May 2, 1902.] 



SCIENCE. 



705 



D. Therefore these like individuals make the 

 type X." He consequently credits himself 

 with classifying resemblances. If his view- 

 point were strictly that of society rather than 

 of the individual, he would see that he thereby 

 checks off but a single step in his process. 

 When he takes the next steps, and determines 

 the types T, Z and W, he does it by means of 

 their differences from X and from each other. 

 This is the longer and more important step 

 and, as Professor Ross intimates, he should 

 have designated it accordingly. The study of 

 individuals is not sociology, any more than 

 the study of bricks would be architecture. I 

 would not prejudice my case by seeming to 

 say that Professor Giddings has not studied 

 sociology. He has of course for years been 

 among the men who have studied it in all its 

 dimensions. The present thesis is that the 

 individual and the theory of the individual 

 subtend too much of the angle of Professor 

 Giddings' vision. The consequences are, first, 

 that he does not draw a sharp methodological 

 line between the sciences of the individual 

 and the science of society; second, that his 

 own work is, more than he is aware, on the 

 individual side of the point where the division 

 line ought to be; third, that the conclusions 

 which he carries over to the social side of his 

 thinking are arbitrary constructions of artifi- 

 cial individuals into a conventionalized social 

 whole. 



The second chief count against the book is 

 that its organizing sociological conceptions 

 belong in a period out of which sociology has 

 definitely passed. As was said above, th^ey are 

 essentially the ideas of Schaeffle. To have 

 thought Schaeffle's thoughts ten, or even five, 

 years ago was a merit. Not to have thought 

 beyond them to-day is a demerit. Professor 

 Giddings' Part III., 'Social Organization,' 

 and Part IV., 'The Social Welfare,' attempt 

 precisely what Schaeffle attempted in the cor- 

 responding parts of his work. The results in 

 the later instance do not suffer by comparison 

 with the earlier, but no doubt Professor Gid- 

 dings will be among the first to realize that 

 a new idea is breathing the breath of life into 

 the dead clay of structural and functional 

 classifications. It should be admitted, in ex- 



tenuation, that the only safe way to insure 

 against the appearance of lagging behind the 

 progress of sociological theory is to refrain 

 from publishing a book. The movement of 

 thought has been so rapid that an author is 

 fortunate not to have outgrown his plan before 

 his last chapter is in type. The probabilities 

 are that Professor Giddings is no exception to 

 the rule, and that the new impulse has exerted 

 its full force upon him. It would be an injus- 

 tice to hundreds of contemporaries in many 

 divisions of science to credit this new impulse 

 to any single individual; but Eatzenliofer has 

 given it such detailed expression that it would 

 not be at all strange if the present stage of 

 sociological development were presently reck- 

 oned as dating from the appearance of 'Wesen 

 und Zweck,' in 1893. 



The center of gravity of the newer sociology 

 is in the interests which move the machinery 

 of association. Everything else becomes sec- 

 ondary. Instead of stopping with structural 

 and functional formulas, as the last expres- 

 sions of the social fact, we realize that socie- 

 tary structures and functions are merely 

 vehicles of the essential content. The central 

 reality in association is the evolution and 

 correlation of interests. This perception pro- 

 duces a new critique of our whole structural 

 and functional tradition. It furnishes a len3 

 through which to see whether our sociological 

 categories are elaborations of sterile technique, 

 merely flattering its inventors, or whether they 

 actually correspond with the interests which 

 produce and operate .and reconstruct the social 

 forms. 



Professor Simmel has lately remarked 

 (Inter. Monthly, February, 1902, p. 183) that 

 the real significance of historical materialism 

 must be found in the fact that it is "the first 

 attempt to explain history by means of a 

 psychological principle. If hunger did not 

 cause pain, if it were not, besides having its 

 Ijliysiological function, a spiritual event, then 

 it would never have set free the events that 

 we call history." Anticipating the conclusion 

 that 'historical materialism is altogether too 

 narrow an hypothesis,' he observes two pages 

 earlier : " The general synthesis that shall unite 

 all the currents of existence as known to us 



