discovery and mechanical application. That the knowledge which the individual possesses is social in its origin; that the knowledgegetting process of which the person is a part is a social activity has been recognized over and over again. We close this part of the discussion with such a statement of the dependence of the individual upon the group. "The mass of our knowledge," says Patten, "we derive at second hand from the society of which we are members. Acquired knowledge is not a part of our heredity, nor are its data ever fully presented to the senses. Each generation impresses its thought, language and civilization on the next. The social process on which the continuation of this knowledge depends is outside of individuals and acts according to its own laws. A child growing up in such a society has his ideas shaped and the content of his knowledge determined by the contrasts and agreements which the social process presents and enforces. The mass of our knowledge is derived from our civilization and not from personal experience. The testing of acquired knowledge by individuals is incomplete, and could not of itself be made the basis of its reliability." 99 44 A mathematical estimate of the ratio of importance of the individual and social factors is offered by Mr. Bellamy. "All that a man produces today more than did his cave-dwelling ancestor, he produces by virtue of the accumulated achievements, inventions, and improvements of the intervening generations, together with the social and industrial machinery, which is their legacy. Nine hundred and ninetynine parts out of the thousand of every man's produce are the result of his social inheritance and environment."45

44"Pragmatism and Social Science," in the Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods, VIII (1911), 655-56.

45"What Nationalism Means," in the Contemporary Review, LVIII (1890), 18.

CHAPTER IV

ORIGINATION AS A FUNCTION OF SOCIALIZATION. II. SOCIAL ORGANIZATON

Social heredity, we see, supplies the material for invention. The character of the social organization, on the other hand, decides in large measure the tempo of progress. What is meant by social organization, and how does it impede or facilitate invention?

Social organization, like social heredity, is an aspect of the inter-mental community. Social heredity consists in the function of the inter-generation communication of ideas. Social organization comprises the relatively stable phases of the inter-mental process. These more or less permanent mental attitudes tend to take objective form in the social structure with its division of labor and its specialization of function. Social organization consists, then, whatever its external forms, in the organized mental attitude of the members of the group. Consequently in the use of the term "social organization," stress will be laid upon its fundamentally psychic character. As related to invention, several stages in the social organization may be traced: (a) mental attitudes in general, as expressed in social tendencies rather than incorporated in social structure; (b) the fundamental stratification of mental attitude as exhibited in division of labor and specialization of occupation; (c) the emergence of a leisure class; (d) the rise of a scientific class; (e) organized research.

a) The organized mental attitude of the group has played a decisive part in the conservation of invention. The attitude of the group is even more important in facilitating origination. In the first place, the freedom of the individual, so important for invention, varies with the group feeling. "There cannot be the least doubt," says Royce, "that individuals themselves vary more in their own habits, become more productive of novel processes, and contribute more to the variation of social habits, when the conditions are such as to favor the social tendencies often called by the general name individualism. . The periods of great individualism have

38

The individualistic

been periods of relatively great inventiveness." attitude so productive of innovations in Athens, in the Renaissance, and in the Revolutionary Period is itself social in origin and in its coercive effect upon the members of the group. With this brief mention of the general rôle of mental attitudes, we pass to a consideration of the relation of the more objective expressions of social organization to origination.

The division of occupations and the specialization of skill rest upon physiological and mental differences, which, embodied in group attitudes, constitute the cohesive element in the social structure. The two great dividing lines biologically are by age and sex; lesser divisions arise from differences in aptitudes. The respective rôle of youth and of age in a group is determined by the dominant group attitude. The tendency of youth to vary and the conservative disposition of age have important influences when the social organization gives undue weight to one or the other. Says Royce, "In the individual the most important independent variations of his habits occur during the growth of his social sense. The mere organic growth of the brain has, of course, a good deal to do with this youthful variability. But there can also be no doubt that it is the social sensitiveness of the young which is one very important factor in the same process. The social sensitivity of youth and the adolescent tendency to vary have important relations to progress. Invention rests upon this capacity for variable reactions to the stimuli in the environment. Only in modern society has mankind been able to combine flexibility with stability in the social structure so as to secure fuller utilization of the variability and radicalism of the young. The world-old tendency has been for age to conserve and for youth to create. Both are essential: the first tendency emphasizes past valuations; the second, revaluation and consequent modification.

