METAPHYSICAL ELEMENTS IN SOCIOLOGY 523
sion of others in terms of ourselves through which, and through which only, this resemblance can become conscious.
But this conclusion as to the appreciative nature of ejective interpretation not only has value for us from the fact that it supports the general contention of the whole of the present paper, but has a more immediate application. Professor Giddings has said that this ejective interpretation " is the intellectual element in consciousness of kind." Then, since it is a constitutive element of consciousness of kind, and since it has been shown to be appre- ciative, we can now see that, from this point of view also, the principle of consciousness of kind contains an element of appre- ciation; thus showing that what the first part of the paper con- tended should and must exist in sociological explanation, if it is to be adequate, really does exist in Professor Giddings' principle of consciousness of kind, though not admitted by its author.
When we contend that the consciousness of kind has in it a considerable element of appreciation, we are by no means repeat- ing the old criticism that the principle is a metaphysical abstrac- tion. We have at all times implicitly, if not explicitly, affirmed that it is a very real principle, a potent factor in social phenomena. What is argued for is that this force or principle, call it what you will, does contain appreciation as an essential and constitutive moment. We do not question at all the right of sociology to be called a separate branch of learning, nor do we hold that sociology is a metaphysic. We do not wish to be understood to hold that consciousness of kind is exclusively appreciative; but what is insisted upon here is that sociology does contain and, if it would be adequate to the facts that it is called upon to interpret, must contain a metaphysical element.
IMITATION.
M. Gabriel Tarde agrees with Professor Giddings in holding to the necessity of having a psychic principle central in socio- logical explanation. He would, however, hold that it is imitation which explains societary phenomena. Linguistic, legislative, judicial, political, industrial, artistic, and similar developments, customs of life and of dress all these have arisen through imi-
