Some of these relations and the groupings to which they give rise are or at least seem to those concerned to be entirely optional and voluntary , like the most primitive human mating , or membership of a twentieth-century social club .sx Others , again , like the mother tongue , which no human being can avoid acquiring , or the machinery of government in the modern state , are as universal , as ubiquitous , and as unescapable as gravitation itself .sx It is these stable and durable relations , together with those that are universal or are obviously enforced , that we think of specially as social institutions .sx But all these relations among men associated in social groupings , whether transient and voluntary , or definitely woven into social institutions , may also be classified in another , and , as we think , a more significant way , according to their origins , that is to say , the manner in which they have arisen in human society , and to certain general characteristics dependent on such origins .sx We may distinguish among them four main types or classes , according as the institutions have arisen from , or have been moulded by ( a ) animal instinct ; ( b ) religious emotion ; ( c ) certain abstract principles as to right behaviour , which we may term humanistic ; and ( d ) deliberate planning , whether empirical or scientific , being particular forms of social organisation devised in order to attain specific ends , for which class we use the term " technical" .sx SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS ARISING FROM ANIMAL .sx INSTINCT .sx The first of these classes of social relations or institutions in primitive society the predominant type , but traceable even in some of our most highly evolved institutions includes those which may be assumed to have been derived from our ancestors among the higher vertebrates .sx We see , in fact , among some of the backboned animals , a slowly emerging supersession of part of their inflexible instinct by a new and more effective kind of mental capacity .sx Many vertebrates , other than man , habitually apply , to the difficulties with which they meet , the method of trial and error .sx They play , they tease , they fight , they defend each other , they imitate the actions of others , they seem even to meditate , showing a capacity for adapting their behaviour to their changing circumstances .sx In all this , in marked contrast with the ants and bees , and all other lower animals , they are transcending the instincts that they have inherited , by a steadily developing intelligence .sx Some of them begin to manifest inventiveness , to fear the unknown and the dark , to dislike being alone , and even to exhibit signs of self-consciousness .sx At some stage in the long evolution there seems now to be general agreement in accepting as the mark of achievement the know-ledge of how to make a fire or the acquisition of conventional language in place or in supplement of mere ejaculations we class these animals as human .sx beings .sx Primitive man accordingly starts off with a lesser inheritance of instincts than his forbears .sx He is born less completely adapted , and is able to learn by degrees what to do as he grows up .sx The whole development of homo sapiens , and therefore of his social institutions , is one long replacing of animal instincts by feelings and thoughts , leading to an ever-greater elaboration of social relations .sx Among the social institutions believed to be derived ultimately from animal instinct are such varied forms as the family with all the developments of blood relationship ; the horde , the tribe , and the mob ; territorial jurisdiction and sovereignty , with their derivatives of government and law ; some would add the acquisitiveness manifested in the conception of property ; and with this most of the economic relations dealt with by the abstract economies of the nineteenth century .sx It is perhaps more accurate to say that the animal kind of behaviour , whilst being typical of all the institutions of primitive man , is subconsciously present also in the relationships set up by the social institutions falling into the other classes .sx For , evenif all human behaviour be at root animal , it is worked up into different patterns according to the presence , in the human beings concerned , of religious emotion , humanistic theory , or the capacity for applied science , or any combination of these .sx SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS ARISING FROM RELIGIOUS .sx EMOTION .sx The second class of social institutions includes those arising from religious emotion .sx Early in the evolution of human society man began to reflect on the nature of things , whether seen in daylight or in his dreams .sx He recognised in everything something resembling that of which he was conscious in himself an aliveness , an active principle , a spirit or what was eventually called a soul .sx He felt the emotion of fear , not only of aggressive animals or fellow-men , but even more of the unseen spirits of which the world was full .sx Perhaps the feeling of awe is as primitive as that of fear .sx This fear or this awe led to all sorts of magic , and to the medicine man , eventually to the king by divine right .sx There arose also the emotion of wonder and adoration , leading to worship ; of love , leading to prayer and to the merging of self in the spirit of love ; of tradition and holy writ , interpreted by prophets and priests , and declared to be the will of God .sx All this culminated in the great religions of ;historic time , Judaism and Christianity , Buddhism and Islam , with ecclesiastical institutions and codes of conduct curbing , .sx or canalising , or sublimating man's animal instincts consequences which had , for the societies in which they were manifested , considerable survival value .sx SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS ARISING FROM HUMANISTIC IDEALS .sx We come now to our third class , namely , those arising from certain intellectual conceptions about the right behaviour of man in society .sx The characteristic feature of this class of social institutions is that the originators almost always confuse what is with what , in their judgment , ought to be .sx Hence we term this class " humanistic" .sx The most famous of these political creeds is that embodied in the American Declaration