An Introduction to Social Psychology

Chapter 36: Institutional Controls

Luther Lee Bernard

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This chapter will discuss the institution as a control agency only in the larger aspects. We are interested primarily in the psycho-social processes which are common to all institutions and only to a minor degree in the workings of particular institutions. Social psychology is concerned with the psycho-social processes of institutions, but much less with the total functioning of specific institutions as adjustment agencies. This subject belongs rather to sociology, political science, and economics, which rest largely upon social psychology. Consequently we shall not attempt at this point any classification of institutions or analysis of their several specific functions, but confine our treatment to the operation of the psycho-social processes involved in them.

THE CONTENT OF INSTITUTIONS— Institutions are primarily, but not wholly, psycho-social phenomena. They are organized out of conventions, traditions, customs, codes, and other uniformities of psychic behavior common to the group. But they also contain as their biological and physical structures or skeletons certain administrative organizations and physical extensions. The former represent social inventions of a bio-social type and the latter are the inventions of physico-social technique, such as offices and buildings, apparatus for communication and transportation, the machinery of production, laboratories, printing equipment, and the like, which are necessary for broadcasting as effectively as possible the psycho-social content of the institutions. Customs themselves are, as we saw in Chapter VI, largely human bio-social environmental processes. The psycho-social content of institutions is of course their most important aspect, but it is able to propagate itself among the members of the group acid become uniform collective behavior only by the aid of certain bio-social and physico-social structures and processes. Hence, the adminis-

(565) -trative organization and physico-social technique are indispensable parts of the institutions themselves. Because they are the most readily perceived aspects of the institutions they are sometimes mistaken for the whole content, and by a sort of metonymy we commonly characterize institutions in terms of these objective and material forms of organization. The subjective and objective aspects of institutions have already been outlined in Chapter XXXV.

THE NATURE OF INSTITUTIONS —  Institutions are of course not external to people, as the man on the street so frequently assumes. They are simply the relatively permanent and formal ways in which people behave or act in making their collective adjustments to nature and to others of their kind. Institutions are relatively permanent, but not unchanging. They are in large degree the product of the stable and fixed needs of individuals and of groups, but they also modify and mold the permanent characters of individuals and groups. The institution is a coöperative method of meeting some fundamental needs of men which can be most effectively met through a fairly stable form of collective endeavor or social organization. Consequently the great social institutions relate themselves to family life, the production and distribution of food and other physical necessities of man, protection against seen and unseen or imagined enemies, associational and recreational (gregarious) contacts, the increase of individual efficiency along economic and spiritual lines, the promotion of the material and spiritual welfare of the group as a whole. The earliest institutions were the product of the more organic needs. The more spiritual and idealistic institutions have developed only as man's nature has been developed and refined to such a degree that he has become able to experience such needs and organize collectively for their promotion.

THE INSTITUTION AS A CONTROL AGENCY— These cooperative or collective ways of satisfying human wants or needs function as social controls in two ways. In the first place they serve as rules of the game and provide machinery for the coöperation of the members of the group in performing collective functions. In the second place, they are relatively permanent ways of act-

(566) -ing, changing so slowly that they do not lose their identity in one or many generations. Thus they serve as social mechanisms to induct each succeeding generation into the practices of the preceding generations. In this way collective life is made continuous in time as well as in space. Of course it is the individual, and not the institution, which the child imitates, but the behavior of the parent or teacher is standardized and uniformized by that coöperative interchange of contacts, functions, and services which we objectify and symbolize as the institution. The institution has primarily a conceptual and abstract, rather than a perceptual and concrete existence. But its function in social control is none the less definite and important for that. Its objective existence is in the behavior of men and in its codes, administrative organization and physical extensions which serve largely to integrate the behavior of men.

TRENDS IN INSTITUTIONS —  The institution itself changes just as the needs and methods of collective or coöperative endeavor change. The early institutions were built up about organic needs, and these institutions continue, although their content and functions have been greatly modified by the passage of time. For example, the family is no longer just a breeding and child-rearing coöperative organization or institution, although these functions still persist in most families and occupy a portion of their time. Nor is it any longer largely a productive unit economically. The family has now become a cooperative form of behavior involving much wider and more spiritual interests, in which a man and a woman, and through a portion of their lives, the children, join their efforts for the purpose of living an all round normal, healthful, and emotionally and intellectually satisfying life. Not all families have attained this ideal, but this is the tendency, while the reproductive and child-rearing, and perhaps the economically productive, functions of the family tend to become secondary in successful family life.

