Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/378

 366 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

Let :is consider for a moment what a sociologist has to say about this. Professor Giddings holds that

the sociologist deals not only with causes that are not merely physical, but also with many that are not merely psychical. They are as much more com- plex than the merely psychical as the psychical are more complex than the merely physical.

He calls them sociological. He makes social causation different from other causation just as "protoplasm is different from cer- tain quantities of oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, and carbon." 18 Then, later, the most explicit statement of his notion of social causation is found when he says :

Specifically, sociology is an interpretation of social phenomena in terms of psychical activity, organic adjustment, natural selection, and the conserva- tion of energy."

Here, I take it, he has given what he considers to be the compon- ent parts of this social causation; but I fail to see how this explains it at all, for he is simply enumerating its factors; and he has said that just the difference between social causation and other causation is that between products and factors, and cites protoplasm as an example. He has contended for natural causa- tion according to conservation of energy; but here, by his own statement, his analysis of social causation is not adequate, for combining those elements of oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, and carbon artificially will not give protoplasm, showing that there is something additional present. When he leaves these chemical elements and gets to protoplasm, he has left chemistry and is in another science biology, a science which investigates a higher stage of cosmic evolution than chemistry. But just as the biolo- gist no longer cares directly for these chemical elements, but con- cerns himself with the investigation of protoplasm, its move- ments and their results, so here Professor Giddings, having once realized the fact that the causation of the sociologist is not physical merely nor psychical merely, but sociological, ought to keep to his assertion and work on the basis of that, instead of going back to physical processes and forces. That he does go back to interpretation in terms of physical forces is shown when he says:

"Principles of Sociology, pp. 416 ff. "Ibid., p. 419.