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 THE SCOPE OF SOCIAL TECHNOLOGY.

UNDERSTANDING of the present and direction of the future depend upon knowledge of the past. History treats the phe- nomena of human life in their process of unfolding. Thus there is a history of the concrete, individual facts of political life ; of educational ideals, methods, and systems ; of military organ'za- tion and conflicts ; of industry and commerce ; of art and religion. Even the history of philosophy, and of economic and political theory, may be named as distinct from the systematic presenta- tion of philosophy, economics, or politics. 1

Wundt has treated the province of psychology, individual and folk-psychology, philology, history, ethnology, the doctrine of population, politics, economics, jurisprudence, philosophy, and shown their relations to each other. 2

Economics 3 deals with the phenomena of wealth that is, of material, transferable, and limited means of satisfying human desires. Grand divisions of economics are theoretical economics and practical economics. Theoretical economics includes stat- ics and dynamics. Practical economics includes economic poli- tics and finance. Already we have treatises on agrarian politics, politics of commerce, manufactures, transportation, the economics of the "labor question," of ecclesiastical institu- tions, and of educational systems. It is sometimes claimed that there is a particular practical economic science wherever the problem is relatively wide in scope and connected with a natural group of phenomena. The tendency to mark off specialized "sciences" is seen in biology as well as in economics, and there would be more justification for this in sociology because of the greater complexity of the phenomena.

"MENGER, Methode der Socialwissenschaften, pp. 32, 122.

"Compare L. F. WARD, Outlines of Sociology, chaps. 1-6; A. W. SMALL, AMERI- CAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY, "Seminar Notes," 1898.

3 J. B. CLARK, Distribution of Wealth, p. I.

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