er aspect of human life. Only in very recent years, however, have
psychologists and social psychologists had either a point of view or
methods of investigation which enabled them to analyze and explain the
facts. The tendency of the older introspective psychology was to refer
in general terms to the motor tendencies and the will, but in the
analysis of sensation and the intellectual processes, will disappeared.

The literature on this subject covers all that has been written by the
students of animal behavior and instinct, Lloyd Morgan, Thorndike,
Watson, and Loeb. It includes the interesting studies of human behavior
by Bechterew, Pavlow, and the so-called objective school of psychology
in Russia. It should include likewise writers like Graham Wallas in
England, Carleton Parker and Ordway Tead in America, who are seeking to
apply the new science of human nature to the problems of society.[174]

Every social science has been based upon some theory, implicit or
explicit, of human motives. Economics, political science, and ethics,
before any systematic attempt had been made to study the matter
empirically, had formulated theories of human nature to justify their
presuppositions and procedures.

In classical political economy the single motive of human action was
embodied in the abstraction "the economic man." The utilitarian school
of ethics reduced all human motives to self-interest. Disinterested
conduct was explained as enlightened self-interest. This theory was
criticized as reducing the person to "an intellectual calculating
machine." The theory of evolution suggested to Herbert Spencer a new
interpretation of human motives which reasserted their individualistic
origin, but explained altruistic sentiments as the slowly accumulated
products of evolution. Altruism to Spencer was the enlightened
self-interest of the race.

It was the English economists of the eighteenth century who gave us the
first systematic account of modern society in deterministic terms. The
conception of society implicit in Adam Smith's _Wealth of Nations_
reflects at once the temper of the English people and of the age in
which he lived.[175] The eighteenth century was the age of
individualism, laissez faire and freedom. Everything was in process of
emancipation except woman.

The attention of economists at this time was directed to that region of
social life in which the behavior of the individual is most
individualistic and least controlle