Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 2.djvu/823

 COLLECT! I 'K TELESIS 807

purpose, but they rarely aim to accomplish that purpose indi- rectly. They are usually not only mandatory thou shalt but negatively so thou shalt not. Little more can be said for the great body of laws enacted by the legislatures of represen- tative governments. That is, legislators usually employ the direct method. This is more or less successful, but always requires a physical ppwer behind it. It is the purely empirical stage of government. As government is an application of what society knows about the nature of the social forces, it is a true art, but the condition in which we now find this art corresponds to that in which all other arts are prior to the application to them of the wider principles of systematic science, and society may be considered to occupy the place, relatively to what it will ultimately attain, that art occupied before the era of science.

This brings us to the kernel of our subject. It may be called the social art. The science of society must produce the art of society. True legislation is invention. Government is the art that results from the science of society through the legislative appli- cation of sociological principles. In every domain of natural forces there are the four steps : First, the discovery of the laws governing phenomena ; second, perception of the utilities (modes in which the phenomena can be modified to serve man); third, the necessary adjustments to secure the useful end ; and, fourth, the application of all this in producing the result. The first of these steps is that of pure science ; the second and third are involved in invention, and properly constitute applied science; the fourth is art in its proper sense. In taking these successive steps there has usually been considerable division of labor. ntific discoverers are not often inventors, and inventors rarely make the products they invent. Still, two or more of the steps are often taken by the same individual.

Now, looking at society as a domain of natural forces, we may see how readily it admits of being subjected to this of processes. Discovery of the laws of society is the natural province of the sociologist. He should also be looked to for th< detection of utilities, but this work also belongs in a