American Social Psychology
I. James M. Baldwin (1861)
Fay Berger Karpf
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The directions of development which we have been tracing out here first came together with very significant social-psychological results in the work of Baldwin, who approached social-psychological thought from the side of child psychology regarded as a part of genetic psychology in the broad sense of contemporary evolutionary thought. In order to bring this approach into proper social-psychological perspective, it is necessary to consider it briefly from the standpoint of its natural setting in contemporary psychological and social theory as the latter has been developed so far.
Baldwin's approach is deeply rooted in the notion of "the social growth of personality," a conception which he brought into prominence in this country in conjunction with his well-known formulation of "the dialectic of personal growth." This conception had two distinct sources in American thought: the philosophical analysis of the self, emanating chiefly from German idealistic thought of the Hegelian strain and introduced into psychology in this country especially by James and Dewey but also by such a representative of this direction of thought itself as Josiah Royce ;[1] and child psychology in its more inductive aspects, which, like so many other scientific movements of the day, took its modern impulse chiefly from Darwinism and in connection with which Hall, as has already been noted, stands out in this country as a notable pioneer figure.[2]
It was the latter field of inquiry which, in conjunction with the progress of contemporary sociological and anthropological investigation, brought to this conception of personal growth the factual support and concrete significance that it needed to establish itself as a contribution to modern scientific theory, for the former direction of thought, while it
( 270) held the germ of interpretation which the conception incorporates, was itself dependent on the facts brought forth by the above fields of investigation for its concrete meaning and value. To the modern development of child psychology as reflected upon the background of Darwinian evolutionary doctrine, therefore, we owe the chief scientific impulse behind the conception of "the social growth of personality" as it has been developed by American social psychology beginning with Baldwin. This is the claim made by Baldwin himself, who acknowledged both sources of influence, at the same time taking pains to establish the point that his theory rests on the observed findings of psycho genesis and especially in the "direct observation of children," a field of inquiry which tended to bring, according to him, inductive confirmation of the conception of the self which had been deductively arrived at by the German trend of idealistic thought, as noted above.[3] In defense of this emphasis on the positive approach in the study of mental development, in which respect, it will be recalled, he was notably at one with the emphasis incorporated in the work of Ward and James, Baldwin says:
The advantage of the psychological genetic method is that it is constantly based upon observed facts and may be controlled by them. Psychological observations of the child fall within the range of positive science; and their value consists in the possibility of their repeated corroboration. The theoretical inferences of the work are thus made more secure; and they may be supported, moreover, by a corresponding appeal to the facts of social life for confirmation.[4]
It is especially necessary, therefore, to follow out in greater detail the orientation of Baldwin's approach in child psychology.
This field of investigation, as suggested above, received its chief impulse in the modern period from Darwinian evolutionary doctrine. It was another one of those scientific by-products which took on renewed vigor in the atmosphere of modern evolutionary thought, with its emphasis on the genetic point of view and the phenomena of development.[5]
There were, of course, spasmodic attempts at child study before Darwin's day,[6] but in general the older psychology did not foster the display of special interest in the child mind as a particularly significant
( 271) field of psychological investigation. Like all other levels of mental phenomena, the child mind was supposed to be explainable in terms of the universal principles of mental action with which this psychology concerned itself and which, it was held, could best be studied where they were most perfectly manifested, namely, in the adult mind of civilized man. The child mind was thus measured up to the adult mind, just as the so-called "primitive" mind was measured up to the civilized mind, the adult mind of modern man remaining always the standard and basis of procedure.[7]
Modern evolutionary doctrine fairly reversed this psychological out-look. From its standpoint the child mind, the animal mind, and the mind of primitive man came into their own as important aspects of psychological investigation both on their own account and as preliminary to an understanding of the adult mind of civilized man, which came to be looked upon as the highest link in the evolutionary chain of mental development. Hence the growing interest in the genetic approach and, as one aspect of it, the growing emphasis on child study which are reflected in modern psychological theory.[8]
For the general problem of mental development which evolutionary thought brought into view, it will be recalled here, resolved itself into several differentiated fields of investigation and methods of attack. Thus in England, as we have seen, it was mainly by way of instinct psychology, with its tendency to link the study of animal and human mentality, and comparative evolutionary anthropology, with its interest in grading and classification, that the genetic approach was chiefly cultivated. In Germany, again, evolutionary thought interpreted from the idealistic standpoint brought culture history chiefly into prominence. All of these directions of inquiry concerned themselves primarily with the racial aspects of the problem of the mental development. The other aspect of the problem, i.e., the mental development of the individual, was for the time comparatively neglected, and this despite the fact that Darwin himself had recognized the importance and set the example of investigation in this field from the standpoint of the new perspective introduced by modern evolutionary doctrine, as he had in so many other directions.[9] Only, in fact, as the findings of embryology began to reflect scientific support on the notion which, in a vague way, had for some time been current in evolutionary thought of the historico-philosophical type,
( 272) namely, that the individual in his growth in some way passes through the main stages of development through which the race had passed, as implied by the recapitulation theory[10] (thus suggesting a new source of confirmation for the theory that a very close relation exists between the study of individual development and the larger aspects of the problem of mental evolution with which the thought of the day was chiefly concerned), did this other aspect of the problem of mental development also begin to take on importance in the scheme of contemporary genetic thought.[11] And appropriately enough, it would seem, both from the standpoint of the division of labor on this problem in nineteenth century social and psychological thought and in view of the intellectual situation here at the time, as it was outlined in the opening section of this part of our survey, it was in this country that this approach took most vigorous root after its first period of Darwinian cultivation abroad.
