Superiority and Subordination as Subject-Matter of Sociology

I UNDERSTAND the task of sociology to be description and determination of the historico-psychological origin of those forms in which interactions take place between human beings.2 The totality of these interactions, springing from the most diverse impulses, directed toward the most diverse objects, and aiming at the most diverse ends, constitutes "society." Those different contents in connection with which the forms of interaction manifest themselves are the subject-matter of special sciences. These contents attain the character of social facts by virtue of occurring in this particular form in the interactions of men. We must accordingly distinguish two senses of the term "society: " first, the broader sense, in which the term includes the sum of all the individuals concerned in reciprocal relations, together with all the interests which unite these interacting persons; second, a narrower sense, in which the term designates the society or the associating as such, that is the interaction itself which constitutes the bond of association, in abstraction from its material content -the subject-matter of sociology as the doctrine of society sensu stricto.