how anxiously the professor scanned each bit of evidence, to see just how much it was worth, and just how much it told of what the people of the time were really driving at. From this work in history, of which I wish I had been able to take more, I think I absorbed a little of the scientific spirit, and am sure I learned principles of method, such as the necessity for distinction between fact and inference, that I find myself employing every day in my own work. And why, indeed, should any scientists be better fitted than the historians to guide us wisely? Have they not, for a great many years, been working conscientiously with the concrete facts of human society? With reference to this whole subject of methodology, I would repeat the expression of my conviction that it is better to manifest good method in one's work, and to absorb it from the work of master sociologists and historians, than it is to devote much of one's own special attention to it, especially since, in itself, methodology is not sociology at all, but logic, and is so much better done by trained metaphysicians. MAURICE PARMELEE, UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI I am very glad that Professor Hayes has read this paper at this time because it emphasizes the great importance of connecting sociology with its antecedent sciences, in particular psychology and biology. Sociologists cannot afford to forget that social phenomena are continuous with other natural phenomena, so that Professor Hayes's emphasis upon the identity of the forces at work in society with other natural forces is most timely. The recognition of this fact will, I believe, result in the introduction of the genetic method into sociology just as it has within the last few decades been adopted by biology. Sociology is still using to a large extent the classificatory and systematizing method which characterized biology a century or so ago when biology was in its Linnaean period. Not until sociology connects its peculiar phenomena with the phenomena of its antecedent sciences can it attain its full development as a natural science. As to Professor Hayes's criticism of Professor Ward I quite agree with him that Ward is mistaken in insisting that the desires are the only true social forces. It is, furthermore, unfortunate that Ward should have used such terms as chemism, bathmism, zoism, psychism, etc., because he seemed to imply by the use of these terms that in each field of natural phenomena there is a peculiar force quite distinct from the forces at work in other fields of natural phenomena. However, it is well to remember that Ward is a thoroughgoing monist. It is therefore inconceivable that he believes in any such peculiar forces which are absolutely distinct from each other. Whatever may be the implications of his terminology, he must believe that all these forces are manifestations of the one universal force. ALBION W. SMALL Although I think Professor Hayes has a case against Professor Ward, I am not convinced that the latter is as far wrong as the former would have us believe. We all wish Professor Ward were here to speak for himself, and there is not much room for doubt that he would be able to make a strong showing for his side of the argument. Since I was among those whom Professor Ward read out of the ranks of the sociologists last year by special mention, because we did not accept his version of the social-forces idea as closing the case for sociology, I am naturally inclined to protest against such relegation. On the whole, however, I may be pardoned for referring to the ancient case of the bishop and the judge arguing the question which was the bigger man, and the clincher of the judge: "When you say to a man, 'You be damned,' he may not be; when I say to a man, 'You be hanged,' he will be." So long as Professor Ward is only the bishop, while the Sociological Society is the judge, we may all escape being either damned or hanged for differences of opinion about the social forces. Speaking seriously, it seems to me that Professor Ward's psychology is vulnerable at more than one point, but Professor Hayes has asked us to support his attack at a point where much ammunition might be used without effect. To put it briefly, Professor Hayes's contention raises a false alarm. At the present moment certainly the sociologists are not putting into the concept "social forces" a vitiating ratio of the metaphysical preconceptions against which he warns. On the contrary, if I understand the trend of our thinking at the present time, Professor Hayes's challenge of the conception "social forces" is very much as though he were attorney for one of the parties in litigation over Chicago traction properties, and should take issue with another attorney's phrase "electricity hauls the cars." It might immediately be agreed by all parties concerned that when predicated of electricity the term "hauls" means a different series of technical antecedents and consequents from that which connects the generation of force with the movement of the cars in the case of a cable, or in the more ancient case of horses. Yet in the absence of a more convenient phrase it might also be conceded, without danger to anything at issue, that for the purposes in question the word "hauls" is a sufficiently precise symbol for what takes place, whether in the use of horses, cables, or dynamos. The essential thing is that, so far as transportation and the nickels that pay for it are concerned, we tell the story by the word electricity in the one case, just as we did by the words cable and horses earlier; and the word "hauls" doesn't claim anything not in the facts. It seems to me that the like is true of the phrase "social forces" in sociological parlance. That is, Professor Hayes has made the phrase "social forces" responsible not only for all the possible flaws in Professor Ward's psychology, but also for all the metaphysical vagaries which we might today conceal under the words if our thoughts in connection with them were other than they actually are. To take a case of cause and effect in society for illustration: The individuals who represent the type American academic man do not all act alike. But they are alike the products of certain cosmic and biological forces. These latter, however, may be taken for granted and canceled from the reckoning when we are trying to locate the differentiating factors which account for the behavior of certain specimens of this type in one way, and of certain other specimens in other ways. For instance, certain of that type have this week pilgrimaged to Providence, certain to Indianapolis, certain to Minneapolis, certain to St. Louis. Why did they not all stay at home or else go to the same spot? The answer is not to be found in the remoter terms in the series of causation back of the phenomenon American academic man. It is to be found in the variants in the case of different varieties of the phenomenon. One American academic man is stimulated by psychology, another by history, another by geology, another by sociology. In each case responsiveness to a particular type of stimulus is all that is necessary in the way of explanation of the psychologists seeking their kind, the historians theirs, etc. The sociologist strictly as such need not at any rate press back farther for explanation. To my mind, therefore, it is a very innocent verbal