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IV. THE PRINCIPLES OF PRACTICAL SOCIAL SCIENCE.
By "principles" we do not mean, in this connection, the canons of explanation, for these belong to theory ; nor legis- lative statutes, positive human law ; nor divine commands ; nor rules of art, made by local administrators for particular direc- tion of specific processes. Positively, we do mean general work- ing directions for conduct, derived from experience, regulative norms for associated action in view of accepted ends. 1
V. THREE ASPECTS OF SOCIAL TECHNOLOGY.
It is possible to think of a system of principles (i) for the complete organization of a community, small or great, with reference to the attainment of all its ends; (2) of a social technology of a natural group or class of society, a system or mechanism adapted to further in the best possible way all the interests of that group or class, in harmony with the interest of the entire community; or (3) we may select a problem or a movement whose adequate treatment by a special social science is impossible, and demands a coordination and cooperation of many or all the means of the community, and the data of many or all of the special sciences, of nature and spirit.
The first and most ambitious of these projected systems we might be tempted to defer for the present as too visionary and dis- tant for immediate consideration. Yet we may not dismiss it with- out the suggestion that, approximately, many well-informed and reflective men have, for small communities, achieved this intel- lectual task. For example, the disciplined and broadly edu- cated head of a household considers all the interests of the members of his family, the relation of their welfare to the interests of neighborhood, city, and all mankind. At the basis of his every command or arrangement is a system of society, rational and as complete as he can think it. All his knowledge of the physical sciences, of economics, politics, ethics, is brought to serve him in the construction of a scheme of group-living.
1 MENGER, Methodenlehre, pp. 245-7, 255. " Die praktischen Wirtschaftswissen- schaften sollen uns die Grundsatze lehren, nach welchen die wirtschaftlichen Absichten der Menschen (je nach Massgabe der Verhaltnisse) am zweckmassigsten erreicht zu werden vermogen." SCHMOLLER, Grundriss, I, p. 64.
