Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 3.djvu/566

 552 THE AMERICA \ JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

ence acquires an objective character. But this objective character of social phenomena is necessarily conditioned by this multiple repetition of a subjective state in the mass of individuals. On one side, then, the social phenomenon always possesses its psychologi- cal equivalent, by which it is intimately connected with the life of the individual. On the other, the social phenomenon is necessarily conditioned by a multiple repetition of its psycho-individual equivalent, without which it loses its objective character, identifying itself with an ordinary psychic state. In contemporary sociology there exist two currents, which attempt to divide between them this duality of the social phenomenon, and to legitimatize a single one of its two mutually complementary phases. These two methods are represented by Durkheim and Tarde Durkheim contemplating the objective phase of the social phenomenon, its abstract and collect- ive character ; Tarde, seeing only its psychological character, the side of individual- ization. VI. Between the individual states of different human minds and the social phenomenon, in which they may all be found, there exists the relation of elements to a synthesis. At the base of every social phenomenon there is the thinking being, that unique reality of a metaphysical character which, not being phenomenon, is neverthe- less the nearest and most accessible to the senses. This is more clear if we note that it is apperception alone which socializes phenomena. Sociologists are near this con- ception when they say that "society is a system organized for an end, a totality, and not the sum of its components." The conception of finality as a character of psychic phenomena in general leads us to see the real essence of social phenomena, their apperceptive origin. In the individual intuition constitutes the positive side ot the psychic life ; apperception, its negative side. We come, then, to the social role of apperception. To socialize a psychic phenomenon is to objectify it ; to socialize a physical phenomenon is to spiritualize it. In consequence, the thinking being is to be found at the basis of the social phenomenon, being an agent indispensable to its application. Socialization of the phenomenon is equivalent to a sort of incarnation in the object of thought of the thinking subject. The social nature of apperception is the reason for considering the human mind as of a social nature, and the individual isolated from social influences as an abstraction, to which there is no corresponding reality. The mental states preceding thought, the sensations proper, make up the individual side of he mind, the individual proper. On the other hand, all the prod- ucts of thought conceptions, and judgments, make up the apperceptive side of the mind, and this is social. Moreover, this social character of apperception reveals the essential identity of the the thinking subjects. Because social phenomena objectify the thinking being, the ethical category is universally applicable to them. EDOUABD ABRAMOWSKI, Revue Internationale de Sociologie, Octobre 1897.

The Rights of Capital and Labor, and Industrial Conciliation. "Capital really means men who have money which they wish to employ in productive industry, and labor means men who have strength and skill which they wish to employ in pro- ductive industry, when considering their rights.

"The man who owns money and the man who owns strength and skill are equal economically each has something which the other needs, which the other must have, in fact but also each has something which he must dispose of to the other. The object of either, then, is to dispose of his own property and to acquire the property of the other, and to do this to the best advantage to himself ; that is, they stand in exactly equal relations to each other."

The above has always been true theoretically, but not in practice. Trade union- ism has a tendency to make theory and practice conform. If the above conclusion is correct, then labor and capital are in the same position as other buyers and sellers, and they have the right to demand of each other nothing beyond honest and courteous dealing. " It is absurd to talk as if it were morally wrong to ask high wages, or mor- ally wrong to offer low wages."

When other bargainers have completed their transaction, further relations cease. With labor and capital it is but the beginning of real relations. They then become employers and employed, and a new set of rights emerges. Positions may here be shifted and duties defined. These are of three classes. Their antagonistic duties