Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 6.djvu/71

 THE SCOPE OF SOCIOLOGY 57

instead of chiefly a means, and as though it were the sole and sufficient means instead of a condition which affords favorable scope for more intimate means. Discounting these familiar and natural exaggerations, there remains for sane and balanced social theory the knowledge that the surroundings may turn the scale for individuals and groups from advancement to retrogression, or vice versa. Whether men in modern socie- ties, in country or city, shall be making way in the essentials of manhood, and in social integration, or shall be personally and socially deteriorating, may be determined by the housing and paving and drainage, and physical conditions of labor, and types of recreation, which make up the setting of their lives. These elements, then, are real terms in the political and social and religious problem of enlightened societies.

In short, we may say that any competent theory of human associations must be a theory of something more than human associations. It must be able to connect itself with the facts antecedent to human association, both in time and in thought. It must square with knowledge about those physical and vital rela- tionships upon which the later social phenomena rest. In a word, some of the social forces are not social at all. The paradox merely has in view the antecedent conditions, physical and vital, which fix the limits and influence the direction of sentient and social action, while they are themselves phenomena neither of consciousness nor of association. A complete theory of human association must accordingly include a full account of all physi- cal and vital forces in their action upon the conditions and incidents of association. It has been a part both of the strength and of the weakness of sociology up to date that recognition of this relation has been distinct. The good results of the perception have been shown in restraint upon those social theorizings which ignored physical limitations. The evil results have appeared among sociologists who have lively convictions of the impor- tance of physical science, but insufficient acquaintance with its contents. Many of these have tacked upon sociology their extemporized applications of supposed scientific conclusions. The sequel has been great prejudice and scandal of sociology