Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/228

 216 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

classed as highly conceptual. They may be criticised as theoret- ical and even fanciful. Of course, we would not admit the claim, but there would be plausible pretexts for urging it. The pres- ent term, however, is only in the slightest degree open to that impeachment. It calls attention to one of the constant and uni- versal facts of the human situation. It puts that fact in the form of a generalized expression. It thereby registers a funda- mental condition of every human problem. This condition can- not be eliminated or ignored without reading the situation itself out of existence. In a word, the term means that whatever has to do with human society thereby has to do with men associating or in association. Society and association connote and presup- pose and imply and involve each other. As terms they are cor- relates, as facts they are essentially identical.

But it is objected, on the other hand : "This goes without saying. It should be taken for granted. We cannot talk about society without assuming it. To say that society is association, or that all men live in association, is a commonplace and a plati- tude. It is not science, but only a parody and a burlesque of science." The answer is that the fallacy of all fallacies is the turning of the real into the unreal by neglecting the obvious. This concept "association" thrusts itself upon every man in his senses, but the history of philosophy down to the present moment is strewn thick with proof that men can be preternatu- rally skilful in avoiding it. Rousseau would have been a man without an occupation if he and his dupes had accepted associa- tion as a literal, universal fact. The theory of the "social con- tract" would have perished still-born, if this commonplace of association had been brought to bear upon it. The whole indi- vidualistic philosophy, in all its shades and qualities, from Cain to Nietzsche, would have been estopped if men had given due heed to this fact of association. The world would have been spared most of the theological controversies of the Christian cen- turies, and we should not have wandered until now in the laby- rinth of ethical theories that apply only to a world which never was, if this commonplace of universal association had been allowed its natural and necessary value. All that we are, all