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 628 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

societary facts than those in biological facts. We will, there- fore, follow out these clues. We will discover all the biological analogies we can. We will test the closeness of the similarities. We will make them divulge all the truth possible about the literal terms of social relationships. We will report these discoveries in biological metaphor, if no better medium of expression is available. We will get nearer to the truth with some other medium of expression, whenever we can invent it.'

In order to deal properly with the actual use which has been made of biological analogies, it would be necessary to discuss at length Lilienfeld, Spencer, and Schaefifle. This would take us too far afield. For our present purpose we may assume such a review. After all the controversy about the organic concept, the gist of the whole matter is that knowledge of human associa- tions involves knowledge of the most complex interdependence of function that has been discovered in the whole realm of reality. Precise formulas of the interrelations of functions among asso- ciated men are mostly desiderata for future social science to supply. Meanwhile, approximate statements of social relation- ships must employ the best available means of expression. At our present stage of knowledge our insights into the social mys- tery express themselves most adequately, in certain of their phases at least, in biological figures. In other words, there are vast reaches of societary fact our present apprehension of which falls into symbolical expression in biological forms more con- veniently and satisfactorily than into any alternative mode of expression. This proposition recognizes the provisional and inexact character of such expression. The use of biological terms to symbolize societary relationships is, therefore, desirable only so long and so far as they are on the whole better vehicles of expression than any available substitutes. Beyond that the device is a snare and a delusion.

For these reasons we repeat, the title " biological sociology " is a misnomer.^ There is a method of presenting problems and

'For the most recent discussion of the biological method of expression vide AnnaUs de Vinstitut international de sociologie. Tomes IV and V.

' In his paper, " The Failure of Biologic Sociology," Ann. of Am. Acad., May, 1894,