LYMAN BRYSON and others (Eds.). Symbols and Society. Pp. xi, 611. New York: Conference on Science, Philosophy, and Religion in Their Relation to the Democratic Way of Life, 1955. (Distributed by Harper and Brothers.) $6.00

• Author: Oliver L. Reiser
• DOI: 10.1177/000271625630400150
• Published date: 01 March 1956
• Date: 01 March 1956
• Subject Matter: Articles

171

state

and

the

development

of

portable

and

negotiable

wealth.

Ancient

Egypt

and

Mesopotamia

illustrate

incipient

stages,

while

only

ancient

Greece,

which

achieved

the

first

industrial

revolution,

had

all

of

the

required

circumstances

for

full

ma-

turity

of

the

middle

class

(pp.

41-44).

Still,

the

Hellenic

middle

class

followed

its

predecessors

into

decline.

Not

until

the

end

of

the

European

Dark

Ages

did

the

next

major

spiral

of

economic

advance

begin.

Modern

England

and,

more

re-

cently,

the

United

States

have

carried

this

most

recent

middle

class

efHorescence

of

the

second

industrial

revolution

to

its

apogee.

But

once

more

the

threat

of

stagnation

and

decline

impends.

Here,

as

in

England,

&dquo;the

middle

class

individualist

is

suffering

from

increasing

restrictions

and

narrowing

opportunities

brought

about

by

the

monopoly-minded

upper

and

lower

classes&dquo;

(pp.

86-87).

Of

the

author’s

entire

analysis,

nothing

appears

so

striking,

so

unconventional,

and

so

controversial

as

his

definition

of

the

middle

class,

which

is

implied

in

the

sen-

tence

just

quoted

and

explicitly

elaborated

elsewhere

(pp.

xi-xii,

28-29).

Member-

ship

in

the

middle

class

is

characterized

not

by

rank

in

the

social

hierarchy

but

by

an

individualistic

proclivity

to

innovate.

The

excessive

brevity

of

Grayson’s

his-

torical

study

is

likely

to

raise

the

dis-

quieting

possibility

that

the

author

has

simply

illustrated,

rather

than

critically

tested,

his

de-stratified

notion

of

the

middle

class

and

his

Paretian-mechanistic

theory

of

social

dynamics

which,

by

deriving

change

from

individualism,

logically

im-

plies

his

concept

of

the

middle

class.

ROSCOE

C.

HINKLE,

JR.

Ohio

State

University

LYMAN

BRYSON

and

others

(Eds.).

Sym-

bols

and

Society.

Pp.

xi,

611.

New

York:

Conference

on

Science,

Philoso-

phy,

and

Religion

in

Their

Relation

to

the

Democratic

Way

of

Life,

1955.

(Distributed

by

Harper

and

Brothers.)

$6.00.

This

is

the

second

of

a

two-volume

study

of the

part

played

by

symbols

in

the

life

of

mankind.

The

articles

included

were

prepared

for

the

Fourteenth

Conference

on

Science,

Philosophy,

and

Religion

in

Their

Relation

to

the

Democratic

Way

of

Life.

The

sixteen

papers

and

the

comments

on

them

by

other

participants

thus

represent

the

collaboration

of

some

forty

scholars

who

met

at

Harvard

University

in

the

fall

of

1954

to

explore

the

ways

in

which

sym-

bols influence

social

thought

and

action.

This

volume

surveys

the

role

of

symbol-

ism

in

establishing

relationships

between

individuals,

groups,

and

nations.

The

studies

range

from

the

physical

sciences

(Philipp

G.

Frank),

politics

(T.

R.

Adam

and

Karl

W.

Deutsch),

law

(F.

S.

C.

Northrop),

prestige

(Lyman

Bryson),

edu-

cation

(Robert

Ulich),

and

the

Old

Testa-

ment

(Louis

Finkelstein)

to

cultural

values

and

the

arts

(by

various

writers).

The

conclusions

which

emerge

from

these

di-

verse

and

sumptuous

offerings

illustrate

the

manifold

uses

and

abuses

of

the

symbolic

expressions

of

human

purposes.

The

work

is

described

as

&dquo;the

first

com-

prehensive

study

of

its

kind.&dquo;

Yet

one

comes

away

from

it

with

the

impression

that

the

group

was

not

entirely

represen-

tative

of

all

approaches.

For

example,

there

is

no

treatment

of

the

semantics

movement,

whether

in

the

form

of

general

semantics

(Korzybski,

Lee,

Hayakawa,

Stuart

Chase, et

al.)

or

the

more

restricted

logistic

approaches

of

Bertrand

Russell

and

Rudolf

Carnap.

Nor

does

the

work

of

Bliss’s

semantography,

the

fundamental

re-

search

of

Carl

Jung

on

archetypal

imagery,

or

the

contributions

of

Oriental

philoso-

phies

and

religions

find

adequate

recogni-

tion.

The

international

symbolism

move-

ments-for

example,

Leibniz’s

characteris-

tica

universalis,

Esperanto,

Interlingua,

and

others-find

no

place

in

these

discussions.

On

the

other

hand,

Harlow

Shapley’s

article

on

&dquo;Galaxies

and

their

Human

Worth,&dquo;

included

in

an

Appendix,

is

a

masterly

summary,

but

seems

rather

ir-

relevant

in

this

volume.

Hudson

Hoag-

land’s

valuable

paper,

&dquo;Some

Considerations

of

Symbolization

and

Nervous

Action,&dquo;

is

quite

relevant;

but

in

that

event

one

can

only

regret

that

Ralph

Gerard’s

ar-

ticle

along

similar

lines

was

not

also

in-

cluded.

But

criticism

aside,

this

book

and

its

companion

volume,

Symbols

and

Values,

provide

extremely

useful

source

materials