4. Achievement in discovery and spread of knowledge,
5. Achievement in the fine arts,
6. Achievement in religion.
These grand divisions are the expressions of certain interests[XXVII-3] that human beings possess: (1) health interests, (2) wealth interests, (3) sociability interests, (4) knowledge interests, (5) esthetic interests, and (6) rightness interests. As a result of the operation of these interests, social problems are produced. Sociology is “the science of human interests and their workings under all conditions.”
In this classification human interests serve as the main key forces to an understanding of the social process. Upon psychological examination, however, the interests are found to be bafflingly complex. The psychologist has not given a satisfactory description of interests. And yet it is clear that what people are interested in is a fair criterion of the direction which their evolution will take. Furthermore, the changes in the interests of people are fundamental in telic social progress. With a correlation of interests as a subjective criterion, and of achievement as an objective test, Professor Small has shown the dualistic nature of the social process. Those methodologists who would measure all things human in purely objective terms are scientifically negligent of important human elements. Mind is not simply matter; the social process is not entirely behavior.
Professor Small has sharpened three important tools for the use of the sociological investigator. These are: the social process, personal interests, and the group. His analyses are sound, except as he does not show how “interests” usually possess social origins. Otherwise he speaks consistently and helpfully in terms of groups and group processes.
With concepts such as have been favorably presented in the foregoing paragraphs—and chapters—the sociologist of the future will be able to make contributions to thought that will help to determine educational, religious, economic, political, and other important human aims.
Chapter XXVIII
The Dissemination of Sociological Thought
Despite its youth, inchoateness, and naïveté, sociological thought is exerting a vital influence in the world. It is giving a new rating to all the established values of life, undermining some, strengthening others, and creating still others.
The chief values in sociological thought are that it constitutes the center of all worth while thought; it gives balance and proportion to thinking in any field; it defies race prejudice and social intolerance; it smites selfish living; it rivets attention to the essentially human values; it stimulates personal development in harmony with group and societary welfare. At the same time, it postulates group advancement, not upon paternalistic or autocratic grounds, but upon a constructive projection of personalities that harmonizes with unselfish group service.