37 2 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
was found to be vastly different from that for cosmic evolution. We saw that, in order to understand the causes of social phenom- ena by going to individuals, we were required to get into terms of fellowship with the object of our investigation, so that the interaction from that point of view is found to be internal. The conception that all interaction is and must be internal has been current in philosophy since Lotze. 28 Professor Giddings realizes the necessity of such a conception when he says :
I have never thought or spoken of mere contact, whether hostile or friendly, as constituting association or a society. It is association if, and only if, accompanied by a consciousness on the part of each of the creatures implicated that the creatures with which it comes in contact are like itself."
This involves a recognition, though not necessarily conscious, of certain appreciatively descriptive terms as descriptive symbols whereby appreciative experiences are characterized, and only after such recognition can these terms be used.
Professor Small says : " The social fact is the incessant rela- tion between three chief factors : nature, individuals, and institu- tions or modes of association between individuals." 80 Now, what is this more or less than the field of metaphysics? Metaphysics investigates the nature, meaning, and final meaning of nature, individuals, and the modes of association between individuals. Now, if the social fact is the " incessant relation " between these three, then, in order to understand that relation and to under- stand that relation is the problem of sociology we must first understand what the inner nature of those three is ; for interaction that is external is a conception that, as Lotze has pointed out, involves all sorts of difficulties; leaving internal interaction as the only tenable alternative. But since sociology deals with inter- action, and interaction demands the knowledge of the inner nature of the things interacting, then this interaction, which is the object of sociological investigation, cannot be understood unless we have first investigated the inner nature of the things interacting, and which from our starting-point are: nature and individuals.
" LOTZK, Melaphysic, Book I.
"Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. V, p. 750.
"AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY, Vol. V, p. 788.
