Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/766

 SOCIOLOGICAL CONSTRUCTION LINES. II

SECTION IV. SOCIOLOGY A STUDY OF PROCESSES

What, then, is it that the sociologist studies? Is there some special division or aspect of reality that is the object of his investi- gation, and, if so, what is it? The common and obvious answer is : " The sociologist studies society." The more elaborate and analytical answers, when their main contents are summed up, appear to have been twofold : first, the sociologist studies societies social organisms, or at least organizations, groups of people among whom established relations exist ; second, he studies social institutions ideas, beliefs, customs, and habits, that have become common property throughout groups to which these institutions give character and a certain unity. Each of these answers con- tains a degree of truth. Not all of them together contain truth that is complete and exact enough to make a final answer to the question.

The sociologist is a student of processes. Sciences may begin with an examination, description, and classification of things; but all this is preliminary to a study of the processes that explain the things, the processes by which they have arisen and by which they are maintained and modified. We recall the time when natural history occupied itself with minute description and classi- fication of animals and plants. Now, the chief objects of research in zoology and botany are the physiological processes that pro- duce, maintain, and modify animals and plants. In the investiga- tions that advance these sciences the main focus of attention has shifted from products to processes, from the plant that can be dried, labeled, and pigeonholed in an herbarium, to plant life. Not until the processes of being and becoming are the objects of our attention do we have any developed science of life, any real explanation of living objects. The transfer of the botanist's main attention from leaves, stems, and flowers to vital processes must be paralleled by a transfer of the chief attention of sociolo-

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