Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 15.djvu/269

 THE CLAIMS OF SOCIOLOGY

255

negatives the major premise of the other. Conclusions drawn logically from the one controvert conclusions drawn logically from the other, with trenchant importance throughout the whole field of politics and ethics.

In the following tabulated statement I give the sociological hypothesis exactly as framed by Professor Ellwood, and I give my own formulation of the political hypothesis in a parallel column :

Politics

genus : the state

Units of Investigation

1. The state, an integration that took place in the animal stock ances- tral to the human species. All exist- ing forms of the state have been evolved from primordial forms existing anterior to the formation of the human species. The state is the unit, of which all social structure and individual human existence are the differentiation. The state is essentially a psychic unity and it is apprehensible only as it is objectified in institutions.

2. The institution, or particular structure formed within the state by processes of adaptive change in effecting adjustment to the environ- ment. Such processes have been at- tended by variation of state species.

3. The individual, or the particu- lar unit life of state species, varying in characteristics according to the specific matrix.

The mutually exclusive character of these hypotheses will appear as soon as they are applied to the interpretation of rights. If we adopt the sociological hypothesis we must admit the exist- ence of natural rights. The logical framework of Rousseauism was supplied by Montesqueu. In his chapter on the "Laws of

" "Sociology : Its Problems and Its Relations," Am, Jour, of Sociol,, XIII, 311.

Sociology

genus: society

Units of Investigation

1. The socius, or associated indi- vidual, the member of society, the unit out of which all the simpler social groups are composed.

2. The group of associated indi- viduals, whether the groups are nat- ural, genetic groups, or artificial, functioning groups.

3. The institution, which we may define as a grouping or relation of individuals that is accepted, usually expressly sanctioned, by a society.**