ABSTRACT
This conclusion of second part of this book presents some closing thoughts on the concepts discussed in the book. The part illustrates the skeleton structure of Georg Simmel's sociology. Sociology is concerned with kingship and the state as forms of social organization, not as political institutions. It deals with the competitive system and large-scale production as types of social structures, not as phases of economic development. The subject-matter of sociology is therefore not the social actuality as such. It rests upon an abstraction from the actuality like that of any other science. The difference in social content will then overshadow the similarity in social form, and the full meaning of Simmel's illustrations and inductions will escape us. But once this process of differentiation has been mastered, there are no insurmountable obstacles of technique. The task of the science will then reveal itself as identical with the task of all other sciences within their special field.
