Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 1.djvu/216

204 Professor Ward's argument assumes, that it is necessary or even possible to contemplate each societary fact, at every stage of treatment, as either static or dj'namic. On the contrary, although men who habitually reflect cannot easily rid themselves of the anticipation that any fact which they may observe will presently manifest some static or dynamic relations, it is both necessary and desirable for students of society to deal primarily with facts as facts, before trying to make out their static or dynamic relations. For example, if one were to prepare himself for sociological interpretation of American society as a whole at this moment, he would be obliged in the first instance to investigate in turn the elements of which American society is composed, and the factors by which it is conditioned. Thus anthropological and psychological study of the population is to be taken for granted on the one hand, and on the other hand study of the natural resources of the territory, and of the actual use made of them by the population. Then the institutional phenomena would have to be considered in turn, the geographical and political distribution of the population, their individual and territorial division of labor; their contrivances for social control; their educational machinery, their industrial organization, and, finally, the body of traditions, beliefs, aims, that in conjunction with the material environment fix the limitations of national action.

It would be a long time before an investigator, even if he could divide this research among many assistants, could become so familiar with the details involved in these distinct divisions of material that he could safely venture to consider them as a totality in their statical relations. During this period of preparatory research and reflection he has been dealing with innumerable facts which may have both static and dynamic relations, but he has had to study them by themselves, virtually regardless of their static or dynamic aspects, until he became sufficiently intelligent about them in detail to construct his knowledge of particulars into comprehension of the whole.

But Professor Ward will doubtless reply: "Each of these