lines between the
and the present inquiry has much strengthened that
Personally I do not think

physical and psychical,
opinion.
Perhaps
can make his defect clearest by a comparison.
wish to establish correlations
in
pose he should gather several thousand such poles.

to
Suppose he should
bean-poles between their length and height.
measure them, and instead should
three hundred agricultural laborers at
Sup-
Suppose, then, he was unable
them up in a long row, and put two or

work making estimates of their length and
set
thickness from a distance of two or three hundred feet, giving each laborer his proportionate share of the poles to report on.
his statistical material
Suppose then when he had passed
through his mathematical machinery, he should announce
a positive conclusion concerning the correlations of these characteristics in the

poles, and should proceed on the basis of his results to declare, first, that there is
no such thing as a factor of variability among the observers, and second that social
elements in the production of bean-poles not merely had no effect but actually
Laughter would be the mildest greeting that his conclusions would

would be clear enough that his material consisted of man-made beanpoles "as judged" by the observers.
And his correlations might indicate the
"man-making" factor, or might have to do with the judgments rendered, but
hardly could be announced for bean-poles, considered as independently existing.
And yet I venture the assertion that there would not be a tenth of i per cent, as
did not
exist.
receive.
It
much
in his
'
vagueness or uncertainty in his bean-pole correlations as there actually
"mental and moral characters."

Biometrika, Vol. Ill, p. 147.
3 Ibid.,
p. 153.
is
I'KOCESS
TIIL-:
io(i
These quotations show

from
(lirictly
such.
I,
clearly
OF GOVERNMENT
enough
his presuppositions, not
that his conclusions follow
from
So long as we hold the
physical underlies the ])sychical.
the
his investigations as
of course, do not take exception to his conception that
physical and psychical apart by our present terminology, I freely
admit that without such a jjresupposition no systematic investiga-
any
tion of
social fact
is
What
possible.
am
referring to
is
the
"thing" nature which he gives to these psychical "states," to his

treatment of them as *'soul-stu(T," to his idea that they can be
for scientific purposes by the
adefjuately described or defined
same verbal methods we use
to define or describe
an ear or a thigh-
bone or a skull, to his idea that lumps of mental or moral qualities

can be compared as individual possessions, and can be inherited
as such.
do not think that he
his presupposition is well
off"ers
founded
us the slightest proof that
and such proof
whole purpose of his elaborate investigations.
The
is
of course the
"translation of
correlation into causation,"' so far as the mental factors are con-
cerned,
merely the translation of an untested presupposition
is
an unproved conclusion.
into
It is
to rest
upon such flimsy foundations as these that Pearson causes

his piteous wailings over the mental and moral degenera-
tion of the British stock.
not whether there
is
Remember,
the question at issue
Great Britain, but whether that degeneracy, assuming

rests
on
or, better said, is the
physically mental
carried
is
actually any degeneracy as a social fact in
same thing as
it
to exist,
physical
(i. e.,
and moral) deterioration of the population,
on through natural
selection, or in other
the dying-otT of better grades of the
words through
men and women, and
the mul-
tiplication of poorer grades.
In his
him.
He
Grammar
of Science
says that "if
he puts his fears mildly enough for
we could remove
elements in ancestry, were
it
the drag of the mediocre
only for a few generations,"
could create a better stock, just as the breeder does.
He
we
tells
us that the upper middle class "thinks for the nation" because
a better stock, and he asks
it is
'
Grammar
of Science, p. 397.
107
There is apparent today a want of youthful ability in literature, art, science,

and politics: who can affirm that this dearth not British only, but French
and German has not been emphasized by the reduction in the birth rate of
the abler intellectual classes which has taken place since the sixties?'
But
in his
National Life from the Standpoint
of Science, after
restating his theory that the characters of parents, including "their

virtues, their vices, their capabihties, their tempers," are inherited
"in definite amounts," with "a certainty as great as that of any

prediction whatever;"^
scientific
after
bad stock
asserting that
cannot be changed to good, and that education and nurture will

accomplish nothing in modifying the stock;
lawof "stagnation," when
up a
after setting
come equally from
superior
no wastage, he bursts out: "Woe

the nation which has recruited itself from the weaker and not
and
to
offspring
inferior stocks
and there
is
from the stronger stocks!" And he asks: "Have we a reserve of

brain power ready to be trained?"
must confess
And
all this
because Kaffirs and negroes, as a social
not developed, as a social
a Darwin or a Thackeray
ment.
felt
fact, great
fact,
among
is all
there
here, because
it
either
is to this
it is
by
But
argu-
have
far the
most
hardly worth answering.
that I could not ignore
have
his contemporaries.
presupposition about soul-stuff

It is so trivial it is
"I
complicated social organi-
and because Pearson himself does not recognize
zations,
The
and he sadly answers:

is upon us."^
an actual dearth
to feeling that
painstaking attempt to apply "scientific" methods, as distinct
from sociological theorizing,
to
the material, that has yet been
made.'*
The
interesting
work
of
Mr. Woods gets
Ibid., pp. 457, 466, 467.
National Life from the Standpoint
its
material from
of Science, pp. 14, 16.
ilbid., pp. 29, 42, 57.

4 I
might also show the
futility of
Pearson's point of view by analyzing his
and humanism {GramThese "principles" are put forth as "factors of change"
discussions of progress in terms of individualism, socialism,
mar
of Science,
chap.
i.x).
connected with the principle of the survival of the

in instincts;
of
modern
they are described as "formulas;"
life.
It is
a frightful confusion.
pretation belongs to the next chapter.
fittest;
they are
made
to rest
and they are called "motives"
But analysis
of such theories of inter-
niK PROCESS OF GOVERNMENT
Io8
sources very dilTercnt from those which Pearson used, but it is

equally faulty in its naive acceptance of the soul-stuff at the begin-
ning "f the investigation.
human
each
This investigator thinks
it
"evident that
being has certain defmite mental, moral, and physi-
and that these are due to not more than three

causes heredity, environment, and free will." Taking the royal
families of Europe, he proposes to find out whether the statistics
He excludes all royal persons
reveal mental and moral heredity.
not mentioned in Lippincott's Biographical Dictionary, as such
cal characteristics,
persons "could not have been very great, at least as regards
outward achievements, which
One would
is
not a proper standard, because the relation
of achievement to character
His prepossession
that the basis of estimate
he
is
and biographers."*
rians
investigating
is
is
is
the very thing under investigation.
is
too strong.
to reiterate the
reveal,
it still
"what"
Moreover, he explains
"the adjectives that are used by histoAll of
social
which means that the material
achievement as accredited
individual by ordinary language,
need
the standard here employed.'"
think that as he wrote these words he would recognize
that achievement
But no.
is
and as
socially judged.
to
the
I hardly
argument that whatever correlations he may
remains on
of the correlation
this basis
is
an open question whether the
social influence, or social
judgment, or
individual character, or capacity, the very question to which he
purports to be seeking an answer.

It is
not to be denied that the similarities in the ratio of physical
heredity with the heredity he estabUshes are interesting, but that

is
entirely apart
the case appears
from the fundamental question. Consider how

when he points out the "relatively large number
and argues that therefore the

Think how the work of a royal
personage is flattered; think how many subjects do work which
is put forth in the monarch's name; think what opportunities are
of exceptional geniuses" in royalty,
"stock" must be superior.^
given every scion of a royal house in Hne of succession to
fit
himself
some or all of his hfe functions, w^hat compulsion is exercised

on him to fit himself, and how he is enabled to get a maximum of
for
"
Mental and Moral Heredity in Royalty,
p. 12.
Ibid., p. 10.
3 Ibid., p.
301.
"^
minimum
benefit with a
inference to "stock"
Again,
we
during the
of labor.
draw an
century" indicates that regression has begun.
the last century
when we remember the

and pohtical conditions between
to the inference
difference of industrial, national,
and preceding centuries
are told that "for nearly a thousand years the com-
mercial and industrial progress
made by both Spain and Portugal
has been directly traceable to the character of
But
state." ^
safely
are told that the "relative absence of great kings
last
we
still
But what value can we give
Also,
Can one
109
his
its
chief heads of
columns of
tabulation of two
epithets,
one
and the other to the ruler, proves nothing.

The inference may be made from either column to the other with
relating to the state
equal propriety.
Wc may sum
factor of
up Mr. Woods's work by saying
is
may be reported with some

from the individual standpoint, yet
capacity
"intellectual"
slight degree of objectivity
there
that while his
absolutely nothing presented to
show
that this "capacity"
as such produces the social achievement, while indeed
it is
most
way that gives it no

on the other hand his "moral
quahties are "things done" socially, and involve the whole social
situations in them to such a degree that they are even more clearly
often inferred from the achievement in a
claim to individual objectivity at
all
worthless for inferences as to the relation between "stock" and

social
process than the intellectual factors.
I repeat that I
am not denying that men arc in fact distinguished
from one another by epithets relating to their intelligence and

moral qualities nor that different adults act differently in situations
which wc describe to ourselves as substantially the same; nor that
;
method
this
of statement
is
useful in
its
own
time and place.
What
am asserting is that the attempt to erect it into a causal interpreta-
tion of society
on the basis of
fixed individual characters
which
can adequately be described and defined apart from the society

they explain,
proof
I
is
is
in the
Ibid., p. 302.
a hotbed of confusion and irrelevancy;
works of the men

3
have studied in
Ibid., p. 198.
and the
this chapter.
CMAPTKR
11
IDKAS AND IDEALS AS CAUSES

I.
In Everyday Speech
Section
Wc
now from
pass
As before
theories.
the feeling theories to the idea or ideals
do not pretend
of the i)sych()logical terms.
am
Leaving psychical
time being,
am
be careful about the use
any manipulation of any form of

"process" on the side for the
of intellectual process, nor in

soul-stufl.
to
not here engaged in any analysis
engaged simply
in
showing that the use of
specific
forms of soul-stutT gives us absolutely no help in interpreting the
Wc
doings of social men.
and
shall first of all try to locate the ideas
and exhortation. Then we

some theories based on such interpretative material.
stump speaker appear at the old-fashioned Fourth of
ideals in everyday talk, moralizing,
shall consider
Let the
What does he
July celebration.
tell
us
Our
forefathers
It
was
made
this
created this nation were led by a great ideal of liberty.

their highest good.
land what
suffered
freedom,
it
is.
Without
it
they would never have
Also they sought independence.
who
Had
they not
and labored many long hard years to breathe the air of

they never would have been "free."
Perhaps also
was one of the great goals they set before themselves.

was something they sighed for, bled for, and were willing to
equality
It
die for.
let
Let us keep the ideals of our forefathers ever in our minds
us inspire ourselves with the
their
deeds of heroic devotion
same lofty spirit that

and then wc will all
led
them
live
happily
to
ever afterward.
.\ftcr
which, speaker and hearers alike go back to the same old
round of buying and
Did the speech change

privately or publicly
anything
ciples
Did the
selling,
laboring and advantage-seeking.
methods of dealing with their fellows,

Did it move the countr)' fon\ard toward
renewed assent of all its hearers to its printheir
have any such results
Do
the tens of thousands of speeches

IDEAS AND
IDE.-VLS
AS CAUSES
and applaudings and assentings like it have such results? The

stump speaker himself would be the first to laugh at the folly of
the question, give him only time enough to recover from his verbal
self-hj-pnotism.
We know
as a matter of fact that the liberty our revolutionary
from a certain number of

which were interfering
know that formal independence from
forefathers sought stood for exemption
burdensome taxes and trade
We
v\ith their prosperity.
restrictions
England was only sought by them in the last extreme after much
We
reluctant discussion and as a war measure of doubted value.
know
that
any
from
stri\ing after equalit}', as distinct
facts of
existent comparative equahty of condition, cannot be found
among
and that as for the tendency

was rather away from than toward equality.'
So much for the talk of the Fourth of July. Let our stump
speaker transfer his acti\'ities to the party campaign meeting.
them with
the most careful pr}ing
of the times,
it
him again.
The Republican
Listen to
it
party has been inspired by glorious ideals;
set the slaves free;
body
else free;
it is
it
has ever since been strinng
people, the party of the whole countrv'.

the genuine love of countr}\
most
it
to set ever}'-
the party of patriotism, the party of all the
Because
It
it
has the monopoly of
keeps these ideals upper-
alone can be trusted with the nation's government.
Or, in the hall across the way:

party of the
Thomas
The Democratic
common
Jefferson
jjeople.
Their welfare is
and Andrew Jackson wrote
principles across the national firmament.

fighting the t)Tant
and the oppressor,
It
in the
its
its
part)' is the
sole desire.
immutable
has ever since been
name
of liberty
and
'For the contrast between the revolutionary Bills of Rights and the revolutionary constitutions with their suffrage restrictions
unrepresented masses," see a neat summarj'

of Political, Social,
further testimony
is
and Industrial Rights

desired, one
may
in J.
of
and disregard of the "great

The Acquisition
B. MacMaster,
Man
in America, pp. 45, 46.
If
take Brjce's thoroughly practical remarks
and
and revolutions are primarily made not for the sake of
freedom, but in order to get rid of some t\\\ which touches men in a more tender
place than their pride." Studies in History and Jurisprudence, Vol. II, pp.
that "the abstract love of liberty has been a comparatively feeble passion,"
further that "rebellions
24, 25.
VlIK PROCESS
113
freedom.
The
OF GOVERNMENT
The ihnattncd wdfarc
of the states
is
in its keeping.
rights of the states shall never be surrendered.
It
has the
monopoly of the genuine love of country. Because it keeps these

ideals uppermost it alone can be trusted with the nation's government.
Of course
Of
the party meeting
course the jjarty oratory
is
is
fact,
and an important
is
They all
As such
So are the torches in the parade.
part of the campaign.
fact.
part of the party meeting, which
count toward bringing out the ballots on election day.

they must not be overlooked.
But when
is
To
When
to taking the
proclamations of ideas and
word for word, at the values set forth in the speeches,
ideals,
what
comes
it
the use of discussion
It is
a case for laughter.
a slightly higher level, there
rise to
a great fight
is
squarely on the issue,
is
the party platform.
on and the platform takes a definite stand

and is backed up with equal strength by the
presidential candidate in his letter of acceptance, the platform
means something.
It
has meaning with reference to a specific piece
of legislation, a specific line of policy, or a specific administrative
course to which
But when
commits the party.
it
or asserts or argues in terms of the party ideals or

it is
proclaims
it
heirloom phrases,
neglected and negligible.
Everyone who reads the newspapers intelligently prior
to and
and everyone who examines the works of students of party problems, is well aware how these platforms are put
together; how on the basis of good old phrases a string of pledges
at convention time,
or indorsements
is
how
wrought;
the pull or haul of interested
persons or factions brings about the compromises on the planks;
how
the nearer to action the party appears to be, the
fully the decisions are
desire
and the
ficially to the
less
made
in terms of
old-time verbal tests;
is
care-
interested groups
pains are taken to adapt the planks even super-
the only thing that counts

that ever\'body
what the
more
is
how when
all is said
the specific pledge
sure to watch,
and how
it
never
and done
on some
is
issue
safe to be too
certain that even this will count in the event of party \ictory.
Everybody knows how the government moves along much the
IDEAS
AND IDEALS
AS CAUSES
113
same with one or
the other party in power, barring only the specific
issues, definitely
fought over in the election.
as to try to
show a
real
No
one
so rash
is
change in national tendencies according
as one or the other party takes power;
much less in state
tendencies;
not by the wildest dreams in city tendencies.
To
Does anyone
believe that a states'-rights
the president's chair could have taken
ing with the nation-wide beef industry

trol
my
take an illustration of a kind most unfavorable for
contention:
Bryan
any other course
when
the time for
had arrived than was taken by a republican
in
in deal-
con-
its
do not mean
that a different course could not conceivably be taken, nor that

different
men with different backgrounds of representation would not
react differently, nor that
under a Bryan the day of the issue would
have been exacty the same as under a Roosevelt; nor do

that a
Bryan out
mean
would not announce a policy opposed
of office
But given the national scope
to that of a Roosevelt in office.
of
and of its customers, given also its foreign trade, given

the emergency for its control which was bound to come through
its own growth and methods, if not in one year then in another,
given presidential representation of the mass of the people on
the industry
approximately the same
level,
could a states'-rights president
have found a different solution from any other president
answer
Or
is
again, can anyone
who has examined
the transportation
business of the United States carefully enough to note

foundations, expect a Bryan states'-rights
domination
is
its
to
once become apparent.

is
It
must
trivial
an
ideal,
importance at
yield almost without a struggle."
the antipathy to a strong executive, which, in
this late stage of its history

'
interstate
The answer
If "states' rights" presents itself as
weakness and secondary position and

then there
its
plan of government
have a shadow of a hope for success
not in dispute.
And
The
most decidely. No.
during which
it
has been a high and
Considering the amount of attention that will be given in Part II to the
process of ideals and to ascertaining what
is
actually
meant when
ideals are talked
about, I do not need to touch on that phase of the subject here, where
concerned with demolishing

use as social causes.
stuff ideals or ideal things as far as
am
solely
concerns their
Tin; PROCESS
n4
dry,
bloodk-ss,
lliin,
demand that
very peculiarly an idea or
is,
In face of the requirements of govern-
instructive.
ideal is very
OF GOVERNMENT
ment it has almost ceased to pretend to amount to anything.

Only as it is pumped full of life by some vigorous specific objection
even the
to a ])arliiiil;ir i)()li( y of llie executive does it now have
ai)pearance of nuaning.
Let us next take a look at socialism as an ideal. The socialist

position can be stated, without attempting to allow for various
Present economic conditions are
deviations, about as follows.
judged
and arc to be discarded. In contrast with them an

arrangement of social life can be set up. To
evil
ideal of a ditTerent
realize the ideal force will
the force
by spreading the
is
ideal.
the ideal, impart the ideal
by
and when enough people hold
The
it
The
they will realize
main
ideal according to such theories is the
true cause.
to get
Mis-
Hence propaganda.
sionaries of socialism, themselves led

to others,
way
probably be required, but the
it.
It is the
thing.
truth of this reflection of the socialist position
may be punctuated by
has ruled past and
socialistic society will
recalling the
still
be on a
Marxian position that force
present society, but that future
rules
new
an
level,
affair of virtue,
not
of force.
Can
work
I
ideal-thing,
this
socialism,
accomplish
can liardly hope to carry conviction at

but
will say, nevertheless, that
this stage for
it is
man,
idealistic
socialist,
the
events for the next few years and for the generations to
be very
all
lators
This
is it
my
probable that
if
asser-
every
woman, and child in the United States was a confirmed,
inveterate, dyed-in-the-wool
lists,
such
tion,
and
any
little
different
members
and
all
from what
of Congress
will
it
and
all
it is;
nor
is it to
officials
much what
not to say that socialism as a fact
to say that
If the president
it is.
governors and state legis-
mayors and aldermen and minor
our national evolution would be

is
be as
is
it
will
is to
were sociabe anyway.
not approaching, nor
deny that our present
propagandas have any value in the social process.

say that whatever
progress of
come would
But
come, the differentiated theory, the
socialist
it is
to
socialis-
IDEAS AND IDEALS AS CAUSES

tic
ideal thing, will not produce
state
it
it,
nor
will
115
even necessarily
it
adequately in advance.*
can
call to
witness European governments that contain strong
elements of socialism, and contrast them with those that have
almost no such elements.
can refer
to socialistic cities in fact
which are without socialism in theory, and

theoretical socialism which are yet no more
neighboring
socialistic
than
can appeal
to
Zealand operated by "individualistic" Englishmen
who never heed

teeming with
dominated by
socialistic in fact
are not so dominated.
cities that
New
to cities
There
the socialism ideal.
socialistic
is
Switzerland, too,
forms of organization, but in great part
bomb-proof against the propaganda of socialism.^

nearer home, anyone
who
likes
may
And
to
come
see municipal ownership
making great strides while the socialists stand aside and jeer,
knowing not the meaning of step by step nor yet the mechanics of
step after step.
Indi\ddualism
is
another ideal, mighty indeed, to judge by
its
Yet the most rabid, cock-sure, intemperate, proselyphilosophical individualist I ever knew had the misfortune
broadsides.
tizing,
to live in
was waging its fight with the

he debated and made many speeches
Chicago while that
traction companies.
At
first
against municipal ownership.
city
But, by-and-by, being the possessor
of no traction securities and having
"down-trodden" whose
lively
sympathies with the
salvation, of course, lay in individualism,
he became a municipal-ownership advocate.
Soon he was strenu-
ous in proving that municipal ownership was true individuahsm.

After a while the country
1
The work
of socialistic
cussed in due time.

2
had
railroad rates to regulate,
propaganda as a representative
See especially Part
II,
and beef
activity will be dis-
chap. xix.
Macy's interesting account of his personal observaAmerican Journal of Sociology. He contrasts the development
See, for example, Jesse
tions in Vol. II of the
of public ownership with the lack of interest in socialism.
As
to the general char-
acter of the Swiss he says their predilection for democratic habits appears only in
the mountain cantons, and that there "their democratic ways and so-called
demo-
were the only obvious means of subsistence." They are "victims of

democratic habits." For New Zealand see Cockburn, Publications 0} the American
Academy 0} Political and Social Science, No. 264, quoted at length by Ward,
cratic virtues
Pure
Sociology, p. 562.
mi;
uf,
to insptH
iind
I,
to legal stakes,
my
and
friend
insunmce companies' managers to tic hand and foot

and insurance policy-holders to take under its wing,
was for all these movements. But he was just as
an individualist
great
Anyone who admires a
still.'
volume
right here.
It is
is
invited to stop reading
useless to go on.
might say something also about the noisy old anti-ideal
may
the Irrm
years ago
seat
be used
made
on the
the task useless.
tips of
accomplished that
There
because
it
is
The
Today
if
or three
the progress of
rout of paternalism from
tongues and the points of pens
it is
Two
the bugaboo, paternalism.
would have been worth while.
it
events has
its
continue to admire, but he
may
world,
prestidigital
might in molding the destinies of the
ideal like that, because of its
this
OF GOVERNMENT
l-KOCESS
is
so thoroughly
almost admitted.
another ideal which
has meant so
much
may
be touched in
all
to those unfortunates
a hundred generations have had so
much need
of
it,
reverence
who
for half
yet which has
been as impotent as any of these others in evohing social Hfe.
mean
the ideal of the City of
earth.
And
it is
most useful
God, of the Kingdom of Heaven on

for
our purpose because of the
many
and the manifold favorable circumstances which have

been given it in which to show its power. It would be hard, indeed,
centuries
for eyes not blinded
trace the
power of
or
one will by the vision, to

on Christendom's growth. All too
glorified, if
this ideal
clearly history points to this, that, or the other factor, or set of

factors, as responsible for this, that, or the other softening of the
brutalities of
life,
but the ideal does not appear
among them,
unless sometimes in the courtesy guise of their spokesman.

Is the City of
God
nearer to us today with our slums and our
wars of million armed
men
sand years ago,
hundred years ago, a thousand years ago
fifteen
against million than
it
was two thou?
Letourncau says {Property, p. 242): "Is it not always seen in critical times
danger that the greatest individualists lay claim to the social solidarity
which they turned up their noses in days of peace and prosperity?" Dicey in
of public
at
Law and Puhlk Opinion (p. 301) notes that individualists are very apt indeed
wander into the wrong camp at times. And Simmel {Ititertiational Monthly
Vol. V, p. 104) remarks that many thoroughgoing individualists in Germany are
his
to
to be found enrolled in the social-democratic party.
AND IDEALS
IDEAS
Has
AS CAUSES
117
God from the days of

Middle Ages down into our factory regime ? Has
there been progress toward the City of
the guilds in the
the economic ideal of the Gospels implanted itself anywhere, even
with the shghtcst visible results
The
voice of Tolstoi, lifted as
it is
for the ideal, speaks all too plain a
has
to offer is for Tolstoi lost
The
No.
best the world
with the worst in the perspective.
Best and worst alike must, for him, be born again.
These
ideals,
whatever
else they
may
be, are, as
independent
or even semi-independent factors in explaining the social
life and
At every point, at every
moment, in any form in which they may seem to be working, they
need themselves more explanation than the phenomena which
the social progress, just nothing at
all.
They
they are said to be producing.
are "talk," and at that not
even talk that goes to the point, but talk at long range, talk that
colors, that Hghts up, that pleases aesthetically, that stimulates,
but that for the purposes of close investigation

as
established.
They do not help us
obstruct our vision.
when they
only
the wheels.
but
Whsit
trifling
to understand.
be definitely
Rather they
meaning they have
are seen from beneath where
On
negligible except
may
the surface, taken at their
lie
own
will
appear
the wheels within
valuation, they are
illusion.
It
seems probable
of certain typical
to
me
that
when
enter on detailed criticism
works in which ideas and ideals are used as
pretative agents, I shall be answered not so

in
is
exact meaning at any given time and place
its
my
objections, as that I
am
much
that I
inter-
am wrong
falsely attributing to these writers
meaning for the words idea and ideal, and a process of using them,
which they do not intend: that, in other words, I have merely
knocked down a straw
To make
it
man
of
my own
setting up.
clear that ideals are actually used
by
scientific
writers in the stuff sense, I desire to give a series of quotations,
picked almost at random.
None
of the mystic philoso])hcrs of
an older generation are on the list and with but a

exception none such of this generation will be found there.
history of
First,
John Stuart Mill: In discussing the
logic of
single
the moral
IIIK
ii8
GOVERNMENT
PROCESS OF
sciences Mill iinnounccs wiUiout suflicicnt analysis
and with no
paramount" element in
mankind,
"inchidinf^ the nature of the beliefs which by any means they have
arrived at, concerning themselves and the world by which they are
Social existence is only possible by a disciplining
surrounded.'"
of the ymwerful {)ropensities of human nature, "which consists in
proof that the " j)redominant and almost
social progression is the state of speculative faculties of
common
subordinating them to a
change "has had for
great social
system of opinions."
its
Every
precurser a great change in
and modes of thinking of society." The order of

human progression in all respects "will mainly depend on the order
of progression in the intellectual convictions of mankind, that is,
the opinions
on the law of the successive transformation of human opinions."

In his Representative Government he says, "One person with a
belief is a social
he says:
elements of
in their
some
power equal
to ninety-nine
In the Political Economy
ests."'
have
who have
only inter-
lost the exact reference
"I regard social schemes as one of the most valuable

human improvement." These views are mild indeed
emphasis of the thing-nature of ideals as compared
v^dth
that follow.
Professor
W. W.
Willoughby, opening a volume on mixed
metaphysics and formal political science, says: "Ideals of right

constitute the essentially active principles in our social
and
politi-
cal life."3
Adams, excusing to himself his own

of the most substantial elements of
"Individualism is an historic force and
Professor Henr}^ Carter

vivid appreciation of
social
some
structure, says:
not a formal argument."
Also, " the industrial controversies of our
own times are an endeavor so to reconstruct the code of ethics," etc*

Bluntschli says: "The ideological acceptation of Liberty and
Equality has
I
A System
are from the
filled
France with ruins and drenched
of Logic,
same
Book VI, chap,
x, sec. 7.
The
it
with blood. "s
three following quotations
section.
New
Representative Government,
Social Justice, p.
"American Economic Association," Economic Studies, Vol.
Theory
York, 1873, p.
23.
i.
oj the State, 2d ed.,
English translation, p.
6.
II,
pp. 12, 19, 20.
IDEAS
AND IDEALS
Professor Richard T. Ely says:
man
history of
From
AS CAUSES
"The
119
history of ideas
is
time to time, in the history of
the
man-
kind, an idea of such tremendous import has found acceptance in
and hearts
the minds
men that it has been

human race."'
of
in the progress of the
Professor Patten, despite
all
his
He
the French Revolution"
is
era
materialistic interpretation,
keeps his ideas in the form of good substantial soul-stuff

things, not function.
new
followed by a
always
able to talk of the "ideas that created
ideas which came bodily from England,
but which were kept "within proper bounds" in that country by
"the particular conditions surrounding their origin."^

is
Adam
able to say of
"But
for
him
Also he
Smith's system of thought, taken concretely:
the reaction against the
new
conditions would have
been more severe and England might have missed the opportuni-
development that had been opened up."^
ties for
Some
of the
democratic ideals, for example, which Professor Patten finds on
hand capable
of use in this material
way
after
he has given them
a sort of physical origin are, in an older group,

equality,
and
and
fraternity;
justice, liberty,
newer group, tendencies toward

and proportional representation,
in a
the referendum, the initiative,
and the living wage, surplus values, progressive taxation, the single
tax, and the right to live, to work, and to enjoy the fruits of the
earth. 4
Durkheim, despite
say:
"As soon
become
all
the objectivity of his method,
is
able to
as a fund of representations gets built up, these
partially
autonomous
realities
which
live their
own
pecu-
liar hfe."s
I
Studies of the Evolution of Industrial Society, p.
'
Development
Ibid., p. 243.
of
3.
English Thought, p. 21.
The Theory
Revue de m^taphysique
of Social Forces, pp. 139, 140.
de toute conscience sociale

sociaux, la maniere dont
nature du substrat.
at
de morale, 1898, p. 299:

en rapport avec
est dtroitement
ils
sont groupes et distribues,
Mais une
fois
mati^re premiere
nombre des ^l^ments
etc., c'est
^ dire, avec la
qu'un premier fond de representations
ainsi constitue, elles deviennent des realites partiellement
d'une vie propre."
"La
le
s'est
autonomes qui vivent
"
I20
'Illi:
OF GOVERNMENT
I'KOCESS
Ralzcnhofcr, despite his struggle theory, is led along by his

jK)sitivc jnetaphysics to frecjuent assertions such as: "The funda-
mental jmnciples of civilization are the civilizing ideas working

through social politics/" and the importance he gives to the
"Zeitgeist" and other kinds of "Gcistcr"
Seligman,
who has made
very great.
is
special study of the materialistic inter-
pretation of history, sets forth as one of the three factors of impor-
tance which will dominate our industrial future, "the existence of

"= which is "the flower and fruit of all its
the democratic ideal,
forerunners," and he
"emergence
the
the
new
industrial order
depend on
This in his Eco-
In his essay on the " Economic Interpretation of History,
nomics.
we
makes
of a healthy public opinion."
find iiim allowing for
"conditions" on the one side, and for
"ideals" on the other, and insisting on the use of both factors in

so solid
and substantial that
progress consists in the attempt to realize the
he can say, "all

unattainable
him
Ideals are for
interpretation.
the
ideal, the
morally perfect. "^
Mackenzie in his Introduction to Social Philosophy pictures

engaged in the reahzation of certain ideals, with which
society as
he
is
so well acquainted that he
matically about them.
Two
is
able to
but
Just at present society
if it is
wise
it
is
and go in
which
of course the writer's pet.
learns
all
about the organic ideal, sets
wiW.
never arrive.
follows:
"Two
large extent
now
its
jaw, and hurries after
have already been adopted and
We
in the structure of society
to
are
which remain."^
Wesen und Zweck der PolUik, Vol.
'
Principles 0} Economics, p. 600.
The Economic
Ill, pp. 396, 397.
Interpretation 0} History,
Part
fl.
it,
difficulty in talking as
presented with the alternative of adopting one or the other of
the two ideals
136
for the organic ideal
Presumably, unless society
Mackenzie has no
of these ideals
embodied
and
been engaged with in the
trying to realize a sociaHstic ideal,
will quit all three
is
it
talk dog-
of these ideals, the aristocratic
that of individual Uberty, society has

past.
them and
list
Introduction to Social Philosophy, pp. 431, 432.
II,
chap,
iii,
especially pp.
IDEAS
An
AND IDEALS
AS CAUSES
121
elaborate sociological study of the whole group of ideals of
made by Bougie who has used
equality has been
Durkheim with
inspiration also
these ideals as a social product,
the
from Simmel.'
method
Bougie
and shows, or aims
to
of
treats
show,
how
they appear only at particular times and under particular condi-
Then by comparing
tions.
cases,
he strives
determine the
to
objective factors that condition them, such as the size, homogeneity,
complexity, and organization and density of the societies in which
they
exist.
That
part of his study, whatever
concern us here, but rather the fact that

occurred to
him
to
try to get
its
value, does not
never seems to have
it
these ideals
into thoroughgoing
Instead he keeps them segregated
functioning with the society.
After he has built them up from sociological

them a very vigorous power of their own (compare
the quotation from Durkheim above) and indeed attributes to
them the leadership and guidance of modern society. "Equality,
as directing and explaining principle, imposes on our states civil,
juridical, political, and economic reforms, so it seems to us."
in concrete masses.
factors he grants
" Equality is the soul of the greatest
but he adds that he does not
modem
the capacity of modifying social forms at

is,
the ideal has to be built up;
but
it is
revolutions," he says,
mean unquahfiedly
it
has
to
its
o^vn sweet will.
work
personification or,
if
its
That
environment:
It is
the
and
same old
the term can be pardoned, thing-ification, of
the psychic factors, despite
all
the objective
method
of study,
most exceptionally entertaining specimen of what can be
done with ideals
is
Ludwig
Stein's conviction that
in three days, given a chance, could destroy
labored three centuries to construct."^
may
in
nevertheless a "thing" which can be taken concretely
applied as a cause of alterations in society.
that the ideal has
"the anarchists
what authority has
Side by side with these
be put an illustration of what the ideal theory can accomplish
in the
way
of
making the world topsy-turvy. It is W. H. Malremark that "socialistic theories merely cause a
lock's interesting
im
Les idees rgalitaires.
'
Schmoller's Jahrbiich
deuischen Reich, Vol.
The
filr
XXVI.
quotations are from p. 239.

Gesetzgebung,
Verwaltung und Volkswirthschajt
122
'II
IK
OF GOVERNMENT
I'ROCESS
bainn and arlilKial (lisconlent.'" A system of interpretation

which can make discontent, whether barren or not, f )llow a theory
But Dr. E. J. Dilis ripe tor a j)roccss de lunalico inquirendo.
Contemporary Review,
alTairs for the
on foreign
lon, llie writer
does almost equally well when in his excitement he assures his

readers that " the Russian movement is a revolt, not merely against
this political
And
system or that, but against
of dragging in the
whose principle
all
authority whatever.'"
Benjamin Kidd, whose method

"future" as a factor in social interpretation and
cannot forbear referring
to
of projected efficiency reduces the idea of ideals
to a brilliant absurdity.^
I will
up from
only mention in addition two naive expressions, swelling
which show right on
the heart,
of
which are made
is
the
all
its
native soil the
and ideals the
the ideas
scientists use.
stufif
out
There
famous resolution adopted by a mass meeting of the people

Berlin in 1893 that, "This stupidity must be done away with
of
who
that the fellow
hasn't
any money and can't
find
any work
must go hungry in the presence of accumulated stores of proviWe may heartily sympathize with the feelings of the
sions."''
mass meeting, even while we laugh at its expression. Here, howwhich we may laugh without being troubled
ever, is another case in
When
by our sympathies.
circle"
from the
official
it
was proposed
ballot in
to abolish the " party
Chicago municipal elections,
Cook County Republican Central Committee
the
sidered resolutions declaring " against any and
ing in such radical
manner on
enormous proportion
the rights
of population as
'
Aristocracy and Evolution, p. 368.
'
Contemporary Review, January, 1906,
"The
all
seriously con-
measures infring-
and freedom
p.
On
the
an
p. 121.
controlling center of our evolutionary process in our social history
in short, not in the present at all, but in the future," Principles oj

tation, p. 6.
of such
would be affected by the
is,
Western Civili-
same page he calls this his "new master principle." On

"a struggle in which efficiency in the future is the
53 he says he has to do with
determining quality."
Cf. also pp. 8, 12, 94.
"Die Unvcrnunft muss aus der Welt geschafift werden, dass wer kein Geld
hat and keine Arbeit findet, angesichts aufgehaufifter Vorrathe von Genussmitteln
4
verhungern miisse."
IDEAS
AND IDEALS
AS CAUSES
123
proposed change in our electoral system," and further, "that we

regard this attempt
....
an unwarranted move in restraint
as
pubUc
of the expression of the
and an insulting
will,
reflection
on
the intelligence of an cnhghtencd constituency and a treacherous
blow
to
popular Hbcrty."'
Funny
its
ideals to
which
man
is, it is all
of
one piece,
goes, with the noblest
life
ever gave utterance.
Section
An
as this
place in the process of social
so far as
Morgan
II,
interestingly naive case of the use of ideas in social inter-
pretation
is to
be found in Lewis H. Morgan's Ancient Society, a
work highly valued because
marked in our
primitive communities.
Morgan,
of the progress
knowledge of the structure of

unfortunately,
was not content to

felt called upon
it
set forth his results just as
he
them together on a set

individual brains, and passing
secured them, but
of "ideas," which, existing in
to string
through an evolution there, were supposed
to explain the social
doings of the individual.
Perhaps
it is
going too far
on these "ideas,"
in reahty.
to
for they are
say that the work
The "ideas" were
inserted
up his
psychology he commonly apphed to
gan
felt
the need of touching
so far they were
little
were appealed
also
is
strung together
prominent more in appearance than
now and
tale in
then
his o^\^l everyday hfe.
passing satisfactions of the wTiter.
to occasionally
when
in
its
It is just
because his book
main matter and because
attached to
it,
up elaborate
its
that I have selected

theories that rest
with exceptional simpUcity
it
is
Here they
so substantial
"ideas" are so superficially

for examination before taking
on "ideas"
how
In
They
his material for direct
interpretation of facts in terms of facts gave out.
served as stop gaps.
when Mor-
accordance with the
little
as causes.
It
reveals
value such "ideas" have
for the student of society.

It
may be
was not
observed]evcn in the Table of Contents that the writer
satisfied to discuss first the
coveries, next the

'
growth of inventions and
dis-
growth of government, then the growth of the
Chicago daily papers of December
12, 1906.
,24
It seemed necessary
family, and finally the growth of property.
to head his four
statement,
matter-of-fact
to him, in place of this
parts; "Growth of Intelligence through Inventions and Discoveries,"

" Growth of the Idea of Government," " Growth of the Idea of the
Family," and "(Growth of the Idea of Property." Such a use of

terms, we are all ready to arlmit, does not help the work, and
would hardly
ai)i)ear in
any book treating of the development of
institutions published today.
we
In the Introduction
him
find
saying:
The idea of property has undergone a (similar) growth and development.

Commencing at zero in savagery, the passion for the possession of property,
as the representative of accumulated subsistence, has now become dominant
human mind
over the
in civilized races.
one of the very few cases in which he uses a feeling to

explain anything, but even here his context seems to make it
mean much the same thing to him as an idea. At any rate this idea
This
is
or feeling
is to
him a
characteristic, or
quahty, or possession of
the individual mind, which spreads and "grows" and brings about
a system of life with which he finds serious fault. Later on he
"when
us that
tells
the intelhgence of
man
rises to the height of
the great question of the abstract rights of property," then
may
modification of the present order of things
Morgan
studied
studied
institutions
achievements
human achievements and found growth. He

and found grow^th. He looked upon the
inventions
and he looked upon the
him
"a
be expected."^
and discoveries
primarily
institutions in the
as
same way.
ideas;
This led
to write
The
facts indicate the
gradual formation and subsequent development of
aspirations.
Those which hold the most prominent
be generalized as growths of the particular ideas with which they
severally stand connected.
Apart from inventions and discoveries they are
certain ideas, passions,
positions
may
the following:
Family;
and
I,
Subsistence;
V, Religion;
.... The
Government;
II,
III,
Language;
VI, House Life and Architecture;
principal institutions of
IV,
The
VII, Property.^
mankind have been developed from a
few primary germs of thought.^
Ancient Society, p. 342.
Ibid., p. 4.
substance of human history is bound up in

the growth of ideas which are wrought out by the people and expressed in their
3 Ibid., p. 17.
Cf. p. 302:
institutions, usages, inventions,
"The
and
discoveries."
AND IDEALS
IDEAS
As an
evolutionist he holds that
AS CAUSES
125
we have "the same brains"
that our ancestors had, but practicallv he thinks those brains are
soHdified into very different organisms
they have different "ideas"
in them.
Some
We
of the excrescences of
modem
civilization,
such as Mormonism, are
human
brain.
have the same brain, perpetuated by reproduction, which worked
in the
seen to be
relics of the old
skulls of barbarians
savagism not yet eradicated from the
and savages
in
by-gone ages; and
it
has come
down
to
us
laden and saturated with the thoughts, aspirations, and passions, with which
it
was busy through the intermediate
periods.
It is
many
are so
revelations of
its
the
same brain grown
These outcrops of barbarism
older and larger with the experience of the ages.
ancient proclivities.
They
are explainable as a
species of mental atavism.'
The "few germs
of
thought" which explain our institutions
"have been guided by a natural

attribute of the brain itself."^
logic
which formed an
Apphed
essential
we
to the gens,
are told
was "the idea of a gens" that developed, and that "it came
upon three principal conceptions, namely, the bond of
a pure hneage through descent in the female hne, and non-
that
it
into being
kin,
intermarriage in the gens."^
Surely such "conceptions" as these
regarded as existing before the gens and as being responsible for

its
appearance must have stretched our forefathers' reasoning
power very materially. Except in degree they

worse than any other stuff ideas used as causes.
httle later
we
find
him
are,
however, not
the idea of a chief executive magistrate."'*
It is
have plenty of chief executive magistrates in

the political scientists put together have not
a lucid, coherent "idea" of that
thought he had
it,
official
yet.
Ibid., p. 61.
to
And
Ibid., p. 61.
Ibid., p. 69.
work out
it
when
every day's
where the "few primary germs of thought"

upon primary human necessities" to produce vast
Cf. also p. 255,
results.
'
We
Montesquieu
and our forefathers thought they had
are represented as "working
develop
no wonder.
managed
even
to
this world, but all
they drafted our American federal Constitution.

I
"had not
discussing a tribe which
advanced far enough in a knowledge of government
Cf. also p. 266,
where a similar phrase reappears.

4 Ibid., p.
119.
of government
nil; I'kocESS
126
ti'U'granis in
how wrong
may
the newspapers
they
ail
up
ProccTcling, Morjân takes

unit of
be said
prove conclusively
to
were.
the development of the locality
government as the successor of the clan
the conditions under
which
it
discusses
appeared,' but in this he regards
it
Greek and Roman
himself as merely indicating the background.

brain was necessary for
He
unit.
and was
"Anterior to
real cause.
its
cxjH'riencc, a township, as the unit of a political system, was
Romans
abstruse enough to tax the Greeks and

their capacities before the conception
to the
was formed and
depths of
set in prac-
Also of the same development he says that
tical oi)eration."'
"such a change would become possible only through a conviction

that the gens could not be made to yield such a form of government
as their advanced condition
a meaning which
loose
is
demanded. "^
fairly well defined,
This
we
if
last
take
words the general tendency of the times.
it
sentence has
sum up in
Taken as an
to
explanation of what happened, rather than as a cursory descrip-
meaninglessness
tion, its
Morgan
is at
once apparent.
also regards the transition
from
his
consanguine to his
punaluan family as "produced by the gradual exclusion of own

brothers and sisters from the marriage relation, the evils of which
could not forever escape
human
observation,"'* this being a case
of his use of the "idea," not for self-satisfaction but for the cover-
ing up of ignorance as to causes.

It is clear he cannot prove that
such an idea existed, and equally clear that it is nothing more
than the apphcation of his o\^^l opinion of the meaning of the
change
to the
minds of the
repeated thus:
worked
way
its
"It
is
actors.
into general adoption
beneficial influence."^
The same
fair inference that the
This assertion,
explanation
through a discover)' of
it
is
punaluan custom
may be
added,
is
its
almost
argument in proof of the existence of such a family, beyond

sweeping inference from his "Turanian system of consan-
his only
his
guinity."
Again we
find
him indicating what might have happened
Ancient Society, pp. 268, 311, 338,

339, 360, 361.
'
Ibid., p. 218.
3 Ibid., p.
322.
4 Ibid., p.
s
424.
Ibid., 503.
Rome "had
in
state. "^
the
Roman
127
people wished to create a democratic
Also in connection with the patricians of Rome, he
discusses " the two classes of citizens thus deliberately
by affirmative
sarily created
These
illustrations
growth of
may
and unneces-
legislation."^
have had
to
do with Morgan's use of the
specific ideas in his explanations.
few quotations
be added to show his use of an expanding intellectual faculty
He
or capacity.
speaks of the "feebleness of the power of abstract
Talking of confederacies of Indian
reasoning"^ in early society.
"Wherever a confederacy was formed
he says:
tribes,
evince the superior intelligence of the
itself
felicitous phrase, for
people, "'^
it
would of
a pccuharly
our purposes, as indicating clearly the kind
of material out of
which the alleged "superior intelligence" in
sociological theory
is
made.
the ultimate stage of organization

its
existence
"As the confederacy was

among the American aborigines
Again:
would be expected in the most
intelligent tribes only. "5
Proofs of the existence of such intelhgence apart from the very facts
the intelhgence
is
summoned
to explain, are, of course, not given,
for the excellent reason that they cannot be given,
than elsewhere.
Again:
"An
any more here
assembly of the people (Greece),
with the right to adopt or reject public measures, would e\ince an
amount
of
progress in intelhgence and knowledge beyond the
These
Iroquois."^
If I
illustrations are sufficient for
were wrong in their particular uses,

ful of
time to hst them in this way.
as already indicated, to
is,
our purpose.
simply wanted to contend that these ideas and capacities

it
would be foohsh and wasteInstead of that,
show how
utterly
use of similar elements in interpretation
is.
my
mistaken any such
What do
explanations add to our comprehension of the evolution

is
discussing
Some
of
them
purpose
all
these
Morgan
think any impartial reader will answer. Nothing.
clearly are
made
to order to
fit
the facts.
Others
bare reflections of the facts in gcnerahzed, or "psychic,"
are
terms.
Others again can hardly be characterized as anything
Ibid., p. 336.
4 Ibid., p. 123.
Ibid., p. 339.
Ibid., p. 41.
6 Ibid., p. 24$.
Ibid., p. 126.
128
I'KOCESS
riii;
more than (ircumlocutions,

j)r()iKrty"
example, when "the idea of
as, for
used instead of simple "property."
is
Morgan's
of government
real contributions to
our knowledge of ancient society
He worked
are of an entirely dilTerent nature.

acteristics of the clan as
Roman
the r.reek and
out the main char-
a social organization, and
first
identified
He
gens with the American Indian clan.
analyzed the nature of the transition from tribally organized to
He
organized societies.
territorially
called attention to the con-
nection between property and tribal evolution on the one hand,
and
between property and marriage evolution on the other hand.
He
He
made
the
first
study of systems of consanguinity.
great
studied social evolution in terms of technical achievements
He
the utilization of the physical environment.
"comminghng of
place to such factors as the
and advantage
ority of subsistence,
gations as these have entitled

investigators
of
him
Such
investi-
rank among American
But what of his "ideas" and other
society.
psychic qualities and faculties
because they are utterly useless.

his
diverse stocks, superi-
of position."'
to front
and of
gave a prominent
They
are long since forgotten
Only when he could not lay
hands on substantial factors for his interpretations, or when
perchance he wished
vidual
man
to nail
as he conceived
down his conclusions upon the indihim to be, did he have recourse to
them.'
As with Morgan so
factors; only,
it is
the procedure
is
is it
rare in
with every other writer
good
scientific
work
whD
uses such
that the naivety of
so manifest.
Section
III.
Giddings
Professor Franklin H. Giddings has done

in tile interpretation of society
on what he
much
calls the
careful
work
"objective"
Ancient Society, p. 39.

not improbable that Morgan's reliance on "ideas" and conceptions in
times of difficulty helped to seduce him into building up his fictitious consanguine
'
It is
and punaluan families out of systems of consanguinity.
If this is true it adds

force to the preceding criticism, for it makes ven,' clear indeed the lurking peril
of such factors.
The errors he fell into here have called upon his head whole
volumes of sarcastic criticisms, which have bhnded many eyes to the splendid
achievements he secured when dealing directly and unwaveringly with
facts.
IDEAS
side
that
AND IDEALS AS CAUSES

and
in terms of physical
is
He
sociology as such.
vital facts
129
introduced into
own
holds, however, that in our
noble
times the objective process has become subordinated though of

course
underlying everything
still
tively decides
its
what
wants
it
and
that
be and
itself to
now
society subjec-
sets forth to
accomphsh
He
aim.
social will,
does not confine himself to generahties about the

but endeavors to locate these predominant factors of
present-day social causation in certain ideals which
he detects controUing our social
is
up with emotion
utterly indifferent for our purpose.
The
ideals which, in the latest presentation of his theory,
dominant
are unity,
now to
They
merely mention them

liberty,
and
thinks
life.
Ideals for Giddings are ideas touched
exact definition
he
equality.
the
great
he finds
what he means
are stratified on top of
indicate
one another in that order.
We
now concerned with his "objective" interpretation

Neither are we concerned with his "objective" inter-
are not
of society.
pretation of the ideals themselves in terms of the character of the
environment and the composition of the population.

that does concern us
is
The
thing
that these ideals, once formed, are for
him
exceedingly concrete positive things, which can be precisely designated- by the words used to
above
and which operate
name them
directly
such as the three given
and by
their
own
force
on
social
action, thereby producing social institutions.

It is
our problem
these ideals have
now
to see
whether he actually shows that
any such claim
to
independent operation.
them in
In all of them the
chronological order to show his development.
background of the objective process must be assumed. That
shall quote a series of passages
from
his works, giving
does not explain away the "thing-ness" of the ideals;

serves to emphasize
"A community
it
rather
it.
continually endeavors to perfect
accordance with the
its
type in
prevailing conception of an ideal good."'
This position furnishes the basis for Giddings'
"first
law of social
choices," in which he arranges the series of ideal goods that have

'
Principles 0} Sociology, 1896, pp. 407, 408.
'
i.ô
'II ri;
us (i) those of [KTSonal force;
inlliKnlial,
l)i-rn
(3) integrity,
ideals;
TROCKSS of government
and
For the conservation and

of ideals, the social
The
mind
(2)
utilitarian
(4) self-realization.
and
[)crfection of social relations
for the realization
creates institutions.'
third stage of civic evolution brings with
it
as a characteristic product
an influence that counteracts the dangers which have been described, and offers
to the
community an assurance
influence
is
a growing ethical
and progress.
of continued stability
spirit,
That
and the formation of the highest mode of
like-mindedncss, namely the ethical.'
consciousness that maintains social cohesion in a
It is the rational-ethical
progressive democracy.^
Civilization
its
we found
to
be a product of the passion for homogeneity, and
policies to be expressions of that passion.*
The
individualities of nations are a product of their ideals rather
than of
their institutions.
The
creation of ideals
When
itself is
is
one of the highest
determined by the scale of social
The
human mind.^
activities of the
the conditions favorable to rational social choice exist the choice

values.''
social values in his scale are
made
to
correspond to four
types of character which Giddings sets up, the forceful, the convivial, the austere,
and the
These types
rationally conscientious.
correspond with the four varieties of influential ideals mentioned

in connection with the quotation
Sociology.
is
may
It
able to indicate
how
these types of character
through analysis of the
The
above from the Principles
be noted in passing that the only
The most immediate
stimuli
is
move men
to
'
The Theory
Elements 0} Sociology, 1898,
and the most important of
of Socialization, 1897, P- 33p. 320.
321.
Ibid., p. 347.
s
See also
p. 283.
Democracy and Empire, 1900, pp. 315, 316.
6 Ibid., p.
is
modem
Of
all
social life
the stimuli
mighty and glorious co-operation none can be compared
3 Ibid., p.
be studied
CAident.
are products of past responses to yet earlier stimuli

that
may
they are set up to explain.*
ver}' social facts
significance of this state of affairs
of
way Giddings
339.
Inductive Sociology, 1901, p. 177.
Ibid., p. 84.

The
with a great ideal.

lift
men
ideals of liberty, of freedom,
today in gigantic waves of collective effort
131
and of enlightenment
like resistless tides of the
sea.'
The
The
Declaration of Independence was an ideal and nothing more.
federal Constitution
was a stupendous
ideal.'
Again, placing ideals at the top of a series of which the lower
terms are danger, menace, bribes, and the strong personality, he
"These new and higher

become a factor
says:
stimuli are ideals
and
it is
these
of chief importance in the higher
that presently
forms of social causation. "^

Following an explanation that "social ideals arise in the minds
of
are
individuals,"
exceptional
communicated
to others,
and
spread until they are generally accepted, he says that they "have
the
power
to call forth persistent effort to
transform the external
order of things into a realization of the ideal."'*
A number of
passages have to do with the possibility of organ-
men by great ideals, when
izing
together,
nothing else will serve to bind them
and he even convinces himself that while democracy
normally not possible for a heterogeneous population,
made
possible "if there
is
it
is
can be
a practically universal belief in the
superiority of democratic forms "^
which
is
a most perfect example
of begging the question.

It is after this
progress has been
made
that Giddings, abandon-
ing at least for immediate use his earlier series of ideals, sets
the series of three ideals, which he believes have
the
section
history of developed society
up
dominated the
three ideals mentioned at the
He
unity, liberty, and equality.^
was necessary to bind the society together, and
how the people knew this, and how they thereupon decided that
unity was their greatest need, and made this their ideal, and with
By-anda view to achieving it took various and sundry measures.
by they discovered that they had been too successful by half, that
they had got more unity than they needed, and so they set their
beginning of this
shows how
'
first it
The Theory
of Social Causation,
Association," Series III, Vol. V, No.
2,
"Publications of the American Economic
1904, p. 149.
Ibid., p. 149.
4 Ibid., p. 164.
Ibid., p. 163.
Ibid., p. 168.
^ Ibid.,
pp. 164-70.
'
132
bniins
iit
work under high
ideal to chase.
the pattern of liberty,
quated
is
hit
upon
liberty as a better
thereupon had
to
be molded on
liberty got too irritating, in fact, wherc-
till
commotion produced Minerva-like
uj)on another mental

tMjuality,
and
jirissurc-
All things social
the ideal of
which nowadays everybody who is not hopelessly antipursuing just as hard and fast as he can. Professor
Giddings does not write so irreverently about his ideals, of course,

but 1 am positive I am doing him no essential injustice, in stating
One or two later quotations remain to be
the theory in that way.
given.
In presenting a series of eight forms of social organization
he says:
Society of the eighth type exists where a population collectively responds
by united
to certain great ideals that,
hension of mind by mind, confidence,
The
service are the social bonds.
efforts, it strives to realize.
fidelity;
social type
and an
is
Compre-
altruistic spirit of social
the Idealistic.
In a discussion of sovereignty, Professor Giddings sets forth
modes
government, and four
four well-defined
of
modes
well-defined "groups of theories or tendon the nature and scope of government,"
encies of speculation
He
of sovereignty, four well-defined
says
am
concerned only to point out certain conditions under which
men do
make such assumptions as those which the great political

have made and do in fact institute one or another of the forms of
as a matter of fact
theorists
government here described
in
approximate accordance with their theoretical
assumptions.'
From
the
same
article the following sentences also are
worth
quoting:
Next
to theories of rehgious
government and of the

foundly affected
obhgation theories of the rightful forms of
governmental power have most pro-
rightful scope of
human
To
feeUng
the extent that these theories are
formulas of feeling rather than of speculation there

that they are true products
is
a certain presumption
and expressions of some great
collective need.
-J
In Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau, Giddings finds three well-
known
theories to go with three of his four
>
American Journal
'
Political Science Quarterly,
Ibid., p. 3.
oj Sociology, Vol.
modes
(1904), p. 169.
March, 1906,
p. 21.
of sovereignty
IDEAS
AND roEALS
AS CAUSES
133
and modes of government, but for the fourth theory he is compelled

to drag up from an obscurity, which he himself admits, Thomas
This he puts at the basis of the
Paine's The Rights 0} Man.
American type of government as we had it in our first centun,' of
history.
Surely this
is
forcing things a good deal in the hunt for
And one may
ideal causes.
properly ask
why
the three
is it if
great ideals, unity, liberty, and equality, are actually dominating

history, that four
forms of government are discoverable
for surely
government those three great ideals would make themselves

most vividly and characteristically felt. But that is incidental.
in
Now
with regard to this whole theoretical position,
if
Giddings
some form of
propaganda or appeal to the emotions, one would have no reasonable criticism to bring against him because of his choice of language
But it is scientific work he is busying
that would be his affair.
were merely indulging in enthusiastic
talk, or in
himself with.
If
he were merely using his ideals
to indicate general tendencies
them providing one
of social development one could, again, accept
thought they
But
fairly reflected the tendencies.
social causation
which he
is
setting forth,
and
it is
his ideals are definite,
concrete factors in society which can be discovered

selves,
and
and when discovered can be used
a theory' of
all
by them-
to explain social activities
social institutions.
Here
account.
it is
man who
necessary to hold the

necessary to
It is
by holding them up
they explain, or,
if
make him
to the light
uses
them
to strict
establish his causes, either
by themselves, apart from the things
they are frankly put forth as hypothetical, after
the fashion of the once-flourishing chemical atom, by working
them through
clearly
and cleanly
in typical cases to
which they are
applicable.
Now how
question
does Giddings get his ideals
we must
face.
Unless I
he gets them in one of two ways.
am
That
is
the
first
completely blind to the truth,
Either (i) he takes them up as
a sort of essence or general characteristic or tendency of the very

facts
which they are used
to explain, or else (2)
he gets them from
the talk of the people, from their professions of faith, from their
PROCESS OF
134
nil:
own
cxphiiiiilions antl defense of
GOVERNMENT
what they are doing and in general
from their system of conversation.

is
1 1
not of necessity the case that there will be any identity
between results secured in these two different ways. That would

be something to prove, not to assume. If the latter way was
not of necessity true that the talk and
frankly followed, then
it
is
conversation relied on
is
what
of
knowing
in
advance that
it
it,
purports to be;
we have no way
so to speak, correctly states
itself.
That again would be something to prove, not to assume. But

passing these difTicultics for the moment, and confining our attention to the series of ideals, unity, liberty, equality, let us try to see
whether,
if
speech habits are the source from which they are
gathered, they are actually to be found there in the
way
it
would
be necessary to find them to justify Giddings' use of them.

Unity, to begin with, has rarely, if ever, been a national passion
Mind,
or enthusiasm.
do not mean that great nationahzing
movements are not found.
mean one does not
unity ideal as Giddings himself describes
passion to
to
make
all
be consciously
men
felt
it,
actually find the
where hterally "the
within the community more alike begins
and
to
make
itself
a power," where literally
"the passion for homogeneity seizes upon the whole population."*
has turned the

at the time of social action which
Liberty, no doubt, has been such a passion

dictionaries loose in floods
made
it is
to correspond.
but unfortunately
at jx'riods
when
it
it
to
Equality has also been such a passion,
has been a passion linked
^vith that of Uberty,
the tendencies were toward hberty facts (assuming
the general correctness of Giddings' analysis), instead of toward

equality facts.
to equality,
but
The
it
future according to Giddings
would be
ver}' difficult
must belong
indeed to find any impas-
among the peoples

who are making the fonvard march in that direction.
Where then does Giddings stand ? So far as he is gi^'ing us
general tendency of fact under the name of an ideal, he is not frank
sioned adoration of equahty in and for
about
itself,
and he
is confusing us.
So far as he is using the people's
adorations as his source of ideals the adorations do not square at
it
American Economic Associction,
III, Vol.
V, No.
2,
pp. 165, 166.
AND IDEALS
IDEAS
AS CAUSES
135
with the system, either at the beginning or at the end, while
all
middle there
in the
them
to see
How
How
if
is
Besides that there
confusion.
is
no
test of
they really are just what ihcy pretend to be.
can one take
can one be
this seriously for social causation ?
satisfied
with a theory that comes
down hard
on the federal Constitution as primarily a great national ideal, in

the very face of the struggles and quarrels of the constitutional
convention for the maintenance of pressing social interests
How
can one have confidence in the ideal as such a cause when

established social creed organizations, a formal
he knows that in
all
adherence
that
the larger
I
is all
is
demanded, and
and stronger the organization becomes
cannot
more inevitably
this the
?
see.
I will very frankly
admit that when an investigator

when he
tive " to the limit
on one side of his work, he
starts out
is
"objec-
will inevitably
reach a
with dead external factors in his interpretation,
when the "objective" will be

when he will be compelled to
up something more "human," something "subjective" to
point,
if
he
honest with himself,
is
him
recognized by
set
as not sufficing,
But that
carry his interpretation farther forward.'
is
primarily a
defect of the hard objectivity with which the start has been
made
and whether it is a defect or not I pass that question here it will

be no excuse for setting up arbitrary, artificial, unreal subjective
Suppose something
factors at the upper end of the interpretation.
is
needed
something
to offset the objective interpretation

real,
something that
something that can be frank about

operation.
Professor
His
ideals,
Giddings'
even
if
its
it
will
have
to
be
examination,
and definite in its

answer none of these
origin,
ideals
They must be shown
requirements.
will stand a test of
the door forthwith.
given the benefit of being hypothetical causes,
cannot for an instant be compared with the atoms in the older

chemistry.
Rather they are color flashes on the surface of the
materials with which the student of society must deal.

"
Cf. Elements 0} Sociology, p. 350:
duct of physical evolution.

logical evolution."
To
"Society
a great extent
it is
is
They
are
not a purely mechanical pro-
an intended product
of psycho-
of government
riiK rkucicss
i/)
mere surface forms or ai)i)<arances, better, if the issue is sharply

drawn, to forget than to attempt to manipulate in social interpretation.
Tiic people believe that the king's touch cures disease.
base pathology on the belief in the touch
wc-
we
monster?
fear of the
The rain-maker makes

i)rone in
his magic.
rain
The people
Have we here
falls.
There
must count.
ideals
their real value, not at their
own
no doubt about
They
it.
are
They must count
They
now the
allegation as to that value.
what they are
for just
other thing.
is
But they must be properly stated at
involved in the social fact.
must count
The
admiration of the supernatural power.
the foundation of meteorology
The
Shall
on the small boy's and the woman's
found a lluory of the state
lie
keeps order in the African village.
Mumbo-Jumbo
Shall
now
now
this,
The
honestly.
that,
sociological witch-
must be abandoned.
craft
Section IV.
Dicey
For the purpose of testing the value of the theory of ideas in

social interpretation, I
recent lectures
know
of
no work more instructive than the
on the relation between law and pubhc opinion in
England by the distinguished Oxford lawyer and
Venn
Dicey.'
ground more favorable
to
it.
authority of the highest rank
The author
that ideas govern history.
Next, he
to start with,
is
an
discuss-
sincerely convinced
it
here
which govern the law-making of
the process through
is
made
Finally he has
special study to discover the variety of ideas
opinion
is,
on the material which he
namely the laws of England.
ing,
publicist, Albert
Certainly one could nDt approach the theory on
deliberately his
legislative public
England, and
to trace
all its stages.
show that Dicey himself does not succeed in

what these ideas are, that he produces no proof
they have causal working except by citing certain imperfect,
I shall
attempt
to
establishing clearly
that
'
A. y. Dicey, Lectures on
England during
tite
Relation between
the Nineteenth Century,
Law and
London, 1905.
Public Opinion in
IDEAS AND IDE.ALS AS CAUSES
137
and indeed almost irrelevant sequences of events,
inconclusive,
that his very statements about the ideas are full of inconsistencies
even when most courteously examined, and
finally that the trouble
not in Dicey's imperfect investigation, but in his insoluble
lies
problem.
have no quarrel with the three periods of Enghsh law-making
which Dicey
finds in the last century
tive quiescence; the
the
first
a period of compara-
second of law-making which can fairly well
be denoted by the term individuaUstic; the third of law-making
which can
fairly well
me
be absurd for
be called coUectivistic.
to criticize in this field
It
would, of course,
without a vastly more
detailed knowledge of the material than I possess.
can assume
that the laws do group themselves in these three groups, concretely.
not to admit that the terms used for the last two periods,
This
is
with
all their
varied impHcations, are the best terms, nor that the
analysis has been pushed as deep as
is
desirable, but simply to
accept the three groups concretely, while pursuing the inquiry

as to whether
Dicey has produced idea systems as a matter of
fact,
to correspond.
who
wish
is
to
make
the further prehminary
remark that
laws, the passages I shall quote for attack will
charge of verbal quibbhng.

for
two reasons:
that I
anyone
to
thinking solely of the substance of Dicey's grouping of the
am
first,
that
Such a charge
it is
open against me a
v^^ll
not be justified
the causal operation of the ideas
and second, that it is this very causal

before us as his fundamental thesis.
investigating;
relation that
Dicey
sets
Dicey holds that in England in the nineteenth century public

opinion has been the great force in producing the laws.
not
mean by
"people" or
this
He
does
merely that the laws have been the laws the
their delegated rulers
wanted; but that a systematic
theory, a definite type of thought, has been behind the laws
that as
is
it
has changed the character of the laws has changed.
and
It
not public opinion in general, but "legislative public opinion"
that has thus prevailed.
way a branch
of general
This
legislative public
pubHc opinion,
system of the times, and in a way also
i.
it is
e.,
opinion
is
in a
the general thought-
influenced by "circum-
OF GOVERNMENT
rilK I'F<OCESS
138
stances."
of his theory without
c()|)ious ciuotations.
begins by declaring that English law
He
manent currents
public ()i)inion."'
It is
It
has not been true of England in earlier
not true in nearly so great a degree of either France
The
no opinion proper with regard
tries
That
where custom
is
theory
to
is
it
rules;
the opinion of a small
In
a single individual.
change of laws
number
others there
still
deliberately
habits, not thoughts arc
In other countries the opinion which does exist
opinion:
is
In some coun-
in the nineteenth century.^
England
to
currents of
not always and everywhere that such
is
or the United States as of England.
confmed
of legislation as well
may depend on such "varying

It
opinion governs.
centuries.
"the work of per-
is
The absence
of opinion.'"
as legislation itself
l)ublic
impossible fairly to represent the shadings
will Ix-
may
may
may
exist.
dominant.
not be public
of people or even of
be lack of a
legisla-
tive organ which adequately responds to the sentiment of the age;
the United States congress
Then he
gives us a
little
ing the objection that
Opinion, he
citizens
retorts,
is,
he thinks, defective in this respect.^
touch of psychological apology in meet"interest," not opinion, that governs.
it is
quoting
Hume, always governs
The
interest.
of England arc not "reckless, governed by mere interest;"
they are not "recklessly selfish;" they look out for their neighbors
and
for their state as well as for themselves.
When
they seem to
be pursuing purely selfish ends, "the explanation of this conduct
be found nine times out of ten to be that
will
men come
easily to
believe that arrangements agreeable to themselves are beneficial to

others. "5
not
Opinion
"exceptional
is
master over "callous
selfishness"
but some
selfishness."
"intellectual
It
is
delusion
unconsciously created through the bias of sinister interest" that
makes men go wrong.

this proposition that
he
So heroic an adherence does he give to

is
able to say of the slavery struggle in the
United States:
The
faith in slavery
result of self-interest,
'
was a delusion: but a
is still
an
Dicey, op. cU., Preface, p.

Ibid., p.
I.
delusion,
intellectual error,
vii.
and a
Ibid., pp.
Ibid., pp. 3, 9.
i, 8.
however
largely the
different thing
s
Ibid., p. 14.
from
AND IDEALS
IDEAS
callous selfishness.
as in
It is at
who
the southerners
139
any rate an opinion.
In the case therefore, of
any law
for the abolition of slavery,
resisted the passing of
we
similar instances,
all
AS CAUSES
are justified in
saying that
it
is
at
bottom
opinion which controls legislation.'
The weakness
of
this
justification
the
of
proposition
opinion governs the world will at once be apparent.
one has an antipathy

justification
seems
to "callous-selfishness" theories, that is
for setting
inev-itably callous
"But what
else
can
fails to
be
the
square with
I can't
can't be so selfish," says Dicey.
Coming
first
to closer quarters
definition of
is
like that of the
fact, cries
out in agony:
be a sociaHst," utterly obH\'ious
common-sense
to the fact that plain
"I
Dicey's attitude
who, when driven into some practical
individuaHst,
corner where theory
no
up idea theories. Because self-seeking

and reckless, and so unpleasant, that is no
proof of the power of ideas.

self-styled
that
Because
we
it
get
is a good substitute for both.

"I must stand firm for ideas.'"
with this legislative pubHc opinion,

is
that
it is
"merely a short way of
describing the behef or conviction prevalent in a given society that

particular laws are beneficial
and therefore ought
to
be maintained,
or that they are harmful and therefore ought to be modified or

repealed. "3
This
is
exceedingly vague.
It
might be taken
to
mean opinion on each law for itself without regard to any others.
But really it means much more than this. A sentence or two later
it
becomes "the speculative views held by the mass
improvement of
of the people
Again
becomes the opinion "held by the majority of those citizens who
at a given moment have taken an effective part in pubHc Hfc."''
as to the alteration or
their institutions."
it
It is, as
has been said, "law-making or legislative pubfic opin-
ion "s which counts, and of this only the moderate forms, not the
extreme or radical forms.

sistent,
"Moderate, though
individualism" and "moderate, though
ent, socialism"^
Ibid., p. 16.
'
Cf. ibid., p. 35:
alone coimt.
"The conduct
it
it may
may be
be inconinconsist-
In passing he remarks that
of a
whole nation
better than sordid views of self-interest;" also p. 493,
is governed by something
where "public opinion" is
contrasted with "the selfishness or recklessness of politicians."

3 Ibid., p. 3.
4 Ibid., p. 10.
Ibid., p. 17.
this
^ Ibid., p. 18.
140
'II
OF GOVERNMENT
I'KOCESS
IK
opinion "is recorded titlur in the statute book or in the

volumes of the reiK)rts,"' a form of statement which will frequently
l.ul)lii
theory, because
to
at the very roots of his
and which puts the knife
recur,
ultimately to the statutes that one
if it is
prove the opinion, then the opinion
gratuitous element
interpretation,
the
in
is
whole
must turn
dangerously near to a
which had
be
better
omitted altogether.
Dicey proceeds
ask several questions about this "body of
to
beliefs, convictions, sentiments, accepted principles, or firmly rooted
which together make up pubhc opinion, about its

The whole body, he
existence, origin, continuity, and checks.
"
certain fundamental assumptells us, may generally be traced to
prejudices,'"
There are "tides of opinion" that swell

Their origin
cross them and check them.
tions."3
tides
" with
some
He
preaches
till
takes
man
of originality or genius has
to his friends
The school
school.
or
it
and
disciples.
propagates the creed
some other
is
most often
In the ordinary
single thinker or school of thinkers."
course of events a
till
a great idea.*
These soon form a

generally accepted
till it is
some person of eminence, such as a powerful statesman,
and there you
up
it
The
are.
laws result.
Dicey does not, however, maintain that mere argument will
There must, he
bring this about nor will intuitive good sense.
But notice how he speaks of
says, be "favorable conditions. "^
these conditions, looking out
He
the dominating ideas.
upon them from the standpoint of

them "external circumstances,
calls
He
one might almost say accidental conditions."

of the repeal of the
to
start
chance
make
laws.
itself effective,
but
all
the time "
disbelief in the benefits of state intervention
other consideration."
And
moment
later
'
Dicey, op.
Ibid., p. 19.
Ibid.,
talking here
Smith's
cit.,
the
weighed above every
beUef"
in talking
wâs
"the
3 Ibid., p. 20.
p. 17.
pp. 23-27;
it
harmony with
we have him,
of slavery, say that the slave-owners' "honest
is
The "opinion" was Adam
These mere incidental circumstances gave
NN-ith.
to
com
* Ibid., pp. 21, 22.

cf.
also p.
in: "Men's
of circumstances, rather than of arguments."
beliefs are in the
main the
restilt
AND roEALS
IDEAS
result,
AS CAUSES
141
not of argument, not even of direct self-interest, but of
circumstances."
Already, therefore,
we have
inextricable confusion
first
thought
harmonies are in the saddle; next external circumstances: there

is
no peace for the theory.

This pubhc opinion undergoes a slow development, and often
The young
a generation ahead of legislation.
it is
theorists of
generation become the elderly law-makers of the next.
may
rarely be a
sudden alteration
in the laws, never in
one
There
pubUc
opinion.^
Cross-currents and counter-currents of opinion must be reck-
oned with, the
when
latter,
surviving ideas of the last generation
or coming ideas of the next, have
some
fighting
power
when currents of thought," in a measure independent,"

the prevaiHng ideas.
The
cross-currents " arise often,
the former,
fight against
if
not always,
from the pecuhar position or prepossessions of particular classes,"

such as the clergy, the army, or the artisans.^ He would not Hsten
for an instant to a suggestion that these classes might have had
similar "opinion" to other
members
of the society of their time,
but were urging different laws because of their class interests.

All
must be transferred
We
must
made by
into "opinion."
also take account of his
opinion, they in turn help to create opinion, and the
following quotation
is
good for both phases: "Every law or rule
of conduct must, whether
down, or
it
rest
its
author perceives the fact or not, lay
upon, some general principle, and must, therefore,
succeeds in attaining
attention or imitation,
the influence of law

in
admission that while laws are
its
end,
and thus
commend
this principle to public
affect legislative opinion. "^
on opinion "is merely one example
which the development
of pohtical ideas
connection with pohtical facts.
Of such
is
sentence back on
him
among the
least, as much
at
as indicating that he gave
Ibid., pp. 27-31.
3 Ibid., p.
Ibid.^ pp. 36-40.
4 Ibid., p. 46.
41.
way
facts laws are
One might
Also,
of the
influenced by their
most important; they are therefore the cause,

as the effect, of legislative opinion."'*
if
turn this last
up 50 per
cent.
TIFi:
142
OF GOVERNMENT
of his theory wlicti he wrote
li-ast
ill
PFÔCESS
it,
but no matter.
We
can
take it for what he means it, as placing laws themselves as merely

one more of the external circumstances which influence opinion,
the
|K)werful.
all
With
mu(
so
h of jreliminary explanation
interi)retali()n of the century's
Dicey enters upon his
He
law-making.
distinguishes the
following periods:
1.
2.
3.
The
The
The
Piriod of Old Toryism, or Quiescence (1800-30).
Period of lienthamism, or Individuahsm (1825-70).
Period of Collectivism (1865-1900).
During each of these periods, he says, "a different current or

stream of opinion was predominant and in the main governed the
development of the law of England."'
In the
first
period pride in the constitution manifested
itself,
and a reaction against Jacobinism: inertia ruled Parliament, and

there
was "no theory
The second
of legislation."
period, that of utilitarian reform, reveals
body of doctrine," directly appHed
With
is
it
called socialism,
some
upon
the
The
roughly.
and
it
mass
definite
difficulty,
even while
school of opinion predominant
"favors intervention of the state even at
sacrifice of individual
benefit
more
the third period Dicey has
trying to outline
"a
reform of the law.
to the
freedom, for the purpose of conferring
Now
of the people."^
despite his previous
explanation of the manner in which ideas arise and spread, he
is
forced to admit that he carmot coimect this sociaHsm with any one
man, nor " even with the name of any definite school."
In England
indeed,
it
" has never been formulated
anything like the

It
by any thinker endow'ed w^th
commanding abihty or
authority of Bentham."
has been " rather a sentiment than a doctrine," and "rather an
economic and a social than a legal creed."

repeats, "it
From
is
is
"Even now," he
rather a sentiment than a doctrine."^
this follows
what Dicey
indeed most curious
if
there
is
calls
a "curious fact," and what
any truth
at all in his theory, the
namely, that although the inquirer "can explain changes in

English law by referring them to the definite and known tenets and
fact,
Dicey, op.
cit.,
p. 62.
'
Ibid., p. 64.
3 Ibid., p.
66.
IDEAS A\T) IDEALS AS CAUSES
143
hand prove
main only by showing the
ideas of Benthamite liberalism, he can on the other

the existence of collectivist ideas in the
socialistic character or tendencies of certain
parhamentar)' enact-
ments."'
Think
lation
of
minute he
Dicey
it.
by the
going to explain to us the course of
is
pubHc opinion behind
legislative
apply his theory he
tries to
is
legis-
and here the
it,
forced to confess that for
one of three periods the only way you can make sure of the opinion
is
by inferring
periods (the
from the laws, while
it
first),
for another of the three
not "a, theory of legislation," but "no theory"
has been the prevaiUng factor.
To my mind
this is so significant that
whole theory without more ado.

fectly fair to
sion
overturns Dicey's
as I
want
to
be per-
Dicey and make the case against him from the whole
of his book, not
through
Inasmuch
it
from
to the end.
single passages, I shall carry the analysis
But
there
first
is
on the same page with the one
one more unhappy admisI
have just
criticized, the
admission, namely, that in the transition period between individual-
ism and collectivism he

almost unconscious
"a
finds
[sic]
hnes of Benthamite acts "under an
change in
legislative opinion,"
turn in the direction of sociaHsm."
Here he
taking
strikes a
blow
not merely at his three types of opinion, but at his three types of
laws themselves.
Now
if
we examine
his separate discussion of the period of
"no theory
of legislation"
which according to his principles should be stated rather as a period of a " theory
quiescence, or period of
of
no legislation"
we
find
him
giving illustrations of certain
kinds of changes the laws underwent in that period, which he
and
in part (2) to "the irresistible requirements of the day," or to the " humanitarianism which
attributes in part (i) to reactionism,
from 1800 onward exerted an ever- increasing inllucnce."^ One

would think that "irresistible requirements" made a pretty sound
explanation all by themselves if properly analyzed and studied,
but Dicey still regards them as incidental and external, operating
only in the absence of a "theory of legislation."
Ibid., p. 68.
Ibid., p. p4.
144
The
factory legislation of the times, he tells us,
"was suggested
any general jmnciple but by the needs of the moment."'

not
That this same factory legislation holds its place as a forerunner
of other laws through the two later periods does not suggest to
l)y
Dicey either that he should bring the "theory" back to
"needs of the moment" forward
its
The
and
(2)
the
first
it,
or carry
to later times.
comliination acts were due to (i) a dread of combinations
a tradition of paternal government, which had two sides,

setting
up
the duty of the laborer to
work
for
customary
wages, and the second demanding a provision by the state of subsistence for those out of work.*
These
factors he calls "elements
of the public opinion in 1800," but they are not public opinion in
They
that broader sense he uses to explain his great periods.
much
too specific in their nature for that,
"paternalism"
demands
does
not
help out.
and the use
Certain
of the
"selfish"
of the people are all too clearly apparent in these
are
word
group
"ele-
ments."
Humanitarianism, as preached at the time,

the abohtion of the whipping-post for
is
women,
used
to explain
of the pillory, of
spring guns, of state lotteries, and of the slave trade.^
tarianism
is
defined as "that hatred of pain, either physical or
moral, which inspires the desire to aboHsh

suffering
Humani-
and oppression."
all
This comes nearer
patent forms of
to
an "opinion"
cause than the other illustrations, but Dicey, except for mentioning
the
names
of
some of the preachers of this humanitarianism, does

show how the preaching actually did the work; he
not attempt to
nothing to meet the objection that the preaching may have

been merely the verbal embodiment of the movement that was
doing the work, and he does not consider in the shghtest degree
offers
the question as to
why
only a few selected "forms of suffering or
oppression" were eliminated and not a
lot
of others, riotously
"patent" then, and just as "patent" still.

Reaching the end of this period. Dicey thinks that "the EngHsh
people had at last come to perceive the incongruity between rapidly
changing social conditions and the practical unchangeableness of
'
Dicey, op.
cit.,
p. 108.
Ibid., p. 100.
3 Ibid., p.
106.
AND IDEALS
IDEAS
The
the law."'
145
implications of this sentence are hard for his
system of interpretation, and

factors
AS CAUSES
still
more
so
is
his
list
of transitional
(i) the rapid change in social conditions; (2) the increasing
unsuitability of
unchanging
institutions; (3) the fact that lapse of
time had obliterated the memories of the French Revolution,^ and,
Here the
the existence of the Benthamite school.
"
in
list
of
causes.
fourth
a
a
poor
makes
"legislative public opinion
finally,
(4)
While touching on such "external" causes it is worth noting

due to the shifting of the
that he in fact explains the reform bill as
"population, wealth, power, and trade, "^ toward the north of
That
England.
leaves
Benthamism high and
dry, but Dicey,
addicted to his opiate, the ideas, does not recognize

course,
compelled directly or indirectly
is
it.
He, of
to bring in just
such
factors for every concrete piece of interpretation he offers that
is
definite enough to have value or even meaning.
Now we come
to the
where Dicey has the

method.
We may
second period, the period of individualism,

easiest
ground
for the
apphcation of his
accept his assertion that "from 1832 onward
among the classes then capable of

was for many years incontestable and
the supremacy of individualism

influencing
legislation
We may
patent."'*
accept also his description of the legislation
of the time as in fact individualistic.
connection
Does he show a causal
The Benthamism
1
Ibid., p. III.
Dicey
tells
us
that
is
(p. 123) that in
in question is
"the Benthamism of
the ordinary course of things the law of Eng-
amended before the end of the eighteenth century. Appaprocess of amendment would not have had to wait for Benthamism
land would have been

rently, then, the
which
is
offered to us as the cause of the change.
It
may perhaps
be that the long
law amendment by the indirect influence of the Revolution was the

cause of the ultimate violent cflJorescence of Benthamist individuahsm with all its
If so
I make the
specious claim to wield the thunderbolt and guide the chariot.
damming up
of
suggestion without emphasis
many of the
idealistic interpretations of society in
the middle of last century are due to that ultimate cause, and the very fallacies and
superficialities of
Dicey 's own method of interpretation must be traced back to
it.
Needless to say, none of these theories, nor Dicey's own, can have any measurable
They show their detached
influence as such on the actual course of legislation.
extravagance
all
too plainly.
3 Ibid., p. 116.
4 Ibid., p. 176.
common-sense."
the study,
It
OK OOVKRNMENT
rilK I'ROCESS
i.}6
of
l>ut
"This liberalism was the utilitarianism, not of

the House of Commons or of the stock exchange."'
not in reality the monojioly of Liberals. "=
"was
guided legislation "were
some
them were not avowed Benthamists, or would even have
of
"Utilitarian individual-
re|)udiated the individualist fellowship.
.... was
ism
The men who
bottom individualists,"^ even when
all at
nothing but Benthamism modified by the expe-
rience, the jjrudence, or the timidity of practical politicians."'*
On
the theoretical side, to which Dicey gives a long discussion,
he admits that there are a
number
be answered by the theory so that
For instance, there

have
they
answer.""'
problem
but
" never
It
is
given a
adherents would agree.
little
consistent or
perfectly
rough
make an unsolved
to
which
satisfactory
theoretical
])lay the part of effective public opinion in law-making,
us not laugh at the theory in
let
all its
which could not
the problem of contractual freedom, to
is
^
of problems
worst entanglements.
its
Let
us pass this tenderly by.
The
reason that Benthamism swept the nation, according to
Dicey, was that
it
pro\aded the reformers with an acceptable
programme and with an
Also
ideal. ^
immediate wants of the day."'
it
"exactly answered to the
Yet "the
essential strength of
utilitarianism lay far less in the transitory circumstances of a
particular time than in
its
correspondence with tendencies of English
thought and feeling, which have exhibited a character of permanence."^
Also, "
Benthamism fell in with the habitual conservatism

and "its strength lay in its being the response
particular era and in its harmony with the general
of Englishmen,"'
to the
needs of a
One can take his choice. Also,

one can allow for a factor which Dicey emphasizes in another
tendencies of English thought." '
place,
namely Bcntham's long
life
and
influence,
which gave
his
theory authority, on the principle that "iteration and reiteration

arc a great force.""
'
'
Dicey, op.
cit.,
Ibid., p. 170.
Ibid., p. i68.
* Ibid., p. 124.
p. 169.
Ibid., p. 155.
6 Ibid.,
7
pp. 124, 167.
Ibid., p. 170.
8 Ibid., p.
173.
9 Ibid.,
p. 173.
' Ibid.,
p. 175.
II
Ibid., pp. 127, 128.
IDEAS
Now
for
an
AND IDEALS
AS CAUSES
147
two of the way the individualistic
illustration or
public opinion is actually used by Dicey. The four kinds of laws

which he thinks Benthamism aimed at were the transference of
poUtical power into the hands of a class large and inteUigent
enough
to identify its
own
interest with the interest of the greatest
number, the promotion of humanitarianism, the extension of

individual liberty, and the creation of adequate legal machinery
He
for the protection of the equal rights of all the citizens.'
us that
because
Benthamism saw "that

it
tells
the unreformed Parliament, just
mainly represented the interests and feelings of land-
owners and merchants, would not sanction fundamental improvements in the law of England,"^ which is all well enough, but then
he asks us
to believe that this
Benthamism, which could not get

them indirectly, by demanding that
was
same selfish Parliament first reform itself in order that afterward it could Benthamize everything else against its own wishes.
That is hard to swallow, especially when we recall his statement
that the reform of Parliament was really due to the shifting of
industrial power to the north of England.
Discussing factory legislation, Dicey quotes from Shaftesbury
a list of men who opposed it Peel, Graham, O'Connell, Gladand says that while
stone, Brougham, Bright, and Cobden^
Shaftesbury was puzzled at their opposition and inclined to call
them wicked and selfish, the truth of the matter was that they were
all "individualists," and the genuine explanation of their antiable to get
results directly,
this
factory-legislation attitude lies in that point alone.
We know
of the
enough
men on
of the industrial interests
this
list
sideration for them,
and
however much
it
was
laughs.
most
was a minor con-
affiliations of
to feel certain that theory
they urged and argued.
One
in theory's
name
that
Shaftesbury himself speaks of "mill-
owners, capitalists, and doctrinaires," as opposing him, with the

doctrinaires in third place,
and
also says that "in very few instances
did any mill-owner appear on the ])latform with

the ministers of any religious denomination."
I
Ibid., pp. 183, 184.
Ibid., p. 166.
3 Ibid.,
pp. 233-36.
me;
in
still
One can
fewer
fairly
148
11
will
drop
llir
We may
OF GOVERNMENT
I'KOCESS
individualistic cxpianalicm of the opposition to
It
legislation.
IK
weakens Dicey's
such
own work.
this analysis of his interpretation of the period of
end
may
individualism with two (|Uotations which
be placed side by
side
The more
of Mi-nth;im
jHiblir
under the influence
closely the renovation of English institutions
more remarkably does
studied, the
is
it
illustrate the influence of
opinion uiK)n law.'
This continuance, indeed, of Benthamite legislation is the main proof, as

well as from one iK)int of view a chief cause, of the dominance of individualism
throughout pretty nearly the whole existence of the reformed Parliament.'
The
last
quotation
grin to give the
lie to
is
a wonder.
It
bobs up with a malevolent
Dicey's whole system of interpreting the law.
So vague does Dicey's public opinion become when he brings it

to close quarters with the work he assumes it to do, that he really
know what a stab he has here given himself.

