SEMINAR NOTES.
SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS AND THE RIEMANN SURFACE."
We are groping for a more perfect conception of the organic unity of the life of society. Such phrases as "the social organism " have for some time been frequent upon our lips, yet they do not carry, to the uninitiated at least, the whole significance of the light of a truth which is only beginning to dawn upon us. Attempted generalizations, where they have dealt with actual, known conditions, have been only partially successful. The vastness of the field for investigation, the complexity of the material to be dealt with, have rendered it extremely difficult to present results at once comprehensive and profound.
These facts have been realized by certain present-day philosophers whose first care it has been to elaborate and perfect a method which should be a tool worthy of the work. They have tried and tested it in many ways, and by means of it are laying the foundations of a philoso- phy which they believe shall be a vantage-ground to a better under- standing of the nature of the structure of our social life. With the fruits of their labors our interest is here concerned. The purpose of the present endeavor is to lead to a realization of the significance of the new philosophy in one or two of its aspects. We do not ask how it has been derived, but what, in point of fact and formulae, it is, as applied to all and every phase of life.
Instead of singling out a particular phenomenon, to trace its wind- ing way through the tangle for a little distance, without being able to tell why it takes now this turn and now that, or to say anything about the myriads of other threads which cross and recross it — all that men have been able to do up to date — the sociologist today
•When the figure. Journal of Sociology, November, 1898, p. 382, was explained to the class of which the writer of this paper was a member. Miss Hewes suggested that the thought could be more fully indicated by the symbolism of the Riemann doctrine. She was requested to elaborate the suggestion, and the paper may accord- ingly be read as an appendix to the chapter above cited. As its two closing para- graphs clearly indicate, it is not an attempt to give final formulation to social combinations. It tries to make the fact of the complexity in all social reactions more evident, and to give an approximate notion of the degree of that complexity. Miss Hewes' contribution to the subject is certainly commendable. A. W. S.
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