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SOCIOLOGY
, a See also:science which in the most inclusive sense may be defined as that of human society, in the same manner that See also:Biology may be taken to imply the science of See also:life
.
The word Sociologie was first used by See also:Comte in 1839 as an See also:equivalent of the expression, social physics, previously in use, and was introduced, he said, to describe by a single See also:term that See also:part of natural See also:philosophy which relates to the See also:positive study of the fundamental See also:laws of social phenomena
.
The word is a hybrid, compounded from both Latin and See also:Greek terms
.
It is now generally accepted in See also:international usage; none of the terms, such as politics, See also:political science, social See also:economy, social philosophy and social science which have been suggested instead of it having succeeded
hurried back to See also:Poland before it began- He cannot be accused of complicity with what he calls the 'See also:age of See also:Blandrata; he was no party to See also:David's incarceration at See also:Deva, where the old See also:man miserably perished in less than three months
.
He was willing that David should be prohibited from See also:preaching pending the decision of a See also:general See also:synod; and his references to the See also:case show that (as in the later instances of Jacobo Paleology, See also:Christian Franken and See also:
In 1587 the See also:grand-See also:duke See also:Francesco died; to this event Sozzini's biographers attribute the loss of his See also:Italian See also:property, but his unpublished letters show that he was on See also:good terms with the new grand-duke, Ferdinando
.
See also:Family disputes had arisen respecting the See also:interpretation of his grandfather's will; in See also:October 1590 the See also:holy See also:office at See also:Siena disinherited him, allowing him a See also:pension, apparently never paid
.
Failure of supplies from See also:Italy dissolved the compact under which his writings were to remain See also:anonymous, and he began to publish in his own name
.
The consequence was that in 1598 a See also:mob expelled him from Cracow, wrecking his See also:house, and grossly See also:ill-using his See also:person
.
Friends gave him a ready welcome at Luslawice, 30 See also:miles See also:east from Cracow; and here, having See also:long been troubled with See also:colic and the See also:
Some of his See also:early See also:verse is in Ferentilli's Scielta di stanze di diversi autori toscani (1579, 1594) ; other specimens are given in See also:Cantu and in the See also:Athenaeum (Aug
.
II, 1877) ; more are preserved at Siena
.
Sozzini considered that his ablest See also:work was his Contra atheos, which perished in the See also:riot at Cracow (1598)
.
Later he began, but See also:left incomplete, more than one work designed to exhibit his See also:system as a whole
.
His reputation as a thinker must See also:rest upon (i) his De auctoritate s. scripturae (1570) and (2) his De Jesu Christo servatore (1578)
.
The former was first published (See also:Seville, 1588) by See also:Lopez, a Jesuit, who claimed it as his own, but prefixed a See also:preface maintaining (contrary to a fundamental position of Sozzini) that man by nature has a knowledge of God
.
A See also:French version (1592) was approved by the ministers of See also:Basel ; the See also:English See also:translation by See also:Edward Coombe (1731) was undertaken in consequence of the See also:commendation in a See also:charge (1728) by See also:Bishop Smaibroke, who observes that See also:Grotius had borrowed from it in his De veritate See also:Christ. rel
.
In small
I No trace is discoverable on the stone of the alleged See also:epitaph:—" Tota ruit See also:Babylon; destruxit tecta Lutherus, Calvinus muros, sed fundamenta See also:Socinus,"
in taking its See also:place
.
There has been in the past a certain hesitation, especially in See also:England, to admit sociology as the See also:title of a particular science in itself until it was made clear what the subject must be considered to See also:cover
.
In certain quarters sociology is still often incorrectly spoken of as if it implied the See also:practical equivalent of the science of politics
.
See also:
The difference between sociology and the science of politics is wide and is due to fundamental causes, a true See also:perception of which is essential to the proper study of the science of society
.
It is a feature of organisms that as we rise in the See also:scale of life the meaning of the See also:present life of the organism is to an increasing degree subordinate to the larger meaning of its life as a whole
.
Similarly, as the advance from See also:primitive society to society of a more organic type takes place, a marked feature of the See also:change is the development of the principles through which the increasing subordination of the
present interests of society to the future interests of society is accomplished
.
