Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 11.djvu/768

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752 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

gospel, have not been sufficiently worked out. The system of feudal law, which still incrusts occidental civilization, has its animating principle in the mediaeval maxim, Nul terre sans seigneur, which might be conveniently translated as, in the social sense, "No spot without its despot," and in the civil sense, "No foot of soil without its functionary." The contrast of these ideals with that of Christian ethics "the kingdom of God is within you" is sufficiently obvious. But what the student of city development has to do is to trace the expression and inter- action of these conflicting ideals in each successive phase of civic architecture and civic policy. Thus, for instance, in the case of London, the sociologist is to see how the Tower and Windsor Castle are the expression and embodiment of certain political ideals, and he is to trace throughout the history of London the influences and ramifications of the Tower and the castle and follow their line of direct descent down to the existing institu- tions which are their heir, and their functional analogue these presumably being the contemporary functionary factories of Whitehall. In the same way, he is to see how Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's are the culminating expression and em- bodiment of certain spiritual ideals; and their influence and reaction on civic life and architecture are likewise also to be traced through successive stages of city development; and the analogous types of institutions today have to be discovered and described alike in their structural and functional aspects. And every city has for the sociologist its corresponding problems of factual observation, of historical analysis, and of scientific inter- pretation. All these again, to be sure, assume their place as specialist researches within the larger problems of general sociology.

Now, if we apply the fourfold sociological formulae above in- dicated to the present and future phases of science considered as a spiritual power, what inferences may we legitimately draw? The existing groups of science, whether or not organized in definite societies, are comparable, we have seen, to the various sects of the religious community. Now, these numerous and various sects, like their more archaic religious types, have their