Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/540

 524 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

would indicate, but the symptoms should be regarded as danger signals. For instance, when Dubois-Reymond divides historic times into three periods — namely (i) that of the building arts, bronze-casting, and stone-cutting; (2) that of the three inven- tions of the compass, gunpowder, and printing; (3) that of machinery moved by steam — he implies the one-sided culture view that men's inventions are the sole causes of their social con- dition. We might well ask of this view, as men at last asked of their mythologies: "If Atlas holds up the skies, who holds up Atlas ? " If inventions cause social conditions, what causes inven- tions ? Dubois-Reymond finds the cause of the fall of Rome in the fact that the Romans did not advance beyond the second of these three stages. He does not say whether the barbarians con- quered Rome because they, too, had not advanced beyond the second stage ! Of the culture-history view it is sufificient to say, with Barth : " The naturalists, technologists, and ethnologists accordingly start off on a false scent, if they try to make out that increase in the amount of 'culture possessed' is the main- spring of human progress. In this case, as before, we find that all historical events, both progressive and retrogressive, are phenomena of volition. The will is not moved, however, by endeavors after culture alone ; but before and besides these endeavors are all sorts of other forces. Progress of culture is accordingly only one element, and not the only one. In many periods it constitutes, indeed, only a feeble factor in the historical movement." (P. 261.)

We reach similar conclusions in turn about the "political," the "ideological," and the "economic" conceptions of history. Upon this last view a single paragraph may be cited from Barth : " But economics thus undertakes much more than it can accom- plish. Economics is rather in peculiar need of close connec- tion with the history of the other branches of social life. In other words, economics needs sociology. Isolated from sociol- ogy, economics cannot even adequately determine fundamental conceptions. Thus Wagner" asks the question : ' Is the limita- tion of the economic motive, that is the effort to get a

' Grundl., 3. Aufl., I, pp. 9-12.