It is, however, characteristic of the last-mentioned principles that their operation extends beyond the political consciousness of the See also:state or nation, and that this distinction becomes more and more marked in the higher See also:societies
.
The scope and meaning of sociology as a science is, therefore, quite different from the scope and meaning of the science of politics
.
In other quarters, again, the word sociology is often incorrectly used as no more than a covering term for subjects which are fully treated in various subdivisions of social science
.
Thus when the science of society is distinguished from the See also:special social sciences which fall within its general purview, it may be considered, says Lester F
.
See also: In See also:Herbert See also:Spencer's writings we see the subject in a period of transition . Spencer placed his Principles of Sociology between his Principles of See also:Psychology and Principles of See also:Ethics . This fact brings out the unsettled state of the subject in his time, while it also serves to exhibit the dominance of the ideas of an earlier See also:stage . For psychology, which Spencer thus places before sociology, cannot nowadays be fully, or even in any real sense scientifically, discussed apart from sociological principles, once it is accepted that in the See also:evolution of the human mind the principles of the social See also:process are always the ultimate controlling See also:factor . Sociology, therefore, as a true science in itself, must be regarded as a science occupied quite independently with the principles The Claims which underlie human society considered as in a conorsoolotogy.dition of development . In this sense the conclusions of sociology cannot be fully stated in relation to the phenomena dealt with in any of the divisions of social science, and they must be taken as implying more than the sum total of the results obtained in all of them . The sociologist must always keep clearly before him that the claims of sociology in the present conditions of knowledge go considerably beyond those involved in any of the foregoing positions . As it is the meaning of the social process which in the last resort controls everything, even the evolution of the human mind and all its contents, so none of the sciences of human See also:action, such as ethics, politics, See also:economics or psychology can have any See also:standing as a real science except it obtains its See also:credentials through sociology by making its approach through the sociological method . It is in sociology, in See also:short, that we obtain the ruling principles to which the laws and principles of all the social sciences stand in controlled and subordinate relationship . The fathers of the science of society may be said to be the Greek philosophers, and in particular See also:Plato and See also:Aristotle . The Sociology Laws and the See also:Republic of the former and the Ethics among the and Politics of the latter have, down to See also:modern times, Creeks. and notwithstanding the great difference in the stand-point of the See also:world and the change in social and political conditions, exercised a considerable influence on the development of the theory of society . To the Greeks the science of society presented itself briefly as the science of the best method of attaining the most perfect life within the consciousness ofthe associated life of the State . " In this ideal of the State," says See also:Bluntschli, " are combined and mingled all the efforts of the Greeks in See also:religion and in law, in morals and social life, in See also:art and science, in the acquisition and management of See also:wealth, in See also:trade and See also:industry . The individual requires the State to give him a legal existence: apart from the State he has neither safety nor freedom . The See also:barbarian is a natural enemy, and conquered enemies become slaves .... The Hellenic State, like the See also:ancient State in general . . . was all in all . The See also:citizen was nothing except as a member of the State . His whole existence depended on and was subject to the State . . The State knew neither moral nor legal limits to its See also:power " (Theory of the State) . It was within the limits of this conception that most of the Greek theories of society were constructed . The fundamental conception of the See also:Roman writers was not essentially different, although the opportunism ortunism of the Romaniarope . ocre. tta1 ? State, when it became a universal power embrac- See also:ing the social and religious systems of many peoples, is some degree modified it; so that with the growth of See also:jus gentium outside the jus civile, the later writers of the See also:empire brought into view an aspect of the State in which law began to be to some extent distinguished from State morality . With the spread of See also:Christianity in Western See also:Europe there commenced a stage in which the social structure, and with it the theory of society, underwent profound modifications . These changes are still in progress, and the period over which they extend has produced a great and increasing number of writers on the science of society . The conceptions of each period have been intimately related to the character of the influences controlling development at the time . The writers up to the 14th See also:century are nearly all absorbed in the great controversy between the spiritual and temporal power which was defining itself during this stage is Western See also:history . In the period of the See also:Renaissance and the See also:Reformation the modern development of the theory of society may be said to begin . See also:Machiavelli is the first great name is this period . See also:Bodin with other writers up to the time of See also:Montesquieu carry the development forward in See also:France . The Dutch writer Grotius, although chiefly recognized at the time as an authority on international law, had much influence in bringing into view principles which See also:mark more directly the transition to the modern period, his De jure See also:belli et pacis, issued in 1625, being in many respects an important contribution to the theory of society . See also:Hobbes and See also:Locke are the See also:principal representatives of the influential school of writers on the principles of society which the period of the political and religious upheaval of the 17th century produced in England . The ideas of Locke, in particular, exercised a considerable influence on the subsequent development of the theory of the State in Western thought . From the 17th century forward it may be said, strictly speaking, that all the leading contributions to the general See also:body of Western philosophy have been contributions to the development of the science of society . At the time of Locke, and to a large extent in Locke's writings, there may be distinguished three distinct tendencies in the prevailing theory of society .
