rank of assistant professor of economics. Besides four teaching fellows, there will hereafter be six men in the department above the rank of instructor.

University of Washington.-Dr. Norman S. Hayner, professor of sociology in Rockford College, has been appointed to a position as assistant professor of sociology. He will have charge of courses in the field of population problems. During the summer quarter Professor Donald R. Taft, Wells College, will offer courses in population problems and penology.

West Virginia University.-Professor Frederick G. Detweiler, Denison University, is giving courses in the summer school on race problems and social organization.

Western Reserve University.—Professor Charles W. Coulter, Ohio Wesleyan University, will give courses in the summer session on the history of sociology and race relations.

REVIEWS

The Social Theory of Georg Simmel. By NICHOLAS J. SPYKMAN. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1925. Pp. xxix+ 297. $3.00.

Nearly thirty years ago the editors of this Journal cherished the identical purpose which the author of this book indicates in his Preface. They wanted to stimulate social scientists in the English-speaking world to begin with beginnings by devoting themselves to fundamental problems of methodology. They believed that no better center of attention could be selected than that proposed by Simmel. They accordingly arranged to publish the series of his articles, starting in 1896, which he later incorporated into his Soziologie. These papers, beginning with Superiority and Subordination as Subject-Matter for Sociology, appeared in fourteen parts, the latest in 1910. We fondly hoped that not only sociologists but social scientists in general in all the English-speaking countries would respond, if not to the extent of adopting Simmel's theories, at least to the extent of general admission that science without a recognized methodology is unthinkable. Up to the present time the Americans who have given indubitable evidence of having considered Simmel thoroughly might be counted on the fingers of one hand. Some years after the earlier numbers of the Simmel series had appeared in this Journal, the translator, while in London, had occasion to refer to one of them. He found the volumes containing them on the shelves of the library of the London School of Economics, but the leaves were uncut! So far as evidence of British attention to Simmel runs to the contrary, those leaves may have remained uncut to this day.

It would go without saying that the editors of this Journal must welcome such a book as Dr. Spykman has written. Since the sixteenth century there have been countless cases of important suggestions, within the field of social science, which seem to have fallen upon deaf ears. No trace of any immediate response to them can now be found. Then, after a period of approximately a generation, the same suggestion, frequently without reference to its author or earlier form, has arrested attention, and has thereafter become an evident factor in the developing tradition. We hope that Dr. Spykman will prove to have done for Simmel and for social science what this Journal was unable to do thirty years ago.

The author's Preface alone should cause drastic searchings of heart among the Americans who call themselves social scientists. In substance it is an elaboration of these propositions (XII-XIII):

In the United States the so-called science of sociology has made the greatest strides. . . . the result of this formidable advancement is not clarity, but a formidable confusion . . . . this confusion in the social sciences in general, and in sociology in particular, must be cleared up if a mastery over our social environment is ever to be obtained. Here also the work will have to be done on the basis of a differentiation and specialization in the field of theoretic inquiry and integration and co-ordination in the field of practical application. To make that possible, the first prerequisites are a common method and a consensus of opinion regarding the relation of the "science" of sociology to the other social sciences. Neither exists, and the discussion about method, which was dropped at the beginning of the century, must therefore be resumed. The social scientist must become fully conscious of the presuppositions of his inquiries and investigations before he can hope for real progress in his work.

The body of the book is divided into three parts: The first part (pp. 25-89) "gives Simmel's methodological analysis of the different forms of inquiry into the socio-historical reality," and introduces "the functional, relativistic way" (p. 88); the second outlines Simmel's formal sociology (pp. 93-212); the third expounds Simmel's "social metaphysics" (pp. 217-73).

In his Conclusion the author packs some samples of rare wisdom. The following is a choice specimen (pp. 272-73):

The advantage of his conception of sociology is not only that it leads to investigation of processes which shape all kinds of content, but also that it includes in one study the investigation of instinctive and voluntary groupings, of communities and associations, of contract and coercion, in a word, of all forms of interaction. It would seem, then, that his conception of the sciences suggests a practically unlimited possibility of work. He has none the less been criticised for limiting the investigation to the study of social forms. But this limitation is the result of the fact that he conceives of sociology as a science, and therefore as a limited science. Sociology has been taken down from the elevated position where it was enthroned as the synthesis of all sciences. But it has apparently not quite lost its former grandeur for a great many of its admirers who still like to think of it as at least a synthesis of the social sciences. It can maintain that position just as long as it is content to be a social philosophy. To become a science, it has to renounce all pretense of being the apotheosis of the social sciences and take its place among them. In the new order of things its position is far less assuming. A large part of its new function will be the modest task of searching for a knowledge of the social forces, so as to enable the social sciences to reach a full understanding of the social

content. The myth of a science of society has been exploded. What remains is a series of social sciences of which sociology is merely one, even if it finds its subject-matter through a different abstraction.

