Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 6.djvu/40

 26 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

possessing "breath" and those which were breathless. Gradu- ally as the domains of human knowledge were extended, and classifications were proportionately perfected, the reign of identi- cal laws in each of the continually expanding fields was dis- cussed. Man saw that principles which had hitherto found their application only in the domain of physical phenomena could be applied to psychical phenomena, and ultimately also to social phenomena. The discussion of laws manifesting themselves in each of these three fields physical, psychical, and social has been the aim of seekers after universal laws. Comte's hierarchy of the sciences is inconceivable without the assump- tion of the reign of universal law ; and in various places this sociologist holds out the hope of discovering a final order of phenomena. Schaeffle tells us about laws of evolution, dissolu- tion, equilibrium, accommodation, and rhythm ; and perhaps touches the climax when, like Comte, he brings us into the presence of the vision of a highest and final law "fin hochstes, letztes Erfahrungsgesetz." While Gumplowicz has formulated ten universal laws for us, Spencer does not appear to have ven- tured directly beyond his universal law of progress, the law of evolution, although, as suggested by Professor Small, various formulations in First Principles may be considered analogous to the ten general laws of Gumplowicz. Lilienfeld's discussions are throughout based upon the notion of universal law. Again and again he emphasizes the agreement of the logical, the ethical, the social, and the natural. Like Spencer, he refers to the univer- sality of cause, necessity, and effect ; but he is never more enthu- siastic than when he asserts the fundamental agreement which exists between "the beside-one-another," "the after-one-another," and "the over-one-another." Whatever critics may say of attempts of this kind, serious-minded students must concede that this very effort has resulted in some of the grandest conceptions of which the human mind is capable. What can be more inspiring, what can impress man more with the necessity and importance of orderly procedure, what can give him greater assurance of the possibili- ties, if not the " beneficent necessity," of human progress, than the thought that not only separate classes of phenomena are sucject to their own specific laws, but that all phenomena in all the different