Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 6.djvu/21

THE RELATION OF SOCIOLOGY TO PHILOSOPHY. 5 It is possible, I think, to exhibit this distinction, and its vanishing quality, in a striking light, by what is something more than a mere illustration. Not only may Sociology be com- pared with Psychology in its relation to Philosophy proper, but in a great measure, as we shall see, the relation in the two cases is actually the same. For Sociology, in its later develop- ments, seems likely to be regarded as a psychological science. Thus the relation of Psychology to Philosophy reproduces in many respects that of " Social Science " to the Philosophy of Society. Like Sociology proper, Psychology in the strict sense is a science of modern origin. Like Sociology, it assumed at first the position of an extension of the natural sciences to a field hitherto denied to them, and proclaimed itself to deal, not with the value or significance of special intellectual phenomena, but with the general and causal laws which governed the operations of mind. The im- partiality or speculative neutrality which we observed in early Sociology is claimed with startling emphasis even by the most recent Psychology. All revelations of mind, we .are told, are of equal interest and importance for Psychology as such. It is not their grade in reality, but their exempli- fication of psychical laws and causes, which entitles them to psychological consideration. And the very terminology of Psychological Science appears to confirm the comparison here suggested, both in respect of the primary relation of Sociology to Philosophy and in respect of the possibility of a further one. The Laws of Association, with which modern psychology began, and in which, for a great part of its course, it has principally con- sisted, might serve for a designation of the general problem of abstract Sociology no less than of the general problem of abstract Psychology. So long as either science restricts itself to the consideration of the abstract conditions of any cohesion whatever, so long as the simplest connexion of units is as good an object for it as the great organised structures of civilisation, the indifference which belongs to it as a purely natural investigation remains unimpaired. And the strict definition of Psychology undoubtedly de- mands this indifference. In dealing with the mere course of psychical events, it makes abstraction from the relations to reality which constitute the essence of Logic or Ethics, or other branches of Philosophy. Just so, as we have noted, Sociology as such is indifferent whether the grouping, with which its Laws of Association are concerned, consists of a civilised state or a savage horde, of a Christian family or a polygamous community.