And a new science took its birth in Germany, with a view to studying the products of psy chological activity in primitive minds or in the underlying men talities of the more cultured peoples; that is, the V olkerpsycholo gie or folk-psychology, of which Lazarus and Steinthal are the founders. This has seen but one of many psychological approaches towards an ever-growing enrichment of the sociological reper toire. The others most notable are: (a) observational and sys tematic studies of the child-mind in its growth from infancy on wards, culminating in the profound mental and emotional changes of adolescence. This approach has been pioneered mainly by Americans, and notably by Stanley Hall, whose great work Ado lescence constitutes a landmark in the understanding of those mental changes which transform the "individual" into a social being; (b) the comparative study of animal and human societies, pioneered by Darwin's investigations of emotional expression in animal life; developed by Espinasse in his Les Societes Animales ; and carried fully into the world of man by Trotter in his Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War; (c) Durkheim's theory of Collec tive Representations, which goes to show that men united in or ganised groups think and feel differently from isolated individuals; that societies have representations which are peculiar to them, collective representations charged with collective emotions ; and that these representations (beliefs, myths, aesthetic images, moral notions, scientific concepts, technical ideas), form the greater part of thought and sensibility strictly human ; that it is by its participation in this collective treasure that the thought of indi viduals surpasses that of animals ; and finally above all that these collective representations express not only the exterior world and the individual consciousness, but society itself, a real being and a system of forces, which dominate individuals and act in and through them; (d) the psycho-analytic school founded by Freud and Breuer (but developed by the former and his pupils and con tinuators, notably Jung and Adler), which shows, with a wealth of detail, how the mind of every individual is built up by a com plex interplay between more or less organic impulses (especially those of sex) and social factors such as parental control, the in hibitions and ordinances of custom, the aspirations and repressions of manners, law, religion, politics, etc.
From the foregoing psychological ap proaches collectively there is growing up a doctrine of society, its structure, functions, origins and purpose which, in popular esti mation, probably outranges any sociological presentation as yet made. Similarly the anthropologists are in course of creating a sociology of their own. Ignoring the vast and profound labours of Comte in establishing and elaborating the concept of Social In heritance as the differential characteristic of Man in society and therefore the essential subject matter of sociology, those anthro pologists who emphasize and work out the idea of Cultural Dif fusion are in danger of substituting a biassed particularism for the synthetic generality which a genuine sociology demands. And the same criticism could be levelled against the more generalizing exponents in each one of many specialized subsciences found within the social field. Since these specialisms began, under the
influence of the evolutionary spirit, to orient themselves in a so ciological direction (as illustrated above), they have collectively accumulated a body of more or less verified knowledge, which to-day must be held to constitute the main corpus of sociology, if that word be taken in a scientific rather than a philosophic sense. But this body of specialized knowledge suffers several grave de fects. It is, (a) unsystematized, and therefore, since lacking in real unity, is ill-adapted to the concerted activity on which as sured progress in science depends ; (b) uninformed by many of the master concepts on which the scientific foundations of so ciology were originally laid; (c) inadequately related to biology and the other established sciences which, preliminary to sociology, compose an essential part of the equipment needed for the cul minating study of society in evolution. Meantime an expanding flood of literature, in book and periodical form, appearing under the title Sociology gives too much occasion for a widely prevailing belief that sociology is a vague general study of discursive and philosophical rather than scientific character.
Two of the grand sources of current sociology have been in dicated, viz., on the one hand, the initiative work of Comte and his continuator Spencer, and on the other, the multifarious and unco-ordinated researches of numerous specialized studies which are, or should be, subsciences of one comprehensive master science. There is a third grand source. It is the writings, impulse and tra dition of Frederic Le Play (1806-1882). He is to be regarded as the creator of an observational method, applicable to concrete outdoor studies in the social sciences, which holds promise of free ing sociology from its dialectical and discursive bias, bringing it into line with biology, and so imparting to it a definite and recog nized place in the hierarchy of the sciences. Le Play is best known in England and America for his monumental work Les Oeuvriers Europeens. In preparation for this, Le Play spent in foreign travel and observation, during more than a score of years, the annual holiday of five to six months which his official duties (as Inspector of Mines) allowed. He visited nearly every country in Europe (England seven times), and extended his travels into Asia. He thus studied and monographed over three hundred work ing-class families representative of characteristic industries and lo calities throughout Europe. From all these "Monographies So ciales," thirty-six of the most complete were selected for publi cation in the Oeuvriers Europeens, the first edition of which appeared in 1855. Le Play's system of monographs inspired the classic work of Charles Booth in his Life and Labour of the People in London (io vols. 1889-1903, now under systematic revision by the London School of Economics). From the same source came the model and inspiration of much investigation and research in Britain and America on Family Budgets. In these ways Le Play's influence has been conspicuous in helping to trans form the older type of discursive political economy into an ob servational and concrete study growing increasingly fit to take its place as a specialized subscience of a renovated sociology.