This same tendency toward a growing emphasis upon the spiritual and idealistic or constructive function is manifest in practically all institutions. Even the economic institutions have their constructive and spiritual aspects, as well as their

( 567) physical and biological. Religion, which began apparently as a method of protective magic employed against unfriendly or evil spirits and as a control over the services of those more favorably inclined spirits, has become a means to the cultivation of the finer emotions and ideals of men and to the promotion of constructive and altruistic social contacts. Government was at first almost wholly negatively protective against enemies from without and against the revolt of the exploited classes from within. It is now the chief agency for constructive social welfare. Also idealistic institutions have arisen on top of the old institutions devised to serve the primitive organic and emotional needs of man. Thus we have educational, ethical, and esthetic institutions, which are largely, although not wholly, the product of the cultural rather than of the instinctive needs of man. As we refine our individual characters through multiplication of contacts and adjustments, we build up coöperative or collective methods of satisfying these refined needs, and thus perpetuate these changes in our characters in the form of coöperative behavior which we objectify as institutions.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF OBJECTIVE CONTENT IN INSTITUTIONS —  The early institutions were very largely subjective in content. There were no written rules of procedure, the administrative organization was very slight, and the physico-social or bio-social technique was but little developed. The primitive family or the collective food-getting endeavors of the group were largely spontaneous. Buildings, tools, apparatus of all sorts, were scanty. Agreement on plans and their coöperative execution were accomplished through the communication of verbal or gesture symbols instead of through written rules. Formal decisions as a result of such informal discussion were the exception rather than the rule among early peoples.

Even the subjective or immaterial aspects of these institutions were not particularly well developed. There were few spoken conventions and traditions in the early stages of the development of institutions. Custom was negative rather than positive. That is, the member of the group was conscious of it in the breach rather than in the practice. Behavior was largely spontaneous and the result of biological needs, but where modified by the pressures of collective contacts, pat-

( 568) -terns of behavior were imitated or conditioned largely unconsciously rather than purposively. Hence early man was not particularly aware of his institutional controls, although he was dominated by them. He did not learn to conceptualize and objectify them until within the period of recorded human history. This conceptualization and symbolic objectification once accomplished, it was much easier for him to modify and perfect his institutions consciously and to develop them with foresight in constructive directions.

The major growth and service of institutions as intelligent social controls has come since man has been able to objectify them symbolically, and therefore to analyze and evaluate and reconstruct them. With the development of the social sciences he has acquired a technology for the intelligent reconstruction and invention of institutions. He is now endeavoring to build and rebuild his institutions according to his perceived needs. He is utilizing science in his own collective control. This is one of the causes which has produced the large degree of social disorganization in our day. It is necessary to replace much that is merely traditional or customary in our institutions by organization, objectives, and ideals which are scientifically tested, and to build up efficient administrative organizations and technique for carrying these into effect.

CUSTOMS are the least psychic of the subjective or nonmaterial forms of institutional controls. They consist of the standardized overt behavior of individuals which has descended by pattern from the past. But, of course, they have their basic internal mechanisms, which are usually unconscious or on the lowest level of consciousness. Customs are habits of overt response which come down to us from preceding generations. They may be somewhat modified in the process of transmission, but such modification is not great enough ordinarily to cause them to lose their identity. A large part of our daily behavior is of this customary character and ordinarily we are not strikingly self-conscious about such behavior. The things we do almost automatically from day to day are only in the periphery of our consciousness. They become focal only when we modify them. We acquire such behavior patterns ordinarily without bringing the learning process above the automatic level

( 569) of response. Or, if the learning is more highly conscious, the behavior soon lapses into a lower level of consciousness or into unconsciousness. For the most part only the learning process itself is conscious, and there is no particular awareness or appreciation of the significance of the behavior for the adjustment either of the individual or of the group. While each customary act is habitual for the individual, it is the collective character of the behavior pattern and the fact that it is transmitted from one person to another in consecutive time periods which render it custom. Ordinarily we do not reflect that our behavior, even our conscious behavior, is largely customary activity.

