countless. It is therefore to be assumed from the start that the truth will more frequently reappear in the see-saw of opinions, not than error in general, to be sure, but than any given error. So the unity of the social group has the chance to preserve, to strengthen, and to deepen itself against all interruptions and fluctuations, because these are always of different sorts, while the group unity at each reappearance is the same. By virtue of this fact, the above discussed favorable consequences of social variability for the maintenance of the group may exist without the necessity that the fact of change in general shall enter into serious competition with the principle of unity.
I close these criticisms herewith. In the nature of the case they do not attempt completeness in any direction. They rather serve to exemplify the principle which alone, in my opinion, can found an independent science of sociology, viz., the abstraction of socialization, as a form of existence with and for others, from the concrete conditions, interests, emotions, which make up the content of that form. Neither hunger nor love, neither labor nor the religious sentiment, neither technique nor the contents of intelligence, are in and of themselves alone social in character; but the coexistence and reciprocal influence of human beings make them factors actual and effectual. Although reciprocity, unity, contrasted station of human beings emerge always merely as the form of some concrete content, yet upon abstracting isolation of that form from the content rests the possibility of a science of society in the exact sense. This, as a matter of course, is not affected by the circumstance that the content of socialization, its material purpose and interest, often, if not always, decides upon its special formation. Thus the geometrical description of a crystalline form is a problem the independence of which is absolutely unaffected by the fact that its realization in the case of a single body depends upon the chemical constitution of the same. The enormous wealth of problems which this point of view makes visible within the field of historical reality seems to be beyond doubt. In view of the fact, however, that this point of view has not yet been used to differentiate a special province of research, it is first of all in order to
