Discussion of that occurred from beginning to end of the career. this concept could hardly be reduced to a few concise statements. We might choose from numberless societies the material for illustration. For instance, we might adopt Ratzenhofer's classification of the concrete interests differentiated in a modern state, as follows: a. The universal interest: sustenance. b. The kinship interests. c. The national interests. d. The creedal interests. 2. Artisanship. 3. Manufacture. 4. Wage labor. 5. Trade. 6. Professional and personal services. 7. Begging. 8. Pseudo-classes. a) Capital. b) Massed capital. c) Massed labor. g. The rank interests. h. The corporate interests. With the differentiation of each of these forms of interest there naturally follows corresponding differentiation of social structures and functions.' 13. Groups. The fact of social groups is so obvious, and is of such constant import, that we have necessarily referred to it more than once in the foregoing discussion. All that need be said further in this rapid survey is that the term "group" serves as a convenient sociological designation for any number of people, larger or smaller, between whom such relations are discovered that they must be thought of together. The " group" 'The profoundest discussion of this concept is in SIMMEL'S Sociale Differenzierungen, unfortunately out of print. RATZENHOFER devotes a chapter to much more concrete description, Die sociologische Erkenntniss, chap. 15. Specific phases of differentiation are referred to above under the titles "Individualization" and "Socialization," AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY, Vol. VI, pp. 351-4. is the most general and colorless term used in sociology for combinations of persons. A family, a mob, a picnic party, a trade union, a city precinct or ward, a corporation, a state, a nation, the civilized or the uncivilized population of the world, may be treated as a group. Thus a "group Thus a "group" for sociology is a number of persons whose relations to each other are sufficiently impressive to demand attention. The term is merely a commonplace tool. It contains no mystery. It is merely a handle with which to grasp the innumerable varieties of arrangements into which people are drawn by their variations of interest. The universal condition of association may be expressed in the same commonplace way: people always live in groups, and the same persons are likely to be members of many groups. All the illustrations that we need suggest may be assembled around the schedule of interests in the last paragraph. 14. Form of the group. This conception has been pushed to the front by one of the keenest thinkers in Europe - Professor Simmel, of Berlin. Simmel distinguishes two senses of the term society": "first, the broader sense, in which the term includes the sum of all the individuals concerned in reciprocal relations, together with all the interests which unite these interacting persons; second, a narrower sense, in which the term designates the society or association as such; that is, the interaction itself which constitutes the bond of association, in abstraction from its material content" (AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY, Vol. II, p. 167). Using his own explanation: Thus, for illustration, we designate as a cube, on the one hand, any natural object in cubical form; on the other hand, the simple form alone, which made the material contents into a "cube," in the former sense, constitutes of itself, independently and abstractly considered, an object for geometry. The significance of geometry appears in the fact that the formal relations which it determines hold good for all possible objects formed in space. In like manner, it is the purpose of sociology to determine the forms and modes of the relations between men, which, although constituted of entirely different contents, material, and interests, nevertheless take shape in formally similar social structures. If we could exhibit the totality of possible forms of social relationship in their gradations and variations, we should have in such exhibit complete knowledge of "society" as such. We gain knowledge of the forms of socialization by bringing together inductively the manifestations of these forms which have had actual historical existence. In other words, we have to collect and exhibit that element of form which these historical manifestations have in common abstracted from the variety of material economical, ethical, ecclesiastical, social, political, etc.-with respect to which they differ.' (Loc. cit., p. 168.) "The thesis of Simmel, that sociology must be the science of social forms, has at least this effect upon the present stage of correlation: viz., it makes us conscious that we have no adequate schedule of the forms of social life." 15. Conflict. The facts referred to in sections 12 and 13 above, and yielding the concepts "differentiation" and "group," have other relations which the present term brings into focus. In a word, the whole social process is a perpetual reaction between interests that have their lodgment in the individuals who compose society. More specifically, this reaction is disguised or open struggle between the individuals. The conflict of interests between individuals, combined with community of interest in the same individuals, results in the groupings of individuals between whom there is relatively more in common, and then the continuance of struggle between