Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/175

 ORIGIN AND USE OF THE WORD "SOCIOLOGY" l6l

preparatory step to a further concentration of knowledge and effort. To meet such needs new social types originate and develop. It is the essential thesis of this paper that a new variety of the cultural stock is, here and now, in process of development. As the type itself, the sociological to say nothing of its sub- varieties is of necessity in its early stages wanting in precise- ness of characteristic, so the name "sociologist," with its own subdivisions, is correspondingly indefinite. But these deficiencies are surely arguments, not for the elimination of this incipient movement, but for care in its development.

The appropriate place of this in the division of labor would seem to be this : that it lies with the sociologist, as a student of pure science, to discover and deduce such social generalizations and such ideals as he may in the contemporary state of science and progress. And to the sociologist, as exponent of applied science, it belongs to define the social conditions under which these general ideas are applicable, these ideals approximately realizable. It is as such foundations of sociological doctrine become established not, of course, as immutable tenets, but as progressively modifiable that the various groups of practitioners build up for their times the great social arts of education, of policy, or of ecclesiastical organization. The general precepts and maxims of these arts would be increasingly derived from sociological principles, while immediate practical applications would be guided, not only from general principles, but increas- ingly by the specialist sciences.

And where, in this scheme of things, would be found the ordinary man (with whom, of course, goes the specialist outside his specialism)? It will be easier to answer this question when that branch of sociological science which is growing up under the title of "social psychology" has advanced farther in its task of studying the mind of the ordinary man from the natural- history point of view. As the zoologist deals with the fauna of a particular region, describing and classifying its animal types, so is the psychologist now beginning to study the mental types of given populations. But this much may be said, that in every adequate scheme of education, the sociologist has already some