Nor does it provide the starting point for a criticism of socialism, as the programme of a definite social movement. Stammler deceives himself when he thinks that socialism is based on the materialistic philosophy of history as he expounds it: on which philosophy are based, on the contrary, the illusions and caprices of some or of many socialists. Socialism cannot depend on an abstract sociological theory, since the basis would be inadequate precisely because it was abstract; nor can it depend on a philosophy of history as rhythmical or of little stability, because the basis would be transitory. On the contrary, it is a complex fact and results from different elements; and, so far as concerns history, socialism does not presuppose a philosophy of history, but an historical conception determined by the existing conditions of society and the manner in which this has come about. If we put on one side the doctrines superimposed subsequently, and read again Marx's pages without prejudice, we shall then see that he had, at bottom, no other meaning when he referred to history as one of the factors justifying socialism.

'The necessity for the socialisation of the means of production is not proved scientifically.' Stammler means that the concept of necessity as employed by many Marxians, is erroneous; that the denial of teleology is absurd, and that hence the assertion of the socialisation of the means of production as the social programme is not logically accounted for. This does not hinder this assertion from being possibly quite true. Either because, in addition to logical demonstrations there are fortunate intuitions, or because a conclusion can be true although derived from a false premiss: it suffices, obviously, that there should be two errors which cancel one another. And this would be so in our case. The denial of teleology; the tacit acceptance of this same teleology: here is a method scientifically incorrect with a conclusion that may be valid. It remains to examine the whole tissue of experiences, deductions, aspirations and forecasts in which socialism really consists; and over which Stammler passes indifferently, content to have brought to light an error in the philosophical statement of a remote postulate, an error which some, or it may be many, of the supporters and politicians of socialism commit.

All these reservations are needed in order to fix the scope of Stammler's investigation; but it would be a mistake to infer from them that we reject the starting point of the inquiry itself. Historical materialism—says Professor Stammler—has proved unable to give us a valid science of society: we, however, believe that this was not its main or original object. The two statements come practically to the same thing: the science of society is not contained in the literature of the materialistic theory. Professor Stammler adds that although historical materialism does not offer an acceptable social theory, it nevertheless gives a stimulus of the utmost intensity towards the formation of such a theory. This seems to us a matter of merely individual psychology: suggestions and stimuli, as everyone knows, differ according to the mind that receives them. The literature of historical materialism has always aroused in us a desire to study history in the concrete, i.e., to reconstruct the actual historical process. In Professor Stammler, on the contrary, it arouses a desire to throw aside this meagre empirical history, and to work with abstractions in order to establish concepts and general points of view. The problems which he sets before himself, might be arrived at psychologically by many other paths.

There is a tendency, at present, to enlarge unduly the boundaries of social studies. But Stammler rightly claims a definite and special subject for what ought to be called social science; that is definite social data. Social science must include nothing which has not sociability as its determining cause. How can ethics ever be social science, since it is based on cases of conscience which evade all social rules? Custom is the social fact, not morality. How can pure economics or technology ever be social science, since those concepts are equally applicable to the isolated individual and to societies? Thus in studying social data we shall see that, considered in general, they give rise to two distinct theories. The first theory regards the concept society from the causal standpoint; the second regards it from the teleological standpoint. Causality and teleology cannot be substituted the one for the other; but one forms the complement of the other.

If, then, we pass from the general and abstract to the concrete, we have society as existing in history. The study of the facts which develop in concrete society Stammler consigns to a science which he calls social (or political, or national) economics. From such facts may still be abstracted the mere form, i.e., the collection of rules supplied by history by which they are governed; and this may be studied independently of the matter. Thus we get jurisprudence, or the technical science of law; which is always bound up inseparably with a given actual historical material, which it works up by scientific method, endeavouring to give it unity and coherence. Finally, amongst social studies are also included those investigations which aim at judging and determining whether a given social order is as it ought to be; and whether attempts to preserve or change it are objectively justified. This section may be called that of practical social problems. By such definitions and divisions Professor Stammler exhausts every possible form of social study. Thus we should have the following scheme:

Social Science. General Study of Society.
Study of Concrete Society.		 Causal.
Teleological.
of the form (technical science of law).
of the matter (social economics).
of the possible, (practical problems).

We believe that this table correctly represents his views, although given in our own way, and in words somewhat different from those used by him. A new treatment of the social sciences, the work of serious and keen ability, such as Stammler seems to possess, cannot fail to receive the earnest attention of all students of a subject which is still so vague and controversial. Let us examine it then section by section.

