Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 2.djvu/311

 REVIEWS 297

"subjective" method a non-positive method, a method of speculation, contrasted with the method of observation. Giddings seems to assume that phenomena of consciousness and a subjective method of explanation are necessary correlates ; and by " subjective " in this con- nection he plainly means conjectural and deductive. Perhaps Pro- fessor Giddings will be able to convince his colleagues in the depart- ment of psychology that they cannot apply the objective method to psychic facts. Fancy a psychologist of the present generation admit- ting that his method is anything but objective !

That I have not misrepresented Giddings will appear from his own description of proper "subjective " method, viz.:

.... the subjective explanation has not in like manner been carried through the whole range of social phenomena. Much less has it been reduced to terms of a single motive or principle, uniquely characterizing the conscious individual as a social being, and determining all his social relations in so far as they are volitionally created. Instead of an attempt to find such a princi- ple, to deduce from it all its consequences, and to organize about it all the conditioning motives or circumstances that should betaken into account, ' etc.

That is to say, in order to correct the " objective " by the " subjec- tive " process, " find " by which Giddings' procedure in the book proves that he means "assume" a single motive or'principle, then construct your explanation of society by asserting that everything which occurs is caused by that supposed mental condition. Few will care to claim that any vestiges of objectivity are left in the plan so projected, and an equal few among those able to consider the case at all will wittingly pin their faith to the sort of subjectivity that takes its place. In plain English this is flat repudiation of science and recourse to assumption. It is a travesty of psychical investigation. A guess about relations of cause and effect in the realm of human motive has no more scientific authority than a guess about the function of the vermiform appendix. Giddings' practical disregard of this fact vitiates his whole method- ology.

In order to insure complete subjectivity for his method, and to ban- ish any appearance of objectivity, Giddings directly renounces the inductive method, and, in the rest of the sentence interrupted above, burns all his bridges behind him after this fashion :

.... there has been a tiresome endeavor to enumerate all the motives that actuate man in his varied relations, ami in the satisfaction of all his

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