The Basis of Social Relations: A Study in Ethnic Psychology — John Shaqi
The Basis of Social Relations: A Study in Ethnic PsychologyBrinton, Daniel G. (Daniel Garrison)
Science
The Basis of Social Relations: A Study in Ethnic Psychology
Brinton, Daniel G. (Daniel Garrison)
Ethnopsychology; Sociology
I shall have frequent occasion to insist that the utmost healthful, that
is, symmetrical, development of the individuality is the true aim of
human society. This is directly due to the fact that self-consciousness,
the “I” in its final analysis, depends on the unity and independence of
the individual Will, which in a given moment of action can be One only.
The cultivation of individuality is therefore the cultivation of the
will, to direct and strengthen which must be the purpose of all
education.
_The Intellectual Process._—The chasm between the human and the brute
mind widens when we come to look more closely at the various steps of
the intellectual process, that is, at the method of reasoning. To be
either clear or conscious, this must be carried on by general ideas, in
themselves abstractions. For example, the so-called “syllogisms” of
logic depend upon the relation of a general to a particular idea; and
thinking can no more be conducted without this relation than talking
without grammatical rules; though neither the formula of the syllogism
nor the rules of grammar are consciously present to the mind.
The logical process is everywhere and at all times the same, in the sage
or the savage, the sane or the insane. To reach any conclusion, the mind
must work in accordance with its method. This is purely mechanical. An
English philosopher (Jevons) invented a “logical machine,” which worked
as well as the human brain. The logical process has been formulated by a
mathematician (Boole) in a simple equation of the second degree. It must
consist of subject and predicate, of general and particular. But the
process has nothing to do with the proceeds. A mill grinds equally well
wheat, tares, and poisonberries. Not upon the fact that the pepsin
digests, but that it digests proper aliments, depends the health of the
body. So the content of the intellectual operation, not its form, is of
good or harm, and merits the attention of ethnographer or historian.
_The Mechanical Action of Mind._—The Germans have a saying, framed first
by their writer, Lichtenstein, known as “the Magician of the North,”
that “_we_ do not think. Thinking merely goes on within us”; just as our
stomachs digest and our glands excrete. Another one of their authors
originated the once-celebrated apothegm, “Without phosphorus there is no
thought.”
The aim of both expressions is to put pointedly the principle that the
intellectual process is of a mechanico-chemical character, a mere bodily
function, to be classed with digestion or circulation. This opinion has
of late years been warmly espoused in the United States.
That intellectual actions are governed by fixed laws was long ago said
and demonstrated by Quetelet in his remarkable studies of vital
statistics. That the development of thought proceeds “under the rule of
an iron necessity” is the ripened conviction of that profound student of
man, Bastian. We must accept it as the verdict of science.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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