Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 1.djvu/194

 CHRISTIAN SOCIOLOGY. I.

MAN.

on many considerations it would be advisable to begin the examination of Christ's social philosophy with a study of the Kingdom of God, it is at once obvious that logically the doctrine of the individual precedes the doctrine of society. With Jesus, as with all thinkers, the possibilities of the component parts of a social whole must limit the possibilities of that whole. With him, to use the words of Ward, "Sociology as a whole rests primarily upon psychology." If in the thought of Jesus man is not a social being but rather is a repellant whole, his conception of society must be radically different from that of an organism. If, on the other hand, Jesus regards man as living not merely within the insulated limits of his own individuality, but as essentially a social being, reaching normality only in social life; and if it should appear that Jesus further regards this social personality of a man as distinctively human as is the egoistic, then it is evident that normal humanity may in some way resemble an organic whole, and its development the growth of an organism. Naturally, however, it is difficult and, indeed, impossible to separate the conceptions of man and mankind, and for this reason the results to be presented in a later paper will be presupposed in this in so far as they do not invalidate argument.

I.

It is at the outset necessary to set clear limits to expectations in regard to the character of the Christian anthropology. Incomplete data do not warrant complete systems. Even in Plato a physiological psychologist finds little worthy of serious consideration, and the psychologist proper is often obliged to content himself with pregnant analogies when he seeks definitions.