Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 15.djvu/831

 THE BASIS OF SOCIAL SOLIDARITY^

PROFESSOR J. MARK BALDWIN

The difficulty of discussing such a topic as social solidarity arises from the generality of the term. As a sociological concept, solidarity is an affair of the mutual relations of a g^oup of indi- viduals to one another; as a psychological concept, the term con- notes the meaning of these relations as reflected in the mind of the individual. The latter, the psychological, considered as giving a basis for the solidarity of the group, together with its genetic relationships, it is that I wish to discuss.

The present condition of sociology is far from satisfactory. Sociology has not yet come into its full scientific heritage — and that for two principal reasons.

In the first place, what is called sociology is often merely a mass of formal and verbal distinctions, dealing with theoretical conceptions, which do not admit of proof other than that of logical deduction. Definitions of "society," "association," "soli- darity," "progress," etc., are constructed from purely personal points of view, from which there is no control from the observa- tion of the social facts. The need therefore, is for extended and patient observation of actual social changes, happenings, phenom- ena of every kind, as they show themsleves — observation of these both in their own right, and also in the conditions of the environment, physical and biological, in which they occur.

In the second place, we observe that sociology has been the dupe of those who bring to her the catch-words of other sciences. As we shall see below, social changes are conditioned upon physical, chemical, and biological facts; this may be admitted without discussion. But it is quite a different thing to say that the

1909) ; to appear in Vol. XII of the Annates of that body.
 * Paper read at the Berne meeting of the Institut Inter, de Sociologie (July,

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