Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 6.djvu/347

 THE SCOPE OF SOCIOLOGY 333

of forces, and all the processes of action among the forces, that always constitute association. The intellectual ideal for which sociological discipline strives is judgment so firm that whenever a social incident, issue, problem, or situation is encoun- tered, the mind will hold that object before itself, first, as con- ditioned by all these universal influences which we are beginning to schedule, and, second, as a particular resultant of certain spe- cially effective forces that have operated within these conditions. The greater part of this balancing process unquestionably is, and should be, subconscious. But the sociologically intelligent mind will know how to bring any force or process concerned out of subconsciousness into active consciousness, so soon as the detail in question threatens to be treated in any doctrinaire or irresponsible fashion.

To illustrate : It would be very crude and pedantic for every person who wants to improve the physical, industrial, political, educational, aesthetic, social, or religious conditions of a modern city to be constantly shuffling over in his mind the technical names of the different categories with which we are dealing in this argument. There is something more practical. At the same time, every person who exercises an influence upon forms of social amelioration will have a use for these categories inces- santly. Suppose, for instance, the subject in hand is a proposed change in the public-school curriculum. A little coterie of a dozen persons might put their heads together and decide what they think is the best curriculum. Then they might start out upon a crusade to introduce that curriculum. It might contain, for instance, some religious catechism upon which the dozen might be unanimous. It is morally certain, however, that no group of twelve persons in any American city could agree upon a religious catechism that would be accepted by the majority of the voters in their community. The crusade would be a very naive campaign against the incidents already named. The wise people of the city would at once mobilize in their consciousness these conditions that exist, although scarcely one in a hundred thousand of them may ever have used the technical categories by which we designate the conditions.