Chapter XXVII Methods of Sociological Investigation

In any line of thought or endeavor a correct method of procedure is all-important. Inaccurate theories of procedure have wrecked nations, hindered civilization for centuries at a time, and flooded the world with negative and harmful ideas. It will be worth while, therefore, to consider the methods by which sociology has advanced.

The ancient makers of social proverbs crystallized what they had individually observed many times to be true, or what they had heard repeated on many occasions as being true. Such methods were based on observation and generalization, carelessly used. Moreover, the data at the command of the makers of social proverbs were very limited.

The Hebrew prophets, fired by exalted ideas concerning the nature of Jehovah, insisted upon a practical application of these ideas to the daily life of the people of their time. When they perceived that the actions and living conditions of the people fell far below the implications of the pattern-ideas for which the name of Jehovah stood, they vehemently proclaimed definite social ideals, and condemned all who hindered the realization of these ideals. This method of creating social thought is noteworthy because of the religious dynamic behind it, and because of the social pattern-ideas which it produced.

Plato and Aristotle were pioneer social philosophers who took cosmic views of life. One followed the method of abstract reasoning and centered his thought in a world of Ideas; the other viewed life pragmatically, employing a method of empirical tests. While sociology will always have a place for methods which interpret the daily facts of individual and social experience in their relationships to the whole human society and to the universe, it will insist that as large a body of societary data as possible be gathered together before philosophic sociology speaks positively.

In the teachings of Jesus a rare insight to human nature is manifested. Jesus studied individuals as individuals and, perceiving their selfish natures, proclaimed a remedy in an inner transformation through consecration to objective factors, such as persons and ideals. Jesus was peculiarly happy in his method of moving among all classes of people, of studying their needs, and of testing in practice his social principles. While his acquaintance with human life was limited to small groups of one race, he sought universal as well as particular human tendencies. His method included an absolutely unselfish spirit, a search for the truth, a broad viewpoint—all of which are thoroughly scientific.

The Utopia of Sir Thomas More, preceded to be sure by Plato’s Republic, introduced another social thought method. The utopian formula consists in setting forth a set of ideals which presumably are distinctly in advance of current standards. The method of arriving at utopian ideas is largely through the use of the imagination. Standards are postulated so far in advance of current conditions as to make them of little value. Utopian social thought, however, does have some scientific merit. The imagination may be used in revealing reality to otherwise blind individuals. A utopian thought may startle a selfish individual out of a part of his selfishness. A utopian idea possesses the power which is inherent in indirect suggestion; it may arouse without antagonizing.

In the approach to the social question through an analysis of the natural rights of the individual, the seventeenth and eighteenth social writers fell into a deductive and a priori procedure which led them far astray. Like the theory of individual rights, the correlative doctrine of the social contract contained more error than truth.

The method of positivism, ordinarily connected with the writings of Comte, essayed a scientific approach to the social question. It insisted upon accuracy, induction, and a right emphasis upon sequence and co-existence. But positivism, even in the hands of its exponents, became deductive and philosophic. It promised well scientifically, but fell into nearly all the errors which it condemned. It was, however, a factor in producing the nineteenth century humanitarianism.

The organic analogy method of studying human society attracted widespread attention, appealed strongly to the imagination even of scholars, but resulted in findings of negligible value. The parallelisms between an organism and society proved to be scientifically valueless, except as they revealed some of the connections between organic volution and social evolution. They created a considerable vocabulary of bio-social terminology which has been more of a hindrance than a help in social thinking.

The psychical approach to the study of societary life, introduced by Lester F. Ward, and made scientific by the findings of inductive and behavioristic psychology, has proved thus far to be the best method of understanding the social process and of arriving at a statement of sociological laws. This method has revealed human life as a series of social conflicts and co-operations, and of forms of social control designed to regulate individuals for selfish and unselfish group purposes. An explanation of the more important phases of the psychical methodology has been presented in several chapters of this volume.

The individual rights doctrine, the social contract theories, the concept of positivism, and the organic analogies belong to the unscientific age in sociological methodology. In the main these sets of social theories were philosophic, deductive, a priori, and argumentative. They were based chiefly on opinions, positivism alone leaning to observation and induction but failing to live up to its promises. On the other hand, recent decades have been marked by the rise of scientific methods in sociology, attention has been centered on the social process, and particularly on the psychical processes of which the social process is an elaboration. Although he possessed an entirely inadequate knowledge of psychology, Lester F. Ward laid the foundations of modern sociology when he insisted that society is a psychical affair, capable of mastering itself. As a result of this contribution to method, not by a psychologist but by a paleontologist, social thought moved forward into the field of scientific sociology.

