Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/210

 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

other factor is concerned in human life. We have had material- istic interpretations of life galore, from some of the pre- Platonists to living writers. The fact which all these philosophies have overworked is that every external act, and every subjective emotion which occurs in the case of any person, has the whole mass of physical surroundings and antecedents as its conditions. One does not utter a sentiment, or compose a song, or offer a prayer, or feel a transcendental emotion, without being, in some degree or sort, moved to the same by the soil and climate and technical processes and institutional arrangements which consti- tute the vehicle of one's life. But the fact that the same farm produces Websters whom the world has already forgotten and the Webster whom the world will never forget, proves that the materialistic interpretation of life is a snap-judgment. The physical environment is always present, but it is not all that is present. In considering any social problem we must always ask : How much does the physical environment have to do with the case ? The answer will in some instances be a negligible quantity. In others it will furnish the only clue to the situation, as distinguished from similar situations that turn out differently under other physical conditions.

For instance, the chief reason why Germany cherishes a colonial policy today, and why the United States merely tolerates a provisional colonial policy, is the physical difference between German over-population and American under-population. On the other hand, the reason why Germany clings to the union of church and state, while America abhors it, is so very remotely connected with physical conditions that it would be a strain upon language and ideas to give the physical factor in the case any weight at all. Whether we are dealing with percentages of individual cases of given types in a population, or with types of purely social organization on a large scale, the sociological pro- gram must always be to give the physical factor precisely the value which it has no more, no less, neither minimized nor exaggerated by any a priori, speculative assumptions.

Parallel with the physical environment we must prepare to give proportionate value to the second condition mentioned in