Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/649

 SOCIOLOGICAL CONSTRUCTION LINES 633

with the rest of the population, but do share with members of other populations. But this is confusion of thought. It not only ignores differences, but also obscures the true social unities which are constituted by particular forms of social activity.

The prevalent notion of a society has, perhaps, truth enough for some uses, but by no means accuracy enough to serve in defining the object of study for a science. It is the natural result of a rough and unprecise observation of resemblances, differences, and interrelationships. It is a common-sense view, in the sense in which that phrase is used when it is said that the business of science is to test and correct common-sense views. In doing so, science quite commonly supplants them, and shows that the earth is not flat nor fixed, and that the sun does not rise nor set. The notion of a complex, integrated society is true in so far as it roughly recognizes some truths, and untrue in that it recognizes them only roughly, adds unwarranted assumptions, and ignores subtler realities. We are familiar with the air before we think of the ether. We are impressed by great " national " movements and their conspicuous consequences before we attend to the subtle medium of social activities in which we are immersed, which enter the molecular recesses of our psychic life, and whose pervasive efficiency is the main element in social causation.

The word "society," far from denoting so stupendous, defi- nite, integrated, and organic a unity, as many sociologists have supposed, is a name for any group of people who are together. Togetherness, interrelation, is the essential of society. If all mankind are related by mutual causation, then with reference to this interrelation there is one all-inclusive society. If at the same time the members of a given group are related to each other in a way peculiar to themselves, then by virtue of that relationship they are a particular society. There are as many societies as there are related groups. These societies may overlap to any extent. A single individual may be related in one way to one group, for instance, by sharing a common religious creed; and in another way to another group, for instance by entering with them into a political organization ; and similarly he may belong at the same time to many different societies. Each of us may have been a