and the historical-legendary, containing a large mass of folklore. Employing the historical comparative method, he is careful not to overestimate anything, but to draw his conclusions from premises which admit of being checked up by comparison. Thus he hopes to be able to point out how all aspects of the social life are psychically related to one another and how by their interaction they result in various social institutions. His argument that it is impossible to establish a criterion of primitiveness from ethnography, since it does not put us face to face with the primitive conditions of mankind, leads him to an hypothesis of primitive man, which is formed by way of successive conclusions not only from ethnography but also from animal life. This leads to analysis of the social and family life of animals, which thereupon is considered as the starting point of the human family and the human horde or herd. In these chapters the much-debated topics of the metronymic family and sexual taboos are thoroughly discussed. The author favors the view which ascribes priority to the metronymic order. He also thinks that the most primitive sex taboo was limited to the mother, as can be also observed among anthropoid apes. The tribe has not grown from the family; it is rather a human herd which grew through the integrating influences of taboo, of exogamy, and of the elimination of blood vengeance within the group. Exogamy originated as a means of stopping the bloody feuds and quarrels for the possession of women, so protecting the tribe against annihilation. Gradually, with the transition into an agricultural state of life and the increase of property, which he thinks had its beginning in the fear of magical contagion, the regulative functions of the group differentiated into simple forms of government, which in their turn hastened the decay of tribal forms of organization. Agri

culture and private property made slavery possible and profitable. The latter institution encourages raids and conquests, which coerce the weaker tribes to confederate or to be absorbed by their enemies. War and conquest give opportunity for leadership. The successful leader gradually rises above his tribesmen in wealth and power and is able to dictate to them and to subordinate them. This situation prepares the way for feudalism. Along with these developments of property and government, and in its psychical aspect intrinsically related to them, there goes on the development of religion. According to Kovalevsky religion has its roots in an animistic conception of nature, in fear of departed ancestors, and in dreams. Fetichism, totemism, animal and plant cults and finally the worship of the cosmic forces of nature, are the earlier forms of expression in religion. Briefly this is the gist of "Genetic Sociology."

Although the foregoing arguments are more or less familiar, they are richly illustrated by old and new ethnographic material, some of which was gathered by Kovalevsky personally in his expeditions among the barbarian and savage tribes of the Russian Empire. His interpretation of exogamy is original and finds support in a later independent research by W. M. Strong, described in an article on "The Origin of Exogamy," Sociological Review v, no. 4. His view of the origin of religion is a little out of date, being based on the animistic hypothesis of Tylor. This, fact however, does not diminish the value of his illustrative material, which would lend itself as well to the recent interpretations of Miss Jane Harrison (in Themis), or of Émile Durkheim (in Les formes élémentaires de la vie réligieuse).

Kovalevsky, who still continues his genetic studies, has given us in his "Sociology" some valuable contribu

tions. He is one among the few writers in Russian sociology who have pursued research apart from any partisan movement. His works, therefore, being less "Russian" are of greater value to sociology at large. The whole juristic and historical-genetical school should be recognized as one of the first groups of scholars that have sought to rid the study of law and of politics of their metaphysical premises and to establish them upon a scientifically sound sociological basis.

CHAPTER V

THE FRANCO-RUSSIAN SOCIOLOGISTS

(DE ROBERTY AND NOVICOV)

The Sociological Theories of De Roberty

MORE or less removed from the social-political problems of the Russian people are the sociological theories of Yakov Novicov and Eugene De Roberty. Having emigrated to France, they wrote in French under the influence of French thought and life. De Roberty published his first work on sociology (1881) simultaneously in Russian and in French. The book was much more favorably received on the banks of the Seine than on those of the Neva, and De Roberty remained in France until recent years when he returned to Petrograd and joined Kovalevsky as a lecturer on sociology in the newly established PsychoNeurological Institute of Petrograd and co-operated in editing the newly established yearly series of sociological books. This re-introduction of De Roberty's sociological ideas into Russia may have some influence upon the future development of Russian sociological thought and therefore it is proper to give his theories a brief analytical survey.

De Roberty began his writing on sociology as an orthodox positivist. His first work, "Sociology" purposes only to interpret the positivist sociology, especially in its methodological aspects, including the place of sociology within the classification of the sciences, the nature of sociology, and its method.

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Comte had given to the sciences an abstract classification. Each abstract science was to have its corresponding concrete science; which, however, he failed to provide for sociology. De Roberty explains that such classifications are made only for the sake of symmetry and are not required by logical necessity. Sociology "is founded upon various abstract sciences; it does not present signs of logical or subjective necessity; it proceeds entirely from an objective necessity."

I

Sociology is an abstract science and therefore fundamental, since the concrete sciences are always derived from the abstract.

Each of the Comtian sciences has its peculiar province. That of sociology embraces the laws of the social life in relation to its environment.

One would imprint upon sociology a particular absurdity if one tried to assign to it anything else but the study of the relations of "socialité" with the other "propriétés" of matter; or, to speak more plainly, if one tried to study society, after having subtracted the physical conditions of our globe and the biological conditions of its inhabitants."

Psychology is closely related to sociology. It may be regarded as "a prolongation of sociology and is like a study which does not know how to become a constituted science until sociology shall have attained its complete development." 3

De Roberty hopes to improve on Comte's method in sociology by applying to the study of social phenomena the descriptive method. "What is missing in the social sciences is a natural history of society, a description of social phenomena as analytic as possible."

4

'De Roberty, La Sociologie ii ed., Paris 1886, p. 38. 2 Ibid, p. 34.

3 Ibid., p, 188.