From this point of view of the Christian theologian, now, what does the social consciousness mean? The answer may be given under four heads: (1) the definition of the social consciousness; (2) the inadequacy of the analogy of the organism, as an expression of the social consciousness; (3) the necessity of the facts, of which the social consciousness is the reflection, if ideal interests are to be supreme; (4) the ultimate explanation and ground of the social consciousness. These four topics form the subjects of the four chapters of the first division of our inquiry. CHAPTER I _THE DEFINITION OF THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS_ The simplest and probably the most accurate single expression we can give to the social consciousness, is to say that it is a growing sense of the real brotherhood of men. But five elements seem plainly involved in this, and may be profitably separated in our thought, if that is to be clear and definite:--a deepening sense (1) of the likeness or like-mindedness of men, (2) of their mutual influence, (3) of the value and sacredness of the person, (4) of mutual obligation, and (5) of love. I. THE SENSE OF THE LIKE-MINDEDNESS OF MEN[1] If a society is "a group of like-minded individuals," if the "all-essential" requisites for coöperation are "like-mindedness and consciousness of kind," as Giddings tells us, then certainly a prime element in the social consciousness is likeness and the sense of it--a growing sense of the mental and moral resemblance and "potential resemblance" of all men, and of all classes of men, though not equality of powers. "Equality of need" among men, too,[2] to which sociology comes as one of its surest conclusions, implies a common capacity, even if in varying degrees, to enter into the most fundamental interests of life, and so points unmistakably to the essential likeness of men in the most important things. So, too, sociology's unquestioning assertion that both smaller and larger groups of men constantly tend toward unity, assumes potential resemblance. And the uniform experience and prescription of social workers, that _really_ knowing "how the other half lives" brings increasing sympathy, also affirm the fundamental likeness of men. Every painstaking investigation of a social question comes out at some point or other with a fresh discovery of a previously hidden, underlying resemblance between classes of men. From the careful, inductive study of social evolution, too, the men of our day see, as no other generation has seen, that the great force always and everywhere at work in that evolution has been likeness and the consciousness of it. For all these reasons, this generation believes, as men never believed before, in the essential like-mindedness of men; and this deepening sense of the like-mindedness of men is certainly one element in the modern social consciousness. II. THE SENSE OF THE MUTUAL INFLUENCE OF MEN