In the latter work Nitti, in spite of himself, is simply a follower of Spencer; nevertheless he shows a large bibliographical knowledge. Nitti has also written many other works on sociology of less importance than those mentioned. Moreover Professor Scilio Vanni published in 1888 a little volume entitled Prime linese di un programma critico di sociologia, in which he summed up very clearly the various tendencies of modern sociology. As is well known, the great conflict is between the absorptive system of Comte and the hierarchic system of John Stuart Mill. Mill desired the coexistence of sociology and the special social sciences. Sociology, according to him, should be the synthetic, philosophic and comprehensive social science of the special social sciences. The latter should gather the first material, and to them also belongs the first coordination and generalization of social facts. If we may represent social life by a diamond with many facets, these special social sciences examine and study each a single facet, while sociology comprehends all sides in its view, that is, it is comprehensive. In other words, Mill expected sociology to illustrate the social organism in its complexity, leaving to the special social sciences the task of studying the single aspects and particular functions in the characteristics which distinguish them, and in the special laws which control them. The relation between sociology and the special social sciences is, therefore, very close, for while the former coordinates, the latter furnishes the data for its general and synthetic elaboration. Now in the sociological system of Auguste Comte sociology included the special social sciences. He believed this absolutely necessary, basing his belief upon the fact that the condition of any part of the social body whatever has at every moment an intimate and indissoluble relation to the contemporaneous condition of all other parts, and that one part cannot be modified without affecting the others, hence the impossibility of a study separable into parts.
T. G. Massaryk, who has given serious study to this problem, attempts to solve it by distinguishing sociology from the special social sciences, and by considering the former as an abstract
