[SOCIOLOGY.]

Before coming to Ethics I must, as a preparation, view another derivative branch of psychology, the old subject of politics and society, under its new name, SOCIOLOGY.  It is obvious that all terms used in describing social facts and their generalities are terms of mind:  command and obedience, law and right, order and progress, are notions made up of human feelings, purposes, and thoughts.

Sociology is usually studied in its own special field, and nowhere else; that is to say, the sociologist employs himself in observing and comparing the operations of societies under all varieties of circumstances, and in all historic ages.  The field is essentially human nature, and the laws arrived at are laws of human nature.  A consummate sociologist is not often to be found; the really great theorists in society could be counted on one’s fingers.  Some of them have been psychologists as well; I need mention only Aristotle, Hobbes, Locke, Hume, the Mills.  Others as Vico, Montesquieu, Millar, Condorcet, Auguste Comte, De Tocqueville, have not independently studied the mind on the broad psychological basis.  Now the bearings on sociology of a pure psychological preparation can be convincingly shown.  The laws of society, if not the merest empiricisms, are derivative laws of the mind; hence a theorist cannot be trusted with the handling of a derivative law, unless he knows, as well as can be known, the simple or constituent laws.  All the elements of human character crop up in men’s social relations; in the foreground are their self-interest or sense of self-preservation, together with their social and anti-social promptings; a little farther back are their active energy, their intelligence, their artistic feelings, and their religious susceptibilities.  Now all these should be broadly examined as elements of the mind, without an immediate reference to the political machine.  Of course, the social feelings need a social situation, and cannot be studied without that; but there are many social situations that give scope for examining them, besides what is contemplated in political society; and the psychologist proper ought to avail himself of all the opportunities of rendering the statement of these various elements precise.  For this purpose, his chief aim is the ultimate analysis of the various faculties and feelings.  This analysis nobody but himself cares to institute; and yet a knowledge of the ultimate constitution of an emotional tendency is one of the best aids in appreciating its mode of working.  Without a good preliminary analysis of the social and anti-social emotions, for example, you are almost sure to be counting the same thing twice over, or else confounding two different facts under one designation.  On the one hand, the precise relationship of the states named love, sympathy, disinterestedness; and, on the other hand, the common basis of domination, resentment, pride, egotism,—­should be distinctly cleared up, as is possible only in psychological study strictly so called.  The workings of the religious sentiment cannot be shown sociologically, without a previous analysis of the constituent emotions.