Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 2.djvu/323

 REVIEWS 309

irrelevant from the point of view of the investigator, though it is ren- dered harmless by well-ordered discussion of obvious manifestations of the social forces under the name "Causes of Social Activity."

In classifying the "Modes of Social Activity" (chap, vi), the author has fallen into the very error which he deplores in others, /. e., divi- sion according to more than one principle (108). He would have done better had he adopted De Greef's classification of social activi- ties ("Phenomena"). The latter is at least more self-consistent. Division of activities into (i) economic, (2) social, (3) political, (4) psychical applies neither an objective nor a subjective principle con- sistently, as the author half realizes (121). Were the operations of the silver miners' agents in the Chicago Convention an "economic mode of activity" or a "political mode of activity?" Is the campaign now in progress "political activity" or "psychical activity?" Ques- tions of this sort might be multiplied indefinitely to expose the mixed method of classification. If we drop the terms employed and rear- range the groups of phenomena with which the fourfold classification deals, application of the author's own principle, viz., the classification of social activities according to the stimuli from which they spring, we shall find in his own specifications groupings of social activities according to the objective stimuli which produced them. These groups so rearranged very closely approach the classification which I believe to be logical and adequate. The author combines in his schedule what I have called the health stimulus with that which I call the wealth stimulus under the head the "economic stimulus." Other- wise his list of stimuli would be identical with that which I have proposed in the series health, wealth, sociability, knowledge, beauty, righteousness. His account of the distinction between "moral" and ," religious" activity is inglorious repetition of conventionality. There is no sign of independent examination of the phenomena.

Two passages interested me particularly as unintended commen- taries on Professor Giddings' amiable fiction "consciousness of kind." The first is in development of a proposition already quoted (62): "Both social and unsocial tendencies are at work in each stage of social development." The second is in the chapter on "Causes of Social Activity." The first cause specified is "need of food" (94). The second (98) is "need of protection against fellowmen." Under this head the author observes :

The second original social stimulus is the need of protection against one's