Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/688

 668 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

partly by the force of certain illustrious examples, and in part also by the possible advantages for analysis and explanation to be gained in so doing, sociologists, while dealing with the phe- nomena of human association, have been in the habit of making use of "analogies" drawn from the phenomena of association as these are found among forms of life lower than man. This habit is so widespread, and in many instances so marked, as to command serious consideration from anyone making a study such as the one alluded to above. It is as though there existed a tacit assumption that, in the task of describing and interpret- ing human association, help is in some way to be gotten from references to associational phenomena as exhibited by lower forms of life.'

That this assumption is not without foundation the writer considers there are good grounds for asserting. A priori it seems as reasonable to suppose that the association of the lower forms of life has as much of value to tell us concerning that of the higher forms as has the function of the brain, or of the eye, for example, in the lower organisms to tell of that function in the higher organisms. A given associational form, factor, or center, which, as such, has had a development ante- cedent to its development among men, may reasonably be expected to have light thrown upon its higher phases by a care- ful consideration of its lower phases. A form of associational activity, the family for example, may be better studied in its more evolved stage, which we call the human family, if it is first studied in the lower stages of its development, let these be found where they may and be called as we will.

Of course, it is not assumed that the relation to each other of the terms in an evolutional series has been adequately comprehended or explained. Between any pair of terms in any such series there intervenes a lacuna which we have not filled, but have simply ignored as by common consent. The terms of a genetic series are after all but the focal points of one side of a process, the beginning, the end, and the other sides of which we neither see nor are able to picture to ourselves in a satisfactory manner. It is conceiv-

' This assumption is so greatly in harmony with the spirit of the age that it has gone unquestioned for the most part. Whether this or that particular relation obtains between human association and animal association has been vigorously debated, but that some relation exists has seldom been denied.