Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/385

 METAPHYSICAL ELEMENTS IN SOCIOLOGY 373

Hence, metaphysical investigation is necessary in order to be able truly to get at the interrelations which sociology has for its province; for those interactions are such only by reason of the inner nature of the things concerned.

Sociology deals with selves, and these, in turn, lead us to con- ceive of the social situation as an interplay of wills. 81 Now, if this is the case, then the ultimate term in sociological discussion is will. Taking the other side, metaphysical discussion leads to the outcome that interaction of things must be conceived of in terms of behavior; i. e., the expression of an inner, might we say, motivity or activity, after the analogy of the self. But since transeunt action is impossible, and some internal spring is demanded, this can be stated only in terms of will. And so in the metaphysical sphere our ultimate term is will. As to whether this will is blind, or conscious and intelligent, we are not called upon to discuss. But, that aside, we have reduced our two fields viz., sociology and metaphysics in the last analysis, to the same terms.

Now, having gotten to the same ground-principle or, rather, our metaphysical investigation having brought us ana- lytically to this fundamental term it is its business to follow out this term or principle in its various manifestations. By this I mean : an adequate investigation cannot be content with analysis to an ultimate principle. The analysis, if not accompanied by any other process, will leave us with an abstraction ; and so one must proceed to the verification of the result of the analysis by tracing the principle thus dissected into its phenomenal manifestations, and thereby making "eine weitere Erorterung."

Applying this to the case at hand, our metaphysical analysis has brought us to a will-conception as ultimate. Just as physics, having gotten the conception of energy, proceeds to study energy in manifestation, and it is this latter that furnishes much of the subject-matter of the science always bearing in mind, however, that the original conception of energy must not be lost sight of, and that the subject-matter of the other part of the science is simply the working out of the principle just so here. We have

" BALDWIN, Social and Ethical Interpretations, 3d ed., p. 27.