THE REVISION AND TESTING OF CUSTOMARY BEHAVIOR PATTERNS— But people in more advanced groups are more likely to become aware of the consecutive or historical origin of much of their behavior. Especially is this true in periods of transition. They recognize that the chief sanction for this behavior which they have imitated from parents and others of the community is the prestige of the persons who served as models for them and who in a manner forced it upon them. Ordinarily they had no other models whom they could imitate, and therefore little choice with regard to the selection of their behavior. Realizing these facts, people in an age of science and of transition— which means an age of competing models and of data for judgment of relative values— frequently raise the question of the validity of the customary behavior which they have copied. They wish to test it, and for this purpose they use two types of tests. One is that of subjective or personal hedonic appeal. If the behavior is pleasurable they accept it, but if it is unpleasant they reject it. This criterion of valuation is uncertain and often erroneous. The better test is the objective one of science. The question here raised and answered is, What will be the objective result of the behavior, the effect upon the self and others concerned? This test, in so far ac it ran be applied, is valid and effective and should be final. It becomes more feasible as we develop the social sciences in greater detail and apply them to the organization and control of collective contacts and relationships. Revisions of habits

( 570) based on customary models should, in so far as possible, be made with the assistance of scientific data and principles.

COMPARISON OF CUSTOMARY AND RATIONAL CONTENT IN INSTITUTIONS— The older institutions, such as the family, collective economic behavior, government, art, and religion, normally would carry the larger weight of custom, while the newer institutions, such as education, law, and ethics, would be expected to be less dominated by customs. But this is not always the case. If an old institution has been much revised recently in order to make it a successful collective adjustment mechanism, the relative amount of custom in it may be smaller than that in a newer institution. Thus economic and political institutions have relatively small amounts of custom, because they have been constantly reorganized and reëvaluated in this age of industry and democracy. Institutions which are open to tests of efficiency change more rapidly than those not open to such tests. On the other hand, the family and religion are still largely ruled by custom and each succeeding generation makes its adjustment within these institutions largely on a customary basis. Art and the esthetic also carry heavy loads of custom control or domination, although these institutions were relatively later in development. The same is true to a less degree of ethics. Law is one of the newer institutions, as distinguished from mere custom, but it still carries a very heavy load of custom and tradition from the past. It is very difficult to bring law up to that degree of modernity and rationality which would make it a successful means of collective adjustment or adaptation. Education, however, has recently thrown off a great burden of custom domination and is now rapidly revising its institutional organization and procedure on the basis of the findings of a new science of education. New social and mental sciences covering all of these institutions are arising and transforming them in a rational manner. This is particularly true of the sciences of economics, politics, sociology, anthropology, ethics and esthetics.

THE VALUE OF CUSTOMARY BEHAVIOR —  Custom however, has validity, arid it, also possesses utility. Because a form of behavior has descended from the past is not sufficient warrant for condemning it as irrational or anti-social or obstructive,

( 571) any more than it would justify us, as some seem to think, in giving it our approval. It is perfectly fitting that all customs should be analyzed and tested for their validity and utility in the light of present needs by means of scientific facts and principles where these are available. And those customs which are no longer useful, or are harmful, should logically be set aside in favor of others which are more serviceable in collective adjustments. But a valid custom has a certain advantage in its stability. It occupies a strategic position in collective behavior. Collective behavior falls naturally into the mold of custom, through the process of mutual interstimulation and imitation. Custom we shall always have with us, and our problem is not to extirpate it, but to test it continually by means of the science which applies to that field of behavior and to revise it when necessary, and to use it effectively for control purposes when it meets the tests. To attempt to do the work of the world on the basis of fully conscious behavior would be to undertake a load which it would be impossible to carry.