And now for the period of collectivism which we can handle
much more expeditiously because we have already quoted Dicey's
preliminary admission that he could find the "pubHc opinion"
docs not
He
only through study of the laws.

at analvsis of the
conditions or causes which have favored the
growth of collectivism
side,
The
proposes to give us, ''an attempt
or, if the
matter be looked at from the other
have undermined the authority of Benthamite liberalism."^

conditions to which the change
is
lanthropy and the factory movement;

the working-classes;
beliefs;
(3) the
due are:
(2) the
(i) the
Tory
phi-
changed attitude of
modification in economic and social
modem commerce;
(4) characteristics of
duction of household sutTrage.-*
Here we have a
(5) the intro-
set of conditions,
without even the naming of a school of thought as one element in

the series, such as
we found
the transition from the
Dicey, op.
cil.,
p. 20S.
before in his conditions surrounding
first to
the second period.
This sentence
is
typical scn-
from a two-page summan- of the
preceding chapter, entered in the table of contents as "Benthamite Reform an Illustration of Influence of Opinion."
In these pages
and no summary of argument. They

that do not go to the point at all.
Ibid., p. 183.
3 Ibid., p.
can find no hint of argument
consist only of bald assertions,
217.
4 Ibid.,
pp. 216
ff.
and
of facts
tence in this part of the book

self-help
and
is:
"The mere
149
decline of faith in
that such a decline has taken place
is
certain
is
of itself sufficient to account for the growth of legislation tending
toward socialism."'
He
attempts to set forth the principles of collectivism under
one heading and the general trend of such legislation under another.
As a matter
of fact the distinction
succeeds in doing
into
merely formal, and
to divide his set of coUectivistic
is
all
he
laws irregularly
two groups, when he could better discuss them directly and

Indeed
together.
all
and
is
illustrated
it is
the principles "as actually exhibited in
by English
legislation during the latter part of the
nineteenth century"^ that arc the only principles he presents.
as absurd for
for
communists of the
first
half of the last century.
It is needless to take
legislation.
The
up any
of his illustrations of coUectivistic
sole point at issue is his
the essence of these laws in the
the principle explain them.
nation law
It
him to appeal to Marx at this point, and quite

him to name the dreamy English socialists and
would be absurd
may
method
of abstracting
form of a principle and making
What he
sets forth
be taken as a ready
test
about the combi-
by anyone who looks
farther into his position.
We find him referring to " that latent socialism, not yet embodied
in
any
definite sociaHstic formulas,
years and more
been
development of law
telling
which has
for the last thirty
with ever-increasing force on
in England. "^
We
find
him
the
insisting that
the difference between the two types of legislation, individualistic
and
is "essential and fundamental," because "it

upon and gives expression to different, if not absolutely inconsistent, ways of regarding the relation between man and state. ""
We find him cheerfully adding that "modern individualists are
themselves generally on some points socialists," and a paragraph
coUectivistic,
rests
later telling us that " the inner logic of events leads to the extension
and development
tivism. "^
And
of legislation
finally
we
find
which bears the impress of
him conjecturing
'
Ibid., p. 257.
3 Ibid., p.
'
Ibid., p. 258.
4 Ibid., p. 299.
299.
collec-
in a footnote that
Ibid., p. 301.
if
OF GOVERNMENT
TIIK PROCESS
I50
tlu'
"by
prof^rt'ss
toward coUcclivism
the inllucncc of
some
ever checked
is
thinkers," but by
il
not be
will
"some patent
fact,"
such as ovcrhcavy taxation.'
Here
The
one can take one's choice.
ajâin,
And
absolutely inconsistent.
not stand the simplest
in a
test,
sentences arc
the reason lies in a theory that will
vagueness that
will
permit any
inconsistency without crying for mercy.
In his chapter on the cross-currents of opinion. Dicey gives
His main illustration
oi)cning for easy criticism.
and what
it
all
comes
church, garbing themselves in
ceeded
English
argument and theory, have suc-
checking a good deal of proposed legislation and muti-
in
lating a
is ecclesiastical,
to is that the corporate interests of the
good deal more.
The chapter does
not bear on speculative
thought or any other kind of "public opinion" after the style of
Dicey at
all.
Then comes
the chapter
And
on judge-made law.
here
we
have "fiction" treated as the development of judicial opinion,
when
really
what the
Dicey brings forward mean
facts
through the courts, "fiction" and
have been solving
all,
is
that
the interests of the nation
their conflicts.
Another chapter brings law-making opinion into relation with

other public opinion
with
"the whole body of ideas and beliefs
which prevail at a given time."

dence, and political
lative opinion,
economy
and the
So theology,
politics, jurispru-
are examined with relation to legis-
lives of thinkers in their evolution are
brought into touch.

the
way
in
belief, the
It is pleasant to read Dicey 's comments on

which freedom of discussion and the disintegration of
apotheosis of instinct and the historical
method have
caused the authority of Benthamism to grow weak; but what it

all has to do with English law, after the mass of contradictions
and confusions
that our analysis has revealed,
it
is
hard indeed
to imagine.
And now
at the end,
the relation between law
Dicey concludes by saying that
and opinion has been
extremely complex, that legislative opinion

'
Dicey, op.
cit.,
p. 301, footnote.
is
in
more
England, as elsewhere,
often the result of facts
IDEAS
AND IDEALS
AS CAUSES
151
than of philosophical speculations; and that no facts play a more important

part in the creation of opinion than laws themselves;
opinion entertained by
beliefs,
men
at a given era
is
....
that each kind of
governed by that whole body of
convictions, sentiments, or assiimptions, which, for
name, we
want
of a better
call the spirit of the age."^
So we come out with the "spirit of the age," as pale a spook as

ever walked a lawbook's page.
Dicey's fundamental purpose has been to show that a syste-
that
is,
the source of
its
matic legislative public opinion can be located in society

in the English society of last century
which
is
He does not claim that this public

he admits many factors, incidental and other,
tendencies in law-making.
opinion makes
itself;
that combine to build
it
But once
up.
he treats
built up,
which can be used
solid substantial existence,
it
as a
for itself as a cause
In other words, he does not make the
or interpretative factor.
ideas that form his public opinion absolute in the old metaphysical
sense, but he
makes them a good phenomenal
imitation of that
old tnetaphysical absolute.
In applying
uses
this theory to his three periods of
"no ideas"
law-making, he
instead of "ideas" as the principle of the
first
period; he finds a systematic theory of legislation (Benthamism)
which answers
his purpose in the second period
and
in the third
he frankly admits that the only way he can get his hands on any
such theory
by inferring
is
legislation he calls
In short, his
and
if
there
is
upon
own
theory
any value
the Benthamist period.
its
presence bodily from the facts of
to explain.
it
in
fails
him
in
that value
it
two of
his three periods,
must be shown
solely in
But even here we have found him, toward
the close of his study, admitting that the legislation itself
is
the
"main proof" of the existence of the public opinion. We have

found him utterly at sea as to whether to place the main weight
on thought harmonies, or on accidental circumstances
ing the rise of the opinion.
We
had never reached a clear logical

most important central points, and we
the Benthamist opinion itself
formulation in some of
^
Ibid., p. 463.
its
in explain-
have found him admitting that
I'KOCESS
riii;
152
of government
Ikivc failed lo find in liim a scintilla of proof that
Adam
that
ing'
(loiniiialcs tlu' legislation.
whidi
it
really is opinion
few sequences, such as show-
Smith antedates the reform
bill,
can hardly be
rej^'arded seriously as proof of a causal connection.
Which
all
comes
Dicey has begun with a naive
to this, that
belief in the validity of opinion, that
through the
he has never seriously thought
and that he has been content
dilTiculties,
to allow
vagueness and haj)hazard concessions to creep in to such an extent

that
know
they undermine his whole theory without his seeming to
Great as
it.
is
the value of his
book as a study
legal history, as a causal explanation of the process
laws have been created
This
it
has just no value at
not to say that there
is
the book.
It
is
not
much
of English
by which the
all.
revelation of causes in
has been impossible for Dicey to discuss laws merely
as i)roducts of opinion.
He
has brought in the important factors,
but not deliberately, with balanced recognition of their true worth,
and not with adequate statement.
All such things lie outside in
and the "accidental," and there they miss being

properly balanced, weighed, and stated.
That is the penalty a
man must pay for devotion to the "ideas."
the "external"
Another comment that follows naturally from the above considerations
is
that the "ideas " as Dicey uses
more than a form of sensationalism
They
science.
are
the
we
them are
may
spectacular feature.
really nothing
"yellow"
Everybody howls
call it
individualism and liberalism; everybody swears to live and die

by the creed of Bentham; everybody uses all the brains he has to
defend the actions he is going to take, or to confute his opponents'
And then, just because the theory

evokes interest and discussion, the pseudo-scientist thinks it has
actions, in terms of that theory.
all
the
l)utting
magic power
it
When
it
claims to have.
He
exalts
it,
instead of
under his microscope and testing it for what it is.

"ideas" in full cry drive past, the thing to do with them
them as an indication that something is happening;

and then search carefully to find out what it really is they stand
for, what the factors of the social Hfe are that are
expressing themis
to accept
selves through the ideas.
The
thing to do
is to
try to
become more
IDEAS
and more
AND IDEALS AS CAUSES
153
exact, not to outdo the vagueness of popular speech.
What Dicey owed
us in this book was a quantitative analysis of
public opinion in terms of the different elements of the population
which expressed themselves through
it.
He owed
us an investi-
gation of the exact things really wanted under the cover of the
"opinion" by each group of the people, with time and place and
taken up into the center of the statement. In
owed us a social dissection, which he was eminently
Not accepting that task,
offer, and not a rhapsody.
circumstance
all
other words, he
prepared to
he has succeeded in reducing his system of interpretation

absurdity; but
if
his
book leads other students
compensation for what
it
it
and
may, perhaps, in
itself failed to
an
to a recognition of
the pitfalls of the "ideas," to avoidance of the evils,

for real factors of explanation,
to
accomplish.
to a search
this
way
offer
CHAPTER
III
SOCIAL WILL
ThiTf is a form of naive social interpretation which is not nearly
so troublesome as the interpretation through individual feelings
or ideas, which has indeed for the most part signified a distinct
among
progress toward a coherent interpretation
those
who
use
it,
but which nevertheless must be arrayed along with the others
as
amounting
at
shift or stop-gap.
bottom
to
1 refer to
nothing more than a poor make-
the appeal to the social will, the social
mind, the social consciousness, and the other social psychic

ties, unities,
or personified processes of that type
what one
at all just
distinctions that
amount
to
that
it
it
them, since the very best and most careful
have ever been made between the various terms
point about the "social -will" in social interpretation
signifies
a breaking loose from the hard and fixed individ-
ual, as the unit of explanation,
and that
points toward a recog-
it
nition that a real social material is before us for investigation,
not
enti-
matters not
nothing more than word-splitting.
The good
is
calls
merely a
fictitious, external,
and
now-you-have-it-and-now-you-
don't set of institutions wliich can only become real when given a
sharp reference to individuals who bear or create them.
The bad point is that in putting the emphasis on the personified
society
itself,
identical
it
terms.
makes
Social interpretation
all
When we
distinguish between content
an equation of
talk about social choices,
we may
and process, and we are interested in
understanding both, or, better said, we are interested in understantHng the given phenomena from both points of view.
But
beyond content and process there is nothing at all. So that when
we
iKTsonify the choosing capacity of society,
spook behind the scenes,
we
or,
what
is
the
same
are emphasizing a tautology as a cause.
social will
does" something or other

154
is at
we
are putting a
thing, in other words,
To
say that "the
bottom merely
to restate
SOCIAL WILL
To
the problem.
155
talk of the will of the state
We
to talk abstractly of the state itself.
is
nothing more than
can learn just as
much
about "social choices" without using the phrase as with using
The word "will" and
similar words have
in individual psychology, legitimate
had a
enough
vidual was studied with his social setting
But
them from
to transfer
certain
unknown
the individual to society
it
The
has no value.
exchange for
and
ideas,
all
had some
it
meaning
so long as the indi-
is
or ignored.
not to help
matters, but merely to transfer a faulty point of view
application in which
it.
from an
value, to an application in
which
use of the phrase "social will" gives us, in
the httle tautologies
one huge tautology.
which we found in the feehngs
But
we beheve that it
we are simply
if
carries
us to the explanation of social happenings,
lulling
ourselves to sleep with a huge draught of the "psychic" opiate.
Now this social will

the
all
way from
appears in
many forms.
We find it varying
the schematic mysticism of Mackenzie to the
more self-contradictory, assertions of

As a curious development of it we have a No\icow, who,
needing an "organ" to carry the will for how absurd to have a
more
but also
practical,
Ross.
fimction without an organ

in
"our
best citizens,"
By Ward
places
where
the social will
it
is
it
in the ehte, in other words,
finds a
happy home.
described as the form or process
through which the feehng forces work in certain high stages of
But
social organization.
and
to rely
upon
holding fast to
through
it.
institution;
its
it
He
as process
states
thus he
the social will,
his tendency is to
make
it
it
and studying
directly
what
it
the
modern democratic
and the
their
'
social will
which
By making
is
Moreover
to
p. 555.
seeking
agree with
to accept the feelings for the
unhappy heads, with
Pure Sociology,
embody
abandons the useful statement of
a form of social process.
would have not only
state
"has but one purpose, function, or
mission, that of securing the welfare of society."'
concrete, he of necessity
passing
is
frequently as a sort of welfare-seeking
makes
and says
social welfare concrete
on
very concrete,
aid as a cause in his interpretations, instead of
all
it
the
also
will as
Ward one
work he puts
the infinite loopholes to error
Tin: I'KOCESS
156
thfv l)rin^ with tlum,
Inil
in
OF GOVERNMENT
addition one would have to admit
modem
the greater prevalence of this social willing process in
over earlier societies; one would have to be ready to arimit that
was quantitative increase in it, and that more things were

accomjilished i)y and for society through it now than formerly.
To all of which there is most grave objection.
there
ela!)orate attempt to utilize the social will in interpreting
An
society
in
is
\'()ls.
Professor C. A. Ellwood in a series of articles
made by
and
I\'
of the
American Journal
oj Sociology.
His
IH)siti()n is frankly based on Professor Dewey's psychology, which he

lifts up bodily in its main categories and applies thus straightway
to social facts.
can use his
weakness of the social
articles to
show briefly the fundamental
will for practical use in interpretation.
Professor Ellwood holds, to start with, that the real proof of

the existence of "socio-psychical processes"
But he makes no attempt
"act."'
the action so as to use
it
to
is
that social groups
absorb the idea process in
to give the action
meaning
at
every point.
Instead he holds the action sharply distinct over against the social
The
mind.
social action
seems
be for him a part of the physical
to
The
world, the so-called objective world.

tive,
and
directs the performance.
It
social
mind
is
subjec-
does not direct the whole
jx>rformance, or rather he does not pretend that he can explain

the whole performance in terms of the social mind.
social
He
puts the
mind's subjective interpretation alongside of an objective
which shows what part rivers, and mountains, and

and microbes, and so forth, play in society.
interpretation
ore deposits,
.\n objective
interpretation
is
necessary beside a subjective
interpretation, he tells us, because

there arc
many
phenomena
phenomena of land and climate and many physiological

and population, which are not less than psychical facts
physical
of race
to Ix? taken into
account in a complete interpretation of society, but which

such cannot consider.^
social psychology as
He
study "functional psychology,"^ yet he makes the

and the objective interpretations "supplementary"*
calls his
subjective
American Journal
0} Sociology, Vol.
Ibid., Vol. IV, p. 658.
3 Ibid., p.
V, p. 104.
808.
4 Ibid., p. 658.
SOCIAL WELL
For instance, he thinks he can give us a subjective

and then supplement this by an
each other.
to
157
interpretation of revolutions,
and
objective interpretation,
He
and habit
to
"Laws
follows:
come
so put all our curiosity to rest.
Dewey's categories of co-ordination, adaptation,

the social whole, and tops off a definition of law as
transfers
are formal expressions of social habits which have
into consciousness.'"
we
say that the laws
I will
not criticize that here except to
get into contact with are anything but "for-
mal ;" they are the social habits themselves, as mediated by government; and if those laws only are law which have got into "consciousness," whatever that may really mean, it will be hard for
anyone who has ever gathered enUghtenment from the school of
Henry Maine
Sir
to accept the social will for practical use in his
studies.
" Society," ihe writer
tells us,
"selects ideas
the basis of their utiUty in building
the murderer
which
meaning
whole expressing
a
fact.
The
to
when
co-ordina-
which takes
one social whole;
into
So long as murderers
itself.
exist
laws against murder, the social welfare as a
itself in
laws against murder will be a
fiction,
theory of the social will does not allow for this
actual interpretation
is
its
social welfare
up with the avenging pubHc
a unity in expressing
is
to give
up or maintaining
There we have that generalized
tions."^
and individuals upon
whatever
its
may
advocates
not
in
say about
it
the ink and paper are handy and the writing co-ordination
well set.
In this
way
Professor Ell wood wants to found a social psychol-
ogy "upon the fundamental principles and categories of a functional psychology of the individual. "*
finds
it
different
some trouble
from
some years
that
is
significant that
he
easy to discriminate between individual and social psychol-
ogy, but he has

is
It
in
sociology.''
later,
wonder.
Nor
social psychology
is it
any wonder
with his theory no doubt well sunk into his
habits of thought he can
with some of his
showing how the
No
still
colleagues
find time
such
and
interest to discuss
questions
Ibid., p. 816.
3 Ibid., p.
Ibid., p. 821.
*Ibid., Vol. V, p. loi.
822.
as
the nature of
158
UK PROCESS OF GOVERNMENT
"jwychical unity," "intcr-individual psychic processes," "objectively organic unities," and other angels-on-the-point-of-a-needle
f|uesti()ns.'
Leaving
delmitions, the hair-sijlitting, and the fine-drawn
tin-
we
concretely
to
use
it
in
are
we
need
try
going
to
to
make
are
we
example,
social interpretation; if, for
it help us in understanding why some particular law or type of
logic out
know
to
legislation
(
account as insignificant, there are certain things
)f
is
alx)ut a social
there
more
of
by
it
it
it
get hold of
before trying to put
it
in
one
amount
it
As
in
to
show how
do with the
"tiling,"
them
in
not
mani-
second part of this
government where
in the processes of
social will is to ignore

to the best of
it,
it
is
as a separately existing
our abiUty what
Except by way of challenging anybody
substantial participation in social
its
to
most characteristically manifested the only thing
and analyze
happening.
Is
estimate societies in terms of this so-called
a way that helps us to understand things
lx)ok will
Have
one stage of a society, than at
far as the first question is concerned, the
su])jx)sed to be
anywhere
of the social-mind process.
society, or at
consciousness or conscious process, and depend on

fest
it
work
to
Can we
another?
itself
as to the
is
Can we
substantiality.
its
Can wc handle
we any tests of
Another
if
adopted.
as to
)nc' is
mind,
humorously as in the
elite,
life to
locate
but seriously
is
actually
who
believes
it
somewhere
drop that
I will
question here, with only a reiterated general denial that any such
work concretely
factor can be put to
As
for the other question, a
We
be useful.
will
itself,
that
it is
few
in our interpretations.
illustrations
are told that society
is
and comparisons
becoming conscious of
progressing in ability to construct
gaining in freedom to
make
itself
what
it ^\^ll,
and
itself,
so on.
otTcrcd a picture of the benighted horde or tribe or
nation,
bound
told to contrast
ful
in custom, helpless, driven hither

it
it is
We
are
barbarous
thither,
and
with our modern nations boldly initiating wonder-
things and manipulating their
and
that
American Journal
oj Sociology, Vol.
own
destinies, conscious to great
X, pp. 666
5..
SOCIAL WILL
what they are about.
extent of
trast, that falls
before the
first
It is
159
an arbitrary,
touch of
In what sense can we Americans say that
government
It
was the
Certainly
we
common
made
full truth, that
We
existing self-consciousness in that.

it is
we
created our
own
well
interests,
however far
the Revolutionary
War
There was no separately
possible, that expressed itself in the war.
to gain independence;
con-
did not create ourselves as a nation.
nation, the people with
they recognized the
artificial
fact.
certainly did not set out
enough known that we were driven
what we call our expressed desires and

Did we even make our own form of govern-
into independence against
our better judgment.
ment
One cannot
say yes while the beginning of our federal
institutions can be traced
back in the long history of the British
monarchy, while some of the most important characteristics of

the relation of the governmental powers
came from
the forms of
Were
we more self-conscious than, say, the Phoenicians were when they
built up the institutions of Carthage, or the Peruvians when they
the olonial governments as matured in the thirteen states.
established their "paternal"
government?
The most striking feature of our government is generally set

down as our Supreme Court with its unique control over the laws
through its tests of their constitutionality. Can anybody point
to
any self-consciousness, any deliberate creative
ture of our Constitution

Is there
Rome's
its
more
transition
act in that fea-
originality in our president than there
from king
to
consuls
was
in Sparta's elevation of
ephors
When
one of our states holds a constitutional convention
taking more intelhgent heed to
appointed
When
its
decemvirs
its
in
is it
ways than Rome did when
it
the old tribal system broke
down
in
Greece and
a territorial basis of government was estabhshed.
Do
in
Rome
not the
demes which were then established in Athens and the wards in

Rome show as much of deliberate planning as anything we can offer ?
And before that time, when we consider the tribal structure
at Athens, with its four tribes,
each with three phratrics, each with
i6o
i'HK
PROCESS OF
GOVERNMENT
Rome, with its three tribes, each with ten curiae,

each with tin fêntcs, do we not see society's formulation of its
own institutions to use that ])hrasing as plainly as we could
wish ? And this whether the established numbers of gentes and
Somebody or other,
phratries were full all (he time, or ever?
somehow or other, had been hammering things into shape with
as much deliberate plan as even our most pigeonhole-headed
thirty Rentes; or at
moderns can
Or
let
lx)ast of.
us go
still
farther back.
It is
unquestioned that there
have been many transitions from maternal
paternal descent
to
When the time of change came, individwe may say, of many kinds, began to break away
and clan organization.

uals, for reasons,
from the old system and take
to the
new.
But that
not the full
is
At some time the group ceased to punish the innova-
statement.
tors.
That
many
a ])alavcr of the ancient worthies.
is
one of the essential things.
There must have been
The change shook the

we can say without exaggeration, to its
Do we talk of our own greater social will and
in contrast to such a change, when we want to
old social organization,
very foundations.
self- consciousness
introduce a trifling institution Hke the referendum or direct pri-
mary and have
Or
let
to
spend decades making a beginning
us take specific acts.
The Spartans used
to select their
boldest helots for assassination to insure the preservation of order.
Were
they less deliberate and self-conscious than
adopt
or
chists
adopt
fail to
we
are
when
wê
some new method for suppressing anar-
The names we
still
use for the days of the wêek were allotted
perhaps four thousand years
b. c. in Egj^pt
by a most compUcated
process of astronomical reckoning, designed to

influence.
Is
it
probable that
show planetary
we today can show any institution
or custom more consciously created
Pharaoh
filled his
granaries for seven years' famine
Are we
often as full of foresight ?
Rome under Augustus adopted the Lex Juha et Papia Poppaea.

Are we passing from our excitement over divorce and race suicide
to
more calculated action ?

Read of an Indian tribe's council
of the chief
and sachems, and
SOCIAL WILL
question whether,
had
to face
up
to the full
i6i
measure
of the situations they
and of the problems that they had
to decide,
they did
not act with a consciousness which[equalsânything our parliaments
can show.
.
In our recent American rate
legislation,
people today honestly think they
know what
of our
the results will be ?
Is not the great proportion of blind striking at a
a blow easy
how many
head that needs
to see ?
t'J^
When we base our laws on moral principles, do we not cut the

ground out from under the modern social mind, quantitatively
lauded, as much as we think we cut it out from under some old
society when we speak of its unconscious custom ?
We have a reign of graft, and some graft-cure operations.
Will the factors of social will and consciousness appear prominently
on
either side,
I
just
however we may
twist the facts to find
do not pretend that such haphazard

prove
given
anything positively.
them
illustrations as I
have
But they certainly do

'
challenge the upholder of self-consciousness as a growing quahty
or force or power, to
show with exactness what he means.
do
not want to be understood as denying point-blank that the processes
modern society are not possibly more complex along those lines
that are meant when the word consciousness is used than were the
That is an open question
processes of earUer stages of society.
which anyone may prove who can. I do deny that that proof can
be drawn from any manner of comparison between so-called indi-
of
vidual and so-caUed social psychic process, or from any admiration

of the marvels of present-day intellect, or
has yet been
made
organization as
ment.
It is
of
modern
it is
science
and modern representative govern-
a greater complexity of psychic process, remember,
that has to be proved,

fact that
from any study that
such social achievements or such social
and there
is
simply no proof at
all
in the
easy to assume complexity of process to explain com-
plexity of results.
Within the shght range of difference between
our highest and our lowest
societies, the
whole of organic evolution
being taken into account as background, the conclusion simply
does not follow from present evidence, and

delicate tests in the
end
if it is
estabUshed.
it
will take exceedingly
CHAPTER
IV
POLITICAL SCIENCE
Set opposite to all these various forms of so-called psychical
we have a dead
interpretation,
political science.
a formal
It is
study of the most external characteristics of governing institutions.

It
loves to classify
governments by incidental attributes, and when
it cannot classify them much better now than

up lx)dily Aristotle's monarchies, aristocracies, and
democracies which he found significant for Greek institutions, and
using them for measurements of all sorts and conditions of modern
government. And since nobody can be very sure but that the
United States is really a monarchy under the classification or Eng-
all is
by
said
and done
lifting
land really a democracy, the classification
Nor do
respect.
distinction that
They
the classifications that
is
not entitled to great
make
the fundamental
between despotism and repubhcs fare
much
lose all sight of the content of the process in
better.
some
trick
point about the form.
WTien
it is
necessary to touch
up
this
barren formahsm with a
glow of humanity, an injection of metaphysics

will
is
used.
There
be a good deal to say about civic virtue or ideals or ci\dhzation.
It makes a very pleasing addition to the work, but the two parts
have no organic unity, not even in the hands of a Bluntschli.
After
compounding the formahsm and the'metaphysics, political

on practical problems of the day or on the
science adds works
higher pohtics to suit the taste.
detached
to
These works are
sufficiently
be capable of preparation in almost any form, and
they can be manufactured as well by rank outsiders as by the

experts of the science to which they are supposed to belong.
Your
that he
political scientist thinks
is
he
is
going a long
way
afield
meritoriously portraying "actual" government
inserts in his
and
when he
work some remarks on the machine, the boss, and

and vices of men practicing politics. He is
the practical virtues
162
POLITICAL SCIENCE
163
quite right in this but only by contrast with the writers I do not
say on constitutional law, for these are doing their proper work
in their proper
tional law
way but
and pretend thereby
the process of governing
But the boss himself

science as
those
is
almost as formal an element in a pohtical
state legislature carries
taken for what
it
upon and adopt

through from
is
society.
You must
him you
state
still
go behind to
on each other
the work and defects of a
discussion of
one nowhere as long as the legislature
purports to
laws.
Not
its efficient
where the
the legislature
There
When you
real interests that are playing
through his agency.
tration clerk.
a real picture of society in
to give
the president or governor.
what are the
tell just
take the fictions of constitu-
itself.
is
have not stated the Hving

find
who
men who
be a body of
until the actual
demand
law-making
is
traced
can one
to its actual appHcation,
real law-creating wôrk is done,
is
dehberate
and whether
was Moses the law-giver or merely Moses
the regis-
hardly anywhere a work on pohtical science that does
examines the phenomena of pubhc opinion, either

indulge in some wise and vague observations, or else make a frank
And yet what can there possibly be to
admission of ignorance.
when
not,
it
=*
hfe
left
writes of the state, of law, or of pohtics without
first
a pohtical science with the very breath of

quarters with public opinion
structure of his study.
1
Professor Giddings has
is
its
made some
Das Recht
des
to close
observations on private associations as
know has
meaning out of what he has observed, nor have the

See Democracy and Empire, chap. xv.
Jellinek,
He who
-i^
to get the full
simply evading the very central
the real law-formulating bodies in America, but so far as I
elsewhere.
out
coming
moderiien Skiates, Vol.
I,
not attempted
facts
"AUgemeine
been
utilized
Staatslehre,"
a page to describing pubUc opinion and concludes: "Die Bildung, Feststellung, Bedeutung der offentlichen Meinung im Detail zu untersuchen
gehort zu den interessantesten Problemen der SociaUvissenschaft, zugleich aber
p. 93, gives part of
auch zu den schwierigsten, da es sich hier
um
massenpsychologische Vorgiinge
handelt, deren Objekt mit Hijlfe unserer wissenschaftlichen
beobachten
ist."
Cf. Preuss, Schmoller's Jahrbiich jiir
Mcthoden schwer zu
G.V. und
V., Vol.
XXVI,
"Jenes undefinierbare, jedcr rcchtlichen Erfassung spottende, und doch

in lebendigster Realitat existierende Etwas das man offentliche Meinung nennt."
P- 579:
64
We
liiivi-
in this
They
making.
We
their work.
They
law.
may
not
\x:
world
many
lawyers
who know nothing
play their part, and their learning
have
many law-makers who know nothing
too play their part
able to give
it
and
their
verbal expression
wisdom
is
Hul the practical lore of neither of these types of
knowledge of
Nor by
society.
we make an advance.
know,
for
what they
of law-
is justified
It is
are, for
though
none the
men
is
by
of
they
less real.
scientific
putting their two lores together do
they themselves
we must study and
what they represent.
CHAPTER V
SUMMARY
have written the preceding chapters
the chapters that are to follow.
why
the
forth
is justified,
method
which
of interpreting society
and why the irruption into
it
am
of
make
for
clear
it
about to
set
any unassimilated
to
it.
What
"feelings,"
have thus far said amounts
to
about
they are
or rather, that what
stated in a very clumsy
am
is
this:
that the
and "ideals" are not
"faculties," "ideas,"
"things" in or behind society, working upon
to
would only serve
factors of the kind I have been criticizing

distort
way
prepare the
to
have wished
it
definite
as causes, but that
meant by them
is
society
itself,
and inadequate way.
aware that many refined theories
exist
which
psychic elements not as "things" but as process.
cerned with such theories, but with the practical use
state these
am
not con-
made
of the
elements themselves in interpretations of society; and in that use

they always present themselves as "things," however
fact
may appear
individual hfe
society
to
much
throws them concretely into opposition
which they are used
that
Their very statement as phases of
be veiled.
to explain,
to
the
and makes concrete causes
out of them in the bad sense.
To
avoid misconception
let
me emphasize
afresh
some
of the
things I have not said.

I
man
have not denied the existence of a

social material
which
is
indicated
real, living, intelligent
when
feelings
hu-
and ideals
are mentioned.
I
have not denied that
material
I
is
the stuff
this feeling, thinking, ideal-following
we have
before us in interpreting society.
have not denied that the ordinary statement of this material
from the individual view-point,

is fairly
in terms of our current vocabulary,
adequate for the purposes of everyday

165
life.
have no
i66
I'ROCESS
IIII';
more
OF GOVERNMENT
region than
(k-sirc to interfere in that
have, for instance, to
deprive some unhappy being of the anthropomorphism that suits

his needs.
same orcHnary statement has an

aesthetic value, any more than the physicist would deny color
when he studied wave-lengths. That form of statement has a
clear value for fiction and poetry and for painting and music
have not denied that
this
toowhich for all I know, or care, it

What I have denied is that the
from
separation of feelings and
indiv-idual psychic content,
on as
ideas, looked
will retain forever.
social institutions or
from society or
social activity, is a legitimate pro-
from
cedure in the scientific investigation of society. I have insisted

that such a separation, when built up into a system of interpretation, collapses of its
in a crash.
own
defects,
and brings
do^^^l the
whole system
have insisted that such a separation in fact exists
wherever feelings or ideas are given independent value as factors

in interpretation, even though the interpreters themselves enter a
most vehement formal denial.
am
the point of view I
manner
the
the contrary
taking
of its presentment
I shall
do not for an instant claim that
is
novel, except perhaps so far as
and emphasis
return to this in
that every advance step that
is
my
final
is
concerned.
chapter
On
I conceive
taken in the analysis or understand-
ing of society, whether in history, in ethnology, or in sociology,

involves, tacitly at least, this point of view.
'
But, of course, even though the feeling and idea system breaks
down, the
feelings
interpretations in
'
They
and ideas
still
have a meaning in the social
which they are used, and
fill
there a function.
amount of order into

In casting them out we must
are used because they bring a certain
what would otherwise be a chaos.'
be very careful not to cast out that meaning, that order, with them.
It is
He
with them
much
as
it
was with Zeus in early Greek thought.
answered a real purpose.
sonified
He
held together the various per-
powers of nature and of social
life
in a system.
When
Professor Small points out that Adam Smith used the "sympathies of the
impartial spectator" in just this way, and indicates what those sympathies are
equivalent to in modern sociology.
See Small, Adam Smith and Modern Sociology, p- 39; cf- also, pp. 50, 92.
'
SUMMARY
we
cast out
Zeus we must be careful
167
to retain the practical realities
We
of our lives which he has symbohzcd.
out Zeus only
when we have reached a better way of stating those

to cast him out would be impossible.
Indeed until then
reahties.
What
are the practical realities for
idea factors stand

If
are justified in casting
we
which these feeUng and
we
take the feeling elements in everyday speech
readily
see that they stand for certain regularities or tendencies in activity
For instance,
stated as individual conduct.
apt to be kind to
its cat it is
calling the child kind hearted.
a child
if
We indicate
dog.
its
is
man's habit with regard
truth-telHng, or with regard to steahng, is similarly
Among
quaHty.
set of subjects
we
boys
is
call
outraged at
follow after
perhaps.
toward a similar democracy in a
We
men have
and the
observe a government we
the
it:
We
sister
land
we
we
it,
see a tendency
domina-
talk of the
find legislation regulating the
meat industry
following swiftly on railroad and insurance legislation, and

to the
attribute
it
nature.
We
things
development of something or other in
get half a dozen liberties
we want
as liberties also
We
liberty that is guiding us.
by
and
into the regularities denoted
find part of the people getting the suffrage
a democracy in one land, and probably
tion of ideas.
to
his
apt to be outraged at the fate of the Fili-
the rest probably tencHng toward
women
A man
they are smart.
Here we are getting over
We
made
who pass examinations with honors in one

we find some tendency to stand high in
we say
the fate of the Boers
the ideas.
to
believe
other subjects, and
pinos.
kind
the tendency by
and we
we
human
state a lot of other
and we say that
it is
the ideal of
appeal to a difference in feelings
and customs different from our own;

for why should not other individuals and nations act just as we
do, if they are not fundamentally different in some way? The
and ideas
to explain habits
very complexity of social fact drives us to the individual feelings

as interpreters;
and the appearance of "chance" in
to give the explanation in
In this
way
individual
terms of
men
history, the
moments, seems
individual character added force.
prominence of conspicuous persons
at
critical
are not only distinguished
from one
'11
i68
another, as
IK
PROCESS OF
GOVERNMENT
have pointtd out before, but, what
the reverse
is
made
side of the same process, regularities of character are
And Inyond
ligil)le.
this the re^njlarities in the institutional side
brought under the same system of explanation.
of life are also
the adaptations of
Their unity and coherency arc emphasized;
men
man
'^'c.
to
to each other in society are given a passable statement; each

is
brought into relations to the mass of men.
However, while these feehngs and ideas put themselves forth

be definite dependable things, experience proves that they only
to the actual activity that
conform roughly
may
put
feelings
tliis
can be observed.
cat or
we can observe nothing more than
dog
is
unreliable,
many
dififerent
it is
When we
so with
all
the
We see
the exception rather than the rule for

the Boers
be enraged similarly over the fates of
And
when
world are superimposed on them.
on further inspection that

to
in view.
is
prove their narrow limitations
tests
tests of the practical
Filipinos.
to
standards, according as friend or
addressed, according as "business" or pleasure
The "smart-boy"
men
poorly
Kindness
not accompanied by kindness to snake or mosquito.
Truth-telling has
is
We
dilTerently by saying that from the standpoint of the
defined tendencies of activity to correspond to them.
foe
intel-
and
the others.
and idea
become
greatly
elements
The whole working process, regularities and tendenincreased.
But we find the feelings we
cies and all, is what we must study.
to
are using breaking

to
application of
get to the
social interpretation,
make them
ever
our
these feeling
difficulties
down under our hands.

more and more
We
it
necessary
specific, or else ever
more and
find
they are not to become admittedly inadequate

work we put upon them. And similarly with the ideas.
We must make them so exact and definite that they fit the facts
of the case like shadows, or we must make them so highly generalized that there is no more substance to them than shadow^s.
And
more
generalized,
if
for the
in either case, at either extreme,

points.
going, or
When
a feeling
when an idea
is
is
we
thus bring
them
to
vanishing
so definite as, say, the love of theater-
so definite as, say,
some
law reform which we are on the point of adopting,
detail of ballotit
becomes the
SUMMARY
same thing
169
as our activity itself, for all the
aid in interpretation.
And when a
say, virtue or vice, or
an idea so general
liberty,
it
necessary to
it is
any meaning
at all.
fill it
_^d
Inêitherj:ase the feelings
feeling
full of social
that content
is
good
it
does us as an
becomes
so general as,
as, say,
democracy or
content in order to give

the social ^cti\ity
and^M^^sv^-msh into
itself.
They
di^
stand naked before us as impotent inferences from activity.
This
factors be located for themselves as apart
were appealed
to to explain
activities of society.
and
great care
will
made
equivalent to the point I have repeatedly
is
preceding criticisms that nowhere could the
their
occupy us
nowhere, that
feeling
from the
is,
in the
and idea
activities they
except in the speech-
There they must be studied, of course, with

meaning and value allowed for on Hnes which
for a considerable time in the chapters
which are
to follow.
Parenthetically I
may admit
that feehngs
and ideas
as tags,
or labels have a certain practical utility for scientific investigation
which may continue even

pretation
in use.
is
in order to
mark out
more
our reckoning.
the
possibly,
of
and ideas'^
for investiga-''
quantities of
to
^
"^
prehminary descriptive work which prepares the

careful description which is interpretation.
more
though
at
much
of shorthand expression
we have
phenomena
the unknown
Probably also they can be used conveniently
this extent in the
for
satisfactory system of inter-
particular feelings
tentatively fields of
Here they serve as symbols
tion.
way
And
after a
We may name
in
risk,
they
may
be employed as a sort
indicating briefly causal connections
already worked out, which would take
many words to
But the minute we go beyond these uses, the
minute we plant ourselves on feehngs and ideas as soHd facts, that
minute we open the way to all confusions.
state otherwise.
Let
me
next give a more theoretical statement to the position I
have taken.
the ideas
lose their
No
matter
how
highly generalized or
how
specific
and feeUngs are which we are considering, they never

reference to a "social something."
The angry man is
never angry save in certain situations; the highest ideal of Hberty

has to do with man among men. The words anger and hberty
'
){

OF GOVERNMENT
TIIK PROCESS
I70
can easily be scl over as subjects against groups of words in ^he

But neither anger, nor liberty,
predicate which define them.
nor any feeling or idea in between can be got hold of anywhere
except as phases of social situations. They stand out as phases,
moreover, only with reference to certain positions in the social
situation or complex of situations in the widest sense, within which
they themselves exist.
has long enough been established that there is_j]La-"auter

This is not deep philosophy, but plain
idea.
It
world" except in
common-sense; for
it
know any outer world except the world that

what
is
the
same
thing, as
well established that
we
it
is
known
ourselves, ideas
we do not
to saying that
amounts merely
is
known
to us, or,
to us.
But
and
are a functioning
all,
it is
equally
part of that very outer world.
Now, when we attempt
to separate
an idea or a feeling as such
from that outer world, do the best we can, we cannot help taking
up a large part of that outer world into it, for that outer world is
felt
idea.
To
succeed in this attempt at separation
impossible as to find an outer world that
And when we
say,
strive to interpret
some phase
of society
is
not
is
or, better,
that the idea or the feeUng

in the feeling or the idea.
to us.
any phase of that outer world
by the aid of feeling or idea, we inevi-
tably have society itself contained in our alleged "cause;"

in the double sense
just as
"known"
and
this
from the twofold point of view
is social,
and that the society
This admitted,
it
is
reflected
follows at once that
the individual as the definite, firm, positive, foundation for indi-
vidualized feelings and ideas,

himself,
is
a highly abstract social idea
and in the way in which he
is
put to use,
fictitious.
All
depends then for the success of our interpretation in terms of such

and ideas as built up in speech for practical uses and
feelings
carried over into science,
works
on
its
on how well our interpretation actually
practical scientific efficiency.
But we may well expect difficulty with interpretations based

on a fundamental spHt between the idea and the outer world. If
we throw emphasis on
other,
either one of the two to the exclusion of the

and deny the complement, we are constructing a world out
SUMMARY
171
of stuff that has definition only in terms of the very opposition
attempt to deny.
the objective
we
system,
on causal
If
and
we take both
attempt
concretely
to function
them together
are putting two halves together
lines
can
make one whole
in a causal
which never possibly
for the excellent reason that
the original analysis which produced the two parts was not
on adequate causal Unes.

I do not want to be understood as placing any
on reasoning of the kind I have just been using.
incidental use in helping to define the position I
lacks the direct control of facts, and anyone
hypnotized by
it is lost.
With
and ideas, and the
has a certain
taking, but
lets
it
himself be
little
of
it
no especial harm.
To get back to our immediate

and values in associated human
feelings
am
who
made
special reliance
It
that warning, I think, the
I have indulged in here can do
we
the subjective and
which is the meanings

which are represented by
of preser\ing them after the
subject,
life
possibility
feehngs and ideas in their concrete statements are cast out,
we can
more light on it through the distinction between process
and content, which is, of course, merely a distinction of point of
view. The meat of this book has to do with the process of governget a
little
ment, but that process

point
itself
as social content,
if
the
view chosen were that of individual psychic process.
of
have
at
whenever psychic "states" are taken
poses, so that
content, the point of view in interpretation
spond.
The
psychic process
may
full of social
wiU change
to corre-
correspond admirably
to brain
physiology, but concreted " chunks " of brain will not serve on crude
causal Hues to explain "society," since society

that phrasing
just
is itself
to
adopt
brain "chunks" and nothing more.
One
own boot-straps anywhere else, and
why he should attempt it here.
does not hft himself by his

there
is
With
no evident reason
this imderstood, I think
it
out the concrete feehngs and ideas
will be
we
would appear
no time any quarrel with the point of view of functional

psychology, but I want it scrupulously adhered to for its own pur-
apparent that in casting
are not necessarily casting
out the values and meanings they represent.
These meanings and
values long ago read themselves into the feelings and ideas for
TIIE TROCESS
172
certain practical purposes.

ing's
into another
manner
If
OF G0VP:RNMENT
wc can
rearl
of statement
pretation where the concrete feelings
the values and
which
mean-
will aid us to inter-
and ideas prove themselves
incoherent, then we suffer no loss while making a very great gain.

as
Instead of values taken from very limited view-points
with the feelingsor of values taken from slightly wider, but still,
in comparison with the whole social range, very narrow viewpoints
as with the ideaswe must seek for values and meanings
work coherently throughout all society; so that, instead

making society a patchwork of fecHng and idea view-points, a
which
of
will
mosaic with
lines of unreality all
as nature presents
ferentiation
it
it
to us in its
through
mass
it^
we can grasp
effects,
life,
must deal with
f elt
not with idea ghosts.
thought
truth.
facts,
We
to
it
more
of dif-
to
hold
to the reality.
thin gs, not with feelings, with intelligent
We
must deal with
felt facts
and with
but not with feeling as reality or with thought as
must
find the only reality
proper functioning of the
system
it
its lines
and opposition, such as we must insert in
under comprehension, better corresponding
We
with
felt facts
which they belong.
and the only truth in the
and the thought
facts in the
PART
II
ANALYSIS OF GOVERNMENTAL PRESSURES
CHAPTER
VI
THE RAW MATERIALS

The
student of government, like the student of any other
must make his investigations upon a mass of raw materials.

What are the raw materials of government ?
The morning paper tells me that the Standard Oil Company
subject,
has been indicted on some thousands of counts for violating the
federal laws.
few months ago
told
it
me
that
many employees
of one of the executive departments of the government
scurrying over the country gathering facts about the

that
company had conducted

Before that
panies.
it
told
its
me
in
were
which
business with the railroad com-
Con-
of a resolution put through
gress ordering such an investigation.
have read of the excited
way
activities of
Still
farther
back
could
many men which came
to
climax in the passage of the law under which these indictments
have been found.
If I
wait a few months more I shall read of
the trial in the court, of the punishment which will perhaps be
imposed, and in part of the
effect
which the punishment has,
or,
which the indictments even without punishment
alternatively,
have, on the company's business methods.
think also that

of the people
I shall
announce fresh steps
duction of improved methods of

as the Standard Oil
have reason
to
soon hear a certain leader of a great portion

to
be taken toward the intro-
controlhng such
Company; and
corporations
that this will sooner or later
be followed by a renewed assertion by another popular leader

that the present methods of control will be applied so vigorously
as to secure the desired change in conditions without further
legislation.
If I
care to I
may
and everything concerned, both

of all degrees of remoteness
Here
There
is
is
some
of the
read
many
criticisms of
in current periodicals
from the hottest spots
raw material
no other kind.
175
everybody
and
in
books
in the conflict.
for the study of
government.
-jb
It is first, last,
f the
shunting hy some
men
"something doing,"
activity, action,
and always
of other men's conduct along changed
gathering of forces to overcome resistance to such alteragrouping.

tions, or the dispersal of one grouping of forces by another
just as
activity
are
speech-making
and
talking
and
The writing
lines, the
much
any of the other facts
as
have mentioned.
Always there are many men involved, a few directly and very
many more indirectly. But the distinction between direct and
indirect
not fundamental.
is
It is
a practical distinction
happening; made so that
it
will not be necessary to
story over again with each
we
shall see in
due time,
new
made
one another what
for convenience in describing currently to
is
the whole
tell
For our purposes, as
incident.
an arbitrary, and not an edaquate,
it is
distinction.
The raw
himself,
it
we study
material
never found in one
is
cannot even be stated by adding
be taken as
it
comes
in
many men
man
to
man.
It
"relation,"
material;
men
of
first,
i, e.,
men
are
and the relation erected between them. The

the action, is the given phenomenon, the raw
the action of
men
with or upon each other.
These
only as participants in such activity.
which governmental
to speak,
must
It is a "relation"
together.
between men, but not in the sense that the individual

given to us
man by
out of which
activities are
men
We know
joint activities,
one form, are the cloth, so
in individual patterns are cut.
"President Roosevelt" of history, for example,
The
a very large
is
amount of official activity, involving very many people. Any

other " President Roosevelt " of pubhc life, physical, temperamental,
moral,
is
but a limited characterization of certain phases of that
activity.
These
and
collections, or groups, of
feeling
process.
actors.
They
act
men
composed
are
through
"Ideas" and "feelings" are words we use
to
certain phases of men's participation in the actions.
we
of thinking
thought-and-feeHng
emphasize
Ordinarily
regard these "ideas" and "feehngs" as concretely existing
individual possessions.
spoken of as socially
Of
late years they
existing.
From
have frequently been
either
point of view
it
THE RAW MATERIALS
177
remains true that we know nothing of ''ideas" and **feeUngs"

except through the
This
medium
last sentence will
of actions.
be misunderstood
taken
if it is
mean
to
and feehngs are "there," and that the action is

"merely a medium." We must be on guard against such false
that the ideas
interpretations of current language.
of activity to a
mere abstract
fact, the action is
The
It is
relation
what we have given
akin to the lowering
between given men.
us.
It is
In
our raw material.
ideas and feehngs, as such, are not given facts they are not
;
fixed points
from which we can
They
start to argue.
are
ways of
talking about the facts; they are hypotheses, very useful in their
way
but by us always
for the practical purposes of everyday hfe ;
be employed only with the interrogation
to
mark
after
them;
always to be abandoned whenever and wherever they are not
comprising
useful.
The
talk itself
activities
of course, never to be
is,
oned with in interpretation
all
what
for just
and writing
the speaking
abandoned.
it is,
It is to
be reck-
Uke any other form
of activity.
The "ideas" and "feehngs"
serve to give the individual
his orientation in the social activity in

serve, so to speak, to define
idea which
is
him
He
can define
he
built up.
feels,
as an individual.
it
see
no reason
for
up
that I
am
no
as set apart concretely, serve tol
which are our raw materials.

any activity as com-V
for consideration
offering
mediate, which I shall use freely

facts that
is
only in terms of other men's hves.
are not able to take

I
There
fix
indicate the values of the activities
man
involved; they
There is no
upon except in a social form.
only in terms of language which myriads of men
He knows what he feels, and indeed even that
The "ideas" and "feehngs,"
We
is
not a reflection^ of social activity.
feeHng which the individual can
have
which he
definitions of the terms, reflect, represent,
through this work. They indicate certain

appear directly in the analysis of social activity; the very facts indeed
especially studying.
all
My
epistemological point of view
is
naive, as naive, I hope, as the point of view of the physical sciences;
admittedly
I nowhere
and the unconscious, save
as a minor variation of technique in the group process; and even that variation
can much better be brought out without the use of the two terms than with it.
lay any stress on the difference between the conscious
-mK PROCESS OF GOVKRNMENT
178
wf
If
plrtc in itself.
altc-mjjl
corpse, or rather a
we have a
it
fraKnirnt of a corpse, in our hands, ami that

study.
The
mannir
of*\ocpFcslioH.
We
the interlacing itself
have one great moving process
moving process
in
it is
any other
is
in
This
is
as true of the talk activities
Take the indictments against the

The only way we can state them ade-
terms of eighty million people, more or
indeed that even
may
The meaning
their values, extend to the activities of people
make any
we aim
And,
rather,
it is
which
them
if
all
we
we
and defined.
will neglect
to
range of values for
when
vary materially from the purposes
We
which these phenomena are
must attain a statement, a
none of the important phases.
the best available statement has been

will
ignore
trifling
almost needless to say, our purposes,
at scientific study, will
valuation,
we must
will yield the best
of everyday Ufe with reference to
ordinarily stated
beyond
importance in handling our raw materials
them a statement which
our purposes.
live far
progress in scientific study.
It is of crucial
give
who
But where the values become too
can profitably ignore them;

are to
of the indictments,
extend, indeed, very nearly to
the confmes of one country;

parts of the world.
and
less;
not be a sufficiently comprehensive state-
for purposes of study.
ment
of this great
activities.
Standard Oil Company.

quately
the activity.
is
and
to study,
a bad
is
impossible to state any part except as valued
tirms of the other parts.
as of
That, however,
activities are interlaced.
ÔT
poor material for
is
made, the
scientific
When
study
have been carried to the farthest pDssible point.
Now
and "feelings" when they are

them floating around is that they give
values to our activities which may be, and which indeed usually
are, very different from those we must reach even at the very
starting-point of our investigation.
Here is a city with a bad
street-car service and two million dissatisfied citizens.
The
the trouble with "ideas"
taken up just as
situation
we
find
breaks into pohtical
ownership movement.
over the
and
lield of
life
form of a municipal-
in the
The "ideas" and
action at white heat.
for itself, takes the pulpit
the
"feehngs"
flash
Municipal ownership, in
and yearns
to
burn
at the stake all
THE RAW MATERIALS

In
objectors.
and another
damns
rhetoric,
it is selfish,
vocabulary one
its
set the
If
almost convinced that
one can pass through the
furnace without being consumed, one can get
But
values of the activity before him.
an understanding of what
"idea"
is
boodlers,
Altruism, as a matter of
Selfishness,
sneers at altruism.
become
set of citizens
purest patriots.
selfishness.
179
if
many
fiery
hints as to the
one attempts
to
happening by adding brand
to
reach
brand,
"idea," and "feeling" to "feeling," one can never
to
The
reach the goal.
confusion grows worse, the more faithful
the arithmetic.
And
present
yet there
itself
is
not a shred of
as an affair of feeling
stated with these phases left out.
the activity
all
and
It
which does not
intelligence.
cannot be
It
cannot be stated with these
phases erected into other "things," and set over against
it.
It
can
only be stated as purposive activity (in a very broad sense of the
word purposive),
It
as the doings of wanting- knowing
can only be analyzed and
terms of
all
the rest of
it.
It
its
parts can only
men
in masses.
be valued in
cannot be analyzed in a structure
of "feelings" or in a structure of "ideas" taken apart
We
must get our raw material before us
in the
form
from
it.
of purposive
action, valued in terms of other purposive action.
Let
to
me
restate all this in a different
The raw
government.
found in the lawbooks.

certain participants in
way, with special reference
material of
These merely
government cannot be
method by which
government proceed, or claim they proceed,
state the
in their part of the work.

It
cannot be found in the "law" behind the lawbooks, except
as this
is
taken
which case law
to
is
mean
the actual functioning of the people
no means a complete statement of

It
in
an important aspect of the raw material, but by

it.
cannot be found in the proceedings of constitutional con-
ventions, nor in the arguments
and discussions surrounding them.
Hints and helps are there, but only minute fragments of the raw
material.
It
cannot be found in essays, addresses, appeals, and diatribes
on tyranny and democracy.
All that the world has ever
produced
i8o
riir.
way cannot do
in this
may
material
It
TKOCESS of
government
than point out to us where the raw
m(jrc-
found.
\k'
cannot be found
in the
"character of the people," in their
specific "feeling's" or "thoughts," in their "hearts" or "minds."

Whatever truth or other
All these are iiyjxjtheses or dreams.
import an(c ihey
may
i)ossess,
they certainly are not
"raw
material,"
but instead highly theoretical.
material can be found only in the actually performed
The raw
and
legislating administering-adjudicating activities of the nation

in
the streams
among
activity that gather
and currents of
the
people and rush into these spheres.

p
The
people striking
that tend to
tion facilities, or
That
study.
at
somebody or something along
lines
produce purer food, safer insurance, better transporta-
whatever
else
that
is
the
raw material
of
our
the "simple fact" given us to examine, nDt the

"
up in interpretation out of " simple
is
" complex fact " for us to build
Motives? They
our hands.
deal with them
the
more
you
And
may be as complex as you
And with them you go into the
the more complex they become.
facts
which we hold behind
in
will.
labyrinth, not into the light.
The "ideas" and
"feelings" appear on the scene, I have said,
not for themselves, but in the form of words.
Spoken and written
language (signs and expressions included)
supposed
them from one person

activity.
know
It
is
must not neglect
When we
arrive
off
at
activity
is
This language
is
to
follow
We
all
movements swim. We
On the other hand we must not overvalue it.
everyday theories and set the "feehngs" and
words in w^hich
it.
convey
one form of
prominent in government and pohtics.
the sea of
"ideas"
to another.
political
by themselves as the "causes" of the
activities,
we
once at an enormous overvaluation of the forms of
which appear in words.
a sort of monopoly of intcUigence.

other such abstractions,
all
of
To
the words are attributed
Ideas, creeds, theories,
them appearing
actively
and
as words,
arc supposed to rule the world, other things being merely ruled.
One can
get
anywhere from primitive magic
or a theocracy by this sj'stem.
to
"laissez faire"
THE RAW MATERIALS

no doubt because that particular form of
It is
consists in the
moving
our
activities that
own
activity
most highly, and, as they have by far the best

their valuation known, they have set a
make
fashion of speech about
Language is
But nevertheless
what
it is
activity,
it,
is
language that demands
reflected in
Language must be regarded as a differentiated

and the only way we can handle it with any
to scientific
by valuing
it.
surely a technique of fundamental importance.
primary attention.
approach
proportion of
ver}' large
has gained this extravagant attribution of
then, too, the pencil- pushers naturally value
opportunities to
form of
which
And
importance.
their
it
activity
of the larynx or the pushing of a pencil
has a direct value relation with such a

all
i8i
accuracy in studying social phenomena
is
not with reference to some theoretical idea or feeling
content, but with reference to other acti\aties directly.
The language
activity is simply
an-organism problem.
one case of the organ-within-
I consider it futile to discuss
it
in terms
and organism, mainly because when we use those terms

we are desperately endeavoring to explain the better known by
And that is never profitable. But if there
the less well known.
is any difference in principle between the language activity as
differentiated from other activity, and any other form of the
of organ
differentiation of social structure, I have failed to appreciate
it.
am not here discussing quantities or relative importance,
Observe, I
but simply the nature of this differentiation of acti\aty.
When
our popular leader
illustration
rally
gets
upon
to
revert
the platform
with him to exterminate the
to
and
trusts,
tells
what
it is.
their place in politics,
Standard
us
we have
we must
Oil
all
much raw
much activity
so
we must take as so
we start out with a theory about ideas and
we are deserting our raw material even before
material for investigation which

for just
the
If
we take a good peep
at
We
it.
which may or may not be
are substituting something else
useful, but
our entire further progress,
if
which
progress
will certainly color
we can make
at all
on
scientific lines.
Now
the speech, plus
its
thousands of printed reproductions.
PROCESS of
ini:
i82
backed up by
audicncx- that hcarrl
llu- rxcili-d
part of the {K)pulation that reads
and by the large
it
and approves
is
it,
certainly a
But
significant factor in the political life of the country.
most
we have
a differentiated bit of activity
just as the si)eech itself is

it
government
no other form, remember, unless we consciolWp|||Lunconit up with a theory made in advance and dr3j^j|W
in
sciously bolster
in
whole
by violence so this
people
a differentiated
is
Ijil
speaking-writing-indorsing
set of
of activity.
a group activity
It is
that has taken on, temporarily or with some permanence, a fairly
defmite form
to
enough, at any
and value in terms of other
descrilx',
going
definite
handle, describe, and value
of success,
we must be
rate,
for us to
But
activities.
handle,
we
if
careful not to insert into
importance of ideas any earlier than we have
it
a theory of the
to.
We
shall find
and we
theoretical tangles set for our feet all too soon at the best,
must
insist
on getting
the talking-indorsing
first
are
with the greatest measure
it
of all a view as objective as possible of
group of people
to see
how we can
place
it
with other groups or group activities, also observed by us in the

simplest,
we
If
most direct manner we can bring ourselves

label
Bryan, leader," we have something definite
September, 1906;
that
it
we can take
hand and study.
in
purports to follow as our material,
If
to infinity.
If
we took
which we assume
material,
instead the set
should follow the course.
must
stick to
I vyant to
and
all
to
explain.
And
It
group, as our
get to the goal, but
we never
the "course" in this case

itself
is
is
just
We
our raw material.
it.
make
it
clear that this "trust-busting group,"
for without the idea phase
much such a
the idea
get beyond our

on the tangent that leads
of conditions, economic or
will decide the fate of this
we might or might not
what we have
we took merely
we never could
noses, without finding ourselves far out
other,
to use.
group the "trust-busting group of August-
this
we could not
differentiation in social activity as
or organ or structure, whatever term
we may use
"ideas"
define
it
is
any other group
in discussing these
Suppose we compare it with our federal Supreme Court,

meaning by that term the justices who sit together and react upon
tilings.
THE RAW MATERIALS

who come
certain people
is
before
them
183
in certain ways.
Now
this
an extreme case, by no means the easiest for purposes of com-
parison, since the
Supreme Court
ably having no demands of
group isî|[Kli stent in

al^^M**'^^ that
it
its
consists of.
its
an estabHshecl body, presum-
is
own, while the "trust-busting"
demands that demands seem to be

The Supreme Court is a relatively
definite region in the configuration of social activity, itself

to its present condition as the result of the pressure
brought
upon each
other in the past of just such groups as the "trust-busters" represent today.
Both in the "trust-busting" group and in the Supreme Court

In both ahke
is observable.
a speaking, thinking, feeling process

there
is
reasoning:
it is
purely arbitrary for us to set one
down
as reasoning and the other as vociferating merely on the|oasis
Each has
of our personal sympathies.
has a structural aspect, and

poses that
we
it is
structure, that
is,
each
only for Hmited temporary pur-
are justified in calling the court group organization,
and the other group public opinion or something similar with the
emphasis on the opinion. From the most rarified reasoning
circles to the
most
definite organization circles
we
are dealing all
the time with a process identical in quahty at every stage, a process of
human
activity.
"Trust-busters" and Supreme Court alike can be stated
effec-
tively only as activity, only in terms of their values for other groups.
If " trust-busters,"
people,
work up
being by hypothesis in the minority
too
much
among
the
steam, so that they become a nuisance,
they will sooner or later perhaps conflict with the Supreme Court,
supported by the majority of the people

to a
(I simplify the illustration
mere counting of heads, leaving out other elements of strength),
and a change
will thereby
be brought about in their lines of activity.
Or, being in the majority, directly or indirectly, they will in time
be working their
The
will
through the agency of the Supreme Court.
point I have been striving to
the planning activities, as
we
make
is
that the talk activities,
actually find
them among our raw
materials, are differentiated activities of groups of
men
in society,
with no more mystical, no more mysterious, no more fundamental.
THK
i84
I'R0CP:SS
OF GOVERNMENT
no mort- "causal" character to be assumed in them, than in an)

other groups or (lilTcrentiated sets of activities.
Just what their
rehitions are with otiier activities, that
how
just
is,
the whoje
complex can best be stated to bring out the value of i ts parts,

is sf)methinR to be proved thrpugh investigation, not to be as sumed
in
advance on the basis of any psychology whatever.

These talking, planning activities will have to be examined
with great care as this work progresses.
Any
analysis of leader-
ship or of public opinion, fundamentally important phases of
all
forms of government, must deal in great part with them.

ever}' step wc must regard them as activities and as nothing
At
We
must hold
fast to
else.
what we can observe and examine and not
prop them up on hypotheses until we are sure the hypotheses are

An inadequate vocabulary may
of a kind that are useful to us.
now and
occasion
then sentences which seem to desert this position.
In such cases leniency must be asked for the language and fair
judgment
for the thought
behind the language;
this very sentence,
indeed, cries for mercy in just this respect.
It is
now
necessary to look a
little
closer at
activity with its thDught-feeling coloring;
cross-section of
it
we must
We
under the microscope.
a specimen of
have no microscope
we must make one by concentrating
of glass and brass;
this
try to get a
attention
at the right spots.

If
we
limit the
hands and
from the
"man
be understood as
of millions,
less
detached
we do not get good

Even such "external" activity as this cannot
merely external. It must be regarded as the
human
being taken as a whole, as a person in society,
must be valued in terms of thousands, or rather

of individuals, if it is to have meaning as activity.
it
Suppose now I
call
such "external"
evident, or palpable activity.
the
the
motions of the body
conceived of as more or
himself," and extenial to him,
material to study.
and even then
activity to the
and so forth
feet
activity of the
term
same term,
evident to the
To
activity, certain
same extent
it
activity
manifest,
or
then must be added under
forms which are not palpable or
at the stage of their progress in wliich
THE RAW MATERIALS

we have
to search
They
them out.
185
are activities
which can perhaps
be pictured by the use of the word "potential."
may draw an
One way
molar motion.
corresponds with
activity
them is to call them "tendenthem seemingly with the external
of stating
This contrasts
cies of activity."
and
we
analogy between them and molecular motion, in
which case the palpable or external
activity
Or, again,
a half-compromise with everyday speech.
is
only be tolerable
if
we remember every time we use
these "tendencies" are activities themselves;
of activity just as
much
as
any other
It will
the words that
that they are stages
activity.
Suppose we should try to state the activity merely as the bodily

motion, and then say that the tendency was the interior brain
There would be a certain
motion.
should
the natural scientist
who
crudities into a field in

till
utility in the
statement, but
probably find ourselves soon falling into

carries his points of
which they
will not
the
view with
apply
we
of
all their
adequately
at all
have been greatly diminished.
their crudities
error
Wc
should
soon be following the error of everyday speech, which the natural

scientist
inevitably
and treating these brain motions
follows,
concretely as feeUng things,
making them crude causes
This, however, would not do at
happenings.
of the logical collapse of
all
of outside
both because
all,
such theories and because, as
have
previously shown, the whole structure of the outside world
presented to us in this very feeling-idea content, which

hypothetical
way
opposition.
We
is
of speech supposed to be set over against
are driven
back
to
is
in this
it
in
a statement in which we give
the brain motions value only in terms of bodily motions,
which
they mediate, and which arc themselves (taken in the social mass)
the creative or constructive phase of the whole world, social and'
physical, as
we know it.
hardly need
to
add that
am not making
this "activity"
something different from or superior
experience;
am
treating
it
to
any other
simply as the view- point from
which the unity of experience can best be appreciated,

other words,
of
as
the
view- point
society can best proceed
progress.
or,
in
from which our interpretation
and with which
it
can best make
86
In ilic
few
immediately following, which are devoted to

use of the words, I cannot pretend adequately to
jja^c's
illustration of this
my
justify
words
brought
be
itself rests
up
fill
For such
jxjsition.
book must
is
anything from what
coherent and
whole of
this
use of
the
this
which
the outgrowth of the studies
deduce
shall not later attempt to
here saying.
am
merely trying here
the great social processes
work through
not transforming themselves from objective to
the individuals,
subjective and
am
how
roughly
the
justification
reckoning, since
into
upon and
the rest of the lx)ok.
to indicate
OF GOVERNMENT
F'ROCESS
I'lIK
back again
but remaining always
objective,
to
consistent activity.
do not
an interpreta-
strive at
tion of society in terms of quahtatively uniform activity because

of what I am saying here, but I merely take the position I do take
here because I find

If
I
anyone deems
it
it is
possible to interpret society in that way.
absurd to subsume these "tendencies" of which
have spoken under
activity, I
may
Zeno
inclusion of rest under motion.
the latest mathematical thought,
statement of rest and motion
is
perhaps refer
is
Zeno and
his
being rehabihtated in
and the need of getting a coherent
no greater than the need of getting a
point of view with reference to society
from which we can look

any breaking over
straight through the chains of activity without
into other worlds
to
on the way.
Tendencies that are suppressed, checked, inhibited, postponed,

are the most difficult to illustrate.
is
a stage of activity that
it is
much
there
is
is
If it is
hard
to see that there
not " palpable," but that
harder to see that
we have
an inhibitory process which
still is
activity,
to
do with activity when
to all
appearances cuts our
still
material off from any manifest bodily motions with which
be directly connected.
I will
move from
the simpler to the
it
can
more
difficult case in this exposition.
Now, of course,
phenomena to which
everyday
in
I
am
life
the interpretation of the
directing attention
of the hypotheses of everyday psychology.
fechngs, and motives
is
explain
That ordinary
straight
the
results.
is
made by
network of ideas,
built up, set a-creaking,
from observation of
acti\ities
the aid
psychology
and made
comes
to
itself
through the use of language
THE RAW MATERIALS
187
The word
anger, for example, indicates
certain contortions of the face and
violent motions of the hands,
for practical purposes.
The ordinary
with certain further tendencies of action.

chology
mean
(I
that psychology
which we ordinarily
find
psy-
used
in social interpretation) assumes an anger state or condition of
the soul
which produces those contortions and violent motions;
and word and psychological hypothesis combined Hnk together

But
various varieties of anger activities for ease in description.
neither
word nor psychological hypothesis ever
They
activity.
are hmited
meaning with reference
my own
man
much
beyond the
get
bringing-out of
My own
to other activity.
anger states has just that
Certainly no
the
strictly to
validity
its
knowledge
and no more.
of
has any direct experience of the feeUngs or
other mental states of other men.
He may make
very useful, or
very shpshod, inferences in terms of those feelings, and so forth, of

other men;
but the practical merit of his inferences, w^hether
good or bad,
is
states of other
know
far
from having
men, the truth
is I
my
For myself,
not in question here.
indicates that so
have next
to
my
actions,
and indeed
my
none of
myself, so far as I have any knowledge that
by observation of
observation
knowledge of the soul
direct
own.
largely not
by
my own
observations, but by what other people observe and report to

directly or indirectly about
my
actions.
worth while,
is
me
These observations about
am
myself are not different in character, so far as I
aware, from the
observations about other persons or things, which I use as material

of study or for practical guidance.
that they are correct
by practical
There
tests.
So
is
no greater certainty
far as I
have observed
other people they get their knowledge about themselves in
same way.
Whatever physical phase,
much
the
therefore, there
whatever shorthand paths of expression

as
it is,
it
is
concretely
known
to us,
is
may
to
"anger," and
be used about
it,
supported on a skeleton of
language deahng with observed varieties of action in ourselves
and
in others.
If
we should
should find
it
we
which, when
follow this anger acti\ity backward in time,
a complex of certain other
activities,
88
11
OF GOVERNMENT
I'ROCESS
IK
would
stated with sufTicicnt completeness,

itself
here want to follow
it.
backward, but rather, taking
it
anger activity
state the
with no need of any soul-plus to add to
But we do not
it
as an activity
It is sure
roughly indicated by the word anger, to follow it forward.
lx> found intertwining itself in other activities, with greater
to
new
or less neefl of
outcome
my
noticeably different, for
be
will
descriptive words to help us to place
anger evolves around the
my own
or around
ever
works, we can state
it
we may
However addicted
we can
in causal senses,
olTice
boy, around a drunken prize-
knotted shoelace.
fighter,
still
it
The
it.
example, according as
Wherever and how-
terms of various
fully in
activities.
be to the use of psychological terms
with a
little
practice succeed in stating
simple "soul states" in terms of activity.
Hut
'poned,
now we come
to the suppressed,
or inhibited
activities
which
checked, blocked, post-
will
probably seem not
"tendencies to action" but rather "tendencies" which have no

clearly evident action following after them.
to get the focus
That
also is
on the
way
facts.
It is
here
much
harder
Suppose our angry man " dissembles."
The anger activity which was

fist now stops part way, and
a more fitting time for the blow. The man
of action.
working toward a blow with the

j)auses,
will
perhaps waiting
his confidential friend
tell
about the situation, perhaps in
terms of anger, perhaps in terms of hate.

to erect
of
it,
We, however, unwilhng
a word into a "soul state" and explain things by means
must
try
what we can do by getting
involved stated as fully as possible.
We
all
the activities that are
find literally the
body, the whole man, not merely his abstract "soul," but
liim, poised as if to spring.
He
is
directed toward
man's
all
of
some further
which will be more palpable, but no more truly activity.

As placed in his social world he will have many tendencies working
through him at the same time. There wll be not merely the
immediate irritation relation, whatever it was, but also various
activity
other relations, such as those with the spectators, with broader
or with the law, all these being commonly indicated

by the use of terms such as motives. These various phases of
activities,
activity, these relations, are
working in a system of
conflicts
and
THE RAW MATERL\LS

adaptations
activity results
for
identify
with a single one.
we
If
ing into
all
of them,
however
we may
state the full situation in terms of all the activities enter-
we
it,
we
Our
give values to the man's present attitude, and
meaning out
get the
which involves
purposes in everyday speech
practical
definitely
it
system phase in the next chapter),
(I will discuss the
and a palpable
189
of
in a
it
way
in
which we can handle
it.
statement will be too compUcated and cumbrous to serve the turn

of the
it
will
man and his friend in their talk about his fit of anger, but
be much more adequate for our purposes of further investigawe want
If
tion.
own
of our
method
down
to
simpHfy the statement for any special need
investigation,
we
shall then be free to choose
to the current psychological
would lead us
inevitably
lose sight of
toward
We
of simpUfication as suits our ends.
its
The
into bogs
our very task
itself,
such a
shall not be tied
simplification,
which almost
and quicksands where we should

even before we get well started
achievement.
cases I have been discussing are simpler to use in prelimi-
nary illustration than would be the kinds of social activity with
which we
shall be
most concerned in studying government.
actually such cases as this are very
we
But
much more compHcated when
them in terms of activity than are the ordinary social

with which we have to deal. There is too much which we
try to state
facts
have no possible chance

hand, in the
The
activities
second
anger.
to observe, or
even
biologist can tell us a great deal that is important about
earthworms, but
what
to learn of at
involved in an individual man's
if
factors bring
we demand
it
him an explanation
of
as to just
about that two chance earthworms, as indi-
viduals, vary in this, that,
and the other
particular,
we should be
asking something that he could not usually even attempt to answer.
He
has nowhere to turn for the material for his answer.
Let us
now
transport ourselves into the directors'
an individual corporation, in order

that takes place there can be stated
we need
the
mechanism
to see
room
of
whether the procedure
on a basis of
activity or
whether
of concreted ideas, feelings, character,
knowledge, motives, and so on, to enable us to state the facts.
Tin: PROCKSS
iQo
If
wc made use
of such a
mechanism we shoukl say
that the direc-
affairs of the corporation in
had knowledge of the
tors
of governmknt
varying
degrees; that they varied in character with respect to their honesty,

eagerness for large dividends, and scruples as to improper busi-
methods;
ness
varying interests outside
represented
they
that
which alone they are supposed to

represent, and that they varied in their degree of business acumen.
We should combine these factors and say that a proposed policy
of the corporation's interest,
was adpoted
and we
together,
taken
them
or rejected as the result of all of
should almost inevitably pass judgment upon the wisdom or unwisfor extending the corporation's sphere of operations
of the decision in accordance with
dom
own
our
view-points.
This way of stating the situation would be very useful if we

were attending a stockholder's meeting and preparing to cast our
on the election of new directors, or if we were passing judgment on a question of pohcy, or if perhaps we were preparing to
preach a little public sermon on directors and their duties.
votes
But suppose we wish

of the country.
life
to place that
corporation in the industrial
then be primarily the activities of the
It will
corporation as they are reflected and guided through the directors'
which we
to
policies
competing for adoption.
We
of the corporation's contacts with the
that
The
of its opportunities.
is,
it
cannot be helped.
If the
its
pretense of independence,
acti\nty streaming right
on one
line or another,
world around
it,
in terms,
That sentence
is
misleading
reader will take the emphasis off
the disreputable grammatical subject
by
can state these in terms
different directors will reflect
these opportunities in different ways.
but
There may be two
shall give emphasis.
meeting
which makes
and
trouble
all the
try to see the corporation
through the directors toward reaHzation
he
will see the social facts, the
given raw
material, without the misleading structure of hypothetical psychol-
ogy in which
but men.
of those
it is
ordinarily stated.
Its activities are
men.
Its factory
The
corporation
is
nothing
nothing but the specialized acti\dties

wheels turn,
under the hands of those men.

this direction or that like the
its
products stream out
It stretches its activities
out in
pseudo podia of an amoeba; there
THE RAW
may
1 91
]VIATERL\LS
be a pulling or hauling, a strain between the
And
activities;
one
same when the

activities have not yet carried themselves through till they show
signs visible to the outer world; it is just the same while they are
gives way, another prevails.
still
under debate in the
directors'
is
it
just the
The two
room.
plans, the two
tendencies of the two factions of the directors, reflecting two

contacts with the surrounding world, two opportunities, fuse and
break away and fuse again

definitely forth
on a
till
the corporation activities
positive, clear, visible Une.
move
But_it2s_not^_the
plans as abstractly stated^ as idea^that thus conflict or coalesce.

It is the active
whom the
groups of men^ for
plans are but symbols
or labels.
The whole situation can be stated in such terms. It can be

stated much more adequately than it can be stated by the psychology of verbosity fresh drawn from practical
in a
way
in
which
all
be taken up into the
some human
It
the physical world
human
activity,
hfe.
It
and in which
soul states can be reduced to terms of
can be stated so that a
fair
can be stated
the environment can

all
the trouble-
human
chance will be given
activity.
to explain the
whole complex of social activity with the corporation activity in

the midst of
it,
and thereby
to get
a fairer start toward the inter-
pretation of the structural lines of activity of the whole society.
For the present one other
we have a
to
illustration
must
suffice.
Suppose
corrupt city government under consideration, and want
reach a statement of the phenomena involving corruption which
will help us in analysis
omena.
We
and in comparison with other similar phen-
can use the word "corruption,"
rough indication of the
field of
to
begin with, as a
phenomena we
are to explain,
without committing ourselves thereby to any special principle or

set of
judgments, moral or other, about
it.
of statement used, for example, in the
Now,
the usual
newspaper
method
editorial,
tells
us that certain corrupt acts have been committed because corrupt
men have been in office or have controlled officials or both. Put

men who are not corrupt, the argument runs, and you will not
in
suffer
from corrupt
of truth
acts.
and a certain
There
is,
of course, a certain
practical value in this
measure
form of statement;
192
iiii':
otherwise
it
indeed, for
i'KucKss
or government
would not be used.

campaign time. But
It is
a very useful statement,
will
not carry us very far for
it
There are too many questions about the special

forms which the corruption takes, about the extent to which it is
carried, and a\x)\ii its apj)earance at one spot and not at another,
our purjHises.
which cannot be answered in such terms. If we explain the

facts in terms of "corrupt men," we find ourselves merely erecting
a set of prol^lems in the background corresponding identically
with the jjroblems in the foreground, but not throwing any hght
Moreover we involve
uiK)n the latter, when closely examined.
mass of contradictions, and stimulate contradictory

forms of statement which still further heighten the confusion.
ourselves in a
The statement
crude.
It
in terms of
"corrupt
men"
generalizes along limited lines
much
in short,
is,
too
and does not take nearly
enough of the factors described as "environment" into consideration.
What
is
necessary for us to do in a case like this
the crude mental
and moral
qualities for a time,
We
performed.
they come, in
we have capacity
ias
full detail as
the
same
city,
"qualities,"
To do
this
activities
and with similar
we must
find out
men
we must
in other phases of
activities, that
what
forget
stick close
handle
to
acts in other cities.
remember, but actual
is to
must study these as
to the acts that are actually
bring them into relation with the acts of
and
It is
not moral
we must compare.
circles of the
population those
most directly represent in each case; we must get them
stated in terms of the opportunities for activity in the different

cases;
we must work them out
whom
they affect, or injure, and
in terms of other circles of
we must
get
men
some measurement
This cannot be done without includ-
of the extent of the injury.
ing a statement of the technique that exists for reaction against

injuries of these
painstaking
we
kinds.
When
shall find that
bute municipal corruption to
we have
aU
we no
this is
done with
"bad men," while on
not neglected any of
the
sufficient
longer need crudely to
human-nature
the other
facts
attri-
hand
referred
by the terms which describe "badness," but rather have comprehended much more of the mass of such facts. We shall have
to
THE RAW MATERIALS

human
the
193
nature and the environment comprised in our very
statement of the activities themselves
the
We
very rich activity as mate-
shall not
have "bare"
activity, but
happenings.
actual
rial for further theorizing.
As a matter of fact, just this sort of thing is actually done

both in popular agitation and in theoretical discussion as it now
exists.
For instance, when municipal corruption and pubHcservice
corporations
in
management
private
are
brought into
connection, the solid structure of the argument rests on a direct

correlation of activities as found
true,
by observation. And
is comprehended
however vaguely the process
however much
and moral
this
remains
at the time,
overshot with statements in terms of mental
it is
The important
qualities.
thing
is to
make such
state-
ments as these not accidentally, but deUbcrately, not partially,

but exhaustively, not in a medium of extraneous ideas and feelings,
but with the idea-feeling shadings thoroughly taken up into them
at their practical value.
have said incidentally above that
environment
t^he
can be taken up into the statement in terms of

point some further explanation
is
we
Ordinarily
necessary.
itself
On
activity.
this
treat
the environment as external and as sharply separated from the
men who by means

supposed
to act
of certain qualities that characterize
upon
it.
That does very
versation about our experiences.
nary description
to
of certain
It also
phases of our
ciety
it is
necessary to
we may make
this
remember
geography
description of certain phases of
by
itself,
by the
is
activities.
Let us look
taken up into
No
one wants
knowledge.
that for
Only,
any studies of
so-
a very far-away, very external,
human
but for a study of society
latter as
are
does very well for prelimi-
eliminate geography from our scientific
even here,
them
well for current con-
it
activities.
must not be
It is all right
so
much used
it.
at the physical
environment, say, of the people of
There is not a factor of it that has any importance or any meaning whatsoever for a study of government, or
the United States.
for that matter for
any study of
social activity, save as
it is
a part
or government
riiK I'kocKss
,,,.j
and pared of men's activities. In other words, it is not the environment we have to use, but certain special activities of men, v/hich
can only ix- stated, environment and all. That is our raw material.
Our national domain, the fertile land ready for immediate use,
until recently for
which was available

is
our expanding population,
(iiven no increasing population, no improv-
a Kood illustration,
ing transi)ortation, that land wouUl have
had
little
meaning
Given a population of different activities,
our country.
it
for
would
have a dilTerent meaning. By taking the land plus the knowledge

of its use we can get a half-way statement good enough for some
But the knowledge factor
purposes.
of pitfalls as wê
is full
have
to use it; and no combination of part statements gives us anything

more, or indeed nearly so much, as a definite statement of our
Gold in the ground is
actual doings and tendencies of doing.
a cipher for a study of society so long as
we
not exist
for
is
and
Gold that does
are doing nothing
not tending to do anything in connection with
it.
an important factor w'hen we are in a turmoil of chasing
Mountains have various meanings, according as we are
it.
fighting, railroad-building, food-hunting, cattle-raising, or health-
seeking.
It
not the mountains at
is
The silver
but the "meanings,"
all,
form our material
the practical, actual, uses that
of social study.
mines, as such, had nothing to do with the campaign of
1896, but certain silver-mining

abstractly stated
men
negligible, but
is
according as granaries are
full
or
did.
Bad viêather
men wdth changed
empty
for crops
acti\ities
are never negligible.
Mosquitoes twenty years ago and today are negligible, but

angry
fever
tions.
at little pests
twenty years ago, and
men
men
fighting yellow
and malaria today come upon our scene in different valuaThis is so evident that it may possibly seem not worth
emphasizing.
But
it
makes a great
difference in
many
the study of government whether the environment,
from the human

ture, is
activities w^hich
dragged in for
raw material presents

something external
itself
it
contain
it
it is
treated as the
phase of the actiWties, not as
" plus " the acting
Suppose we take such a social
abstracted
as part of their struc-
alone, or whether
to us
phases of
men.
fact as the struggle of the coal
THE RAW MATERIALS
1 95
miners for a 5.5-per-cent. increase in pay, with

in the terms of their
demand
some extent by
course, indicate the Hncs of adjustment to
ing the different mining
it
but the mines in terms of the
own them, and who

account, and
much
fields as so
at every stage of the process
describ-
physical nature.
But
will be not the mines objectively,
men who
working
arc
in them,
who
use the product, which must be taken into
the factors are reducible to terms of groups of
all
which terms they get
with the
where
Tlie whole comes to an adjustment, and one can, of
are used.
in
variations
districts
produced and where different processes
different kinds of coal are
men,
many
mining
in different
and
their best
richest statement,
most complete "relations," brought
fullest values, the
to
light.
We
can get further light on
of our analysis,
now and
This
that
if
at this early stage
the
"social
which
is
environment."
environment must be by definition a something plus

are
members
of all of these
one
is
otherwise one cannot

But the society is itself
of the society;
get out of mysticism in talking about
composed
even
this fact,
of a reference to that absurdity
then seriously discussed
social
men who
the
by aid
it.
same men.
Hence
should be clear
it
really discussing the given social facts,
the
raw
material for our study, one cannot possibly deal with a social
The
environment.
raw
social
environment
material, itself a social fact.
It is
fixed starting-point with the individual
merely one aspect of the
is
only
when one makes a
man. A,
meaning
into the phrase, "social environment."
that one
is
is
all
the ground out
And
one does
He
man. A, assumptions which
very well for their proper purposes, but which cut
from under our
has no value beyond the

it
starts,
and
to
which
it
A
is
is
little
is
outlook on the
variety of world -reflection,
forever bound.
along with "social environment,"
heredity" that
Such a study
feet in this place.
merely a systemization and dignifying of 4's
from which
if
whole study in advance by a whole mass of assump-
tions about the individuahly of the
no doubt are
It
But
not really studying social facts as he fmds them.
settling his
world.
that one can put
may
add, the "social
frequently heard of must also be driven out as an
4^
196
imjwssibility.
It
has meaning only in terms of the fixed
also
individual to which
referred.
it is
If
we get a
truly social statement,
then the heredity phase disappears, because the whole material

the social material just as it stands, and the addition of a heredity
is
idea
is
In other words, while
meaningless.
it is
from an
natural,
individual's standpoint, to talk of a "social heredity" of the customs
and habits and speech forms passed along from the individuals
to the individuals of the next, nevertheless if
of
one generation
we
take a view- point that sweeps across individuals, that takes
primarily in masses,
we
shall see the social facts, the
raw
them
material,
not merely spread out in space, but extended in time through the
ages;
and the use of the word heredity
once show
itself to
and harmful.
What
is
true in this
way
of the future in social interpretation,

It is
in this connection will at
be superfluous and, since superfluous, misleading

of the past is equally true
from the same point
of view.
not the individual's "future," but the social fact in time which
we have
before us.
This consideration of environment brings us back to that
dis-
tinction between subjective and objective which we have already
discarded so far
els
any value
it
has for social interpretation
concerned; for the physical environment makes

of that objective over
up a
against which the subjective
is
great part
is
placed.
Indeed, the old distinction and, for that matter, every distinction
between mind and matter, as obverse and reverse, or however put,

is
a very crude metaphor;
mentary
to
to
human
do service so long.
men who
and, one
may
say,
it is
Httle
compH-
ingenuity that such a metaphor has been

All distinctions
made
between wants, and the
want, and the external acts of these men, and the in-
or things done by them, and the external world in

which these things done are supposed to exist, when made concretely and treated as different kinds of "things," are very crude.
stitutions,
We do not get in
them
different parts of a
machine;
but instead,
ditTerent phases of a process which, while serving certain practical
ends, will certainly not serve interpretative purposes.
any
distinction
concretely,
Jind
Likewise
between the conscious and the unconscious, made
not merely as different shadings of the process
THE RAW MATERIALS

through which
common
material
197
passes,
equally crude.
is
whole nervous system, and indeed on the
Society rests on the
whole physique, and not merely on certain crudely described

"states" in the higher brain centers.
We
acts of
shall find as
we go on
most deliberative
done can be fully stated
that even in the
heads of governments, what
is
in terms of the social activity that passes through, or
or represented, or mediated in those high
than by their alleged mental states as such.
fully
tells
of a question he put to General
Grant
is reflected,
much more
Mark Twain
officials,
" With
whom originated
march to the sea ? Was it Grant's or was it Sherman's idea?" and of Grant's reply: "Neither of us originated
The enemy did it;" an
the idea of Sherman's march to the sea.
the idea of the
answer which points solidly

never
but
individuals,
the
to
be stated
to
content, always
in
adequately in terms
of
social
individuals.
It is the
same with
all
other forms of invention and discovery.
We shall find that the forces and pressures at work are great masses,
groups, of men.
same
position that
From this starting-point we shall come to the

we reached when, starting from the environment
a moment ago, we found that

or groups, of
pretation.
men
We
before
it
had to be stated in terms of masses

got any full meaning in social interit
shall find in the
same way
that that similarity
in the character of diflFerentiation which I tried to illustrate
some
pages back as between talk groups and organization groups, holds

for all the so-called socially psychic features of society as well as
for all the institutional features
activity all these features
the customs
and
and
social classes
religious factors
If
and
and that from the point of view of
can be valued in terms of one another,
all
and subclasses and the knowledge
that
we come
into contact with.
any such view of the raw material of our study as
outlined sacrifices anything whatever of

qualities, of the feelings
and
ideas, of the
or rather of the real meaning of
ordinary talk of social
fife,
all
these factors,
then the view
have
and moral
motives and wisdom,
the mental
which appear in
have taken
is
a false
rHK PROCESS OF
i(,8
view, in Ihf st-nsc
lliat
inadequate.
ills
be rejected, not
It is to
attempts at the study of social facts have shown
acccptcfl.
My own
mc
sacrifice whatever,
no such
GOVERNMENT
but rather, as
have insisted before,
a great increase in comi)leteness of statement.

do not point to human mental and moral qualities in the
I
form
and
of concrete feelings
produce
links in a long scries of
But then who can point
up.
definite, fixed causes
ideas,
to
such feehngs and ideas in the actual
material he uses, without regard to his initial theories about
Each man
admit without making any
objection to
it,
or for
whatever
can
but without having any
may
It
be, for all I
care, that this fact, or position, or inference, or
all I
it is,
it
That much
a feeling, thinking being.
is
special use for, or interest in, the statement.
know
which
same time of other causes, forming

causes and effects of which society is made
results, effects at the
has the germ of eternal truth in
it
it
may give mean-
ing some day to an interpretation of the whole universe in some
Whether
peculiarly satisfying form.
none
my
none of
certainly
of the business of
phenomena
any man who
does or does not,
it
and
business here;
is
I conceive that
settling
down
government from the raw material.
of
functional psychology from the individual view-point

legitimate, but that again
Leaving then
its
own
to
is,
is
it
is
study the
purely
of course,
not our problem here.
this question of the seLf-existent soul states to
we
devices,
is
it
go, with not losing
are concerned, so far as the feelings
any of
their value in
and ideas
our social interpretations.
IntelHgent actions, emotional actions, linked actions, trains of

action,
planned actions, plotted actions, scheming, experimenting,
persisting, exhorting, compelling, mastering, struggling, co-operat-
ing
such
activities
in populations
by the thousand
among which we
wê find
going on around us
are placed.
There are many
systems of interpreting and valuing them found with them; and

such interpreting and valuing is a phase of all the activity we find,
while here and there it appears in such differentiated forms that it
seems
to
stand for
we may be
lost
ver>-
itself
alone.
If
we can
get the activities analyzed
confident that no feelings and no ideas will get
in the process.
One man's work may be
deficient in the
THE RAW MATERIALS
199
and do violence to some of the fact that is meant when

and ideas are referred to in ordinary speech. But
that man who fails will have his work corrected by others who
analysis,
certain feelings
more adequate
get
results
and "ideas" standing outside,

their
neglect.
themselves
as
No
No
than he.
analysis of social activity in any line
matter.
is
lifting
If
doubt when an adequate
made, there
up
will be " feelings"
their voices in wailing at
such unfortunates cannot show
representing important
phases of the
activities
They
that
we
may
cheerfully be permitted to wail themselves into oblivion.
are studying, they have no claim to consideration.
One more
question remains as to this raw material for the
study of government.
advance between
it
Ought we not
and other
we can have our field of study

The answer is No, Many a
his scissors too confidently
he needs.
That
is
recognized
field of
set of
time, or a
If
child,
trial,
making paper
off
toys, has
used
from the materials
Instead, we shall plunge into

phenomena belonging to the roughly
it
Congress in session, a town
a ballot-box manipulation at election
mass meeting communicating the oracles of the
any of these things lead us
to interesting
paths
prepared to follow them, heedless of definitions.
may
distinction in
to avoid.
government, be
meeting, a murderer's
draw a
defined and delimited at the outset
and cut himself
an error
any phenomena or
to
varieties of social activity, so that
we
age.
shall
Who
be
Likes
snip verbal definitions in his old age, \vhe)\ his world has
gone crackly and dry.
CHAPTER
VII
GROUP ACTIVITIES
U
impossible to attain scientific treatment of material that
is
measurement
not submit itself to
will
Even
con(iuers chaos.
advances by the use
And
methods are being made.
of statistical
Measure
some form.
in
in biology notable
vi^hat is
of
most
im[X)rtancc, the material the biologist handles is of a kind that is
susceptible of
way
is
through.
measurement and quantitative comparison all the

The occasional recrudescence of vitahsm in biology
not irreconcilable with
from time
that
phases of
life,
to
statement.
this
time some investigator directs his attention to
ever lessening in extent, which, he holds, are not
measurable by present processes, and which,

feel, will
simply indicates
It
pleases
it
him
to
remain unmeasurable.
In the pohtical world, the dictum, "the greatest good of the
number," stands for an
greatest
Sometimes, of course,
causes.
If
we take
it,
it is
however, where
what actually happens in
some
and
this,
into
it.
label, of
make measurements.
pretends to be a general
it
applies itself not to
merely
beheves ought
to
what a thinker
to
be the law;
no matter what systematic content of "goods" is pumped

I hope to make it clear later that even such a generalized
some
can use for
nothing but a reflection, or an index, or a
particular set of
section of society.
if
legislation, but
particular atmosphere
social theory as this is
even
it
measurement, we shall find that
rule of
in
effort to
simply the rallying-cry of particular
It is
demands made by some
scientific purposes,
logically
it
and
it
we
would not be thus useful
could be regarded as a standard of measure-
ment, which, of course,
it
cannot be without further specification.
Statistics of social facts as
measurements.
particular
not a measure of social facts which
But even
we
ordinarily get
after they
them
are, of course,
have been elaborately inter-
preted by the most expert statisticians, they must
still
undergo
GROUP ACTIVITIES
much
201
who
use them with

As they stand on
commonly regarded as "dead," and
further interpretation by the people
reference to their immediate purposes of use.

the printed page, they are
they
receive
very token
facts.
much
clear that they
it is
People
who
activity indicated
But
disparagement.
undeserved
are in close connection with
all
is
this
that rich Ufe-
by the "feehngs" and the "ideas"
the heart of the matter
by
do not adequately state the social

feel that
lacking in them.
But, now, the idea and feeling elements, stated for themselves,
are unmeasureablc as they appear in studies of government.
is
a fatal defect in them.
Any
This
pretense of measuring them, no
maftef with what elaborate algebra, will prove

attribution to them of powers inferred from their
merely an
to be
results.
Usually
they appear in social discussions with wholly fictitious values, in
support of which not even a pretense of actual measurement
is
The measurements of experimental psychology are not

such measurements as we need. They are measurements of
The
activity looked upon as within the physical individual.
presented.
social content is incidental to

