Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 14.djvu/447

Rh phenomena. On the plane of sentient existence we have, in addition, nerve force and phenomena. On the plane of rational and moral existence we have, in addition to all the preceding, also rational and moral forces and their corresponding phenomena. With every rise to a higher plane we have also, as has already been shown, new doctrines and new characteristic methods. Shall we not, then, on this highest plane also, viz., on the plane of rational and moral existence, the plane of humanity, shall we not have here also new characteristic methods and doctrines connected with this new and higher form of force? It is evident that we must. All the doctrines and methods which I have developed are imported from biology. I have said nothing of characteristic methods and doctrines of sociology. Comte clearly saw the necessity, in accordance with the principles of a scientific hierarchy, of a characteristic method, and he thought he had found it in what he calls the historic method. But Comte's historic method, as we have already shown, is nothing but comparison in the phylogenic series—a method which is imported from geology. There must be characteristic methods and doctrines in this highest science also. What are they? Man is certainly something more than an animal. What is that something more? The answer to these two questions is the same. The characteristic doctrines and methods of sociology are evidently connected with man's higher rational and moral nature—with his distinctive humanity. But the science of this side of our nature is yet so imperfectly developed, our knowledge of these higher phenomena is yet so imperfectly reduced to law, that these characteristic doctrines and methods are not clearly recognized and distinctly formulated. In a word, our knowledge here is not yet scientific; the department has not yet even a distinctive name. For want of a better we shall call it psychology, although it really includes much more than usually goes under that name. But when (if ever) this department of knowledge shall take on a scientific form, then it also must become another basis, another fundamental science, on which must rest sociology. And what sociology is now waiting for, more than for anything else, is the scientific development of this second basis.

Thus then sociology, unlike other sciences, and because of man's twofold nature, rests not on one only but on two more fundamental sciences. The basis which I have developed is the material basis. This is all that the materialists admit. If a pure material philosophy were sufficient, this is all the basis which sociology requires. The fact that it is not sufficient, the fact that another basis is required, is demonstrative against a pure material philosophy. According to a pure material philosophy science is a straight shaft rising ever until it pierces heaven. But, on the contrary, if we watch its progress closely, we perceive that it indeed rises straight enough at first; but as it approaches the plane of humanity it begins to lean and curve to one side, until it inevitably falls over, unless it be supported on that side also. That support which