Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/195

 THE PROBLEMS OF SOCIOLOGY 183

noble, great, good, and beautiful. It is not difficult to understand that this problem is connected with the psychological problem of the freedom of the will, and of the value of intellectual freedom. The solution of the problem demands analytical insight into the whole complex of social facts.

A science which seeks to have a share in the enterprises of men necessarily turns its attention to the subject of future developments. In point of fact, all the exact and practical sciences do this, whether they teach that once one is one, or that H 2 SO 4 sprinkled upon KaCO 3 volatilizes CO 2, or that at a given time there will be an eclipse of the moon, etc., etc. In either case we are dealing always with prevision of that which must necessarily occur. Today, thanks to their obsolete attachment to the antique, many psychical sciences are still training their vision toward the rear, and they are meeting all prevision and prophecy of the inevitable with a comical contempt. From the standpoint of soci- ology men will learn to overcome this reactionary tendency, and to recognize as scientific no research until, as is always the case with the natural sciences, it strives after future control of the phenomena. This influence upon coming social development presupposes, however, the solution of the fourth problem, namely, (4) What form will social evolution take? This problem can be solved only on the basis of knowledge of previous social evolu- tion. Its purpose is to gain prevision of the social necessities, in order to measure the inevitable and to learn the extent to which the interposition of the human will can have effect.

In connection with the passing of judgment upon social development, a series of principal problems will be presented. The most important of these may be named as the fifth problem in our series, viz., (5) the question of the reciprocal relationships between individualism (subjectivism) and socialism (communal- ism). The realization of the typically human is unquestionably a work of individualization, which has rescued man from the communalistic horde condition. Personality is the noble fruit of this impulse. Its excess, however, brings it about that the individual regards himself as the focus of the world. Does social evolution permit the unlimited process of individualization, or is