Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/194

 1 82 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

of all social phenomena under the unity of this fundamental conception.

Although monism declares that in the last analysis there is regularity in phenomena, nevertheless the laws derived from this unifying principle vary for the different main divisions of phe- nomena. To what extent the formal regularity applies to the whole phenomenal world, to what extent the physical and the biological laws reappear as social laws, and to what extent there is a peculiar sociological regularity to answer this question, and to distinguish between the two spheres, is of course the vital question for sociology as science; and it is (i) the fundamental problem of sociology to demonstrate this regularity in the spirit of the comprehensive method to which we have referred. When this problem is once solved, sociology is not merely a branch of human knowledge, but along with philosophy it is a foundation of all the psychical sciences.

Closely connected with this fundamental problem of sociology is (2) the world-problem of the relation of the increase of the human race to sustenance; in brief, the question of the trans- formation of matter. It is certain that the economic processes of the world are today in the childhood of thoughtless robber methods, in respect to which North America particularly indulges in very dangerous optimism. The questions whether free trade can remain permanently the solution of the world's economic problem, and what economic principles the prosperity of society will demand, both with respect to labor and to the sources of production, are not yet brought into consideration, but national economy plunges without suspicion into the service of this plundering system.

After this world-problem there follow the principal problems of sociology.

The purpose of elevating sociology to the rank of an advisory science gives rise to (3) the third problem: Has the human will an influence upon social development? If this question is to be answered optimistically, there open before society the most tre- mendous prospects; but if it is to be answered pessimistically, there would have to be acquiescence in despair for everything