Sociology [pp. 303-323]

SOCIOLOGY.
immortal. To err in prescribing for a man is at worst to kill
him; to err in prescribing for a society is to set in operation
injurious forces which extend, ramify, and multiply their effects
in ever new combinations throughout an indefinite future. It
may pay to experiment with an individual because he cannot
wait for medical science to be perfected; it cannot pay to
experiment with a society because the society does not die
and can afford to wait.
If we have to consider the need of sociology, innumerable
reasons for studying it present themselves. In spite of all our
acquisitions in natural science, the conception of a natural law
(which is the most important good to be won from studying
natural science) is yet exceedingly vague in the minds of ordinary intelligent people, and is very imperfect even amongst the
educated. That conception is hardly yet applied by anybody
to social facts and problems. Social questions force themselves
upon us in multitudes every year as our civilization advances
and our society becomes complex. When such questions arise
they are wrangled over and tossed about without any orderly
discussion, but as if they were only the sport of arbitrary
whims. Is it not then necessary that we enable ourselves, by
study of the facts and laws of society, to take up such questions
from the correct point of view, and to proceed with the examination of them in such order and method that we can reach
solid results, and thus obtain command of an increasing mass
of knowledge about social phenomena? The assumption which
underlies almost all discussion of social topics is that we men
need only make up our minds what kind of a society we want
to have, and that then we can devise means for calling that
society into existence. It is assumed that we can decide to live
on one spot of the earth's surface or another, and to pursue
there one industry or another, and then that we can, by our
devices, make that industry as productive as any other could be
in that place. People believe that we have only to choose
whether we will have aristocratic institutions or democratic
institutions. It is believed that statesmen can, if they will, put
a people in the way of material prosperity. It is believed that
rent on land can be abolished if it is not thought expedient to
have it. It is assumed that peasant proprietors can be brought
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