Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/571

 REVIEWS 551

these familiar individuals, and to call them "the units of investiga- tion " or " socii." To others it is nothing but very wasteful marking time. When we call John Smith a soa'us, he remains the same John Smith. When he enlists in the army, and tires of camp life, and fights with Tom Brown, and we call it "consciousness of kind," instead of conquering new territory for science, we are simply betaking ourselves to pitiful logomachy in default of science.

The speculative temper is so dominant in Professor Giddings' work that there are few important passages in the book which critical readers will accept without challenge. In many of these cases, to be sure, the author may prove to be right, or nearer right than his critics, but he will have some very difficult tasks to sustain himself in his positions.

For instance, the chapter on "Cooperation" (p. 76) fortifies very precise dogma with very inexact dialectics. Instead of examining the different discoverable genera and species of cooperation, and generaliz- ing their conditions and characteristics, the author incontinently con- ceptualizes it, and then offers explanations for the alleged traits. Thus : "Nearly every kind of activity in society is a form of cooperation" (p. 76). " Cooperation can be established only in a population which in a measure has become socialized. There must be a consciousness of kind, communication, habits of imitation ; or, if these fail, where the population contains elements not yet assimilated and too unlike for har- monious combination, there must at least bean established toleration" (p. 77). Professor Giddings does not realize that his own qualification in this last clause makes his use of his conception fallacious. But he continues : " Obviously there can be no cooperation unless there is among the individuals who are to combine their efforts a common interest in some object or end which they wish to attain." The truth of this proposition depends, of course, upon previous agreement about the content of the concept "cooperation." I have no desire to quib- ble about terms, but the fact is that people who have had a very small modicum of common interest, and would not have understood it if they were told that they were working to a common end, have ' been coworkers toward a common achievement. They have been enticed by certain interests which appealed to them in severalty or in minor groups, while the accomplishment of their discrete purposes tended, without their thought or ken, to bring about a composite result. Much more of this than the chapter allows has occupied human his- tory. Accordingly it is not difficult to see that an inductive study of "mutual aid" would have to begin far back of Professor Giddings'