THE NATURE AND VALIDITY OF TRADITIONS— Traditions are the conscious equivalents of habits derived from customs. In individuals the tradition takes the form of a belief about some particular practice which is reputed to have occurred at an earlier date. This belief in the past occurrence of some event is also usually associated with the belief that the practice was enjoined upon later generations or that its success in the past implies that it would be a successful and proper practice with us. Traditions are a higher order of collective behavior patterns than are most customs, because they are conscious. They contain a certain amount of rational or pseudorational sanction in that they involve some examination of the past event which serves as a model and sanction for the habit which is being built up in the individual in the present. But there is no certainty that the tradition is valid, either with respect to the authenticity of the traditional event or as a sanction for present behavior. The folk, through their exercise of wish elaboration, are constantly creating myths regarding supposed events in the past which are intended to serve, or at least do serve, as sanctions for present behavior. Likewise an event which may have been proper and advisable under

( 572) the circumstances and in the light of the limitations to knowledge and the preconceptions of the past would not necessarily be good procedure in the present.

THE TESTING of TRADITIONS— As a consequence, there must be constant testing and revision of traditions just as of customs. Historical research, now that it is developing scientific methods, is constantly testing the authenticity of traditional events, the accounts of which come down to us from the past. This historical examination and testing is going on in all fields of knowledge, but it has attracted most attention perhaps in connection with religion and politics, because these fields formerly depended so much upon traditions to justify their creeds and principles and doctrines or dogmas. In the field of religion this method of testing traditions has been called the Higher Criticism. It is no longer so extensively used in connection with politics, because most of the old traditional political dogmas, such as those of the divine right of kings, of the theocratic origin of the state, the inferiority of the people, and the political and social incompetence of women, have been exploded in so far as any traditional basis or sanction is concerned. At present there is an active dispute between theology and the critical historians in western countries over the factual validity of many of the traditions of the founding of the religions and denominations current there. Those who accept the finding of the critical historians call themselves Modernists, while those who reject these findings and cling to their traditions are sometimes termed Fundamentalists.

TRADITION AND WRITTEN RECORDS —  Traditions were more valuable as institutional controls before the advent of literature than they are at present. A tradition is a belief held collectively and transmitted from the past, sometimes from the very remote past before written history began. Traditions may undergo considerable modification in this process of transmission, as may be seen from an examination of the several stories of early patriarchs current in the different religions which have a Semitic origin and therefore perhaps a common early history. It is to be expected, in the light of what we know about the selective influence of environmental stimuli, that traditions as well as customs would be modified to fit the circum-

( 573) -stances and the control and adjustment needs of the peoples among whom they are repeated and preserved. Among a preliterate people tradition is the chief method of preserving the accumulated wisdom and beliefs of the people and of handing them on to future generations. But with the advent of a literature the vocal recounting of the deeds and thoughts of the past gives way to written records which are much more accurate as to form. However, the early written records are themselves largely traditional, representing merely the transference of vocal traditions to the relatively fixed and permanent form of writing. The written form is no guarantee of the accuracy of the content, but it is a protection against easy modification. But before the printing of books, modifications even of written records or traditions were fairly frequent because of the interpolations often made by copyists. The only sure guarantee of authenticity of the content of written records and statements is to be found in its source. If it is the product of tested and repeated observation or of the laboratory it may be regarded as fairly authentic. Repetition of hearsay or the reduction of folk rumors and beliefs to writing has but little value in itself and must be supported by corroborative evidence or must fall clearly within the limits of probability before it can be accepted as precedent or model for behavior.

CONVENTIONS serve about the same function in institutional as in non-institutional controls. But the conventions of institutional controls are much more stable and constant and continuous in their existence and operation. As a consequence the conventional institutional controls are somewhat different from the non-institutional conventional controls. They are very largely the present aspects of customs and traditions. While a convention is a form of contemporaneous action or thought, it may nevertheless have originated in the past and have come down to us as a modified or unmodified form of a custom or of a tradition. On the other hand, the convention may have originated in the present. In the latter case it would not be an institutional control, although it might be in the process of becoming such by being adopted into a revised institutional organization. Conventions, whether originating in the present

( 574) or derived from the past, may have both the inner or mental and the overt or muscular behavior aspects.

