SOCIAL SCIENCE FOUNDED ON A UNIFIED NATURAL SCIENCE 479 



today that indeterminism does not make a science impossible 

 as long as it is not absolute. In physics we get along very well 

 admitting that the universe is permeated by chance, as long 

 as we admit that not all of its events are pure chance. Simi- 

 larly social science does not have to insist that all human be- 

 havior is rigidly determined in order to scrutinize it scientifi- 

 cally. It suffices that human behavior exhibit some regularity 

 and pattern. This relative determinism is sufficiently guaran- 

 teed by the stability of the human biological and psychological 

 structure and its fixed goals. In practice both psychologist and 

 social scientist actually observe a distinction between two kinds 

 of human behavior. One is unconscious and automatic, or 

 conscious but compulsive and instinctual, or explicable by cus- 

 tom and habit. Another is deliberate, conscious, creative, per- 

 sonal and responsible. The latter is peculiarly human, the 

 former common to animals. It is this second type of human 

 behavior which is most interesting to the social scientist since 

 from it originate the major social institutions and the major 

 social changes. It is free activity. To explain how it is possible 

 is a psychological, not a sociological problem, but there is no 

 need to explain it away in order to save the possibility of a 

 science of society. 



The second difficulty is that if we say natural science is able 

 to determine goals and values, then we are making science 

 " teleological," a consequence which many scientists would 

 deplore. An adequate reply to this would have to be an ex- 

 tensive one. Suffice it here to point out that " teleology " is an 

 ambiguous term. If for " teleology " we read " functionalism," 



prediction (i. e. " prediction about the course of natural events," not about a highly 

 controlled laboratory event) I can think of in the social sciences is the prediction 

 of elections by poll," Bales goes on to argue that nevertheless naturalistic pre- 

 diction remains the goal of social science. " Of course, the goal that I have here 

 called naturalistic prediction is a very ambitious and idealistic one. But we need 

 a vantage point from which we can successfully put into perspective the problems 

 of theory and research of a whole scientific field. The goal we need to visualize 

 should serve not only as an immediately appealing stimulus to the beginning of 

 work but also as an exacting criterion of scientific progress and an indicator 

 of critical problems for further work. To my mind, nothing less than the goal of 

 naturalistic prediction really answers these needs." p. 295, and p. 305. 