There are many writers who would class Ward with the pre-scientific contributors to sociological thought. His methods, it is true, were largely deductive; his psychology was seriously faulty; his philosophy was inefficient. Nevertheless, he pointed the way for sociologists so clearly that in this treatise his work has been considered as giving the trend to recent sociology, rather than as being the last word of discredited types of social thought.

Then there are other types of sociological methodology of which mention should be made, notably, the statistical, and the classificatory procedures. The statistical approach had its origin in the early census. There are evidences that rulers and kings, at least two or three millenniums before Christ, had enumerations of their subjects made. In connection with poor-law administration, people as early as the Roman Era were counted. But it was not until the eighteenth century that statistics became scientific, with statistical laws drawn from a study of tabulated facts. Quetelet gives 1820 as the birth year of statistical science. It was Frederick William I of Prussia who is reported to have had an enumeration made of occupational facts; and Frederick the Great, with having established a system for making regular statistical studies of population. It is said that early in the eighteenth century the University of Jena began to offer courses in statistics.

In England, in the latter part of the seventeenth century, Captain John Graunt is credited with applying methods of counting, measurement, and induction to the births and deaths in London. His studies were referred to as political arithmetic, and were a forerunner of the current investigations in vital statistics. Malthus made use of statistical methods in his work (1798) on population changes.

Quetelet (1796–1874) is usually considered the founder of statistical science. He not only applied the method of counting to the study of the members of human society (the census method in its common form), but he tried to get at the problem of causation, and to indicate rules of procedure for making causal studies in statistics. Although this celebrated Belgian statistician tabulated and analyzed facts ranging from the astronomical to the societary fields, his ideas can be mentioned here only so far as they contribute to the subject of social thought. Quetelet pointed out certain of the pitfalls in the way of gathering accurate data. He improved the methods of census taking, and undertook the difficult tasks that are involved in qualitative human studies.

Among the results of Quetelet’s work, the concept of “the average man” is well known. Quetelet defined the law of averages and described types, especially the average individual. Although it is very important and useful to know about the “average man,” the term is practically fictitious, since no one even in a large group exactly fits the description. All individuals are either “above” or “below” the average.

The contributions of Quetelet in the field of social statistics were admirably supplemented by the achievements of Le Play (1806–1882). This French sociologist and mining engineer applied the methods of physical science to social science. He insisted upon observation of data and the use of induction in making generalizations. His method is illustrated by his studies in family budgets. In order to secure accurate data he lived with individual families, studying at first-hand the conditions by which they made a livelihood. Le Play opposed laissez-faire theories and urged programs of reform through the journal which he founded, namely, La Reforme Sociale. He rejected socialism, and advocated the method of conciliation and sympathy for effecting agreements among employers and employees.

Similar methods were evolved by Engels and Bücher, German investigators. Engels’ studies of family budgets led him to draw certain average observations. These “averages” are known as Engels’ laws, for example: (1) The smaller the income, the larger the percentage of expenditure for food. (2) The percentage of expenditure for clothing, and for lodging or rent, varies directly with the income. (3) The larger the income, the larger the percentage of expenditures for sundries (including luxuries).

The statistical method has been carried forward by a large number of social investigators. With averages, modes, and medians, it is now possible to make accurate quantitative studies. Current statistical methods include the use of index numbers, frequency tables, discrete series, deviations, skewness, correlations. Statistics has thrown a flood of light upon important phases of societary life, such as the economic, where wage scales and price levels are significant concepts. Statistics has been widely utilized in the study of crime and poverty. The various methods of graphic presentations are valuable in interpreting tables of statistical data to the lay mind.

Statistical methods can be used, however, to prove almost anything. The ordinary individual is helpless when statistical methods are treated unscrupulously. On the other hand, it is probably true that social thought will become increasingly accurate by the judicious use of statistical studies.

A recent development, closely related to statistical science, is the social survey. Beginning with the Pittsburg Survey in 1907–1908, the social survey method has been widely adopted in the United States. Its use has been applied to inventories of a specific community, such as a rural district or a small number of city blocks. There is the specific survey of a given social problem, such as housing or poverty. Then there is the survey of an entire industry or a school system.

The social survey is one of the most important sources today of sound social thinking. By it, large quantities of social facts are being collected. Urban and rural surveys, specific and general surveys alike, are affording the best bases at the present time for inductive social thinking. Some of these results have been indicated in a preceding chapter upon the contributions of applied sociology.

