PREFACE
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mental desire for unity and simplicity. Humanity has al-
ways been in search of the mystic simple formula which
would explain the whole universe, and that search will be
continued as long as man shall live. It springs from a fun-
damental motive operative in all of us, but it will never pro-
duce scientific knowledge. There is a beauty of form, an
aesthetic value, in a well-constructed metaphysical system
which no mere science can ever possess. There is something
esoteric about an interpretation of society in terms of a
single category as its essence and symbol. It has an emo-
tional appeal with which no scientific analysis can com-
pete. But, whatever the beauty and the value of these
products of the human mind, they do not give us a type of
knowledge on which an applied science can be built.
The same motives mentioned above have been the fun-
damental motives in the development of sociology. Soci-
ology was born partly of a dissatisfaction with the frag-
mentary character of the knowledge obtained in the social
sciences, of a desire, that is, to see social life whole, and
partly of a desire to find a technique of social improvement.
But neither of these two needs can be satisfied by a science.
The first can only be satisfied by a social philosophy, the
second by an integration and co-ordination of the knowl-
edge obtained in all the social sciences. When there also
arose a science of sociology, the confusion was complete.
The term came to be applied indiscriminately to three dis-
tinct types of knowledge: to social philosophy, to a specific
social science, and to a body of knowledge that purported
to be social engineering. Sociology was anything that had
to do with social life, from a social metaphysics to public
sanitation.
This confusion with regard to sociology is indicative
of the lack of a clear understanding of the fundamental
presuppositions and of the mutual relations of the social
