Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 1.djvu/495

Rh VIII.

The next logical procedure in method consists in classifying phenomena which are deemed social, and then distributing them among the special departments of social science.

1. DeGreef, a positivist of Comte's school, asserts that the same hierarchic arrangement which is applied to the various sciences as wholes, must also be adopted in classifying the phenomena of the sciences themselves. In accordance with this theory he has proposed the following arrangement of social phenomena in an order of dependence from below upward:

g) Phénomènes politiques.

f) Phénomènes juridiques.

e) Phénomènes moraux.

d) Phénomènes relatifs aux croyances.

c) Phénomènes artistiques.

b) Phénomènes génésiques.

a) Phénomènes economiques.

Base: Facteurs élémentaires, inorganiques et organiques: territoire et population.

2. Of this arrangement it is asserted:

a) That conscious attention is directed by society to social phenomena in this chronological order, not that the phenomena themselves may not often coexist.

b) That only after conscious social effort has effected a measure of organization of one class of phenomena, can attention be directed to the next higher class, i. e., there is an order of dependence.

c) That not only are the higher phenomena dependent upon the lower, but the former react upon and constantly modify the latter.

d) That the difficulty of modifying social phenomena increases as progress is made from the higher toward the