device to say that our interest in sociology was the force that brought us here, our colleagues' interest in chemistry was the force that carried them to Minneapolis, etc. We might mean that this mental circumstance is a force of the same order as that which produces horns on oxen or inhibits them on horses. We might mean that it is a force of the same order as that which produces combustion when oxygen and hydrogen meet under certain conditions. We might mean that it is a force of the same order as that which keeps Niagara in motion. No one of us really thinks that any other of us has any such connotation in mind while using the phrase "social forces." When we refer to a valuation in men's minds as a "social force" we of course mean that it is a psychical force, whatever a psychical force may turn out to be. I do not know of a more important range of problems than those which are called up by the question, What may be found out about the genesis of mental states? Perhaps I should modify what I said a moment ago about the limitations of strictly sociological search by admitting that all the answers we shall ever get to the question will probably contain contributions by both psychologists and sociologists. Meanwhile it seems hypercritical to challenge the proposition that mental states once in existence are real social causes. This does not mean that they are final causes, any more than the locomotives that drew our trains were final causes. The locomotives and the mental states are factors back of which it is needless to go for certain reaches of explanation. That being the case, it would seem to me an altogether needless and profitless self-limitation if we should deny ourselves the convenience of referring to these social causes as "social forces." EDWARD A. Ross I shall not attempt to defend Dr. Ward's use of "forces," for he is well able to take care of himself. But on behalf of the serviceableness of the social forces idea in sociology, I am ready to break a lance at any time. I do not feel that a social fact is explained until it is traced back to human beings functioning under the given conditions. When a phenomenon such as a falling off in births, an increase of suicides, a growth in the solidarity of labor, an increase in the number of elopements, or a shrinkage in crimes against the person is followed back link by link along the causal chain until we arrive at some impulse, appetite, propensity, passion, desire, or purpose of human beings in a specific situation, then, and not till then is it explained from the point of view of the sociologist. Of course, the psychologist steps in and presses the investigation still farther back. While in China this summer certain strange social practices continually challenged me. Why do the mothers cruelly bind their daughters' feet? Why do many young wives commit suicide when the opium crop is harvested? Why are the Chinese so prone to opium smoking and gambling? Why are female infants made away with, but never male infants? Why do they sacrifice a cock at the boat's prow before starting on a risky voyage? In each case my curiosity was unslaked until I had traced the practice to some urge or demand of human nature, such that I could imagine myself following it if I had Chinese ideas, and were acting under Chinese conditions. It is fallacious to argue that the notion of "forces" is to be given up by sociologists in case it has been found valueless or misleading in other sciences. We may give up trying to find why the molecules of chemical compounds, or the cells of living bodies behave as they do, and content ourselves with stating "this regularly precedes that." As regards our comprehension, molecules and cells are as remote from us as Sirius. We have no inside information about them, and probably never shall have. But the ultimate units which give rise to social phenomena are human beings, sufficiently like ourselves that by close study of their mental content and their situation, and by a little use of the imagination, we can usually discover what motive prompts them to act as they do. This is a higher and completer explanation than the chemist or biologist can hope for in his field, and it would be foolish for us to put up with his limitations. We are on the inside of society. The key of its interpretation is in our hands. Why then should we throw away all the advantages that come to us from this fact? EDWARD C. HAYES Dr. Parry objects that the invention of methods is a task already discharged by logicians and the practitioners of developed sciences. He is quite right, and if I had proposed any new method his criticism would have a bearing upon my paper; but I merely pointed out that it behooves us to become aware how far we have been from following the method which is the common property of all sciences, and to observe the path which scientific method requires us to pursue. It is with great regret that I am obliged to have any point of difference from men whom I hold so high in honor and to whose leadership I owe so much as I do to Professor Small and Professor Ross, but they belong to the great majority, which I believe is at this point in the wrong. Professor Small's illustration of electricity and the street cars is adequate defense of our right to use the expression "social force" as a figure of speech. That figure is no more objectionable than a biological analogy, or rather no more so than biological analogies were when they still carried misleading connotations. He has misunderstood my intention if he regards my objection as directed against the use of that phrase as a figure of speech. It is against the idea of sociological explanation which that expression is used to convey; it is against the view just stated by Professor Ross that sociological explanation is reached when prevalent activities are attributed to a motive. It seems to me, on the contrary, that motive, instead of being the explanation sought, is the thing to be explained if by motive is meant any specific desire existing in human consciousness; and that the motive is only one omnipresent condition of social activity if by motive is meant a trait of human nature. To Professor Small motive means the former, to Professor Ross and Professor Ward it means the latter. Accordingly to the question, Why are, say, five hundred men attending the meeting of the American Sociological Society, and why are, say, one thousand attending the meeting of the American Psychological Society? Professor Small would answer: Because five hundred wanted to go to the one place, felt the motive or desire, were sensitive to the sociological stimulus, and one thousand wanted to go to the other. This seems to me merely a restatement of the problem and no explanation at all. What we want to know is why, at the present stage of academic progress, do five hundred feel the one desire and why do a thousand feel the other? The sociological problem in this case, as indeed in most, is the problem of prevalence. In every sociological problem of which this can serve as an illustration the feeling, motive, or desire is part and parcel of the activity to be explained; it is the activity in one of its aspects, as it exists for the actors, while the bodily presence here of these men is another aspect of it, and no sociological explanation of any scientific significance can consist in saying: a thousand |