Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/639

 THE SCOPE OF SOCIOLOGY 623

sequence of their origin, that is, their history. Since the same logical motives which operate in humanity as a whole are in force also in the indi- vidual, he not only may but must repeat in himself the developmental course through which the knowledge of the race has passed. Otherwise his devel- opment is incomplete. He must, in other words, recapitulate in himself the history of science. Comte's classification of the sciences, accordingly, pur- ports to be, not merely descriptive, but at the same time genetic and recon- structive.

The idea was close at hand that the same should be done for society which Comte tried to do for the world at large and for general science. A subdivision of society, from its most general to its most complicated phenomena, was attempted by Comte only incidentally and imperfectly. Accordingly, he produced no classifications in sociology that satisfy his program of scientific division. If this omission could be supplied, it would mean, according to the presuppositions of the Comtean system, that we should have, not merely a division of social phenomena, but also the way in which society came into being and grew to its present state.

This idea is the clue to the significance of those "classifying sociologists," as they are named by Barth, who have attempted to complete Comte's work. The best representative of this group is De Greef.' His methodological merit in applying and developing the Comtean idea consists primarily in carrying the attempt to classify phenomena, and consequently sciences, into the societary realm. Some of his most characteristic work has been in connection with his proposal of a hierarchy of societary phenomena and of societary science. Selecting De Greef as a representative of the classifying tendency, we appropriate Earth's account with certain variations.* De Greef's idea is that classi- fication of the sciences has more than a merely subjective sig- nificance. If it is successfully objective, it reproduces the real interdependencies of things in particular and of reality as a whole. The universal is the least dependent. That which rests

^Introduction a la sociologie, 2 vols., Paris, 1886-89; I^' ^"is sociologiques, Paris, 1893; Le transformisme social, Paris, 1895; Llvoluiion des croyances et des doctrines politique!, Paris, 1895.

'Pp. 67 sg.