ABSTRACT
The collapse, temporary or permanent, of anything significant calls always for a careful retrospective weighing of its merits and shortcomings. In Germany we have just witnessed the breakdown of one of the most important forms of culture, viz. that of democratic culture, which had there attained a very high stage of development. Gradually, therefore, a balance will have to be struck of the achievements of that culture in each of its several spheres. This paper seeks to strike such a balance for the sphere of sociology only. But it is necessary to point out at the very outset—and the point will be discussed at length later—that it is precisely in the field of sociology that something of vital importance is reflected, for it was just in this particular field that the spiritual and cultural forces of post-war Germany sought to shape themselves. Both the everyday view of the world and the separate sciences found their fulfilment through the new aspects of sociology and, conversely, sociology honestly tried to embody all that wealth of new knowledge which the separate sciences and everyday life proffered to it. The following analysis is in no sense to be considered as a detailed account of the achievements of post-war German sociology. We shall be concerned, rather, to present a living picture of the most recent development of German sociology, to explain the characteristics of that development in terms of its social background, and to contrast, in rough outline, the nature of the endeavours of German sociologists during the period since 1918 with the achievements of sociology in other countries. The purpose of this paper, in short, is to bring a whole spiritual constellation, which has now vanished, nearer to the foreign public. For we are convinced that in spite of the contemporary autarchic tendencies, and partly, indeed, as a reaction against those tendencies, the feeling is in certain circles gaining ground that, because knowledge is the common property of the whole world, it is the duty of the public to try to save what certain forces are, for specific reasons, endeavouring to annihilate. Furthermore, we believe that we are historically and socially so far advanced as to be able, if we wish, to save not only individuals but also, where they deserve it, whole spiritual constellations, and, if need be, to let them continue to take definite shape on different soil.
