Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 15.djvu/264

 250 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

fractional or one-sided views, "'^ On the contrary, the reason why I turned against sociology after long study was that it seemed to me to stand in the way of the attainment of just those objects ; that it was essentially a false start, from which scholar- ship would have to withdraw before a true start could be made. It seems to me that the great extent to which American scholar- ship has been committed to this false start, as compared with the European situation, is a misfortune whose consequences are apparent when what passes in this country for thmking on politi- cal and social problems is compared with discussion by European publicists, I attribute this to the vast influence which Herbert Spencer's writings acquired in this country. Owing chiefly to the energetic exploitation of a New York publishing house he had "a boom" in this country such as he never had in his own and we accepted his views in a spirit of colonial deference. Our intellectuals have been parroting his phrases ever since, and his methodology rests on our thinking like a colossus of lead. Al- though the flaws of his logic are too abundant to escape the notice even of his disciples, and the inadequacy of his categories is now admitted, yet his concept of the individual as a monad still survives and it gives to sociology its characteristic point of view. Toward the last he arrived at opinions that cut the ground from under his own and all other systems of sociology, but he does not seem to have apppreciated their logical significance. In his Data of Ethics he defines the state as "society in its corporate capacity."* The definition is given, parenthetically, in discussing social rights and duties and the subject is not pursued. Never- theless, it is revolutionary in its effect on his system. If the state is the corpus, whereof society is the structure, then what becomes of the right of the individual to ignore the state, on which he formerly insisted? It is as logically absurd as that a bird should ignore air; or a fish, water. And if the state is the corpus, we must look to its ontogeny for the explanation of its structure and the nature of its unit life. That is to say, he here abruptly forsakes the sociological hypothesis for the political hypothesis as a methodological concept.

"* Loc. cit., XV, 109. *Part IV, "Justice," pp. 186, 221.