SOCIAL SCIENCE, STATISTICS AND POPULATION PROBLEMS

Abstract

THE vice-chancellor of one of our modern universities has been heard to state on more than one occasion that he has failed to discover what is meant by social science. In a lesser man that might be taken as lack of appreciation of a field of knowledge fraught with immense consequences to mankind; but in this case it was no doubt intended as a criticism of social scientists because they have not defined with any precision the boundaries between their own and other sciences. That is not surprising in view of the rapid development of interest in the study of sociology. Interpreted widely, as it should be, it would include any branch of knowledge concerning man regarded as a social animal, in short, the study of human groups. Although, for convenience of observation, individuals may be isolated, interest centres in their social behaviour, their relationship to other individuals similar in many respects to themselves. But the diversity between them, in temperament, in outlook, in aims, is of even greater importance than the likeness. It is these differences, if not delicately handled, that produce strains and ruptures-strikes, wars and revolutions-in the body politic. There is an attraction in superficial remedies for such conditions, but they do not last. We spend our energy too often upon the perfecting of the machinery of social life, while neglecting the source and spring of all motivization: it is like designing a car, stream-lined and beautiful in all its parts, only to find that we have no suitable fuel to make it run smoothly. One of the most fundamental of the social sciences is psychology, because it explores the nature and causes of the divergences between individuals in their innermost citadel where they are most intimately revealed.