Chapter1: Introduction: Sociological Theory

Sociology and Psychology Spencer also devoted considerable attention to psychology as another major base for sociology. He adopted the general position that "psychological truths underlie sociological truths" (Spencer, 1873/1961:348). As he saw it, psychology is the study of intelligence, feeling, and action. He believed that one of the great lessons of psychology is that feeling, not intelligence, is linked to action. This belief led Spencer to emphasize sentiments and to downgrade the importance of intelligence and cognition in his sociological analyses (see the preceding chapter, on Comte, for a similar view). Although people throughout history have been dominated by sentiments and desires, this was especially true in primitive societies. Primitive people were inherently impulsive, and because they were "not much habituated to associated life," they were "habituated to that uncontrolled following of immediate desires" (Spencer, 1908a:64). In contrast, people in the modern world, although still dominated by feelings, emotions, and desires, are better able to control them because they are more habituated to collective life. Thus, Spencer is led to argue that primitive people are characterized by greater selfishness and that there is more altruism in the modern world.This general orientation leads Spencer to focus substantively on collective phenomena, and politically this emphasis on the importance of feelings is one of the factors causing him to oppose conscious and intelligent change of society.

Although Spencer embeds his sociology in a set of assumptions about the psychological characteristics of individuals, he does not accept the idea that these characteristics are fixed. Rather, psychological characteristics change with the changes in society as well as with those in the larger environment.

From his study of psychology, and more generally from his basic philosophical orientation, Spencer comes to the "methodological individualist" conclusion that the units of society are individuals and that individuals are the source of social phenomena. Everything in society is derived from the motives of individuals, the combined similar motives of many individuals, or the conflict between those with one set of motives and others with another set. However, Spencer bases his sociology on such psychological principles, but he does not spend much time analyzing the ways in which these psychological phenomena lead to the development of society and its various institutions. Rather, Spencer assumes that individuals are the units, and the base, of society and institutions, and then he proceeds to the macro level to study the evolution of society and its institutions. This lack of concern (with a few exceptions; see the discussion of ceremonial institutions later in this chapter) for how macro level phenomena (society and institutions) emerge from micro-level units (individuals and their motives) is a serious weakness in Spencer's sociological theory.

Sociological Methods

Within the context of Spencer's definition of sociology as a science, he addressed a range of methodological problems.

Difficulties Facing Sociology Spencer attempts to show "how greatly the advance of Sociology is hindered by the nature of its subject-matter' (1873/196l:66). He believes that sociology confronts several difficulties that differentiate it from natural sciences. To begin with, there are objective difficulties that involve the intrinsic nature of the facts that sociologists must analyze. For example, social phenomena are not directly perceptible. Unlike natural phenomena, they cannot be studied and measured with such instruments as clocks, thermometers, scales, and microscopes. (Of course, modem sociology has demonstrated that at least some social phenomena can be studied and measured with instruments [for example, audiotapes and videotapes].) Another methodological difficulty for sociologists, in Spencer's view, is that they, unlike psychologists,cannot utilize introspection as a method; social facts cannot be studied through introspection, but psychological facts can. (Again, at least some modem sociologists [for example, phenomenologists] do use introspection as a method.)

The facts of concern to sociologists not only are different from those found in die natural sciences and psychology but also are far more complex and difficult to study. Sociologist inevitably deal with an enormous range of highly dispersed details. It is often difficult to gain a sense of what is happening, because things occur over a wide geographic area and over long periods of time. Thus, for example, Spencer contends that the increasing division of labor is very difficult to study and was under way for quite some time before its development was recognized.

Another objective difficulty facing sociology is the untrustworthiness of its data, derived from both past and present societies. For one thing, the data are often distorted by the subjective states of the witnesses to the events under study, but sociologists must rely on the reports of such witnesses for their data. For another, the sociological observer is often misled by superficial and trivial facts and falls to see what is truly important. Spencer offers a number of cautions to sociologists: "In every ease we have to beware of the many modes in which evidence may be vitiated-have to estimate its worth when it has been discounted in various ways; and have to take care that our conclusions do not depend on any particular class of facts gathered from any particular place or time" (1873/1961:102). Spencer recognizes that the objective difficulties are formidable, but he still believes that sociology can deal scientifically with general classes of facts, although not with specific facts.

Sociologists must also confront the reality that they are the human observers of humanly created phenomena. As human beings, sociologists use modes of observation and reasoning in their daily lives, and such habits may not ha useful in, or may even be impediments to, sociological study. Sociologists must be wary of assessing others on the basis of their own standards. They are likely to experience difficulties in their own society, and those difficulties are greatly magnified when sociologists examine other societies.