If
ment
them and
is
not measured.
a statement of social facts which lends

is offered,
itself
that characteristic entitles
it
better to measure-,
to attention.
Pro-
viding the statement does not otherwise distort the social facts,
the capability of
measurement
will
be decisive in
its
favor.
The
statement that takes us farthest along the road toward quantitative

estimates will inevitably be the best statement.
In practical politics a large amount of rough measuring
is
measurement with the sword when one nation

South American revolutions, which
defeats another in war.
answer to North American elections, also use the sword as their
standard of measure. Under Walpole the different elements in
pohtics sought equiUbrium in great part by tlie agency of gold
done.
There
is
coin and gold-bearing offices.
United States,
In an election at
its
best in the
the measurement goes by the counting
of heads.
In a legislative body, likewise, the counting of heads appears.
referendum vote
is
pohtical measurement.
This measuring process appears in various degrees of differen-
In
tiation.
batlli-
tlic
those (|uanlilies which

so that one Iuls to
IJut in
GOVERNMENT
PROCESS OF
'nil.
202
is
and the measuring of
social quantities,
taking place on the
make an
effort to
sjjot,
are fused together,
consider them separately.
a vote in the federal House of Representatives differentiation
Here a much more complicated measuring process is

carried through, which api)ears fmally in a simphfied form in the
announcement of the vote for and against the project by the tellers.
apix-ars.
The
student of
|)olitical
has some hint of the measurements
life
in the figures of the vote; but
it is
necessary for
him
to
measure the
measure, to go far back and examine the quantities that have been in
The
play to produce the given results.

ail
best of these practical politi-
himself
tician
success
is
is
estimating quantities
in direct proportion to
He may show a
preternatural
all
But
skill.
even
of his estimates; indeed

if
he should wish
The
it is
indeed his
make good
estimates.
his skill is of little or
The
make a
rare that he
plain state-
knows how
to tell,
to.
There
quantities are present in every bit of political hfe.
no poHtical process that
quantity.
no
practical poHtician will
never under any circumstances consent to
ment
practical poli-
the time;
his abiHty to
direct use for the scientific student.
is
The
measures arc indeed exceedingly crude.
is
not a balancing of quantity against
There
sion of force
is not a law that is passed that is not the expresand force in tension. There is not a court decision
or an executive act that
is
not the result of
the
same
process.
Understanding any of these phenomena means measuring the

elements that have gone into them.
If
we can
get our social Hfe stated in terms of activity,
and of
we have not indeed succeeded in measuring it, but
we have at least reached a foundation upon which a coherent
system of measurements can be built up. Our technique may be
very poor at the start, and the amount of labor we must employ
to get scanty results will be huge.
But we shall cease to be blocked
nothing
else,
by the intervention
of
unmeasurable elements, which claim
themselves the real causes of

their s}X)ok-like arbitrariness
dependable knowledge.
all
that
is
to
be
happening, and which by
make impossible any
progress toward
GROUP ACTIVITIES
I
203
have used the word activity or action thus far
to designate the
point of view from which an adequate statement of the
The
must be sought.
might have said ''men" straightway

activity, but
"men "
phcmomena
activity is always the activity of
has too
men.
at the beginning, instead of
many implications which it was
neces-
sary to keep from creeping in where they would give rise to miscon-
Perhaps now, however, I can discuss the same subject
ception.
in terms of
men
Human
direct.
always a mass of men, and nothing else.

them thinking-feeling men, acting. PoHtical
phenomena arc all phenomena of these masses. One never needs f'
One must take them as they come, that is in
to go outside of them.
In some cases
the masses in which they are found aggregated.
and for some purposes this is easy to do. At the time of the RussoJapanese war it was easy to take Japan in one mass and Russia
It is easy to
in another and watch them react upon each other.
take one of our American states as apart from some other, say
Cahfornia as apart from New York, though the interactions which
would require our taking them in this way are very rare and usually
negligible.
It is easy to take the mass, "New York City," and
society
These men are
separate
all
is
of
from the mass, "
it
New York
State outside the city."
some societies one can take a family group and hold

distinct from surrounding family groups, for purposes of
Similarly in
it
fairly
examination.
But in the complex modern
state it is
seldom that our problems
involve masses as sharply separated as these.
New York
In
many
City and
New York
State.
The
Take, for example.
state includes the city.
we must hold the

from those same
must keep them distinct in their
poHtical problems involving the two
New York
City people as city residents, apart
people as state residents.
We
We
them in two groups, which must be separated in our analysis. The same physical men arc among the components of both, and perhaps they fmd themselves in one group
two functions.
find
pulling against themselves in another group.
It
is
exceedingly
hard, indeed almost impossible, to hold such groups apart in terms

of logic
witness the
hair-splitting of the
lawbooks over
state
and
GOVERNMENT
PROCESS OF
nil';
ao4
Fortunately,
fcdrral citizenship.
much
it is
simpler in terms of
facts.
made up
the (lilTiculty of picturing the nation as
Still
of groups
of men, each group cutting across many others, each individual

man a comi)onent j)art of very many groups, is by no means incon-
But the
siderable.
how
to concentrate attention
olT incidental j)oints
shows us
practice
disappears as
difliculty
on the essential features and to
strip
which appear to have extravagant importance
human
btxause of the prepossessions as to the nature of
individ-
With increased facility

uality with which the task is approached.
in thus observing society we find we are coming to state more and
more adequately the raw material
question,
men
we
affects
it
the group or
those directly opposing

in
it
is
of poUtical
find that our statement of
it,
set of
it
again we find
we can
is
in
it,
and those more indirectly concerned

If
it is
in terms of self-
a plank in a poUtical platform,
state its actual value in the social process at
the given time in terms of the groups of

there:
a law
groups directly insisting on
much more complete than any statement
interest, theories, or ideals.
If
life.
in terms of the groups of
men
for
whose sake
it is
a group of politicians and a number of groups of voters
holding the prominent places.
The whole
social life in all its phases
can be stated in such
groups of active men, indeed must be stated in that

ânalysis is to be had.
torially distinct, gain
parties
all is
may
if
a useful
terri-
a marked separation, so that two opposing
face each other with well- closed ranks.
Then again
seemingly confusion, and the crossed lines of different groups
seem too tangled
What
man
to be followed.
argument or reasoning or
from the more exact point of
states to himself as his
thinking about a national issue
is,
view, just the conflict of the crossed groups to
To
way
Sometimes the groups, although not
say that a
which he belongs.
man
belongs to two groups of men which are clashing with each other; to say that he reflects two seemingly irreconcilable aspects of the social life;
to say that he is reasoning
question of public pohcy, these
are but to state the
three forms.
How was it
all
with a cattle-raiser
on a
same fact in
during the campaign
GROUP ACTIVITIES
for the passage of a meat-inspection law
of 1906
All cattle-raisers
consumers
justify it).
that
it
Some
by Congress
in the spring
interests both as producers
return to this use of the
(I will presently
and
had
205
word
and
interest
reflected their producers' interest so strongly
quickly dominated; they arrayed themselves with the oppo-
much
Others, a
sition to the bill.
reflected their producer's interests
smaller number,
is
it
true,
on broader hnes, or reflected
primarily the consumers' interests of the country, and found them-
up with
selves lined
the group behind the President.
not the
It is
by men on either side, but the position

much
that they assumed, which had its roots
for the mass
set of reasonings put forth
deeper than the reasonings, that
is
The
the vital poHtical fact.
reasonings help us in the analysis, but only as indicating where to
look for the facts; and one token
is
that in most cases the reason-
come long
ings, at least the elaborate reasonings,
tion of position
explanatory of
When
it is
is
assumpit,
and
it.
one hears a loud public outcry against "corporations,"
easy to prove logically the folly of the outcry, but such proof
irrelevant
and immaterial
in society.
The
group
facts,
real
after the
on the question, and as supplementary to
the process.
for genuine study of
outcry, just as
and these
The
it is
what
is
happening
heard, indicates certain very
facts are themselves the vital facts of
people afflicted with "corporationphobia" are
much
better justified in sneering at their intellectually arrogant
critics
than are the latter in sneering
It is possible to
take a
at
them.
Supreme Court
decision,
in
which
nothing appears on the surface but finespun points of law, and cut
through
men
all
the dialectic
till
we
get
down
to the actual groups of
underlying the decisions and producing the decisions through
the differentiated activity of the justices.
In most cases this sub-
stantial basis of the decisions does not readily appear, because of
the foundation of habitual activity on which the facts rest.

in exceptional cases, as
when
the court strikes out
of precedent or gives a decision of a

earlier
it
on a new
But
line
kind which, say, ten years
would not possibly have rendered, the analysis can be
made with comparative
ease.
jo6
riii:
PROCESS or
government
ampU- reason, tlu-n, for examining these great groups

dircclly and accepting them as the fundamental
of acting
They are just as real as they would be
facts of our investigation.
so that one man could never
if they were territorially separated
TluTc
is
men
They
Ixlong to two groui)s at the same time.

reality Ix-cause
may
one
lose
nothing in
belong to two conflicting groups and
man may
and down for a long time before he settles for

steps of the process with one group to the exclusion of the
They are vastly more real than a man's reflection of them
Ix- tossed uj)
the linal
others.
in his
"ideas" which inadequately interpret or misinterpret to him

which, as speech activity, help to reconcile him with
his course;
and which help to estabhsh him firmly with

Indeed the only reality of the
the group he finally cleaves to.
ideas is their reflection of the groups, only that and nothing more.
the groups he deserts,
The
in
ideas can be stated in terms of the groups; the groups never
terms of the ideas.
Every
classification of the
elements of a population must involve
an analysis of the population into groups.

least, for
any pending
scientific
problem
It is
to
impossible
make a
at
classification
classification of the population.
we can put it forth as "the"

The purpose of the classification
must always be kept in mind.
This
so comprehensive and thorough that
criss-cross of the groups.
It
is
because of the limitless
would only be in a rigorous caste
organization of society, or perhaps in a very severe slavery in
which one race held another in subjection, that the groups would
so consolidate in separate masses of
say, into white nfesters
leading purposes of investigation.
ment with which we have

tically all cases in
of war,
men
and black slaves
modern
that a classification
would serve for
In nearly
all
as,
the
all
cases of govern-
to deal, and, I think I
can say in prac-
society
excepting certain extreme cases

the varying
and these are more apparent than
real
of interests will not so settle or consolidate themselves
sets
upon masses
of men as to make any one classification adequate for aU interests.
To illustrate, even in the case of our American Ci\il War, with
North arrayed against South, there was a great array of groupings
GROUP ACTIVITIES
on other than war
lines
207
which cut across the war
frontier.
These
was achieved, and would

have reasserted themselves, though with more effort and less
manifest result, had disunion been the outcome.
reasserted themselves as soon as union
Perhaps
this
may
be permitted to offer a geometrical picture of
mixture of the groups, under the assurance, however, that no
and that
proof depends on
it,
a crude attempt
at illustration.
it
pretends to be nothing more than

If
society, say all the citizens of the
them
we take
all
the
men
of our
United States, and look upon
we can pass an unUmited number
as a spherical mass,
of
planes through the center of the sphere, each plane representing
some
principle of classification, say, race, various economic inter-
reUgion, or language (though in practice
ests,
we
shall
have to do
mainly with much more spcciaUzed groupings than these).

if
we
take any one of these planes and ignore (the others,
Now,
we can
group the whole mass of the sphere by means of an outline or
diagram traced upon the

section with the sphere,
which the plane makes by its interand by partition walls erected on this
circle
outline at right angles to the circle.
may
Our
include the whole population, or
section of the population indifferent to
it
principle of classification
may have
it;
to allow for a
but the latter case can
Similarly, by means
some other plane together with partition walls perpendicular to
we can group the whole population on a different basis of classi-
equally well be allowed for in the diagram.

of
it,
fication
that
is
to say, for a different purpose.
Assuming perhaps hundreds, perhaps thousands,

passed through the sphere,
No
one
set of
groups, that
any one plane,
of
we
will be
of
planes
get a great confusion of the groups.
is,
no
set distinguished
on the basis
an adequate grouping of the whole
mass.
In case the planes should revolve
came
to coincide,
we would
tainly, be able to take
grouping of the mass.
till
possibly,
a great proportion of them
though even then not
cer-
"
a single grouping as roughly giving us " the
A very rigorous caste system,
as before said,
somewhat answer to this condition, or two nations in war time,

where we ignore the "habit back":round" on which the war is
will
208
and a
fouK'lil
olhcr factors which
lot of
still exist,
though
b'ttle
vocif-
erous, (Ifspitc the war.
modem
In f^reat
mass
form of the
exist in the
No
socialism.
nations
are indeed often told that such a
we
such an all-embracing classification, does actually
f,'rouping,
classes that enter into the class
socialist or other person has
made an
war
of
analysis,
howfver, which can in any sense be said to prove that this hard
grouping
exists;
and
tions
nothing better
class "ideas."
such as
societies are not
which the
criss-cross
were traceable
lines
ism that extends
we know
ever
And compromise
life
offered than emotional
assump-
had disappeared, and sharply defined out-
the war in fact
itself
it,
is
Moreover the observed reactions in our

would follow from such a grouping in
is
not to the finish, the social-
to large portions of the population
is,
wher-
a socialism that ends in political compromises.
not in
is
classification
the merely logical sense, but in practical
the very process itself of the criss-cross groups in action,

into farmers,
artisans,
merchants,
etc.,
will
answer some purposes in studying our population, but not others.
classification
it is
by race answers some purposes, but not many unless

it may or may not
many other group
fortified, as
the planes of
be,
by the coincidence with
classifications.
it
of
One would be
hard put, for example, to justify emphasis on a distinction between
Germans and English in treating the local pohtics of a

Chicago. And the same would be true of other races,
Poles, or
city like
Italians,
any that are present in no matter how large numbers,
regarded as groups to be distinguished from one another by the

race test alone, and acting as such in the poHtical field.
"Repre-
sentation of the race on the ticket"

difference in attitude
all
and to some extent, also, a

toward the liquor problem, wôuld be about
that one could find in the
way
of lines of activity,
would probably be exaggerated out of

those who talked about it.
.1
rN
"
The
J^that
>
great task in the study of
analysis of these groups.
term
is
It is
and even that
proper proportion by
any form of social
much more than
life is
the
classification, as
When the groups are adequately

When I say ever>'thing I mean every-
ordinarily used.
stated, ever}-thing is stated.
all
GROUP ACTIVITIES
The complete
thing.
description will
mean
209
the complete science,
phenomena, as in any other field. There

t
will be no more room for animistic "causes" here than there.
But it is not our task in this work to make an analysis of the
groups that operate in the whole social life. We are to confine our
attention to the process of politics, and the political groups are the
in the study of social
only ones with which
we
And
shall be directly concerned.
indeed,
'
our taskjjv_en here concerns the method of analysis, not the exact
statement of the groups that are operating at any particular time
or place.
would
It
be studied
at first sight
till
that the political process could not
'I
un derlying gro ups had been studied,

up out of, or, better said, upon, the
groups are highly differentiated groups
seem
the process of the
for political groups are built
other groups.
Political
reflecting, or representing, other groups,
and
which
latter
can
easily,
more
I believe for most purposes properly, be regarded as
fundamental in
speak, well
The
society.
up toward
political
process goes on, so to
the surface of society.
The economic
of political life must, of course, be fully recognized,
though
basis
it
does
not necessarily follow that the economic basis in the usual limited
use of the word
is
the exclusive, or even in every detail the domi-
nant, basis of political activity.

Nevertheless,
my
it is
differentiated as they
groups
can well be studied before the other
and that indeed one has better chance
ing the pohtical groups
The
conviction that pohtical groups, highly
are,
first
of success in study-
than in studying the other groups
very fact that they are so highly representative makes
to handle them.
They
pubHc opinion,"
would
better say, they
of the other groups.
first.
easier/
are in closer connection with "ideas,"
"ideals," "emotions," "poUcics," "
some
it
etc.,
than are
work through
more plainly than do the deeper-lying

same psychic process, including all its elements, is involved in the facts which enter into the interpretation
of all forms of social Ufe, we have better prospects of successful
work in a field in which we can get it, I will not say in most
a process of ideals,
groups.
direct,
And
etc.,
as the
but in most manifest, most palpable, most measurable
2IO
form.
tncc,
say that
\vill
be pardoned a re-mark from
may
li
my
my own
experi-
interest in politics is not primary, but
economic life; and that I hope

to gain a better underultimately
approach
from this ix)int of
succeeded in gaining
have
standing of the economic life than I
derived from
my
interest in the
hitherto.
We
shall confine ourselves then to the
[xMitics,
and as they apyxjar in politics.
can never safely be taken to be the
groups that appear in
Now
the pohtical groups
same identical groups
we
that
would analyze out in studies of other phases of the social life.

i)olitical action reflects, represents, the underlying groups;
The
but the political groups will have different boundaries than the
there will be splittings
other groups;
even
if
and consolidations;
and
as regards the persons belonging to them they are ever the
same, even then they will have different ways of reaction, different
activities; and since the activities are the groups, they cannot properly be called the
not
mean
same groups under exact discrimination.
at all that political
do
parties, the Democratic, Republican,
and so on, are the essential groups for a

These are certain of the poUtical groups, but we
Prohibition, Socialist,
political study.
have to
strike
much deeper than
just as in turn these
ing," here, has merely to

tion, the
standard or
made.
We
shall
which they
test
reflect other
groups,
The "properly
political.
speak-
do with the particular plane of discriminaon the basis of which the group analysis
have to take
all
these political groups,
is
and get
stated with their meaning, with their value, with their repre-
sentative quality.
We
shall
have to get hold of political institu-
tions, legislatures, courts, executive officers,
as groups,
example,
men
have to get hold
reflect or represent,
lower-hing poUtical groups
which are not properly speaking
them
We
their level.
of the lower-lying political groups
in
is
and in terms
of other groups.
and get them stated
The
presidency, for
an institution that includes a considerable number of
and out
of office
ignoring for the
theory on one side, and a

nacle on the other
little
moment
constitutional
crackle of arbitrariness at the pin-
and we must state it in terms of party and in

terms of the nation, or rather in terms of those portions of the
GROUP ACTIVITIES
211
nation stated not in party but in deeper political groupings, which

it
represents at any
to get all the ideas
moment
and
We
or in any period.
and
policies
shall
have
selfishnesses that enter into
same way,
cu'-rent talk or specialized political talk stated in the
as
differentiated activity, as the reflection of lower-lying activity.
when we
have our raw material in hand, then we shall be ready to set up
And so we can pass
theories about the relations of the activities.
to a new and more adequate statement and at last to an interpretation, if we have fortune and perseverance, that will stand firmly
I do not mean by this, of course, to be
the test of application.
When we
have done
all this
in a preliminary manner,
outlining the path of this book, but to be outlining the long road
on which the book
hope, taking some steps.
is, I
The term "group" will be used throughout this work in a tech-'

It means a certain portion of the men of a society,
nical sense.
taken, however, not as a physicaji^ massût_of[Jrom other miisses
of
men, but as a mass a ctivity,
whojaxticipaliLJiiît
group
quality!
action
om
is,
does not preclude the
p articipating likewise in
in various stages of action.
activity are equivalent
men
many other
their human
many men with all

many men, acting, or t ending tow ard
always so
always so
IF"is
that
fr
It is
activities.
\\jiich
terms with just a
little
Group and group
difference of emphasis,
|
'
useful only for clearness of expression in different contexts.

It is
group.
now
necessary to take another step in the analysis of the
'There
is
no group without
Its Interest.]
An
interest, as
>
'
the term will be used
We may
in this
speak also of an
work,
interest
is
the equivalent of a group.
group or
oi
a group
and the
that
tain
is,
interest are not separate.
so
many men bound
activity.
There
interest,
The grou p
again merely for the sake of clearness in expression.

exists only the
one thing,
together in or along the path of a cer-
Sometimes we may be emphasizing the interest

if ever we push them too
phase, sometimes the group phase, but

far apart
we soon land
in the
barren wilderness.
There may be
a beyond-scientific question as to whether the interest
is
responsible
for the existence of the group, or the group responsible for the
'

GOVERNMENT
PROCESS OF
rilK
312
existence of the interest.
do not know or
What we
care.
actually
find in this world, what we can observe and study, is

men, nothing more and nothing less. That is our raw material
and it is our business to keep our eyes fastened to it.
interested
The word
nomic
with
all
am
it
is
There
interest.
limitation.
at
in social studies is often limited to the eco-
interest
am
is
restoring
no
justification
to
it
its
whatever for such a
broader meaning coextensive
groups whatsoever that participate in the social process.

the same time giving it definite, specific content wherever
used.
have nothing
shall
as such, but very
much about
about "political interest"
to say
the multiform interests that
work
through the political process.
am
dealing here with political groups and other groups that
function in the specifically social process, and not extending the

assertion
words group and
that the
interest
coincide,
over
groups that on any plane can be analyzed out of masses of
One might put
beings.
class
It
and the brunettes
may
it
women
and
of the countr}^ in
call
will
it
may perhaps
sometime be
of that process as social
phenomena.
am
be
and brunettes
is
I am taking an extreme case
found necessary to
and
one
each class a group.
be that a process of selection of blondes
going on, and

that
the blonde
in another,
all
human
to study
it
classify
some phase
along with other social
not expressing an opinion as to that, and I
have no need of forming an opinion.
WTiether that attitude
is
taken or not will depend upon practical considerations upon which

the investigator himself
"group"
must
pass.
would not say that such a
for other than social studies could properly
be described
as having a blonde or brunette interest in the

to interest.
It
would not be a
social
meaning here given

group, and probably the
equivalent of the interest could be better specified without the use

of that particular word.
essential jx)int
life
a? such
what comes
fully
it
is
that
will
in
if
But that
neither here nor there.
The
ever blondes or brunettes appear in political
be through an interest which they assert, or
general to the
made which
is
is
same thing, when the analysis is

them through some group or
asserted for
group leadership which represents them.
GROUP ACTIVITIES
In the political world,
which may
o'-the-wisp,
Once
set
lead us
to.
The group
it.
its
an
the interest alone as a psycho-
untrustworthy
indefinite,
trick us into
is
We
at all.
any
will-
false step whatsoever.
The
interest
from
it,
it is
cannot take the
and the
activity
particular type,
tendency where
its
is
up and we are its slaves, whatever swamp it may

If we try to take the group without the interest, we
it
have simply nothing

through
we take
if
what we get
logical quality,
213
its
activity
step to define
first
known
only
is
to us
value in terms of other activities,
not in the stage which gives manifest results.
just this valuation of the activity, not as distinct
is
but as the valued activity
itself.
In using the term interest there are two serious dangers against
One
which we must carefully guard ourselves.

taking the interest at
say, the
its
is
owti verbal expression of
danger of estimating
it
as
it is
the danger of
itself,
that
is
to
estimated by the differentiated
speech and written language which
The
we disregard the group's expressed valuation of itself and that we assign
to it a meaning or value that is "objective" in the sense that we
activity of
other danger
regard
If
it
as
is
extreme from
at the far
something natural or inevitable or clothed
we should
no such "objective
far astray, for
however otherwise
it
may
It is like the
mountain, a social
the
legitimately predict,
if
utility" appears in politics at all,
men who compose
be attributed to the
undiscovered and unsuspected gold under
nullity.
he
is
A man who
wise enough
is
we can take
interests that
into account
to the actual existing masses of
who
is
in
test,
say we are
lie
lines
marked out
detects.
But the
a good deal closer
that.
and
left
if
we cannot take
swinging hopelessly in
The political groups are following

They may appear erratic, but hardly ever to anyclose enough contact with them.
The business of
Quite the contrary.
definite courses.
one
may
must
men than
we cannot take words for our
"bed-rock truth," one
may
addicted to the habit of prediction,
form along
by some objective condition which he thinks he
between.
in oughtness.
some
we should be going
that a group activity will ultimately
If
it.
substitute for the actual interest of the activity
''objective utility," to use the economist's term,
the society.
reflects
It is that
this.
ihv studt-nt
to plot
is
GOVERNMENT
PROCESS OF
rilK
214
llu-
And when
courses.
the course of only a single step, not of a

l)lot-
he has
will find that
he
and the
all
he docs that it
is
whole career, that he can
together, the group, the activity,
interest.
The
essential difTercnce
between
interest as I
am
defining
it
and the psychological feeling or desire qualities should be already

aiJpannt.
can
taken
Ik-
am
in
not introducing any suppositional factor which
hand, applied to the social activities and used in
am not taking any mental

or other possession which the individual man is supposed to have
I am
before he enters society and using it to explain the society.
the pretense of explaining them.
not dealing with anything which can be scheduled to any desired

extent as a set of abstract general interests, capable of branching out
complexity of the activity of the social world.
to correspond with the

I
am
not using any interest that can be abstractly stated apart
the whole social
^
f
background in which
it is
from
found at the moment of use.
some
definite cours e of conduct_or_activity.
It is first, last, and all
There is no way to find it except by
the time strictly empirical.
observation.
There is no way to get hold of one group interest
Theintcrestjrgiit^forwajiiJs_^,sp^
except in terms of others.
a group of physical beings
interest in
group of slaves for example,
who
are "slaves
by nature," but a
not
is
social
and interest in society. From the

no conclusion can be drawn. No
relationship, a specified activity
as a thing
interest
fine logic,
by
no calculus
itself
of interests will take us a single step forwârd
WTien we succeed in isolating an

group the only way to find out what it is going to do, indeed
in the interpreting of society.
interest
the only
way
watch
progress.
its
or group,
we
to be sure
shall
we have
When we
become more
skilful
another similar one with less painstaking.
many
wc
sets of
groups we shall
an mterest group,
isolated
have made sure of one such
know
is.
to
interest,
and can make sure
of
When we have compared
better
what
to expect.
But
always hold fast to the practical reality, and accept the

interests that it offers us as the only interests we can
use, studying
shall
them as impassively
as
we would
of birds, Ixts, or fishes.
the habits or the organic functions
GROUP ACTIVITIES
Such
interest
groups are of no different material than the "indi-
They
viduals" of a society.
a question of
It is solely
215
the activity to define
are actiyity;
so are the individuals.
we look
standpoint from which
_.the
at
[The individual stated for himself, and
it.
invested with an extra-social unity of his own,
every bit of the activity, which
is
all
we
is
But
fiction.
know
actually
of him,
can be stated either on the one side as individual, or on the other

side as social
group
The former statement
activity.
of trifling importance in interpreting society;

is
essential, first, last,
and
all
the time.] It
in the
is
with conditions in our
individual
is
pretation within the process.

all
But
the political unit."
highly superficial and limited,
own
main
the latter statement
is
common
is
the
which "the
society in
in reality
to contrast
conditions in India or elsewhere in which "the cormnunity

political imit,"
'>
such a contrast
made for special purposes of

From the point of view here
is
inter-
take
such contrasts fade into insignificance except as they are " raw
material" when the special processes in connection with which

they are
made
When we
are being studied.
have a group
fairly well defined in
ests ,/wenextfinditnecessary to consider
into jts rejaliye

its
power
of
terms of
its
inter-
Jhe factors that enter,
dominating other groups and of carrying
tendencies to action through their full_course with relatively
littl e
chec k or hindrance.
As the
group
stating the value of the
interest
is
merely a manner of
activity, so these factors of
dominance
are likewise just phases of the statement of the group, not separate
from
it,
nor capable of
First of
attention.
scientific
use as separate things.
numb er of men who belong to the group attracts

Number alone may secure dominance. Such is the
all,
the
case in the ordinary 'American election, assuming corruption and
intimidation to be present in such small proportions that they do
not affect the result.

tions in the
But numbers notoriously do not decide
former slave states of the South.
tion of interest
on
political lines
which
often,
There
is
elec-
a concentra-
and indeed one may
say usually, enables a minority to rule a majority.
cannot stop
here to discuss the extent to which majorities arc represented by
rilK
2i6
PROCESS OF
GOVERNMENT
minorities undiT such circumstances, but only to note the fact.

Iiitinsity
a word that will serve as well as any other to denote the
is
concentration of interest which gives a group effectiveness in
its
activity in the face of the opposition of other groups.
This
intensity, like interest,
There
vation.
is
is
only to be discovered by obser-
for scientific workers to take to
no royal road
moral vigor,
like race, ability, education,
Catchwords
may
it.
serve
no help to
positive
harm
do
us
by
making
apt
to
more
are
indeed
they
and
us,
and
by
blinding
in
advance,
us to
us think we have our solutions
Mere vociferation must not be
the facts that we should study.
confused with intensity. It is one form of intensity, but very often
as tags to indicate
its
presence, but they are of
little
or
the intensity of the talk does not correctly reflect the true intensity
This must be allowed
of the group.
number and
is
a technique of group
which must be taken into account.
Blows, bribes, allure-
Besides
activities
intensity, there
ments of one kind and another,

teristic,
and
to these
under
fitting
for carrying
on
work.
its
also, are charac-
group
methods
and
We
must learn how these specialized
evolves.
directed against the use of the

violence gives
We
shall find that the
produced by the appearance of
is
way
will
circumstances a special set of activities
vary under different forms of group oppositions,
the tcclmique changes

in
and arguments
must be added organization.
ditTcrentiate
activities
for.
method
new group
that
is
how
change
interests,
suppressed.
If
some form of demagogy,

reasoning, it wiU be possible,
to bribery, or bribery to
method called
we pursue the study carefully enough, to find the group interest
that has worked the change.
That group wiU have its own technique, no more scrupulous probably than the technique it sup-
or that perhaps to a
if
presses, but vigorously exerted
through the governing institutions
of the society, or possibly outside those institutions.
Technique
will of course
vary with the intensity of interest,
when assassination is adopted by revolutionists who

no other method to make themselves felt against their
as for instance
can find
opponents. Number also has intimate relations with both technique and intensity. In general it is to be said that there is no rule

GROUP ACTIVITIES
217
of
thumb which
in
which the most powerful groups can inevitably be found.
will point out to us
any particular
lines of activity
may
sometimes find the greatest intensity over matters that
seem
to us trifles,
even after we think we have interpreted them in
terms of underlying groups, and again we
where we think there ought
may
find slight intensity
be the most determined
to
solely a matter for observation.
is
We
still
It
efi'ort.
/And observation shows,
here'
no group can be defined or understood save in terms

of the other groups of the given time and placeTj One opposition
appears and adjusts itself and another takes its place; and each
opposition gets its meaning only in terms of the other oppositions
as before, that
and
of the adjustments that
each group for
definition,
fairly satisfactory
and
have taken place between them.
have been talking of groups as so
set
it
much
When we
itself.
way, we usually give
it
activity capable of
analyze a group in a
some kind
At the same time

defined, or valued
its
have used various words
Nogroup
No
relatJMis tq^ other groups.
of as a
group
set
by
ofi'
name,
when we get right
itself,
its
activity.
have said that no group can be stated, or
except inj:erms of oth er groups.

in
of a
with a certain individuality; thejndhviduality^tjias
off
however, nothing more than the definition of
is,
in this respect
has meaning except
group can even be conceived
do^^^l close to facts
and, so to speak,
except
made a group by
as
the other
groups.
I
have also made preliminary mention of the way in which some
groups represent others, and have indicated the importance of
this
representative relation for our further study.

I
have not called these group
activities forces
nor said anything
The word force can be used, no

indicate phenomena for study, but it
about forces involved in them.

doubt, even in sociology, to
is
too apt to drag in
studies
it
some metaphysical suggestion, and
in social
connotes almost inevitably the isolated, metaphysically
posited, individual feelings
the bottom of social
need for
it.
If
life
we say
as
and
its
activity,
ideas,
which hypothesis places
causes.
we have
Moreover we have
said
all.
at
little
2i8
Now,
j)oints
tlu-
:us
GOVERNMENT
PROCESS OF
'IIIK
have just reiterated imply, the activities
\l
a system, and indeed only get their appearance of individuality by Ix-ing abstracted from the system; they
brace each other up, hold each other together, move forward by
arc all knit together in
and
their interactions,
in
general are in a state of continuous pres-
sure uix)n one another.
we take a little
state each group
If
to
such other group

,
life,
of
which
it is
dilTerent angle of vision

activity,
activities,
we
shall be
tempted
not directly in terms of such and
but as resting in a great sea of social
but a slight modulation.
We shall get the concep-
tion of a "habit backgroimd" in which the group activity operates.
The chapter on law
will
bring us to close quarters with this phase
but the ground must be sketched in advance
of the social process,
before proceeding farther here.
Suppose, for example, we take a modern battle, and note that

it is
fought, not with complete abandon, but under definite limita-
tions
which forbid certain
the butchery of the
such as the poisoning of springs,
cruelties,
wounded,
firing
upon Red Cross
parties, the
use of explosive bullets, or the use of balloon explosives.
suppose we take a
political
the contestants use
Cuban
liberals
Or
campaign, and note that in one country
methods which are not used
in another.
The
used methods against President Palma which are
Tammany uses methods

New York City police force which
not resorted to in the United States;
when
no
to
li
it
can
j)olitical
in
connection with the
party uses in London, and which would be injurious
any party that
tried to use them.

There are "rules of the game "
which form the background of the group activity.
no savage tribe so low but that it has rules of the game,
in existence,
Tlicre
is
which are respected and enforced.
large part of this habitual activity
commonly discussed
is
hardly need to add that a

in terms
of moral factors.
as
The habit backgroimd may usefully be taken into the reckoning

summing up a lot of conditions under which the groups operate,
but reliance on
it is
apt to check investigation where investigation
is
needed, or even become the occasion for the introduction of much

unnecessary m>'sticism. By appealing to the habit background
GROUP ACTIVITIES
we must not hope
to get
/Just as ideas
tions.
and
away from
219
the present in our interpreta-
ideals are apt to give us a false whirl into
somewhat the same way

the habit background is apt to carry us back into the past and thus
away from our raw materialT] We set up " tradition " as established,
and then we are apt to think that by appealing to tradition, and
by tracing the methods of tradition, we are explaining some social
phenomenon that we have in mind. But indeed if tradition is
anything at all, it is an affair of the present. If we ever handle it
'
the future with our investigations, so in
except as a thing of the present

consideration
we
may
time, as
be
trust to
it
that
is,
of the particular date
Long,
as a false support.
the trains of activity
We may
will serve for illustration.
arrow follows, but we must study

of the forces in play at that
its flight
at
No
moment.
in point of
which we must follow, we
The
never grasp them except at some present moment.
an arrow
under
flight of
plot the curve the
each moment in terms
arrow "tradition"
will
serve any good purpose.

If
we have a form
of activity traced dovm.
of the kind, say, that
value
in
it
The
"now"
it
represent
it
have with other
this
question
What
we
moment
always what other
is
have got to
of its career
activities
does
relations, including oppositions, does
What
activities ?
It is certainly true that
from a remote past
usually called a belief
terms of other activity at each
which we study.
groups
is
kind as an interest group
are the underlying interest
we must accept a
itself.
belief
group of
totem group, imposing a
certain duty as to the eating or the not eating of the flesh of the
totem animal,
interests,
is
an established
interest;
demons
in the air or forest, or all of
interest
groups change in any way, the
will
be corresponding, whether
can observe or not.

in other
it
reflects certain other
probably involving the food supply, certain diseases,
words,
it
It
is
it
them
is
together.
effect
an
If those
on the totem
effect
other
activity
which an outsider
has a different meaning, a different value
a different
activity.
We
cannot carry the
up into the present out of the past and be effecting anything

our work beyond a rough sketch of the surface appearance.
belief
in
Nothing but the "present" can enter
into a scientific balance of
of government
nil; PROCESS
220
the grouj) aclivilii'S against one another to
show
and
their tension
cohesion and lines of development.
Another dinu uUy which
may
arise
from a misuse
tion of the habit haek<,'round needs mention.
whole" which he can
We
work.
demands
that this
this thing or that thing;
my
not want to go beyond
positively that
a "social
in his interpretative
in the
true that
custom or that
proper range in discussing this

think I
institu-
am
do
difficulty,
justified in asserting
no such group as the "social whole" enters into the

any form whatever.
participates in the political process

it
it
furthers the welfare of society.
it
phenomena
i)olilical
interpretation in
It is
in
are often told that social interests or social welfare
tion has survived because
but for
an active factor
treat as
of the concep-
easy to general-
background so much that one thinks he finds
ize the
facing
It is
Where we have a group that

we have always another group
same plane (to revert to the illustration of the sphere).

if we have two nations at war we can treat for the
purposes of the war, though only to a certain limited extent, each

nation as a separate group; but
stances neither nation
together to
make
is
it is
clear that
under such circum-
it takes the two

whose processes we are at the time
question which we could study as a
the "social whole;"
the society
studying. |_On any political
matter concerning the United States, for example, alone,
we should
never be justified in treating the interests of the whole nation as
There are always some parts of the nation
decisive.
arrayed against other parts.
It_ is
found
to be
onlyby passing from the
ing, observed, actual interests to the "objective utilities" I
mentioned above that we can drag
we
in the "social
are out of the field of social science.
testing the "social whole," that
demand
represented by the
pretense of a universal
giving the
lie
to
its
it is
owti claims
whole," and there_
Usually we shall
talks of
of the society;
for
have
find,
on
merely the group tendency or
man who
demand
exist-
if it
it,
erected into the
and thereby, indeed,
were such a comprehensive
all-embracing interest of the society as a whole it would be an

established condition, and not at all a subject of discussion by the
man who
when
it
is
calls
it
an
interest of society asâ
idealistically
whole except again

"objective" but humanly impossible.! It
;
GROUP ACTIVITIES
is
easy to say that
221
to society's interest that airy, light lodgings
it is
But it is plain that what

all the citizens.
meant
is
that
from
some
particular
group's
point of view, this
is
"ought to be to society's interest;" for it is very clear that the actual
interests now existing do not include it either among all tenants
It is easy again to say that "murder is
or among all landlords.
against the social interest," but even if wc ignore riot-suppression,
police work, judicial executions, wars, and so forth, this "social
should be provided for
interest" that
is
appealed to
is
not actually the interest of
For besides the continually recurring crimes
people.
and the murders by professional

homicide
in routine features of
thieves, there
our commercial
is
of
And such murders answer
tions of this kind
the
a vast amount of
life,
such as railroad
operation, food manufacture, sweat-shop clothes-making,

on.
all
passion,
to existing interests.
and so
All asser-
need very careful qualification in any uses; and
indeed need to be abandoned entirely to get any approximately

exact statement of the processes under
way
for scientific investi-
gation.
It
may seem
overstraining the point to say that in any
of Australian savages in
community
which the main totem rules work continu-
ously without a breach, in any Indian village in which crime
unknown
for years at a time,
But here the
the whole."
it is
wrong
speak of an "
to
" interest of the
is
interest of
whole " would be simply
a statement of the established social habit, and whatever change
came about
in
it
would be brought about by changing conditions,
or in other words by changing group interests; indeed should
we
go under the surface we could no doubt find a powerful and very

definite
group
interest sustaining the habit
by effectively suppress-
ing diverging tendencies.
In the case of the totem tribe we might envisage the community

of
men and women
which
may
their
is
as in opposition to the
a very real social factor, however
laugh
at
meaning
it;
demon community,
much the schoolboy
but the demons themselves would prove to have
in terms of
of the Indian village,
it
may be
very favorable conditions of
that a very simple
life
mean food
In the case
community under
supply, instruments
of government
mi': PROCESS
222
of production, etc.
which
WI-,
shows the disappearance of certain tendencies
from our own exjx-rience, think ought to be present.
In
was not present

it
is
normally
taken by us
simi)ly because the condition at which
On these questions we need not
to Ix- directed was not present.
I have let them come into the text merely
pass judgment here.
that case
to
we might say
broafkn the
As
issue.
for jKjlitical questions
called u\K>n to study

J
^
i
that the tendency or interest
under any society in which we are
them, we shall never find a group interest of
the society as a whole.
We shall always find
that the political inter-
and there are no

phenomena except group phenomena are directed against
ests
and
activities of
activities of
any given group
men, who appear
The phenomena
other
in other groups, political or other.
of political life
which we study
the society in which they occur, along lines
though of varying degrees
political
of definiteness.
wîll
ahvays divide
which are very
The
real,
society itself
nothing other than the complex of the groups that compose
it.
is
CHAPTER
VIII
PUBLIC OPINION AND LEADERSHIP

Leadership and public opinion are two fundamentally important, interlinked phases of the
appear
in
government.
They
from the leader who springs

the moment, from the public opinion which is an expres-
forth for
sion of the
up
rule,
group process
in all degrees of differentiation,
work immediately
to definite policies
in
hand, up
to organized, firmly set
and programmes with complex
They connect
theoreti-
>
p
I
end with what has been

the habit background, from which they spring, into which
cal statement.
called
either
at
they lead.
Leadership
is
not an affair of the individual leader.
/ damentally an affair of the group.
but
Pomp and
Leadership by an individual leader
details.
typical form.
It is
It is
fun-
circumstance are
is
not even the
only a minor form; or, what comes to the same
thing, leadership can
most often be given an individual statement
only from certain minor and incidental points of view. [The great k
phenomena
phenomena
of leadership are
of groups differentiated
One
for the purpose of leading other groups.
specialized group
jl
'
leads certain other groups in a special phase of their activity.
Within
it
grades,
are the
phenomena
Public opinion
There
of individual leadership in various
is
is
also a
phenomenon
no public opinion that
is
of the
group process.
not activity reflecting or repre-
senting the activity of a group or of a set of groups.

public opinion that
is
There
is
no \
unanimous, none indicating the existence of
any "social whole," such as we have considered and rejected in

the preceding chapter.
The unanimity of opinion is as much a
myth
as the individuality of leadership.
which
appears
in differentiated
forms
as
group
at other times
itself
activity;
in
easy to grasp from this point of view, but

223
Sometimes public opinion

it
it
stands out very clearly

is
it is
less specialized, less
none the
less activity.
/
\
224
I'ublic ()i)inic)n, j)ul>lic
sentiment, anrl public will are three phrases
wliich are at times distinguished from one another, but they
same group
indicate the
of the
facts.
words
The
activity.
not a difference that
is
all
difference in the shading
we meet with among social

and will, are the
three words, opinion, sentiment,
The
products of individual psychological analysis, not of direct analysis

of social
phenomena
at first
hand.
If the
term "public opinion"
were not so well established one of the others might better be used,
more
as indicating
closely the activity
but crudely describes.

Leariership
However,
it is
which the word "opinion"

best to take
as
we
find
it.
their
Public opinion
itself
preliminary discussion in close association.
has leadership and

leadership
it
and public opinion can properly be given
is
leadership.
From
the opposite point of view
found sometimes working directly through widely
is
jorganized public opinion, and in
all
other cases
it
is
connected
directly with the public opinion of a narrow group, and indirectly
with the vaguer public opinion of larger groups.

of this joint treatment
The
must appear as we proceed wdth
justification
this chapter.
we have discussed in detail the group process in government

we shall seek in chap, xix a more comprehensive
statement of the phenomena in terms of discussion groups and
After
(chaps. X to xviii)
organization groups.
am not going to pay any attention

from the individual point of view\ The studies that
have been made by others on those lines have a recognized value.
In considering leadership I
to differences
My
object here
is
of another nature.
It is to
of individual leadership require statement in

tyjx-s as I give
of view.
emphasis
I shall
to will be
show how
all
forms
group terms, and such
chosen solely from this point
discuss in turn, but without endeavoring to hold
them sharply
leadership,
distinct, leadership of group by group, "boss"

demagogic leadership, and the leadership of the ruler
or mediator.
There
is
Icatlership.
plenty of group activity in society without speâlized
But a
political
group
is,
by the very fact of its difand within it
ferentiation as political, itself a case of leadership,

we
in turn
shall find organized leadership, probably in several
For example,
degrees.
225
The
political party.
let
us take the organization of a national
leadership of the chairman in the executive
committee, of the executive committee in the party, of the convention in the party, of the party
interests
which
it
represents
among
the underlying groups
and
these kinds of leadership are not
all
phenomena of different, but of the same, nature, when one cuts

down to essentials. The party gets its strength from the interests
it
represents, the convention and executive cormnittec from the
party,
and the chairman from the convention and committee.
In
j
each grade of
this scries the social fact actually before us is leader-
ship of some underlying interest or set of interests.
Or
It
take the case of any government organ, as, say, a legislature.
a specialized group,
is
activities
among
It gets all its
power,
group
it.
Within
it
again there
is
an
itself
activity, representing
other
the people which are organized through
meaning, from those other
all its
activities.
leadership of several kinds, as seen in the
speaker, in the party floor leaders, perhaps also in the "boss" in

or behind
it.
This leadership gets
its
meaning from the
legislative
body, and ultimately from the interests behind that body.
The
phenomena are not dissimilar, but closely related. At every stage

we are dealing with the differentiation of activity.
The leadership which one group performs for another or for
a set of other groups is not dependent upon the express adhesion ]
of the full membership of the represented groups.
Dissent by a
member of the group may not take him out of the ranks. Under
:
some circumstances
to another
may
it
will,
or rather
it
represents his actual transfer
group position; but under other circumstances dissent
be a wrong expression of grouj) position, and the dissenter
may
be actuaUy arrayed in co-operation with his supposed opponents,
and lending force

stress
to their
movement.
on every declaration a
One must
man makes
any more than on the traditional
"
not put a false
about himself
woman's no."
socially,
have diagnosed
more than one case, for example, in which men who dislike Roosevelt and denounce him bitterly in all their spare time are actuaUy
being represented and led by him, and are lending him their sup-
226
PROCESS OF
IIIL
])()rt
in
fact,
though not
GOVERNMENT
So radicals and even
profession.
in
many
revolutionists are actually represented in
by
of their interests
denouncing and which
the very government which they are
they think they are trying to destroy.

The socialists claim to be representing the entire proletariat
Now suppose
as one group.
there really
is
as the proletariat, the socialists will
group
of strength
from the parts of

utility "
mere vociferation on
toward palpable
which do not
it
amount
certain
with them, or
affiliate
This proletariat interest must be, remember,
even tolerate them.

not an " objective
such an actual effective
draw a
or " ought to be " on the one side,
and not
the other, but a substantial activity tending
The
results.
socialists are
they have such a group underlying them.
a "danger" just as
Their
policies, or rather
concrete portions of their policies, are gaining recognition
from
self-styled unfriendly sources
on that
am
basis.
even
not plan-
ning to abuse this point by making arguments rest upon
it,
but
merely calling attention to a possible situation.

Let us take a
less disputable illustration.
prescribe the width of
cities to
wagon-wheel
to the load carried, so as to save the
caused by narrow
tires
and heavy
exist,
a movement for
begun.
They
will
it is
lead
the
loads.
Some
In a city in which such
make
it
important,
of the taxpayers will organize.
These
others.
others,
Common
speech
wîll
any such movement
say they do not
"know"
although
however,
and often
actually suffering in equal degree will be indifferent,

really ignorant of the fact that
for
proportion
pavements from the injury
but where conditions
a regulation does not
common
It is
tires in
their
is
under way.
own
interests.
Success will not be easy to achieve, for the team-owners will strenuously resist the adoption of the regulation.
ment, or some substitute for
inely
bound
Nevertheless the move-
win after a greater or

win because the organization that leads it genurepresents the mass of indiflferent taxpayers.
It will win
less time.
because
tially
it
it,
is
to
It will
will
be clear that those indifferent taxpayers are poten-
comprised
in the
group
activity.
There
is
a tendency to
among them. If sufficiently goaded they will

come to "know" their own interest.
The movement
action
certainly
will
wîn

before
will
taxpayers are enrolled in
all
win
it
long
227
before then
and
it
by the strength of the unenrolled. In the arguwill masquerade under some such phrase as a
in part
ments that strength

"just cause," but
itself
it
be the
will
In attributing
justice.
we must, as ever,
only
way we can
The
strength to leadership from such a source as this
be cautious not to jump

discover
at conclusions.
"Objective
by actual observation.
is
it
utilities"
and
mere verbal adherence are not proof. In each case we must get
to the bottom of the conditions by hard work in investigation.
There
no
is
essential difference
between the leadership of a
group by a group and the leadership of a group by a person or
The
persons.
strength of the cause rests inevitably in the under-
and nowhere
lying group,
The group cannot be
else.
called into
by clamor. The clamor, instead, gets its

from the group. The leader gets his strength from the group.
The group merely expresses itself through its leadership.
This is not to say that there is no difference between man and
man in the capacity for leadership. Nothing is more evident than
Some adult men, just
that there is in fact just such a difference.
as one finds them, will fit certain group needs of leadership, and
significance only
life
others will
fit
other group needs
some
will
answer best
one time,
at
some perhaps will not do at all as leaders in any

group activities which we are apt to have under investigation.
Given a specialized group in a special phase of activity, and A will
answer its purposes better than B. The group will probably
others at another;
secure
suffer to
for
its
some
leader.
When we
extent.
cial varieties of history
We
or B.
we tend
is
may indeed
in
secures B,
activities
its
their
whole story
in
terms of
heads or we glorify them.
a certain correctness within the limits of such
little
some
leaders, but
scientific interest.
rare cases turn
The
it
is
within limits
"fate of a nation"
on a leader's
fitness or unfitness,
but the kind of a "fate of a nation" that does turn in that
bit of sensationalism,
we need
may
are superficially writing superfi-
making events turn on
that have very
it
to tell the
heap imprecations on
Perhaps there
history in
If instead
with even
less relation to the
mass
way
is
of matter
to study than a yellow newspaper's headlines have to the
228
news- matter
mattiT
is
follows them, or to the facts
tluil
which that ncws-
The individual leader counts

human mass, and as a part of the
supposed to describe.
only because he
mass.
IK
11
the
i)art of
is
His very personal
which are often so highly
qualities,
emphasized as causes, are themselves
in the
main merely group
(facts they mark his reflection of special phases of the society

around him, and they can better be stated in terms of the groups
.they rellect tlian as purely personal capacities.
men
llx'twecn
The
in their capacity of leadership, even
differences
more
clearly
than elsewhere, are typical social difTcrences/
now
Let us turn
to the
kind of leadership typified by the Ameri-
can political "boss," remembering that we are not concerned with

the content of his service, with his merits or demerits as valued by
himself or others in the midst of the process, but solely with the
process
We
itself.
machine.
must examine
First there
several aspects.
Then
there
is
is
this
kind of leadership under
the boss as leader of the political
the boss taken together with his
as leader of a large portion of the voting public, the
rank and
of his party in his territory; but since boss discipline
severe inside the machine,
we may sometimes
machine
is
file
often very
for our practical
purposes best treat the boss himself as leader of this section of the
voting public.
Finally there
is
the boss-led machine, in control of
the organs of government, as leader or ruler or mediator for
or
many
of those
all
groups of the population which are w'orking
through government.
Underlying the
political
machine
of the
American type we need
the two-party system, resting on a certain great complexity of
national
life,
which involves a marked
population along the lines of
complex
provide
set of
many
government
many
activities,
political
grouping of the
intense interests;
and
also a
so poorly adjusted that they
rich opportunities for profit.
When many
interests
are synthesized for political purposes in one political party,
which
'Speaker Reed is generally recognized as having been a "strong" man;

Speaker Henderson, as a "weak" man. Yet Reed had one session in which his
power was greatly weakened; while in Henderson's term the power of the office
increased in several important respects.

is
a group that represents other groups, and
when
229.
this party faces
another party of similar character, we observe as a matter of fact
group organizes
that a strong leadership
within the party^
itself
This leadership group attains a very intense interest

tenance.
in self-main-
Given the special conditions which are summarized in
the phrase, "great opportunities for profit," then the leadership
group presents
itself
ent for existence on
As a machine
"machine."
as a
ability to
keep some other machine from ousting
ship, the
two factors being related
now
of
The machine
to point out.
marauders
in
fertile,
but
is
in various
in
for
some
the
helpless country, despite the fact that
very country in which
it
which the boss exercises

of the activity itself,
sions,
is
it
encamped.
in the
and we
depend-
from
its
its
leader-
ways not necessary
band
respects a hostile
seemingly
holds leadership in the
The
type of leadership
machine grows out
of the nature
find strict discipline, arbitrary deci-
and personal loyalty tested

to describe all
it
time being
in the
outcome by the
complete authority or else complete overthrow.
attemptmg
it is
success in leading the party, and on
its
American
political
am,
alternatives,
of course, not
machines, but merely
picking a characteristic type of leadership for illustration.
The power
machine
of the boss lies in his machine.
superior to the next best

ability,
is
much
close onlookers or
Now
man
of the
less
man
than
it is
apt to be declared to be
by conversationalists
by
of one sort or another.
the activity of the boss represents the
activity of all the
is
any attributed mental or other

under the circumstances) and
(not in
but as a definite given
this superiority
The power
the boss only to the extent that the given boss
lies in
combined
political
machine members, even when he hardly gives ear to
Whether he holds consultations or not is for

our present purpose a technical detail. With or without consultation there may be factions of the machine that feel they are not
adequately represented, in other words that they are not getting
"fair treatment."
When a boss is overthrown it is apt to be by
discontent, conspiracy, and revolution inside the machine.
The
relations of the machine to the wider groups it represents have a
good deal to do with the overthrow. They make overthrow easy
any lieutenant.
TKOCKSS OF GOVERNMENT
Till".
230
at times,
even when they
inside the
machine
leadership
outcome
primarily the
is
not stimulate
flo
probably be what
will
it,
but the technique
Weak
have indicated.
of quarreling interests, not
vice versa.
The
relations of the boss to the
leadership.
It
machine typify one form
should already be clear that the boss
of
phenomenon
cannot be more than roughly stated without putting it in terms of

Any short cuts which talk about the bad
the machine itself.
men who
character of
fill
of the individual voters
bosses' positions, or about the indifference
allow bosses to be elected, and any
who
generalizations, such as those concerning the decline of the society

tolerates bosses, are useless until a
which
is
more complete statement
given to the facts they indicate.
There are
also
the leadership by the boss of the party outside the machine,
and
But
only one phase of boss leadership.
this is
the leadership
which
all
in the
groups are in tension.
some
loses
by the machine
organized government in
In both these aspects the boss
and becomes more the

namely a man intrusted with a
of his dictatorial attributes,
representative in the formal sense,
certain right to exercise his judgment, being in turn
the use he
his position
makes
and
of his
this often at the
When
reviled as a dictator.
is
expected of him, he
When
powers by the
is
he abuses public
very
judged for
men who have given him

moment when he is being
he loses elections or
falls
below what
judged as undesirable in the party group.

office
too grossly, wastes too
much
money, tolerates too much injurious discrimination between

he
is
ings,
public
citizens,
judged by large sections of the citizenship in subparty group-
and with him
his party
is
judged, so that the subparty interest
dominates the party interest in a certain proportion of the outlying party
members, leading
to a desertion at the polls
by the
"indejx^ndent" vote, and to possible loss of a good part of their
power by both boss and machine.

In all this we have nothing but group process,
all
the time.
It is of
first, last,
and
course not so stated in the attendant dis-
cussions which are a part of the process to be discussed a few pages

farther on.
But
all
the morals
and the ideas
in
which the discus-

sion
is
clothed are but symbols for these group forces.
point
tial
is
that
all this activity,
231
The
essen-
whether envisaged from the point
of view of the boss, or of the machine, or of the party, or of the
public (a general
name
process), has
value and meaning only in terms of the group
its
for masses of groups at certain stages of the
opposition.
Each group phase of it comes to light in contrast with
some other phase, and all phases together get their definition at
each stage of the process in common. Their transformations,
their surgings and subsidings in their manifest or palpable forms,
go on
in
process,
them all.
With
remote,
They
terms of each other.
which again for
are phases of one
common
sum of
part can only be stated as the
ever-pending accountability, whether immediate or
this
first
its
to machine, then to party,
and then
to "public," the
boss will hold himself and his machine in check to some extent to
keep from overstepping the danger

he
is
apt to feel his
deems
safe to the
opinion," as
we
way
danger
carefully
But
line.
and
Here he
line.
at the
same time
to venture as close as
say, or, in other words, he
he
allowing for "public
is
is
performing, however
meagerly, his leadership duties for certain subgroups which have

perforce trusted their causes to his organization.
common
observation, though not
carefully analyzed cases as
it
It is
a matter of
worked out by comparison
of
needs to be, that under ordinary
circumstances a boss under pressure of strong interests directly
behind him,
will
some day he
The
tend to creep farther and farther forward until
finds he
directly represents
of the
finds
is
too far across the danger line to retreat.
pressure of the machine interest and the interests the machine
subgroup
its
is
much more
interests, or
way forward
till
continuous and intense than that
even than the party
process goes on, gradually changing in

set for
it
Pass
in the habit
now
to
interest,
checked by sharp punishment.

its
and
it
So the
content and in the limits
background.
demagogic leadership.
insincerity were inevitable in the
would not be well chosen
here.
If
the
implication of
word demagogue, then that word

But there is ample justification
OF GOVERNMENT
rR(JCESS
2^2
IHl':
for
nsorting to the older usage
in
which the term demagogue
In this sense the word
ecjuivalent
merely to a
lends
well to technical use for a special
itself
is
i)Oinilar leader.
form
of leadership.
motives of a leader, like any other
Insincerity, as apyilied to the
interpretation in terms of individual motives, has but trivial impor-
tance
the grouj) process.
in
agogue, strip
it
wc can take a sound word
If
and use
of that quality,
it
like
in the sense in
dem-
which
t)emosthencs would have recognized himself as described by
much pure
we make that
The demagogue stands
it,
gain.
in a very different relation to his follow-
ing from that of the boss to his, although in both cases the leadership
explained only through the groups that are led by
can
Ix-
gets
all its
it,
The demagogue
meaning from those groups.
and
reflects
group through a different technique. As current speech has it,

he operates not through wire-pulling, but through appeals to the
(Wire-pulpassions with more or less accompanying reasoning.
ihis
ling, appeals,
something
"reasoning"
different
from
are, of course, the activity itself,
it.)
He may do
by proxy, as
this
present-day specially notorious American case, but that

interesting instance of the very
common phenomenon
is
in
not
one
only an
of syndicated
leadership, already discussed in substance, though not
by that
name.
Nevertheless,
as
leadership,
demagogy
is
group
will
differentiated
The demagogue's
activity representing or reflecting the group.
be vastly larger than the boss's immediate group, the
machine, and the relationship of the demagogue to the group's
much more direct and even more

The machine hierarchy is conmionly not found, or is
found only in traces; the group member feels his inspiration
members
will
be in appearance
simple.
coming
direct
from the
lips of the leader,
and
is
most apt
himself as an unselfish patriot, whereas the machine
to regard
henchman
operates in good part on a tacit, or sometimes even admitted,
assumption of
self-interest.
has very
value for us, and gives us but trifling help in finding
little
But
this question of motives, I repeat,
our way through the group process.
The group which
the
demagogue leads
is
as a rule highly
"

As a group, that
complex.
a
of
from each
other.
demand
in a
is, it
subgroups which
lot of
for
It
reflects or represents the interests
may
gains for
233
be very different in character
itself
a simple enough statement
some reform, or some related set of reforms, as,

"pure democracy" projects,
for instance, free silver, or a set of
but underlying
is
it
a kaleidoscopic
field of
non-political or semi-political groups.
has
its
own
activity
But
life-history.
most
and tendencies,
this life-history
superficial way, without
which the demagogic group

interests
it
The
reflects.
its
economic and other
The demagogue's group

own interest. It has its
cannot be stated except
putting
it
in
which
leads,
it
life-history of the
in the
terms of subgroups,
represents,
whose
demagogic group is
form of those sub-
the history of the co-operative activity in group
groups, or fractions of them, at a certain stage in their career.
One can
state the
demagogic group
in
terms of the subgroups,'
but never the subgroups in terms of the demagogic group.
The demagogic group

is
not apt to complete
though
it
may do so
its
is
in part.
are apt to assert themselves
bine into
new
political
not apt to have a long history, and
activity along the lines of
its
it
declarations,
As it approaches success its subgroups

more and more forcefully, and com-
groups that
reflect their
varying
interests'-
For instance, suppose an " annihilate-the-trusts

campaign, and assume that it carries a critical election. We may
more
closely.
confidently
enough predict that we
shall
soon find the various
subgroups that have been reflected
in this demagogic group splitfrom one another, perhaps on the question as to which
trusts are to be annihilated first, or as to which phase of trust activity is to be annihilated first
and the resulting action will be modi-
ting apart
fied thereby;
and
this entirely apart
from the opposition which the
defeated minority representing the trusts will bring to bear, an

opposition which of
itself will modify the lines of operation very

from the declared policy.
Despite subgroups and the transformations they occasion, the
demagogic group is itself an interest group and an activity, which
we must be careful to study and estimate at its actual value. We
must trace the modification of the subgroups, due to their cooper-
materially
Tin: PROCKSS
234
at ion,
and
vvc
group that
must follow the
To
ai)iK-ars.
and catchwords
will
OF GOVERNMENT
activity lines into the next clcmagogic
a certain small extent platform planks
help us, but in the main
we must
get
below
these to the interests underlying, and get the statement throughout

in
terms of them.
In comparing boss leadership and demagogic leadership
it
is
easy to find certain tendencies of transition between them. The

machine and the boss are most apt to establish themselves upon the
demagogy. Demagogic leadership, once injîUcal

power with a task that requires time to complete, will. tend to
basis of past
transform
itself
Rank bossism is sure to

may be, rank demagogy.
bossism, now faces the most
into boss leadership.
produce after years or centuries, as the case

In Russia the bureaucracy, which
terrible,
is
though sometimes the most necessary, of
all
demagogy, the
Revolution of this type
revolutionary uprising of the people.
is
to be distinguished from Spanish-American revolutions, which are
merely primary elections, waged between rival machines by the aid

of a
form
now abandoned
of violence
Russian revolutionary movement

in
is
in English
The
America.
an interest group, demagogic
form, representing subgroups that include
the greater part
of the population, working with poor technique against a minority
group of great intensity and highly
effective
All
technique.
through history we find the specialized group which has been called
in to
keep order, that
mon
dififerentiated interest,
archically organized,
is,
to represent a lot of
transforming
more or
subgroups
itself in
less aristocratic,
ment, and in turn stimulating against
itself
in a
com-
time into a hier-
machine
of govern-
demagogical group
movements, with operations prescribed by the available technical

methods.
Demagogic leadership
carries us directly over to the discussion
of public opinion, but before taking
up
that latter subject a
words should be added on the kind of leadership that

the ruler or mediator.
We
have seen something of
of the functions of the boss, but the boss
is
few
found
in
this in certain
is not a good illustration,

because in talking of him we think so largely of his representation

of certain special interests that
we
235
forget the function he
is
playing
We can-
the time in connection with larger groups of interests.
all
not analyze any bit of government very deeply, no matter where
and no matter what

is
abuses, without becoming aware that
its
holding the balance between conflicting interests, that
cing restraints on their activities in the political
it is
that
field,
it
enforit
is
standing between them and acting as mediator at the same tima
We
acting as ruler.
it is
have the mediating functions
and
exercised everywhere in government
is
forms of leadership,
it
and
it
it
will
hope
cannot go into
if
we wish
show
to get
in a satisfactory
later on.
manner
powerful interest group or
set of
interest
group or
get
is
not a single,
not supported on a
it
gets all
conflicts adjusted or controlled
set of
many
done with
its
In every such case where two
a ruler we shall find that that ruler

an
is
groups from which
strength and social effectiveness.
opposing groups have their
Before
that there
function of government of this kind which
of
functioning
its full
this here for its complexities are
occupy much of our time
to
in legislatures
also can be interpreted in terms of groups
and must be so interpreted

value.
and, like the other
It also is leadership,
in executives as well.
a certain'
This same function,
limited range specified in the courts of justice.
however,
in
is
through
in reality acting as the leader
groups more powerful than those in

[
immediate
and that the adjustment and limitation which
conflict,
we observe
is
dictated
by that more powerful group.
Public opinion bears something of the relation to government

that talking bears to the full-mouth activities.
its
Lip says, "I am,"
and arrogantly declares to Mouth its primacy, indeed

uniqueness, in the organism. But Mouth goes right on attending
and
positively
to business, eating
where and when
it
can.
The
situation
may
be
compared with that of the man who declares with intense convic"I am a vegetarian," but who confesses that he eats meat
tion,
every day, and
who
explains his meat-eating habit as a triviality,
a mere external circumstance forced on him by the conditions of

life
and not
affecting in
any way
his true existence as a being of
thought and feeling, a real vegetarian.
When
the world agrees
of government
Tin: PROCESS
236
such [Hoplr vegetarians
to call
to rule the world, but not
We
shall
till
llicn i)ublic
opinion
may be admitted
then.
compelled to refluce public opinion to
Ix-
proper
its
But
place as activity, reflecting or representing other activities.
we must do
it
with caution, for
in the jjrocess
if
we
lose
which public opinion stands, and which

state will be worse than our first.
our
last
The
of the
of the
represents,
it
realities for
any
public-opinion process has been involved in the discussion
demagogic form
and
of leadership,
We
involved in boss leadership.
it
has been
less directly
are not passing into a
new
field
when we turn from leadership to public opinion, but making the

analysis from a different angle. It is a case of obverse and reverse,
but our business
is
through the coin, and not be
to pierce clear
content with the pretty pictures on the two surfaces,
r^riiere
is
to handle public opinion except in
no use attempting
terms of the groups that hold

\
opinion
is
an expression
and that
it
of, by,
it
or for a group of people.
It is
by the group
itself,
(primarily an expression of the group interest
but where
it
Public
represents.
has become a differentiated activity representing an
underlying group
we may_say
for the underlying group,
it is
expressed by the opinion group
As always we must be exact
analysis of the representative quality in cases that
"for the group"
wê
we
our
in
describe as
can know nothing there except by
intelligent,
carefully controlled observation.
public-opinion that
is
supposed
to be
collection or fusion of the thin, colorless
made up
of a certain
"ideas" that you read
about in your psychological textbook cannot be found by any process I
know
of in social
life.
themselves, cannot be found.
such sentences
we have
activity.
there
It
as,
is
"
The
I
Municipal ownership
To
is
good."
'
But what
remains to discover by actual observation w-hat,

its
it," or,
is
if
reiteration has with the possible
appearance of municipally o\\-ned street cars in a given
say "municipal owTiership
namely, "we want
by
a speaking, wTiting, printing, reading, hearing
any, connection such a phrase or

later
abstractions, the ideas, all
admit that we often read or hear
good" implies something
"we ought
to
have
it," or,
"we
city.
further,
are tend-

ingtoget
is
it,"
When we examine
cies,
we fmd
same
three variations of the
a pushing process in
opinion with
this public
that, besides
activities of
against an individual man, but
it
is
It is
may
is
dif-l
directed against!
specialize in expression
concerns even then some group
Municipal ownership, for instance,

be discovered apart from men.
always
it
It
activity, representative or direct, in
it
onward tenden-i
its
being borne in a group, or given
groups of men.
interstellar space.
Our "opinion"
thing.
all its stages.
ferentiated expression for a group,
some
237
It
which that
is
man
participates.
not any remote thing, to
docs not exist in the cold of
a method of activity.
The movement
for
directed against the activities of certain private owners of
quasi-public enterprises, such as, for example, the street-car lines,
who have been acting in a way that interferes with the activities
of the citizens who became believers in m.unicipal o\Miership. The
demand for municipal ownership does not take its birth out oi
nothing at all. It rises out of certain definitely felt evils among
Inadequate street-car service,

treatment of patrons
who
illiberal
are compelled to patronize the lines, the
corruption of city governments in connection witli franchises,
all
these are facts which precede any theories about governmental
functions or any public opinion favorable or unfavorable to muni-
They themselves grow
cipal ownership.
directly out of
group
oppositions and opportunities in the existing state of society, and
they inevitably result in an effort to do away with the

It
evils.
often happens that street-car owners, for the sake of a few
thousand dollars additional revenue,

ing public
estimate
some
its
privilege
money
value in terms of added
worth millions of dollars
to tliem.
privileged, exclusive position of the
take this attitude.
will refuse to give the travel-
or convenience, which,
The group
It
is
if
facilities,
one could
might be
solely because of the
company
that
it
can and does
reaction of the populace, which
otherwise would attain an adjustment through ordinary competitive
process,
now
concentrates to strike for relief through the
governmental agency.
the evil fast
It strikes at the privilege
beyond ordinary means
of removal.
which clinches
Reaching out
OF GOVERNMENT
IIIK I'ROCKSS
luind to seize
llii-
is
That
a simple act.
tendency, notiiing more, nothing
less.
is
the municipal-ownership
It is
the removal of
group
a typical act of government, all the "theories"

How
of the limits of state activity to the contrary notwithstanding.
for
observation
matter
is
a
out
that tendency actually works itself
irritation.
It
is
form
the
to discover;
of
group opposition, the methods, and the

on the habit background at the
limitations of methods, all rest
given time and
But now
ment
if
It is all
i)Iace.
this
is
a cjuestion of conflicting activities.
the nature of the municipal-owTiership
move-
how about that "municipal ownership" which one
in fact,
hears vastly more about, the opinion, the theory, the creed
It is
clearly a differentiated activity, consisting of talking, wTiting, printing,
and so
and
forth,
clearly has
it
something to do with the
process of municipalizing certain industries in fact.
But whether
as excited talking or whether as reasoned theory, for
it
both forms,
ties;
it
does not control the fates of society, but
dependent on what society, that

groups
appears in
only a group activity reflecting other group activi-
it is
in the case,
to say, the
is
proceeds to do.
fates are
its
complex
of active
Those groups may
find
on
meeting the obstacles in their paths that they can work most
some other
effectively along
them expression high and
may
and this they may proceed to

and the agitation group which gave
lines,
do, leaving the theory group
Or
dry.
again, those underlying groups
actually push their process through into municipal
as a fact without having given rise to
and
belief at all.
of the channels
of
It is solely
it
must
a question of the particular process,
follow, of the condition as given, in short
group struggle, and of group leadership of group.

WTiat value has this public opinion in society?
the value of the group that
have we of
it
None
is
/differentiated
group
lower
it.
It
has just
What
tests
it.
What
is_it
thenj*
Precisely a
activity, expressing, or reflecting, or represent-
ling, or leading, as the case

activities still
given expression by
except in the^ examination and analysis of
the group or groups behind

^
ownership
any excited groups of talk
down
may
be, a
group
activity, or
would appear,
buTsimply for the needs
the social massTl It
then, that, not for any ulterior purpose,
subgroup
^
t

raw material
of scientific examination of the
239
of the social process,
method of interpretation strips off the mystery of public

opinion, and lays it open to analysis and eventually even to measurement, on the same plane with other social facts. If this point is
clear there will be no difficulty in the further analysis of public
opinion as group expression that must now be made. If the point
is not clear that analysis will be meaningless, and indeed if it does
not become clear as wc progress, the whole discussion of leadership,
the group
with
further elaboration in the following chapters will fail of
its
being understood.
We
find
must examine public opinion under various aspects.

Again we find
grades of differentiation.
in various
We
it
in
Ordinary public opinion, such as we most commonly refer
to
it
various degrees of generality and intensity.
when we
use the phrase in American public
differentiated.
Take
for
very highly
afi'airs, is
example the condemnation of the insur-
We saw a highly specialized condemn-
ance "grafters " in 1905-6.
ing and denouncing activity.

the editorials of almost every
It
appeared more or
newspaper
less
strong in
in the country, in a large
part of the sermons, in the casual conversation of friends and of
chance acquaintances
alike.
a differentiated activity;
was very
It
and
this
definite as
every political economist, every political
scientist,
every "wise man," should make sport of

confusion of thought and hypocrisy.
vocabulary of catchwords of
its
a social fact,
even though every logician,
own.
It
it
and
in general,
for vagueness
and
had a small specialized
It lasted for
a while and
then gradually disappeared, having thus as an "opinion-group"

activity a traceable history.
Ranging from
this
organized public opinion
of tacit acquiescence or blind restlessness,
down
to conditions
which arc not called
we have the grades of

differentiation of this one type of phenomena.
If sane Persia
accepts its sovereign's rule for centuries, so far as we see without
any debate or organized critical thought except among court
public opinion at
cliques,
it
offers
all
in current speech,
tacit,
undifferentiated public opinion favorable
240
to
tin- riilr.
an American
UK
i'rocp:ss
of government
Russia, passive under a milder phase of autocracy,
city, indifferent to its bosses'
use of power,
show
in
same thing. Perhaps starting

the bottom with a condition in whch we can hardly find a trace
|)ublic opinion in a differentiated form, we may ascend to a
various degrees of difTerentiation the

at
of
higher stage in which a simple approval or disapproval of complicated
olTicial
acts will be cheered or
growled out;
thence
still
higher to the germs of organization of opinion outside the official
and during
activity
its
progress; thence again through a growing
|Dcrfection of organization of this
which
finally takes
opinion to an " initiating " opinion,
such highly organized forms as we find in the
present-day United States with

often
under clever leadership,
forms as
its
all
thousands of organizations,
working
activities, reflecting, representing,
of society.
This
is
in
most specialized
leading other activities
a mere schematic statement of the gradations
intended only to indicate the progress, but not claiming the authority of fact,
an authority which can come only from a thorough
study of the materials and which can be conveyed only by ofTering
mass
the
of analyzed materials in proof.
What
am
here saying
must be taken as merely preliminary to the further examination

of the organization and discussion phases of activity in a later
chapter.
In addition to degree of differentiation the degree of generality
and
the intensity of public opinion must be considered.

Just as
one can nowhere find a "social whole" as a factor in society, so
one can nowhere find a unanimous public opinion which is the
opinion of the whole society, of every member of it.

There will
be group arrayed against group and opinion group against opinion
group.
The opinion activity that reflects one group, however
large
it
may be,
always
reflects the activity of that group as directed

some other group. Each group will try to
own opmion activity reflects the activity of the
against the activity of
show
that
its
" whole," or at least of aU of the whole except

some loathed mmority.
Each group will claim that its opinion is " public " opinion. It will
bolster
up
its
claim on an elaborate structure of reasoning and

assertions of "objective utilities"
plausible case can often be
of natural
and other
rights.
out under cover of the complex-
highly differentiated opinion groups which reflect the activi-
ity of
of a large
ties
and
made
241
number
of lower-lying groups.
INIany different
groups may adopt one policy, that is, become part of an opinionactivity group which reflects all of them, and which takes on a|'
In current
so-called individuality different from any of them.
jT
psychological language
hold
it
we say
that the
men who
When we
for different reasons.
hold the opinion
talk of their reasons in
way, we, of course, make a very abstract statement of the truth,

When we go
a form so limited that it will never carry us far.
this
in
down
group statement we get down below mere reasoning
to the
to the very basis of reasons.
The
intensity of expression
which these opinion groups give
themselves in their various forms, from loud clamor to dogmatic

assertion
and cold proof,
will, like all intensity in social
phenomena,
be a factor of the particular occasion, of the group process as given.
The group
and the solution of struggle is under way in

Sometimes it works through a
the social process.
struggle
every bit of
and sometimes through a bloody revolution.

which public opinion
assumes depends entirely on the character of the conflicts, on
friendly suit in a court
The manner and
how
intensity of expression
deeply they are splitting the groups apart, on
are controlled in the habit background, on
how
how
well they
well fortified the
groups are which are being attacked, on what technical

the attacking groups have
at their
command. Tt
is
facilities
again entirely
a matter for observation.
One
very complex opinion group
political system, the
ation.
If
anyone
is
the big party of the
Democratic or the Republican
still
feels
American
of our gener-
confusion about the propriety of calling
opinion groups activity like other groups, perhaps a consideration

of the political party will help to clear
up
the trouble.
JThc party
*
from one point of view organized public opinion. This is true

whatever differentiated leadership groups and whatever dictatorial
is
leadership
true that
it
all
may
show.
government
It is true
is
in the
same sense
that
it
is
the organization of public opinion,
PROCESS OF OOVERNMENT
IIIK
343
and
same sense
in the
reasoning
The
activity.
is
and
in
which
bt!
seen in their unity.
activity
its
political
We
is
true that even the
most abstract
i)arly occujnes an intermediate positon
its
But no hard
it.
it
so-called opinion features can better
could not discuss parties at
all
save as
away into thin air if we

can be drawn between the formal
Tliey would melt
activities.
ventured
that
line
party and even the least formal of the other manifestations of opinAnd no fundamental differences exist between the repreion.
sentativeness
and the representativeness of
opinion groups
of
"Manifestation of opinion"
structural organization of society.
means a group
that
however we
activity,
We
not manifested.
is
and farther along
stages which
But there
we
call in
We know no
it.
activity,
in its course,
opinion
evolving differentiation
can trace
between the different stages of the

farther
take
we can watch
it
pass
nearer and nearer to those
current speech the results of the action.
never a point from beginning to end at which we can
is
stop and say: Behind us
lies
opinion, before us lies action.
Here actions
activity ever goes on.
conflict
at
The
once opinion groups,
opinion activities appear: these pass on, transforming themselves,

organizing, reflecting various subgroups, combining groups, passing into
for a
new
stages of activity.
When
moment.
made a
Never
is
the process
have said opinion groups,
abandoned
have merely
concession to current language for the sake of
more
easily
indicating the particular kind of activity immediately under consideration.
It is
a special form of group activity only as phenome-
nally observed, not as answering in a dififerent

test
way to some
exterior
applied to our social phcnomcnaTl
Taken
that
may
as activity, our groups will
embody
the biggest ideals
be floating around in society and the most petty, most
"selfish,"
policies
Moreover they
will
of
the
smallest fractions of the
embody them
at their true value,
population.
not at any
mystic claim of value; a true value to be discovered by observa-
The group
tion.
watched
and
at
work.
that holds the ideals will be located.
The subgroups underlying
their tendencies
group
toward activity along the
will be very carefully
examined.
The
it
It will
be
will be studied,
lines of the ideal
persistence of
all

the groups, big
and
modest and pretentious,
little,
243
will
be tested.
Liberty and equality groups must take their place with other
groups, and stand the same
It is safe to
tests.
say in general that
we
shall find that the largest
opinion groups and the most pretentious are in most continuous
need
of being interpreted at every step in
terms of subgroups, or
which are reflected with more or less comby them. With public opinion that is precise, limited,
driven home, that amounts to an expression merely of what social
layers of subgroups,
pleteness
groups are actually in the process of doing, we can often afford

to let the opinion groups stand as factors,
ing in shorthand, groups of factors.
summing
up, or express-
But with the vaguer, wider,
empyrean when
we trust ourselves too much to them without reducing the statement at every step to more exact terms. As we proceed with this
method of interpretation we shall get continually a better understanding of the meaning of the much abused terms, organ and
The opinion group that is most insistent upon itself
function.
"reality"
will present itself to us as the analysis becomes more
a
as
we
larger groups,
shall find ourselves sailing the
intimate in the guise of a process, and often a not very essential

process at that, but a mere by-path, so to speak, or at times a
short cut.
For every
different
group position that we personally
adopt for the time being as we look out upon society, different
appear
mere functioning.
activities will
as
will
to us as the realities,
For every
be a different "truth."
activities together,
in the
terms of
all,
and even then our

that they will
and
all
that
we
results
"work"
and
different activities
different position
It will
we take
be only as we get
all
the
there
group
valued in the terms of each, each valued

shall be able to set
up a
scientific truth
can claim to be truth only in the sense
for
more
cases, for longer lines of activity,
with more exactness, than the group "truths" we have relegated

to lower
One
rank as mere processes.

other point remains to be
present from this subject.
made
'before passing for the
In the foregoing pages
have had
nothing to say of interest groups, and have hardly used the term
.11
PROCESS OF
llli:
inlcrcsl at
all.
It
GOVERNMENT
has been better not to
let
the current speech-
contrast between interest anrl o])inion force itself intrusively into

the discussion.
i,
()j)inion grou])S,
of interest groups.
"'.their
Like
reflected
in thai
however, are merely one variety
other groups they must be stated in
interest
group "exists which cannbt"l)e
by an opinion group, but for
(h'lTerentiated opinion
'
No
interest terms.
all
form
is
group
in
many we
find
not called for, does not in fact appear, as the social
process haj)pens to be working at the given time.

'
no organized,
our material, merely because activity
on the distinction between
interest
and opinion.
Nothing turns
All turns on the
observed and observable facts as to the âctivities in their values
and along
their lines of
development.
^What
interest
groups are
what are dominating, what are absorbing others into

most
themselves to their increased activity, what are the representative
active,
relations
between them
in the scientific
give as
all this,
as a matter of plain fact,
question about society.
much knowledge
about the social process.!
is
involved
This when answered
of the scientific
kind as
is
will
obtainable
CHAPTER IX
ENDOWMENT AND RACE TYPE
INDIVIDUAL
may be said that the
themselves "up in the air;"
It
groups
have been describing are
even though they consist of the
that,
actual activities of actual men, they are floating free,
when they
ought to be pinned down to the endowments which the individual
men who
are the
members
group bring
of the
to
it
in advance.
have said a good deal that bears on such objections already, but
I
am
going to take the time and space to say more, especially as
the discussion will lead
which we should be
of the institutions of
The
up
to the question of race type, concerning
proceeding to the further analysis
at rest before
government.
endowment
alleged individual
presents
itself to
more
as physical or as psychical; or rather, to be
exact,
us either
it is
dis-
cussed sometimes as the one, sometimes as the other; for the line
in
such discussions
sumed to be
moments from one
is
not well drawn in fact, even
in theory,
and the argument
set of
is
when
it
is
pre-
apt to shift at critical
terms to the other in a way that
is
not
conducive to trustworthy conclusions.
So far as the individual endowment regarded as psychical

concerned, I have surely said enough in Part I to
sary to go into details here.
I will
make
it
is
unneces-
only recall that psychical factors
regarded as causes proved to be mere shadows of what they were
supposed to explain.
all in
my
Certainly, now,
if
there
is
any validity
at
argument, one cannot hope to bring the social groups
"up in the air" by trying

to hitch them on to any individual endowment of this nature. We
must remember that in one sense all science is "up in the air."
down from
It
their alleged floating position
does not have absolute validity.
scientist's
It is
the construction of the
mind, to use the current phrase;
it
is
all
conception,
To
give
our groups the appearance of being "pegged do\\Ti" by using
ficti-
not perception, to take another similar
245
way
of phrasing.
PROCESS OF
Till':
246
GOVERNMENT
tlum any more scientific validity. I am

any way, a more than scientific truth
tious pegs will not give
not asserting that never, nor in
be reached through the study of
will
within the range in which
am
who
am
is
no utiUty in
any rate the duty
of any-
thinks he can increase the substantiality of the groups
by any such means
Turning
a form
working there
It is at
demanding such absoluteness.

one
social living.
not after such results myself, and that
am
asserting only that 1
human
to prove his point, not
to individual
endowment regarded
which so far as
of statement
worthy, but which goes only a very

instincts in chap,
i,
assume
sec. v, I forecast
it
goes
little
what
we have
as physical,
much more
is
trust-
In speaking of
way.
is
it.
The
to be said here.
illegitimate use of instinct, the psychic use, is
found when one
an instinct somewhere in a low form of soul and makes it

"explain" the instinctive activities. The legitimate use is found
localizes
when one comes
to close quarters with the facts
instinctive activity dkectly.

instinctive activity, as
But here
one finds
it
studies the
depends on how far the
in its specific
forward into the network of social

just as
all
and
activities,
form, can be traced
and shown
to persist
it is.
Note, however, that activity of this kind, the physical endow-
ment of the individual, is material identical in kind with that

which I myself insist on using as the exclusive material of our study.
The
only difference
is
that
it is
put forward as capable of individual
statement, whereas I believe I find as a matter of fact that

it is
men
capable of adequate statement only in terms of masses of
living together
fact
most of
under given conditions.
It is strictly
a question of
between the two methods of statement as to which
useful, or rather as to the exact
most
useful.
the
most
is
the
admit without argument that wherever any
I will
investigator isolates a definite

in society, a
is
range of cases in which each
manner
manner
of reacting in the individual
of reacting so definite that
it
stays clear
and
distinguishable through whatever reasonable range of variations in

the environment
it
may
be followed, so definite that
it
can be
passed on from father to son without any greater variation on the
average than
is
found
in the inheritance of the color of the hair
INDIVIDUAL
or eyes, the height, or the shape of the skull, there
vided with a statement of the facts that
than the group statement

of bringing the
am
urging.
we
will
be pro-
simpler and more useful
But as
to the possibility
groups down from that alleged position "up
air" by connecting
is
is
247
evident that this
in the
them with individual physical endowment, it

will result only where and when the individual
more adequate than the group statement. And that

is to be shown only by the practical test.
Suppose now we examine certain phases of activity which are
capable of individual statement, and see how far that statement
statement
is
remains useful for
all social facts in
The
an eating animal.
for instance,
Man is,
connection therewith.
physiological side of this
How-
eating activity can be studied in the individual organism.

ever, even the biologist
tions about
it
must look
in the species
many of
for answers to
regarded as a whole.
If
his ques-
we take
food supply operations of society, we find certain limits
them by
stating
the physical side of the individuals as
Some
it.
we have
the
set to
just
been
materials cannot be digested; other digestible
But within the
materials are poisons.
limits there
is
wide range
for alternatives, and food customs and techniques are built up in

society
which cannot be stated merely
nor merely
in
be stated in terms of the activities of

Starting with the
they are found.
mouth you cannot

nomic
in
terms of the environment,
terms of the individual physique, but which can only
possibly build
men
in the
endowment
up an
groups in which
of
stomach and
interpretation of the eco-
activities of society.
Then
there
is
sex.
As the given
fact,
human beings
are bisexual
and the two sexes can be traced back in the line of evolution far
beyond the point at which one first finds social phenomena in our
human
sense.
Also as the given
tutions in society in
is
by no means
all
fact, there arc
customs and
which sex plays a prommcnt
there
is
place.
insti-
But sex
and indeed I should want

was even the dominant element in
the most ephemeral unions of savages
of civilization where divorce is easy.
to marriage,
proof before asserting that sex
marriage, save perhaps in
and
of the gilded circles
Marriage
is
a forming, a shaping, an organizing of social material
OF GOVERNMENT
Tin: PROCESS
248
one viry important and characteristic clement is sex,

and our (lueslion of social interpretation has to do just with these
forms of organization. Why does the sex relationship appear in
of wliicli
organizations of one form here and other forms there ? Clearly

endowment of the individual is not going to
sex as a presocial
answer that question, nor is even a very specifically stated physical

human sex going to answer it.
Consider next the power of the individual organism to resist
We know how
disease.
may
how
human
its
course in a society
materials,
to such dis-
the capacity to endure city
We know
be acquired by a race.
running
may grow immune
a people
eases as consumption, and
may change
it
life
that while a disease
amount
the
is
of the
and may sometimes change very radically the

But we cannot build any of
character of the interest groupings.
our social facts up out of the disease and resistance facts themselves.
These underlie society
and gravitation.
interest groups,
like the
oxygen of the
In interpreting society
air, like light
we must
and heat
deal with the
perhaps as modified by plagues, perhaps as reacttrue even
when
ing against plagues through government.
This
our quarantine and sanitation
intrusted
by us
to experts at the
seat of government, a phase of the subject
which
will be discussed
later in its
is
proper place.
Or perhaps
cation,
is
and
it is
a question of the physical subjection to intoxi-
of a theory
confusions even in
its
which apparently
rests
physiological statement
never get rid of drunkenness
till
men become
constitutionally unwilling to drink to excess.
have to observe
how groups
of
on a number of
that
society will
unintoxicable, or
No
matter.
We
men, actually using intoxicants
in
given social forms and ways, reflect their interests through other
groups, rouse group opposition, and
along certain
lines.
work
in the social structure
We have to observe just what course the groups
take toward each other, what their group
power of resistance and

and what groups survive and how; and all this regardless
of any theory as to when the end of intoxication will be reached.
attack
The
is,
activity of the
man
with the theory
must be noted, but only for what
it
is itself
actually
is.
a social fact which
Just so far as the
theory
grow
is
in
In
INDIVIDUAL
the sign or the
mark of a group
activity will
249
importance
its
our study.
all
these cases
we
growing up
find the social institutions
within the limits of the range of ready adaptability of the individual's physical characteristics;
and hence not
to be interpreted
as due to the existence of those characteristics broadly stated as

such.
By
means the most important phase, however, of the physical

endowment of the individual has to do with the nervous system.
We may properly say that such human society as we know would
all
be impossible without the developed nervous system, without brain.
And
The
yet brain does not explain society.
brain facts, or more
broadly, the nervously mediated facts, are the social facts, and no
emphasis placed on brain as such helps materially to the analysis

of the facts
from
the social view-point.
have indicated (chap,
i,
sec.
i,)
the nature of the difficulties,
almost unsurmountable, which one must face in any attempt to

isolate brain capacity
by
either in individuals or in races as
itself
The
apart from achievement as social fact.
case of the idiot
is
and so the case of the dog when the special activities of

human society arc under study; but even when one takes as low
clear,
a people as the Bushmen,
may
it
is
not at
all
clear
how
the analysis
be made; and when, to note merely one abuse, an anatomist
attempts to portray the fates of the negro on the basis of a study

of 103 negro brains, the procedure
I
am not
denying that there
becomes ludicrous.
may be
actual differences in nervous
complexity (and so capacity) between physical races of

as there
may
be between individuals.
ficance of the skulls of Pithecanthropus
man.
The whole
and organization
am
men
just
not denying the signi-
and
of the
Neanderthal
point concerns the interpretation of social activity

in terms of
gerated emphasis that
is
such differences.
stated in anatomical or physiological terms, I
whole world of social
facts,
Against the exag-
placed on slight shadings of capacity
and asking
am
appealing to a
their analysis
on their own
merits.
Perhaps the point
will
become
clearer
by considering for a
GOVERNMENT
PROCESS OF
25
moment animal
societies.
Everyone knows of the complex social
Everyone knows
organization of the hive bees and of social ants.
nervous
developed
mcagerly
also that these animals have but
defmed physiological differentiation of the individuals into two or more classes is a very important
But over and above this phase
characteristic of their societies.
systems.
there
a vast deal of social
is
own
just our
brium
true lliat a clearly
It is
So
sense.
the hive
life in
significant
is
bee societies that one writer,
in
Social Molion, has felt able to use
it
and
in the anthill in
the functioning social equili-
M.
A. Lane, in his Level of
as a guide in estimating the
human social equilibration. Or consider the beavers.