Each of these has since become more definite, and has progressed along a particular See also:line of development
.
There is first the empirical tendency, which is to be followed through the philosophy of See also:Hume down to the present See also:day, in what may be called—to See also:borrow an See also:idea from See also:Huxley—the physiological method in the modern study of the science of society
.
A second tendency—which See also:developed through the See also:critical philosophy of See also:Kant, the See also:idealism of See also:Hegel, and the See also:historical methods of See also:Savigny in the field of See also:jurisprudence and of the school of See also:Schmoller in the domain of economics—finds its current expression in the more characteristically See also:German conception of the organic nature of the modern State
.
A third tendency—which is to be followed through the writings of See also: It was supposed that the governing principles of society were to be discovered by the introspective study of the individual mind, rather than that the See also:clue to the governing principles of the individual mind was only to be discovered by the study of the social process . It must now be considered that no really fundamental or far-reaching principle of human development can be formulated as the result of Comte's position . For with the application of the doctrine of evolution to society a position is becoming defined which is almost the See also:reverse of it, namely, that the development of the individual, and to a large extent of the human mind itself, must be regarded as:the correlative of the social process in evolution . The study of the principles of the process of social evolution would therefore in this sense have to come before the See also:complete study of the individual, and even to precede the construction of a system of psychology scientific in the highest sense . Comte, apart from his want of mastery of the historical method in dealing with sociological development, possessed, on the whole, little insight into the meaning of the characteristic problem in which the human mind is involved in its social evolution, and to the definition of which not only the processes of Western history, but the positions successively developed in Western thought, must all be considered as contributing . His great merit was the perception of the importance of the biological method in the science of society, the comprehension of the fact that there can be no science of society if its divisions are studied apart from each other; and finally, and although it led at the time to the formulation of no important principle of human development, the See also:intuition that sociology was not simply a theory of the State, but the science of what he called the associated life of humanity . It has to be observed that, preceding the application of the doctrine of evolution to society, most of the contributions to The Ruling social science have a certain aspect in which they principle of resemble each other . While in current theories Early sod- society tends to be presented as evolving, consciously °logical or unconsciously, under stress of natural selection, onep• donss: lnflu-towards social efficiency, the earlier contributions li ence of were merely theories of the meaning and See also:object Greek See also:con- of society as a See also:medium for the better realization of ception of human desires . In this presentation of the sub-the State. ject the influence of the Greek conception of the State upon modern sociology may be traced down to the present day . At the beginning of the modern period it reappears in Machiavelli (Tit= Livius, i., iii., and The See also:Prince) . It is represented in modified form in Hobbes (See also:Leviathan), and in Locke (Two See also:Treatises of See also:Government), each cf whom conceived man as desiring to leave the state of nature and as conscio. sly See also:founding civilized society, " in See also:order that he might obtain the benefits of government " in the associated State . It is continued in Rousseau and the writers of the French Revolution, who similarly imagined the individual voluntarily leaving an earlier state of freedom to put " his person and his power under the direction of the general will " (Social See also:Contract) . It is characteristic of See also:Jeremy Bentham (e.g . Principles of Morals and Legislation, i.) and of J . S . Mill (e.g . See also:Utilitarianism and Political Economy, iv., vi.) . Finally, it survives in Herbert Spencer, who in like manner See also:sees man originating society and submitting to political subordination in the associated State " through experience of the increased See also:satisfaction derived under it " (Data of Ethics) . It continues at the present day to be characteristic of many See also:European and some See also:American writers on sociology, who have been influenced both by Spencer and the Latin theory of the State, and who therefore, conceiving sociology not so much as a science of social evolution as a theory of association, proceed to consider the progress of human association as the development of a process " of catering to human See also:desire for satisfactions of varying degrees of complexity." All these ideas of society See also:bear the same See also:stamp . They conceive the science of society as reached through the science of the individual, the associated State being regarded only as a medium through which he obtains increased satisfactions . In none of them is there a clear conception of an organic science of society with laws and principles of its own controlling all the meaning of the individual . With the application of the doctrine of evolution the older idea in which society is always conceived