Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/652

 636 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

select certain bricks in a. wall and think of them as a unity; but our thought, if it is anything intelligible, is a thought of the bricks as existing in certain relations, in which they really do exist. We may think of them as in certain special relations tc each other, other bricks in the wall not being in the same rela- tions to these particular bricks; or we may even think of them merely as the bricks we are thinking of. In the latter case we are thinking of them as in a certain relation to the thinker, the objects of his selection. Professor Adams's contention seems to be that the sociologist selects certain phenomena to think about and calls them a society, by reason of the fact that he has decided to think of them together, and that this is all " the social unity " is. If I understand him correctly, he falls into the same error as those who say that space and time are only forms of thought. They are names for real relations between things. And relations are as real as things. Things are not only thought of as in relations, they exist in relations to each other. Things that really exist together in a particular relation to each other thereby constitute a unity, whether anybody perceives it or not. Not all relations are worth noticing. Others are among the most important of realities.

The writer of the article referred to also says that " the social process in its unity is not psychic," 14 and that to hold that it is psychic is to imply the existence of a " transcendental somewhat," an "over-soul," that can think the social thoughts and will the social deeds. This is just as true as it would be to say that a company of marching soldiers cannot be regarded as a physical unity without implying a colossal pair of legs to do the marching. The unity in each case is a unity of relations, a unity of similarity in activities, whether physical or psychic. The unity of the marching company is real and does not depend on being thought by the man on the curbstone. And social unities, constituted by related psychic activities, are likewise real and not dependent on the subjectivity that conceives the unity.

After all, the formal concept " society " is not the most funda- mental one for sociology. The statement, " Sociology is the stmty

" Loc. cit., p. 223.