Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 6.djvu/343

 THE SCOPE OF SOCIOLOGY 329

subject-matter of sociology the phenomena of contract, each arbitrarily limits the province of the science. The only per- missible limitation is the boundary within which there is human contact. This is not, like constraint and contract, a supposed clue to the character of human associations, or a dictum about the content of association. It is merely a recognition of the formal scope of association, and an assertion that we may not with scientific sanction restrict our science of human association to any limits narrower than the utmost bounds within which human contacts occur. Association is contact, and contact is association. This does not mean that contact and association are identical concepts, but that contact, physical or spiritual or both, is the absolute condition of association, and that varia- tions of contact are among the factors in the modification of all human association. More specific analysis of these terms will be necessary under the title " Dynamic Sociology." We have sufficiently indicated for present purposes the conditioning function of the fact of larger or smaller numbers. This fact, in turn, has to have due consideration whenever we try to compre- hend any larger or smaller social situation.

II. Attraction. What we see when we observe any human association whatever from a certain angle is a group of phe- nomena that may be described as " attraction." This detail is not an attempt at speculative subtlety, but an expression of the most familiar commonplace. It is nevertheless worthy of seri- ous notice. Whenever two or more people associate, something in each draws them toward each other. Each is a magnet acting upon the rest. However it may be explained, each finds himself better satisfied by. joining himself to the others than in isolation from them. The total reason for the association is probably not to be found, in a large proportion of instances, in the phenomena of attraction ; or, at any rate, these latter are mani- festations of deeper influences. Conditions external to the per- son and subjective conditions not included within this relation are not overlooked when we concentrate attention upon attrac- tion. Nor are we attempting to use the term " attraction " as a metaphysical explanation of associations. We are simply