Page:Philosophical Review Volume 6.djvu/331

315 society in relation to reality, does not consider all social phenomena of equal significance, and has, by preference, dealt with the highest types of civilization. Sociology, on the other hand, claims the width and impartiality of a natural science, and values alike all social phenomena. The characteristic of its procedure so far has been to compare human society with relations found to exist in groups of lower animals, in order to deal with very general forms of behavior, where they are presented per se. Thus an account is given in terms which, while adequate to certain simpler phenomena, are not adequate to the higher manifestations of humanity. The advantage of such a method is that it tends to destroy arbitrary distinctions, and insists on the unity of life. With the admission of the demand for such a unity, the distinction which separates sociology from philosophy should vanish. The relation of the two is largely the same as that of psychology to philosophy. Psychology claims a like independence and speculative neutrality, all revelations of mind being for it as such of equal importance. The very terminology confirms the comparison, for the 'laws of association' might designate the general problem of sociology as well. In psychology, however, the further tendency suggested has already taken shape through the theory of apperception. Thus the line of psychological abstraction will always tend to be a vanishing one. Likewise sociology, by finding means to distinguish on its own ground grades of social forms, will assume toward the philosophy of society the same general attitude which psychology holds toward logic, ethics, and aesthetics. Since it is being driven to the position of a psychological science (as indeed Mill intended it to be), it already possesses the key for its new method.

Although certitude is not the same as certainty (i.e., logical evidence), nevertheless there is no belief in immortality that does not imply a philosophy. No matter how persistent the belief in this fact may appear, it cannot hold out indefinitely against a philosophy which is unfriendly. Men are often poor logicians; but the human mind, given time enough, is perfect in logic, and nothing can stand that is incongruous with the organon of thought.—Of the three conceptions, God, freedom, and immortality, the author regards the middle one (freedom) as a key to the other two. To deny it, is to leave no room for God or immortality. Tried by this standard, the systems of Comte and Spinoza yield no support to the doctrine of immortality. The same is also true of evolutionary philosophy. A more satisfactory result, however, is obtained when we reverse the direction taken by all these systems, and, instead of reasoning from the universe to man, reason from man to the universe. Here we follow the lead of Martineau; for him the data which are to interpret everything else are found in consciousness. The remainder of the article is devoted to showing the evidence