NOTES AMD ABSTRA CTS 1 1 1
wages, the unwilling employer would recoup himself by lowering wages. Profit- sharing, made compulsory, would lose its supplementary character and become an integral part of the principal remuneration. As the congress of 1889 recognized, "profit-sharing cannot be imposed by the state, it must result solely, according to circumstances, from the initiative of the employer or from the request of workmen, agreed to by him, like any other agreement relative to the remuneration of labor." — Maurice Vanlaer, "Les conclusions d'une ttudesur la participation aux b^n^fices," La Riforme sociale, April i, 1898.
Definition and Classification of Sociologfy and the Social Sciences. — Socia sciences refer not only to man, but to other beings. When two beings join each other and create voluntary or necessary relationships between them, there exists a society. The study of such a society constitutes a social science, which takes different names according to the facts examined. It is called sociology when it studies society as a whole and seeks general laws. Perhaps the relationships between inanimate things, between planets and even molecules, constitute a sociology in the widest sense of the word. Concrete sciences do not all fall into a linear order, but rather into a group of superimposed planes, thus : Concrete sciences: (i) study of real beings con- sidered in their parts and in the functions of their parts — biology, geology, botany, mineralogy, geology, astronomy; (2) study of the unity of an individual being — psychology and psychological sciences ; (3) study of the union of several individ- uals — sociology and social sciences; (4) study of the union of all societies — cos- mology, theodicy, and cosmological sciences. Social sciences, like others, are pure or applied. The first establish facts, compare them, and seek their causality. Social sciences and sociology then form a whole of graded sections, thus : Social sciences :
(1) establishment of facts — sciences of religion, history, geography, law, economy, philology, ethnology, etc.; (2) comparison, and study of succession in time, place, and cause — comparative religion, comparative history, etc. Sociology: (3) investigation of special laws — sociology of religions, of history, etc. ; (4) general laws — general sociology. Sociology may then be defined as the philosophy of the social sciences. Applied science has two peculiarities — it looks at the present and the future, and it bears the personal active stamp of man, whose oflice in pure science is passive. Thus special sociology is: (i) pure — religion, history, geography, law, economy, linguistics;
(2) applied — special laws of religion, history, etc., directed toward future improve- ment; (3) contingent — religion, etc., applied according to circumstances to obtain improvement. General sociology is, in a similar way, pure, applied, and contingent. From this scheme results the complete definition of sociology as "the science of the laws of society (pure sociology), of the application of these laws (applied sociology), and of the contingent application of the absolute application (contingent sociology)." The social sciences may be distinguished as: (i) qualitative — history, economics, law, etc. ; (2) quantitative — historical statistics, economic statistics, etc. Sociology itself is neither qualitative nor quantitative, but looks now from one point of view, now from the other, now from both. — Raoul de la Grasserie, " Definizione e classificazione della sociologia e delle scienze sociali," Rivista Italiana di Sociologia, March, 1898.
Man's Dependence on the Earth. — The different regions of the earth are of two classes — those which repel and those which attract man. The reason for the con- trast is to be found in the complex relation between the land and man. This relation is constantly varying, and man changes his place according as he finds a fuller satisfaction of his desires and wants. "The study of the relations between man and the earth comprehends three parts : the determination of the factors on which the value of the relation depends ; the variations of the relation, and the inquiry whether it tends toward a limit, and, if so, toward what limit." Three series of conditions determine the existence and development of man in general, "for living, the realiza- tion of a certain minimum of indispensable natural requisites ; for the creation of a particular civilization, a certain material abundance, which can be obtained only by utilizing the resources of the planet ; and for the transformation of this local civilization into a general civilization, facilities for outside contact and mutual exchange." While the laws of human development remain the same everywhere, necessarily very
