Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 6.djvu/483

 THE SCOPE OF SOCIAL TECHNOLOGY 469

institutions, then ethical science must wait on theoretical soci- ology. The debt and obligation are reciprocal, and progress in each science depends on parallel progress of the other. In many books on ethics the writer passes from his own data to dogmatic deductions about social relations and institutions, as if he needed no exact knowledge of these relations and institutions to com- plete his valuation and make it reliable and verifiable. j This is a serious error and entails endless mistakes. The second part of the task, or criticism, implies the application of our criteria to actual conditions as described and explained in theoretical soci- ology. The third part of the task, or social technology, considers (i) what should be done; (2) how to make or do that which the situation demands. As theoretical social science culminates in explanation of what is, so practical social science culminates in the best methods discoverable, at a given stage of knowledge, for bringing the actual into approximate conformity with what is required by that situation, required by the inherent facts of the situation. 1

Dependence of practical upon theoretical social science. From the preceding statement it will be seen that practical social science derives all its data from the description, classifica- tion, and explanation furnished by theory. Practical science has no value except as it rests on a mastery of the facts, the laws, and the causes which theory makes known and intelligible.

Dependence of theory upon practice. Both in life and thought action outruns theory. Men talk and write, logically and beautifully, before logic and grammar. If men had waited for science before they constructed systems of state, industry, and church, there would be nothing to explain. The forces we interpret rose out of the subconscious and the unreflecting life. The principles of conduct are implicit in conduct.

Yet the art of social living is helped by science. General knowledge of financial science might have saved millions of dol- lars in the cost of the Civil War and the management of currency

1 " Schliesslich zeigt sie die concreten Mittel, welche taugen, das sociale Sein einer concreten Zeit und eines concretes Ortes mit jener obersten Norm des socialen Sein- sollens in Harmonic zu bringen." (DlETZEL, o, c., p. 5.)