INTRODUCTION

"N THE preceding chapters we have dealt with
Simmel’s fundamental considerations regarding the
-+ methodology of the social sciences in general and of
sociology in particular. Our next task is, therefore, to
indicate to what his conception of formal sociology and of
its method and technique leads in actual application.
The subject-matter of sociology, as will be remembered
from the preceding chapters, is for Simmel the process of
socialization as such. Sociology is the science of human
relationships, the theory of association. Its task is to describe
 and explain the forms of socialization and to trace
the tendencies of development and the conditions under
which they arise.
The fragmentary character of his work prevents an inclusive
 treatment, and we are therefore obliged to limit
ourselves to a short summary of his most important essays.
Besides, a representation of his contribution to the study
of sociology in this form illustrates better than any attempt
at integration his opinion about the present early stage of
the science. Simmel believed that a systematic presentation
 of sociology would be possible only in the distant future,
 and that for the time being the workers in that field
would have to content themselves with isolated contributions.
 He explicitly states that even his great volume qn
sociology is not to be regarded as an attempt at a systematic
 presentation, but merely as an illustration of the
application of its method to different phenomena within
the field. This explains to a large extent the fragmentary
character of the work, although that is undoubtedly also