Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/805

 THE SCOPE OF SOCIOLOGY 789

while in turn we shall complete that induction by compar- ing it minutely with the details which it purports to generalize. In other words, we shall in turn interpret the part by the whole and the whole by the part. We might illustrate this proposition by tracing the history of the economic theory of value. We learn rather late that value is a product of association. We have developed our present ideas of value by a succession of conclu- sions, now from restricted economic premises, now from larger social premises, now from reduction of concrete occurrences to terms of the states of consciousness from which they proceed. At a given time we are using conclusions of more general and of more special orders, as reciprocal checks. Our theory of utility in general holds a sort of suspensive veto over conclusions about the laws of economic value. Our observations of the phenomena of value become in turn censors and reorganizers of our theories of utility. Our knowledge of association is not gained by fol- lowing a straight series of logical links. The process is rather an alternation of judging our conception of wholefe by closer analysis of parts, and then a testing of our analysis of parts by fitting them back into wholes. We might illustrate the same at length, if we could trace the steps in the changes that have taken place in our conceptions of political society. Judg- ing from the accounts that fill the larger part of historical litera- ture, most men have thought of political association as a combination of a few rulers and generals who were the meaning factors, with a vast human herd of no particular consequence in the association. Partly of course through an actual shifting of the balance of power, but principally through gradual ability to analyze the functions of political association, we have now reversed this immemorial judgment. We see now that the generals and rulers are the accidents in political association, while the masses are the essentials. The same thing is true of our conceptions of industrial association. We once imagined that industry was a divinely ordained means of creating tribute for a select few who did nothing, and of utilizing the labor power of the many whose reason for existence was the consuming capacity of their superiors. We now see that, if there are any