Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 6.djvu/507

 THE SCOPE OF SOCIOLOGY 493

we should have a key to the associations produced by these purposes. This leads to the suggestion that associations might be classified on the basis of the ends to which they are tributary. Recurring to our working analysis of human interests and desires, 1 and adopting it by way of illustration as a starting- point for discussion, we might plan our description of human associations under the following titles :

1. Health associations.

2. Wealth associations.

3. Sociability associations.

4. Knowledge associations.

5. Beauty associations.

6. Rightness associations.

In other words, the most direct way ideally to get at the reality of what is going on in human associations would be to find out what men as individuals want not merely in detail, but in the principles implied in details then to discriminate the associations that cater to these several wants. 2

Are there insuperable difficulties in the way of adopting such a method ? Having in mind all the phases of societary differen- tiation thus far referred to in these papers, our main inquiry in the present chapter is : May human associations be more adequately described and classified than by use of the already familiar schemes ? May we discover methods of classification which will more nearly satisfy the requirements of the evolutionary, functional, teleological conceptions which, in some manner or other, demand recognition in all formulations of social reality ? Our answer is decidedly in the affirmative, but it would be fool- ish to disguise the tremendous difficulties of the undertaking.

It ought not to embarrass us if we at once discover, for instance, that there is likely to be relatively little material in the health series, as compared with the wealth series which has been worked out so elaborately during the last century. Possibly we shall find that the economic series will always occupy the major part of the social domain. This, however, signifies nothing

Above, pp. 177 sq,

a On the method of isolation vid. DIETZEL, Theoretische Socialbkonomik, pp. 16 sq.