Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/157

 METHODOLOGY OF THE SOCIAL PROBLEM I4I

biological study the moment we pass to the world of people. To know all about the forces at work in the world of people we must know how to detect and formulate the biological forces. Man is first an animal. The elementary study of man falls within " the highest section of zoology." ' Hence the study of man is a biological rather than a sociological pursuit.'

But man is an animal //«i' something. This plus is not present in the other animals in sufficient force to be a distinguishing trait. Man is a psychic animal. While we assume for the present, therefore, that the study of man as an animal has been provided for in planning study of the world of things, we shall see later that complete investiga- tion of man as a psychic animal will send us back for instruction to the science of anthropology. That is, we are dependent upon anthro- pology, not only for knowledge of man as part of the world of things, but also for some of our knowledge of man as the primary element of the world of people. We must consult anthropology for part of our knowledge about the physical conditions of psychic action.

So far as we know, there are but two elementary factors at work in the world of people. These we term, in general, the physical and the psychical. Considering the world of things the realm of the physical, we have to do, not wholly, but by way of difference, with the action of the psychical element, when we abstract the world of people from the whole reality. The problem presented by our guiding question (above, p. 132) amounts to this: In what way does the psychical factor work in the world of people 7 From the standpoint thus deter- mined, each of the "sciences" that have grown up in connection with the facts about the world of people must be appraised by the answer to this question : How much of the necessary work of collecting and sifting the evidence about the workings of the psychic factor in the world of people has the science in question done, and how much has it left undone; how much has it the means of doing, and how much is beyond its means ?

We must here anticipate a conclusion that will be forced upon us when we come to investigate the above question in its application to the various sciences about humanity. We must be forewarned that it is almost impossible to find a spokesman for one of the divisions of human science who makes approximately just claims for the service rendered by his own science. The anthropologist, the ethnologist, the philologist, the historian, etc., etc., each maybe found maintaining that

'Vide Small and Vincent, Introduction to the Study of Society, p. 56. 'Vide Ward, Sociology and Anthropology.