Sociology and Modern Social Problems | Page 3

or more individuals. The word social, then, includes
the economic, political, moral, religious, etc., and must not be thought
of as something set in opposition to, for instance, the industrial or the
political.
Society and its Products.--Beneath all the forms and processes of
human society lies the fact of association itself. Industry, government,
and civilization itself must be regarded as expressions of collective
human life rather than vice versa. Industry, for example, is one side or
aspect of man's social life, and must not be mistaken for society itself.

Industry, government, religion, education, art, and the like, are all
products of the social life of man. Among these coördinate expressions
of collective human life, industry, being concerned with the satisfying
of the material needs of men, is perhaps fundamental to the rest. But
this must not lead to the mistaken view that the social life of man can
be interpreted completely through his industrial life; for, as has just
been said, beneath industry and all other aspects of man's collective life
lies the biological and psychological fact of association. This is
equivalent to saying that industry itself must be interpreted in terms of
the biology and psychology of human association. In other words,
industrial problems, political problems, educational problems, and the
like must be viewed from the collective or social standpoint rather than
simply as detached problems by themselves. We must understand the
biological and psychological aspects of man's social life before we can
understand its special phases.
The Origin of Society.--From the definition of society that we have
given it is evident that society is something which springs from the
very processes of life itself. It is not something which has been
invented or planned by individuals. Life, in its higher forms at least,
could not exist without association. From the very beginning the
association of the sexes has been necessary for reproduction and for the
care and rearing of offspring, and it has been not less necessary for the
procuring of an adequate food supply and for protection against
enemies. From the association necessary for reproduction has sprung
family life and all the altruistic institutions of human society, while
from the association for providing food supply have sprung society's
industrial institutions. Neither society nor industry, therefore, has had a
premeditated, reflective origin, but both have sprung up spontaneously
from the needs of life and both have developed down to the present
time at least with but little premeditated guidance. It is necessary that
the student should understand at the outset that social organization is
not a fabrication of the human intellect to any great degree, and the old
idea that individuals who existed independently of society came
together and deliberately planned a certain type of social organization
is utterly without scientific validity. The individual and society are
correlatives. We have no knowledge of individuals apart from society

or society apart from individuals. What we do know is that human life
everywhere is a collective or associated life, the individual being on the
one hand largely an expression of the social life surrounding him and
on the other hand society being largely an expression of individual
character. The reasons for these assertions will appear later as we
develop our subject.
What is Sociology?--The science which deals with human association,
its origin, development, forms, and functions, is sociology. Briefly,
sociology is a science which deals with society as a whole and not with
its separate aspects or phases. It attempts to formulate the laws or
principles which govern social organization and social evolution. This
means that the main problems of sociology are those of the
organization of society on the one hand and the evolution of society on
the other. These words, organization and evolution, however, are used
in a broader sense in sociology than they are generally used. By
organization we mean any relation of the parts of society to each other.
By evolution we mean, not necessarily change for the better, but
orderly change of any sort. Sociology is, therefore, a science which
deals with the laws or principles of social organization and of social
change. Put in more exact terms this makes sociology, as we said at the
beginning, the science of the origin, development, structure, and
function of the forms of association. We may pass over very rapidly
certain faulty conceptions of sociology. The first of these is that it is the
study of social evils and their remedies. This conception is faulty
because it makes sociology deal primarily with the abnormal rather
than the normal conditions in society, and secondly, it is to be criticized
because it makes sociology synonymous with scientific philanthropy. It
is rather the science of philanthropy, which is an applied science resting
upon sociology, that studies social evils and their remedies. This is