VIII. Premises of Practical Sociology.²

July, 1904 entry in the serialized work

"The Scope of Sociology"¹

American Journal of Sociology 10(1):26-46.

Sociology tries to bring into view, and to explain, all the sorts of facts that take place in men’s lives, in such a way that they will tell the most about what to do, and how to do it, here and now.

In spite of something like chaos among the sociologists, so far as apparent consensus about abstract theory is concerned, the time is at hand for attempts to bring pure sociology to application. At least, it is safe and desirable to begin to mark out the procedure which will become more and more precise and profitable as sociology matures.

Sociology has passed through two stages since the beginning of the nineteenth century: (1) A stage of dilettantism, both in theory and in practice. This stage was prolific of fanciful social philosophies and of utopian schemes of social improvement. (2) A stage of criticism. It is impossible to draw precise boundaries between these stages. Indeed, the two phases of development have overlapped in the same persons. When Herbert Spencer wrote his Social Statics, in 1850, he was dominated by the former impulse. Although he never entirely shook off the traditions of that stage of thinking, he was of course eminent in promoting critical study of society.

It would be a task for the historian of sociology to assign due credit for the later attitude of the sociologists. We need not stop for that. The point is that, under the influence of the critical spirit, the reaction against sociological sentimentalism has well-nigh paralyzed the progressive and constructive impulses which did credit to the zeal, if not the discretion, of the older doctrinaires and agitators. The latter felt a ” woe is me” if they did not act for the immediate benefit of society. The later critical sociologists successfully discouraged the active impulse. In some cases it is hard to believe that the impulse existed. They held that we must know the facts about society before we can reconstruct society by artificial means. They have accordingly been working without much organization, but with a division of labor which has pretty closely covered the ground, in spite of the fact that the co-operation was accidental and unconscious. Taking the results of all the critical sociologists together, we have preliminary surveys of all the activities of society. These are sufficient guides to justify resumption of attempts to look ahead. That is, we have not reached any conclusions which have much value as premises for social dogmas, but we have some pretty distinct outline maps of social activities in all their stages and variations. We have no formulas that are worth anything for quantitative measurement of social influences past, present, or future; but we have such means of qualitative social analysis that we may feel fairly well acquainted with society in principle, while we lack knowledge of less general details.

This abstract and general knowledge, moreover, is at our disposal for practical work. If it is valid science, it forms a secure basis, so far as it goes, for progress such as the early sentimentalists desired. If our present sociological knowledge is of a kind capable of supporting more practical activities, there is also enough of it to give those activities strong impulse.

In other words, the sociologists have served a sufficiently long apprenticeship in pure science, or in attempts to perfect the methodology of pure science, to acquit them of the charge of sentimentalism when they attempt to calculate the lines of action which the conduct of society ought to take.

As I have argued at length in the monograph, ” The Significance of Sociology for Ethics,“³ the latest word of sociology is with reference to the end which gives to social activities their meaning. After all our analysis of the origin and evolution and mechanism of the social process, we are conscious that the final use of the whole complex procedure is what it can avail us in estimating the values of different activities. We have concluded that the whole social process, so far as we can anticipate it, is comprehended in the formula derived from survey of all of the process which we can observe; viz. : the social process is continuous advance in the development, adjustment, and satisfaction of the health, wealth, sociability, knowledge, beauty, and rightness desires. Those activities are good which promote this process, and those are bad that retard it. Virtually the same thought is expressed by Professor Ludwig Stein, of Bern, in these words:

The veil is gradually lifting from the meaning of history. That meaning is and can be nothing else than progressive ennobling of the human type, the upbuilding of the human species into social persons, the final subjugation of the bête humaine through social institutions in the realms of law and custom, of religion and morality, of art and science.⁴

With the same emphasis that Stein places, throughout his argument, on the element of organization and co-operation among men, as a factor of progress equally essential with improvement of the individual type, I accept this description as an expansion of mine.

Of course, I cannot claim that these propositions command general assent among the sociologists, any more than elsewhere. They are the result of a long course of constructive analysis, which is the best that I have been able to do toward getting at the final criterion of life. I am bound to use it, therefore, till clearer light appears. I cite it now, not for the purpose of further defending it, but in order to show its bearings upon programs of social action.

Assuming, for the sake of argument, that our conclusions thus far are unchallenged, I see only one radical obstacle in the way of a positive principle of social guidance. It is this: We have not proved that the operation of this process must extend to any definite proportion of the human race. It is possible to contend, somewhat in the spirit of Aristotle, that the conditions of life do not permit many to have much share in the higher ranges of the social process, and that our social program must necessarily contemplate, as the working end, the increasing satisfactions of the few, while the many must always furnish the means by which the few realize the increased quantity and quality of satisfaction. It is, indeed, claimed that modern science, and specially the mass of evidence from which evolutionary generalizations are reached, distinctly reinforces Aristotle’s opinion. We find that nature perfects a few of the lower types, by wasting millions of unfortunate specimens of the type. Is it not probable that human myriads must always be miserable in order that a few may progress? Is not a social program indicated by the facts of life which contemplates the greater good of the few at the expense of the many?

