CORRESP ONDENCE. 



553 



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THE FOUNDATION OF SOCIOLOGY. 



Editor Popular Science Monthly : 



SIR : May I be permitted a word of com- 

 ment upon your editorial entitled A Bor- 

 rowed Foundation, published in the Decem- 

 ber number of the Popular Science Monthly ? 

 Whatever my readers and reviewers may 

 have claimed for me, I myself have never 

 claimed to be the discoverer of " the con- 

 sciousness of kind." Not only Mr. Spencer, 

 as he and you have shown ; not only Hegel, 

 as Professor Caldwell has shown ; but also 

 nearly every philosophical writer and psy- 

 chologist from Plato and Aristotle down to 

 the present time has more or less clearly rec- 

 ognized the phenomenon of " the conscious- 

 ness of kind," although I do not know that 

 any one but myself has called it by just this 

 phrase. The only claim, then, that I put 

 forward for my own work is that, in a some- 

 what systematic way, I have attempted to 

 use the consciousness of kind as the postu- 

 late of sociology and to interpret more spe- 

 cial social phenomena by means of it. In 

 other words, I have used it as a " founda- 

 tion " ; and I am not aware that any other 

 writer on sociology has ever done so. Mr. 

 Spencer, I feel quite sure, makes no such 

 claim for himself. The passage which he 

 and you have quoted is taken from the Prin- 

 ciples of Psychology ; it is not repeated in 

 the Principles of Sociology, where, if it had 

 been regarded by Mr. Spencer as a " founda- 

 tion," it should have been put forward as the 

 major premise of social theory. Passing over 

 the consciousness of kind, Mr. Spencer has 

 chosen to build his system of sociology in 

 part upon other psychological inductions, in 

 part upon a biological analogy. The tables 

 of the Descriptive Sociology are arranged in 

 accordance with the organic conception, and 

 nine and one half chapters of the Inductions 

 of Sociology in the first volume of the Prin- 

 ciples of Sociology are formulated in terms 

 of it. Throughout the remaining parts of 

 the Principles, however, sociological phe- 

 nomena are explained in terms of two closely- 

 correlated generalizations that are psycho- 

 logical in character — namely, first, the gen- 

 eralization that " while the fear of the living 

 becomes the root of the political control, the 

 fear of the dead becomes the root of religious 

 control " ; and second, the generalization that 

 militancy and industrialism produce opposite 

 effects on mind and character, and, through 

 them, on every form of social organization. 

 The work that Mr. Spencer has done in elab- 

 orating these explanations is of inestimable 

 value, but surely it is not an interpretation 

 of society in terms of the consciousness of I 



kind. Is it then quite fair to suggest that 

 the use made of the consciousness of kind in 

 my own work is a borrowed " foundation " ? 

 However you and Mr. Spencer and my 

 own readers may answer this question, I can 

 sincerely subscribe to your affirmation that 

 there is much more in Mr. Spencer's writings 

 than most even of his truest admirers and 

 most diligent readers have ever explored ; and 

 I should be sorry to be regarded as behind 

 the foremost in appreciation of the great work 

 which he has accomplished not only for phi- 

 losophy in general, but especially for that 

 branch of knowledge which has engaged my 

 own interest. Franklin H. Giddings. 



New Yoek, December 19, 1898. 



Professor Giddings, in his Principles of 

 Sociology, spoke of the " consciousness of 

 kind " as the " new datum which has been 

 hitherto sought without success." Mr. Spen- 

 cer, on the other hand, showed that this was 

 not a new datum, inasmuch as he had formu- 

 lated it himself in a work published many 

 years previously. Professor Giddings says 

 that the passage to which Mr. Spencer re- 

 ferred occurred in his Principles of Psy- 

 chology, and not in his Principles of So- 

 ciology, where, " if it had been regarded by 

 Mr. Spencer as a foundation, it should have 

 been put forward as the major premise of 

 social theory." But Professor Giddings 

 surely does not forget that Mr. Spencer, in 

 laying out his system of synthetic philos- 

 ophy, made the whole of psychology the 

 basis of, and immediate preparation for, so- 

 ciology. Quite naturally a writer who is 

 dealing with sociology separately, and not 

 as part of a philosophical system, will find it 

 necessary in laying his foundations to fall 

 back on data furnished by the immediately 

 underlying science ; and this explains why 

 Professor Giddings makes use in his Prin- 

 ciples of Sociology of a datum which, 

 whether drawn from Mr. Spencer's Psy- 

 chology or not, was at least to be found 

 there very distinctly expressed. Mr. Spen- 

 cer himself says that he regarded it as a 

 " primary datum," and calls attention to the 

 fact that he devoted " a dozen pages to trac- 

 ing the development of sympathy as a re- 

 sult of gregariousness." We are quite pre- 

 pared to recognize the valuable use which 

 Professor Giddings has made of the doctrine 

 in question, and to admit that, by the exten- 

 sive development he has given to it, he has 

 imparted a special character and a special in- 

 terest both to his Principles of Sociology 

 and to his Elements of Sociology noticed 

 elsewhere. — Ed. P. S. M. 