The first investigation relating to society, that concerned with causality, would be directed to solving the problem of the nature of society. Many definitions have been given of this up to the present: and none of them can be said to be generally accepted, or even to claim wide support. Stammler indeed, rejects, after criticism, the definitions of Spencer or Rümelin, which appear to him to be the most important and to be representative of all the others. Society is not an organism (Spencer), nor is it merely something opposed to legalised society (Rümelin): Society, says Stammler, is 'life lived by men in common, subject to rules which are externally binding.' These rules must be understood in a very wide sense, as all those which bind men living together to something which is satisfied by outward performance. They are divided, however, into two large classes: rules properly speaking legal, and rules of convention. The second class includes the precepts of propriety and of custom, the code of knightly honour, and so on. The distinctive test lies in the fact that the latter class are merely hypothetical, while the former are imposed without being desired by those subjected to them. The whole assemblage of rules, legal and conventional, Stammler calls social form. Under these rules, obeying them, limiting them and even breaking them men act in order to satisfy their desires; in this, and in this alone, human life consists. The assemblage of concrete facts which men produce when working together in society, i.e., under the assumption of social rules, Stammler calls social matter, or social economics. Rules, and actions under rules; these are the two elements of which every social datum consists. If the rules were lacking, we should be outside society; we should be animals or gods, as says the old proverb: if the actions were lacking there would remain only an empty form, built up hypothetically by thought, and no portion of which was actually real. Thus social life appears as a single fact: to separate its two constituent factors means either to destroy it, or to reduce it to empty form. The law governing changes within society cannot be found in something which is extra social; not in technique and discovery, nor in the workings of supposed natural laws, nor in the influence of great men, of mysterious racial and national spirit; but it must be sought in the very centre of the social fact itself. Hence it is wrong to speak of a causal bond between law and economics or vice versa: the relation between law and economics is that between the rule and the things ruled, not one of cause and effect. The determining cause of social movements and changes is then ultimately to be found in the actual working out of social rules, which precede such changes. This concrete working out, these actions accomplished under rules, may produce (1) social mutations which are entirely quantitative (in the number of social facts of one or another kind); (2) mutations which are also qualitative consisting that is in changes in the rules themselves. Hence the circle of social life: rules, social facts arising under them; ideas, opinions, desires, efforts resulting from the facts; changes in the rules. When and how this circle originated, that is to say when and how social life arose on the earth, is a question for history, which does not concern the theorist. Between social life and non-social life there are no gradations, theoretically there is a gulf. But as long as social life exists, there is no escape from the circle described above.

The form and matter of social life thus come into conflict, and from this conflict arises change. By what test can the issue of the conflict be decided? To appeal to facts, to invent a causal necessity which may agree with some ideal necessity is absurd. In addition to the law of social causality, which has been expounded, there must be a law of ends and ideals, i.e., a social teleology. According to Stammler, historical materialism identifies, nor would it be the only theory to attempt such an identification, causality and teleology; but it, too, cannot escape from the logical contradictions which such assertions contain. Much praise has been given to that section of Professor Stammler's book in which he shows how teleological assumptions are constantly implied by historical materialism in all its assertions of a practical nature. But we confess that the discovery seems to us exceedingly easy, not to be compared to that of Columbus about the egg. Here again we must point out that the pivot of the Marxian doctrine lies in the practical problem and not in the abstract theory. The denial of finality is, at bottom, the denial of a merely subjective and peculiar finality. And here, too, although the criticism as applied to historical materialism seems to us hardly accurate, we agree with Stammler's conclusion, i.e., that it is necessary to construct, or better to reconstruct, with fresh material, a theory of social teleology.

Let us omit, for the present, an examination of Stammler's construction of teleology, which includes some very fine passages (e.g. the criticism of the anarchist doctrine) and ask instead: What is this social science of Stammler, of which we have stated the striking and characteristic features? The reader will have little difficulty in discovering that the second investigation, that concerning social teleology, is nothing but a modernised philosophy of law. And the first? Is it that long desired and hitherto vainly sought general sociology? Does it give us a new and acceptable concept of society? To us it appears evident that the first investigation is nothing but a formal science of law. In it Professor Stammler studies law as a fact, and hence he cannot find it except in society subjected to rules imposed from without. In the second, he studies law as an ideal and constructs the philosophy (imperative) of law. We are not here questioning the value of the investigation, but its nature. The present writer is convinced that social data leave no place for an abstract independent science. Society is a living together; the kind of phenomena which appear in this life together is the concern of descriptive history. But it is perfectly possible to study this life together from a given point of view, e.g., from the legal point of view, or, in general, from that of the legal and non-legal rules to which it can be subjected; and this Stammler has done. And, in so doing, he has examined the nature of law, separating the concrete individual laws and the ideal type of law; which he has then studied apart. This is the reason why Stammler's investigation seems to us a truly scientific investigation and very well carried out, but not an abstract and general science of society. Such a science is for us inconceivable, just as a formal science of law is, on the contrary, perfectly conceivable.