The psychological basis of social interactions is found in such characteristics of the individual as spontaneity, instincts, emotions, consciousness, mind. Organisms possess spontaneity, that is, movements are set up in them without the apparent aid of external causes.[XXIII-47] The organism, however, is dependent largely upon the environment for the development of its potentialities, “but the essential ground for the beginning of its activities lies within--in its own organic needs.” Instincts, the product of natural selection, represent preformed neurological pathways that developed “in response to the demands of previous life conditions.” The emotions, also hereditary, are complexes of feelings and sensations. The desires are complex combinations of feelings and impulses which are accompanied by an awareness of the objects that will satisfy the impulse.[XXIII-48] Consciousness develops to solve problems which the instincts cannot meet. At first, consciousness is largely a selective activity. It develops, however, into a highly complex agency for mastering the problems of life and the universe. Mind is a product of the social life-process. It has arisen under conditions of association. One of the most fundamental phases of the associational process is communication. The need of acting together has given rise to intercommunicative symbols. Professor George H. Mead has given a thoroughgoing discussion of communication, language, and the consciousness of meaning.[XXIII-49] He begins with a social situation, where the actions of one person serve as stimulations to other persons, whose responses in turn act as stimulations to the first person. Thus life is a series of actions, stimulations, responses, resultant stimulations--these activities constitute gestures or symbols with meanings. Symbols and the consciousness of meaning of these symbols are the main elements in communication. Communication, says Professor Ellwood, is “a device to carry on a common life-process among several distinct, though psychically interacting, individual units.”[XXIII-50] This definition probably emphasizes unduly the “individual units,” which are doubtless a product, in part, of the stream of social life. Suggestion is an elemental, but quick form of communication, related in its simpler phases to sympathetic emotion. Imitation is a common mechanism whereby actions and ideas spread. Communication in the form of oral and written language is the chief mechanistic factor in securing social change. The contention of Ward that primitive man was anti-social is refuted by Professor Ellwood, who points out that according to social anthropology the so-called anti-social traits of earliest man are not found fully developed among “savages” but among people of later ages. Primitives were characterized by a narrow sociality, confined largely to the family and small groups.[XXIII-51]