530 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCWLOGi
The contents of the first division regarding the nature of politics are further divided into three subdivisions : (i) "The Task of Sociol- ogy," (2) "The Method of Sociological Investigation," (3) "The Posi- tivism of All Knowledge and Science."
In the portion upon the "task of sociology" Ratzenhofer devotes a few pages to a survey of the consideration and investigation thus far of the reciprocal relationships among men — a survey which could scarcely be more simply and correctly given. He remarks (p. 2) : "Without being reasonably conscious of the connection with one tend- ency or another, men have always given much attention to social relationships, because they recognized that they dominate the most essential part of their life interests. The state, law, and industry were investigated without succeeding in obtaining a scientific basis for these branches of knowledge. Mind remained yet as something independ- ent of material conceptions, and the destiny of men seemed to be an arbitrary work of divinity or chance. With such opinions it was diffi- cult to believe in a scientific content of the reciprocal relationships of men. The psychical sciences remained far behind securely advancing physical science, until at the end of the nineteenth century they are forced by the latter to recognize as undeniable the conformity of every- thing in existence to law. The researches which concerned themselves with the reciprocal relationships of men were, from the writings of Aris- totle down to modern times, of a predominantly descriptive and only incidentally investigating character. , Attaching itself to Galileo and Bacon's conception of the world, the endeavor to find out the causes of historical effects progressed slowly ; and the historical school began with Machiavelli and Montesquieu to acquire influence over political science. The development of humanity and of its culture was judged by Herder, for example, by means of the natural sciences ; especially the investiga- tion of the economic life of peoples made advancement by virtue of the energy peculiar to its interests. Malthus and Smith really began the scientific treatment of human relationships. But these doctrines concerning the economic relationships of men could not be verified, and are coming to be more and more contested, because they lack the basis of a doctrine of human reciprocal relationships, and because they were conceived at a time when natural science had not yet demon- strated convincingly that conformity to law upon which they necessa- rily rest. Attempts, on the contrary, to found a sociology — the most famous of which was Herbert Spencer's — were not able to dispel the doubts in respect to it, because this meritorious fault is (to such a