The publication of Darwin's "Biographical Sketch of an Infant" was followed in the next few years by a number of similar reports, including Wilhelm Preyer's famous study Die Seele des Kindes (1881). This work, the first of these studies, according to Brett, to reach "the dimensions of a book on the subject," though it was largely physiological in character, is usually looked upon as the real initiating event of modern child psychology.[12] The more recent period of widespread interest in this field of investigation was, however, not ushered in until child study began to be popularized in this country chiefly in the first place, as was stated above,[13] through the efforts of G. Stanley Hall and his immediate associates and followers. Under Hall's influence, whatever one may say of specific aspects of his detailed procedure and characteristic point of view, child study began to take on such an importance, both theoretical and practical, that it has ever since remained one of the most active fields of psycho-genetic investigation.[14] Most important for us here, in
( 273) this connection, is the fact that child study in this country assumed a definitely social-psychological trend in some of its aspects and that in the case of some writers more particularly, beginning with Baldwin, it resolved itself into deeply significant social-psychological results.[15] It is with these aspects of its development, naturally, that we are chiefly concerned here, and we thus come in the first instance to the consideration of Baldwin's work in its social-psychological bearings.
It is necessary only to indicate more definitely, in passing, the role which Hall's pioneer exploitation of the field of genetic psychology in this country has played in this development. It was through his efforts in the first place in this country that such key terms of modern child and genetic psychology as "infancy," "childhood," "puberty," "adolescence," "youth," and along with them more recently also "maturity" and "senescence" began to take on concrete meaning and definite psychological and social significance. These terms form a series by means of which Hall sought to give concrete content and meaning to the vague evolutionary conception of the continuity of mental development, which had so long remained in need of more concrete elaboration along the lines of its application to the study of the individual. Thereby Hall did much to bridge the gap that was created by the early studies of childhood, such as under the influence of Darwin had increasingly begun to appear on the one hand, and conventional adult psychology on the other. It is in this respect that his work helped to prepare the ground for the social-psychological interpretation of mental development, as we are to be concerned with it in this part of our survey. At any rate, it is illuminating to bear the general setting of Hall's work in view here, especially in con-junction with the following discussion of Baldwin's genetic theory.[16] For it is as a departure from Hall's biological approach and physiological emphasis in the study of mental development, which link his work with Spencer's rather than with Ward's interpretation of evolutionary doctrine, and with the standpoint of instinct psychology in its extremer biological forms, rather than with the broader psychological standpoint of James' position, as outlined above, that the social-psychological aspects of Baldwin's genetic theory can be most significantly presented here. It is by way of offering a basis of comparison for this purpose that Hall's general position is illustrated below.[17]
( 274)
Like Hall, Baldwin sought to build his genetic theory on a foundation of recapitulation doctrine, thereby to tie up his theory of individual
( 275) development with the broader aspects of evolutionary thought with which scientific interest of the day was so largely concerned.[18] But because of his particular conception of the mental and social bearing of the evolutionary process, he was much more cautious than was Hall in the application of its suggested biological analogies. The development of the recapitulation parallelism was nevertheless with Baldwin, as it was with Hall, a major interest, and his dependence upon it, superficial though it is, helps to give his work a more out-of-date air than it would otherwise have. This, in the light of more recent inquiry, is true again in regard to Baldwin's emphasis on imitation as the chief mechanism of personal and social growth, even though he redefined imitation in broad organic terms.[19] But these features of Baldwin's theory, important as he regarded them at the time, have come to be looked upon as incidental details in the formulation of his point of view as a whole, which in its larger social-psychological aspects may be said to mark the real beginning of social-psychological thought in this country as well as an important new phase of social-psychological thought generally.
The significance of Baldwin's point of view for social psychology consisted in the fact that he grasped the social implications of the process of personal growth and that he was able, in consequence, to work out a synthetic view of the process, which seemed to harmonize the positions represented by biological and psychological individualism on the one hand and sociological collectivism on the other and in large part to over-come their most troubling and, as it had hitherto appeared, irreconcilable oppositions.[20] Baldwin gives us the following details of the origin of his point of view and the basic doctrines in terms of which he first formulated it in his Mental Development in the Child and the Race (1895) :
This work, he tells us, was begun as a series of articles reporting observations on infants. In the prosecution of this purpose, he found it necessary constantly to enlarge his scope, "for the entertainment of a widened genetic view." This need came to clearer consciousness, according to him, in the treatment of the child's imitations, especially in the treatment of the relation of imitation to volition. "The farther study of this subject," he says, "brought what was to me such a revelation of the genetic function of imitation that I then determined—under the inspiration, also, of the small group of writers lately treating the subject—to work out a theory of mental development in the child, incorporating
( 276) this new insight."[21] It is thus in connection with the "revelation of the genetic function of imitation" that Baldwin's view of the social nature of individual mental growth has root, imitation in the sense in which he used this term[22] being, according to him, the specific mechanism by means of which the social integration of mental growth is accomplished. And this revelation,,though it is suggestive of the similar emphasis on imitation in the previous works of Bagehot and Tarde, was apparently, at least in the first instance, an independent position arrived at chiefly on the basis of observations of the mental processes of children.[23] This is of some importance here, for it gives the distinctive orientation of Bald-win's social-psychological thought, even though Baldwin later followed the example of previous writers in attempting to generalize his observations on the mental development of children. In any event, we have here
a statement on the relation between Baldwin's social-psychological point of view and his observations in the field of child psychology—and, incidentally, the origin of one of the central conceptions of his theory, for us the more important one, namely, imitation.
