482 BENEDICT M. ASHLEY 



deal with the choice of diverse types of means to one common 

 end, the good Hfe of the total society. 



Economics would be instrumental to this three-fold sociology. 

 Economics is not the same thing as a sociology of economic 

 life, since it deals not with human behavior as such, but with an 

 essentially technological problem, the most efficient employ- 

 ment of the material resources of a society. 



The general theory or conceptual schemes of the social sci- 

 ence rests quite directly on those of natural science, since they 

 are rooted in the description of abstract man. Since, however, 

 the orientation of the social sciences is to the concrete, all this 

 constitutes only the guiding principles of social analysis. These 

 schemes of ends and means must be applied to the study of 

 actual institutions and experiences. 



Here it is that social science has needed to develop its owti 

 tool-kit. The infinity of historical facts and descriptions has to 

 be reduced to manageable order. The general principles or 

 conceptual schemes are guides in this process, but the concrete 

 can never be deduced from the general, it must be directly 

 observed in its unique character. 



A multitude of concrete experiences must by a variety of 

 devices be reduced to an ordered experience, a unified and 

 formalized premise with which we can reason. Before modem 

 times the chief failure of social thought was its dependence on 

 merely fortuitous experiences, on impressions and stereotypes. 

 The great achievement of modern social science is that it has 

 developed techniques of critical history and description. Gen- 

 eralizations based on such critically analyzed data are not, 

 however, to be compared with those of natural science. Since 

 the social sciences refuse to abstract from the concrete his- 

 torical circumstances they never can arrive at the certitude of 

 clarity possible in the purely theoretical sciences. The fair test 

 of their success is rather to ask if these techniques provide us 

 with a better and more objective experience than is furnished 

 by mere common sense. 



