Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 2.djvu/584

 5/0 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

relations, which it is the business of sociology to determine and to trace back as distinctly as possible to fundamental forms and types. Now appears the question with reference to the motiva- tion of this association. The answer will be, for example, the certainty of competition, the desire to economize the labor power, and finally desire for wealth and the increase of wealth. Herewith sociology has entirely accomplished its task.

From the foregoing we derive, then, the following definition of sociology : Sociology is the science of the forms and the psychical motivation of human association. The material of sociology is derived from the results of all the psychical sciences, since the phenomena of association are considered by all these, and are of fundamental significance. Nevertheless sociology is by no means on this account compelled to give up its character as an independent science, and to be rated merely as an eclectic method.

The conception of sociology as a special science developed above corresponds in essentials with the view represented by G. Simmel. 1 Nevertheless there is still a considerable difference between the two views. Simmel lays the chief weight upon the former portion of the task, that is, upon the formal side, while I emphasize chiefly the second part, namely, the psychical moti- vation. Simmel fortifies his conception with the analogy of geometry: "Thus, geometry contemplates merely the spatial form of bodies, which has no existence by itself, but only with and as a part of a substance, the investigation of which belongs to other sciences." This comparison is misleading and is not strictly appropriate to sociology. The contents of geometrical figures, that is, the substances so shaped, are in fact entirely irrelevant for geometry, because abstraction from them is easily made. Whether the cylinder is of wood or glass or iron is never taken into consideration in reckoning its spatial relations and its dimensions. In the case of sociology, on the contrary, it is a matter of very great importance who brings associations into

l "Das Problem der Soziologie," in SCHMOLLER'S Jahrbuch fiir Gesetzgebung , u. s. w., 1894.