ABSTRACT
IT is proposed in this paper to discuss in outline the various ways in which the conception of stages or phases has been used in anthropology and sociology and to inquire whether, and in what sense, it still has value as an instrument of investigation. We may distinguish five ways in which the notion of stages has been employed, having different roots in the history of thought and, as will appear later, possessed of very unequal value for sociological theory. There is, first of all, the notion of stages as regular sequences of some element or form of culture, such as forms of the family or economic organization, supposed to recur in the same order among different peoples and to describe a kind of evolutionary tendency. This may be described as the conception of unilinear recurrence, and is connected with the early and somewhat crude application of evolutionary ideas to sociological problems. There is, secondly, the notion of stages as describing general trends of social development in humanity or rather in the culture of humanity, taken as a whole. This view has its roots partly in modern evolutionary ideas, but more profoundly in older conceptions of development derived from the philosophy of history and general philosophical theory. The notion of recurrence or orderly repetition of given sequences of stages does not on this view play an important rô1e. It is recognized that development proceeds on different lines and reaches focal points of expression in different parts of the world. What it stresses rather is the interconnexion and continuity of human history, and the possibility of detecting in it general trends characteristic of human culture as a whole. Examples are the schemes of development formulated by Comte, Hegel, Marx, Hobhouse. Thirdly, there are the less ambitious schemes of those who formulate schemes of change for one or more elements of culture, but confine themselves, at any rate primarily, to the history of one people or culture area, though no doubt leaving open the possibility of parallel schemes being found to apply also to other peoples or areas. Compare here Schmoller's 1 scheme of stages describing the economic growth of Germany, or the scheme of Proesler 2 more deliberately restricted to Germany. In most of the schemes coming under the heads so far mentioned there is implied the notion of genetic continuity, that is, subsequent stages are held to arise or evolve out of precedent stages. The fourth point of view is to leave the question of genetic continuity open and to regard the stages distinguished not as descriptive of sequences supposed to have actually occurred but rather as heuristic constructions or theoretical ‘ types ’ useful as instruments of measurement, comparison, and correlation. Here belongs the notion of ‘ ideal types ’ used by Max Weber 3 and adopted by even the severest critic of the theory of stages in general such as von Below. 4 Finally there is the theory of Kultur-Kreise, or culture complexes, according to which social development consists in the stratification or superposition of different complexes of cultural elements, their fusion and mutual modification through migration or other contacts in the course of time. 5
