TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE Concluding Remarks of Mr. Hayes SOME SUGGESTIONS REGARDING THE ORGANIZATION OF A Depart- ΙΟΙ THE CHURCH AND THE RURAL COMMUNITY, Warren H. Wilson. 165 191 THE RELATION OF SOCIAL THEORY TO PUBLIC POLICY FRANKLIN H. GIDDINGS "To censure," said Demosthenes, "is easy, and in the power of every man: but the true counsellor should point out conduct which the present exigence demands." It is an interesting circumstance that the makers of social theory in all generations have aimed to be true counselors in the sense contemplated by the Athenian orator. Like other men, they have reacted to the greater exigencies of their day. With fellow-citizens they have played their part in the collective struggle for existence and advantage. By one sort of thinking or another, their theories have been derived, at least in part, from observations or reflections upon large issues of public policy, and upon public policy they have left an impression by no means insignificant. If their counsel has been not always wise, not always salutary, imperfect knowledge, more than any defect of patriotism, has been at fault. Until social theory became sociology, it was highly a priori and speculative. A conclusion much desired for fortifying a policy predetermined more often than not was the actual base of intellectual operations. Knowing what he ought to prove for the glory and safety of the state, the pragmatic political philosopher discovered adequate premises therefor as unerringly as any soothsayer to Cyrus or Alexander found the right flock of birds to deliver a prognosis of promise for expeditions then afoot. It would be rash to assume that speculative methods have forever faded with the nobler intellects that used them "into the infinite azure of the past." In an age which is witnessing, in supposedly educated circles, a revival of every cult of magic and demonism known among men from Gadara to Salem, we cannot feel sure that any absurdity or obsession may not again mask under the austere name of "science." But for the time being, social theory of the speculative sort is discredited. The very name "sociology" was invented and is used to lay stress upon inductive method. To find the facts first, to sort and array them with a fine discrimination, to observe differences, resemblances, and dimensions closely, to generalize with caution, and only then to ask what suggestions, if any, the approximations to truth so obtained offer us for guidance in private and in public conduct, is now the only reputable procedure among students of social, as of physical, phenomena. Of the founders of sociology it may be said that in a preeminent degree their interest in practical affairs was deep and continuous and directed upon the weightier matters of the law. The "mint, annise, and cummin" of administrative reform they did not despise, but, one and all, they entertained the high ambition to mould public policy. Comte wrote The Positive Philosophy in part that he might fashion The Positive Polity. Spencer never lost sight of his initial purpose to formulate the principles of justice. Walter Bagehot, in whatever by-way of science or criticism he wandered, did not forget that his selfappointed task was to increase and heighten in the public life of his age that "animated moderation" which he held to be the unique excellence of English character. We cannot doubt that these men, like their forerunners, were tempted to lay philosophical foundations in the good old manner, for preconceived political systems. That they never dallied with the temptation need not be claimed. But to whatever extent they yielded to it, they impaired the value of their total achievement. Their abiding fame rests upon so much of their accumulation and classification of facts as was unprejudiced and so much of their generalization as was inductive in quality. If any one of the three did not fully realize that his contribution to thought would be so measured, he at least did not fail to shape his intellectual life by scientific standards. In mature years each one frankly revised the dogmatic political creed of his youth by the objective light of abundant knowledge. Comte began as the fervid disciple of the social revolutionist Saint Simon. He became the prophet of a progress as smoothly projected as a parabolic curve. Spencer's hatred of aggression proclaimed in Letters on the Proper Sphere of Government was formulated in his earliest book in the language of finality. But, mellowed by his historical study of social evolution, the author of Social Statics arrived at a perfect understanding of the part that war has played in political integration, and a clear perception that equal liberty can never be established among men while militarism survives. Bagehot, described by the friend of his college days as an intellectually arrogant and supercilious youth, became par excellence the scientific man of the world, the trusted adviser of ministers of state and the one psychologist who has ever succeeded in explaining the mind of the average Englishman to the average English mind. To recall these origins of inductive social theory is to realize that the work remembered was not only ground-clearing and ground-breaking; it was also superlatively constructive. Comte not only insisted that completeness of description is a requisite of method, he also, making contribution, demonstrated the successive mutations of the human mind. Going forth from the barbaric feast of credulity, to be "long fed on boundless hope" of metaphysic, the race of man must, in the end, content itself with the "simpler fare" of verifiable knowledge. In that day reason may qualify the passions which dogma has denounced and damned, but never yet repressed. Spencer's sociological theories were formulated as a part of his evolutionist conception of the world. That conception has become an integral part of the mental equipment of every educated man. Those writers who would convince us that Spencer is forgotten are of all philosophers most miserable. They must either avoid the post-Spencerian problems or think about them in terms of Spencerian ideas. As Comte taught students of social science to expend their energies within confines of the knowable; as Spencer compelled them to see every process as evolution or dissolution; so Bagehot, examining more closely than any predecessor had done the |