THE FORMS OF CONVENTIONAL INSTITUTIONAL CONTROLS — For the most part, we may say, the institutional conventional control is the present aspect of a tradition or a custom. This fact would appear to eliminate rumor from among the institutional controls. It is too variable and ephemeral to be counted among the permanent forms of behavior which constitute the institutions. Beliefs, as the present aspects of traditions and as the result of scientific investigation, are among the most common institutional contents. Public opinion sometimes has the stability essential to an institutional process. This is true especially in a relatively static society largely controlled by custom and tradition, but it is not so frequently the case in modern dynamic societies. In such societies public opinion is likely to represent the more ephemeral collective responses of the masses to the questions of the hour and is largely based upon the propaganda, often highly prejudiced, of those interests which have mouthpieces in the form of newspapers, radio, or other types of rapid and voluminous communication. The findings of scientific investigators are the most trustworthy conventional content of the institutional controls. Gradually, as scientific data and principles accumulate, they are substituted for what is untrustworthy in the traditional content of institutions, and thus the institutions are revised on a tested knowledge basis. The administrative procedure in the institution is also revised to conform to the scientifically amended theory of its organization.

THE REVISION OF INSTITUTIONS THROUGH SCIENCE— This process of revision of institutions on the basis of scientific knowledge goes on slowly as yet, but it is the most hopeful fact in the modern social control situation. Through this means we may expect ultimately to secure a fairly rational organization of society, which will select the habits of its members into an economical and efficient and normal coöperative or collective plait of life. At present the fuss of time and energy and the injury to the individual through unwise inhibitions upon his powers and the repression of his emotions and impulses resulting from an irrational institutional organization

( 575) are appalling. We have begun to reorganize institutions on a rational basis through revising first the institutions of industry, government, and education. There are also indications that the process of revision and reorganization is going on within the other less competitive institutions, although more slowly and with more strongly expressed opposition. The great prerequisite to making this rational reorganization effective is an ever increasing fund of scientific knowledge covering all of the fields of human relationships. If the organization of institutions is made rational or scientific the problem of securing a rational non-institutional social organization will in part solve itself, since the substitute operation of non-institutional social controls is in considerable measure due to the ineffective functioning of institutional controls. However, the problem of technique in securing a scientific determination of the non-institutional controls is essentially the same as that in the case of the institutional controls.

THE OBJECTIVE INSTITUTIONAL CONTROLS are of less importance from the standpoint of social psychology than are the subjective or relatively non-material institutional processes. They are constructed and standardized for the purpose of rendering the subjective and non-material processes relatively permanent in their forms and functions. The necessity for standardization and the stereotyping of the subjective processes was not so great in primitive societies because collective behavior was not so complex. Where exact reproduction or repetition of behavior was desirable it was possible to secure this uniformity in a local face-to-face group through ritualization. The ritual reduced the whole group to something like an administrative organization. But for the most part life was still largely experimental and social organization had not proceeded very far or become particularly complicated. Also the chances for distortion of subjective control processes, such as traditions, conventions, and customs, by passing through many minds and being subjected to revision from many viewpoints, were not then so marked. Nor were the results of such distortion so serious as now. Groups were small and distance contacts were fewer and all of the members of the group were more likely to react coördinately or coadaptively to the same original stimu-

( 576) -lus. But in modern society distance or indirect contacts are so numerous and so many of the subjective institutional control processes are liable to be distorted by verbal communication that it has been necessary to reduce them to fixed and verifiable forms. Also, modern social organization, especially industrial and political organization, is so delicately and quantitatively adjusted that it is necessary to guard against undue distortion of meaning or of behavior by having the subjective controls accurately defined and interpreted. This need, which was beginning to be apparent long ago, perfected writing and later printing as the repository of the subjective institutional controls.

CODES AND RITUALS— Code is the general term which we apply to any traditional or conventional control in a literate society when it is being standardized or stereotyped so as to prevent too rapid and irrational or irresponsible change. It performs the stereotyping function served by the ritual in earlier times, but much more clearly because in a much more intellectual manner. The ritual belongs primarily to the preliterate society and marks an attempt to make definite through gesture and vocal language the essential dogmas or beliefs of the institution before it is possible to reduce them to writing. It tends to give way to the code among literate and intellectual peoples. The code is a written or printed set of rules of procedure, or "of the game," and its content may be viewed by any one and from it always the same meaning is to be drawn, if the reader has the power to interpret the symbols. The code contains the most important content of the theory of the institution, or that part of it which is regarded as most important and which the members of the institution desire to make definite and keep intact. However, not all of the theory of any institution is reduced to written or codal form. Even in the state and in financial and public service corporations, which have reason to make their codes as definite and specific as possible, some parts of the theory of the institution are unavoidably left to custom, tradition, and convention, especially as they appear in the ritual. But as these non-written aspects of the theory or regulative processes of the institution grow in volume they are likely to be reduced to written or codal form.

