I pause here to contrast this view of the "social mind" with that of some other writers, of whom I may take Professor Giddings as representative. I quote from page 134 of the 1905 edition of Professor Giddings' Principles of Sociology:—
The social mind is the phenomenon of many individual minds in interaction, so playing upon one another that they simultaneously feel the same sensation or emotion, arrive at one judgment and perhaps act in concert. It is, in short, the mental unity of many individuals, or of a crowd.
The social mind for Professor Giddings is thus made to depend upon an identity of content in many individual minds. For Professor Cooley, it is an organization and integration of many differentiated and divergent minds, in a complementary activity. Professor Cooley's conception, thus, takes in all minds, while that of Professor Giddings would exclude the dissenters. Further, Professor Giddings emphasizes the element of consciousness; unconscious processes are included by Professor Cooley, whose conception really finds a place for the total psychosis of every individual in society. It may be noted, however, that Professor Giddings, in the more detailed exposition of the classroom, does not stress either the agreement or the consciousness in the absolute fashion that the brief passage quoted would indicate, and readily concedes that for theoretical purposes the more inclusive conception of Professor Cooley's is a very useful one. The difference between his viewpoint, as set forth in the classroom, and that of Professor Cooley, is primarily a matter of emphasis.[115]
The following propositions are submitted, partly by way of summary, and partly by way of addition, as embodying the points essential for present purposes as to the nature of society:—
(1) Society is an organism. Organism as here used is a generic term, with the following connotation: (a) an organism has different parts, with different functions; (b) these parts are interdependent; (c) an organism is alive, in the sense in which Spencer defined life, that is, an organism has the power of making appropriate inner adjustments to the external environment; (d) an organism has a central theme, not externally imposed, to the working-out of which the different parts contribute; but the organism—or the parts—is not necessarily conscious of this central theme; (e) an organism is constantly changing its "matter" without essential change in "form." (In a biological organism the process of metabolism goes on constantly. In a society, men are constantly passing out of society through death, or through lapsing into idiocy, etc., and new elements are constantly entering, not through the biological process of birth, but through the process of becoming "socialized," in the manner described by Baldwin as the "dialectic of personal growth," or by Cooley, in his Human Nature and the Social Order.) (f) An organism grows, by progressive differentiations and integrations.
(2) There is a mind of society, a psychical organism. The minds of different individuals—themselves differentiated into systems of thoughts and feelings that are often lacking in harmonious adjustment to each other—are in such intimate interrelation that they may be said to constitute one greater mind. The physiological basis of this greater mind—if it be thought necessary to locate it—is the brains and nervous systems of individual men, plus that set of physical symbols (e.g., language, literature, gestures, art, music, etc.) which are set in motion by the nerve activity of one man, and then stimulate nerve activity on the part of another. This unity is primarily a unity of function, however.[116]
(3) The fact of individual differences among the minds of men, does not vitiate the conception of a mind of society. It rather proves the organic character of the social mind, by introducing the fact of differentiation. The integrating element is found in the points which individual minds have in common.
(4) The mind of society, like the mind of a man, is primarily volitional, and not intellectual. (Volition is here used in the wider sense, as including all motor and affective activities in mind.) Like the individual mind, the greater part of it is vaguely conscious or subconscious.