Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 6.djvu/512

 498 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

Regardless of the purposes of the association, the form of rela- tionship between its members may be identical with the form of relationship in other associations ; i. e., in this case the form of equality. Again, perhaps the most familiar form of relationship in association is that of superiority and subordination. There are countless hierarchies among people, from that of mistress and maid in the household, of employer and operative in the mill, of master and apprentice in the trade, of teacher and pupil in the school, of officer and private in the army, of bishop and priest in the church, of manager and salesman in the depart- ment store, to the protecting and the protected state in world- politics. Whether there are other forms of association which are coordinate with these, or of similar practical importance, is a question which has attracted much attention among sociologists since the publication of Simmel's thesis. 1

We have thus noticed three orders of categories, viz.:

1. The impulses of association ; i. e., the six elementary inter- ests (chap, v and p. 493 above).

2. Certain incidents of association ; i. e., characteristics always manifested in associational activity ; the facts referred to as "data" of sociology in a special sense (chap. vi).

3. The forms of association (Simmel's schedule).

Now, whatever be the dictates of abstract logic, in actual practice we are likely to find ourselves unable to learn very much more about the content of either of these categories, unless we keep both of the other groups of terms at the same time within easy call. We shall probably increase our knowl- edge of each incidentally while we are studying another directly. A rigid abstraction of each from the others is both impossible and undesirable. For instance, the problems that descriptive sociology encounters today may be indicated by the question : In what forms and with what relative force do we actually find the interests of individuals organizing themselves in associa- tions ? In working toward a geometry and calculus and logic

1 For Simmel's own statements vid. Annals of the American Academy, December, 1895, and AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY, September and November, 1896. For a schedule of the " forms " proposed or hinted at by Simmel vid. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY, November, 1898, p. 390.