Biases Sociologists also have a very different relationship to the facts they observe than do natural scientists. Sociologists' emotions may affect their judgments of social phenomena or lead them to make judgments without sufficient evidence. Spencer argues that "minds thus swayed by disproportionate hates and admirations, cannot flame those balanced conclusions respecting social phenomena which alone constitute Social Science" (1873/1961:144). In this context, Spencer deals with a number of specific emotional biases.

First, there is what Spencer calls an educational bias. He traces this to the fact that we live in a society that combines elements of both militant and industrial societies (which are discussed later in tiffs chapter). The result is that we are taught a tangle of ideas derived from both systems, and this causes the sociologist to misinterpret social phenomena. The sociologist must not be biased against either militant or industrial society and must be able to study both types impartially and to recognize that both have been necessary historically. For example, as we will discuss later, Spencer, in spite of his biases against warfare, is able to see that war is functional for militant societies.

Second, there is the bias of patriotism (and antipatriotism). As Spencer argues: "'Our country, right or wrong,'... Whoever entertains such a sentiment has not that equilibrium of feeling required for dealing scientifically with social phenomena" (1873/1961:185). Sociologists must emancipate themselves from the bias of patriotism, but Spencer recognizes that such emancipation is not easy to accomplish. However, he holds out hope for the future because he believes that the triumph of industrial society, the resulting increase in harmonious sentiments, and the decrease in hostility to societies different from our own will lead to a decline in patriotic bias mid an increased capacity to be objective about our society and others, both historically and contemporaneously.

Third, there is class bias, found in the upper and lower classes, among employers and the employed, which Spencer regards as the most serious of the biases in sociological work. Because all sociologists come from a given class, they are likely to reflect this bias in their work. Again, however, Spencer holds out hope for the future, in which gloater societal harmony will lead to less class antagonism and to the increased ability of sociologists to come to more balanced conclusions about social phenomena. However, Spencer goes thither and uses the argument about class bias to underscore his conservative orientation: "The class-bias obscures tile truth, otherwise not easy to see, that the existing type of industrial organization, like the existing type of political organization, is about as good as existing human nature allows. The evils there are in it are nothing but the evils brought round on men by theft own imperfections" (1873/196l:229).Spencer's conservatism, and its implications for his sociology, will be touched upon throughout this chapter.

Fourth. Spencer discusses political bias. The current government its laws, and its political parties, among other political phenomena, serve to bias socioiogists in their work.Not only are sociologists prone to view things the way the current political system sees them, but they are led to examine visible political forms and ignore less visible poIitical phenomena (for example. "national character"). Furthermore, the existing political system tends to obscure the unanticipated effects of legal and other political changes. For example, the government will attune observers to acknowledge the anticipated benefits of political changes and to ignore their unanticipated evils.

Finally, Spencer looks at theological bias. For example, the sociologist may be led to assess things relative to the creed of a given religion rather than to the way they relate to human welfare in general. Although Spencer foresees no end to religion, he does see it undergoing the evolutionary trend described earlier, and this trend will serve to mitigate theology as a source of bias in the foture.

Speneer's Approach In seeking to exclude these and other biases tom sociological research, Spencer is articulating a "value-free" position for the discipline (see Chapter 7, on Weber, for a more complex view of this issue). He argues, for example, that

in pursuing our sociological inquiries.., we must. as much as possible, exclude whatever emotions the facts arc calculated to excite,., trustworthy interpretations of social arrangements imply an almost passionless consciousness. Though fee/ring cannot and ought not to be excluded from the mind when otherwise contemplating them, yet it ought to be excluded when contemplating them as natural phenomena to ha understood in their causes and effects.

(Spencer, 1908b:230, 232)

In his own work, Spencer employed what has come to be called the comparative historical method. That is, he engaged mainly in the comparative study of the different stages of societies over time as well as of various kinds of contemporary societies. His goal in this research was always to seek out, inductively, support (or, presumably, lack of support) for the theories derived deductively from his most general orientation. He was also interested in developing empirical generalizations based on his comparative, especially evolutionary, studies.

We must not close this section without mentioning the fifteen volumes of data on various societies (for example, ancient Mexicans, ancient Romans) commissioned by Spencer but put together by others in accord with a category system developed by Spencer (J. Turner, 1985b:95-104). Although these volumes have been little read or used by sociologists, and although they are almost impossible to find today, they reflect Spencer's commitment to empirical research of the comparative-historical variety in order to create a base whereby he and others could inductively support, or fail to supper, theories derived deductively.

THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY

Spencer employs his evolutionary theory in his massive three-volume work, The Principles of Sociology (1908a, 1908b, 1908c). (Much of this work had been published in serial form in magazines in the late 1800s.) In his more specific focus on the evolution of society and its major institutions, Spencer employs the three general dimensions out lined earlier increasing integration (increasing size and coalescence of masses of people), heterogeneity, and definiteness (clearly demarcated social institutions). In addition,he employs a fourth dimension, the increasing coherence of social groups (modern civilized nations hold together far longer than early wandering groups of people). Thus, he offers the following statement as his general formula of social evolution: 'There is progress toward greater size, coherence, multiformity and definiteness" (Spencer,1908a:597).

Before we go any further, it is important to make it clear that in spite of appearances, Spencer does not adopt an inevitable, unilinear view of social evolution. That is. evolution does not have to occur, and it does not always move in a single direction. Societies are constantly changing in light of changes in their environs, but these changes are not necessarily evolutionary. "Only now and then does the environing change initiate in the organism a new complication, and so produce a somewhat higher structure" (Spencer,1908a:95-96). It is possible at any given moment for there to be no change, dissolution,or evolution. Not only is evolution not inevitable, but when it does occur, it does not take the form of a simple unilinear pattern; the stages do not necessarily occur in serial order (Haines, 1997).

Before getting to the actual evolution of society, we need a definition of society. Spencer discusses the issue of nominalism (society is nothing more than its component parts) versus realism (society is a distinct and separable entity) and comes down on the side of realism because of die "permanence of the relations among component parts which constitutes die individuality of a whole" (1908a:447). "Thus we consistently regard society as an entity, because, though formed of discrete units, a certain concreteness in the aggregate of them is implied by the general persistence of the arrangements among them throughout the area occupied" (Spencer, 1908a:448). Thus, Spencer considers society a "thing," but it is unlike any other thing except for parallel principles in the way the component parts are arranged.

It should be pointed out here that there is an uncomfortable fit between Spencer's social realism and his previously discussed methodological individualism. Methodological individualism generally leads to, and is more comfortable with, a nominalist position on society. Conversely, methodological individualism generally rules out a realist orientation to society. Spencer holds to both without telling us much about how he is able to adopt two such discordant perspectives or how they are linked to one another. In other words, how do individuals create a "real" society? Spencer begins with assumptions about individuals, imposes the existence of society, and then ends (as we will see later) with a series of concerns about the negative impact of society on individuals.

Spencer sees societies as being like organic bodies (but unlike inorganic bodies) in that they are characterized by permanent relations among the component parts (Levine.1995b). Spencer's organicism led him to see a number of parallelisms between society and organic entities. Among other similarities, both entities increase in size and are subject to structural and functional differentiation. Furthermore. both ate characterized by an increasing division of labor, the development of interrelated differentiations that make still other differentiations possible. The component parts of both society and an organism are interconnected and in need of each other. In addition, if the whole of society or an organism dies, parts can live on; conversely, the whole can live on even if parts die (for example, society continues even after individuals die).

One issue here is whether Spencer believed that society is an organism or that there are simply important analogies between the two. Although at times Spencer discussed society as an organism, his avowed position was that there are merely important parallels between the two and that one could improve one's understanding of society by better understanding the parallelisms.

In a more concrete sense. Spencer (1908b) sees society as a gathering of people forming a group in which there is cooperation to seek common ends. Cooperation in society implies some form of organization. In Spencer's view. there are two basic types of cooperation. The first is the division of labor, which is a spontaneously and unconsciously developed system that directly serves the interests of individuals and indirectly serves the interests of society. Here we have a situation in which individuals consciously pursue their private ends, and the unconsciously evolving organization is not coercive.The second cooperative system is the one for defense and government, that is, the political organization, which is a consciously and purposefully created system that directly serves the interests of society and indirectly those of the individual. The political system involves the conscious pursuit of public ends, and this consciously evolving organization is coercive in regard to individuals.

The first element in Spencer's work on the evolution of society is society's growth in size. In his view, societies, similar to living organisms, "begin as germs" (Spencer, 1908a:463). "Superorganic" (social) phenomena, like organisms, grow through both the multiplication of individuals and the union ("compounding") of groups (for example, tribes), both of which may go on simultaneously.