as the State and as existing .to give increased " satisfaction " is replaced The Doc-by a new and much more extended conception . In trine of the evolutionary view, the development of human Evolution. society is regarded as the product of a process of stress, in which progress results from natural selection along the line not of least effort in realizing human desire, but of the highest social efficiency in the struggle for existence of the materials of which society is composed . In the intensity of this process society, evolving towards higher efficiency, tends to become increasingly organic, the distinctive feature being the growing subordination of the individual to the organic social process . All the tendencies of development—political, economic, ethical and psychological —and the contents of the human mind itself, have therefore to be regarded as having ultimate relations to the governing principles of the process as a whole . The science of social evolution has, in short, to be considered, according to this view, as the science of the causes and principles subordinating the individual to a process developing by inherent See also:necessity towards social efficiency, and therefore as ultimately over-ruling all desires and interests in the individual towards the highest social potentiality of the materials of which society is composed . The conflict between the old and the new conceptions may be distinguished to an increasing degree as the scope of modern sociology has gradually become defined; and the opposing ideas of each may be observed to be sometimes represented and blended, in varying degrees of complexity, in one and the same writer . It was natural that one of the first ideas to be held by theorists, as soon as sociology began to make progress to the position of a real science, was that society must be considered First con. to be organic, and that the term " social organism " ceptions of should be brought into use . An increasing number society as of writers have been concerned with this aspect of an See also:organ-the subject, but it has to be noted as a fact of Ism' much See also:interest that all the first ideas of society as an organism move within the narrow circle of the old conception of the State just described . The " social organism " in this first stage of theory is almost universally confused with the State . The interests of the. social organism are therefore confused with the interest of the individuals which men saw around them in the State . The science of society was accordingly regarded as no more than the science of realizing most effectively here and now the desires of those comprising the existing State . Sidgwick, for instance, considered the science of politics and the science of sociology as practically coincident, and his Elements of Politics, extraordinary to relate, contains only a few words in which it is recognized that the welfare of the community may be interpreted to mean the welfare not only of living human beings, but of those who are to come hereafter; while there is no See also:attempt to apply the fact to any law or principle of human development . Bentham's utilitarian philosophy, like that of the two See also:Mills, was based almost entirely on the idea of the State conceived as the social organism . Writers like Herbert Spencer (Sociology) and Schaflle, who was for a time See also:minister of See also:commerce for See also:Austria (Bats and Leben See also:des socialen Korpers), instituted lengthy comparisons between the social organism considered as the State and the living individual organ-ism . These efforts reached their most characteristic expression in the work of the sociologists who have followed G . Simmel in lengthy and ingenious attempts at classifying associations, considering them " as organizations for catering to human desire." In all these efforts the conception of the State as the social organism is vigorously represented, although it is particularly characteristic of the work of sociologists in countries where the influence of Roman law is still strong, and where, consequently, the Latin conception of the State tends to influence all theories of society as soon as the attempt is made to place them on a scientific basis . The sterilizing effect for long produced on sociology by this first restricted conception of the social organism has been most marked . It is often exemplified in ingenious attempts made, dealing with the principles of sociology, to construct long categories of human associations, based on quite superficial distinctions . None of the comparisons of this See also:kind that have been made have contributed in any marked degree to the elucidation of the principles of modem society . See also:Paul Leroy-See also:Beaulieu's See also:criticism of See also:Schaffle's efforts at comparisons—anatomical, physiological, biological and psychological—between the individual organism and the State as a social organism applies to most of the attempts of this period to See also:institute biological comparisons between the life of the social organ-ism and that of organisms in general, " the mind sinks overwhelmed under the See also:weight of all these analogies, these endless divisions and subdivisions to which they give rise . . . . The result is not in proportion to the effort " (L'Etat modern et ses fonctions) . In tracing the direction of this conflict between the newer and older tendencies in modern sociology, it is in Herbert Spencer's writings that the student will find presented in clearest definition the characteristic difficulty with which the old view has tended to be confronted, as the attempt has continued to be made to enunciate the principles of human development from the standpoint that society is to