Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/697

 COMPARATIVE STUDY OF ASSOCIATION (>77

That there are certain factors — possibly certain groups of factors — which make their appearance in the earliest and sim- plest forms of the associational complex, and are distinctly traceable, under such modifications as development may be expected to entail, throughout the whole range of those forms, from that displayed by primitive protoplasm to that displayed by the most highly civilized man, is a hypothesis which, in a more or less clearly recognized way, underlies a large propor- tion of the sociological work of our time.' But the clear demon- stration of what these common factors are, and the exhibition of their relation to each other and to the remaining factors, is a task which in large measure yet remains to be performed. The reasons for this are manifest. Its performance is involved in the continuous growth of a science of comparative sociology, and the one cannot be completed short of the completion of the other. From this it may readily enough be seen why the answer to the questions just proposed is one which cannot be given in advance of the actual work of analysis and interpretation of the whole societary complex, for this analysis and interpretation is neces- sary to the discovery and determination of the existence and nature of these factors. The work is more than the mere tra- cing out of the interconnections of factors the existence and characteristics of which have previously been well known. We are confronted with a case in which the task of discovery and that of development, or exhibition, are two mutually dependent processes, and the continuance of the one is momentarily con- ditioned upon the continuance of the other. Highly desirable though it may be to be able at this stage to point out in a per- fectly clear and definite manner those factors, the existence of which will afford us a common ground upon which to compare with each other the different terms of the associational series, it is, nevertheless, impossible. We might quite as reasonably expect the explorer of an unknown country to furnish us, in advance of his explorations, with a detailed map of the land he expects to visit. We must content ourselves for the present with the assump- tion that such common factors do exist, and leave the proof of

' See, for example, Giddings, Principles of Sociology, pp. 6i 6E.