Sociology

“ 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. ”

“ SOCIAL CONTROL.
Even when sociology outgrows the stage of vealiness, so that the question "What is society?" can be relegated from the beginning of a text-book to the end, we shall still feel the need of expressing in a few words the characteristics that mark off a true society from all manner of aggregates and combinations of men. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ It has been the task of these lectures to refer the social facts of relationship to antecedent social conditions, and I believe that this is the proper method of sociology. 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. ”

“ The Problems of Sociology.—The problems of sociology fall into two great classes; first, problems of the organization of society, and second, problems of the evolution of society. The problems of the organization of society are problems of the relations of individuals to one another and to institutions. Such problems are, for example, the influence of various elements in the physical environment upon the social organization ”

“ I understand the task of sociology to be description and determination of the historico-psychological origin of those forms in which interactions take place between human beings. [2] The totality of these interactions, springing from the most diverse impulses, directed toward the most diverse objects, and aiming at the most diverse ends, constitutes “society.” ”

“ For, as it seems to me, all that general sociology can do is to furnish the more ordinary and universal inferences concerning the life of communities; and upon this canvas the several sciences of sociology are delineated by the specialised observation of each

distinct order of social facts. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Assuming that the proper aim of sociology is the investigation of the natural laws regulating the connections between individuals and society, it is obvious that, before we approach sociological studies themselves, we must answer the preliminary question, Which of the various degrees of individuality above mentioned we accept as the starting-point of our researches; or, in other terms, where ought the domain of social science properly to begin? ”

“ All the shiftings, surgings, and upheavals of society arise from the strained relations between the individual and the social organization through which the individual attempts to realize his life. Sociology seizes at once upon social organization as a means of personal development. ”

“ Before coming to Ethics I must, as a preparation, view another derivative branch of psychology, the old subject of politics and society, under its new name, SOCIOLOGY. It is obvious that all terms used in describing social facts and their generalities are terms of mind: command and obedience, law and right, order and progress, are notions made up of human feelings, purposes, and thoughts.
Sociology is usually studied in its own special field, and nowhere else ”

“ And in the same paper it was affirmed that, "through the formulation of its larger generalisations as ideals, sociology may hope to achieve the necessary return from theory to practice." Thus, if Civics is applied Sociology, we must rest its claims on these criteria. ”

“ Social pathology is too important a branch of sociology to be omitted or minimized, but it is only one division of the subject, and all measures as well as theories of social reform are only a small part of the concern of sociology. Such terms as philanthropy, criminology, and penology all have connection with sociology, but they need to be carefully differentiated from the more general term. ”

“ The ultimate aim of Sociology is doubtless the working out of the laws according to which stable communities are formed and maintained, and in which each component individual may enjoy and contribute the maximum of pleasure and profit. ”

“ The Field and the Purpose of Sociology.—Life in society is the subject matter of sociological study. Sociology is concerned with the origin and development of that life, with its present forms and activities, and with their future development. It finds its material in the every-day experiences of men, women, and children in whatever stage of progress they may be ”

“ 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. ”

“ The problem of sociology—if we can speak of a sociological problem—consists in seeking, among the different forms of external constraint, the different sorts of moral authority corresponding to them and in discovering the causes which have determined these latter. ”

“ There is, however, some difference between the manifestation of the activity of a group of men and that of the aggregate society. Between psychology which studies the individual, and sociology which studies the society, I think there is room for a collective psychology, to study more or less defined groups. ”

“ If this be the essence of social development, we may dispense with sociology, for the economist long ago described the social system of wealth far better than the sociologist has ever done, and that without aid from biology. It must be admitted, therefore, either that the phenomena of specialization, communication and exchange are not the sole primary characters, or else that society is nothing more than the long familiar economic aggregate. ”

“ The professors of the new science of sociology are beginning, it is true, to deal with human nature in its relation not only to the family and to religion and industry, but also to certain political institutions. Sociology, however, has had, as yet, little influence on political science. ”

“ Another hypothetical or abstract science, which can be carved out of Sociology, is the as yet unexplored Political Ethology, i.e. the theory of the causes which determine a people's, or age's, type of character, which collective character, besides being the most interesting phenomenon in the particular state of society, is the main cause of the social state which follows, and moulds entirely customs and laws. ”

“ By calling it a science is, of course, denoted the view that sociology is a body of knowledge derived from experience of its material and co-ordinated so that it shall be useful in forecasting and, if possible, directing the future behaviour of that material. This material is man in society of associated man. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It should be fed to the mind with an intelligent purpose in view, and that purpose should be the preparation of the mind for ultimately entering the last and most difficult as well as most important field of human thought, that of sociology. Therefore history, political economy, and the other generic branches should first be prosecuted as constituting the necessary preparation for the study of the higher ordinal principles. ”

“ There are those who seem to think that sociology can solve all the problems of our modern life. If sociology be sufficiently expanded, this may be true; for a truly scientific sociology would have to explain how men came to be social beings, and what is the bond that unites them. ”

“ Sociology, too, represented down to recent times only by stray ideas about social organisation, scattered through the masses of worthless gossip furnished us by historians, is coming to be recognised by some as also a science ”

“ It is assisted by those who to-day see instinctively the first tentative effort towards the construction of a sociology—investigation into the lives and wages, social character, beliefs and prejudices of various selected classes and localities. Biography is not without its contribution, especially the biography of typical men—a labour-leader who reveals himself as a conspicuous member of a labouring class at the base, or a politician who voices the scepticisms, manners, fascinations, and prejudices of a cultured, leisured society at the summit of the social order. ”

“ Normally such a course will close with a fuller definition of the meaning of sociology, its content, its value in the study of other sciences, and, if time permits, a brief historical sketch of the development of sociology as a separate science. ”

“ The central theme of sociology, as conceived by Professor Findlay and lucidly expounded in this excellent introduction to a comparatively new, extremely comprehensive, but somewhat elusive science, is ‘the definition of social groups, their classification and their relations to each other.’ The treatment is systematic, though some problems of considerable importance, such as the institution of land tenure, have had to be omitted. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The source of this error is in the conception that the subject-matter of sociology is the whole sum of occurrences which take place in society. 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. ”

“ The loudest demand of sociology today is for the addition of description to description so that, with equally accurate observations of the various elements entering into social combinations, an intelligent view of their correlation is possible. ”

“ To see how things stand, apart from personal and national interests, is essential before there can be reached those balanced judgments respecting the course of human affairs in general, which constitute Sociology. ”

“ It treats of the relation of social psychology to political science, jurisprudence, economics, history and sociology, analyzing the psychological assumptions underlying the behavior of men living in social relations. ”

“ In other words, sociology is of quite recent invention, and the reader, I hope, will have understood for himself that I employ this term for the sake of brevity, to indicate in a general manner the science of social functions and variations, and that I do not hold to the specific sense given it by the Positivists. ”

“ The word social, then, is much broader than the words industrial, political, moral, religious, and embraces them all; that is, social phenomena are all phenomena which involve the interaction of two or more individuals. The word social, then, includes the economic, political, moral, religious, etc., and must not be thought of as something set in opposition to, for instance, the industrial or the political.
Society and its Products.—Beneath all the forms and processes of human society lies the fact of association itself. ”