Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/796

 780 THE. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

called them abstract or concrete, have actually been sciences of abstracted portions even of that whole to which they immediately belonged. There is an evident movement among students of society toward a view that will include these parts in a contain- ing whole. In spite of their disagreements with each other, the sociologists have been most directly and consciously devoted to this enlargement and integration of knowledge.

Without surrendering the preference expressed above, the discussion from this point will employ the term " sociology " in a specific rather than in the proposed general sense.' This specific use does not claim the sanction of all sociologists. It is merely the writer's variation of the usage current among those sociologists with whom he is most closely affiliated. The term "sociology" will accordingly from this point connote merely those parts of social science referred to in our formula at the beginning of the first chapter, ' viz., those phases of societary theory that are concerned with the common facts of human asso- ciation and with composing them into the most general forms and formulas.

The peculiar problem of sociology may be indicated at first in a very commonplace way. Every man, whether John Smith or the German Kaiser, has to have a tacit conception of life, by which to place himself with reference to the rest of the world. What every man has to assume as a matter of practice sociology aims to work out systematically as a matter of theory. What is our life ? What facts compose it ? What facts influence it ? What forms does it take ? What limitations does it betray ? What tendencies does it exhibit ? What ultimate or distant prospects does it suggest for attainment ? What is the connec- tion of each individual life with this total and complicated process ?

This partial indication of the problem implies that sociology has to deal with facts which had long been under investigation

■ Pp. 642, 643.

'Since the world will probably not adopt out of hand the usage that the writer would prefer, he must content himself under protest with this provisional synechdoche.

3 P. 506.