It would be pure pretense to claim that we have a conclusive scientific refutation of the views implied in these questions. There is no visible demonstration that the social process in which we are included does not converge upon excellences in a few at the cost of the rest. That is, the philosophy of Nietzsche, for example, and the working policy of the unsocial fraction of society that would monopolize opportunity so long as there is anything left for them to desire, cannot be absolutely proved to lack sanction in the laws of nature.

Nevertheless, if we hold that the social process involves progressive satisfaction of all the interests, and not merely of some of them, we are obliged to infer that the process must include enough people to satisfy the conditions of its own operation. That is, if we find that the social process, as we know it, indicates continuance of higher powers of health, wealth, sociability, knowledge, beauty, and rightness satisfaction for somebody, we are bound to conclude that the population concerned in that process must be great enough to maintain the complicated activities upon which these enlarged satisfactions depend. Accepting 5 per cent. of the population of the United States as a liberal estimate of the class which we call the unemployed, it might be possible to make a plausible argument to the effect that these 5 per cent. of our population have no claim to an equity in the social process.⁵ “There is no use for them. They ought not to have been born. No theory of life can find a rightful place for such a social surplus.”’

Without attempting to construct a brief for the benefit of this 5 per cent., the only reply necessary seems to me to be that this is really a negligible quantity. The life-process, as we understand it, requires, at any rate, the other 95 per cent. In order that any of us may get on in the higher developments of our interests, whether the essential material interests, or the derived spiritual interests, all this mass of people is necessary. The requisite division of labor and variety of situation is not otherwise possible. There must be so many hundred farmers and artisans in order that there may be one scholar and artist and moral leader. And there must be so many more farmers and artisans in order that scholarship and art and moral leadership may ascend to higher planes. The social process is not carried on by the few only who may be called the pinnacles of society. It is carried on by all who maintain the conditions upon which the pinnacles rest. It may be that too many people are born in a given part of the world, and that diminution of the birthrate becomes to that extent a part of the social problem. It is conceivable that the 5 per cent. which we have just conceded, for the sake of argument, may represent an excessive accession-rate in the United States. But, on the other hand, it may also be that organization of life in accordance with the best that we know would absorb that 5 per cent. and create a demand for more sharers in the social process. It may be that the existence of the 5 per cent. is an index of abnormality in our social arrangements, or of invincible perversity in individuals, which must be charged to profit and loss.

Not pressing this point, however, no way is visible by which any portion of the 95 per cent. of our social population can advance toward all-around satisfaction without needing each other in the process. If the process needs all the persons, each of the persons must be entitled to a share in the process.

Practically the same thing might be stated in this way: The type of life that civilization has developed calls for a’ type of persons capable of the most intensive and many-sided co-operation. Ability to fit into an infinitely refined and complex system of co-operation is the mark of fitness for the present social environment. At the same time democracy has given to the individual both demand and capacity for a share in consumption of all the achievements of civilization. Unless this demand is measurably satisfied, the fitness of the individual for his part in co-operation is reduced toward the point of obstruction. That is: On the most cynical basis of calculation that could be adopted, the program of civilization is a system of inevitable co-operation. If control of that co-operation were in the hands of one despot, he would be obliged, in order to keep the system from breaking down, to run it in the interest of all the persons necessary for the co-operation. To do this, he would be obliged to run it on a plan which would admit all the persons necessary to the co-operation to progressive participation in all the advantages of the co-operation. The reason for this is in the fact that they are persons, not things.

This conclusion is no more demonstrative than its opposite, but it is more probable, more morally convincing. The plausibility of the special-privilege hypothesis grows out of failure to remember the facts which make the exceptional individuals possible. Without social partnership no man could improve himself enough to exhibit any marked differences from other men. The more extensive the social partnership, the greater the possibility of making particular talents distinguish their possessors from others. But that distinction comes from co-operation, and the co-operators are at least entitled to such terms of co-operation that each may move forward in the general direction which the whole social process pursues.

This means that, with such conceptions of justice as we now hold, with our present concepts also of human individuals, there can be no tolerable program of life which does not admit practically all persons to the franchise of all the interests represented by any person.

