Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 1.djvu/218

206 To illustrate further, on a very minute scale, let us take the case of a bicycle club. It is a societary phenomenon of a comparatively recent origin. What place has it occupied in our thoughts? We have observed that it usually rallies about a headquarters; that it appears to have a more or less uniform affinity for wheels of a particular manufacture; that it manifests a somewhat unique esprit de corps; that its appearances in public are in varying degrees picturesque, and more of the same vague sort. Our observations so far can hardly claim to be a sufficient basis for final exposition, and I presume that Professor Ward himself would hardly care to distinguish them as properly statical. They are in a category antecedent to the statical. If we proceed to form an estimate of the societary significance of the bicycle club, we shall be obliged to collect precise and exhaustive observations for some time before we may safely venture to place the club either statically or dynamically. That is, we shall have the partial products of a scientific process, and these products, together with the process, deserve a distinguishing name, as much as the more finished products or processes.

I claim therefore that the term statical cannot be reserved for application to objects that are objectively statical, because the static or the dynamic quality is not an attribute of objects as such, it is an accident of their relations. These categories apply therefore to facts and processes when considered in their static or dynamic correlations. Otherwise we cannot account for inclusion of the same fact or object, in consecutive moments, first in the category static, second in the category dynamic. But our school system, for example, is at least presumed to be a factor of progress not less than a factor of order, and so in different ratios with many other institutions.

If Professor Ward does not grant that it is the point of view of the interpreter, rather than the objective character of the thing interpreted, which determines the designation of the process concerned, he will be led into all sorts of confusion. As just suggested, neither school, nor church, nor court, nor trade nor