SOCIOLOGICAL METHODOLOGY 49 



that a law that prevails, or is thought to prevail, in biological 

 evolution, prevails in like manner in the evolution of a social 

 group or civilization taken as a whole. The fact would seem to 

 be rather that each phase of development has its characteristic 

 marks and can be understood only in the light of an inductive 

 study of the elements that make up its own life. Moreover, while 

 a knowledge of higher phases of development can be applied with 

 a good degree of certainty to lower phases, the reverse is true 

 only within limits which need to be carefully defined. 



GUILLAUME DE GREEF (1842- ) 

 Classification as a Method of Sociological Knowledge 



De Greef accepts Comte's hierarchy of the sciences, but greatly 

 extends it to include the social sciences. 1 In addition to Spencer's 

 principle of classification, increasing complexity and de- 

 pendence of parts, he adds that of volitional activity or 

 contractualism, which he holds to be " the distinguishing char- 

 acteristic of society, both from the structural and the functional 

 point of view," and defines as " their superior and special mode of 

 adaptation and life." z 



De Greef arranges the social elements in a hierarchy based on 

 decreasing generality beginning with the economic and including 

 in order, the industrial, genetic, artistic, scientific, moral, juridi- 

 cal, and political. Not only does this scale stand for the order of 

 generality, but also represents their related order of influence on 

 social progress and on each other. That is, the economic factor 

 has great influence on social progress as a whole and on the politi- 

 cal factor in particular, whereas the political factor has little 

 influence on social progress and little on economic conditions. 3 



1 Am. Journ. Soc., vii; Introduction d la Sociologie, Preface. 



2 Am. Journ. Soc., viii, p. 497. Cf. Earth, op. cit., p. 69. 



3 This is a good example of the artificialities into which some are led. Such a 

 harmonious cross-classification does not represent concrete life conditions. The 

 fact is that government has more influence on the economic factor than it has 

 on the religious, moral, or juridical, and, in fact, as Sumner has pointed out, the 

 moral is most often changed by legislation that has aimed to bring about certain 

 industrial changes. Cf. Barth, ibid., p. 81; Small, General Sociology, pp. 68 ff. 



