250 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
tion." That is, the term is simply a convenient generic desig- nation for every kind and degree of social combination which for the time being attracts attention as capable of consideration by itself. The term is innocent of theoretical implications. It is simply serviceable as a colorless designation of the phenomena which the sociologist must investigate.
Sociology is not a mechanical forcing of the facts of life into these categories. On the contrary, the more we generalize the facts of life, the more they force us to think of them under these forms. Our thought in these forms may prove to be a passing stage in progress toward more complete and positive knowledge. Meanwhile these concepts certainly stand for a stage, whether permanent or transient, in approach to apprehension of social fact and social law. Intelligent use of these concepts is the condition of attaining that measure of insight into social reality which sociology at present commands. As this paper has implied throughout, it is a very simple matter to get a list of the important sociological concepts. It is quite another thing to get so used to applying them that they are the natural forms in which the ordinary facts of experience present themselves to the mind. On the other hand, merely rilling one's sentences with terms from the sociological vocabulary does not, in itself, give evidence of sociological insight. The state of mind which sociological study should produce is that in which the activities of society present to the mind simultaneously all these relation- ships. Then the mature sociological judgment will instinctively select the one or more of these relationships which may be peculiarly significant for the case in hand, and will take the others for granted. In other words, it is necessary to get so much experience in analyzing societies in terms of these con- cepts that we can readily tell which of them we must continue to consider and which of them we may throw out of the account.
ALBION W. SMALL. THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO.
\To be continued^
