Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 1.djvu/221

 Rh past periods, but much more to show how discovered facts and forces and principles foreordain a more complete equilibrium of social elements, and to make definite exhibit of this indicated order.

It goes without saying, after what has preceded, that in the present state of our descriptive material, and of our static and dynamic interpretation, this latter task is to be treated for the present as a methodological desideratum, the satisfaction of which can be expected only in tentative and fragmentary form. Yet this part of our method seems to me so radically important that I have been misled into speaking of it as though it were the whole of "statical sociology." For want of a better term I have lately been designating this division of statical interpretation by the title "ideostatics."