Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/648

 632 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

contain. Not merely in such an instance as that of Herder, but likewise, though in less degree, in case of the most contracted view, each philosophy of history leaves some room for factors not thrown into prominence in its formulations. The like is true of the sociologists. Each group manifests something of all the tendencies which peculiarly mark the other groups. Under the present head we are to consider a portion of the group in which Barth places Lester F. Ward, J. S. Mackenzie, Hauriou, and Franklin H. Giddings. Earth's title for the group is "The Dualistic Sociology." Except in the case of Professor Giddings, we may waive the question whether the most significant resem- blances and differences of method justify classification of these men in the same group. Assuming, for the sake of argument, that their methods are sufficiently alike to place the first three in a group by themselves, we must insist that the group is neither adequately nor fairly classified by the phrase " the dualistic sociology." We may concede that Comte was predominantly materialistic and mechanical in his conceptions, though we have seen that even among his views an insistent spiritualism had a place, and that he had no self-consistent synthesis of the two phases of reality. Whether we count Comte as an example or an exception, there is nobody in the whole series of men who have made an impression upon sociology to whom the epi- thet "dualistic" would not apply as properly in the last analysis as to the men here named. In point of fact, all the philosophers in the world today are dualists in the sense indicated above. The fact that a few will not admit the impotence of their formal monism does not affect the proposition. That is to say, no mat- ter how prominent the assertion of fundamental unity may be in our philosophy today, there is practically no difference of opinion as to the methodological necessity of recognizing a phe- nomenal duality.' The diversity of matter and spirit must be admitted by all to this extent, namely : whether we assert an underlying unity or not, we cannot successfully express what we see in the objective world without describing elements that seem distinct in quality. That which is phenomenally psychic is not reducible by any means at our disposal to terms of physics.

' Cf. above, p. 631.