THE PROBLEMS OF SOCIOLOGY 819 



As this introductory discussion has shown, sociology is a philo- 

 sophical discipline not on a basis of pure reasoning merely, but rather 

 on the basis of all the real and intellectual facts correlated by the 

 causality of all phenomena. Social life can be scientifically under- 

 stood only on the basis of the monistic view of the world; that is, 

 in the light of a philosophy which subordinates all phenomena to a 

 unifying principle. It is the inevitable consequence of positivism, 

 which sets over against the ego as fact the facts of the external 

 world, that it rests on the same epistemological foundation on which 

 rest all other empirical facts. Without this positive monism a socio- 

 logical regularity is impossible, and I assert without reserve that it 

 is the source of all scientific knowledge whatsoever. This monism 

 alone permits us to understand all existence without omission, in 

 complete logical correlation, as a product of evolving regularity 

 (Gesetzmdssigkeit) . The most important precondition for the success 

 of sociological science is recognition of this monism, and subsumption 

 of all social phenomena under the unity of this fundamental con- 

 ception. 



Although monism declares that in the last analysis there is regu- 

 larity in phenomena, nevertheless the laws derived from this unifying 

 principle vary for the different main divisions of phenomena. To what 

 extent the formal regularity applies to the whole phenomenal world ; 

 to what extent the physical and the biological laws reappear as 

 social laws ; and to what extent there is a peculiar sociological regu- 

 larity to answer these questions , and to distinguish between the 

 two spheres, is of course the vital question for sociology as science; 

 and it is (1) the fundamental problem of sociology to demonstrate 

 this regularity in the spirit of the comprehensive method to which 

 we have referred. When this problem is once solved, sociology is not 

 merely a branch of human knowledge, but along with philosophy, 

 it is a foundation of all the psychical sciences. 



Closely connected with this fundamental problem of sociology 

 is (2) the world-problem of the relation of the increase of the human 

 race to sustenance; in brief, the question of the transformation of 

 matter. It is certain that the economic processes of the world are 

 to-day in the childhood of thoughtless robber methods, in respect 

 to which North America particularly indulges in very dangerous 

 optimism. The questions whether free trade can remain permanently 

 the solution of the world's economic problem, and what economic 

 principles the prosperity of society will demand, both with respect 

 to labor and to the sources of production, are not yet brought into 

 consideration, but national economy plunges without suspicion 

 into the service of this plundering system. 



After this world-problem there follow the principal problems of 

 sociology. 



