Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 6.djvu/480

 466 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

In relation to government we have political science, jurispru- dence, international law, all of which deal with description, explanation, and adaptation of means to social ends.

The scope, method, and value of general sociology, as science and philosophy, cannot here be discussed. The reply to skeptical questions must finally come from the actual service which the new aspirant renders to the rational and practical demands of the human mind. If it is found that, after the special social sciences economics, politics, ethics, pedagogics- have done their best work, an entirely different method of treat- ment of the phenomena of association offers a more adequate, comprehensive, and complete analysis, classification, and explana- tion of the facts of society, that method will be respected. That a more adequate and complete treatment is desirable no one seems to question ; skepticism affects only the achievements of those who have hitherto professed sociology. It may fairly be claimed on behalf of our attempt to construct a general science of society that we are doing only what many economists and political philosophers always do when they seek to satisfy the rational demand for unity and completeness and the practical needs of social organization : they " socialize." If the politi- cal philosopher must constantly trespass on the fields of the economist, and the economist follow his own clue out into gov- ernmental relations and agencies, and even culture associations, there is justification for an explicit effort to coordinate both factors with other social forces and means when man's estate is in question. The sociologist is doing openly what has long been done actually under titles which do not connote the whole reality. 1

Our present concern is with practical sociology, and more par- ticularly with the task, divisions, and method of social technology.

I. DIVISIONS OF SOCIAL SCIENCE.

Sociology, as science, deals with what is and with what ought to be. For our present purpose we may divide the entire rational enterprise into theoretical and practical social science.

1 The eminent economist, Professor G. Schmoller, has recently opened a fairly hospitable door to the waiting candidate by saying that we " dieser Sociologie, die freilich nur eine Art ausgebildeter empirischer Ethik ist, ihr Burgerrecht in dem Reiche der Wissenschaften nicht mehr abstreiten konnen" (Grundriss, p. 72).