If Dr. Spykman's proposition is not yet established sociological orthodoxy, it is at least a somewhat widely published heresy (cf. Encyclopedia Americana, title "Sociology,” p. 207).

American sociologists have made a gallant fight for existence. They have won standing ground. No one is more clearly aware than the survivors of the generation who made the fight, that, considered either as a body of knowledge or as a method of procedure, their sociology is thus far relatively incoherent, shallow, and sterile. They know, too, that this situation is the natural result of attempting to extemporize a science without first paying the dues to methodological preconditions. It is the fate not of sociology alone-it is the common lot of the entire group of programs known as "social sciences." It was not conscious hypocrisy-it was the expediency of semiconscious desperation for the sociologists of the passing generation to claim for their specialty as a science more than it has performed. Sociology is now academically intrenched, and can afford to be honest with itself and the world. For the good of their souls, "and other valuable considerations," sociologists should set the example which the other social interpreters will eventually have to follow, of acknowledging that as yet we have only embryonic science. Rather, "the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now" in convulsive birth-pangs of science.

Dr. Spykman's book should be accepted as the signal for the consolidation of a Section on Methodology within the American Sociological Society. The men of the coming generation who are able to see the strategic importance of methodology should make it their business to win for it the recognition which its functions deserve.

American methodology will remain provincial unless it maintains vital relations with the two European movements which seem likely to be the path-breakers in continental sociology during its next stage of development. The one tendency we have ventured to call post-Simmelism (A. J. S., XXX, 352) in Germany. The other is the reorganization of the Durkheim following in France. It would be inviting disaster if American sociologists should act as though they could afford to be ignorant of either of these movements. Dr. Spykman's book is a sufficient and an indispensable pathfinder for the beginnings of the former tendency.

In heartily assenting to the author's judgment (XIV)-"If the discussion of methodological problems is to be resumed. . . . Simmel's work is the best starting-point"--we by no means commit ourselves to the

belief that Simmel's conceptions of method must be adopted. That would rather be the first problem, viz.: As a way of developing methodological criticism, how does the account stand with Simmel? The desideratum is to start with the spirit of Simmel's desire for a methodology, not necessarily with his specific conclusions.

For instance, the present writer's last conversations with Simmel were in 1903. At that time he reiterated one of his most familiar doctrines, viz., that sociology should be "the geometry, the morphology, the crystallography of groups." Probably the writer would have had the support of most American sociologists in declining to accept such delimitations for sociology. A little further consideration, however, might have brought us into agreement with Simmel, and Simmel with us, that social science needs a technique of social forms, whatever it be called. Pursuing the analysis, we might presently find ourselves in agreement that social science needs techniques of the dynamic and evaluating aspects of experience, regardless of labels which might be used to designate them. Thus apparent disagreement might be reduced in large measure to matters of nomenclature more than of procedure. The important thing is Simmel's contention that science must have a foundation. Without a respectable and a respected methodology we are wise men in a tub.

The author has not escaped liability for the usual quota of proofreading oversights. For instance, the word "epistemology" is misspelled in the sixth line of the table of contents. Dr. Spykman also shows that he is assimilated to the great majority of native users of the English language in their inability to control the insuperable adverb, "only" (passim). Beyond these trifles, judicious additions and subtractions might add to the value of the second, third, and fourth sections of the bibliography.

It is devoutly to be hoped that American sociologists will show themselves wise enough to use the book as it deserves.

ALBION W. SMALL

UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

Allgemeine Soziologie als Lehre von den Beziehungen und Beziehungsgebilden der Menschen. Von LEOPOLD VON WIESE. Teil I: Beziehungslehre. München und Leipzig: Duncker und Humblot, 1924. Pp. xiii+309.

First of all, this book must be understood as a leading expression of the present animus of post-Simmelism. To use a Yankeeism, here the sort of method toward which Simmel pointed is "getting down to brass tacks."