Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 15.djvu/318

 304 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

rences in and between the organs and cells, did the science of life gain firm footing. ^^

Only along this line is it possible to reach a precise conception of what is really "society" in society, just as geometry first determines, in the case of things in space, what their extension (Rdumlichkeit) really is. Sociology as theory of the sociality (Gesellschaft-Sein) of humanity, which (humanity) may also in countless other respects be an object of science, is accordingly related to the other special sciences as geometry to the physio- chemical sciences of matter : geometry considers the form through which matter in general becomes empirical bodies — the form which, to be sure, in and of itself, exists only in the abstraction, precisely like the forms of socialization. Both geometry and sociology resign to other sciences investigation of the contents, which manifest themselves in their respective forms, or of the totality of phenomena whose mere form geometry or sociology observes.

It scarcely need be said that this analogy with geometry ex- tends no farther than to the elucidation of the principal problem of sociology. Geometry has the initial advantage of dealing with the extremely simple structures, into which the more compli- cated figures may be resolved. Consequently the whole range of possible formations is to be construed from relatively few funda- mental data. No even approximate resolution of the forms of socialization into their simplest elements is likely to occur in the immediate future. The consequence is that the social forms, even if they should be to some extent determined, would correspond only to a relatively limited range of phenomena. If, for example, it be asserted that super- and sub-ordination is a formation which is found in almost every case of human association, very little is gained with this general cognition. What is required is rather investigation into the particular species of superiority and sub- ordination, and into the special fonns of their realization, which naturally lose extent of validity in the degree of their precision.

" I cannot understand how Simmel could have written this last sentence and still have retained his conviction that the social forms are the only subject- matter left for sociology.