CONCLUSION

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the social sciences and take its place among them. In the
new order of things its position is far less assuming. A large
part of its new function will be the modest task of searching
for a knowledge of the social forms, so as to enable the social
 sciences to reach a full understanding of the social content.
 The myth of a science of society has been exploded.
What remains is a series of social sciences, of which sociology
 is merely one, even if it finds its subject-matter through
a different abstraction.
One may object to the term “sociology” or “formal
sociology” which Simmel applies to the study of the forms
of socialization, but that objection would involve only the
necessity for searching for a new name. If one insists on
applying the term “sociology” only to a synthesis of the
social sciences or to the study of practical social problems
involving a knowledge of all social sciences, there is no
fundamental objection, provided one does not call it a
science.
But apart from all questions of terminology, Simmel’s
contributions to social theory are of the utmost importance,
 not so much for the amount of new factual knowledge
 they contain as for the new orientation and clarification
 which they have brought to the intricate problems of
the methodology of the social sciences. His ideas may be
partially accepted or wholly rejected; they cannot be ignored.

Tt is for that reason that this study has been written,
in the hope that it may serve as a starting-point for a renewed
 discussion of social methodology, and in the hope
also that it may contribute in some way to the finding of
the common method which the social sciences will have to
adopt if they are ever to advance to a point where they can
effectively help man in his liberation from the despotic
leviathan.