Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/120

 106 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

One is the fondness for the objective statement of the behavior of associated men in preference to the subjective interpretation. The other is the excessive reliance upon superficial analogies between social facts and other facts. Owing to these errors the earlier formulations of social law are not based upon the accumu- lation and comparison of social data, but are built out laterally from the more advanced neighboring sciences. Sociology is at first a balcony or shall I say a " lean-to "? projecting from physics or biology or psychology.

The first notable example is Mr. Spencer's demonstration that the various propositions which make up his grand law of evolu- tion apply to society.

That motion follows the line of least resistance is as true, he says, for societies as for molecules. He instances the congregating of men at places of abundant food supply, the lines of migration, the growth of industrial centers, the location of trade routes and many other economic facts. Now, this proposition can hold only in so far as men economize. If there is a play side as well as a work side to human life, if men are squanderers of energy as as well as economizers of energy, they will not follow lines of least resistance. The development of games and social festivity, the self-expression of artistic and religious activity, as well as the devotion to sport, adventure, and exploration, show that there is such a thing as a surplus of human energy.

But even economic men do not follow "the line of least resist- ance" in the same way as molecules. Compare the path of a flood with that of an army. Water will meander a score of leagues to find an outlet but a furlong away. An army clambers over an intervening ridge to reach its objective. Each moment of its course the river follows the line easiest at that moment. Man knows his goal and, having foresight, takes the line that on the whole is easiest. This is why man leads water by much straighter channels to its destination than nature does.

The thesis that societies, like all other aggregates, pass from less coherence to more coherence (law of integration) is tenable enough, but the explanation of the process is unsatisfactory. Mr. Spencer apparently lays it to the interdependence resulting