Two values for sociological method. The present study is intended to promote two methodological values, recapitulation of what has already been done in a certain direction, and standardization of an equipment of concepts with corresponding terms, the latter the more important for sociologists since they cannot use the strict laboratory method. The term "social forces" illustrates the need for standardization, since it is used in at least three quite different meanings. Method of the present study. The materials brought together here have been arranged chiefly in topical, not chronological order. A formal definition of the term "social forces" as primarily understood here is given. Origins of the social-forces concept. The sociologists' use of the social-forces concept can be traced apparently to two writers, Herbert Spencer and Lester F. Ward. Small gave evidence of discriminating appreciation of the value of the concept in 1897.

In the conception of the present writer, the study set forth in the following pages derives its value from the truth of two theses. The first can be very simply stated. It is that for the development of adequate sociological method there is considerable utility in the making of surveys of what has already been done, in the field of sociology generally, and in its various subdivisions, including both those developments which have survived and enjoy current favor, and those which have seemingly proved abortive. Conviction of

the value of studies in the history of the sciences to the workers in those sciences appears to be growing, on the whole, not only in those disciplines which are most nearly related to sociology, such as economics, political science, and psychology, each of which has its history now embodied in a considerable and reputable literature, but also in the so-called "natural" and mathematical sciences. In the latter field, there appears to be a growing tendency in the various universities to introduce graduate courses in the various departments dealing with the histories of the subjects in question, where such courses were not previously given. In the particular field of sociology, Professor Small has done valuable and scholarly pioneer work in collecting and publishing studies concerning the development and origins of sociological theory as such; and Professors Lichtenberger and Bogardus have written books dealing especially with the history of social thought down to the time when sociology became differentiated from the main trunk of social science. But for the comparatively short period during which sociology has had a substantial following in its own right, we have as yet comparatively little historical literature.

The second thesis upon which the present study is based has to do with the importance to sociological method of an equipment of fundamental concepts or categories, with corresponding terms of general acceptance, as tools of research and explanation. It is probably true that such sets of fundamental concepts and agreed terms by which they are labeled constitute an important part of the methodological equipment of any science or intellectual discipline. The sciences dealing with human behavior are particularly dependent upon their basic concepts for their own further development.' The social sciences are in the nature of things permanently debarred from any extensive use of the laboratory method in the most rigorous sense of the term, and are compelled therefore to devise for themselves substitutes. Certain types of statistical procedure promise to yield valuable results and may perhaps be grouped together as one type of substitute for the laboratory method which is available for the social scientists. Most of the other research procedures which now appear to be possible can be sum

'Cf. Small, Origins of Sociology, pp. 330-33.

marized as "the statement of historical and existing social situations in such a way that the results in one case will demonstrate what can and should be done in another." Such a statement of social situations which are a matter of satisfactory record, or are subject to present or future observation, as will enable the sociologists to derive from them generalized conclusions which can be applied to subsequent situations, is evidently dependent upon the existence and common acceptance among sociologists of general concepts and corresponding terms which can be used for the description, classification, and explanation of the given cases.

Before sociologists can assert that their science is in a reasonably mature condition, it is evident that the equipment of concepts and the vocabulary which is understood in the same sense by all members of the guild must be expanded to very considerable dimensions. The first task, however, is and has been the definition through a slow process of tentative formulation and criticism and a consequent selection, of a relatively short list of concepts and terms of the most fundamental necessity. Down to the present time, it could not readily be shown that there are more than a halfdozen concepts of this sort which are accepted in about the same sense by sociologists in the United States generally. Probably the leading sociologists in this country would agree fairly well upon the importance and meaning of the following terms: "social group," "social process" or "interaction," "social control," "collective behavior," and "social forces." As we shall see, the term "social forces," which it is the especial purpose of the present paper to study in its historical setting, is still far from receiving the same emphasis or the same definition by all of the various leading sociological writers today.

In general, the concept "social forces" is used as a special case within the broader notion of social causation. No sharp lines of demarcation, therefore, separate the social-forces concept from the

"Adapted from Sociology and the Social Sciences, by Robert E. Park, reprinted from the American Journal of Sociology in Introduction to the Science of Sociology, by R. E. Park and E. W. Burgess, p. 45.

Thomas and Znaniecki have developed at some length a somewhat similar methodological thesis in The Polish Peasant in Europe and America; see particularly the Methodological Note in Vol. I and the Introduction in Vol. III.