Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/531

 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY 51 1

pre-eminence because of their special functions, while the forms called inferior may boast, not only of their utility, but of their fundamental necessity.

The organs, groups, and systems relating to the seven distinct classes of social phenomena represent what are commonly called the social institutions. In the special work which we intend soon to devote to the static theories of the three principal repre- sentatives of sociology in the nineteenth century, Quetelet, Comte, and Spencer, we shall have occasion, even while pointing out the immense value of their works, to observe the faults of method which have too often vitiated their conclusions. The organs or institutions of societies are indeed syntheses, but they are also particular syntheses. At present, let us merely point out that Quetelet confines himself too much to the observation of elementary social facts, that is to say, to statistics. Yet, his point of departure is better and his method more exact and more certain than that of Comte and Spencer, although in sociology his theory of probability and of averages is comparatively erroneous. His profound statistical studies have saved him from error in synthetic principles, which are insufficiently verified and proved by the two masters of the French and English schools of positive sociology. Although the foundations of his structure are more solid, on the other hand Quetelet almost entirely neglects the study of social institutions of which the statistical phenomena are only the materials. On the contrary, Comte and Spencer take no account of statistics, of elementary facts, especially economic facts, which are the most important of all. They begin at once with the consideration of social forms or institutions; in the case of Comte, even the latter are sacrificed to the consideration of the ensemble of humanity and are deduced from the same. Between the method of Quetelet, who repre- sents, so to speak, molecular sociology, and that of Comte, who especially represents synthetic sociology, Spencer takes the mean, which, although it is without the qualities of the first, is also without the dangers of the second. It is only by combin- ing, according to a methodical order, their three distinct points of view that we can hope to trace the outline of concrete sociology, then that of the abstract.