of Independence in 1776 .sx " We hold these truths to be self-evident :sx that all men are created equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights :sx that among these rights are life , liberty , and the pursuit of happiness ; that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed ; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends , it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it , and to institute a new government , laying its foundation on such principles , and organising powers in such form as to them shall seem likely to effect their safety and " .sx In a slightly different form the same metaphysical .sx conception was elaborated in the Declaration of the French National Assembly in 1789 as to the " Rights of " .sx Whatever we may think of the truth or validity of this creed of 1776 and 1789 remembering the existence of chattel slavery , and its continuance in the United States down to 1864 , together with the enormous inequalities in personal riches that have actually gone on increasing no one can doubt its potency in moulding the political institutions of the modern world .sx A typical and no less amazing example of the overwhelming power of an intellectual dogma is the course of events in Soviet Russia from 1917 onwards .sx Here we see a stupendous refashioning of the social institutions of one-twelfth of the whole human race , spread over one-sixth part of the habitable globe , carried out according to the dogma of a German Jew of genius , Karl Marx .sx Whatever truth or validity there may be in the " Materialist Conception of History " the hypo-thesis that political institutions are determined by economic conditions and exactly why this " law " should lead to a supersession of the " Dictatorship of the Capitalist " by a " Dictatorship of the Proletariat " , we need not discuss here .sx But the establishment , for the first time in history , of a whole network of social institutions deliberately aiming at an equalitarian state in which all men will have really equal opportunities of life , liberty , and the pursuit of happiness , may well prove to be the most momentous of all the developments of social organisation .sx SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS ARISING FROM DELIBERATE PLANNING FOR EFFICIENCY IN CARRYING OUT SOCIAL PURPOSES .sx The fourth class of social institutions is on a different plane from any of the three hitherto described .sx In those three it is the desired end , whether the satisfaction of animal appetite , the fulfilment of religious emotion , or the carrying out of the humanistic creed , which is the decisive mark of the class .sx When we come to the most modern of social institutions , we find that they are , for the most part , of the nature of devices or expedients consciously and deliberately adopted for the purpose of carrying out with greater efficiency , in some particular spheres , predetermined general ideals or purposes , to the nature of which they are themselves indifferent .sx Thus the purpose falls into the back-ground , and it is on the perfection of the machinery used that the mind of man is concentrated .sx Efficiency is the sole object , as it is the supreme test , of social institutions of this class , which may be employed in the service of any social ideal or general purpose whatsoever .sx The special characteristic of social institutions of this class , which may be termed the technical or scientific , is that they are devised and organised according to the teaching of applied science .sx We may cite as examples such humdrum expedients , seldom thought of as social institutions at all , as the audit of public accounts , or the introduction of Summer Time .sx These changes did notarise out of animal instinct , nor from religious emotion , nor yet from any conception of the rights of man .sx They were based on the observation of the behaviour of men in particular circumstances , and of the way in which habits are formed , with the object of altering habitual behaviour so as to make it correspond to some actual or imagined public convenience .sx It is because these quite modern social institutions were thus scientifically framed that they have , within a relatively short time , wrought in the lives of men changes positively greater in magnitude than some of the most ancient customs , or than some of the most dogmatic of creeds .sx To this class of social institutions belong not only the devices that the American capitalists call " Scientific Management " and the Five-Year Plan of Soviet Russia , but also the codes and services in every civilised country for public health and public education , for factory regulation and the handling of traffic on our crowded highways , as well as innumerable other arrangements for the improvement of our machinery of government .sx All these forms of social organisation are put in operation to fulfil an ultimate purpose which has been defined apart from their specific functions .sx The technical devices themselves , each one concerned only for its own particular efficiency in action , are , indeed , consistent with any scale of values in human society , or with any conception of the relation of man to the universe .sx This fourfold classification of social institutions , for which we claim no higher value than that of .sx practical convenience in handling the subject , may be described as based on the mentality from which the institutions arose .sx It would be easy to imagine other systems of classification which might have their special uses .sx We might , for instance , classify institutions according to the nature of the function fulfilled in society , such as economic , political , legal , religious , etc. Some advantage might be found in ranging institutions according to the climates in which they flourished , or the economic circumstances out of which they arose .sx None of these classifications seems to us to have any bearing on the methods by which the subject can be best studied .sx They may , however , serve incidentally to illustrate both the extent and the variety of the phenomena which the other sciences disclaim all intention of studying , and admittedly leave to the sociologist to explore .sx How best to undertake this task will be the subject of the following chapters .sx CHAPTER II .sx THE MENTAL EQUIPMENT OF THE SOCIAL INVESTIGATOR .sx