Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/385

 WORKING HYPOTHESIS IN SOCIAL REFORM 371

avoid the difficulty of harmonizing the feeling of human initia- tive with the recognition of series which are necessarily deter- mined. In society we are the forces that are being investigated, and if we advance beyond the mere description of the phenom- ena of the social world to the attempt at reform, we seem to involve the possibility of changing what at the same time we assume to be necessarily fixed. The question, stated more gen- erally, is: What is the function of reflective consciousness in its attempt to direct conduct? The common answer is that we carry in thought the world as it should be, and fashion our conduct to bring this about. As we have already seen, if this implies a " vision given in the mount " which represents in detail what is to be, we are utterly incapable of conceiving it. And every attempt to direct conduct by a fixed idea of the world of the future must be, not only a failure, but also perni- cious. A conception of a different world comes to us always as the result of some specific problem which involves readjust- ment of the world as it is, not to meet a detailed ideal of a perfect universe, but to obviate the present difficulty ; and the test of the effort lies in the possibility of this readjustment fitting into the world as it is. Reflective consciousness does not then carry us on to the world that is to be, but puts our own thought and endeavor into the very process of evolution, and evolution within consciousness that has become reflective has the advantage over other evolution in that the form does not tend to perpetuate himself as he is, but identifies himself with the process of development. Our reflective consciousness as applied to conduct is, therefore, an identification of our effort with the problem that presents itself, and the developmental process by which it is overcome, and reaches its highest expression in the scientific statement of the problem, and the recognition and use of scientific method and control.

George H. Mead. The University of Chicago.