I 44 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
instance, it is inductive, while in political economy it is deductive. And again, the form which this method assumes varies with the variations of the science in which it is employed, and sometimes with the nature of the principles which are to be discovered or verified. The psychological method may therefore be defined as that process of research which, when the phenomena are a mere product of psychic forces (sentiments, emotions, desires, beliefs, etc.,) seeks the laws of such phenomena by means of the deductive or inductive treatment of these forces.
Now the question has lately been agitated, "Can a science of sociology be con- structed by the exclusive employment of this method ? " From the definition just given it would appear that its use must be limited to the investigation of purely psychic phe- nomena. But social phenomena are not solely the product of mental and spiritual forces. External nature exercises an influence upon the social constitution of a people equal to that of the mental factors. The psychological method, then, is applicable to only one set of social phenomena, namely, those produced by purely mental and spiritual forces. Those who wish to apply it exclusively must assign to sociology a problem quite different from that ordinarily assigned to it. According to them sociol- considered as a special social science ought to abstract the purely social side of 'history and make it the object of special observation ; it ought to represent the study of the forces, the forms and the development of association and nothing else. This view starts out from the unestablished premise that in every human being there is an individual and a collective mind ; that in every man there is a natural tend- ency toward associative life, independent of any prospect of individual betterment. Man, however, is not a social animal as an end but as a means. He does not aspire to associative life on account of its abstract, but on account of its concrete quality, that is, on account of the means which it affords of increasing his pleasures and decreasing the pains which he would otherwise encounter. In short the theory that there is in man a spirit of association, different from and opposed to the egoistic spirit, is a mere a priori conception of certain writers who need such a theory as a basis for their preconceived doctrines. If this be true the psychological method is inapplicable in the construction of a science of sociology. VINCENZO TANGORRA, in Rivista di Sociologia, January and February 1896. Rome.
The Sweating System. This term is used to describe a condition of labor in which a maximum amount of work in a given time is performed for a minimum wage, under conditions in which the ordinary rules of health and comfort are disregarded. It is inseparably associated with contract work, and it is intensified by subcontracting in shops conducted in homes. Such conditions prevail to a distressing degree in locali- ties having a large, herded foreign population, and among people known for excessive industry and thrift. High rents and a subdivision of labor without an accompanying use of machinery are the other factors producing this condition. While the sweating system exists in a number of occupations, it is the garment making industry that has given it its real significance. It is in the manufacture of the better class of garments that the worst conditions prevail, for the cheaper grades are made in such large quan- tities that the more systematic production is more profitable. New York, Massachu- setts, Pennsylvania and Illinois have aimed at the suppression of the sweat shop by radical legislation. These laws prohibit not only the manufacture of garments in liv- ing apartments, except by immediate members of the family, and in unsanitary work- shops, but seek to interfere with the sale of such goods by making it necessary to have a label attached and by forbidding their sale until properly disinfected and the label removed. The Illinois law omits the label provision. The worst features of the sweating system are also being eradicated through the efforts of the United Garment Workers of America. The strike begun in New York and Brooklyn in 1894 was suc- cessful and was continued in other cities, though with less success. This has stimu- lated similar efforts in Germany, where an increase in wages of 12^ per cent, has been secured through strikes. Another weapon with which to fight the system is the influence of the purchasing public and also the union label. Factory legislation is accomplishing much in all countries where the evil is found. HENRY WHITE in the Bulletin of the Department of Labor for May 1896.