The other conception—recapitulation—Baldwin tells us, came as a result of his conviction, which followed upon an additional period of thought on the subject, "that no consistent view of mental development in the individual could possibly be reached without a doctrine of the race development of consciousness,—i.e., the great problem of the evolution of the mind" in general. On the basis of this new insight, according to him, he fell to reading again the literature of biological evolution, "with a view of a possible synthesis of the current biological theory of organic adaptation with the doctrine of the infant's development, as my
previous work had led me to formulate it." The result, as he points out, was a new attack upon the problem of Spencer and Romanes carried on from the standpoint represented by child study. This new approach, he suggests, "accounts for the preliminaries and incidents of treatment which make my book so different in its topics and arrangement from theirs and from any work constructed from the start with a `System of Genetic Psychology' in view."[24]
( 277)
Baldwin first formulated his theory of mental growth, which, it has been suggested, sought to bring together "the biological, sociological and psychological trends of thought" on the subject at the time, in his Mental Development. "The success of this book," says Brett, "which has been considerable both in its English and its German form, may be regarded as a prof that it provided for many readers the synthesis of ideas which time had prepared them to expect."[25] Folk psychology, he proceeds to point out, had made familiar the idea of a continuous evolution of the content of thought as well as of the processes of thought which could contain the ever increasing complexity of content-material. The same general view appeared in varied form and with renewed emphasis in the English literature of biological evolution, which also brought new support to the theory of recapitulation and additional incentive for child study. Contemporary sociological and anthropological thought again was stressing in a variety of indirect ways the dependence of human thought on cultural level and social environment. The background for Baldwin's theory was thus quite complete. He needed only to take the step beyond of bringing these thought currents to bear on the specific problem of individual as over against racial mental growth, and of tying them up with the facts of child psychology as he himself was confronted with them and as they were beginning increasingly to appear in the contemporary detailed reports on child development. His own contribution consisted chiefly of the characteristic synthesis of these elements of thought and investigation which he worked out in preliminary form in his Mental Development and in more elaborate form in his Social and Ethical Interpretations (1897).[26]
From the standpoint of social psychology, Baldwin's Mental Development is thus merely introductory to his later volume on Social and Ethical Interpretations, in which the social implications of his theory of individual mental growth are developed. Baldwin's earlier volume had indicated the social nature of the process of mental growth and projected the later work in which this aspect of the theory was to be elaborated, but it was itself chiefly concerned with those aspects of the theory that, according to him, fall within the field of individual rather than social psychology. The specific reference which Baldwin there made to his later work is interesting. He says:
There are certain other great provinces, besides, which I find capable of fruitful exploration with the same theoretical principles. Of course, genetic psychology ought to lay the only solid foundation for education, both in its method and its results. And it is equally true, though it has never been adequately realized, that it is in genetic theory that social or collective psychology must find both its root and its ripe fruitage. We have no social psychology,
(278) because we have had no doctrine of the socius. We have had theories of the ego and the alter; but that they did not reveal the socius is just their condemnation.[27]
These social-psychological aspects of the subject Baldwin proposed to take up "in another work, already well under way, to bear the same general title as this volume, but to be known by the sub-title Interpretations: Educational, Social, and Ethical, in contrast with the Methods and Processes, by which this book is described more particularly on the title-page."[28] This later work, he explains, "will endeavor to find a basis in the natural history of man as a social being for the theory and practice of activities in which his life of education, social co-operation, and duty involves him."[29]
It is interesting to note that by the time Baldwin came to the actual publication of his Social and Ethical Interpretations, his social-psychological point of view had apparently so far crystallized as to influence him to change the title of the work as given above so as to include the subtitle "A Study of Social Psychology." This is usually taken to be the first prominent use of the term "social psychology" in this country.[30] As a matter of fact, as we have already seen, three years earlier Small and Vincent had designated a section of their Introduction to the Study of Society as "Social Psychology," presenting under it a discussion modeled on Schäffle's treatment of the subject.[31] This was apparently the first notable use of the term "social psychology" in this country, over-shadowed though it very quickly was by Baldwin's more suggestive approach and presently, especially by Ross' popular treatment of the subject.
