Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/406

 386 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

While researches of the orders already discussed were becoming more and more scientific, men who called themselves sociologists (after the time of Comte) began to make themselves heard. To this day they have not agreed among themselves as to their mission, and, naturally enough, they have not succeeded in convincing other scholars that they have a mission. They have nevertheless persisted in declaring that the older sciences do not take up all the unknown factors of the problem of knowledge about society. Their insistence has been very much like a groping in the dark to get hold of a body whose presence is felt, which, however, can be neither described nor located. Sometimes the sociologists have declared that their subject-matter is entirely distinct from that of the other investigators of society ; sometimes they have said that it is the same subject-matter viewed in other lights ; some- times they have said that their quest is for "principles" antecedent to the things observed by the traditional social sciences ; sometimes they have protested that their vocation is in generalizing the conclu- sions of the older forms of research. Through all this vagueness and uncertainty, definiteness and precision have been emerging.

On the one hand, it is becoming evident that there are no primary facts about human beings, whether in their individuality or in associa- tion, certain aspects of which may not fall within the claim staked out by one or more of the social sciences. On the other hand, it is evident, first, that the social sciences, previous to the advent of the sociologists, had not given due attention to the primary facts of certain kinds, e.g., those now gathered by demography, folk-psychology, and mass-psy- chology. It is evident, second, that the social sciences, before the time of the sociologists, had either generalized relationships among associated people from very insufficient evidence, as in the traditional philosophies of history ; or they had narrowed their generalizations to formulas of relationships within an abstracted stratum of social activity, as in pure economics. Accordingly, it is obvious to men who have kept informed about the methodology of social inquiry that new pro- cesses must be invented to work these neglected fields. Such processes are, in fact, rapidly developing ; and it is plain, too, that the knowl- edge already acquired about the habits of men in association is capable of generalization in more meaning terms than the special sciences of humanity have learned how to use. In other words, we have learned and are still learning, for example :

(a) Laws of purely personal association.

{J)) Laws of tribal or racial association.