PART II Social Treatment
CHAPTER VIII SAMPLES OF SOCIAL THERAPEUTICS
1. Order in social treatment
The principles of linkage embodied in the work of the home visitor, in her cooperation with doctors and other social workers, and in good history-taking which avoids the fallacies of the catastrophic point of view, take on a little more impressiveness when we consider what a widely general law that "linking-up" law is. It is the essence of science; indeed, it is the essence of things still wider, for it is the essence of order.
There is an old phrase that "order is heaven's first law." It certainly is an impressively universal principle. How universal this linking-up process is, and how it applies to all possible situations medical and social, can be made to stick in our memories by the phrase, "In view of this, what next?" This is a prosaic and unimpressive-sounding dictum; but with some trivial and some important illustrations I can show that it is really useful.
1. A terrier dog is watching a rat-hole: in view of this, what next?—a question full of importance for the dog and for the rat.
2. A cobbler is working on his shoe: in view of what he has already done upon that shoe, what shall he do next? The value of the shoe, the value of the cobbler's working time, depend upon his seeing truly, and then, in view of that vision, doing whatever is next called for by the conditions of the shoe which he is dealing with.
3. As we go down the bill of fare of a restaurant, we say, "In view of what I have eaten, what next?" Presumably there is a method, an order in our madness.