Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/729

 NOTE ON WARD'S "PURE SOCIOLOGY" 705

him as a philosopher with sociological leanings, instead of a sociolo- gist with philosophical attachments. This is, of course, in no sense a charge against the content of his system. It is an attempt to place that system with reference to the center of interest in sociology.

To my mind sociology focalizes upon the appraisal of factors in our present life. For sociology truth is important in proportion to its availibility for application in real life. For instance, if we had a relatively complete sociology, it would interpret to us the human values involved in the Korean and Manchurian struggle at this moment. It would analyze the situation, not merely as a race-conflict, a diplo- matic incident, a military, economic, political, or religious issue, an accidental collision of civilizations, or whatever ; it would show just what is involved for the present and future of human welfare in general, and what line of action is accordingly expedient. Every really serious sociological problem is incidental to ability in the direction of deriving such guidance, whether about questions as minute as the midnight closing of Chicago saloons, or as big as opening all doors of world- commerce. I have not the slightest disposition to question the necessity of the most highly generalized concepts, as the setting of all concrete social situations. My argument is merely against excess of attention to the concepts, and defect of attention to the situations. My measure of the realness of a sociological method, therefore, is the length it can go toward satisfying the conditions of genuine interpretation. In order for sociology to be fruitful, it must conform to the same con- ditions that make any other science fruitful /. <?., it must have a problem, or a set of problems, and must severely restrict itself to evi- dence that promises to throw light on the solutions.

Now, it seems to me that Ward's method, judged by the restricted standards of sociology, rather than the larger measure of general philosophy, in spirit, if not in form, antagonizes this condition. How- ever we define sociology, in some shape or other its problem is the meaning of life. Ward's emphasis is such that his problem seems to me to be the organization of abstractions. Vital as such work is, it can hardly be rated high in the scale of distinctively sociological values. For sociology the degree of its value might be compared with the timeliness of working out refinements of Spencer's First Principles, when the business in hand is digging the Panama Canal. To the man whose interest is in philosophizing about physical causation in general those abstractions are profitable. To the man who is interested in causing something they would seem infinitely dilatory.