Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 6.djvu/529

 THE SCOPE OF SOCIOLOGY 515

for by the so-called "Austrian school." In other words, human associations that can be known and called such have, as a mat- ter of fact, functioned chiefly within the organized state. Whether or not we can profitably generalize what is now known about human contacts in terms of association wider than that within the state, we shall doubtless for the present economize effort if we concentrate attention upon those reaches of association which are displayed by populations either organized in states or of sufficient size to make their potential statehood plausible.

On this basis, then, we begin with the seemingly somewhat self-contradictory classification of states, as follows :

1. Biologic states.

2. Economic states.

3. Civic states.

4. Ethic states.

That is, our subject-matter is not evolved into shape for our use until potential states of the first and second sorts are well advanced toward becoming actual states of the third or fourth sort. This perception should reinforce the position, all along insisted upon by the sociologists, that, however important the biologic and the economic elements always must be in associa- tion, they necessarily diminish in relative importance as associa- tion advances toward the unfolding of all its implications. Accordingly we are at once disposed to challenge the right of the anthropologist and the ethnologist to impose their classifications upon phases 2, 3, and 4 of national association. In the biologic states, anthropological and ethnological group- ings are not to be challenged, but in the economic states associ- ations immediately begin to cut through and through the lines of ethnic groups. Accordingly we must not persist in attempting to classify economic associations under ethnic categories, nor are we permitted to assume that the forces which produce the stigmata of anthropological and ethnological types are the same forces which produce economic associations. The sociologist has no right to dictate the classifications to be used by anthro- pologist and ethnologist. Their own centers of interest and objects of attention will give the needed categories. On the