CHAP. Forced or less dominated by geography and more by affinity and preference. They are less a product of circumstances and more a product of choice. Social bonds become less and less territorial, more and Politi more intrinsic and purely human. "Neighbor" means less; "comrade" and "friend" more. Eventually, it would seem, human society will be made up of numerous free-forming, closely Free Asinterlacing social organisms extending all over the civilized world. cal'' Association will make way for sociation 7 CHAP. IX Modes of W CHAPTER IX THE GENESIS OF SOCIETY HAT makes us a society? Is it that we have certain things in common-language, religion, art, science, industrial technique? Or is it that we do something together? The fact is both likemindedness and cooperation enter into our idea of society. Therefore, we cannot do better than adopt the definition framed by Giddings: "Any group or number of human individuals who cultivate acquaintance and mental agreement, and who, knowing and enjoying their own likemindedness, are able to work together for common ends, is a Human Society.” 1 1 It is helpful to distinguish between primary association, i.e., the union of individuals or families into a social group and secondary association, i.e., the union of existing groups into a larger group. Primary association occurs either by growth, multiplication, or by coming together, congregation. The union of groups, conjugation, is either free or forced, i.e., by alliance or by conquest. Multiplication. No doubt there have been groups which grew out of the family. In the words of the Americanist Payne,2 “Evidently the tribe may come into existence as a simple development of the family." The family like the tribe is fundamentally a food-seeking organization. It might terminate as soon as the youngest offspring are able to provide for themselves; but it would tend in the absence of disturbing causes to become permanent especially with man on account of the broad overlap of Expansion successive generations. Prolonged infancy attaches the children more to their parents and to one another. Parents likewise become attached to their children and to each other. "The attachments thus deepened survive the temporary relations in which they originated, subsisting when the children have grown up and have formed for themselves new associations of the same kind." The family thus tends to generate a larger consanguineous group of a Family into a Tribe 1“ Inductive Sociology,” p. 6. 2" History of the New World called America," II, p. 43. consisting of members belonging to three or even more generations, who pursue food-getting in common. "Such an enlarged group would constitute the tribe in its purest and simplest form." Formerly the natural expansion of the family was supposed to be the characteristic mode of genesis of a society. Now we look upon it as a rare occurrence because we are better able to recognize how considerations of food and safety have broken in upon the quiet growth of a family into a tribe. From time to time local insufficiency of food will compel the a group to break up. Thus Spencer remarks, "The primitive. cial group... never attains any considerable size by simple rease. Where, as among Fuegians, the supplies of wild food viel led by an inclement habitat will not enable more than a score or to live in the same place where, as among the Andamarese. limited to a strip of shore backed by impenetrable bush, forty is about the number of individuals who can find prey witht going too far from their temporary abode where, as among Fast men, wandering over barren tracts, small hordes are alone poble, and even families are sometimes obliged to separate, use the same spot will not afford sustenance for all, we have extreme instances of the limitation of simple groups, and the formatin of migrating groups when the limit is passed. Even in tolrably productive habitats, fission of the groups is eventually pressitated in a kindred manner. Spreading as its number inreses, a primitive tribe presently reaches a diffusion at which parts become incoherent, and it then gradually separates into es that become distinct as fast as their continually-diverging Lets pass into different languages." " On the other hand, an unusually bountiful source of foodnch fisheries, game trails, and haunts of wild animals will be loted not by a single family but by various persons, and a curgate society will result. There is safety in numbers and hence, for the sake of mutual protection, people who derive no economic advantage from their aation may come together and stay together. An isolated family dares not wait till it has expanded into a tribe able to take care of its own. Fear has been a great group builder. Aggregan, by increasing the power and the temptation to aggress, has been a cause of aggregation in neighbors or rivals. Hence, the Principles of Sociology," Vol. I, 454–55. CHAP. IX