Baldwin starts out in his Social and Ethical Interpretations with the following widely quoted passage from his earlier work describing the chief steps in the emergence of selfhood, the self being, as he maintained
( 279) with much greater emphasis and elaboration than James, a social product. Since it is in this way that Baldwin himself chose to indicate the relation between his two above-mentioned works, and since this passage is basic to all of his later social-psychological theorizing, we shall quote it here as a whole.[32]
"One of the most interesting tendencies of the very young child in its response to its environment is the tendency to recognize differences of personality. It responds to what have been called `suggestions of personality.' As early as the second month it distinguished its mother's or nurse's touch in the dark. It learns characteristic methods of holding, taking up, patting, and adapts itself to these personal variations. It is quite a different thing from the child's behavior toward things which are not persons. I think this is the child's very first step toward a sense of the qualities which distinguish persons. The sense of uncertainty grows stronger in its dealings with persons. A person stands for a group of experiences quite unstable in its prophetic as it is in its historical meaning. This we may, for brevity of expression, assuming it to be first in order of development, call the projective stage in the growth of the child's personal consciousness.
"Further observation of children shows that the instrument of transition from such a projective to a subjective sense of personality is the child's active bodily self, and the method of it is the function of imitation. When the organ-ism is ripe for the enlargement of its active range by new accommodations, then he begins to be dissatisfied with `projects,' with contemplation, and starts his career of imitation. And of course he imitates persons.
"Further, persons are bodies which move. And among these bodies which move, which have certain projective attributes, a very peculiar and interesting one is his own body. It has connected with it certain intimate features which all others lack—strains, stresses, resistances, pains, etc., an inner felt series added to the new imitative series. But it is only when a peculiar experience arises which we call effort that there comes that great line of cleavage in his experience which indicates the rise of volition, and which separates off the series now first really subjective. What has formerly been `projective' now becomes `subjective: This we may call the subjective stage in the growth of the self-notion. It rapidly assimilates to itself all the other elements by which the child's own body differs in his experience from other active bodies—all the passive inner series of pains, pleasures, strains, etc. Again it is easy to see what now happens. The child's subject sense goes out by a sort of return dialectic to illuminate the other persons. The `project' of the earlier period is now lighted up, claimed, clothed on with the raiment of selfhood, by analogy with the subjective. The subjective becomes ejective; that is, other people's bodies, says the child to him-self, have experiences in them such as mine has. They are also me's; let them be assimilated to my me-copy. This is the third stage; the ejective, or social self, is born.
"The `ego' and the `alter' are thus born together. Both are crude and unreflective, largely organic. And the two get purified and clarified together by this twofold reaction between project and subject, and between subject and eject.
(280) My sense of myself grows by imitation of you, and my sense of yourself grows in terms of my sense of myself. But ego and alter are thus essentially social; each is a socius and each is an imitative creation."[33]
"This give-and-take between the individual and his fellows, looked at generally," says Baldwin, "we may call the Dialectic of Personal Growth." It serves, he tells us, as the point of departure for the main positions developed in his Social and Ethical Interpretations.[34]
With this statement of the process of social give-and-take attendant upon the growth of selfhood, as formulative of the basic core of his theory, Baldwin proceeds, in somewhat disconnected topical form, to develop the more detailed implications of his position by bringing it into relief over against the background of current biological, psychological, and sociological theory in the reconsideration of various topics which bear directly on the problem of personal development. He thus leads into a discussion and a reinterpretation, from the standpoint outlined, of such relevant topics as invention and imitation, instinct and emotion, intelligence, sentiment, personal and social sanction, the social forces, social matter, process, and progress. The result is the elaboration of a social-psychological position which borders on the Tardean in its emphasis on imitation as the specific socializing process, but which is for the first time definitely directed to the problem of integrating the individual and the social as reciprocally interacting factors in a common process of personal and social development. The latter is thus presented by Baldwin in the twofold aspect of "the dialectic of personal growth" and "the dialectic of social growth," corresponding respectively to the particularizing and generalizing functions of the process.[35]
The points of view of psychological individualism and sociological collectivism, in their historical forms, are alike criticized by Baldwin on the ground that they are both one-sided and unreal abstractions from the concrete give-and-take of the actual process of development outlined. Through emphasis upon such unifying conceptions as "the social person,"[36] "the social self," "the socius," Baldwin sought to bring these
( 281) points of view into relation with each other and with his own distinctive standpoint in a most challenging manner. In fact, some of the most striking passages of his work are formulated in these connections.[37] He says at one point, for instance, in his discussion of the developing personality of the child:
I do not see, in short, how the personality of this child can be expressed in any but social terms; nor how, on the other hand, social terms can get any content or value but from the understanding of the developing individual. This is a circle in the process of growth; and that is just my point. On the one hand, we can get no doctrine of society but by getting the psychology of the "socius" with all his natural history; and on the other hand, we can get no true view of the "socius" at any time without describing the social conditions under which he normally lives, with the history of their action and reaction upon him.[38]
And at another point he says again :
