J. E. CUTLER, WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY

I should like to ask Dr. Coe a question. It has been generally understood, I think, that the census of churches and church membership taken in 1890 was extremely defective and on the whole rather unreliable. Presumably the statistics given in Census Bulletin 103 are more complete and much more reliable. I should like to ask Dr. Coe, if, in using these two sources as a basis for his paper, he gave any consideration to the fact that one was possibly more complete and more trustworthy than the other.

GEORGE A. COE

In reply to a question whether the apparent increase in church members may not be due in part to improved methods in securing census returns, Professor Coe said in substance:

"It is difficult to say exactly what effect upon membership statistics these improved methods have had. Even if the tendency of such improvement in the methods of government were to enumerate members heretofore not enumerated, corresponding improvement by the churches in their own methods of keeping membership lists would tend to reduce the apparent membership by dropping the names of members who have been lost track of. As a matter of fact, the churches, or some of them, have been pruning their membership lists during these sixteen years. One of the large denominations dropped from its rolls in a single year, if my memory serves me, something like 50,000 names-the number was certainly very large. Such pruning of membership lists is likely to offset any apparent increase that may result from changes in the methods of the census.

But it is not clear that improved census methods tend to increase the apparent number of members. On the contrary, the universal desire of the denominations to make a large showing might be favored by the looser methods and checked by the more cautious ones. Whether the improvement in census methods has, in fact, had any influence, I cannot say from any data in my possession. But, on the whole, in view of the known pruning of membership lists within denominations, I am inclined to think that the apparent membership increase shown by the new census is a real one."

In reply to a question whether the increase in membership appears in the cities as well as the country at large, Professor Coe said in substance:

"Separate statistics for cities are not given in Bulletin 103. But we can secure an approximate answer to the question by considering the distribution by states. Thus, the increase of membership in proportion to population is high in the North Atlantic states, with their great aggregations of laborers in manufacturing centers, but low in the South Atlantic states, in which the population is more scattered. But there is increase in both. In general, the Catholic membership has increased with the greatest

rapidity in predominantly manufacturing states, while the relative losses of the Catholics have been greatest in New Mexico, District of Columbia, Oregon, Minnesota, Wyoming, and Florida. On the other hand, the relative gains of the Protestants have been in Nebraska, Washington, Colorado, Idaho, District of Columbia, Iowa, Oregon, Virginia, Georgia, and California, and their relative losses have been altogether in New England, the Middle States, and North Carolina (specifically, in order, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Maine, Rhode Island, New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, Vermont). I am not able, with the data at hand, to say how much of the membership gain in the eastern manufacturing states is due to foreign immigration."

THE BASIS OF SOCIAL SOLIDARITY1

PROFESSOR J. MARK BALDWIN

The difficulty of discussing such a topic as social solidarity arises from the generality of the term. As a sociological concept, solidarity is an affair of the mutual relations of a group of individuals to one another; as a psychological concept, the term connotes the meaning of these relations as reflected in the mind of the individual. The latter, the psychological, considered as giving a basis for the solidarity of the group, together with its genetic relationships, it is that I wish to discuss.

I

The present condition of sociology is far from satisfactory. Sociology has not yet come into its full scientific heritage-and that for two principal reasons.

In the first place, what is called sociology is often merely a mass of formal and verbal distinctions, dealing with theoretical conceptions, which do not admit of proof other than that of logical deduction. Definitions of "society," "association," "solidarity," "progress," etc., are constructed from purely personal points of view, from which there is no control from the observation of the social facts. The need therefore, is for extended and patient observation of actual social changes, happenings, phenomena of every kind, as they show themsleves-observation of these both in their own right, and also in the conditions of the environment, physical and biological, in which they occur.

In the second place, we observe that sociology has been the dupe of those who bring to her the catch-words of other sciences. As we shall see below, social changes are conditioned upon physical, chemical, and biological facts; this may be admitted without discussion. But it is quite a different thing to say that the

1 Paper read at the Berne meeting of the Institut Inter. de Sociologie (July, 1909); to appear in Vol. XII of the Annales of that body.

scientific formulas which are found fruitful in those sciences are adequate instruments of interpretation of the social as such; for on such a view the social life loses its intimate and first-hand character as personal experience. Biological analogies have been urged, physical "energetics" has been invoked, even geographical changes have been cited, as determining causes of social events. But to whichever of these sciences we may resort, we find this limitation, namely, that the given social situation-both as respects content and as respects form of organization—is stripped of whatever characters the rule of interpretation adopted, whether biological, or physical, does not justify and explain.

For example, the moral life is a series of social situations implicating personalities as such, wills acting and reacting upon one another. To explain such situations by the laws of physical or physiological change is to reduce personality to an atomistic and mechanical complex and to close the door in advance to the investigation of the psychological and purely social aspects of moral experience. Whatever philosophical interpretation we may finally adopt of the social mode of reality-taken in its natural context with the physical and biological—we must still not allow this interpretation, whether it be physical or spiritual, to hinder, embarrass, or prejudice social science. On the contrary, the positive science of society must be built upon the facts of social observation and experience; and such a science must be given the same right to establish the criteria of its proper facts that we allow the other sciences. Biologists will not vacate right in favor of physics, nor should sociology in favor of either. Psychology has in fact been through the same period, having to assert its right to existence as against the presumptions of physiology.

With these cautions in mind, I wish to inquire what current biological and psychological science teach us respecting the conditions of nature and development of social solidarity.

The reader may compare the remarks on Professor Ostwald's paper on "Energetics," in Vol. XII of the Annales de l'Inst. Inter. de Sociologie, for a more positive criticism of one of these cases of scientific presumption coming from physics. Criticism of the "biological analogy" is to be found in my Social and Ethical Interpretations, chap. xiv, on "Social Progress," especially § 4.

II

I use the term "development," in the last sentence above, advisedly; for the study of the development must go along with that of the nature of society. In this subject, as in all those which can be considered as, in any sense, "genetic" the studies of development must be largely relied upon to reveal the nature of the social matter. Here, as elsewhere, the analytic and formal methods have proved inadequate. In biology and psychology a revolution has been effected by this consideration. The study of tissues and organs must be supplemented by that of functions and adaptations. The simple cross-section of a nerve or muscle has behind it a vast morphological and developmental history. The biological sciences, since they have recognized that they deal with a developing organism, have been completely reconstructed in consequence of researches inspired by the evolution theory. Comparative morphology is the fertile daughter of evolutionary research, as is also comparative and genetic psychology.

In psychology, the structural and analytic methods, which in the hands of the British and French empiricists resulted in the discovery of the laws of association of ideas, has been found to have its limitations. It analyses the mind in "cross-sections," and seeks to discover "atoms" or "elements" of psychic contentprimitive sensations out of which the complex states of mind are composed. This, Mr. Spencer's great undertaking, is now obsolete; it does not allow for growth, development, evolution. Psychology, like biology, has become a genetic science, tracing out the movements and stages of mental progression "longitudinally," from lower and more simple, to higher and more complex, states and functions. It recognizes that each successive stage is really a new mode, something sui generis, not to be accounted for by mere composition of simpler elements, but showing the essential organization of these elements in new functions.

The same, again, is true of society and of societies. They are developing organizations. They cannot be decomposed into elements, atoms, or "units," which through combination, by some theoretical formula, will again produce the more complex form. Such a method is too easy. It does no sort of justice to these