Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/697

 RELATION BETWEEN SOCIOLOGY AND ETHICS 68 1

sociology (if we treat sociology as an investigation into human development) in the form of the supreme question : What is the tendency of that develop- ment? Are there a lower and a higher in it? Is evolution a process making for the betterment, perfection, and happiness of mankind, or a mere grinding out of the mechanical mill of existence, one no better than another, the out- come of blind forces, and destitute of any characteristics which can fill us with hope for the future of society? That question is always before us. In thinking what the standard of value is, we must know what we mean by "higher" and "lower," and so have a test by which we can differentiate the different stages of evolution. In that sense, then, I fully agree with the view in Professor Hoff ding's paper that ethics is necessary to sociology. I equally agree with the converse truth, that sociology is necessary to ethics ; in other words, that you cannot, as a moral philosopher, philosophize in the air. You must know that the things you ought to do are the things you can do. It is no use telling people they ought all to be eight feet high. While you might preach that with great enthusiasm, no one could make himself one inch the higher. Again, if we could all run a mile a minute, we could dispense with motor cars. That is a sort of ideal, but it has no relation to ethics, because you cannot by any teaching cultivate yourselves to run a mile a minute. These things are obvious. We ought, therefore, I think, not only to have the ordinary experience of our own individual life to go upon when we think out questions of value, but we ought to have the whole wealth of that experience which sociology can lay before us The richer the experience which the philosopher has before him, the more likely are his reflections to correspond to reality and give actual results.

I gather that Professor Hoffding would agree with me that ethics, though closely related to sociology, is nevertheless independent of sociology. It is not to be regarded as a department of that science; but even in regard to the use of the term " science " in ethics, I think some cavil might be made. We might treat ethical questions on scientific grounds, but ethics I take to be of the nature of philosophy an inquiry into ideals and what ought to be. Such an inquiry must have the richest possible experience as its basis. At the same time, it is different in this way, that the assumptions underlying it are the basis of all science. It is only when these assumptions are tested that we are able to test what is higher and lower.

DR. J. H. BRIDGES:* It would seem, on the face of it, that the idea of regarding ethics separately from sociology would be like an attempt to write

1 Dr. J. H. Bridges is one of the founders of the Positii'ist movement in Eng- land, and during a long life has been one of its ablest and most thoughtful leaders and exponents. There is perhaps in England today no man of more encyclopaedic learning. But Dr. Bridges' erudition differs from the dispersive scholarship of most encyclopaedists in having been acquired as parts of an organized synthesis. It is, therefore, essentially culture and not mere learning hence perhaps an explanation of his chief literary activities, which to a large extent have been devoted toward enlightening the public as to the real trend and significance of the