SEMINAR NOTES.
THE METHODOLOGY OF THE SOCIAL PROBLEM
DIVISION I. THE SOURCES AND USES OF
MATERIAL.
PART IV. THE LOGIC OF THE SYSTEMATIZING SOCIAL
SCIENCES.
CHAPTER v.-
FURTHER FORMULATION OF ELEMENTS OF THE SOCIAL PROBLEM.
The social problem involves —
(a) Discovery of the general laws of interrelationship between human individuals and human institutions. The same conception may be put in alternative form thus: The social problem involves —
(b') Generalization of the conditions of social order and social progress ; or, once more, the social problem involves —
(c) Formulation of the reactions of social forces in their most general forms. In order to solve the social problem we must be able —
(i/) To describe and classify and formulate the changes wrought in persons and in societies by the different elements of human experience. The ultimate aim of this search is knowledge about social relations which will guide effort toward the further changes which civilized men may desire to effect.' To indicate the presumptions, or rather the conclu-
»The subjects omitted for the present are : Part III, The Logic of the Genetic Sciences of Society ; chap. I, " Philology ; " chap. 2, " History ; " chap. 3, "The Rela- tion of the Social Problem to the Philosophy of History ; " chap. 4, "Anthropology ; " chap. 5, " Ethnology ; " chap. 6, " Folk- Psychology ; " chap. 7, " Demography ; " chap. 8, "Statistics;" chap, g, "Analysis of Contemporary Institutions and Conditions." Part IV, The Logic of the Systematizing Social Sciences: chap, i, "Philosophy of History," chap. 2, "Political Economy;" chap. 3, "Political Science;" chap. 4, " Ethics ; " chap. 5, above.
^Vide Vincent, " Province of Sociology," American Journal of Sociology, January, 1896 ; Spencer, Study of Sociology, chap. 3 ; Bernes, Revue internationale de sociologie, December, 1895.
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