Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/13

 

 THE NUMBER OF MEMBERS AS DETERMINING THE SOCIOLOGICAL FORM OF THE GROUP. I. 1

THE following investigations constitute a chapter of a Sociology to be published by me in the future, the prolegomena to which have already appeared in this JOURNAL. 2

In respect to the fundamental problem which appears to me solely to form the basis of a sociology as a distinct science, I refer to the introduction of these two monographs. I repeat here merely that this problem rests upon the distinction between the content or purpose of socializations, and the form of the same. The content is economic or religious, domestic or politi- cal, intellectual or volitional, pedagogic or convivial. That these purposes and interests, however, attain to realization in the form of a society, of the companionship and the reciprocity of indi- viduals, is the subject-matter of special scientific consideration. That men build a society means that they live for the attainment of those purposes in definitely formed interactions. If there is to be a science of society as such, it must therefore abstract those forms from the complex phenomena of societary life, and it must make them the subject of determination and explanation. Those contents are already treated by special sciences, historical and systematic ; the relationships, however, of men to each

'Translated by A. W. SMALL.

"" Superiority and Subordination as Subject-Matter of Sociology," Vol. II, Nos. 2 and 3 ; " The Persistence of Social Groups," Vol. Ill, Nos. 5 arid 7.