from this responsibility that he is ethically justified in ignoring it, or in making the disposition of it a matter of his own arbitrary decision. The other parties interested have an immanent claim to assurance that, when the managerial function is transferred, it shall go to managerial ability, so that the material and intellectual and moral assets of the business may not be dissipated. In a word, the managerial element in capitalistic enterprise is in its very nature fiduciary, vicarious, responsible, i. e., proprietary at most.
In this prolonged illustration I have incidentally presented my own beliefs, but not because they are the chief concern in the argument. I cite them merely to illustrate what I mean when I claim that all scholarship within the field of the social sciences ought to be made to converge at last upon criticism of capital positions in our social order. I have no sympathy with nor confidence in any conception of sociology which is satisfied with abstractions, or which does not keep well in mind the relation of all research to the living interests of living men. Scholars, and especially sociological scholars, are either wrong or wronged when they are said to endorse and support the presumption that whatever is in society is right, or if not right at least unavoidable. I plead for that creditable and worthy agitation by scholars, which is not hysterical fuss and pother with symptoms and specifics, but rather calm and patient exploration of conditions and causes and principles.
Referring to the second class of opportunities inviting the sociological scholar, I content myself with saying that scholars might exalt both their scholarship and their citizenship by claiming an active share in the work of perfecting and applying plans and devices for social improvement and amelioration. It is not only betrayal of his social trust, it is surrender of the best elements of his professional opportunity, for the sociological scholar to withdraw from affairs, and attempt to grow wise by rearranging the contents of his personal consciousness. The most impressive lesson which I have learned in the vast sociological laboratory which the city of Chicago constitutes is that action,