They are mammals by no means high in brain development. Yet
they have societies organized on the compound system of both
tendencies of
was not "brain"

and it is
protheir
complex
in
functioning
them
not "brain" that keeps
process,
Their social activities are mediated by nervous
cesses.
of course, but one cannot even by the aid of a most desperate pregroup
social
life
and
intra-social family life.
that created the bee societies
It
and the beaver
societies,
the degree of social organization
judice succeed in correlating
with the degree of nervous differentiation, whether one compares

these animals with other closely related animals, or these animal
societies with
human
societies.
Such
intelligent
animals as
phants and monkeys have very rudimentary social forms.

societies
show
all
degrees of complexity,
and from one point of view

can one make of
It
all of
many
them below,
of
them
ele-
Human
far below,
the bee society.
What
it ?
must be remembered that animals even without any nervous
differentiation at all
nervous systems, as
show
is
all
the typical reactions of animals wath
proved by Jennings in his work on the
Lower Organisms. From the bottom of the scale

we have a qualitatively uniform "activity" for our
material.
With the differentiation of the nervous structure there
is an increasing complexity and completeness of the reflection in
Behavior
to the
of the
top
each specialized
surrounding
activity, of
activity).
representation,
is
the surrounding world
This greater complexity of
(that
is,
of
reflection, or
unquestionably of the very highest importance.
INDIVIDUAL
But here
is
the rub.
If
it is
how
are
we
and complexity
justified in
way
so exceedingly hard to find any
to correlate this nervous differentiation

differentiation
251
and complexity with
social
long scale of vital evolution,
in the
dogmatically placing an assumed correlation
where
of this kind at the basis of our interpretations of society,
the differentiations on the physiological side are in comparison

infinitesimal,
great
fied.
and where the
Just as certainly a
correlation
would not be
any such correlation
and
social differentiations are so strikingly
Certainly a dogmatic correlation of this kind
justified.
will be
just to the extent that
Any full and
it is
not justi-
no such
is
careful proof of
welcomed, for just what
it
worth,
is
But the presumption
carried.
favor of an interpretation in social terms directly

of
is
dogmatic assertion that there
is
in
in terms, that
is,
masses of men; and the probabilities are that interpretation in
terms of nervous differentiation will serve merely as a control on
something that
the other interpretation at special points, not as
can replace
it.
Recalling the argument of chap,

It is
it
is
v, I
can restate
this as follows
not "brain power" as such which we find, but "brain at work;"
"brain
at
work
socially;"
in this " brain-at- work-socially"
material the abstracted "brain-power" phase
is
of
minor impor-
tance, so far as giving us light on the material goes;

ll
'
I
not the
it is
brains which set the social tasks, but rather the tasks socially set
which busy the brains.

Suppose now someone should attempt
to interpret
an increase
of brain power, stated as such, in terms of natural selection.

this decade, of course, the inheritance of
Whether the
was regarded as
In
acquired characters
from which
not to be mentioned.
variation
interpretation started
fortuitous or not,
it
is
this
would
remain true that the only kind of variation of nervous structure

that could be selected
would be one that functioned better than
others in the given social
would have
to
win
life
at the
time of
in the struggle also as
its
appearance.
against
many
It
other
physical conditions of survival, such as insensibility to pain, muscular strength, resistance to disease, and so forth.
have an
infinitely rich field of social
phenomena
set
We
should
over against
statement
We
power variations, which themselves would require

social forms in order to make it possible to study them.
l^rain
niirnilr
in
have therefore a fme

field
very defi'ctive
pretation of
much
is
OF GOVERNMENT
TIIK PROCESS
252
inc
better olT
on the
since
we must continue to get

and nowhere else. The case is the same whatthe brain-power theory we are considering;
work
social side,
of
variation
ever
inter-
power be given, we should not be

all depends on how that i)ower
reusing brain
it,
Should such an
side.
on the individual
because of
used, on what
study on the social side, but a
field for
it
does;
and
this
be a (jueslion of higher average nervous capacity, or

of the more frequent appearance of men of exceptional capacity,
or finally of top points of capacity appearing which wêre never
whether
it
reached before.
Race endowment or race type

which coherency
to
show
that
is
it
is
is
another manner of speech by
given to the social facts, but
it
will
actually ''up in the air" to a very
extent than are the groups I have been using, even at
In his Races 0} Europe, Ripley
ance.
what man
is
all
Then
docs."
first
greater
appear-
us that "race denotes
tells
these other details of social
life
denote what
man
he proceeds to describe the three physical races in
which " the shape of the

tests
be very easy
much
known," and
in
human head
which
all
is
one of the best available
other tests are like unto
it;
and he
proceeds to demolish the ârious attempts to prove that the variations of social life
depend upon these race
hardly need to argue that
all
variations.
the things that
man
think I
does give us just
as good a knowledge of wdiat he "is" as the shape of his skull

gives us.
and
The
urements, but
esis at
far
physical races are admitted.
his followers
The work
"Ammon's law"^
in all its
forms
is
Race type
as
x\mmon
merely a hypoth-
long range, and not even a plausible hypothesis.
from being proved that
it
It is
so
needs no further attention here.
we commonly meet
it
is
a very different thing.
stated almost* exclusively in psychical terms.
It is
of
has been admirable on the side of physical meas-
It is
a seductively
bright-hued clothing of endowment, conceived of as the property
See especially Revue internationale de sociologie, Vol. VI,
p. 173.
INDIVIDUAL ENDOWÎENT AND RACE T\TE

of all the individuals of the race.
and
is
not hard to write
any of the
when one
is
fiction-writer
quack
It
does not require
plain citizen on his travels wTites
The statesman on a vacation

much more than he is when he is at work. The
on a lecture tour takes his turn at it. The pompous
it,
of sociology
sure to find in
is
it
materials suited to his needs.
occasionally a hard student of social facts nibbles in
fields, finds
is
interesting reading
a good bit about race type.
interested in
And
The
makes
gets the trick.
study that other methods of inter-
close, hard, careful
preting society require.
home
It
253
the freshness and flavor a relief
seduced into wasting himself
and calculable that which by
in the vain
its
from
attempt to
very nature
green
its
his troubles,
make
and
definite
the foe to defiinite-
is
ness, the glorification of illusion, the veil over the real world.
The English
are thriftless, the
French
Germans
thrifty, the
are phlegmatic, the Spaniards volatile, the Corsicans vindictive,
the ancient
legal
Hebrews
religious, the
minded, the Red Indians
Greeks
cruel, the
the
artistic,
East Indians
Romans
lost in the
mists of speculation, the native Australians theatrical, this people
communistic
individualistic, that
it
does not
make much
difference
them or how you combine the adjectives, except

that the nearer home you come the more cautious you are for greater
danger of being laughed at. One would think that the Jews never
waxed fat and wicked, that Greeks never went forth to trade nor
had a religion worth mentioning, and that the Romans had pure
what you
call
law without any content of social activity
When
materials he can use

of elements he can
whatever
The
the
life
at all.
way out of such

By proper admi.xture
once one has built up a race type in this
is.
Yet
it
to suit his purposes.
make
all
the race type a plausible explanation of
that he gets
is
verbosity.
trouble with race type in such uses

of the people
is
that
the historical value they have, or have had, for us.

is
it
reflects
not
supposed to be described, but something of
Such race type
a mere extension of psychological terms from their use
in the
man from man
whole
practical distinction of
to
an application
peoples where they have no practical purpose.
to
The terms
are
carried upward, losing their merit for ordinary everyday purposes,
l"i;
254
and keeping
the misconceptions that
all
not distinguish race from race at
way
Till-
to
examine the
of
out
finfl
how
all.
a thing works
is
to take
it
to pieces
down and draw clever pen

parts, just how are they brought
system, what
and
pictures
parts, not to sit
Just what are the
it.
They do
go with them.
into one
is
the functioning of one with reference to the other;
such are the questions that must be answered.

true that
It is
all
distinctions of race type are not so
There are many degrees of naiveness among them.

for examj)le, in his
bad
Von
the Aryan, laughs out of court
work on
as this.
Jhering,
many
of
the worst varieties of race character, such as the alleged "love of
wandering" which made the Germanic ancestors go a-roaming.
He
seeks always to reduce such innate, inborn characters peculiar
to a people, to characters
which they have acquired through the
conditions in which they have lived, and which any other people
under similar conditions would similarly have acquired.
many
he nevertheless retains
But
of these race propensities, not merely
as actual activity, but as psychically stated characteristics, as, for
example, when he discusses the non-gambling character of the Semites,
which, in contrast with the Aryan love of gambling, has per-
through the ages.
sisted
is
good
just as far as
it
Here the statement
which pretends to be something superior to

as the
"Wanderlust"
We will
activity
is
just as
bad
itself.
(May, 1902).
apt to
fall
if
we examine
which has proved stimulating
article,
the "Interpretation of Savage
little
terms of activity
be able to test results which are as good as any that can
be reached by the use of mental type in race
Dewey's
in
applies, but the statement in psychic terms
With
Mind,"
his functional
in
to
many
Professor
writers,
on
the Psychological Review
psychology Dew'ey should be
into the crude errors of the use of
mind
states as
causes.
Like Arthur Bauer and Demolins,

"occupations."
He
of arrangements in
mental
is
sets forth that
its
Dewey lays great stress on

mind has "a pattern, a scheme
constituent elements,"
and that "so funda-
the group of occupational activities that
scheme or pattern
of the structural organization of
it
affords the
mental
traits."
INDIVIDUAL
255
Taking the Australian natives, who are hunters, he tries to show

how in a hunting community "the mental pattern developed is
carried over into various activities, customs, and products, which
on their face have nothing to do with the hunting life;" he looks
forward to getting an "important method for the interpretation
of
method
and
institutions
social
resources
cultural
for sociology."
Illustrating with his Australians, he strives to

art, the
psychological
corroboree,
is
show
that their
one could expect among
just of the character
hunters who, unlike agriculturists, have always the direct
immediate view.
animism; so with their war games, and so
faction, the food itself, in
with
its
ever-insistent
Now while
also with their marriage institutions.
cases (though even here there
ible at all.
here,
three
first
trouble because the "hunting
not so clear, so definite, so firm a point of support as
is
he makes
is
Dewey
Professor
gives us comparatively plausible interpretations in the
pattern"
satis-
So with their religion
it
out to be),
Australian
when he comes to marriage he is not plausexogamy is much too complicated to discuss
and much too complicated for anyone
sentences of comparison with hunting activities.
Professor
thinks the natives get just that dramatic excitement out of
comports well with hunting
life.
But when one thinks
Dewey
it
which
of the exceed-
ing complexity of the system and the rigid discipline and

control
it
involves, not merely in tense
every day, one might just as well compare

of the agriculturist.
The
point
is
However, that
is
that the "mental type"
it
few
to discuss in a
moments, but
self-
steadily
with the "mental type
"

is
here nothing but a con-
venient phrase to cover certain similarities of activity which the

investigator observes, or thinks he observes,
stand for any factor in the proceedings.
and that
so far as they have value, might just as well be

activity direct.
What one needs
to
do
it
does not
All these interpretations,
made
in
in order to interpret
terms of
is
not to
depict a mental pattern or type, but to take the activities, to analyze
them as they come, to break them down into group relations, to

compare them when thus broken down with similar sets of group
relations among other peoples, and thereby strive in the usual
256
mjuincT of investigation to get a more adequate statement of each

of the
one
two
sets of
have
will
groups that are compared. When that is done

and not interjected mind types.
tyjx's of activity,
Professor Dewey's article
own
center of activity (I
would
imjjly the savage's
nearly from his
because that
All
not in point here).
is
distinct
advance over ordinary
by looking
of treating the savage,
methods
which
makes a
it
him much more
at
do not say " point
own statement
needs
is
to
of view,"
of himself,
keep the psychic
process but drop the concreted mental type.
What
then are
physical or,
much
we
to understand
by race
Fu-st,
But
anatomical race.
better, the
we have
all
the
attempts
to identify the characteristics of this in detail with social race

activities
have been painful
race facts, the peoples
and
and
In each people
act.
formation, and in each set
failures.
Then we have
the social
they actually exist
sets of peoples as
we have an elaborately built-up group

of peoples we have a type of group for-
mation which can, for certain purposes and to a certain extent, be

contrasted with the type in another set of peoples.
These race
facts are very real, positively existing, social facts.
You
change a group complex or type by breathing on
or poking a
finger at
it,
or praying to
up under
own masses in
itself
conditions
or "educating"
it,
which
it.
it,
cannot
Each has
built
are mainly to be found in
their given locations
and,
its
given a change in the
enough change in the facts.

we have to do with given kinds
conditions, there will be a definite
In interpreting government
activity
among
given peoples
in
such cases race simply
that indicates roughly the complexes of groups.

to
do with race
facts inside
We
is
of
name
have also
governments, where two "races" are
both under one rule, or where they come into contact in neighboring
governments.
race facts
In these cases
it
is
usually necessary to split the
down mto group facts which can much
under a ditTerent terminology.
Discussion
better be described
public opinion
will
usually be carried on in terms of race, but the underlying groups
which the opinion represents usually need a very different statement. Sometimes when color of skin distinguishes such "races,"
the race division strikes deeper,
and we have something akin
to
INDIVIDUAL
what
in later
chapters
firmly set with
many
I shall call " classes," that is solidified
groups,
on one plane.
They
cohering interest lines
But
are comparable also with castes.
we
257
in these cases as in all others
are dealing with interest groups, in the terminology I have
Maeterlinck has an essay on "The Latin

and the Teuton Races," which may profitably be read by anyoi e
who thinks the race distinctions are more fundamental than I
already established.
make them.
As an
artist
he paints a picture of the contrasts
between Flemings and Walloons, but he judges

to be superficial,
and
finally says that "it
the Fleming and the Walloon arc of exactly the
What
have said of races
ter" classes,
if it
It
own
picture
same value."
might say also of psychic "charac-
were worth the trouble to elaborate.
leave that as a corollary.

stalwarts,
his
seems very positive that
But
I will
applies to Patten's dingers, sensualists,
and mugwumps; Giddings'
and rationally conscientious;
forceful, convivial, austere,
Ratzenhofer's
set of
" Interesse "
interjected
fearfully
and wonderfully made " Individualitat " and
classes:
Bauer's classes, so far as they are distinguished on this
side
(he,
Novicow's
however, mixes
^lite;
many
pouits of view in his tables);
Lecky's reactionaries,
conservatives,
liberals,
and radicals; Fouillee's "sensitifs," "intellectuels," and "volontaircs,"
and many
others.
facts "psychically," but get
Such
efforts
nowhere.
merely restate the social
CHAPTER X
GOVERNMENT
T
Sft
activities of
men;
activities that
always embody an interest,
group
that never define themselves except in terms of other
i\^
\
have
group
ty\
forth our raw materials as consisting entirely of the
ties of the existing society, that in
many cases
activi-
are difTerentiated in
such a way that they become representative of other group activities; and I have made a preliminary examination of leadership and
public o])inion, important elements of the governing process, to
show
that they are themselves only to be understood as such repre-
sentative
'
group
By
activities.
pared to take up
way has been
these steps the
systematically the
phenomena
of
pre-
government and
study them in group terms.
The phenomena of government

ena
of force.
place,
it is
But force
are
from
start to finish
apt here, as in the natural sciences, to lead
In the second place,
metaphysical quagmires.
identified with so-called "physical force,"
it
phenom-
In the
an objectionable word.
is
its
is
and too apt
j&rst
users into
too closely
to be under-
stood as in opposition to non-force factors of a sympathetic or
moral or ideal nature; and
this
even while these latter factors
are actually being treated as themselves very powerful agents in

social process.
word pressure insle ad of force, since it keeps

upon the groups themselves, instead
upon any mystical "realities" assumed to be underneath and
I prefer to use the
the attention closely directed

of
supporting them; and since
We
narrowly "physical."
to
connotation
is
not limited to the
bear" upon someone, and we can use the word here with but
slight extension
Pressure, as
It
its
frequently talk of "bringing pressure
beyond
we
this
common meaning.
it, is always a group phenomenon.

and resistance between groups. The balance
shall use
indicates the push
258
/^
GOVERNMENT
of the
group pressures
broad enough to include

morality.
up
takes
It
Pressure
the existing state of society.
is
group, from battle and
259
all
riot
'
is
forms of the group influence upon
and sensitive
"moral energy" and the finest
to abstract reasoning
into itself
discriminations of conscience as easily as bloodthirsty lust of power.

It allows for
corruption.
humanitarian movements as easily as for
Groups exert
their pressure,
political
whether they find expres-
sion through representative opinion groups or whether they are

silent,
not indeed with the same techmque, not with the same pal-
The
pable results, but in just as real a way.
tendencies to activity
more visible activities.

Political phenomena have no peculiar technique of pressure
not possessed by other, social phenomena; that is, no technique
are pressures as well as the
qualitatively or fundamentally all their

specialties of organization
own.
They have,
of course,
which are themselves teclinique
these, from the present point of view
pressure
a special forming or working-up of the
itself
common
but
are merely
The
material.
technique varies greatly from age to age, and sometimes even from
day
to day, in accordance with the character of the interest
that are involved;
and indeed
political progress is often
groups
sketched
by writers about it in terms of the development of technique from

some abhorred form toward some idealized form. But murder
may break
even
in
through
at
almost any time as one technical process,
our biggest and most pretentious governments
Of
as, in the
while
now in Colorado, now in Alabama

may seem to be achieved through a pure " love
United States,
results
course,
what
is
another, as
when
political
process from one point of view
is
of
content from
murders and lynchings are taken
and suppressed, but that is

the phenomena with which we
again
mankind."
in
hand
a double-sided characteristic of
shall
have to deal
merely a
all
difi'er-
ence in group activity on different planes of grouping.
The term
phenomena does not square exactly with

the term government.
From one point of view the former is the
broader, as when we talk of certain party or subparty activities
as political, but hesitate to include them under government proper.
political
26o
PROCESS OF
Till';
From
government
iinollur jjoinl of view, however,
broader term;
activities
ment
GOVERNMENT
is
this
where
political
limited in
is
its
much
the
meaning
to
having to do with the organized government, and govern-
given a
senses in
is
is
wider meaning.
still
which the word government
our study has to do equally with
all of
wish next to describe three
may
be used, not because
them, but because they indi-
between
cate dilTerent ranges, or types, of the pressure process
groups because simUar specific contents of activity

;
may be handled
them and make clear transitions from one to the others;

and l)ecause we cannot get an adequate understanrling of the parin all of
ticular facts
we
shall
have before
them in their broader setting.

the word government simply
us,
without taking a glance at
I shall call these three
senses of
the broadest, the narrowêst,
and
the intermediate.
In the broadest sense

is
a very broad sense indeed-j^government
the process of the adjustment of a set of interest groups in a
particular distinguishable
tiated activity, or
happeningT]^
We
group or system without any differen-
"organ," to center attention on just what
must recognize that there
is
is
such a thing as
genuine government in this very broad sense, because societies
showing adjusted
interest
groups without a differentiated "govern-
ment " are actually found in corners of the earth their government is called "anarchy" by political scientists who find it in
primitive communities; because an immense mass of such adjustments not mediated by the government organs underlies the work
of the differentiated
the
government
habit background
in
our familiar societies
already discussed; and because
this is
interest
groups, identical with those that are adjusting themselves or that
have become fully adjusted
ways just described, work through

and give that government its characteristic forms and movements, whether that government be
despotic or "pure democracy;" or, in other words, whether it is
as near to what somebody thinks would be abstract despotism or
in the
the differentiated government,
pure democracy as can be found.
government,
to illustrate
it,
in
I shall
return to this sense of
a moment.
In the narrowest senseexcept for the British technical use
GOVERNMENT
Government "^-government
of "the
tive
is
261
a differentiated, representa-
group, or set of groups (organ, or set of organs), performing
specified governing functions for the underlying groups of the

lation.
may
well say now, and be done with
that
it,
popu-
"organ"
is
merely an inept word to indicate a peculiar kind of representative

group, and that
if
I occasionally lapse into using
no other meaning than

certain
number
Government
that.
network
of people, but a ce rtain
it,
the
word has
in this se nse
not a
is
The
oLactivities.
most absolute monarch that ever ruled does not himself under
exact analysis enter as a physical
many
he always takes part in
Nor
is
he ever under exact analysis
government: he always
course, but
still
is
that
activity
is
a part of
And
a part.
no matter what the type

ized
man entirely into the government
activities that are not

all
the
of the
a most spectacular part, of
it,
so with other
government.
of
governmental.
by himself the whole
It is
government
personages,
official
always their special-
itself
in
present
the
sense.
Now
between the broadest and the narrowest sense of the word

lies an intermediate sense to which we must
government there
We
attend.
get to
it
when we have
limits of the differentiated
phenomena
governing
clearly passed
activities,
but are
beyond the
still
among
that are specialized with reference to the government,
among political phenomena. A particular form of

may or may not be regarded as part of the government in the narrowest sense, but even when it is not it is decidedly
a phenomenon of government, that is, o f the governing proce ss.
And behind that are organized movements of a pohtical nature,
or, let
us say,
political party
We
or tending toward political activity.
The
directors of a corporation
and turn
at the
same meeting
will take in the next political
may
cannot shut them out.
finish their ordinary business
to discuss the part the corporation
campaign.
Their
activity,
a moment before was industrial or economic, then becomes

political
a part of
the governing process of the country
to be studied specifically as such.

activity will be represented
through
which
at
once
and
is
Moreover, the corporation as

its
members, along with other
corporations, in various organizations, which operate in the political
262
fuM;
ment
I
iind llu- activity of all these organizations is part of
intermediate sense.
in the
might, indeed, add a fourth sense to this
which arc not of the kind we
men
list
activities are
which dilTerentialed governing

tions of
govern-
to cover cases in
found
in organiza-
call political.
Such, for
example, would be the government, or administration, of a large

Such government is, however, to be assimilated in
corporation.
tyjx' to that of
government
in the
tinction concerning rather the
with which
as
it
ment
it
narrowest sense, above; the dis-
field,
or content, of the activities
I shall be interested in
has to do.
furnishes illustrations presently to

is
not unique in
come within
show
that political govern-
methods and technique. As it does not

range of our studies, it would only bring
confusion into the distinctions above to arrange
It
difficult
activity that
political begins.
between the
them
so as to allow
it.
would be very
where the
here only so far
its
the direct
specifically for
it
It
is
indeed to draw a precise line to
economic ends and the
would be
just as
mark
activity that is
hard to draw a precise
activities that are part of
government in the
line
inter-
mediate sense and those that are part of government in the narrowêst sense.
Our
Fortunately no such lines need to be drawn in our study.
failure to
do
it
at the start
need not handicap us any more
than the biologist's failure to draw a precise line between vegetable
and animal
us.
life
handicaps him.
knowledge of facts to
Fine-spun theories will not help
We
must wait for gradually increasing

enlighten us. We have the economic and
Quite the contrary.
we have their given adjustments, we have

their political tendencies, we have their representation through
various organizations and opinions ranging up to the political
other underlying groups,
party, with technique ranging
"statesmanship,"
we have
from violence and corruption to
their representation in the differentiated
and the courts.

For the present we see three general senses in which the word
^yernment is used, and for the present that must content us.
political activities, in the executive, the legislature,
Y}i is natural, I think, to call the differentiated government "the

government," or the "governing body," and to embrace the inter-
GOVERNMENT
mediate range of
activities in the
26
term "government," without the
phrase, "the proc ess of g overnment," or under

"political phenomena."
J The very widest meaning of government
article, or in the
work, after we have done with some
will rarely recur in this
Without any attempt
few pages farther on.
trations a
illus-
at exact
aim to indicate in all doubtful cases the exact

mind by qualifying adjectives, even at the risk of
definition, I shall
sense I have in
cumbersome phrasing.
)^
had any occasion to use the word " state " in this work,
think that word could probably be well defined as the sum of the
now
If
activities
comprised within the intermediate sense of the word
government.
All those
activities
whole process would correspond
we should be holding
apart
^
.
,v
f;^""
which together make up the

well to "the politically
fairly
But the only advantage in
organized society."
^'
this
would be that
these activities under a logical classification
from those that
under government in the possible
fall
fourth sense above, and the evil involved therein would be at
amount
least as large in
best of
my
as the good.
knowledge and
It is like the "social
belief,
no
The "state"
itself is, to
whole": we are not interested in
but exclusively in the processes within
the
factor in our investigation.^
The "idea
it.
it
as such,
of the state"
has been very prominent, no doubt, among the intellectual amuse-
ments of the
and
past,
to help give coherent
at particular places and times it has served

and pretentious expression to some particular
But
group's activity.
in either case
is
it
too minute a factor to
deserve space in a work covering as broad a range as
need the
state, as
We
concern us.
'
If
an
are not conducting a propaganda..
were being made here to restate theoretical
effort
might be a serious question
how
far the exclusion of the
a very different one
justified.
Since the object
sibilities of
the application of a particular
to the material
this.
Nor
"the tyranny of the minority over the majority,"
am
is
manner
convinced that the gain
Of course
political science
it
term "state" would be
namely,
to illustrate the pos-
method
more than enough to
of statement or scientific
is
vastly
offset the passing inconvenience to persons accustomed to starting their trains of

thought from the word "state" as they define it.
From such persons I ask only
the recognition that I am adapting my verbal tools in what I conceive to be the
best
manner
to the task
immediately
in
hand.
A-
Jin: I'ROCESS
264
an American
mentioned
of government
such as Massachusetts or Louisiana, must be
stale,
word needs no
at times, but in this special sense the
definition.
1
I
here that "sovereignty"
may add
Sovereignty has
us than the state.
arguments
in
of
is
no more
interest to
very important place in
its
defense of an existing government, or in verbal assaults
on a government
name
in the
of the populace or of
some other
pre-
what is about to be done.

the lawbook or the political
tender, or in fine-spun legal expositions of
But as soon as
pamphlet,
it
it
is
gets out of the pages of
a piteous, threadbare joke.
plenty of firm earth under foot there

sail the
is
So long as there
no advantage
is
in trying to
clouds in a cartoonist's airship.
As for a very
common mode
and the phenomena
of
of expression,
government
which puts the
state
aU by
in general in a class
themselves with sanctions peculiar and distinct from those of other
forms of social organization,

shall
have no use for
it
untary" organization
as "voluntary":
which
is
limited
to
denied the
view-point.
distinctions.
The
here.
it is
perhaps needless to add that we
The
state as "
maybe
compulsory " or " invol-
from minor groupings

the one maybe attributed power to punish,
other.
But this can be done solely from a
Voluntary and involuntary are artificial
distinguished
penalties the state inflicts are simply special
forms of a great class of penalties imposed by

Similarly, the
tions.
state
all
social organiza-
and the minor groupings need
assimilated to one another, rather than sharply contrasted.
a kindergarten acquaintance with the facts
from
apart
tionalism,
the
halos,
the
hero-worship,
of
to be
Indeed
government, as
and
other
sensa-
should suffice to put an end to any such approach
to the subject.
Let
me
next discuss a few illustrations of government considered
as the adjustment or balance of interests.

are of
phenomena which
are apt at
All of these illustrations
any time
to be regulated through
"the government," but I want to ignore for the moment that phase
and show how as institutions they themselves embody

a balancing of interests, and, in some of the cases, how they have
of the matter
GOVERNMENT
265
which are
differentiated governing organs,
a piece so far as
all of
process goes with the process of "the government."
Take
the marriage institution.
lying sometimes
apart from,
through, "the government,"
ment
and not
of interests,
Just as
we
and sometimes
itself
it is
find
it
in society,
part mediated
in
a phenomenon of the adjust-
of interests that
may
adequately be
described as "individual," but of social group interests.
am
not talking about anything that goes on inside the family, taken as a
society for itself
do not mean, that is, that the husband governs

husband or wife or both govern the children,
the wife, or that either
but
am thinking of
the marriage grouping as
human society at all stages and

many mammals, whatever may be the
In
is
embedded
in society.
to a certain extent
among
truth about the pairing that
so frequent and permanent in the unpenetrated world of the
birds
marriage
is
an arrangement
conflicting interests, a
of social order, a balancing of
forming and shaping of these
interests along
which eliminate certain disturbances and violent struggles
lines
and soften down
others, a substitution of a
new
technique for the
adjustment of interests in place of an older technique become

objectionable
to
dominant elements
adjustment of interests
in terms of individual
of
And
society.
it
is
an
which can never be comprehensively stated
men and women
or
by any process
of
adding
and to D, as individual persons, but which, instead,

requires the recognition of group interests for its statement even in
its
to 5, to C,
simplest manifestation.
At the bottom, of course, there

ingly, not blindly, sexual;
this
theory of primitive promiscuity
is
sex;
that
is
to say, all the
Moreover they are discriminatabout what the disproof of the
individuals have sexual activity.

is
amounts
to.
By
discriminating I
imply nothing more than the choosing or pairing
open
it is
to direct observation in the acts of
not necessary to go behind
nations of the individual
it
members
as a given fact.
members
of
fact,
low
The
which
is
societies
discrimi-
of the society conflict with
each
and there is settlement of the discriminations in various

There is a governing process in the widest sense, a
Then according
process of balancing interests, going on already.
other,
simple ways.
as
OF GOVERNMENT
TIIK PROCESS
266
tlic little
ing as
it
society
is
composed
settled in a village
is
but short distances, or as

j)ernianencc
of
factors
more or fewer members; accord-
from which
its
members move
to
migratory; according to the relative
it is
individuals
or changeablencss of the
according to
society;
of
the manners
in
the
little
living all of them
of getting a
group arrangement within the society
these
sexual
discriminations and adjustments of discriminations from being
become content to large

That is, certain phases
process
group.
i)arts of
of
what
membership
the
is
of the
going on which are
regarded as incidental by the primary actors become most important phases to the larger
group
of bystanders.
And
It is entirely indifferent for
begin to interpose.
the bystanders
present purposes
In the
whether one talks of custom or of conscious choice.
forest,
no deer group forms with interests to

But in the crowded village community, two youths
intervene.
get into a feud; they disturb their elders' peace, they may draw
their elders into the feud against the elders' will, they may keep the
two bucks
fight
awake
village
it
out, but
all night,
they
may wreck
the hunt, or bring defeat in tribal
grouj) shuts off
some part
war by mischance
fire
of their quarrel.
of their technical procedure,
The
have a marriage institution on the spot.

the
the fishing boat, bungle
old
and we
women around
and daughters'
in the Iroquois village dispose of sons'
The household community
hands, and thereby keep the peace.
it, and w-e may

men and the newly initiated
youths may organize against each other and we have a trace of the
class division inside the clans.
We may have sex group against sex
sometimes comes to require marriages outside of
The
have one form of the clan.
adult
group, trade against trade, or rank against rank.

philosopher's stone to assure us of the outcome.
we
observe, and that
analyze
position
there
is all
is
to
it,
except
There
is
no
What we observe
as we compare and
Once given an organization of the interests, held in

by effective groups, and with no clashes with changing
it.
group
interests,
There
is
then that organization
no reason why
it
another way of saying that there
powerful enough to alter
may
persist indefinitely.
should not be continued
it.
is
no
interest
which
is
just
group in action

GOVERNMENT
Or
let
us
jump
marriage forms.
to
modern
Is
mobility of
income conditions changing
267
society, passing over intermediate
forming among women, or including
women ?
dangers growing out of disjointed families

shoving aside of the old ordering of the
ing of a
new
Are nuisances and
Then
interests,
will be a
much
to set forth
away
establish-
denouncing the
talk group
though social order depended on
They
it.
because order
for
is
now and
first
women and
group as
talk
arc highly superficial
significant, but incidental except as process.
needed, though
in a great whirl.
about social crimes and the rights of
men; and another
do not
and an
busy talk group whirling around high up, with
There
there will be a
ordering, with groups of all grades of depth, of all
degrees of representativeness, functioning
result,
Are
increasing?
individuals
Are important new group relations
Order
bound
is
order has been, where order
to
is
the prophets be confounded.
all
an instant want
That
interpret marriage.
is
it
thought that I
am
attempting to
a task that even for a single attempt, in
a single stage of the institution, would involve some thousands of

times the labor I
am
giving
it
here.
how
how the
only want to indicate
the interest groups are fundamental in the institution, and
ordering of the groups
For another
is
a type of government in the widest sense.
The medi-
illustration, let us take the church.
aeval church was a differentiated government alongside of political
The modern church
governments.
differentiated
is
government
it
daily complains
has been or
is
that
as a
being discarded, which
equivalent to saying cither that the interests which
it
formerly
regulated have transformed themselves until they are outside

structure, or that they are
now being
its
regulated through some other
differentiated government, or that they are
now balanced
in
such
a way that they do not need the differentiated organ to do any

adjusting for them.
less
degree be true
interests
may
All of which possibilities
that
is
a question of fact.
may
in greater or
But whatever the
be or have been, or whether they are stated in natural
or supernatural terms, which
is
from the present point
question of detail, the church and organized religion are

of
government
in the widest sense
from
start to finish,
of
view a
phenomena
and some-
268
I'ROCESS
111;
times of govirnmcnl
ment," the
in
OF GOVERNMENT
government through and through.
activities as a unit.
It
presents
it
It is itself
itself in
many
of
has been forced into corporate form by
the struggling of the interests

of
to "the govern-
state.
c()rj)or:iti()n is
a balancing of interests, even though

its
form akin
u (liffcrcntialcd
upon one another, by the struggling
wider groui)s with the intra-corporation groups. It functions

government, and at the same time it has its own
in the political
interests functioning in
from
porate government
Possibly there are as
as there are of political
many forms
of cor-
government, and possibly
government forms can ultimately be
{those corporate
on
classified
very lines used for the classification of political governments.
'the
I
with a differentiated government evolved
it,
their adjustment.
do not know that they can be,
methods which
Certain technical
it.
uses, as, for instance, hanging,
by corporations, generally speaking, but that
are not used

detail.
political
only suggest
government
is
Corporation activities often put people to death by care-
lessness or
by parsimony
ations, but
merely a statement of
this is not a
fact.
judgment upon the corpor-
The
difference in technical
methods, the fact that political government controls corporations,

even the fact that corporations sometimes control political government, does not suffice to throw their processes out of the range
which must be included in the same word that
phenomena
Or
of political
We
locality interests,
it:
interests, autocracy, revolution,
tions, the
used to cover the
government.
consider a labor union.
ment within
is
can find everything of govern-
rank
interests, strict
economic
boss rule, representative institu-
referendum, judicial processes, punishments, terrorism,
corruption, self-sacrifice, loyalty,
and a thousand other
things,
aU
capable of statement in terms of the balancing of group interests

of the
same kind
that goes
on
in political
government.
do not intend
to discuss in the remaining chapters either the

balance of interests without a differentiated governing agency, or
the governing agencies that appear in organizations outside the
I
political field.
I shall confine
myself to political government (in
GOVERNMENT
269
the narrowest sense), and to the related processes by the aid of
which the underlying groups
make themselves
of the population
through the government (government
effective
in the intermediate
sense).
All
phenomena
government arc phenomena
of
and group representatives
only as we isolate these group
It is
process stated in terms of them, that
knowledge
me
we approach
to a satisfactory
of government.
two or three
give
societies, so as to
An Arab
illustrations,
avoid dragging
which show the kinds

his
government)
determine their representative values, and get the whole
activities,
ment.
new groups
out_
(the organs or agencies of
tojmcdiatejhâxljustments.
Let
groups pressing
of
one another, forming one another, and pushing
chosen from primitive
in the conflicts of our
of interests that function
he
is
through govern-
Manu we
merchandise;
price of
industrial
life,
read of rajahs fixing every
we have a people
here
and consequently with
adjust through government.
exactions
of pasturing
the agency through which this adjustment
In the Code of
made
times,
sheik at the head of several tribes has as one of
most important duties the ordering and assigning
districts
own
his services
different
may
It
come
five
is
days the
different
group
made.
in
its
interests to
be said that the rajah's
high, but that
is
a question to
decide not from our point of view, but from the very group tensions
as they existed there
almost
all
and then.
In China under the
Chow Dynasty
the officials were occupied with agriculture.
Again the
was a society with no idle land,

with no land speculation, and with no "single-tax" issue in any
group
interests
Among
form.
were dominant;
Australian
the
division of food exist, forming
mediated
side
in
in part
it
natives
elaborate
an important section
through the government, and
the realm of government
in
the
rules
of the
for
the
"law,"
in part lying out-
broadest sense.
The
Spartan ephors once reprimanded a Spartan because he was grow-
him with banishment. It does not matter

we may perhaps think today that such a regulation is " ridicu-
ing fat, and threatened

that
lous;"
it
the time.
had a very
Tacitus
real
tells
meaning
in
terms of group interests at
us that the Suiones had a strong ruler wlio
'JIFK
70
PROCESS OF
GOVERNMENT
look their arms away and locked Ihcm up under a guard ("arma
clausa sub custode"): the ocean protected them from
invasions and they were very prosperous.
group
worked
interests
do what he
strength to
did.
commonly
is
easy to see what
and gave him
to
show how a
found in those representative
describe under the
name
as such, did not
by Frazer.
crops grow; but the wor-
shiping activity kept the population keen to
and was
we
Consider the wor-
of ideas.
make the
similar
activities
ship of Adonis or Osiris, gods of vegetation, as set forth
The gods, stated
his
cannot refrain from adding just one
illustrationthough out of place here
mediating function
It is
through that strong ruler
its
agricultural duties,
therefore functionally the representative of agricultural
It helped to keep the bulk of the people in community

from suffering from the bad habits of the sluggard and frivolous
elements of the population, and helped to keep the system working to
activity.
life
the support of the priest and warrior castes where those w^re found.
When we take such

we cannot
an agency of government as a despotic
possibly advance to an understanding of
ruler,
him except
in
terms of the group activities of his society which are most directly
represented through him, along with those which almost
to be represented through him at
different degree or in a different
all,
seem not
or to be represented to a
manner.
And
it is
the
same
w'ith
democracies, even in their "purest" and simplest forms, as well

as in their
most complicated forms.
We
cannot fairly talk of
despotisms or of democracies as though they were absolutely

distinct types of
government to be contrasted offhand with each
other or with other types.
All depends for each despotism
and
each democracy and each other form of government on the given

interests, their relations,
interest
government, as
activity,
from the view- point

private tool;
it
all
their
methods
it;
The
the
works "for" the groups; the government,
of certain of the groups
may
at
times be their
from the view-point of others of

times their deadly enemy; but the process
one, and the joint participation
may
of interaction.
the government,
the groups, seems at

is
and
groups create the government and work through
is
always present, however
be phrased in public opinion or clamor.
GOVERNMENT
It is
271
convenient most of the time in studying government to
But
talk of these groups as interests.
have abeacly indicated
with sufficient clearness that the interest is nothing other
group
The words by which we name
activity itself.
than the
the interests_^
often gi ve the best expressionjo^the value of the group activities
terms of other group

oiTpKrasing,
implications.
activitie^:
But that
is
may
in'
be permitted that form
sometimes a great
We
times an advantage.
evil as well as
some-
must always remember that there
is
nothing in the interests purely because of themselves and that we
can depend on them only as they stand for groups which are acting
or tending toward activity^ or pressing^ themse lves along in their
,
activity with other groups.
When we
get the
group
activities
on the lower planes worked
out and show them as represented in various forms of higher groups,
culminating in the political groups, then we

interpretations.
make
progress in our
Always and everywhere our study must be a
study of the interests that work through government;
we have not
interest
got
down
to facts.
Nor
will
it
No
The
and^ those other
lowest of despised castes, deprived of rights to the pro-
and even
in the government,
measure the caste

its
has meaning
groups are pre ssures; they count in the government_pro-
tection of property
in
a single
not even for
it,
interest gr oup
excep t with refere nce to other in terest groups
cess.
otherwise
suflice to take
group and base our interpretation upon
a special time and a special place.
interest
in
potentiality of
if
its
only
life,
will
still
be found to be a factor
we can sweep
the whole
field,
and
true degree of power, direct or represented,
harm
to the higher castes,
and
in its identi-
fication with them for some important purposes, however deeply^
hidden from ordinary view.

all,
No
slaves, not the worst
but help to form the government.
within
it.
qualitative^ thanûantitative in their /
more
thl-y are
if
They
are
an
abused of
interest
group
"
CHAPTER
XI
LAW
Law matches government
every inch of
are not different things but the
same
thing.
We
Rather we must say
a resultant of government.
The two
course.
its
it
cannot
is
call
law
government
same phenomenon only, stated from a different angle.

talk about government we put emphasis on the influence, the pressure, that is being exerted by group upon group.
Wlien we talk about law we think not of the influencing or pressure
that
When we
as process, but of the status of the activities, the pressures being
assumed
have worked themselves through to a conclusion or
to
Of
balance.
course, the pressures never
work themselves through

completed balance,
just as
It
is
government
to a final balance,
interests, just as
There
its
is
It is
Law
as
is activity,
a group process, just as government
government
is.
is.
nothing mysterious about law
group
mysteries
without
intricacies
as
as
trouble with the analysis
lies
is
law indicates, in the
but the task of unravel-
indulging
in
an appeal
any task we have to
difficult
is
and law, stated
therefore highly abstract.
is.
of fact
a forming, a systematization, a struggle, an adaptation, of
group
ing
is
do as a matter
in the
many meanings
many
it
face.
to
One
kinds of facts the word
has, even
when no
attention
paid to any meanings other than those found in connection with
We
the plienomena of government.
English with our w'ord law than
are better
off,
however, in
we should be
in other languages
with their distinctions between " jus " and " lex," between " Recht
and "Gesetz," between "droit" and "loi." "Jus" and "Recht"

and "droit" have been the "open sesame" to the door that leads
to the world of mysteries.
We have the words right and justice,
but we ha\e not abused them so badly. We may be thankful that
we have escaped
It is
the double terminology.
with law just as
it
is
with government.
272
If,
in studying
LAW
it,
we
any time desert the observable
at
groups we shall be
off
Sovereignty
theory.
political
path of the legal process in a

find comparatively
pretation,
value.
We
way
himself
must keep the
the time, even
Court, after
So
that
We
dance along the

political theories
cannot set the legal
was possible with the theory
of
legal theories inside our inter-
important
representative
Our way of going through them will seem to the theorist

very much like cutting the Gordian knot. But then
Gordian-knot cutting
all
which the
for
continuously
possible.
but one legal theory
legal theories
opportunity.
little
having
as
indeed,
is,
theories aside as insignificant, as
sovereignty.
our social
legal theories to every fine-spun
However, the
luxuriant.
activities of
on a tangent with any destination
There are a myriad fine-spun
grown
273
if
up
is
just
what
is
actually happening in society
to the very inmost
chambers of the Supreme
has been flooded with the
it
we do
finest of all fine thcroics.
cut the Gordian knot in the right way,
we
are
merely presenting the social truth.
Because of the different points of view involved in the words
law and government, the "senses" which we can discriminate in
word law will not correspond exactly with the senses

we found for the word government. The phenomena are all one,
the fields into which the phenomena are divided are the same, but
where we had to force the word government a little in one direction
to cover them, we should have to force the word law even more
in other directions.
Fortunately, nothing turns on the words
except simplicity of expression, and that we have long before this
been compelled to sacrifice. I will merely indicate the way the
two words, law and government, correspond and dilTcr in their
the use of the
applications, before going
on with the analysis of the
Corresponding accurately with the

called
in the
the
"government
in the
broadest sense.
word law
has replaced
enforced,
is
it.
modes
governing body.
field of
broadest sense,"
The
dictionaries
tell
us,
however, that
obsolete in this sense, and that the
This
field
includes
all
facts.
phenomena I have
we have also a law
word custom
the established, socially
of activity, not mediated through a dilTerentiated

It involves,
or rather
it is
one form of statement
Tin; I'ROCKSS
jy^
OK GOVERNMENT
the
of, tlic t(|uilil)ration of interests,
not (leal
I shall
practical reason,
with it directly in this work for the simple,
processes of
succeed in interj^reting tlie more complicated
groups, I
representative
through
of interests
that
if
the
equilibration
balancing of groups.
interpretathe'same time have provided the basis for the

words.
without further
tion of the less-complicated cases
the narrowest sense, we have
in
government
to
Corresponding
shall at
law
in the
and the
(which
narrowest sense, namely, our ordinary law of the statutes

that part of the
It is
jjrecc-dints.
either formulated or^nforced,
is
habituaUocial activity
and mos t
comm only
both
body.
formulated aJid'cnfbrc"cd,"througha d ifferentiat ed governing
formulated,
technically
not
is
by'courts
applied
(Customar)' law as
and international law
is
not technically enforced, by a differentiated
governing body, but we need not consider those distinctions here.)
something " beyond " the

governing body; but it will be remembered that I have insisted
that the government itseh can only be mterpreted, or adequately
It
that law in this sense
may seem
stated, in terms of the interest
is
groups
it
represents;
and law
is
merely another manner of statement of those same interest-group

correspondence is in fact exact. [The interests
facts, so that the
that function through government,
the sense that the governing

are the
the law.
same
interests that
is
in
only their instrument or tool,
hold law in place and bring changes in
As government
is
body
and that are government
in
what
have called the "intermediate" sense
a process which from the practical standpoint of the actors
complete, but incomplete,

rather projects of law.
wt have corresponding
As
to
it,
is
not
not law, but
for the possible fourth sense of govern-
ment, the government of minor organizations, such as corporations, tlic
law aspect will readily be recognized in the constitutions
or charters,
methods
and
in the
by-laws and the enforced customs and
of the organization.
I will just add, to avoid miscon-
ception with reference to all this comparison between
and law, that while government includes

individual
rule,
there
government
specific acts (or
and while law seems to imply the generalized

no fundamental difference between the two; the
acts),
is
many
LAW
275
distinction lies rather in the character of the representativeness
of the activity, partly with reference to the extent of the groups,
but more especially with reference to the duration of the activity

in time.
We have now to proceed with the analysis of law as it is mediated\('

Hereafter wherever the word
through differentiated government.
law
a
is
list
used,
it is
kind of law that
this
of the activities
They
nection with the law process.
The
is
Let us
meant.
make
first
which have to be taken into account
in con-
include
written rule printed in statute book or volume of precedents, accom-
panied most often by written interpretations handed down by the courts.
The
The
and the defendant.
plaintiff
activity of
one portion of the population, probably very
large,
along
the lines prescribed, or, better said, described, in the written text.
The
activity of another portion of the population, probably very small,
along Hnes conflicting with those described by the written law.

In the background, the activity of some law-registering body, legislature,
or court, our authority (or the text.
The
activity of
with greater or
less
set of officials,
forth in certain parts of this law
The
including public prosecutors,
and who bring them before
who do conform
seek
line set
courts.
activity of certain persons, the lawyers in private practice,
resent persons
who
energy the persons whose activity deviates from the
who
rep-
to the habit in the effort to penalize others
who do not conform; also the activity of those same lawyers in representing
those who do not conform.
The activity of a set of persons, the judges, who measure conformity or
non-conformity, declare
The
The
activities of
it
activities of a set of
in the process,
and
and impose
in formal terms,
a set of persons
who
penalties.
execute penalties or enforce decrees.
persons who, placing themselves at various points
allying themselves with various groupings, reflect or repre-
sent the tendencies of the groups in various degrees of completeness through
spoken or written language.
Needless to say, none of these groups
Some of them have a personnel which

not be altered
So a
sheriff
criminal, a plaintiff in a civil suit,

practice.
exclusive of others.
for fixed periods of time can-
but that very personnel
to several other groupings.
is
may belong simultaneously

may at the same time be a
and perhaps
also a lawyer in
PROCESS OF
Till':
276
GOVERNMENT
behind the legislatures

In listing these groups, I have not gone
for the reason that I am
into the grouj) process there represented,
main
here confining myself in the
to the consideration of the
law
governmental
phase of the process, as abstracted from the further
"deadinclude
to
statement
the
Nor have I complicated
phases.
time.
in
due
We shall give that special consideration
letter" law.
we ask
Sup|)Ose
ourselves:
the meaning
of the
"What
the
is
word, nor what
is
law?" meaning not
the best expression of
what is
what lawyers say about it, but what is the solid ground for our
study of the law as it exists in the life of social men.
Certainly the law
not the attested document offered us by
is
the secretary of state or by the clerk of the court.

nite
enough
thing, but
it
That
is
defi-
only indicates to us what to look for and
where.
Certainly the law
is
portion of a group of
not the theorizing activity of any group or
men:
that
men who
arguments of the
is, it is
not the verbal or written
take part in
its
may end
or
neatly a speech or argument, but
lalx'l of
it
processes within or
"Such
without the differentiated governing body.
is
the law,"
merely indicates a tag
the law, an activity representing other activities
and
still
others at possibly a great degree of removal.
The law
not primarly what the governor does, nor what the
is
sherilT does,
nor what the judge does, nor what the law}êr does,
nor what the
bailiff does,
man who
varies
nor what the criminal does, nor what the
from the prescribed
(better said, described) rule
in civil cases does.
The law
at
actually does
means
of
bottom can only be what the mass of the people
and tends
as the lawyer speaks

I
am
to
some extent
governmental agencies.
when he
to
make
(I repeat.
looks out of his
other people do by
I
am
not speaking
window upon
society.
sjx-aking of society with the law7er included as part of the
process.) [jThe law, then,
is specified activity of_m en

that is,
which
has taken on definite social forms embodied in
4
grou]^ which tend to require conformity to it from variant indi-
activity
viduals (these themselves appearing in groups
and having
their vari-
ant actions valued and judged only as affecting groups), and which
LAW
have
help them compel these variants to adapt
at their disposal, to
common
themselves to the
form part
277
which
type, certain specialized groups
body
of the governing
of the society, that
certain
is,
organs of government.!
With
formal statement, however, we are by no means out
this
Rather our
of our difficulties.
must follow
this
and show that
intricacies
difficulties
it is
importance to
We
us.
ent kinds of law;
we
have to
shall
shall
We
just begun.
many
adequate, which means both that
a useful working statement, and that
is
have
statement of the law as activity through
it
ignores
no phases
it
of
test its application to differ-
have to reckon with "dead-letter law,"
with survivals, with law-making, with the systematic side of law,
and with
the "theoretical" phases of law interpretation
all
These questions
enforcement.
and discussed
accompany us all
will be illustrated
in general terms in this chapter, but they will
through the
and law
book.
rest of the
In taking up different kinds of state-enforced law for purposes

of illustration, I shall
criminal and
Indeed
it is
civil
not a distinction that
It is
a distinction of a kind which
break dowTi and
to
pay no attention to the distinction between
law.
obliterate.
It is
is
is
useful here.
very important for us
a lawyers' distinction, having
to do primarily with "process" in the technical legal sense, and
an important distinction
while
it
is
books
it
breaks dowTi theoretically on the
every other
that
is
test as well.
From
practically,
our point of view there
fundamentally more "public," none that
The most
than any other.
disputants over a contract
even in the law-
test of penalties,
insignificant suit
is
is
more
and on
no law
private,
between two petty
dealt with socially on the basis of
is
great group interests which have established the conditions

the
bounds for
may,
bit
it is
may
it.
true, be stated as
is
social.
sum
Every
bit of
and
law activity
of individual "acts;" but every
group terms, and
We
this latter is our method

do not ignore John Doe's doings, but we
John Doc's doings
just as they are given to us, with all their
also be stated in
of statement here.
state
All law
social meanings, values,
and
realities.
OF GOVERNMENT
Tin: I'KOCESS
278
now
proivrd
on law facts of two
to illustrate this i)osition
between by designatkinds, which 1 will only roughly distinguish

place, any individual
and
time
ing, first, those in which, at a given
mav potentially be involved as defendant; and second, those
a given time and place, are directed only at a given secor profession.
tion of the population, assay at some particular trade
individual
any
case
latter
in
the
The distinction is rough, because
which,
at
potentially go into that defined section of the population,
may
former case
in the
because
selves as bits of society that
individuals are so specified them-
all
what we may
an- not identical for any two
and
of
them.
call their " potentialities"
answers, however, our
It
present jiurposes.
As an
illustration of
laws of the
first
kind,
let
us take the law
forbidding murder, limiting our consideration to the taking of
human
those rough forms, such as
life in
by
by
direct act,
durect
agent, or in a limited degree by gross negligence, which almost alone
we have thus
far undertaken through
government punishments to
suppress.
Even
in Sicily,
greater than
the population
where the proportion of homicides
any other
in
is
civilized region, the
times
there
who
it is
is
is
very
much
less
only one in 100,000, or in 150,000.
not a single
human
habit of
In the greater
being in
all
than that. Some-
And
yet possibly
these stretches of the world
could not, on sufficiently close analysis, find tendencies in
his life
toward the use of murder as a technical means to attain
certain of his ends.
("Means and ends "
is
merely
common
to indicate the killing activity in its earliest stages,
more or
tially
I believe,
In the United States perhaps one
"not-killing."
person in io,ooo commits homicide each year.

part of Europe the proportion
is,
common
less
promptly
inliibited.)
Every person
is,
speech
where
it
is
in short, poten-
a murderer.
The
definition of
murder
is,
of course, not uniform.
conditions produce different killing reactions

" crime "
and produce
Different
different
judgments upon them by society. Nor does the dictionary
definition of the crime correspond necessarily with the actual social
habit of crime
and crime punishment.
In Sicily certain forms of
LAW
279
feud killings are eliminated from murder as
law
of the land
the letter of the statute
appears in the real
it
may
cover them, but the
actual maintenance of a non- killing activity through governmental
agencies
In certain mountain
not seen.
is
Kentucky,
districts in
Tennessee, and neighboring states, in the same way, certain feud

killings cease for considerable periods to
In our large
reacted on by government.
that
is,
certain sets of interest groupings
be murder as actually
cities
arise,
conditions arise,
which
at times
come
near to eliminating special forms of murder from the legal reaction.
Indeed, apart from the formally "justifiable homicide,"
there are nearly always
more or
less definite
classes of
murders
which are actually excluded, as, for example, often the killing of
a seducer.
mention
this
unenforced "law" only to postpone
its
consideration for a few pages.
Now,
the fact that every person, roughly speaking,
tially a murderer, so far
from operating
law against murder,
of actual
Of
appears.
as a method,
it
on which that law

may use murder
There are many alternative
line.
bit of
committed so that
merely
strikes at
technique but as an objectionable
It specifies certain
content in the social living.

it
is
lines
great interest grouping develops which reacts
on murder not as a mere

attack and
poten-
does not follow that every person will carry his
But enough murder
register the fact
its
just the basis
is
is
development
course, merely because every person
activity through on that
of action.
to prevent the
forms of
them by various means which
killing for
in the
end
take the form of our judicial process through the differentiated
governing group or organ, with the continuing possibility of the

use of lynching or the sheriff's posse or vigilance societies under
special conditions.
of
Lynching,
it
may
be noted,
view an embryonic governmental activity
another point of view
it is
an
offense against the
point of review represents a group attitude,

tions cause
or
from one point

while from
government
each
and according as condi-
one or the other attitude to prevail does lynching spread,
is it
suppressed.
We
find in society at this stage
activity,
is
itself,
and on the other
on the one side the murdering
side the non- murdering,
murder-sup-
28o
Thi-s
pressing activity.
plane of murder
government
process of
hi;
is
a division merely on the particular
in the limited scoix; of the
cannot go Inliind
into the hearts of
it
men
word given above.

or above
it
We
into the idea
must recognize at the same time all

them we can
the countless other groui)ings or other planes, and from
murder
grouping at
the
of
form
the
interpreting
feel our way to
of justice to exjiiain
it.
We
anv given time, and the intensity of the reactions.

groui)ings are shifting, and, as individual
men
These other
find themselves
among them, wiU, now one, now another, emerge into the
murdiring group and receive the reaction, through the governing
body, of the non- murdering group. It is true that even in our
placed
most disorderly societies today the murdering group is very greatly

reduced in numbers; and this reinforces our ordinary modes of
speech so that we come to regard
acting strictly
individual
its
members
strictly as individuals,
with individual responsibility, and to discuss
phenomenon.
But the group nature
it
as
an
of the activity
we appeal to statistics, whenever we talk of the "good example" or "moral effect" of punishment, and indeed whenever we mention murder at all, for murder
is a special form of life-taking definitely marked out by the reacting
group. It is impossible to try a murderer purely as an individual.
The ordinary' speech points to the murderer as an individual and
struck at by law appears whenever
to the
that
law as a generalized social
is liis
much
murdering
"social," as
non-murdering
is
rule,
but actually the murderer,
activity, is just as
the rule,
much
generalized, just as
and apart from the murdering and
activities there is
no
rule,
save as a differentiated
phase of the governing group and of the various kinds of representative
"opinion groups."
Turn now
activities
to
law which directs
section of the population.
are
we
extend
Here the case
to state the facts here in

itself ?
saloons.
itself
against
some phase
of
which are segregated in a particular trade, profession, or
The
is
not so simple.
How
terms of a group habit tending to
Suppose we take the Sunday-closing law governing
which the law is directed is the

on Sunday. Now, if we should isolate the
activity against
selling of liquor in saloons
saloonkeeper and describe the whole activity in terms of
him
as
an
LAW
281
individual, or even in terms of saloonkeepers as a class,
we
should have
difficulty.
For manifestly we cannot find a great
saloonkeeping population closing

to
make
its
doors on Sunday and trying
the doors of a few open saloons also close.
But such
more than a caricature of the social fact. Whenever the saloonkeeper hands a glass of beer over his bar there is
another human being on the other side of the bar who is taking it.
statement
is little
While these are thus engaged, there are other people passing along
the street in front of the building, perhaps on their way to church,
witnesses of what
is
happening, in other words participants in the
action to the extent that their church-going activity
is
disturbed.
Later in the day there wiU be a certain number of drunkards on the

streets,
brushing against
whom
and a
this noise
thereby participate
Also there will be a certain amount of noise
in the total activity.

in the city
men and women who
certain distortion of the activities of people for

is
a disturbing element.
few wife-beatings, a few empty larders
at a
Mix
new
in a
few
fights,
week's beginning,
a certain increased amount of various other activities
known
as
"vice " and whatever other ingredients exist, and you have the total
of the open-saloon-on-Sunday activity at
is
hitting.
Out
which our assumed law
you get a Sunday-closing
of all this
interest
group
and it is this group which hits at the openSunday group.

The open- Sunday group, for its part, is made up
of a large number of persons who do not own saloons, as well as of
As
all, or nearly all, of the saloonkeepers, brewers, and distillers.
in the political field,
formulated by the governing body, the law will specify the saloonkeepers for the observance of the rule and for penalizing in case of
non-observance, but the law as a social habit of action involves the

largest part of the population as acting
the other part.

of
The saloonkeeper
and enforces
upon
stands at the center in the place
prominence merely for technical purposes.
then, does not fail to cover the facts here,

of laws like those against
itself
Our
point of view,
any more than
in the case
murder.
In the case of legislation governing life-insurance management

the analysis goes
on similar
lines.
group of policy-holders whose
Here there
interests
is
a large, well-defined
have been hurt at certain
282
jK)ints.
Thcri'
PROCESS OF
lli:
is
a small grouj) of insurance-company
who have been
(with tluir outside allies)

tain
There
ways.
forms
of iH)licies
grou|)s involved
GOVERNMENT
is,
let
managers
rloing the hurting in cer-
us assume, a resultant law specifying
We may contrast the
and modes of management.
by the catchwords, the safe-policy group and the
The
unsafe-i)olicy group.
safe-policy group, including policy-
holdirs, agents, and managers, predominates, then, and strikes

through government at the unsafe-policy group phenomena wherIt might be that all managers appeared on the
ever they appear.
unsafe- ixilicy side and all policy-holders on the safe side.
That
would be a transitory phenomenon, highly significant for concrete

interpretations while occurring, but nevertheless not the most
significant line of division for getting
law activity as we find
it
existing.
down
bottom
to the
This illustration
of the
like the others
has been treated here right in the bed of social habit in which
it lies,
without any attempt to go far in comparing the given groupings

with groupings on other lines in the given society.
That phase
will get attention later.
Should
\ve
take even such a detail of commercial law as, for
and penalizing
we must regard
upon variants,
them through government functions, when they do
not conform.
This
example, the proper phrasing of a promissory note,

it
also as a w-ay of acting tending to impress itself
is
which we can aim.
the most complete statement of the law to
which for certain

same as saying from certain group points
of view) are often held up as fundamental, slip down to their
projxT proportions and allow themselves to be stated as incidental
pur{X)ses (which
is
All the other characteristics,
the
to this characteristic
group activity which
itself is
the law of the
society.
If we take up now the question of laws that are not enforced

wc can see better what place they occupy in society. Suppose it is
a question of a blue law which forbids the selling of goods, including, say, milk, on the Sabbath.
Milk is habitually sold by all the
milk dealers to all or nearly all their patrons seven days a week.
Yet the words can be found on the statute book which forbid
it.
LAW
law
If the
law
to be defined in
is
But
exists.
if
There
time.
is
terms of the statute book, then such a
we turn
observe at once that there
283
is
we
to the activities of the people,
no such law
in existence at the given
no non-milk-selling-and-using group tending
to
and milk-using
inchoate material from which such
require conformity from any would-be milk-selling
At most there
group.
is
a group might develop.
what
it
would be
it
Nevertheless the situation in society
many letters were
that law in so
Any proper
ute book.
interest
if
little
local official,
he represents, has
in his
it
making
it
not
no matter what variety of
power
were a law, and so in very fact to make
start the process of
is
not on the stat-
it
to function as
though
law again, or rather to
law again.
His activity
may
be
checked, almost certainly will be checked, and he will be overthrown

if
he
But that
persists.
What we
is
is that there is a track or a technical means by which milkon Sunday can be suppressed without the issue passing
through the legislature. Should a vigorous anti-milk-selling group
observe
selling
ever develop
old blue law
it
can push
its
activity with fewer obstacles
had been repealed.
least free so far as
and coloring
of
my
is
if
the
observable fact, free, or at
understanding goes, from the implications
any particular group-made theory about the law,
about the Sunday-observance
We
Here
than
ideal, or
observe as fact that just as
an
about social
easier technique
changing a statute than for changing an

so an easier technique
is
dead-letter law than for
life in
is
provided for
article of the constitution,
provided for making law in the
making law
general.
field of
in the ordinary legislative
field.
Incidentally,
wc can now
get light
on the question whether a
majority of the population must always be discoverable on analysis

as standing behind each law, that
is,
whether the group having the
habit and tending to extend the habit must comprise a majority of

the population of the society in question, in order to entitle
activity to
minority
at all.
rank as law.
now comes
to
The
distinction
appear as a rule
of
thumb and not
Majority and minority are simply a
very important
bit, of
course, which
its
between majority and
becomes
bit of
as crucial
technique
vital content at
some
rm: process of
284
stages of
government
K"viTnmcntal process
tlif
and
they are used as tests
mainly in certain stages of the legislative part of the
They
work.
government
cannot be transferred to this portion of our analysis
with any claim of validity, and indeed they are practically not
the majority
Anywhere along
needed.
and minority
expect to fmd a law-making struggle going on.

that
it
is
lines
we may
We may indeed say
invariably possible to decide by direct inspection whether
a bit of formal law
is
or
is
not actual law.
Actual law tends to
we hardly
run well up toward general observance so swiftly that
havr a chance to notice
at the minority
it
and majority dividing line.
"The law of a society is something beyond the sum of its laws."

\Miat that common manner of statement means is merely that the
process of
summation
not the process which will give us an
is
And
adequate picture of the whole body of the law.
nature of
It
is
not
the reason
and hence artificial,

which
it
the components
is attempted to add together.
merely laws but rather systems of law with which we
summation
is
inadequate
lies in
the abstract,
actually have to deal.
Now my
previous illustrations in this chapter have been, as I
have noted, abstract
in just this sense.
have mentioned particu-
lar laws without carrying the analysis back into the whole system in
Each
which they are placed.
background
of
each law,
of law, that
its
meaning,
meanings of the other

the system.
is,
is
has
particular law rests in a great habit

its
known
place in the system.
The
value
only in terms of the values and
which taken all together make up

In the instances above we were concerned with traactivities
cing roughly for purposes of illustration the immediate activity
the
groups which supportor, better said, which are

not with getting their full values.
selves taken
appear
If these
law, but
groups wêre not them-
by us as immediately given phenomena just as they

complex social grouping with its great habit back-
in the
ground assumed we should go wTong. That is, if we attributed

any force or power or value to the groupings behind their immediate
operation in the law,
of that kind
is
not
we should be tangling our feet. But error

made here. It is necessary, however, to com-
LAW
285
by considering the system
plete the picture
law and what
of
it
means.
Now
it is
in the fact that the
law
is
thus a great system to which
such a term as "coherent" can be applied;
just in this fact
is
it
that much of the mystery and metaphysics of current legal theories

But if we hold to the view that all law is itself activity,
develops.
we have no reason for wandering off into the mysteries, or prefer-
ring the least stable to the most stable elements in our explanation.
It is of the
very definition of activity that
it is
systematized.
the simplest motion with which the physicist deals
tem
is
Even
part of a sys-
Wlien the geometrician gives position to a point,

In living beings there is no function that is not
of motion.
he admits system.
systematized.
Behavior
a word biologists are
is
now
using of the
very simplest reactions of the simplest organisms, and except as
system
cannot be comprehended at
it
all.
All the actions that
much more all

True enough, we
can choose many special points of view from which we will say
that a certain lot of activity is not systematized, but here we are
merely adopting a group's position as our own position from which
enter into the behavior of an idiot are correlated,

the activities of a mentally competent person.
to
view the world, and we are judging along the
activity;
denial of
how
and the denial

a limited form
lines of that group's
of systcmatization so uttered
of system,
absolutely phrased.
It is
no matter
is
a limited
how vehemently
or
a representative activity, reflecting
certain group interests along certain lines, but not capable of ele-
vation for use in broader fields.
The common
istic of
outside
law,
it, is
fault in
overemphasizing the system character-
and contrasting
it
with assumed unsystematized activity
seen in the giving to a system of law of a certain individ-
and treating it as though it developed by its

and personal power, and as though capable of interpretation in that way.
Such an attitude represents a certain
amount of truth, which we must be careful not to lose. But its
uality or personality,
individual
emphasis leads us
to error far greater
Wliat we have then

activities,
is
than the
bit of truth
disconnected from one another like so
involved.
may say, law

many pebbles in a
not a series of laws, or, I
286
|)Hf,
lo use a
common
we have
Instead,
illustration.
law
by analysis on a
so knit together in larger groups that
aclivitii's
these
what we may call a single group

For instance, the parlaws.
of
set
whole
rejjresenting
a
activity
the group reaction
produced
which
ticular kind of disturbance
(iilTennt i)lane
point out
murdir may be examined on a plane on which
against
found
we can
to be assimilated with
lot of
will be
other disturbances, all pro-
(hicing or tending to produce reactions.

tion in which the reaction against
it
That
is,
murder occurs
the social situa-
will
perhaps show
reaction against minor assaults, against brawlings, and against
Wliere there
se.x .violence.
is
a reaction against one form of offense
against property there will doubtless be reactions against other
forms.
activity for
of
it;
code of commercial law will show not merely a group
each item in
jx^rhaps one
it,
group
but a group activity for large portions
activity
can be found for the whole or
nearly the whole of such a code, perhaps several will cross one
another in
it;
that
is
a matter for direct obsenâtion to decide.
Thus, likewise, when we find municipal ownership of

ways, we
may
or
may
street rail-
not find federal ownership of steam railways.
In a highly representative discussion group, this assimilation wiU
almost certainly appear;

the deeper-lying groups
but I
am
not considering that now, but
which support the law.
always a matter of direct observation and of nothing else

show what law groups can be analyzed out of the mass. If
perliaps the whole mass of law in a given society can be interpreted
It is
to
in
terms of a set of groupings, which bring
it
in contrast
with the
whole mass of another society, resting in another
set of groupings,
And
the fundamental
that also will be a matter of observation.

jioint
for us to notice in
the law
is
connection with this systematization of
that our reasonings
upon
it
progress toward building the law
masses caimot extend
in large
farther than the facts of our observation;
up out
we cannot make any
of reasonings of that kind
any more, for instance, than the student of the evolution of animal
life could build up the succession of forms except by studying the
facts of the
pathway that
has followed.
life
s)'stems of facts both biologist
and student
of
Within
their great
law can bridge gaps,
LAW
287
supply missing links, and work over the material to a very limited
But the student
extent.
even
in his study;
much
of
law
less
like the others
must stop
there,
has he the right to attribute to the
system as such any self-realizing capacity.

It
may have
occurred to some readers while I was discussing
majority and minority aspects of the groups that sustain the laws,
and
also while I
that
it
was discussing dead-letter law, that
would be much simpler
directly,
did not
allowance for the power of "the government"
sufficient
make
itself,
to attribute results to this
and
power
than to attempt to put through the analysis in terms of
groups.
would certainly be simpler, but not simplicity
It
helpful kind, for our problem

Similarly,
it
is
is
to analyze this very
power
of the
itself.
simpler and easier to say that the weight of the
"whole society"
is
back
of the
law than to make a painstaking
analysis of that weight.
Government itself, like the factors indicated by "ideas," is

and its representative activities in themselves add to
the effectiveness of the process at various stages.
With the question as to what increase of pressure may be attributed to them we
shall have to deal in due time.
What we can see here from the
point of view of law as system is that complexes of groups, working
together through the government, combine their pressures.
There
nothing
is
absolute about the combination.
It does not conform
to any theory, and even the best theory only poorly conforms to it.
But where we have it, we have it and at certain transition stages
between adjustments, it seems to stand out as an independent
factor.
That "seeming" however need not mislead us here.
From this point of view we get the meaning also of the statement often made that law tends to spread, to generalize itself.
organization,
The
spreading, the generalizing,
group needs, and
this
is
dominated entirely by
whether the spreading
is
interest-
from one people
to
another, or from one phase of a given people's activity to another
phase.
If
similarities
a system of law as a whole spreads,

(we
greatest case of
may say,
all,
it
is
because of
system) in the groups as they stand.
that of the influence of
nental Europe, needs just this interpretation.
Roman
The
The
law on conti-
facts that
Rome
GOVERNMENT
im: I'ROCESS OF
288
was no longer existing (in the ordinary, concrete sense) and that
the influence had so wide a range, do not add any more mystery
to the process.
Each law, then,
habitual
is
tlirough organized government,

activities, in
pojjulation,
and resting
which, because of the

it
activity,
many
maintaining
in a great
itself
bed of such
planes of grouping of the
can be found arrayed with other laws, systematized
with them, depending therefore on them from one point of view,

while from the opposite point of view it itself is part of the bed or
beds of habit in which each of the other law activities
The
rests.
system characteristics are themselves reducible to activity, just as

are the laws separately considered.
vation, as activity, at
The whole
every stage and
is
matter of obser-
at all stages of
development
and operation.
To
avoid misconception I have postponed to this stage the
consideration of the perfectly valid assertion that all law strikes at
That something
something.
This
is
interpretation
Any
itself.
fundamentally
when
be
human
activity.
classification of laws into those
which
and those which work constructively for public welfare
hit at e\-ils
is
will inevitably
only to put in other language the principle of the group
actually
v\rrong, or, rather,

is
it
superficial.
it
This
pretends to be fundamental,
is
true of, I care not what.
Suppose we have quarantine regulations "to promote the
Laws.
puljlic
health": they strike at certain objectionable activities of
men.
Take a campaign by
insect pest
men, and
difference
it
this
the state to protect crops against
some
proceeds by striking at certain careless activities of
whether
which
is
it
works by penalty of by propaganda, a
one of technique.
Revenue-raising
a great complex of striking processes.
The
is
a stage in
scientific investiga-
government department of agriculture can be envisaged from the same point of view. There would be no law, even
tions of a
in the
most extreme
inal law,
can be looked at
I
socialistic state,
commercial kw,
do not want
without this quality.
law setting forth government

in the same way.
all
to be understood,
Crim-
activities
however, as saying that this
is
LAW
289
the only point of veiw, or for all purposes the best point of view,
to take of
the
phenomena.
Activity
The
point of view of the actors.
very positive from the
is
done by the law
striking
is
is
not
But
anything negative which exists merely for striking's sake.
it
never, on the other hand, a pure matter of everybody's wcKare.
However much any
of
may
it
be ennobled and glorified in the
speech that accompanies and represents
be found
when
For
taken into account.

phase
is
the conflict phase can
which
it
exists is
interpretation the discovery of this
its
essential.
This analysis of law activity
There
it,
the whole range of the society in
is still
however, not even yet complete.
is,
necessary a showing in outline of the processes by
which the various
of
activities
the population are represented
Law-making and lawsome of the preceding

illustrations we have already touched on the law-making phase.
Here we must consider both directly. We have to observe how it is
that even when the representative group appears to be taking an
through courts, legislature, and executive.

sustaining pressures are the same,
independent
initiative,
it
is
still
and
in
the group activities as actually
observable in the populace that carry forward, support, and are

the law.
In connection with
will, I trust,
appear
at
this the activity of the legal theorist
something
like its
proper value in the whole
process.
The chapter on
leadership and public opinion contained a
discussion of the representation of group by group, but

get here to even closer quarters with the process.
If
we must
a political
party has carried an election and secured the passage of a certain

law,
we can
readily sec
sustains the law,
how
the maintenance of that party in
and further
how
power
the continued existence of the
underlying groups which potentially can call that party into

again or call up a
policy to
some
new
life
party with the same policy or give the same
existing party will sustain the law long afterward.
But the party that won the victory on the particular
much
otiicr
work
to the
same
thing, the governing body, as
to put
through the government;

it
or,
issue has
what comes
stands after the party
rilK I'ROCKSS
2()0
victory, has
many
vote at the poles.
OF GOVERNMENT
tasks to jjcrform not decided explicitly by the
goes ahead and uses
It
to use a current distinction
between terms,
"discretion;" that
arc
we
to say of the
underlying the law in the case of law promul-
activities as
gated by the governing body under circumstances like this
jgoverning l>ody, of course,

Isucii
has
its
it
is
is
a group, an activity,
But
this special
often
made out
interest.
so prominent as
is,
acts as a representative
What
as distin^'uished from a delegate body.
group
its
it
group
to be.
and as
itself,
interest
is
The
not nearly
In a bureaucracy
it
appears {x-rhaps more strongly than anywhere else, and here it

concerns matters of technique which may be annoying, but which
nevertheless permit almost anything in the way of dominant underlying group interests to pass through,
when emj)hasis
is
due
to
is
however
faultily.
placed upon the government's
own
Usually
interest,
it
confusing the governing activities as such with the class
activities of the
persons
up, the governing body.
who are most prominent in, or who make

The practical value of the confusion for
the participants at certain stages in the political process
is
not to be
denied, but nevertheless our analysis must distinguish the governing activities from the underlying activities, even in the case of a
feudalism, in which the land-holding interest forms a hierarchy
which step for step
is
identical, so far as personnel goes,
with the
governing hierarchy.
Now,
leaving the "government's
the present,
we
find
body without the
many
direct
own
interest" to one side for
activities carried
through the governing
appearance on the scene of the underlying
groups through representation by differentiated activities of a
politi-
cal character.
And
yet those underlying activities are actually supporting
indirectly "
making"
the law that results.
ever indirect the process of
And what
making may seem
to be,
is
and
more, how-
through what-
ever complicated technical elements of representation or control

it works, the law once made is just
as much as in the former case
supported by the group activity and group interest. It has no

meaning without reference to that activity, and it is fundamentally
that
a. livitv's
creation
and
that activity's legal functioning,
what-
LAW
ever
its
291
To make
technical mediation.
closer to the individual psychic process
this clear
than
we must come
usually necessary
is
remove misunder-
in social interpretation, but only in order to
standings and preconceptions involved in the ordinary reports of
what
is
happening
in a legislature, a court, or
an executive
ofl&ce,
such as we read in the newspaper dispatches.
Take an
from the day's news
illustration
functioning in the government group.
official
War
Secretary of
is
neat
Taft as he
proclaims himself provisional governor of Cuba, announcing meanwhile 'that
Cuban
all
tenure, save those
and laws
institutions
which must
during his
will stand
'
yield to the intrusion of
an executive
by other than the constitutional methods, that is to the

intrusion of himself.
We read from day to day of Governor Taft's
selected
"decisions"
and
were qualities
These come
orders.
of the
man, marks
may
genius or incapacity, as the case

to such a statement for
its
to
us
as
though they
wisdom, elements
of his
There
be.
is
of his
no objection
o^vn purposes, but for our purposes
merely indicates crudely what we must look for.
Every
it
" decision "
he makes will be really the pressing through to achievement of
some element of the Cuban population. The technique is very

different from what it would be with a smooth-running republican
much
government, but the concrete showing of results will be

closer to
it
what
would be under such a government than
it
was under the crumbled Palma administration, or
would be under a
months or more
Taft or his successor as governor

statement of
it
in
away any
And
is
it
and measuring rods
what
what
it
state the law situa-
terms of the
trifle
intellect of
compared with a
interest groupings,
true without for
an
Taft
instant
Taft-governing-body
In photographing the surface of
Taft looms large; but
we
a puny
Cuban
this
in
of the actual value of the
in the interpretation.
a ganglion, and
is
terms of the
entering as technique.
taking
To
revolutionists' conquest.
tion of the succeeding six
to
to
in dissecting the country,
Cuba
Taft
is
today,
merely
requires trained eyes, technical instruments,

to place
him
exactly.
This
is
true even
when
take into account the fact that Taft embodies an American
technique of adjustment, and that he has the force of our
army
and navy
GOVERNMENT
TROCESS OF
Tin:
292
The
\xh\\v\ him.
only assumption
make
is
that Taft's
activities
l)r()clamation sets forth the whole truth about the interest
force
will
involved, and that no further "United States interests"
In the latter event the ultimate outfield.

but even then the value of this illusdi'Terent,
very
might
be
come
tration would not Ix- destroyed, for we have to do solely with prothemselves into the
and the
cess,
j)roccss
which we are considering here wôuld be the
same
in
both cases.
it
is
so with every i)ublic official in every function.
he has
discretion
little
operatin.c; tlirough
have
(lilficulty
to
and we can
Perhaps
watch the pressures
easily
Perhaps he has great discretion, and we
him.
keep ourselves from being led astray by his

in either case
we must
push the analysis down to the groups represented, and
in either
But
prominence as a technical process.

case we shall on the
law
of the
is
in
test find that
our fullest and richest statement
terms of the group activity tending to spread
itself,
with allowance for the differences of technique in the governing
organ through which

In
all this, of
another.
My
it
functions.
course, I
am
not taking sides with one interest or
"anti-plutocratic" friend will
some "plutocratic" measure
exists
and maintains
groups arc not expressing themselves.
interest
me
tell
that because
as law the
itself
It is
because he
which he is a mouthpiece
and contemns those which have found expression, that he
exalts "objectively" the groups for

activity,
makes
there
else
it
Of
add
Let him decry the "hard heart."
his complaint.
is
is
no heart
all heart.
But that
is
a mere
are trying to study, or
trifle
of verbiage.
seem socially indifferent I will

a word, because they may seem stumbling-blocks to some
the habits of activity which
just
critics of this point of
and not uncommon

maintaining
finger
we
at all in the process
Either
itself
on any
view.
in
It is
very
common
in extra-legal life
law activity to find an established habit
where one has great
difficulty in putting his
groupings which sustain
that do not
seem
purely formal and called into existence to support the theory.
So,
interest
it
for instance, certain rules of the law, concerning negotiable instru-
ments when
tlicy are just at the transition
point between the con-
LAW
293
which there was an interest to create them, and the condiwhich they have become such a nuisance that they must be
dition in
tion in
This period of indifference
swept away.
depends on
It all
Fundamentally there
way
may
last
indefinitely.
the shifting of the activities underlying them.
no reason why a thing should be done one
is
we find it in the very activities

The person accustomed to our marriage laws looks
rather than another, except as
themselves.
upon them as "natural," and thinks other nations' laws are " queer "
and needing explanation. Our own he accepts as though they did
not need explanation at
all.
And yet no outside test will give one

The test must be in the activity
the advantage over the other.
Now
and works along smoothly

furnishing a course of conduct, not perhaps the one that would be
made afresh, but at least one which is not troublesome, we find as
a matter of fact that it usually maintains itself, call it from inertia,
This seemingly
stupidity, conservativeness, or what you will.
activity,
group
even
though the
indifferent activity is a real
itscK.
if
a law establishes
itself
abstracting of an interest, a value, a meaning, in terms of other
groups, seems
difficulty
is
worth while
at all
difficult.
It is
a law activity like any other; the
only in the use of words to

in
common
make
it
speech; in other words
it
seem positively
is no difficulty
when properly approached.
Besides the representative determination of incidental issues in

law, there
is
also a process of filling in details,
which
is
carried out
by the various portions of the governing body. Here also we may

law as the habitual activity of the society, sustaining itself
and extending its range through the agency of the governing body.
treat
For example, we have a group
activity in the
following certain law
up and expanded by
the courts to
Or
of
it
may
some
prise"
commercial world
Continually this law
lines.
fit
may
being worked
variations in circumstances.
be a case of executive judgment which
line of activity.
is
fills
"Municipal ownership
of
in the
detaib
some
enter-
be the general statement of a policy, but the selection
of alternative
municipality.
methods
to secure
it
may
fall to the
executive of the
Here again the executive represents the great
inter-
est groui)ing, acts for
minor
or at timc-s for
it,
and so works out the

grouping of the
GOVERNMENT
PROCESS OF
Illi:
294
The law
i)lan.
j:rroupings within
it,
in the interest
itself rests
i)0|nilation.
Wliere we have the law worked out in the courts, as in the case
common law, we find special cases leading to inter-
of the English
pretations
in
and precedents, and so
the course of generations
newly growing
filling
solidifies
this
into a system superimposed on the

historically in both the creation of
writs.
till
with
conflicts
it
or,
a new technical channel through which they
can effectuate themselves, and
new
itself
which then modify the old precedents,
interests,
alternatively, create
of
out a system of law, which
technique again enlarges
This process
old.
new
courts
is
itself
observed
and the introduction
Usually a dominant interest group modified by
other such groups can be located, sometimes the interest group of
must be referred
the lawyers
more
to in interpretation,
and very much

For
rarely the peculiar interest of the court group as such.
a sluggish or
weak
court, for example, technicalities
accumulated
in this
from injured
reaction
may
provide
and anxiety, but the precedents

way may become a disturbing factor, requiring
an outlet which saves
ever, the sluggish or
it
labor
interest
weak
groupings as time goes on.
court
is itself
How-
capable of explanation in
interest-group terms.
Now
of
in this court process of filling in the details of the law,
working
any
of
it
up,
we can
see the place of
the illustrations given before.
and
law theory better than in
As the various
interests
present themselves in the courts, they are represented for the

special
purpose by the advocates' activity, and the advocate
spc-cializes
on working out the whole law situation from the point of
view of the interest he represents.
from
this point of view,
course
is
most often put before us as though
phenomenon abstracted from

never that, but always
way
As he
reflects the legal
he works out a theory of
itself
the underlying activities.
the action to
an
world
theory of
were a purely psychic
which
it
relates.
It is
activity, reflecting in a particular
The
dignified portion of their work.
purely in the highly rarified
it
The
it.
courts
make
this theorizing
But they do not decide cases

atmosphere of such theorizing. They
LAW
decide
them by letting the

and then making
295
clash of the underlying interests
work
the theorizing follow suit (not crudely,
itself out,
remember, but as a representative process). Within fairly broad

limits theories will be found available for either apparent alternative of activity.
When this theorizing activity gets away from the
lawyers and
away from
the judges,
works
it
itself
up
into a philos-
still more remote from the underlying
interests,
ophy of law which is
which reflects them in even paler tints, but which, the paler it
becomes, is the more insistent on proclaiming the absoluteness of
In a later chapter I hope to show how the group interits truth.
pretation such as
is
here used
social process at long range
a group activity reflecting the
is itself
not reflecting merely the legal activity
phases in limited statements, as do the theories of law themselves,

but instead reflecting wider and deeper groups with the law groups
imbedded
in
\\Tiat I
them and
carried
by them.
have been saying of law
is
For constitutions are but a special form

guarded habitual
activities of the society,
would-be variants.
true also of constitutions.
They
of law.
and precedents.
many
we have
subject-matter they overlap at

is
dead, then
from
points.
The
the lawyers' constitution,
is
minister,
he
is
who was never
before
found
in
statute law, but in
When
the letter of
a constitution only from the
constitutional lawyer's standpoint, but not
the student of society.
It is
In the United States, consti-
tutions have a special technique, different
the constitution
all
In England, the constitution cannot be sepa-
rated from other law, except by subject-matter.

charters, statutes,
are specially
enforcing themselves on
from the standpoint
of
British privy council, prominent in
almost nothing in ours, while the prime
formally recognized by the king for what
CampbeU-Banncrman's
accession, has long been very
prominent in the constitution that students of government have

studied.
The American method
thing in the written constitution,

tution.
of electing the president
and another
Russia has a constitution as
can possibly have
after.
If
much
is
one
in the actual consti-
before revolution as
it
one means by the constitution the
written instrument, then of course the revolutionists are lighting

tttk trockss
2q6
But
to gel a constitution.
if
of government
one means a certain part of the estabthen the movement
lished, specially enforced, activity of the society,
new
in Russia is merely to change the constitution, and to provide
for
the
future.
changes
the
preserve
structures, new technique, to
Other organized
activities besides political
constitutions in the
same
sense.
We
government also have
could find in the Koran, for
Mohammedanism,
instance, the constitution of
so far as the viritten
words were adequately representative of the activity.

Ferdinand Lassallc put
tution is always what is.
The
it
consti-
admirably,
though of course only for his limited temporary purposes, in his

"Ueber Verfassungswesen,"
address to the working-men of Berlin,
when he
said
meine Herren, ein Konig
" Sie sehen,
dem
das Heer
ein Stuck Verfassung

gehorcht und die Kanonen das
die grossen IndustricUen die sind ein Stiick Verfassung."
ist
cannon, noblemen,
capitalists, all
and working-men as
....
King,
are parts of the constitution
well.
But one more remark needs to be made before leaving this

general discussion of law,
common
many
in
underlies the law,
and even
this
has been anticipated.
quarters to say that
and often
this physical force is referred directly
governing body, to the
to the force in control of the organized
"Staatszwang."
today
autocracy and
as
The
latter
in its revolution
it is,
its
army
its
people, even unorganized,
population
enough
is
of
it
clearly split
so that
it
view
fall
Organized
before a unanimous
yet,
The
and the government represents
has a great force behind
by the army.
it
It is true in
when
Sometimes violence is resorted

think other methods ought to have failed; that
particular organization of the
government
bottom
view,
of law, has
the sense that the appeal
often the ultimate technique
fail.
in addition to its
The broader
m general lies at the
a certain measure of truth.

is
in Russia
which means poorly organized.
even
namely, that physical force
technique
Even
inadequate.
armies would
physical force as represented
to violence
is
not merely the physical force of the
that preserves the old order.
autocracy with
tlie
is
it
It is
physical force at bottom
all
other forms of
to long before
is
we
a matter of the
at a particular stage
and
LAW
place.
But we have only
to look
297
around us
thousand-fold forms actually at work.

sure to physical violence,
The
not useful.
are,
many
lence
itself.
we
When we
all pres-
if
Cuba used above,
one
will, as vio-
In the
the Taft regime rests,
is
They
other pressures do not represent violence.
They are given to us in our material.
tion of Taft in
reduce
are introducing a hypothesis which
them, as primitive, as "natural,"
of
to see pressure in
it is
the physical power of the United States, exerted through
illustra-
true,
its
on
army,
on much more than that. The limits of physical force

are better indicated by the case of Spain and its army in Cuba.
Physical force must be relegated to the position of one among many
but
it
rests
forms of technique, and the pressures must be taken at
what they are
all
times for
very richly human, not abstractly "physical."
^'
CHAPTER
'iniO
I'vvrry
GOVERNMENTS
CLASSIFICATION OF
that the presence or absence of a
schoolboy today knows
hereditary
XII
monarch
is
him much knowlHe knows roughly
not a test which will give
edge of the characteristics of a government.

how the English monarchy and the United States republic resemble
each other;
zuela,
differ.
its
how
the two republics, the United States
and Vene-
differ, and how the two monarchies, England and Russia,

Perhaps he has been interested in watching Norwây in
effort to
decide whether
enough incidental
will get
it
benefits
make the luxury worth while.

why
the presence or absence of a monarch
The reason
from a king
good
to
test of the
nature of the government
century conditions
in
which the
it
gives very
little
is
is
not a
that under twentieth-
evidence as to the manner
country are mediated through the
interests of the
government, the manner in which the group activities function

politically.
WTien Aristotle made his standard
classification of
and democracies, with
into monarchies, aristocracies,
and perverted forms, he was fortunate

practical classification of the
with a logical principle (that
governments
their
normal
combining both a
in
fair
governments he knew most about,
a verbal method) for distinguishing

them as simple as one, two, three the rule of one, of the few, of
the many.
True his normal governments could rarely, if ever be
is,
found, and his abnormal forms, in varying degrees of abnormality,
were the only ones he really knew; but, for all that, his method of
handling his material was excellent; so excellent indeed, that it
succeeded in perpetuating
consists in wTiting
long after
further
it
had ceased
utility
itself
in that
form
of activity
which
books or making speeches about government,

to represent well the facts
had disappeared.
discussion.
298
This
is
and
after its
too evident to need
CLASSIFICATION OF GOVERNMENTS
was on the
It
drew the
ism
his
for
basis of cightccnth-century facts that
299
Montesquieu
between monarchy (law regulated) and despot-
distinction
and made these two, together with the republic,

His classification was a good one
three types of government.
his purposes and within the range of his material.
(arbitrary),
The
facts of the present age
mentary and other methods

body; and along with
organization have
clearly to view.
to be observed a decided
is
to parlia-
governing
governmental
this the historical stages of
come more
classifications there
have directed attention
of controlling the central
In
many
recent
tendency to make
the fundamental distinction that between absolutism (despotism)
on the one
side,
and democracy (republicanism, the "legal state")

Classification within these divisions takes
on the other.
many
lines for different purposes, as in distinguishing degree of civiliza-
methods
tion,
and balances,
of distributing powers, checks
fields
and so forth. In contrast with these there are classimore concrete nature, designed to show the evolution
Also we find a number of
of the state, such as Letourneau's.
arise from bumptious
hopelessly inexact distinctions which
mechanical and
between
rationalism, such as Ostrogorski's
personal government, and another occasionally met with, conof activity,
fications of a
trasting theocracies with democracies,
law as duty with law as
right.
I
do not propose here to attempt to
governments of
my
own, or even
existing classifications.
of very
which
in
offer
any
classification of
to indicate a preference
conceive that there
hard work ahead before a
is
a very large
classification
between
amount
can be established
will be of practical service to the full corps of investigators
government
fields,
and that
for the present the best classifications
are those of special groups of governments, consciously limited to

special uses.
What
propose
is
merely to
set forth
some
of the
underlying similarities which exist in the process of government in

states
which are sharply separated
cations,
and further
tion I have
work.
to
found useful
indicate
at
in
many
certain
of the current classilines
one stage or another
of
discrimina-
in the present
Kirsl of all
we arc
facts
it
" idea of the state,"
What
tigation.
name
by
have said in an
and that
is
is
of the "state
behind the government,"
than government
is
little
alK)ut
same
it
marked
to very
qualitatively different
in administration, legislation,
words,
off
ranges from
is
nothing
from any other government.
interest groupings, in other
point
a part set
but there
diirerentiatfons^;
my
from
It is
itself.
fairly definite characteristics, with a technique_that
very
usually the
not good raw material for an inves-
Professor Burgess so admirably studied under
of view nothing else
\J
state as discussed in political science
The
material.
As follows from what
not the "state" as such that furnishes us our
is
it
OF GOVERNMENT
nccessury to become clear as to what kind of
is
classifying.
ciirlicr cha|)tcr,
the
I'ROCESS
llli;
300
\v^b,ichL-Sb.ow
The
themselves
and the courts show themselves in
constitution-making and constitution-sustaining.

