DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIOLOGY 803 



With the shifting of emphasis from the biological to the psycho- 

 logical analogy this theory of the social whole has been inevitably 

 modified. Division of labor and interdependence have yielded 

 more and more to the idea of a unity in habit, feeling, and thought. 

 Tarde, for example, conceives a constant tendency toward larger 

 social groups by means of ever-spreading waves of imitation. 1 This 

 conception of an increasing unification of mankind is traceable in 

 part to the evolutionary philosophy of the second half of the cen- 

 tury, in part to the rapid extension of commerce and the closer 

 international relations which this has involved, and in some degree 

 to that idealism which Condorcet suggested, which Comte exalted, 

 and which finds expression in the dream of "a parliament of nations, 

 the federation of the world." 



Valuable as this philosophical idea of organic social unity and 

 increasing centralization undoubtedly is, it has distinct limitations. 

 The biological analogy is clearly recognized as having reached and 

 often transgressed the limits of its usefulness. It is the descriptive 

 philosophy of an observer from without rather than the science of 

 the student at close quarters with the facts of association. Mallock 

 has asserted that the Spencerian sociology, when tested by the 

 practical demands of the times, utterly breaks down. It has no 

 solution for the problems of the day because Spencer deals with 

 society as a whole, while all so-called social problems arise from 

 maladjustments and conflicts between the parts of society classes, 

 parties, sects, and other groups. 2 It is further true that the concept 

 of society as a whole is a vague notion at best, and on ultimate 

 analysis is likely to resolve itself into the idea of a national group 

 defined by geographical boundaries and controlled by a single 

 political system. 



It was inevitable in the circumstances that to certain students 

 society should present a picture, not of harmony and unity, but 

 of conflict and struggle. 3 Thus Gumplowicz sees in the history of 

 mankind a never-ending conflict of hordes, tribes, races, classes, 

 and other groups. These struggles may change their forms, but 

 never their essential character, the exploitation of the weak by the 

 strong. 4 To Ratzenhofer society is an area of interests which first 

 form individuals, then groups, then wider groups, and struggle 

 perpetually for the realization of the dominant interest. Each 

 interest forms a struggle-group in which leadership and authority 



1 Tarde, Les lois de Vimitation (Paris, 1890), pp. 42 ff. 



2 Mallock, Aristocracy and Evolution (London, 1896), pp. 8-16. 



3 Ross points out that Spencer and Tarde live in centralized and homogeneous 

 states, while the leaders of the "conflict" school, Gumplowicz, - Ratzenhofer, 

 Loria, et al., have been reared among peoples characterized oy racial and national 

 antagonisms. Recent Tendencies in Sociology, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 

 August, 1902. 



4 Gumplowicz, La lutte des races (tr. Baye), pp. 159 ff. and 340. 



