474 BENEDICT M. ASHLEY 



part of psychology, social research must take the same direction 

 as does natural science of which psychology is a part. Natural 

 science has for its ultimate goal the proposal and verification of 

 an embracing theory of the structure and development of the 

 universe, man included. Natural science begins with concrete, 

 empirical data. It returns to the concrete for verification. It 

 has important technological application to concrete problems. 

 Nevertheless natural science as such is not interested in the 

 concrete or particular which it treats only as specimens. It is 

 essentially oriented to pure theory, to universal laws and typical 

 definitions which apply to natural things considered in ab- 

 straction from historical circumstances. For the scientist water 

 is H2O, not a sample taken from a particular river on a par- 

 ticular date. 



If we apply a point-of-view to the social sciences, then we 

 must treat the detailed analysis and description of particular 

 social institutions and their historical development as mere 

 material for induction, not as the proper object of our study. 



Does this correspond to the real interests of social scientists? 

 They do make inductions and generalizations, they do build 

 general theories and verify them; but does social science stop 

 there .'^ Is not the real orientation of social science to use these 

 generalizations as guides in analyzing particular, concrete, 

 historical situations,? Is not social science interested not only 

 in what is universal, general and fixed in man as a social animal, 

 but much more in the institutions which man has created and 

 the modifications he undergoes through and in these institu- 

 tions.? Natural science sees theory as the ultimate goal. Social 

 science sees theory rather as a guide better to understand the 

 concrete and variable. 



A sign of this is to be found in the discomfort which many 

 experienced social scientists feel at all the current talk about 

 the building of social theories. They are accused of being 

 intellectually lazy, but is it not rather that they instinctively 

 feel the theory-makers are leaving behind the very thing which 



