Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/418

 NOTE ON WARD'S "PURE SOCIOLOGY."

IN accordance with the author's own suggestion (pp. 12, 13), this journal will, from time to time, discuss at some length important positions in Dr. Ward's recent book, Pure Sociology. Not because it is a vital matter, but because it is certainly worth consideration, we may well begin by pointing out an anomaly in the title and the description of the scope of the work.

Ward's alternative title is: "A Treatise on the Origin and Spontaneous Development of Society." This choice of subject- matter corresponds with his statement (Preface, p. viii): "I .... must regard all social phenomena (sic) as pure which are unaffected by the purposeful efforts of man and of society itself."

It seems to me that Ward has been betrayed into a fallacious association of ideas. He has not preserved a clear distinction between phenomena, on the one hand, and scientific study of phenomena on the other. Use of different terms may break the force of the misleading association. Suppose we say: All phe- nomena of human association are of two kinds : (a) unconscious, conscious. What Ward defines as the sphere of pure soci- ology is identical with the former class. What he actually treats belongs to both. The classification of phenomena into conscious and unconscious is a classification of a quite distinct order, and on an entirely different principle from that which divides sciences into pure and applied. The one classification rests on differences in the subject-matter; the other, on differ- ences in the method of dealing with the subject-matter. The pure sciences are explicative only. The applied sciences are constructive. Pure logic, for example, is not confined to analysis of the mental processes of savages or children who do not know that they are reasoning ; and pure mathematics does not stop with the conclusions of minds which were not aware that they were calculating. Otherwise, we could not include Euclid in pure mathematics, nor Aristotle and Hegel in pure logic.

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