individual's conception of himself,
however, is based on his status in the social group or groups of which
he is a member. The individual whose conception of himself does not
conform to his status is an isolated individual. The completely isolated
individual, whose conception of himself is in no sense an adequate
reflection of his status, is probably insane.

It follows from what is said that an individual may have many "selves"
according to the groups to which he belongs and the extent to which each
of these groups is isolated from the others. It is true, also, that the
individual is influenced in differing degrees and in a specific manner,
by the different types of group of which he is a member. This indicates
the manner in which the personality of the individual may be studied
sociologically.

Every individual comes into the world in possession of certain
characteristic and relatively fixed behavior patterns which we call
instincts. This is his racial inheritance which he shares with all
members of the species. He comes into the world, also, endowed with
certain undefined capacities for learning other forms of behavior,
capacities which vary greatly in different individuals. These individual
differences and the instincts are what is called original nature.[52]

Sociology is interested in "original nature" in so far as it supplies
the raw materials out of which individual personalities and the social
order are created. Both society and the persons who compose society are
the products of social processes working in and through the materials
which each new generation of men contributes to it.

Charles Cooley, who was the first to make the important distinction
between primary and secondary groups, has pointed out that the intimate,
face-to-face associations of primary groups, i.e., the family, the
neighborhood, and the village community, are fundamental in forming the
social nature and ideals of the individual.[53]

There is, however, an area of life in which the associations are more
intimate than those of the primary group as that group is ordinarily
conceived. Such are the relations between mother and child, particularly
in the period of infancy, and the relations between men and women under
the influence of the sexual instinct. These are the associations in
which the most lasting affections and the most violent antipathies are
formed. We may describe it as the area of touch relationships.

Finally, there is th