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PREFACE
vii
and a growing feeling that all is not well with the social
sciences. While our electrical, mechanical, and civil engi-
neering technique apparently conquer all obstacles, our
social engineering technique is in its infancy and largely
guesswork. While progress in the natural sciences leads
immediately to improved technique, progress in the social
sciences seems to lead merely to an increased output of
books. It will therefore be worth while to make a compari-
son between the procedures followed to obtain a control
over nature and the procedures from which we are to ex-
pect a control over our social environment. That compari-
son will yield some valuable methodological suggestions,
which are not impaired by the fact that the subject-matter
of the social sciences is different in nature from the subject-
matter of the natural sciences.
Man’s increasing success in his control over nature is
due to a clear understanding of the different problems in-
volved, to a distinction between ends and means, between
applied science and fields of theoretic inquiry, and between
scientific method and philosophic method. The work is
done on the principle of differentiation and specialization in
the field of theoretic inquiry and integration and co-ordination
in the field of practical application.
Nobody, for instance, confuses the problem of how to
build a bridge with the very different issue whether the
building of the bridge is desirable.
The problem of how to build a bridge is a problem of
applied science. It involves the integration and the co-or-
dination of the knowledge obtained from a great many dif-
ferent fields of scientific inquiry, but nobody confuses a
problem of bridge-building with a problem of theoretical
mechanics.
Within the fields of theoretic inquiry there is a sharp
distinction between philosophic and scientific method. No-
