Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/795

 MOOT POINTS IN SOCIOLOGY 77$

because the breadth of the field calls for the specialist, and not because there are natural boundaries marking it off from sociol- ogy-

Comparative jurisprudence deals with phenomena which exhibit the working of two special principles of human nature the thirst for vengeance that torments the sufferer of a wrong, and the desire for fair play that moves the beholders of a wrong. These formidable impulses were early led into the safe channels of legal redress, in order that society might be spared the evils of feud and retaliatory violence. In time, however, the law- originating impulses became socialized and rationalized. In-wrought with other motives, they come to express the will of the Social Personality. The just settlement of disputes, from a private need, becomes a public function. When we consider the transformation of law by jurisconsults and judges, the enlarge- ment of it by the action of the legislator, and the renovation of it in the name of the principle of social utility, it is plain that jurisprudence cannot hope to be more than a feudatory state in the realm of sociology.

There is no reason why what is known as " the sociology of the family" together with the "population" section of politi- cal economy should not have been set apart as genetics. The family is certainly distinguished from other social structures by owing its existence to the highly special instincts of sex- attraction and philoprogenitiveness. These instincts, moreover, being gratified individually, do not call into being joint activities or distinct professions such as we find in the religious or economic spheres. An institution it may be, but the family is not, prop- erly speaking, a social organ.

It is unlikely, however, that we shall see split off a science treating of the social phenomena that center in the reproduc- tive function. One reason is that the sex and family relations, since they are always standardized in law and morals, are, at every moment, in the most intimate sympathy with the reign- ing culture. Furthermore, all our researches go to magnify the importance of the non-instinctive factors in fixing the duration, size, and internal structure of the family. Not long ago. Maine