Sociology in America. Where Yankee Scientists Fail
It has been often claimed for America that it has done signal service in the cause of social science. Almost every university here includes sociology in its curriculum. Thousands of volumes are devoted to it in its static, dynamic, or applied aspects by the professors and savants. Arthur M. Lewis, one of the most active lecturers on this subject in the States, says in his book “Introduction to Sociology,” that “In sociology, thanks to the labours of Lester F. Ward, America holds a foremost place.”
It is true that what passes for sociology receives a great deal of attention in America. Much of it, however, is mere advocacy of reform, organised charity, and similar nostrums. A good deal of the interest “sociology” receives is due to the “problems” inevitably arising from the development of modern industry in America. Terrible poverty, with its multiform sufferings, has played such havoc with the proletariat in America that “Surveys” and “Special Commissions” have piled up tomes with reports and programmes. Almost every large factory has a “Sociological Department” to investigate the social conditions of its employees. Real Sociology, however—viewed as a study of social laws and social development—gets as little attention here as elsewhere.
Sociology is the science of Society. It deals with the whole field of social life, past and present, and gives us an indication of the future. Sociology embraces the study of Socialism as of capitalism ; feudalism and slavery ; primitive communism and also the developed communism toward which Society is now tending.
The relation between Socialism and sociology is briefly this : Socialism is a system of society which will occupy a stage of social development. Sociology covers the entire range of social development, and is concerned with more than the economic life of peoples. It enquires into the mental, moral, and physical activities of the population. The data of sociology are the facts presented by all the social sub-sciences—history, economics, ethics, and politics—besides the social aspects of psychology.
Where Socialism does enter upon the entire field of social life, past, present, and future, is in its value as a philosophy of history. Socialism as a theory of human society is based upon the generalisations of sociology called principles of human development. The place of Socialism within social evolution depends upon the scientific principle which teaches that systems change according to social laws. These laws should be the real subject of enquiry for sociologists, but they seldom are.
The great generalisation which forms an inevitable part of Socialist philosophy is the Materialist Conception of History. This view of history, when applied to the tendency of past and present points the road to Socialism. As a statement of the dynamic forces working throughout human development it belongs to the philosophy of history. Many non-Socialists have accepted the Materialist Conception of History theory, but as they have only applied it as an interpretation of the past and present, they have not identified it with Socialism. We apply this materialist key to the future society, and therefore associate it with Socialism. While the Materialist Conception of History forms an integral part of Socialism, it must be borne in mind that this conception may be held by non-Socialists, who step short when it comes to drawing conclusions from the material tendencies of present society.
Several “keys” to history have been offered us by modern sociologists. Gabriel Tarde finds “imitation” the fundamental fact of social life and social change. As, however, he does not trace the causes of social change, hie “solution” does not go far enough. Professor Giddings is one of the most noted of American Sociologists, and he sees in kinship the driving force of social advance. His interpretation is a psychological one, as is also Professor Mark Baldwin’s, and neither explain the varying mental culture between one epoch and another. Why association and kinship became stronger factors as the race advanced is not told.
The late Professor Lester Frank Ward was considered the most advanced of sociologists in America, and his writings deserve close study. He assimilated the evolutionist culture of our time and, unlike Professor Giddings, rejected religious superstition. His examination of social life led him to the conclusion that religion had not helped the race. His teachings are contained in “Pure Sociology,” “Applied Sociology,” “Dynamic Factors of Sociology,” and more completely in “Dynamic Sociology.” He was a pronounced exponent of evolution applied to every sphere of life and nature. A specialist in the science of botany and a voluminous authority on the flora of the American Continent, he also spent a good deal of time in his application of science to social life. He was a rigid desciple of Comte, and therefore in many ways a critic of Herbert Spencer.
The chief shortcoming of Ward’s writings is that they are more concerned with psychology than with real Sociology. His inductions are in the main gathered from the mental life of peoples. Take, for instance, his view of the origin of Society :
“I regard human association as the result of the perceived advantage which it yields and as coming into existence only in proportion as that advantage was perceived by the only faculty capable of perceiving it, the intellect.” (“Outlines of Sociology,” p. 43.)
For Prof. Ward Society is a psychical product, not a material product born out of the pitiless pressure of the struggle for existence among primitive peoples. To assert that Society is born of men’s perception and reason is to credit primitive men with greater mental concepts than modern anthropology allows. His theory is akin to Jean Jacques Rousseau’s, which was that society originates from a contract between individuals.
The same psychological view is taken of the characteristics of the human being. Contrary to the Aristotelian view that man is a political animal, and to that of later writers that man is a social animal, Ward finds the chief distinction betwc en man and the lower animals is that man is a reasoning animal. He says :
“I am inclined to the view that man is not naturally a social being, that he has descended from an animal that was not even gregarious by instinct, and that human society, like so many other facts that I have been enumerating, is purely a product of his reason and arose by insensible degrees, pari passu with the development of his brain.”—(Same work, p. 90.)
Happiness, says Ward, is the goal of all human effort, and the sum total of Society’s effort is achievment. Feeling is the dynamic agent throughout social evolution according to him, and it is the motive force behind all social change. Such a philosophy, however, does not explain the varying concepts of happiness that have existed throughout the ages. It does not account for the changing social structures and institutions existing while human feelings have remained comparatively constant. Ward says human desires and wants have been the propelling power behind the evolution of Society, but why desires and wants change in their nature is not stated.
Summing up this enquiry I will quote Prof. Simon N. Patton of Pennsylvania University, whose statement on this question is unanswerable. He says :
“It is often put forward as an objection to the economic interpretation of history that there are just as strong grounds for a social, an intellectual, or a religious interpretation.
Such critics fail, however, to perceive the essential difference between an economic interpretation and those contrasted with it. The qualities of mankind are divided into two groups, the natural and the acquired. For many thousand years there has been little or no change in natural characters. As biological beings we are to-day what our ancestors were when historians began to keep records ; all the changes have been within the group of acquired characters, which are in the main economic. Religious, social, intellectual and sexual feelings cannot be regarded as the causes of the changes appearing in history if these feeling have not varied in intensity during the historic epoch.
It is only their relation to economic events that has altered, and in this way many institutions have arisen that reflect and reinforce the natural feelings. Institutions, however, are acquired phenomena, and their alterations give evidence of changes within the realm of economics to which natural feelings must adjust themselves. Should industrial habits, methods of production and institutions become stable, while new natural characters appeared or the older ones gained strength, a period of history would begin in which progress must be interpreted in other than economic terms.
The present epoch with its fixed natural characters and rapid industrial changes can have but one valid method of interpretation, and that is in terms of acquired characters impressed and modified by the pressure of economic conditions.”—”Social Basis of Religion,” pp. 34-35.)
In a further article the real cause of social change will be discussed.
A. KOHN