t part, the water supply is
looked upon as so vital a factor in the common life that no pains are
spared to have it reflect the last word in sanitation and efficiency.

The same reasoning must apply to the economic machinery upon which a
community depends for the supply of its necessaries and comforts.
Economic life touches every home. No human being who eats food, wears
clothes, lives in a house, rides on street cars or reads papers and
books can escape its all pervasive influence. Therefore when changes are
made in an established system of economic life, or when a new economic
system is substituted for an old one, it behooves the people concerned
to see that the work of reorganization is done in accordance with the
soundest known principles of social science.

The principles of social science, like the principles of engineering,
are matters of profound concern to those who are compelled to depend for
health and livelihood on the outcome of a social experiment. The social
scientist studies society as the natural scientist studies nature, by
examining the social forms, the social forces, the ways of handling or
of administering these forces, and the means of making social
improvements. The social scientist, like the scientist working in any
other field, is concerned with making those additions to knowledge which
will prove of the greatest ultimate advantage to the human race.

The principles of social activity are not yet so well known as those of
astronomy, physics, mechanics or biology, but they operate none the less
surely. Until these principles are understood, and until men plan their
activities in relation to them, there will be no possibility of a
rationally organized and wisely managed society. The physicist who
planned a pump on the supposition that water is always liquid in form
would get no farther than the social scientist who advocated social
changes on the theory that the only motive that animated mankind was the
economic one.

Mankind is not wholly ignorant of the principles underlying social
structure and social activities. Philosophers and statesmen worked over
them in the ancient world. Within the past two centuries a flood of
books and pamphlets has appeared dealing with social organization. To be
sure, most of these publications have been of a political nature, but
the effort was made none the less to understand society and its
workings. The investigations, analyses, comparisons and conclusions ar