THE SOCIOLOGISTS' POINT OF VIE\\' 153
they ridicule and denounce the men who attempt it. They have no tolerance for the men who want to analyze social facts with- out prejudice, just as the anatomist would examine impartially the tissues and secretions and excretions of the human body. They have no conception of any service that may be rendered to truth by calmly inspecting family, shop, school, church, state, club, trade, saloon, brothel, bank and mill just as the microscopist examines alike, without fear or favor, healthy and diseased animal tissue. They think they have said something wise when they point out that a student of society has merely made a diagnosis of a social condition, but has proposed no specific for correcting the condition. They cannot understand the scientific separation of processes which compels the geologist, for example, first to distinguish gravel from loam and from clay, then to inquire how each was deposited, and last of all to indulge the expression of individual or of collective interest in feelings of approval or disapproval toward either. It is no more true of the geologist than of the sociologist that his first duty is to understand his facts. It is neither his duty nor his right to approve or dis- approve them until he understand them.
With all this in view from his outlook, the sociologist naturally differs in judgment from those people who claim superior merit as humanitarians and moralists for refusing to acquire the necessary knowledge about society, who prefer instead to scourge the air with exhortations to reform institutions they do not understand. Specific doctrines and policies about "living issues" arc by no means the only nor the surest reliance for improving the world. The sociologist would be the last man to approve the policy of folding the hands and waiting until we are omniscient b< trying to help ourselves. As public-spirited citi/ens sociolo would cooperate with all other good citizens in doing the best tilings in sight to make life more satisfactory. The sociologist would have men face the social duties of every day just as the merchant faces the questions which he has to decide. He acts on the basis of the best evidence he can get. He docs not till he can solve all the problems of the universe; or even all
