ABSTRACT
The requirement that society must be defined through theory—a requirement which is itself a theory of society—must further address itself to the suspicion that such theory lags far behind the model of the natural sciences, still tacitly assumed to binding on it. Inasmuch as society remains a product of human activity, its living subjects are still able to recognize themselves in it, as from across a great distance, in a manner radically different than is the case for the objects of chemistry and physics. A genuine theory of society ought to be able to move from such immediate observation of phenomena towards an understanding of their deeper social causes. Society needs this tireless intellectual reduplication of everything that is, because without this praise of the monotonously alike and with waning efforts to justify that which exists on the grounds of its mere existence, men would ultimately do away with this state of things in impatience.
