Excerpt from Foundations of Sociology
To the student of society present themselves the questions, What is? What has been? What tends to be? What may be? The first calls for descriptive sociology; the second evokes historical sociology; the third summons into being theoretical sociology; the fourth is a demand for practical sociology. In a way, however, the first two are tributary to the third. Laws and generalizations are the coveted treasure of those who know, and therefore the inquiry which establishes what tends to be yields the sociology that ranks with such sciences as biology and psychology.
We seek truth not merely for the pleasure of knowing, but in order to have a lamp for our feet. We toil at building sound theory in order that we may know what to do and what to avoid. Hence all the labors of social investigators finally empty into practical sociology. This branch first frames a worthy and realizable ideal and then, availing itself of theoretical sociology, indicates what measures will so take advantage of the trend of things as to transmute the actual into the ideal. The goal set up may be a far-off social Utopia; but again it may be nothing more radical than the stamping out of alcoholism, the suppression of war, or the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men.
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