Albion Woodbury Small

“ Many men in various social sciences have done splendid work in the statics of their particular section of social reality, but as yet their contributions to general sociology should be rated rather as descriptions of elements than as properly statical results. We have as yet no single civilization so described that all its chief elements can be located. In no civilization can we demonstrate scientifically how the elements coexist and combine and cooperate, how they correct and complement and counter-balance each other. ”

“ Sociologists are as a rule interested in past status, not as archaeologists, but as surveyors of preliminaries to social dynamics. The men who have made most strenuous attempts to formulate the social order of past civilizations have had in view the derivation of conclusions not merely about the statics of past times, but about dynamic principles effective in all times. ”

“ Starting with the presumption, first, that the sciences of man's environment are at our service; second, that the sciences dealing with man the individual are kept within call for the help which they must render in explaining the constitution of the social elements, we pass into the territory of the social sciences when we cease to contemplate man as an individual, related merely by the genetic bond to his immediate progenitors and descendants; and when we begin to study men in associations distinguished generically by the phenomena of active or passive agreement. ”

“ Social reality in its every aspect is shot through and through with feeling. Whatever be the categories according to which we divide social phenomena, feeling of some sort will have to be recognized in each and all of them. ”

“ In other words, the distinction between static and dynamic phenomena upon which Professor Ward insists is one which I consider no less important than he, but I think he is wrong in assuming that social or other phenomena must always be represented in consciousness either as static or as dynamic.
Representing a fact as part of a static condition, or of a dynamic process is a procedure much more complex than mere perception of the fact; it is interpretation of the fact in relation to other facts. ”

“ This is social statics, or we may study it in its onward movement, and the laws of that movement. From this point of view we perceive that the equilibrium is never perfect; peace, contentment and rest is never complete, nor ought to be; for society is ever struggling to reach a higher plane with wider outlook. The equilibrium is continually disturbed a little in order to be readjusted on a higher plane, with more complex interrelation of all its parts. This is social dynamics, social development, social progress. It is social evolution. ”

“ For example, if one were to prepare himself for sociological interpretation of American society as a whole at this moment, he would be obliged in the first instance to investigate in turn the elements of which American society is composed, and the factors by which it is conditioned. ”

“ These phenomena are the proper subject matter of a societary science or of a family of sciences dealing with facts peculiar to societies. The enlarging consensus of scholars is tending to employ the name sociology as a general designation of societary science so defined.
The first step in the procedure of any species of societary science, i. e., of sociology, in its most general form or in its particular divisions, must be an observing and a descriptive process, which we may treat as one. ”

“ It is by no means true, however, as Professor Ward's argument assumes, that it is necessary or even possible to contemplate each societary fact, at every stage of treatment, as either static or dj'namic. On the contrary, although men who habitually reflect cannot easily rid themselves of the anticipation that any fact which they may observe will presently manifest some static or dynamic relations, it is both necessary and desirable for students of society to deal primarily with facts as facts, before trying to make out their static or dynamic relations. ”

“ In so far they have been essays in social statics, and inestimably valuable. As samples of statical explanations of the given society in its totality however they have fallen as far short of satisfying the demands of sociological method as a carpenter's account of the structure of a house would fail to fill out the concepts of physics, or as a sailor's account of Defender's last trial would be lacking as an exposition of the science of navigation. ”

“ I repeat, that agreement on this point need not affect the question in hand as to the relations of statical and dynamic sociology.
Professor Ward's views should be stated more fully before the argument goes farther. He continues:
Social dynamics (according to Comte) studies the laws of succession, while social statics seeks those of coexistence; or the former furnishes the theory of progress, the latter of order. Again (pp. 207-8) : All considerations of structure and function are static..... Merely quantitative change is static. In dynamic phenomena the change is qualitative. ”

“ My contention is that if we should make such advances in statical interpretation that we could accurately formulate the equilibrium of the societies which have transmitted civilization in every epoch from the beginning to the present, we should, in consequence, be in possession of means, first for generalizations of statical laws ”

“ So long as these various institutions, no matter how diverse in different nations and ages, are considered as they actually are, or as they were at a given time, and not as in a process of transformation, the limits of socal statics are not transgressed. ”

“ My weariness when I go to bed at night (feeling) , and my hunger when I rise in the morning (feeling) , are more intimately connected with the static functions of restoring the bodily tissues than they can possibly be with any dynamic function, say of instigating a revolution in the interest of easier food supply for my descendants. ”

“ This descriptive work being fundamental in all science, and especially since it is the order of the day, whether we will or no, in sociology, our designations ought to correspond with our processes. Tentative interpretation is always in order, but the heaviest constructive work in sociology for a long time to come must necessarily be in accumulation of material. Thus it is perfectly competent for sociologists, if they please, to devote themselves to description and corresponding arrangement of all the forms of human association discoverable in all lands, ages and nations, e. ”

“ Charity work is chiefly static, [5] and supplies only temporary and ever-recurring wants. The highest philanthrophy consists in such deeds as tend to diminish the number of indigent persons and thus to render charity unnecessary. ”

“ In other words, there are phenomena subsequent to and arising from the characteristics of individual men, viz., the phenomena of the accommodation of volition to volition in every form of human contact. ”

“ If we proceed to form an estimate of the societary significance of the bicycle club, we shall be obliged to collect precise and exhaustive observations for some time before we may safely venture to place the club either statically or dynamically. ”