more psychological in its subject-matter than biological; that is, that it is much more dependent upon psychology than upon biology. Human society presents itself as a plexus of interactions, or interrelations, between individuals. Now these interactions between individuals are very largely interactions of thought, feeling, and will. So largely are they psychical, that we rarely stop to think of their physical side at all. Mind itself, indeed, was apparently largely developed to perfect these interactions. The interrelations between individuals which go to make up society, in other words, are dominantly psychical, and all explanations of human society must be largely a matter of the psychology of these relations. Disregarding the biological aspect of society, the social sciences, therefore, present themselves as very largely extensions of psychology into practical human affairs. This is especially true of sociology; for the special social sciences deal with the more specialized products of social activity which are relatively more removed from the purely psychical, while sociology deals with the associational process itself, which is directly dependent upon psychical activities. Hence, modern sociology acknowledges the suzerainty of psychology.

Neither to the psychologist nor to the sociologist, but only to the generality, is it necessary to say that this reasoning by no means makes sociology merely a section of general psychology. The problems of the two sciences remain distinct, and therefore, in the scientific division of labor, there will always be room for the two sciences. Pure psychology necessarily concerns itself with immediate experience, that is, with the forms and mechanism of consciousness; while sociology concerns itself with the problems of the interrelations or interactions of individuals and of the resulting social organization and evolution. The latter problems are, however, dependent for their adequate solution upon the solution of the former. An adequate view of human society can only be developed when we have an adequate view of human nature. The development of psychology during the past fifteen years has, accordingly, not only revealed human nature, but also human society, in new lights. While it may still be premature to announce in detail the view of human society which modern

psychology necessitates, yet it is not too early to attempt to sketch in outline that view; and such is the purpose of this paper.

Put in a sentence, the psychological view of society is, that it is a mass of interactions, of interstimulations and responses, between individuals, not haphazard, but regular, co-ordinated, and controlled, working, for the most part, toward definite ends, and making groups true functional unities, ruled by habit largely, but, like all organic unities, undergoing adaptive changes which are themselves regular and which, moreover, give rise to the most important socio-psychical phenomena. Analyzed, this statement means that the essence of society is mental interaction, i. e., interstimulation and response; and that the fundamental fact with which the sociologist has to deal is this interaction, this interstimulation and response, between individuals. It is this interstimulation and response which makes up all social phenomena and which is, therefore, the subject-matter of all the social sciences, and particularly of sociology. The significant thing for the sociologist, however, is not that these interactions between individuals exist, but that they are regular; not haphazard, but co-ordinated and controlled. Without this regularity in the forms of interaction between individuals, social science in general would be impossible, for the object of all scientific study of society is to discover regularity in social activity, that is, in the forms of interstimulation and response among individuals.

This regularity and co-ordination in mental interaction, interstimulation, and response, which brings to unity of aim the activities of individuals, may be called the social co-ordination, just as the bringing to a unity of aim of physical and psychical processes in the body is called a co-ordination. This co-ordination of individuals in activity is, of course, what makes group action possible. It creates the unity of the group; and the co-ordinations that persist, become habitual, form the very substance of permanent social organization, and, as has already been said, it is the changes in these social co-ordinations, the breaking-down of old ones and the building-up of new ones, which give rise to the most important phenomena of collective psychical life. We are justified in concluding, therefore, that the most important,

and practically most fundamental, fact for the sociologist is this co-ordination of individuals in activity—the social co-ordination.1

To trace out the mechanism of the origin, development, and forms of these co-ordinations constitutes, then, the task of the sociologist from the psychological point of view. But in doing this his point of view is necessarily that of the group, not that of the individual, for the individual in his instinctive and habitual reactions only gives at most the starting-point for these coordinations. The real reason for the existence of such co-ordinations must always be found in the carrying-on of a common life-process by a group of individuals, else they would not exist. The co-ordinations, in other words, are co-ordinations of individuals in function, and the group must be considered as a functional unity in order to understand them.

