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part, realise that law is meaningless if it is detached from religion,
which has given it its main distinguishing marks, and of which it is
partially only a derivation. Conversely, historians of religion
206
Writings of Durkheim on Sociology and its Method
generally feel no need to relate the religious beliefs and practices
of peoples to the political organisation. This is true when a
specialist has successfully perceived that the facts with which he is
dealing are solidly joined to other collective manifestations. In
order to determine the nature of this solidarity he is forced to
elaborate once more, from his own standpoint. and incorporate
them into his research, all those specific sciences the help of which
he requires. This is what Schmoller did in his
Grundriss der
allgemeinen Volkswirtschaftslehre.
This work represents a whole
sociology seen from the economic viewpo�nt. One realises just
how fragile must be such a synthesis of heterogeneous studies so
summarily carried out, studies which demand a corresponding
heterogeneity of special expertise. Only the spontaneous co
operation bet�een all these specific sciences can impart to each
one even a rough idea of the relation that each one sustains with
the others.
Thus, although they tend increasingly to turn in the direction of
sociology, in many respects this orientation still remains indecisive
and unconscious. To work to make it more precise, to underline it,
. to make it more a conscious one is, we believe, the urgent problem
for sociology. The sociological idea must penetrate more deeply
these various technological disciplines. The latter may well be
aspiring towards it spontaneously, but are groping their way .
forward in slow, embarrassed fashion. If this condition is fulfilled,
Cointe's conception will cease to be a mere intellectual vision and
will become reality. For the unity of the social domain cannot find
a fitting expression in a few general philosophical formulae
infinitely removed from the facts and the detailed data of research.
Such an idea can only have as its mechanism a body of distinct but
solidly linked sciences, with each possessing a sense of that
solidarity. Moreover we can predict that these sciences, once they
are organised, will repay philosophy with interest what they have
borrowed from it. For, from the relationships established between
them, will arise common
_
doctrines which will constitute the heart
of the organism so constituted and will become the subject of a
renewed, rejuvenated social philosophy, one which will be positive
and progressive, like the very sciences whose crowning glory it will
be.
Notes
Sociology and the Social Sciences (1903) 207
1. Levy-Bruhl,
La philosophie d'Auguste Comte,
p.403 ;
2. A. Comte,
Cours de philosophie positive,
IV, p. 215.
,3. Ibid., p. 216.
4. Ibid., IV, p. 214.
5.
Social statics
consists of a very small number of theories which, all in
all, remind one of the
political
philosophy of preceding centuries
regarding the family, the nature of the social bond, and that of
govenlment. Doubtless valuable information is to be found in them.
Yet not only are most of the types of groups - clans, classes, castes,
corporations, cities, towns, etc. - not considered, but the family, the
basic social unit, is also conceived of as being invariable. The idea of
a classification of the various kinds of domestic organisation, which
implies that of various correlations between the family and larger
organisations, did not occur to Comte. Thus there were no data to
give rise to discoveries, and the theory of the family was summarily
dealt with.
6. The phrase is that of Tarde
(Lois de l'imitation,
p. v.), who cites as
. his authority a philosopher, who appears to be Taine. But whoever
the author, it seems to us to be only marginally scientific. We do not
believe that there is a science for which a key of this kind exists. The
locks must be laboriously opened, even forced, one after the other.
7. This way of conceiving sociology is so ingrained that sometimes the
works of sociologists are interpreted as if they could not be con
ceived of in any other way. Thus we have been reproached for
wanting,to reduce everything to the division of labour, because we
have written a book on the subject, or wishing to explain everything
by collective constraint, whereas we have only seen in the coercive
nature of institutions a means, perhaps not even the sole one, of
defining social facts so as to determine the field of study.
8. John Stuart Mill,
Logic,
book VI, ch. X. ss. 2. The distinction
between the two meanings of the word 'general' has been nicely
drawn by Belot in his Introduction to the sixth book of the French
translation (1897) p. 1xxv.
9. Ibid., book VI, ch. X, ss. 1.
10. Il}id., book VI, ch. X ss. 7.
11. F. H. Giddings,
The Principles of Sociolo$y,
New York. 1896.
pp.32-3.
12. Ibid. , p. 33.
13. Ibid. , loc. cit.
14. Giddings goes so far as to state that the social sciences are differenti
ated from sociology, just as the latter is from psychology and as
psychology itself is from biology. Ibid.,
pp.
25 - 6.
15. Giddings,
The Principles of Sociology,
p. 79.
208 Writings of Durkheim on Sociology and its Method
16. Ibid. , pp. 82-7.
17. Ibid. , p. 89.
18. Simmel, 'Co.mment les formes so.cio.lo.giques se maintiennent',
Annee 'sociologique,
I,
p.
72. Cf. by the same autho.r,
Ober soziale
Differenzierung,
Leipzig, 1890, pp. 10--20, and 'Le probleme de
la
so.cio.lo.gie',
Revue de mttaphysique.
Yr. 2, p.497.
19. In the autho.r's thinking there is a co.ntradictio.n which seems to' us
insoluble. Acco.rding to' him ·so.cio.lo.gy must include all that is
produced by
society.
This seems to' imply a certain efficacity o.n the
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