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CODES HAVE VARIOUS FORMS— In various institutions the code or written theory takes on various forms and is called by various names. In the corporation the code is usually the charter under which it does business, the various general legislative enactments of governmental bodies which cover such lines of business, and the rules made by the particular business itself to cover its procedure. In the state there are usually several elements or sections to the code. In the United States, for example, there are our federal constitution, the state constitutions, the treaties with foreign countries, the enactments of the federal congress and the state legislatures, the ordinances of city councils, the court decisions and the formal administrative rules and regulations of the numerous administrative bodies which have jurisdiction over us, and the common law which we have inherited from England. In the church the code is the promulgated creed and other legislative enactments, decrees of councils, bulls, declarations, general letters, etc., of ecclesiastical dignitaries with jurisdiction and the written rules and regulations of local congregations, where they exist.

SOME INSTITUTIONS POSSESS BUT SLIGHT CODES OF THEIR OWN— Some of the newer and accessory institutions, like education, have little in the way of an independent codal enactment of their own. This is because they are so dependent upon the state, if they are public schools, or upon the church, if they are parochial schools, for their support and for the enforcement of needed regulations. Therefore, their codes are to a large degree enacted into the codes of the overhead organization upon which they are dependent. The same is true of public and ecclesiastical charities, of recreation, esthetics, and morals. However, all of these, except morals, may have some sort of definite or written regulations of their own which might be called codes, even if they are only local administrative rules. The peculiar case of morals will be discussed later.

ADMINISTRATIVE ORGANIZATION is not primarily a psychosocial phenomenon and will not be discussed in detail here. Consideration of it belongs primarily under social and political science. However, the type of administrative organization which any institution develops for the purpose of exercising its control function to the best advantage will depend pri-

(578) -marily upon the code and the subjective processes of that institution. In a complex modern institution the code usually gives considerable space to defining and specifying the nature and functions and powers and limitations of the administrative organization. In the more loosely organized and less stereotyped institutions the administrative organization is more or less indefinite, its powers and limitations poorly defined, and its functions ordinarily quite flexible. In such cases the administrative organization may come to dominate the institution and to dictate its subjective as well as its objective process content. This it does the more easily because the institution lacks definite objective rules or principles with which adequately to control the administrative organization which may itself be self-constituted. The character of the administrative organization necessarily exercises the greatest influence upon the quality and direction of the functioning of the institution as a social control agency.

THE MATERIAL EXTENSIONS of institutions are even less a phase of the subject matter of social psychology, but belong primarily to the field of social technology and to the art of government. However, the social institution will be effective in proportion as it develops both a good administrative organization and an efficient physico-social apparatus for carrying its controls into effect. The more functional an institution is in the social life or collective adjustment process, the more necessary is an effective equipment with which to work.

SOME DIFFERENTIAL TRAITS OF INSTITUTIONS— HIGHLY OBJECTIFIED FUNCTIONAL TYPES— It was noted in the discussion above that different institutions undergo different degrees of objectification. The highly competitive and highly functional adjustment institutions especially are likely to develop primarily in the direction of codes, administrative organization, and physico-social and bio-social equipment and technique. This is likely to happen to any institution which is being perfected rapidly and used constantly for control purposes in a highly complex society. It is truer of growing institutions than of those declining in power. The state and economic institutions are examples preëminently of this tendency. Business handles the most immediately vital, the subsistence, inter-

( 579) -ests of the community. And the state is rapidly coming to be the great deciding and administrative agency of the public in all of its most vital concerns. In fact, the state has taken the place of the religious institution as the chief and final authority in handling matters of public concern. This is because the people consider it to be based on sounder principles of practical social adjustment and to be more amenable to the findings of science.

