Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/282

 REVIEWS.

Philosophic des sciences societies. Tome I ; Objet des sciences sociales. Par RENE WORMS. Paris: V. Giard & E. Briere, 1903. Pp. 230.

THIS is the first of three volumes which are designed to set forth a systematic sociology. M. Worms belongs to the ultra-organic school, and his preconceptions are to be traced in the present work, although much of the ingenious analogy of his Organisme et societe is here recast in less biological terms.

This book is not likely to soothe those who are irritated by methodology and the .making of many phrases. There are barely a half-dozen concrete statements and illustrations in the whole volume. The author is fond of antitheses which he synthesizes in a true Hegel- ian manner. Thus Tarde's imitation and Durkheim's constraint are blended in "concours," described as the larger social fact which includes the others. There is much "elaboration of the obvious," as, for example, when social facts are somewhat ponderously characterized as multiple, complex, distributed in space, and varied in time. The book as a whole lacks system and coherence in substance, in spite of its formal appearance of unity.

Part I deals with " Society," which is defined as a nation politically organized. Moreover, this sufficiently ample unit seems likely still further to expand as a result of the present tendency toward interna- tional agreements and the ultimate federation of the world. The dis- cussion of natural growth vs. the theory of contract, which closed the first division, adds nothing to FuilleVs treatment of this subject. In the second part, " Elements, Life, and Evolution of Society," M. Worms elaborates the composite group-character of all societies, points out in a rather commonplace way the effect of physical environment on social life, enunciates the characteristics of social facts mentioned above, and then undertakes to classify social phenomena. After rather desultory criticism of De Greef's sevenfold hierarchy of social facts, the author advances a biological scheme which suggests Spencer's three systems of organs, but introduces a variation. Instead of the familiar "sustaining, distributing, and regulating" agencies, Worms asserts

268