Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/182

 1 70 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

conspirital societies have come Machiavellian theories of the inevitableness of intrigue and conspiracy; and from societies long used to deliberative assemblies, to charters of liberty and bills of rights, have come the social-covenant or contract theories of Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau. Finally, from societies that have attained the heights of civilization have come the Utopian theories, from Plato until now.

Whatever the kind or type of the society, there are found in it four great classes or groupings of facts.

Every society presupposes a certain number of concrete living individuals. The basis of every society, therefore, is a popula- tion. Every Social Population offers for observation phenomena of aggregation, or distribution of density; phenomena of com- position, by age, sex, and race ; and phenomena of amalgamation or unity.

The social life, however, as we have seen, is a phenomenon of mind, and the varied modes that the common activity and interplay of minds assume, present the second great class of social facts. These facts of the Social Mind, as we may call them, include the phenomena of stimulation and response in their generic forms: phenomena of resemblances and differences, that is to say, of types; phenomena of the consciousness of kind, and phenomena of concerted volition.

The common mental activity, taking habitual forms, creates permanent social relationships, that is to say, a more or less complex Social Organization. In this we meet the third great class of social facts. Two general forms may be observed. In one form, individuals dwell together in groups that, by coales- cence and federation, compose the great compound societies. These groups collectively may be called the social composition. In the other form, individuals, with more or less disregard of residence, combine in associations to achieve specific ends. Such associations collectively represent the social division of labor, and therefore may be called the social constitution. In its entirety and in its subdivisions the social organization is of one or