Social scientist

“ Until the dream of offering a semester or year of general social science to all freshmen as the introduction to work in the specialized branches of social science comes true, the sociologist must communicate to his elementary classes a sense of the relations between his view of social phenomena and the aspects of the same phenomena which the historian, the economist, the political scientist, and the psychologist handle. ”

“ Finally, it has to be admitted that social scientists’ extensive patronage by universities, foundations, and governments serves to give them a protected status while they work. Every other group so situated has tended to create a jargon, and thus far the social scientists have not been an exception. Their jargon is a product partly of imitation and partly of defense-mindedness. ”

“ Even at the present time, however, it is possible to support sociological arguments by means of considerations provided by psychological motives, and the assistance thus rendered to sociology will become far greater as the science of social psychology advances. ”

“ We have now acquired the method of studying sociology scientifically so as to attain to assured results. We have acquired it none too soon. The need for a science of life in society is urgent, and it is increasing every year. It is a fact which is generally overlooked that the great advance in the sciences and the arts which has taken place during the last century is producing social consequences and giving rise to social problems. ”

“ The subject-matter of sociology is, therefore, the forms or ways in which human beings exist beside, for, and with each other. The purposes for the sake of which these socializations come into being—economic and social, [2] religious and criminal, sexual and military, political and ethical, etc.—will be treated by other sciences. ”

“ This is not the case, however, with the social sciences. One cannot but feel a little queasy when he uses the expression "social science", because it seems as if we had not as yet got anywhere near a real science of man. ”

“ For, the "social science" taught in our schools is, it would appear, an orderly presentation of the conventional proprieties, rather than a summons to grapple with the novel and disconcerting facts that surround us on every side. ”

“ I do not deny that sociology, in the department of purely descriptive anatomy of the social organism, has made great and fruitful new contributions to contemporary science, even developing into some specialized branches of sociology, of which criminal sociology, thanks to the labors of the Italian school, has become one of the most important results. ”

“ On the one hand, political scientists can scarcely understand the origin, nature, and proper functions of government without understanding more or less about the social life generally; and, on the other hand, the sociologist finds that one of the most important facts of human society is that of social control, or of authority. ”

“ Hence, while the sociologist borrows his principles of interpretation from biology and psychology, he has his own distinctive problems, and it is this fact which makes sociology a distinct science.
Sociology is not so easily distinguished from the special social sciences like politics, economics, and others, as it is from the other general sciences. These sciences occupy the same field as sociology, that is, they have to do with social phenomena. ”

“ But an emigration of interest has commenced and the evidence is so clear that one is tempted to prophesy that the science which is to add laurels to the twentieth century, as biology gave laurels to the nineteenth, is the science of sociology, including social heredity, social health, and social organisation; and in that science Socialist theory and programmes must find a central place. Socialism has made sociology important. ”

“ This is only saying practically the same thing as was said above when we pointed out that industry, government, and religion are but expressions of human social life. In other words, sociology deals with the more general biological and psychological aspects of human association, while the special sciences of economics, politics, and the like, generally deal with certain products or highly specialized phases of society. ”

“ Every step forward in the social sciences—the studies termed history, economics, politics, sociology—shows that social questions are capable of being intelligently coped with only in the degree in which we employ the method of collecting data, forming hypotheses, and testing them in action which is characteristic of natural science, and in the degree in which we utilize in behalf of the promotion of social welfare the technical knowledge ascertained by physics and chemistry. ”

“ Largely on the basis of the experiments which these new agencies are making, a new social science is coming into existence. Under the impetus which the social agencies have given to social investigation and social research, sociology is ceasing to be a mere philosophy and is assuming more and more the character of an empirical, if not an exact, science. ”

“ Wildest speculation will long lure us toward these grand subjects, but the social technology of humanity must wait until we test our methodical tools on more limited subjects. There is already a science of the state, theoretical and practical, which rests on an implicit general sociology and leads on to a social technology of the nation. ”

“ From that standpoint all problems that do not belong to physical science seem to fall within the scope of sociology. It is self-evident that this standpoint is untenable. It is plainly nonsensical to throw into one big pot labeled “sociology” all those researches which have been satisfactorily conducted by national economy, history of civilization, philosophy, political science, statistics, demography, juridical science, and ethics. ”

“ For on the idea of the inevitable weakness and corruption of human nature, has logically followed, in our daily life, the horrible creed of modern "Social science," that all social action must be scientifically founded on vicious impulses. But on the habit of measuring and reverencing our powers and talents that we may kindly use them, will be founded a true Social science, developing, by the employment of them, all the real powers and honourable feelings of the race. ”

“ The scientific movement has even more points in common with the sociological. In its opposition to the disciplinarians and its stress upon content rather than form, the scientific tendency coincides with the sociological, although the former looks rather to the natural Means of human welfare. sciences as a means of individual welfare, and the latter to the social and political sciences to equip the individual for life in social institutions and to secure the progress of society. ”

