Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 6.djvu/69

 THE SCOPE OF SOCIOLOGY 55

cultivators of physical science, conscious that they are an advancing body, are naturally proud of their own success ; and, contrasting their discoveries with the more stationary position of their opponents, are led to despise pur- suits, the barrenness of which has now become notorious.

It is the business of the historian to mediate between these two parties, and reconcile their hostile pretensions by showing the point at which their respective studies ought to coalesce. To settle the terms of this coalition will be to fix the basis of all history. For, since history deals with the actions of men, and since their actions are merely the product of a collision between internal and external phenomena, it becomes necessary to examine the rela- tive importance of those phenomena ; to inquire into the extent to which their laws are known ; and to ascertain the resources for future discovery pos- sessed by these two great classes, the students of the mind and the students of nature. 1

Buckle's second chapter is still worth reading for its illustra- tions of the main proposition. All these illustrations are to be taken with a liberal degree of reserve, but we may discount what- ever percentage we will from the credit given to physical influ- ences, and the fact remains that, once having our attention called to the matter, we can never again dismiss the physical environment as a negligible quantity in human reactions.

Reference has been made to Buckle purely for illustrative purposes. He is not cited as in any sense authoritative or exemplary, except as he gave vigorous expression to an element that must enter into all valid sociology. Nor is this recourse to a certain type of historical generalization a tacit surrender of what was said above, 2 and a sign of consent to make sociology after all merely a philosophy of history. On the contrary, even if we had reached final conclusions in the region which Buckle occupies, they should be regarded as mere preliminaries to the conclusions which we want to reach in practical sociology. It may be said in passing that these general conceptions of the relation of environment to men have been used, and at the same time have been made more specific, in certain recent develop- ments of economic theory. Thus they are at the basis of Marx' social philosophy. They have been developed in Loria's Eco- nomic Basis of Society. In a certain form they furnish the sub- stance of Patten's fundamental economic doctrine ; and they

1 Vol I, chap, i, p. 25. 'Vol. V, p. 509, et passim.