Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/823

 THE SCOPE OF SOCIOLOGY 807

perspectives, and then make requisitions for more details to fill up gaps of which we were unconscious in our previous knowledge.

Sociology, then, is not a proposed substitute for other divisions of social science. As we have argued above, it would be a step toward clearness if we should agree to use the term "sociology" as a generic name for all the social sciences considered, not as a series or hierarchy, but as an interdependent process of knowing the social reality as a whole : the system of divided labor upon the common subject-matter which has to be viewed in various aspects. If that agreement were reached, it would of course be desirable to fix upon a name for that portion of sociology which we are explaining in accord- ance with the description "study of man considered as affecting and as affected by association." Professor Sumner, of Yale, has introduced the term " societology," and he apparently applies it to very nearly the same aspect of the subject-matter to which these papers apply the term " sociology " in the secondary or more special sense of our formula. We repeat that our use of the term in this way is deliberately metaphorical. Usage, not academic nor individual preference, will of course gradually enforce a self-consistent code of terms with constant values.'

Not to deal further with this important but non-essential matter of names, our point of departure is this : Human life, as it appears to us oh]e.cx\ve\y, \s the ifwolved activity of itidividuals associating. Knowledge of human life accordingly presupposes a conspectus of human associations, and intimate perception of the ways in which the persons and the associations affect each other. This knowledge cannot be reached by any single science. Sociology is, in the first place, a sort of range-finder. The figure will not bear very close inspection, but, to be literal, sociology has to chart the field of human association, to correlate extant knowledge of various associations, and to show the relations

' Major Powell has made the following suggestion : He distinguishes sociology as " the science of institutions," and he adds : " I use the term sociology to distinguish one of five coordinated sciences : esthetology, technology, sociology, philology, and sophiology, and I call all of these sciences dtmonomy. I classify the sciences of sociology as statistics, economics, civics, histories, and ethics." {^American Anthropolo- gist, July, 1899, p. 476.)