anization and functioning, while
sociology is the general science that includes all varieties of social
theory, along with social fact, and especially is it necessary to
explain that any fallacies of socialistic theory do not invalidate
well-established conclusions of social science. Another common error
is to identify sociology with social reform. Social pathology is too
important a branch of sociology to be omitted or minimized, but it is
only one division of the subject, and all measures as well as theories
of social reform are only a small part of the concern of sociology.
Such terms as philanthropy, criminology, and penology all have
connection with sociology, but they need to be carefully
differentiated from the more general term.

Sociology itself has been variously classified under the terms pure
and applied, static and dynamic, descriptive and theoretical. Terms
have changed somewhat, as the psychological emphasis has supplanted
the biological. It is important that terms should be used correctly
and should be sanctioned by custom, but it is not necessary to make
sharp distinction between all the different divisions, old and new.
Classification is a matter of convenience and technic; though it may
have a scientific basis, it is entirely a matter of form. There is
always danger that a particular classification may become a fetich. It
is the life of society that we study, it is the improvement of social
relations at which we aim. Whatever method best contributes to this
end is valid in classification for all except those who delight in
science for science's sake.

392. =The Permanent Place of Sociology.=--The study of the science of
social life is eminently worth while, for it deals with matters that
are of vital importance to the human race and every one of its
individual members. For that reason it is likely to receive growing
recognition as among the most important subjects with which the human
mind can deal. It is vast in its range, exacting in its demand of
unremitting investigation and careful generalization, stimulating in
its intense practicality. Its abstractions require the closest
reasoning of the scholar, but its basis in the concrete facts of daily
life tends to make it popular. Once understood and appreciated,
sociology is likely to become the guide-book by which social effort
will be directed, and the standard by which it will be measured. As
progress becomes in this way more telic it will become