[2] _Ib_. From a logical point of view this idea of explanation seems seriously defective. See Bradley’s _Principles of Logic_, p. 491.
In all these characteristics psychology is at one with sociology. And, therefore, though it is a gain that other points of view should be resolved into the point of view of mind, yet the positive bias of sociology is not transcended simply by this resolution.
Philosophy starts, we have said, as it were, from the other end. It is critical throughout; it desires to establish degrees of value, degrees of reality, degrees of completeness and coherence. Its purpose might be termed “Ethical,” but for the extreme narrowness of the meaning of that term. Society, for it, is an achievement or utterance of human nature--of course not divorced from nature in general--having a certain degree of solidity, so to speak; that is to say, being able, up to a certain point, to endure the tests and answer the questionings which are suggested by the scrutiny of human life from the point of view of value and completeness. Is the social life the best, or the only life for a human soul? In what way through society, and in what characteristics of society, does the soul lay hold upon its truest self, or become, in short, the most that it has in it to be? How does the social life at its best compare with the life of art, of knowledge, or of religion, and can the same principle be shown to be active in all of them? And what have { 51} they in common, or peculiar to each, which has an imperative claim on the mind of man?
Now it was hinted above that there might be two kinds of psychology, or two tendencies within it. And if psychology were to be impelled, as it has been more than once in the past, by the recognition that where there is more of its object--of mind--its interest is greater and the rank of its object-matter is higher, then there would not be much to choose between the temper of psychology and that of philosophy. And as sociology has found itself driven forward into the territory of social “logic,” a name which at once suggests a critical and philosophical science, it may well be that sociological psychology will not remain wholly “positive” and impartial, but will assume, as in the hands of Professor Giddings, for example, it seems inclined to, at least a teleological attitude, testing social phenomena by the quantity and quality of life which they display.