Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/399

 METHODOLOGY OF THE SOCIAL PROBLEM 38 1

sioDS, from which the sociologists proceed, it is necessary to refer again, in brief, to the different lines of investigation which have for their subject-matter —

(a) The physical environment of society.

(fi) The human individual.

In the first place, this organization of social research presupposes the accumulated results of the physical and biological sciences, so far as these interpret the objective world in which men have to work out their destiny.

In the second place, the sociologist presupposes the physiological, anthropological, and psychological research which analyzes human characteristics as exhibited in the individual. In addition to these, or perhaps properly as a subdivision of the psychological analysis, the sociologists must derive their immediate data with reference to the individual from psycho-ethical generalizations of motives betrayed in human actions. By this I mean that before science that is properly social begins, as distinct from science that is concerned solely with the individual, analysis of individual traits must have taken into account all the peculiarities of individual action which betray the individual impulses or springs of individual action, which are the units of force with which social science must deal. The most useful generalization of individual characteristics that can be cited in this (Connection is suggested in Small and Vincent, Introduction to the Study of Society, pp. '73> 177- In a word, the human individual is a center of energy to which we give the general name of desire. Individual desire, at a given moment, is compounded of the following elements: desire for {a) health, (b) wealth, (c) sociability, (d) knowledge, (e) beauty, (/) righteous- ness.

For the purposes of the sociologist, the human individual may be considered (i) as having his habitat in the environment which the physical sciences define ; (2) as exerting his peculiar reaction upon the environment, physical and human, through the operation of these desires. It need only be noticed in passing that the total of these elements of energy, in individuals, may vary greatly from time to time, and that the ratios of the different forms of the energy («)-(/) maybe incalculably diverse. The direction and force of the reaction of the individual upon his surroundings depend both upon the total energy of combined desires and upon the assortment of desires comprising the total.

On the other hand, the interpretation of our general formula ((«),