Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/231

 THE SCOPE OF SOCIOLOGY 219

To illustrate the bearing of the abstract propositions just cited, reference may be made to an argument from the present view- point against Professor Giddings. It is contained in a review of Inductive Sociology published in Science, May 2, 1902. The claim urged is that, if the technical sociologist lacks a distinct percep- tion of what the social involves, particularly a clear appreciation of the contrast between the individual and the social phases of human conditions, it is possible for his analysis virtually to ignore the associational factor altogether, and to degenerate into futile speculation about an arbitrarily abstracted individual. Our thinking will be realistic only in proportion as we discriminate between the individual elements in social problems, on the one hand, and the social elements, on the other.

6. The social process. 1 Again we have to deal with a con- cept which the psychologists have been elaborating simul- taneously with the sociologists. It is impossible to distribute credit for work at this point. It is sufficient to acknowledge that the sociologists have doubtless been assisted by the psycholo- gists, more than they are aware, in expressing the social reality in this aspect.

In this case, too, we are dealing with a concept which is among the most necessary of the sociological categories for organ- izing all orders of social knowledge, from the most concrete to the most generalized. That is, we have not arrived at the stage of sophistication peculiar to our epoch, unless we have learned to think of that part of human experience to which we give attention as a term or terms in a process. The use of the word is immaterial. The possession of the idea, the perception of the relation between portions of experience, is essential. We do not represent human experience to ourselves as it is, unless we think every portion of it as a factor in a process composed of all human experiences.

In the absence of any generally accepted psychological formula of the concept "process" the following is proposed: A process is a collection of occurrences, each of which has a meaning for every other, the whole of which constitutes some sort of becoming.

1 Vid. GIDDINGS, Principles of Sociology, Book IV, chap, i, " The Social Process, Physical;" chap, ii, " The Social Process, Psychical."