“"SOCIETY and the Individual" is really the subject of this whole book, and not merely of Chapter One. It is my general aim to set forth, from various points of view, what the individual is, considered as a member of a social whole; while the special purpose of this chapter is only to offer a preliminary statement of the matter, as I conceive it, afterward to be unfolded at some length and variously illustrated.”

— Charles Cooley

Source: Human Nature and the Social Order, 1902, p. 1; Lead paragraph

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Charles Cooley 17

American sociologist 1864–1929

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