The work on the evolution of life for whidi Darwin is
most famous may justly be described as an attempt to
dramatize what mankind had come to know about plants
and animals. He took the painfully won details and
showed how they contributed to a living process whose
operation could be traced in the past, and possibly antici-
pated for the future. And, indeed, so homogeneous is
life, the phases he found in this process — divergence,
struggle, adaptation — are much the same as have always
been recognized in the drama.
SOCIAL JPROCESS

Darwin regarded the study of fossils as a means to Ae
better understanding of life upon earth, as a way to iee
what is going on, and in like manner the precise observa-
tion of individuals and families in sociology is prepara-
toiy to a social synthesis whose aim also is to see what
is going on.
The routine conception of science as merdp precise
study of details is never a sound one, and is particularly.
barren in the social field. If we are to arrive at princq)Ies
or have any succe^ at aD in prediction we must keep
the imagmatbn constantly at work. And even in de-
tailed studies we must dramatize more or less to make
the facts intelligible. T An investigator of juvenile de-
linquency who was m>t armed with insight as wdl as
schedules would not report anything of much value.