Hence is justified methodologically the sociological point of view-the view of the group as a functional unity, and the interpretation of its phenomena from the standpoint of its collective life, from the standpoint of the mass as a whole. The sociologist does not consider the individual as such but only as a functioning element in the larger whole; while the psychologist, on the contrary, considers the social whole only to throw light on individual experience as such. The study of interstimulation and response from the side of the individual would show only half of the whole process. Even in the interests of abstract science, it is quite as important that the process be studied from the point of view of the larger unity if the interstimulations and responses of individuals are determined, more or less, upon the basis of the needs and interests of a collective life-process. The process of individual interaction, to be sure, is dominantly a psychical process, in that its dominant elements are psychical; but it is, nevertheless, a social, not an individual, process and can be understood only from the social point of view-that is, from the point of view of the collective life of a group. The sociolo

I first used the term "social co-ordination" in an article in the American Journal of Sociology for May, 1899. The term was used earlier by Professor Giddings in his Principles of Sociology, pp. 388-90. Lately Dr. M. M. Davis has described the same phenomenon (in his Psychological Interpretations of Society) with the term "co-adaptation."

gist, then, has to interpret the forms of the regular co-ordinated actions between individuals, and the changes which take place in them, from the standpoint of a collective life-process.

The biological origin of social co-ordinations need not concern the psychological sociologist as such. It is sufficient for him to note that the instincts of all individuals of a social species are made so that they fit into one another, so to speak; so that their instinctive reactions are co-ordinated with one another. In the social groups of man, moreover, these instinctive reactions are modified so through habit that the adjustment of the activities of individuals to each other reaches such a high degree of perfection that groups often act with the spontaneity and certainty of individual units. Through instinct and habit, then, wrought out under social conditions, the activities of individuals become socially co-ordinated; and practically the psychological sociologist has to start his interpretation of the social life with these social co-ordinations. Just as the psychologist cannot get back of organic activity and have anything left of mental life, so the sociologist cannot get back of social activity and have anything left of social life, for we do not think of the group as a unity except in connection with its activities. The social co-ordination is the sign of social relationships, social organization, social life, throughout the animal scale. Individuals living together in mere proximity cannot be said to have social relationships until they become functionally related to each other as parts of some functioning whole. In a psychological interpretation of society, therefore, we must begin with concerted or co-ordinated activity, with the group acting together in some particular way, for it is this which constitutes the group a functional unity, and which is the first psychic manifestation of group life.

It may be objected that what we have called the social coordination is nothing more than social co-operation under another name. But social co-ordination, as already implied, does not necessarily mean that the relationship is one of mutual aid. It may be one of exploitation, or even of modified hostility. There See my article on "The Origin of Society" in the American Journal of Sociology for November, 1909.

is, however, it must be admitted, no objection to employing the phrase "social co-operation" in a very broad way to designate the sum of social co-ordinations for social co-operation in this broadest sense is made up of social co-ordinations; popularly, however, social co-operation is used in a much narrower sense as implying a high degree of reflective consciousness on the part of the individuals whose activity is co-ordinated. Even by some scientific writers the term co-operation is used in exactly this way. Thus, we find Professor Giddings, for example, saying, "There can be no co-operation except among those who are, in good degree, like minded, and who are so far conscious of their agreement that they can intelligently plan their common activity." It is manifest that such social co-operation as Professor Giddings is speaking of, implies a high degree of reflective consciousness which hardly exists until man is reached in the animal scale and is not present even in many human groups. The term "social co-ordination" has been used to express the connection between the activities of a mass of individuals living together and carrying on, through interstimulation and response, a common life-process, because it is a colorless term, not implying the high degree of consciousness which sometimes attaches to the phrase "social co-operation." Manifestly, as has already been said, all social organization is an outcome of social co-ordination and social co-ordination can, therefore, be regarded as synonymous with social co-operation only in the sense that all social organization implies co-operation.

Social co-ordinations have both objective and subjective expressions in the collective life. Their objective expression is chiefly in those relatively uniform and universal ways of action to which Professor Sumner has given the name "folkways." The folkways are simply regular modes of social activity in a given group of people. The better expression would probably be social habits, since these regular modes of social activity are not, by any means, confined to the large group which we term a folk or a people, but are found in the smallest groups of society as well. Every family group, for example, illustrates these regular modes of social activity which we have termed social co-ordinations. The family, indeed, beautifully illustrates the whole