Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 6.djvu/393

 THE SCOPE OF SOCIOLOGY 379

series of social means and ends, 1 namely, (i) education, (2) knowledge, (3) dynamic opinion, (4) dynamic action, (5) prog- ress, (6) happiness. It need not be said that in this series the term "progress" has implications which are not necessarily involved in the abstraction with which we are now dealing, but our illus- tration calls attention merely to one group of such changes. We are not thinking of progress as a term in a dynamic series, but rather as a phase of the whole social fact, itself conditioned in turn by all the other traits of the reality of which it is an aspect. To vary our expression, we may say that a universal phase of association is instability of the relationships of the asso- ciates. Reformation, readjustment, readaptation, abandonment of forms of association less fitted to changed circumstances, is one of the general and constant incidents of the social fact. To proceed farther in description of this incident would involve entrance upon analysis of the causes and forces maintaining this and the other incidents which we have discovered in the social process. We accordingly close our schedule at this point, with repetition of the remark that among generalizations such as these we have the data for the larger problems of sociology.

Ratzenhofer has said that the fundamental phenomena of the social process are (CL] sustenance and propagation, (<) perfect- ing ( Vervollkommnung], (^) variation of individual and social types, (</) struggle for existence, (e] absolute hostility, (/) dis- tribution in space and racial differentiation, (g) mastery and subjection, (^) alternate individualization and socialization of structures, (/') variation of interests, (/) social necessity, the state, (/) general society. 2 It is impossible to discuss at present the divergencies between this schedule and our own, or to inquire whether they might be harmonized. The point of imme- diate interest is that sociologists are everywhere pressing toward discovery of the social essentials. There is growing ambition to arrive at generalizations of the relationships which are most universal and most characteristic in human conditions. There is progressive perception that supposed knowledge of society is

1 Dynamic Sociology, Vol. II, p. 108. a Sociologische Erkenntniss, pp. 244-50.