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SOCIETY ISLANDS

1770

SOCIOLOGY

For example, dispensaries, employment bureaus and legal aid societies. Special investigations have been conducted, particularly in connection with Hull House; for example, as to the cause of an epidemic disease; and the results have proved of much value. In this work the association with university courses in sociology is often of service. The settlements have assisted the juvenile courts now being established throughout the country. In all -things the atmosphere of brotherhood and democracy is to displace the spirit of envy, contempt and condescension and fear which class-distinctions tend to cause. See Emil Muen-sterberg, in Charities and Commons, Sept. 14, 1907.

Soci'ety Islands, a group in Oceania or the eastern Pacific Ocean, lying to the south of the Hawaiian group, divided into several groups, the Tahiti Islands and Society Islands proper being the chief, with the Marquesas Islands, the Leeward Islands, the Tuamotu and other groups. The Tahiti and adjoining groups belong to the French and consist of a number of islands. They are of volcanic origin and mountainous, the loftiest point on Tahiti being 7,339 feet high. These islands are governed by a French administrative council Their area is 1,520 square miles and their population about 29,000, mostly Polynesians-—all forming a homogeneous colony. They have a healthful and mild climate and fertile soil, producing the guava, breadfruit, oranges, lemons and other tropical fruits. The chief industries are the preparation of copra, sugar and rum, which, with vanilla and mother-of-pearl, form jthe chief exports. Pigs, dogs and rats were the only animals found on the islands when discovered, but all domestic animals have since been introduced, The Spanish and English both claim the discovery of the islands, Captain Cook in 1760 giving them their name. Through the labors of English missionaries the islands, then under Queen Pomare, were Christianized in 1815. The efforts of French Roman Catholic priests to enter the country brought on a dispute with England and the final establishment ot the French authority on Tahiti. Steamers connect the islands with San Francisco and New Zealand. Consult Hort's Tahiti and Gaffarel's Les Colonies Franchises,

So'ciol'ogy. The first writer to attempt a special differentiation of this science was the French philosopher, Comte (1789-1857). He conceived^ that the phenomena of social intercourse are subject to natural laws as definite and unvarying as those of physics or physiology. The study of these laws, or sociology, he regarded as the goal of scientific research. All sciences exist to prepare the way for the sociologist. Biology, the science of life, is the study upon which sociology, in his view, is most immediately

dependent. Comte (q. v,} hoped from this new science to discover the principles that should be employed in regenerating society. Theoretical study thus led to immediate practice in a Utopian scheme of social life. Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), the English philosopher, did much toward making sociology a science. With him the biological conception is dominant, and his two leading principles are that of evolution (q. v.) and the notion that society is an organism, the evolution of which involves the progressive differentiation of organs and functions and their integration into a harmonious system. Bastian, the German ethnologist, endeavored to found sociology upon psychology. He studied the effect of external conditions upon the mind, and from these effects deduced the explanation of the social relations devised by the intelligence of man.

In recent times sociology has developed into a recognized science with regular departments in many universities. It may be divided into pure and applied sociology. Pure sociology considers the general laws governing the genesis and evolution of society and the effect of social intercourse upon the character of the individual. It is especially dependent upon history, anthropology and statistics for its facts and upon psychology for its explanations. From history, political science and economics it gets an account of the institutional and industrial relations that prevail and have prevailed since civilization became well-established. From anthropology it gets an account of the social traits of primitive men and of the beginning of rnorality, law, religion, the arts and institutions, the family, the state and social orders. From psychology it gets the laws of social suggestion, imitation and the effects of these on different temperaments. The most important authorities on imitation are Tarde, the French writer, and J. M. Baldwin, the American psychologist. Tarde regards all social intercourse as based primarily upon imitation. Inasmuch, however, as each individual may strive to imitate many models, the result will be a composite in which some models are suppressed and others fused into a new product. Meanwhile the uses of practical life will continually act as a force determining which models shall be preserved and which shall disappear. The social mind is a product of certain inherent powers stirred into life and molded by the influence of imitation. Baldwin especially shows how the intellectual and moral life of the individual is awakened and given content by this activity. Le Bon, a French writer, sets forth the peculiar laws that govern 'the action of the individual when in a crowd and the effect of social characteristics upon the operation of such