Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/541

 METAPHYSICAL ELEMENTS IN SOCIOLOGY $2$

ing to explain sociological facts, wherein truth consists, and we are, it would seem, in a metaphysical question. Nor can I see how sociological explanation can avoid asking itself such a question, i. e., as to the criteria of social choice. Professor Giddings realizes this very clearly when he says that the sociologist has three main quests. They are :

First, he must try to discover the conditions that determine mere aggre- gation and concourse. Secondly, he must try to discover the law of social

choices Thirdly, he must discover also the law that governs the natural

selection and survival of choices.**

Though the mode of expression is somewhat different, the prob- lems that Professor Giddings suggests would largely involve what is spoken of here. Thus, from this point of view, there would seem to be a metaphysical moment directly involved in M. Tarde's principle.

If we reflect upon the sort of imitation which M. Tarde puts at the center of sociological explanation, we shall find that imita- tion cannot at all be a final term, since it is a term of process, and altogether leaves out of court the consideration of a point of departure for that process, through which the process is deter- mined. Imitation is in no wise a real causal principle of socio- logical interpretation and explanation. It is merely the process whereby this interpretation not alone takes place, but also is made possible. When M. Tarde shows how a multitude of social phe- nomena come into being by imitation, he has in reality only described a process. When he has said that imitation explains the rise of many happenings in association, what he really has done is to give a descriptive formula of the means by which those phenomena are what they are, and has in no wise explained their real origin or interpreted their meaning. He seems to have aimed at interpretation; but that is possible only when we add to his process of imitation that which is gotten through the process, and in which alone consists the real explanation of why others do cer- tain things. In other words, it must be supplemented by appre- ciative interpretation. When the child's father hits his thumb with the hammer, and then kicks the dog to let off some surplus

"Principles of Sociology, p. 20.