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 174 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

liberty. The struggle of conflicting interests in the community, which these three modes of policy represent, is yet another form of internal equilibration.

To the extent that a policy of equality is adopted, the com- munity is democratic. Political equality, equality before the law, and some approach toward equality of economic opportu- nity, are the essential elements of democracy. No sooner is democracy evolved than we see a struggle between the forces that make for absolutist, and those that make for liberal, democracy. Either the majority is permitted to rule at will, or it is com- pelled to leave inviolate certain rights of the minority and of individuals.

The outcome of all equilibration, external and internal, is a certain relation of the individual to the social organization. In low types of society the individual literally belongs to the various social groups in which his lot is cast. He belongs to them for life. To leave them is to become an outcast. He may not leave his clan, his guild, his caste, his church, or his state. In superior types of society we discover a high degree of individual mobility combined with a marvelous power to concentrate enor- mous numbers of individuals in moments of emergency, upon any work needing to be done. The individual may go freely from state to state, from parish to parish, in search of his best economic opportunity. He may sever connection with his church to join another, or none at all. He may be a director today in a dozen corporations, and tomorrow in a dozen different ones. The goal of social evolution is a complex, flexible, liberal organization, permitting the utmost liberty and mobility to the individual, without impairing the efficiency of organization as a whole.

On the methods of sociology remark at this time must neces- sarily be brief.

Dealing as we do with highly concrete materials, we place our main reliance upon systematic induction. The experimental method of induction, however, is of little avail in the scientific study of society. Although social experimenting is at all tinaes