The increase in the size of society is accompanied by an increase in structure. Spencer defines a structure as "an organization" (1908c:3). Greater size requires more differentiation, a greater unlikeness of parts. In fact, Spencer argues that "to reach great size [society] must acquire great complexity" (1908a:471). More generally, he contends that "all social structures result from specializations of a relatively homogeneous mass" (Spencer, 1908c: 181). The first differentiation is the emergence of one or more people claiming and/or exercising authority. This is followed soon after by the division between the regulative and the sustaining structures of society. We will have more to say about these structures later, but at this early stage the regulative structure is associated with military activities, whereas economic activities that maintain the group are linked to the sustaining structures. At first, this differentiation is closely linked to the division of labor among the sexes, with men handling the regulative structure (the military) and women the sustaining structures. As society evolves, each of these structures undergoes further differentiation; for example, the regulative agency acquires a system of kings, local rulers, petty chiefs, and so oil. Then there are differentiations of social classes as tile military, the priestly, and the slave classes emerge. Further differentiations occur within each social class; in the priestly class, for example, sorcerers, priests, diviners, and exorcists develop. Overall, society moves toward increasing structural differentiation and complexity.

The increasing differentiation of structures is accompanied by increasingly differentiated functions. A function is "the need subserved" by a structure (Spencer, 1908c:3).Spencer argues that "changes of structures cannot occur without changes of functions"(1908a:485). More generally, he contends that one cannot truly understand structures without a clear conception of their functions, or the needs served by the structures, in a relatively undifferentiated scare, the various parts of society can perform each other's functions. Thus, in a primitive society the male warriors could raise food and the females could fight if it became necessary. However, as society grows increasingly complex structurally, it is more and more difficult for highly specialized parts to perform each other's functions. Evolution brings functional progress along with structural progress: "With advance of organization, every part, more limited in its office, performs its office [that is, function] better; the means of exchanging benefits becomes greater; each aids all, and all aid each with increasing efficiency; and the total activity we call life, individual or national, augments" (Spencer, 1908a:489).

Having argued that societies evolve both structurally and functionally, Spencer returns to the sustaining and regulative systems mentioned previously and adds a third, the distributing system. In the discussion of these three systems, Spencer makes great use of analogies between social systems and organisms. In both social systems and organisms the sustaining system is concerned with the internal matters needed to keep them alive. In the living body the sustaining system takes the form of the alimentary organs, whereas in the social system it adopts the form of the various elements of the industrial system. External matters for both social systems and organisms are handled by the regulative system. The regulative system takes the form of the neuromuscular system in organisms and the government-military apparatus in social systems. Both are concerned with warfare with other systems and conflicts with the environment. Finally, the distributive system links the sustaining and regulative organs and systems. Here Spencer sees an analogy between blood vessels (in organisms) and roads (in social systems), "channels which carry, in the one case blood-corpuscles and serum, and in the other case men and commodities" (1908a:510). In addition to describing each of these structures and the functions they perform, Spencer also demonstrates how each is undergoing a process of evolution.

Simple and Compounded Societies

On the basis of what he claims are inductions from the evolution of past and present societies, Spencer develops two systems for classifying societies. The first, or primary, method is based on the increasing number of members of the aggregate as well as the degree to which that aggregate is compounded, or added to, by combining with other aggregates through such means as conquest or peaceful merger. Although, as we saw above, Spencer has argued in general against a simple unilinear theory of evolution the latter is just what he seems to offer here: 'The stages stages of compounding and recompounding have to be passed through in succession. No tribe becomes a nation by simple growth; and no great society is formed by the direct union of the smallest societies"(1908a:555; italics added).

Spencer identifies four types of societies on the basis of their degree of compounding. First, there are simple societies, which constitute single working entities that are not connected with any other entities. These are relatively homogeneous and uncivilized societies that have not gone through a compounding process. Second, we find compound societies, in which there is some increase in heterogeneity. For example, here we may find the emergence of a supreme chief who rules over the chiefs of several simple groups. Obviously, because there are now several groups, some compounding has occurred either by conquest or by peaceful means. We also find in compound societies, as a result of increasing heterogeneity, an increase in the division of economic labor and in organization. Third, there are doubly-compound societies, formed on the basis of the recompounding of compound groups. Here we find still more heterogeneity and further advances in civilization. Thus, in the political realm we find even more developed and stable governments. Spencer describes many other advances in these societies, such as the development of an ecclesiastical hierarchy, a more complex division of economic labor, law emerging from custom, more towns and roads, and more advanced knowledge and arts. Finally, there are the trebly-compound societies, or the great nations of the world, which are even more advanced in the areas just mentioned, as well as in many others, included in this category are both older societies, like the Roman Empire, and modern nations.