Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/172

 I $8 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

ment, health, and beauty in the population; about behavior and bearing in domestic and social life ; about the appropriate education of the individual in relation to contemporary standards of requirement in literature, science, art, and religion; and, finally, about criteria of conduct in business and in public life. There is, in short, implicit in the talk of daily life a theory of social organization and social function a popular sociology. This common-sense sociology is, in the language of the schools, static and not dynamic ; it may be in a certain sense historical, but it is not yet evolutionary. It is a theory (or at least, if not a theory, a collection of ideas) of social types, of social form, structure, and function, but not a theory of social growth and development. Such notions as are contained in the popular sociology as to the origin, history, and destiny of man are usually taken uncritically from other sources and customarily held as dogmas practically unaffecting the theory of social organization and function. The popular sociology rests for the most part upon contradictory assumptions as to the "essential nature" of society, and these are usually held unconsciously, and, therefore, may equally affect the thought and conduct of the same person. Hence, in large measure, the frequent charge of inconsistency, leveled especially against politicians and social reformers. Of these two contrasted assumptions (stated in their extreme form), one is that society is cast in a mold practically unmodifiable by mundane arts, and the other is that society is a piece of mechan- ism devised by man and alterable at will.

These two equally mechanical preconceptions, surviving in the popular scheme of sociology from pre-evolutionary political theories, have unfortunate effects on practical life. From ideas of the relation in which stand to each other the past, the present, and the future /. e,, from conceptions of development are necessarily derived the systems of ideals. For what is an ideal but a generalization of past and present experience from the point of view of the future ? Hence it happens that when, in a time like the present, popular notions (if any) of social origins and social development are not in close correspondence with popular notions of social structure and function, duty and reputa-