Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 11.djvu/25

 A DECADE OF SOCIOLOGY 9

in the case of biology the generic name for the organic sciences has lost all specific content, while real work in biology is dis- tinguished by one of the many subtitles, so it will be in sociology. We shall have an increasing number of investigators, all con- tributing toward the ultimate desideratum knowledge of the whole social process but each concentrating attention upon selected elements or phases or types of social processes.

In the second place, applied sociology, or " social technol- ogy," will progressively accredit itself in functions that have relations to pure sociology closely analogous with those of public hygiene to biology. The notion of an ideal social condition, in the statical sense, can never again secure even quasi-scientific endorsement. Progressive functional adaptation to conditions that change in the course of the functioning is human destiny. The ultimate art of life will be the utmost skill in adjusting con- duct to the evolving conditions of this process. There will be increasing work and demand for men trained in knowledge of social processes in general. There will be a vocation for them in pointing out the particular failures of adaptation in given situations, and in showing how ascertained means of adjustment may be employed to best advantage.

The type of constructive influence that genuine sociologists will exert in the future will not be that of the ideologist, but rather, in the expressive German phrase, that of a "helper-of- births." Our present means of studying society will teach us more and more credible signs that ideas, feelings, purposes are in travail, and w r e shall learn more and more skill in removing obstacles that resist the forces of life. The whole tendency of sociology, both pure and applied, is to educate away from irra- tional dogmatism toward rational opportunism. Ten years ago the sociologists were not quite sure how to answer the men who would make an end of the whole matter with the dictum, " You cannot change society." Today we know that nothing can arrest the incessant change which we call society. Our problem the eternal human problem is to understand as much as we may of the change, while we are factors of it, and to do our