Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/117

Rh —is the business of science. For the most part, every man has hitherto been his own sociologist. And that is as it should be, provided he has the desire to contribute in fullest measure his social experience to the common fund, and has the knowledge of how to do this. For that, two conditions are necessary: the science of sociology must have reached a certain degree of systematization, and the individual must have undergone an appropriate social education. How far these conditions are at present fulfilled is a matter that merits the most careful investigation. The fact that there exists, especially among the educated classes, so deep and widespread prejudice against the systematization of sociological knowledge is itself symptomatic of serious defects in social education. The truth of Shaftesbury's proposition that the quickest way to become a fool is by system need not be disputed. The obstacles to thought that are generated by a premature and ill-advised system are obvious enough. But the other half of the truth needs emphasizing, viz., that for want of systematization much of the wisdom of individuals is lost to the world and still more remains unutilized. To systematize knowledge is to throw it open so that every adequately educated person may draw upon it or contribute to it from his own experience. Unceasing systematization, more even in sociology than in other sciences, is the necessary condition of that ultimate co-operation between individuals and between groups, between generations and between ages, which marks the transition from instinct to reason, from empiricism to science. No one objects to order, whether in the arrangement of ideas in a book or garments in a wardrobe. And what is system but order developed to a higher degree of social usefulness? What order is in individual economy, system is in social economy. Anyone who utters sweeping and unqualified condemnation of systematization thereby declares himself an unsocialized type.

What distinguishes the scientific sociologist is not primarily the mass and quality of his social experience, but the manner in which he acquires it, arranges it, and uses it. Both the quantity and the quality of one's social experiences are, of course, conditioned by the mode of its acquisition, arrangement, and