The problem, then, which general sociology reaches at last is this, to put it in the concrete: In the actual present situation of the American people, for instance, what program is necessary, in order to satisfy the conditions of that stage of the process in which we find ourselves? As we have seen, the indicated end of the process is more of the process, i. e., more intensive and extensive satisfaction of all the interests; and the condition which we have just discussed is that all the individuals sharing in the mechanism of the process shall share in the benefits of the process in proportion to their contribution to the process. In other words, normal continuance of the social process requires that each person sharing in the process shall be secure in opportunity to get on, in realization of each of the interests to which the process contributes; or to make gains toward a more harmonious balance of the desires satisfied.

But we must now turn back upon the track of our argument far enough to recognize that we have jumped over a very wide chasm in our survey of social activities. Before we can have a standard of action appropriate to the actual social situation, we must have a thoroughly adequate analysis of the situation. The most serious and the most astonishing omission thus far in sociological theory is the failure to carry out the work of generalizing sociological notions far enough to furnish the schedules necessary for working knowledge of the actual situation. The things that are worth doing are the things that will promote the social process; but to know what those things are we must know accurately the situation at which the process has arrived.

Perhaps a homely illustration is worth while. Everybody knows in general the science of running a steam engine. There must first be the properly constructed engine itself; it must have a supply of water in the boiler; a supply of fuel in the fire-box; that fuel must be so consumed as to make steam; the steam must be let into the cylinders in volume enough to exert the pressure necessary for the work which the machinery must do. So far the program is plain. These are general principles of mechanical wisdom. But what is scientific for Engineer John Smith at this moment in handling his engine? Shall he order more fuel into the fire-box or more water into the boiler or more steam into the cylinders? These things depend entirely upon the situation at this moment. If more power must be used, and the boiler capacity is sufficient, and the engine has been working below its capacity, then it is scientific to pile in the fuel as fast as forced draft can consume it, to turn on water to keep it at the most economical steaming level, and to crowd on steam as fast as it is generated. But if the water has fallen below the safety level, if the pipes are overheated, if more water would be likely to crack them, then the scientific thing may be to exhaust the steam left in the pipes, dump the fire altogether, cool the boiler to a temperature at which cold water is safe, then fill the boiler, rekindle the fire, watch the steam gauge, and wait for orders.

Now, the goal of sociological method, as I understand it, is such insight into the precise situation, at one’s own moment of sharing in the social process, that one may be able to decide, just as the well-posted engineer in the supposed case would do, what is the right line of action. The desideratum is to be able to say, for instance: “The American people are in such and such a situation; such and such are the chief issues now pending; the other issues fall into such and such subordinate relations; in view of these facts the conduct of the American people should be turned in such and such directions, so as to procure such and such results.”

Now, this is by no means such an academic and utopian conception as it may seem. It is simply a somewhat more generalized expression of the thing that men of affairs, no less than philosophers, have been doing time out of mind. Not to go back beyond our own national traditions, the signers of the Declaration of Independence did precisely this. After years of increasing tension, the situation of the colonies had become more and more intolerable. The colonists at large, and particularly their representatives in the Continental Congress, had studied the situation, so far as they were able, in all its bearings. They tried to take into account everything that concerned their welfare in the largest sense. Whether they were correct or not is beside the point now in question. The simple fact is that they made up their minds about the demands of the situation and formulated a program accordingly. They frst said that the thing for America to do was to resist oppression. When that was not enough, they said the only thing left for America is to win its independence from Great Britain. All things else must yield to that. They accordingly adopted a program that controlled them for the following seven years.

Meanwhile another situation, demanding another survey and another program, gradually superseded the one to which that program was appropriate. Independence became probable, and at last actual. But before it was reached, and still more after it had been recognized, independence in a new sense became almost as great a problem as the former tyranny of Great Britain. Each colony wanted to be independent of all the rest. This fact jeopardized all that had been gained by the Revolution. The process of comprehending the situation had to be performed over again. A new program had to be decided upon. The Constitutional Convention again represented the whole people in attempting to estimate all the factors of the general welfare which required attention, in order rightly to decide upon lines of action. The draft of the Constitution was the resultant of this survey and calculation. To be sure, the governmental element of welfare was almost exclusively considered, but that was the factor which seemed at the time decisive. The subsequent campaign in the several states for ratification of the Constitution was another stage of the same process of group attention to the situation, and the final adoption of the Constitution completed the acceptance of a standard of social action.

Every four years since that time two or more political parties have more or less thoroughly, more or less conscientiously, repeated the same process. If we wish to be cynical, we may say that the real process is that of opposing politicians saying to themselves, ” we want the offices,” and then casting about for the kind of promises most likely to get votes. Even if reduced to this moral minimum, the process of a political campaign involves a serious study of the social situation and its chief needs. The results have been summed up in the party platforms with which as their credentials candidates have appealed to the country. The most conscienceless politician that ever helped to frame a party policy did form an estimate, after its kind, of the situation to which the policy must apply. Whether the process is performed with intelligence and public spirit, or in ignorance and selfishness, does not affect the main point. In some fashion or other, the most practical men are performing the process incessantly. The masses are accepting the results such as they are, of these estimates of the situation.

