Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/651

 THE SCOPE OF SOCIOLOGY 635

That he is an exponent of a special type of sociology in Earth's sense is, we repeat, a mistake. He has certainly contributed a large share toward the introduction of sanity into thought about social relations. He has not attempted, however, to influence sociological method except in the general way above indicated.

Hauriou is for our purposes a wholly negligible quantity.' Professor Giddings stands for certain tendencies which deserve distinct mention under another head. We accordingly return to Ward as the proper representative of the phase of methodology to which the title of this section refers.

We must observe once more that none of the methods with which we are dealing entirely lacks or entirely monopolizes any factor of scientific process. Ward, for instance, did not invent the quest for formative social influences. Men had been search- ing for them since the world began. When Ward wrote Dynamic Sociology, however, the sociological fashion set by Spencer was to treat social forces as though they were mills of the gods which men could at most learn to describe : which they might not presume to organize and control. Ward did not declare independence of the natural conditions within which the human problem has to be worked out. He declared that we may learn physical conditions, and at the same time mental conditions, to such purpose that we may eventually make human progress a scientific program. His emphasis, then, was upon knowledge of the effective forces in social conditions, with ultimate reference to deliberate telic application.^

Altogether apart, then, from any specific theorems to which Ward committed himself, his work has a secure place as a force making for modification of the aims of sociological theory. It is Comte, to be sure, from whom Ward takes his cue, but Comte had no scientific standing-ground broad and firm enough to per- mit clear prevision. Spencer was virtually training prevision backward. The primary meaning of Ward's appearance in the

' La science sociale traditionellt, Vdixis, i%<)b.

' Vide first ed.. Preface, p. vii ; Vol. I, p. 81 ; and Vol. II, p. 159. For Spencer's unlike views vide Social Statics, American ed. of 1892, pp. 233 sq.; also De Greef, Introduction, Vol. II, p. 13. .