Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/657

 THE SCOPE OF SOCIOLOGY 641

that worthy beginnings of societary science might be made there must needs have been developed a sense, first of societary con- tinuity, second of societary integrity ; /. e., of societary whole- ness, both consecutive and contemporary. More especially this conception makes of human association a whole, developing without break of continuity from origins. It is a whole which exists at any given moment as a reciprocity between all its parts. It projects itself into the future in the form determined by the ratio of effectiveness between the elements and conditions that mold its character. This view requires a corresponding metho- dological conception. Such a conception involves the view that human association is a congruity, an integrity, a unity. Knowl- edge of such a reality accordingly implies comprehension of the parts, of the whole which they compose, and of the relationships by virtue of which parts and whole are one. This means that, however study of human affairs may be divided for convenience, the division is only provisional and partial and temporary. This knowledge is not reached until that conceptual division has been resolved again into conceptual unification, in which part and whole are more accurately apprehended than before as phases of one.

The view to which our survey leads is, therefore, that we need a scheme of inquiry into societary fact which, as a scheme, will provide in form for all the phases of reality that the societary unity presents. Then the task of determining and expressing these vari- ous phases of reality imposes a network of problems. We may call them primarily, if we will, problems of anthropology, ethnology, history, politics, economics, or whatever. That is, we may group certain classes of problems, and call the processes and results in connection with them "sciences." In fact, however, each of these problems, or groups of problems, or "sciences," sooner or later involves all the rest. Our hierarchy of sciences then proves to be, like the unity which it tries to interpret, one instead of many. The social sciences are merely methodological divisions of societary science in general.

In different parts of the world authorities of various sorts have created more or less arbitrary classifications of the social