Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 6.djvu/481

 THE SCOPE OF SOCIAL TECHNOLOGY 467

Theoretical social science considers the phenomena of asso- ciation. Its goal is an adequate view (Qeapeiv}, a knowing and understanding. 1

The phenomena of community life must be described, that is, set forth in their order of coexistence and succession, rela- tions of space and time. The basis of this task lies in social geography and demography. Description is not complete with- out the discrimination, classification, and naming of typical forms of the phenomena, since the endless number of individual facts cannot be grasped by the mind without grouping them according to some real characteristic or mark.

The discovery of general tendencies, uniformity of order, is also a discovery of the "laws" of the phenomena.

The culmination and the characteristic of theoretical social science is explanation, rationale, the discovery and statement of the causes of the phenomena. This crowning achievement implies an account of all the conditions and forces which make the phenomenon what it is in kind, degree, and quantity.

This rationale must include a discovery and statement of all the forces which tend to equilibrium, and this may be desig- nated as a problem of static sociology.

The explanation must deal rationally, and as exactly as pos- sible, with the forces which produce change, movement, evolution. This may be called dynamic sociology, or, in a special sense, kinetic sociology.

Practical sociology deals with precisely the same social phe- nomena, the same typical forms, the same uniformities or laws, the same forces, as theoretical sociology, but for a different purpose, and therefore with some difference of method. Prac- tical social science is ambitious to discover and present in systematic form principles which regulate social conduct in conformity with ends. 2 Does practical sociology deal with what

Oekonomie, Grundlagen,Vo\. I, chap, i, p. 144; H. DlETZEL, Theoretische Social- okonomik, Vol. I, pp. 4 ff.; WUNDT, Logik, Methodenlehre, Vol. II, p. 530.
 * K. MENGER, Methode der Socialwissenschaften, 1883; A. WAGNER, Politische

"practical." Dietzel (p. 5) distinguishes three tasks of practical social science nor- mative, critical, and technical ; but he would construct only two disciplines or scien- tific procedures, which he designates ethics (EthiK) and politics (PolitiA). Professor
 * DlETZEL, o. f., p. 4 : Conduct, Handeln (vpdrrtiv), hence " practice " and