“The bright sun was extinguished, and the stars A fearful hope was all the World contained; And hid their eyes and wept; and some did rest The pall of a past World; and then again Even the dogs aided their masters, all save one, In general Mikhalovsky is pessimistic about the triumph of the individual in his struggle with environment and with society. In Russia matters have not gone his way; the commune has gradually been disintegrating, and signs of the times seem to indicate that his hope of a special economic and social evolution in Russia will remain but a pleasant dream of reform and that the bourgeoisie will triumph in Russia as it has in Western Europe. Conclusion We have attempted to give an analysis of Mikhalovsky's sociological system which he called "The Struggle for Individuality." These ideas permeated all of his social, ethical and historical thinking. We have presented each one of its important phases, although there were many difficulties to be overcome on account of the incoherence of the scattered material. Mikhalovsky often expressed the hope of being able to write one comprehensive book, and to unite the various parts of his system into a coherent whole, but his busy life as editor and as critic made this impracticable. Regarding his theory, we may say that in reality Mikhalovsky does not differ very radically from the organic school in sociology, which he criticised. He only substitutes the concept Individuality, for that of Organism. We must remember that the hierarchy of Haeckel's Individualities which Mikhalovsky adopted without reservation, itself consists of organic individualities. The only difference is that he views organisms as in a negative and hostile relation to one another, but this is more in the nature of an opinion than of a fact. One may find in this tectological hierarchy as many reasons in support of the contrary opinion. Humanity strives as persistently towards social solidarity as towards individuation. Therefore the rigid individualism of Mikhalovsky is more an ideal of his than an historical and scientific necessity. Apart from this weakness Mikhalovsky has rendered valuable services as one of the first writers to make psychological analysis of social phenomena. His early protest against a too intensive division of labor has been proven to have been fully justified, only he overlooked the fact that extreme differentiation in production is offset by an ever-increasing homogeneity of consumption and by the shortening of hours of labor, giving everyone opportunity to develop his individuality without sacrificing the advantages of a subdivided and specialized labor. 1 Mikhalovsky seems to be bitter and unjust in his attitude towards society. He forgets at times the great services which it has rendered to the individual. But this may be pardoned him if we remember that he wrote in sociology not as a professor who has only scientific interests in mind 1See Giddings, "The Quality of Civilization," in American Journal of Sociology, vol. xvii, no. 5, but as a leader of a movement which was fighting the institutions of autocracy. Like Lavrov's theories his system was principally a scientific justification of a current, social political movement. His aim was to protect the individual against too rigid autocratic control, and he sought to reconcile what he called the pravda-truth with the pravda-justice. His heart beat warmly for his people, whose intellectual leader and guide he was for a generation. Thus Mikhalovsky is important principally to his own people and generation, but he also contributed to sociology at large, and this should be gratefully although it has been tardily acknowledged by the scientific world. CHAPTER III THE SOCIOLOGICAL CONTRIBUTIONS OF YOUZHAKOV LAVROV and Mikhalovsky greatly influenced the intellectual classes of Russia. Many, stimulated by their writings, tried to branch off and to develop theories of their own. The most important of these later writers was S. N. Youzhakov whose contributions to Russian sociological theory we shall consider next. 66 Youzhakov1 appeared in the Russian sociological arena as a critic of the " subjectivist " method in sociology, attacking both Lavrov and Mikhalovsky. His argument is briefly this: Lavrov is wrong in maintaining that history does not. repeat itself. Youzhakov says: Youzhakov says: "There are common features in the recurring events of history, and deviations are found: even in exact science there are deviations as, for example, in astronomy." Again, there is but one human logic, "The logical process of thinking and the psychological phenomena of perception are alike among all men, so that things true to one are true to others also; they may be checked up by others." The peculiarity of the subjective 2 1 Sergey Nikolaevitch Youzhakov (1849-1910) is well known in Russia as a contributor to various leading Russian periodicals and as the editor-in-chief of the Russian "Large Encyclopedia." His contributions to sociology were made between the years 1872-1875, and have been edited in two volumes under the title of Sociological Études; vol. i, St. Petersburg, 1891, and vol. ii, St. Petersburg, 1896. 2 Youzhakov, Sociological Etudes, vol. i, p. 242. Ibid., p. 245. 156 [156 method, Youzhakov thinks, is that it is based upon an evaluation of the relative importance of social phenomena, and upon the individual views of the investigator as to what relations of members of society to each other and to the whole, are normal. There is really no special contribution in this, and the subjective method therefore is but an emphasis of one very important sociological proposition, namely, that society is based upon individuals, and that the evolution of society takes place by means of individuals and for individuals.1 This proposition Youzhakov considers of vital importance. Yet he sees no need to study subjective and ethical phenomena by other methods than those hitherto generally adopted in the social sciences. Youzhakov, therefore, prefers to call the subjectivist school in Russia simply the Russian School of Sociology, believing that the Russians were first to emphasize the psychological and ethical aspects of sociology. Youzhakov worked towards the development of a complete system of sociology according to an outline that is given below. Outline of Youzhakov's Theory of Sociology I. A survey of the sociological problems and of the principal forces in the socializing process. II. The organic principle as a factor of the socializing process. III. The moral principle and the social equilibrium. IV. The economic principle and the social struggle. V. The political principle and the disturbed equilibrium between the moral principle and the principles of organic and economic struggle. VI. The intellectual principle and progress, conceiving progress not as natural evolution, as it appears in 1 1 Cf. ibid., p. 242 et seq. |