THE SCOPE OF SOCIOLOGY.
IV. THE ASSUMPTIONS OF SOCIOLOGY.
WITH the great majority of men one fact is all that conscious- ness can manage at a time. The simplest tasks of combining this and that begin the process of assorting human inequalities. Ability to combine several concepts, and to carry them over into action without misplacing one or all, marks a high order of development. The maid who lets the kitchen fire go out, or leaves the basement door unbolted over night, or serves the dinner without the vegetables, is familiar negative evidence. The bureau chief who fails to take heed that soldiers need boots, or cartridges, or transportation is a variation of the type in another sphere. The organizing thinker or actor who takes in the whole extent of the process which he has to control, and holds the entire complex as a unity in his mind at once, is well known in modern life, but he grows more and more rare as we ascend the scale of organization. The men who can seriously entertain the purpose of finding a way to bind together in one view all the elements of experience which all men have had and may have, occur only here and there in a generation. The men who can adopt such a prodigious program, and who are at the same time able to do some small piece of fruitful work tending toward ultimate realization of the program, are still more scarce. The philosopher, however, always confronts this latter task, and there are always a few philosophers somewhat adequately conscious of the sweep of their problems and of certain controllable minor problems upon which they may profitably work. Since sociology deals with a portion of reality within the scope of general philoso- phy, sociology can be cultivated fruitfully only after it has enlisted men who are capable of placing themselves and their problems with a reasonable degree of accuracy within the whole system which general philosophy comprehends. The dilettantism which at present riots in the social sciences is due first to the fact that
42
