ABSTRACT
The applicability of the results of research to practical problems of social life are similar when people consider aims universally recognized as desirable. Individual health depending upon the health of the whole group is perhaps one of the simplest of these. The social ideals of the Central African Negroes, of the Australians, Eskimo, and Chinese are so different from our own that the valuations given by them to human behavior are not comparable. The scientific study of generalized social forms requires, therefore, that the investigator free himself from all valuations based on our culture. The freedom of judgment thus obtained depends upon a clear recognition of what is organically and what culturally determined. The fundamental difficulty may be illustrated by examples taken from the inorganic world. Social phenomena cannot be subjected to experiment. Controlled conditions, excluding disturbing outer influences, are unattainable.