Now, the essential sociological problem in this connection is: What ought we to consider, and what means will enable us to consider it, in order to do with the utmost possible wisdom and justice what is being done less wisely and less justly every day?

We have had to confront repeatedly and in turn, in the century and a quarter of our national existence, situations which enforced the question: Shall we adopt a program of localism or of nationalism, of militarism or of commercialism; of national isolation or of international alliances; of protection or of free trade; of emphasis upon industry, or politics, or public improvements, or education, or morals, or religion, or territorial expansion? We have faced these questions with such wisdom as we had. The function of sociology is to assist in making our methods of approaching such questions more nearly adequate to this task which incessantly recurs.

We confront today in the United States the most prodigious technical problems which any people ever had to solve, i. e., in the largest sense of the term technical”⁶–and almost everybody is so impressed with the importance, to himself or others, of one or more of these technical questions, that few are left to know or care that each and all of them are phases of a complex situation. Few of us see that the importance of the technical results, and even the possibility of getting results, depends in a considerable degree upon correct perceptions, or at least instincts, of the relation of these details to the whole situation within which they must be adjusted. In order to insure broader outlook, and more steady vision, we need to work upon general surveys of the situation, and to chart their significant features in a way that will exhibit their relative prominence in the social process. Then there must be a quota of thinkers who will help us to take our bearings from these chief landmarks.

As a hint of the sort of result we shall reach, it may be said that the strategic point in our present situation is that at which interests and opinions collide upon the theory and practice of dividing social opportunity. The distinctive feature about our present situation is its exposure of the poverty of our concept democracy. The problems of today are not, in the strictest sense, economic. The economic problems proper are in principle solved. The economic theorists are simply more perplexed than ever over the correct way to formulate what has been accomplished. The sciences by application of which the resources of the earth are to be appropriated are in our possession. The rest of the subjugation of nature is merely more and more detail in applying what we already know. But the unsolved problem is: How shall these resources be shared? Who shall have them, and on what terms? What part shall these material goods play in determining individual men’s relative opportunity to get on in gaining health, wealth, sociability, knowledge, beauty, and rightness satisfaction?

To anticipate still further, it may be predicted that the next principal stage in the social process will be essentially intellectual and ethical. It will come about through assimilation of more positive ethical perceptions, and through adoption of technical social devices in accordance with the same.

In particular, we are already far advanced in challenging, if not already in revising, crudities in prevalent conceptions of property rights. The principal factors producing this change are not a priori notions. They are elements of the social situation. There is intolerable maladjustment, and the social pain goads us to find and remove its cause.

But this is getting far ahead of our argument, yet not too far ahead, if we are effectively reminded by the survey that the ultimate object of sociology is not mere pedantic trifling with academic abstractions. Its object is intensely and fundamentally practical.

After all the generalizing that sociology has done, and with the organized results of this work as a background, the most difficult task that sociologists have ever encountered is waiting to be undertaken, and it is immediately in order. It is the task of working out plans and specifications for an exhibit which will be the most complete demonstration human intelligence can reach, of the exact social situation in which we find ourselves. What are the meaning terms in our actual condition, and what do they mean?

To express it less abstractly. At what have we arrived, and in what direction lies progress?

The best beginning I have been able to make toward proposing an answer is in the following outline. It is an epitome by title only of the different sorts of thing that must be weighed and balanced in passing a comprehensive judgment upon the accomplished facts and the indicated needs in our social situation. Dr. Lester F. Ward has proposed the thesis: “The subject-matter of sociology is human achievement”⁷ Without reference to abstract questions which the formula provokes, we are safe in saying that human achievement is surely included in the subject-matter of sociology. I have, therefore, acted upon Dr. Ward’s suggestion, and have made the outline in terms of achievement.

In this schedule no attempt is made to indicate degrees of importance of the different specifications. Many of the titles stand for complex groups of activities, which must be analyzed and appraised. Other titles, which stand in this catalogue as co-ordinate with those just referred to, represent details that are trifling in comparison with the chief factors.

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The main point is that human welfare is a compound of achievement in each of these divisions and subdivisions of effort, and that no estimate of a social situation is complete that leaves any portion of either division of achievement out of the account.

It is thus assumed that the whole exhibit presents a series of problems of proportion and correlation. No claim is made that the conspectus is itself a sufficient correlation of the topics suggested. They are presented merely as a tentative catalogue, as a preliminary survey, not as a theory of relative values.