CONCLUSION 
273 
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 so- 
cial sciences to reach a full understanding of the social con- 
tent. The myth of a science of society has been exploded. 
What remains is a series of social sciences, of which sociol- 
ogy 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 impor- 
tance, not so much for the amount of new factual knowl- 
edge they contain as for the new orientation and clarifica- 
tion 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 ig- 
nored. 
Tt is for that reason that this study has been written, 
in the hope that it may serve as a starting-point for a re- 
newed 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.