Primarily
I
lu^
it
should be the institutions of government,
ditTerentiated activities
all
those
which make up the governing body and
mediate the deeper-lying interest groups of society, which
we should
But no sooner do we attempt to study these

we must take into account the various grades of
attempt to classify.
than we find
political
groups (government in the intermediate sense) which
function through them.

parties as organized in "the
These range down from the political

government" through the parties organ-
ized outside of the government, to pdicy.i)rga,nizations, citizens'

associations,
and
political
adaptations of non-political
with no sharp dividing lines between them.
>
|We
groups,
are forcibly
reminded that the governing body has no value in itself, except

as one aspect of the process, and cannot even be adequately
described except in terms of the deep-lying mterests which function
through
It therefore appears hopeless to attempt to classify

governing bodies as abstractly stated by themselvesTjlAn institution, or even a set of institutions, which in formal statement seems
it.
to be identical with or at least
comparable
of institutions in another society
to
an
may have an
value because of ditTerent interest groups which
An
institution or set
entirely different
work through
itT
Aztec "king," an Indian maharajah, a Russian czar, and^

British king are not easily comparable as functioning parts of
So important indeed are the
government.
301
interest
groupings in
classifying governments, that practically they are allowed for
more
or less consciously in all classifications.
But now,
against too superficial a
in reacting
statement of
governments in attempts at their comparison, we must be careful

not to
fall into
an error
at the opposite extreme.
There
a tempta-
is
on the adjustment of interests

the basis for comparison and classification
tion to center attention strongly
and
as such,
try to find
in the relative perfection of the adjustment, in the degree of
ness or friction in the governmental process.
we should soon
smooth-
Should we do
this
find ourselves outside of the limits of scientific
treatment, in other words giving a statement not capable of sufficient

generality in
its
application.
We
our
own group
the
same time we should be apt
process as
it
vociferation.
all
should inevitably be applying
appeared in discussion terms,
We should fall also
at
much weight to the

too much attention to
to give too
into the related error of bringing
governments wherever found into one long
from the
series
point of view of perfection, attempting to assign to each
rank
and
point of view as the test of that perfection,
its
relative
in the series.
As a matter of fact there is no necessary connection whatever

betweendeêes of perfection of adjustment and the types of government as they appear in the ordinary classifications. Aristotle
assumed
form; the
test of its perfection being, in his
on "with a view
carried
an
forms of government a normal, or perfect,
for each of his
to the
entirely arbitrary test.
crime,
common
phrase,
points of view to approximate this condition.
approached
it
far
it
was
no
from some
primitive anarchy, a tribe with
some despotisms, some republics may be
believe, has
how
interest," in other words,
said
China, one
may
well
over wide territories and for long periods.
On the other hand, just as Russia is fearfully out of adjustment today,

so
is
the
same thing true
republic, though here
in that " best of
we
governments," the American
shall probably carry through our readjust-
ments by technical methods that avoid copious blood-shedding.

is all
It
a question of the existing interests, the rapidity of the change in
them, the methods they have found for harmonizing themselves.
302
riii:
know
\\ r
OF government
I'KocKss
whcri' uclivilics arc relatively simple
lluil
and uniform
a very high degree of adjustment may exceptionally be reached

without the use of a specialized governing body, or wîth but slight
jH)i)ulation,
ciently,
and
know
can conceive that even a large
interest lines could
its
if
work themselves out
suffi-
no disturbing factors entered, might dispense with
if
largi' i)art of
not
We
such sfK-cialization.
tra(*es of
the activities of
as a matter of fact
its
But we do
governing bodies.
any large population that has reached
peace to the philosophical anarchists

we do not see any indications that such a time in fact coming.
anything
like this stage,
and
is
\MKit we do observe
methods
can
is
that the interests as they stand find
of adjusting themselves,
reacli
relatively high
degrees
and
in different
of
adjustment
many
combinations
by
different
methods.
It
follows
from
we must not expect practically to be

and run a scale of high
whole lot of them. Rather any standards of
this that
able to put all societies in one collection
and low across the

perfection, of high
and low, that are applied must be applied only
within the range of the particular type of interest groupings.
easy to see for example,
development, within
its
government has within

village
how
range, than any great

range.
And
so with
community governments.
But
all
its
essentially inexact, for the limited
they are
Now
made
what
is
It is
old Peru can be allowed a higher
modern
many
nation's
tribal
and
such judgments are
group point of view from which
never overcome by them.
all this
comes
to
is
that
if
we
are going to get
substantial basis for the classification of governments
any
we must on
the one hand take pains to get the institutions of the governing body
out of their abstract statement all by themselves, and to get them
reduced to terms of the group interests which in each case are

functioning through them; and on the other
letting
hand we must avoid

good whatsoever serve as a test,
as those standards are merely the direct and immediate
any system
except so far
reflection in
of standards of
each particular case of the group process within it.

all our values for comparison out of the governing
process stated in each case with its full representative meanmg.
We
must get
303
Let us take a look at two or three of the characteristic differences

in
interest-group formations
kind which are especially
the
of
remembering
important for our present purposes;

there
is
here no pretense of comprehensive
as ever that
but
investigation,
merely of the analyzing and illustrating of typical phases of the

process.
One
of the
first
such distinctions which will be thought of
that between the city-state
and the nation.
If the
themselves within the compact boundaries of a city wall,

a comparatively limited
evolution of forms, so far as
such a thing, will be very different

a
in
with European governmental evolution.
at all of
true that
It is
But one, must be
Centuries for the Greek
very cautious with such comparisons.

cities
we can speak
most respects.
ingenuity enables one to compare the Aristotelian evolution
little
series
among
shall have a series of
nations which comprise city and country on fairly equal
The
terms.
we
of people,
governmental forms not identical with those found
successive
among
number
is
groupings form
were longer than thousand-year periods for Europe.
that occur in
Europe did not occur
mental technique
known
is
The whole
at all in Greece.
One
staging of the group process is^different.

to everybody.
Forms
contrast in govern-
It is the
presence or
absence of the representative system in the ordinary limited sense
much more limited, remember, than the sense

word through the greater part of this work.
an important distinction between interest group
of that term, very
in whicli I use the
Again we
find
formations with reference to locality.

largely
on
locality,
distributed.
and
Morgan's range
draw a fundamental
clans
on
am
politically
Genuine
are broken
can
down
in
is
in
organized peoples
territorial interest
most
groupings,
That
is,
societies be better studied
into deeper-lying groupings, since the
special political technique that rests
consolidated
example, led him to
inclined to think, exceedingly rare.
territorially stated interests
when they
rest very
between the tribes organized
and the
territorial areas.
however, are, I
of studies, for
distinction
(socially organized)
resting
Sometimes they
at other times the groupings are not locally
on
their
being territorially
not prominent enough to center attention upon
it-
304
Wc
might say that
government
process of
hi;
lungary, or rather the
Magyar
part of
Hungary,
locality basis to the other nationalities within
on a
was
Hungary and to Austria, but this has more the marks of a race opposition, and so would fall under the next line of discrimination to be
considered and more than that, whether as race or as locality, it is
necessary to reduce it for the greater part to economic groupings.
op{)osc(l
There were
cies,
locality opi)ositions resting
on different economic tenden-
as Ix'tween North and South, or on commercial rivalries, as
between large and small
states, in the early
United States, but today
Some we find between cities and
locality oppositions are very small.
rural districts, but inside the cities or inside the rural districts,
locality plays little part, save for administrative
for the division of spoils.

is
In the legislative
mainly a survival, lending
positive purpose.
mere
San Francisco
flash in the pan, so far as
however \iolcntly troublesome
South"
the "solid
element in our
little
movement
is
arousing locality oppositions goes,
may seem for
it
the
Even
moment.
more a surviving form than a substantial

and its future as a locality group will
of the negro problem.
do with the extent
third line of distinction has to
interest
and serving
anti- Japanese
politics,
depend on the future
strictly
is
field the locality basis
to abuse,
itself
convenience, and
to
which
groupings are consolidated in different classes in the com-
munity.
We
elements of
can use the word
class,
holding fast to the essential
popular meaning, to describe any set of groupings
its
so consolidated in a particular set of persons as to
make
that set
come into opposition in a great majority

of their activities to one or more other classes which are likewise
sets of persons, embodying similarly consolidated groupings.
We
of f)crsons, as a whole,
must persistently ignore, or reduce

trivLilities
of
emphasized
of the
word
class
distinctions
to incidental details,
all
the
which are often grossly over-
The caste is a good example

The middle-age "Stande" func-
in excited discussions.
class as here used.
tioned in this way.
The Jews with
back everywhere but

distinct as a ckiss,
America today.
to Palestine,
their physical heredity
running
have kept themselves socially
though they do not function in that way in
"Race"
is
most often a
class of this kind,
and
we can
of
see
how
government
proletariat
305
the negro class in the South has modified methods
The
in southern states.
socialists insist that the
forms a separate class in modern
capitalistic nations,
but what they have to show in nations in which socialists are numer-
many
ically
is
not a class political activity, but a normal group
becoming less class-like even in its talk, the larger it becomes

and the more fully it enters into the political process. Class as a
fact of talk is often very diflferent from class as a fact of men in
activity,
masses.
Suppose now we take a general formation of

such as we
know
countries, that
interest
or less
in
is,
on a large
scale,
with a great complexity of
groups which manifest themselves in
marked
interest groups,
our existing European and American countries
territorial
and
politics,
with more
class distinctions, but without either
territorial or class distinctions as the
dominant elements
of govern-
ment, however prominent one or the other of such distinctions
seem
at certain stages of the process.
range of nations the
It is
tripartite division into
may
evident that within this
monarchies, aristocra-
and democracies has absolutely nothing whatever to bring to

us in the way of making our material better capable of analysis and
study.
We must examine these governments with reference to the
ways the interests work through the government, with reference to
the technique they follow, and to the special kinds of groups, or
organs, which exist to reflect them and to harmonize them.
It
becomes a question of the amount, efficiency, and variety of the
cies,
machinery that
exists
both to bring to expression those interests
that assert themselves directly in politics,
and
also to give recogni-
tion to those interests that arc represented only indirectly.
By way of approaching the governmental process here let

mark out abstractly and hypothetically two extreme types
first
government within
this
range of nations.
us
of
Let us set up, say, at
one end the hypothesis of a government consisting of an individual
who
passes personally
tion
and
set
on every group antagonism at its very incepby appropriate action. At the other end let us
up the hypothesis of a government in which every interest would
allays
it
THK PROCKSS OF GOVERNMENT
3o6
u Itchniquc for organizing and expressing
to lind
Ix: able-
itself in
a system in vvliich every other interest was equally expressed on

"fair" terms, so that in the final course of action all interests would
"due"
get their
weight.
It is
manifest that the very hypotheses
And yet I do not knowj^hgt

of such governments are absurd.
would be except these very
democracies
pure despotism and pure
Could we find them, they would both come
same thing in legislative and administrative results that is,
government would follow concretely the identical lines, were one
forms of government.
to the
Actually there
or the other practiced in a given society.
an imminse amount
there
is
always
much
of organization in
is
always
any government; actually
discretional representation in
any government;
actually there are always interests that are not able to get expression
in the
government without disproportionate exertion, and actually
the transformations of the interests are always
making
trouble in
the government, to greater or less extent.
In the range of governments we have under consideration the

variation in the technique provided for giving expression to the
interests
is
In Russia, for example, where the czar
very great.
serves both to hold together conflicting localities in one system

to permit certain classes to exploit the others, there
is
and
just at present
no available technique for the most depressed groups but violence

or a show of violence.
In the United States, with
year presidency and
Supreme Court with powers over
tutional questions,
we can
its
we break through
nevertheless count
In England, with
and more
its
its
fixed fourconsti-
into violence at times, but
on running pretty steadily without
parliamentary system, there
effective technique for the
is
still
it.
swifter
adjustment of such conflicts
And in a Swiss canton, with

referendum or possibly annual assemblage of the people, the
technique is even more effective.
as at the present time
come before
it.
its
But there
is
not one of these forms which can inherently be
said to furnish a smoother adjustment of interests than
any
other.
depends on what the interests are. In the Swiss canton the

groups are little strenuous, little crystallized, and little antagonistic,
It all
and within the range
of the canton's activities, the
government
307
them from coming into sharp clash.

come. A method which, within the
that there exists tends to keep
In England the
limits of
yet to
test is
one large range of dominant interests permits the opposi-
tions to adjust themselves smoothly,
new-appearing
set of interests
may
or
may
which antagonizes
not yield to a
those which
all
have functioned in the previous process of adjustment.
In the
United States we see the resisting classes giving way even in their
In Russia the same government that
strongest seats of power.
an agent
in holding together the
empire has identified
strongly with one cross-section of the empire, that
now
those very portions of the populace for which the
period of
its
itself
is
so
blocking
it is
czardom
at
one
history most strongly stood.
All these governments are but the interest groupings wrestling
with one another.
In
all
of
them we have
interest
groupings
In some
more firmly estab-
finding their leadership in portions of the government.

of
them we
find a stratification of the interests
Some
lished than in others.

interests
from
of
them we
believe will prevent the
stratifying better than others,
that
they will
is,
produce earlier adjustments as the change in the groupings develops
But we can
itself.
in
no case assuredly
the one will serve as the

itself
we observe
to
method
state that the
of the others.
And
method of
method
the
be always the resultant of the previous
conflicts.
Only as we are given the extent of the stratification of the interest

groups and their range and intensity can we follow out their methods
of expressing themselves.
Let us next take a look at certain of the technical methods by
means
its
of
which groups operate through the government and keep
activities in line
first,
We
find the groups,
ousting the person of the ruler; second, dividing
two or more
some
with their tendencies.
institutions;
and
of his specific activities while
these technical
methods
him up
into
third, exerting a direct control over
he remains in
oflSce.
We
find
in all stages of combination.
Heredity, election, and
lot
with the person of the ruler.
are technical methods having to do
Heredity
may
be broken in upon by
revolution and expulsion, either of an individual or of a dynasty.
/^
3o8
Till':
GOVERNMENT
PKOCKSS OF
KU (.tion may 1k' for a dynasty, for a life, or for a term of years. It
What is true of election
also may 1k' broken in upon Ijy revolution.
is
true of
While
lot.
they correspond
am
not engaged in interpreting these partic-
think anyone
ular institutions, I
to
may
interactions
the
one
as groups of ra])id transformation;
thing of the possibilities of

It
lot
the
how
interest
closely
groupings,
functioning freely and easily
in classes or
whether consoli(hited
see for himself

of
may even
along just these
estimate some-
lines.
has frequently occurred, however, under particular kinds of
between groups, that there has been pressure enough to

modify the activity of the ruler without ousting him, in such manner
that the basis is laid for a permanent division of his functions into
relations
two or more
him
One
institutions.
bind himself not to
of
doing
The
simple
Wliile in
charters are in point.
way
do certain things.
this is to
make
early English
form limitations
of the
power by himself, they actually gave the barons a certain
king's
definite
corporate standing in the general government with the right to

intervene at certain points.
The development was very marked
later on.
This division of a ruler's powers has given us, on one side the
and on the other side the

Each such development, and
courts as independently organized,
chambers.
legislatures with their
each stage of such development, has been the result of very distinct
group (usually
Legislatures and courts as we

by no means the only agencies that have
class) pressures.
commonly know them
are
thus been formed to represent group activities in government.
There have been many

of values,
varieties of
such institutions with
all sorts
and having
all degrees of permanence in their repreBut these two are the ones which have established
sentative work.
themselves most solidly and sho\ATi the most efficiency as tools.
Wliat the value of any such institution

shall later see
more
working through
Another
clearly,
is
depends
entirely, as
we
on what the pressures are that are
it.
common
division of
a ruler's powers
is
territorial.
Provinces are interest groups themselves, and they compel, as

such, a differentiation in rule from time to time, whatever the
tcrminolog)' of motives
The
described.
governments
is
to
in
is
309
which the developments are ordinarily

powers between central and local
division of
be interpreted in the same way.
am,
of course
not reducing this to the results of a class struggle in the usual

limited sense, but stating
it
in terms of that wider process of the
adjustment of interest groups, of which the class struggle
Thus
phase.
the federal
and
States rested at the foundation
and the
is
but one
governments in the United
state
on different ranges
of
group
interests,
later discussion of states' rights reflected differences in
from the slavery question,

meant a technical means of
interests, getting a large part of its vitality
which
for
it,
as a discussion activity,
operating in the federal government.
But now, even
as a shorthand designation
speak, split
still
up
I am of course merely using him

of the government has been, so to
after the ruler
and
in time
up
split
in
space in these ways, there
remain the technical methods for direct group control

he stands at any given moment.
just as
when
I say direct control, I
mean
nique; for in the wider sense
all
It will
government
is
in the
of
whatever kind,
under control, and
nothing but control, so to say, personified.
we find developed by it
him
control by a differentiated tech-
as representative of group interests,
continues,
of
be understood that
As
is itself
the group process
government
all
the different
forms of the differentiated suffrage, of party organization both

inside
and outside the government, as the expression
liamentary technique, and of the referendum.

direct functions of the
on
varieties and
group process, resting on the mass of the
facilities for
society,
goes, of par-
All of these are
contact and communication, and on the
intensities of the interest oppositions.
In this sketch of the technique I have, however, thus far only in

part indicated the working of the group process.
speaking about the groups in opposition

but
it is
to
have been
"the government,"
necessary to supplement this by pushing the analysis farther
and showing "the government" itself at every stage, even

most extreme despotism, supported on groups, or classes,
in the
of the
/^-
population.
I will
postpone this for a
moment
in order to take
glance at two or three systematic classifications of government with
IHK PROCKSS OF
3IO
may
a viiw to sci-ing wlial vuluc
GOVERNMENT
be atrtibutcd
them
to
at the
present stage of our analysis.
and
Jn (listinKuisliing between the "militant type of society"

" industrial tyix; of society, "
tiie
Herbert Spencer
is
"framing
really
conceptions of the two fundamentally unlike kinds of political

These are his own words in the first sentence of
orpanizjition."
the
first
of the
of his Sociology,
two chapters
which discuss
this
As contrasted with most classifications of government,
distinction.
makes a distinct advance because it gets away from

verbalisms and formalisms, and tries to go down to interests
S|K'ncer's clTort
the
of a certain kind.
Unfortunately, however, Spencer's "interests"
and that
are not the real interest formations that exist in societies
are read directly out of them, but instead they represent Spencer's
own
midtUc-class English groupal view-point,
statement in terms of his
own
fictitious
made
almost any page in these chapters at random, and

that
what he has
owning the
state,
sort of thing.
in
mind
and the
is
state
coherent by
will appear
it
gospel-truth liberty, the individual
owning the individual, and
Therefore, while in one sense Spencer
the propaganda purposes of his
own
Jcllinck in his recent work, Allgemeine Staatslehre.
him
which
is
monarch must be able
not monarchy.
tion without his consent.
The
monarchy.
veriest
Applying
this
to prevent
first
Republic
he
tells
is
of
Commons, not
may
is
the state
every state
in the constitu-
Therefore he finds that England
is
tyro knows, however, that in the last
through the
tlirough the crown, nor through
combination of crown, lords, and commons.

division
that of
us that at the very
any change
resort the interests will inevitably express themselves
House
on the
Governments
Monarchy
either monarchies or republics.
guided by the will of a single person.
least a
all that
" liberty "-loving followers.
classifications of the formal nature consider
are for
is
except for
right track, his actual results are utterly worthless,
Of
Take
"feeling" elements.
Jellinek's
indeed have a certain limited value
as mere technique for the interests, but
it
when made
way
a matter of formal law in the
if
any
line
of
interpreted
becomes an absurdity
that he understands
and applies
The
it.
311
groups of the nation function in Eng-
interest
land through a single organ, or group activity, the House of
Com-
mons, and in very truth the king changes with each change in
"the government" the king, that is, not as such and such a man,
Edward by name, but
as an official policy
carried out in Edward's
Take
To monarchy,
Bluntschli.
he adds a fourth kind
which
states
all
What
rest
activity
and democracy
aristocracy,
government, idcocracy, which includes
of
on some
ideal element, such as religion.
reference to the underlying interests there
little
is
in the tri-
classification disappears almost entirely in this fourth
partite
We
member.
could indeed work up some kind of a statement
way groups
of the
activities,
between
but
it
expressed themselves through various belief
would not be a good means

governments
organized
enter the
not possibly
forms
and government
name.
of
same
any
in
of discriminating
case,
classification
as
and
the
it
could
other
three
government, which are discriminated by a numerical
test.
Ratzenhofer offers an elaborate classification which, despite

that he says of " Interessenvertretung,"
and
in detail,
on arbitrary
Then he
classifies states into
So far as
is
this
is
state
absolute and legal ("Rechtsstaat").
mean
taken to
no organization provided
that in certain governments there
for getting behind the ultimate decision
of a single individual while in others there
make
it
in
is, it
has value.
But
to
a fundamental classification of states "as such" overlooks
the facts that there
ded
makes a
and the government.
First of all he
distinctions.
fundamental separation between the
all
based, both in general
is
is
no monarchy so despotic that
it is
not imbed-
custom; no ruler so powerful that the governing machine
he leads
is
not more active than he;
and
that both ruler
and
governing machine must be themselves interpreted in every case

in
terms of class
interests.
absolute and legal state

ruler
is
officials
imbedded
is
in law,
The fundamental
opposition between
impossible both because the absolute
and because the
with great discretion.
legal state invests
its
Inside of each of these kinds of
"state" Ratzenhofer groups governments in an empirical manner,
312
of states
One
a certain range
to specify lyj)ical activities, Ijut to get
aiming not
thrown roughly into a limited number of pigeonholes.

writer,
recent
Leacock (Elements
Political Science),
of
throws a handful of modern states into a despotic

all
Within the democratic
others democratic.
and
class,
calls
he distin-
states,
guishes as to whether they arc limited monarchies or republics,

as to whether they are unitary or federal,
and again as
to w^hether
His
distinction
they arc jxirliamentary or non-parliamentary.
first
and democracies has, as we have seen,

Within the
its germs of sound meaning, not properly developed.
democracies his hrst distinction turns on what is often an incidental
detail; his second concerns territorial groupings, which are imporbetween the despotic states
tant,
having to
as
do with the way governing
distributed in space;
foundation,
it
and while
independent from them,
Hobhousc
in his
illustrates in its
if
on a
more adequately
solid
entirely
stated.
later
work, well
worst form the theoretical distinction between des-
government as one
"despotism
is
and could stand
Morals in Evolution, an even
potisms and other governments.

tribal
his last distinction
cuts across all the others
are
activities
the
After
first
setting aside clan
division, he then distinguishes
principle of force
and
between
and authority " and "the
prin-
common good and personal right." I only

show how this distinction ultimately lands in " prinmaximum distance from facts.
work there is of course much that is substantial in
ciple of citizenship, the
mention
it
to
ciples" at the
In
the
all this
way
of analyzing governmental structures.

Professor Burgess'
canons of distinction in his chapters on the form of government, for
example, get reaUy to close quarters with the facts and give good
aid toward classifying types of governmental activities, even
if
they do not go farther than preliminary steps themselves. And

so does Jellinek's further elaboration of the same distinctions.
The work
of
Comparative
Hammond,
Politics,
a follower of Secley, in his Outlines of
should also be mentioned.
He
classifies
primarily aggregates of men, "political bodies;" whether simple,

as tribes, city-states, nations, or composite, as empires brought
together by force
and voluntary confederations.
For each aggre-
gate he contents himself with indicating
to be expected, but
He
some
beyond that he does not
313
trait of
government
feel justified in going.
on the class process where it occurs, especially

and middle-age governments, and gets good preliminary
lays great stress
in ancient
results
by
this
method, but he does not follow the group process
and consequently even with his class interwhat is necessary. What he has accomplished is, however, of marked value, and his lack of dogmatism
is by no means the least of his good qualities.
into later governments,
pretations he falls short of
now
I proceed
to discuss at length the question of despotism,
especially with reference to
Let
importance.
May,
me
first
class basis, for
its
in the introduction to
public opinion "is potent every^vhere"

will
"In
all
in his
power
of
in
viii),
king of France with that of the president of the
"The supremacy
United States, says:
of public opinion
when they
is
no
less
James Bryce,
on "Flexible and Rigid Constitutions," says
No monarchy
for
power
De Tocquecomparing the
places
all
above the head of the one than of the other."
ages;
Comparative
his
of the people."
Democracy in America (chap,
the
in his essay
of the greatest
that "it controls the
times and in
can have no lawful origin but the grant

ville,
and
Freeman,
even of despotic rulers."
Politics (chap, v), writes:
is
it
few quotations which are in point.

his Democracy in Europe^ says that
give a
is absolutely despotic, and

monarchs are always amenable
least of all
to
perhaps
in the
ruder
public opinion, and most so
are the leaders of a tribe or people in arms.
The
real distinction
between a government checked by rehgious sentiment consecrating ancient

usage and by the fears of insurrection, and a government checked by wellis
established institutions
and
legal rules.
Frederick the Great wrote:

maitre absolu des
"Le
souverain bicn loin d'etre
le
peuplcs qui sont sous sa domination, n'cn
est lui-meme que le premier domcstique."

Consider also this
from the Coutume of Bayonnc (about 1273): "The people is
anterior to the lords.
It is the people, more numerous than all
others,
who, desirous
of peace, has
made
and knocking down the powerful ones."
the lords for bridling
Or
this
old
Persian
llll':
314
"A
inscription:
Peace for
God
great
OF GOVERNMENT
is
Ahuramazda .... who created

And this from Sadi:
man, who made Darius king."
people are the roots, the king the tree;
The
As
Some
I'ROCESS
are the roots, so strong the tree will be.
of these quotations express aspirations rather
than obser-
the limited monarchies than
to the
and some go rather to
I do not use any of them as authorities, but all of
desix)tisms.
them to ix)int to the dependence of the despot as well as of every
vations,
ruler
on
his people.
Suppose we are classifying despotisms and other governments

Can we then
separately, calling the latter perhaps democracies.
say that the despot has "absolute" power?
It is
Surely not, without
meaning
giving a technical and closely limited
to
"absolute."
not the despot, but despot plus army, or despot plus land-
holding
class, or
despot plus some other class, that dominates,
wherein despot appears merely as a class leader and

but class dominance that
is
characteristic
it is
the
of
not despot
government.
The despot's personal discretion is exercised within class-established

Moreover,
limits.
event, under
it
is
never necessary
abnormal conditions
for
except
in the extreme
the ruling class to have
physical force actually superior to the ruled class.
If
we
offset as
equal in physical force a certain minority well armed and well

trained,
and a certain majority poorly armed and poorly trained,
nevertheless
we
shall usually find that the rule
by a minority smaller or weaker even than
is
this.
being exercised
And when
this
means that the minority is not merely the

master, but also to some extent the servant, the representative, of
the majority.
If the weaker group governs, it is because the
happens
interest
it
it
inevitably
groupings in the stronger party to some extent support
as their government.
We
can
state this truth in this
way
that, except in the case of
subjected population immediately under the heel of the conqueror
under conditions of most primitive oppression, the ruling class

is
to a certain extent the
ruled class, not merely
chosen (that
its
is,
the accepted) ruler of the
master, but also
the despot at the top of the system
is
its
representative
representative both of his
and
own
CLASSIFICATION OF
class,
and
none the
to a smaller, but
If this is true
class as well.
GOVERNMENTS
we
315
less real, extent of the
clearly are not justified in
a fundamental opposition between despotisms,
let
alone
ruled
making
mon-
all
and other governments. For we have found a process of

representation in despotisms which is inevitable in all democracies,
and which may be distinguished by quantities and by elaboration
of technique, but not in any deeper "qualitative" way.
archies,
Or
let
us regard despotism from the standpoint of the individ-
Leaving aside the trimmings
ual's arbitrary will.
of despotism,
personal vices, pomps, and crimes, which are incidental,

that the despot
must pass much the same content
and demands through
his
representative assembly.
people, which
means
of
it is
clear
group needs
"brain" that would pass through a
He must
at least the
get his information
from other
rudiments of an organized repre-
and possibly
an immense mass of detail work to his
perform, which means at least the rudiments of a
sentative system for at least one class of the population,
He must
for others.
lieutenants to
division of power,
There
by
locality,
will be established lines
conducted.
There
and despot
alike,
The
leave
setting of
by function, or by both at once.

on which these functions will be
will be limits to the activity of bureaucrats
which cannot be exceeded without penalties. /t--^

custom, in which government exists never disappears.
We must not let our peculiar ideas as to rights distort our judgment.
We put emphasis today on the sacredness of human life and not
on the sacredness of symbolic acts of worship. But just because
some petty despot is free to slaughter, but not to omit his religious
functions, we must not make the mistake of thinking that his
authority is "unlimited" in any peculiar sense qualitatively different from our president's.
We have got to get the right balance
by observing facts each side from the other side's point of view.
Russia
is
most often classed among despotisms
abstract sense, in forgctfulncss of

religion, its
its
in the
extreme
1)urc;uicracy, its organized
"grand-ducal clique," using that phrase as symbolical
and
of a
mighty
less
importance, the "fundamental laws of the empire," mentioned
class force,
by James Bryce
in the
in forgetfulness also of
what
is
of
much
passage from which a quotation was above
of government
tup: process
3i6
given,
llu'
law declaring the sovereign's autocratic power, that re-
member
quiring him to be a
orthodox church of the East,
of the
may
that the czar
fundamental laws, and
alter these
thV only constituted agency for altering them,
be foolish to think he could do
Lbc
participated
Despite
it
arbitrarily.
it
is
indeed
woukl nevertheless
His activity would
by a very large number of very energetic
in
bishops, noblemen, land-holders,

'
Assuming
that fixing the rule of succession to the throne.
and
and bureaucrats.
a very real basis to the emphasis that
all this, there is
on the despotism as a distinctive form of government.

The real distinction is, however, merely one of technique in the
adjustment of the interests. Let us develop this a little farther.
is
j)ut
There have been despots that have supported themselves on the
They are, however, excepThey

illustrate interest pressures as well
tional and transitory.
as other despots do, but we may pass them by for the more common
case of the despot who leads the great land-owning class and
"people" as against the aristocracy.
We find in this latter case a well-organized
represses the " people."
system for bringing the interests of the aristocracy to expression.

Personal favoritism will be prominent in
it,
nent in any American legislature today.
but then that
is
promi-
Other classes of the
much greater difficulty in expressing themThey cannot organize permanently, and lack political
population will have

selves.
labor-saving devices.
only in their greatest needs that they
It is
can make themselves
felt.
succeed by bribery.
wealthy subject class
may
perhaps
poor class must resort to violence, and
then only can accomplish anything under the pressure of direst

need.
Probably
it
will
This accomplished,
for
it
the goods
it
its
interests.
will
at ousting the despot
last,
These
his throne.
it will permit another despot to

hoping from him a better representation
Or, even
if
possible revolution later on,

sions.
from
have no organization ready to realize
has desired, and
take the place of the

of
it
aim
defeated, but
it
may
enormous
Suppose now a second
strong enough for
be granted voluntary conces-
will be a very real political
but, of course, only at
still
achievement on
its
part,
cost.
class has asserted itself sufficiently to
31?
method of access to the sovereign. It will need

its method of access, not being able to trust to the
chance that it will not be crowded out in a neglected moment by
As soon as two classes have entered
the old monopolists of power.
directly, even though on very unequal terms, we have a new organget a formal
guarantees for
ization,
may
The
a new type of government.
flow through
it
have stiffened somewhat, and we have the begin-
Perhaps the
nings of a more complex organization.
may secure
struggled to expression
rights,
ties.
old kind of absolutism
seem to prevail, but the channels by which the class interests
whereby the despot agrees

or,
has
to limit himself in certain activi-
Here we have the beginnings
nary sense,
class that
a charter or guarantee of certain
of the constitution, in the ordi-
using the word constitution more broadly to include
we have a change in the

upon which the
But what we have is
resistance of the injured class can work.
Rather it
not really an absolute monarchy becoming limited.
is the establishment of new methods or channels, which make it
the whole structure of the government,
constitution, with a specified point of leverage
simpler for the old interests to express themselves in the govern-
ment, and which in
effect raise
one class which formerly had very
poor approaches to the despot to something approximating equality

with the position of the former specially favored classes.
watching what
methods
classes,
By
and how many, have secured organized
of keeping themselves fairly in the attention of the despot,
and by indicating the methods they use, we can classify or rank

the new form of government with reference to the old form of
single-class
dominance.
In whatever way the development proceeds,

be
much
the same.
the old council
control of
legislature
may have an
some portion
may
additional
of the finances
other than those of the monarch;

ones,
may be
bit of the
carefully segregated
tion outside the
an additional
government may
process will
chamber added
may
to
it;
the
be specialized in hands
certain courts, perhaps
minor
from the monarch's intervention.
governing institutions
for the activity of
tlie
be attached to the monarch;
may
class.
differentiate so as to allow
Or a
bit of class
solidify itself,
and
in
organiza-
time be taken
3i8
up
PROCESS of
ini-:
into the j;()vcTnment as a purl of
government
Such developments have been
it.
going on for thousands of years and they are going on today in our
most developed
terms of group pressures, even where the
societies, in
harder cLiss (h'slinctions have disappeared so far as their manifest in-
lUunce
in the
in the
federal
government
concerned. That peculiarity of structure
is
House of Representatives, seen in its scattered appropri-
ations committees,
To come back
is
the structural after-efTect of just such a conflict.
to the despot,
we can now view him
in a
phase in
which he shows us two different forms of leadership which need

to
Ix-
For the
understood together.
represents, he
is
class
which he immediately
the ordinary leader of the organization type.
same time he may fill the function of mediator as between

other classes. He can do this, however, only by virtue of the group
or class force behind him.
Sometimes, as general of an army,
But
at the
the despot will hold the balance between provinces
At other times he
conflict.
locality basis.
In
all cases
may mediate between
have been giving
which enter into the system.
my attention almost exclusively to the
nal" conditions as opposed to the "external"

to
to
on a
what he actually accomplishes will be the
direct resultant of the various pressures

I
which tend
classes not
war dangers from abroad.
that
is,
" inter-
as opposed
These war dangers may be among
the factors in maintaining the despotic leadership, but that does
not take us beyond the field of group pressures.

there because he
is
needed, but this
is
Tlie. -despot-is
only another manner of
saying he
selvcs
is there because the groups as a matter of fact loirajhemunder the given conditions so as to maintain him. I am,
indeed, inclined to think that these external dangers as factors in

the maintenance of despotisms are
The home group formations
are,
commonly
important than the direct foreign pressure.

to
modern nations which
pressures of this kind
needing
add
is it
We
more
vastly
can easily point
heavy
exist perpetually in the face of
from without, and yet are very
to resort to established
that so true
greatly exaggerated.
in other words,
forms of despotic
rule.
far
from
may
home
in all stages of the social process that the
pressures are vastly the most important in interpreting the process

of
government, that
in
my
illustrations I
have generallv ignored the
These
foreign influences entirely.
method
for in the
is
latter
minor variations
as
3^9
can easily be allowed
of the
This
group process.
not to say that the content of the governing activity in most
nations
is
not immensely affected by the war dangers of the time
making
but instead, to say that we can only interpret the process by

the statement primarily
As
it
is
and mainly
in terms of domestic groups.
such, of government which concerns
the process, as
us here, I have not been introducing any material as to the nature

of the
group
interests that are in play,
They
nor as to their origins.
are, of course, the very material of society;
their activities are to
and the
be comprehended only with reference to one another;

intensity of their struggles, or the relative
smoothness
of their
adjustment, will always be capable of direct interpretation in terms

of
what they actually
In other words, where classes are very
are.
nearly balanced against each other the outcome will be very dif-
from what
ferent
is
it
where one has a decided preponderance.
Great inequalities will bring
still dififerent results.
we should go back behind
If
which
the governments in the range of
have been speaking to the simple
tribal organizations,
should find a group process going on inside the

solidification of the
tribes,
we
but not a
We
groups into what I have called classes.
should there find leadership and governmental organization cor-
responding to the needs of
this
functioning of the groups.
Should
we advance to larger societies with compacted masses of people,

we should quickly find them divided into classes, and whether these
classes were castes, or land-holding aristocracies, or whatever, we
should find easily recognizable phenomena of class rule manifesting
The
themselves in the leadership and governmental institutions.
political history of the Greek city-states, and the history of Egypt
and
of
Rome
as well can only be interpreted
brought into prominence.
tempted
the
if
the classes are
At every stage we find ourselves
to say that the greater the intensity of the class oppositions,
more certain there
is
to be
found a strong leadership of the dom-
inant class called into existence to preserve the balance.
advance
and
still
If
we
farther to societies in which the classes, both locality
other, arc
found
to be
breaking down, and
tlic
process of freely
nil;
320
PROCESS of
government
we
changinj^ groups to ! upiKuring in their place,
change
We may
governing institutions.
the
in
closer to leadership of the old tribal type, but
find again a
sometimes get
always when the
grouj) divisions begin to solidify and class oppositions to appear,
we
find stronger leadership called into existence for the
done.
At
ests, the
all
stages in the process
we
work
to be
find representation of inter-
government as such resting always on certain
classes, or
alternatively on grouj)s of groups, and representing indirectly the

others.
We find representation sometimes through single individuals,
and sometimes through large bodies, whose members have each their
own constituencies. We find the various operations of government
dilTerently distributed
between different organs.
But wherever and
whenever we study the process we never get away from the group
and
class activities,
stated
we come
and when we
get these
to see that the differences
group
activities properly
between governments are
not fundamental differences or differences of principle, but that they

are strictly differences of technique for the functioning of the interests, that
they are adopted because of group needs, and that they
will continue to
be changed in accordance with group needs.
Except as a difference of technique

to be interpreted in
abandonment
is
meant,
itself
directly
terms of changed interest groups, there
is
no
of "absolute "
today, even as
power in England or the United States

compared with England in the reigns of William the
Conqueror or the Tudors. There was no "absolute" power then

any more than there is today. Both statements are true. The
EngUsh cabinet can today do things which the earlier sovereigns
would not have dreamed of doing, and the early sovereigns had
powers which the cabinet of today cannot exercise. The American
president can be invested with a most tremendous representative
reduced to a nonenity, all within a year or two, and without changing the "Constitution," merely according as the group
force, or
pressures
of the
work
successfully through
him
or through other branches
government.
If I have indicated in this chapter why, and how, the comparison

governments must be carried underneath the surface forms into
the group process, I have done aU I set out to do.
of
CHAPTER
XIII
THE SEPARATION OF GOVERNMENTAL AGENCIES

It is
common
government,
of
America
in
the
"powers"
to say that there are three
legislative,
and
executive,
judicial.
This
them is incidental to our Constitution. For

reasons already made clear I shall not here use the word " powers."
The word "agencies" much better expresses
It is too mystical.
We certainly find the three agencies named above in
the facts.
American government, and in many other governments. But we
manner
of dividing
do not find them

cies
in all
They
governments.
we find in American government.
theory of powers that I

define the actual
work
are not the only agen-
And
finally, there is
know anything about
of these agencies
that
is
no
that will serve to
the actual agencies
closer than a rough approximation.

In opposition to the threefold division of powers
emphasize the unity of government, but only
government
to
is
argue that
common
there
is
common
one
all these
process,
any unity
process.
proper to
in the sense that all
hardly necessary here
agencies of governrhent are involved in one
any more than

in
It is
it is
to argue against the idea that
government other than that of process.
preceding chapters have given the proof over and over again.
is
desirable, however, before taking
ferent agencies of
government
up a consideration
The
It
of the dif-
in detail to sketch
roughly the facts
no matter what,
an
of their relations.
Any governmental
process,
is
activity.
It is
Does the president of the United States put a

annual message urging legislation in regulation
is a very different thing from the case of a private
also group activity.
paragraph in his
of railroads ?
It
citizen writing the identical
from
the- president writing
words and putting them in a book or

them and locking them up in_his desk
without putting them in the message.

the
paragraph
is
It
matters not
how much
discussed in terms of the president's ego, the

321
THK
322
given fact
group
ities
it
is
I'ROCKSS
diltcrcntiated activity
lilllr,
having
activity,
group
to
activity.
growing out
and meaning
reference
all its
and looking forward
itself is
OF GOVERx\MExNT
more group
in
of past
group
activ-
In other words,
activity.
"President Roosevelt" does not
mean
to us, when we hear it, so much bone and blood, but a certain
number of millions of American citizens tending in certain direcTlie czar, the speaker, Campbell-Bannerman, Jean Jaur^,
tions.
the judges in their chambers, all are activity.
Confining ourselves
that
is
now
to
to the governing body,
government
we
that specialized set of activities,
in the narrowest sense,
find that that body, in other
words
can usually be separated into two
or more parts, according as different sets of persons take part in
This
them.
is
at
test,
the difference of the sets of persons participating,
bottom the only fundamental
groups of
men
functioning
between
test there is
different
was by observations of
that Montesquieu prepared
functions or powers of government.
It
officially,
himself for his discussion; and his analysis holds good there,
there only, where
men
and
arc actually acting in groups which can
roughly be described by his three terms.
Wliere
men do
not so
act, the analysis does not apply, and theory has no further word to
say.
If
it
were essential that the individuals making up these special
sets of activities
should never participate in more than one set at
a time in order to justify a classification, no classification would
The
ever be made.
sets
upon
We
activity here,
find a cluster of
men
Such
men
nevertheless
in the groups, not

is
the nature of the
carrying out one line of
which we can contrast with another cluster carrying
out another line of activity there.

of the
men
the
on any theoretical functions or powers.

social process.
And
are not exclusive.
the whole classification depends
in
Some
of the activities of
many
each cluster bring them into intimate association
with some of the
men
in the other cluster, so
intimate that for
many
purposes we cbssify activities as running across the combined

clusters.
But this only means that the distinction between the
two great groups is the biggest one we can make, the distinction
on the biggest lines, the one which separates the groups of men
SEPARATION OF GOVERNMENTAL AGENCIES

most adequately.
It
means
that
an approximate
is
it
set
is
down
at a
better
still,
up
division,
Even when a theory
but the best approximation obtainable.
powers
323
of
to go with each group, the theory itself breaks
thousand places
as
books on constitutional law,
or,
court opinions on cases involving the powers of officers,
show.
will quickly
It is
men
groups of
that the judges tend to
and only lines of reasoning so far as the reasoning adequately

reflects groups of men.
follow,
Taking now the actual groupings
of
men met
with in the govern-
mental process, as the agencies of government, we

already said, that
it is
necessary to
make varying
find, as I
have
classifications of
There are govern-
the agencies in varying nations or societies.
ments, with the three agencies, executive, legislative, and judicial,

well defined;
there are governments that have the judiciary as a
subordinate branch of the executive, as

case in France
the executive
is still
to great extent the
and Germany; there are governments that have
and
legislature consolidated, as in
are governments in which a classification
There
England.
on such
cannot
lines
even be made "theoretically" without the greatest straining, as in
may
Russia, where a czar, a class council, and a bureaucracy

called the divisions of government, with a
co-ordinate
political
and power
with them.
itself
parties
duma
There are governments
have organized themselves
in
be
struggling to
in
which
such complexity
that they cannot well be treated otherwise than as a
fourth branch of government along with the other three, as today

in the
Again there
United States.
activities
between
localities
is
often a very real division of
and between central and
local govern-
ments, a division just as worthy the dignity of a theory of

the
Montesquieu
Finally there
as
is
of
powers between numerous co-ordinate
executive, as in
for
many
activities.
classification.
American counties, but
is
officials,
really as
its
own
the division
all
nominally
much
entitled,
purposes, to separate classification as any governmental
This
list
ties of divisions of
does not pretend to comprehend
powers we actually
most ])retentious of them
all
has a
find,
i)lacc
all
the varie-
how the
among many.
but only to show
merely as one
government
rm; process of
324
Greek tribe with its typical

organization of king, council of elders, and assembly of the people.
Certainly no one studying it would ever come to make a classifiAristotle's
cation of i)()wers into executive, legislative, and judicial.
were
analyzed
by
elements
judicial
deliberative, magisterial, and
Sui)i)osc
him
in
we take
the case of a
governments of a much
mate only roughly
to
later type,
and
at that they approxi-
tion of the agencies of
government in the
tribe
differentia-
was on
entirely
Nor can one drag such a standard of classification
dilTirent lines.
It is futile to
into the facts with success.
say that custom repre-
sented present-day law, and was unchangeable,
ment was purely administrative.

tions of policy, and plenty of its
and that the govern-
The government decided

acts
would be as hard
modem American
as the typical ordinance of a

for judicial
The
our modern classification.
ques-
to classify
As
city council.
and admmistrative acts, we find them passing through

of men by similar processes and with similarly
Evidently the agencies of government were
results.
same groups
the
registered
just king, elders,
about
and assembly, and that
is all
that can be said
it.
With the stratification of the population into

the community growing in size, new groupings
activities will
form,
new
agencies will appear.
classes,
of
and with
governmental
Often the army
must be put down as a special agency, and not subsumed under
any
Sometimes perhaps the diplomatic work
other.
so important as to be allowed co-ordinate place.

the actual division of labor
ment the feudal structure
is
Under a feudal govern-
what counts.
itself is
the "distribution of powers."
In a league or confederacy the distribution
name.
And
Among
may seem
In a despotism
is
indicated by the very
so with the rest.
continental writers, especially
among Germans, one
is
apt to find these agencies of government classified under three

divisions,
which
essential things
differ
from the Alontesquieu
classification
simply because the observation has been
in
made
upon German governments and not upon England. We are told

of the ruling power, and the legislative, and administrative powders
the
"Rcgierung," the " gesctzgebcnde Gewalt," and the "voU-

Gewalt,"
ziehende
"
or
325
Here the judiciary
Verwaltung."
is
and the "Regierung"

is set apart as something very much greater and more magnificent
than the mere executive of our own constitution. You cannot
put these two classifications into opposition and say one is right
subsumed under
the administrative branch,
and the other wrong.
ment one
is
It is all
a question of the particular govern-
talking about, in other words of the actual activities,
the agencies as they present themselves to observation.
In England today
sharp distinction
Not
to
and inexact
between executive and
Parliament devotes
time.
surely artificial
is
it
itself to
legislative
administrative matters
make
functions.
much
of the
speak of the budget which occupies the center of
and which
the parliamentary stage
is strictly
administrative
on a theoretical division of our customary kind, there

tinuous
to
interpellation
the
of
is
work
the con-
"government" on administrative
and on such questions a ministry may even fall. The

cabinet is both the head of the administration and the initiating
The judiciary is a much more sharply sepaforce in legislation.
questions;
rated agency of government, despite

of Lords,
and
its
culmination in the House
despite the political character of one or two of the
we wish to divide the rest of the

government into distinct agencies we must do it by naming the
electorate, the House of Lords, the House of Commons as organized
But
highest judicial officers.
in parties, the cabinet,
if
and possibly
in addition the civil service.
In the United States we certainly find executive,
and
judicial agencies.
them, each taking up
They
its
methods, and continuing
are set
up with
legislative,
walls built between
work at a certain stage, using certain

work to a certain further stage, and
its
each entering into formal relations with the others only at specified
points.
Actually the interactions occur at
many presumably
for-
bidden points because the same groups of pressures are working

through
all of
them and seeking always
courses, wherever they
may
flow.
But
to find their
smoothest
in addition to these agencies
we find others. First, there is the constitutional convention, which

we have developed into a regular instrument of government in
frequent service.'
Then
there arc the organized political parlies,
iiii:
326
which
outsidf
V\v
named
llu-
of government
i'ROCi':ss
personnel of any one of the three branches
Constitution, but which are just as definite portions of
in the
the governmental structure as are executive, judiciary, and legisThe question as to whether the parties shall be regarded
lature.
as a special agency of government indicates clearly the nature of

If the party is a fugitive thing, showing
the tests that are needed.
we can hardly make of it a separate

its main strength in the
But if it is
not make of it a separate agency.
inside the legiskiture,
itself
Even
agency.
legislature
we
strongly organized with
if
shall
strongly organized outside the legislature,
if it
has
own
its
ship aj)art from the leadership of the legislature in which
may
j)erhaps not even be
it
and we
shall be justified in this to the extent,
that
is
add
it
and
to the extent only,
Again, the electorate
to function separately as a dififerentiated
marked a manner
activity in so
to
as a separate agency;
a consolidated organized body.
sometimes seen
itself is
that for
some purposes
as another distinct agency of government.
all
on the
list
of agencies in
by no means adequately
America
and
government
people.
employ
is
to be
" People "

it
statement.
is
and
suffrage
at that the six
words
set forth the extent of the differentiation.
For practical purposes probably the best

of
proper
it is
Constitutional
conventions, executive, legislature, judiciary, parties,

are
leader-
leaders
members, then we shall for many purposes
find ourselves literally forced to regard
it
its
test as to the
found in the method
agencies
of control
by the
a word not lightly to be used, but here I
may
perhaps without confusion, by wây of shortening the

Wlierever we find a separately organized responsibility
we may name
the agency a separate one.
to\\Tiship with its
horde of petty
In an old
New
England
officials,
each one was really a
separate power or agency of government.
In a nation in which,
by current modes of speech, the monarch

popular assembly
is
"sovereign," and the
we find
monarch to rest mainly in
occasional revolution, and to be different from the organization for
control of the popular assembly, which will be by ballot.
In
England there is no different control over the executive from what
is
a comparatively unimportant body,
the organization for the control of the
there
is
over the legislative work.
mcnt by people,
of cabinet
The
control
is
a control of parlia-
by parliament, or somethnes
better
by ^
"
6^1
people direct, and of judges by process of appointment and im-
In the American government judges, executive, and
peachment.
are controlled by separate elections, or by separate
legislators
forms of appointment and removal, while parties have been, as
Goodnow has shown,
Professor
subject Jta^yeryimpeilfect control^
and consequently the centers of a disturbing energy, which is only

now commencing to be subjected to the popular check. So far as
have controlled executive,
parties
and judiciary
legislature,
consolidated process, the effect has been to break
down
in
to
one
some
extent the constitutional separation.
There
is
one method of classifying the "powers" of government
which seems
and
tionaries
which do not
definitively to
to set
up a
abandon
the observed groups of func-
line of distinction
concerning "functions"
on corresponding "organs," but instead

cut across the organs.
This is the distinction between the expression of the will of the state and the execution of the will, as it is set
rest directly
up, for example, by Professor
tion.
The
in his Politics atid
Admin-
we actually find it is admitted to have many

and the legislature as we find it to have many
executive as
expressing functions,
executing functions.
less
Goodnow
Here the judiciary becomes part of the executing func-
istration.
But the two kinds
of functions are neverthe-
held to be clearly distinguishable and adequate as a foundation
for the theory of the governmental process.
Such a
test too readily
accepts a distinction of individual psyThe " will " and the " act
chology as a standard for classification.

are taken
from
their use with reference to the individual
to the state, where, indeed,

in
more
distinct
and apphed
are often told that they appear
forms than they do in the individual
closer look at the facts
To
we
would discourage
this
mode
life.
But a
of treatment.
take an illustration once more from the immediate political
of the
day
in this country, there
is
life
President Roosevelt's activity
Some of these lands have

been fraudulently secured from the government and the ownership
of much of the coal property, whether rightful or fraudulent, has
with reference to the western coal lands.
been grossly abused.
The
President has therefore
withdrawn
328
thr remaining coal lands
from entry, he has taken steps to secure

and he has prepared plans
the cancellation of the fraudulent entries,
system for the disposition of the land.
for a lease instead of a sale
mode
Retaining the term "will" as used in the
under consideration,
of classification
this activity of the President's
is
an expression
It would take the most refined

or an execution of the social will ?
is execution, and execution
here
Expression
casuistry to answer.
is
Casuistry
expression.
and our business
is
of
no
service.
We
to interpret those facts
is
relation witli other facts, but a distinction
have facts to
viâtch
by getting them
into
between expression and
execution of will does not answer.
Moreover, the very use of the term "will" is an admission of

It is society with which we are dealing and
superficial treatment.
notliing else.
The
we
are to
If
itself.
social will then
make
is
synonymous with society

it must be by analysis
progress in study
by duplicating its existence under the name will.

We find
the social activity moving through various stages.
groups, and these reflected by political groups, and these
of the society, not
We
find
interest
organized in parties, and all working through the other agencies of
now
government,
malefactor up for
this
placing a statute on the books,

trial,
now
never the
but always and everywhere
is a meaning to
meaning found apart from the action,
action apart from the meaning.
So the distinction
action
is
the action;
and always and everywhere there
never
bctw'cen expression
is
the
and execution
can find definite groups of

is
rushing a
immediately expressed "will" (the statute) in terms of a
broader "will" (the Constitution);

there
now
declaring the validity or invalidity of
by actual representative
wîll
be of value just so far as
activities differentiated
activities,
from
others.
we
It
not by an abstract distinction
between expression and execution of "will," that we must group

our material and aid our investigation.
One
of the
question remains.
What
of the theories of the separation
powers as we actually find these theories functioning in
society?
Do
government
they or do they not guide the organization of the
This
is
merely a new form of an old question we

have repeatedly discussed before.
appear
Our
329
"theories," whether they
in all the arrogance of purity at constitutional conventions
or whether they present themselves garbed in the subtleties of the
law courts, arc always aids
in the actual process of
arranging and
They
are
of aid just so far as they reflect correctly the given grouping
and
rearranging the shape of the governmental agencies.
permit unassigned activities to take easy running positions in one

or other agency.
They
serve as a sort of practical shorthand
on
the borderland to aid us in the quick application of one or the other
agency to a new piece of work,
in proportion to its fitness for the
They do not guarantee fitness. They do not create the

They only serve to help the assignment and they always
stand ready to slink into obscurity the moment it appears that
task.
agencies.
they have not properly reflected the facts of the developing situation.
Later on
it
will be
shown more completely how
in similar cases in other fields.
this process
works
CHAPTER XIV
PRESSURE OF INTERESTS IN THE EXECUTIVE
TlIE
In this and the three succeeding chapters (to which the first
cliaj). xviii may also be joined) I propose to follow the work-
part of
ings of interest groups through the various agencies of government.

From what has been said in the preceding chapter it will be clear
enough that the division
of the discussion into the sections indicated
by the chapter titles is made for convenience, that it does not claim
more than an approximate correspondence to the various phases of
complex governmental process, and that it rests not upon

hypothetical functions of government, but upon the actual separathe
governmental agencies, each agency being accountable to

governed " or to some other agency of the government through
tion of
" the
a special technical process in greater or less degree peculiar to

It
should also be clear that these agencies are not
all
found
ing in all societies, nor even in the majority of societies,
some
there are
societies in
treatment that this division
is
It is
purely for convenience in
used here, the convenience arising
fact that the societies to
have agencies
which most attention
The
in general in these forms.
the chapters occur
is
and that
which none of the terms correctly desig-
nate any of the existing agencies.
from the
itself.
coexist-
will be given
order in which
also a matter of convenience in treatment.*
Before taking up the executive, even in the form in which

unites the whole governmental process in one agency, a
graphs
even
may
less
be given to societies to which the term executive will
accurately apply.
Suppose we take a society
in
which
In the historical illustrations in these chapters I hope no substantial errors
of fact have crept in.

detailed verification,
would
it
few para-
justily
me
in
I wish,
however, to say frankly thkt
and with no pretense
of ha\'ing
am
made such
writing without
exact studies as
speaking positively of the strength of the various group pres-
sures which in each instance have been in play.

particular bit of history such exact study
is,
330
In
of course,
the. interpretation of
an absolutely
any
essential pre-
PRESSURE OF INTERESTS IX THE EXECUTIVE
331
the interest groups are comparatively few, comparatively simple,
and comparatively well adjusted.

tion such a society
when
which,
it
Within our range
must be a small one
of observa-
under conditions
living
must also be simple. Suppose

an Iroquois tribe in the stage
The government will deal with local peace
stated as environment,
be a Homeric Greek
described by Morgan.
tribe, or
some economic questions such as the distribution

of crop land, the harvest, and the taking of wild animals or fruits,
and finally with war expeditions. Many of these group opposiand
order, with
tions will, in part at least, be well adjusted through religion or
otherwise without passing through the process of the differentiated
governing body
tiated
So far as they pass through the differen-
itself.
government they come much closer
the process
adjustment through
In other words, we have
complicated societies.
fact that the
to
reasoning than would be probable in more
called
most intense
interest will
as
it
an observable
be that of the whole tribe in
opposition to some outer tribe, while the intra-society groupings
have
will
intensity
less
and
will consequently subordinate
and adjust themselves by argument.

The king, elders, and populace arrangement
them-
selves
it
makes
difference whether the civil
little
ships are separate or combined, or just
Even
selection of the chief are used.
some degree, he
is
will be
if
is
typical here,
and military chieftainwhat measures for the
the chief
is
hereditary in
under close popular control.
a matter of detail as to just
how
and
Similarly,
it
the ciders are chosen, whether
they are heads of families, clan representatives, selected old men,
We
or what.
find the lines of activity formulating themselves
freely throughout the society,
course.
The
requisite.
Here, however,
rence, but to use such
the group
method
value so far as
step
by
step,
it
and
and moving
elders formulate a proposal
am
made
and submit
it
to the
not attempting to throw light on historical occurof history as we have to throw light on
The group method is for its part only of
specific interpretations.
But we must proceed
rough knowledge
of interpretation.
can be used in
I
am
only taking one short step here.
material of the governmental process which
method
freely along their full
propose, then
am
open
errors of fact in illustration.
is
If there is
any of the
not capable of statement by the
to serious criticism, but not
if
have merely
332
111':
I'ROCESS
OF GOVERNMENT
But as they formulate it, they both take

assembly of tin- inojJr.
account of the whole complex situation as they reflect it "for" the
of the po[)ular reflection of the situation, that
and
|HO[)!c,
public ojjinion, as
{>ercolates in
is
of the
Neither they, nor the
of this process intrusted with full representa-
The popular
tive discretion.
is
it
any stage
chief, are at
to them.
approval, by applause or otherwise,
When
a great part of the process.
the activity proceeds farther,
say into warlike expedition, the point of view of
an epic poet may
give the chief the appearance of great arbitrary power,
and may
reduce the populace to the semblance of a mere echo;
but even
then the chief
He
way.
is
is
only expressing his following in a very immediate
only
commands.
filling in little details of their activity
am
tempted
to call this
way
moreover,
in
of putting
it is
making.
it
would
his
own
kind of a government very
highly developed in contrast with our great
such a
by
modem
states,
but
easily give a false impression, and,
a type of judgment which one should be most cautious
It is, of course,
not true in the sense of complexity;
but given the existing range of interests in the societies that have
it
expresses
them with the
greatest facility.
There
is
it,
enough
structure to prevent confusion at each stage of the developing

activity,
but at no stage
is
the structure able to misrepresent large
elements in the society or to block the activity.
ment and perpetuation
of such a
For the develop-
government there
is
necessary
not merely the simplicity of the interest groupings, but perhaps

also
freedom for the
splitting of the society in two,
and for the
emigration of one part to an independent neighborhood.
For a very different type of government in the tribe we
may
turn to the kinglet of tropical Africa, with all his ferocious brutality
and established terrorism.

in reality
The group
conditions are of course
very different from what they are in the tribes we have
just discussed.
It is
not
my province here to go into them, but such
factors as food supply, the
amount
of labor
needed
to
supply daily
wants, surplus energy, thickness of the population, and available

slave markets all enter into the account.
These groupings have

ended by adjusting themselves very crudely through a form of absolutism, in which copious blood-letting is the technique both for the

control of the people by the petty despot
despot by the people.
Order
sometimes takes the form
of
is
and
333
for the control of the
maintained by terrorism which
random
arbitrary killings conducted
by the kinglet himself. The means for approach to him are very
imperfect, and the decisions of the kinglet, while reflecting group
interests, do so in no steady balanced way, but by rough and irregular
approximations.
circle of lordlings
around the kinglet serves
not to modify his vagaries, but to terminate them by assassination
and by the substitution of a new ruler in extremity. The whole

system is hedged in by a thick growth of religious rites and ceremonial, that is by a habitual activity little flexible and reflecting
crudely the great mysteries of the tropic environment, which is
seemingly arbitrary and violent in
beyond the arbitrariness

anyone be inclined
some inborn
of the
many
of
its
treatment of the natives
any but the wildest
to attribute the ferocity of
characteristic of the people, I
of kinglets.
Should
such government to
have but to remind him
well-adjusted governments to be found
among Ameri-
tribes, whose members could always show the most

extreme cruelty to prisoners of war under certain circumstances,
but who did not use cruelty imder any circumstance as technique
can Indian
of government.
If the typical
African kinglet government
be contrasted with the typical tribe as previously described
be by pointing out that the agencies of government have
is
it
to
may
now been
reduced to a single one, the kinglet, so far as ordinary activity goes,

while the group of assassinators steps in on rare occasions to play a
part which
we may compare with a
constitutional convention,
the populace rarely or never appears in any organized form.
government which
is
and
It is
controlled by elimination of the ruler, not by
and in which the techmeans used by all parties is blood-lciting.

We have had in none of these cases any proper distinction
between executive, legislative, and judicial agencies. We have had
real agencies, and the whole social governmental process working
in stages through them; but only an arbitrary application of the
three "powers" or functions is possible, and that is undesirable
and far from being helpful.
altering the policies of a continuing ruler,

nical
llli;
3.vt
now
If
I'KOCESS
pass to a
vvf
OF GOVERNMENT
gnat nation
like
China we
shall find the
aRcncics of government distributed on territorial lines,

tn at the
emperor as an executive
(1(HS the
work
and
judiciary,
legislature together
if
do
wc
who
government which executive,

in other
governments. Under
an "intellectual" bureaucracy holds
wc had an
years ago
and
can only be as an executive
at the- central seat of
the i)rovincial viceroys
Some
it
interesting illustration of the
ofl&ce.
way
the
interest
groupings of the empire pass through a monarch of this char-
acter.
The young emperor became
as current speech has

in the enijjire
secured
it.
its
infected with reform ideas,
In other words, a certain interest grouping

reflection
through him. This did not come
about through any organized mechanism, but through agencies
which
in contrast to
organization would be called accidental.
reform group gained the emperor's ear.

highly representative, that
were reflected through
away from
practical
it
is
That group was
Being far enough
posed mainly as an idea activity.
as soon as the emperor proceeded with his activity along the

lines,
itself
involving at long range groups that
in several degrees.
life, it
The
But
new
he was put aside and the empress dowager, representing the
old arrangement of
viceroys
dominant
interests,
reigned in his place.
were behind the empress dowager.
groupings
in
But the
The
interest
China are rapidly changing with the development of
and the alignment of the other powers,

and the central authority is reflecting them with the result that
what some of us call progress, and what others call a menace, is
Japan, the defeat of Russia,
reix)rted.
We
have, therefore, in this despotism anything but
arbitrary rule.
We
and
and know that the process can be described
see a practical setting-aside of the ruler
his partial restoration,
only in terms of the rearrangement of the interest groups of the

empire. This is not to say that a supernatural photograph of the
groupings could be taken, and that the emperor would be found
exactly reflecting the balance of pressures, but merely that channels
by which the interests may work themselves through him

with more or less of accuracy, not merely as his own observa-
exist
tion
him.
makes them
We know
clear to him, but as they
that should activity
can state themselves to
on the propaganda
level
push
through to some degree which conflicted with the groupings of
itself
the time
it
335
on lower leveb, the decree would remain " in the air" and
state the lines along which the government
would not adequately
would continue
Turn next
to
work.
We
to Russia.
find in
it
today nothing but a monster
Once upon a time
spectacle of the conflict of the interest groups.'
the czar represented the rest of the population against the Boyars.
More
recently, his policy has often
been dominated by the huge
land-holding interests of the empire.
When the
serfs
were liberated
he swung far to the opposite extreme under the influence of a clique

of St. Petersburg bureaucrats
in the process.
nobility,
who
in effect
Thereby he mortally
represented the peasants
oft'cnded the land-holding
which had been strongly addicted
to "liberalism"
on
lines
would not have been so hurtful to their own interests but that
would have successfully staved off the
that
nevertheless, they thought,
Since then, measure after measure
threatened peasants' uprising.
become necessary. Twenty

years ago began the rise of a great mercantile and industrial interest,
typified by Witte's policies.
Along with it there appeared on the
scene the laboring proletariat of the cities. The expanded empire
and its great internal works have made the burden of taxation
for the relief of the land -holders has
The
heavier and heavier.
existing technique of the government,
maintained by class pressures, has not allowed ways of

found.
The Jew has
thriven
under such conditions.
The
all their riots of theories
be
better than the Russian
peasants'
wild cry for land,
socialism of the working-men, and all the
with
relief to
somewhat
and
of
the
revolutionary movements
bombs, have appeared
to
express these sujggressed groupings of the poj)ulation.
Under
'
suit
these circumstances
For the groups and classes involved
Maxime Kovalewsky, Revue
also A. Aladin,
dumas
in recent
Russian history one
may
con-
XI, pp. 476 ff.

party alignments in the
16,
1907.
The
In Paul Milyoukov's Russia and Its Crisis the various

interest
groups can be discovered underneath his super-
propagandist statement in terms of ideas.
ing phases to pick
a government which
inter nationale de socivlogie, Vol.
London Times, January
are also of service.
dominant and dangerous

ficial,
we have today
It is
a task not without
them out and note how they often give the
lie
its
amus-
direct to the
various "isms" which are put forth by the author as the true Russian realities.
is
in
not by
GOVERNMENT
PROCESS OF
rilK
336
any mi-ans one
of a single class,
but instead, a government
which many groups are forced into marked class oppositions
because of the wretchedly poor mediation which the czar
The
them.
czar
is
is
giving
primarily mediator for the provinces of the great
Backed by his huge army, he holds them together

against (langcrs''of attack and dissolution. The bureaucracy is itself
scattered empire.
many
a great interest group in the empire, similar in
striking
respects to the political machines in the United States, as in the

free access to
it,
reLition of locality
/
technique of corruption, even in the cross-
in its
group and other group functions.
Every act of the czar and of the bureaucracy
Bome
We see the
of these groups.
/interests solidly
corruption
facturing
in
is
good working order.
and mercantile
We
interests arrayed
they judge, be a change for the better.
position.
The
of
and commercial
see the rising
on the other
We
any change
manu-
side because
see the
extreme radical stage because they have so
sentation in the government that almost
groups.
an expression
behind the autocracy because their technique of
they are at a disadvantage in this technique.

tariat at the
is
large industrial
prole-
little
repre-
will for
them,
Similarly with the land
peasants are divided according to their economic
So far as the large land-holders
feel
that they can
preserve their interests better through a constitution, just so far
they are for

history.
it
as has actually been instanced in earlier Russian
But the moment the present revolutionary movement
takes a phase w'hich tends toward the partition of their lands, that
moment
they line up solidly behind the autocracy.
So complicated
is
interested observers of
this struggle that

it
to state
it,
it
is
natural for keenly
entirely in terms of the various
" ideas," liberal, socialist,
and so on, that are prominent in the talk.

But these "ideas" can with sufl&cient care all be reduced to mere
discussion phases of the process.
on the basis
of interest
terms of each other.
Political parties
have formed
groups always to be defined, of course, in
During the preparations for the first duma

we watched great masses of the population adjust themselves in
new groupings on the party level; that is, the shifting situation made
them transfer then- efforts at political expression from one political

The
group to another.
party, for example, or of
The autocracy
inasmuch as
337
history of the Constitutional Democratic
any
other, could be written in such terms.
the center of the struggle, but only the center,
is
has proved an inadequate instrument for the expres-
it
Place a
sion of the changing group interests.
duma
with sub-
stantial powers alongside the czar, or otherwise alter the agencies
for the expression of the interests of the nation,
continue through the
new
and the struggle
will
agency, perhaps reduced in violence,
perhaps increased in violence, and
it
will then be a struggle not
and subclass perhaps against subclass,

but also a struggle of territorial divisions of the huge empire against
each other. The classes cannot fly apart the territories can, and
only of class against class,
The
possibly will.
and
evolve,
if
classes
fortune
is
must remain
to adjust their interests
Per-
such, into less antagonistic groups.
it through the agency of such an institution

duma, and perhaps they will require a new despotism, this
time representing some other element than the land-holding class
most directly. Out of it all, after time has passed and after more
blood has flowed, will come a better-balanced governmental struc-
haps they can achieve

as the
ture,
with better channels for the adjustment of interest-group
conflicts before they
murder
lution,
as technique.
proceed to the most extreme hates and to
Let the czar and his class suppress the revo-
and they have but two
alternatives, either devastation
and
the reduction of the population to smaller numbers, or else a substantial yielding of
much
of
what has been demanded.
,0r, in
other words, through revolution, even though formally unsuccessful

the interest groups will have
made themselves
latter process has, as
known, played a great part
is
well
heard.
Just this
in the
history of English liberties.
In contrast to Russia we
may
examine, in the case of the Greek
tyrannies, governments centralized in a single individual in which
the class basis of the autocratic rule
is
simple and easy to analyze.
There are plenty of incidents of the tyrannies, such as that of

Theagenes of Megara, who slew the cattle of the rich that were
encroaching on
strength rested.
common land, which show where the tyrants'

To describe the tyranny as unscrupulous ambition
338
is lliin
IK
I'KOCESS
OF GOVERNMENT
and meaningless, comijared with a description of the work

work they appeared to do. Their task
which must not be understood
oligarchies,
overthrow the
the tyriinnics did, of the
was
to
change the form of the government, but to set

aside in the spcxilic case a rule which had ceased to express a large
and strong grouping of the population, and which did not give
to
mean merely
to
grouping any channels through which to make itself felt.

Here was need, not for some formally analyzed functions of govern-
tliat
ment
to
performed, but for a mighty group interest
to be separately
push
itself
through to better expression in the face of obstacles;
lience the tyranny, a single agency, without
governmental
activity
any distribution
of the
through a number of different agencies.
Wlien the work of the tyranny was finished, then the interest groupings arranged their governing bodies anew, providing a number
of agencies
to the
In
we
through which their activities might pass at different
And
stages.
these kept
on changing
in
more or
less
ready response
changing of the groupings.
Rome
way from
all the
traditional kings to latest
find the character of the executive strictly
emperors
dependent on the
kind of work to be done at each period, that kind of work
itself
being capable of adequate statement only in terms of group pressures, with the executive as
group leader.
The
kings
come upon
our vision as elective rulers, and though wt lack the material for
their earlier interpretation, they
Rome
were primarily war leaders of
against neighboring communities.
retained most of the royal power, succeeded

result of
in
group reaction against king
all
In time, consuls, who
them
evils,
as the very clear
under circumstances
which the group reaction could take place without injury to the
reacting group.
The
against the plebs,
more so than the kings had been.
Rome had
consuls were primarily patrician leaders
to react against
perilous conditions, the king
guise of a dictator.
in the early republic
come dei)ended
The
When
all
surrounding communities under specially
was temporarily restored under the
struggle against the curule magistrates
was
strictly
strictly a class phenomenon, and the outon the given balance of pressures. When
the tribunes were created they were class leaders
and had
just the

strength of the plebs behind
them and nothing more.
339
One can
even trace group interests to some extent within the ranks of the
and within the ranks
patricians
Wlien we come
to the
of the plebs.
Roman
emperors we have again
full
material for interpretation in terms of interest groups, only this
time locality groupings on a huge scale were what counted.
The
provinces were being brutally abused by the richer classes of
Rome
and the poorer
The
made
were systematically bribed into assent.
classes
provinces were held quiet by the legions, but the legions were
up
Caesar had a devoted army of provincials
provincials.
of
The
behind him.
very
lished, the provinces
moment
that imperial authority
were more humanely treated.
was estab-
The emperors
were the direct representatives of the provinces and their appearance marked a great advance in the adjustment of interests within
the government.
The
ordinary description even of a Nero in
terms of morals and personal character
is
a pitiable caricature.
Nero was beloved throughout the provinces and there was good
reason for it. The army was a sort of electoral commission, never
a very perfect one, and, when the praetorian guard was in control,
a most wretched one, but always it had a value in the government.
The whole development of the administrative system and the
bureaucracy, the division of the empire under Diocletian, and
indeed almost every stage in every imperial career, must be interpreted, not so far as
all its
main
its trivialities
and sensationalisms go, but in

group pressures of the
outlines, in terms of the existing
empire.
am
no more here than elsewhere
attempt to cover systematically the

therefore offer
to another
no excuse
for skipping
and omitting many.
in this
field
of
volume making an
government, and I
from one type
of
government
Suppose we take a look
at
Ger-
now organized. The executive^th at is. the em peror,

is so very much more than mere executive that that word but
scantily describes him.
One needs a term nearer to ruler, to
many
as
comprise
it is
all
his work.
through the Reichstag
is
His
in
the matters that pass
tliat
popularly elected body
initiative
so great that
340
I'ROCESS
'Illl':
OF GOVERNMENT
more than a vcloing agency, and indeed often it

Both under
cannot veto when it would, but must merely protest.
socialist
legislaBismar(k and under Wilhelm II the j^rogress of
tion, whether adopting socialistic i)rojects or in antagonism to
Inconns
litlle
organized socialism, clearly shows the group process at work. It

matters not that the emperor's brain lays claim to certain policies
is
down underneath, what
Getting
or i)rogrammes.
is
that certain of the groupings of the empire, including
the old consolidated agrarian class
happening
prommently
and the new "big business,"
by the emperor as agency of governthe fate of the present system of

which
upon
ment. The test
government will turn is whether the emperor reflects the strongest
of the nation's interest groups well enough so that they will not
are being reflected directly
push through to better agencies of expressing themselves. This does

mean of course that he must express them along the level of
not
the talk groups in
which they combine, nor that he must follow
anybody's idea of what
is
ideally or "objectively" best for them,
but that he must express the deeper-lying interest groups which

function through the talk at one stage of their process,
also function through him.
to the later stages of activity
intensity in
emperor as head
remain
doubt
of legislation
if
w'ill
in its relative feebleness.
will
he
is
stand,
When
must
face, so long the
and the Reichstag
the time comes, as
will
it
no
emperor or some successor, is too poor a

more powerful groups, then he must give way,
come, that
representative of the
and
with some approximation to their
ratio to the resistance they
its
and which
So long as they find their way through
this
too strongly identified with one class, he
must
see
an
agency expressly representing other groups of the population

placed alongside of him, and perhaps ultimately he must be himself
dispensed with or relegated to a trivial position in the govern-
mental system.
This process can be described in terms of royal
personalities with a very
vague approximation to the truth
it
can
be described in terms of theories and political platforms w4th
somewhat
theories,
to be
greater
approximation;
and the Reichstag, and
reduced
to
all
but the
royalties,
and the
officialdom as well, will have
terms of the underlying interest groupings, to get
341
a statement that will really stand the tests as an account of the
phenomena of the government. The whole well-known process

by which the propagandist socialism in Germany tends to transform itself into a working legislative policy with the increase of the
party in strength
a proof of an increasing representativeness in
is
the propaganda activity.
The underlying
coming
interests are
to
be better expressed in the policies and in the differentiated governing bodies at one and the same time.
In France the changes in the form of the government during

the last century have been the direct consequence of the process
of adjustment of the interest groups.
explain
serve
to
rulers
and
neither will
it,
chief officials.
identification of the
It
French character
will not
the characters of the various
has been always a question of the
head of the government with some group of
the people, a question of the less ample opportunities for function-
ing through the government allowed to other groups, and a question
The war with
of the effort of these others to secure expression.
Prussia brought on the downfall of the last empire, but the

itself
was
France.
in large part the
We
must
outgrowth of the direct group
war
conflicts in
of course avoid being sensational in describing
these changes of government, for they can easily be
made
to
appear
Moreover, we must not
more important than they actually were.
think to explain every detail of a shifting situation whose adjust-
ment
is
in process of establishment as directly
groups as we define them for broad purposes.
due to certain large
Many
points which
are most prominent in a "story" of what occurred are trivial to
understanding of the process.

sonality of a ruler.
olity
ruler
Such
may
for
example
is
often the per-
identify himself with
some
friv-
groupings of the population to the neglect of the groupings
that are most strenuous in forcing their activity through
course.
He
will disappear, but his fate will be a
when he has been

and
an
detail.
full
Only
identified with a strong clement in the population,
new methods
change
in balance
and
of adjusting interests, will the event be
one
his disappearance involves a material
notably
mere
its
of high importance.
The
history of Napoleon, as indeed the whole history of the
I'Vtnch Revolution,
into
solidilk'd
OF GOVERNMENT
I'KOCESS
rili;
342
such a story of the struggling of groups, there
is
classes,
for
government,
expression through the
by the backing which foreign armies gave

The French government today
certain of the French classes.
comi)licated, of course,
to
is
just such a process of adjusting interests, only
now
the interests
and the conditions admit of greater

One might compare Napoleon with the present French
former as a strong man lifting a huge weight, the latter
are in less violent antagonism,

llexibility.
cabinet, the
team
as a
of jugglers
now more minutely
dead weight
there
is
divided;
them
them combine to
they will not stay combined for
If
turn out the personnel of the cabinet,
sition
group of
no one has so great a
a more elaborate organization for giving
pathways through the government.

action on a radical
The
keeping a lot of balls in the air at once.
interests are
lot of
programme disadvantageous
We
interests.
have therefore
ing groups, together with but
to the
many
whole oppo-
freely function-
activity of the older,
little
more
sharply consolidated classes, and so less resort to violence in the
The
government.
programme has been
anti-clerical
carried along
year after year by a government resting on "blocs" of different

composition, but without involving equally radical action on other
lines at the
When
the
same
same
time.
true
when
a premier
appropriate modifications,
in the
summons a new premier and

summoned in England, or, with
the president of France

is
United States
when
the
is
a presidential candidate
process
We may talk about
adjustments.
it
is
selected
is
very clearly one of group
in
terms of the quaUtics of the
man, but we do not have
to dig
tion of his "strength,"
whether in the parliament or before the
electorate,
and
behind him.
whenever a
deep to see that
this is a question of the
it is
always a ques-
group support he can array
The process is easy to study in the press dispatches

new premier is selected in France; that happens so
often that one has not forgotten the old groupings before the chance
to observe the
The
struggles
how
new
arrives.
history of English royalty
a history of class or group
is
and would furnish countless
the interest groups of the country
illustrations, both to show

worked through the govern-
how
ment, and
they served,
changed type
for a
343
when checked, to cast up structures

The political history of Eng-
of government.
may be written in terms of her insular isolation, which has

been a most important factor in the actual group formations of the
land
country at every stage, and of her classes with their later develop-
ment
The
into freer groups, so far as that process has yet gone.
alliance of the
monarchy, sometimes with factions
of the feudal land-
holders, sometimes with all of them, sometimes with the cities,
and
down through the list, is the very essence of the monarchy itseK.
The forms of governing institutions that have been developed, even
down to the forms of judicial procedure, all have their roots in these
From De Lolmc's time down, it has
class and group oppositions.
so
often been remarked that the explanation of England's liberties

to be
found
in the absolute
power
is
of her early kings, and this sweep-
its truer meaning in terms of

the group oppositions that gave substance to that "absolute " power,
ing statement can readily be given
and that evolved farther in and through it. The whole development is so manifest that I will not give it detailed discussion here.
The executive agency in England today is the cabinet, or perhaps rather an inner circle of the cabinet. But this inner circle is
at the same time the legislative agency for the most important
changes in the law, the House of Lords holding a limited, and the
House of Commons an absolute veto on it, subject to appeal to the
electorate.
It will be more convenient to discuss the play of the
interest
ter,
groups through the English go\'crnment
and the discussion
order that
interests
The
may
in the next
chap-
will therefore be passed for the present, in
proceed to a more elaborate analysis of the play of
through and upon the executive in the United States.

executive agency in the United States government
is
president with his department heads and their subordinates;

the states
it
is
the governor
in the counties, usually a

cities,
How
and
the
in
his co-ordinate elective officials;
number
of co-ordinate officials;
in the
a mayor with his department heads and their subordinates.

the president through his veto power, through his ordinance
power, through his leadership of popuLir movements functions
'rm: i'kocess
344
as a
j)art of tin-
of government
law-making system
well
is
How
enough known.
the Congress shares in the administrative work of the country by

organizing the departments, by a])i)ortioning funds to them, by
ordering investigations, and by controlling appointments and the
conduct of api)ointecs,
ness here
is
known
well enough
is
play of interests through the presidency in

incidentally with the play of interests
agencies in the states and
The
But
also.
my
busi-
not with these classifications of function, but with the

all its
functions,
and
through the minor executive
cities.
and lower house was a

enough in England
creation of a presidency, senate,
mere extension of a
set of institutions familiar
and
though a mass of theory grew up around the
in the colonies,
much
organization,
was
the effect that the Senate
fiekl, to
around a peasant's harvest
like superstitions
difTerenccs of interest
between big and
to adjust certain
little
states
and
sent cautious proprietorship of property, that the
represent the
'*
people, "and
that the president
was
supposed
also to repre-
House was
to
to give unity to the
united colonies as against the outer world, serve as a check on the
Congress, and execute the laws.
The early
presidents corresponded
with the theory groupings fairly well, since no more pressing inter-
upon them; and they confined their

activities within close limits, holding their veto power in strict leash,
keeping usually at long distance from Congress, and even refrain-
ests
on deeper
levels bore in
ing from active control of their
own
subordinates.
In case of need,
however, they acted as fully authorized representatives of the

nation, as appeared especially in Jefferson's purchase of Louisiana.
But despite
all this
was impossible even for Washington
it
keep from becoming identified
to a considerable extent
to
with certain
elements or combinations of elements of the population, and almost
from the
start presidents
were party candidates and party repre-
sentatives, all of the technique of the Constitution's electoral
notwithstanding.
The
tation of this kind
was found
system
necessary unity for successful represenfirst
in the congressional caucus
and
later in the party conventions.
The
history of the presidency
the history of the interests
from that day
which chose
it
to this
as their best
has been
medium
of

expression
when they found
attempting further analysis,
only necessary to refer to the com-
Andrew Jackson gained
bination of groups which in the party of
power and through
its
sive fashion, both
by
Without
other pathways blocked.
it is
345
leader used the presidency in a most aggresinitiating legislation
power; to the weakness of the presidency

slavery struggle before the Civil
and through the veto

in the later
War when the
days of the
great class interests
that developed were closely balanced in Congress; to the test of
the Civil
War which made
the presidency a dictatorship under
republican forms, and evolved the doctrine of the war powers
to
the use of the presidency as the platter on which spoils were served
when
the lack of other vital issues allowed the interest of the organ-
ized pohtical machines to dominate;
to the identification of the
presidency under McKinley with the most powerful faction of the

Senate, representing the successful exploitation of the nation's
and
industrial opportunities;
under Roosevelt
to beat
down
presidency
finally to the use of the
the entrenchments of this
clique, not only in the Senate, but in the
House, and
same ruling
to a
degree in
the judiciary as well.
Let us observe
in
how the presidency has

The background may be briefly sketched
some
worked under Roosevelt.
typical matters
at
its
time
high points, for

is
sd essential to
presidency has been that
with
it
built
up while
for granted.
familiar to everyone, but at the
is
it
an understanding
will not
it
It
what the
do merely
same
activity of the
to take acquaintance
a system of court precedents
included:
industrial enterprise
was seeking
to use
its
oppor-
use of those opportunities was not bringing
timities, while the
harm
notable immediate
to
any kirge groups
while there was in consequence

the decisions;
of
little
of
the people,
and
resistance to the tendency of
a population at last become thick enough to limit
the opportunities for
new
enterprises
and make them the subject
of hot competition, so that their free exploitation
injurious by large parts of the population
who
came
to be felt as
could not seize upon
any for themselves a Senate closely organized by a powerful party

dominated by the opportunity-seekers, ravenous to create oppor;
rilK I'ROCESS
346
OF GOVERNMENT
a House centralized under

rarely breaking out of
lieutenants,
two
and
the control of a speaker
the leading-strings except in minor matters, and representing in
lunilifs
whcrcvLT they were n strained
same
general the
interests as the Senate; a
zation, apparently at the height of
weakened by the
much
of
its
civil-service
daily food,
its
powerful party organi-
power, but actually materially
laws which had withdrawn from
and so many
of
a great mass of the population f eehng
sure workers
its
its
and
hurts, but as yet
it
voters;
little
clear
protection, cut off
from
as to the
what or the how
efTective
representation in the government, driven therefore to
of revenge
and
"radicalism," but neither desperate enough as yet to rush blindly
forward against the government, nor sure enough of

to force a
inasmuch as
superficial,
it
ground
its
This statement of the situation
peaceable way.
makes use
of
many
is
very
w'ords which involve
problems instead of giving reliable information in group terms, but

it
will
cation
do for the purpose for which I put
and reminder
of the
it
forward
background of group
a mere
indi-
activity in w^hich
the presidency has been functioning.
By
the chance, then, of
an
assassin's bullet
chance,
of course,
only from the point of view of our immediate examination, and of

its
immediate moment in time
fied
not at
a president came to power
identi-
with what popular analysis nowadays calls the
all
"system," nor on the other hand with the noisy protest against the
"system," but at the same time on a deeper-lying
level, identified,
through whatever personal history, with the great interest groups

not effectively represented in the existing government;
man
for maintaining himself in popular leadership, in executive

istration,
and
in poUtical
ditlerence of a
manipulation as well.
The
bullet
fit
admin-
made a
few years in the arrival of such a leader in power,
perhaps also in the particular person
who
secured this power, and,
mainly because of the earlier date of accession,
it
made a
diflfer-
cnce also in the particular methods w-hich have been taken to

bring the interests in question to expression.
see,
it
will
make
little
So far as one can
difference in the concrete outcome, or even
in the great stages of political process.
Roosevelt went into office with
known sympathy
for the
move-

ment
for tariff reform.
347
He also pledged himself to carry out the

who had just been testing the country
policies of his predecessor,
with reference to one phase of
movement
identifying himself with the
reform
tariff
for
it,
reciprocityand
so far as a leader of
that type ever identifies himself openly with anything.
Moreover
public attention was strongly centered (in other words, an active

talk group could be observed which
tions of one or
two
was centered) upon the opera-
of the great industries of the
process of consolidation, which were
among
country then in
the most prominent
direct beneficiaries of the tariff.
Taking
all
that the tariff
the conditions,
it
would have been natural
movement would have found a leader
to expect
in Roosevelt,
and have made a strong struggle through this aid, which, of course,
is just what has not happened up to date.
And the reason for this
exceedingly simple.
is
It is
cause nor that he sacrificed
it
not that Roosevelt "betrayed" the

to the " trusts," but that under pres-
ent conditions, despite all superficial appearances, there

intense
enough and extensive enough
movement
the
to
make a good
fight for
reasonable prospects of success.
make any
not
set of interest
is
not an
groups back of
thoroughgoing reform with
say this
is
the reason, but I
do
pretense of having worked out this problem in terms
of the groups involved so as to be able to give positive proof.
interested here in illustrating the
group process through the
am
presi-
dency, and I merely choose the most probable of the explanations

of the special fact;
it
might on the contrary be the case that the
by defects
tariff-reform groupings have been temporarily hindered

in
governmental technique from expressing themselves through the
which case they
government,
in
from now
more emphatic form; or
in
will express
it
themselves a few years
might be that the issue has
stepped aside for others of greater intensity in which case

return to
long.
and
I
its
But
fullest
due place with every indication
in either of these cases the
of
group process
statement of the facts, just as
it
will
ofTcrs the best
does in the contingency
have deemed most probable at the moment of writing,
of
it
huge energy before
in default
thoroughgoing study.
Roosevelt, or rather the Roosevelt leadership whicli
we observe
nil':
348
in
process,
many
PROCESS OF
GOVERNMENT
a highly Ik-xibk- mechanism, capable of reflecting
is
varieties of
group
activities,
with great exactness, both as to
The groups can

rapidly
than through a
more
function Ihrougli a Roosevelt much
leader more firmly set in the i)arlicular group interests he especially
their linis of
movement and
as to their intensities.
and less flexible in reflecting others. The tariff battle

was therefore fought and lost in Roosevelt's own person, with much
the same outcome as there would have been had the fight gone
through Congress, while in the meantime Congress has been an
open channel for the settlement of many other issues in which
reflects,
Roosevelt has been at the front in behalf of interest groups which
were big and strong enough to win out.
It is just this flexibility
and accuracy in representing group interests that makes the clever

politician under such interest conditions as now prevail in American
public life, and the indications are that we shall have use for very
much more of it in the