“ In point of fact, most of the so-called sociological investigations belong within the field of one of these already existing sciences, for there is no content of life which would not be proper subject-matter of one or other of these. If, therefore, sociology is to have a peculiar and independent significance, its problems must consequently concern, not the contents of social life, but its form—the form which brings it to pass that all those contents which are treated by the special sciences are “societary.” ”

“ Geddes conceives sociology too much as a primary and too little as a secondary science. He defines applied sociology as the application of social survey to social science, when social ratiocination or social philosophy are needed before one can be said to have gauged the extent of the influence which this comprehensive science may have in our actual practice or on our Budget of the future. ”

“ If we may represent social life by a diamond with many facets, these special social sciences examine and study each a single facet, while sociology comprehends all sides in its view, that is, it is comprehensive. In other words, Mill expected sociology to illustrate the social organism in its complexity, leaving to the special social sciences the task of studying the single aspects and particular functions in the characteristics which distinguish them, and in the special laws which control them. ”

“ So the sociologist, by studying the social changes going on around him can map the drift of progress; by noting the motives and the assumptions upon which men act, can trace the course of history through some part of the misty future; by discovering the dream cities which men have built in their hearts as abiding places for their souls, can tell what social fabrics they are to raise by legislation and administration as dwelling-places for their reason. ”

“ That co-adjustment of social survey and social service which has been above argued for as the essential idea of civics as applied sociology is thus no abstract principle, but a concrete and practicable method. ”

“ In a broad view, sociology includes politics, economics and ideology. For the purposes of our social analysis, we have divided the field into four separate categories, beginning with politics, continuing through economics and drawing our study together under the general headings of sociology and ideology.
No civilization that we have studied can be regarded as an intentional or projected or planned enterprise. ”

“ Sociology being a science, we have only desired to present it in its relations to economic science. In closing it is in place to indicate in a few words that sociology should have an equally beneficial influence upon economic art. In extending the field of our researches, in showing us that economic phenomena occur elsewhere in a manner entirely different from ours, sociology will perhaps make us see that the remedies for social evils, the precepts which it will be advantageous to follow in social reforms, should themselves be multifold and should vary with circumstances, times and places. ”

“ Studies that throw light on the nature and working of society, past or present, and upon the opportunities of service or distinction which it offers to the individual, are rapidly taking the place, for purposes of culture, of studies whose human value is less, or not so apparent. Classes in history—political, industrial and social—in economics, in government and administration, in sociology and ethics, in charities and penology, are larger year by year. ”

“ The view of theoretic civics as concrete sociology, and of practical civics as applied sociology may be more simply expressed as the co-adjustment of social survey and social service, now becoming recognised as rational, indeed in many cities being begun. ”

“ If their ultimate aim is to frame a science of economics which shall be part of the science—not yet constituted—of sociology, then I should say that what they have really done—so far as they have reasoned accurately—has been to frame an essential part of the prolegomena to such a science. ”

“ We have many studies of vast interest to society which are properly economical, administrative, or educational. A problem in social technology has at least these marks ; all the elements of welfare are involved ; all the members of the community are affected; and the data to be used are normally derived from more special sciences. If the answer can be supplied by an expert in any particular field of science or experience, the problem may be left there. ”

“ Lastly, the social sciences divide up the phenomena of associated activity and interpret societary institutions and processes, domestic, economic, artistic, educational, ethical, religious, juridical and political. Each and all of these departments of knowledge puts under the microscope a certain section of reality abstracted from the vast sum of reality in which the movements of human society preserve their orbit, and then each tries more or less directly to correlate these details with the whole. ”

“ It has been my chief object in these lectures to show that, in so far as such similarities exist in the case of relationship, they have been determined by social conditions. Only by attention to this aim throughout the whole field of social phenomena can we hope to rid sociology of the reproach, so often heard, that it is not a science; only thus can we refute those who go still further and claim that it can never be a science. ”

“ My trend of thought leads me to deny that sociology is a science, or only a science in the same loose sense that modern history is a science, and to throw doubt upon the value of sociology that follows too closely what is called the scientific method. ”

“ The sociologist must, therefore, look first for the germ which later was differentiated out from society and became the state, and, second, for the stages of growth of this germ and the exact point when it can properly be called the state. He looks not for an ultimate repository of sovereignty which comes into play on occasion, as does the lawyer, but he looks for a constant pervasive psychic influence existing every- where in society and affecting all social relations. He looks, not for an event, but for a "flow." The object which he seeks is dynamic, evolutionary. ”

“ Nowhere are the representatives of special sciences less restricted by the contents of their particular material. Nowhere are scholars more anxious to generalize their special knowledge by coördinating it with knowledge of other portions or phases of reality. This trait of American genius makes the differentiation of sociology as a distinct department of thought at once certain and difficult. In each of the social sciences there are American scholars who are successful and inspiring leaders both in special research and in constructive combination of their own with other results. ”

“ It has, therefore, been to lay the broadest possible basis of evolutionary science, of geographic and historic fact, for what would otherwise be open to ridicule as a Utopian hope, that of Civics as Applied Social Art, that I have insisted at such length above upon Civics as Applied Social Science. ”