All our thought has led us to see that one of the historical conceptions of man is, in its social aspects, mistaken. Man is not a person who stands up in his isolated majesty, meanness, passion, or humility, and sees, hits, worships, fights, or overcomes, another man, who does the opposite things to him, each preserving his isolated majesty, meanness, passion, humility, all the while, so that he can be considered a "unit" for the compounding processes of social speculation. On the contrary, a man is a social outcome rather than a social unit. He is always, in his greatest part, also some one else. Social acts of his—that is, acts which may not prove anti-social—are his because they are society's first; otherwise he would not have learned them nor have had any tendency to do them. Every-thing that he learns is copied, reproduced, assimilated, from his fellows; and what all of them, including him,—all the social fellows, doand think, they do and think because they have each been through the same course of copying, reproducing, assimilating, that he has. When he acts quite privately, it is always with a boomerang in his hand; and every use he makes of his weapon leaves its indelibleimpression upon the other and upon him.[39]
It is on the basis of this new insight, according to Baldwin, that the theory of the individual and of society must be gradually built up, and only the complete neglect of the basic facts which support it can, according to him, account for the state of conventional discussion dealing with such overdrawn dualisms of thought as are indicated by the phrases "heredity and environment," "ego and alter," the "individual and the social," the "selfish and the ethical," and the like, all of which rest, as he maintained, on the erroneous position of historical individualism. Could we once free ourselves from the view, suggests Baldwin, "that
( 282) man is not two, an ego and an alter, each of which is in active and chronicprotest against a third great thing, society; could we once dispel this hideous un-fact, and with it the remedies found by the egoists,—back all the way from the modern Individualists to Hobbes," the main barrier to the successful understanding of man and his social relations would be removed.[40]
Particularly insistent in this respect was Baldwin's criticism of the "naïve" biological approach in the study of human relations. At the same time, he had great faith in the applicability of the Darwinian trend of thought to the fields of psychological and sociological interpretation,[41] and he set about consistently in connection with his doctrine of "the social person" to adapt the formulas and main conceptions of evolutionary thought, as the latter was reflected in the contemporary literature of biological evolution, for more significant social and psychological use. The concepts of "social heredity," "social environment," "social variation and selection," and "social accommodation," in particular, were thus reinterpreted by him and introduced prominently into his theory.[42] Baldwin felt the need more especially in this connection, however, definitely to set his point of view in the use of these concepts off from the individualistic and anti-intellectualistic point of view of English post-Darwinian evolutionary thought. The latter was prominently represented at the time by Kidd's Social Evolution (1894), which retained in bold outline the tendency of English evolutionary thought to present society and the individual in sharply defined antagonistic terms, though it deviated somewhat from the extremer type of anti-intellectualism of some of the earlier formulations of evolutionary doctrine. Baldwin accordingly took this work under consideration in this connection, and he says with respect to it:
Perhaps no better illustration of the point of view which I wish to leave prominently in the reader's mind can be reached than to cite its contrast with that of the recent book by Mr. Kidd on Social Evolution. His whole conception hinges on the view that the individual can get no "rational sanction" for social life. He must then either rebel against society or strangle his "reason." According to Mr. Kidd he does the latter and, by espousing a supernatural sanction found in some religious systems, acts—by inference—irrationally.
"But why," asks he in challenging this position, "are his selfish and anti-social impulses the only rational part of the man? Does not the most superficial consideration of the origin of man, to say nothing of the
( 283) teaching of the first principles of psychology, show that the indulgence of these impulses is in many instances irrational?"[43] And again, does it not show, that very frequently "action on his real, most complex, richest thought, is rational?"[44]
And if the antagonism be set, as it more commonly is in the biological interpretation of evolutionary thought, between the instinctive and the acquired rather, or between heredity and environment, Baldwin again has serious objections to offer. In the first place, heredity as well as environment, according to him, is social in reference, and in a double sense: first, because heredity reflects past socially useful tendencies; and, second, because it is dependent on social environment for its present expression.[45] Again, the contrast of factors suggested is artificial, from Baldwin's point of view, in that a person's equipment presents itself in reality always as a matter of both factors in combination.[46] In any event, the factor of "social heredity" is quite as definitely determining in the development of the child, according to him, as is the factor of " physical heredity." He says:
It is as inexorably his [the child's] as the color of his eyes and the shape of his nose. He is born into a system of social relationships just as he is born into a certain quality of air. As he grows in body by breathing the one, so he grows in mind by absorbing the other. The influence is as real and as tangible; and the only reason that it is variable in its results upon different individuals is that each individual has his physical heredity besides, and the outcome is always the outcome of the two factors—natural temperament and social heredity.[47]
Baldwin accordingly says regarding the above-mentioned contrast of factors:
If that contrast is to be made and if it be a question of the division of a man's equipment into two parts, one due to his endowment or physical heredity, and the other due to his environment, there is no question of a third category. It supposes that these two agencies are opposed forces, and that each element of the man's entire character must be due to one or the other of them. The alternative, that most of the man's equipment is due to both causes working together, is not recognized; and the resulting dualism or strife between the two supposed influences at work has no way of reconciliation.[48]
It is precisely this alternative, however, that he sought to emphasize. Our views about the relation of heredity and environment must all be reconstructed, according to him, in the light of the new insight into mental development which issues from the study of personal growth on
( 284) the one hand and of the complex problem of "social heredity" on the other. It is this new insight which he sought to concentrate in the formulation of his "dialectic' viewed as a twfold movement of personal and social integration.
