Introduction to the Science of SociologyPark, Robert Ezra
General
Introduction to the Science of Sociology
Park, Robert Ezra
Sociology
So, too, in the corporate life of the individual man it is the
association of the nerve cells, their lines of connection and
communication, that is responsible for the most of the differences
between the ignorant and the educated, the savage and civilized man. The
neurone, however, is a little unicellular animal, like the amoeba or the
paramecium. Its life consists of: (1) eating, (2) excreting waste
products, (3) growing, (4) being sensitive, and (5) movement, and, as
Thorndike expresses it: "The safest provisional hypothesis about the
action of the neurones singly is that they retain the modes of behavior
common to unicellular animals, so far as consistent with the special
conditions of their life as an element of man's nervous system."
In the widest sense of the term, behavior may be said to include all the
chemical and physical changes that go on inside the organism, as well as
every response to stimulus either from within or from without the
organism. In recent studies of animal behavior, however, the word has
acquired a special and technical meaning in which it is applied
exclusively to those actions that have been, or may be, modified by
conscious experience. What the animal does in its efforts to find food
is behavior, but the processes of digestion are relegated to another
field of observation, namely, physiology.
In all the forms of behavior thus far referred to, human and animal
nature are not fundamentally distinguished. There are, however, ways of
acting that are peculiar to human nature, forms of behavior that man
does not share with the lower animals. One thing which seems to
distinguish man from the brute is self-consciousness. One of the
consequences of intercourse, as it exists among human beings, is that
they are led to reflect upon their own impulses and motives for action,
to set up standards by which they seek to govern themselves. The clock
is such a standard. We all know from experience that time moves more
slowly on dull days, when there is nothing doing, than in moments of
excitement. On the other hand, when life is active and stirring, time
flies. The clock standardizes our subjective tempos and we control
ourselves by the clock. An animal never looks at the clock and this is
typical of the different ways in which human beings and animals behave.
Human beings, so far as we have yet been able to learn, are the only
creatures who habitually pass judgment upon their own actions, or who
think of them as right or wrong. When these thoughts about our actions
or the actions of others get themselves formulated and expressed they
react back upon and control us. That is one reason we hang mottoes on
the wall. That is why one sees on the desk of a busy man the legend "Do
it now!" The brutes do not know these devices. They do not need them
perhaps. They have no aim in life. They do not work.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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