Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/259

 METHODOLOGY OP THE SOCIAL PROBLEM 24 1

tree. This obligation is the more imperative, because, in spite of the actual intimacy of relationship, it has been long in storming the perceptions of per- sons most concerned, and, furthermore, doubts still exist as to whether more effective combination is possible through the mediation of a fundamental science, and, if so, which of the existing sciences may best serve that funda- mental purpose.

Since now the actual historical development of the sciences is subject to disturbance from numerous accidental influences which obscure the logical coherence, it is desirable to pursue investigation of the profounder grounds of this coherence, without reference to the historical limitations. In other words, it is best to keep in view merely the actual problems of the separate disciplines and to find, if possible, the trait that is common to them all, in consequence of which they have instinctively, rather than deliberately, mani- fested unity.

The peculiar difficulty of this question evidently consists in the fact that we cannot deal with concrete phenomena, like the objects studied by natural science. We cannot point to objective space-relations which demonstrate imity of basis. On the contrary, psychical phenomena, or rather phenomena which cause us to conclude that psychical processes have occurred, are pre- sented to us in connection with objects which belong to the material world, and so far fall within the competence of the physical sciences. No analogous difficulty exists in the natural sciences, because in their realm phenomena are endless, in the study of which we have no occasion to assume any coopera- tion of psychical factors. In consequence of this we are in a position to abstract the psychical element from the whole, for the purposes of natural science, in the relatively few cases in which there is cooperation of psychical facts. This abstraction is justified by resigning the study of these coopera- ting psychical elements to disciplines lying outside the natural sciences.

The things studied by the psychical sciences, on the other hand, are always at the same time natural objects. The abstraction permissible to the natural sciences, and even necessary to them within the limits which they set to themselves, is neither permissible nor possible for the psychical sciences. If man and the other beings endowed with some measure of men- tality were the only objects in nature, natural science would then be in a situation like the actual status of psychical science, i. e., natural science might begin with animal physiology instead of with the mechanics of ponder- able bodies. Under that supposition it is more than doubtful if the separa- tion of natural and psychical science could have occurred. At all events, the division would have been different from that which actually exists. We avoid this difficulty, if we start with the supposition at the basis of the pre- tentious classifications of Bentham and Amp&re, viz., that there are (a) cor- poreal and (*) psychical objects, constituting contrasted material for scientific division, like the plants and the animals, or like vertebrate and invertebrate animals. But there are no psychical objects, in the same sense in which we