Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/280

 268 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

sought to " discover the general laws of social evolution by speculative rather than observational methods." Like every true philosopher (I use that word in the sense in which Newton and Faraday used it), he speculated. But his speculations were founded on observation ; and they acknowledged observation as their test.

We come then to the question raised by both of the papers before us the systematization of sociological specialisms. It is admitted that there is want of correlation of such specialisms, and that many of them overlap. It is admitted that they need to be penetrated with the sociological conception of unity. On the other hand, it is admitted also that they are spontaneously moving toward this directing idea, only too slowly. Under these circumstances Mr. Branford suggests that the main requirement at the present moment is " an abstract mapping of the existing field of verified and verifiable sociological knowledge." I do not know if I apprehend his meaning rightly ; but I own to some apprehension lest pre- mature classification may increase rather than diminish our confusion. I would rather postpone it, or I would at least regard any such attempt at classification as essentially provisional, until there is somewhat more agreement as to what I will call the central principles of sociological science ; principles that may be regarded as holding the same position in sociology as in the century of Galileo and Newton was held by the laws of motion in dynamical science.

One of these laws is insisted on by Professor Durkheim as a necessary work- ing hypothesis ; namely, the interdependence and unity of all social phenomena ; the consensus of the social organism. There remains the work of analyzing the succession or filiation of social states what Comte called social dynamic, as opposed to social static. In the development of these central conceptions, the aid afforded by the special branches of research to which attention has been so rightly called, will become more and more obvious and prominent, and thus the unification so much desired by all will be gradually attained not all at once perhaps, but gradually and surely.

FROM VICOMTE COMBE DE LESTRADE, LAUREATE OF THE INSTITUTE OF FRANCE.

At the Congress of the International Institute, held at the Sorbonne, in 1003, one of the speakers expressed the hope that the relevant sciences would coexist with sociology, " as," he said, " coexisting with physics are barology, hydro-dynamics, acoustics, etc." It is quite evident that physics is only the totality of these branches of knowledge, and does not exist outside of them, and that there is no such thing as pure physics that is not barology, hydro-dynamics, acoustics, etc. If this comparison was anything else than a means of reaching a means of intelligibility, if it aimed at exactness, it would tend to reduce sociology to nothing, and to render it but a collective name. Sociology tends to develop the different scientific specialisms which are essentially sociological, and to give them a sociological orientation ; in other words, to transmit to other sciences its essence, its mission. But it is not the case that the learned public will be led to believe, if the conclusions of Mr. Durkheim and Mr. Branford are accepted, that sociology incapable of performing the superb task that its originators assigned to it is retiring from the scientific arena, and is dividing among the specialist sciences that are older than itself the domain which it had conquered, and which it has not known how to hold.

Certain sociologists will refuse to give up the stronghold of their science. Outside of the specialisms of more or less sociological character and even if they did not exist sociology exists; the specialisms are the tools which serve it, which augment its efficiency, but which neither create it nor form it. Wherever there is a community, there exists a collective psychology. And that is sociology I

FROM R. DARESTE, MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE OF FRANCE.

Social sciences, such as law, morals, political economy, are, in short, branches of what is called today " sociology," and the latter cannot neglect them. I admit that there are very intimate relationships between them, in that they ought recip- rocally to explain each other ; but before determining these relationships with scientific precision, it seems to me necessary to allow the specialists to work each in hia own sphere. For example, the history of law has made immense progress