Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/40

 28 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

methodology of pure science, to acquit them of the charge of sentimentalism when they attempt to calculate the lines of action which the conduct of society ought to take.

As I have argued at length in the monograph, " The Signifi- cance of Sociology for Ethics," 3 the latest word of sociology is with reference to the end which gives to social activities their meaning. After all our analysis of the origin and evolution and mechanism of the social process, we are conscious that the final use of the whole complex procedure is what it can avail us in estimating the values of different activities. We have concluded that the whole social process, so far as we can anticipate it, is comprehended in the formula derived from survey of all of the process which we can observe ; viz. : the social process is continu- ous advance in the development, adjustment, and satisfaction of the health, wealth, sociability, knowledge, beauty, and Tightness desires. Those activities are good which promote this process, and those are bad that retard it. Virtually the same thought is expressed by Professor Ludwig Stein, of Bern, in these words:

The veil is gradually lifting from the meaning of history. That meaning is and can be nothing else than progressive ennobling of the human type, the upbuilding of the human species into social persons, the final subjugation of the bete humaine through social institutions in the realms of law and custom, of religion and morality, of art and science.*

With the same emphasis that Stein places, throughout his argu- ment, on the element of organization and co-operation among men, as a factor of progress equally essential with improvement of the individual type, I accept this description as an expansion of mine.

Of course, I cannot claim that these propositions command general assent among the sociologists, any more than elsewhere. They are the result of a long course of constructive analysis, which is the best that I have been able to do toward getting at the final criterion of life. I am bound to use it, therefore, till clearer light appears. I cite it now, not for the purpose of further defending it, but in order to show its bearings upon pro- grams of social action.

' Univiirsity of Chicago Decennial Publications, Vol. IV, p. HI. 4 An der Wende des Jahrhunderts, p. 414.