group and group. The members of each group have relatively less in common with the members of a different group than they have with each other. The concept "conflict" is perhaps the most obvious in the whole schedule. It has not only been a practically constant presumption of nearly all social theory and practice in the past, but it has had excessive prominence in modern sociology. The central conception in the theory of Gumplowicz, for example,2 is that the human process is a perpetual conflict of groups in which the individuals actually lose their individuality. The balance between "conflict," on the one hand, and co-operation and correlation and consensus, on the other, has never been formulated more justly than by Ratzenhofer.3 His thesis is that conflict is primarily universal, but that it tends to resolve itself into cooperation. Socialization, indeed, is the transformation of conflict 'For list of possible social forms vid. AMERICAn Journal of Sociology, Vol. VI, p. 390. 2 Grundriss der Sociologie. 3 Particularly Wesen und Zweck, Part II, secs. 17-27, and Soc. Erk., sec. 30. into co-operation. Sociological analysis accordingly involves discrimination and appraisal of the kind and quantity of conflict present in each society with which it deals. 16. Social situations.- Certain concepts which might have been placed in this schedule were listed in the sixth paper of this series, under the title "Some Incidents of Association." a Still other concepts must be employed in later stages of our discussion. Some of them have a working value in excess of that which can be claimed for many of those assembled in this paper. They are not elementary enough in logical rank, however, to require mention in this catalogue. We therefore close the list with a concept which is, of course, essentially psychological. Indeed, any attempt to conceive of association in terms of activity, or psychologically, presupposes the idea for which the term "social situation" is a symbol. In a word, a "social situation" is any portion of experience brought to attention as a point in time or space at which a tension of social forces is present. More simply, a "social situation" is any circle of human relationships thought of as belonging together, and presenting the problem: What are the elements involved in this total, and how do these elements affect each other? This term, again, like the term "group," carries no dogmatic assumptions. It is not a means of smuggling into sociology any insidious theory. It is simply one of the inevitable terms for the sort of thing in which all the sociologists find their problems. A "social situation" is any phase of human life, from the least to the greatest, which invites observation, description, explanation. For instance, the Hebrew commonwealth, when hesitating between the traditional patriarchal order and a monarchical organization, presents a "social situation;" a quarrel between a husband and wife, threatening the disruption of a single family, presents a "social situation;" the existing treaty stipulations between the commercial nations constitute a "social situation;" the terms of a contract and the disposition of the parties toward those terms, in the case of a single employer and his employees, present equally a "social situa This thesis is represented in the left-hand column of the diagram above, p. 242. 2 AMERICAN Journal of SOCIOLOGY, Vol. VI, p. 324. tion." That is, the term is simply a convenient generic designation for every kind and degree of social combination which for the time being attracts attention as capable of consideration by itself. The term is innocent of theoretical implications. It is simply serviceable as a colorless designation of the phenomena which the sociologist must investigate. Sociology is not a mechanical forcing of the facts of life into these categories. On the contrary, the more we generalize the facts of life, the more they force us to think of them under these forms. Our thought in these forms may prove to be a passing stage in progress toward more complete and positive knowledge. Meanwhile these concepts certainly stand for a stage, whether permanent or transient, in approach to apprehension of social fact and social law. Intelligent use of these concepts is the condition of attaining that measure of insight into social reality which sociology at present commands. As this paper has implied throughout, it is a very simple matter to get a list of the important sociological concepts. It is quite another thing to get so used to applying them that they are the natural forms in which the ordinary facts of experience present themselves to the mind. On the other hand, merely filling one's sentences with terms from the sociological vocabulary does not, in itself, give evidence of sociological insight. The state of mind which sociological study should produce is that in which the activities of society present to the mind simultaneously all these relationShips. Then the mature sociological judgment will instinctively sect the one or more of these relationships which may be peculiarly significant for the case in hand, and will take the others for granted. In other words, it is necessary to get so much experience in analyzing societies in terms of these concepts that we can readily tell which of them we must continue to consider and which of them we may throw out of the account. ALBION W. SMALL, THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO. [To be continued.] |