But in this case the problem is not solved at all, for it does not arise when there is objective agreement, identity of content between individual and society. It is located in the search for an explanation or statement of the psychology of the individual in social terms—his social construction—or, if not that, then for some psychology of the individual as non-social. But we get neither. We are simply told that there is the individual who is not social, and the society which is not capable of determination in individual terms. We are told to be sure that they 'tend' to come together. But we are also told they tend to fall apart.[1] What then have we but a restatement of the original data of the problem: there is society, there are individuals; partly they can be stated in terms of identical content, and partly they cannot. I cannot make out that this 'conclusion' has forwarded an understanding of the matter one whit.
In this statement, moreover, we have taken the matter at Mr. Baldwin's own valuation. But, if we turn to the facts (suggested, indeed, in his own statement that the individual corresponding to social generalizations is mythical), the case is still worse. If sociality of personality is dependent upon identity of content, is there ever any such thing in any case of self-conscious action? Is it found anywhere except in cases of action so customary that the individual never dreams of referring either to himself or to others? The psychical individual (that is, the individual conscious of individuality) is always 'particularizing.' As such he never barely repeats or assimilates a given situation as it is, but specifies it in terms of his own capacity and function. He thinks it over again in terms of his specific implication in it. Hence, if identity of content is criterion, it is only in an objective (not conscious) sense that the individual is ever identified with society. We have not then even a restatement of the original dualisms; they have been emphasized to the extreme of refractoriness.
As usual, Mr. Baldwin recognizes all this in another place. What really constitutes the individual a particularizing force is his inventions, and the essence of an invention is precisely that it is not imitation (pp. 100-109). Mr. Baldwin first recognizes that bare imitation gives nothing new (p. 102), since the child is simply acting out his own habits on the basis of reinstating an old mental content. But he makes a valiant attempt to connect invention (as the individualizing principle) with imitation on the basis of 'persistent imita-
- ↑ "Society solves it, only to renew it" (p. 544). Just what can be meant, however, by 'society' solving this and renewing it, when it is just the bond between society and the individual which is in question, is not clear to me.
