FERDINAND TONNIES

By KARL MANNHEIM

T HE news of the death ofthe Nestor of German sociology

serves to remind us of the extent to which fame and
recognition are socially conditioned. Had he died during
the Republic, the funeral ceremonies would have rendered
public honour to the work of a pioneer, but now his death is
mourned only in the intimate circle of his friends.
Tonnies began his work at a period when sociology was
outlawed at the Universities owing to the hostile attitude of
the Empire. Even when the Republic began to recognize
and support this science as the most effective mean of educa-
tion in democratic self-reliance, Tonnies remained obstin-
ately independent. It was this magnificent boldness which
made him refuse to accept the dogmatic approach to prob-
lems on party lines and, in the post-Republican era, although
he could have come to terms with certain elements, he chose
to stand aside. Tonnies was a thinker who was always in
opposition. Owing to the ambivalence of his feelings and
judgments. Romanticists and Positivists, Conservatives and
Radicals were all able to find support in his arguments.
But this ambiguity of his categories is not due to his wish to
win the good opinion of all parties, but, on the contrary,
to the fact that he experienced in himself the whole range of
the driving forces of his time. If one extreme of the right was
exaggerated he felt it necessary to stress the importance of
the other. The ambivalence is most clearly reflected in the
famous contrast between Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft. Ger-
man sociology could hardly be imagined without it. On
this view the organic forms of group life, wbich have grown
up naturally, e.g. the family, the tribe, are contrasted with
those forms of association which have come into being to
^rve a special, rational end, e.g. a joint stock company.
Ihe distinction has been later developed in different ways
by many others, notably by Professor Mclver in the form of
a contrast between community and association. Tonnies
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uses it at once as the basis for a philosophy of historical
development and of a psychological analysis of social forces.
Historical development, as Tonnies conceives it, is a process
of transition from forms of community to forms of association.
In his treatment of group life he does not confine himself to
description and classification, but brings out the fact that
different groups release and depend upon different mental
forces in the individuals concerned.
Public opinion, however, did not value Tonnies primarily
for his contributions to sociology. He was popular for a time
because in his category of Gemeinschaft he provided the Youth
Movement with just the conception that was needed to
express their opposition to the mechanistic aspects of modern
industrial society. But Tonnies, rightly interpreted, has a
profounder understanding of the main trends of modern
society than his propagandist exponents. When his book
Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft was issued in the 'eighties his
task was to render positivism acceptable to German romanti-
cism and idealism. It belongs to that type of work which
tries to combine the systematic thought of an epoch in which
thinking in wide concepts was still possible with the realistic
trend of modern times. In this way he found it possible to
move from a philosophy of history to empirical sociology
without discarding the wider aspects of history. The long
list of his other publications, among which the sociological
analysis of Hobbes as a man and a thinker is of special
interest to the English reader, covers a wide field of problems,
e.g. the analysis of customs, of public opinion, the different
forms of social maladjustment.
His long and active life, with its many joys but also its
bitter disappointments, enabled him to work out his ideas
fully, but at the same time probably revealed to him the
limitations and the imminent disappearance of the world in
which his beliefs were rooted.
A circle of friends and pupils presented him a short while
ago with a Festgabe of a volume of essays in commemoration
of his eightieth birthday.
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