Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 11.djvu/42

 SOCIOLOGICAL CONSTRUCTION LINES. Ill

PROFESSOR EDWARD C. HAYES, PH.D. Miami University

SECTION V. SOCIOLOGY A STUDY OF CAUSAL RELATIONS

There are two ways in which a process may be identified : by its effects and by its origin. The attempt to identify, by its effects, a social process, distinct and unified, and requiring for its investigation a separate science of sociology, may fail. It may lead to the perception that the effects of social processes are the diverse phenomena already studied by the particular social sciences of economics, politics, etc., and that with reference to effects there is discernible no unified social process such as to require a general science, either to combine or to supplement these particular sciences. Even in that case, as appeared in the foregoing section, the extension of the dynamic concept to social phenomena, so as to think them in terms of process, may have far-reaching effects upon our views and explanations of such phenomena. And now it is to be added that, although a unified social process, requiring a general sociology, may not be identi- fied by its unified results, we still may seek to identify such a process by the other method, that is, by reference to its origin. Do social activities arise in a particular way? Are they due to forms of causation that should be comprehended apart from the special content of the activities that emerge forms of causa- tion that apply to social activities, whether the content of these activities be political or economic, or otherwise, and that can be understood more adequately by a study that is not confined to the field of any of the special social sciences; and is such study a proper office for a general science of sociology?

The naive and common-sense way to identify processes by their origin is to regard them as the expressions of different forces. Thus people often refer to physical, chemical, and vital forces. But we know absolutely nothing of any force in and

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