Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 2.djvu/307

 REVIEWS 293

unconsciously allows the terms "social" and "society" to carry a double meaning, and he is betrayed into entertaining an alternative conception of sociology which turns the whole book into a puzzle for readers. Thus :

Of the present tendency of sociology to seek unity of subjective interpre- tation there is abundant evidence in the work of its younger students. Every- where they are asking : What characteristic is it that stamps a phenomenon as social, and so differentiates it from phenomena of every other kind? When this question is answered the sociological postulate will be disclosed. 1

Again : It is the consciousness of kind, and nothing else, which distin- guishes social conduct, as such, from purely economic, purely political, or purely religious conduct ; for it is precisely the consciousness of kind that, in actual life, continually interferes with the theoretically perfect operation of the economic, the political, or the religious motive. 3

Once more: One object of sociology is to learn all that can be learned about the creation of the social man. 3

Giddings has evidently not thought out the formal relations of a comprehensive doctrine of human association, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, of a theory of that element in human association which he sometimes calls " social " in a restricted sense. He has consequently allowed ambiguity to run through his whole treatment of the "social." I find in this alone sufficient evidence that his supposed explanation of association is an illusion.

For a number of years I have found it convenient to use, among others, a classification of human activities according to their uppermost objective aim; Thus; activities seeking (a) health, wealth, (c) soci- ability, (//) knowledge, ( beauty, (/) Tightness. 4 So far as human beings have been observed, they sooner or later manifest effective desires for objects of satisfaction which may be grouped under these six heads. Assuming for the sake of illustration that this is an objec- tively justified classification, and therefore likely to become permanent in scientific usage, it is quite conceivable that six parallel sciences of action within society may be developed, each having for its task deter- mination of the laws of human action with reference to the utilities represented by its peculiar object of desire. Each of these conceivable

i-p. 13.14. T

M'. 421. This last is a sample of remarks which are capable of either of the interpretations under discussion.

4 <y. SMALL and VINCENT, Introduttion to the Study of Society, pp. 175 sq.