"2

b) More important, in the beginnings of culture, than organization by age, was grouping by sex. For physiological and psychic reasons, sex became the first dividing line in economic activities. Certain occupations fell definitely to women and certain others to men, and taboo, an inter-mental attitude, soon arose to enforce these

1Royce, "Psychology of Invention," in the Psychological Review, V (1898), 122.

2Ibid., pp. 121-22.

separations. Even today, the small boy feels keenly the ban which his sex-conscious masculine group puts on dishwashing. This folkfeeling sanctioned the sexual divisions of occupation and had a widereaching influence upon the beginnings of culture. The separation by sex meant the narrowing of attention, rude specialization, and a constant increment of skill.

Even in the matriarchal communities of savages on the lowest cultural level we find differentiation by sex in occupational activity. Among the Seri3 the activities of the males are chiefly limited to fighting and fishing; the women are the real workers. Although the activities of the matrons are general, they are definitely the water-carriers and the workers in pottery and the clothing-makers of the tribe. In the sphere of these activities have occurred the chief technical advances of the Seri. The attention and ingenuity of generations of men directed toward fishing and fighting have resulted in the perfection of the harpoon and the poison-tipped arrow. The more peaceful activities of the women, as water-carriers and as makers of clothing, have occasioned the relatively high perfection of the olla and achieved a crude stage in the development of the art of plaiting and weaving. Mason' attributes the development of pottery and weaving and the first steps in agriculture to the women. This direction of the attention to occupational interests rests upon the natural cleavage by sex, enforced by the strongest of mental attitudes, and results in a high degree of technical develop

ment.

Further division of labor comes by differentiation of activity into the specific occupations and trades. The advantages of specialization were not early perceived. Where specialization was conscious and peaceful it was the result of community action. Thus when a swineherd took care of the sheep, and the shoemaker cobbled for the village, both were assured of their quota of bread assessed upon the households in the community. The guild system of trade organization was much more complex and required a much higher integration of the mental community. The more rigidly, however, the mediaeval attitude insisted upon the separation of trade functions

Op. cit., and especially Woman's Share in Primitive Culture, 1894.

5Cf. Cunningham, Growth of English Industry and Commerce, 1892, I, 74.

and upon the standards of efficient workmanship, the larger opportunity was at hand for invention and improvement. The history of the guilds reveals an evolutionary process, gradual in its changes, but cumulative in its results. The following illustration clarifies this point: "The system pursued at present in the tannage of sole leather is the result of an evolutionary process, depending upon the selective ability of the tanners themselves. No scientific discoveries have helped them, and the basic principles of their art have never received attention." 6 In this trade it is difficult to isolate the contribution of the individual in the evolution of invention. Examples of more revolutionary innovations, arising in the process of occupational activity, may be cited. The great inventions of the eighteenth century in the textile industry were made for the most part by men actively engaged in the process, by spinners and weavers. Hargreaves, who gave us the spinning-jenny, was a "poor weaver." Crompton, who combined the principles of the water-frame and the jenny, had been a spinner from boyhood. Arkwright, a barber, and Cartwright, a clergyman, inventors respectively of the water-frame and the power-loom, did not succeed in perfecting their inventions until they familiarized themselves with the textile industry. The fact1o that the invention of the spinning machinery was left to spinners, the fact that the harvester was conceived and perfected by farmers, are only added proof of the rôle of division of labor and the concentration of attention in invention. The consideration of the differentiation of occupation by age, sex, and aptitudes indicates the importance of the development of group attitudes for enforcing the cleavage of interests and activities upon which early technical progress was based. A further stage in social evolution gave rise to a new line of division.

c) The rise and survival of a leisure class is not simply an economic or social phenomenon, it is fundamentally psychic. Veblen in his book, The Theory of the Leisure Class, makes a study of the origin and development of the mental characteristics of this group.