Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/660

 644 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

Again, it is equally important to know what individual type any social arrangement tends to produce. In this case the same proposition holds. The concrete truth about the effect of human conduct is not the preserve of any abstract science. We might schedule in turn all the genera and species of problems that we encounter when we search for the meaning elements in society. They are threads in a tapestry. There can be no such thing as a self-sufficient science of the separate threads. The meaning of the threads depends upon knowledge of the complete design of the whole fabric.

Accordingly, over and above the multitude of more concrete sociological tasks for which a place is conceded without much opposition, there are two distinguishable procedures of a general character for which thorough and comprehensive societary science must provide. The former of these is the division of labor appropriate to that species of sociologist who may be called the methodologist. It is the task of making out and exhibiting in the most general way the forms and interrelations of societary facts, and the consequent interdependencies of processes which undertake scientific formulation of these facts. The familiar De Greef schedule of societary activities may serve as an illustration of the beginning of this procedure. A classification of associ- ations under the forms called for by Simmel's method would represent a much more advanced stage of the procedure. A classification according to the functional utilities of various asso- ciations would be a still closer approach to the desirable universal.

The general _f(?«^ftV question about all associations is : Through what course of differentiation did these activities come into exist- ence ? This question demands the researches of all species of historical science. The general statical question about associa- tions is : What forms and qualities of forces, in what proportions, maintain social structures in equilibrium ? This question demands organization of the results of the systematizing abstract sciences of society, i. e., sciences of abstracted phases of social activity ; e.g., economics, aesthetics, demography, comparative law, comparative politics, comparative philosophy, and comparative religion. These