The essential point
the great pressures at
is
future as a labor-saving device.
in an interpretation of government concerns

work and the main lines of the outcome. It
relatively incidental
whether a particular battle
through two or more presidencies, or whether

fully in a single presidency, so long as
This
come.
ment
is
true because the vast
is
is
it is
fought bitterly
adjusted peace-
we can show a
mass
similar out-
of the matter of govern-
not what appears on the surface in discussions, theories,
what is persistently present in the

somewhat as it is when twenty heirs want to
congresses, or even in wars, but
background.
It is
contest a will, but have only a single heir appear in the proceedings,
while the other nineteen
hang back
concern the fight of the one;
in the
shadow.
The
story will
but the reality concerns the silent
nineteen as well.
Observing the
political
ferment of a country organized with
may easily think that a mass of

bound up together than is the case; the
party orators in their campaign wôrk or of
representative institutions, one

issues
is
more
closely
sweeping assertions of
other popular leaders at other times
And one may
infer
may strengthen
from an uprising
of a lot of reforms could be put
of
the impression.
"the people" that any one
through by
this single force
were
it
may
So one
properly directed.
identify the tariff-reform
349
move-
movement, and argue that both

But it is just
confusion and vagueness which the method of analysis into
ment
bottom with the
at
anti-trust
have the same strength as resting in the "people."

this
groups should enable us to
We
rid ourselves of.
can there find
out why, for example, the president cannot at a given time lead a
campaign against the excrescences
can lead one
of the tariffs, but
to
There was a time,
success against certain railway rate abuses.
indeed, when the tariff and trust issues were more closely allied;
and the reason why the trusts w^re not then struck at through the
tariff had to do mainly with the lesser strength of and the greater
resistance to the movement along anti-tariff lines in comparison
with movements on other lines against the injuries felt by the consumer as inflicted on him by large industrial organizations. Since
then the
group objectives have differentiated noticeably.
neither case have
any abstract
equities, or
as to the relation between the tariff

decisive.
Political
economy may
these popular movements, but
on
their edges.
vitality
it
It is
possesses
wisdom may laugh
never a
it
it
and
trust
reason, or
is
it
development been
may
rave, against
only playing with the fringe
test for the
movements
draws from the movements.
at the
In
any specialized theories
instead
what
The man
of
popular theories as to the connection
between prosperity and the dominance of one or the other
political
party; but the political groupings that grow not out of the theories,
but out of the underlying economic groupings, are socially very
much more real than

And so long as we
reform issue
lie
among its most

made a poll of
the wise man's scornful
wisdom can
ever be.
find Roosevelt leadership letting the
idle,
tariff-
and Hearst leadership putting protection
sacred democratic planks (whether Hearst actually

the working-men,
protectionists or not),
we may
and found 90 per
cent, of tlicm
follow the given clue in studying
the groupings of the people with reference to the conditions out of
which
tariff issues
Turn now
to
are built, without fearing that
the
president's
we
will be misled.
action in connection
with the
anthracite coal strike, to observe a different phase of the group
j^SO
Thi-TL'
Ifailcrshi]).
can be no doubt that the president's intervention
powers as known
lay very far outside of the presidential

tutional law.
to consti-
There can be no doubt also that a large group,
which can roughly be designated as the coal -consumers' group,
had formed as the
result of the strike,
and that
had no other
it
the government through which it could secure relief

channel
There is no doubt that this group was
except the presidency.
behind the president in his action. While as a matter of fact the
in
president exercised coercion
had not
that
this great
intervention, he
tors then could
on the coal operators,
is
it
also true
group of people so heartily indorsed his
would not have succeeded, because the coal operahave ignored his
offer of
mediation.
We
mass
then, the president not merely representing a great
find,
of the
people but actually exercising a power which he would not have
had, formally or actually, had they not been immediately behind
Of course such a statement as

if we go deep enough
him.
this is true of
president takes,
into
it,
every act the
but here
it is
clear at
a gbncc.
much
For his action the president of course suffered
And
criticism.
a favorite phrasing of this criticism was in regard to executive
usurpation, in regard to the collapse of the Constitution, in regard to

the peril to our liberties
as
we
currently met
of the controversy.
it
who were
interest,
it,
from executive power.
Such reasoning,
represented inevitably the coal owners' side
Not
that
no men could be found advancing
not personally free from any alliance with the operators'
but that whatever
men of this type were found were

The central fact we observed was
merely transition phenomena.

that men'in the
mass on the employers' side grew ever hotter and
more intense with
this
argument, while on the consumers' side
mass swiftly came
in the
No
to disregard
constitutional argument,
any inordinate ambition
of
it
no attack of nerves, any more than
any man can
effect the
the shrinking of the presidency in our government.
expanding or
The
tional-argument group stands as a fact, and at times
huge
But
fact,
it is
men
entirely.
it
constitu-
may
be a
say with almost every individual citizen belonging to
a highly representative group
on the
level of talk,
it.
and the

minute the facts frame themselves up, that
the
is,
351
minute the
deeper-lying group interests shift so that this talk group no longer
adequately represents them in
doomed; and long before
fact, that
moment
the talk group
is
the talk group has shrunk to small pro-
portions the action of the lower-lying groups will be rushing for-
ward through the presidency toward its ends. If group interests

tend in a certain direction, and are checked in their course through
Congress, they will find their
group
way through
If the
the presidency.
permanently a form which makes Congress
interests take
an inadequate agency for them, then the presidency
will consolidate
hand the shifting of the interests or the

change in Congress makes the latter agency adequate, then the
The key to
presidency's power will readjust itself accordingly.
power.
its
If
on
the other
the whole situation
is
to be
as a fixed distribution of
some
for
just as
it
found
time, will tend to maintain itself thereafter indefinitely
a work which
gress, is offered us
positive reason
is
supposed
this
we should follow through the

them something like this:
secretary of agriculture
and
group
interests
time to bring about
legisla-
to be the proper function of
by the beef -inspection
find
bill of
First,
an
initiative in
we should
which the
his subordinates acting for the

their
Con-
the spring of 1906.
steps of this legislation
consumers of the nation without

it,
no
illustration of a great set of
working through the presidency,
about
is
it.
Another compact
If
the agencies, maintained
has been adjusted, providing there
for altering
tion,
in the interest groups, save only
work between
much knowing
meat
or caring
urged legislation along substantially the lines that were
ultimately enacted.
Here you have an act typical
of the benevolent
despot, so far as the form of the representation goes.
Next a
committee of the House of Representatives holds the draft of the

bill in its
keeping indefinitely, giving public hearings now and then,
but making no progress toward reporting a
bill.
Here you have
organized representative forms, but actually a fixed group dominance, corresponding closely with the class dominance of
harshly organized go\crnments.
never sees, hears
of,
Then comes
or thinks of the
bill.
Finally
many
Congress wliich
comes the
presi-
rill':
352
OF GOVERNMENT
J'ROCESS
dent, backing' u]) his secretary of agriculture, watching a favorable
chance, but
legislation
in
till
tluory having nothing whatever to do with any such

What then
it is put on his table for his signature.
There came a day when the president found his chance; the
incident that gave it to him happened to be a book, but it might
He
have been any one of a number of other things.
used his
chance, proved on the spot that his judgment of the mtcrest grouping of the population was correct, bullied the congressional repre-
and the
But to
sentatives of the beef interests until they surrendered,
Congress
went through the forms of
finally
every eye directed at the facts
it
law, he alone serving as the real

gress acting
The
little
through which the great
interest functioned in this case.
These
illustrations
character.
But
administration,
is
as a bad-tempered recording clerk.
legislative organ,
was the
president
group
more than
legislation.
was the president who made that

legislature, with the nominal Con-
common
very
if
we
may
the president in his "routine"
we take
still
perhaps be said to be of exceptional
find
to argue of
him
work
representing interest groups.
law-enforcement as though
all
that
of
It
was
was personal honesty on the part of the executive

and strict adherence to the letter of the law. But even apart from
the discretion that goes with executive office, every American can
involved in
it
see clearly in local

in just as real,
if
government a phenomenon which
is
met with
not in just as pronounced, a form in federal govern-
ment, that sharply contradicts the accuracy of this method of talking.
^Vlên a
platform, he
is
Maine
sheriff
is
elected
on an anti-prohibition
standing strictly on his function in our political
system as a local check on central government
if
he allows the
and when a Chicago mayor ignores the

a comparatively small body of citizens and allows
saloons to continue;
denunciations of
the saloons to continue
he also
may
open on Sunday
in violation of the state law,
be honestly representing his locality, and indeed filHng
the place actually assigned to
him by
the constitution, even though
he does ignore his duty to enforce the state law.

created by the American
method
Here
of distribution of
is
a dilemma
governmental
353
functions between state and local governments, and there

possible method of "reasoning" our way out of the
a hard, tough
its
and nothing but Alexander's sword
fact,
way through
In the presidency, as
I said
moment
ago, this
The
specifies
must represent and
make
same
situation
is
con-
Usually the
both the group interest which the president
also the lines of his activity in this representa-
There
tive process.
will
president
tinually a representative of groups of the population.
law
It is
it.
appears, though not in so manifest a form.
statute
no
is
difficulty.
is,
however, a great deal of "grand-stand-play"
law on the federal statute books, which represents, or has at one

time represented, the people on the mouth
of deeper-lying interests,
level,
but not on the level
and which no one, outside
much
dead-letter law, forgotten
ment as well as by
book is not real law
by
the people,
at
some small
is
also
the law officers of the govern-
which
in the terminology of this
but merely occupies a favored position,
all,
so that with less formality
it
can again become law
initiative or federal attorneys in
to invoke
of
There
groupings, really expects the president to enforce.
popular
if
a representative capacity choose
it.
Suppose we take a case
in
which a group pressure has moved to
a certain extent through Congress, and has produced a statute, but

in
which the opposition has not yet become reconciled to the
changed status
status
is
or in other words, in which despite the statute, the
really not yet changed.
interests represented in the
dency, or perhaps
we may
We may
find one set of
Congress and another

find the
same
set
group
set in the presi-
represented in both,
except for the fact that the Congress has been forced to go through
certain dubious forms of representing the other set.
example the Sherman
on the
statute
anti-trust legislation,
books with no serious attempt
anti-rebate provisions of the interstate
denounce
or,
altcrnativfly, j^raise
to enforce
commerce
the
Take
for
which so long remained

it,
or the
One may
who did not
law.
presifk-nts
enforce this legislation, but in either event such reference to their
character or intelligence or public

feeble
method
spirit,
or what not,
is
a very
of stating the facts, just as inordinate praise or
I'KOCKSS OV
'"'
354
G(JVERNMENT
some president who did enforce it, is a

What we must get down to is the group
very weak statement.
interests which the presidents and other officials respectively repreThen the praise or blame, the moral outbursts, and the
sented.
blame
of the |)crs()nulity of
reasonings,
of the
all alike,
show themselves
group process.
worth as phases
at their true
The enactment
of the
Sherman law
The
sented a certain stage in a certain group struggle.
repre-
presidency
stood aligned with the groups which opposed the enactment of such
a statute
the fact that a president's signature was appended to the
law does not
alter this situation.
our present
It is incidental to
consideration that the president's position was mediated through
party organization;
the fact
sent certain groupings
would have
also
to
we
are after here
and not certain
is
that he did repre-
The
others.
courts also
be taken into account for a full statement, but that
must be postponed.
As time went on, the presidency, through

toward repre-
certain of the department heads, took gradual steps
senting the interests in favor of the law.
In recent years we have
seen the law invoked more vigorously than before,

say in this matter that the presidency
that favor the
less
is
till
now we may
representing the groupings
law much more than those against
The more
it.
or
here comes into operation because of the complexity of the
The
agencies united in the presidency.
interstate
commerce
law^
we have at times seen the presidency through

Commerce Commission representing the consumers,
well illustrates this, for
the Interstate
and the presidency through other

Here
of
of
its activities
is
an
illustration of another character.
steamboats on navigable waters
the federal government.
If
suppress steamboats entirely,
falls
looking for transportation

pression
barring
it
would face an opposition
means
my
profit,
and
of
one
of another
But such a thing as supof transportation
thing government will never undertake.

is
regulation
the government should attempt to
facilities.
alternative
The
within the province of
group of men looking for opportunities for
cess
representing the
groupings allied with the railways.
interest
is
some-
The governmental
pro-
a group process, and this situation incidentally illustrates
previous position that there
is
no such thing as a
totality
group

in
government.
with
full
If the
freedom from regulation, the
ceed would quickly

fight for
government should
stir into life
355
steamboats operate
let
activities just as
they pro-
group antagonisms, which would

At one stage perhaps we should
and against regulation.
At
find steamboat-owners arrayed against patrons in general.
another stage we should find some of the steamboat-owners allied

with patrons against other steamboat-owners; that
who saw
tunities
in the better, higher-class
would wish
to regulate the poorer,
their frequent accidents
Out
of the process
come
is,
the owners
patronage special profit oppor-
cheaper boats which by
brought discredit even on the best boats.

inevitably
that as a matter of invariable

laws providing regulation.
is
observation in a society like ours
Given
this situation,
here to watch the process of the
through the presidency as
interests
Slocum
we have only
disaster in
New York
it
is
now
organized.
The
harbor a few years ago brought the
The steamboat
situation out in the clearest light.
interests
had
secured representation through the presidency of such kind as

practically to
substitute
what they assented
to,
its
The steamboat
lowest terms, for the congressional enactment.
patrons had lost their representation.
reduced to
This also can be fully
understood only as by-product in connection with the party organization of
much
of the presidential activity.
But
it
cannot merely,
or justly, be described as a result of party organization.
It
was
essentially the representation of the interests in the presidency,
much from
differing in content, not so
same
interests in Congress, as
the representation of the
from the weight
time the law was enacted.
might have served the purpose
The Slocum incident any other

consolidated the patrons' groups
and put the owners' groups on the defensive.
on the defensive, but that again

for later consideration.
showing the greater

"popular will"
is
it
put the party
was that the patrons' group,
result
positive strength
expressed
Also
another story, of a type to be held
itself first
in
other words, the so-called
through the presidency direct
form of more stringent supervision of the inspection serand secondly through the Congress in the form of a new
in the
vice,
The
of the interests at the
statute.
prockss of government
Tirr:
356
The Panama Canal
j)r()jtrl,
proupinRs, would furnish a good
with
tation of groups in the presidency;
And
service reform.
the presidency in
above must
The
ests in
him
mayor
to
cil
so also
so would the history of civil-
would thousands of the minor acts of

But the few illustrations
ordinary operation.
its
suffice here.
sheriff of
a county will be found representing group inter-
what he docs and

in this respect
is
sharply defined interest
its
illustration of the direct represen-
in
what he
Incidental reference
neglects.
The
has abeady been made.
a very hotbed of interest
has been reduced to a subordinate position, or
is still
co-ordinate
machine dominate the mayor,

Some-
that are organized through a party

interests
a city
Sometimes, indeed frequently, the interests
with the mayoralty.
and other
office of
representation, whether the coun-
difficulty in gaining expression.
have
times he represents opposition to these organized interests, but of

course only by representing the interests of the opposition.
in legislation, in law-enforcement, or the
enterprises, he
management
Whether
of public
allowing interest groups a chance to express them-
is
and whether he is strictly adhering to the letter

some ordinance, or using his discretion narrowly or broadly, it is
selves through him,

of
Our
a case of direct interest pressure.
large cities' police forces
are in reality legislatures as well as executive agencies
so
little
attention to
many
when complaint
They
much
of their
own
and ordinances they
will
are part of the organized mayoralty,
and
law, and choose so freely
deign to enforce.
laws, construct so
they pay
what
arises against
statutes
them it is always from groups which

and which see in them the appro-
are not gaining representation,
priated agencies of other groups
which gain too much representation
to suit the objectors.

\Vliat
is
true in these other cases
and co-ordinate executive

officials are of
is
true in the case of governors
officials of
comparatively
little
states, save
consequence.
here the state
governor
is
very apt under present conditions to give specially

tation to the railroad groups of the state,
along
who
establishes his strength
on
and
if
marked represena La Follette comes
a different basis,
he at once

makes a spectacular
357
While representing the railroads on
figure.
certain lines of group distinction, the governor will represent large
portions of the railway patrons on other lines, but here again
always be the groups that function through him more or

that count.
and
They may
function straight through the legislature
may
function through the legislature and subside
there, leaving opposition groups to function
or again the initiative in the process

office,
and the
legislature
may
through the governor,
may come
not be used at
in the governor's
all, in
the attainment
even very important ends.
Now
to consider the position of
government
in
typical despot,
different lines.
Our
is
will
the governor, with the governor one stage in serial order, or
certain groups
of
it
less directly
our American executive in the
more general terms, and to compare him with the

we may take up the examination on somewhat
The despot functions in a huge mass of custom.
executive functions within the lines of a constitution.
no
there
vital difference here.

is
From
a very great difference.
There
n.
''
special points of view, of course,
First,
because we can change our
Constitution with more ease than a despotic
monarchy can change

amendment of the American federal Constitution is no simple matter, even when there is very marked group
pressure in that direction; and if distinction is to be made along
this line, there is much less difference between an American execuits
custom.
tive
Still
the
and a despot than there is between the British executive and a

Again a fact that stands out in spectacular form, and is
despot.
indeed very important in the kind of industrial
life
we
live
the
despot has free to him certain technical methods of keeping order
and running his government, such as arbitrary judicial procedure /

and punishment, which our executive cannot practically employexcepTin very limited range. An American executive may try to
bully a court, but he
is
very apt to find that his success will be less
than accrues to the cajolery or worse of the law-breaker

is
opposing.
So far as a limitation of powers
agency along the
lines of the threefold division
whom
he
in the executive
is
concerned,
have seen how, even upon a very partial application
we V
in theory,
Kf
358
tluTf
is
a systematic breakdown in i)ractice whenever the pressures
become strong enough.
The
group
real distinction
interests
have
as to the
is
existence of alternative organs
express themselves
methods of approach that the
to the holder of central
if
one
In other words,
clogged up.
is
power, which includes
may
through which the groups

it
con-
cerns the technique the groups have for the control of the govern-
Do certain
ment.
may
tive
be
interests block the legislature ?
And
set free.
Then
the execu-
Meanwhile there
vice versa.
process through the courts checking both.
is
Instead of conditions
corresponding to class domination, we have in our organization of

the interests conditions corresponding to the breaking
down
of set
and a technique which helps to keep free the avenues of

group approach. We do not have by any means the most free
avenues of approach. Looking at a section of our history a decade
or two long, one may easily be tempted to say we have a government
classes,
which tends
to favor class
dominance.
But despite some tremen-
dously strong underlying group interests,
quent evidences of the giving
way
we have
nevertheless fre-
of the fortifications of one set of
groups at the assault of another, and the freeing of the executive
from
We have avenues of approach
class domination.
government such that the

tain degree before being
probably
falls far short,
of the degree in
class
through the
tendency can only advance to a cer-
overwhelmed, and that degree one which
except in most exceptional temporary cases,
which a resort
to violence as the only effective
technique becomes necessary.

Executive discretion
field
still exists,
covering indeed a
than despotic discretion ever covers.
group leadership.
ment," but
it
It
is
group leadership "within the govern-
in the narrowest sense
is,
without the govern-
but within the political process I have
called
government
that
not rigidly attached to one set of groups.
the
is
larger
a phenomenon of
always stands face to face with organized group
leadership "without the government" (that
ment
It is
much
in the intermediate sense).
It is
a discretion
If
too rigid for
moment, the strong leadership which opposes it from the outit.

It must yield or fall.
If the execu-
side will tend to displace

tive yields to a
group organization gathering force from without,
before the legislature yields,
it
power as compared
will gain in
the legislature, until the legislature yields in
power
seem a menace merely
will
hurt by
it,
never to those
human
ness of
mean by
nature;
it
word menace
the
359
who
is
to those
by
benefit
it.
its
turn.
who
are immediately
That
not a weak-
is
we
rather the characteristic of what
And moreover
itself.
benefits so loudly proclaimed are never
to
gain in
Its
and the
the hurts
permanent things; they are
small in comparison with the deeper-lying benefits; and
the
if
most powerful movement through the executive seems dangerous

the "liberties of the state" or to
that
it
will trickle
away
any other
fiction,
we may be
to
sure
For the
in driblets with access to power.
very nature of the group process (which our government shows in
a fairly well-developed form)

bining, dissolving,
lines.
down
And
is this,
that groups are freely
and recombining in accordance with
the lion
com-
their interest
when he has satisfied his physical need will lie

much louder his roars were than his
quite lamb-like, however
appetite justified.
We may
and
put
it
thus
that
if
the group interests
work out a
fair
satisfying adjustment through the legislature, then the execu-
tive sinks in
prominence; that when the adjustment
is
not per-
fected in the legislature, then the executive arises in strength to

the work; that the judiciary,
on
in these points a relation to the executive
somewhat similar
which the
legislature bears, similar, that
quantity;
that the growth of executive discretion
phase of the group process; that
it
is,
in quality,
is
if
it
except through the group process and by the
will
test
to that
not in
therefore a
cannot be understood
other way, and that no judgment concerning
process.
do
lines that will later appear, bears
in
maintain
of the
any
itself
group
CHAPTER XV
THE PRESSURE OF INTERESTS
IN
THE LEGISLATURE
Tested by the interest groups that function through them,

legisLitures are of
'jsent
one
two general types.
First are those
class or set of classes in the
some other
class,
which
is
which repre-
government as opposed to
usually represented in the monarch.
Second are those which are not the exclusive stronghold of one
channel for the function-
class or set of classes, but are instead the
ing of
all
groupings of the population.
The
borders between the
two types are of course indistinct, but they approximate closely to

the borders between a society with class organization
classes
and one with
broken down into freer and more changeable group
Neither the
number
of
constitutional relations
chambers
of
serve to define the two types.
the
in the legislative
legislature
The
several
to
the executive can
chambers may represent
several classes, or again the double-chamber system

fact
interests.
body nor the
may
be in
merely a technical division, with the same interests present in
both chambers.
The
executive
may
be a class representative, or
merely a co-ordinate organ, dividing with the legislature the labor

of providing channels
interest
through which the same
lot of
manifold
groups can work.
It lies
almost on the surface that a legislature which
is
a class
agency will produce results in accordance with the class pressure

behind
life is
class.
it.
Its existence
has been established by struggle, and
its
a continual struggle against the representatives of the opposite
Of course
there will be
an immense deal of argument to
be heard on both sides, and the argument will involve the setting
forth of "reasons" in limitless
number.
It is
indeed because of
the advantages (in group terms, of course) of such argument as a
means of adjustment that the legislative bodies survive.

Argument under certain conditions is a greater labor-saver than
blows, and in it the group interests more fully unfold themselves.
technical
360
PRESSURE OF INTERESTS IN THE LEGISLATURE

But beneath
all the
argument
lies
if it
What
what the people
survives, will be
strong enough to
make
The arguments
new Russian duma
the strength.
go no farther than the strength goes.

will get,
361
the
it
solidly represents are
and no more and no
less, with bombs

and finances, famine and corruption funds alike in the scale.
But the farther we advance among legislatures of the second
type, and the farther we get away from the direct appeal to muscle
and weapon, the more dilficult becomes the analysis of the group
it
components, the greater

of
get,
is
the prominence that falls to the process
argumentation, the more adroitly do the group forces
themselves
in
mask
morals, ideals, and phrases, the more plausible
becomes the interpretation

reason, not of pressure,
of the legislature's
and the more common
work
as a matter of
to
hear condem-
it is
nations of those portions of the process at which violence shows
through the reasoning as though they were per se perverted, degenerate,
and the bearers of
group opposition
social fact;
There
ruin.
is,
of course, a strong, genuine
to the technique of violence,
which
is
an important
but a statement of the whole legislative process in
terms of the discussion forms used by that anti-violence interest
group
is
wholly inadequate.
To anyone who
emotionally bound up to the personified
is
social will as the only adequate clue to the legislative process,
I have to say will be a folly, although all that this

is
to avoid too
Jellinek,
scientists, discards in
it
actually appears, instead of glorify-
the
one sweep
might because they do not
latest
systematic
satisfy his desire to
legislation into the representation of
him
the
of
all the theories of
" einheitlicher Wille" of the state.
to
work aims to do
will, and then
narrow a connotation for the term
analyze the willing process as

ing the name.
what
He
political
law that
rest
on
view law as the
discards all analyses of
interests because they offer
" schliesslich nur eine Karikatur dcr Wirklichkeit."
To
views which define might or force abstractly and narrowlv as

direct physical activity,
and which
define interests as merely selfish,
his criticism will apply,
though hardly
similar line of criticism
would apply
to
to as great
an extent as a
insist on the
views which
unified will of the state as the thing to emphasize.
But with the
362
progress of the reduction of thought and morality factors into the
which they represent and through which alone
det'IHr-lying groui
they have a meaning, this form of criticism
do not deem
it
must disappear.
necessary to say anything more about the
simple tribal governments in this place, for no agency of govern-
ment appears in them which can properly be assimilated to the

modern legislature, and I have already discussed the way in which
the group interests, fixed in customary forms, and there well
adjusted to one another, function through assembly, council, and
chief in
to
making
the further
day and from year
governments are affected in

tion that appears,
we
call legislative
minor adjustments which from day
to year are necessary.
first
is
class differentia-
of the rich, then of the
it
directly, all or
most
the very presence of one or the other of these
poor
Indeed
of the time.
two forms
of govern-
susceptible of interpretation in terms of actual differences
group formations.
in the
later stages these
whether we have a balanced government with both
classes represented in
ment
In
by the
and every activity we can find of the kind that

must receive class interpretation, w^hether we
have alternating governments,

classes, or
parts
all their
The Greek
city-states give us
many
illustrations.
In
Rome what
of tlie classes
has already been said of the executive in terms

can be repeated almost sentence for sentence with
reference to the legislating activity.
At the best stage
of
the
republic the agencies of government were the magistrates, the

senate,
which controlled directly
all
expenditures,
and
the three
assemblies, the concilium plebis, the comitia centuriata,
comitia tributa.
legishte, but
Any one
of the
and the
assemblies had full power to
no one of them could have been caUed a legislature
modern definitions, any more than that name

would have been deserved either by the magistrates or by the
in the sense of our
senate.
The
assemblies included
distributed, so that the balance of
rested differently in
certain magistrates.
all the citizens,
but differently
power as between the classes

them, and each had the duty of choosing
one of them could be prevented from
My
363
taking action, however, by some magistrate chosen by one of the
The barriers were stitT and the struggles harsh, but barriers
way and struggles ended in compromise. Under the empe-
others.
gave
rors the system of jurisconsults

of conflicts
was developed
to provide
adjustment
adapted to the vastly more complex society of the times,
but the content of the decisions of the jurisconsults consisted of

the various pressures of the groups, as
had been the
of the governing process
much
as ever the content
class pressures in the
days
of the assemblies.
I
have said enough
in previous chapters as to the
government structures
been produced,
If
we
of the type of the
or, so to
modern
way
in
which
legislature
have
speak, cast up, by the pressures of classes.
we shall
them group oppositions which form both body and
activity.
In the present German Empire the Bundes-
take these legislative bodies as they stand today,
find in all of
soul of their
rath serves to equilibrate the pressures of the various states that
make up
In the Reichstag
the empire.
classes of the population are represented,
groups and
all sorts of
though not on a basis
properly proportional to their strength outside the government,

if
a counting of heads were the
tests of strength
the Reichstag
man
than
is
But there are more important
test.
The adjustment
that.
of oppositions
through
not the main technique of adjustment in the Ger-
Empire, but nevertheless
important enough, and there
is
it
is
not an issue nor a set of issues raised in the political
is
not fought and settled on a basis of group strength under the
given technique.
It
is
the
same with the
and
While the German Reichstag
tariff as
monarch and
is
issues of colonialism
is
a transition form between the
which represented
set class interests
the later type in which the whole process
of mediating all the groups of the nation

legislature
which
with social questions.
legislature of the older type
against the
field,
clearly of the later type.
through the cabinet give us a
much
is
found, the French
Its activities as carried
better
showing
of the
on
group
pressures of the country than do the activities of the Reichstag
taken
all alone.
Whether
effort to strike at the
the fight
is
over the octroi on wine in an
consumption of absinthe and other liqueurs,

PROCESS of
riii;
364
or wlutluT
it
government
anli-clcricalism, the (lominance of the stronger
is
interests apjx'ars in every case.
It is
as foolish to state the former
have mentioned as a temperance movement in

and for itself, as it is to state the latter issue as an "atheistic"
movement. The whole group formation must be taken into account
two issues
of the
in
order projurly to interpret what
cal struggle the strength of the
In the
happening.
is
anti-cleri-
two sides has been tested over and
over again in elections, in parliamentary votes, in cabinet changes,
and
in
both hidden and open splits within the cabinet, and the
progress of the adjustment of the interests corresponds closely to

the manifested strength.
If
of
we turn now
to
England we find the Parliament composed
two bodies, one of which
is still
such comparatively very weak, for

that of the class behind
its
to
a class representative, and as
it
has
little
from
strength apart
The House of Lords has maintained

its demands or shading them down
it.
existence solely by yielding
what
its
strength has justified.
Its
very existence like
depends on the same process of group struggles, and

yield in time of stress
it
will be
ended or mended
its
if it
to suit the needs
Representing primarily a huge land-holding interest
of the case.
one-fifth or one-fourth of all the land of the
kingdom
it is
conservative in all matters affecting directly or indirectly

rents
and
policies
does not
its
related perquisites, but
liberal in matters
it
is
ultra-
its
land
apt to be alarmingly
which are opposed primarily by manufacturing
or commercial interests.
The House
of
of
Commons on
government because in
it
expression, or, at least, have

expression.
Its
the
dominant organ
all sorts of interest
groupings gain
the contrary
is
an agency through which
to gain
adjustments, once registered, will be very
closer to the balances of pressures outside of
much
Parliament than
adjustments registered by the House of Lords can in general be.

It is true that its personnel has been mainly professional and
commercial, but the party system, as organized in the House itself
and outside, has served to make such a membership act as mediator
between the
interest
class representative.
groups of the country, rather than as a narrow

If
the labor party enters in force,
and
if
the

down
other parties break
mentary sense, that
365
into political groups in the current parlia-
change of technique
will be a
itself
brought
about by group pressures, but will not affect the process in the phase
of
it
which
am
group basis
How
describing in this chapter.
issue as that of the
pay of members
of Parliament
will be readily recognized at
even such an
is
decided on a
the mere mention
of the
labor members.
The
British cabinet, whether in
aspects, whether regarded in
aspects with reference to the House,
which
is
part of the
its
party,
mechanism
is
in
its
its legislative
subordinated
part of the technique through
The
this interest process plays.
ment, and leads
executive or in
its
dominating or
its
cabinet leads the Parlia-
and leads the country, but

for the adjustment of
in
each case
group pressures.
In this brief sketch of the working of the group process through

a few typical legislatures I have said
idea
and theory
activities
illustration will be
States, but
taken
even yet
little
or nothing about the
which are always present.
in
somewhat more
must postpone the
detail
My
further
from the United
fuller consideration of the
various talking activities and the real facts for which they stand
to a later chapter in
which
I shall
consider political parties inde-
pendently.
Taking our American federal legislature as a specialized governmental agency on the lines of its personnel and its form of control
(that
of
in this case, its
is,
two houses.
manner
If the analysis
tomary threefold division

to be
of
added as a third branch
we
find
it
consisting
lines of the cus-
"powers," the president would have

of the legislating agency, but for the
reasons already indicated that

to the
of election),
were made on the
is
not the best point of approach
phenomena.
When
was constructed by the constitutional convention there was an interest grouping on a locality basis which
was exceptionally active. I refer to the states with their jealousies,
and especially to the opposition between the large states and the
small
the Congress
states.
We
had there a genuine
interest grouping, in the
sense that these interests cut deep enough to force themselves far
nil; TROCESS
366
along the
OF GOVERNMENT
This interest grouping
of activity at the time.
linc-s
itself out in that phase of the organization of the Senate

which gives an equal number of senators to each state. This
worked
was clinched into the Senate so firmly that there it

remains to this day and there it will remain indefinitely, although
there have been so few activities in the actually working government which have shown group opposition along large-state, small-
characteristic
state lines, that I
system of two
cannot
senators to
of organization because
to
make
enough
The
it
it
become the
to bear
down
mind a
call to
The
single illustration.
each state survives as a technical method
has not yet been enough of a nuisance
focal point of group oppositions strong
the difficuUies in the
division of the Congress into
way
of abolishing
it.
two houses was a projection
into the federal field of the habitual legislative organization of the
colonies.
In the colonies
it
had been partly a projection
of the
English organization, and partly an outgrowth of colonial class

lines
such as those between the proprietors and the emigrants.
In Britain
grew out
it
of class divisions, in the colonies
tained by the usually less
Constitution
marked
was a projection
it
it
was
sus-
and in the federal

same organization, certainly
interest groups,
of the
not in contradiction to the group organization of the population,
and probably
though just
directly
to
commanded by
what extent
it is
to
the split of interest groups;
be attributed to positive interest
groups at the time, and to what extent to a projection of habit,
is
a matter for exact study, not for the passing of a personal judgment.
The statement
of the result in terms of theory at the time was

was to represent the states, and the House the
"people," with the more or less express addition that the Senate
that the Senate
would give the dominating planters of the South and merchants

North a stronghold in the government. The manner of
of the
electing senators through the mediation of the state legislatures
must be connected with the fact that a high property qualification
To
then existed for membership in state legislatures.

opposition as one between wealth
The wealth requirements were

in the
hands
of certain
group
and not-wâlth
technical
interests,
means
is
state the
too superficial.
of
keeping rule
not to be exactly identified
367
se.
In the lower house the members were at the
some states by districts and in others by general
The method varied in accordance with the need the states
strong expression of some particular state interest. When
with wealth per

start elected in
tickets.
felt for
Congress discussed the subject
at length prior to the legislation
of 1842, the states using the general ticket were mainly in the South.
The
establishment of the district system over the whole land
today be connected with the absence of any peculiar state

the districts themselves being artificial except
view of party
Now
from the point
of
interests.
the story of the workings of the legislature, of the varying
aggressiveness of the two houses, of the

control of the presidency
much
may
interests,
and then
own importance
of its
machines and conventions,
commonly
pictured in
its
is
way
the lower house took
lost that control
together with
to political parties organized with
well enough
known.
It
is
most
broad outlines as the increasing power of
"the people" in the government for one long period, and then of
the increasing power of great industries over the people through
the
party
too broad.
organizations.
But such characterizations are far
They have indeed a
picture in terms of equality
need to be broken down into
To do
noted.
that
is
greater measure of truth than a
and progressive inequality, but they

more exactly defined interest groups.
But one thing may
not the present task.
With our
fixed system,
at least
agency, the constitutional convention, for formal change,
been compelled
to function
paratively slight structural changes;
we have watched our
and
interest
different agencies in balance with
now to
this,
now
for the
most part, instead
government
to
meet our
groups play through the
one another, shifting their weight
to that, in order to
fore registered comparatively
we have
through agencies susceptible of com-
of continuously modeling a system of
needs,
be
on a rarely summoned
resting
make
progress.
few changes
in the
We have there-
appearance of the
we have added a
new agency to them outside the Constitution, and have twisted
now one of them now another more in their temporary than in their
three constitutional agencies of government, but
permanent workings.
Even
in the Civil
War,
in
which a
class split
cm
i.ir
GOVERNMENT
PROCESS OF
nil';
;/.8
down toward
the roots of our social
life,
we
only brought
about a temi)()rary exaltation of the presidency, and if legislation

later followed to bind the hands of the presidency in the matter of
removals from
olTice, that
too has disappeared without leaving a
jx-rmanent impress.
,
We
have then today both House and Senate organized on a

locality basis, which itself represents actual interest groups which
at
But these
one time existed.
function
become
tli
locality groups, so far as they
rough the government, have to a great extent long since
of trifling importance,
and they
exist
now
as technique,
rather than as content of the governmental process.

that a locality group, as composed of so
borhood, does often present
many
It
it.
nature of spoils
federal
sets of
of this
than as the causes or the under-
The substance
lying warrant of
true
with a definite set of demands
itself
upon the government, but as we shall later see, these fixed

demands are rather to be regarded as the formal product
"artificial" locality grouping,
is
persons in a neigh-
of their desires
is
mainly in the
buildings, river improvements, jobs
rather than of activities involving policies or legislation proper.
some phases of the

show themselves with
disputes underlying local-
It is true that in
tariff
ity interests
vigor, that the
raises the
negro question
South against the North, and that economic questions
may sometimes
bring the West into line against the East, while
the seaboard will have separate, though rarely conflicting, interests,

as
compared with the inland regions.
have
interests in the federal
Perhaps the
cities
may
governmental process which conflict
with the interests of rural districts, though certainly so long as a

city like
New York
finds
sentation in Congress,
it
no need
to secure other
than spoils repre-
does not seem probable.
But whatever
these underlying locality interest groupings are, they correspond
very roughly indeed with the actual locality organization of the
Congress.
This needs further consideration.

each
state,
The
but by a further arrangement
from each end
of the state, or
senators
it is
come two from
common
perhaps one from the big
and the other from the "country."
to
have one
city, if
any,
Each senator "represents"
and looking
his part of the state to the extent of distributing jobs
out for appropriations of local interest, but nothing more.

senators of the South are keen on the negro question,
New
England on the
but for the most part
on public questions
tariff.
all
few other group
The
and those
of
can be traced
the senators are free for taking positions
entirely apart
It is true that " policy
lines
369
from any
movements,"
special locality interest.
as, for
example, a movement
more advanced among the people

the country than of another, from time to time, but
for railroad legislation, will be

of one part of
with our present journalism these differences are
much
less
than
they appear to be, and certainly the time difference from a locality
point of view between the front
and the
tail of
such movement
is
materially less than the length of a senatorial term; so that senators hardly give locality representation
on
this basis.
In the House, despite the election of the congressmen from individual districts, there
is
very
little
real locality representation,
apart from the apportionment of federal "plums,"
gressmen should go home

the voters,
If
aU the con-
to their districts to "test the feeling" of
when they came together again and made their reports,

much more for the " personal factor " in
the listener would allow
the observations of the congressmen than for the locality factor.
And
he would be more surprised to find the congressmen from one
group
of states in practical
their section
group of
and
states,
agreement as to the
in opposition to the
voters' attitude in
congressmen from another
than he would be to find congressmen of certain
non-local affiliations differing in a body from congressmen of other

non-local affiliations
barring,
of course, a
few
of the issues
men-
tioned heretofore as of sectional nature.
What we have
senators,
therefore
coming from
is
a collection of congressmen and
locality groups,
which
in
comparison with
the powerful interest groups that function through Congress are

of a formal nature, answering
more as a technical means
of election
than as any real embodiment of the strong existing lines of pressure.
The groups
that most prominently
work through
the federal legis-
lature are largely occupational, or complexes of occupations, or
they are varieties of peace and order and self-protection groupings,
TIIH PROCESS
370
whidi
Ik'
ii
(iilTiT liltlf
OF GOVERNMENT
throuKhout the territory of the nation.
how
niatttr for exact study as to
manifest themselves in the congressional votes;

tests
The
show
surprisingly
little
of
general situation however,
and while
they are but
it,
is
It
would
frequently locality groupings
my own
not proof.
tests,
evident enough.
In a condition of this kind the control of the representatives by

the voters is usually weak, and it is not a sign of degeneracy in the
character of the people, but rather a
phenomenon
to be
ex{X'cted, that in ordinary times the excrescence factors
normally
which grow
out of the local political subdivisions often count for more with
the voters than other factors
In this
can be had.
We
am
not taking sides about
it,
on which no direct constituency
or suggesting anything better.

positive interest groupings
fmd then that the
which seek
ex{)ression in Congress turn to the party organizations to

it,
test
simply stating the fact of observation,
mediate
and by our two-party system we have a great framework erected,
which holds
The
all
the localities together in a tolerably coherent system.
discussion of the methods by which certain of the interest
groups have freer play through the parties than others must be
Here
reserved for another chapter.
mainly to
in
manner
illustrate the
Congress and to show
how
what remains,
I wish, for
appearance of the pressures
of the
the enactment of laws can
most
adequately be stated in terms of such pressures.
Log-rolling
is
a term of opprobrium.
used mainly with reference to

as
it
is
This
is
because
regard as a mess of
business of his activity.
and traded
it
is
only by contrasting
is
off
Log-rolling
characteristic legislative process.
which
legislator
by him for things which we

pottage, but which he regards as the main
as of small importance
ciple,"
is
used in this connection merely means that certain factors
which we regard as of great importance are treated by the
spirit
it
But grossness
grosser forms.
its
it
is,
When
however, in
fact, the
one condemns
it
most
"in prin-
with some assumed pure public
supposed to guide
legislators, or
which ought
to
guide them, and which enables them to pass judgment in Jovian
calm on that which
is
best "for the
whole people."
Since there
is

nothing which
is
best literally for the whole people,
being what they are, the

find legislative
even
test is useless,
group arrays
one could actually
if
judgments which are not reducible
And when we have reduced
activities.
to interest-group
the legislative process to
the play of group interests, then log-rolling, or give
appears as the very nature of the process.

in the abstract
and
take,
moral form, which philosophers can sagely discuss,
through government
acquainted.
is
who
It is trading.
Where
interests
must seek adjustment without
When
proceed to open violence of war.
and made adjustments

can be carried forward
It is
legislative forms,
own hands and
other, with the
killing
they have compromised
to such extent that their further process

in a legislature, they
proceed to war on each
and maiming omitted.
The
strength, along lines of barter.
It
process
is
is
a battle of
similar process,
but with changes in the technique.
There never was a time
when
legislation
in the history of the
was conducted
in
American Congress
One has but
any other way.
to recall the struggle over the location of the federal capital,
how
the financial measures of
state debts
Hamilton
assuming
for the
and
of the
were carried by trading votes with the advocates of the
Washington site. Jefferson was a party to this "deal," and he

was an expert at similar legislative work, as one can see in an
interesting way, for example, in the story of the wire-pulling which
resulted in the creation of the University of Virginia and the selection of
on
Nowadays tariff legislation is plain

strength.
Our river-and-harbor and our
its site.
relative
ings bills are carried not
by any standards
of
barter,
based
public-build-
genuine national
needs, but by apportioning the favors to various states so as to
secure the requisite
two
number
of votes.
factions, as say farmers
giving
way
to
some extent
From
and grain
legislation in
which
dealers, contend, each
to the other, all the
way along
they cannot get recognition through the ruling class or monarch,
they have no recourse but to take matters in their
gets
the adjustment of interests.
if
compromise, not
It is
but in the practical form with which every legislator

results
371
the
line to the plain barter of cash appropriations or to the barter of a
'II
372
TROCKSS or GOVERxXMENT
IK
building against a vote for a reform in the law, the process

There is this great practical difference
is the same at bottom.
that some of them are nuisances
however,
cases,
various
the
Ix^twecn
pul)lic
them are not; that some of them rouse against them

very wide but very weak interests, and that from time to time
the nuisance becomes so great that these wide, weak interests
and some
of
strengthen themselves
they can abolish the particular kind of
till
The wide weak groups
deal in question.
means
Of course along with
into content of activity,
and
fight
all this log-rolling in all its
great activity of reasoning, theorizing,

the
argument seems
to
The
for the transaction.
all that is
it
lines.
forms goes a
and argument, and
be the cause of
this latter case as in the others
technical
turn the
along the indicated
at times
happening.
In
merely provides a technical agency
diflference is
not in the trading process,
but rather in the particular kinds of interests that are gaining

or sometimes in the stages of the process, whether
fundamental oppositions are being adjusted, or whether details
expression;
are being filled
in.
various legislative
need add that in assimilating these

processes, I am not defending any which have
I hardly
proved themselves such nuisances as to arouse group opposition.
There
is
another misunderstanding to which I
myself more liable, and a word here to ward

is
mere repetition of what I have said
While
there
I
is
am making
is
may make
even though
in earlier chapters,
this discussion in
is
it
useful-
terms of group struggles,
That
is,
there are limits to the technique of the
struggle, this involving also limits to the
which
off,
implied aU the time the habit background in which the
struggle proceeds.
and
it
group demands,
all of
solely a matter of empirical observation for the given time
countr}'.
when
the struggle proceeds too
become
insistent in the society a
Or, in other words,
harshly at any point there will
group more powerful than either of those involved which tends to

suppress the extreme and annoying methods of the groups in the
priman.' struggle.
It is
within the embrace of these great lines of
activity that
struggle has
the smaller struggles proceed,
meaning only with reference
Suppose, now,
we
to
and the
its
ver}'
word
limitations.
take a piece of legislation like the statehood
PRESSURE OF INTERESTS IX THE LEGISLATURE

bill
passed in the spring of 1906.
Oklahoma and Indian
It
373
provided for the admission
state,, and of Arizona

If
we
another.
sought
our knowledge of
Mexico
as
and New
what happened from the accounts in the various newspapers and
from the Congressional Record and the committee reports, we
should find in addition to a very large amount of reasoning as to
why the territories should or should not be combined into two states,
of
Territory as one
some personal material about Senator Beveridge's long study of

the situation, similar facts about the way in which other members
of Congress "made up their minds," a great mass of objectively
upon which
and
be "made up,"
some occasional accounts of the
stated facts about the territories, put forth as the basis
minds were
to
activities of lobbies of
If
Arizona mine-owners or other persons.
we should proceed
we should soon
to reduce all this information to order,
find ourselves
compelled to infer a great deal about
the meaning of different parts of it, or else go outside it or rather

through and behind it to get its value in the legislative process. If
we could
not do
this,
we should have
to wait for the
outcome of
the voting in the two houses of Congress to get an idea of relative
and even then we should have but a
strengths,
superficial under-
standing of the forces.
Now in all this material there is nothing from the stump speeches
on
to the votes
what
it
other
way
final
reading of the
bill
that cannot be reduced to
stands for in the term of groups of men, and there
reducing
to get a unified picture of the

to
it
such groups.
much
completely,
less to
is no
whole process except by
do not pretend here
to state
them
apportion relative weight to the various
groupings, but only to indicate, by
way
of illustration,
how such
problem must be approached.

First of all there
were the locahty groups, the four
Next there were the organized party
interests.
territories.
Democratic and
Republican, having a special eye to the senatorships to be created.
Then came
privileges,
the Arizona mine-owners, possessing certain present
and fearing
their loss.
Also there were transportation
interests directly involved, because of the probability of controlling
the senators
who would be chosen from
the
more westerly
of the
'iniC
374
I'ROCKSS
OF GOVERNMENT
There was also a wider grouping of industrial

interests looking toward a similar end, and finally a very widespread
but comparativily weak interest of Americans in avoiding the
two proiKJscd
stiilcs.
creation of "rotten-borough" states, which heightened at spots into
a more vigorous opjôsition to the introduction into the Senate of

more "corporation senators" than were necessary. To describe
these groujw
am
using loose language in compromise with current
of sjx'ech, but I
methods
have solely
in
view the group
activities
wliich were forging ahead through the political process.

Okkihoma and Indian Territory as locality groups quickly
proved themseh'es weak.
Oklahoma had
rough figures only
in
one Indian to thirty whites, while Indian Territory had one Indian
There was some vigorous leadership of the
to six whites.
groups
strong
in
both of the
territories,
but
it
made
little
locality
No
headway.
were found, and the local demonstrations succumbed
allies
easily to the pressure of the
Republican party
by the wider anti-rotten-borough

In Arizona and
New
interests,
backed up
interest.
Mexico the case was very
difTerent.
Roughly, the proportion of Spanish- Americans including "greasers"

in
Arizona was 25 per cent, or more of the population, and in New

it was 40 per cent.
But here, although the Republican
Mexico
party interest in preventing double statehood with double sets of

senators was even stronger than in the preceding case, there were
strong
for the separation
allies
ests presented
Just
this
movement, and the
locality inter-
themselves as the central point of the whole dispute.
how much appearance and how much

prominence of the
locality interests
reality there
was
in
would be a matter for exact
research, but the fact that the group interests involved were very
much
well
Lirgcr
and very much stronger than the
locality interests
is
enough established.
Now
I will
in
Congress the issue was fought out on several
roughly
name
three of them.
First the investigation
levels.
made
by Senator Beveridge and his committee; secondly the argumentation, and thirdly the lobbying.
Wlien the committee
tion, the resources,
filled itself full of facts
and the industries
of .\rizona
about the popula-
and
New
Mexico,
375
about the probable working of government over the larger area of

the two territories combined, or about the relation between the
population and the population of the older states,
territorial
doing nothing more than making
the various group interests could state

its
recommending
report
Had
tive ability.
this
it
set forth the
interests to the best of
committee been the
it
did.
At any
rate,
sure to dominate in the report
it
it
representa-
allowed a different group pres-
made than was
Republican party, anti-rotten-borough

locality interest.
adjustment
might not have
it
dominate through the whole Congress process.

rather than the
its
instead of a pre-
final,
liminary, stage in the law-enactment process
reported as
phase
actually able to
the
It reflected
of
the
struggle,
Democratic party, mine-owners'
The committee members
and corporation- interest phase.
was
the
joint statehood
between these various group
it
medium through which

themselves.
\Vlien it made
itself
repre-
sented directly certain group interests, and other group interests
were presented to them by
men who appeared
findings were passed along to Congress

factors could express themselves in
Now, once
stage,
where
before them, but

all these
its
same group
more elaborate ways.
out of the committee's hands, the argumentative
which was active enough before, took on a great accession of

At once we found discussion groups reflecting all the
fervor.
elements of the process through a technique peculiarly their own.
We heard unlimited talk about the right of the people

of the
territories,
methods
that
of phrasing
is)
to
govern themselves.
came back
rung on rotten boroughs,
in
swarms.
wicked
greasers,
scheming mine-owners, and any quantity
(of the
people
States'-rights
The changes were

corrupt
senators,
of other points.
Just
so far as these arguments reflected group positions, and served to
develop them and
may
make
clear the lines of the contest, so far they
be said to have counted in the result.
That is they counted

inasmuch as they furnished a technique for bringing the group
struggle to a
tation got
as
it
more adequate settlement.
away from
But so
far as the
argumen-
existing group interests, so far, for example,
dwelt on states'-rights elements, we can assuredly set
it
down
as having been almost meaningless in the issue, except as a crude
oj6
symbol.
do not mean
to
make
this
remark apply
use of the "states'-rights" argument, but only to
its
to
any possible
use in this case;
no matter how vociferously some legislator may have

asserted he votefl as he did because he believed in letting the will
and
til is,
of the people rule, or in letting state sovereignty prevail, or in

If we cannot reduce an argument
may know we can reduce it to
we
to group interest
make
it appear but a mask for
similar interests indirectly, and
There is just one way in which such an argument
those interests.
letting local
government decide.
on
its
face,
as that of states' rights could count directly today in the settlement

of such an issue as the one before us, and that is, if off on the out-
Congress somewhere a
skirts of
member
reflected factors in the national life
by
this
in the
or two could be found
which as group
interests
who
have
up here and there

such members being found,
time become very feeble, and which bob
way we
call accidental
and
if,
the vote in Congress was so close that they cast the deciding ballots,
then the argument would have direct meaning
have directly indicated a group
interest,
that
is
it
and that group
would
interest
under the particular circumstances would have been an important

factor, readily
its
would prove
effect
traceable, in the result.
But even then
only transitory, as future
events would
and exactly
show.
Finally
lobbying.
from the argumentative process,

Underneath the flow
us turn to the
let
of oratory, the
group interests
were pressing toward the adjustment in Congress, and pulling and

hauling on the votes of the
interest
members
to get representation.
Other
groups irrupted into this particular struggle, and by the
log-rolling process diverted
some
of the votes
one
way
or the other.
In such cases we sometimes j&nd a party organization interest

strong enough to force a caucus and
inate, or
again
we
make
the party interest
find the party interest too
other group interests,
weak
and we have insurgents
dom-
to suppress all
to consider.
We
might pe-rhaps trace the process through technical methods bordering on the forbidden, and in the end wt might find the technique
becoming more important than the original content, so that a new
grouping would have to turn upon it and ruthlessly attack it.

Out
of
it
we come
all
study has been
and even on the rough

can make
I
in the
end
enough we can
full
to the voting,
trace
and there
back the group
377
if
our
interests,
each a crude lump of pressures, we
votes,
our analysis with fair accuracy.
have sketched
this bit of legislation,
not exactly as
it
happened,
but in broad outlines, without tracing the lines of activity back

"
very far, either into party organizations or into the " public-opinion
But
activities.
phenomena, so
enough
it is
have made clear
if
the coarsest
to speak, the crudest, largest, broadest, are really
and how instead
the most important in social interpretation,
trying
how
always aim to reduce the fine-spun theories into them,
on the track
to get
is,
into the smallest
but that
ress,
know
that
how
down
into
scientific
any particular
bit of
details,
its
prog-
government
need to know with utmost
the group process goes on, but
in the case of
in
it
in the analysis of
We
work.
we want
its finest
group pressures that affected
no more necessary
is
than in any other

precision
be worked
if
Such a
of a reliable interpretation.
legislation could conceivably
that
of
reduce them into fine theoretical elements, we should
to
we do not need
legislative act every single
was involved, any more than we need
to
know
to
group
in the case of
a particular bodily organ every detail of the pressures inside the
body which make
it
take on
its
peculiar size
and form, or
in the
case of a particular man's muscle every detail of the exercising that
brought
it
to its given structure
and
strength.
Our most powerful
microscope must be directed on the feeling-thinking activity in

the relations of
its
processes, but not
phenomenon
its
on every minute particular
which have given a particular social
of the individual elements
particular shape
at
its
particular
outlines of such concrete interpretations are, after
thing that
we can handle
or
make
time.
all,
The
the only
useful.
instead of taking a single isolated project of law
we should
take some general tendency of legislation across federal and state
governments,
as, for instance, that
pulsory education of the
common
concerning the free and comschools,
we should
interpretation in terms of groups to be even simpler to
we once
got on
its
track.
Education laws in
find
the
make, when
this country,
whether
37
lluy liavr forbidden education to black slaves, or tended to provide
education for free blacks, whether they have extended the range
of thi-
common
schools for the whites, or at times
compromised
with |)arochial or other private schools, have all expressed at every

stage
tlie
group pressures of the society as they actually
We
exist.
have popular education where an efficient demand for it exists,

that efficient demand is a group demand; and in studying
and
the process of
government
all that
we need
to
do
is
to locate
it
where
If our investigation took us behind the governmental process
it is.
and we wished
"causes" for the presence of that
to find the
effec-
look for
demand, we should here as eve^y^vhere else have to

them in the relations between the various group activities
many
kinds actually observable in the given society, the influ-
tive grou[)
of
life being by no means among the least.

So far as
we could connect the various group activities by analysis and
comparison, we should have material for an honest social interpretation, vastly less pretentious and also vastly more dependable and useful than the current interpretation in terms of
ences of city
ideas.
If
we turn from
the federal
government to the
find plenty of illustrations of the
we
shall find nothing that
is
and we shaU
find that
ment than
any other way.
of
in
we
get
cities,
we
shall
group process through the council,
not susceptible of group statement,
much more coherence by such
state-
watched, for example, not long ago the process of the city
Chicago in doubling
its
saloon license fee, and in setting a limit
on the number of saloons in proportion to the population. The

saloons had fairly free scope in the city.
The Sunday-closing
statute
had been
for decades ignored,
and nothing more than a

group demand for Sunday closing
could be found.
A one-o'clock closing hour had succeeded a
nominal midnight closing hour some time previously and was
fairly well enforced except in the districts appropriated by vice.
small, though occasionally noisy,
The
saloon interests were strongly organized, mainly with reference
to contests in the state legislature against local-option bills,
but
379
mea-
also for legal proceedings against municipal administrative
Normally a proposal
sures.
to increase the license fee
even by a
small percentage, would have passed unnoticed, whether

the council or out of
That was because
it.
made
in
the saloon group, with
must
effective
and
no
opposition
be joined, was strong and
But there came a time when a number of
to it could be found.
atrocious crimes had been committed close together, most of which
were traceable, or supposed to be traceable, to saloon loafers, and a
which the breweries as owners
of a large portion of the saloons

alert,
very strong, if somewhat hysterical, discussion group directed against
crime was formed.
This formulated
opposition to the excessive
number
more
itself
of saloons,
definitely in
many
of
them
At
a hand-to-mouth existence with the lowest kind of patronage.

the same time the city was feeling acutely
chronic shortage of
or in other words, the city aldermen, under pressure
revenue;
from a
its
an
living
lot of
group
interests
which demanded improvements
of
one kind and another for which funds were lacking, were in their
more income. This

a complex of group pressures
representative capacity especially eager for
pressure for revenue,
itself
the result of
combined with the group antagonism

in
to saloon abuses,
took shape
a proposal to increase the license fee from $500
to $1,000.
The
fight,
once started, was
a primary election
test
on a big
and
was not ended till after

had given the aldermen some opportunity to
bitter,
it
scale the sentiment of their wards.
In the process
there developed a distinct grouping of the people of Chicago along

locality lines.
we may
One
say, "for
set of
wards as measured by majorities stood,
more revenue and fewer crimes." Another
The
stood "for no reduction in our saloon facilities."
set
districts
were well defined on the map, with certain wavering wards where
one alderman might be found on each
man
side,
and where each
took a risk of representing his constituents wrongly.
result
was a victory
and further
almost
for the $1,000 license without
legislation
all parties
alder-
The
compromise;
which as a compromise suited
fairly well
followed directly, providing that no additional
licenses should be issued
beyond those
tion of saloons to population
in existence,
had been almost cut
till
the propor-
in half.
As a
Vô
matltr of fact the event proved that the existing
was but
little
man's beer" had been waged on
j)oor
number
of saloons
reduced, and therefore that the hard fight for "the

lines
which
in their verbal
statement we would call "false." They were very real group

fighting-lines, nevertheless, and among the realities of the political
The way the aldermanic votes were distributed, the
process.
in the fight was assigned, the way the issue
leadership
way the
developed into life, the way the occupation and the law-and-order
interest groups formed, and the way finally that the locality groupings took shape at the climax, all send us to the study of masses of
men
for their analysis
ments were made
and adequate statement.
in terms of liberty,
The way
decency, freedom, paternalism, and so on, all send us to the
kind of factors,
if
we want
to get sure
argu-
individualism, morality,
ground for our
same
feet.
Every franchise grant given by a city is similarly a question of

interests, whether some small compact interest group seeking
financial profit succeeds
by a technique
of bribery, or
aroused, excited group of abused citizens
whether an
paying a high price
for poor transportation facilities turns the scale in the opposite
And from
direction.
descend to the
tions
the franchises of great public concern,
franchises, the special privileges,
little
if
we
and exemp-
which are bestowed by councils on individual citizens we
have the same thing.
There
is
not an improper favor granted by
a careless or corrupt city council which
is
not given as part of a
system which involves the group organization behind the individual alderman, the group organization of the aldermen with each
other,
and over against
sion, the
it,
gathering force perhaps for
group organization of the non-favored.
its
A free
supprespeddlers'
permit which presents
itself first as a personal transaction between

and the alderman, and second as a personal transaction
between the alderman and either the mayor or "aldermanic
the peddler
courtesy," as the case
maybe, is in reality a product of much presand a stage in the appearance of other
sure of conflicting interests

interests
custom
which
have their say in the ultimate fate of the

such permits.
will
of granting
I will leave the subject of interests in legislation at this point.

in order to discuss the operation of interests
381
through the judiciary;
reference
but only after the political parties have been studied with
begin to
we
can
them
through
to the interests which function
have a complete picture of the

extent.
legislative
process
in its
full
CHAPTER XVI
THE PRESSURE OF INTERESTS IN THE JUDICIARY
The
whose reputation was that of a Solomon
storied judge
till
one day he incautiously gave reasons for his judgment, has been
reincarnated in a thousand forms; and he has deserved it, for he is
Told
not a jest but a truth.

stances to which the
method
of
an individual judge under circum-
of speech that puts things in terras of
reasons most adequately applies, the story

the farther
we
we
away from
get
is
indeed a
the individual judge
jest,
but
and the nearer
more closely does it

whole truth. Through reason-
get to a large view of the judicial process the
reflect
not only the truth, but the
ing
much
not
its
of the process works, but the reasons are of the process,
directors.
The organized adjustment
of disputes
between
man and man
can be traced up from private vengeance, through clan vengeance,

intra-clan adjudications
by the assembly
of the
clansmen or by the
and adjudication by a monarch

or by his lieutenants, to adjudications by organized courts more or
less sharply separated from the other agencies of government.
The
council of the elders or
by the
which was
initiative of the individual
the rendering of justice at
chief,
first is
nical operation in the judicial process,

ters to yield place
government.
"limb
for
and
itself into
a tech-
finally in criminal
p)enalty
mat-
which was blind vengeance and then
in early stages is seen to
transform
compensation, and finally in criminal cases

the injured party but to the state.
pass through
the very substance of
almost entirely to the initiative of an agent of the
The
lunb"
itself
seen to subdue
many
stages
is
The method
itself into
cash
no longer paid
of proof
is
to
seen to
from the strength of the armed man and

sworn opinion of fellow-citizens, and
the religious ordeal, to the

finally to the
testimony of witnesses to the facts.
process the simple direct
"lump"
situations
And
in
the
which once presented
themselves for adjustment have grown enormously complex and

382
PRESSURE OF INTERESTS IN THE JUDICIARY

showing many forms
elaborate,
of contact with
many
383
phases of
life.
In other words, a complex of group interactions has developed
which has found a more or
less
accurate representation in law as
theory in contrast to law as crude reactions.
These sentences of course make no pretense

sketch of juridical evolution.
the range of
at work,
write
phenomena within which we can
and with reference
to which,
group method of statement
to furnishing a
them merely
see the
to indicate
group process
from beginning
to end, the
be found most adequate for
will
scientific purposes.
We may
own
his
man
takes
own complex
law-
begin with a society in which the injured
By
vengeance.
contrast with our
may
administering structure one
say
it
is
anarchy.
But that
is
only a manner of denunciation from a strictly group point of view.
In fact the primitive
on does
fellows look
man who
it
of the offenses against
seeks his
own vengeance
The
in fairly regular channels.
while his
character
which he reacts has been determined largely
by past group process.

already become definite.
simple public opinion.
The manner of seeking vengeance has

The spectators play their part like a
And if the limits are overstepped there
may appear
ment.
nitely
a new seeking of vengeance to check the encroachThe whole process goes on in a great background of defi-
formed custom.
This
is
true in the simplest society, but
it
more true where an ordeal of battle is carefully regulated,

and where preliminaries must be gone through before the contest.
Even in the simplest case we have "justice" for the outcome.
is still
The
issue
is
decided in a
nevertheless takes
men.
It is
up
way which we
into itself
call crude, but
something of the strength of
which
many
not a mere figure of a speech, but a very real fact that
arms his muscle, and

weakened from the same source. The outcome
will not ever answer to everybody's views of justice, but then no
outcome in any adjudication, even under our most delicate methods
the strength of the group behind the avenger

that the culprit
in the
is
most favorable circumstances,
When
outsider's clan,
will
answer that
test.
upon an outsider or upon the

we have a process varying from the case of indi-
clan vengeance
is
inflicted
384
vengeance mainly
vidiuiJ
executing
Tlie interests in action are substantially the same, but the
agency.
common
a
in the greater elaboration of the
clan action gives
more complete
man, and
clansmen
Ijy
them a
possibility of
fuller expression,
both by giving
vengeance to the directly injured
allowing the cormected interest groupings of the
to control the process
more
precisely
from beginning
to end.
As viewed from the standpoint

sense there
is
a great development,
of
government
narrower
in the
now, when we pass
to judicial
process in which a third party appears to mediate between the

contestants, that
is,
which a relatively disinterested agency of
in
In the broader view of government no sharp
government appears.
break appears, because
all the interest
present before are present
what
is
still,
groupings that were actively
and they are
Just as was the case
happening.
still
when
predominant in
in the transition to
new technique for the expression of these internow a better technique appears better, that is,
changed circumstances. The significant fact in the new
clan vengeance a
ests
was
for the
device
given, so
is
that
it is
a differentiated governing agency of the general
kind which we observe all the
ment.
As such
it
ings, or in other
words
it
effective expression, or to
Without going into

groupings on
new
way up
permits additional interests to
more
details
come
to
effective expression.
we can
easily see
how new
interest
planes can effectuate a transition
vengeance to mediated vengeance.

thickly settled, with
may
the scale of social develop-
permits a fuller expression of the interest group-
more
The
society
from private
becoming more
persistent routine industrial operations,
be in a continual turmoil through the operations of the private
vengeance system.
Then
there
may
develop an interest grouping
bent on suppressing the turmoil, and the outcome may be the

mediating body. We can see just this process all the way up the
course of judicial development, and we can watch it today in more
regions than one.
For example, wt today have no established

mediating bodies between nations. We nevertheless have an
international law which controls, in fact, the processes of war,
much
as the environing
custom controlled the processes
of private

We
vengeance.
385
have the Hague tribunal resting on a great cross-
nation interest grouping, which feels strongly the injuries of war
and
is
against that technical
directed
method
of
adjustment,
and tending to substitute

for it a different method of adjustment, for which the Hague tribunal dimly indicates the outlines. Interests on the old lines are
making
it
the content of
its
opposition,
present and will continue to be present, but a

forces itself into the field
adjustment.
And
and
similarly
insists
new
interest
grouping
on modifying the process
between employers and employees.
Even when they
are carried
on in accordance with law and simple moral standards, we

them making so much disturbance for so many of the people
they arouse a
new
interest
of
with regard to industrial disputes
grouping
roughly
find
that
to be styled the
bent
on suppressing the nuisance. And whether

compulsory industrial arbitration becomes established or not, will
depend, not on reasoning although mediated through reasoning
but primarily on whether the nuisances become violent enough to
"consumers"
Anybody with an eye keen enough to analyze

the interest groupings as they actually will make themselves felt can
predict on broad lines the outcome of the movement for industrial
arbitration and nobody else can.
Now, to return to our mediating body, we may find the case of
compel a remedy.
the assembly of the people passing judgment between two
members.
Perhaps one contestant will be banished with or without formal act

of the assembly.
Perhaps the payment of compensation
will
be
But however informal or however formal the process,

what we have is what we would have had previously under the
personal-vengeance system, only with a more complete expression
of the wider group interests of the community, which specify them-
imposed.
and place so noticeably that we are justified

them new group interests, or group interests on a new
selves at the given time

in calling
plane.
work of rendering judgment is handed over by the coma body of elders or chosen men, that fact will be the
direct outcome of such group factors as the changing modes of living,
including the number of members in the society, the manners of
If the
munity
to
government
PROCESS of
riii;
386
working, the dislribulion of the people, whether scattered or

crowded, and whether permanently together or sometimes broken
into hunting or fighting parties,
the elders will have for
its
and so
But the decision of

same material that func-
forth.
elements the
tioned through private vengeance, or clan vengeance, or assembly

edict, as the case
Now,
may
of course,
be.
it is
possible that
a court of ciders doing
its
work
from time
a
in
way
we shall find
up opposition.
to time
to stir
This condition will most usually be one phase of class dominance

Whenever the elders do not let all the interests
in the community.
when they
function through them,
get
warped
in their representa-
tive capacity, then inevitably comes resistance, which
given time or place be sufficient to produce a change
It will
be for the better functioning of the interest
groups through him, with respect to their strengths.

later arise
in the
system
Perhaps the chief or kinglet will take
of administering justice.
over the work.
may
in the
through his administration, they also
If
preted through the interest groupings that are at work.
abuses maintain themselves indefinitely,

represent a dominant grouping in the
it
is
"abuses"
must be
If
inter-
such
only because they
community or because with-
out the king and his abuses the situation would be worse than with
them, as the members of the society actually experience
it;
alter-
come to much the same thing at bottom.

form of adjudication, but also the character
natives which really
Not only the

and
the penalties
to similar
the character of the proof
of
can easily be reduced
group elements.
we turn now to the developed nation and take it in its despotic

form, we are apt to find adjudication of disputes appearing as one
If
of the perquisites of the
monarchy.
And
yet,
however widely the
may flourish, and however much the monarchy

from administering justice, there will be a subsubstratum of work done which will be a fundamental
bribery of judges
may draw
stantial
profits
factor in the maintenance of the governmental system of the time.
Not
that the despot
can easily be overthrown for bad administra-
tion of justice alone, nor that he
is
maintained for the substantial
adjudication work he does alone, but that these things count in
387
with the rest of the operations of the monarchy, and cannot be
omitted from that balancing of groups which "is" the monarchy.
Somewhere
in the
some
still
development we shall begin
differentiated agent of the
have as their technical
monarch
Perhaps offenses against the
will be
among
the
first
directly
state,
and those which
analogous to our treason,
which the monarch by his agent
cause to be prosecuted before himself as he
However
other agents as a court.
by
initiated
start the initiative of individual citi-
zens.
who
to see signs of
between judicial proceedings which are
differentiation
is
will himself
organized through
this be, the prosecuting official
here appears will be a representative of those underlying
interests
which uphold the monarchy, differentiated for
And
purpose.
again, however
much
this special
monarch "abuses"
the
his
power, the fact makes no difference in the nature of the process that
is
going on, although
fate, in the fate of
it
some
make a
does
big difference in his personal
of his subjects,
new and improved technique
for the
and
in the
development of
mediation of the
better
interests.
Of much greater significance than this is the fixed differentiation

that comes to pass in time between the courts and the monarch in
his other activities.
In part we have a division of labor compelled
by the mere mass of the labor, with a certain portion, namely court
adjudication, standing to one side for so
gains a relative independence
from the
many
rest of the
purposes that
government.
it
It
stands to one side because the interest groupings which are going
through
it
are separated to a considerable extent
from the
interest
groupings which arc going through the rest of the government.
That would not protect it from arbitrary, if occasional, interference

by the monarch, and only a well-differentiated interest grouping
which insists on such protection can create it and maintain it
permanently, even in moderate degree.
may appear
in
in locality
England, or also
best example.
forms when
in central
Wlien
this
it
forms
This judicial separation
can take strong roots as
it
did
which again England
is
the
in
comes about, the public prosecutor
gains in importance as the representative of the rest of the govern-
ment before the separated
courts.
The
interest
groupings directly
THE
388
rrprc-sinlcd
i'ROCESS
OF GOVERNMENT
may break down
by the monarch
the separation tem-
porarily, but the variations Ixickward and forward must be entirely

stated in terms of these pressures, whether separately or jointly.
The jury system, the "Schoffen," the life tenure, and so forth, are
various devices adopted either by specific pressure
from under-
vague pressures by the
lying interests, or by
representative central organ of government, for the sake of giving
the specification of
the judicial system the measure of independence

for
it
from the other agencies
When we come
finally to the
which
is
demanded
government.
of
United States, we observe that the
very measures which have been taken, according to

theory, to separate the judicial
"power" from
common
the executive
and
"powers" have actually ended by bringing about a new

confusion of the "powers," however much the agencies remaui
The unique work of American courts in overriding legisdistinct.
tures and executives on constitutional points is well enough known.
legislative
This activity places the courts

courts of states
legislatures
and
of nation
or,
more properly, the supreme
as intermediate agencies between
and executives on the one
ventions on the other.
We
side
and constitutional con-
have in the United States but rarely
illustrations of the executive as representative of
interfering directly with the judiciary,
Tammany
group
interests
though an organization
like
Hall can knit executives and judges together in a tight
made one or two

But we have luminous
system, and President Roosevelt has recently

vigorous attempts to bully federal courts.
same group pressures which operate through

and legislatures, operating also through supreme courts
instances of the
executives
and bringing about changes

,
in
law
in a field
above the
but short of the constitutional conventions;
legislatures,
changes which no
process of legal or constitutional reasoning will adequately mediate,
but which must be interpreted directly in terms of pressures of
group
interests.
And we
are clearly on the road to witnessing even
more picturesque operations

our courts
in this respect.
of the
I shall
tion of judicial process in America,
governmental process through

proceed to give some
and on the
illustra-
basis of these illus-

show more
trations I shall try to
The phase
of
American
greatest prominence
Supreme Court,
federal
of
the
is
in
than
fully
legal reasoning and the legal science
fit
have yet done how the
into the process.
judicial history
work
389
which stands forth in
of Chief Justice Marshall, of the
upholding and broadening the powers
We
the federal government.
"ideas" dominated the court in
are often told that federalist
important period; and we
this
hear elaborate discussions of the constitutional theories on the basis

of
Now it is an easy thing and

draw analogies between Marshall's work
as proclaimed by federalist leaders; and
which the decisions were rendered.
by no means wrong,
and
to
federalist policies
assuredly the reasonings which were set forth as underlying the

great court decisions have not only a deep professional interest,
but are also essential to the scientific student as pointing out to
him
the
this is
way
to
admitted,
some
it
knowledge he needs.
of the
takes us but a
little
But when
all
way, and we shall get a great
deal nearer to an adequate statement of what was taking place

if
we analyze
the great interest groupings of the country which
were then active in the

attention,
if
fields
we observe how
on which
how
had
to center their
these interest groupings
selves manifest in the great cases that
note
jurists
went before the
made themcourt, if we
these phases of the life of the nation were reflected in the
personalities of the justices as well as in their reasonings,
and
if
we
thus get the cases and the theories and the precedents and the
people
all stated in
one
common
set of pressures,
terms of the others with exact reference to what

the others,
it
every factor in
represented in
and what perhaps the others represented in it. This

statement does not do violence at all to the possibility
manner of
had another than John Marshall held
that
all these years,
the chief justiceship for
say for example an appointee of
our legal history, and indeed
much
Thomas
Jcft'erson's,
of the rest of our history, as
written from a surface view, would have been different.

insists that that surface difference
merely of the Marshall decisions but of
on
this point,
it is
only
would not have represented a
deeper-lying difference in our development.
history which bears
It
all
On
the basis, not
the rest of our country's
we may feel sure
that the interests
390
that underlay those decisions,
if
they could not have gained expres-
sion through Marshall, would have gained it in some other way.

The power was not in Marshall, but in the interest groups he so
adetjuately
recognized
speedily to their due
and allowed
dominance
to
in
come
so
smoothly and
And
the government.
per
had been actually different from

decisions would have been but
them,
his
of
reflection
Marshall's
temporary obstacles and would have been overwhelmed, not by any
virtue in some other constitutional theory or reasoning, but by the
contra,
power
if
the interest groupings
of the underlying interests
which
pump
all
the logic into
theory that theory ever obtains.
Turn now
to a concrete decision of the greatest
importance
handed down by our Supreme Court, the Dartmouth College case,

which has been generally followed by the state courts. Here was a
decision which might conceivably have gone the other
tainly there
was "reasoning" enough
way;
to support either side.
cer-
But
a question, if it had been the contrary of what it was, whether

way would not have been found later on to get around the decision
and make the law in effect what it actually has been. This was a
land of opportunities and among those opportunities were all those
it is
in
which the investor must have preliminary dealings with the
government; and
it
was greatly
to the interest of large
masses of
the people that certain of these franchise opportunities should
Too great an uncertainty in the utilization of

them would have turned the investor to other fields, leaving
the fields in question to lie fallow, whereby a strong interest grouping demanding the grant of charters on fixed and certain terms
early be utilized.
would have developed, and by one means or another, whether

constitution-making or representative
judicial insight,
the cer-
would have been granted. I do not mean to pass a positive

opinion on this, for I do not pretend to have studied the groupings
of the population well enough to do it.
Be it as it may, the importainty
tant thing for us here
is
that the time
came when
the opportunities,
once uncertain, had become bedrocks of certainty, and when

group interests began to form, this time looking not toward the
utilization of those opportunities but
toward the control of that

PRESSURE OF INTERESTS IX THE JUDICIARY
391
Thereupon
the pre-
utilization
where
injuries
were being
inflicted.
cedent of the Dartmouth College case was doomed: doomed, that

is,
unless the interest groupings which get aid from
prove to
it
have such actual accumulated strength that they can maintain

with aU that
maintenance implies
its
and there
is
study of the group pressures of the country to indicate this to

or unless, after the precedent has been broken down,
it
my
nothing in
me
new group
some modified form. This

work is now under way, though indeed not far advanced as yet.
Around the country one can find in many state supreme courts
interests develop for its restoration in
decisions which after
much prying have found methods,
or rather
excuses, for opening loopholes to public control at one point
Even
another.
Supreme Court progress
in the federal
made.
direction has been
and
in this
do not mean that the tendency has
reached a point at which an overthrow of the precedent "in principle" has occurred; but that the position of corporations before
the law
is
changed
in fact rapidly being
while at the same time
strong minority opinions against even the so-called "principle"
more frequently handed down. Just how far the work

be done through the courts and how far through constitutional
are ever
will
conventions
the courts
The
is
a matter of detail, but that
is
slavery decisions of the
pressures that have
ment
it
can
all
come
Supreme Court are instances
into the judicial
in bulk, so to speak, rather
legal argument.
because of any
than in neat, well-tied parcels of
So again, are the legal-tender decisions.
among
gro\\1:h in
of
agency of our govern-
income-tax decision will not improbably face
ability
be done through
certain.
The
Waterloo, not
its
brain power or development of reasoning
the lawyers of this country, nor because of
any
greater comprehension of "truth," but because of the shifting of
group
interests as recognized
reflected
by them
by Supreme Court members ancLl

So again it is not an impossi-
in their decisions.
bility that if the federal legislature
it
refused to take
up
this task
decides to regulate
a short time ago
"on
life
insurance
constitutional
grounds," a phrase which masks instead of adequately representing

the nature of
its
decision
the Supreme Court
will
permit
it,
Paul
392
Virginia
vs.
There
and
will
the other cases to the contrary notwithstanding.
all
but interest groups functioning
be nothing to this
through the court, and
no other manner of speech can
in
it
ade-
quately be described.
I will
content myself with one more illustration on this point.
Early in 1906 the Supreme Court at Washington handed down a

"
decision with reference to the asserted " nincty-nine-year rights of
the Chicago traction companies,
testing in the
hope not so much
their application.
1 think
have not the
which the
of
city of
Chicago was con-
overthrowing them as of limiting
slightest hesitation in asserting,
and
few persons who know the case will deny, that ten years ago
the court, though
it
had been composed
of the identical justices,
would have yielded the companies their claim.' Now, however,

the decision was in favor of the city and some seventy million
dollars' worth of franchise rights, more or less, were practically
confiscated at the stroke of a pen, to the very great
everybody concerned except those
Now
of plunder.
it
who
advantage of
lost their respectable piece
took most considerable ingenuity in legal
reasoning for a line of argument to be developed whereby this

decision could be justified.
Most
of the ordinary legal
argument
went the other way, and few of the really substantial lawyers on
the city's side
dreamed they would
get such a victory.
But they
urged their case most vigorously, they pushed to the front before the
Supreme Court
their advocates most learned in the voice of the

people rather than in the rules of the law, and they allowed " public
opinion"
all
over the country about all sorts of related topics, such
as municipal ownership,
socialism,
the
and what not
Supreme Court
I
A somewhat
since the above
Bigelow writes:
laid
government ownership, wicked
to
speak for them.
down a
remark upon another decision has attracted my attention

In the Atlantic Monthly, December, 1906, M. M.
"The Supreme Court of the United States decides that a corporasimilar
was
its letters
written.
when
called
upon to
and documents.
This no doubt is gain; there are lawyers

the question would have been so decided a few years ago.
who think it doubtful if

The judicial indicator is beginning to turn
the public."
that
rule of strict construction so infin-
tion cannot hide itself behind the plea of seK-incrimination,
produce
capitalists,
And the result was
to the pressiu-e of the greater social force,

393
not only chopped off collateral benefits but that
itely strict that it
it
had most expressly

granted, which the governor had most vehemently and unsuccessfully attacked with his veto, which capitalists had most confidently
invested their money in, and which had seemed the very bedrock
of the whole situation between city and traction companies.
In this I am not criticizing the Supreme Court, much less
insinuating an}1;hing against it or any of its members.
On the
anniliilated the very grant
which the
legislature
contrary, speaking as a citizen with definite group affiliations, that
decision gave
me
to
judgment."
tices consciously forced the
any traces whatever
any
if
of
law to
rate
most
fit
am
to
one must use such phrasing
from being a
What
sort of legal
do
of subserviency to
convinced that they
popular
all,
or at
most single-hearted desire
render justice in
set forth
strict
about them
is
accorthat so
machine, they are a functioning part
government, responsive to the group pressures within
of this
representative of all sorts of pressures,

tative
showed
the case, nor that they
of them, acted with the
dance with precedent.

far
demagogism or
Quite the contrary.
clamor.
I was quite sure we

do not mean that the jus-
such intense pleasure that
had "a Daniel come
judgment
in just the
agency
of
and using
their represen-
to bring these pressures to balance, not indeed
same way, but on
just the
government does, and that
same
in this
basis, that
any other
Chicago case they
let
a changing weight of group interests come very clearly to expres-
And
do set forth further that in the legal arguments on

neither side was there any merit or weight in bringing about this
decision, save as they held the mass of group pressures in compact
form for discussion purposes, as they let great masses of interests
sion.
not directly in question keep their places without being thrown

out of adjustment by the particular decision, and as they represented or reflected on the discussion level the actual achievement
of the court process to all the
interested in
groupings of the country that were
it.
In the matter of argument this case stood in somewhat the

position that the railroad rate legislation of
it
comes before the Supreme Court
1906 wîU stand
it, i
if
for a test of the so-called funda-
394
|)rmcii)k'S involved.
mental
have marked closely the course of a
come before the

commerce commission's "law-mak-
protracted discussion of -the law points that will

court involving the interstate
ing" powers, and
have heard presented by the two sides to the
controversy trains of reasoning that lead inevitably, the

sustaining the commission's powers
on
The reasoning on each
the other to the denial of those powers.

side
so cogent, so unanswerable, that as reasoning
is
cannot be overthrown.
whichever
line of
The Supreme Court
reasoning
country the decision which
it
simply
will effectively use
and explain to the

actually render on lines which,
wishes, to state
it
it
one to
af issue,
each of the points
will
although passing through reasoning, are reasoning's masters, not
The most
servants.
its
Constitution and
through
to
all
perfect of logical machines, set to the
precedents,
the
which would deliver simultaneous contradictory judg-
it
ments on the same point without the
Compared with
ism.
of the interest
logic
is
It
but a
is
would have pathways
slightest
shock
to its
mechan-
the multiform irregularities of the pressure
groups in a highly complex society, the
trivial fly-by-night,
incumbent upon
and the very essence
finest legal
of unreliability.
us, nevertheless, to recognize the
work
that legal theory actually performs in the adjudication process,

of it as possible.
To do this we
must follow the same procedure we have used elsewhere, and
reduce it to group terms, and thereby make sure of the manner
and
in
which
We
an estimate
to g^'m as exact
it
reflects other
and presumably deeper-lying groupings.
find all this theory in textbooks, in judges' opinions, in lawyers*
Most remote from the pressure
arguments.
working directly through the courts
little
and
closer
we
is
of
the
interests
the "philosophy of law."
find the "general principles" of constitutional
argument.
Nearer still are masses of special theories

which are knit together more or less closely with the general
legal
principles.
Then we come
at last to the special
used in the pleadings, which

ticular process that
are activities.
is
All of
reflect directly
going on through the courts.
them
arguments as
phases of the parAll of these
are remotely or directly part of the

court
process.
Our philosopher
of
may
395
law, mirroring the
process
from
his far-off distant height,
may
he that his activity will aid the interest adjustments where
mirror
in part truly,
it
they are clogged to shape themselves better.
and
If so,
is
it
and
it
a matter
cannot be accomplished by a
some general correspondence or of some
partial correspondence between theory and developments as we
look back upon them. Whether we note correspondence or
for exact study to establish,
mere observation
divergence,
it
this
of
make
will be necessary to
fact of activity the
little
active
mediated the deeper-lying
how
sure just
far as a
group of philosophers has really
interest groups.
Just so far as
it
has
we must place it in the process, so to speak, at a central point,

and so far as it has not we must regard it as an incidental product
thrown off by the process at its periphery; and this, I repeat,
whether we hold that philosophy to be "true" or "false" from the
group point of view with which we identify ourselves when we
make such judgments as that.
The group activity which we may describe as that of "general
principles" is a discussion group in which large numbers of
active
come
it
practitioners
affected to
some
and which indeed
participate,
into contact with to

little
some
all
"
lawyers
Perhaps we can find
extent.
extent by the "philosophy" group
tioned above, but more probably
almost entirely in terms of groups
we
shall
have
to
lower lying than
still
men-
analyze
it
itself.
Almost repeating our previous words, we can say that so far as

it accurately reflects pressures and at the same time mediates
those pressures into better function where they are in any
obstructed, so far
but that
we may bring
it
way
directly into our interpretation,
we must always be on our guard
some
mere color of "truth." How it
has worked as one interest group mediating between lowerlying interest groups and reflecting them in the process can only
mystical potency because of
against giving
it
its
be learned by exact examination.
Coming down
next to the mass of special theories,
framing themselves with great variety

activity,
in
we
lawyers'
answering to the special cases, that
is
to
find them
and judges'
the special
I'RocKss
riii;
3(/)
lower
very
sjx'cific
do
arc
that
play.
at
the actual arguments in the court
down, among
And still
we fmd a
with the special interest groups reflected in
gri-aliT variety still,
to
groupings,
inUrcst
(lilTircntiatcfl
of government
But even here again we observe that we have

and that the whole
forms.
entirely with a representative activity,
process can be understood only in terms of the interest groups

that are functioning
Of course
still
lower
down
do not put forth
can universally use
in
in the series.
this series of stages as
one we
grading our groups for purposes of study,
have found useful in any large number of cases.

merely illustrative. In actual work the grades
and
schematic
It is
must be worked out on the material itself to meet the needs of
nor even as one
the problem.
Another warning
is
also necessary here.
analysis segregating the interests at one
From
the guise of intellect, at the other.
downward,
am
entire process
is
am
not in this
end and the theory, under

the most rarefied theory
dealing entirely wdth interest groupings, and the
an
intelligent, felt process, as I
length in an early chapter.
What we have
have argued at
here to deal with
is
and within them the differentiated "pure-theory" groups, and the whole problem is as to the
rektion between the activities at these various stages, and as
to the amount of representativeness that can be observed in
the dilTerentiated discussion groups,
them.
When a case is called in court it furnishes a plane upon which

we have potentially the entire population arraying itself in groups.
Sometimes we can observe a case in which such a group splitting
is
represented by a very widely extended discussion group, or in
case "public opinion"
is
divided,
making themselves evident
we have
twô discussion
groups
in opposition to
each other. Usually,

however, the discussion groups do not form, and the interest
groupings of the population are represented more or less adequately
by the organized judicial agencies of government. In addition

on a plane formed by the direct issue in the case, we
find involved, potentially, a myriad of other groupings cutting
to this split
across the population at all angles,
any
of w^hich
may come
out
PRESSURE OF INTERESTS IN THE JUDICL\RY
may show
to direct action, or
397
the discussion plane, either
itself in
inside or outside the courtroom.
Now
interest groupings
have a
aim
the gradations of theory represent, or
on
varying generality.
lines of
lot of interest
Just as
we may
groups combining in a larger organization,
we may have a
for certain ends, so
to represent,
theory, or rather a theoretical
statement or argument, representing such a complex of interest
In the progress of the
groups.
stages before
process moves forward,

in the
form
trial of
any
case, or in preparatory
or in the further stages as the whole social
trial,
of theory.
we
get complexes of interests expressed
We
have the
criss-cross of interests, not
bound together by the theory, but represented by the theory as

they actually are bound together in our observation. Wherever,
as I said above, the interests are blocked or clogged, and wherever
under such circumstances the theory activity can enable them
to function more freely, wherever then it aids in the parturition,
so to speak, of interest groups manifesting themselves, there
must give
it
a sort of individualized recognition for just what
In very superficial speech we
may
grouping, in the sense, that
that through
itself
farther along
outside of this
it
is,
there say that
and more noticeably
it
which
new
that grouping pushes
the
in
merely represents the status of
so to say, for the absent interests
creates a
it
we
it is.
process.
affairs;
it
But
speaks,
are absent only in the
sense that they are not emphatically manifesting themselves in
moment.
conflict at the
The
theory therefore
may
be said to
function as holding together the system of interests, and as furnish-
ing a short-cut through which the interests that have balanced
themselves once
may escape
being compelled to
over again and to work out the balance

every
moment
It is in this
Always
in the process
in order to
understand
lying interest groups that

at the time.
How
how
it
we can
all
their
make
their fight all
over again at any and
adjustment
is
threatened.
other processes of government.
we must
cut down, to the deepest-
find in the actual living population
these interest groups are represented through
agencies of government,
all llie tlieory,
when
court process as in
all
how through
discussion groups, including
indeed some of the underlying groups represent
or government
nil. I'RorKSS
398
matdr
for attual ol)servation
just mentioned,
wc have
othtTs in f^nidation below those
and
analysis
made on
is
the material
itself.
There
that
this court
one other phase of
is
sjK'cified interest lines of its
process to consider;
an organization with
own, which must be looked upon at
as
the judiciary presenting itself
is
times, not merely as process for the interest content that
ing through
it,
but as content over against content.
is
function-
have already
may
indicated liow the judiciary under a class government
by one
controlled
directly
to the
class
remains to observe the judiciary as
itself
exclusion of others.
an
interest
be
It
group under
a freely functioning group organization of society.
There
attention
is
a mass of judicial procedure, which comes to our
when
is
it
interfering with us,
technicalities of the law,
much
of
There
judiciary's specialized interest.
under the name of the
which must be referred
to this
exist lines of ease for the
judge and lawyers which are followed and elaborated by them,
which when once established perhaps in very inadequate

and poorly representative form, are not worked over, but instead
short-cuts
arc allowed to stand as precedents until they
become such a nuisance
In the same way there
that they arouse a fighting opposition.
are portions of the substantive law which represent interest adjust-
ments
of the past
which are
still
held in position in the complex
system of the law although the interest groupings on the specific

lines of the particular
effective only
till
law have varied materially, and which are
the storm has
blown up
to overturn
them.
of the nature of representative agencies that they lag or
It is
hasten
and that they themselves at times come into conflict

with the very interest groupings, or portions of them, which are
ili-advisedly,
functioning through them.

It
here also that should fall a discussion of
is
by talk
what
is
meant
independent development of the law as an " independent organism."

