These very clear and valuable conceptions do not seem, however, to have received from biologists the attention they deserved, and as far as I am aware their author has not continued further the examination of the structure of the gregarious mind, which would undoubtedly have yielded in his hands further conclusions of equal value.
We may next examine the attitude of a modern sociologist. I have chosen for this purpose the work of an American sociologist, Lester Ward, and propose briefly to indicate his position as it may be gathered from his book entitled “Pure Sociology.”6 {25}
The task of summarizing the views of any sociologist seems to me to be rendered difficult by a certain vagueness in outline of the positions laid down, a certain tendency for a description of fact to run into an analogy, and an analogy to fade into an illustration. It would be discourteous to doubt that these tendencies are necessary to the fruitful treatment of the material of sociology, but, as they are very prominent in connection with the subject of gregariousness, it is necessary to say that one is fully conscious of the difficulties they give rise to, and feels that they may have led one into unintentional misrepresentation.
With this proviso it may be stated that the writings of Ward produce the feeling that he regards gregariousness as furnishing but few precise and primitive characteristics of the human mind. The mechanisms through which group “instinct” acts would seem to be to him largely rational processes, and group instinct itself is regarded as a relatively late development more or less closely associated with a rational knowledge