Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/127

 MOO T POINTS IN SOCIOL OGY 113

decays the liturgy is not the first to go but the last. An art beginning with an ideal acquires in time a technique ; but the technique, exaggerated into a mannerism, persists long after the ideal has vanished.

The hard-headed, clear-sighted Gumplowicz studies his facts first hand and has no faith in long-range deductions from neigh- boring sciences. He believes, however, that there are certain laws which hold equally for the inorganic, vital, psychic, and social spheres of phenomena. Before proceeding to establish specific social laws Gumplowicz briefly indicates ten universal laws, the recognition of which in the realm of social phenomena justifies one's faith in the possibility of a social science. We may compress them into the following seven :

1. For every phenomenon there is an adequate cause.

2. Phenomena run in sequences.

3. These sequences are law-abiding.

4. Concrete objects have parts.

5. A developmental process is initiated by the contact or conflict of unlike elements.

6. Forces differ only in strength and direction.

7. Identical forces produce similar effects.

The Austrian thinker does not illustrate these laws, and, as they are exceedingly abstract and general, we may safely accept them. His fifth law, be it noted, is one of the most fruitful principles to be found in modern sociology and under the name of "synergy" has been greatly developed by Dr. Ward.

We have tested the application to society of physical, bio- logical and psychological laws and have seen that the method does not yield lasting results. All this work will have to be torn out and replaced by better masonry if the walls of sociol- ogy are to rise very far. No one denies that the extension into the social sphere of regularities discovered in other fields has greatly helped to bring order out of chaos. It is better to interpret the career of a nation analogically, than to interpret it providentially, as did the old "philosophy of history." Analogy has suggested what to look for. It has taught us to notice simi- larities and to segregate like phenomena. To its life lines we