\Miat modicum of "individuality" would be
of the
main
left after
the
interests
pressing
lines of the function wêre traced in
through executive,
through
terms of
legislature,
and
through courts, would be a subject for specific investigation in

each case.
set
by the
That fragment
limits to
of
it
399
which was not merely the " x"
our powers of study and observation, might
perhaps be called the individuality of the particular system of
law in question,
if
indeed any such fragment remained.
case most apt to be mentioned, that of continental

in the
first
The
European law
half of last century, would, I imagine, easily yield to
statement in terms of the pressures within a dominant class or

set of classes.
CHAPTER
With thf
XVII
POLITICAL PARTIES
parties we come to phenomena which show
political
us public oi)inion and leadership, the discuss'ion and organization

phases of governmental activity, in closer contact than we have at
But even
any time thus far seen them.
this
chapter will not take
us to the bottom of the analysis of their relationship;
more
Whether the
or
is
on a
it is
only one
step on the way.

political party in its
developed permanent form
is
not in formal classifications listed as an agency of government

level with the three stand-bys
The important facts
matter.
is
a relatively unimportant
to observe are that continuing parties,
organized outside of the legislature, bear a relation to the people
who compose them,
or
more
precisely to the
function through them, which
is
group
interests that
in type similar to the felalioh
which a legislature or other branch of the government

to interest groups
and further that they bear a relation
itself
bears
to executive,
or judiciary, similar to the relations these bear to
legislature,
one another.
no objection
It is
to this
(are everywhere observable
view to say that embryonic parties
which are clearly not such established
Apart from the fact that the three generally recognized
agencies.
agencies themselves evolve from simple and irregular forms, there

is
the further fact that embryonic forms of governmental process
are observable all
around us
in
modern
life,
whether we look at
lynching parties, at organized vigilance societies, at international

law, at neighborhood improvement societies, at fraternal societies,
or at associated industrial
Nor
is
it
an objection
management.
to say that parties are not agencies of
government because they are not legally organized and legally

recognized.
Apart from the fact that legal recognition and organization
is
rapidly being given to the parties in the

400
American
states,
POLITICAL PARTIES
we must remember
some
that
401
most important historical
of the
governing agencies have not been organized

in the law, but
above the law.
who would most
(in this
The German
terminology)
political scientist
strenuously object to treating the party as of
monarch
must be that
"staatlichen Charakter" would not think of excluding the
on the same ground.
If
any
legal test be applied
it
of activity, not that of the jurist's formalism.
Parties
may
be found which are best to be described as the
special organization for pohtical activity of interest groups, espe-
Others are rather the organization in a
cially of classes, direct.
representative degree of a set of such interest groups.
Certain
parties in Russia at the present stage of the revolution (1906)
have at times taken such forms that for some purposes they
may
be regarded not as agencies of the government or of interest groups

in
the
government, but rather as partly developed substitute
governments.
Parties
Germany
in
are comparatively close to
the interest groups, and even the socialist party, the largest of
them
all, is
not to be described effectively as an agency of govern-
ment, though this
is
partly because the Reichstag itself
not a
is
Parties in France are of dilTcrent
very securely seated agency.
upon the ever-transforming "bloc"

and the opposition as the parties, or gives attention to the minor
Big party changes in the control of the French
constituent parties.
value according as one looks
government have been usually revolutions, while small party

regroupings are of almost yearly occurrence.
these in the attempt to specify
groups.
more
I shall return to
clearly the nature of these
In Cuba the two parties are perhaps well enough defined
to be called agencies, even though, or rather because, they
worked through revolution

can
and
in the revolutionary
states, the parties, that is the rival
hordes of politicians with
their armies, are the predominating agencies of government.
England, where progress
is
cabinet and parties as
main agencies,
advancing
its
have
South AmeriIn
perhaps toward a government with

the parties are steadily
in their organization outside of
Parliament.
In the
United States our massive parties with their permanent organization, seen not only at elections
and between
elections with a view
^
f-
;/
402
'I
to fk'ctoral
III:
PROCESS OF
work, but
GOVERNMENT
permanent bureaus for the control of
in
IcgisLitures, for the {lisix)sal of favors,
and the dictation of executive
making one or
acts, are fully formed agencies, sometimes even
messengers.
and
clerks
mere
mori' of the constitutional agencies
power or out of power, is in fact delegated
The
to do much of the work of government for New York City.
with
its
especially
Ages,
Middle
in
the
Florence
city-state of
So
Tammany
Hall, in
Capitani di Parte Guclfa, gives us good illustrations of parties

iwhich became regular organs of government and at times even
most important organs of government.
Ithc
an executive, say, actually represented "all the people,"
If
that
the totality of the society,
is
could be made.
totality
my
But
and a party did
not, a distinction
analysis hitherto has
never appears, unless indeed
it
shown how
totality in the special
is
sense of one society against another, as one nation in
untrammeled
executive
is
realization of their ends, but allowing for resistance
groups and bringing about in that
in other
in stabihty
war or
buoyed up on certain
groups, not ruthlessly pushing toward the
The
diplomacy against another.

groups or combinations of
the
from time
In
to time.
much
way a
the
balance, varying
same way the party
more directly than others,

allow for the others as far as it needs, and work out in this way a
balance. Neither the lack of w^hat is called " control by the people"
in the executive nor a similar lack in the party, nor any difference
in tlie degree of control at any time provides any fundamental
machine
will represent
distinction,
The
interests
however important such matters are as
distinction of
political
some
problems of the time.
party agency
compound,
is
of course
structure, one
a double, or in
characteristic, but
still
higher degree
branch rising and the other
then later the positions being reversed.
in a
tests for the
one agency from the other, or as issues in the practical
In
this
it
perhaps not more peculiar than
falling,
has
is
its
to
double consulship, one consul commanding the
day and the other the next, or
in a
and
peculiar
be found
army one
double legislature, one branch
alternatmg with the other in irregular struggle according as the

interests express themselves
through them.
POLITICAL PARTIES
One can hardly
discuss parties without introducting Burke's
definition that a party

their joint endeavors
principle
403
"a body
is
of
men
united for promoting by
upon some
the national interest
on which they are
all
Here
agreed."
particular
a definition in
is
terms of the "national interest" and of a "particular principle."
But the "national interest"
is
rather a form of argument used by
party members, than a characteristic of party tendency.
It is
phrase which stands in a representative capacity to the special
groups composing the party, and at the same time aims
interest
group
to reconcile other
the "particular principle"
is
stated
on the
than concretely as the party tendency;

presence of the party interest with
define
it.
Writers
who
proposed policy.
interests to the
its
And
intellectual side, rather
serves to indicate the
it
tendency, rather than to
accept this definition frequently mention
"real political parties based on differences of opinion, not on class

interests," their distinction being of course arbitrary, so far as
it
purports to be theoretical, since there can be no opinion which
does not
It is
reflect interests or
which has any value apart from
evident that before
we can understand
push our analysis far deeper than words of
parties
interests.
we must
this character will
take us; not because such definitions as Burke's are incorrect, but
because they are highly superficial.

first
so matter of course,
shall
We
must
start out
with that
phrase of Burke's definition, the "body of men," which seems
and hold
fast to
it
all
the
way through.
have to trace the representative quality of party
grades,
from ordinary language expressions
structure.
We
shall
groups and show
have to get the
how
We
in all its
to organized political
policies stated in
terms of policy
these represent underlying interest groups,
and how the mass gets knit together into great permanent organized
structures, and how leadership, both of the policy type and of the
machine type, appears in this mass, and how this structure as it
forms develops "opportunities" for exploitation,
new
interest groups,
in
which appear
which may be characterized as organization
or machine interests.
We
must get the whole thing stated
in
terms of interest groups, measured by the numbers and interest

intensity of their
members.
404
Suppose wc look
at party
formation in very simple conditions.
Lrt us take a Spartan election by volume of applause or an Indian

We
trilx- considering a migration, a hunt, or a war expedition.
phenomenon, that is, the taking

opinion, occurs in a bed or background
find first of all that the party
of
sides or the division of
of
general activity.
there were no group differentiation within
If
this general activity, there
party formation
exigency
is,
would be no division
however, so immediate that
as the party;
directly.
No
analysis
back
that
of opinion,
The group formation under
at all.
it
seems the same thing
the party represents
is,
doubt with
fuller information
into health, food supply,
no
the particular
it
immediately and
we could
carry our
and age conditions
in
such
a matter as the plan for the hunting expedition; or in the Spartan

election
tion
we might be
able to discover several elements of the popula-
which combined gave one candidate his preponderance in
number and loudness of voices over another canditate. As it

we have a simple, transitory party formation,
stands, however,
representing immediately the interest groupings of the society.
We
can extend the
illustration in
which discussion groups are
the only representative methods needed for the mediation of the

interests a little
formation;
as,
way without producing any change

for example,
protracted discussion
is
by taking cases
necessary, with urging
in the party
which a more
and pleading on
in
But we should soon reach a point at which we should
both sides.
find the party formation

definite organization.
changing character and taking on more
This would be a result of the character
of the interest groupings, of the character of the opposition
between
them, and of their complexity; factors which in their turn would
depend mainly on the compression

ment.
We
of the population in its environ-
should find for instance cases in which a policy in
two steps would be set up, and here the realization of the policy
would involve a continuing leadership, differentiated out of the
party, to give
of
its
it
activity.
consistency and hold
phrase a "policy in two steps"
mere
bit of
it
together during the progress
The phenomenon which

is itself
head work by the leaders.
have indicated by the
not to be thought of as a
Rather
it
itself is
the out-
POLITICAL PARTIES
growth
and
group basis and determined in every
of the underlying
respect by
a function, partly of the larger party opposition,
It is
it.
405
partly of the group factors in relation to which the parties stand

If the
in a representative capacity.
can take step
ment brought about through

that step
They
step
will be possible, they set
get their
party leaders see that they
now but not step B, and that
programme out
after the readjust-
the groups will be so arranged
up
that for their
and only so far as they reflect the underlying

by chance or by skill, will their policy work
programme.
which they
of the groupings
reflect,
situation correctly,
itself
forward.
So
far as they reflect the situation wrongly, or have misjudged relative

pressures, they will fail.
leaders the subjects
have used a phrasing that makes the
and
directors of the operation,
merely for convenience in the brief statement.

process that works through
but again
It is the
group
them upon which we must concentrate
attention in studying each case.
However,
stated
this
second stage, simple as
here, merely schematic.
it
it
seems,
is,
as I have
Whether or not we
get this
second type of party will depend on the structure of the govern-
ment
in
which the
interest
words upon the work that
groups are functioning, or in other

is
Whether the interest

and what form of repre-
to be done.
groups have hardened into classes or not,
sentation exists in the central agencies of the government,
whether
all classes
ment or approach
and
are independently represented in the governthe government
by discussion groups
of their
own, will determine the concrete transformations.

Nevertheless, without substantial error
elements of such an organized party a
we can
analyze the
coming
As it stands, with some specialized
leadership and with a programme which requires some time to
to concrete
farther without
illustrations.
carry through,
policies
little
that
it
is,
furnishes an agency through which
tendencies of activity
may
still
other
push themselves
There may be a different set of underlying groups,

which nevertheless coincide as to personnel fairly well with the
forward.
groups that arc represented in the party, which also are working
along
toward the termini
of
their
activities,
and which
4o6
tllK
PROCESS OF (iOVERNMENT
'I'FFK
ilu-
existing party organization
the easiest channel through
which to express themselves. With a development Hke this the

organized leadership of the party will gain a more independent,
more diiTercntiated,
or rather a
of (Hscrelion in its
mode
position;
of representing the underlying groups,
now become more complex than

to
any great extent,
we may
we
call personality
around him which
will
element
will increase the
it
If this
before.
process continues
shall find developing in the party
groups.
what
leader will gather a following
work with him and by means
of
which
he can adjust the emphasis which the different lines of activity

With this we do not get to an entirely
receive at different times.
different type of party
phenomena, nor
to a type
which can, any
better than the former, be adequately described in terms of
We
person's "qualities."
have a different cross-section of the
party and a process different in some of
which
its
is itself
its details,
but
still
one
a group phenomenon, and which can only be given
value in terms of the underlying groups.
Or
again,
if
the leader-
ship of the party becomes so organized under conditions that

offer opportunities for exploitation
based on circumstances that
arise out of the very fact of the party's existence and of the political
and other phenomena in which
it
exists,
we may
get a
machine
type of grouping across the party, with an interest which, although

in one sense created
to
by the party as an organization,
is
yet itself
be assimilated in type to the underlying groups which the
party represents.
others,
It
adds an important underlying group to the
which may under peculiar circumstances come to appear
the most prominent feature of the party organization;

it
may
tion to
that
is,
develop abuses which arouse very vigorous groups in opposiit,
and which denounce
less, it will
it
always be merely one
in
unmeasured terms.
among
the
to be considered in a full statement of the
Neverthe-
many interest groupings

complex
situation.
In this progress from the simplest to the most developed forms,

the change concerns
first
the directness or remoteness
of
the
representativeness of the party, and second the development of

strict party, or
organization, or machine interest groupings, which
work through
the wide party organization
much
as underlying
POLITICAL PARTIES
These phenomena in
groups do.
interest
407
developed form
their
are sometimes described as the "personality" of the party, but
it
must now be apparent on the surface that such a manner of

speech tends toward obscurity, and that the method of analyzing
the situation for
all
the forms of groupings in their various relations
holds out on the contrary hope of clear and exact understanding.
The
we
content of the party struggles

are not concerned, but
that
it is
is infinitely
desirable
now
one other
phase of the progress for which somewhat more concrete

tion
is
necessary;
that
is,
With
various.
to note
illustra-
the loosing of the parties from a class
backing, and their acquisition of powers of freer functioning as the

representative agents of many-sided,
criss-cross
groups in the
developed political process.
In our simple tribe in which we find no class oppositions the

party
is
and functions
fugitive
freely.
When
split
has come and
the government rests
on one
others, held in place
under a reign of custom, we shall
class as against another or several
long as the government runs smoothly, that

class interests
are fairly well reflected
is,
find, so
so long as
all
by the governing
the
class,
that party formations attract attention only inside the government

class.
There they may be numerous, or they may be somewhat

and relatively permanent, appearing perhaps as
consolidated
personality
groups,
control of power.
struggling
within the class for immediate
comes
to pass that the classes enter into
If it
sharp opposition because of abuses in the government, each class
may
take on a poUtical organization, that
represents
it
in the struggle
been called governments without

governments
in
which
was itself the dominating

both party
splits
form a party which
parties,
small,
party,
might better be called
compact,
homogeneous
class
under conditions which discouraged
within the class and the formation of opposition
political parties in the
When we
is
The Boer governments, which have
dominated
class.
take the despotic monarchy, there again the party
formation will be within the class upon which the monarchy

directly based, while the other classes
less
is
have their interests more or
adequately reflected for them in the dominant class, without
4o8
forming parties of their
own
to
re[)resent
them.
Should the
(Kspotism he a [jowerful central organization resting on an army

districts, the parties
to hokl together a number of antagonistic
may appear
Again,
when
within the army in the form of cliques or factions.

a (Hstrict rebels it will have its own party representa-
a military leader contests for the central power by the

aid of his legions he may have a local support organized to some
If the central despotism does not need the
extent in party form.
tion, or
if
direct strength of the army, because
which holds the difTerent
districts in
perhaps of outside pressure
one system, then
district parties
may ai)pear, or perhaps class parties within each district may

In all these cases
strive to influence the central government.
the
form of the parties and their manner of acting will be deterThe possibilities of
class and group considerations.
mined by
leadership must be worked out

possibilities of
success and
upon such considerations.
failure of
any
set of tendencies
The
must
be based in the same way.
Party phenomena are
Let us turn now to modern England.
of course as old as the nation, but the political parties as
we now
back about two hundred years,

to the time when the group process ceased to show itself as an
opposition between the king and his strength on one side and the
know them
trace their beginnings
ParHament and
its
strength on the other, and began to
work through
do not mean that there

was any particular moment when this change came about, nor
that there was no such joint procedure of king and commons long
both king and Parliament acting jointly.
before that time, nor that there has been
no sharp opposition
set of group
between the two as aligned each with a different

(perhaps class) interests since that time.
The
general lines of
however clear enough, and are marked at various

stages of development by the selection of ministers from the
Parhament, then from one party in Parliament, and finally by their
the change are
joint responsibility to the
House
of
Commons.
For a time with the limited range of participants in the actual

government, the parties as organized in Parliament were primarily
personal follo^^^ngs.
The
phrase, "the
\Yhig families," which
POLITICAL PARTIES
one so often hears, stands for
this
409
The changing needs
fact.
was made up reflected

themselves through these parhamentary party groups, and through
of the groups of which the population
the king,
who
exercised for a long time a certain representative
power as the chooser between the factions. We had during this

period organized permanent parties acting in the government,
representing wide groups of interests, although not periodically
chosen by these interest groups or parties made up out of them
and cohering together mainly by the use of the patronage,

rich, and sometimes by direct bribery, the funds
direct,
which was very

for
which came from the same source as the
men, namely the national treasury.

Now when it came about that a group
extension of the suffrage had
its
won
the
first
salaries of the place-
demanding an
two or three stages of
interest
demands, a party organization outside of the Parhament
at
once appeared, an organization of the electorate of a primitive
This organization followed the
kind.
lines
the
of
two-party
organization inside of Parliament, though the strong group interest

of Ireland has given
it
a party of
its
own, and though the other
parties have
had severe shocks from sharp spUts on
questions.
At present a labor group has become strong, and an
this
and other
analysis of the Parliament will indicate a dozen or so fairly well-
defined party groups underneath the surface, although the sharp

rivalry
between government and opposition
is
as clearly
marked
as ever.
As soon now
as we get an organization of parties outside of

we have the beginnings of a new agency of government coming up from the same source, the group struggle, from
the legislature
which the previously existing agencies came.
In England
this
agency docs not as yet stand nearly so independent of the Parha-
ment
as parties in the United States stand of the legislatures;
the organization leaders are mainly in the Parliament personally,
and those who are in the Parhament dominate completely those
who
are outside.
Responsibility
mentary mechanism, but not so
is
still
tested
freely as of old.
through parha-
majority does
not fade away through "convictions," or through that substitute
TTTF.
410
for convictions,
bribe-money;
it
passes rather by the results of the
and the more the groups develop in the two great

parlies, the more perhaps we may expect to see them acting en
masse through their extra-parliamentary organization, rather than
by-dcctions;
incHviduaily within Parliament.
The whole system
is
Of
nevertheless one of groups.
the
many
group oppositions of the nation along different planes, we find

certain ones from time to time getting out of adjustment, so to
speak, or rising into vigor under
themselves toward
ties will
new
conditions of
political activity.
Some
life,
and forcing
group
of these
activi-
be noted by the government almost before they have clearly
formed themselves, and

discretion of the
will
be brought to success through the
government on
its
own
initiative, acting of
Others again must
in a representative capacity.
first
course
organize
themselves, not indeed as pohtical parties, but as discussion or
propaganda groups on a
interest
level intermediate
groups and the parties proper.
between the immediate

others will be forced
Still
to affiliate themselves with the political parties
sion for themselves along party
Finally
lines.
and secure expres-
some
others, fail-
ing of success, will organize parties of their own, both within
and without the Parhament, and exert themselves in that way.
Whatever be the process, however, whether through cabinet,

commons, or party, the whole situation must be worked out in
group terms to become intelligible. It must be worked out by
the analysis of the underlying group conditions, not as they ought
to be,
nor as our
own group
tendencies
may
dictate
them
to us,
nor along any lines of justice or morality dragged in from other

situations,
but solely on the Hnes of the actually given groupings,
Policies and arguments and "class consciousness" and other such things must be taken into account as indica-
just as they stand.
tions to help us in
working out the fundamental
basis of which the whole party structure

ties
must be taken into account
to be, not
on the
must be built up. Intensiwhat they can be proved
for just
merely for what they claim to be at special stages of
their process against obstruction.
mated
interests
at its right force
No
interest
except in terms of the
group can be
amount
esti-
of resistance
POLITICAL PARTIES
that others will offer to
And always
it.
41
the party process
must
be reduced to the lowest terms to which our analysis can carry
There
is
a good deal to note in the English party process which
can be noted so much better in the American parties that

postpone discussion of
But
illustrations.
be of
for use in connection with the
it
first
progress toward
much
I will
American
a word or two about French parties will
Pohtical parties in France seem to be
service.
the
same
making
which Enghsh parties
status to
save that they are approaching from a different
are tending,
The "bloc"
direction.
us.
increasing in strength and cohesiveness,
is
the opposition which has been in the past more an opposition to

the republic's present type of government than to the cabinet is
drawing
within the system, so that
itself
Enghsh
opposition in the
sense,
When
tends to become an
it
and the groups are arranging
by name all the different

"parties" that appear as represented in Parhament, one sets
down more parties than can really be found. Many on the list
themselves under both.
would be rather personal

ent parties.
That
is,
one
lists
folio wings within parties
than independ-
men whose adhesion

leader's name than of
they would be groups of
struck our attention more by mention of the
his policy, the difference, however, being strictly relative
matter mainly of emphasis.
The
lying are therefore reflected differently
technique than
is
French parties are

their ends
and through a
the case in England.
and a
which are lower
interests
different
So far as these many
direct organizations of interests, they secure
by a process
of barter with other similar groups
compose the " bloc," the barter often including
in its
which
terms spoils
of a kind very familiar in the other countries
we
So far as they are personal
within larger group
territory,
interests
and furnish
may work.
folio wings,
they
fall
are considering.
special tools, so to speak, through
The
division of the socialist parties
is
which
tested
mainly by the extent to which they recognize the strength of opposing groups, which
is
the
same thing
as saying
by the extent to
which they have got their programme of action clearly and
opened out before them, and also by the extent
members
are blocked in their lives,
to
fairly
which their
and by the extent
to
which
OF GOVERNMENT
TIIK PROCESS
412
by
they arc excited
tin ir
failure
secure expression
to
to something similar to the previous point.
which
To compare
comes
England and France on any basis that gave hope for useful knowledge, one would be compelled to get all the groups analyzed, to
note the dilTerences, to follow up the habitual forms of activity
in
governmental matters, and discriminate between the channels
which were immediately commanded by interest oppositions, and

those which are indifferently used by the interest groups because
they hajipen to be present and can be followed without such noticeable obstruction as to
\Vlien
up
active effort for their alteration.
United States became a federal government the
the
was
suffrage
stir
limited,
voters were organized under leaders
and the
transmitted from the
days.
earlier
The
had been
had won
War, or the constitutional convention and
their standing
leaders
fields in
which these
either the Revolutionary

its
predecessor, the
Congress of the Confederation. Discussion leadership and organization leadership
were not well differentiated.
limitation of the suffrage
it
is
On
account of the
necessary to take into account in
studying the parties not only their membership, but also the nonvoting
interests
The
extent.
territorially,
which they represented to some considerable
folio wings of the leaders
were grouped in the main
but with outlying detachments that extended well
over the country.

It is
well
enough established that the party differentiation of
the early years of the Republic cannot be
more than
superficially
defined in terms of the theories of the leaders, such as their theories
and against a strong central government. Those theories

served for little more than tags to the parties, as was well enough
for
proved when Jefferson used the strong hand at the central place
of
power
of the
in defiance of all his theories.
most searching observers
Henry Jones Ford, one
among waiters on American
politics,
John Marshall in coimecting the parties with the previous

experiences of the two groups of leaders, and he emphasizes the
relations between Hamilton and the commercial interests of the
follows
country on the one side and Jefferson and the agricultural interests
PARTIES
413
latter distinction ofifcrs
a valuable clue in the
POLITIC.-VL
on the other.
This
attempt to determine what the underlying interest groups were

for which the parties stood,
how
far the parties represented
them
adequately, and how through the development of the country and

by compromise as the result of party struggle, adjustments were
brought about and the group lines changed.
While party outlines were indicated at
this time in
terms of
and while the party process seemed
elaborate theories,
to be
largely a discussion process, the inadequacies of such a point of
view should be noted by anyone
by pure, calm discussion

test the
who
governmment
believes that a
the normal type
by which we must
government as we
find
it.
Discussion
violent forms even at the start,
and
it is
a question
divergences of
assumed most
is
all
not for theorizing but for exact examination, with due allowance
and
for the extension of the suffrage
for the character of the
whether the groups gained better
interest opposition of the time,
balance through the govenment then than they do even now,
machine organization
At the
at its strongest
start the parties
seemed
gress, but their lines could be seen
the executive departments
presidency
while the
organization.
And
found inside of the
that
state
is,
fresh in
is
to be
memory.
mainly organized in Con-
on both
sides stretching into
in the first part of
Washington's
governments also furnished a
indeed not
all of
official positions.
when
field for
the active leaders were to be
The
congressional caucuses
for the presidency indicate the location of the strongest organization.
We
can observe
first
the
parties as
organized in the state
governmeiTts contesting with Congress for the nominating power;
and then
of
later,
with the rapid extension of the
group struggles that went on
into federal politics,
sufi"rage, the result
in the state fields
and with the increase
in
without rising
number
of elective
we observe the parties organizing themselves outside of

both state and federal governments, and arriving finally at the
convention system and the party committees.
Looking at this development along another line, we see the
two-party system at the beginning; we see this system breaking
offices,
I'KOCKSS
llli:
414
down by
the Ixid defeat of
OF GOVERNMENT
one party, aad the absorption of
its
interests into the other party; we see groups forming within this
dominant i)arty on personality lines at a moment when no welldilini'd
underlying grouj) struggle was at an acute stage in federal
alTairs,
and we
for a
began
representation of underlying interest groups as they
new
more eagerly
to press
So we
process.
personality groups forming the basis
see those
find, for
for recognition in the
government
example, the interest groups which were
and
internal-
improvements policies operating through the government.
Finally
represented on the discussion plane by the tariff
which formed very strong
in the slavery issue,
groups in
interest
on
the economic field, unfortunately for the country divided

torial lines,
and which was represented
intense outbursts of
many
into
"moral fervor"
by
up complexly out
of
built
we
see the party technique transforming itself
war technique.
In this process the dominant party in the
elements,
North came
to
seem a thing
ideas, but that, of course,

It is
terri-
in the discussion field
mass
as a great
into a
huge
of
men
of pure policy, of pure morals
was only
its
and
superficial appearance.
with their interest groupings solidified
sectional, class interest that the
phenomenon
of the
Republican party must be examined, and not merely as an abstract

economic, or as an abstract moral phenomenon.
Now when
the
war was over the Republican party stood power-
fully organized in possession of the
government.
It
was a mighty
machine, so strongly intrenched that not for ten years did another
party gain so
much
seemingly by
its
which had raised
own
strength,
up
subsided.
it
was an
and which stood
as a single house of Congress.
organization which administered the government
when
It
the
It
underlying interests
was an engine ready
for the
use of interest groups which needed to push themselves toward

realization through government.
Long
before this
possibilities
of
De
Tocqueville had
commented upon
party organization in this respect, calling
government within the government," and saying that "if

diate contiguity to the directing power, another
lished,
which exercises almost as
much moral
in
the
"a
immeit
power be estabauthority as the
POLITICAL PARTIES
former,
not to be believed that
it is
it
415
long be content to speak
will
Also he had discussed the use of spoils as party
without acting."'
fodder, place-hunting as a trade.
The
De
history of the use of spoils in our politics both before
Tocqueville's time and after
well
is
enough known: how the party,
once organized outside the legislature as an agency of government,

pressed
government
into the
itself
offices,
not because Jackson was
a bad man, but because of the inevitable process of groups of
men and
how
their opportunities;
the evils of the system in time
up a group antagonism to them, which we now know as the

civil-service reform movement (I do not refer to the pious
stirred
came
ejaculations of the excluded, but to the representation that

into being
on behalf
nism we have the

how, we
to the
may
of the injured)
how
as a result of this antago-
system of the present;
civil-service merit
present has already produced a certain definite
alteration in
and
add, the measure of civil-service reform obtained
machine strength, despite the
of other varieties of spoils are
still left
for
fact that large
up
enough
amounts
machines to thrive on.
This spoils system operated here as elsewhere to hold the

party leaders from big to
which came, on the

to be
more
like
little
together in a strong interest group,
an analysis
lines of
an underlying
interest
party formation on a representative
have previously
group than
level.
The
set forth,
like
strict
party stood forth
rather as an agency of government than as a party in the terms

of
such a definition as Burke's.
named merely because
kind of organization.
this
it
in
many
respects,
The Republican
have
While the Democratic party approaches
makes it a less perfect illustration

Let me sum up the main features of the party
States.
chronic position as the "opposition" in
its
national affairs
in the United
party
has been the most striking instance of
it
It
an organization
is
of the type.
as
it
now
of voters,
stands
brought
together to act as a representative of the underlying interest groups

in
which these
voters,
present themselves.
and
On
Democracy in America., Part,
'
Ibid.,
II,
Book
some
lesser extent other citizens,
the level of discussion groups
Part
to
I,
chap.
III, chap. xx.
xii.
it
is
repre-
41
scnti'd,
by many
or rather underlying groups arc represented,
theories, policies,
and slogans;
it
has, indeed, a formally differen-
tiated discussion phase, the platform, which offers the pretense of

coherence and positive leadership on the discussion plane, but
which, as every schoolboy knows,
is
of the time a hollow
most
mockery, which means merely that in the discussion plane, in

the platform, the underlying groups are not accurately represented.
Its leadership is
a strong, though not an especially close, corpora-
reaching
Hall,
and indeed actually a
its
New
most compact form in
tion,
form
legal corporate
Hearst's Independence League;
York's
Tammany
in the eruptive
a characteristic so marked that
one writer a dozen years ago used the phrase "government by

syndicate" to describe it. Upon this quasi-corporate organization
the electorate the group interests of the country
of
exerting themselves in the political

to secure results.
which
They have indeed
to bring pressure to
must
field,
bear, and
still
themselves
Of
results.
facility
is
on the corporative
course, all group interests
equipped with
way
they must exert

if
they wish
do not work with equal
through these different agencies.
interests,
upon
can exert themselves
party organization
called "the people's oflSce," that
group
the legislatures
also they
through the presidency, but in the same
which are
direct their efforts
When
the presidency
means that big widespread
comparatively poor
technique
represented mainly on discussion lines, have been able to find

expression through that office better than elsewhere.
The
adjust-
ments that are carried on through the legislature vary greatly

with different legislative bodies.
the
members
ings,
who
In the lower house of Congress,
demands
improvements, and to some
adjust local
for spoils in the
form
of build-
extent jobs, but the speaker,
with his two lieutenants decides most important questions,
more representative of the party organized outside the legislature

than of the party as organized within it. Through the machines
go all matters which can be handled with a view to their corporate
is
interests,
otherwise.
whether by bribery, favoritism,
Of
political
prospects, or
course the machines have limits to their utilization
of their corporate opportunities, limits set always
by the
possible
POLITICAL PARTIES
4^7
stimulation of group interests directly attacking them.
th^machine
is
group among
between others, and which

adequacy; a group whose
future fate are
it
The analogy between
stands.
machine and a despot with
his favorites
is
the boss with
not fanciful but
both as regards class or group support and the machine's
close,
own
whose present standing, and whose
functions of the strength of the pressures in
all
the given society as

his
with varying degrees of
reflects others
origin,
In short
groups, a group which mediates
The
interests as such.
existence of the great party agencies
does not, of course, do away with the lesser party phenomena.
complex
special
may
of interest groups, reacting
phenomena may
tion.
It
All
flit
bosom
across the
must be allowed for
on a special "evil,"
many
organize a prohibition party, and
transitory party
of the great party organiza-
in the total.
has been argued by Mr. Ford and by Professor
Goodnow
that the parties as
we now
them were made necessary by the

separation of powers in our government, by the separation of
executive and legislature, and by the separation of federal from
state and also in part of state from local governments.
The
analysis that brought this connection to light was very valuable,
but even
remains an incomplete statement of the party
at that
phenomenon.
it
There
is
see
no doubt that a group
interest seeking
expression through party activity would be compelled to operate
upon executive and legislature at the same time, and in case

both state and federal governments had to act, upon both of
these.
Moreover with divided elections and only gradual achievement of control, the party organization outside the legislature and
executive would have to be maintained for considerable periods.
But that our machine type

follow
is
of political organization would necessarily
a different question, only to be answered by bringing
the group interests including that excited

into accurate comparison.
Where we
by the
spoils opportunities
find spoils
integrating rather than an integrating effect, that

into account,
and also where we
find
rival
all
showing a
dis-
must be taken
parties
by trading
dividing the fields in which they rule, that fact must be laid against
the theory of unity by party.
In so far also as we find party an
4i8
'Flir:
agency
for
any and every interest group, or rather for selected
groups of varying characters, to function through, instead

of an agency for the representation of one great interest or set of
interest
interests,
we must
viev^r
it
When we
as such.
an interest
find
group appearing to denounce the party machines, it is no answer

to it, nor does it really bear on the situation, to argue that the
machines are necessary, spoils and all, because of any work they
may do or may have done in holding the organs of government
If the
together.
come
machine hurts enough, the reaction on it will

strengths, argument or no
just in proportion to relative
argument, past services or no past services; and whether
it
wipes
out merely the abuses or wipes out the machines along with the
abuses will be largely a matter of detail, depending, however,
on
itself
relative
And
group strengths.
that
if
there
is
a large fund of
work which must continue to be done,

and which other agencies do not properly provide for the veryA
existence of the work will produce the mechanism to do it.
genuine work
is
theoretical discussion then of the responsibihty or lack of responsibility of the

little,
machine
amount
to the people will
just in proportion as
it
reflects at their
to
much
or to
accurate weights the
group forces which are now struggling to expression.

Before leaving this subject, there are a few incidental matters
concerning
parties
which
need
discussion.
Perhaps
have
already considered at sufficient length the relation of formally
expressed policies to party activity, but at the risk of repetition I

will
go over the point again.
Like
all
"theory," policy has
its
place in the process as bringing out group factors into clearer

relation,
and as holding together the
by catchwords and slogans.

to the
to
groups on
its
So
parties,
far as
peculiar plane, all
is
once they are formed,

gives good expression
it
clear.
But
judge the parties by their theories or formal policies
absurdity, not because the parties are

their theories,
weak
is
to
attempt
an eternal
or corrupt and desert
but because the theories are essentially imperfect
expressions of the parties.

doctrine are well enough
The
vicissitudes of states' rights as a
known.
Another passing illustration
POLITICAL PARTIES
419
concerns the government regulation of commerce.
we may
If
identify the commercial interests of a century ago with those of
today for the purposes of illustration,
we
find that the very elements
which then under Hamilton's leadership were most eager to extend

the power of government over commerce are now the most bitterly
opposed
made
any such extension.
to
Then and now
and
great pretenses to logic
theoretical cocksureness,
then, as now, the theories were valuable in the
Public opinion, which

discussion groups,
must submit
is
a phenomenon on the level of the
is
directly connected with party in
and
to analysis
many
is
Sometimes
a compound of discussion group elements, and again
vivified
It
ways.
to tests for the degree of its repre-
sentativeness like any other similar group expression.

it
by
it
is
striking roots directly into the deeper-lying groups.
has enormous power, of course, but only where
interest
and
outcome only as
group forces on one side or the other for the contest.
rallying the
It
argument
the
groups that
mean
business.
The
test of it is
of extreme delicacy in the hurly-burly of poUtical
successful politician
is
an expert in
which
it,
is
expresses
it
an operation
and every
life,
not the same as
saying that he gives obedience to the opinion that purports to

represent "all the people," but that he can estimate the opinion
of the groups in
which he
is
most strongly seated
for
what
it is
worth, and that he can use the public opinion from outside groups
to test their true strength as against his
When
he
own
fortified
position.
in his reaction to the group interests as mediated
fails
through opinion, a change in leadership
is
Leader-
quickly due.
ship mainly on the discussion plane and leadership mainly on the
organization plane are of course both found in the pohtical process,
and they may work together or work against each other

stages of the process.
The
"Zeitgeist"
light in the study of public opinion,
investigation
to see
any
what
definite
"Zeitgeist"
is
it
to individualize
is
when
It
may
tendencies of action which
may
surely
the tendency of the
and personify
actually represents.
at various
a spook that comes to
it,
not to analyze
it
safely be asserted that
are
and exactly be reduced
attributed
to
the
to the underlying
groups from which "Zeitgeist" derives his being, and that what
420
will
be
him
of
left
after analysis will be
mainly
trivialities
misrepresentations, in short, interesting but insignificant

It
common
is
servative,
is
Or
radical.
to classify political parties as reactionary, con-
Sometimes the reactionary
and radical or progressive.
omitted and
the
classification
is
reduced to conservative and
again liberal and radical
one another.
It
and
phenomena.
should be apparent
may be distinguished from

how extremely superficial
Such names are indeed used by

is.
names they have their reality. Also the
such a basis of distinction

actual parties, and as
parties so designated or classified
may sometimes
correspond to
where they
actual class-interest groups in a particular society;
do
proper to use this classification of parties, but only for the
it is
WTien
given time and place with reference to the given groups.
we come
to the
phenomena
of the great party organizations
which
are agencies in government the names do not correspond at all

Indeed, under any circumstances w^hatever we can
to the facts.
easily see that
no party can be
really " reactionary."
inevitably be looking to the future.
much
A party must
Just because in the discussion
"good old times," it does not

mean that the party really tends backward. It is hke every other
bit of human activity tending forward, and we must use the talk
and ideals and theories as indications from which to proceed to
plane there
is
said about the
our analysis of the actual underlying interest groups.

that these groups in eariier times
society
and are
still
had much
freer
Really, however, such a party
is
some
sway in the
and uncom-
radical, just as
as parties that call themselves radical, perhaps

in
may be
unreconciled to their present position, in the
sense that their tendencies of activity are extreme
promising.
It
much
even more radical
cases.
Some parties can of course be on the defensive, and all parties

may be at some time. But even the distinction between the offensive and the defensive is a somewhat superficial one, when we
turn our attention to the groups at the bottom of the process.
Both offensive and defensive parties are pressing fonvard on

certain hnes of activity and are pressing against each other in the
process.
From this point of view it is rather a technical than a
POLITICAL PARTIES
substantial difference whether one party
and the other
statute
to
maintain
it,
aiming to change a
The
or vice versa.
between the party in control
distinction
is
421
the party of the "outs" of course stands, but the point
party of the "ins"
may
be changing
they represent for

of adjustment
ment
is
may
it;
practical
government and
of the
is
that the
be maintaining an established law, or
and both
worth in whichever direction the process
all it is
Or
moving.
again, in
still
other words, the move-
even in the most spectacular times,
of readjustment,
it
parties are exerting the strength
is
comparatively slight compared with the great mass of the pressures

exerted by
the underlying groups
all
upon each
other.
Special varieties of the kind of classification I have just been

criticizing are to
parties, for
each with
on a
be found
when
liberal, conservative,
example (Kautsky), are
its ideals, liberal,
and
socialist
one another,
set over against
and each resting
feudal, or socialistic,
class of the population, capitalists, land-owners, or laborers.
Such a
classification
may
or
may
not be proper at any given time
or place, but to erect the three so-called classes into permanent
elements of the population and

of the
modern
And
schematism.
is
type, is a
brought which
established social
groups and
stated as
else.
make them apply

bit of
in all societies
metaphysics or pretentious
can never take higher rank
until direct proof
on the "ideals" but on independently

groupings, which distinguish betT\'een ordinary
rests not
set classes
with great care, and which get the whole
actually
and nowhere
work out a beautiful theory of the
"revenues," and it will look attractive at
it
is
in the governing process
Loria, for instance, can
parties as based
long range
it
it
mere
to his
own
on the
but wherever a disinterested student attempts to apply

time and country, he will find
phenomena than that.

Taking now a final look at the party
much
better
methods of
analyzing the
process,
we
find classes
sometimes opposed to each other with the government established

in the hands of one class, and with a party formation on personal
or policy lines
among
that ruhng class, or
among
its
leaders.
We
where the classes have been to great extent broken down,

so that the functioning through the government is of groups of
find that
422
less fixed types, there parties will
the political
field,
form
to represent the
groups in
varying in extent and in organization according
with the arrangement of the government and the supplementary

work to be done. We find tliese parties with representation in
and with organizations that represent them and

furnish them leadership, and with various mixed forms of repreWe find
sentation, such as special organization of propaganda.
the discussion field,
their intensity
dependent upon the intensity of the group pressures,
amount of the obstruction as well

demand. We fmd intensity in the discussion
which include of course the

as the
amount
of the
level often out of proportion to the intensity of the
sures,
and we must allow
of the situation.
We
group pres-
for that at all times in our
find the party organizations
judgments
adding a new
underlying interest which must always be taken into account and
We
at times very acutely.
and theories
some of them
protracted periods and becoming such
find the formal policies
of parties in varying degrees of representativeness,
maintaining themselves for
ingrained habits on the discussion level that they survive there for
considerable periods after the group interests
underlying them
have so shifted that they are no longer adequately represented
We
by them.
find the theories entitled to attribution of
in direct proportion to the
with allowance only for the dregs and
the underlying interests;
driblets of theory left behind, pretentious
in transition periods.
itself
is
potency
adequacy with which they represent
We
find the
but with
trifling
potency,
whole process masquerading
in the phraseology of the "public interest or welfare,"
which
a something non-existent except on the discussion level, save in
times of a violent opposition of one nation as a whole to

or others, in
which case
it
some other
represents not the whole society under
consideration but only the particular nation as one group in the

larger society in
what not
is
which the interaction
war,
tariff
dispute, or
going on.
And above all we find
that the great need at every stage in our ex-
amination of the process
is
for a careful analysis of all the
operations, and for a thoroughgoing statement of the
group
most superficial
and pretentious in terms of the deeper-lying and most fundamental.
CHAPTER
XVIII
THE ELECTORATE AND SEMI-POLITICAL GROUPS

Passing behind the party organization we come to the electorate,
out of which the parties are composed.
Theoretical legal dis-
tinctions will help us here even less than elsewhere;
they serve
merely to define details around the edges of established activity.
The
Praetorian guard in
certainly
formed an
Roman Empire
flower under the
its
The Russian
electorate.
to the most oppressed of the peasants
people,
down even
and the Jews, are attempting
today according to their needs and their technique to exercise
France
electoral functions.
On
a great electorate.
at the time of the revolution
the other
hand negroes
developed
in southern states
with constitutional "rights" which they are kept from exercising,

are not for us part of the real electorate.
It is all
a question of
activity.
To
use these illustrations
not to become involved in any
is
confusion with regard to the suffrage as
organized with the ballot as
ments
its
In
of the representative type.
and
electorate not spasmodically
we
find
much
one
and
is
it
irregularly working, but organized
will, to
or
"intelligent
it
stands, as so
it
citizenship,"
whichever
be ranked as one of the great agencies of government;
even apart from
this
whether
In a country like
probably entitled just as
"voting cattle,"
wc have an
this latter case
for periodical action with a definite technique.
the United States
permanently
it
instrument under complex govern-
is
its
organization
so characterized or not
important thing
is
to get
it
is
parties.
But
a minor matter.
The
into
in proper relation to all the other
processes of government.
The
When
electorate
functions
through
majorities
or
the majority or plurality has registered itself
"people" has spoken, or has "decided," but that

sonification,
of
phrase-making.
What we
423
is
pluralities.
we say
the
a bit of per-
actually have
is
an
424
PROCESS OF
no
11
GOVERNMENT
adjustmcnl or solution of oppositions, by a certain technical

method which is entitled to be taken exactly for what it is, and for
nothing more.
interests.
lation
It
The
the
in
not a du-ect adjustment of fundamental
is
electorate, like every other
governmental
field,
sense in which that term has been used

It
groups, more or less adequately.
judgment upon
way
of
judgment
to reach a sane
for which the

tlic
judgment
If
"good"
as a
it
is
representative in the
throughout this book.
groups represent underlying
Its
a diflerentkited activity.
is
grouping of the popu-
itself
is
anyone
or a
interested in passing
is
"bad"
institution, the
only
after fixing exactly the purpose

to reduce the electorate to terms
is
desired
underlying interests with as great a degree of exactness as
available facts
and methods
will permit.
Sometimes the electorate passes judgment upon men and

sometimes upon measures. Sometimes, that is, it elects persons
to oflice,
and sometimes
But the distinction

scientific
is
A man
uses.
it
votes directly
upon questions
of policy.
not a hard and fast one, good for fundamental
cannot be selected or judged entirely
Even
without reference to the policy he represents or embodies.
"character"
if
is
up
set
as a test, that also
since character as such in the election
with reference to what the

in the
man
a matter of policy,
can cut no figure except
of given character will be or
government; honesty or dishonesty here
use of the public funds or franchise;

it
is
counts, has to
do
in part wdth
"example"
in the
may have
bearings
popularity
is
broader
is
a matter of the
private moral
life,
where
law-enforcement and in part with
field of control, w^hile for
on personality groupings;
a question of
do
the
the rest
even
personality-leadership
Similarly a policy cannot be passed
it
personal
groups.
on save with reference
to the
men who are to embody it. In the discussion field, now^ person
and now policy may get the greater emphasis, but the material
we actually have to observe alwâys includes both. Howêver
express they are, however merely implied in discussion, in fact
both are together.
What
jpractical political use
is
comes dowTi to in its

on the one side and character
the distinction
that policy
on
the other serve in the discussion level to represent different
ELECTORATE AND SEMI-POLITICAL GROUPS

They
phases of the underlying group process.
425
are not different
things for any scientific investigation, however sharply opposed
they
may
We
be in some immediate political struggle.
have next
to observe the relation of the electorate, not to
the other agencies of government, but to the mass of the citizenship.
The
Always
whole citizenship.
electorate never includes the
women.
the minors are excluded, and usually all of the
The
criminal and insane elements of the population are excluded, and
modern
in most large
states also
some portion
males who cannot conform to fixed
In the United States property qualifications
qualifications.
in
some
of the other adult
property or educational
states,
many
while on the other hand in
states they
exist
have
been entirely abandoned, and indeed the electorate has been
broadened
citizens.
include males
to
All of these tests
direct result of
who
and
are not,
by
legal definition,
qualifications are themselves the
group pressures.
Ignoring such minor peculiarities as the one
we have
to observe in general
sentative institution in
so
much
members
fication
two
political activity,
in the
way
different ways.
the
of the electorate activity proper, led

in
electoral
a repreplace, as
its
the justi-
activity
same persons being
group themselves differently on the two

them, are few
is
first
indicated a page or two back;
the underlying activities of those
tiated out of
In the
represents the other activities of
it
discriminating between
for
mentioned,
last
terms that the electorate
and
that they
The groupings
levels.
by party organizations
number compared with
the
differen-
complex
underlying groupings.
In the next place the electorate,

as a concrete
body
of
now most
men, represents the
elements of the population
who do
readily envisaged
interests of those other
not directly participate in
it.
We
have here something akin to the class as distinguished from

groups in the wider sense. Take the case of the women who do
not have the suffage.
As the case now
stands,
women- interest
groups are not very markedly differentiated from men-interest

groups.
to
The famUy, even
keep the votes
of the
in its greatly
men
in general
weakened form, serves
such that they represent

426
rkocKSS of
Till':
women
the
interests
interests in a fairly
government
adequate form.
Where women's
push themselves out in any noticeable degree as distinct

show themselves in specialized forms,
from men's, or where they
sometimes the case with the conduct of the public schools

remember, I am not talking of what ought to be, but of interests
as
is'
manifested the women may break through
as actually
family organization transforms
come
itself
to partial
The more
participation in the suffrage in that particular field.
the
and the more the women
from the men, the more certain will be their

This is not saying
participation in the suffrage.
to stand apart
speedy direct
any "reason" why they should not participate directly

now, or w^hy they should. It is only pointing
suffrage
system, grown out of earlier conditions,
habitual
to an
and lacking as yet any sufficient impetus to its transformation.
Similarly, there are the males who do not have the voting
that there
is
in the general suffrage
right, for lack of
They
property or educational qualifications.
by the male voters in very fact, whether they

large numbers with somewhat varying interests,
are represented
arc found
in
or in smaller
with
numbers with group
various
the
group
interests
interests in general identical
of
noted that the very conditions which

forceful as a
little
make
group
the
voters.
make
the
It
is
women
to
be
usually
to project themselves into the suffrage,
the male opposition likewise of
little
force;
on the other
hand, with excluded male voters the demand for direct participation
may
at times take violent formes,
and be met with equally
violent opposition, the resultant suffrage extensions or limitations
being the outcome of the pressures as they actually exist within

the society, the whole
background and system
technique being taken into account.
of
Sometimes we
governmental
find a different
male electorate standing behind one branch of a government
from
that
result
of
so far as
tion,
which stands behind another branch.
compromise
it
more
is
of pressures, with
some
It is
a special
indication, save
a mere survival, of the maiatenance of class opposi-
fixed
than the ordinary group oppositions, in the govern-
ment.
Attention
may
also here be recalled to the fact that the suffrage

is
nearly everywhere
now
distributed
on a
427
or locality,
district,
Russia's recent experiments have been with a suffrage
basis.
and Prussia has a survival of class distinctions

But
in its three-class suffrage based on property qualifications.
The man is an elector only
usually the district is what counts.
grouped by
where he
where
classes,
lives,
or where his property

in practice
occurs,
it
the district system.
The
in grouping the voters
is
apparent, but
representation of those
the
discussed, as well as
whereby special
their
financial
its utility
interests
backers
is,
practical convenience of this formalism
is
its
representation to underlying interests and
upon
Plural voting
located.
a rather unimportant variation of
function
its
in
have already been
interests
to the organizers of party
those
machines,
machine leaders and
of the
become
gi\'ing
disturbing effects
represented
in
of
preponderant
degree.
Many
phases of electoral technique might be touched on.
question of the
examined from
number
of offices filled
this point of
The
direct election could be
view as well as from the points of
view in the preceding chapters:

electorate chooses officers,
by
whether
also
it
the extent to which
chooses
monarchy
the
all the officers of the
Germany, are rather

it, in which latter
case both the electorate and the co-ordinate officers rest on the
citizenship at large also the technical methods of expression, such as
secret voting by the use of the ballot, registration of voters, government inspection of elections, and so forth. I shall not go into
details, but merely point out that in every case we have a phenomenon which can only be understood through an analysis of the
grouped population, and that in these cases in especial the relative
size of the whole society and also of its great groupings appears
state, or
whether some, as
in a
like
co-ordinate with the electorate than resting
on
very plainly in
Passing
on the
its
causal bearings.
now behind
the electorate, I wish to
add a few words
semi-political organization of the citizenship.
I shall deal
here with group phenomena which are neither party

direct nor
phenomena
of the electorate
in action,
phenomena
nor are they
THE PROCKSS OF GOVERNMENT
428
yet the underlying interest groupings, which, primarily to be defined
upon
as lying entirely out of the i)olitical sphere, furnish the bases
which
all the political structure
deal with
interests
with a view to political operation, direct or indirect;
form a
they
have to
preliminary organization of these underlying
the
is
What
reared up.
is
rei)rescntative
between the
intermediate
system
and the suffrage and parties.

Examining these phenomena first on the discussion level, we
find many organizations engaged in propaganda of one kind or
The
another.
varieties of
such phenomena are very
They
rich.
range from dreamland Utopias to railroad press bureaus with

big budgets. Indeed, these two illustrations may be well within
the outer limits, while aberrant illustrations
distances
in
every direction.
When
run out to
man
writes
advance some particular theory about society, he
indefinite
a book to
reflects in
more or less truly.

remote,
on political life,
book has any bearing, however
certain phase of the social process,
within the
field
social process
is
interest or set of
before us.
the
Now
interests.
it
it
his
falls
the reflection of a phase of the
same thing
group
If
as the reflection of
His "theory"
is
some group
such a reflection.
book becomes
known, there gathers round it a little group, however vaguely outlined, however uncertain in its tenets, however inclined to criticize
It
such an act of "representation."
is
sharply great portions of the theory.
the
a group held together
a differentiated representation of a certain
at the kernel.
It is
aspect of the
human
groupings.
so far as any observation of
human
The group would not form,

that we can make informs
life
were not the conditions "there" at the start to be reflected in
us,
this
its
It is
x\s
Once given
way.
disappearance or
of the given
is
progress will be a resultant of all the rest
group facts of the social
reckoning, not as so
which
its
the differentiated discussion group, then
life,
each
bit of
it
going into the
much dead surface, but weighted at an
intensity
the direct expression of the oppositions actually existing
We may have a very intense group of small

numbers, or a very extended group of weak intensity. It is a
in the social groupings.
question of fact, and the group must be valued at what
it is
in fact.
ELECTORATE AND SEMI-POLITIC\L GROUPS

have used a theoretical book for
429
The
illustration.
this
an incident to the illustration. If the group that formed

itself amounted to anything the "ideas" were almost to a certainty
"there" in the society before the book was published. The book
was merely a little bit of activity embodying them in a good form.
book
is
may have
Perhaps the book
form
particular
furnished the catchwords, or the
of the reasonings
perhaps
its
may become
author
a figurehead, full of fame and glory, in the movement.

grouping, nevertheless, that
that, for just the representative value
We may
from
a platform.
up
Now
it
the political
actually possesses.
many forms
specific in its statement,
We may find
it
at
running
life,
We may
cold belief to hot temper.
more and more

idea "
which
find this grouping of the citizenship in
greater or less detachment
way from
It is the
important, and the grouping, at
is
find
it
all
of
the
becoming
embodies a policy or
till it
almost any stage from the "abstract
to the political party as a policy grouping.
a good
many
of these discussion groups represent
groupings of the population, but a good
many
of
vague
them on
the
hand represent sharply outlined and well-organized interests.

We may, for instance, have a huge "consumers' group" on one
There is no essential
side and a "trust" interest on the other side.
difference between them for all of that.
It is a little easier for
the vague groups to talk about themselves as "the people," and a
other
little
more
difficult for the
well-organized groups to prove that
they are "unselfish;" but that

trial
is
a detail of technique.
"interest" of the kind called capitalistic
may
An
indus-
put out books,
and argument, work seductively or brazenly, spread

and rally sympathizers, as well as any
Either kind of group may knit its theory and its
revel in theory
literature, organize clubs,
other kind.
ideas
up with the "established"
strength by so doing.
It
belief
groups of the time, and gain
can gain strength, that
is,
so far as those
established beliefs accurately represent underlying group interests,
or so far as they are survivals which no sufficient power, that

sufficient interest,
no
has yet dislodged.
A particular form of this

the press, which
is
is
propaganda expression
an established agency
in
is
to be
found
in
this semi-political
IIIK I'ROCKSS
430
modern
activity in all of the large
The
i)re.ss
OF GOVERNMENT
news columns
in its
provides a technique through which the others
it
that
is
It is
As one phase of
evident enough.
which
its
useless to discuss "the
power
it
activity
it;
find editorial
activities.
of the press" in general terms;
both as manifested in editorials and
treatment of news columns,
in
is
just the equivalent of the representative value

its
we
opinion-group
difTerentiated
are
for that power, considering

in the policy
not so easily do without
way they would
in a
form themselves
expressions,
being part of the under-
Itself
information through the society.

lying interests,
even Russia.
states, including
actively distributes all kinds of
each particular case
which the paper or
particular editorial expression has, the size
and character of
Not that there
the paper's circulation being taken into account.

is
any absolute value to each
but the test
steadily
is
and
editorial;
all fit
which are being represented.
interests
together in systems;
made against
The test does
effectively
the group
not
lie
in
thought or independence of thought on the part
any continuity
of
of the editor.
Wliere a paper in general represents a very definite
and coherent element of the population,

of
being a pure reasoner with a good face
on behalf
it
in
mixed audience,
of a
mere
can make
its
but where
it
trivial
The
pretense
functions
verbiage to put
press shows itself
forms, subsidized, riotous, partisan, independent, but in
whatever form
groups
is
reason or beliefs alone.
to the test of
many
it
it
it
it
appears
it
needs interpretation in terms of the
Whether it sells itseK to one small clique

by titillating its senses, or whether it is
represents.
for cash, or to another

identified with
some
of either kind,
is
indeed
particular interest without express prostitution
really
now and then
rank manifestation
of technique,
an incident
of a technical character; unless
a group interest
is
moved by some
to take the field against
making
it
subject for attack
peculiarly
one or the other form
and seeking
its
sup-
pression or regulation.
An
incidental development in connection with
the systematized WTiting of letters "to the editor."
newspapers
is
In England
certain class interests have long gained regular expression in this
way without
differentiated
organization.
In the United States
43^
phenomenon has been less marked, but of late it has appeared

under the control of more or less strongly organized bureaus,
the
whether representing "special interests" or broader
interests of
the kind that call themselves "the public."
From
these various forms of discussion groupings
we must
turn to the organizations which are concentrated more directly
on special lines of action, worked out in considerable detail. Here

we find in countries like the United States a limitless number of
reform organizations and special-interest organizations of unending
They will range all the way from those which claim to
variety.
be purely motived by public
spirit to
those which do not even
attempt to disguise rank selfishness, but each and every one of
them
is
an
interest organization of a representative character.
We may find a protectionist league, financed by certain industries

and representing not merely those
Now
interests.
it
many related
now defendpress, now ope-
industries but
will be agitating for
new
legislation,
now working through the

rating on party organizations, and now on constituted legislative
bodies.
Its technique may be as various as the situations it is
compelled to face. It may be a joke at one time and a power at
ing achieved legislation,
But always and all the time it gets its value and its
meaning in the process from the whole set of groupings with which
it must be brought into relation.
A free-trade league may be
worked out similarly on its side with reference to the groupings
another.
it
represents
and the character
of the given oppositions in the
political field.
Or we may look at a civil-service-reform organization. Its

members may be short and its financial strength limited,
but it represents an interest grouping among the population which
roster of
is
injured by the particular "abuses" of the government which
have called the organization into being for the attack upon them.
Its fight
is
the fight of the strength behind
be brought to bear, and

it
its
success depends
it
as that strength can
on the amount
can develop as against the power opposed
times and places of bringing

reality of its contention
its
to
it,
of
power
allowing for
pressure to bear and proving the
by the practical
test.

TIIK PROCKSS
432
Another
American
for
illustration
cities
the organization
is
we now
information about public
just the strength of the
behind tliem, and of the recognized need they
to
officials,
body
fill,
of voters
which
is
the
Certain peculiarities of our electoral system furnish
thing.
and the cause for their existence. Their

all the way from early disappearance
at once the opportunity
which
future,
many
about members of legislative bodies, to the voters.
These organizations have
same
find in
and on the point of being imitated at Washington
the supply of specific
especially
OF GOVERNMENT
may
range
development into recognized structures of government, will
depend exclusively on the subsidence or increase

and
tlie
of the
only
way
group
Again we
to get a solid basis for
interests involved
on
work
is
Many
ing poorly.
planned to
to such
assist
of the government, where,
"citizens' associations" in the
Perhaps
need,
by the analysis
to peculiarities of party rule or to other reasons,
are in point.
this
the situation.
find semi-political organizations
or supplement the administrative
owing
judgment
all sides of
of
it is
work-
United States
such cases every director or contributor
in
an association may think himself participating
have no reason whatever to
feel like entering
solely out
and perhaps we may
of a disinterested regard for public welfare,
a denial, yet neverthe-
we can analyze the group need, the representative character

of the organization and its leadership, and usually we can find that
the men most prominent in the leadership belong to some group
tliat has a specially marked interest.
An examination of the
less
incidental
American
semi-political
cities
activities
would serve
of
real-estate
to bring out the
boards in big
point with great
clearness.
Still
more
striking
is
the organization which at times can be
found which produces what one

legislatures.
sented,
when
initiative
When
there
is
may
almost describe as substitute
some neglected
interest to
the legislature as organized does not deal
with such matters,
organization can be
founda
when a
point
be repre-
on
its o\\ti
point of support in party
let
us say of indifference, at
which nevertheless the ear of some powerful boss can be obtained

a purely voluntary organization
may
be formed,
may work
out

legislation,
for
mere
These
and may hand
433
over completed to the legislature
it
ratification.
taken from a
illustrations will suffice, albeit they are all
single country,
association
and
and
that a country in
free speech are
which the
rights of free
guaranteed by law.
The
legal
guarantees, important as they are from a technical standpoint,
do not produce any vital difference in the human process. They

simply describe and help to maintain the group process as it is
actually proceeding.
I have not found it necessary to emphasize
them
for the simple reason that I
have been giving a more adequate
description than they give to the very facts they indicate.
As
for other countries
only to be added that the particular
it is
forms of voluntary semi-political organization as distinct from

party will depend on the group conditions and group organization
of the time
and
place.
Where
the government
is
operated through
groups, in the special political sense, as in France, instead of
through parties of the American type, some of these voluntary

organizations
may appear
as
government has become an

tions
may
their
weapon.
arise in
passes through a
forms
such group parties.
Where
tremendous vigor with terrorism perhaps as
Wlicre the bulk of the representative
monarch instead
will appear.
the
atrocity, the semi-political organiza-
The
of the facts of the time
varieties
and
place.
of
process
through an assembly, special
must be studied by the analysis
CHAPTER XIX
THE GRADATION OF THE GROUPS
It
lime
is
now
to state in a
somewhat more systematic form
the relationship between the various grades of groups, to which I

have attempted to reduce the social process in the preceding
And
chapters.
must
yet I
much
attempting so
first
make
it
emphatic that
to get results as to indicate
am
not
methods, and
do not regard the extent of my study of the widely scattered

facts of government as great enough to warrant me in being dogmatic about the exact number of varieties or even the typical
that I
So far as a scheme of group relations
relationships of groupings.
is
put forth in this chapter
it
has no pretense to be more than
tentative.
Tracing the thread back to the deep-lying interest groups
which we
find given in the population at
have tried to show
place, I
how
each particular time and
the various other groups
which
attention most prominently on the surface of the govern-
attract
mental process can be adequately interpreted only by locating

their
quality with reference
exact representative
fundamental
interest
groups.
group has been traced along two general
found
in
groups
two general types

the other
may
to
the
more
This representation of group by

lines, that is, it
has been
one of these has been called discussion
best be described
by the term organization
groups.
If I
have made no attempt to define these two types of groups
sharply,
it is
because,
first
of
all,
there
between them; and, secondly, because
is
no sharp boundary
my
line
purpose in this work
definition.
show how both types of groups are functioning together

set up any special line of distinction by
Such distinctions by definition will inevitably be made
from time
to time for special
is
in
rather to
one system, than to
investigations;
and they
purposes in connection with special
will not only be useful but absolutely
434
GRADATION OF THE GROUPS

essential tools
useful, however, only so long as the special purposes
of the definitions are kept in
Tliere
435
view as they are used.
of course, organization in the simplest discussion,
is,
and discussion
We
in the farthest stages of organization.
might
picture the process as a flowing stream in which a perpendicular
would represent the discussion phase and a horizontal

Sometimes passing through
cross-section
cross-section the organization phase.
a narrow channel we have a very deep narrow stream, and the

perpendicular
cross-section
seems
the
discussion
be
to
the
whole nature of the happening; again the stream spreads out on a

broad
level surface,
and the organization phase seems
so complete
that the perpendicular aspect, the discussion, seems negligible.
But such a picture
is
it
may
We
have
exceedingly crude, however well
serve to bring out this one aspect of the relationship.
not a single flowing stream, but a mass of myriads of currents,
than liquid, and leaving thousand-fold shapes and
plastic rather
forms both of discussion and organization differentiated along
its
course.
There
one point of view as to the relation between the
is
dis-
cussion and the organization phases which tempts the investigator

at almost every step, because of
that
ease;
the
is,
process
docs indeed
its
appearance of simplicity and
to assign to discussion
an intermediate position
between "conditions" and "action."
mean some advance
To do
in
this
over an interpretation which
places the initiative in thinking, or in the scries of thought develop-
ment but it does not allow at all for the richness of the development on the discussion side. We find there a bewildering wonderland of theory and dreaming, of exhortation and tirade, of fact and
;
fiction,
every
men
which
in
asserting
bit of
it
itself to
it
arises,
reflecting
something of the living world of
and nearly every
be the center of the
bit of
human
it
presumptuously
universe,
if
not of a
more than human universe. We must find a way to follow the trains
of struggle and development through this mass, and to test what
part
lies
near the heart of the process reflecting there the strongest
pressures,
and what part
indeed but a flash and
reflects
glitter far
but subsidiary currents or
out upon the surface.
is
436
vvc have somewhat

They cannot be placed offhand
With the organization groupmgs

observations to make.
We may
of the process posterior to discussion.
the
same
as stages
find organization
highly developed that has not gone through differentiated discus-
on any wide scale; we
sion group process

of this kind
coming, so
it
may
find small groups
seems, directly out of the lower-lying
and we may find organizahave been cast up on shore by the continuing

they are little more than empty shells of past
groups without intermediate stages;

tion groups that
process, so that
For
forces.
all of these
things allowance
must be made.
So far as we find organization groups and discussion groups

identified with
one another in great part, we must be able to get
the representativeness of each
worked out
in
terms of the underlying
groups and the representativeness of each also in terms of the
With
other.
this achieved,
we can obtain a balance which
will
keep us from being led astray by the sweeping pretenses to domi-
nance of any one aspect of the process.

Let us begin with the discussion groups.
theory,
some
definite
programmes
Some
will
be abstract
appear as emotional propaganda, some as
will
of action.
specialized discussion
senting, or in other
Each
group with
its
of
them
words leading, a group
tion or a set of such interests.
will reveal to us a
leadership, the whole repreinterest of the popula-
convenient illustration
is
social-
The catchword socialism stands for a very large number of

groupings which come to us in a confused throng when we first
begin to make the analysis. We find, far out at the extreme, a
ism.
theoretical discussion group, setting forth a theoretical socialism
A little farther in toward the center

dozen or so theoretical socialisms much more special in
form they assume and in the particular phase of social life they
in a highly generalized form.
half a
lie
tlie
Here Marxian socialism
reflect.
Christian
a
little
socialism
farther in,
as another,
may
serve as one example, with
contrasted
in
character.
Still
and we come
to socialisms even more specific,

with the center of emphasis directed on different phases of the
process.
Here we have marked nationality and industrial group

And
parties in great variety.

activity,
we find socialist political

we find many special lines of
and even laws and institutions,
plainly in view;
characteristics
programmes,
437
also
finally
policies,
which, whether with the catchword socialism in evidence or not,
we have
phenomena.
to bring into relation with the other socialist
This mere attempt
to
list
phenomena shows
socialist
at
once
how
discussion and organization activities pass over into each other
by endless imperceptible gradations.

In our most outlying region of pure theory we might
human"
certain "universal
as put forth
representation;
would pretend
to represent
that
is,
find a
the socialism
human group
activity
detachable from limitations of time and place or at least with no

further limitations than the last 500 years of Europe, with America,
and a
Australia,
small group of
of Asia aggregated to
little
men
it.
There we
reflecting or leading in a very
find a
vague way a
very wide group interest of presumably a very large proportion of
human
and simple, the

form as any
abstracted idea business could be.
But we should nowhere find
marked evidences of force, of pressure there would be no adjustments under way in which we could see this group directly involved,
the
beings.
discussion group
is
Stating
as idea pure
itself
worked up in as
vivid or convincing a
or for which this group stood in a clearly representative relation.
We
should be compelled to regard
it
on the very proofs that we
gathered, as something tossed off to one side, as poorly representative of the
groupings that are counting in the governing process,
as a bit of decoration rather than as
moving
As we move inward toward

theories,
more
an important part
we
get a chance to state
more specialized socialistic

them in terms of groups much
the
limited' in character, but nearer to the
manifestly counting in the process.
We
Marx's writings, for example, the
specific
interests
of the
process.
of the proletariat
which they represent.
We
groupings that are
can read right out of
group
interests
the
under certain conditions, for example

find the statement of these interests,
however, one which docs not sufficiently allow for the pressures
against
them
am,
of
course,
not talking of the validity of
TRCJCKSS
rilK
438
arguments, but of
llif
Or GOVERNMENT
exact place which theory of this sort holds
as ^rouj) representative in the actually given historical process.
Broader though the leadership group may be, the represented

group is still vague, inefTective, impotent.
Move
greater specification,
finfl still
The
tion of interests.
not
programmes
more definite representaor propaganda,
as j)articipating in government, but as
and we
moment
next to socialist parties, considered for the
still
pressures represented are easily discoverable
and to some extent capable of exact estimate.

the opposition pressures are in fact, whether
At the same time

in so
many words
or not, allowed for in the group theory.
Taking
these parties close in to action, that
moment
the
we
find the
is,
passing over for
phase of organization rather than discussion,
to the
programmes
still
more
we find the opposition

and we are able to locate the
specific,
pressures ver>' accurately estimated,
represented group interests almost entirely in powerful present-
The
day pressures.
process
itself is
well in harness,
existing interests
is
Finally, taking
may
verbiage here
most extremely "pure theory"
first
be wilder than in the
mentioned above, but the
and the representation
of actually
vastly truer.
programmes and
monly regard as related
kind we comprogrammes and policies
policies of the
to these socialist
even when the express declaration of faith in socialism
wc
last
the
is
absent,
same kind that the socialism in the

form mentioned above had been representing, working along
same lines, without the particular kind of discussion-group
group
find
representation
countn,-
interests of the
which in other countries or other parts of the
was intermediate
in their process.
\V1ien the most extremely "theoretical" groups claim to exercise
any dominating influence over the more practical discussion groups

or over any part of the social process, they can do it only on the
basis of a theory which is merely an uncouth importation from
crude
individual
psychology.
There
is
absolutely
nothing in
the facts of social activity as given us to justify their claims to be
the controlling elements in the situation.

justify the assertion that the
complex
There
is
social situation
nothing to
can best be

Straightened out by working dowTi into
On
or
the other hand,
when
it
from
439
their point of view.
the most immediately practical policies
programmes claim dominance we need not delay more than an

meaning and
instant in order to recognize that they have their

value, such as
it
is,
only within the closely restricted limits of the
particular situation in which they are working.
It is
always a
question needing measurement and proof, as to just what value,

what influence, any one of the phases of the discussion has for
or upon any of the other phases; and such values can only be
determined by reducing
all
phases to terms of the underlying
interests.
Turning our attention now to the organization groups, the

main types will at once be recalled, since in the discussion of the
various agencies of government we have had specimen groups of
kind primarily in view
this
way
the
all
along.
We
find here
two
general varieties of representation, one in which the opposed

|
groups reach adjustment through a single agent, the other in which

they have different agents
But
struggle of their o^vn.
who mediate
by a smaller
cut across by another
the struggle
this distinction is
distinction of even greater importance, namely, the extent in
the groups are consolidated into set classes or are found in
There
freely shifting forms.
is
either variety of representation
which
more
nothing inherently "good" in
and the success with which
either
functions will depend on the given group and class conditions.
army holding
despot with his
the balance between a
number
of provinces plays the part of a mediator, often in a highly useful
So also
way.
ments
is
may the
like those of the
president or other chief executive in govern-
United States.
His strength at each
moment
the strength of the great, shifting complexes of groups that
support him.
representative assembly
is
typical of the second
variety of representation, especially as one finds

like
France or Switzerland.
may become
But
the instrument of class
sentative assembly.
it
in countries
an individual as ruler
dominance, so may a repre-
just as
Sometimes we may have the assembly in two
branches, each a class instrument.
Sometimes, indeed, we have the
440
no other capacity than as
asscmljly .-ippcaring in
class
who
wc may have a
single individual,
whether despot or constitutional
ruler, given strength either as class leader or as
a class-ridden assembly.
that have been discussed
leader
and again
himself a class representative;
against a ruler
is
mediator against
The various agencies of government

have shown these forms of representation
in all varieties of intermixture.
Into the matter of types of class formation I have not thought

it
necessary to go for present purposes.
series:
class.
caste,
Hereditary membership
making such
is
one of the
tests that is
is
another
be a solidification of interest in fixed
the use of the general
out of which class
term
class, as
phenomena
used in
and the pos-
But even without

in law, there
forms such as to justify
opposed to the freer groupings
crystallize themselves.
purpose here I have been able to set

off
test.
and without formal advantages
hereditary affiliation,
phenomena
Some wTiters give us a

make it caste, order,
distinctions for special investigations,
session of special legal privileges
may
others
party;
trade,
class,
all
For
my
the difTerent kinds of class
under the one name, and use group as the more
comprehensive term, embracing
class,
but specially applicable
and concentrated phenomena.

In connection with both the discussion and the organization
groups, one finds the personality groups, which are the outgrowths
of established leadership.
A leader once placed wiU gather a
foUowing around him which will stick to him either on the discussion level or on the organization level within certain limits set by
to the less fixed
the adequacy of his representation of their interests in the past.

That is, as a labor-saving device, the line of action in question
will be tested by the indorsement of the trusted leader.
The
leader
may
carry his following into defeat in this way, but that
very fact helps to define the limits of the sweep of groupings of

this type.
With organization groups, just as with discussion groups, the

most pretentious phases are not necessarily the ones to which the
most unportance must be attributed. They are not necessarily
the ones which best express the underlying interests.
The gleam-
441
may or may not wield the full

weight of huge social pressures. It may be the agency for augmenting the strength of its subordinates, or it may do httle more
ing tip of a governmental structure
than label the strengths which those subordinates employ.

is
no
rule of
There
thumb.
Neither the discussion nor the organization groups can be
Neither can be
interpreted except in terms of lower-lying groups.
found
in
to the
government out of relation
other,
though the
importance of the one
or of the other at various stages of the
process differs greatly.
Always they shade into each other without

any remaining reason for hold-
sharp boundaries.
Is there, then,
ing them in fundamental opposition to one another, not as merely
methods or elements
different varieties of activity, but as social
which arc qualitatively unlike
monarchy who
sees his king ride
The
think not.
by may
citizen of a
himself
feel
in the
presence of a great power, outside of him, entirely independent of
The man busy
him, above him.

of the time
may
in
one of the discussion
look upon ideas as masterly realities
But neither ideas nor monarch have any power or

always the activity of
men
self -existing.
reality apart
and
their representation or reflection of the social life;

is
activities
from
social life
in masses.
Both discussion groups and organization groups are forms of

the organization of social
tion,
life
in a wider sense of the
and they show similar functional
ship.
Both have
their set, habitual phases.
residual group aspect which
Both show the phenomena

with "tyranny," and in
lôth,
under way, that movement
we may
is
Both have a certain
call their
of survivals.
word organiza-
Both have leader-
aspects.
"o^vn interest."
Both may be charged
when a movement
for "liberty"
is
a movement of underlying interests
which are seeking better expression for themselves.
to use another term

underlying
Idea activities
moment
in place of discussion
groups
and so do government activities. Both are differentiated structures through which

the interests work.
Both are agencies for some of these underlying
for the
^represent
interests as they strike at others.
interests,
Neither ideas nor goveroments
rHK I'ROCESS OF GOVERNMENT
442
limiud imnK'diatc statement
in their
reflect fully the
whole situation.
till
they have Vjeen
functioned in the social process; and to function
them means to
them
Tluy eannot
Ix'
understood for what they are
reduce them to terms of the underlying interests which give
meaning and value.

Not only are discussion groups and organization groups both
technique for the underlying interests, but within them we find
and
their strength
many forms
their social
of technique
which shade into each other throughout
In the older fighting, soldiers might sing
both kinds of groups.
as they went into battle, or
The
colors.
to
points
officer
might go ahead waving the
singing and the officer illustrate the technical
the representative
and
an
They
groups.
form them solidly for the

and arousing enthusiasm.
serve to crystallize
of
by providing rallying
struggle,
For
work
interests,
all that, it is
men
the
as
organized behind the singing, the cheering, and the colors that do
the fighting
and get the
]SIuscle is
results.
one form of technique for the groups, deception
another, corruption
is
another;
tools of
be found.
tools for trickery also are to
is
and
Oratory and argument
war
fortify muscles,
count as technical agencies at their proper stages in governmental
development.
needs until
it
Any such agency is employed where it answers to

becomes a nuisance and is suppressed. Corruption
as a technical
agency
down when
put
is
population powerful enough to put
it
hurts groups of the
down.
Again, the use of

argument, of reasoning, whether in the form of clamor or of dogmatism,
is
technique which for
The
violence or corruption.
itself
it
is
no more
bully thinks his
argument; and so the logician his
logic.
fist
The
than
justified
is
an unanswerable
logic
may
easily
btxome as great a pest and nuisance in a society as the bribes or

blows, in which case it will tend to the same fate.
The man who
tends to give final reality to his generalizations, his individualism,
his anti-plutocracy,
or
what
group adjustment just as

last
his
technique
suppressed.
There
is
is
not,
may
made a
may roughen
the
the
process of
bully or bribe-giver,
till
content of group opposition
psychic process in
SN-stematized theories about society
all social
at
and
technique, but
do not monopolize
it
or even

offer the highest
form
of
it.
The
theories
443
do not give
of necessity
a better clue to the social process than would bare blows.
As between discussion and organization phases the representano more complex or mystical than is, for example,
tive relation is
the representative relation between written letters and vocal sounds.
We
have
systems there, each of them having
tvvo
its
value in terms
both of them activities which arc socially organized
of the other;
and systematized, and which may in extreme cases reach adjustment within the system through differentiated agencies of control
All of the groups, whether underlying interests,
of their own.
or discussion groups, or organization groups, have values in terms
of each other, just as have the colors in a painting, or the sounds
No
in music.
each gets
its
that does not have
We
no sound
color for itself alone,
meaning from
have next
all.
meaning
its
to ask
how
There
to
far
we
the
Of course my whole
are justified in attributing

their
own
over and beyond
discussion groups or to the
organization groups looked on for the
moment independently by
on such a point as
that the question can only be answered in each case or in
themselves.
this is
for itself alone, but
not a bit of the process
in terms of the other parts.
an independent influence, a pressure of

the represented pressures,
is
attitude
set of cases by careful and exact analysis of the given facts.

But there are nevertheless certain observations that may be made.
each
Let
me
first call
attention to certain exaggerations, or at least
to certain shades of overemphasis, in various earlier chapters of

this
book.
In Part
I,
was engaged
in attacking the feelings
ideas in their arrogation of independent existence
power.
In so far there was no exaggeration.
But
and
and causal
in practice
those feelings and ideas are far from being held off in any such
independence.
They
are
part of the social activity.
made use of to indicate a very important

And if my hne of criticism should be
applied literally to this activity, there would be an exaggeration in

its
statement.
The
discussion activities, in other words, would
need more recognition than seemingly had been allowed them

there.
Later, in
my
description of the pressures of the under-
444
lying interests as they act through the executive

T
tin-
])ut
and
legislature,
emi)hasis continually on these underlying pressures,
merely recogni/jng from time to time that a bureaucracy or an
army
or a royal family
was an
interest
might have
group in
own
and similarly
That was done
itself,
interest.
that a legislature
because these bodies from the ordinary point of view get immensely
its
exaggerated emphasis as independent forces, and

to
break
down
my
object
that independent position attributed to them,
was
and
show them in their full representative aspect. On the other

hand, when wc came to the judiciary I went twice out of my way
to show that the judiciary might be looked on from one point of
to
view as having an interest of

case, so far as
it
its
The overemphasis
own.
in this
was an overemphasis, was again employed
the very purpose of restoring the balance of emphasis.
and in the electorate and semi-political groupings, we got
parties,
much
If
for
In the
closer to a balanced statement of the
we
recognize
first
two aspects.
now, to correct these exaggerations, we must
start out,
of all that all these discussion groups
tion groups are themselves activities,
and organiza-
themselves interests, and
moving society,
At times I
have spoken of these activities, the discussion and organization
groups, as having their "own interest;" and at other times I
have spoken of the value that must be attributed to them as
that therefore they are themselves pressures in the
however
" technique."
In the
their pressures
trivial
first
The difference
we identify
case
of persons in
whom
second case we refer
it is
it
may sometimes
here
is
be.
clearly one of point of view.
the activity with the particular set
found in
its
differentiated form;
to the represented groups,
in the
but as a "plus,"
a heightening of their activity, an increased effectiveness.
The term "own

two ways.
Either
of the individuals
interest" here
may indicate
who compose
it
may
again be understood in
a specialized underlying interest
the group in question
so,
for
instance, the " selfish " personal interests of

his
henchmen
group
or
to persist,
i.
it
may
e., its
gpvemmental form.
a despot or of a boss and

mean the tendency of the representative
inertia,
whether the case
As an underl}dng
is
of a beHef or
interest, the
"own
inter-

est" must take
its
its
place with
due strength, and
to persist
it
the other underlying interests at
all
As a tendency
does not concern us here.
we must remember
that
it is
continuously sustained by
But
the complex of underlying groups.
this
last
statement
analysis, the nearer
we come
is
The under-
with reference to the "plus as technique."
vital also
lying groups themselves create this technique,
push the
445
and the farther we
to stating the technique,
not as a technical instrument, a tool apart from the hand, but as

the functioning phase of tool-in-hand at work.
The problem we have
here
not the same as that which arises
is
out of a contrast between the individual and the institution, which

is
For us both the individual and the institution
so often discussed.
have been absorbed into social groups, that

groups.
We
have
of organization,
to deal with, not
is,
restated as social
some mysterious "power"
but the actual process through representative
organization groups and representative discussion groups.

I
am
inclined to think that
the whole process could be
which we could see the
a complete enough analysis of
if
made we
could attain a point of view at
activity of all these discussion
and organiza-
tion groups so completely absorbed into the represented interests,
that
we should no longer
feel
ourselves under the necessity of
But
attributing any independent activity to them.
inclined to think that the point of view

practically be
done
our attainment.
is
all
comes back
we must push our
also
could
to
what
have repeatedly
analysis to the limit of our means,
and then allow only what remainder of pressure there
"own
am
this
very far indeed beyond the possibilities of
So that it
said before, that
from which
is
to the
interest" of the organization or discussion group, or to
its
"plus as technique."
In different
societies, societies
lying interest-group formations,
with different types of under-
we
shall find the relative
impor-
tance to be attributed to discussion and organization groups varying

greatly; but in
no society can wc
find these
more
determining the fate of the underlying groups.

I
my opinion always
that we already are able
know most about
on
fuller
knowledge
it is
superficial
groups
In the societies
subject to revision
to
push the analysis
446
far
enough
alTccted
to justify us in saying that the lower-lying
groups are
by the discussion groups only in very short swings and in
and that they are affected by organization groups

longer swings and more pronouncedly; but that both
limited ways;
in slightly
discussion and organization groups yield to the lower-lying groups
with surprising rapidity

pressures takes place.
when
And
the actual change in the balance of
this explains
why
it is
that
no recon-
struction of society in terms of the life-history of ideas, or of the

life-history of
governmental forms, can have more than a crude
prchminary descriptive value.
CHAPTER XX
REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT, DEMOCRACY, AND CONTROL BY "THE PEOPLE"
There is a theory I do not know how far back it can be traced
that
all acts
of
government ought
cold reasoning, and that the

of the legislator
We may
certainly
from the
say that this

is
to
maximum
be the product of
clear,
of detachment on the part
interests at stake will get the best results.
"the" theory
is
of political science, as
it
the professed point of view of most criticisms of govern-
ment and of the theoretical statement of most schemes of reform

which do not get into too close contact with immediate apphcation.
According to it every point at which government gets away
from the purest and freest reasoning is an abnormal point. According to it also the standards of justice and desirability are matters
which reason alone,
if left
I will not say anything

for unless
my
undisturbed, can solve.
more about
the psychology of this theory,
previous chapters have completely miscarried
odowith
powerful p^roup pressures which
it
we have
should be clear enough by this time that i n government
may perhaps
at times
adjust th emselves through differen tiated reasonin g processes , but

\giich
adjust themselves likewise through man}- o ther processes ,
and which, through whatever proc esses they arc workin g, form the
very fle sh and blood of all that is happening.
It is these group
pressures, indeed, that not only
make but
also maintain in value
the very standards of justice, truth, or what not that reason
claim to use as
its
may
guides.
I do, however, wish to use this theory as
we meet
it
in con-
nection with American government to introduce what I have to
say in greater detail than heretofore about representative govern-
ment, democracy, and the whole topic of the control of govern-
ment by "the people." Concretely, one may recall

plan of the American Constitution for the election of
447
first
of
all
the
the president,
how
OF GOVERNMENT
TIIK PROCESS
448
men were
trusted
be chosen in the states,
to
how
these were
meetings by states, where they would not
to pet together in small
be subject to stampeding, and were to cast their votes for the best
man of the country for president; also how this thing never hapbut instead
j)cni(l.
how
the underlying interests of the country
upon
represented in the parties seized

ings and whirled them out of the
them according
Our
early
way
these
little
electoral gather-
like feathers, playing
through
to their will.
constitutional
constituted of "able
conventions were supposed
men who
listened to thoughtful
to
be
arguments
and were themselves influenced by the authority of their leaders."

There it was supposed that "the councils of the wise prevailed
over the prepossessions of the multitude."
American
the
often disparaged in contrast with the
lack of wise reasoning
made
is
Now, we know where
may come
works
in a
the
group which
is
mark
are
their
of their degeneracy.
where the reasoners are united
functioning in such
marked opposition
to
ihe various reflections of the

become but as trifling oppositions
that
process through the various heads

in
good old times, and
form through w^hich government
It is
is.
some other group or groups
quoting from
legislatures
that the formal reasoning process
it is
to the front as the
as technique, that
am
Our modern
Commonwealth.
comparison with the greater opposition of the group
to other
groups: the marked opposition here referring not to verbal state-
ments nor
to the
advanced stage of the pending adjustment, but
to the
underlying elements of the conflict.
We know
also that, with the
new oppositions
\'ictorious
will
adjustment of one such opposition,

form within the bosom of the, let us say,
group, and that the conditions for the whole group, as
spht up on
new
lines,
will cease to
reasoning process.
We
which previously in
their
selves
be favorable to the formal
find, indeed, the
same
interest groupings,
subdued form might have adjusted them-
through the reasoning process,
now
forcing
themselves
more vehemently forward, and refusing to be content with compromise of that kind, insisting on showing their full strength by
all the technical means which the prevailing habits of the time
CONTROL BY "THE PEOPLE"
449
In the United States we obsenê every day the
permit to them.
forces adjusting themselves in our legislative bodies

officials in
way
in
and
in other
which argument pure and simple in
its
own
right
holds a very subordinate position, confined indeed in the
main
to
minor groupal adjustments inside the main con-
the
tending groups.
Evidently then on the very face of the facts this pure-reasoning

test is
not a good test for representative government or democracy;
nor docs
its
presence or absence throw any great light on the extent
of popular control of government, either in the
when
good or in the bad
Conwas not a decrease

but an increase in representative government and in democracy,
whichever one of these vague terms one uses for the moment.
Not until the party and convention system had taken the presisense.
Certainly
stitution
the presidential electoral system of the
was overthrown
dency under the present
in this country there
fairly
complete control did the presidency
become "the people's office." At present, while our legislatures

are in the main working poorly, so that any kind of an interest with
peculiar technique giving
results
from the
it
undue proportional strength can get
legislatures,
these bodies are catholic in their
yielding to such pressures, caring not where they
come from, so
long as they are strong enough, or in other words, not resisting in
one direction more than in another, provided the pressure
They
people" do not get their desired results with
is
applied.
are representative bodies in their way, even though "the
am
sufficient frequency.
not going to discuss definitions of representative govern-
ment nor of democracy, inasmuch as most of those definitions

belong on a discussion level very remote from the actually moving
that " theoretical "
They
reflect
way discussed
something of the process in
in the preceding chapter, but they
stand too far out from the heart of things to count for
such work as
this.
There
is
much
in
one contrast, that between the repre-
sentative and the delegate, however, to which further consideration
should
by
all
l)e
These two words are not used in the same way

representative with some standing for what others
given.
writers,
IK
45
mean by
dclrjâlc,
but that ntcd not confuse us here.
in previous cha[)t(.TS
general sense, assimilating

cases in which
all
myself
have used the word "represent" in a most

it
and allowing
to "reflect,"
groups functioned through a
it
to cover
common
organ,
as well as those in which a complex agency contained different

individual members for different groups; including therefore cases
of personal discretion as well as of differentiated representation.
was most important for me to emphasize

In what is immediately to
the similarities, not the differences.
follow I shall use representative in a much more conventional
That was because
it
sense.
Now
in this
He
sentative.
more conventional sense a monarch

is
The
a ruler.
president
is
is
not a repre-
not a representative,
him acting as part of the law-making body

House or Senate and House. Then he may be
a representative of a certain group or set of groups which somehow
have been left for the time being and on the given show of facts
except where
we
find
against Senate or
unrepresented in either or both houses.

jtive
we have
fundamental, has one
'
To
catch our representa-
got to look where one group of people, formal or
member in some common body, and other

And here we may find that what we
groups have other members.

really
have
is
not a representative, but a delegate.
man who is intrusted

who have chosen him, in such
manner as he sees fit. A delegate is supposed to be a man who
has received definite instructions from his electors and who is
The
representative
is
supposed to be a
\^^th discretion to act for
those
authorized to act only in accordance therewith.
It is
comparatively
easy to find an illustration of the delegate, as in the

the Bundesrat of the
such as he
is
supposed to be,
his Umitations the
the
first
German Empire, but your

is
hard indeed to find
diplomat of pretelegraph days
place, the representative is
members
of
representative,
though within
will servê.
In
commissioned not for any
purpose whatever, but to act within the Hmits of a definite system.
He
is limital by his very function.

