Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/273

 METHODOLOGY OF THE SOCIAL PROBLEM 255

actual proportions. Corresponding with these two elements of reality there has arisen a division in psychical science, viz., into individual psychology, dealing with individual psychical facts, and folk-psychology, dealing with psychical manifestations pertaining to associated life. As the former is the general basis for psychical sciences, the latter is the special preparation for those studies which deal with the phenomena of associated life."

The demand for the reduction of psychical facts to individual causes is, therefore, even in the case of the special social sciences, only in so far capable of fulfillment as it is in folk-psychology, in the case of the general products of associated life which it treats, viz., language, morals, etc. The psychical forces which work in the community must conform to the occurrences in the consciousness of individuals, and no psychical potency can operate in the community which does not first have its seat in the individuals composing the community. The community, nevertheless, brings into existence new con- ditions for the operation of these forces. There result peculiar phenomena. To understand them, both the individual and the general factors must be considered.

This brings us to definition of the relation of the two principles of subjec- tive judgment, and regard for environment. The former is the more funda- mental. It is presupposed in the application of the second. The latter is not less essential, and it may not be omitted even from interpretation of the individual, because human community is a fact as primarj' as the existence of individuals.

The principle of dependence on the psychical environment, in attempting to supplement knowledge of the conditions immanent in the individual by knowledge of the influences that work upon the individual from without, leads further to a M/r(/ principle, which must be applied along with the fore- going in order to exhaust the empirical conditions under which psychical events occur. In extending the principle of subjective judgment to exami- nation of the environment, we necessarily emphasize the physical phase of the environment. But observation of the environment involves further dis- crimination of a psychical and a material external world. These two are in reality as inseparable as are the psychical and the physical nature of the individual. In both cases marks of difference are so obvious that the neces- sary distinction, once made, is too useful to be rejected. Hence we find the concluding principle of discovery in the psychical sciences in the principle of the natural limitation of psychical occurrences.

C. THE PRINCIPLE OF THE NATURAL DETERMINATION OF PSYCHICAL OCCURRENCES.

Since man is a part of nature, he is subject to the influence of physical nature in all that he thinks, feels, and does. This is none the less true of

' Hence the courses given in the University of Chicago by Professor Thomas (folk-psychology) and Professor Vincent (mass-psychology).