Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/720

 696 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

from the preliminary study of the elements and of particular organs and structures. In any case, statics, either concrete or abstract, applies only to the structures in the ensemble. It con- siders only the relations and connections, the solidarity of the different elements and organs in space and time.

Up to the present, under color of general and abstract laws, sociology has hardly furnished us anything but laws relating to particular organs and to particular societies. It has remained, in short, descriptive. This was the proper method-, especially when, in place of considering only the great lines, it conde- scended to confine itself to relying from the first upon statistics, and then upon the minute observation of all of the special organi- zations. Sociologists may be reproached only for not having followed this method with sufficient thoroughness, and for having sacrificed it too much in these latter times to theses rather liter- ary and brilliant than scientific and solid. There are varieties of societies as there are varieties of plants and animals. The great difference is (but it remains yet to be demonstrated) that the social varieties may be traced back to a single species, whose forms alone are varied, notwithstanding their common type of structure.

The social species have their peculiar organizations and forms, and especially their common functions. General and abstract sociology has precisely for object to disentangle these forms and these functions. Quetelet had very forcibly shown that in determining averages it was necessary to consider exclusively elements of the same order. In like manner, abstract social statics may be evolved only from the comparative study of par- ticular societies, and not alone from the mere comparison of their several special organs.

Certainly, as Comte says, modifications of the social order are limited by the fundamental laws of structure, but Comte did not in reality indicate to us the limits of these modifications, except in a fashion too general and too vague for the categories. He has not succeeded in this, and could not succeed, because his method was insufficient. It had not for basis a sufficient analysis and description of the social elements and tissues. This