Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/873

 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY 839

except qualitatively. Perhaps, some day social science like mechanico-physical science may become more precise.

To proceed logically, we will consider the limits of social properties as they are manifested, first, in the seven classes of social phenomena ; secondly, in the functions, organs, apparatus, and systems, where their activity is realized and regulated; and, lastly, in the social structures, considered in their entirety. How- ever, we are going to endeavor, at the very first, in order to obtain the greatest possible instruction, to give an account of the conception of the social frontiers which up to this time has been held in beliefs and theories. We will often compare these beliefs and doctrines with the facts themselves. This mode of observation is, however, always necessary in sociology ; it is, indeed, the only possible way when the beliefs and the general conceptions of certain peoples can be known only through the interpretation of their acts, that is to say, of their practical life and of their prevailing institutions, where their habitual activity is relatively fixed. This is the case especially with primitive civilization, because of the rudimentary and simple forms of their

existence.

G. DE GREEF.

BRUSSELS, BELGIUM.

[To be continued^