Georg Simmel's Sociology is today understandably viewed with the greatest interest by all those who believe in the future of sociology as a science. Although these Investigations into the Forms of Association are broad in scope, the work is fragmentary and incomplete, as its author intended it to be. He would not—could not—present a complete, closed system; the only aim of the book is to clarify his fundamental conception of the problem of sociology by means of a series of applications. The author states:

As a consequence [of the basic conception], it is out of the question to attempt anything more than to begin and to point out the direction of an infinitely long path; and any systematically final completeness would be, at the least, self-deception. An individual can attain completeness here only in the subjective sense, by reporting everything he has succeeded in observing.

This is a very important advance over the older sociologists, who foundered on their mania for systems (I need mention only Ratzenhofer). To this rejection of completeness, Simmel adds the narrow delimitation of sociology as a science. It is to his credit that he has clarified the difference between the general modern tendency to view the objects of various sciences sociologically (but without detracting from their independence and autonomy), and the creation of sociology as a new science. Because of the intellectual demands of the present age, it is more and more frequently recognized today that the objects of the traditional humanities (cultural and moral sciences [Geisteswissenschaftenl) find realization only within the framework of society. This sociological method in the moral sciences is the legacy of the nineteenth century. The establishment of sociology is an altogether different thing. Although the latter cannot bring new facts, new material, to light, it draws "a new line through otherwise well-known facts." It establishes new points of view, new abstractions. The various older social sciences have as their objects the contents of social processes, corresponding to the particular real areas of social life (such as economics, jurisprudence, and so on); sociology, however, examines the forms of association. That is to say, it examines the phenomena of human cooperation, altruistic and antagonistic interaction, the modes of reciprocal influence and mutual interpenetration in all their numberless purposes and diverse contents. The manifold forms in which association is realized are to be conceptually released from these diverse contents and analyzed as psychic phenomena of a special kind. But despite this [socio]psychological basis, sociology is in no sense a branch of psychology. Although sociology deals predominantly with psychic facts, it does not do so in order to discover the laws of psychic processes; the aim of sociology is, rather, to grasp the "objectivity of association" (which, however, as was said, is "carried by psychic processes"). In the same way that, on the one hand, psychology and sociology are not identical, so, on the other hand (and as in all special sciences), social science proper is distinct from its epistemology and its metaphysics. According to Simmel, the question of the position of society in the cosmos belongs to the metaphysics of sociology, while sociological epistemology includes the questions "Is society possible?" and "Does society exist outside of us or only in our consciousness?" and the like; so that these problems are relegated, like their metaphysical counterparts in philosophy, to defined subdisciplines.

Here Simmel has eliminated all of sociology's claims to encyclopedic-universal significance, all pretension that it ought to be the all-inclusive integration of the particular social sciences. Nor is he the least interested in extending the perspective of the natural sciences to the facts of human society. But, as indicated, Simmel limits the task of sociology even further: the content-material of social relations is to play as small a role as possible in this social science; he is interested only in the formal aspects of association. A question arises: Is such a limitation to the forms of association possible? The chapters of his work are well worth reading (their specific content cannot be examined here); but does the way in which Simmel carries out his program demonstrate the possibility and the fruitfulness of his method?

To begin with, one must beware of considering form as incidental or subordinate to content. The essence of a thing is often more clearly revealed in its form than in its content. And so it is in this case: by ignoring the content of social interrelations as much as possible, one may achieve a liberation from coincidental, temporary, unessential elements—and this alone makes possible a more profound insight into human nature as such. Hitherto-veiled secrets of the human mind, potential for human development, human motives and aspirations only now become clear. The essence of culture is not revealed by searching for it in too much concreteness—in compact, hard particularities and their summations. This external narrowing of the field of sociology signifies a valuable deepening, an internal expansion of its power of insight.

In posing the problem of sociology, I can never let the one goal out of sight: the image of man and of society must be purified of prejudice; it must emerge from our scrutiny more clearly and more genuinely than has hitherto been possible, without sociology, through metaphysical ethics and traditional political and cultural philosophy. In my opinion, Simmel's method brings us nearer to this goal (no matter to what extent Simmel may be motivated by purely abstract, scientific aims; no matter how much he may perhaps consider his social forms as ends in themselves). To that extent I am ready to consider his way as correct, and to see in his sociology a significant advance over all past attempts. But it seems to me that this science of the forms of association is in need of certain guiding ideas—of a unified goal—if it is to proceed from repeated analyses to the attainment of a concluding synthesis. This is especially true of Simmel's work: as far as I can tell, his investigations run the danger of ending in scattered fragments. Surely they contain not only a great many fine observations, but also peaks of the most valuable insight; but they lose themselves in playing with the fullness of forms with the subtlest and nicest of nuances. At times the interweaving of his thoughts resembles a spider's web studded with glittering drops of dew; but a substantial breeze can destroy it. The danger of his thread of thought becoming unravelled would have been avoided had Simmel established solid fundamental conceptions to carry the system. Above, I made no objection to Simmel's fragmentalism; in Sociology this is understandable and proper. But it is another question whether or not Simmel is at all capable of overcoming this tendency. I entertain doubts as to whether his analytic method can ever reach synthesis. This does not diminish his scientific importance. But when one is forced to pass judgment on the direction in which he wants to lead sociology, then one must indeed ask whether this fragmentary and incomplete character is not a disadvantage intimately linked with the essence of his thought. Unless I am greatly mistaken, Simmel has already published on various other occasions, as independent essays, many of the individual chapters dealing with the problem he poses. I must say that they impressed me as more effective when they were thus separated. Here, where they are side by side as parts of a whole, the lack of transition from one to another is striking. Out of the numerous notions about the manifold forms of association there does not emerge a central doctrine of the forms of association. The distinction between the form of association and its content is much more comprehensible in any single essay than it is here, where the formal analyses are compiled in a great heap, without any systematic sustaining connection. In any case, this accumulation of thought-fragments is readable as a sequence only because of the fact that, with all his tendency toward abstraction, Simmel is by no means clumsy in dealing with concepts (kein "Begriffskrüppel'); that is, his presentation has great aesthetic attractiveness. From a certain aspect I would even call his sociology the sociology of an aesthete, a sociology for the literary salon. Simmel is a cultural psychologist with a cosmopolitan cast of mind. In his work we never encounter mere book-wisdom or dry, pedantic erudition; rather, one feels the rich internal agitation of the explorer: his examples are vivid, interesting, psychologically well-selected, and presented with individual originality. In short, inner experience means more to him than dry scholarship. But in its mosaic form and its aestheticism, this sociology has a distinctly personal, Simmelean character. The same method in the hands of Mr.

(no, I had better name no names!) would be unbearable. And so I would reach the following summary: The limitation of sociology to the doctrine of the forms of association seems to me an important advance capable of introducing clarity into a great deal of confusion. But even more important than this establishment of an independent discipline is the transition to the sociological method in the existing particular branches of cultural science. To elaborate the sociological aspects of economics, jurisprudence, ethics, religion, philology, geography, and so on—that is of primary importance.