THE SOCIOLOGICAL USES OF HISTORY J. O. HERTZLER ABSTRACT There have been three decided trends in sociological investigation in recent years, the statistical, social psychological, and historical. This essay is concerned with the latter. The history that sociology utilizes is the "new history." Among the uses which sociology has made of history are the following: the ability to interpret the present, the substantiation of social evolution, the proof of the reality of social change, the perception of cause and effect in social phenomena, its substitution for impossible experimentation, the recognition of the fact that all social effort must take recent trends into consideration, the use of trends and tendencies to anticipate future effects, the conclusion that progress must come by telic activity, as a guide in the determination of the antecedents and consequences of social revolutions, and the provision of knowledge useful in curing or preventing them, the presentation of social psychological data, and facts concerning the development, rôle, and decadence of institutions, the introduction of purpose and organization into social thought, the demonstration of how ruling ideas develop, the significance of imaginary characters and events, a basis for intellectual freedom, the establishment of a foundation for sociological thought, a demonstration of the mechanics of the realization of ideals, and the part of ideals in modifying human conduct. The facts provided by the new history are continually increasing both in number and accuracy and will be used more and more by sociology as time goes on, in spite of the development of other factfinding agencies. There have been three decided trends of special emphasis in sociology in recent years, the statistical, the social psychological, and the historical, all being the result of the well-recognized need of establishing a substantial factual foundation for sociological hypothesis. Statistical method, as used in sociological endeavor, has collected and utilized numerical data of various kinds, both in the establishment of general social laws and in the treatment of particular problems. The development of social statistics from the mortality tables of Edmund Halley and John Graunt, the sex, and the birth and death ratios of Johann Peter Süssmilch, and the theory of the "average man" and the search for specific causation of Jacques Quetelet down to its present widespread use by every social organization engaged in either pure fact-finding or in direct constructive activity illustrates the increasing need and use of the quantitative method in sociological research. There has also been, during the last fifteen years, a widespread use and an extraordinarily rapid advance of social psychological observation and analysis of mainly contemporary groups undertaken with the greatest degree of objectivity possible, by a host of writers, chiefly English and American, the names of whom are familiar to all. While still in search of a method devoid of non-sociological categories, and while still unsuccessfully seeking to eliminate the personal equation in observation, this study has been productive of much new understanding of heretofore decidedly misunderstood group phenomena.' Equally significant and important, but perhaps less widely recognized, has been the use of history, the discussion of which embodies the substance of this essay. Statistics, social psychology, and history have done much to justify sociology's claims as a science in providing definite numerical, psychological, and evolutionary data upon which its laws and principles can be based. The right sort of history has been particularly necessary. Due to the fact that sociology is the partial outgrowth of the philosophy of history, such as that of Turgot, Saint-Simon, and Comte, who were groping about for generalizations and uniformities in social tendencies, the older feud between the philosophy of history and history, and the later feud between sociology and history, now happily pretty much a thing of the past, caused history and sociology to be mutually antagonistic. Of course, the respective defects of each as recognized by the other doubtless had no little part in this. The aloofness militated to the marked disadvantage of both, but especially of sociology. As a consequence it entered into a period of intensive, self-centered knitting together. Today the professional sociologist, with the truly scientific point of view and a keener insight into the status of his science than outsiders or novices, recognizes that until recently sociology has tended to consist of sonorous abstractions, and magnificent, but amateurish, generalizations about the way in which man in society had to or ought to behave. It has been a matter of theoretic argumentation, social metaphysics, philosophic generalizations and speculations, and, to put it baldly, guesswork. These shortcomings were not due, 'This method is epitomized and vastly improved in Social Discovery, by E. C. Lindeman. however, to any fault or weakness inherent in sociology alone; it was characteristic of several of the social sciences, particularly economics, education, and social psychology. They were suffering from newness and exceptionally rapid growth; the supply of data and method were insufficient to meet the heavy demands made on these sciences, and a premium was put on any hypothesis that seemed to meet the needs; hence they thought too fast and too recklessly and without sufficient perspective to provide adequate scientific foundations. Doubtless much good brain energy has gone to waste among sociological thinkers due to the lack of several elements, of which historical insight and background were not the least important. In spite of these wants, however, the fruits of sociology from Comte and Spencer on were gratifying and astonishingly numerous. Even though the sociology was deficient in its scientific aspects, the thought and emotion aroused by it left their impress. It had, for example, stimulated a social attitude