Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 15.djvu/833

 THE BASIS OF SOCIAL SOLIDARITY 819

II

I use the term "development," in the last sentence above, advisedly; for the study of the development must go along with that of the nature of society. In this subject, as in all those which can be considered as, in any sense, "genetic" the studies of development must be largely relied upon to reveal the nature of the social matter. Here, as elsewhere, the analytic and formal methods have proved inadequate. In biology and psychology a revolution has been effected by this consideration. The study of tissues and organs must be supplemented by that of functions and adaptations. The simple cross-section of a nerve or muscle has behind it a vast morphological and developmental history. The biological sciences, since they have recognized that they deal with a developing organism, have been completely reconstructed in consequence of researches inspired by the evolution theory. Com- parative morphology is the fertile daughter of evolutionary re- search, as is also comparative and genetic psychology.

In psychology, the structural and analytic methods, which in the hands of the British and French empiricists resulted in the discovery of the laws of association of ideas, has been found to have its limitations. It analyses the mind in "cross-sections," and seeks to discover "atoms" or "elements" of psychic content — primitive sensations out of which the complex states of mind are composed. This, Mr. Spencer's great undertaking, is now obso- lete; it does not allow for growth, development, evolution. Psy- chology, like biology, has become a genetic science, tracing out the movements and stages of mental progression "longitudinally," from lower and more simple, to higher and more complex, states and functions. It recognizes that each successive stage is really a new mode, something stii generis, not to be accounted for by mere composition of simpler elements, but showing the essen- tial organization of these elements in new functions.

The same, again, is true of society and of societies. They are developing organizations. They cannot be decomposed into elements, atoms, or "units," which through combination, by some theoretical formula, will again produce the more complex form. Such a method is too easy. It does no sort of justice to these