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Excerpt from The Authority of Law in Language, Vol. 4
It is interesting to observe how the comparatively old science of philology has in this respect attained a solid footing, whereas the relatively new science of sociology is still ¿oundering in the mire of the antiquated theory of the objective existence of or counterpart to mental or psychological activities. In a recent sum mary of the present state of sociological inquiry Professor Gid dingsl has put side by side the two modern methods of sociological study. On the one hand, he says, are those who insist that 'the typical society, consisting of individuals both dwelling and work ing together, is as truly an organism as is the animal or vegetal body composed of cells and difierentiated into mutually dependent tissues and organs.' The other point of view is assumed by those who conceive society as a 'superorganic product,' and who regard it 'as essentially a psychological phenomenon. They assume that all social bonds, instead of being merely physical, like the cohesion of material cells, may be resolved into some common activity or interactivity of individual minds.' Applying the same general principles to the, study of language, there can hardly be any ques tion that the second view is right. Language, which is merely one of the manifestations of social grouping, has its real existence in the common activity or interactivity of individual minds.
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