The Measurement of Social Forces

Abstract

ATRUE and complete description of any? thing must include measurements of it. Even identification of it may turn on dimensions. A memorandum on a police blotter would hardly nair a crook if it recorded only such qualitative facts as color of eyes and hair, omitting to mention height or weight, not to speak of lesser items of the Bertillon scheme. There has been a good deal of unprecise talk among sociologists and workers about social For quacks and amateurs the phrase is charged with mana. It creates an illusion of knowledge at command which suspends intellectual animation, and may end in mental coma. To scientific inquirers able to keep their heads it offers possibilities not yet exploited. Social forces there are; obvious in manifes? tation or detected by accident, subtle in work? ing or terrific in explosion, and so far known; but they are not yet brought within scientific description, certainly not within the quantitative formulation characteristic of our familiar descrip? tions of thermo-dynamic, chemical, and electromagnetic forces. Therefore, they are not always correctly identified and classified. The lists of forces that we now and then encounter