making of war or the dread of war, has continually forced men into unions for which they felt no inclination. Coming Together of Strangers in New Countries and in New Towns Congregation. This is the convergence of non-kinsmen upon the same locality and their cohesion into a group. This occurs particularly in (a) New countries. Iceland, discovered in the ninth century, was speedily settled from the Norse communities of Norway, Ireland and Scotland. All the provinces of Christian Spain contributed to the repeopling of the lands vacated by the retiring Moors. The "Africanders" of South Africa are a blend of Dutch and French Huguenots. The colonies of England in North America attracted, besides all the British peoples, Dutch, French Huguenots, Swedes, and Germans. In the course of the last forty years immigration has made the Americans one of the most heterogeneous and polyglot of modern peoples. California, on account of its sky, scene and natural wealth, has been a magnet for the whole earth. For this reason it contains besides Americans from all parts of the Union over 5000 representatives of each of the following countries: Germany, Ireland, England, Canada, Italy, Mexico, Russia, Scotland, Sweden, Switzerland, Portugal, Norway, France, Denmark, Austria, Wales, Turkey, Spain, Greece, China, Isles of the Atlantic, and Australia. Argentina, next to the United States the greatest absorber of strangers, is rapidly filling from the Iberian and Italian peninsulas and bids fair to become for the Latins what the United States once was for the Anglo-Saxons and the Celts. (b) New towns. In the ancient world the walled city was so prized on account of the security it offered that it tended to become a depot, a market, and a trade center. As theater of opportunity it lured the enterprising from afar, so that its population became extremely mixed while yet the surrounding country was pure. Consequently it was in the city that the immemorial kinship grouping first broke down. The old families had to admit strangers into the social organization and the bond of common residence succeeded to the bond of common blood as the chief social tie. The modern commercial city is not a place of peculiar security; but from its position on the routes of travel and trade it becomes exceedingly motley in composition. This is especially true of the ports at the meeting points of traffics and races, such as San Francisco, Manila, Singapore, Shanghai, Harbin and Buenos CHAP. IX Aires. (c) Sites of valuable natural deposits. The gold rush first impressed upon California its cosmopolitan character. The lure of the Rand drew into the Transvaal so many Uitlanders that the Boers lost their country. Gold-mining camps like Nome, Leadville, Deadwood, Carson and Coeur d'Alene are slow to develop a community sense, because the residents are so diverse that they have few ideas or aims in common. The oil fields of California, Oklahoma, Texas, and Mexico attract every species of North American, just as the nitrate beds of Chile attract every species of South American. Gold. Deposits a Magnet of the Hetero geneous However mixed its original population, intermarriage will in Blending three or four generations cause the congregate community to be almost as consanguineous as if it had developed from a single family. What therefore finally determines the psychology of the community is not whether it was formed of blood kin or of strangers, but whether the component elements freely intermarry and whether such likemindedness as it achieves is not continually ravelled out by immigration. merging of into a Larger Group Conjugation. The peaceful union of groups is exemplified by Voluntary the Covenant with Jehovah by means of which Moses bound a Groups number of desert tribes into the people of Israel, the Achæan and Etolian leagues of Greece, the drawing together of the crcle of communities about the coasts of Iceland in order to create a law-making body and a tribunal which could settle disputes, the union of six Indian tribes into the Iroquois confederacy, the league of New England colonies to wage war with the Indian combination effected under Philip, the union of thirteen English colonies to free themselves from Great Britain, and the confederacy of the slave-holding states of the South to draw out from the American union. Says Spencer: "The scattered Greek communities, previously argregated into minor confederacies by minor wars, were prompted to the Pan-Hellenic Congress and to the subsequent co O visiting Shanghai some years ago, I found the composition of the freign population of the French Concession to be as follows: French 436, German 148, American 44. English 314, Australian 3, Austrian 12, Belgian 12 Korean 1, Danish 19, Spanish 2, Eurasian 68, Indian 17, Greek 2, Dutch * Italian 12, Japanese 103, Manilans 3, Norwegians 14, Parsee 8, Portuguese 15, Russian 7, Swedish 4, Swiss 7, Tonkinese 207. |