In his History of Psychology, Baldwin attempted to bring his position as here outlined more definitely into historical perspective, and it is illuminating to note how he projects it upon the background of related psychological and social thought. Like other related fields, modern psychology, he there points out, has reflected the collectivistic tendency generally noticeable in late nineteenth century thought. This tendency became potent in psychology, according to him, both in consequence of the direct criticism of theories based on the concept of the isolated individual and because the need of a social psychology was more indirectly brought into view from the side of the developing social sciences. The need was thus put in evidence, he points out, for a genetic and social psychology, which would reveal the state of the individual mind in given social conditions and thus relate psychological individualism with the world of objective social facts that were being brought to light by sociology.[49] Put in Kantian form, according to him, the question of social psychology as it thus emerged was this: "How is a social subject or self possible? Is he a socialized individual self, or is he an individualized social self ?"[50]
His own answer to these hypothetical questions is significantly formulated as follows:
The outcome of social psychology until now points plainly to a negative answer to the first, and a positive answer to the second, of these questions. It thus reverses the point of view of historical individualism, and gives collectivism its point d'appui in the processes of mental development itself.[51]
The larger results upon the basis of which Baldwin arrived at this verdict are presented by him for consideration in this connection and they are of sufficient significance in orientating his general point of view to make it worth while to follow them out in some detail here.
The matter of "tradition"has, according to him, been cleared up with the recognition of the role which social heredity plays in development. He says in respect to this point:
... a true social heredity is to be recognized among animals, running parallel to physical heredity and supplementing it. In human groups this is enormously developed in what we call "culture," a body of beliefs, usages, and sanctions
(285) transmitted entirely by social means, and administered to growing individuals by example, precept, and discipline. This constitutes the social store, the collective wealth of the group, its moral heritage. It constitutes the milieu, a body of influences which are necessary to the development of the individual mind. Such functions as language, spoken and written, play and art; such inventions as fire, building, and weaving, are not only conveniences of life; they are necessary means of growth.[52]
Applying this insight more specifically to his own characteristic mode of approach in terms of the genesis of the social individual, Baldwin continues :
The society into which the child is born is, therefore, not to be conceived merely as a loose aggregate, made up of a number of biological individuals. It is rather a body of mental products, an established network of psychical relationships. By this the new person is moulded and shaped to his maturity. He enters into this network as a new cell in the social tissue, joining in its movement, revealing its nature, and contributing to its growth. It is literally a tissue, psychological in character, in the development of which the new individual is differentiated. He does not enter into it as an individual; on the contrary, he is only an individual when he comes out of it—by a process of "budding" or "cell-division," to pursue the physiological analogy. Society is a mass of mental and moral states and values, which perpetuates itself in individual persons. In the personal self, the social is individualised.[53]
From this, according to Baldwin, the more specific task of social psychology appears.
It is that of tracing out the internal development of the individual mind, its progressive endowment with individuality, under the constant stimulation of its entourage, and with nourishment drawn from it. A constant give-and-take process—a "social dialectic"—is found between the individual and his social fellows. By this process the materials of selfhood are absorbed and assimilated. The "self" is a gradually forming nucleus within the mind; a mass of feeling, effort, and knowledge. It grows in feeling by contagion, in knowledge by imitation, in will by opposition and obedience. The outline of the individual gradually appears, and at every stage it shows the pattern of the social situation in which it becomes constantly a more and more adequate and competent unit. This process the social psychologist has patiently traced out; and apart from details, on which opinions differ, it constitutes a positive gain to our knowledge.[54]
The social aspects of this developmental process are brought into relation with the individual here in an especially suggestive manner. Baldwin says:
The consciousness of the self, thus developed, carries with it that of the "alter "-selves, the other "socii" who are also determinations of the same social
(286) matter. The bond, therefore, that binds the members of the group together is reflected in the self-consciousness of each member. The external social organization in which each has a certain status is reinstated in the thought of the individual. It becomes for each a psychological situation constituted by selves or agents, in which each shares the duties and rights common to the group. Upon the background of commonness of nature and community of interests the specific motives of reflective individuality—self-assertion, rivalry, altruism—are projected; but they are fruits of self-consciousness, they are not the motives that exclusively determine its form. All through its history, individualism is tempered by the collective conditions of its origin.
