824 SOCIAL STRUCTURE 



The totality of problems which we have spoken of as "funda- 

 mental," "general," and "principal" indicates the essential con- 

 tent of sociology as science. The problems increase in number in 

 the degree in which sociology is stimulated by the tributary sci- 

 ences to the solution of new problems. It will be the duty of so- 

 ciology to organize the results of all scientific activities within the 

 social realm into the sociological synthesis in order to maintain 

 itself constantly on a level with the highest social needs and with 

 the results of science in general. If the world is really a product 

 of immanent regularity, then social development cannot afford 

 to be without a science which shall bring to recognition, over and 

 above all special knowledge, this general regularity. Just as the 

 natural sciences made their way in struggle with the prejudices 

 of the Middle Ages, so must sociology and its philosophical basis, 

 positive monism, make their way through the prejudices of false 

 science and reactionary interests. In this respect the words of 

 Goethe's Xenie are, however, still in point: 



Amerika, du hast es besser, 

 Hast keine verfallenen Schl6sser. 