be considered as a " social organism," but while as yet there is no clear idea of a social organism with its own laws and its own consciousness quite distinct from, and extending far beyond those governing the interests of the individuals at present comprising the State . With the application of the doctrine of evolution to society considered as an organism, a position has been brought into view of great interest . It is evident in considering the application of natural selection to human society that there is a fact, en-countered at the outset, which is so fundamental that it must be held to See also:control all the phenomena of social evolution . It is nowadays a See also:commonplace of knowledge, that the potential efficiency of an organism must always be taken to be greater than the sum total of the potential efficiency of all its members acting as individuals . This arises in the first instance from the fact, to be observed on all hands in life, of the effects of organization, of See also:division of labour, and of specialization of' Work . But in an organism of indefinitely extended existence like hun;afi society, it arises in a special sense from the operation of principles giving society prolonged stability . By these principles individual interests are subordinated over long periods of time to the larger interests of organic society in which the individuals for the time being cannot participate; and it is from this cause that See also:civilization of the highest type obtains its characteristic potency and efficiency in the struggle for existence with See also:lower types . There follows from this fact, obvious enough once it is mentioned, an important inference . This is that in the evolution of society natural selection will, in its characteristic results, reach the individual not directly, but through society . That is to say, in social evolution, the interests of the individual, qua individual, cease to be a See also:matter of first importance . It is by development in the individual of the qualities which will contribute most to the efficiency of society, that natural selection will in the long run produce its distinctive results in the human individual . It is, in short, about this See also:function of socialization, involving the increasing subordination of the individual, that the continued evolution of society by natural selection must be held to centre . Societies in which the individuals resist the process quickly reach the limits of their progress, and have to give way in the struggle for existence before others more organic in which the process of subordination continues to be developed . In the end it is the social organizations in which the interests of the individual are most effectively included in and rendered subservient to the interests of society considered in its most organic aspect that, from their higher efficiency, are naturally selected . In other words, it is the principles subordinating the individual to the efficiency. of society in those higher organic aspects that project far beyond the life-interests of its existing See also:units which must ultimately control all principles whatever of human association . Spencer, in an elaborate comparison which he made (Essays, vol. i., and Principles of Sociology) between the social organism and the individual organism brought into view a Spencer and position which in its relation to this See also:capital fact of Natural human evolution exhibits in the clearest manner Selec4oa• how completely all the early evolutionists, still under the influence of old conceptions, failed at first to grasp the significance of the characteristic problems of the social organism . Spencer's comparison originally appeared in an See also:article published in the See also:Westminster See also:Review for See also:January 186o entitled " The Social Organism." This article is in many respects one of the most noteworthy documents in the literature of the last See also:half of the loth century . In comparing the social with the individual organism Spencer proceeded, after noting the various aspects in which a See also:close See also:analogy between the two can be estab-Iished, to make, as regards society, an important distinction by which the nature of the difficulty in which he is involved is immediately made apparent . While in an individual organism, he pointed out, it is necessary that the lives of all the parts should be mergedin the life of the whole, because the whole has a corporate consciousness capable of happiness or misery, it is not so with society . For in society, he added, the " living units do not and cannot lose individual consciousness, since the community as a whole has no corporate consciousness." Spencer proceeded, therefore, to emphasize the conclusion that " this is an ever-lasting See also:reason why the welfare of citizens cannot rightly be sacrificed to some supposed benefit of the State; but why, on the other See also:hand, the State is to be maintained solely for the benefit of citizens." The extraordinary conclusion is indeed reached by Spencer that " the corporate life in society must be subservient to the lives of the parts, instead of the lives of the parts being subservient to the corporate life." It will be here clearly in See also:evidence that the " social organism " which Spencer had in view was the State . But it.will be noticed at the same time how altogether remarkable was the position into which he was carried . Spencer, like most thinking minds of his time, had the clearest See also:vision, constantly displayed in his writings, of the scientific importance of that development in history which has gradually projected the conception of the individual's rights outside all theories of See also:</ |