When the self has become a conscious and active person, we may say that the mental individual as such is born. But the individual remains a part of the whole out of which he has arisen, a whole that is collective in character and of which he is a specification. He lives and moves and has his being still in a system of collective facts and values. He is a "socius," an element in a social network or situation; only by this can his individuality and independence become possible or have any meaning. In this new sense is the Aristotelian dictum confirmed—"man is a social animal." But we may express the whole truth more adequately by saying that man is a society individualised; for in the new individual society comes always to a new expression of itself.[55]
"Once introduced, the inch develops into the ell," says Baldwin. The social strain, once it began to come into view in these connections, has been made out in the normal working of most of the mental functions of man. Thus:
Biological intimations of social conditions have been pointed out in bashfulness, organic sympathy, gregarious impulses, etc. Apart from the specific means by which the processes of socialising and training go on—contagion, imitation, play, sympathy, obedience, language, moral sense, etc.—the element of "community" has been found to extend to the operations considered by earlier thinkers the most individualistic. Self-love is never free from the colouring of sympathy, invention rests upon imitation, rebellion involves the recognition of the rights of others, rivalry is a form of co-operation. Thought no less than life is shot through with the motive of collectivism. Opinion is formed on social models, social authority preceded logical validity, private judgment is never really private. Even in the processes of deductive reasoning, fundamental social conditions of genesis are never wholly concealed; the "proposition" is a social "proposal" or suggestion; the conclusion is held to be valid for all persons as well as for all cases; even the constructive categories of thought are founded on racial experience ingrained in individual endowment. There is a synnomic force in all reflective thought, in all science.[56]
Baldwin's more detailed elaboration of these points in his Social and Ethical Interpretations, of which the above is a summary statement, is carried out in an involved manner of presentation and in a heavy literary
( 287) style which it is difficult to illustrate by quotation. At times his exposition meets dogmatism with dogmatism so that it hardly seems to be an advance, from the standpoint of scientific balance, upon the positions which it seeks to criticize, synthesize, and displace. Remotely at least, however, as has already been noted, his general outlook is supposedly grounded in the "direct observation of children,"[57] and to that extent, his work marked a new era in the modern social-psychological movement in that it linked social psychology with a field of most fruitful and, as it seemed, easily verifiable observation which had hitherto been practically neglected by it. In fact, Baldwin's work was doubly suggestive in this respect, since, as we have seen,[58] it had a definitely positivist as well as social-psychological bearing. And this consideration is further enhanced by the attempt which Baldwin made to pin his discussion down also to the concrete facts of social life, although his theory is naturally much weaker on the social than on the psychological side. Thus, he presents for our consideration "the young hero of the nursery," placed very suggestively in a family of children and brought into relation with his father, his mother, his brothers and sisters, his nurse, the members of the larger family circle, the school, the play group, etc.[59] This approach, as readily appears, leads out in a widening circle of concrete social relations which, in the form of "social heredity," reflect back upon "the dialectic of personal growth" and link it with "the dialectic of social growth" quite in the manner demanded by Baldwin's description of the circular give-and-take of the process.[60] It remained, of course, to follow out these important relations in more concrete detail, but this was a task for later social-psychological effort in this country and else-where. Meanwhile Baldwin's work reflected such a significance on the social-psychological approach applied to the study of personal development as to put social psychology, conceived of in his terms, definitely in the way of its recent course of popularization and development.
The deep-lying implications of his theory for social psychology have been stated by Baldwin most simply and compactly in his more recent work The Individual and Society (1911), which constitutes, as he tells us, a sort of popular résumé of his two earlier works.[61] The following pas-sage in particular is of interest here, at once as a summary of his essential position in its more detailed elaboration and as an important introduction to the further consideration of American social-psychological thought. We accordingly quote it at some length.
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The individual comes into the world with the impulse of the history of the race behind him. He has few perfect instincts, such as many of the animals show. He is, on the contrary, plastic and educable. But his development is nevertheless to be a compromise between the two tendencies which throughout all his life represent individualism and collectivism. He has distinctly egoistic and individualistic impulses but with them he has also positive predispositions to social life. These two germinal tendencies are to receive their more perfect adjustment, or at least a working relation, in his education and training in the habits and usages of the social group.
It is not necessary to dwell upon the more individualistic factor, in his heredity; it is summed up in the word "appetite." He has a mass of tendencies which are necessary to the preservation and advancement of his vegetative and animal life. These are of necessity direct, strong, and self-seeking.
But over against these we find certain positive impulses which are of a quasi-social or gregarious sort, ready soon after birth to develop the other side of his nature. Bashfulness, shame, jealousy, are some of the more fundamental tendencies rooted in the organic structure of the human babe, which seem to reveal ancestral conditions of collective life and habit.
With these go, in a more positive sense, certain great motives of action which, natural as they are and quasi-instinctive, become the tools of "socialization according to nature" very early in the individual's personal history. Play and imitation, twin brothers in the scheme of the child's hereditary impulses, come to assume, each alone and both together, a very extraordinary role.
By play the young animal and the child alike come into the most fruitful social relations with one another. The meaning of the varied situations of life is learned in play, under conditions free from the storm and stress of actual serious life; and thus the functions playfully exercised are developed. The great activities of later utility in the struggles of life, and in the varied social conditions of existence, are thus made ready. In play we find one of the great meeting places of the forces of individualism and collectivism.
Imitation is another great socializing function. The child naturally falls to imitating, and when once this has begun he is a veritable copying machine, turning out acts, opinions, decisions, which are based with more or less correctness upon models found in his social environment.
By imitation he gets the "feel" of things that others do, and so learns to value the safe and sane; by imitation, he tries on the varied ways of doing things and so learns his own capacities and limitations; by imitation he actually acquires the stored up riches of the social movements of history; by imitation he learns to use the tools of culture, speech, writing, manual skill, so that through the independent use of these tools he may become a more competent and fruitful individual; finally, it is by imitation in the way of varied and effortful trial that he succeeds in being original and inventive . . .
