dence. It seems well to apply here De Greef's distinction between simple and compound laws, the former expressing relations between phenomena of the same class, the latter relations between phenomena of different classes. When we unite two economic facts, as in the proposition that the investment of capital varies directly with the rate of interest, we have an economic law. When we unite two political facts, as in the proposition that as national oppositions grow, party oppositions weaken, we have a law of political science. When, on the other hand, we join a political to an economic fact, as in the proposition that with the diffusion of economic opportunity the tension between classes declines, we have a social law. By the same right we may count as social Robertson Smith's law that the rise of a commonwealth or hierarchy of gods follows step by step the coalescence of small social groups into larger unities, and Nieboer's generalization that "Slavery as an industrial system is not likely to exist where subsistence depends on natural resources which are present in limited quantity.”

In general, however, the typical social law is not the statement of a relation between facts of different classes. It is more apt to develop a fundamental truth underlying, rather than connecting, the special social sciences. The action of one ethnic group upon another as formulated in Gumplowicz's law is determinative of political, military, economic, and domestic facts. In other words the law discloses a basic truth. Veblen's principle is of equal interest for ethics, æsthetics, and the science of religion. The laws of imitation formulated by Tarde are helpful to the linguist as well as to the economist, to the demographer as well as to the political scientist. Many of Professor Giddings's laws disclose characteristics of all manner of associations, or tendencies present in all departments of social life. In sooth, an inventory of its results convinces one that sociology is not so much a sister science to politics or jurisprudence, as a fundamental and comprehensive discipline uniting at the base all the social sciences.

THE UNIVERsity of Nebraska.

EDWARD ALSWORTH ROSs.

[To be continued.]

INFLUENCE OF THE FORM OF SOCIAL CHANGE UPON THE EMOTIONAL LIFE OF A PEOPLE.

ONE of the most important problems in social psychology is that of the relation of the mental characteristics of a people to the form of their social evolution. Intellectual and emotional elements are not to be regarded simply from the standpoint of their being the causes of social change. Neither are they therefore only the epiphenomena of a deeper series of changes. They are rather specializations occurring within a larger process, bearing a definite relation both to the onward movement of the process and to its historical aspects. In this larger whole are the habits and beliefs of generations, environing conditions both physical and social, and the ideas and feelings that arise from time to time for effecting readjustments.

If mental elements have a functional significance in the history of any people, they manifestly must be stated in terms of the conditions out of which they arose and with reference to what they accomplish. The genealogy of any idea or sentiment does not, however, consist simply in previous ideas or sentiments, but in the entire preceding social situation. The particular psychical characteristics of any people then bear an intimate relation to the manner of their social development. It is perhaps commonplace enough to hold that the characteristics of today are the outcome of those of yesterday. But our point is more than this. It is to be shown that the manner of the change from one period to another, not simply its mere fact, exerts a determining influence on the mental life that is involved. If then we find a certain people distinguished by strong intellectual or emotional tendencies, we should look for explanation to the form of their development, the way in which change has been wrought among them, as well as to the less tangible qualities of racial temperament and environmental conditions. In other words, it is the manner in which these forces exert their influence that is the important point. There is no such thing as mere influence of surroundings and of social temperament in general.

The particular theme of this paper is that the emotionalism that seems to belong to certain times and peoples is definitely related to the form of the social evolution of the peoples concerned. The solution of this problem has important bearings on certain aspects of the psychology of religion.

The emotionalism that certain forms of religion at all times naturally tend to foster must be carefully distinguished from the social tendencies to emotion that appear at certain periods and in time pass away. The latter is due to the form of the social situation. The explanation of the former involves us in the question as to why religion has tended to select certain mental states as peculiarly expressive of its attitude and why it has excluded others. It involves the whole question of the psychology of the religious attitude and the functional relation of emotion to the entire mental economy. We are concerned with this aspect of the question only in so far as the tendency to select and emphasize certain emotional elements of experience as of special religious value has made religion particularly susceptible to those elements in any situation that predispose to emotionalism. That is, if a given situation can be described as tending to produce an emotional tone, the stimulus it offers will be readily responded to by religion from the fact of its natural leaning in that direction. The main problem that concerns us here is as to the extent to which various combinations of influence may predispose to this emotional attitude.

