DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIOLOGY 801 



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the laws which underlie association as such; (4) "practical" soci- 

 ology describes the scientific treatment of the problems of social 

 organization and welfare. 1 To the development of sociology as 

 philosophy and as science this survey must be confined. 



As to method of treatment, several ways lie open. Each has 

 certain advantages. The division of sociologies into (1) classifica- 

 tional, 2 (2) biological, (3) organic, and (4) psychological, affords 

 seemingly definite criteria and a natural developmental series. 

 Traditional philosophic dualism displays itself also in social theories, 

 which may be classified as objective or naturalistic on the one hand, 

 and subjective or idealistic on the other. Again, the division into 

 individualistic and collectivistic has a certain significance. So also 

 the chronological treatment of men and theories is of unquestioned 

 value. In the present case, however, no one of these methods 

 seems sufficiently flexible or comprehensive. While, therefore, 

 reference will be made, as occasion may demand, to one or another 

 of these classifications, this survey will select certain typical pro- 

 blems of social science and philosophy, and will attempt to show 

 (1) what kind of problems have engaged the attention of socio- 

 logists, and (2) what development of theory has been associated 

 with each. The problems which have been selected for this purpose 

 are the following: 



(1) The problem of conceiving society as a whole. 



(2) The problem of race-conflict and group-struggle. 



(3) The problem of the psychical nature of the group the 

 social mind. 



(4) The problem of the individual and society. 



(5) The problem of the influence of natural environment on the 

 social group. 



(6) The problem of social progress. 



(7) The problem of the province of sociology as a science. 



The conception of society as an organic whole enduring through 

 secular time, extending over wide areas, and unified by natural 

 forces from without and by conscious consensus from within, was 

 fundamental with Comte. His "law of the three stages" swept 

 into its ken an unbroken continuity of generations which were 

 later idealized into an object of worship Humanity. True, this 

 idea had been implicit in all the philosophies of history, and the 

 organic simile is traceable to remote antiquity, but Comte was 

 the first with the possible exception of Vico to present in a 

 realistic and vivid way this view of the unity of mankind. The 

 "hierarchy of the sciences" was only another means, of empha- 



1 This should be not an isolated art, but organically related to "general 

 sociology." 



2 Barth, Die Philosophic der Geschichte als Sociologie, p. 58. 



