SOCIOLOGICAL CONSTRUCTION LINES 33
achievements appear to have been made by studying the origina- tion of these various social processes in the general forms of social causation which are common to them all.
Professor Georg Simmel defines sociology as a study of the forms of social relations. This definition has seemed particularly barren, uninteresting, unpromising, and capable of eliciting pro- tracted toil only from one who is willing to devote himself to intellectual gymnastics, and it is somewhat startling to have emerged from this discussion at a point so close to his position. But substitute the more particular concept " forms of occa- sioning relations in society " for the more general " forms of social relation," and the appearance of academic barrenness is removed from this definition of what seems to be at least a part of the task of general sociology. In the view of Simmel, the sociologist's object of study includes nothing else than the general forms of relationship which apply to all association, whatever its purpose, whether economic, ecclesiastical, political, or otherwise, to a nation, a school, or a family. He not only holds that the abstract forms of relationship constitute the whole of the sociolo- gist's field of study, but adds that these forms are all varieties of one most general form of relationship, that of " superiority and subordination."
The conception of Professor Simmel has been accepted by sociologists as meaning mere morphological description. But the conception here proposed is causal explanation, recognizing both the resemblance and the difference between explanation and mere description, and the truth that the only explanation possible to science is identification of causal relationships.
A study of the mere forms of social causation may never yield a quantitative explanation of any social phenomenon. Apparently that must be left to the special sciences that study the social processes with reference to their content. But it may hope to furnish these sciences with a list and description of the' various forms or kinds of social causation, so that each can be recognized when it is present, and missed when it is absent; and, indeed, it may even hope to furnish social practice with knowledge of the conditions which must be promoted or combated. Too much