In the next place, he has
probably been chosen by his electorate or by the appointing power
in competition with some other candidate, and in the competition
451
on certain matters has been brought out before the

power and to some extent passed upon
his attitude
electorate or the appointing
by
he
it
there
more
is
whereby he
is
hmited again.
by
expressly limited
If
in contact with his constituents
from time
probably be affected so that
will
number
by
his constituents
to their delegate.
to
If it
do with the
problem in
all
Now, on
its
is
a party member,
by being
Also,
to time, his action will
be reduced to one of a small
we may
on some one or more
find
him swayed
entirely
and reducing himself
issues
were a question of formal law, the repre-
and the delegate could
sentative
have
it
Finally
of possibihties.
he
that allegiance.
easily
But we
be distinguished.
practical process
and so we must face the
fluidity.
the basis of the theory to which I gave attention at
much
the opening of this chapter, one hears
criticism of the horrors
from the reduction of wise, intelligent, and able

representatives to mere delegates.
A writer like Ostrogorski will
which
result
grieve his heart out over
it,
and even one
deplore such a development.
which
this
lar theory
tendency per
which
sets
se
But
like
Bryce
will frequently
do not know any
basis
on
can be deplored save that of the particu-
up the
representative function in
its
extreme
abstract form as the ideal and standard of government.
And
since the gradations between the representative
function are so
many and
so fine, and since,
finds a representative acting fully
up
and the delegate

further, one nowhere
to the idea of the
word, I do
how any such general line of criticism or judgment can be

held valid.
Of course, such expressions "represent" something
themselves.
They are used to indicate or label some group evil
from the critic's point of view. The trouble with them is that
not see
they do not indicate the large situation with sufficient accuracy;

that they are rather embroideries
stantial reflections of the process.
on the talk
When
even so
and so admirable a statesman as Senator Hoar

in his autobiography, " I
he
is
level
than sub-
fine
a character
says, as
have always voted and spoken as
he says
ought,"
not really characterizing his activity, but inerely giving
it
conventional and inadequate statement.
When
it
is
said of political parties that they are
no longer
rHK PROCESS OF
452
instruments of public
l)ut
\)()\ky,
OOVERNMENT
instead are this, that, or the
otluT non-reusoninf^ ck'ment in the government, the

tion in the view-point is to
be noted.
Morley in
same
limita-
his essay
"On
Compromise" spoke of the increasing prevalence of "the slovenly

willingness to hold two contradictory propositions at one and the
same time," and I imagine there never has been or will be a time
when critics with the superciliously intellectual point of view of
Morley will not Unci the same defect in the world to bewail. To
speak in terms of progress for the moment, it would surely be an
advance
policies,
to
the
if
drop
parties should
their set, formal, logically coherent
providing that thereby they gave more efficient expression
illustrations
they
represent.
Along with these
might be mentioned the recent writer on the American
Constitution,
who
pointed proudly to "the idea of representative
own power," thereby giving

common point of view. But
government growing by
its
exception-
ally naive expression to
his super-
ficiality
It is
speaks for
itself.
necessary then in considering representative government,
or democracy, not only past or present, but future as well, to consider
it
in terms of the various
substance.
It is useless to
group pressures that form
add on a few theoretical standards, and then try to get the

straightened out.
its
pause with some formal definitions,
Instead, at
facts
every stage these forms must be
considered as they are used by the pressures.
As substance,
rather than process, they can be taken into account only so far
as
we gain
positive
knowledge that they
are, in the
given state of
the group oppositions, used by certain groups in such a wây that
other groups, reacting against the evil in the situation, are poten-
upon them.
go back over the
analysis of the process as set forth in the chapters on the various
agencies of government.
Merely to recall them is to point out
how the group pressures in the population form themselves on
tially
It
or manifestly tending toward attack
docs not seem to
me
necessar}' here to
the various discussion levels and organization levels, tending always

to express themselves in
both ways or in any way, and actually
expressing themselves to such degrees as the resistance of the
453
Other groups as represented in the government will permit at the
But a
given time.
special reminder
is
desirable of the district
system of representation, which in modern countries as a rule

is
when compared with
highly formal
the substance of the interests
which are striving to exert themselves through it.

In governments like that of the United States we see these
manifold interests gaining representation through
many thousands
of officials in varying degrees of success, beating
down now
narrow sense)
(in the
now and
subsiding
make
officials
to other officials at times in high degree,
again over great areas while "special interests"
special use of officials, rising in other spots to dominate, using
one agency of the government against another,
now
some
into delegate activity, intrusting representative activity
now
with stealth,
with open force, and in general moving along the route of
time with that organized turmoil which
ments are much disturbed.
more
surprise one
Withal,
it
is life
is
where the adjust-
a process which must
for the triffing proportion of physical violence
involved considering the ardent nature of the struggles, than for
any other
We
characteristic.
often hear of "the control of government by the people."
The whole
process
other words,
limited
and
way
is
ffi^st
too deep
the opinion
and not
What
is
is
is
is
But the whole process
of control
but one differentiated agency to represent the process,
most accurate expression
usually
of
it,
at that.
meant by "control by the people"

It is
is
only one
a generalized statement, poorly
representative, indicating certain direct reactions
men
In a
the organization of public opinion,
be stated as the organization of opinion:
of the elements in control.
of
Or, in
control.
a phrasing which once upon a time I would
vital to
at all the
is
it
in the series.
and
Government
control.
might add
indeed
this
have put
is
the organization of forces, of pressures.
is
it
by large masses
against certain smaller masses which, as appears in the w
group oppositions themselves, are controlling the government//

process to an excessive degree.
ever,
on what
These oppositions appear, how-
to use the terminology
of
economic theory
may be
454
margin
called the
why
ment
is
of the
by the
the "control
jx-ople"
is
And
the reason
a poorly representative state-
masses of control are
just because the great underlying
in existence, much deeper and more fundamental

the contest that is being waged on the margin.
as facts than
greater portion of the detail of governmental work, as
The
emboflied especially in the law that
is
being daily sustained,
is
by
of habitual reactions which are adjustments forced
composed
weak interests upon less numerous, but relatively

If there is
to the number of adherents, more intense interests.
an>'thing that could probably be meant by the phrase "control by
And we may even say that
the people " just as it stands, it is this.
large, united
without "control by the people" there would be no government,

save in the cases of subjected peoples under foreign masters, with
assimilation
of
fested
of
advanced.
And even here, unless the one weapon
the ever-drawn sword, such control
is
is,
be
it
remembered, the wider
narrow sense
which
group
the mani-
field of control,
adjustment of group to group, outside the
in the
is
phenomenon.
There
is
little
government
the
interest,
and forming the background
in
Often
developing under some special conditions to an
way through
this outer control before the opera-
government proper are appealed

set that
Part of this
to.
sediment from the process of government
ments so deep
that
government
government are carried on.
processes of
extreme, will give

tions of
of the term,
field of
itself,
field is
involving adjust-
they are dropped from the ordinary wôrk of
the organized government.
All of this extra-governmental adjust-
ment, while forming the background for the government process
and capable
of
of interpretation
our immediate
Now when
field of
by xery similar methods,
is
outside
study.
government, as the representative of the "absent"
or quiescent group interests,

noticeable extent
interests,
is distorted from this function to any

by the concentrated pressures of smaller group
themselves the result of newly opened opportunities
in the social mass,
cry that there
is
and
fails to
respond as
it
should,
we hear
the
need of "control by the people," and we see the

455
formation of a group interest directly aroused in opposition to
And when
the interests which have gained objectionable power.
the agencies through which the "people," or in other words such
group interests, habitually react fail to work smoothly for

them as is the case with the highly organized parties at times
we find the cry for popular control directed against those very
large
The mysticism
The real facts are
agencies.
of "the
alone.
to be
people"
a matter of speech
is
found by us
groups as we
in the
analyze them out, and there only.
That "pure democracy" often heard of in arguments under

similar circumstances and in theories which run to the far extreme
from the moving process, may be mentioned in the same connection.
It is supposed to be a "government by the people"
and irmnediately, but the
directly
at
slightest analysis of the process
any point shows How very poorly representative the phrase
is,
save as a slogan and rallying cry for some particular groups at

special stages of their activity.
and other similar
need the same kind
now we
If
Freedom,
liberty,
independence,
rallying cries in the governmental process all

of interpretation.
take a different point of view and examine the set
structure of control in the organized government, including the
checks and balances of which American political theory has so
much
We
to say,
we
methods.
shall find a great variety of established
have here to do with structures which were
set up,
and which
remain, to prevent special groups, whether "the people" or the

"special interests" of current speech,
power
of functioning
from getting a disproportionate
through the government.
First of all
we
have, of course^ the control of executive by legislature and vice versa,
and the control

"wRich
which
is
of
both by the judiciary.
in the
the state,
United States
and the
local
is
the contml
field,
each of the
a,-control
exerted in three divisions, the federal,
governments.
involved in the establishment of
TShe
Then we have
arranged by separating local from general issues^
Then comes
many independent
the conjjpl
offices in
offices subject directly to the suffrage.
majority vote on a wide suffrage basis

controlling all the agencies mentioned.
may
also be
Again we
added
find
any
Tlie
for
parties,
'PHK TROCESS
456
first
OF GOVPIRNMENT
group representatives, and then as syndicated agencies

from their own level, now
as direct
for group representation, controlling
one,
of
another, sometimes
now
all,
of the
more specialized agencies
government, and at times producing a unification, as well as

more pronounced splitting, between them. There is
at times a
by party
also the control of party
party by a rival party or by

Finally
any party operation.
faction, and, of course, of
rival parties, that
we have
one
being essential in
the control exerted
by groups
expressing themselves through public-opinion activities as these

are practically analyzed
by the controlled agents
And
of their expression.
in the very act
controlling process takes at
all of this
times the appearance of a control of persons
and
at times of the
control of policies, according to the variations of the content that

is
being functioned through the process.
This structural arrangement of government
is
which
that
constitutes representative government, or democracy, whichever term

is
which
Definitions, or rather descriptions,
used.
ments in terms
of the functioning of the
bits of structure, to
state govern-
groups through these
whatever extent or in whatever proportions
they are present, are something that one can depend on far
men, acting in
than on definitions in terms of
artificial
ways under
and depending
artificial conditions,
lity for their
as
it
entirely
on credu-
claim to mirror rightly the tendencies of the process
develops in time.
Besides these elements of such government

into account
we may
also take
various other methods of control which are
forming themselves as structure to some extent in a great
More
countries.
in the
them
of the actual
only as
is
normal
it
once
at
are perhaps
people"
of
which
in the
Lords
We may
is
to
be found
securing their places
It is
no mere accident, but a very
very project of a referendum on ordinary

the
monopoly
United States
in
else,
now
many
group force they have behind them; but
happens.
fact, that the
legislation,
House
of
United States than anyAvhere
on the basis
that
more
artificial
England
for
of
the "friend of the plain
is
put forth coincidentally by the
its
own
ofiicial
purposes.
enumerate here besides the referendum
-in its
various
457
forms, the initiative, the recall, the direct primaries, and perhaps
also proportional representation
and other plans
organization of the suffrage, where
seem
to
work too
This
crudely.
its
to readjust the
and minorities
majorities
latter bit of structure,
proportional
had much
has come
representation, at least in the United States, has never
actual pressure behind
where
it;
it
has been introduced
work
as a bit of the poorly representative
to
be such that they inevitably break
sustaining
"wise
of the
men"
and the group pressures that accompany
government;
seem
it
At any rate
it.
in Illinois
it
down
its
in
use
instead of
one allied scheme has recently
been abandoned, and another seems to be on the point of going, even
though a very
process of constitutional
difficult
This, however,
necessary to that end.

I
as
am
we
perfectly well
in the
name
name
of
be
of control,
democracy, and against them continually

government, with
many
criss-cross
anyway by which
theoretic-
can be shown to be more typical
of either
sides.
ally or otherwise they
will
have arguments made for them con-
of representative
arguments on both
amendment
only incidentally remarked.
aware that these various forms
find tliem developing,
tinually in the
is
But
if
there
is
democracy or representative government, or more
filled
with the
"spirit " of either of these types of government, than are our present
know
systems, I
point can be
how it
know its
not
arguments, and I
made
in
is.
That
is,
know
the logic of the
but I do not
inutility,
know how the

make up
terms of the group interests which
the people.
Group
interests there certainly are
behind
many
of these tend-
and strong ones at that, but they are very concrete, immegroup interests, growing directly out of oppositions which have
encies,
diate
They can be
developed in the developing process.

of
located,
most
them, with great exactness as to their strength and meaning in
the whole given political system.

well
on one theory as on another.
they
commonly
enemies,
siasm, so
of the
is
get
on the discussion
But they can be located as
And
the representation that
level,
whether from friends or
very poor indeed, save as so
much quickening
banded group.
much
noise, so
much enthu-
of the flow of blood in the
members
458
Till':
rkocESS of
government
Tlifsr various tendencies have their usual statement as reform
movements, but
of
them
it
hardly seems necessary to say anything more
that aspect.
in
groupings and
as
There they appear as busy discussion

organization
voluntary
already discussed this process,

is,
and how
and more
and
essential also, to strike
superficial
phenomena
groups,
only note here
down through
but I have
how
easy
it
these specialized
to the underlying forces.
Out of all this mass of phenomena of representative government and democracy it is of course possible to draw off pictures
mirroring, mainly with aesthetic value, the status of a whole nation
as contrasted with the status in other nations, but I
think, there are
much
better
ways
to
do
it
than
am
inclined to
terms of the
in
democracy and representative- government theories: and

while at the
same time retaining the
full
to
do
it,
value of "the people" in
the process.
One might
estimate the
amount
of blocking in the functioning
of the government, the kinds of technique necessary, or at least
tolerated for the operation of several varieties of interests,
and
the extent to which interests are compelled to overstate themselves
on the discussion level while struggling
One might work
to
make
themselves effective.
out a picture of the adjustments,
"normal"
for
the given society, not in terms of a providence that filled every
mouth, nor of a morality projected to ideality from any given

point of view, but in terms of the adjustment of actual strengths
in the given society, in terms of such a process that every interest
forcing itself
beyond the point of endurableness to the remainder

would be checked before its excess had provoked
of the interests
violent reaction.
We
should certainly not find,
that our
own modern
societies
if
we attempted such a
advanced or progressive reported to us in history.

tainly should find, that the relatively perfect
society
was a function not
of
picture,
were the best adjusted, the most
And we
cer-
adjustment of any
some absolutely and independendy
stated characteristic of political structure, but instead, of underlying group conditions, of situations and disturbances of situations,

due
to factors far
upon
down beneath
in special phases
Such picturing
the political level,
from the pohtical
459
however reacted
level.
of society lies very far outside of
my
sphere,
farther even than the examination of the underlying conditions

for this
whole process; but
to the latter I will devote a
graphs in the next chapter, more to show the

outside of, than in any
way
to
field
attempt to occupy
it.
which
few paraI
remain
CHAPTER XXI
THE UNDERLYING CONDITIONS
have
talked
about
repeatedly
"underlying
the
without attempting to specify them systematically.
groups"
conceive
must be taken as they come, in each country

and period as they are there and then found. I do not think they
have as yet been worked out in sufficient detail for many countries
to justify any attempt at a general classification of the types of
that these groups
underlying groups which enter into political

only to show in a general
way some
more by way
tion of these underlying groups,
life.
wish here
of the conditions of the forma-
how
make
of indicating
such matters He outside the scope of this volume, than to
any positive contribution to their understanding.
The
fact
biologically described
man
but he docs not as such, that
is,
is
enter directly into our social studies.

tion
of course, part of our given
without further interpretation,
Where
can be made directly in terms of
within the
field of
call sociology,
the whole interpreta-
vital factors,
we
biology and do not get to anything that
or a phase of sociology, at
There
all.
is
are
still
we can
unques-
on among men in society, as

example under the influence of war and of disease and there
tionably a physical selection going

for
are important facts of physical adaptation,

disease,
which are shown not only in the disappearance of certain
plagues, but also in adaptation

tro])ical
as in resistance to
on the one side
to the perils of
jungle and on the other side to the no less serious perils
to the health
from crowded
city Ufe.
But these things must
be stated as aspects of group activity before they become
all
signifi-
cant for the interpretation of government, or, for that matter, for
any other interpretation of social process. While there is systematized behavior in the
that
animal before there
is
society in the sense of
word which impHes structural arrangement
in a
mass
of
men,
nevertheless with the very simplest differentiation of such activities

460
UNDERLYING CONDITIONS
in the mass,
which
activity in its
beyond
get
and similar
instincts
Here
process.
social
cannot
method
resist the
human
we
beyond the
get
in other words,
we
adequate causes of
factors as
we must
also
groups differentiated in the

I
structure,
itself is social
merely biological description;
461
interpret
in terms of the
material.
temptation to point out that so far from this
of interpretation being in opposition to "natural selection,"
a form of truly natural selection studied under circum-
it is itself
stances
which give
good
peculiarly
opportunities
for
getting
intimate understanding of the process instead of merely sweeping
views of results
and
from the group method of
that, so far
inter-
preting society being liable to criticism from the point of view of
natural selection in the restricted sense of the phrase,
more apt
to a better
comprehension of
There
it.
is
less
much
a representative process
involved in the pressures in animal and vegetable
enough in technique from that
it is
phase of natural selection
to help the students of that
of the social world,
life,
different
which neverthe-
cannot safely be overlooked.
Taking the human being from the biological point of view, we

may admit a substratum of physical race for the groups, so far as
such race facts can be proved to
differences
as
group
or as to differences
societies,
between different elements in one

social interpretation as
whether with reference to
exist;
between different
But they
society.
facts.
all
appear in
have already indicated how
the group factors usually attributed to race are in reality complexes

of
group
and
activities,
them here except
do not need
to say
anything more about
to point out that they rest
on
all
the different
underlying conditions mentioned in this chapter.
Passing
again
we
now from
the biological
of social happenings.
the environment in chap.
ment
man to the
physical environment,
find that this docs not enter as such into the interpretation
as well as the
that includes both.
have here only
apply what I said about
In the group we take up the environ-
vii.
men, the group

Perhaps
said the physical environment
to
is
itself
being formed in a
should best be understood
wav
if
not taken into our study concretely
THE
462
as
so
many
wc
groups,
from men; for
wc do take
do not take
Now,
it
abstractly,
it
way
we observe
moving groups.
i.
it
about,
into account concretely,
conceive that as
abstraction from the living,
But
cows, and other things.
with greater accuracy the other
it
while
insist that,
in the
OF GOVERNMENT
sticks, stones, rivers,
prefer to phrase
and
I'ROCKSS
i.
e.,
c, as lying apart
lying apart
abstracting the physical environment, that
is,
it is
an
looking
at the groups from the point of view of the environment (which

is
^.
permissible merely as a stage in the analysis),
first
examine the environment as a condition of the group formation.

In other words, when we take up a given society for study we may,
to begin with, strive to state the
groups in terms of the different
factors of the physical environment, as far as

out.
Most crudely
power and
we have groups resting on mines, farms,

city lots; we have groups related to steam
to electricity.
We
Deserts and rivers and space

these
all
we do not
to these factors
we can analyze them
put,
fisheries, cattle herds,
have many forms of
itself
count with them
Groups
get so very far.
all
also.
of these.
But with
stated with reference
which in one society appear in sharp opposition
may in another appear as in close co-operation.

The most important of these groups assume wealth forms. We
are but developing our analysis of the groups when we get them
stated as wealth groups.
The capital oppositions come in all
their various historic forms, down to the present-day oppositions
to
'\
we may
each other
which on the discussion

the
symbol
numerous
of
level
monopolize the word capital as
things, actual
and imagined.
of course here considering the groups primarily with a

their
importance in the study of government; and
all
We
are
\dew to
these various
wealth groups are of special importance, because of their liability

to fierce activity
when thrown out
further because of the direct
of
adjustment at any time, and
and indirect technical advantages
the wealthier groups secure; direct advantages being typified best
by corruption, and indirect perhaps by education.

But with these we have by no means come to an end. The
mass of the population, sheer number, taken of course in connection with place
and wealth conditions, has an enormous amount to do
UNDERLYING CONDITIONS
463
group opposition that form themselves and

with the violence of the group struggles and the whole technique
Changes in the mass are of the greatest
of group interaction.
both with the
lines of
importance, and the difference between city and country also

attract attention here.
Again there
is
the technique of industry,
all
the
things from the simplest tool-making of the savage
methods
These
of applied science.
ways
up
of
doing
to the last
things, themselves the products
become so important in the structure of

them off abstractly as we
the society that we
have the preceding factors, and looking upon the group oppositions
from their point of view. They too must be reckoned with in the
of group oppositions,
are justified in setting
analysis.
Also as a special branch of these latter factors there are the
meaiis_^_cpminunicatiwij both the transportation lines and the

organized dissemination of information through the press and other
The
agencies.
story of the trade routes has in recent years been
told, the significance of the
Roman highways has
been pointed out,
and that also of the great rivers of history; and in our own times
we know, every one of us, right from the face of the facts, how
differently we should be grouped, and hence pohtically organized,
in the United States, without our highly developed
We
communication.
methods of
can see how some of the peculiarities
in the
operation of our wide-extended suffrage depend upon such factors,
but
we can
see at the
same time how
these factors themselves are
the outgrowth of underlying group interests
and can only be given
independent attention by abstraction from those
Another consideration
is
the
manner
interests.
of organization of the
underlying factors, considered as apart from their direct organization

is,
with reference to government.
of course, in
An
corporation
industrial
one way the "creature" of law, but more funda-
mentally the tendencies to joint operation in industry are the creators
Organization as
we
in labor unions, the structure, that
is,
of the corporation
tions
and
law
itself.
see
it
in corpora-
of pressures that
have gained a technical method for making themselves industrially
more
effective
must
be taken into account as
we
find
it.
The
464
fjucstion as to
own
how
far
some
groui^s have
had
historically their
organization as separate societies before they have entered
into closer relations to one another in one
common
society is not
of fun(himental ini])ortance, but only one special line of variation

in the
general group process.
do not mean that these are all the factors, that is to say, points
of view, which must be taken into account in the analysis of the
underlying groups. I give them as the great factors which stand
They can be conceived of, and
out most clearly at this moment.
to a considerable extent actually handled, as existing apart from
I
So
government.
ment
of the
far as this
can be done they help us to the
state-
groups which can properly be described as underlying
government.
But
at the
same time
it
must never be forgotten that the groups

government tend to fix themselves in
as they take their place in

their
governmental forms, and that in
as a complex of pressures,
may
way government
this
at times
need to be regarded as
one of the factors in determining the groups which,

studying government,
we must
itself,
when we
are
inevitably at certain stages analyze
out separately as underlying government.
CHAPTER XXII
THE DEVELOPMENT OF GROUP INTERPRETATION
For two reasons
wish
now
to sketch the
development which
the interpretation of society in terms of groups has undergone in

the last generation.
One
book has not permitted
manner
that the
is
of writing in this
sufficient reference to the previous use of
method by different investigators. The other is that this

very method of interpretation is itself a group phenomenon, since
each separate book that has used it is itself a phase of the leaderthe
ship of a discussion group, and each such discussion group

itself
is
representative with greater or less accuracy of wider group
interests.
In discussing the various theories, I shall be able to
indicate in
some
slight
measure the character
which these theories give us

in the
moving system.
of
group
naming
all
and
interests
their places
a question here, once more, not of
It is
complete description, but merely of

pretense of
of the representation
the writers
I make no
named in this
and
illustration,
who
deserve to be
connection, nor of working out thoroughly their connection with

the political process in which they are involved or which they
reflect.
The
Marx.
starting-point for practical purposes
Not
Karl
that the implied use of groups in reasoning about
society begins with

I shall
of course,
is,
him
it is
indeed the body of
speak of that in the next chapter.
all
Nor can
similar views were not explicitly held before him.

that the setting of activity in
the reasoning.
it
be said that
merely
which he was the center threw the
I assert
theory out into unusual distinctness.
With Marx
it
was the "class struggle," a very crude form
group interpretation, but one highly significant
The
cause which Marx

was receiving through
led
its
was
of course a
in
its
of
immediate use.
group cause.
His group
leaders an unusually vehement verbal
expression just at that time.
So vehement was
46s
this expression
>
Tin; I'RocKss
466
that
of-
govkrnmknt
other grûj) opi)Ositions except the one of the proletariat
all
and the masters seemed to sink from view, to be trivial, and so

The ôup was erected in talk into a class; the class'
neglij^'il)le.
and
aj)iHari(l theoretically solid
was
Icadershi])
victory,
to get
descrilx-d
Now Marx and
firm,
members
its
and the whole problem
of
into action at once.
Its
all
millennial terms,
in
was
come
to
forthwith.
were fresh from dalliance with
his friend Engels
Hegel and other similar pleasures of youth, and they promptly

reflected
situation
this
generalized terms along certain very
in
The
interesting theoretical lines.
big group they were helping to
lead, the class of
the proletariat, they erected into a type,
history, they said,
was the struggle
economic character
of the classes.
of the class they led inspired
The
them
at
and
directly
once to a
statement of the process as historical materialism or, in more

recent phrase, as the economic interpretation of history.
We
get
from them such sentences as

The
history of all hitherto existing society
is
the history of class struggles.'
men carry on they enter into definite relaand independent of their will: these relations of
a definite stage of development of their material
In the social production which

tions that are indispensable
production correspond to
The sum
powers of production.
nomic structure of society
the
total of these relations constitutes the eco-
real foundation
on which
rise legal
and
political
superstructures and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness*
The mode
of production in material
the social,
jxjlitical,
of
men
and
life
determines the general character of
spiritual processes of
that determines their existence, but
life.
It is
not the consciousness
on the contrary
their social exist-
ence determines their consciousness.^
The whole
history of
society holding land in
mankind
common
contests between exploiting
Marx's
'
'
political
(since the dissolution of primitive tribal
ownership) has been a history of class struggles,
and
exploited,
ruHng and oppressed
economy was a special method
classes.^
of reflecting this
Communist Manifesto, authorized Eng. trans., p. 7.

Marx, Preface to Zur Kritik der politischen Oekonomie, translated as A
Contribution
to the Critique, etc., p. 11.
Engels,
Introduction to English edition of Communist Manifesto, p. 5.

See also preceding sentences, and Engels, The Development
of Socialism from
3
Utopia
to Science,
New
York, 1892,
p. 13.
DEVELOPMENT OF GROUP INTERPRETATION
467
group process at the particular stage he was observing, on the
we
discussion level, but

is
how
arc not interested in
it
followed.
class that
front the
but very feebly
The
it
it,
proof that they
facts of the years that
was such a sharply defined
interests of the entire proletariat,
Working-men
of all countries
which was
in fact, the International,
to lead
independent
were to unite.
them, was a com-
A proletariat class, such as Marx and Engels conceived
simply did not
exist.
Labriola,
liminary equalization of the ideas

the proletariat,"^
is
it
on the ground that
International's failure
all
question
his historical
was only necessary "to point out and bring to the
common
plete failure.
known
the
proletariat, he thought,
of all nationality.'"
But
lies in
and
The
materialism correctly express the situation.

reflected
Our
here.
it
far did his theory of the class struggle
and says
it
true, apologizes for the
task was "the pre-
its
common and
indispensable to
when
necessarily disappeared
here Marx's idea
work was done, but he does not reflect

International was to do, nor does he do
of
its
what the
own
very
intelligent expression of historical materialism, in allowing
such
justice to his
a function to ideas in this connection.
An
incidental proof of the weakness of Marx's theory as he
himself held
was that he was unable with
it
all his
mental
agility
work out a dear statement of what he meant by a class. Even

Further, we
as good a socialist as Kautsky complains of this.^
have the fact that Marx had so little appreciation of the fundamental
to
workings of the group process that he expected classes to disappear

in the
coming reign
geois society with
an association
in
tion for the free
" In place of the old bour-
of brotherly love.
its
classes
which the
and
free
development
Marx's theory of
classes,
of
class
antagonisms we shall have
development
was poorly
the condi-
representati\'c of
"hard and
words because the particular groups which he
Communist Manifesto,
Essays on the Materialistic Interpretation 0} History,
Neue
Communist Manifesto,
May,
is
his classes too
'
Zeit,
each
all."''
then,
what was happening, because he made

fast," or in other
of
p. 16.
1903, pp. 241, 242.

p. 22.
p. 54.
468
TIIF.
PROCESS OF G0VP:RNMENT
were abstractions; Vx-cause his theory merely indi-
(allid classes
work out the position

and because the economic
cated a connection but did not attempt to

of the discussion groui^s
basis of groupings
Turn now
my
to
among the
others,
was overemphasized
in too
crude a form.
the writer who, so far as
Ludwig Gumplowicz,
accjuaintance with such literature goes, has taken the most
important step toward bringing out clearly the nature of the
group process.
single class in
given a
With him we get away from identification with a

the community, and we find the group activities
much wider and
at longer range,
is
of acute struggle, but also
any group
He reflects the process

much more remote from the field
offers a much more effective agency for
firmer foundation.
as he stands
interests that ultimately avail
of view to state themselves in
way
themselves of his point
to develop their
powers in
accordance with the requirements of their situations.
Gumplowicz' works are so well known that

indicate cursorily the points of his theory.
vidual as a causal factor in society,
and
He
will
merely
discards the indi-
insists
that all social
movements are brought about by group interactions. " When two

or more distinct groups come in contact, when each enters the
sphere of the other's operations, a social process always ensues."*
He assumes
the polygenetic origin of
man, because he
finds at the
beginning of history innumerable separate small groups.
two or more
of these
When
groups clash, social structure begins to form,
and not
tUl then.
Indeed it forms only when one group is absorbed
by another and made a lower class in the resulting compound
society.
He
holds that in general the classes that count most in
the structure of society are classes that
have thus been taken in

from without and reduced from independent to dependent elements.
As
a rule classes arise originally,
i.
e.,
out of different ethnical elements, or
by the permanent organization of such as are at different stages of development at the time of their union.'
But he adds classes that appear by internal differentiation.

'
Outlines 6J Sociology, p. 85.
'
Ibid., p. 136.
"

And even
as to the origin of the classes of
compose the
it
state he
469
unequal power that
admits that
might happen (?) as an exception that a period of peaceful development
should result in the differentiation of the population into classes, the stronger
who were weaker and needed
gradually separating themselves from those

protection.
For
later stages of society
he finds
it
necessary to take into
when he
account classes mainly of secondary origin, and
gives us
a table of the "group-making factors," he includes situations
which as we find them are certainly far removed from the " original
He
group foundation.
classes.
His
series of
interprets
groups
munities, peoples, states,
government
and so
his classes are
combased
religion, language,
forth.
He makes,
however, a sharp distinction between social and
psycho-social phenomena.
the psycho-social are such
religion,
terms of these
primarily, hordes, tribes,
is,
and nations; and
on propinquity, profession, rank, property, trade,

art,
in
The social
phenomena
and systematic knowledge.
are the group processes;

as language, morals, law,
These are treated by him
as a sort of nondescript modification of the psychic
life
of individuals
caused by the group process and occasionally requiring to be recognized as themselves causes in interpretation, but not as themselves
phenomena
Gumplowicz with
really
of
group
own statements
his system, because his
Nevertheless, despite
moment, he
is
are produced
activity.
It is
hard to do
justice to
reference to these last-mentioned elements in
some
on the whole very
by the
arc frequently inconsistent.'
lapses of a kind I will mention in a

solid in his insistence that rights
coming neither from

the individual nor from any "common will," but from a struggle
intermediate between these two statements ;* and in such assertions
conflict of social groups,
as this concerning legislation that "the only possible solution of
the social question lies in a
groups so far as that
is
harmonious co-operation
possible. "^
'
See Sociologie und Politik,
'
Outlines, p. 178; Cf. Soziologisclie Essays, p. 53.
Outlines, p. 156.
sec. 33;
Outlines, Part IV.
of the social
Tin-:
470
I'ROCKSS
OF GOVERNMENT
in his interpretations are
Croups which Gumplovvicz uses

thai arc-
concrete in the sense that they are
composed
groups
of so
many
be gathered together in physical separation
who can
from other groups. In general they are groups of such character
They are not groups
tliat a man can belong only to one of them.
of an extreme
but
classes
chapters,
in
early
word
the
as 1 have used
(lilTcnnl \)vo\)\v
tyjx?.
do not mean
to say that in the illustrations
which Gumplo-
wicz uses he never takes groups of any different nature, but that
tendency
his
is
make
lying specific interest groups
This
he has
one defect in his
is
left
terms of
to interpret the social process directly in
such groups, and not to
the
the further analysis into the under-
which they represent.^

system as it stands. Another
as "concrete" as his,
it
that
an awkwardly
have already indicated. With groups
phenomena
"psycho-social"
nondescript position, as I
is
will
in
be hard indeed to assimilate these
and inasmuch as he could not make

them purely individual phenomena, lest they return and take
bitter vengeance on his system, he hung them in the air " betwixt
other
phenomena
to groups,
and between."
In connection with these defects
that in the
we
find
group struggle "the only motive
another telling us that
submit to rights;
him at one time

is
insisting
self-interest"^
"men grow accustomed
and at
year by year to
they use legal forms constantly
and
learn to
respect rightful limitations, until finally the conception, the very

idea, of rights pervades
We
and controls them."^
find
him using
"material, economic, and moral (intellectual) ""* standards alongside one another as tests in the classification, regardless of the
various degrees of representativeness of the material he
We find him at one time denying

and
the existence of a "
at another insisting that the

'
For
his
see Sociologie
does not
make
own statement
und
of the complexity of
Politik, p. 73,
this distinction,
'
Outlines, p. 145.
Ibid., pp. 148, 149.
inoculation of
and Outlines,
My
Ibid., p. 142.
Die sociologische Staatsidee, 2d
ed., p. 3.
it
handling.
common
all
point
will"^
individuals
group formation
p. 143.
but that he does not develop
is
is
and use
in the class
not that he
it.

whatsoever with the " higher morahty "
is
the
471
supreme goal
of the
state.'
special illustration of
tlie
way
in
a very marked non-groupal factor,
broken down into
its
which Gumplowicz allows
in the
form
of
an idea not
representative characteristics, to intrude into
"neu aufgetauchte
had a very powerful influence upon
German and Austrian law-making and administration in the
his interpretations,
is
his assertion that the
Idee" of the " Rechtsstaat "
The
which he indicates
middle of
last
manner
of course, not to be denied, that there
is,
century.^
fact
was
in
this
activity in
transforming legislation and administration, and that the "Rechts-
We may
staat" was prominently mentioned as present.

to
Gumplowicz
itself
allow
the implied belief that the "Rechtsstaat" idea
can be explained as a psycho-social product of group factors.
But much more than that

be functioned in
its
The "Rechtsstaat" must
necessary.
representative value in group terms at the
very hour and place of

value.
is
its
When Gumplowicz
alleged working in order to find

gives the
"idea"
which
as he does, he merely indicates one spot at
adequately elaborated.
attributing to the idea,
itself
its
such potency
his theory
is
not
In the same passage we find him also
"von den
socialen
Aufgaben des Staates,"

and institutions,
the impulse to a series of social reformatory laws
thus again stopping his analysis half way.

It therefore
of the "ideas"
appears that Gumplowicz despite

still
leaves
them
all his
defiance
as "there," as to a great extent
undigested lumps of matter in his system.
He
gets
around them
most part mainly by rejecting them as unimportant products

of group action on the individual, and when he finds cases in which
for the
he cannot thus reject them, he has trouble

rather he
makes no pretense
of
in
handling them, or
handling them, but swallows them
raw.
We may interpret
the classes, as he
a good representation of the Austrian
makes use
life
as he
of them, as being
is
I
Outlines, p. 169; Cf. also Die sociologische Staatsidee,
"Daseinsbedingungen der Gcsammtheit."
Die
sociologiscJie Staatsidee, p. 24.
surrounded by
p. 52, for his
it
use of
472
looked at from
I'ROCESS
in:
OF GOVERNMENT
but
it is
nevertheless focused too closely
lar tyiK-
His theory
sprcially limited point of view.
cold and remote from the particular jôups
which are so specialized and
do not open the way
is
Austrian struggle,
on struggles
of that particu-
set in their forms, that they
and
to the fullest
in the
freest interpretation of the
group procedure.
From Gumplowicz
Here
turn to Georg Simmel.
whose work seemingly stands
is
man
in the sharpest contrast to the other's,
but whose acute analysis has nevertheless admirably supplemented

the blunter studies of his Austrian contemporary;
can be made to
together so aptly for the practical purposes of
fit
further study, that one even hesitates to assign to
rank
in
achievement.
Simmel
one were to judge these two
If
current standards of mental power or delicacy, one
Simmel
place
the
of
the lesser
men by
would probably
but this merely serves to illustrate
far in the lead;
relativity
and the two
such judgments.
Since
main
its
supplementary aid to Gumplowicz, the
practical value in the matter of
Simmel's work gains
group interpretation by
its
latter is
more important figure from this point of view.

Wliat Simmel has accomplished, primarily in
no doubt the
his
little
book,
Ueber sociale Differenzierung, -and then in the brilliant studies that
have followed
it, is
the analysis of the groups
thousand directions
in a
in the social
which cross one another
mass, and at whose inter-
and "individuality," he holds, are to be

found. Taking the facts wherever he finds them most suitable for
his purpose, Simmel has traced the group lines, and endeavored
sections "personality"
to
make
clear
many
But here
occur.
psychology which
of the typical
his defect.
is
is
itself
forms in which group relations
He
has done
this in
not simple process, but
content which obtrudes with crude persistence into

a defect which
is all
work
in
their pretentious
analysis
done excellent
banishing the most generalized forms of ideas and feelings
appearance in social interpretation.'
"Parerga zur Socialphilosophie," Jahrbuch fur Gesetzgebung,

Also in his Einkitung in die
oralwissenschaft.
p. 258.
terms of a
too often a
all his
the stronger since he himself has
from
is
etc.,
Vol. i8,

This defect appears
The forms which he
a double way.
in
473
may
gives us are primarily psychological, not social, or rather I
put
that his standards in classifying
it
waver between
and
social
individual psychological; and secondly, the detached feelings and

desires
and ideas continually appear
to give force
and power
to the
social process in their quality as individual content underlying
and/
preceding the social forms and structures.

a
I will refer briefly to
random from his writings
number
of passages
to illustrate this.
taken almost at
He tells us, for example,^
that "spiritual structures" like language, morals, church, law,

political organization,
as
and
although standing over against the individual
something objective, nevertheless "have their existence only in
personal minds."
"Every attempt," he
outside of persons
is
a mysticism."
"So
confession of faith:
From
resolved in only one way.
knowledge we must
liold
Then he appends
can
far as I
them
says, "to think of
see, this
this little
antinomy can be
the point of view of completed
unconditionally to the fact that there are
only spiritual individuals."
While permitting the treatment
of
such structures "as unities" because of our limited vision, his
aim
continuously "to approach nearer to the individual operations
is
which produce the
social structure."
have no objection whatever to his confession of
nor to his epistemological principle.

of
it,
wherein he
that I object.
remembering
fails to
It is
faith, as such,
only to the use he makes
allow his owti group process full sweep,
Instead of holding to the groups as groups and

his
where the group
own demonstration
lines cross,
he uses
that
all
individuality
sorts of
individuality as material of explanation.
occurs
fragments of
For instance, he says
that the interpretation of religion can "only be approached
when
and conditions operating in its domain are

"our
inventoried."'
It is
most real and personal instinct," he
says, which enforces moral commands upon us.^
Again: "The
all
the impulses, ideas,
actually dissociating elements are the causes of conflict
and envy, want and

'
American Journal
'
Ibid., Vol.
XI,
hatred
desire."'*
of Sociology, Vol. Ill, p. 665.
p. 359.
3 Ibid.,
Vol. II, p. 184.
4 Ibid.,
Vol. IX, p. 490.
l/C
/
/
/
.
IHK PROCESS OF
474
we
Alon^' with this

|)r()^fss
is
GOVERNMENT
Simrncl tacitly assuming that social
find
a concomitant of i)rain progress, as in his illustration
and
of the monasteries
on
their influence
heredity,'
and
in
such a
reference as that of the coming to consciousness of latent mental

Also we fmd him over and over again attributing
inheritances.'
things to the
will," or discussing events in
"group
terms of a
group unity or a social unity. For instance, he contrasts with

majority rule which is the mere dominance of the strong, a unitary
group
will,
and he holds the distinction
to be of the highest sociologi-
Here we fmd him saying that "the immanent
cal importance.^
principle " of our parliamentary system
not speak in
its
own name but
is
that " the majority does
power
them
on the other
of ideas
together,
sity for
interpretations of "socializa-
from "the
explains the persecution of
instinct
which recognizes the neces-
group unity."4
Now as the result
of this point of
classifications as that of the
of
own
Thus he
tion" on the idea side.

heretics as springing
his
side
but he does not really function
side,
and he makes
and totality."
and a cohesive
in that of the ideal unity
In other words, he knows brute strength on one
groups;
which
in
honor are put
in
view we get from Simmel such
elements which
territory,
We
a series.^
make for the
persistence
blood relationship, loyalty, and

get so thin
an explanation of
the predominance of ruler over ruled as that the ruler gives all his
personality to the arrangement, while the ruled only give
like the
trinity
"the
unpartisan and the mediator, the 'tertius
gaudcns' and the 'divide

pretation as that of the
brought out that each

it
benefits,*
we
et
lie
is
persons than
curiosity than as a
life.
Ueber sociale Difjerenzierung, p. 130.
'
Die Probleme der Geschichtsphihsophie,
American Journal oj Sociology, Vol.
4 Ibid.,
5
many more
more as a psychic
human
so solid an inter-
suppression, in which the fact
its
injures a great
get stated
Even
impera.'"'
and
lie
piece of powerful pushing

'
up small
We get a series of form types of groups
bits of their personalities.*^
Vol. XI, p. 371.
American Journal
" Ibid.,
II,
p. 25.
pp. 1S2, 183.
Cf. also Vol. Ill, p. 683.
0} Sociology, Vol. Ill, pp.
Vol. II, p. 174.
667-83.
Ibid., Vol. VIII, p. 166.
8 7Jid.,
Vol. XI, p. 447.

would be
The
far
from saying that there was not much
even these interpretations that
est value in
trouble
only that one has
is
them out a little farther

which one can depend upon it.
in
almost
social
typical
the
all
besides which
to get the statement in
For the
relations
have been discussed
treated by Simmel,
some
them
of
criticizing.
push down below them and
to
straighten
of the great-
have been
475
and
in this
many
very
book
terms
imagine that
rest I
will
others
be found
most highly suggestive
in the
way.
But through
it all,
and despite the fundamental importance
his analysis of the intersecting groups, his
He
remains thin, and at times unreal.
manner
of
of interpretation
has not really transformed
and feelings into group phenomena; he

them independently, making his interpretations all too often
the old individual ideas

treats
in terms of the idea factors alone, not in

in
which they
not once, to
rest;
my
notion, get
sion of the underlying force

as in cases of survivals
and
the superficial view to be
His society
and not
same
as
down
and
to square, out
and
shown
is
in
of half-developed tendencies,
made up
its
pressures.
and
of ideas
them
feeling factors are
still
which,
seem
to
of nothing else.
and
feelings,
tremendous cohesiveness as a mass of

In a way, the fault with him
the fault with
contrasts between
out, discus-
stability in those situations
so to speak, pasted together with ideas
is,
really
immense human
the
terms of the social habit
and, often as he recurs to the topic, he does
much
and
an undigested mass and so the
in other respects;
largely
is
Gumplowicz, striking as arc the

in both, the idea
cause of scientific indigestion.
Taken
as a bit of the general social activity
work then represents
the social world
more as
individual engaged in the process than as

of
it
it
itself,
Simmel's
appears to the
appears from a point
view which gets away from that of the acting individual and
looks
upon
the
of his investigation of personality

social process.
Even his
was more a by-product
process as proceeding through him.
analysis of the crossing of the social groups
than a direct interpretation of
His activity therefore has
less
meaning,
less value,
as mediating the group process than that of the other writers I
476
am
By
discussing.
lure-
the
same token
that
it
cannot directly be
referred to national, class, or occupational activities for its origin

like the others, it cannot in turn be referred back to them so readily
in its functioning.
One
of
other writer
has aided in developing the group method
requires
inleri)retation
provided us
who
much
Gustav
mention.
Ratzenhofer has
excellent description of the practical processes
from a groupal point of view. How excellent this work

is one can readily discover by reading Part IV of Professor Small's
General Sociology, in which Ratzenhofer's results are set forth,
of politics
not only sympathetically, but in a
manner
that
is
while not delinitive

into account
by
all
frequently a
His categories,
decided improvement on Ratzenhofer himself.
no one looks for such as yet must be taken
students in this
field.
Unfortunately, Ratzenhofer was not content to take the facts

as they paraded themselves before the exceptionally weU-located
window which
his position in life ofTered
observe them, but instead he

exceedingly
called
wearisome
positive
him through which
positive
to
impelled to swathe them in an
and maladroit metaphysics, which he
monism, but which one may well describe
apologies to a jest that

neither
felt
was current not so many years
He
nor monistic.
wâs
with
as
since
not content with the
interests as they presented themselves in social group forms in the
world around him, but insisted on developing behind them a
Here he
world of "inherent interests."'

racial,
sets
up a hierarchy
physiological, individual (egoistic), social,
dental interests.^
With
this
of
and transcen-
metaphysics he deems himself advan-
cing beyond Gumplowicz,^ but in reality he
is
retrograding.
Monismus, p. 105.
"Das inharente Interesse das in der
StofiFconstellation des Organismus wurzelnde individuelle Streben
zwingt zur
Ausftihrung der gebotenen Absicht durch den Willen, d. i. die im- Organismus
zur Befriedigung des inharenten Interesses bereite potentielle Energie." Here
we have a whole family of spooks to work the wires. Of how little use the inherent
interest is except to bridge over a gap in Ratzenhofer's own analysis will be evident
from such a sentence as the following {ibid., p. 112): "Im Grunde genommen
kann aber der weitsichtigste Gedanke auf nichts anderes gerichtet sein als auf die
'
Der
positive
Erfiillung eines concreten Interesses auf
Die
Grund des inharenten."
sociologisclit Erkenntniss, sec. 6.
3 Ibid.,
pp. 288, 289.

Connected with
he
this is the necessity
477
feels for giving
every
own individuality or personality.

The group has its spiritual unity, its own will. He thinks by naming the will he makes progress in explaining the facts, when the
variety of group he discusses
its
real
problem
it is
possible to drop entirely the use of that very word.
Having
of interpretation
up
set
is
these group personalities or
independent from the individual
fundamental sociological law

individual
always to get to a point at which
and the
"the
group
reciprocal adaptation of the
As an outgrowth
social interests."^
he attaches ideas, and at times instincts, to these

unities,
and
this leads
him, despite
interests as
he arrives finally at the
interests,
fictitious
of this
group
he says over and over
all that
again of the derivative character of the ideas, to give them an
Thus he
exaggerated place in his system.

to rule
lizes
unchecked
in
many
allows the "Zeitgeist"
of his interpretations.^
Also he crystal-
instead of reducing to simpler terms his set of "political
principles"
and
"political systems. "*
Finally he comes out at the
end, after having begun with a good working system of groups
and passed through a maze
of metaphysics, to a finish in
which he
avers that sociology as one of these group soul things in and for
itself
should be able to remake the world.
common
promotion of the
It
should "lead to
weal on a level above that of naive
and purposeful action ;"s since

human progress comes mainly "through the integration of ideas,
empiricism,
viz.,
on that
of conscious
through the intellectual control of the microcosm, through the

formation of general ideas."^
He
old error of the naive speech forms,
much
fore
farther
falls
and
back therefore
into the
his idea factors are there-
from being stated at their true representative

work than they were at the beginning.
value at the end of his
In the very structure of his main work, his defect stands out
'
Ibid., sec. 20.
'
Krilik des Intellects, p. 149.
Wesen und Zweck der
* Ibid., sees.
14,
15.
Politik, Vol.
For
I,
pp. 96 B.
illustrations of a similar nature, see Ibid., Vol-
pp. 143, 237; Vol. Ill, p. 64; Die sociologische Erkenntniss, pp. 64, 256, 257.
5
American Journal
0} Sociology, Vol.
X,
p. 177.
Îbid., p. 178.
/T
I,
478
promincnlly, for he holds the struggle phase of

civilization
the
of
life
apart from the
much
Professor Small, while omitting very
jihase.
mysticism from Ratzenhofer, has followed him in
this>
giving separate parts in his General Sociology to these two phases.
As a soldier, Ratzenhofer appreciated struggle in a verj' realistic

way; indeed he was too "realistic" about it, for he understood it
under the guise of "absolute hostility" ("die absolute Feindseligkeit").
Such absolute
being a
hostility
fiction,
nowhere
to
be
discovered in the given world, Ratzenhofer was impelled to

to
it
he
as
first
But
complement a civilization phase of social process,

came to appreciate through the tender heart of his
its
this civilization
phase, and
ity
add
which
phase
is
wife.'
just as fictitious as the absolute hostil-
one gets them functioned together in the social
if
process one will no longer have need of
any system
The "concrete
interests" as sticking plaster.
material enough in themselves.
can
of "inherent
interests" will be
state this in a different
way
by saying that what Ratzenhofer means by the civilization phase,

instead of being
an independent phase of the social process, is a

group oppositions on the discussion level, with
reflection of certain
a varying value in varying situations.

the individual
and the
Or
again,
by saying that
social interests, instead of
being different
factors in opposition to each other are merely different

of stating the
same
methods
thing, so that a complete statement in
of the individual interest
terms
would cover exactly what a complete
statement in terms of the social interest will cover, no more and no

less;
which makes
it
clear
enough that the two never can be added

Not both at once but either the one
together as complementary.
or the other,
what the investigator must take.

have been criticizing these authors rather than
interpreting their good work, but I will let it stand, seeing that
what is most essential at the present stage of the study of society
is
I find that
is
after all to get a clear grasp of a
good method of work which
will
reduce the number of unassimilated and misleading elements
to a
minimum.
can only make amends by expressly recognizing
the substantial results all of

'
them have achieved, and
See the Introduction to Die positive Ethik.
my
outi

personal indebtedness to the
have succeeded
in
making
it
works as they stand do but
how
it
three.
first
appear how
reflect
479
hope further that

all of
these cases the
phases of the group process,*
they have value and meaning only as they reflect phases of
how even
with accuracy, and
the most accurate reflection has
value only as process through which the underlying interests
work
somewhat more smoothly how, further, in all of some of the works

and in some parts of all of them the reflection is primarily identified
with special groups notably forceful in the social process, and
;
how even where such

to
make, where the
process as such,
it
identification with forceful groups
reflection
is
is
at longest
is
hard
range and of the group
but the manner of statement of a very small
and can claim
specialized group of workers in
an outlying
an ultimate value only so
proves useful in the actual opposi-
far as
it
field,
tion of interests in bringing about a clearer statement
process
and smoother
a degree of mediative value which can only be measured
with the result or at most estimated roughly in immediate use, but
can by no means be boasted presumptuously in advance.
This sketch of the development of group interpretation has

only touched the high places.
To make
it
at all
complete
it
would
be necessary to add mention of the class interpretations by Marxists,

of
whom
may
Loria
serve as a type;
and
to describe the
works which are substantially interpreting society

groups, despite their
in
such terms.
own
in
many
terms of
failure to reach a theoretical statement
Jhering's interpretations have been most admirable,
although his psychological manner of statement distorted his work

so that his emphasis
von
Stein,
was not placed on the groups
when one
Bewusstsein"
to his
as such.
Spencer
in
many
phases
of
his
objective interpretation takes a good step
In the case of
my own
life
of the last decade.
its
So also
Durkheim's
Sociology.
on the road toward the
variation of group interpretation,
experienced reader can easily determine
American
und
study of "Krafte und Gestaltungen," and
especially of the "Vereine," certainly deserves mention.
does
Lorenz
penetrates below his ''personlicher Wille
think that any
representative character in terms of
48o
use of grouf)s,
and
in this
and Brooks Adams

proi>erly
country Professor Patten,
go an examination of the extent to
have themselves
lished schools of thought in the social sciences
been reflections of group points of view.

{K)litical
resiK'ct.
economy would be found

I
mention
Dean Bigelow,
With this could

which various estab-
should not be overlooked.
all
The
various phases of
especially illuminating in this
these only to pass
them by
at this time.
'
CHAPTER
XXIII
CONCLUSION
have
If I
is
at
any point given the impression that
any special claim
of "originality" to be
group interpretation
phrasing on
my
made
volume,
set forth in this
I think there
for the
due
is
it
method
to faulty
Originality, in aflairs of this kind,
part.
of
mainly
is
body
of the
am convinced that the
group
sensationalism, a matter of headlines, but not of the

tale.
On
the contrary,
just because I
it is
which are used
factors
in all interpretations of bits of society are
and substantial parts
the solid
have
of such interpretations, that I
ventured to attempt to bring the method out into a more explicit

Wliether we have to do with a history of the older style
form.
or with a
it
modem
essay on social reform, with a Utopia or with a
pamphlet, and in whatever language the work
political
seems
to
me
part that reflects fairly

rest
has
its
is
garbed,
that the only part that counts for our purposes
meaning in
and
sgûarely the CToups
the proce^, but that very
stated in group terms before
we can be
is
sure that
the
The
as they are.
meaning must be
we know
it
accu-
rately.
We
often hear
said that history
it
generation; and that

of the
forms
in
if
you
will,
point of view the

science.
manifestly a truth
is
which history embodies
group oppositions
still,
must be rewritten with each
otherwise,
to the
when we
to the problems, or,
"spirit"
same may be
of
are thinking
with reference to the
itself
the times.
more vaguely
But from
said of science, or of
Nevertheless, in a more important sense
it
any
is
this
field of
not true.
There have been forming underneath the various dressings of

history a substantial
And
now
this
backbone
backbone and skeleton
will
of accepted relations.
only vary with the generations as
while being more accurately worked out.
ceive of a solid structure of
We
it
varies
can easily con-
group relationships as they have devel481
482
becoming known to us, which must inevifundamental shapes which the history-writing that
varies with the generations must take, if it is to have meaning and
value at all beyond the meaning and value of the most narrowly
Given the analysis into groups, then Tylor's
partisan outcry.
o|H(i in historic timos
tably dclinf
the-
which has so long remained unfruitful
suggestion of method,'
view in the statement of the
Ix'cause of the lack of a unified point of
once become available on a
should at
materials to be compared,
great scale.
But, of course, this

is
work
of formulating the
not to be the work of a day or a year, but of
many
years, perhaps through
vation
and
made
to
it,
With
doubt
if
all
work with
in
Toilsome obsersociety,
will
the contributions that have as yet
we can
be
been
any that are so exactly stated
find
can survive as they are
but partly
To
it.
of history
many men through
generations.
analysis, real laboratory
necessary for
that they
many
backbone
now
compounds, and partly
The gold is there,

mixed wath much dross.
stated.
enable this work of establishing reliable statements of the
group facts
to
make more rapid
progress, the method by which the

and the compounds broken down must be
not necessarily in detail, but on a basis which
dross can be eliminated

clearly
worked
out,
will jK^rmit of the detail
features of the
method
being
itself.
without altering the main
filled in
The
must be fashioned, but
tool
muTri be fashioned out of materials which in cruder forms are
it
now
available to the workers' hands.
To a certainty it
I
I
is
among the
psychic factors, or psychic phases,
or psychic what-you-will, of our social

ing the dross must be carried on.
fusions of our present interpretations
which
presistently
assert
their
life
To
that the labor of eliminat-
a certainty the worst con-
lie
here where elements enter
independence and persistently
maintain themselves against reduction to a common denominator

along with the facts which are stated in other than specifically
psychic terms.
To a certainty,
however, any tool or method which,
while eliminating the dross here, eliminates at the

of the gold, will be useless.
'
Journal of
tite
Probably
it
will
same time much
be worse than useless.
Anthropological Institute, Vol. XVIII.
CONCLUSION
483
our business to find out what values the discussio-i and
It is
theorizing forms of the social process have in terms of
all
the rest of
what values the organization forms have

the rest of the process, and specifically what
the process, to find out

in terms of all of
values these two forms have in terms of each other.

It is
tion
our business to weigh the pressure of each
and
of discussion as specialized;
masses of men, who, not
naked eye
theless
its
as parts
to
weigh
visible to the eye
it
bit of
in
organiza-
terms of the
might say
to the
of the discussion or organization, are never-
bearers and the givers of
finally to estimate as exactly as
may
from any specially limited point
all
the strength that
is
in
it;
be the plus of strength which,
of view,
must be attributed
organization or to the discussion groups, considered for the
to the
moment
by themselves as technical agencies.

I
have nowhere in
this
volume attempted
particular cases of interpretation.
to set forth results in
I have, indeed,
ventured the
assertion that while the discussion groups are essential phases of the
human
social process
and while
in
which we nowhere know
their elaborated
of without
them,
forms they correspond in
many
respects with the elaboration of the underlying interest groups
which often could not function except
in connection with
them, so
far as our observation of process goes, yet nevertheless in particular
when stripped of their superficial forms

such as the special turns of wording they use, and reduced to their
proper meanings at given times and places, they are entitled to
cases of interpretation,
little
emphasis
further, that
as
independently
any tracing
considered
technique.
And
of the chronological lines of such groups
considered independently can throw but
development process of the

for
its
decorative elTects.
have asserted that
society,
little light on the actual

however interesting it may be
Similarly for the organization groups
only in transition phases of society due to

shifting of group balances that they appear to have notable indeit
is
pendent power, and that here as
little
as in the case of discussion
phases can the lines of development be traced from organization

form to organization form without continuous and complete interpretation in terms of what groupal structure
is
underlying.
But
484
these arc merely incidental views.
They partake more
of
an
antici-
pation of results than of a statement of method.
This
in the
we devise
tlicir
end
may not
be denied, that whatever tools of method
for the tasks that are to be done, they
value in the using
one, or by two, or
by
in the
three.
using by
many
can only prove
workers, not by
APPENDIX
APPENDIX
The
without
assumed
positions set forth in the preceding chapters have not been
many
measure the strength of the pressures which are
efforts to
in
play underneath the superficial appearance of political struggles in the United

States.
see in
Such investigations can have little meaning or value except

them short steps toward an exact analysis of social activity.
can simplify society
to their
words or who have naive

inevitably regard
What may be
possible
own
satisfaction
faith in the
them only
by the use of convenient catch-
"truth" and power of arguments will
as a waste of time
and energy.
the investigator will seek out the proper sources of information
if
For quantitative
way
are
fields
much more
thus far
of politics, where
of
its
it is
the
difficulties
Nevertheless even here there are
serious.
and
tests of the pressures
barring the possibilities in the use of co-operative estimates
tempting
Men who
called a qualitative analysis of the interests is nearly always
take the proper steps to tap them.
in the
men who
to
many
For example, the machine organization
little utilized.
rankly developed, furnishes
many
opportunities for tests
strength, both as exhibited at the polls in contrast with the strength of
other forms of organization, and in connection with the social wastes produced
by
its
government agencies.
exploitation of
With
this the effect of civil service
reform on machine power could well be tested by comparisons between
and between
experience.
sufficiently
states,
cities
with correlative use of figures from the federal government's
My own
collection of partially
worked up
figures
is
not, however,
complete to justify any quantitative statement of conclusions at
this stage.
I wish,
however,
investigations,
of
what
is
advanced
to set forth in the briefest possible
which
offer,
it
is
true, little
possible in this field, but
able to incorporate the material in the text;

in
the outlines of three
which are nevertheless
to justify provisional conclusions.
should not be regarded
way
more than a preliminary showing

For two reasons
first,
sufficiently far
it
was not
because what I have
desir-
to offer
any sense as proof of any theoretical position taken,
but merely as an illustration of the character of the results that
may
be reached
from the given point of view; second, because any direct use of the material
should include
results, for
I.
full details
which space
is
of
methods and a carefully conditioned statement of
not available.
MUNICIP.^L-OWNERSHIP INTEREST GROUPS IN CHICAGO
Between 1902 and 1907 Chicago voted at referendum in every year except
1903 on one or more phases of the problem of municipalizing the ownership
of street railways.
Six out of a total of eleven such votes were studied to detect
487
488
so far as possible the difference in the
manner
in
which residents
in different
parts of the city reacted at different stages of the municipal-ownership

different phases of
ment and upon
approximately 1,250
cincts,
from 229
into
The
it.
number.
in
study was
made by
For each vote the
city
The
material
was
was made on the basis of the
of the precincts into districts
relative degree of
and
the vote on the propo-
first in
in the total vote cast at the election,
and then
precinct;
cincts
from
The assembling
municipal ownership which was shown in the precincts separately.
percentages of the municipal-ownership vote,
The
districted
sufficiently free
error to give full confidence in results for districts of this size.
sition,
was
265 districts of varying reaction, these districts casting averages
to
of from 1,000 to 1,500 votes each.
interest in
move-
election pre-
were figured for each
for each set of precinct percentages separately the sextile pre-
were ascertained as a guide
in constructing the districts.
Large maps of
the city in six colors corresponding to the sextiles were then prepared for each
vote,
and
for
each way of computing, making twelve
General contrasts.
The
maps showed
maps
in
all.
that the relative strength of the
municipal-ownership policy, both in the vote on the proposition and in the
was
total vote cast,
lience regions
and
at first
much
greater in
what may be
in the outlying residence regions
slum or factory regions.
called the select resi-
than
it
was
either in the
In the latest votes this relation had been just reversed.
Hyde Park, Englewood, the West Side residence district, and to a lesser extent
Lake View, were relatively strong at first and weak at the end. The river
factory region and the stockyards region were weak at the beginning and strong
at the end.
This was especially marked when comparison was made between
the vote in 1904 by which the city accepted a state law empowering it to own
and operate
street railways,
and the vote
in
1907 by which carefully guarded
franchises were given to the street-car companies.

is
that at the start "municipal
sented"
an
The
interpretation of this
ownership" as a policy meant
that
is,
"repre-
improved street-railway service to an important proportion of the residents of the main street-car-using sections, while at the end
interest in
traction settlement
fair
inference
is
meant the same thing
to these
elements of the population.
that while municipal ownership did not have relatively great
meaning or
interest at the start to sections which do not use street cars so regucame at the end to represent in these sections an interest very different
from what it purported to be. These meanings existed entirely apart from
formal arguments on the question in any section.
larly, it
Outlying territory. A general tendency to the progressive extension of

strong municipal-ownership interest toward the farther outlying parts of the
city
was
noticed,
which reached
elsewhere receding
wave
its
culmination in 1905; though in 1907 the

and hit one or tA;\-o very small
carried farther in spots
extreme outlying districts.

tabulation of the votes in a broad band of outlying territory extending entirely around the city
(33,200 votes cast in 1905,
APPENDIX
489
38,900 in 1907) showed, with very slight change in the proportions of partisan
mayoralty votes, a municipal ownership decrease from 52 to 39 per cent, of
all votes cast (city averages decrease 46 to 40), and an antimunicipal -ownership
With an
increase from 16 to 53 per cent, (city averages increase 18 to 49).
increase of 5,700 voters, municipal ownership lost absolutely almost 2,000
Nothing but the car-service needs of the population in both years can
first of these two years or the low vote of the second.
votes.
explain the high vote of the
Stratification of the vote.
In 1907
especially,
and
to a great extent in other
was a very marked stratification of the vote in certain parts of the

was most marked on the West Side where numerous bands of contrast-
years there
It
city.
ing interest running generally from northeast to southwest could be detected.

Some of these bands have to do with characteristics of the population dating
do with transportation
lines
as affecting population; but opportunity has not yet been found to study
them
from early settlement, and others seem
to
have
to
systematically.
Districts of persistent relative interest.
though largely obscured by the great
A number
interest (as
number
The
were occasionally found,
of single precincts were found which retained an almost
measured by the
of larger districts
rounding
These
a whole.
shifts of interest in the city as
unbroken
sextile scale) relative to the rest of the city;
which retained a steady position
and a
relative to the sur-
territory.
influence of the worst car lines.
the sextile scales of the years 1905
By means of comparisons based
and 1907
it
was
possible to
on
measure the
change of interest of residents along the worst car lines (the West and
North Side cables) as compared with the change among residents of surrounding
territory.
The strips chosen extended to one-sixth of a mile on each side of
relative
the respective car lines, being thus one-third of a mile wide.
experiments were
necessary, in lieu of
and inner
establish the outer
Preliminary
weighting for heaviness of tratlc, to
limits of the strips.
Tests were then
made
to
determine whether the tendency away from municipal ownership and toward
traction settlement
was
relatively strong
among
residents of these strips.
For
West Madison, and Clark and Lincoln (these latter

One line, Milwaukee,
one), the tests showed such a tendency.
For another line, Clybourn, the tests were
favorable results.
three lines, Blue Island,
two treated as
gave partially
wholly unfavorable.
This gives three
fully satisfactory tests
out of
five.
The
composition of the Milwaukee strip was, however, very unsatisfactorj', owing

to
an interfering Polish community of highly specialized reaction.
Blue Island and Clybourn strips had some unsatisfactory features
makeup.
The two
favorable results.
lines of heaviest traffic
As measured by
Both the
in their
and best definition gave very strong
the index
numbers
used, the
West Madison
municipal ownership interest from 43 to 36, while

surrounding territory declined only from 50 to 47; and Clark and Lincoln
strip
showed a decline
in
i'R(jcess
tiil:
49
of government
showed a dfclinc from 38 to 35 while surrounding territory increased from 40 to

The detection of one such influence does not, of course, prove that the
4a.
entire voting activity was conditioned solely by a complex of such influences;
but the detection of this influence, considering the poor
facilities of investigation
and the imperfect methods available, gives at least an added substantiality to
book that
the jxjsition assumeil in this
it is
only in such group interests that the
meaning and values of ideas can be found.

The mayoralty election and the municipal ownership issue in ipo.
prepared to
show the
relation
the mayoralty candidates in 1905, based
on the
map
for that year,
little
The
there.
on the municipal-ownership
districts
brought out no general correlation except between
the vote for municipal ownership
and very
Curves
between the referendum vote and the votes for
and the vote
relation
for the
democratic candidate,
between the municipal-ownership vote and
the Democratic mayoralty vote was, however, further investigated with a view
with respect to locality,
to detecting variations
districts in detail
In a
clearly.
part of
Ward
it
"slum"
9,
scale,
downtown Ward
region, including the
study of the
i,
the greater
19, the issue
In an outlying region, encircling the
city,
ran far
the issue ran
Excluding these two regions, and studying the
ahead of the candidate.
remainder of the
Upon a
any.
and the eastern parts of Wards 18 and
behind the candidate.

far
if
appeared that two large regions differentiated themselves
was possible by the aid of a simple, four-membered
city, it
showing the average percentages of municipal ownership strength for four
grades of Democratic candidate's strength, to isolate six other territorially

coherent areas, in which the municipal ownership reactions were either notably
above or notably below the averages by the
Pullman the issue was
far
for all degrees of the latter.
wood
Wards
In South Chicago and
In a large region including
the issue ran ahead of scale.
including
scale.
behind scale strength based on mayoralty strength,
2 to 5, together
In a
still
Hyde Park and Engle-
larger region to the north of this,
with the stockyards region and the factory
region along the south branch of the Chicago River, the issue ran behind.
In
main residence part of the West Side the issue was ahead. In the factory
district, along the north branch of the river, the issue was again behind.
The
North Side of the city, which remained, showed a less marked t}-pical reaction,
but was itself capable of subdivision into a number of smaller regions of conthe
trasted reaction.
Each
and strong Republican

from the t>'pe inside the
area,
and were even
Democratic
There were, of course, some divergencies
of each of the regions, but they were not of great
of these six regions contained both strong

territory.
limits
less
area was considered.
important when the degree of divergence as well as
The divergence of the issue from expected scale

was thus established in a total of eight regions in the city, distinguishable trora one another by special characteristics, ha\dng to do with the use
made in them respectively of traction facilities.
its
strength
APPENDIX
491
The mayoralty election and the municipal ownership issue in igoj. This
campaign was fought with hnes much more closely drawn between the candidates and the issues. The tests here were made upon the traction vote and
By a
the Republican candidate's vote.
were found, closely corresponding
first test
"slum" and outlying
regions
In both of them,
to those before found.
however, the candidate ran far behind what would have been expected of him
in territory of similar traction strength, considering the city as
namely, the candidate's
other region also appeared,
rest of the city
a different
between the candidate's and the traction percentages.
mapped
corresponding to those of 1905 could be
weakness under traction-settlement strength

in
An-
wards, over
Here he ran heavily ahead by the same test.

test was used, namely, direct comparisons
which he holds a boss's sway.
For the
a whole.
"own"
Regions approximately
out, the candidate
showing
in just those sections of the city
which two years before the municipal-ownership issue had shown exceptional
strength in proportion to the Democratic candidate's vote.

city the
lican candidate
date had been
was weaker than
much
ownership strength
the
For the whole
only exception to this tendency was the "slum" area, where the Repub-
in 1905.
"slum" area was
logical consistency,
traction in 1907, while the
Democratic candi-
stronger than normal in proportion to the given municipal-
In other words, as between these two elections
the only one which
showed what
is
commonly
called
but what anyone acquainted with metropolitan machine
knows in this case at least to have been something very different.

True "consistency" was found where the same underlying interest expressed
itself in opposite ways on a "policy" at different stages in that policy's
politics
progress.
The meaning
0} the Socialist vote in igo^.
In 1905 the Socialist mayoralty
candidate received 23,000 votes, almost double what the party candidate
received either two years earlier or two years later.
In this year certain scat-
showed a much weaker municipal-ownership vote

of the city than they showed either before or afterward.
tered districts of the city

relatively to the rest
It
was possible
to
prove by taking
all districts
of extreme Socialist strength in
1905 and comparing their relative municipal-ownership strength for 1905 and
1907 (allowance being
heavy increase
made
for
changes
in the Socialist vote in
in the city as a
whole) that cases of
1905 were accompanied by a direct
weakening of the municipal-ownership vote
in the given localities.
This con-
was confirmed by an additional test which started with the districts

of heaviest relative swing away from municipal ownership in 1905 and toward
it in 1907, and examined them for their Socialist strength.
In other words,
in a certain limited part of the population socialism was shown to stand in 1905
in a stronger way for the same things for which municipal ownership stood at
other times. There was also some evidence that in those districts in which
the Socialist vote was most stimulated in 1905, an opposition to it was aroused
clusion
492
which expressed
the unexpected form of an exceptionally heavy vote
itself in
against municipal ownership.
boss's influence.
In 1904 the Mueller law empowering Chicago
to
take municipal ownership was adopted by referendum vote, despite
underall
the
machine power the traction companies could employ against it. At

the same time there was another municipal-ownership vote under the "publicpolicy" act, which did not have binding force on anybody, and hence was
political
relatively a matter of indifference to the traction
companies.
In 1905 at the
mayoralty election the Republican candidate was badly "knifed"

parts of the city.
enthusiastic
some
extent.
in certain
In 1907 the Republican mayoralty candidate received most
machine support while the Democratic candidate was "knifed" to

In studying Wards 21 to 24, comprising the 1907 Republican
candidate's political
which the 1905 and 1907 phenomena just men-
in
fief,
tioned were most marked, a correlation could be detected between districts in
which the Republican candidate of 1905 was most strongly "knifed" and those
This correlation did
in which the Mueller-bill vote had been specially weak.
when taken
not appear on the surface for the four wards
be seen
in
as a whole, but could
each of four regions into which the whole territory was capable of
The showing has
subdivision by tests found in the figures themselves.
interest
both as a measure of boss strength and because of the varying characteristics
by the varying ranges
of the population in the four regions as distinguished
of their reaction under this influence.
In
all
in
was
of the investigations above outlined the referendum voting
treated simply as an activity of the
terms of their underlying
massed
voters,
having value and meaning
which sometimes appeared
interests,
at other times in intermediate representative forms.
directly
and
Material for equally
hopeful investigations was at hand in the reactions of massed nationality
groups of the voters, and
in a
have required local study
to
sis of
number
of instances of stratification which
comprehend.
the possibilities of political leadership in
many of
its
minor
much
In other Chicago election figures of recent years there
is
measurement
voters.
II.
An
on the
of the extent of
machine control of the
attempt was
made
to trace the influence of definite external interests
Illinois legislature at the session of 1905.
became
laws.
The
Two
"good" made
complete on the side of oppositions than on the side of
hundred and twelve measures became law.
priation bills
bills
investigation was,
and one
fixed the
amount
and haul of
the results
initiatives.
Forty-nine were appro-
of revenue to be raised.
are notoriously the result of the pull
how-
This fact together with the further
fact that the session was, comparatively speaking,

less
locality forms.
material for the
THE PLAY OF INTERESTS IN A STATE LEGISLATIIRE
ever, limited to bills that
much
would
Material was at hand also for analy-
interests.
Appropriation
To
limit the
APPENDIX
493
study to the more doubtful

laws, of
field these 50 laws were removed.

That left 162
which 3 were subdivided, giving 165 entries on the lists. These were
e.xamined in 11 groups according to the character of their subject-matter.

Initiative.
34
Of the 165
to special interests,
and
definite forms,
20
entries,
to
83 were assigned to administrative
initiative,
organized public opinion in some one or other of
machines acting
2 to political
members
leaving only 26 to be assigned to
for their
own
its
direct interest,
of the legislature acting in their
theoretical legislative capacity.
Opposition.
bills for
-Most
that
bills
become laws do
so after a fight with other
a place on the calendar, rather than after a fight with an opposition of
That
a more direct kind.
fight for place is
not taken into account here.
Only
49 entries are made as to opposition. In 20 cases the opposition came from

special interests, in 2 cases from machines acting for themselves, and in 3 cases
These include a number of cases
from organized public opinion.

negative votes were cast on
credited to legislators in their legislative capacity.

figure
the
all bills
members
were regarded as opposed
of either house, or
house, voted against
Other aspects of
them on
in
which no
In the remaining 24 cases opposition
roll call.
in this
when over 4 per
To make up
is
this latter
way when over 8 percent, of

cent, of the members of each
final roll call.
In the senate out of 401 roll calls 113

house out of 353 roll calls 228 were contested. A
single negative vote was enough to cause a roll call to be listed here as contested.
were contested;
Of
legislators' activity.
in the
the 212 bills that
became law 34 had one or more votes
the senate and 121 in the house.

the senate (51
members) on
The
all bills
cast against
them
in
average number of negative votes in
that
became law was
0.5.
The
average
house (153 members) was 5 .5. Out of 162 bills (appropriations

e.xcluded) 87 were amended, most of them very slightly; this includes even
number
in the
trivial corrections of spelling
amended
The
tion in
in
Of
or punctuation.
the
amended
bills
22 were
both houses.
figures as
above given allow very
law-making that can be ascribed
liberal proportions to the participa-
to the
membersof the legislature acting
and deciders upon questions of public

been weighted for relative importance, the showing of
the work would have been seen to shrink materially.
in their theoretical capacity as reasoners
welfare.
Had
the bills
the legislators' share in
partial attempt at weighting led only to the conclusion that that task should
be performed by co-operative investigation and not by an individual.
One
number) were framed, discussed,

and all but enacted by a volunteer substitute legislature, composed of delegates
from societies interested in child-saving, which met in Chicago before the
group of laws, those affecting children (eight
in
legislature itself assembled.
In this study organized public opinion in

tative activity,
and no attempt was made
all
forms was accepted as represen-
to trace its manifestations
down
to
494
the underlying interests which

categories which
in
an American
little
light
The aim was merely
to use
on the formal law-making process
state.
III.
An
represented.
it
would throw a
THE PLAY OF INTERESTS IN A QTY COUNCTL
investigation
somewhat
similar to the preceding
meetings of the city council of Chicago,
in
was made
for eleven
which i,io8 ordinances, orders, or
resolutions were passed {Proceedings oj the City Council for 1905-6, pp. 1-996).
Only 27 roll calls were contested, affecting only 14 measures. Of the total
number of acts 430 were sent up to the council by the subordinate Board of
Local Improvements. Probably in almost all of them a crude and ill-governed
Fifty -one others were sent up by
struggle of interests preceded enactment.
the
Board
of Education.
Ordinances.
Discarding acts
mentioned
ordinances passed numbered 136.
The
in the
preceding paragraph, the
results of classification
and analysis
what may
There were 8 that were designed to regulate
or control the pressure of the interests, and 15 that could be classified as outside
the immediate play of the interests.
Among 491 orders of the council, analysis showed 211 directly
Orders.
showed that 85 were
distinctly in private interest, while 28 involved
be called a "locality interest."
on behalf of
interests,
58 directed against definite interests at special points,
135 to be classified as affecting "locality interests," and 87 not directly to be
on such interest lines.

Under the pressure of interests the council gave by ordinance 46 franchise
By order it gave 55 disgrants which it had no legal right or power to give.
Many of its other acts were gross abuses or marks
tinctly illegitimate grants.
Such were 88 special pri\'ileges, including gifts of city property
of favoritism.
or services and permits to violate ordinances. Four orders directing the refusal
classified
of ordinance rights to particular individuals
The
council's
own
form a climax
to the system.
praiseworthy, but feeble, attempts to regulate these pressures
serve but to emphasize the present license.
INDEX
INDEX
Checks and balances, 455
Chicago traction case, 392
Absolute power, 320
by von Jhering, 67;

underlying von Jhering's analysis, 85;
Activity, despised
basis of
ings, 92;
Ward's classification
the raw material of
China, 269, 301, 334

Church, illustrating balance of interests,
of feelsociety,
discussed in detail,
176;
184 fif.;
tendencies to, 184 B.; equivalent to
living men in their group life, 203 ff.;
the system phase, 218
Adams, 118
267
City-state, 303
Civic organizations, 431
Clan vengeance, 382

Classes, fictitious, 208; underl}'ing race,
their effect on
257; defined, 304;
despotism, 316
Adaptability, wide range in society, 249
Adonis and
African tribes, 332

Agencies of government, 321 f.; the
various lines of differentiation, 323;
the tests for classifying, 322, 326; six
agencies in the United States, 326
Algebra of desires
Ammon,
criticized,
never
adequately
defined
by
Marx, 467
Classification analysis of groups, 206
Communication, means
Compromise, 208
of,
463
368
Consciousness,
366;
locality
basis,
societies,
tion of
440;
Congress, early history,
250
on slavery, 13; on
governments, 298
social, 161
Constitutions, 295
Anthracite-coal strike, 349

Aristotle,
determine type of
t,;^
252
Anarchism, philosophical, 302

Anger, 187
Animal
ff.;
legislatures, 360; development in early

societies, 407; function in government,
Osiris, 270
classifica-
Control by "the people," 326, 453

Corporation as activity, 189 fif.; as adjustment of interests, 268
Corrupt government, as
activity, 191
Courts, development, 382 ff.; their use of

legal theory, 396; their "own" in-
B
Bauer, 254, 257
Beef-trust legislation, 351
terest, 398
Crawley, 22
Bigelow, 392, 480
Cuba, 291
Bluntschli, ii8, 311
Boss, and morality, 10;
leadership, 228
IT.
Dartmouth College
Bougie, 121
Brain and social achievement,

249
16,
21,
Degree
of
perfection
in
government,
Delegates, 449
Demagogic leadership, 231

Democracy, 306, 449, 455
Burke, 403
C
psychic,
390
301
Bryce, iii, 313, 448

Burgess, 300, 312
Causation,
case,
Dead-letter law, 282
fif.
Demoulins, 254
the
billiard-ball
Desires as forces, assumptions involved,

29
type, 17, 40, 83, 89, 121, 166
497
498
comparison with
ff.;
American presidency, 357
Dewey, 157, 254
Despotisms, 313
Dicey, 136
termination of incidental issues, 290;

filling in of details of
law, 293; classi-
289 ff.; degree of perfection,

301; extreme hypothetical types, 305;
fication,
methods for control of the rules, 307;

picturing the status, 458
Dillon, 122
Discussion groups, 182, 224, 242, 428,

434, 436
Great Britain, 342, 364, 408

Great men, their achievements,
109
Disease and society, 248
Durkheim, 119
Greatest
good
of
greatest
14, 15,
number,
200
Economic
basis, 209, 210, 262,
Electorate, 423 ff.;

sentation within
two forms
it,
462
of repre-
tyrannies, 337
331
illustra-
tion of varieties, 182; when physically

separated, 203; criss-cross, 204; as re-
Ely, 119
(forms of reasonclassification, 208;

204, 205;
pohtical, 209; representative quality
of political groups, 210; group and
group activity equivalent, 211; interflecting social life
Environment, absorbed in
social,
461, 462;
activity, 193
195
Feelings and ideas, ordinary service

rendered, 5, 18, 35, 55, 56, 112, 128,
165 ff., 177, 186; provisional scientific
not
hypothetical,
use,
169;
177;
measurable, 201
ing),
always valued in
est groups, 211;
terms of one another, 217; group
leadership of group, 225; group basis
representaof public opinion, 236;
tiveness of opinion groups, 241, 242;
opinion groups also interest groups,
pressure a group phenome243;

non, 258; adjustment in government,
Fonillee, 257
Food supply, 247

Force, dangers of term, 217, 258; physical,
tribes, 324,
Greek
Groups: masses of men, 176;
425
Ell wood, 156
ff.,
Greek
in government, 296
Ford, 412, 417

France, 341, 411
Free speech, 433
260; the basis of law, 276; illustrawhen in

tion of pressures, 289 ff
opposition to "the government," 309;
pressures in presidency under Rooseproduce differentiation
velt, 345 ff.
.
of courts, 387 how they work through

legal theory, 394, 397; in parties, 422;
;
Future, in interpretation, 219
Gallon, loi
Germany,
339, 363
Giddings, 100, 128
ff.,
257
semi-poHtical groups, 428 ff.; organization and discussion groups contrasted, 434; personaUty groups, 440;
technique of groups, 442; "own interest" and "plus as technique," 444;
representative government and
in
democracy, 452
Gods, pagan, their working value, 270
Gumplowicz,
Goodnow, 327, 417

Gorman, 22
Gurewitsch, 99
Governing body, 262

Government: material for study, 175,
179; distinction from other kinds of
phenomena, 199; the three senses of
illustrations of
the term, 260 ff.;
balance of interests in government,
without a differentiated governing
types of interests
body, 264 ff
found, 269; relation to law, 287; de.
100,
468
H
Habit background, 218, 260, 372
Hague
tribunal, 385
Hammond,
312
Hansemann,
16
Hoar, 451
Hobhouse, 312
INDEX
"Idea
499
generalizing, 287; further illustration

preceof group pressures, 289 ff.
dents, 294; legal theory, 294, 295
;
of the state," 263
Idea, part of "outer world," 170

Ideas, stated in terms of groups, 206,
441
Incest, 96
Individual and society, 84, 90, 195, 215,

246, 445
Individual endowment, physical, 246,
461
Industrial technique, 463
Instinct,
94
ff.,
Lawyers, part of the social process, 276

Leacock, 312
Leadership, 223 ff.; an affair of the
group, 223;
group leadership of
group, 225; capacity of individuals
"boss" leadership, 228;

for,
227;
demagogic leadership, 231; the ruler
or mediator, 234
Lecky, 257
246
Interest, dangers in use of term,
213;
types of in-
always empirical, 214;

terests in government, 269
Interest groups, factors of dominance,

number, intensity, technique, 215 ff.;
balanced in government, 264 ff.; perfection of adjustment, 301; types of
adjustment in government, 307; the
"own" interest and "plus as technique," 444.
{See Groups.)
Legislature, 317, 360 ff.; American, 365

ff.;
volunteer substitutes, 162, 432,
493
Letourneau,
LocaHty
23, 24, 25, 96,
interests, 303,
299
368
Log-rolling, 370
Loria, 421
Interest in interest groups: defined, 212,
Mackenzie, 120, 155
271
Intoxication and society, 248
Mac Master, in
Invention and discovery, 197
Macy, 115
Maeterlinck, 257
Majorities and minorities, 283
Mallock, 121
Jellinek, 163, 310, 361
Manu, Code
Jenks, 18
Jhering, von, 56
ff.,
of,
269
Marriage, adjustment of social interests

through, 247, 265 ff.
254
Justice, early forms of, 383
Marshall, Chief Justice, 389
Marx, 465
Mass
Kautsky, 421, 467
Kropotkin, 21
ff.
of population,
462
Measurement, of feeling elements, loi

ff.;
and sociology, 200; in practical
social
Uving,
201
ff.;
of
activity,
202
Mediator, 234, 318, 439
Labor unions, 268

Lane, 93, 250
Language, as activity, 181; comparison
with organization groups, 182, 183
Law,
as activity, 272;
senses
the main activities involved
embodied in groups, 276;
276, 277, 288; illustration as
in,
Morgan,
278 ff.; illustration of Sundayclosing law, 280; dead-letter law, 282;

majorities and minorities, 283; the
j)hasc,
284;
Montesquieu, 299, 322
Moral
273;
275;
defined,
to mur-
as spreading or
ff.
Mill, 117
of,
der,
system
"Mental type," 254
qualities, as activity, 192

22,
153
ff.
Moriey, 452
Motion and
rest, 186
Municipal-ownership groups
486 ff.
Murder, 278
in
Chicago,
500
Naivct^ of eplstcmological standpoint,
Race: and brain power, 20, 21, 249;

moral quaHties, 22, 23; necessary
177
Novicow,
endowment,
tests, 25;
155, 257
252; type, 253;

256; and class,
meanings,
various
304
Ratzcl, 20
Objectivity,
fects,
when exaggerated,
its
ef-
135
Organ and organism,
r8i, 261
Ratzenhofer, 120, 257, 311, 476

Reasoning, as technique, 204, 216, 360,
361, 372, 376. 442, 448
Reid, 16
Organization groups, 182, 224,242,434,

439
Ostrogorski, 299, 451
"Outer world," contained in idea, 170,
196
Reflection of interests.
ation of interests.
"Own"
Representation of interests, 177, 197, 199,
interest of groups,
444
Parties, political, as agencies of govern-
ment, 400
ff.;
policies, 405;
States, 412;
them, 417;
420
discussion phase, 404;
development in United
conditions producing
radical and reactionary,
"Relations" as
{See Represent-
activity, 176
206, 209, 210, 2ig, 223, 233, 236, 238,

240, 262, 269, 270, 289, 290, 294, 315,
332, 359, 389. 393, 395, 397, 4oi, 407,
425, 428, 436, 443, 450, 465
Representative government, 449

Rest and motion, 186
Ripley, 16, 252
Rome,
338, 362
Roosevelt, 345 ff., 388
Past, in interpretation, 219
Ross, 92, 155
Patten, 119, 257, 480
methods
Ruler,
Pearl, 16
for
his
control,
307
ff.
Pearson, loi
ff.
Russia, 315, 335
"People," control by the, 453

PersonaHty groups, 406, 440
"Plus as technique," 444
Political
phenomena,
no
distinctive
Presidency, United States, history, 344;

under Roosevelt, 345 ff.; compared
with the despot, 357; future of, 359
Pressure, social, 258, 272, 483
Sex and food desires, 93

Sex background of society, 247, 265
Sherman
anti-trust law, 353
Simmel, 472
Preuss, 163
Psychic factors,
Selfishness, reaction against, 139
Seligman, 120
technique, 259, 264
Small, 26
quantitative
251
increase,
19, 21, 34, 44, 158,
Psychology, attitude toward, 3,

171, 198; experimental, 201
4,
Public opinion, Dicey's view,
137
165,
419
"Social heredity," 196

Social
limits
institutions,
of
adapta-
249
"Social whole," 220
bility,
ff.;
pohtical scientists on, 163; unanimity

a myth, 223; its "push," 236; what
it strikes at,
237; an affair of the
groups, 236, 238; degrees of differentiation, 239; degree of intensity, 240;
opinion groups are also interest
groups, 243; tests in party politics,
Public-school laws, 377
ff., 38, 166, 476, 478

" Social environment," 195
Social will, 154
Socialism,
114,
ff.,
328, 361
208,
226,
305, 436
467
Socially indifferent, the, 292
Society personified, 79
Sovereignty, 132, 264, 273
Spartans, 269
ff.,
INDEX
Theories,
Spencer, 37 ff., 310

"Spirit of the Age," 151, 419
State, 263,
Statehood
representative
Tocqueville, de, 313, 414
ff.
Tolstoi, 117
376
Tradition, 219
200
Truth, 172, 243
Steamboat regulation, 354
Tylor, 482
Stein, 121
Subjective and objective, 89, 117 footnote, 186, 196
V
Values, of idea factors, 172
Sunday-closing law, 28c
Sympathies, differentiation,
6, 7, 46, 47,
52, 55
Sympathy, comparison
"System"
their
Thomas, 97
372
State's rights, 113,

Statistics,
legal,
value, 273, 294, 394
300
bill,
501
of races, 21
in law, 284
System, phase of acti%ity, 218
ff.
W
Ward, 91, 155
Wealth groups, 462
Westermarck, 93-99
Willoughby, 118
Woman's
suffrage, 425
Woods, 107
Tendencies of
activity, 184
ff.
Tariff reform, 347

ff
Zeno,
rest
and motion, 186
,^
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THE PROCESS OF GOVERNMENT

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

The University of Chicago

Composed and Printed By

an Attempt to Fashion a Tool

of the use of feelings, especially

sympathy, and of facul-

as causes of present events, of progress,

with reference to conflicting facts, and with sug-

gestion of the difficulties involved.

Ward; Sex and food

Westermarck; Gurewitsch; Guraplowicz;

Ideas and Ideals as Causes

Section I. As Used in Everyday Speech

and individualism, as illustrations of pretentious ideas and

Section IV. Dicey

Criticism limited to purposes of scientific interpretation of society.

meanings and values which are inadequately indicated by

Process and content.

theoretical statement of the position assumed.

of the social values.

more adequate statement

ANALYSIS OF GOVERNMENTAL PRESSURES

The Raw Materials

l^The raw materials are always

social differentiation; commore minute examination of

parison with organized institutions.

with special reference to

dencies to activity as themselves activity.

and from public-corporation

"social environment" in scientific study; likewise of "social heredity."

and the objective from the point

place of feelings and ideas.

Concerning the defining of governmental

retention of their meaning.

Measurement. The best statement of the material will be that which

reasoning and argument.

these terms all

actual observed interest

groups, activities, interest groups, group interests;

relation to the underlying groups.

speech, nor any "objective utility"

ground;" "rules of the game." Future and past in terms jpf

Public Opinion and Leadership

Leadership and public opinion;

related phases of group process, j

which can best be studied together.^^Leadership of group by group.)

legi slatu res,

socialism, a city ordinance.

Individual capacity for leadership an incidental fact.

and group phases. The boss and the machine.

How it reflects, represents, or leads other activity.^

municipal ownership movement in

differentiation of public opinion; its stages.

the greater the need of reducing

to substantial representative terms.

are themselves interest

Endowment and Race Type

real to attempt to hitch

substantial Mature of activity as here used.

nor as physically stated.

individual and social

statement of subsistence facts, of sex facts, of disease, of the use of