Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/695

 COM PA RA TI VE S TUB Y OF A SSOC/A TION 675

of as an intruder, or as an interloper in fields of research already covered by the investigations of other sciences.

Primarily, then, the focus of the sociologist's attention will be upon the association of human beings ; upon their reciprocal- ity; upon their activities, considered as functional relations and as functional relatings of man to man ; briefly and somewhat figuratively, upon human beings as functions of each other. As sociologist he will see all things else as centripetal to this. To learn in what this association consists, both as a whole and in any given phase ; to analyze it to the last degree ; to learn how it came to be ; to discover its meaning and the laws of its growth : these are tasks to which the sociologist dedicates his energies. But he has not gone far toward the performance of these before he discovers that human association is a thing with a history, and that in order to comprehend it he must study it historically. It represents an evolution, a development, and can be thoroughly understood in its later stages only by being thoroughly under- stood in its earlier stages. It is a term in a great series, and as such its relations to the other terms demand careful attention. It is also an epitome of a great series, and the nature and growth of that epitomization, together with the relations to each other, and to the whole, of the epitomized parts, must be painstakingly traced out. It is a many-phased and many-factored complex of phenomena, and each phase and factor must be subjected to exhaustive and methodical research. Thus out of the sociolo- gist's primary attempt to describe and interpret human associa- tion there grows, as naturally and inevitably as root from seed, the necessity of the further attempt to describe and interpret association as it is found among forms of life less complex than the human form ; just as out of the attempt to understand the human physique there arose the demand for an understanding of the physique of allied, though lower, forms.

It would seem that in response to this necessity a compara- tive sociology must sooner or later be wrought out. It cannot be produced by one or by any fixed number of investigators. When it assumes its rightful proportions, it will not be a mere addendum to sociology as it is now known, or to some other