THE SCOPE OF SOCIOLOGY.
VI. SOME INCIDENTS OF ASSOCIATION.
IN the five foregoing papers we have indicated some of the large ideas, both of fact and of method, which sociologists are learning to take for granted as necessary preliminaries to their special work. We come then to the threshold of sociology itself. Within the horizon which we have outlined we encounter the reality of human associations, in countless numbers and in bewildering orders, all making up the comprehensive fact of association in general. Our task as sociologists is to analyze, clas- sify, and interpret these different phases of association in their relations to each other and in their bearings upon the interests of living men.
When we reach the stage of maturity at which we recognize the need of the sociological order of generalization, we are already in possession of facts in great abundance about human associations. This material may be chiefly the spoil of accidental observation, or it may have been inherited from the less general social sciences. From the sociological standpoint, it is unas- sorted and uncriticised. We assume that the analyses of the more special social sciences may be made tributary to sociological synthesis, but we must mark out a procedure of our own before this aid can be used to full advantage.
The point of departure which we propose for sociology is the viewpoint from which all known human associations present certain characteristics in common. Whether we have in view the conjugal association of one man with one woman in the family, the casual association of buyer and seller in the market, the intermittent association of priest and layman in the religious assembly, or the permanent association of citizens in the nation, certain relationships are universal among the persons associated. The intensity of these relationships varies indefinitely. They are often discernible only as tendencies. They might not be sus- pected if other experience did not point to them. Many of them
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