Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 1.djvu/468

456 which think themselves, no language which has existed except in the speech of the individual, no belief and no science which has shone like a universal sun above the heads of individuals, no constitution which has existed elsewhere than in the consciousness, the will, the feeling of duty or fear, of the particular citizen." Social psychology will not then look for an entirely different set of psychical states from those which individual psychology studies (of course it may be interested in some more than in others); it will rather study a different aspect of the concrete facts of life of which other aspects are studied by individual psychology, just as social logic may study the same concrete facts as the philosophy of law or political science. Rousseau's ecstatic trance when the thoughts of his first discourse came before him is of interest to psychologist, historian, and sociologist, not to say physiologist and alienist.

The third respect in which the psychological tendency appears is in the general inclination to find explanations in psychological laws. This is seen by Lapie in several works of the past year, the most notable exception being Durkheim. Here too there is room for a careful criticism and clearing up of just what is meant by explanation, but this would lead beyond the limits of the present paper.