which reacted against excessive conservatism. It had enriched the vocabulary of modern thought with concept-names necessary to discuss the problems of social life. It clarified the atmosphere in the field of social problems. It had brought about a social consciousness and intelligence and promulgated the idea that society is capable of controlling itself, thus releasing the human mind from ancient fatalism. It had quickened the social conscience and inspired social reconstruction. It was primarily responsible for various practical advances in human betterment, such as the control of marriage and the family, the safeguarding of mother and child, the fights for social legislation, including eugenic and labor statutes, the new criminology, etc. It caused tasks to be undertaken as a matter of course which formerly would have seemed futile or daring. Truly a remarkable body of contributions.2 What the near future will offer can only be conjectured, for, as sociology has settled down, it has become more and more scientific in its content. It is now definitely a search of human reality, of 2 The writer acknowledges his indebtedness for this array of contributions to G. E. Howard, "Sociology: Its Critics and Its Fruits," Journal of Applied Sociology, VI (April, 1922), 1–12. useful social facts upon which it develops a method and technique and practical devices which will assist the race in working out its own destiny. It surveys the course of human development, seeking to know its origin, direction, and goal, and wherever possible attempts to exercise some control over society's fate. Sociologists have seen that if these achievements are to be accomplished in fuller measure continually their thinking must become more and more accurate, based upon demonstrated fact or verifiable hypothesis. They have discovered that you cannot throw yourself blindly against unknown facts and trust to luck that the result will be satisfactory. As Small puts it: "Our ideal at present is discovery of typical, qualitative relationships, of antecedent and consequent, of cause and effect, of harmony and disharmony, of stability and instability, of constructiveness and destructiveness in human groups." Thus sociology is now first of all an attempt to inject scientific method into social thinking. But it is also a constructive social science which has as its purpose the amelioration of social conditions, now, if possible, but by all means preparation for and the direction of energies and capacities toward this task in the future. Neither of these tasks can be successfully carried out without a substantial foundation of historical fact and generalization to work upon, since only the information of history will enable one to determine scientifically what have been the processes through which men in association today have come to be as they are. The sociologist finds in history either substantiation or correction for his generalizations based on present observation, which of course is necessary if the generalization is going to be even a working hypothesis, not to mention a social law. History is the social reality of the past. Paul Barth sums up the relation between sociology and history in the formula: "History seems to me to be concrete sociology in the sense in which a drama is concrete psychology.' Elsewhere he says: "History . . . . is . . . a collection of examples illustrating the laws established by sociology as governing the being and activity of man. . . . . . . Sociology is history with . * "Some Contributions to the History of Sociology," American Journal of Sociology, XXVIII (January, 1923), 409. out proper names; history is sociology made concrete and individual.' "The sociologist is continually becoming more historically minded. But the sort of history the sociologist has come to use so widely is not yet universally current, especially among some historians. The history that has had such a beneficent influence upon sociology is not the traditional, pedantic, episodical, narrative synthesis of the spectacular and mainly military and political events of a people—the activities of their kings, courtiers, popes, officials, statesmen, their wars waged for thrones or territories, their laws and parliaments-the events which compel the attention of men, all classified according to kings' reigns or presidents' terms. It is the "new history," as Robinson has called it, and it includes the available knowledge of all that has happened to the race in the past, and the processes through the operation of which man has everywhere come to be as he is; really, an inquiry into the human experience of all the time occupied by the generations of men.o This means an appreciation of the common things and common men, the inconspicuous and obscure, the regular and uniform, the permanent and universal, the routine, everyday social life of peoples, as well as the unique and the spectacular. The attempt is made to consider every phase of man's past, every institution, sentiment, conception, discovery, achievement, or defeat which is recorded, regardless of the nature of the sources of information— "Ibid., p. 103. "History in the widest sense, means all that has happened in the past, and more particularly, all that has happened to the human race" (F. J. Teggart, The Processes of History, p. 34). "In its amplest meaning History includes every trace and vestige of everything that man has done or thought since first he appeared on the earth. . . . . It is the vague and comprehensive science of past human affairs" (J. H. Robinson, The New History, p. 1). "History in the widest sense is the sum of the episodes of the human struggle for existence. . . . . History . . . . is the record of all, great and small, that man has done and suffered, all that he has thought, imagined, and achieved within the limits of that natural and artificial environment into which he was born, in which he has to live, and by which any satisfaction of his needs and impulses is conditioned" (M. Nordau, Interpretation of History, p. 13). |