From the functional point of view, emotion is connected with the interruption of previous co-ordinations, either habitual or instinctive, and under normal conditions it may be supposed to assist in the formation of new co-ordinations. The more readily the new co-ordinations are formed, the less consciousness is there of an emotional tone from the previously broken habit. This statement of the nature of emotion is usually confined in its reference to the individual, but it may, under certain conditions, apply on a larger scale to nations and races. Just as the breaking up of the habitual or instinctive adjustments of the individual results in bringing to his consciousness the internal attitudes, physiological and psychical, that were previously organized with

the overt activity and hence were not attended to as such, so the break-up of the fundamental habits of a nation, or even an interference with its customs by some external agency, may result in a social attitude analogous to that of emotion in the individual. In the individual this condition may be described as one of suspension following the coming to consciousness of the insufficiency or the impossibility of the old adjustment before a new one can be formed.

For the best examples of this state on the social side we must go to those peoples to whom custom means a very different thing than to ourselves. We are living in a period of perpetual readjustment, but there have been times and races to which the stoppage of old usages, in fact all change, has meant everything that is serious and fraught with danger. The consciousness of such a people seems to be wholly expressed in their customs. If any individuality arises, it is ignored or repressed. Whatever initiative occurs outside the recognized lines is regarded as disgraceful, impious, or as a sin against society. The habits of a people who have lived in comparative isolation in their formative period come to have an inclusiveness and a validity that it is difficult for us to realize. What now will be the result if such a people, through external influences of some sort, as contact with other races, or through the process of their own development, are forced to break with their traditions more or less suddenly? Try to conceive such a race brought suddenly into intimate contact with a people of widely differing customs and perhaps of another plane of culture. For the first time they will feel the narrowness of their own traditions. They see others living and prospering without doing the things that they themselves have grown to consider such an essential part of life. They are not in a position to see that customs are simply methods of living. Instead they have set them up as absolutely valid, and when their old faith in them is clearly proved groundless, they are apt to cast them aside entirely, as having no value.

Old habits may gradually be found to be inadequate as conditions change, and the result may be as gradual a readjustment. But when the old is simply cut off or rendered inadequate there

is no means for any movement toward a new and better adjusted set of habits. The previous standards of action, the regulative principles, are gone. The mental condition of a people under such circumstances is apt to be an emotional one. The particular form that the emotional attitudes will take will, however, vary indefinitely according to previous habits, temperament, the nature of the interrupting influences, etc.

The Malays, especially of the Malay peninsula, furnish an interesting study from this point of view. They are characterized by a peculiarly emotional temperament, as is proved by their passion for gambling, dramatic performances of all kinds, cock and bull fighting, etc. We can trace these well-nigh universal characteristics of the Malays to certain peculiarities in their social evolution. Their normal development was interrupted at least twice within historic times by different foreign invaders, and twice did they have thrust upon them alien customs and alien religions.' They have been Muhammadans since the fifteenth century, and beneath their Muhammadanism is a layer of Hinduism which goes back perhaps to the twelfth century. Many fragments of their native religion have, however, persisted in various forms, unabsorbed or unreconstructed by the foreign faiths. The customs of the invading races have been in large degree superposed on the conquered, merely checking and suppressing the native habits without supplying an organized channel of expression that would take up and utilize the old values and thus furnish the basis for real progress.

It is a matter of indifference to the present inquiry whether the Malays, if left to themselves, would ever have perfected their primitive social institutions, or whether their development would have been arrested, as it has been with most of the natural races. In either case the effect on themselves of these foreign elements would have been the same. Their organic forms of social control were not only crippled, but isolated from their normal setting, and hence brought to consciousness with no very definite demands for reconstruction, so that the crises ended in emotional states of mind instead of in rapid adjustments for 'SKEAT, Malay Magic. The Macmillan Co., 1901.