The nature of the classificatory method has already been indicated in this treatise. The Greeks classified the various fields of knowledge under three heads: physics, ethics, and politics. Francis Bacon classified knowledge according to his understanding of mental operations. He divided mental processes into three, namely, feeling, memory, reasoning; and made a corresponding division of knowledge into art, history, and science. Auguste Comte classified the social elements into four groups: the industrial, the esthetic, the scientific, and the philosophical (previsional). His hierarchal classification of the sciences into mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, and sociology has been discussed in an earlier chapter.

Guillaume de Greef may be considered the best exponent of the classificatory method. De Greef accepted Comte’s hierarchy of the sciences with its basic principles of decreasing generality and increasing dependence of parts, assented to Spencer’s evolutionary dictum of increasing coherence and heterogeneity, and added his own concept of volitional contractualism.

De Greef argued that social progress is characterized by an increasing degree of volitional activity and freedom. This volitionalism is the basis of rational social control. The telic factors, however, are not well developed by de Greef. His social thought rests upon a certain logical but inaccurate classification of the social elements.

The basis of this classification is increasing volitionalism and particularism. De Greef gives the following classification: economic, industrial, genetic, artistic, scientific, moral, juridical, and political. In holding that the economic elements in society represent the least volitionalism, and the political the most volitional activity, with graded degrees of volitional activities represented by the intermediate factors, the weakness of de Greef’s analysis becomes evident. While an improvement over Comte’s classification and superior to Spencer’s mechanistic order, de Greef’s contribution possesses only a relative degree of logical merit. It is far from being objectively correct, and is indicative of the difficulties in the way of classifying social elements in an evolutionary or filial order. There is no doubt but that any classification of merit would have to be arranged according to some correlative plan, which would serve the purposes of an exhibit but would not be of much scientific value. Moreover, the classifications that are most useful are those classifications of societary forces; these are psychical in nature and have been treated in foregoing chapters.

De Greef perceived the importance of the principle of socialization. He emphasized the importance of a “we” feeling in societary life. His social unit is the primitive family. In the evolution from the primitive family and state, the evidence of progress is the degree of “togetherness” that has been developed. De Greef advanced the idea that there is an increasing degree of contractualism and hence of freedom in society. De Greef’s work may be taken as the best attempt to carry Comte’s classification of the sciences to a logical conclusion by furnishing a classification of the elements which function in the field of the “highest” science of all, namely, sociology.

At this point and in concluding, the methodology of Albion W. Small will be considered. Professor Small’s other contributions to sociological thought have been indicated at the proper places in earlier chapters. The correct method for pursuing sociological analyses is to treat human society in terms of process. The main current in all sound sociological study is the social process. The significant test of progress in this social process is achievement.XXVII-2 According to Professor Small’s classification, there are six main phases of social progress, namely:

1. Achievement in promoting health,

2. Achievement in harmonizing human relations,

3. Achievement in producing wealth,

4. Achievement in discovery and spread of knowledge,

5. Achievement in the fine arts,

6. Achievement in religion.

These grand divisions are the expressions of certain interestsXXVII-3 that human beings possess: (1) health interests, (2) wealth interests, (3) sociability interests, (4) knowledge interests, (5) esthetic interests, and (6) rightness interests. As a result of the operation of these interests, social problems are produced. Sociology is “the science of human interests and their workings under all conditions.”

In this classification human interests serve as the main key forces to an understanding of the social process. Upon psychological examination, however, the interests are found to be bafflingly complex. The psychologist has not given a satisfactory description of interests. And yet it is clear that what people are interested in is a fair criterion of the direction which their evolution will take. Furthermore, the changes in the interests of people are fundamental in telic social progress. With a correlation of interests as a subjective criterion, and of achievement as an objective test, Professor Small has shown the dualistic nature of the social process. Those methodologists who would measure all things human in purely objective terms are scientifically negligent of important human elements. Mind is not simply matter; the social process is not entirely behavior.

Professor Small has sharpened three important tools for the use of the sociological investigator. These are: the social process, personal interests, and the group. His analyses are sound, except as he does not show how “interests” usually possess social origins. Otherwise he speaks consistently and helpfully in terms of groups and group processes.

With concepts such as have been favorably presented in the foregoing paragraphs—and chapters—the sociologist of the future will be able to make contributions to thought that will help to determine educational, religious, economic, political, and other important human aims.