DECADENT TYPES— On the other hand, there are certain other institutions which are still largely or even primarily dominated by custom and tradition. This dominance may be due to a number of causes. The institution may be in a declining and recessive condition, so that it lacks sufficient hold upon the confidence of the people to establish a conspicuous objective aspect or organization. It may not be able to maintain or find employment for a large administrative organization, and its services to the public may not call for an elaborate and up-to-date physical equipment. On the other hand, however, such a declining institution may seek to check its decline by an elaborate and showy formulation of its principles in the form of a code. It may even become very dogmatic in its insistence upon at least verbal conformity to the principles of the code and attribute its growing weakness to the lack of respect of the masses for "the law" instead of to its own failure to serve the legitimate interests of the people. In such effete and declining institutions the administrative officials may increase unwarrantably in numbers and they may use their positions to exploit the popular respect for the institution or the fears which it inculcates for their own selfish ends, including the collection of revenues for the support of the faction in power. Thus the physical extensions or technique are developed and utilized primarily in the service of this same exploiting group rather than of the people as a whole. The traits here described have not infrequently been characteristic of decaying governments and religious hierarchies before their fall. Such a condition in an institution produces a remarkable effect upon it. It becomes recessive and its teachings become subjective and introvert instead of objective and extrovert. Unable to control the external adjustments of men or to play a considerable rôle in

( 580) worldly affairs, it places emphasis upon self-examination and verbal and internal conformity to the principles of the code. It deals with beliefs rather than with practice, and its practice is likely to be in the nature of ceremonial and ritual rather than of functional objective adjustments to the practical requirements of life. Such institutions, whether political, religious, or esthetic, are in advanced stages of decay.

CONTROLS IN SUBJECTIVE INSTITUTIONS— In another type of institutions the subjective processes predominate because they are primarily subjective institutions. That is, their problems are problems of judgment rather than of administration. This is particularly true of morals, although it is also to some extent the case with esthetics and religion. Ethical judgments are preëminently the result of a comparison of the utilities of conflicting or competing processes of behavior in any field of conduct whatever. It is not the business of ethics to enforce, except in so far as our sense of the right is compulsory. In the same way the sense of the fitting may also be compulsory in esthetics, or the sense of obligation to the superior or to the brother may be coercive in religion. But ethics is merely a court of appeal from the crude and automatic practice of life, and any question may be referred to it from any situation. It operates most effectively when there is the largest possible body of scientific data regarding consequences and of principles for guidance. It leaves enforcement to the institutions within whose jurisdictions the problems arise, or to the state and the church, the two great general agents of adjustment and justice of mankind. Therefore, it has no written code of its own, nor any administrative organization or physical technique and apparatus. These it borrows from other more objective institutions, or it turns its decisions over to them for their action. The general body of scientific knowledge is gradually becoming the accepted code of a developing rational ethics.

THE PROBLEM OF FLEXIBILITY— Some are inclined to deprecate the growing objectification of institutions, even of the state, and to see in it a new menace of rigidity similar to that exercised by custom and tradition and the ritual in the older subjective or less tangible institutions. The fear is that constitutions, written creeds, charters, and the like, although at

( 581) first a protection because they make definite the functions and powers of the institution and the rights of the people who function within the institution, may become the bulwark of the conservatives and of those profiting from special interests. A written document may be so hemmed about by restrictions that it is extremely difficult to amend it when it no longer provides for the needs of the people concerned. We have seen examples of such difficulty in political constitutions and religious creeds. Consequently liberals often prefer unwritten constitutions, like that of Great Britain, or highly flexible and traditional creeds, or no creeds at all, as in the case of the Unitarian church.

The problem of securing flexibility of institutions along with sufficient definiteness of regulatory content to make for efficiency is unquestionably an important one. It seems scarcely likely that we can dispense with written documents or codes in the great regulatory or control institutions, because of the necessity for definiteness and quantitative efficiency already mentioned. But for the sake of a reasonable measure of individual liberty and of social progress and to prevent exploitation it appears to be equally evident that the codes shall be made capable of reasonably easy modification. It must be possible to keep them up with the times in order that they may regulate the control services of the institution in a truly functional manner.

Flexibility of codes and of institutions generally is not so dangerous in an age of science as it was in the age of the dominance of tradition and custom. If we can only make sure that changes are sanctioned by scientific fact there is no danger whatever in flexibility, but on the contrary a very great gain for efficient social adjustment. Clearly, therefore, on the social control side the great psycho-social need is for the development and application of science, and especially of the social sciences, to the problems of collective adjustment.

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