Armed with these impulses, the weapons of competition as well as of co-operation, the young hero of the nursery begins his personal development, as a centre of considerate and purposeful action. The nucleus of personality, to the outsider, is the bodily self; it is a sort of social unit; but to the individual himself, the distinction between persons as minds and persons as mere bodily presences soon springs up and takes on greater and greater significance. For this is not an
(289) inborn distinction. The sense of self is not a ready-made and perfect gift; it is a slow growth, the stages of which show in a most interesting way the inter-action of the individualistic and social factors.
It begins, probably, when the child notes the capricious and seemingly lawless actions of persons, in contrast with the more regular and mechanical actions of things, such as the swinging of the pendulum, the opening and closing of the door, the rolling of the ball upon the floor. Persons do the most unexpected, the most inconsistent things. And it is these things that attract attention and call out the impulse to imitate. The child imitates the acts of persons.
Thus he is admitted to the inside of the other's mind, as it were, and discovers that bodies are not, as minds are, centers of feeling, will, and knowledge. He makes very quickly the discovery that his own personality is likewise two-sided; that he, too, is a mind on the inside, and that that which others see of him on the outside is not the mind, but merely the physical person. He goes through a series of distinguishable processes of interpretation, all worked out in detail by the psychologist, which are of momentous significance for the evolution of personality.[62]
His reference here is to the steps of the "dialectic" as given in the opening quotation from his Mental Development [63] and as developed by him in terms of the growing sense of self. This process leads to the following outcome:
Other persons are thought of then in just the same terms as the private self; and the private self in the same terms as other persons; it is impossible to distinguish them, so far as the meaning in subjective terms is concerned. The thought of self is of a larger self which includes personalities in general; and the different persons, in all that which is not singular or characteristic of each, are fundamentally the same.[64]
The significance of this outcome for the study of social personality thus appears. Baldwin says:
It is impossible for anyone to begin life as an individualist in the sense of radically separating himself from his social fellows. The social bond is established and rooted in the very growth of self-consciousness. Each individual's apprehension of his own personal self and its interests involves the recognition of others and their interests; and his pursuit of one type of purposes, generous or selfish, is in so far the pursuit of the other also.[65]
For social psychology in general the significance of this outcome resides "in
the fact," according to Baldwin, "that it shows the true basis of social
relationships; they are rooted in the normal psychic processes
individual growth." He says by way of conclusion in this connection:
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We may then consider as answered the question as to how the individual is able to be social. He does not have to consider the question at all, nor do we, for he is simply social by the same right that he is personal. He grows in personality and individuality by growing also in sociality. He does not have two lives, two sets of interests, two selves; one personal and the other social. He has but one self, which is personal and social in one, by right of the essential and normal movement of his growth.[66]
This conception of the relation between the individual and society, which finds expression in the common meeting ground of psychology and sociology in the social-psychological point of view, particularly as he defined it, Baldwin regarded as the most notable outcome of the development of modern social theory. He says in respect to this point:
It is to my mind, the most remarkable outcome of modern social theory—the recognition of the fact that the individual's normal growth lands him in essential solidarity with his fellows, while on the other hand the exercise of his social duties and privileges advances his highest and purest individuality. The movements are one, although the sciences, from their necessary difference in point of view, must treat them as if they were two."[67]
Baldwin's social-psychological theory as thus outlined, like Tarde's, with which it is most frequently associated in respect to its importance in extending the social-psychological viewpoint as well as in respect to its specific theory of socialization, has precipitated a great deal of comment and discussion. And this indirect popularization of the social-psychological viewpoint, as was the case with Tarde, has not been the least of Baldwin's contributions to the development of social psychology.[68] It should be noted in this connection, however, that Baldwin took serious objection to the practice of lumping his theory indiscriminately with Tarde's "without proper distinction." His position in the matter was that despite important points of agreement relating to their common emphasis upon imitation, the two theories are so far different that, according to him, "it is well-nigh impossible for any one to treat M. Tarde's views and my own together without seriously misrepresenting one writer or the other. "[69] "In spite of the large place which I assign to Imitation in the social life," he said, "I should prefer to have my theory known as the `Self' or the `Self-thought' theory of social organization.” [70]
Whether Baldwin was entirely justified in this position or not, in conjunction with which he testified to "a more fundamental agreement" with he views of Josiah Royce and the idealistic trend of thought which
( 291) the latter represented in this country generally,[71] it did define an important point of emphasis in his theory which, largely by way of his work, has become central in American social-psychological thought. In any event, the "self" emphasis which he so prominently introduced runs through most of the social-psychological theory still to be considered in this part of our survey.
Like the direction of thought with which he identified his position, Baldwin's formulation of his theory was highly intellectualistic, and to that extent it was not altogether in harmony with the developing tendencies of American social-psychological thought as outlined in the foregoingchapter. In a general way, however, it brought these tendencies to a striking focus, so that his work became the real starting point for a distinctive social-psychological movement in American thought. It will be our purpose in following this movement through in its further development to bring it into relation with the background of American social-psychological thought as it has been traced out so far on the one hand and the modern social-psychological movement in its larger aspects on the other.[72]
