Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/417

 SEMINAR NOTES 403

formulating them in terms of mathematical precision, are two very different things, nor has the latter been here affirmed.

Today, however, the most urgent task of the sociologist is in the present, in learning to understand present conditions. The tedious, but very essential, sort of analysis indicated in this paper is the kind of work before him. Having gained some idea of the interplay of the different forces, some comprehension of the structural interdependence existing between social institutions and human desires, and the func- tional activity continually at play, he gains also a knowledge of the obstacles which must be removed for his further progress. Before he is able to furnish even skeleton formulae, in which may be substituted approximate values for the meaning terms of desire, he must have a more complete, a more perfect, classification than has yet been made of the various forms of institutions and desires manifest in actual condi- tions, the data for which are not yet at hand.

Amy Hewes.