Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/213

 THE SCOPE OF SOCIOLOGY 201

and leading a singular and superior order of life apart from per- sons. We see that human society in all times and places is the combined activities of persons who react upon each other in countless ways. It becomes a first consideration, then, to derive a thoroughly objective, positive, literal conception of these per- sonal units, always producing social situations and social reac- tions.

Social philosophy, as just now hinted, has always vibrated between theories of individuals, regarded as independent, self- sufficient existences, and theories of society, regarded as an entity which has its existence either altogether independent of individuals or at least by and through the merging and the submerging of individuals. Accordingly the question has been debated from time immemorial : " Does society exist for the individual or the individual for society? " or, more specifi- cally, " Does the state exist for the individual or the individual for the state? " In contrast with all the forms of philosophy which propose problems of this sort, it is a primary proposition of sociology that the issue raised by these inquiries is essentially artificial and fictitious, because the dilemma presented is created only by a begging of the real question. It is assumed that there is a disjunctive, alternative, exclusive relation between indi- viduals and societies. At best the one is assumed to be merely a means to the other, in such a sense that the means ceases to be of account when it has done what it can toward the end. It is impossible to criticise in full this way of looking at things, with- out using concepts which need previous explanation concepts which we shall reach presently. It is also impossible to say whether the psychologists or the sociologists have had most to do with discovering this fallacy. However this may be, the formulation of life in terms of activity has brought psychologists and sociologists to the point of view that individuals and socie- ties are not means to each other, but phases of each other. A society is a combining of the activities of persons. A person is a center of conscious impulses which realize themselves in full only in realizing a society.

Quite recently there has been revived discussion of Aristotle's