Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/699

 COMPARATIVE STUDY OF ASSOCIATION 679

connection of the organism with its own activities, and through these with the stimuli of these activities, it would not be a matter of great surprise if further research should reveal a grouping of organisms corresponding to the groupings of stimuli and activities. Furthermore, we might hope to find a development in the nature of these groupings which shall yxo- ce&d pari passu with the development of the stimulability of the organism. It would also be a matter of some interest to afford a tentative classification of stimuli based upon the duration of the period during which they are respectively operant upon the organism's evolution. It would be found, of course, that while certain groups of stimuli affect living matter from its earliest to its latest developmental phase, certain other groups are effective during a comparatively limited number of these phases.

These are but hints of a whole series of problems of greater or less interest which are suggested for solution a propos of this stimulus-organism-response relationship. For the present we shall address ourselves to the attempt to describe and analyze the associational phenomena incident to the affecting of organic life by certain of the great groups of stimuli.'

By way of recapitulating the contents of the foregoing pages we may say :

1. That the subject-matter of sociology, as determined by an inspection of the work thus far done in the science, has been chiefly the activities of human beings, when these activities are considered as oriented toward a certain focal point of attention

2. That the task of sociology, as determined by a similar inspection, has been the analysis and interpretation of these activities as seen in this orientation.

3. That the attempts to perform this task have demonstrated

'The value in the associational life of mankind of that group of stimuli we call "sex" is being considered in the pages of this Journal by Professor William I. Thomas. As the work of the present writer is, in a measure, an attempt to carry into the domains of the lower forms of life the methods and type of research used by Pro- fessor Thomas among the races of mankind, the reader is referred to the articles in question. See American Journal of Sociology, Vol. I, pp. 434-45; Vol. Ill, pp. 31-63,754-76; Vol. IV, pp. 474-88. The next paper of the series, "Sex in Primi- tive Morality," is to appear in the May number of this Journal.