Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 6.djvu/358

 344 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

another that they are the product of class legislation, etc., etc. The least intelligent of these explanations implies recognition of the dependent and resultant character of trusts. Few agitators seem to realize how many and complicated are the elements which have conspired to produce trusts, and consequently how many influences must cooperate to change the equilibrium of forces represented in trusts. All the attention that men are paying to the subject today, however, enforces the sociologist's claim that scientific analysis of conditions in which each social problem has its setting is the sine qua non of practical social intelligence. We have to learn in each particular case not merely that interdependence, as an abstract concept, describes the situation ; we must proceed to analyze and measure the particular elements upon which the situation in question depends. We then have the terms of our problem with approximately known contents, and may proceed to deal with them accord- ingly.

V. Discreteness or discontinuity of the individuals. The intervals in space and in time between individuals that make up associa- tions have been commented upon in various ways by different branches of social science. To the economist they have been interesting, for instance, as accounting for the diffusion of eco- nomic effects. The contrast between the effects of a blow upon a heap of grain and upon a solid body has become a classic illustration in this connection. To the political scientist the fact affords clues to the phenomena of political inertia and momentum. To the psychologist it presents problems concern- ing the distribution of mental stimuli. To sociology it has supplied an essential modifying term in the organic concept. Expressed psychologically the incident now in question reveals the fact that there is no social sensorium. Stimuli actually reach, not society, but individuals. There is imperfect transfer- ence of impulse from one person to another, because persons who are closest to each other in space are always more or less distant, and often effectually insulated, in thought. All the processes of assimilation have to go on in many individuals before they can combine for any conduct. There is something