Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/392

 380 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

the metaphysical method and point of view, viz., that of appreciation.

Metaphysics has for its province the nature, meaning and iinal meaning of the content of experience. But, taking the very broad view of sociology which the investigation seems to warrant, someone may say that the outcome of our argument is a taking away of the distinction between sociology and metaphysics, and hopelessly mixing up the two. To this we reply that the objector fails to distinguish between all the data of experience, viewed under one aspect or from one point of view, on the one hand, and the whole of experience, on the other hand. For, it seems to me, the whole of experience, and all the data of experience (meaning by "data" the groundwork of experience), are not necessarily identical. On the basis of this distinction we can accept the very wide view of sociology, and admit that the basic facts of sociology are: nature, individuals, and the modes of association between individuals; and can further demand that there is involved a metaphysical investigation as to the three facts mentioned. And we could even, if it be necessary, admit that these three factors mentioned are all the data of experience, without surrendering our position that metaphysics and not sociology is the ultimate source of our explanation ; for these are all the data of experience viewed under one aspect, from one point of view, viz., the socio- logical. But the metaphysical investigation at the outset, or during the sociological, in no wise exhausts the province of meta- physics. For metaphysics deals not only with the nature and meaning, but also with the final meaning, of what exists ; and so the metaphysical investigation in the sociological considers simply the nature and meaning of these data, whereas the final meaning can be determined only at the end of the sociological investiga- tion ; and not necessarily then, for even with this broadest view of sociology it embodies all the data of experience only under one aspect, namely, the sociological; and to get the final meaning, which is the further problem of metaphysics at this point, it must consider all the data of experience, not only under this aspect, but under every possible aspect that experience can suggest. What is meant here is this : The particular sciences take a selected body of