Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/522

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506 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

gation as to the origin of sympathy, has considered the rise of consciousness of kind, and concludes that there are two factors which must be incorporated in this principle, and explained. They are (i) the representative consciousness, and (2) the conscious- ness of self. 13

Professor Ormond holds that the "end-seeking" activity, which is the characteristic sort of activity in the biological sphere, is, in so far, a "kind-realizing" activity also.

In like manner we are obliged to trace the primary root of the sense of kind to the self in some primary individual nature, that, in becoming internally conscious, becomes also the " fontal type " of all the ends which it seeks objectively. The sense of kind, or, in a more developed form, the notion of kind, is thus, in the last analysis, the sense or notion of that which is congruous with the feeling or notion of self, while the absence of the sense of kind would involve the absence or failure of this sense of congruity."

The element of feeling and its appreciative significance might be emphasized here, but that is reserved for another time. The question might arise as to how we get the sense of congruity, and the most adequate answer would be: through ejection (ejection refers to the interpretation of others in terms of one's self), since that is not alone a very important and essential moment in the dialectic of the self-growth, but also it is the mode of interpreting the facts when, e. g., the child sees someone talk, walk, etc. He interprets those facts in the light of his own experience, and finds that he performs similar activities; and thus the sense of con- gruity arises. This is borne out by Professor Ormond's statement that the " absence of the kind-sense indicates the non-assimilable social material ; " 15 for here the criterion of whether or not the material is assimilable would be " ejective interpretation."

An objector to the present contention, that the self is involved in consciousness of kind, may say, as Professor Giddings does practically, that consciousness of kind exists in more or less vague forms all the way down the animate scale. 16 But we will, in turn, ask how this conception of the consciousness of kind arises in the

11 Jones, " Sociality and Sympathy," Psychological Review, Monograph Supple- ment,- No. 18.

    • Foundations of Knowledge, pp. 288 f.

" Ibid., p. 289. " Principles of Sociology, p. 17.